Catching up

Blog posting has not been my strong suit this year. The last few years I'd posted  two to three times a month. This year it's been about once a month.  Most posts were battle reports or pictures of what I painted I seem to be getting the games in and have been painted a fair number of figures. I think what has cut down on posting is that we've started watching some TV shows that require my full attention while watching and multitasking has been cut out.

So that brings me to this post of three games played. Two games of A Gentleman's War and one of Chainmail Bikini. The first AGW game was with my 28mm figures. We played a Hubberton scenario modified from the Black Powder Rebellion book. Howard took the Crown forces while Matt T and I split the Patriot forces.

American rearguard forms up.

British deploy across the river.

The battle begins.

The 2nd NH skirmishes with the Indians on the flank.

Game two finds us seventy years ahead playing an ACW game of AGW. I pulled out the 15mm troops for this. The scenario was Daybreak at Hangman's Creek from the Black Powder rulebook. Again Matt and I teamed up on Howard, we being the USA and he being the CSA. We were a little over enthusiastic about the size of this game running three brigades of five units each and hoping to set up play to a conclusion and break down  all in two and a half to three hours but it was a great looking game with all that lead on the table.

Union troops move into the town

The Rebel line is faced by a lone Union regiment.

The Union line awaits the onslaught.

The Confederate brigade attacks as the Union troops attempt to reinforce.

The battle heats up.

More Union troops move up to support.

Lastly Howard and I played a game of Chainmail Bikini. The game was set in China. I controlled the Monks holding a relic, while Howard had a Wizard, his daughters and a number of thugs hires to steal the relic..

The Temple

A day of mindfulness.

Respect for your elders.

The thugs bust through the front gate.

The Monks outnumbered do a fair amount of damage to the Wizards force.

The relics Foo Dog guardian awakens and wreaks havoc on the thugs.
 

Three great games. All better entertainment than a TV show you can multitask through. Thanks for reading.

Battles fought and honors awarded.

A Gentleman's War has been released and Howard has done me the greatest of honors by putting my name on the front cover. I was merely along for the ride but have now been listed on Amazon as an author. In reality Howard did all the work whilst I got to play in some great games with fantastic and fun figures.

I started this blog to chronicle a painting project of Little Britons figures. There was no real plan for rules mostly just to have two forces of figures in the Wellsian style.

 As I got some figures painted we tried Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames but while an enjoyable set didn't quite give us the game we wanted. We tried MacDuff ,closer.

                                                   

Howard tried a few things, some charts appeared, things changed, we had fun, others came and played, they had fun also.

My project crawled along. Howard went out and bought a boatload of figures and painted them all seemingly overnight. We had a really big game.

                                       

I played games, Howard worked. Then he found some of the comic book flats, painted them and he got to play.

                                             

A Gentleman's War in the 18th Century begins. My AWI collection gets broken out and we try it again. Though not a toy soldierly looking the game plays well.

Howard finds some Arab figures and makes his own from semi-rounds. We move to the desert.

 Distinctions are added, rules are tweaked. More work for Howard more fun for me. The rules go off for layout and editing. Others work very hard. I then get an email from Howard saying they had been published.

I'm obviously very happy and honored to have been involved with this project. Clearly biased but this is the best set of rules I've played. If asked why the reply is that this game makes me feel like I did when playing toy soldiers as a kid, before there were written rules or I knew much of tactics and formations, when reading a book or seeing a movie inspired me to get my men out and move them about the floor or out in the yard. AGW brings back the joy I found reading Wells, Young and Featherstone and dreaming of owning the armies they had.

Well I own armies like them and now have a set of rules to use.


I'll do my part to promote them.

