Gaming in a broken month

I didn't blog last week... because I didn't play. My family and I were busy with a Society for Creative Anachronism event. This week Martin and I gamed a Thirty Years War battle using Warlord Games' "Pike & Shotte" rules. Next Saturday, my wife and I intend to head off to Kalamazoo, Michigan for a huge historical reenacting gathering. The week after that is the local gaming con, Hot Lead, in Stratford, ON. The week after that is Holy Week and Easter Saturday; I probably won't play anything that weekend because there's a good chance I'll be exhausted and will still have two large services to celebrate.

In any event, last Saturday at the Games Group, Martin fielded a German Imperial/Catholic army under Wallenstein while I set out an army of Swedes under Gustav Adolph defending the Protestant cause in that war. (I do understand the real reasons involved.) The game proved interesting. No one else played with us as the rest of the guys were either involved in a game of SAGA at the other table or were kibittzing at both tables.

Martin's infantry of the centre battaglia

His left flank cavalry including Wallenstein's bodyguard with lances.
These proved to be tough customers.

The right-centre battaglia

His right flank cavalry including his Croats

My right flank cavalry and the reserve brigade - almost all harquebusiers

The infanry brigade -right centre- including the elite Yellow and Green regiments
Not that it mattered.

the left centre infantry - including a Scots regiment

The far left flank including dragoons, light horse, and Finnish Hackapells.
There's some "commanded shot" from the other brigade out front of the cavalry.

Martin got the first move and came on quick. I have to admit that he knows his troops better than I and he wished to come to grips with the Swedes as quickly as possible. The Germans are better in hand-to-hand while the Swedes can out-shoot the Imperialists and have more cannon. He want to absorb as few salvos a possible. He refused his right and set the two infantry regiments into hedgehog as soon as he could. This tied up my left wing cavalry and dragoons. The fact that my dice rolling was abysmal didn't help. I failed a number of command rolls and the units stalled where they were.

The Tape Measure of Doom brings the Imperialist forward.

Martin's infantry around the rubber roads.

The Yellow Regiment takes on Martin's one elite unit.
The Blue Regiment moves up in support.

A Scots mercenary infantry regiment and a light gun.

The Imperial Cuirassiers clobber the Swedish harquibusiers on my right flank.
My brigade was torn apart and reduced to two regiments who had to flee.

Wallenstein's lance-armed bodyguards destroyed one of my two Cuirassier regiments.
They also smashed two Harquibusier regiments soon after.
This is one nasty unit.

Our infantry in the centre went toe-to-toe and I had the worst of it. I couldn't throw dice to save my life - which is messy when you're trying to make saving throws for your troops. I would lose the pikes in a regiment while the sleeves of shot stayed of vice-versa.
On my left. Martin tied up my Finns, light horse, and dragoons by doing NOTHING. Martin does love his "tar babies."
Finally two of my five brigades were shattered and we called it quits. His bodyguard lancers were a very tough crowd and since my dice were cold and since I fell for his trap, I had no legs to stand on.

An "after" photo of my hammered right wing cavalry. The lancers are disordered so we turn a stand side-ways.

Lots of action "at push of pike" on the left centre.

The Scots await the Imperialist charge. They've been reinforced by two stands of pike that had retreated earlier.

Imperial Infantry, even though they have French flags.
It's okay; most of my flags are Irish from Owen Roe O'Neill's army in the English Civil War.

Imperial guns. I had more guns on the Swedish side but they tended to be lighter.

The supreme command stand. It's supposed to be Wallenstein, although the flag says Turenne.

My stunned left flank cavalry and dragoons amidst the cardboard houses.

Martin's two hedgehogs and a command stand. I like the idea of round command stands.
They can't be mistaken for a regular unit and I'm going to rebase my commands.

Meanwhile at the other table, two games of SAGA were played. I don't know much about this system yet, but I imagine I'll play it soon enough. I watched a bit of the second game which appeared to be Crusaders vs. Saracens.

Bear's Saracen force.

A close-up of the Crusader force (Andy's photo)

Andy's photo of Saracen cavalry rounding the forest.
The Mentula Mustalae award in gold is seen here. This was not awarded by the official electors,
but by popular demand and might not be considered proper and of eternal memory.
The move must still have been nasty to receive such folk status.

