All Along the Watchtower - Warlords of Erehwon AAR

This past weekend, Josh and I got a game of Warlord of Erehwon in at Les' place. Les has been looking for a possible Age of Sigmar replacement, and Warlords was one of the rules offered up. 

The scenario was The Watchtower, which is a Fantasy classic - one side controls the watchtower and has to defend it until the end of the game, while the other side wants to capture the watchtower.

Instead of my Orcs & Goblins, I decided to use the Samurai army list with my Wrath of Kings Shael Han, with an Allied Wyvern to represent the Fulung Devourer.

My samurai ended up defending, so I placed a unit of Oni in the tower, as no unit in my list had shooting attacks.

Not much had happened in the first two turns of the game. Both sides advanced towards the watchtower, while my Oni hunkered down against Josh's dwarven guns.

The Wyvern turned out to be the MVP of the match, with its 20", SV 4 Flame Breath attack that could get through the Dwarves' heavy army and place mutliple pins. Additionally, it was a MOD2 monster, so it could be activated twice a turn!

Unfortunately for the Oni defending the tower, a Dwarven hero reached the base, bashed through the barricaded door, and slaughtered the eastern ogres.

However, my Wizard had brought a new spell to the table - Peculiar Portal. When successfully cast on a unit, it's controlling player has to place it back at their table edge! And in a game where most units can only move 10" a turn (and these Dwarves couldn't sprint thanks to their Bloomin' Big Axes), this can easily put a critical unit out of reach and unusable. I was throwing out Portals left and right, especially on the Dwarf Guards and the Dwarf Hero.

My Onna-Bugeisha and Daimyo took up the left flank, as my remaining Oni waited to claim the tower again after the Wizard had portalled the Dwarf Hero away.

And while my Samurai had been routed, the Ashigaru took up the slack in their absence. Aided, of course, by the fire-breathing Wyvern.

For once, I was able to thin the Dwarven lines. Between the naginatas, halberds, and flames, Josh's stunties were dwindling in ranks.

The remaining Dwarves weren't enough to stop my Oni and Hero from taking the tower. Both watched on as my Onna-Bugeisha and Wyvern press the retreating Dwarves.

This was an interesting match, and fun as always. I have to admit, it was the Peculiar Portal and the Wyvern won the game for me. The army list itself was rather bland, as nothing really screamed "Samurai" to me. I think I'd rather play another army and just ally in a monster instead.

Rush or Retreat - General d'Armee AAR

For this month's SJGA meetup, I decided to play in Ted's General d'Armee game.

The scenario was based on the action at Gilly, during the Hundred Days War. The fight was a delaying actions by the Prussians against the approaching French army. 

In the scenario, the river that splits the table halves the movement of infantry units (or they take a casualty to move at full speed), and cannot be crossed by cavalry or artillery. It can be crossed either at the bridge at the center, or the ford that the French players (including me) placed on the left side, indicated by the pebbles.

The Prussian commanders were able to place two marshes, which would be impossible for any units to cross over. These were placed as to quarter the river, which would cause a lot of trouble in the upcoming battle.

The Prussians had the whole of their table half to deploy on. One infantry brigade held the bridge, ready to halt the French attack. Two more infantry brigades waited on the banks of the river. The Prussian cavalry sat back on a nearby hill, ready to charge down and reinforce any breaks in the line.

The French had three infantry brigades deployed on the table, with a cavalry brigade in reserve.

Napoleon himself was directing the battle in the shade of a nearby windmill, which (supposedly) gave the French a tactical advantage with an automatic Aide de Camp each turn, which could be used to augment the French forces in a variety of ways.

I was commanding the French right for the battle, and I decided to make use of my veteran French troops by keeping them in column and aggressively moving them to the river. There was a bit of forest on the Prussian left flank that I was hoping to get into.

Meanwhile, the largest French brigade was moving to assault the Prussian garrison defending the bridge.

The French attack initially went well, forcing the Prussians out of their defensive position. The French quickly took up the defenses and waited for the inevitable counter attack.

I was using a lot of the Aide de Camps we were rolling up (although it wasn't much, as our luck was abysmal during the game) to give my brigade more movement - 4d6 extra centimeters worth. This helped keep of the momentum, giving the Prussians two battles to worry about.

The fight on the French left wasn't doing much, due to slow movement of battalions in line and poor activation rolls. The Prussian artillery was spoiled for choice when it came to targets. This part of the battle wouldn't add up to much in the overall results.

The French Brigade under my command was doing well. Apart from the snafus coming from the higher ups, the battalions were handling the assault with ease, with few casualties. I was worried, however, when Ted brought his cavalry brigade down from the hill. My columns were going to be in for a fight when the Prussian horse arrived.

In the center, both sides had to take a moment to recover. The French had been thrown back in disarray when a battalion was utterly destroyed by a Prussian attack. But the Prussians weren't able to capitalize on the French retreat, which left the town unoccupied. 

As the tenth and final turn came up, it seemed like the French were on the verge of defeat, as they had been unable to cause two Sauve Qui Peut results against the Prussian brigades. I was looking over the scenario and realized that the French could win by either causing two Sauve Qui Peut results, or by causing three Retreats! With this realization, the French were able to claim a victory, with the Prussian force pulling back.

