Tel's Kingdom

Battle of Legoland

2012-01-05T23:30:00.000Z

Paul digs out his Battlewagons rules again, this time a hypothetical encounter based upon the real life Battle of Heligoland, which saw the deployment of Austro-Hungarian naval assets in assistance of Prussia during the Second Schleswig War.

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

Feeling a bit whacked after Xmas and the New Year I sat this one out and watched\dozed off instead.

The forces were evenly matched with each having a couple of Ironclads supported by a couple of more conventional ships. Each pair of ships they split off into their own individual little battles. After a prolonged slugathon between the two forces the Danes finally got a bit of the upper-hand.

¶

Battle of Albuera

2011-12-30T23:30:00.000Z

A re-fight of the Battle of Albuera at Matt's using the 'In The Grand Manner' rules. This was one of the bloodiest battles that the British ever fought in.

From Albuera

There was a large force of French cavalry not shown above, deployed below the picture. These were lead by the Polish Lancers, who soon made short work of the Spanish Cavalry sent to face them. But at least the Spaniards managed to force them to 'Return to Lines' to regroup, earning some valuable time and preventing an immediate follow up into the vulnerable flanks of the infantry.

The assault against the Portuguese defending the village on the left flank soon faltered, and was probably doomed to failure right from the start with the French being outnumbered there.

The infantry column attacks against the Spanish on the ridge was more successful, causing a couple of battalions to retreat and disrupting some of the supporting troops in the process. The retreating Spanish cavalry also caused chaos, but the Spanish avoided any cascading morale failures. The Spanish then organised a counterattack that stopped the French from taking full advantage of the situation and kept them on the ridge.

By the time the French cavalry could reach the enemy lines again the British had moved into place making a breakthrough here almost impossible. With the French infantry battered around quite a bit, it was decided that the French did not stand much of a chance of achieving any more and the game was called.

On of the big problems with re-fighting the battle is the problem of hindsight. As setup the British would never attempt the flank march that left them vulnerable to the French cavalry and which caused so many of the historical casualties and put the result of the battle in so much jeopardy.

It later turned out that the French forces could of set up anywhere, including close to the initially exposed flanks of the Spanish forces on the ridge and the British reinforcing line in particular (it was these that got caught out in the open in real life while trying a flank march).

The Spanish were also probably too highly rated in terms of morale, making it difficult for the French to break through yet retain enough strength to face the reinforcing British.
¶

Munchkin Xmas

2011-12-28T23:00:00.000Z

Not much of a turn out at the club this week, probably people too stuffed up from Xmas, so broke out the Munchkin along with a couple of the Christmas themed expansions. Reverted back to basic set and first expansion along with Waiting For Santa and Santa's Revenge.

These games were, once more, over surprisingly quickly given the number of players as seems people are more willing to help each other within the game a lot more. This was possibly the consequence of having more players than the recommended six maximum as there are not enough monster 'buffs' to counteract the additional 'help' factor.
¶

One Brick At A Time

2011-12-21T14:50:00.001Z

A run through of the Warhammer Historical Kampfgruppe Normandy WW2 game. Allied troops advancing upon a village being defended by German Paratroopers.

Strange to play a 'Warhammer' game without the classic stat-lines. Like a lot of recent 'modern era' games it makes use of the idea of suppression of troops being just as important as killing them.

From Furness Wargamers in Tanks

The Germans are initially hidden on the board, with only paper chits marking possible locations. The Allies come on on one edge in the traditional 'one long line'. The acompanying Churchill Tank and Anti-Tank Gun were initially kept off-board for their own safety, the scenario being designed by 'Panzer Matt'.

Deadliness of fire was soon shown as a allied squad was wiped out just by successive mortar rounds followed by fire from troops concealed in a building. The Allies advance also got slowed down by a squad who managed to get lost in a small grove of trees.

The Allies plan basically turned into one house at a time, as MG's, Squad fire and Mortars were all concentrated on an individual buildings. The mortars were particularly effective on the times that they hit as multiple squads had been piled into the buildings. One holding an Infantry platoon, MG and Forward Observer, the F.O. being the primary target due to the fire he was bringing down on the Allies.

Despite the initial losses the Allies started clearing out the village, suppressed defending troops being no match in assaults, and the Germans morale started to reach their breakpoint. The Chit based morale system is a bit gamemy in the way you can deffer recoving your troops.

A few quirks in the rules, such as an suppressive fire that kills does not then have a chance to suppress ('we're taking casulties, stay stood up!'). And the rules for vehicles and direct artillery never really got a work out, with the sole Churchill creeping on, and the support troop of Shermans turning up late. We also never got the chance to see how effective the P.I.A.T. was, probably much to the relief of the P.I.A.T. Crew.

¶

Trial of Eagles

2011-12-14T23:00:00.000Z

Played a test game of Age of Eagles in preparation for Dave M's Play By EMail kicking off. Smallish forces of French and Prussians clash in a large area, interspersed with woods, and with plenty of room to manoeuvre. A game that saw a small force of battered Landwehr Cavalry take on fresh Polish Guard Lancers. Of course, since dice were involved, there was only ever going to be one outcome in a situation like this...

Tony was the main Prussian commander, with Tel taking on the right flank. Dave S commanded the French aided by Dave M.

The opposing main batteries deployed out of firing range of each other, preferring to hit the infantry targets as both groups closed on each other. It appeared that the Prussians had the numeric superiority but the quality of the French troops were unknown. The Prussian forces were a mix of Regulars and Landwehr.

The cream of the Prussian forces on the left remained lost in a forest and even the arrival of the Corp Commander with a map could not help them that much. The rest of the Infantry matched along the road supported by the Landwehr Cavalry and covered by the guns.

On the right the low troop density on the field allowed the Prussian attack columns to hit the flanks of the French Brigades, who were deployed in unsupported lines. It was this flank factor that gave the combat to the Prussians as they were matched in all respects, including the die rolls.

Just to make sure the Prussian Cavalry joined in with the Infantry in the next round of attacks. The main Prussian cavalry successfully followed up on the broken French Infantry and attempted to charge the French Artillery on the hill. This prove to be too much for the cavalry and they ended up dissipating.

It was at this point that the French Guard Cavalry made there appearance, two brigades worth supported by Horse Artillery. The Prussian Infantry, now out of support range from the Artillery, decided to form square. A dangerous thing as there was both French Infantry and Artillery near by.

Meanwhile on the Prussian right flank, the only remaining french infantry unit on that side remained disordered right in front of the Prussian guns, which did enough in repeated turns to keep them disrupted but not enough to destroy them. Eventually the guns were reinforced by the battered Landwehr Infantry who finally made up their minds to return to the battle.

Back on the left a combined Infantry-Cavalry attack broke the square, pushing it back in disorder, but also disordering the Polish Lancers. In what was seen to be a suicide run the battered remnants of the Landwehr Cavalry, newly re-ordered after being hit by artillery, charged into the Lancers. In a shock result the Lancers were pushed back and the Landwehr followed up into them again. Once more, against the odds, they were pushed back, this time through another Cavalry Brigade and disordering them in the process, and the Landwehr crashed into this lot as well, but this time with an indecisive result.

At the same time, the Prussian Infantry crash into the remaining French Infantry defending the guns. It was thought disaster had struck as the Prussians rolled a 1 and the French a 10, but once factors were figured in it turned out it to be a no lose situation for the Prussians as the opposition evaporated.

With little hope of victory the remaining French surrendered the field.
¶

End of Empire

2011-12-07T23:30:00.000Z

The campaign comes to an end as it normally does... with an all out brawl for the crown. Each player was to command his own personal 12 point retinues they meet on the fields outside of Altdorf. Who will dominate, the insurgents or the Emperor and his 'loyal' supporters?

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies

Both of the insurgents line up at the far end of the field, Paul along with his vassal Dave S and their archer heavy forces. The loyalists, Tel and Mark line up in the distance at the other end. And the Emperor, for some reason, decides to set his line unsupported at the mid-point of the field. Of the other royalists, Jim had been waylaid by some Halfings and could not make the battle; while Matt sent messengers saying he would turn up later.

As the battle commenced the Emperor charged his forces towards the enemy while the main rump of his support still lay distant from him. Dave S moved the majority of his archers into the protect of a copse, while Paul faced the Emperor head on.

Mark and Tel attempted to tush up the field as fast as they could, but were hampered by the D3 limit on PIPs (which was used instead of the regular D6). Emperor Tony ignored the pleas for him to slow down and fall back to the safety of 'friendly' troops.

In brutal combat, costly to both sides, Paul was slain by the Emperor who was in turn slain by Paul's vengeful bodyguard.

Suddenly the forces of Matt appear at the edge of the battle, a host of Knights wondering what they were going to do in all this forest. After a few turns observing and seeing their small unmounted detachment get destroyed by the Paul-less remnants, they left the field of battle with the promise to return elsewhere.

Mark decides that his plan to betray the emperor and stab him in the back can no longer work, so instead he starts attacking all-comers. This involved attacking the rear of Tel's spearmen who are now trapped between Mark and the Paul-less. The rest of Tel's force of archers hang out in a nearby woods watching the slow but heroic demise of their sandwiched comrades.

Meanwhile Dave S had rushed out of the woods and seized the vacant crown and attempted to leave the field, only to be cut off by Marks knights and forced to return to his main force, who were slowly appearing out of the woods.

So Dave S becomes the Emperor, mostly because people could not be bothered attacking him.
¶

Infestations

2011-11-30T23:00:00.000Z

The Empire campaign continues, as the new Emperor takes office in Altdorf, a rebellion breaks out, and pesky mythical creatures start interfering.

Paul and Dave S, declares against Emperor Tony and refuses to pay taxes, Matt, declares for Tony but refuses to pay taxes, claiming that his support alone is worth more than any tax. Everyone else pays a small token amount to him.

Meanwhile the newly participating Dave M was joining as 'unknown forces' who would soon make their presence felt.

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies

Tony, as the 'all powerful' emperor, gains access to the small Imperial army and also to some new troop types, the most of which he can not afford to buy.

Matt launches a massed blitzkrieg into Paul's land but, despite his advantage in armies, soon gets bogged down.

The first external problems occur in Jim's land as an halfling rebellion breaks out. Then Large Rodent problems start occurring all over. People stop fighting each other and instead hit against the infestations, which strangely enough never seemed to occur in the rebellious domains.

Just to annoy Matt further, a whole load of pointy ears appear in the forest that he spent seasons trying subjugating. He thought he had succeeded in conquering them last turn but was obviously wrong. These green clad tree-huggers quickly spread out into the neighbouring areas.

Dave S then throws in the towel and becomes a direct vassal of Paul's, becoming the first player to do so, and leading to the separatists becoming a single unified force.
¶

Empire Games

2011-11-23T23:30:00.000Z

Missed the first week of the new campaign due to being down south job hunting.

Arrived on the scene this week to be given a small plot of land in the north of a map that seems to be a bit familiar. Campaign is based upon the shenanigans that went on within the Holy Roman Empire but transposed to a fantasy setting.

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies

Based out of the city of Praag and neighboured by Dave S to the south and Mark to the South West, a small conclave was held between the three of us and a treaty made. Mark, beset by two separate 'alliances' to his South (Jim and Paul) and West (Matt and Tony) who were none aggressive towards each other, was giving us his permission to attack his territory so that he could concentrate upon the main threats.

Dave S, then just seized two territories of Mark without moving any armies, just replacing the pins\flags in the territories. I asked Mark if I could do likewise and he agreed. Of course is still left me in a situation where I still had to make good the terms of the treaty. Being a honourable man I just that and attacked further into Mark's land.

Having meet my treaty obligations I then decided to help out Mark, asking permission to travel over his land and intervening against Tony, who voluntarily retreated his army that he had sent into Mark's land to block any retreats caused by Matt's intervening assault. I managed to give Mark's defeated army an escape route, and prevented it, and possibly Marks realm, from absolute destruction. Dave S likewise gave Mark's trapped army an escape route out of enemy lands, after his counter assault against Paul\Jim failed to seize any territory, but did delay their land grab.

The end of year is reached and its time for the meeting of the electors. Mark had the most votes to cast due to his high prestige earned through fighting. The dice determined that Mark was voting last, and the way the votes were cast resulted in him having the deciding votes. He could either tie the voting or cast for his enemy Tony. Naturally he did the sensible and most evil thing that he could and voted for Tony, giving this relatively minor player the crown.

Rather than end the game here it was decided to carry on for at least a further year just to see how well the new king would rule\be manipulated.
¶

Gladiators

2011-11-09T23:00:00.000Z

Something a bit different as under Warhammer Historical Gladiator game, bought by Dave M during the Warhammer Historical half price sale.

Played the basic version, but with some made up multi-player rules to allow for the four (later six) players. A mixture of types were randomly handed out and I got to play a heavy, with large shield and slow movement.

The most disappointing part is the roll to hit being a straight dice off with skill only being a factor in a draw. Most Stat-lines for the Gladiators appear nearly identical so everything ends up as a 50%-50% chance. This mechanism is also used in Legends of the Old West, itself derived from Lord of the Rings rules, and is criticised in it for allowing excessively easy lynchings where hordes of weak characters can smack-down ruthless killers.

The Retinarii also appear to be over powered, and in one on one combat have a good chance (about 1 in 10) of ending it straight off with the disabling entanglement. In both bouts they were the last ones standing using their ability to evade from combat and ranged netting to decisive effect. Comment was also passed upon the wound modifiers for the thrown Gladius and Dart being so radically different, not that any weapons got thrown during the game unless you count the annoying nets of the Retinarii.

The rules seem to work OK for mass brawls but there is something unsatisfying about it on one on one combat where it resolves down to straight dice rolls. It does not feel to be much of gladiatorial contest. This may change if playing the more advanced rules which, judging by the crib sheet, appear to use more advanced armour rules.

Having got some pre-painted Gladiators myself after getting a couple of Ludus Gladitorius sets off EM4 Miniatures at previous Phalanx shows, I'm not sure whether to purchase these rules myself. They could be good for the chrome and historical details but the rules could do with a re-write.
¶

Germanic Link Up

2011-11-02T23:30:00.000Z

More Great War activity as the newly arrived Austro-Hungarians (new figures of Dave M's, he has still got some heavy artillery to fix up along with some more Infantry) attempt to link up with their Germanic allies as the Russian grimly hold onto the road awaiting a special delivery.

From Furness Wargamers in Trenches

The Russians are split into two forces, one, lead by Paul, defending the ruins of a village, and another, lead by Tony, dug into emplacements with a strong contingent of Artillery. The Germans are lead by Tel, Matt in the center and Mark on the right flank; with the Austrians in the distance split from us by the Russian defenders. These Austrians were lead by Jim, obviously playing a descendant of the Holy Roman Emperor from the Italian States campaign.

I was assigned a company of Jaegers in the hope of dislodging the Russians camped in the ruins, the initial approach was disrupted, as a hidden machine gun, in addition to a visible one, opened up. The Jaegers eventually got their MG set up on the hill and proceeded to lay counter fire on the enemy MGs with good affect. The Jaeger Infantry making use of the light troop +1 save bonus, were now in close range, and laid some withering fire into the Russians out in the open, as well as joining forces with the central force to clear one of the ruins silencing the MG.

Meanwhile some Russian Armoured Cars had shown up escorting a truck across the table. The Austrians, recovering after suffering heavy losses in the initial assault, managed to knock out the lead car blocking the road and causing the other Car to slowly make its way around it.

The German right, slow to move up due to the marshy conditions on that flank, concentrated on keeping mostly out of sight of the Russian gun emplacements but still managed to take out the truck before it could get even half way across the table.

Dave M has now got a cheap copy of 'Over the Top' supplement after getting it in the Warhammer Historical half price sale. He's also got a copy of Gladiator which should be interesting.
¶

Italian Armageddon

2011-10-19T23:30:00.000+01:00

It's the last battles as the Italian Campaign reaches the end of days in 1501, and the final reckoning takes place. But first some unfinished business needed to be taken care of...

From Italian Hordes

Finishing off the previous year there is yet another battle in the continuing Venetian verses Holy Roman War\Bloodbath as Trieste becomes the battleground once more as HRE attempts yet another defense of their sole port from a reinforced attack. Various disagreements occur as to the 'rule of war' during this engagement.

