Pandemicon Part 2

The second leg of our get together over Memorial Day weekend was a try at Rebels and Patriots, the North American wars version of Lion Rampant by Osprey. Essentially it covers from the French and Indian War to the American Civil War. Since we've enjoyed the medieval and pike and shot versions, we figgered to like this one as well. Granted, there are some distinct differences but I am looking for a quick and easy alternative to Muskets & Tomahawks. I don't always want to play the same game for the same period. A little variation is good.

There was plenty of action and lots of twists and turns but unfortunately I don't remember the specifics. This will be more of a photo essay. Enjoy the pretty pictures.

Here's the set-up. It was a 4 player game, 20 points per player. (It was all the models I had!) The French are set up on the right. The idea was to capture the colors in the middle of the field. A side would score 1 point for each complete turn their unit spent within 3" with no enemy unit within 3". 

French artillery. I went back and forth on the color of the gun carriage, depending on which source I found, but finally decided on the red just to differentiate it from the British. I found several contemporary prints with red guns, so that's good enough for me.

British grenadiers. In game terms, they were 'Shock' troops, meaning they were great in hand to hand. To even them out, rules wise, they only have a 12" firing range. (Line units have a range of 18" and Sharpshooters, 24".) As a game design it makes perfect sense to give them good melee stats and weaken their shooting ability so they aren't super troops, but in reality it meant they got the shit shot out of them before they could close with anyone. I'm not sure how to fix that. They are also 6 points as opposed to 4 points for a 'Line' unit. Maybe just lowering their points cost would help. Dunno.

Highlander skirmishers with british artillery in the background.

Another unit of Shock troops in the form of Highlanders in close formation. My thinking was that the Brits would have great melee capabilities and the French would need to maneuver and shoot with smaller guerilla units, but as noted, the Brits never got close before they were decimated by French fire.

'Natives'. Woefully devalued in this rules set. I made them all 'skirmishers' to give them some of the fighting characteristics denied by the rules for natives.

British allies cover the flank of some Pennsylvania milita, here acting as Light Infantry.

French allied natives move through the light forested areas.

And of course, French marines.

Canadian militia enter the woods. They would be the heroes for the French. With their 'sharpshooter' ability, they could outshoot anything on the board except the artillery. By the time the British were able to turn their gun on them it was too late.

In the foreground is an extra unit (hence the different uniforms) that came on as reinforcements due to a lucky FUBAR roll. It didn't really matter, they did nothing but march around looking smart in their mismatched uniforms.

Some poor farmer is going to be pissed.

The Grenadiers advance with their skirmisher screen. Natives cover their flank in the deep woods. This side of the board was better for the Brits while the French had the better of the other side of the table.

Another shot of the Bitish advance on their left.

British artillery. Their gun color was easy; didnt change for a hundred years!

The canadian militia cover the French line unit holding the colors. The Canadians were in the perfect position to target almost the entire British force. Did I mention my dice were unusually hot? It's always better to be lucky than good.

Same positions, other side.

The Grenadiers show themselves and get riddled with lead balls for their efforts.

French light infantry, perhaps a little too powerful by rule, get in a dust up with the Highlanders. In the background, the natives grab the colors for the British.

Told you those Canadians were trouble.

The sad skull of shame.

Woo hoo, eh.

Pissed off Grenadiers looking for anything to kill.

So, the game was fun but didn't seem to have the same tension as the other versions. For starters, almost the whole activation mechanism was scrapped for an Igo-Ugo format. Plus units are much easier to activate. To me, that was one of the mechanisms that made the game different. It was what supplied the tension and a much more deliberate decision making process. When I know every unit is going to get a chance to activate, it certainly lessens my concern over what itch needs scratched.

And while some units, like Light Infantry seem overpowered, others, like Natives, are underpowered.

But all in all, fun. It still had many of the same, easy combat mechanisms and provided what it is intended to do: a light afternoon of rolling dice and moving toy soldiers around the table while our wives shake their heads.

Oh yeah, we played a board game later that night and I won that too! Har.

Pandemicon Part 1

Traveled in-state over Memorial Day to finally get some face to face gaming in. It was a good break from the lockdown. My brother and I have always liked Saga (1st Edition) and decided it would be a nice way to get things started for the weekend.