Kevin's Crusaders

Another long view of the Saracens.

On Sunday, my family hosted a D&D 5th edition game for some friends. Two young fellows were to take part as their first out-of-the-house D&D experience. Sad to say, one young guy could not show up because of a scheduling problem. Still we had fun.

Katie (in the captain's chair), Tyler's son, Tyler, myself, and Greg (who is obscuring me in the photo)
sit around the dining room table. Beth took these photos.
Characters: a Tiefling cleric, a gnome rogue, a dwarf rogue, and a dragonborne barbarian.
I, of course, play the rest of the world.

Beth - who ran an elf ranger - took a few moments out to put the mac-and-cheese in the oven
and stir the sausage and sauerkraut.

Tyler makes his point... somehow.
("No, you have to roll for yourself!")

Tyler's son performs some higher math to add up his experience points.
Yes, he's wearing a "Minion" touque.

I don't know what happened here. I'm engaged in giving the "hairy eyeball" for some reason or another.

The game was fun and everybody succeeded although they took damage and got dirty. As a first outing, not bad. Next time, Greg's son will make it, I'm sure.

As an author's note, I like the 5th edition of D&D. The systems are simple and make their own sense within the game. Quite often, I rely on the player to know the effects of their magic or even their weapons. I did confuse them with a "scarecrow" which was uneffected by non-magical weapons and with a colossal armoured centipede which some of our more squeamish players were repulsed by.

Ah, success!

In The Bleak Midwinter

 In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, 
 earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; 
 snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, 
 in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

     I'm going to show some of my recently painted figures. These were not done since the beginning of the year or even since the Christmas holidays. Some go rather further back, but since it's bitterly cold (-9°C, feels like -17°C) and rather snow covered outside, I was in the mood to photograph a few things  I've enjoyed painting. Some are historical, some fantasy and Sci-fi, some are semi-historical.

A 75mm PaK50 anti-tank gun from an unknown maker. I decided to paint the crew as
late War SS gunners with the "pea" pattern designed to destroy my eyesight and sanity.

Andy said this was extra to his needs so I received it from him. The gun model had no instructions,
so I had to intuit the entire thing. I think it worked out. The crew are all on separate bases should casualties occur.

"The Business End"

The gun kit included two identical gun commander figures. I painted the upper one in Wehrmacht cammo
and the lower one in SS cammo.

FoW King Tiger in 15mm. I like the miniatures, but I don't care for the game.

A Russian BA-6 in the service of the Spanish Republic for Spanish Civil War.
It's a Zvezda model which almost snapped together although some of the parts almost snapped in half at times.
Oh, but the price! Less than $5!

For my Shako War of 1812 project, the 17th US regular Infantry. This is the outfit I reenact in better weather.
They were on the far end of the supply chain and so got uniforms of various colours.
At Frenchtown, they were in tan or brown.

Canadian artillery for the Fenian Raid project. I wanted to find a way to include Canadian/British troops in the American Civil War games, so I decided to paint up troops for the Fenian Raids of 1866. Irish nationalist from the US attempted to invade Canada and hold it hostage until Great Britain gave Ireland its independence. It was a fiasco.

Front and back view of a Fenian standard bearer, with the banner in English and Irish Gaelic.

15mm ACW Confederate Zouaves - the Louisiana Tigers/Louisiana Special Battalion.
The Confederacy didn't go in much for Zouaves, but these fellows -recruited from among the
Irish toughs in New Orleans- were an exception. The uniforms probably didn't hold up too long. 

Gallic warrior - Wargames Factory plastic multi-pose figure

Irish pike command stand in 15mm for DBR - pikes and chieftain by Essex, bagpiper by Minfigs.
I enjoy playing the army of the Great O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, although I usually get beat up with them.

Gripping Beast 25mm Arthurians for my wife's army in our Warhammer Ancients battles.

15mm Late Roman Auxila for DBA (Freikorp 15s, I think)

15mm Late Roman Legionaries for DBA (guessing Freikorp 14s)

More Late Roman Legio - as above.

I'm going to split this blog in half at this point. More to come in the area of Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Imagi-nations.