1501

The pope issues another decree... 'That the unholy influence of the Spaniards and their infernal machines should be removed from the land of Italy.'

When it was pointed out that the Borgias were Spanish as well he pointed out his Irish roots, and being Pope raised him above such things anyway.

Turn order is once more going Widdershins. And everyone was aware of the victory conditions, with Naples reckoning himself the current leader.
,
Spring

Naples throws themselves into a mass battle against Spain in Campagna. In this they were assisted by Papal reinforcements, who in the end never turned up after the Jabberwocky dice refused to roll 6's. This was an epic bloodbath with Naples taking heavy loses but being kept in the battle via the flow of reinforcements, with two batches turning up on the first turn.

Summer

Otranto falls back into Neopolitan hands, leaving only one Spanish possession on the mainland. Milan defend their newly recovered home city from Venitian aggressors.
With the last round approaching it was decided not to do any battles but to conduct sieges only.

Autumn

Stalemates all over as armies moved to stop sieges.

Any last offensive against Romagna ended when Savoy sent an army into thinking that it was only a fleet that was there and not an army (the Pope had given up on naval transport despite acquiring a port). Given that there was Romagnan cities waiting to be taken over, this also ended up crucial to the final result. With the remaining Papal armies set up to prevent Neapolitan aggression the turn ended with no extra action.

Final Scores
Romagna - 208 (10 regions [+6])
Naples - 199 (12 [+1])
Spain - 186 (5 [+1])
Savoy - 172 (8 [+6] + Milan)
Venice - 171 (10 [+2])
Papal States - 128 (7 [+2])
Holy Roman Empire - 79 (2 [-2])
Milan - 61 (4 [-3])

So the big losses at the Battle of Campagna ended up costing Naples the game, as did Savoy pinning the Papal army in on the final move. Romagna controlling the central Italian cities and not facing any real concerted opposition allowed them to win in style.

Papal Points Breakdown
Army (24 * 3) = 72
Prestige = 8
Territory (7 * 6pts)= 42
Cities (3 * 2pts)= 6
Total = 128

Starting position was worth 62pts.

Given that the pope spent the last few years sandwiched between the games two most successful powers and, on occasions, had nine opposing armies on his borders, this was a good result.
¶

Curse of the Jabberwocky

2011-10-12T23:00:00.000+01:00

The Victory conditions are revealed as the campaign reaches it's penultimate week.

As nine armies wait on the border of Papal lands, bad luck is brought-forth from going wilder-shins in the turn order, and from the use of the cursed bones of the Jabberwocky.

Add to that devilish engines of war, and more battles in one night than ever before, is 1500 the year of the Apocalypse? or will it be 1501?

From Italian Hordes

Message from Paul...

Due to the growing threat of external forces (Turks), It looks like the end of next Tuesday night (or the close of the year 1502, whichever comes first) will see the signing of a major peace treaty between all the Christian states, bringing an end to the current age of hostilities in war torn Italy.

At which point victory will be decided by totting up of lands (6pt per region owned, 4pt per vassal region) + cities (2pt each) + remaining army values + prestige points.

Victory going to the highest total. (player + vassal, though only the player can claim victory, alliances cannot be added together or claim moral victory) this will give a full two weeks to implement any Machiavellian plots to pull victory out of the bag.

May the best count/king/pope win!

The start of the year began with a discussion as to whether to reverse the turn order for the year and go anti-clockwise. The Pope objected to this breach to the natural order but it was decided to do so anyway. As retaliation to this the cursed dice of the Jabberwocky were brought forth from the secret vaults and covertly sent to the Court of Naples to wreck havoc on the enemies plans...

1500

Spring

Sea battle in the Northern Adriatic as HRE takes on a small Venetian force. Papal forces assault out of Papal lands to tie up the invading armies. Battle of Spoleto - Papal forces destroy Stronghold after Nepolitans left their flank undefended. Battle at Piobimo between Spain and the invading Romagnans sees the Spanish pushed back to sea. Savoy takes Cremona off the Venetians, Milan fails in siege of Venetian held Milan.

Summer

HRE recaptures Trieste after killing Venetian hero leader. Papal continues delaying tactics, attacking and then retreating from Spoleto and Campagna. Milanese finally reconquer their home city back off the Venetians, who are ignoring Milanese\Savoyan encroachments to hunt down the eastern forces of the HRE. There are battles in Pisa and Romagna provinces, as the Spanish and Romagnans continue at each other.

Autumn

Spanish invades at Naples, Neapolitans send in an army reinforced with three contingents but see their infernal war-machines destroyed. Pope besieges and takes Piobimo off the Romagnans. Milan and Savoy swap the territories of Novana and Cremona.

So some how the Papal States have managed to expand at the expense of Romagna\Spain. This was mainly due to the revised turn order playing to the Popes advantage. In each of the rounds I managed to move before my main opponents could, tying them up and preventing any invasion. Milan is starting to reappear on the map but still as a vassal of Savoy. Spain is having difficulty getting land on the mainland as simple blocking can prevent them.
¶

Papal Problems

2011-10-05T23:00:00.000+01:00

Things slow down as only the one year gets completed. No sea battles this year, but plenty of action over ports. And the Papal States start to get squeezed a bit.

From Italian Hordes

1499

Spring

Battle of Treviso, Viennese verses HRE, HRE wins with only minor losses as Viennese artillery gets destroyed.

Summer

Spanish invasions of Pistioa and Modena, both belonging to Romagna. Pistioa defended by forces from Savoy and Milan. Ancona and Sienna under attack. Token Papal forces, including a holy horde leader, prevent them falling to siege. Spoleto falls to siege by Romagna, the first original Papal territory to fall.

Autumn

HRE recapture Trieste from the Viennese. Pope once more fights two token battles against Naples to prevent the inevitable sieges.

Winter

Pope trades port of Ancona to Spain for a considerable amount after others refuse to purchase it. Romagna and Naples swaps and consolidates territories (Capatanata, Moeise and Spoleto for the cities of Florence and Pibimo), much to Romagna's economic advantage.

The current standing appear to be as follows, from what I can tell from the map...

Romagna - 10 provinces, 22 income
Naples - 10 provinces, 16 income
Venice - 10, 14 income
Savoy - 7+3 provinces, 13+3 income (+ Milan lackeys)
Spain - 8 provinces, 20 income
Papal - 6 provinces, 10 income
Holy Roman Empire - 4 provinces (non-Italian), 6 income

¶

Holy Roaming Empires

2011-09-28T23:00:00.000+01:00

The (Un)Holy Roman Empire, or at least a small part of it, turns up under the command of Elector Jim. As the remaining neutral provinces get overrun things start to get a bit cramped on the mainland.

From Italian Hordes

1498

Spring
Venetians attack Trieste, which falls to the siege. HRE attacks, less successfully, into Venetian lands. All remaining neutral territories in Italy invaded. Romagna captures Pistoa

Summer
Spanish and Neapolitan fleets enter the Northern Adriatic, Spanish attack Romagna fleet when it sets sail but fails to inflict any casualties on it. Naples, continuing it's naval tradition of defeats, attacks the combined Venetian fleets, it's lone Caravel verses an Urca and 2 Gaillots, and loses badly again when their General is lost. Savoy besieges Lucca with Milanese help, who takes the casualties when they fail to open the gates. Neapolitans also land via the North Tyrrhenian in Genoa.

Autumn
The Spanish and Neapolitan fleets evacuates from the Adriatic. Neapolitans leave Genoa after failing the previous siege. The Venice-Holy Roman war\dance continues.

Winter
The Pope trades the lands of Capatanata, Moeise and Urbino to Romagna for the port of Ancona and a fleet. Spain trades with Naples for Pisa, giving them a port on the central mainland.

1499

Spring

¶

Venetian Blindsiding

2011-09-21T23:00:00.000+01:00

The Italian States Campaign continues...

The Venetians get their act together and joins in the fun as Matt enters the game...

And the Pope gets a new mode of transport...

From Italian Hordes

1496

Spring
Romagna withdraws from Venetian territory running as fast as they can. Papal States finally capture Sienna after over two years of besieging. Naples capture Piombino.

Summer
Papal States lay siege to Florence. Romagna take Modena. Spain invades Savoy. Milan capture Remoli.

Autumn
Florence falls to the Papal States. Savoy captured by Spanish.

Winter
Pope trades Florence to Naples in exchange for the much less exciting provinces of Moiese and Capatanata.
Savoy sold back for 3 income.

1497

Papal decree issued stating that to improve trade Spain needs to obtain a port on the Adriatic.

Spring
Milan falls to Venice, Renoli falls to Savoy. Papal forces fail to take Canadoli. A potential Naval battle in the Ionian between Spain and Naples fails to happen.

Summer
Naples invade Pistioa. Spanish fleet enters the Adriatic. Romagna attacks into Lucca and Cremona. Papal forces capture Canadoli. Como captured by Savoy. Battle of Cremona see large losses to knights on both sides.

Autumn
Romagna attacks Parma. Milan, attacked from all sides and now down to two provinces, becomes a vassal of Savoy. The Spanish invasions of both Venice and Ancona, in an attempt to gain an Adriatic port, fail.

Winter
Romanga pays off Venice. Pope recieves tribute of 4 income from Spain for their failure to capture Adriatic port.

¶

Papal Bull

2011-09-14T23:00:00.001+01:00

After last weeks trial run it's time for a full blooded 'Italian States Campaign'.

Once again using a cut down Horde of the Things, with only 6 troop types (this time including Artillery) and a modified map based campaign system that now covers the whole of Italy and not just the north. Up to 9 states were available, each with differing amount of land and income. States were distributed randomly between the 6 players with 3 states left neutral. France and the (not so) Holy Roman Empire are out of bounds and the historic invasion by the French, to capture Naples, does not occur.

Savoy - Dave M
Milan - Tony
Romanga - Mark
Papal States - Pope Tellus the First
Naples - Dave S
Spain - Paul

1494

Spring
Naval Battle between Naples and Spain, the two main sea powers, saw Naples badly defeated, in what was the first outing of Paul's Naval Rules, an abstraction where one boat equals a fleet. A lot of Neapolitans ended up being pushed off the boat to their demise. Meanwhile on terra firma the Papal Army delivers invite for Sienna to join the Papal States and pay homage to Pope Tellus the First (of the Hiberno-Iberian O'Malley-Borgias, and a descendent from the Kings of nearly All-Ireland).

All the sieges conducted against neutral provinces failed causing all besieging armies to lose 2AP.

Summer
Spain lands on mainland Italy. Once more all the sieges fail.

Autumn
Milan vs Romagna in Ferrara. Romagna refuses to bring in available reinforcements, and as a result loses, but inflicts equal amount of casualties on opponent. Ferrara fails to fall during siege phase, leaving Milan forces out of supply. Spain captures Calabria off Naples.

Winter
Surviving Papal forces go home aggrieved by the Siennians. Milan loses troops on the long march back home.

1495

Spring
Papal forces return to Sienna. All sieges fail. Milanese remain at home.

Summer
Otranto falls to Spain as they expand in the south.

Autumn
Pisa falls to Naples via seaborne invasion giving them a bridgehead north of the Papal States. Ferrara and Verona captured by Romanga, Mont-Ferrat and Genoa captured by Savoy.

Winter
Papal forces return home after once more lossing 25% of their forces in sieges over the year. The entire population of Sienna excommunicated for impertinence. The peaceful state of Milan sees a segment of its army dissipate due to inactivity, its army size now maxed out at 20AP. Naples sends tribute to Spain to stop further encroachment.
¶

Undead Wings

2011-09-04T14:00:00.000+01:00

With Nexus, the producers of Wings of War, now no longer operating, and with the English language distributor of WoW, Fantasy Flight previously announcing that they would no longer support it (in favour of their Star Wars based X-Wing, which uses similar mechanisms.), things were not looking good for the 'Wings' community.

But at last some good news, posted by the games designer Andrea Angiolino on the Yahoo Group, and confirmed by the likes of Tabletop Gaming News.

The press release...

Camaiore, Italy – September 1, 2011 - Ares Games, a Tuscany-based games publisher recently established, announces an agreement with Andrea Angiolino and Pier Giorgio Paglia, the authors of the best selling game that recreates aerial combat during the WWI and WWII, formerly published with the name "Wings of War".
Ares Games will publish the game under a new brand, "Wings of Glory". Wings of Glory will be published with a new rulebook, while maintaining compatibility with the previous Wings of War products already in the market.

"We are happy to be partnering with Andrea and Pier Giorgio to bring this wonderful game system to market." said Christoph Cianci, CEO of Ares Games, "Thousands of fans worldwide will be pleased to know that their planes and maneuver cards from Wings of War will be compatible with the new Wings of Glory."

Initially, Ares Games will focus on developing new miniatures for the game, but also plans to release new starter sets.

"This game has a very strong and loyal fan base around the world, which gave and will surely continue to give a great help to the success of our game with their support and creativity. They have high expectations of it, in spite of several attempts to imitate it with other settings and chrome," stated Andrea Angiolino, co-creator of the game. "We chose to partner with Ares Games because we believe they understand our game, and that they will take care of the wishes of its fans, as well as be respectful of its creators."

The first Wings of Glory products to be released will be four airplanes for the WWII game series: the American P40, the Russian Yak-1, the Japanese Ki-61 and the Italian Re-2001 Falco. Ares Games will publish a Starter Set with these four models, containing the introductory rules and all other elements needed to start play. The complete schedule of the next releases will be announced soon.
With this announcement, Ares Games now publishes two important games from Italian creators that have achieved international recognition. In July, Ares Games aquired the rights from Sophisticated Games to publish the award-winning board game "War of the Ring", based on the J.R.R.Tolkien' s trilogy, "The Lord of the RingsTM", and created by Roberto Di Meglio, Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi. A new edition of the game, in English, will be available this Fall, with other language editions forecasted for Spring 2012.

¶

Ogre Borg

2011-08-09T23:30:00.002+01:00

The Federation send out a fleet of three squadrons of shiny white ships, in the hope of slowing down the Borg Cube en route to Earth, in a rerun of Wolf 359. Using a 'rolling' map board, the victory conditions were simple, stop the Borg from getting away, else the Earth gets destroyed.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

Not knowing which way the Cube would take, the three squadrons lined up across the board and advanced. The Borg took a swing to one side in an attempt to bash through the flank.

The mispositioned of almost an entire squadron on the trailing side of the Borg, in a position where it was impossible to catch up due to matching top speeds, lead to a bad mismatch between the Big Box and the remaining two squadrons. These squadrons were soon obliterated, and the Cube continued on towards Earth with the remaining squadron futilely trying to pursue it.

The second game, with the same setup, was much more successful for the Federation as the Borg went straight down the middle. The Federation ships managed to keep the right side of the Borg and to keep pace with it. This time we managed to concentrate fire and do damage to its weapons and, critically, also to its engines to slow it down. This made positioning much easier for the federation ships.

The Borg suffered the ultimate indignanty as the killing blow came from the smallest ship in the fleet.
¶

Where Beagles Dare...

2011-07-25T22:00:00.000+01:00

The following was posted on the old FW site and was cobbled together from various posts in the forum.

First posted 01 April 2007

The first rush of exploration\conquest.

The results from the first three rounds of the campoon campaign.

Results : Round 1

Markdom
T8 : Forests Undead (500pts - Martin)

The tree hugging undead got off to a good start when there archers managed to put in a devastating volley into the Markdom scouts. The Markdom cavalry became restricted to action in the open glades, which caused no end of grief when the zombies managed to pop out of the woods to flank attack the Cataphracts.

Deciding that his horses would get spooked if they turned towards the flesh eaters they resolutely remained facing towards the hill that was acting as the focal point of the undead defense, charging towards it whenever they could break free.

These attacks were finally enough to grind the undead back into the dirt where they came from, but not until after a hard struggle. The Tomb King eventually got bored and crept back to his crypt for another 1000 year sleep.
The success of the final push leading to one unit of the Catas to go round bragging about how mighty they were.

Phil the Benign
L1 : Mountains - Orcs (500pts - Matt)

Initially started with a bout of sparring on Phil's right flank between his cavalry and archers and the Orcish joyriders in their 'Chaviots'. Slowly his legions converged with the orcish hordes, with Phil bringing up his cavalry reserves to push through the centre. By now the joyriders, fed up of cruising the strip, had managed to circle around the back of the legions and threaten to start a fight, but too late as the Orc lines finally broke.

