Battle Report - 25 Mar 2019 - Rebels And Patriots

Dan Mersey's AWI to ACW ruleset based on the Lion Rampant game engine. (No photos, sorry).

Nice little AWI scenario with a balanced force - I had 12 Indians, 6 cavalry, 6 rangers, 2 lots of 12 line infantry, Chris had much the same but as Rebel militia. I had the Indians in a small village, with Chris and I approaching from opposite sides to clear or relieve them, respectively.

I definitely got the worst of it early on - my cavalry routed, and my Indians got seriously shot up, while the line were busy working up the middle and the Rangers through a field up one flank. I got to the point where I had one of four units that wasn't needing to rally, and all Chris' units were good to fire... Pretty sure I was done for, and then Chris managed to fail to activate every single unit on his side! (Which does require some pretty dismal luck.)...

I managed to rally everything, the Rangers offloaded hard on one unit of American militia, one of my line units in close order ripped through Chris' cavalry, and pretty much like that the tables were turned...

To summarise:

This is about Dan's 5th or 6th ruleset using the same core engine: essentially units are made up of 6 or 12 men, and roll 12 dice for combat against varying target numbers, needing a set number of hits to cause casualties. When a unit drops to half strength it drops to 6 dice. Everything else is just gravy :D

This and Pikeman's Lament, I think, seem to work the best. Maybe it's just my style of play, but it seems to lend itself more to musket + melee than it does earlier periods. Had a great time.

Battle Report - 4 April 2016 - Sharp Practice 2

Today the club was graced with the presence of Rich Clarke of Too Fat Lardies for a demo game of Sharp Practice 2. We had a startlingly good turnout (in addition to the 8 or so folks playing Frostrgrave, a game of Aggro and a game of X-Wing upstairs) which resulted in a slightly upscaled battle with 4 players a side and two interested spectators.

A classic encounter battle - the short summary, because it's late: basically a lot of feeling out across the river with various groups of skirmishers, before the Hessian cavalry came storming across the bridge and put two colonial skirmish to the sword before itself being routed. It fled past a column of British line that was following up, which proceeded to shunt some colonial militia off the bridge, before fanning out into line and collecting a bunch of musket fire for its pains.

There, we had to stop it, with things teetering a bit depending on what happened next in terms of card draw order. Brilliant game, though, and I know several folks went away inspired.

Some pictures - roads and foliage by Last Valley, mat by Citadel, rest of toys courtesy of Rich Clarke:

The river bridge. 

Some loyalist skirmishers deploy by the ford.

The cavalry are coming...

...and in the distance can be seen retreating back towards the
British line column.

It's all about to kick off big time on the bridge. British line in
column about to crash into the flank of some colonials. 

Things hang in the balance around the bridge and farm.

Battle Report - 29 March 2016 - Sharp Practice 2

On Tuesday I was picked up by my partner in podcast crime, Neil Shuck, at a very rainy St. Albans City station and transported to Lard HQ for an introduction to their latest ruleset, Sharp Practice 2.

Rich and Mike Hobbs were already there setting up a table for a game set during the War of 1812 with some of Mike's rather pretty figures. I got roped in (as an official guest) to command the British, aided by Elton and Dougie, our mission to capture Fort Knightly from those dastardly American fellows.

My command was the three groups of British line, along with some lights, while Elton had the Canadian militia (who turned out to be very useful) and Dougie some Indian allies. Leader character names were scribbled up on a blackboard (which I forgot to photograph!), and, as ever from Rich, were a combination of the silly (Indian leaders Wart Knee and Red Barrel) and the whimsical.

I began by marching the British up the road in column - what can I say, I'm a traditionalist! Once there was space (and the Sergeant had forcibly prevented a couple of the men from being over-familiar with the locals), we deployed into line just as the Canadians did, and found ourselves facing an American line. Which we proceeded, over the course of several turns, to pound the living daylights out of with musket fire.

In the meantime, the Indians on the right were slowly working their way along a ridge, and my lights were getting hit in the flank by some Colonial chaps. Poor Neil, on the other hand, was starting to think his activation chits had been left out of the bag (Rich had to prove they hadn't), as his cavalry didn't move for ages. Finally, though, they did, and began a sweeping move round the right that eventually led them into the rear of my line, despite Hobbsy pointing out several times they were only scouting cavalry and not much good in combat. (And, it should be added, Rich encouraging him to charge....)

To be fair to Neil, I rolled some absolutely ridiculous dice, hitting 10 times on a 4+ on 13 rolls. Most unlike me, and the cavalry were not at all happy about it.

Didn't do much for the American's already shaky force morale, either...

That was pretty much it - a very fast paced, fun game with some interesting mechanics and command decisions. If you want to hear Rich talk about it, check out episode 167 of the podcast - the rules are out on the 23rd of April, and you'll be able to preorder from the Too Fat Lardies site sometime soon, I'm sure. I know I will be.

Thanks to Rich, Nick and the rest of the Lardie crew for making us welcome, to Hobbsy for the figures and the work he's putting in on the Sharp Practice 2 War Of 1812 supplement and to Neil for not only picking me up from St. Albans station but driving me home at midnight.