Flint & Feather

Last night was another game of Flint & Feather. They are a set of rules for the wafare among the First Nations of the Geat Lakes region. 

For this game the Huron were out hunting when a Mohawk Stripling decided to make a name for himself and attack on his own. A few shots from his bow wounded a warrior but also alerted the rest of the hunting party to the enemy. The Hurons advanced along three paths, before they caught up to the stripling the rest of the Mohawk warparty arrived. A few exchanges of bow fire and then the Huron charged in. The fight was pretty even and the Mohawks decided to fall back rather than risk any casualties but not before the stripling killed a Huron warrior. There will be much boasting and story telling around the fire tonight. 

The Great Warrior and stripling assist the wounded Huron as the others race towards the Mohawk youth.

The Huron start to close.

The melee in the forest.

Mohawks overlooking the combat below.

Another fun game with this ruleset. I've joined the kickstarter so soon I'll have my own figures to use for the honor of the nation and glory of it's warriors.

Huzzah 2016

I just got back from Maine and the 2016 Huzzah convention. Well it was another excellant event. I went on Saturday. There was a handfull of vendors all carrying a full inventory of products I was sorely tempted to pick up some figures with so many lines available to view but was able to hold off. My purchasing fix was filled by a couple of scenario books and about a dozen buildings from 4Ground and Things from the Basement.

The first game of the day for me was Light Bobs. Chris Parker ran the game using 40mm figures.

It was a last man standing scenario using a slimed down version of the game. Chris did a great job explaining the rules and getting us playing. It moved quickly and kept all the players involved through out. If you play this period I would recomend these. 

The second session saw me playing the Japanese in a Chain of Command game. Ken Eckhardt ran the game which had the US Marines assault an airstrip defended by the Japanese. Ken did a great job explaining the scenario both in game terms and it's historical background. The Japanese slowed the Marines advance with a peliminary barrage but the Marines called in a mortor barrage and pinned the Japanese and reduced their force morale to zero effectivly winning the game. The game played well and moved along. 

Walking around the convention provided pleanty of eye candy with well presented games all around.

Here's a Link to more pictures.

This was my second visit to Huzzah! It's a well run event. Not super big but plenty of games, enough vendors with a good selection of products. I would say well worth the trip.

Generals, Colors and Limbers.

Over the weekend I finished a few more troops for A Gentlemans War.

Generals

Colors

Limbers

Here's a cannon I bought last month on a visit to Appomattax Court House.

These are the NYS National Guard with the new flag figure.

I'm off to Huzzah! in Maine so it will be a few more weeks before they get on the table.

A Gentleman's War the new GW

We played another game of A Gentleman's War last night but this time using Howard's plastic AWI flats. These are vintage figures from the 1960s that were sold on the back of Comic books. There is some great information on them here . Howard pick these up at a flea market, one of those great finds, touched up the paint and rebased them. It was a pleasure playing with these figures.

Our game was the usual line them up and attack. The units had more figures than previous games so that changed things a bit and we used more terrain. There is still some work to do on the deployment rules but I think the game is pretty solid and gives the feel of a toy soldier game.

So here are some photo's of the game as usual once the action started I forgot to get photos.

The opposing Armies

The Patriots move up

The Crown's forces advance

Mohawks skirmish with the riflemen in the woods.

Hessians advance on the center.

Riflemen supported by dragoons skirmish with the Mohawks.

British line charge the guns

Continental artillery hold their ground 

Another game with the Little Britons

We had another game with the LBs. I started to take pictures but became caught up in the action and forgot to continue. Howard's fleshing out the rules and giving a little more detail but as the new title is Gentlemens War it's expected that any disagreements will be decided through polite discussion and a roll of the dice. A rule that allows you to act again with a unit if you draw an Ace came in handy for both of us. Here's the few photo's I took.

I've two more cavalry units on the painting desk along with some limbers and Generals which I hope to get ready for next months game.  

A game with the Little Britons.

I brought out the Little Britons for a game the other night. We used a set of rules that Howard has started on to play. The working name is Shiny Toy Soldier Rules. The Armies were of the same size being four line infantry units, one skirmisher unit, one cavalry unit and two guns with three gunners each. I'll need to paint up some more gunners for each gun as the rules base firing on the number of gunners. It was your basic meeting engagement. We both forgot to bring a ground cloth so used the table in the Hobby Town and unpainted piece of MDF.

The Blue Army lined up at the start

Red Army center

Red Army right flank

Red Army left flank with the newly painted Greeks.

The Battle started off with a general advance by the Blue Army. The Marines placed in the center. 

Red advanced his left flank and opened fire with both his artillery units. Blue moved up on the his right to counter the advancing Greeks but had his skirmishers pushed back. Opening fire on Red with one gun and the NYS Volunteers forced a morale check on the Greeks and caused them to fall back. 

Meanwhile in the center the Marines charged the woods held by Red's skirmishers. It was a bloody fight but the Hawaians fell back and Blue advanced into the woods where they faced a constant fire from Red's Egyptians.

Over on Blue's left the RCMP charged into the 10th US. After several rounds of melee Blue's cavalry was routed off the board. A firefight raged on between the Canadians and Spanish of Red and the Belgians and Argentines of Blue with Blue getting the worst of it.

Red's cavalry then wheeled to the left chasing off the crew of the second Blue gun and then charged the NYS Volunteers on Blue's right causing them to fall back. The action was heavy all around and our cameraman was headed to the rear just ahead of the troops on Blue's left flank. 

With a stand off on Reds left flank and nothing left on the right to hold Red's advance  Blue conceded the field.

2015 AAR and the New Plan

It being January I feel a need to review the last year and set plans for the new one, late as usual.

2015 was fairly successful on the gaming front we managed to get in 2-3 games a month at the local Hobby Town mostly Frostgrave but also some Little Britons using either OHW or With MacDuff to the Frontier as well as play testing Flint and Feather an upcoming set from Howard Whitehouse

Painting wise although happy with my output I bought way more than I should have. The stats, painted 146 bought 324 for a minus 178 on the year. The big purchases were some John Jenkins Warring States and the Watchful Studio Warring States Kickstarter to be used for a pair of Pulse of Battle armies.These will keep me busy for the rest of the year and hopefully nothing new comes along to temp me. All in in all a good year for the hobby.

Now on to the plans for 2016. The year has seen Three games so far, Sharpe's Practice AWI, Flint&Feather and Frostgrave, thirty eight miniatures have been painted with a good start on a dozen more.

An order has been placed for the final two cavalry units needed to finish the Little Briton project as planned. I am considering adding more to this project as I want some French, German and West Indian troops.

I'm starting to catalogue my collection and hope to get through a least four periods by the end of the year. The first is the AWI 28mm and then ACW 15mm. The Little Britons are mostly done but I switched formats so may move these over.

The plans for gaming will depend on availability of opponents but the one group I'm in is showing interest in Sharpe's Practice and Carnage & Glory for the AWI and perhaps En Guarde when it comes out. Locally word is that others are interested in Frostgrave so a campaign with that may be in the future. Dragon Rampant has been ordered so I'll be looking to play some of that using my Games Workshop LOTR figures. Once again Huzzah is on the calendar. Last year was a lot of fun. I played in the Hawks "Not Quite Seven Years War" game using modified Charge rules and fantastic 40mm figures.

So there's the layout for the next year. I'm shooting for twelve blog posts for this year with them being a recap of each months activity. It will most likely be weighted towards the beginning and end of the year though as the warmer months tend towards outdoor fun.

Thanks for reading.