We chose two armies we had never tried; he chose the Irish and I took the Kingdom of Strathclyde. Each are really unique, even in the Sage world, with plenty of new and fun options. Typically we also just lay out some terrain and have at it, but since the Irish depend so much on difficult terrain, we used the actual tournament rules for terrain placement. I, of course, wanted him to have as little difficult terrain as possible so we ended up with the minimum 3 pieces. I chose an open hill and he chose two pieces of schrub choked fen.

Here's the layout. The trees and meadows are for aesthetic purposes only and serve no function in the game. The only terrain that matters is the hill at the bottom and the two rough patches.

Strathclyde cavalry looking suspiciously like Romano-British Arthurians.

The king and his Hearthguard.

A group of Warriors. I just used the first few of my Little Big Man banners I have had for several years and I wanted to showcase them. They were gifted to me by my old pal Roy. This one is from the Viking sheet. I like how it turned out, considering it was my first try.

Here's the other, from the Dark Ages sheet. I know I say this a lot but I love Little Big Man stuff.

One of the reasons I chose to bring the Irish. Here's a pack of wolf hounds and their pack leader. They count as a unit of Warriors but move L like cavalry instead of M. I've had these models forever and finally got to use them.

The Irish line looking a lot like Anglo-Saxons.

Bad things happened to the Irish right off the bat. My warlord and Hearthguard crushed a unit of warriors and half the hounds were taken out by mystery dudes hiding in the difficult terrain.

The king and his retinue are fatigued after the melee but it was worth it to wipe out a unit and it's all important Saga die.

So, in a twist, the Strathclydians get bonuses to some of the abilities for keeping units off the board. But the units off board don't contribute Saga dice and count as killed if they don't get on the table before game's end. Here we see another unit of Hearthguard entering from off board. Did I mention they can come in from any board edge? Nice.

A close-up of the same unit and another shout out to Little Big Man for the shield transfers.

The Irish warlord! You can always tell an Irishman. 

You just can't tell him much.

Strathclydian Levies. The javelin move and shoot thing is cool.

Get 'em lads!

A swirling melee erupted and with so many units coming in from every edge, the Irish didn't know where to turn.

Final positions when the Irish called it. You can see many of their units are down to one guy and cavalry is coming in from every angle. It seems like a mismatch but when we talked about it we realized that we pretty much play every army the same: that is, line up and fight. Being the tournament game that this is, we have never really explored the nuances of each force and how they should be used. The Irish were the perfect example. We both agreed they should have stuck to the difficult terrain and made the cavalry come to them. But, admittedly, I would have done the exact same thing as Chris. This led to us to consider the possibility of choosing one or two factions and playing them multile times to really figure them out.

Best of all, although he has always enjoyed the game, Chris was really bitten by the bug and ordered several 1st Edition books and a bunch of figures. With his painting skill, I can't wait to see what he does with them!

Stay tuned for Part 2; a SYW dust-up in the New World. 

What did you do during the first virus, Grandpa? #2

Spent some time through the week working on a few projects.

First up is Highlander infantry for the F&I war period.  I like these guys but knew they would be a bitch to paint, especially their socks. I tried several patterns of their kilt on my test model before settling on a much simpler plaid. I was finally satisfied with the colors, especially at a distance, and did a group of three.

A note about all these models and the Grenadiers: I swear they look much better in person! I seriously considered not posting these, because at super-macro, they look like shite. In the end I decided WTF? You'll just have to take my word for it: they look half decent in person.

These guys are based as skirmishers, meaning they will be in the woods. The rules set I prefer is Muskets & Tomahawks, and by rule, line companies cannot fight in rough terrain. That's why the guys below have just flock on their bases. And yes, I usually put a little more effort in my basing but these guys match what I did earlier with my F&I guys. I suggest you learn to live with it. I *do* like the little 28mm maple leaves I got from Green Stuff World. Check out their site. The 'sticks' are from a bag of Japanese tea.

Their socks are supposed to be white with red criss-cross stripes and a red garter. That ain't happening. Essentially, my painting is utilitarian, not art. If you want that I'll get some pics of my brother Chris' stuff; it should be in a magazine. Anyway, I may do a few with just plain white socks (and red garter), to see how they look. Don't judge me.

These guys are painted as the 40th and 48th British Grenadiers present at Braddock's Defeat which occured almost in my back yard back in the real world. Their mitres are really cool but there was no way I was going to be able to paint them accurately. (See below.) Instead, I tried to make a decent representation from arm's length. You be the judge if I succeeded or not.