Patrician Jimbo
F5 : Wastes - Nomads (500pts - ???)

The armies of the West march relentless onwards as the Nomadic Nuns charged over the barren hills into oblivion.

His troops hailed their leader Jimbo as a mighty Warrior King but he turned the accolade and deemed that his troops were the true vanquishers.

Negotiations:

El Tel
vs Orcs

After persuading the Orcs to settle things peacefully with 'an honest game of chance!' Tel decided to leave the Orcs in their pits so long as they agreed to deal with any Dwarf infestations that might appear.

Results : Round 2

Slackbladderians
B2 : Fort - Civilised (750pts Romans - Phil)

The Battle of Fort Hard

Scant reports arrived from the survivors of the disaster that befell the army of the Slackbladderian Empire. 'We hit a brick wall' General Stu said but no one is sure if he meant the wall of the fort or the shieldwall of the opposing legionaries.

El Tel
J11 : Farms Civilised 'Sassenachs' (500pts Sassanid - Matt)

Tels Light Cavalry Brigade went charging off into the distance, as is the tradition, with half of his Heavy nearly doing likewise in an attempt to hunt down the opposing mounted archers who fled the field after a brief exchange. The majority of the Sassenach Cavalry proceeded to advance across the field of Battle to crash into the infantry in the centre. The foot soldiers briefly held before braking and fleeing, only to reveal a large force of cataphacts just waiting to charge something, which they promptly did. This resulted in a large multiple pileup with horses stacked on horses.

The opposing Infantry meekly crawled forward being attacked by suicide squads on the way. Finally the Sasanachs cavalry broke just as the infantry reached the charge range of the remaining cataphracts. Eventually they gave up the fight mumbling something about 'should of built a wall'.

After the battle some old biddy came up to Tel and started gibbering about Portents.

Nurlges
P9 : Waste - Barbarians (500pts - ???)

No reports on this battle appear to exist, which is not surprising as both sides are illiterate. Apparently the forces/smell of the Nurgle overcame the barbarians.

Found written on some toilet paper... (so obviously not of nurgle origin)

"We have it on very good authority, that the Nurgle was not actually present and was in fact undergoing emergency belly button fluff removal at the 'Temple of the Ladies of the Night'. The victorious rabble was led by Dampnee the pole-dancing dwarf."

This vicious rumour needs to be scotched immediately! The person at the lint farm was, in fact, Squidgy Muckraker, head of NI6 (Nurgles Information gatherers, 6) and one of the Nurgles elite squad of suicide doubles. Incredible as it may seem, it was indeed the Nurgles startling tactical abilities that won the day, Dampknee having lead the skirmishers and fanatics onto an extinct volcano but then failing to move any further. He instead collapsed into a religious frenzy, calling on the fire mountain to immediately "waken again and cleanse impure Campoon of sinful men", a call that was met with enthusiasm by the fanatics but didn't win him any friends amongst the skirmishers.

The Nurgle himself is reported to be 'very shaken' at the events at the battle, and has retired to his private brain-care room, where he has so far rolled a d6 eight thousand and forty-nine times and is carefully having the results recorded to see if his luck really has changed."

King Ged
J7 : Town - Civilised (500pts - Tristan?)

The vast horde of Huns tried to swarm across the land in a giant tide, but sort of ended up dribbling across instead.

Greatly outnumbered the forces of Civilisation pushed into the centre of the Hunnish infantry causing the rump to retreat and scatter, but enough of the warbands held, and as the Hunnish cavalry on the left flank crashed into the legions side all resistance evaporated.

Upon the right a large force of hun cavalry hid behind the trees, waiting in ambush, ready to pounch on anyone coming near them, which no did, not even their own leaders, and without anyone to give them orders they settled down and had a nice cup of tea, as the units that actually fought started proclaiming Ged as the great Overlord.

Negotiations:

Phil the Benign
L3 : Pasture - Nomads (750pts - Stu)

This negotiation ended tragically when Phil burst out into hysterical laughter as the Khans wife entered the feasting tent. An attempted explanation that he was in fact laughing at the newly received message of the Slackbladderian defeat didn't cut the mustard with the Khan, who sent Phil and his forces packing from the land. Any return is bound to lead to hostilities.

Markdom
S9 : Fort - Elves (750pts - ???)

The elves were successfully coerced to hand over the keys to the fortress, along with the rest of this territory, with the help of some poisoned wine and the promise not to kill the rest of them.

Results : Round 3

Nurgle
Q10 : Town

The Nurgle struck North East from his lair in the flesh pots of Nurgle City and caught the town of Pleasantville unprepared. Before the unfortunate inhabitants could evacuate they were subsumed into the Nurgles' ever expanding domain and the town renamed Nurgles' Bottom in memory of one of the Nurgles' favourite goat.

Shawland
D10 : Event :- Famine - loses D9

Meanwhile, the Nurgles devious deviants had been sent about to cause unrest amongst his neighbours, both El-Telshire and Murky Markdom suffering rumblings of discontent from religious zealots who looked vaguely goat like and smelling of hamsters.

El Tel
K12 : Event :- Religious Uprising (damn nurgle heretics)

'Good News! The Nurgles, once they stop wriggling, burn quite nicely with a bluey-green flame.'

Markdom
R9 : Event :- Religious Uprising

Tristan
L4 : Mine - 750pt Civilised

Elsewhere, Tris found the fabled Treacle Mines, but had a struggle convincing the defenders that he was serious about wanting them for his own. Eventually defeating the Romanesque crowd by two falls and a knockout.

Slackbladder
A1 : River Crossing - 500pts Civilised

King Stuart Slackbladder, having been repulsed by the Nasssty Elves turned his army North East and found a river, which was also nice.

The AC
Q2 : Pasture - 500pts Orcs

In the far North East loud creakings and clankings announced the arrival of the Vincible Overlord of the Empire of the Armoured Codpiece. Cruelly attacking a colony of itinerant Orcses, the Overlord added some nice pastureland to his growing fiefdom.

Phil the Benign
K3 : Port - 500pts Elves

Phil's scouts stumbled on a big wet looking expanse, which they have decided to call a lake, wandering along the western shore they stumbled on a port. Which was nice.

Everyone else quietly got on with expanding their empires, Patrician Jimbo becoming the proud owner of a forest and Ged found some mountains quite by chance.

King Ged
I8 : Mountains - 750pts Orcs

Jimbo
G3 : Forest - Undefended

Return To Asran

2011-07-24T15:00:00.001+01:00

Same planes, same scenarios, same incompetence, different rules; as we return to Asran and Area88 after a five year gap.

New rules from Paul. Now hexagon based but still played over a large floor area this time carpeted with hex sheets. Each players planes are selected at random from a wide collection of post war jets, with the pilot having just the one random skill level. Attack and Defense are now card based, the number of cards available being determined by plane quality and pilot skill. Both sides roll to see what their scenario objectives are in secret. A good turn out for the game, 5 vs 5, with a number of the players from last time, including Kieron.

From Furness Wargamers in the Air

Attack Ground Target vs Escort Transport

We manged to do over 2/3rd damage to the Airfield, mainly due to Dave S's heroic one way trip into enemy airspace, but getting the 120pts needed was a big ask especially as a number of missiles went in stopping the enemies objective and shooting down the transport.

This was not helped by me piloting an F117, with only two missiles, no gun and a max speed about half that of the others. After firing off both missiles in consecutive turns, one at the transport that turned out to be fatal, and one at the enemy airfield, there was nothing more for me to do but turn round and head back to base.

Combat seems a lot less deadly than before where one missile hit would almost guarantee a kill. Instead it required multiple hits to take down even a weak plane, so long as the plane has at least one reasonable defense card of each type. Given that players could swap their random allocation pre-sortie, this is almost always going to be the case.

Between scenarios surviving pilots had the chance to keep their plane or swap for a new random one. Given how little punch my F117 had I decided to risk a trade and gained an F16 as a replacement, with more speed, missiles and guns. I also managed to improve my pilot skill by one thanks to the kill on the transport.

Escort Transport vs Eliminate All

Now knowing that escorting the transport is a futile mission we decided on a secondary objective as a morale booster, namely shoot down Matt. Leaving Jim and his MIG to escort the transport, the rest of the flight concentrated on approaching the enemy. Somehow, despite the concentrated fire from four aircraft, Matt managed to survive and fled, at much reduced speed due to damage, towards the map edge. At first we ignored him, thinking someone else was going to take him down. When it became obvious no one was I took on the duty and finished him off with cannon fire.

With two planes ready to launch back into the air, and my craft at the opposite end of the terrain from the enemy, it was not possible for them to met their elimination objective in the time left, so this scenario was also declared a draw.
So no one won any of the scenarios, proving that mercenary warfare is futile
¶

Nations of the Campoon

2011-07-22T22:00:00.000+01:00

From the old Furness Wargamers website, a Campoon run under the Warmaster Ancients ruleset, and played out at the Railway Club.

First posted - 06 February 2007

Being a list of the nations, and the lunatics who ran them, at the start of the Great Campoonian Landgrab.

Nation : Slackbladderian Empire
Leader : Stuart Slackbladder
Capital : C2 - Great Turnipia City
Starting Territories:
C1 : City
D2 : Town

Player : Stu
Proto-army : Goths

Nation : Empire of the Benign Dictator
Leader : Phil the Benign
Capital : L2
Starting Territories:

Player : Phil
Proto-army : Late Imperial Romans

Nation : Empire of the Armoured Codpiece
Leader :
Capital : S3 - Panzer City
b]Starting Territories:

Player : Matt
Proto-army :

Nation : Jimboland
Leader : Patrician Jimbo
Capital : S3 - Cowpens
Starting Territories:
F3 : Pass
E4 : Pasture

Player : Jim
Proto-army : Late Imperial Romans

Nation : Tristanland
Leader : King Tristan of Oswaldtwistle
Capital : L7
Starting Territories:

Player : Tristan
Proto-army : Germanic\Saxons

Nation : Kingdom of Ged
Leader : The Ged
Capital : G8 - City of Ged
Starting Territories:

Player : Ged!
Proto-army : Huns

Nation : Markdom
Leader : Mark
Capital : S8
Starting Territories:

Player : Mark
Proto-army :???

Nation : Shawland
Leader : ???
Capital : C9 - Dingle

Player : Dave S
Proto-army : Late Romans (Eastern)

Nation : Nurgledom
Leader : His Pomposity, The Nurgle
Capital : P10 - Nurgle City
Starting Territories:
O10 : Wastes
P11 : Town - Old Nurgletown

Player : Martin
Proto-army : Caledonian Scots

Nation : El-Telshire
Leader : Tel O'Malley, the Impaler
Capital : I11 - Telton
Starting Territories:
I10 - Fort
H10 - Mountain Pass
I12 - Mine

Player : Tel
Proto-army : Palmyra

Wings over Asran

2011-07-20T21:00:00.002+01:00

Another capture from the old Furness Wargamers website, and useful 'background' for our more recent jet game...

Posted Friday 14 April 2006

A civil war wages wages across the middle-eastern country of Asran and the government in desperation has been forced to bring in pilots from outside the country, the elite of which fight in the legendary Area 88...

Unfortunately because of their inexperienced our motley, but heroic, bunch of mercenary pilots are deemed not good enough to fly in Area 88, so they and their assortment of decrepit planes have been posted to Areas 86 and 87 instead.

Pilot	Nationality	Plane	Assigned to
Hertz van Wrental	Dutch	Mirage (second-hand)	Area 87
Juan Kerr	Mexican	MIG 7	Area 87
John Wayne	American	F5	Area 87
Chiggy von Richthofen	German	MIG 7	Area 86
Steve Erwin	Australian	MIG 7	Area 86
Killboy	Orkish	F5	Area 86

Sortie 1 (Area 87) - Ground Attack

Failed. Hertz van Wrental shot down, failed to eject (lucky fluffy dice caught in mechanism)

Sortie 2 (Area 86) - CAP

Success, Intruders fought off.

Erwin upgraded from MIG 7 to MIG 25

And replacements\re-enforcements arrive.

Pilot	Nationality	Plane	Assigned to
Juan Kerr	Mexican	MIG 7	Area 87
John Wayne	American	F5	Area 87
Chiggy von Richthofen	German	MIG 7	Area 86
Steve Erwin	Australian	MIG 25	Area 86
Killboy	Orkish	F5	Area 86
A. N. Other			Area 86
Arthur Chance	English	F5 (Second-Hand)	Area 87
Andrius Mooloo	Cuban	F16	Area 87

Sortie 3 (Area 87) - Escort

Mission failed - Presidents Son shot down, failed to eject. Juan Kerr shot
down, failed to eject. Andrius Mooloo shot down, ejected OK.

Sortie 4 (Area 86) - Ground Attack

Mission Successful.- Targets, SAM and AAA battery all destroyed with no loss, but friendly fire incidents did occur.

The game was based on the Fast Play Jet Combat rules converted to miniature and floor based play with additional mods for the campaign, including various random scenarios, bombs, AA and SAM and differing quality of planes and ammo making it possible to not even leave the ground!
¶

Stargate 1880

2011-07-06T23:00:00.001+01:00

More fun with modified Ogre rules, as an 'artifact' found by the British in Egypt gets transported back to England and tinkered with by amateur scientists based in a peaceful country village. Much to their surprise their messing around has a rather dramatic effect.

From Furness Wargamers from Mars

Once the ring was turned on hordes of Greenskined and Reptilian monstrosities from another world\dimension\franchise are transported through the ring and waylay the inhabitants, time to call in reinforcements from the British Home forces.

The unfortunate scientists are the first victims, as despite being mounted on camels they could not escape out of the range of the monsters breath weapon.

Soon the forces of Queen Victoria appear upon the field. The British War-engine, the very latest in Victorian engineering, taking on one of the fearsome reptiles. It was assisted by some artillery and Gatling guns and managed to extinguish the terrible flame weapon. The engine now isolated from the troops is then swarmed by mounted greenskins, who destroyed all it's remaining weaponry in turn.

Another couple of reptiles were brought through the gate, but rather than advancing they hung back and used their flames to conduct ranged attacks upon the advancing British line.

The British decide to launch a rear attack by bringing up some reserve lancers. As the lancers desperately tried to use their speed to break through to the gate and turn off the gate mechanism, the greenskins brought through their most effective giant troops to set up a wall of toughen flesh to block the enemy.

The lancers did manage to get next to the gate, but at terrible cost, managing to gain three attempts to close the gate. This included one on the very last turn played, but failed in all instances, leaving the greenskins in charge of the field.

Played with the same rules as the Falkenstein game. Both sides got regular reinforcement points to spend or store each turn, the most expensive items being the Ogre substitutes - the Warmachine and Dragons. Orcs reinforcements coming through the gate, British from any of the table edges. The Orcs were generally cheaper and weaker than the opposition
¶

Colonial Falkenstein

2011-06-29T19:20:00.006+01:00

Two teams of two fighting each other in the Africa of the world of Castle Falkenstein using modified Ogre rules. British and Egyptians vs Mahdists and Bavarians, each with their own base\resupply point. Each uncaptured hex round the base is worth 2 build\reinforcement points with the new arrivals capable of turning up on any edge of the table.

From Furness Wargamers in the Colonies

The Bavarians with their infernal machine marched out to meet the British but were soon distracted.

The Bavarian base was surrounded by newly arrived Egyptian cavalry, denying them build points and forcing the existing force to turn around and relieve their own base. The Egyptians could hit the base quickly due to the 'build rules' allowing for troop to appear at any edge of the board.

The Mahdists then went into horde mode themselves as swarms of low valued troops swamped the British and Egyptian bases in return. There was little action in the centre as everyone was now busy around there own bases.

With the outlying area of their base recaptured the British decided to form hexagon around it with the new arrivals, relying on the existing forces in the field to harass the enemy.

So the British Lancers managed to save the day for a change as the two remaining units camped at the Mahdist base as the rest sacrificed themselves as road bumps to slow the Mahdists, and taking the decisive victory points away from the opposition.

¶

Phalanx 2011

2011-06-28T23:00:00.001+01:00

(A belated report on Phalanx Show)

Re-run of the Trafalgar game down at the Phalanx Show in St Helens. The journey down was good with the forcasted monsoon for the morning failing to appear.