Ted did a great job of introducing the rules to three players who had no previous experience with General d'Armee. He's planning to run it at Cold Wars in March, and I may take part if there are any open spots.

Painting Update - AWI

It's a new year, and that means more painting! Here's what I've been working on since last time.

Unfortunately, Cape Con (where I ran a game of Gaslands last year) has been cancelled. So the 15mm Rebels & Patriots game I was going to present has suddenly lost a lot of steam. But I'm going to soldier on and get it done, so that I can put on games at the club at least. 

My first two units for the Continentals are generic line infantry units. I decided to have one unit in blue coats and buff facings, which mirrors the officer's uniform. 

The second unit is a close match to the first, with blue coats and red facing. 

I plan to make the Continentals' uniforms varied, to be set against the standardized colors of the British and Hessians. 

A Stroll Through the Woods - Rebels & Patriots AAR

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you're all recovering from the holiday season.

Each week, Ted (a member of the SJGA) hosts a game night at his home and I finally got a chance to attend recently. It was an opportunity to test out Rebels & Patriots, Osprey Games' new rules for skirmish-y wargaming in North America. So we decided to set the game during the French and Indian War, which Ted and I both have collections for. 

Ted set up the table for the A Long Way From Home scenario. I took command of the British defenders, who needed to get as many units off the opposite corner edge of the table by the randomly determined end of the game. Steve, my opponent for the night, led the French attackers who needed to harass and delay the column.

The British were a 24 point company, with three Line Infantry units, a Light Infantry unit, and a Shock Infantry unit. The French were only 18 points, with two units of Light Infantry and two units of Natives that were Poor Shooters.

The British column started with a unit of Light Infantry (Rangers) in front, followed by the three units of Line Infantry. The Shock Infantry (Grenadiers) brought up the rear.

The French attack started from the farmhouse, with the French Compagnies Franches de la Marine and their Native Allies firing from cover. The Rangers split off from the column to fire back, as the rest of the British continued on.

With more Marines and Natives approaching from the woods, the British Officer's unit moved off the wood to try and force the French back. Unfortunately, the Marines' accurate fire pushed the British back. So another unit of Line Infantry was diverted to try and take the woods, while the Grenadiers chased the Natives off before they could attack.

Rebels & Patriots has a random even table for when players roll either double ones or sixes when trying to activate a unit. One of my random events turned out to be another unit entering the table!

This ended up being a problem, as there was no way the new unit could reach the opposite table corner by the end of the game, and it also increased the threshold I would need to reach to score more victory points.

While one Line Infantry unit stayed in the woods to hold back the Marines, and the Rangers skirmishing to keep up constant (if ineffective) fire, the rest of the British started to move towards the objective area after clearing up the muddle they had fallen into.

The British Line Infantry in the woods were broken by the extremely accurate fire of the French Marines, which meant the Grenadiers had to peel off to hold them back.

Unfortunately, the game ended rather suddenly, and I only managed to get a single unit off the table.

The game would have been 0-0, but I managed to score two victory (Honor) points from the random event table, which meant that the British "won" 2-0.

We had a good time, and there was a surprising amount of depth to the rules that isn't immediately apparent during a read through. I'm currently working on a 15mm AWI project to use with these rules, and I'm looking forward to playing more games next year.

A Year in Gaming - 2019

It's New Years Eve, which means it's time for the end of the year review of my hobbying done in 2019.

Let's start with the games I played:

• A Gentleman's War - 1
• Battletech - 2
• Blood Bowl - 5
• Carnevale - 3
• Chain of Command - 1
• Combat Patrol: Napoleonic - 1
• Contemptible Little Armies - 1
• Cruel Seas - 1
• For King and Parliament - 2
• Middle Earth SBG - 7
• Mordheim - 14
• Muskets & Tomahawks - 2
• Rebels & Patriots - 1
• Red Book of the Elf King - 2
• Saga - 1
• To The Strongest! - 2
• Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team - 1
• Warhammer: Underworlds - 5
• Warlords of Erehwon - 3
• Warmaster Revolution - 6

Altogether, I played 61 games, and that's not counting the various board games and tabletop RPGs I played this past year. 

It's a noticeable drop in the amount of games played compared to previous years that I've been tracking. It looks like the reason is that there was only a single game that I played into the double digits (Mordheim). In previous years, I had two or three games that would have had that high of a play count.

And here's what I painted:

• 10mm Artillery - 4
• 10mm Cavalry - 62
• 10mm Infantry - 347
• 10mm Monster - 3
• 20mm Vehicle - 10
• 28mm Artillery - 4
• 28mm Cavalry - 17
• 28mm Chariot - 1
• 28mm Infantry - 256
• 28mm Monster - 2
• 6mm Vehicle - 8

There's a lot of 10mm in there, thanks to two complete Warmaster armies. And 28mm wargaming continues to dominate the area. 

To finish off, here's a look at all the games featured on the blog in 2019:

A Gentleman's War

Battletech

Blood Bowl

Carnevale

Chain of Command

Combat Patrol: Napoleonic

Contemptible Little Armies

Cruel Seas

For King and Parliament

Middle Earth SBG

Mordheim

Muskets & Tomahawks

Rebels & Patriots

Red Book of the Elf King

Saga

To The Strongest!

Warlords of Erehwon

Warmaster Revolution

Thanks for reading, and here's to a great year of gaming and hobbying in 2020!