Yeah, not painting that at 28mm.

The rest of my Band of Brothers. I now have about half a company (about 50 dudes); more than a platoon, with 2 MMG's. For my purposes, that'll do.

Here is the redeploying MMG. These are Warlord figs.

Some close ups.

I really like these guys and have discovered they are Artizan figs. (Remember, I get them on the black market.) Nice sculpts; not a lot of clean up work at all to get them ready to prime. Plus, I think they are proportionate for the most part. (Maybe some of their weapons are oversized.)

So, I've got 9 more Grenadiers and 15 more Highlanders to keep me busy for a little while. Not to mention the hordes of Dark Ages stuff looking at me.

Oh, fun fact: recently my Spell Check, and *only* my Spell Check disappeared from the tool bar on this blog. Isn't that cool? Well, fuck me, but there might be some misspellings (sp?) here and there. Feel free to point them out so that I may ignore you.

The End.

What did you do during the 1st virus, grandpa?

Just a quick update on a few of the projects I am currently working on. I've got a few actually, which is rare for me. I typically only have one thing going at a time; I complete it, and then I move on to the next one. It's actually quite frustrating sometimes as I will get bored with what I am working on but can't move on until I finish. The perils of OCD, I guess.

Anyway, having said that, I am trying to maintain a 'side project' while I work away on my primary one. I recently made a trade for 56 of the old LotR Riders of Rohan from 1976; the same line of figures we collected as kids. I only had 6 and wanted more, especially since I have many more orcs and Uruk Hai. It's hard to do a re-fight of the battle of the Pelennor Fields with only 6 Rohirrim! They were painted way back when by another 16 year old (at the time) whom I made the trade with. I have been reconstituting them between my painting of my U.S Airborne force. He apologized for the paint job but I told him no worries, I was just slapping paint on dudes myself, way back then, too.

Speaking of...

Here's a squad with 1st Lt. and medic. I 'ordered' 30 of the figs overall, of which 12 others are painted. Nine to go.

I am not sure who the maker of these figs are. In a shady deal several months ago, a guy from TMP contacted me and let me know he could get certain figures for me at $1 each. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. I have bought a few hundred figures from him since! Haha, I've no idea what the deal is and don't care. I tell him what I want, Paypal him the money, and metal figs show up at my door a few days later. It works for me.

Oh yeah, he also can't count! (Do the math above.) I always get more than I pay for. From as little as one figure too many to as much as doubling my order; I never get the correct amount. The first few times, I offered to pay him for them, or in the case of sending me 24 figs instead of 12, offered to return the extra, but he always says it's no problem. Who knows.

Front and back of the same figure. I always get a few duplicates but that's to be expected. And once they are mixed in with others, you never notice.

Here's some of the Rohirrim as I received them in the trade. (BTW, I sent him a bunch of micro-armor in exchange. We were both very happy; I think. He kept some for himself which I think is great! There is nothing like those first figs you ever got!)  In gamer terms, at least most of these are painted and use-able if you really wanted to play, but this was not how I was going to leave them: I wanted them to match my own figs that I reconstituted several years ago.

Here they are after a quick touch up, and I really mean quick. Some paint and some Army Painter washes and viola, looking like new once again. I am doing them in groups of 5. I have 15 done and 41 to go, usually while waiting for my Airborne washes to dry.

As with our own figs from that era, I always try to leave something on the model as an homage to the original paint job. In the case of these guys, it is their shields. I didn't touch any of them.

I'm really kind of sad that I can't take the entire line of these figs I own with me when I die. I don't play with them often enough; I need to change that.

So, after I complete the Airborne I am going to try something different and try to paint two units at once. I have lots of stuff primed and sitting on the shelf looking at me with pleading eyes, just begging to be painted. They include (about a dozen each) Late Roman Infantry, 8 cataphracted cavalry, British F&I War Grenadiers *and* 18 F&I War Highlanders (yay, I get to paint plaid!), F&I War French Line infantry, Anglo-Saxon sword and shield men, Viking two handed axe men, some native Americans and a few WW2 odds and ends, including a Soviet 50mm mortar team, a 'redeploying' Airborne MMG team and one lonely German officer who I stepped on and broke his head. I finally got around to re-gluing it and priming him.

That should get me through this virus and the next two or three that come down the pike.