The request for a big table had been granted and all four Hotz hex mats were in use. Matt had driven down early and had the game nearly set up. The rules had been tweaked to make firing at rigging more effective (but this was basically unused during game) plus a new critical hit rule for when 50% or more of shots hit.

From Phalanx

Martin had tried the spoiler tactic again of going bumper to bumper with the French and Spanish ships to prevent line breaking, so the Brits just sailed up the line and started blasting away. Seemed to work well, with the highlight being an attempt to board the entangled Victory going badly wrong and wiping out the entire crew of the French ship for the loss of one British Marine. The Allied Van had turned around but were ineffective as the increasingly junked allied line screened the British ships from them.

Things started to fragment towards the end as players started wandering off and people getting stuck at the busy Bring and Buy. By 3.30 everyone, including us, was packing up. Unlike previous years though, all the stuff could fit in one large bag and not take up an entire car.

A number of very good games going on, unfortunately my photos are a bit naff and don't do them the justice they deserved. Wish the lighting in the hall didn't tinge everything orange, the games end up looking like the armies of Dale Winton vs David Dickinson.

Didn't buy too much for myself during the show, a couple of copies of Battlegames (but now missing a couple of issues as the stockists didn't bring any back issues like they use to do.), a couple of 'colonial' rulesets - 'The Gatling's Jammed!' by Partizan Press from the Caliver Books stand, and 'Martian Empires' by Oozlum Games, plus a handful of 15mm Colonial figures off the Irregular Miniatures stall. Managed to avoid buying a Wings of War Deluxe set despite drooling over a copy.
¶

Dread Zeppelin

2011-06-22T23:00:00.000+01:00

This week at the club saw the re-appearance of Dave S. after a long absence, plus Paul carrying a rather large box. This turned out to be a model of the L10 Zeppelin, famous for it's bombing raid on the North-East.

This game was last played at the club in 2002, with Graeme, a previous participant, telling people of the various disastrous antics of that time and not exactly giving the current participants a feeling of hope. The large number of charts that were handed to us was also a worry.

I ended up playing the Flight Engineer, responsible for the beast's four Maybach engines and the instruments. The Kaptain was Mark, Dave S was 1st Officer, Tony as Chief Gunner. Character Sheets and Skill Checks are loosely based on the Call of Cthulhu system.

From Furness Wargamers in the Air

Setting off at dusk from it's coastal base the Zeppelin travelled away from the enemy lines as it started to rise up to it's operating level amongst the clouds in the night sky. The engines were powered up to a reasonable level, still well away from the red danger sections on the gauges. At this level it should of provided the craft with a speed of 60 knots.

failure to use cloud cover wisely, with the Zep constantly below it.

Guessing that we were nearing the English coast, the Zep ducked below the clouds to get it's bearings, with the observation gondola, inhabited by Tony's character, still hung below it,

What it did see was a set of dim lights and then some flashes as the warship below started firing at us. Climbing back up into the relative safety of the clouds, it was decided to break radio silence to attempt an radio location as with our detection by the ship there was little to lose.

This gave the surprising result that we were still in the middle of the North Sea and not near the Norfolk coast as expected from the captain's navigation plots. He had apparently already taken the effects of wind speed into account so we check all the instruments to make sure that they were functioning properly and set off again. We reasoned that despite our transmissions being picked up by the enemy that they would presume we were a naval airship patrol and not guess our true mission.

By now the gondola had slowly been winched back in, only to display a severed cable and one missing gondola\gunner, Tony's character now bobbing 2000 metres below in a freezing cold North Sea. With no real hope of rescuing him we carried on in the clouds for the coast.

A second Radio location afew hours later saw us now located too far in land, in fact over Cambridge! Plus we ended up getting buzzed by a enemy plane which we managed to shoot down but not before it did some damage to the gasbags. Fortunately we were able to patch up the leaks before too much gas was lost.

Finally managed to reach London and conducted a bombing run across the city and caused a reasonable amount of damage with the various sizes of bombs and incendiaries, before another fighter attack succeeded in puncturing the leading gasbags, which ignited and sent the giant airship and it's crew plummeting to the ground below.
¶

Two Rivers - part 2

2011-06-15T23:00:00.002+01:00

The mini campaign continues, and reaches its conclusion, as the opposing forces rush to the vital bridges.

Two crucial battles fought during the club night, both occurring in consecutive map turns and at opposite ends of the map.

From Furness Wargamers in Trenches

The first occurs at Bogel, where a small force of Germans, One company and a Cavalry Squadron are trying to catch up and stop the Russians from taking Bridge A. Without the weight of numbers to launch a serious attack the Germans were easily repulsed, and the Russians continue onto the bridge next turn.

The second was the decisive battle for Bridge C, as the retreating Russian forces from the battle outside combine with the force holding the bridge. The oncoming Germans represent the bulk of the force that started the campaign, three companies reinforced with Heavy weapons and two 77mm guns. The Jagers had been detached to seize Bridge B.

The Germans advanced behind a stone wall in the centre, supported by artillery fire. The Russians launched an assault on the centre, successfully removing a German platoon, but leaving themselves vulnerable to counterfire from an MG and multiple rifle platoons.

With German MGs now covering major sections of the field and artillery still raining down the Russians decided to cut their losses and retreat over the bridge, leaving it in enemy hands.

With no major forces within striking distance of each other within the two remaining map moves the campaign was concluded with both sides achieving their objectives.

Now that the campaign is over I can now reveal that the Germans were aware of the Russian objectives early on as a copy of the campaign orders had been left on the battlefield during the very first cavalry encounter of the campaign, and where German Spy Mata Teli could clearly see the Russian objectives.

German Campaign orders

The campaign worked well with a tight but reasonable time frame to get things done. Could may be of done with another couple of companies on each side to allow for a bit more cover for the rear areas, especially given the multiple routes across country that were available. Also maybe an appearance of the Armoured Cars for both sides could of made things interesting. Everybody was expecting them to turn up as in past battles but they never did.
¶

Two Rivers - part 1

2011-06-08T23:00:00.003+01:00

A mini campaign using the Warhammer Great War rules to resolve combat, as Germany and Russia fight over Poland at the start of The Great War prior to things getting too bogged down in static positions.

Paul, Tel and Matt as the Honourable Prussians verses the Barbaric Russians of Mark and Tony.

The Germans have forced a river crossing and have piled troops across the river during the night to try and secure the area between the two rivers during the following day. (Exact mission details are currently classified as the campaign is still on going)

From Furness Wargamers in Trenches

The day is twelve map turns\hours long, with up to 10 battle turns per hour. Typical nodal movement but on an asymmetric map which makes map traversal and selection of defensive positions more interesting. There is a 50% chance after battle that each individual removed will return to their unit.

The first fight of the day was between two cavalry squadrons, each of two troops. The German cavalry had previously encountered an infantry force taking an off-road southern route and had attempted to go round them, only to run into an equal force of Russians; both decided to attack.

The German held their ground and used from their carbines to whittle away at one of the Russian troops, which in return charged in but with little effect. The resultant melee saw the Russians removed from the field. The remaining troop suffered a similar fate, being fired upon by one troop as the other troop charged in after making a good elan roll to get the bonus movement necessary to make contact.

I

The Germans pursued the Russians all the way to Bridge C which was shown to be defended by at least a company of Russian infantry.

The big battle of the day was to occur just to the east of Lickspitl, as a large German force assaulted a company of Russians supported by dug in artillery and machine guns. The Russians came off worse in the artillery duel despite getting in the first salvo.

Now badly outnumbered and facing a pounding from the German 77mm artillery the Russians decided to retreat off the field, and in the next couple of hours marched through Lockjaw towards Bridge C, with the Germans close behind.

The day is over half way through and both sides have forces approaching opposing bridges. The campaign should, with luck, be completed next week.
¶

www.FurnessWargamers.org

2011-06-07T23:45:00.000+01:00

Furness Wargamers have finally got a new blog based website, after the old .uk domain one disappeared a while back. A few of the recent members had asked about our web presence as they had done a search on the web for info only to get the holding page for the domain.

Furness Wargamers

The site is now set up and the domain registered with Google Apps.

Also a message board has been set up using google groups (furness-wargamers@googlegroups.org)

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Sherlock and The Mob

2011-05-22T14:00:00.001+01:00

Played a couple of my non collectible card games at the Club on Tuesday, firstly a game of Family Business and then Sherlock Holmes Card Game, both classics from the eighties and nineties.

At least Family Biz managed to get a reprint and new edition, Sherlock hasn't been available for over a decade despite being a classic. Have started using Card protectors on my copy as the wear on the back of the cards make it pretty obvious who the bad guys are. The use of the original Sidney Paget illustrations on the cards was a master stroke.

The other players, Tristan, Mark and Simon, none of whom had ever played either of these games, enjoyed both of these classic old school games, both of which were using simplistic rules long before the 'euro-game' dominance of the gaming scene.

Tristan became the head mobster by keeping a low profile after the rest of us wiped each other out, and I never did get to play the St Valentine's Day Massacre despite having the card in my hand all game.

Managed to get five rounds of Sherlock in. Tristan taking the lead in the final round after a capture of Moriarty. Tristan 77pts, Mark 102, Simon 168, Tel 229 - low score is better. My score wasn't helped by being caught with the villain three times!

Also in my now venerable game box was a series of score sheets from the early 90's (and one with an actual date - May 93!) featuring the former gaming regulars of the Furness Warlords group such as Hopper, Ray, John, Lee, Gareth, Rob M and Dave Y.
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Dead Again

2011-05-15T18:00:00.001+01:00

The Urban Dead online game has finally left the doldrums! The balance of power has shifted in Malton and, according to the stats page, the zombies now outnumber the living by 4:1.

The cause of this shift? The Dead have returned after having launched an invasion a few years ago, organised by the Something Awful forum in early 2008 as an attempt to ruin the game. Apparently they are at it again, The Dead have returned.

The first invasion was a big one, but was, in my opinion, one of the best times to play the game as it had a real apocalyptic feel to it, what with hiding and sleeping in ruins, because all the 'safehouses' were overrun and ruined. There was real difficulty in finding vital resources such as first aid kits and revivification syringes until Kevan, the game's designer, tweaked the search rates and sort of spoilt things. I feel too many people are stuck in their comfort zones in the game; and the furries that occasionally pop-up in Malton Zoo are even stranger than the idea of a zombie Apocalypse so kudos to the Dead for hunting them.

A certain amount of revisionist history in the linked forum thread above, as they didn't come close to their intent of trashing the game the first time round; ruined buildings always were viable locations for searching and living in, it's just that the standard survivor is afraid to use them and prefer huddling together with the lights on waiting to get eaten. Also those who whinged about being dead (lowercase) are probably without friends to priority revive them. The original Dead had a good rampage, trashed the place big style and then things went quite, with only around 10% of invaders carrying on; This still made them the biggest single group in Malton.

Unfortunately, regardless of the current record ratio, the numbers are not currently as much as last time and despite the Danger Map on the wiki being mostly red (for zombie controlled) or grey (ghost town - few zeds or survivors) the humans are still holding out, they just can't hang around one spot too long. Time for the old 'river tactics' of ducking and diving behind the zombie 'wavefront'. Thankfully the actually density of the zeds compared to map locations is low enough to make hiding possible. The 10000 locations in the game (more if you include inside of buildings as distinct) are too much for even the 1500 members of The Dead to cover.

Update: (22 May) The maps slowly changing to a more friendly colour, less Red and more Orange, but not in the area I'm currently camped. Kevan has tweaked the search percentages again so very easy to find first aid kits and revive syringes. My group is currently trying to set up a series of decoy repaired buildings to distract the zombies a bit and continues to work on the still long revive queues.
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In The Air

2011-05-10T23:20:00.001+01:00

Played some games of Wings of War at the club as nothing else to do. Choose to play a basic free for all given the uneven numbers of players. Single seaters only, with free choice of planes. Managed to win the first two sorties but was first down in the third and final one.

Elsewhere Graeme was demoing the new Cutlass rules, from Black Scorpion, in another three way battle.
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Ring Hordes

2011-05-04T21:00:00.002+01:00

A Middle-Earth based game of Hordes of the Things, as the Rohirrim face off against a force of Orcs and Easterlings defending a stronghold. I controlled the Rohir force on the right, matched up against the Easterlings, and also got to roll the command dice for both commands, which I preceded to do badly. Forces supplied by Matt and Dave M.

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies

On my flank the opposing forces was almost a match in compositions, with equal amounts of Knights, Spears and Archers. There was no hope of outflanking the opposition straight off, so everybody just clashed into each other.

On the right it was an almost deadlock, but with the Orcs slowly pushing the Rohir back. Neither units were coming close to breaking but the Rohir was starting to run out of table to retreat to. A small force of cavalry had broken off and headed towards the bad guys stronghold.

Finally I managed to get into a flanking position after having my flank threaten itself, and with the help of my hero destroyed the unit via push back. At this point both side were about 1 unit away from the breakpoint, and this forced them over, but it could of gone either way.

The Rohir eventually managed to get the couple of units of knights up to the stronghold, but didn't have much luck attacking it initially. Finally after a number of turns it fell. With a command gone, and the remaining command getting hit to the rear and flank the game was over for the bad guys.
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St George's Trafalgar

2011-04-25T20:50:00.004+01:00

The all day Trafalgar Game to celebrate St George's Day. All ships supplied and painted by Matt, along with his home-brew rules, a cross-breed of Wooden Ships and Iron Men and a bucket of dice.

Admiral Telson commands the British as they engage the joint French and Spanish force commanded by Martin (Admiral Villeneuve) off the coast of Spain.

From St George's Trafalgar

Colin was Admiral of the Vice Colinwood, and was the first to break the enemy line, mainly because the advanced ships decided run to avoid the incoming Victory lead column. Despite taking substantial damage and soon the area is totally snarled up with wrecks and struck ships. This is despite many of the tail ships of the column not getting to see much action.

Phil was in command of the Allied Van, attempting to turn around across the wind to help. In charge of the rear was Tony, as Admiral Don Gravina, having to deal with the full brunt of Colin's attack.

HMS Africa, the lone ship of Matt's command (the frigates that accompanied her in the actual battle being ignored here), faced off against seven ships and did commendable work in delaying them, but eventually had to succumb to the overwhelming fire power. This lead to the situation where the British now only had two commands verses the enemies three, so even when the British win initiative the enemy gets to move at least one section last.

The rear section of 'Nelsons column', now commanded by late turn up Kieron, finally caught up with the lead after taking the risk of putting up full sail and entered the fray. They had made good use of the delay by double shoting all cannons, and proceeded to bow and stern rake the ensnared opposition to devastating effect.

After the sixth hour of the game the table is a lot less neater than at the start.

This is the pile up at the end of the game, with 14 French\Spanish ships sinking or struck. A few of the British ships, including the Temeraire and the Leviathan were also starting to strike after being trapped by elements of the Van, who ahistorically actually managed to get into combat.

HMS Victory ended up in much better condition than the real battle, shots were bouncing off it all through the game, despite being at close range of the enemy, the French ship Neptune in particular, for most of the action. A few spots of paint and it'll be as good as new.

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Sea Trials

2011-04-20T22:00:00.002+01:00

A trial run of Matt's once again heavily modified quick play rules; This being the final trial before Saturday's big St George's Day Trafalgar game.

A small encounter to try things out. Three British ships with Crack crew vs Four French, 3 74 gunners and a 80 gun, all with Average crews. Played over two partial Hex mats (The full game will be over four of these Hotz produced mats)

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

The British were causing significant damage when they managed to hit, but this damage was spread evenly over the four opponents. The French had concentrated on the lead ship and also managed to cross the line and launch simultaneous Stern and Bow rakes on the Britannia; which caused no end of damage and greatly reduced her ability to strike back.

With one ship sinking and the flagship Britannia failing it morale role and striking, the encounter was effectively over within one and a half hours. It'll be interesting to see what sort of time scale it'll take on Saturday with the full complement of ships.

Afterwards managed to get a partial game of Battletech, as one of the regulars left early feeling unwell and I was asked to take over. And Lo and Behold... It's Norbert McVitie, now with the moniker of 'Conehead' due to his behavior at parties\formal functions, in his Vindicator.

