Encore!

"Two in one day? The man must have nothing to do!"

Actually... no, but there's a lull in the activity, a calm before the storm, a hiss before the water boils... or something like that. In any event, I am blogging about last Saturday's games at the Hamilton Road Games Group.

A few of us wished to play some WWII skirmish using Iron Ivan's Disposable Heroes rules. Rich was interested in colonial wargaming using Osprey's The Men Who Would Be King, a set I'd never seen. He said the number of players would be limited to 2-4, so he, Stephen, and Bob played the game. I'll refer you to his blog for a better overview of his game:
 http://rhannibalswargamingblog.blogspot.ca/2016/11/anglo-zulu-war-game-prep.html
It's well worth taking a look... when you've finished reading this and looking at the photos of a few of the games. Andy brought Muskets & Tomahawks, but the game was not used. His son, Stephen decided to play the Zulu War instead. By the way, this is an excellent game and I'd recommend it to those interested in the French & Indian War in North America.

I set two tables with more or less identical terrain and a few guys jumped right in. (No photos; sorry.) My son, Rob and his "Red Devils" British Paras fought Martin and his early war American GIs. Martin prevailed in that one. I didn't see much of the game because I was assisting the other half of the table: Matt and a Canadian force vs. Bear and his SS Kampfgruppe. Matt had only played Disposable Heroes once before, and he probably didn't need my help anyway. I was able to assist in some communications difficulties that cropped up. Bear's late war troops defeated Matt. A gripe I have with the DH rules is the sense that British and Commonwealth troops are at a great disadvantage against almost any other army. The late war Germans bristle with LMGs and their morale is quite good. The British Commonwealth forces are a bit under-gunned and their morale is brittle, so you end up playing early war equipment and organization with late war morale. I should do something about this. ("Adjutant! Add that to the list, the ever-growing list! In fact, get them on the phone!")

The only photo of the first game - Martin's M3 Lee, which he used to great effect as a machine gun circus.
Both sides had options, one of with was a vehicle. Rob chose an additional squad while Martin chose this beast. 

Rob played a second game against Bear using later war US infantry against Bear's SS. This one he won. I was busy elsewhere and I didn't keep track of the game - Rob knows the rules better than I do anyway.

Bear's troops advancing and apparently taking come casualties.

Rob's GIs using the distant woods to break the German's line of sight.

SS troops in the woods. The white yarn shows the edge of the woods, the light green shows light woods.

Past the house and the standing grain.

An MG-42 crew at the edge of the woods. The green bead shows the section has been activated.

Matt and Stephen take it all in.

At one point, I took a few minutes and journeyed all the way across the room to the other table to see Rich's game. He did a very nice job on the terrain (home-made for the most part) and the 20mm plastic figs. His blog has a tutorial of sort on how to make the terrain using felt and epoxy and using upholstery foam and shop towels. Well worth reading.

A portion of the Impi advances.

The stalwart British infantry rush to take up a good position.

Another portion of the Impi which has seen better days.

So far as I could tell, everybody enjoyed the games. We spent some time planning out games for the future, but that'll be for another time.