Winged Hussar
https://www.wingedhussarpublishing.com/store/wargame-rules/a-gentlemans-war-or-glossy-coats-and-tin-bayonets-by-howard-whitehouse-and-daniel-foley-paperback/

Wargames Vault
https://www.wargamevault.com/product/263743/A-Gentlemans-War?src=hottest
https://www.wargamevault.com/product/263836/What-Luck-Cards?src=hottest_filtered
https://www.wargamevault.com/product/270706/What-Luck-Cards--Free-PDF?src=hottest_filtered
https://www.wargamevault.com/product/270708/A-Gentlemans-War--QRF-pages?src=hottest_filtered

Yahoo group
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/groupurlGentlemansWar/info

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2044768592219597/

No gaming tonight

A week into March finds the weather too cold to get out and seal coat painted figures or prime new figures. Fortunately I've enough primed and half painted figures to keep me busy. Fifty three figures need coating showing a productive painting month. We squeezed a game in on the 31st and gamed three of the four Thursdays in February. Three games of A Gentleman's War and one of Chainmail Bikini.

The first AGW game takes place in the foothills of the Khyber Pass. Matt held the fort as the British with a relief column arriving from the south. A good run of cards brought the cavalry into the fort reinforcing the garrison but the infantry were held up by the Pathans. Despite gaining a foothold in the fort the Pathans were pushed back and a forey by the Gurkhas pushed the enemy  cannon off the hill ending the attack.

i

The Pathans fire on the fort

The Relief force breaks through the pass. 

The Pathans swarm over the hills.

Reinforcements make it into the fort

The remainder of the relief column fight off the Pathans.

The Gurkhas push the natives out of the fort.

A rearrangement of the fort and replacing Pathans with Madists brings A Gentleman's War to the Sudan. Here Nate defended against the attacking Madists. The cards worked for the natives with Howards troops moving as a group on a facecard and getting in close with out being shot up. I was able to move up a unit and get into the fort but was not strong enough to hold on. Outside Nate's men made short work of my cavalry but were held off long enough that the garrison was overrun.

The gallant defenders await the attack.

A horde of camelry threaten from afar.

Despite heavy losses the Madists gain entry into the fort.

Across the parade ground the British and Egyptian troops are over run.

Making off with a captured British officer.

The last game was an 18th Century AGW  game loosely based on the battle of White Plains played at Toywiz. Howard commanded the Patriots and I the Crowns troops. My artillery opened fire doing little damage. I was then able to bring up both my brigades easily chasing off the skirmishes on my flanks. On the left the Hessians underestimated the Continentals and were quickly dispatched. On the right the British with the aid of Green apples ( a card which causes a negative effect on a unit drawn at the turn of a joker) pushed back the militia defending the fence line.

American militia defending.

Third NY hold the hill.

the British brigade form up for the assault.

The German brigade.

The British move up to the fence line.

Heavy firing on the British right 

The British persevere despite mounting casualties.

The Militia hold as reinforcements move up.

The firefight heats up.

More Americans enter on the left.

Things get tense.

Finally the Americans are pushed off the fence.

The Hessians move up against the Continentals.

More Americans show up.

The Hessians take casualties while closing in and then are crushed in close combat.

A playtest of Chainmail Bikini finishes out the games. Matt set up the table and the scenario. Three groups of Heros set out to find and rescue the Hobbits. Combat began right away and remained steady throughout the game.

Legolas, Gimli and their kinsman prepare to rescue the Hobbits.

Fighting around a pool results in the rescue of Sam.

Goblins appear behind our Heros.

Down in the tombs Gimli fights off a Wraith.

Gandalf & Aragorn are attacked by Warg Riders.

The men of Gondor battle in the tombs and find another of the Hobbits.

A good month for hobby pursuits.

 

More on the last game 

http://saltflats1929again.blogspot.com/2019/02/hobbit-hunt.html

Matt's Colonial game reports

http://saltflats1929again.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-great-game-part-2.html

http://saltflats1929again.blogspot.com/2019/02/once-more-into-desert.html

More on the AWI game on Howard's blog

https://thegatlingsjammedandthecolonelsdead.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/back-to-the-revolution/