The opposing force appeared to be made up of mostly Ray's loaned mechs, including a couple of Dragons leading them to heavily out weigh the engaging lance.
With the help of a lucky critical causing long shot on the Red Dragon, we managed to force a surrender and achieve the objective of capturing one of these mechs for analysis. The encounter also pushed Norbert over the 3000xp mark, making him a regular pilot, and enabling him to go down to 0 piloting, +1 gunning.

Martin wanted to expand the Aerotech capability of the unit, so a couple of extra pilot characters were rolled up. At the same time I created a support character for the unit, a medic by the name of Dr Elbert Strukov. Using the classic Mechwarrior rules it took a matter of minutes to create the character. Got a feeling that it would take much, much longer using the newer 'A Time of War' RPG.
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Raymondo Returns

2011-04-15T23:00:00.004+01:00

After much cajoling by me over a number of weekends Ray finally decided to show his face at the Tueday club, probably for the first time in over a decade.

Ray had a chat with Martin about Battletech, plus a natter with Jim and Graeme, the surviving old timers from Ray's original time at the club back in the 80's and 90's.

Ray is kindly loaning his small collection of Mech's, all around 20 years old, to the Club, for use by the regular Battletech group. A large number of the minis are Griffins his favourite type of Mech. Currently in my keeping as we're not sure that keeping a collection of mostly pro-painted Unseens in an normally unlocked cellar is a good idea. A bit of a pain having to transport them every week, but better than running the risk of having them lifted\used as toys.

I took part in another couple of races of Formula D. Firstly a full race on the default Monaco circuit. Managed to put in a storming second lap after not stopping to pit at the end of the first lap; which Colin did not manage to complete after the car fell apart on him after a number of 'accidental' collisions.

My lead was so commanding, principally due to hitting all the corners nearly perfectly and so not needing to pit at the end of the second lap, that the race was called early as the other remaining cars crossed the finish at the end of that lap. Don't think I've ever driven a better\luckier race than this despite playing in many 'championships' with Ray, Jon and Ian.

A single lap of the basic street circuit followed, and people seemed overly concerned with the sniper, preferring to enter the following corner at breakneck speed than risk being shot. Came in second behind Craig, Colin once again becoming a cropper in the demo derby.

Was a bit surprised that Martin the ACW buff didn't have a game prepared given that it was the 150th anniversary of the opening shots at Charleston Harbor.
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BattleToys

2011-04-11T23:00:00.003+01:00

Obtained the new "Battletech 25th Anniversary Box set", the release of which is running a few years late due to various shenanigans, including attempts to bring the 'unseen' back and some dodgy in house dealing.

Decided to take the plunge after reading a number of decent reviews on it (Armchair General , A Wargaming Odyssey) . Contents are first rate and generally high quality, and the pricing was reasonable given how packed and hefty the box was. With the prices for a lot of boardgames kicking off at £50, then the £34 I paid is a steal, and that is from my regular supplier rather than bargain hunting.

The artwork on the maps appear to be slightly adjusted from the classic maps, but I would of thought that they would of the opportunity to blend in the tones and edges of the different maps a bit better. Placing two maps side by side still leaves a bit of a discontinuity as its hard to imagine the layout as a single battlefield. Also the terrain seem to be more 'out of focus'.

There is also a road heavy map, and it really is road heavy with around 30% of the hexes being paved. Despite the high level ground scale I find it hard to believe that such a layout would exist in a non-urban environment, if your going to build roads over hills as well as round them then there should be a good rational for doing so.

Also got the Munchkinomicon expansion for Munchkin, and I muchhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif prefer these small fixed boosters to the larger expansions, even if your not getting the same 'value for money' from the smaller decks. Not too many additional rules, and simple if silly cards.

I've now separated out the expansion cards from the original deck as I feel that the cards and variations were just too much. May start adding them back in a more tailored deck approach. Although probably better fitting in with Munchkin Cthulhu, this should slot into a standard game perfectly, though how it will sit with the Santa and Fairy Dust expansions I don't know, but that sort of weirdness is to be expected of Munchkin.
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Singapore Sling

2011-03-29T23:35:00.008+01:00

Martin was missing so a lot of idle (i.e. more idle than normal) Battletech players hanging around. So the old favourite Formula D(e) got rolled out.

A new map set bought on the cheap by Craig, Singapore GP circuit and a Docks street race circuit.

The randomly allocated car\driver I received can only be described as a bit strange, a manga style oriental female, with furry animal ears, and a special ability to distract overtaking drivers!

On the docks map I couldn't really see the point of the Container sections as it does little to affect the paths, the oil section also seemed a bit weak, with only a slight chance of damage from it, and no chance of slides like you might expect. Also the entire circuit, except for a short dual carriageway section, never gets below three car widths so there very few bottleneck opportunities.

An element of confusion as to which was the proper order of the three circuits so the decision was that after the first lap, the other two could be taken in either order, this caused the field to split in two, which made the track uncongested so few collision and blocking opportunities, it was a straight speed race.

Messed up getting first by mis-positioning myself on the penultimate corner forcing a gear drop that cost me on the home straight as Craig, coming off the fast middle circuit at high gear flew past to take the flag.

Raced the more conventional Singapore circuit with the same street cars. This ended up a two lap race due to time constraints. Starting from third I stalled on the line and a string of minimum dice rolls saw me trailing behind everyone. Managed to start reeling them in, and ended up doing a demo derby job on an opponent, who due to bad luck lost all his bodywork less than halfway round the first lap. This sped up the game quite a bit!

Craig ended up just missing the last corner, leaving me clear in a higher gear, so I finally managed to win one. Colin limped into third place in first gear, after wearing all his tyres and brakes out.
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Furness Facebook Wargamers

2011-03-26T23:00:00.002Z

The Furness Wargamers website has bitten the dust recently.

Welshy, the web designer who set up the original site has been trying to get a replacement up and running, but given his dislocation around the country it's a bit unfair to expect him to get it done.

So the Clubs web presence is pretty limited at the moment, basically consisting of the Furness Wargamers Facebook Group, which doesn't have much activity at all on it, so not dissimilar to the original FW forum, that slowly petered out after a decent start.

There seems to be an healthy gaming community up in Ulverston judging by the Ulverston Gamers group. At least the all to brief existence of the Jabberwocky shop seems to of left some sort of gaming legacy. Plenty of members signed up to the group but not much actual activity, this seems to be true for Gaming Clubs web sites the world over, regardless of the age range of the participants .

Also new to the blogging world is 6Sided, a new dedicated wargames blog site. I'm going to use it as an archive site for my existing material. The new blog is called Tel's Athenaeum to reflect it's dusty archive status. Already had teething troubles trying to import from Blogger, so used my now outdated Wordpress Blog as a source for import.
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Osprey Adowa Book

2011-03-13T16:00:00.001Z

A new Osprey Men-At-Arms book on the Italian Abysinian campaign is currently being written by Sean McLachlan

Some Blog entries on the research process...
Ethiopia
Italy

It also available for pre-order from Amazon and due for release in September 2011.

While nice to get an Osprey directly on the subject, and with the much needed illustrations by Raffaele Ruggeri assured to be good, it remains to be seen if any new\accurate information comes to light on the campaign or battle or whether it'll be a plain old rehash of Augustus Wylde's second-hand account.

Trying to trace a resource that doesn't track back to the now de-facto standard account of Wylde, or the hysterical contemporary news reports, is nearly impossible. With luck both his overseas visits will have dug up some fresh information on this little known war.
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Diet 2 Night

2011-03-12T23:00:00.002Z

Got suckered into playing another online Zombie game after seeing an advert on the Urban Dead login page.

Die2Nite is very different to UD in that you are humans who are facing an inevitable demise in a small desert community (each isolated town only has a population of 40). The goal is to survive as many nights there as possible, each night more zombies attack, and it is a race to find and use a limited amount of resources to build more defenses. Once your zombie food your soul moves to another town and you hope you can do better.

It is apparently an adaptation of an existing french site, which might explain some of the strange selection of objects available and some of their unusual uses. Unlike a lot of games it actually comes with decent tutorials and a wiki.

There are achievements that can be obtained, some automatically just by surviving or dieing. I've already manage to obtain the cannibal one, well you've to eat haven't you! It's currently free to play, but like a lot of games you can get bonuses by coughing up some money.

Still visiting the Urban Dead game, but not much is happening and if any thing the survivors now clearly have the upper hand in an increasingly thinning active population, so it's boring playing a human and futile playing as a zombie.
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Roman Clash

2011-03-10T22:00:00.004Z

Another muti-player Impetus game, this time between two patriarchal Roman forces.

Boniface vs Aetius at Ariminum.

From Furness Wargamers with Spears

The leaders both lined up amoungst the cavalry on opposite flanks so no direct contact between them was going to happen.

The dicing for initiative cost us badly, twice we missed potential game wining opportunities in sucessive turns by failing to win it for our commands. Even Phil, one of the opponents expressed the opinion that the game was pretty much decided by these dice.

The evasion of the light cavalry continued to be a problem all through the game, the archery from them being extremely disruptive to us.
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Cross Road Blues

2011-02-24T22:00:00.003Z

A bit early for Robert Johnson, as two early Great War forces clash. 1914 French and Germans close upon the ruins of a small hamlet based at the crossroads.

From Furness Wargamers in Trenches

The Germans set up their heavy Machine Gun in a nice position to dominate and secure their left flank, plus be in a position to fire into the hamlet. Fire from this almost instantly destroyed a French squad and forced the rest of the opposing forces on that flank into cover.

The French instead concentrated in pushing up the road to the hamlet and then setting their MGs up in the ruins.

The French took advantage of an house rule where an MG can be re-crewed once loses were taken, by lining up a section of infantry behind them in cover. The guns became virtually indestructible. At least the house rule where HMG's can be moved after deployment didn't seem to be in use.

The German right flank got pinned down and gradually eroded. The left pushed into half of the town, but any attempt to knock out the super MGs failed.

I don't like the constant mod-ing of the MG rules as I feel the original rules cover their operations perfectly well. They are advanced bits of equipment not for lugging around 'Arnie style' and although might continue working for a short while in unskilled hands will soon fail.
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Full Company

2011-02-10T23:50:00.001Z

A large Company vs Company game, about three times bigger than a standard Lance on Lance game. Fought over two maps.

The traditional 'Conga line' soon occurred. With kicks and punches doing more damage than the weapons.

From Furness Wargamers in the Future

The Dam started to look a bit dodgy but didn't give way, and no one shot at it to try and help it on its way.

There was no way that the game could be completed in a single night, so it'll be finish on another night, and with the promise of air support to liven things up.
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Colonial Ogre

2011-01-20T23:30:00.005Z

A Colonial game but with a difference as it was played using a modification of the Ogre rules. These have been tweaked by Paul since the last attempt as using them to give a more traditional Colonial flavour.

Typical Sudan game, hordes of Ansar and Hadendoa verses British, Egyptian and Sudanese.Paul and Tony are Imperialists and their lackeys. The two Dave's heroic Mahdists and coastal allies.

From Furness Wargamers in the Colonies

An early decision was made to keep well away from the British regulars and concentrate both forces on the Egyptian and Sudanese.

The British were unduly afraid of a rather weak cavalry\camelry force that were sent around their flanks to hide out of site round a hill. The main body of the Hadowana instead took to wandering to the left towards the Egyptians, and ignoring the Imperials.

Despite the joint attack on the Egyptian troops not being perfectly synchronised the weight of numbers eventually told as units became increasingly isolated. The British were kept busy by the Camelry who finally manage to spring an attack upon them to help delay them from reinforcing their beleaguered colleagues.
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Late Roman Report

2010-12-05T16:30:00.002Z

A bit belated but someone other than the Furness Wargamers enjoyed this years game at Phalanx.

While doing a google image search I came across an overhead shot of the game that links back to a show report from Gareth Wood. Did a search in the period after Phalanx but never picked this one up.

Phalanx is on Saturday 18th June 2011 next year. Hopefully it wont be snowing then. Had to cancel my planned trip down to Pudsey on Saturday for the Recon Show due to the bad weather.
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Suprise Attack

2010-11-25T23:00:00.002Z

Bit of a shock at the Games Night as I was asked to GM a game of Battletech as Martin, the GM of the ongoing campaign, was bust elsewhere for the first part of the night.

My main worries was if there was any major differences between the more recent rulebooks and Martin's colection of classic material, and trying to study the mech sheets to work out optimum ranges and heat usages for the variety of Mechs. It's a lot harder than running a single one, and the old style mech sheets are not as helpful for weapon and heat info as the newer ones are.

Before going to his meeting Martin gave each player their own secret 'special' objective. Turns out at the end of the night most of these fall into the silly category, such as making sure the bases vile canteen gets destroyed.

The space mercs hired by the government of the local planet of continue to advance upon the Lyran base, in what has now become a three way political situation. The encroaching asked the Lyrans to vacate the area or be removed by force. Naturally enough the characters, like the good Stenier puppets they are, decided to fight rather than give in and managed to get their Mechs quickly out of the base without standing on too many Nissen Huts.

An even tonnage fight, but with the being given flat piloting and gunnery to make my life easier, but with no bonus to initiative rolls. My 5 Mechs vs the 6 of the Lyrans, so the maneuver advantage should always be with the characters. An Atlas, 2 OSTROCS, Wolverine and another mech.

Both forces unusually closed rapidly upon each other, and most of the action was to occur upon the classic starter map rather than the built up map of the base. One of the Lyran Mechs broke the first rule of how not to be seen, and stood out in the open, for a number of my mechs to fire at it, at their optimum range. The others had wisely hid behind woodlands and hills to gain cover bonuses.

Both Mechs standing toe to toe had taken 20+ hits, the Lyran Mech now looking in a bad way. But it did manage it's piloting roll to remain upright, as opposed to the opposing Mech, which fell over and managed to land on it's head for 5 damage and knocking the pilot unconscious. Given the amount of heat it was venting this wasn't too critical, and the opposing Mechs, being in the most parts noble, refused to shoot a Mech when it's down inactive.

The medium Mechs then spent a few turns trading fire with each other, as a Lyran Light tried to work its way round to a flank position.

The Atlas was firing its load off and its heat level was slowly rising. A sneaky flamer from the opposition gave it two heat to push it into possible shutdown zone, but it made its roll ok. What it did not make was it's piloting roll for taking 20 damage from PPC and laser hits, and it, like its companion earlier, also toppled to the ground.

At this point Martin managed to get out of his meeting and retook control of the situation. Eventually the battle petered out to a stalemate as the damage on both sides mounted up.
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Busy Busy

2010-11-07T14:00:00.001Z

Been a bit busy over the last month or so, hence there's currently no posts in October. Hopefully I'll be able to do catch up for this period as I still have pictures and half written posts for most weeks.
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Rapid Retreat

2010-10-26T23:50:00.001+01:00

A quick game of Rapid Fire. Tanks and Armoured Cars only in mid-war North Africa. Even number of vehicles on each side in what should of been a balanced encounter.

Couldn't hit anything at all the first couple of turns, and 2/3rds of my A/Cs were destroyed or forced to retreat. My misses were despite of forgetting to take movement to-hit factors into account.

Things didn't improve over the next few turns, despite the Germans having some difficulties against the British Heavy Tanks.

So the British retired off the field while the Germans regrouped.

Intended to be a multi-players demo game for some scouts, I wouldn't like to be the ones who get control of the Cars!
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At Sea

2010-10-13T23:00:00.003+01:00

Another small demo of Napleonic naval power, as Matt considers using Paul's set of 19th Century naval rules, as last used for the Ironclad Battle of Lissa (and not the smaller Napoleonic era one), to do next years planned Trafalgar game.

Usual scenario, a larger French force vs a smaller but better crewed British one.

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

We left Paul to single-handedly (like a pirate?) deal with Matt's squadron as we picked, two to one, upon the weaker British squadron in the hopes of a quick victory.

The British just managed to inflict the break point damage first, the French were only about one decent broadside from achieving the same so the scenario appeared to be well balanced.
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In the 'Loft

2010-09-30T22:00:00.000+01:00

Played a couple of games of Castle Ravenloft, a collaborative tile exploration game based on Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition rules and the associated traits and powers of the system.

A fun, relatively quick to play dungeon raid game. A big box game with high quality components including plastic minatures and thick, glossy, cardboard tiles. The Monsters provided are mostly undead types, which fits in nicely with the classic Ravenloft theme.

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies

Only 1st and 2nd level characters available, and almost like the 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons Miniature games in terms of the stat cards for the players and monsters. The tiles are similar designs and style to the game boards for the RPG but with Jigsaw edges making direct compatibility difficult. The figures look to be taken from the miniature game as well, I'm sure that the Kobold figures could be a version of the legendary Meepo.

Movement is a mixture of by squares for characters and by tiles for Monsters. A number of monsters have particularly nasty attacks in certain positional situations, such as spiders web attack from a tile away. As per the later version of the miniatures game any attempt at a semi-accurate orthogonal movement system has been kicked out, and it is just as easy to go diagonal as straight ahead; which something I don't really like.

Old timers were grumbling about the new roll to hit Magic Missiles, it's not very magical if they can miss.

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Beasts of the Air

2010-09-24T19:20:00.000+01:00

A multi player game of Wings of War took place as I finally get to use the multi-engine Bombers from Flight of the Giants.

A simple warm up game with just fighters, to get a new player familiarised with the game, was followed by what the rulebook describes as a 'Stop Them' scenario.

From Furness Wargamers in the Air

2 Zeppelin Staakens, the biggest craft in the set with seven crew members, vs 4 allied fighters, 2 British and 1 French and 1 American. The bombers mission was simple, traverse across the board and avoid being shot down by the approaching fighters.

The bombers stayed in formation to give each other covering fire, as the allied initially split fire on the approach to the craft. This soon switched to concentrating on the rearmost plane, but meant inevitably taking a lot of damage from the rear arc gunners.

Colin, who was in charge of both bombers, did jink a bit to keep the fighters in the much more damaging rear arcs, and to stop the attackers from exploiting the rear blind spots. But this forced him towards the edge of the board, and when the picked upon rear craft went down, the other turned and exited the board from the side.

So one giant down, the other chased off, for the loss of two (non-British) fighters, and with heavy damage all round.

This was followed by an actual bombing mission, as an allied seaplane and escort attempted to bomb an inland target against the opposition of 3 central Power fighters. Two of the defenders came in too fast and overshot the seaplane, meaning they had to turn and play catch up as the plane started its run on the target. The 3rd defender got in a good position, but was stuck in the rear arcs of the bomber and in close range of the escort fighter (controlled by myself) and ended up shot to pieces in a single round.

Unfortunately the bomb drop was mistimed and failed to hit the target despite the clear run on target. Bombing from height is quite hard to judge and the bombs fell just long of the target card.
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Flyboys

2010-09-16T21:20:00.000+01:00

Quite a variety of games going on tonight.

I managed to play a couple of Wings of War games with Tony, who despite never playing the game before soon picked up the tactic. Avoided using the altitude rules as for new players and single head-to-head games I find it redundant. Altitude is best used for 'furballs' with 6-8 planes involved. Didn't get the chance to use my newly purchased 'Flight of the Giants' expansion yet.

From Furness Wargamers in the Air

Other games going on...

Graeme was controlling a game of Flintloque between Colin and Matt. Orcs of Albion vs Elves of Armorica.

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies

Paul had a multi-player Gundam game in full swing, with Keiron, Baldy, Simon and co. Unusually for Paul this had a printed set of rules! but there was enough scribbling in the margins to suggest it had been tinkered with.

From Furness Wargamers in the Future

Martin and Tristam were Battleteching, and the 40Kers and Rogue Traders were at it elsewhere in the hall.

Mech Scrap

2010-09-09T22:00:00.002+01:00

A game of Battletech, run by Martin, as Keiron rolls back into town. And a chance to finally use Norbert McVitie in action (despite Martin initally trying to hand his sheet to someone else). A raiding party, amazingly of exactly the same tonnage as our 5 Mech Lance, is entering the territory near our base. Keron, Baldy, Simon, Tristan and myself vs Martin.

From Furness Wargamers in the Future

Baldy commenced his usual heroic\foolish charge across the battlefield and managed to take numerous hits before landing a fluky critical when in close combat with the opposing Mech.

This didn't help much with the juggernaut that was an Atlas bearing down on us. It was left to lance leader Keiron and myself to try and deal with it while keeping a couple of smaller Mechs occupied as well.

The battle with the Atlas took a turn for the worse as we allowed it to get too close which negated our LRMs by getting with their minimum range. Add to that the fact that my Trebuchet was non-jump capable, so with no easy way to escape out of the rough terrain, left me in a sticky situation. Repeated hits to only two locations, Left Arm and Right Leg, soon saw internal damage on my Mech, followed by a critical hit, from transferred damage, on the Left Torso and ammo storage causing the Mech to blow up. Thankfully the ejection device worked OK.

Colin, initially busy commanding some Rats against Graeme's Toads in a game of Flintloque, the fantasy Napoleonic era skirmish game, was quite happy later on to sit and watch Keiron rack up the experience points for his hijacked character. He finally took out the damaged Atlas in hand to hand, or more accurately Foot to Head, combat. And with the big guy out of the way, the other rival Mechs did a runner.
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Rike Stuff

2010-09-01T23:40:00.004+01:00

A couple of games of Svea Rike as the club, still low in numbers due to the holidays, found itself exiled down below as the main hall was laid out for 'Out of Africa' kids activities.

First game was fairly standard, with a new player learning the ropes, and a number of successful battles against the foreigners. I manged to pick up a few points on the way by using event cards to help out these battles, but couldn't buy up enough land or resources. Low scoring in terms of points with Martin winning.

Second game was played at speed due to the limited time left, but was actually finished with no problem for time. This was strongly merchant based game, as a number of disastrous wars saw the lands depleted. Colin took victory with his pile of mercantile cash. I came second with my lands and resources after a quick early bout of merchanting before a war with Russia took them out.
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San Domingo

2010-08-25T22:06:00.010+01:00

Trial run of modified 'Wooden Ships' rules. Matt's trying to get them to play quicker so he can scale things up to Trafalgar size for next years St George's\May Day game. A modified version of the post Trafalgar Battle of San Domingo with some newly painted proxy ships.

Should of been a one sided affair, since the French were out numbered 7 to 5, and although not out-gunned, there was a marked difference in crew and leadership quality. In general the Royal Navy should have most of the initiative, giving it an advantage in moving.

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

The mission for the Royal Navy was to destroy the French. The mission for the French was simply to escape.

Decided to take the big ship head on, with my own lead ship loaded with double shot, and so was having to hold fire till close range, as the French started pounded the masts.

Finally managed to cross the line with my second ship, and got a stern rake in on the which was now looking worse for wear.

With the second British Division becoming isolated from the action this gave the French a numerical superiority against the four British lead ships.

Things soon started getting tangled up as the French closed and engaged in two desperate boarding actions. Both, at least initially, being fairly even as the British held some crew back to man the guns.

At this point the game ended, with numerous French hulls looking waterlogged. Another broadside at the would probably see it go down.
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Canal Crossing

2010-08-18T22:00:00.005+01:00

Arab-Israeli grand tactical scale game of the Egyptian attempt to seize the Suez canal and the Sinai in 1973, the Yom Kippur War.

From Furness Wargamers in Tanks

Israel has strong defensive positions to start but the Arabs have weight of numbers.

Planes are a bit tough, with the idea of switching loads a bit flawed as they can change their emphasis from ground support to air superiority while in mid flight. Despite having to do overrun attacks the low offensive capabilities of their opponents make them virtually invulnerable and they can just bounce from hex to hex cleaning stuff out.

The game will eventually include a Golan Heights/Syria section so the Israelis will have to select how they divide their forces up. At the moment it's just a rush westwards for the Israeli forces.

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Spanish Smash

2010-08-16T22:00:00.005+01:00

Round to Matt's for a game of 'In The Grand Manner' his favorite set of Napoleonic rules. Set in an undisclosed place in the Peninsular (Iberian not Furness), the French have launched a surprise attack against the allied flank. The Spanish forces had been given the job of holding a farm on that flank, or, given the disparity in the sizes of the forces engaging, at least delaying the oncoming French advance.

From Peninsular '10

Both sets of Spanish guns soon ran victim to the French cavalry, who's very weight of numbers made the artillery fire ineffective against them. With no other troops really capable of defending them they were simply overwhelmed.

The Rifles (not Sharpe's bunch, despite having an Harper-like figure amongst their numbers) were not too successful to start with, trading fire with some skirmishers as the French attempted to seize the church that was key to the high ground overlooking the village and also the river crossing.

The attempt by the French to take a shortcut and storm across the bridge failed abruptly as the British artillery in the village opened up on the forces trying to force the crossing.

The Spanish, despite being behind the protection of some walls in the fields, soon fell victim to the French columns, but did inflict a number of casualties. The Forces in the Farm itself managed to hold on for a bit longer before they followed their brethren off the battlefield.

The British forces in the village were stationary throughout the game. They represented the units on the leftmost flank of the main British force on the peninsular.

The Cavalry of the KGL did start to move forward towards the crest as the threat to the Horse Artillery from the French cavalry became apparent.

The French infantry finally managed to force their way into the church despite the best efforts of the Rifles.

Despite localised fighting continuing around the Church, it was clear that the French would soon be able to seize the high ground, and once their artillery moved into position the situation for the British in the Village would be untenable.

The game moved remarkably quick considering the forces involved.
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Going Up

2010-08-15T18:00:00.002+01:00

Well a surprisingly good season in Battrick has come to an end, with 2 first places and a second place, in a season where I feared at least one relegation.

Managed to clinch FC promotion with a game to spare. It was only at near the half-way point of the season that I figured that I had a chance at success, and from then on fielded a near full strength side. Almost blew it straight off as for one game I forgot to set orders and my default side, which was filled with useless players, took the field. This was my only FC loss for the season.

One Day was a bit harder, as one of my rivals had bought one of the mega-players that dominate the high levels of the game but without realising the ridiculously high wages. He had him for only a few weeks, but was unbeatable during this period. But after he'd gone the slide began. Was sort of gifted the league as another player had given up hope and went into a bit of a dive after survival became a mathematical improbability. But a good victory on the final day of the regular season saw me scrape into an auto-promotion spot, so now have the mixed blessing of playing at the Div 3 level next season.

Could of made it a treble of top places but missed out in the 20-20, finishing 2nd, due to me fielding a weakened team in the early part of the season and losing a game early on. Might have to concentrate on this more next season as I can see it being my only chance of ending with a winning record! A double relegation looms next season as I think I'm outclassed in the next levels of FC and OD.

Have also reached seasons end in another sports game that I've recently picked up after an hiatus of a good few years. Dolphinsim is not what you might expect from it's name, but a site which runs simulations of American sports; Gridiron, Baseball etc. I've re-signed up to run a College (American) Football team mid-way thru the season, which has now ended, and have just gone through the first off-season recruitment phase which is all important in building a future successful side.

Intend taking my time with this one as the last time I ran a college side, I switched to an higher tier team too early without learning how to recruit and train players properly, and so ended out of my depth at in Tier I. So I'm running a lowly Tier III team (equivalent to real life FCS, aka Div I-AA.) and will probably refuse a switch to an higher tier team at the end of the coming season to gain some experience in running an ongoing program.
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Nothing Much

2010-08-12T19:00:00.000+01:00

A pretty poor turn out at the club this week, probably due to it being holiday season, so ended up watching the few games that were going on.

Largest of which was the ongoing Rogue Trader RPG campaign, that had quite a few watching on.

The other alternative was a table of 40k which saw some Kroot, from an unofficial army list, taking on all comers.
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Hard Vacuum

2010-07-29T20:50:00.000+01:00

Some more Hard Vacuum as we got to play a number of scenarios and see some of Paul's new models.

Tanker Escort

Tried to keep my two craft flying symmetrical to make thinking about things just a bit easier. Tankers ended up flying backwards but were still accelerating enough to make attacks against them difficult. Think only one allied attack occurred on a Tanker all game.

Bombing Run

A German bombing run upon New York. Not a big success as the early war planes had very limited fuel and maneuverability. I had overshot the target trying to do a curved approach to the target re-entry point and didn't realise that the entry direction was also important when it came to getting the bomb on target. Add to that a critical hit had knocked out my re-entry gear and it was pretty much a one way trip.

Big Gun

A large American flying tank appears in space and a couple of German fighters are sent to try and deal with it. The tank was too tough for the fighters to cope with as it's forward guns could deal with almost anything in one shot.

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Street Formula

2010-07-28T22:50:00.004+01:00

Craig wanted to do a big player game of Formula D, the new version of Formula Dé, so I decided to join in as it's been sometime since I've played a boardgame. Rolled for pole position and ended\started up in mid-field which I was happy with. Have never thought of pole as being much of an advantage in this game, it's often better to reach the corner at race speed, particularly if the next corner is within one turn\gear shift reach.

Was going to be a three lap race, but the decision was made to shorten the race to a single lap half way through the first lap, due to not wanting some late turn ups to sit out the game, so people started burning their tyres more. Some how I managed to take the lead by taking a risk out of the penultimate corner and burning all my tyres out of the final corner to be able to reach sixth gear and the finish line. Was surprised by the over cautious approach of the two lead cars in the penultimate corner as both had tyres and brakes left.

Next couple of races were one lappers on street circuits, a new feature with this version of the game. This was the first time for me in playing the street circuit rules. Chicago, the flip side of Sebring, was the first. Rather than hot rods the vehicles were more clown cars\keystone cops as ramming and excessive debris caused vehicles to fall apart quickly. The rain in the second street race, using the original race track with all the gimmicks, lead to even further devastation; with four cars being knocked out before the fourth corner and only three finished, including one who had to limp home in low gear to survive.

Turns out Craig's desire for a Championship season is taking a bit of a hammering given the lack of availability of different tracks, the new releases are few and far between and the old version maps are going for funny money on eBay. Shame as running a near full season can be great fun.
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Rushing Russians

2010-07-09T20:00:00.001+01:00

More action from the Great War's Eastern front, as the Germans try and exploit a gap between two Russian divisions, as the Russians rush in to plug the gap. Matt and Mark play the perfidious Prussians, Paul and I the heroic Russian Imperials.

We were allowed a preliminary bombardment to try and weaken the Jägers who were holding the village. Unfortunately they managed to evade the shells by loitering around in the open and not taking covers in the ruins, which got ruined even more. But at least the shelling cleared away large sections of barbed wire.

From Furness Wargamers in Trenches

Tried to push up my artillery observer behind the cover of a infantry platoon. Unfortunately the first salvo he called in on the Germans scattered off target, and the counterfire from the German MG placement in the ruins to the west, took out not just most of the platoon but the observer as well. The loss of the observer silenced our guns.

Sent the bulk of my forces up the right\eastern edge to try and reach the hills over looking the exit road (the Germans principle objective.) Only real opposition was some German lancers, who can hit hard on a first strike due to the lance 'house rule' that gives them first strike in the first round of melee. I kept a unit stationary to extend my rifle range, and the cavalry could not charge in over the hills, a atctic the Russians had used to great success in previous games. The first round of concentrated gun fire into the Cavalry destroyed one unit and sent the other back into hiding.

Paul also concentrated on capturing the high ground to the North East and then assaulted the ruins overlooking the road, managing to shift a number of the Jägers before German reinforcements could reach them.

One of my platoons were successfully hiding in a copse on the my left\Germans right flank after seeing their companion platoon wiped out in the middle. Their placement managed to draw a couple of German infantry units out into the open to try and dislodge them. My replacement observer, who had finally got into a non-exposed position, was then able to call down the artillery on top of them, and managed to hit them first time, breaking a unit at the first attempt.

With the main German force nowhere near reaching the eastern exit and time running out the game was called.

Suprisingly no armoured cars turned up this time, which is a bit of a rarity for one of Dave M's Great War games.
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Vacuum Cleaned

2010-07-01T20:26:00.006+01:00

A game of Hard Vacuum, the Sci Fi game of World War 2 fighters in space (now where have I seen that recently?), and one of the best vector movement systems around. Hadn't played this game for years, the last time being when Paul brought it in when the club was still upstairs at the Duke.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

Have experience of Newtonian vector movement in the past from other games, such as used extensively in GDW Traveller games such as BattleRiders. Quite a few people hate such systems as the craft act realistically (at least in the 2D of the table) and not like in Star Wars, where fighters act like WW2 planes.

If anything the craft in this game, even including fuel limitations, are a bit too maneuverable; making targeting as much about guess work as anything. The early war expansion has craft with more limited maneuverability.

The mines on the German fighters appear to be pretty much useless unless someone gets lucky or their opponent badly miscalculates. Didn't bother launching mine.

Deflection, the idea that two objects travelling in different directions are harder to hit than if they were going in the same direction, played a big part in the game due to the high closing velocities. Even though craft were successful in facing each other, accurate shots were difficult to get off, and the German's were burning through their limited ammo quickly.

The rule about doubling the chance to hit upon craft with no defection lead to our two craft wiping each other out, as purely by chance our vectors matched perfectly at close range, the simultaneous fire destroying both craft. The remaining German continued fighting till it ran out of ammo just short of taking the remaining Yank out.
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Oar Blimey

2010-06-27T23:26:00.004+01:00

A mini ancient naval campaign based in an undisclosed place in the Aegian. Using a version of Paul's D.T.S. rules and his paper a velcro boats. A bigger version of this was played a few years back, over a month or so, when we were still at the Duke and had about 6\7 players and a more geograpically acurate map; this one nighter had 4 players

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

Most of the action occured on the map, as the different sides jockeyed for position and tried to build up their forces. Builds are semi-random, with a trade off between getting smaller ships early, or waiting for the big one to get built. The special events caused no end of troubles to all parties. Mark was forced out of the game early after a string of bad events plus being squeezed between us quite badly and losing his ports. He was going to leave early anyway, but this was a bit sooner than expected.

Only two battles occured the whole night, as most fleets hid in port or embargoed other ports to stop builds. I was involved in both.

In the first action my forces outnumbered and outsped Matts opposing one. But despite getting the rams in from generally advantagous positions, my die rolling let me down, and my rams coursed as much damage to my ships as to the opposing force. My force reached the breakoff point just before Matt's.

The final encounter was a two vs one as the big fleets finally leaves port, as Matt and I joined forces to take on the mighty fleet that had quitely been building up in the corner and had finally set sail. And due to initiative rolls we managed to get the jump on him. Coming in from different directions due to how the map moves played out, he decided to try and fight it out against one force first. With Matt's slow fleet trailing behind, all I could do was try and delay the potential breakout. This turned out to be more sucessful than anticipated, and we nearly brought them to the breakpoint on our own. With the faster of Matt's ships finally contacting the rear of the enemy fleet this damage forced them over the damage limit just before my fleet reached its own.
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Open Doors

2010-06-21T22:00:00.000+01:00

The Club hosted a demo game at Phalanx down in St Helens. A replay of the May Day game, but with all the forces already on the table, which now looked much better with the green flocked GW mats rather than bedsheets.

Was a nice drive down with little traffic or roadworks and managed to get a decent parking space. Think I managed to avoid the speed trap on the road in. Martin was already down St Helens, and Matt and Alan brought their stuff down in the Morning. When I got there it was just about opening time.

From Phalanx

Don't know if the Sport Centre where it was hosted has changed the lighting in the hall but there seemed to be a pallour over everything. Can imagine that the painting services stands had a bit of explaining to do, Mark, when browsing a stand, had actaully been told 'no thats not the actual colour' when looking at some 'orange' Redcoats. It did make photography difficult; I normally use Picasa to adjust the colour balance but even that struggled to do much with some of the photos.

The first thing Matt did was buy some Roman Numeral Dice for the heroic Romans to use; while the primitive Celts just got the usual pipped Knuckle Bones. And in certain circumstances the new dice made life easier, as for any 4+ attacks or saves all you had to do was count the appearence of V's.

Got most of my purchases early on. Got the latest Battlegames and some Uncharted Seas Elven Heavy Cruisers. Managed to get a compendium of Traveller boardgame rules in top condition 2nd Hand. I already had some of the rules on pdf, so knew a good portion of its contents. Also got some magnetic bases so that I can convert my Mighty Armies figures to HOTT\DBx standard but not sure I've got enough of them.

Graeme's party turned up a bit later, and didn't stay the whole day. Tony got drafted into playing another demo game.

Alan was in charge of the Celtic relief force, but seemed more interested in rescuing the Slave girls from the Roman camp.

We had a break for lunch with a number heading up to the cafe and its mile long queue. I had a Gingsters, which could best be described as 'interesting'. Had a wander up to the gallery, which is the best vantage point.

Fighting 15s was overlooking our game which was convenient as they are the UKs stockist for Eureka, who not only do 15mm Abyssinians but also 18mm Fantasy which are compatible with Mighty Armies. He didn't have any in stock, but is due to receive a new batch from down-under in a months time.

The war machines of the Romans were slightly less self-destructive than during the trial run, but not by much. With the forces nearing the ramparts, the machines switched from trying to crack the wall, to lobbing into the compound itself. The first shot was bang on target and killed a pig, the second deviated badly and killed the Celtic Commander-in-Chief!

Being sick of wheeling the Battering Ram slowly forward, the Romans instead give up on this and their equally slow Testudos to launch a direct attack over the main gate.

Martin, unswayed by the fact that the tactic failed dramatically last time we played this scenario, once again opened the gates and charged out to face the Legionaries. Things didn't turn out any different and with some good die rolling (16 die, 12 hits, 9 wounds), the Romans finally had their route into the fort.

At this point it was packing up time.

Other Photos of the game and the rest of the con are on the Spartans website.
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The Final Conflict

2010-06-16T20:00:00.001+01:00

The Irish Campaign reaches its conclusion...

After many a grinding battle it came to pass that the Bishop Guisbourne called for a meeting of all the contenders and their associated nobles to try and put an end to the warfare. No consensus could be reached between the many parties and so everybody piled out of the church for one final and hopeful decisive encounter...

After noticing that he was in fact surrounded by the forces of his vassal Goligy, King Tel O'Malley decided to do the decent thing and get the first blow in against him. The first blow being enough to severe Goligys' head and lead to the capitulation of his forces.

Next the O'Malley forces concentrated on the cadre of Martin O'Connel which were disposed of quickly. The O'Connel himself was more elusive running round a peat bog disguised as a byzantine saint in his red bobble hat, and generally being a pain, slaying one of O'Malleys nobles, as well in helping in the death of the equally elusive Baldius O'Maximus, the Army of One. Eventually O'Connel was put to the sword, and the O'Malley forces cautiously moved back towards the churchyard.

The forces of O'Shaugnessy had meanwhile moved towards the church and given the Bishop such a fright that it caused him to seek sanctuary in the church; only a damp tinderbox preventing a tragedy from happening. O'Shaugnessey retreated behind a church wall as the assault of Hulio O'Geordio nobles finally landed. A quick flanking maneuver by O'Shaugnessey left O'Geordios' position fatally weaken, which was soon followed by O'Geordios heart being fatally weaken by a O'Shaugnessey blade.

The forces of King Matt O'Neill and his loyal vassal J.J O'Mason had combined into a pair of shield walls and was now trying to rebuff the advances of the traitorous O'Shaugnessy, who had in the previous year robbed the trusting O'Mason of many of his holdings. O'Mason was slain by O'Shaugnessy who was then himself slain by O'Neill despite his forces numerical superiority.

This left the forces of Tel to surround the remnants of the O'Neills, whilst the O'Malley himself went in search of the perfidious Bishop who had set this whole thing up. After surviving a bashing from the bishops crook, Tel waited nervously for his forces to dispose of the remaining contender before sending the bishop onwards to potential sainthood.

And so, due to the ancient rule of last man standing, Tel O'Malley is the new High King of (Almost) All-Ireland.
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The First Alliances

2010-06-14T20:00:00.003+01:00

The 2006 Irish Campaign continues...

EMail from Paul outlining the current positions...

From: Paul

Sent: 02 February 2006 14:00
To: ----

Subject: scores on the (irish) doors

All,

Having studied the hieroglyphs scrawled on players campaign sheets, I have arrived at the following conclusions in the great Irish uncivil war:1099. There are 60 towns and castles available to nab, 3 more belong to the nasty Normans.(or people calling themselves Norman, everyone's too scared to ask which). A High King has to control (directly or through vassals) two thirds to win . i.e. 40.

scores on the doors:

'high king' matt (panzer)o'neill owns 10
vassal Thug o'shaughnessy (alan) owns 12
vassal Jeff/jim o'mason (you choose) owns 7

'high king' tel o'malley (dave) owns 11
vassal goligy (and his galoots) (kieran) owns 6
vassel Baldius o'maximus (mike) owns nothing, or is one of
the galoots maybe..

Independant chiefs:
hulio o'geordio (me) owns 8
martin o'connel (martin boru) owns 3

so, if the independents were to declare for one side then it would win
outright, or the other side would bring cosmic balance to the face of
chaos....which would you do ?

What happened...

Baldy had managed to lose almost all his possessions to Matt who was coming down the North West coast. After Baldy tried and failed to hide on a peninsular, I had moved in to 'protect' the rest of his holdings, and offer him sanctuary in my lands. In this I was aided by Kieran, who after a brief clash had decided to throw in with me. Meanwhile Alan and Jeff\Jim had thrown their lot in with Matt despite not having a common border with him. They spent most the time taking towns off Martin. In effect there were two mini-wars going on, with the northern part consisting of numerous clashes between Matt and myself over the same two towns, and the southern between Alan and the Independents.
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Beyond the Pale

2010-06-12T20:00:00.002+01:00

Some more historic stuff from 2006, this was the ongoing Irish Clans Campaign organised by Paul. The battles being fought out using quick play rules so two or three being played per club night. An earlier version of the posts appears on the Furness Wargamers site.

Each player started with 3 Clan\Family Leaders each with a clan force and two locations (6 in total) The actual clans representing pseudo-historical families (with certain name changes!). Alliances could be made and were binding till broken!

Dublin and the Pale are strictly off limits to all troops, but beyond that...

Starting positions roughly as follows...

O'Neills - Ulster\North coast (Matt)
O'Shaughnessy - South - Clare\Kilkenny (Alan)
O'Mason - South East Coast (Jeff\Jim)
O'Malley - West Coast - Galway\Roscommon (Tel)
goligy - Central (Kieran)
O'Maximus - Ulster (Baldy)
O'Geordio - South Coast (Paul)
O'Connel - South West - Cork\Kerry (Martin)
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Finally Fielded

2010-06-10T22:00:00.000+01:00

The first outing for my newly nearly finished Italo-Abyssinian War figures (For the First War in the 1890's not the pre-WW2 Second War).

15mm based for Principles of War, mixture of Irregular (bulk of the Abyssinians), Tin Soldier UK (Most of the Italians and leaders on both sides) with a few Essex thrown in. A simple straight up fight. Order of Battles were based on the lists in the PoW Colonial supplement.

From Furness Wargamers in the Colonies

Using the hidden maneuver base for the initial Abyssinian deployment and moves, including a couple of dummy bases, Alan managed to get his units close to the enemy using strategic moves. The inability of the Italians to spot anything helped the natives carry out their deception and force an overload on the Italians right flank.

The Italian right had moved itself onto a ridge where its artillery could open up on the advancing hordes. The Abyssinian artillery set itself up on an opposing outcrop, and a rather weak artillery duel commenced, while the forces approached to with charge range.

The two elite Besaglieri (Sharpshooter) units were taking on an Abyssinian command almost single-handedly on the Italians left flank and were pushing deep across the board, as the Abyssinians fell back in front of it.

In the centre the elite Imperial Guard remained stationary and taking flanking fire as the Negus transferred the majority of his PIPs to the command in front to get enough of them to charge in or to remove shaken results.

The Italian Right collapsed after the Abyssinian Cavalry finally hit, but they had valiantly held out for three rounds of close combat before finally breaking. With no reserves available to stop them the Abyssinian cavalry now gaining unfettered access to the Italian rear, the position of the colonial invaders looked untenable.

This game went better than I expected. Had thought that the Italians might overwhelm the Abbysinians, as I had substituted out the Native contingents for Italian Regulars. Alan certainly enjoyed smashing the colonials. Could of done with a crib sheet of the move sequence and other options and I had forgotten to bring any 'fired' and 'shaken' markers, had planed on using the bullet and heart counters from the Zombie range of boardgames.
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San Splendido

2010-06-03T22:00:00.002+01:00

A mini-campaign set on the island of San Splendido, located in an undisclosed location near the Caribbean. Rules are a version of G.E.V. adopted to modern warfare.
4 player led factions fighting over the 6 cities and 6 villages on the map. Blue pins are Paul, Yellow are Tony, Red are Dave M, and White is me.

From Furness Wargamers in Tanks

The random allocation of forces were from cards originally used in earlier AK47 campaigns. Each player starts with One city and two random force cards which are hidden from opponents, each pin represented a force. Holding cities and villages allow for reinforcement rolls (1 in 6 chance, two rolls per city, one per village) at the start of a players turn, again getting one random force card per success. Initial draw for me was some foot-slogging Militia, and, more favourably, some Tanks.

The first bit of action occurred when the Presidential flight from San Spendido City scouted out a unit of Militia belonging to Paul, and, hoping to discouraged them from taking a vacant city, decided to attack. This didn't go to plan as one of the helicopters got shot down after failing to withdraw after their attack phase. The Militia did get badly shot up, and next turn retreated back up the coast

I continued building up my power base by capturing a city an a village mainly due to a couple of good re-enforcement rolls giving me some mobile infantry, whose trucks double move along the countries rickety roads. I also had some artillery turn up. Minor setback when some of Dave M's helicopters shot up a militia roadblock I had setup. My Tanks continue to slow move across the country, I deliberately moved them one slower at infantry speed so as not to attract attention.

The current 'president for life' got kicked out of the capital by Dave M, and, since he was no longer able to get any reinforcements, massed his troops and attacked Paul's city in the hope it was less well defended, and counting on the chance that re-enforcements that Paul was lucky enough to roll was in fact militia and nothing decent.

This was the biggest and final battle of the night, as the forces clashed on the outskirts of the city after Paul advanced his troops out of cover in the hope of gaining the momentum that striking first in GEV can give.

Was disappointed that the game ended here as my tanks, backed up by some mechanised infantry, was about to roll into Paul's original city, which, lucky re-enforcements rolls aside, was only defended by his beaten up militia.

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Ptotal War

2010-05-27T22:00:00.001+01:00

Jim and Matt had brought in some of their 15mm ancients. Ptolemaic Egyptians verses Maccabee\Hasmonean Jews. The rules being a heavily modified version of DBMM, DBAs big brother, and a game which I've never played before.

From Furness Wargamers with Spears

I got talked into running the Egyptian left flank. In charge of the Cavalry and Elephants and some lighter infantry elements. Unfortunately my command was allocated the low command dice. Given that my opponent was an independent command and could roll his die as normal, this put my command at a disadvantage despite having the more maneuverable troops.

The low die meant that I had the embarrassment of having my cavalry being outpaced by the Phalanx in the centre. The Jews had refused the bait and were holding back their centre as the flanks advanced. Their left took cover in some rough ground, their right making contact with my troop.

My elephants initially turned out to be unimpressive and I lost one early on due to bad die rolling. My line held surprisingly well, even managing to survive being fragmented a bit. Finally the cavalry managed to ride to our rescue, first clearing the lights covering their flank and then taking away the overlap, with my leader hitting the back of the enemy line.

A previous bit of indecision by my opponent had left his cavalry and half his skirmishers in limbo, as they first tried to move to the centre to attack the Phalanx in the flank\rear, but despite rolling well for his PIPs he could not commit them to the centre and did not have enough to bring them back to shore up his main force by nullifying our cavalry.

The big phalanx battle in the middle was starting its inevitable wheel. Despite the left flank being left vulnerable, the Greek-Egyptians started to get the upper hand. The same was occurring on both flanks and with all three Jewish commands reaching close to their breakpoints the game was called.
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G.E.V. at Sea

2010-05-19T21:20:00.001+01:00

Ogre rules but no Ogres in sight as we played a three-a-side game using G.E.V.s, the only appropriate crafts for fighting in this 'Waterworld'. Sides were All the Dave's (with Jeff, who was paying us a visit, as an advisor) verses a collection of oddballs.

From Furness Wargamers in the Future

Panzer Matt was buying up all his sides Heavies before anyone else had a chance. Dave in the center, who was trying to implement a similar tactic, managed to lose all of ours which sort of left me exposed. Dave meanwhile was doing much better on the right flank.

Somehow managed to implement a very brief Mexican standoff, despite the overwhelming odds. Dave managed to destroy one of the factories on the right, and a couple of turns later, kamikazes his smaller craft to take out the remaining factory in that cluster.

Meanwhile one of my factories had been reduced down to one, but the attack had been seen off, with Matt's suicide squad not being very successful\too successful depending on your view point. I had some breathing space to repair the archology, before Matt's assault would begin again.

So the game ended as a marginal green victory, due to having two archologies knocked out, as opposed to two badly damaged one for the greens. Was still plenty of play left in the game.
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Rivets

2010-05-13T23:00:00.000+01:00

Ended up playing Paul's conversion of the old boardgame Rivets into a table-top miniatures game. The original games was released in the 70's by MicroGames.

With the 30 points of Boppers to start with, I went and split it fairly evenly through the different types. Took all four of the possible Tiny Boppers, and two of the Big Boppers. In terms of programing I just had them matched off against their own type.

From Furness Wargamers in the Future

Took a bit of a hammering straight off, and forced into an almost immediate retreat. The Red attackers got through to my factory and started chipping away.

The tide then turned quite dramatically. The tactic of reprogramming seemed to work well as the enemy hit the base in distinct waves. With the Red menace seen off the counter-attack began.

With time running out it was declared a draw as the Red base was about to take a large amount of damage from the approaching Blue wave.
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Bats Abroad

2010-05-10T20:40:00.001+01:00

The new Battrick season is upon us, and it's all change in my One Day league with three new teams, two promoted and one demoted. The camper at the top of our league was neatly disposed of by the team that finished second, but not by beating him but by deliberately losing so badly as to force the offending team into the final automatic promotion spot available for the next level.

The system works by ranking all the leagues top teams by points and run rate. Top half auto-promote, the bottom go into a playoff against 5th and 6th place teams from the leagues above, and campers inevitably throw these matches. The team at the top can easily survive in Div III but just wanted to camp for the money and more importantly the morale bonus he picks up for winning easy games in order to make life in his FC league easier. Note: The camper had tried to throw the final match as well as he had enough of a lead to keep 1st place but his team wasn't as bad as the scrubs the losing team put out.

I managed a reasonable 3rd place with a 9-5 record after once more starting badly. The league was very close (barring the runaway leader) with only one win separating 2nd from 7th at the half way stage. With the camper gone I expect the same this coming season, but with 1st place as the prize, but with relegation as the booby prize. I'll be happy just to keep out of the drop zone.

Held my own in the First Class League, my first season at this level, by mostly playing for draws on a flat pitch. Finish third (out of six) 29 points from the drop zone. W3 L2 D5. With a dormant team coming down, and almost certainly guaranteed bottom place, there only really one relegation spot available.

20-20 was boring. Held station with 2nd team.

Have sold some old timers who couldn't make the first team or even the immediate reserves, these backup players have been replaced by trainees. Have finally got a sort of production line going with one player per year being trained up. The first of these should reach first team quality just as a few of the first teamers start taking the Stamina hit due to old age (i.e. 30+!)

Ray's moved his team - to the cricketing hotbed of Papua New Guinea and matches that start at 2am our time. Given his team is in a OD full of Bots his guaranteed promotion to Level 3 and lots of members and money. When he does promote then he will, unless the admins intervene, be going into a league that will be at least half full of Bots. Not sure if I could stand the boredom of such a situation.
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Stand By For Action!

2010-05-05T20:30:00.005+01:00

A bit of aquatic action under the waves as Paul's Stringray models get a run out. Not Paul's rules but the ones used by the Warlords to run their demo games at the southern games shows such as Salute. A 'Save the Whale' scenario as two Stingray class craft defends the big creature from an attack by four Terrorfish.

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

The two sets of craft approach each other and get within sensor range. Much howling occurred as they over the firing arcs of missiles, as the arc originates from the point of where the torpedo arms not the firing vessel, and since it needs to move at least one prior to arming it was impossible to shoot at each other at point blank range. True to the series they were more likely to hit rock outcrops than the intended targets.

The small world rule, originally intended to govern the movement of the various sea creatures, meant numerous strange maneuvers as craft left the board to reappear directly opposite, as the whale drifted towards the corner of the board.

Things got tense as the sole surviving Terrorfish, tried to ram\mate with the whale causing untold damage. As a final desperate measure the closest craft launched torpedoes from both tubes, both of which locked onto the whale! and both of which fortunately missed, only to lock on and destroy the Terrorfish.
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Weapons of Self Destruction

2010-05-02T21:37:00.007+01:00

The delayed St George's Day game, played on May Day instead. A warm up for what will probably be the game that the Furness Wargamers will put on at Phalanx.

All figures and terrain (excluding the horrid underlying bedsheets) by Matt who refereed the game. Rules are Warhammer Ancient Battles, original version and not the newly released WAB2, but with house rules such as tweaking skirmishers.

Colin, Tony and Martin as the Perfidious Celts, Dave S and Tel as the Heroic Romans.

From May Day 2010

Hill fort defending an off-table river crossing that leads to the main village where a large army of painted ones are hanging out (some of them quite literary as the Nekkid Northerners were making a return appearance). Two Roman Cavalry detachments are off-table scouting the flanks. The main Roman force is lining up an assault upon the fort.

So to kick things off started shooting the big machines, in the hope of quickly demolishing the walls\gate. This included unleashing the monster three talent war machine, talent referring to the weight of shot it could fling, and not it's inept crew. Despite there being only a 1 in 6 chance of a mis-fire, we ended up with four machines down by the end of the third round of firing, there was at least six mis-fires out of about twelve shots; fortunately the damage, in most cases, was repairable. Despite the repairs we still only ended up with three machines back in action.

A big surprise happened when the native slingers poured over the walls of the fort and started peppering the oncoming troops. A warband joined in and managed to spark a bad cascade of failed morale rolls, forcing a number of units to fall back, and forcing the Romans to delay the assault. This actually had some benefit for the Romans given what was to happen next.

The Roman scouts on the flanks must of been sleeping\massacred as we ended up flanked by a horde of Light Cavalry and Chariots. We were saved by the poor terrain that made life difficult for the road warriors, and by the fatc that our foces were not sucked into the attack on the fort and could react quickly, by retreating we ended up facing the right direction to counter the threat. A charge by a unit of cavalry took out one set of chariots, and the other set was hemmed in by infantry and also forced off.

A bigger surprise occurred a couple of turns later when a group of war-bands, including the elite Nekkid Northerners, arrived in the rear. They were slowed by the bottle necking woods but would eventually reach the Romans who were forming a line behind their war-machines.

The Legionnaires, the majority of which had been kept away from the main assault on the fort, turned to face the rear attacking force, as finally the Auxillia started making inroads into the fort, mainly due to the fact that war machines were finally landing some large rocks onto the defenders thanks to some luck deviations.

The blood thirsty defenders then made a big mistake as they opened the main gate and charged out to try and attack the Roman forces queuing up to scale the wall. The Legionnaires who were slowly man-handling the ram towards the gate couldn't believe their luck and ditched the ram to form up and charge the gate, eventually forcing their way in.

On the last turn that was played the Chariot supported warbands finally collided with the legionnaires and, in a bit of an anticlimax, the elite Romans dominated the elite natives.

Alan made a late show after dropping back into town for the holiday. He's now working in Edinburgh after escaping from the South of England.

Graeme also turned up and dropped the bombshell, that at the previous nights game session in Ulverston, Phil had announced that Jabberwocky Games was shutting down.

Despite Matt being over critical of the look of his scratch built Hill fort, the game was an impressive sight, and will be even more so with some decent flocked terrain sheets.
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Peski Russki Cavalry

2010-04-21T23:20:00.007+01:00

Sat out the game on Tuesday, as we return to the Eastern Front during World War 1. Once again using the WH Great War rules, with Dave M presiding, Paul as the Russians and Mark as the Germans.

First units to enter the field of battle are the reconnaissance elements of both sides, two squadrons each of cavalry. The Russians managed to get first charge into the German Uhlans and quickly rout both units in turn.

From Furness Wargamers in Trenches

The remaining Russian Cavalry continue to hit and run against the newly arrived units of German infantry who can't get line of sight to them as they are over the crest of an hill. And as soon as a German unit got to the top of the hill, they got rode down. The house rule for lances, which give them a plus to initiative and so gives them first strike, prove to be decisive in these match ups. After about three charges they finally reached the five figure limit and retreated to pick up their medals.

With the German advance delayed, the Russians siezed the ruins with ease. Also some
Russian Heavy MGs arrived by truck and set up on the far hill, setting up a field of fire that covered most of the road. The larger Russian units do give them a significant advantage as it's difficult to get them to the 5 figure break point.

The German Armoured Car arrives and advances a short distance down the road before going off-roading, something it's not really designed to do. It does managed to avoid getting bogged down, but after a couple of turns is knocked out by incoming fire. It does manage to reduce the troops hiding in the ruins, and a well placed grenade from a launcher causes the remnants to run. Unfortunately the Russians still have plenty in reserve and soon moves up more troops into the ruins.

The Germans try to take the ruins at both ends of the hill (control of which is the main objective of the scenario), but there's too many Russians to deal with, including uncommitted troops off the board, and so the Germans withdraw. A pretty one-sided affair in the end, mainly due to the harassment of the Russian cavalry.
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On The River

2010-04-15T20:45:00.000+01:00

American Civil War naval, with a number of boats messing about on the water of the Mississippi. The first couple of games featured Paul's Ironclad rules before the third bigger game with Martin's naval rules from Cheer Boys! Cheer!.

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

A couple of small ships encounters using two ships per side and similar stat lines. First was a bit lop-sided with the Union managing to get the advantage early and inflict enough damage to both Confederate ships to effectively put then out of action before any real damage could be done in return.

Switched sides for the second game which was much closer, The confederate ships were both one damage away from sinking and were retiring of board when a final shot against the smaller of the Union ships caused it to sink, turns out that they were as badly damaged as we were.

The final game was a bigger affair and, I believe, based on the actual Battle of Plum Point Bend, where a force of wooden Confederate ships and paddlesteamers tried to surprise a smaller but much heavier hitting Ironclad Union force while it was at anchor.

Unfortunately for the Confederates the Union ships eventually managed to fire up their boilers and get on the move quicker than the Rebs anticipated. Even the vulnerable Mortar Platform, stuck in the middle of the river like a sitting duck, managed to inflict damage; holing a ship at close range after it's victim missed it's attempted ram on the platform.

The numerically superior Confederates decided to try ramming as it main tactic, and in one instance succeeded - in ramming one of it own vessels.

The Union decided to try some ramming of its own and managed to hit a couple of the Confederate ships, as well as launching some close range broadsides against them. The critically damaged Confederate ships grounded themselves, and their surviving companions turned and fled, making good of the rivers currents to escape.
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Gone Batty

2010-04-10T20:30:00.001+01:00

News from the Battrick site... And not an April Fools joke this time either.

New Countries
We will introduce 10 new countries:
Read more ...
- Zimbabwe
- Bangladesh
- Afghanistan
- Canada
- Ireland
- Kenya
- Netherlands
- Scotland
- USA
- PNG

These countries will play only OD & BT20 competitions: BT20 on the global stage, and OD within the country in league and Sunday cup structure. The BCC will pay a subsidy to these countries that will be determined as approximately one third of the lowest gate intake at FC level in participating countries. This subsidy will vary level by level and be set and announced at the start of each season.

Any team can move at end of season to bottom division in a new country to be replaced by bot in current position. All players go with you but lose 30% of supporters and get new ground at default newbie size. No change in BT20. Cost of moving is 4 x week's salary at time of move or 10% of current bank balance, whichever is greater. This will be open to a pilot group in Season 16 before being fully open in Season 17.

These new countries will not be eligible for International cricket in Season 16. ~~In the very near future (likely Season 17), there will be the ability to move to a non-FC version of your current country as well.~~

More information on how to apply to move to a new country will be supplied by the end of the season.

Been waiting for some time for this to happen, was an advocate of Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Scotland and Ireland joining but this is way more than expected and I'm not sure there's the player base to expand this much without some very lonely divisions being setup.

Also I think having parallel non-FC leagues in the same country was daft. If you want to give up on First Class you can just play a team of scrubs. Fortunately they've backed down on the idea, which shows that they do listen to the people who play the game as it caused a bit of a storm on the Sledging message boards.

Might of been tempted to switch countries if they had FC as well but doubt if I'll bother despite being stuck in my present leagues. And I don't think Ray, who started in the game just before me, would be interested either.

Apparently there is more news on the way as well.
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Warrior comes out to play

2010-04-08T23:00:00.002+01:00

After the derision of Harry Harrison's series of 'Stars and Stripes' books last week, a series in which the Yanks conquer the World\Britain and where the civil war era US Navy could take on the R.N. with ease, It was decided to try out an hypothetical scenario based upon them. And so we end up with the USS Monitor vs HMS Warrior in a 'fair fight'.

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

A simple case of blockade running, as two squadrons of equal numbers of ships engage off the US coast.

The British escort splits off from the Warrior, which shields the all important blockade runner. While the Monitor tries and distracts the Warrior, a US escort gets past, but is too late to stop the runner getting off the board despite landing a few telling shots on target. Meanwhile the British escort gets out maneuvered and stranded away from the main combat zone, as the three US ships converge on the Warrior.

The Monitors escorts, now being bashed around by the Warrior a bit, decide they've had enough and depart out to sea. The Monitor soon follows after surviving some close up shots from both the British ships. Whether it could of actually survive out in the open sea given the damage it sustained is another matter.

After that quick exhibition we tried another hypothetical encounter, this time from three decades later, RN vs the French in the channel.

Two lines of equal number of vessels approach each other, but the lines didn't stay straight for long.

The French got beaten as the British closed up negating the Frenches range advantage, and making use of their faster reload speed to outgun the bigger gunned French ships. Having a torpedo boat commander who forgot to fire his torpedoes didn't help the French as well.

A final salvo from a sinking french ship did take out one of the British but it was small consolation for them.
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Adriatic Attack

2010-03-31T23:29:00.005+01:00

The Battle of Lissa

The Newfangled Ironclads of Austro-Hungary and Italy (and a few remaining wooden ships) are duking it out for control of the Adriatic in a battle that historically saw little action but some strange manueverings as both sides get to grips with the new realities at sea.

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

Both fleets were short of a few ships, and there appeared to be a couple of anachronistic ships in each fleet that appeared in service after the battle (with radical design changes because of it). I had command of the 3rd Italian Squadron of mainly old fashioned non-clad ships with poor armour.

The 2nd Squadron took on the Austrians head-on which was probably not the best of ideas. In the time it took for the 1st and 3rd to get into position the ships of the 2nd was either sinking or leaving the battle, and so totally negating the Italians advantage in numbers, which is a critical factor when it came to the alternating ship movement.

After circling a bit, some firing between the fleets finally occured. At the longer ranges the weaker ships seemed to hold up not to badly so long as the fire wasn't concentrated on them. Making use of the smoke as cover left many targets difficult to hit.

Finally the fleets closed and some ramming occurred, with both the big ships of the opposing navies crashing into weaker opponents and sinking them outright. At this close range the shooting duel was intense.

An Austro-Hungarian marginal victory, but a lot more bloody than the original encounter.

It also looks like the Club will be running a demo game at Phalanx, with a pre-run of the game being this years St Georges special. Romans vs Celts.
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Bazaar Camelot

2010-03-29T22:00:00.001+01:00

The second Warrior Bazaar was held at the Park Hall Hotel, near Charnock Richards, next to the Camelot Theme Park. Was quite on the roads as Camelot does not open till Easter. Wasn't interested in the Theme Park anyway as 'it is a silly place'. This venue is much easier to get to than the previous location in Bolton.

Main part of the Show was held in just the one hall, split 50-50 between Traders and Demo games. The other hall was taken by the competition tables, with the competitors wearing night vision goggles due to the low light, and with the reenactors acting out the Battle of Charnock Richards between the 47th Regiment of Foote and the Sith Lords.

Not too many purchases. It did include the latest Battlegames Mag, some sandbags (25mm but going to pass them of as 15mm) and small spool of barbwire - I decided it's cheaper to use this and some bits of matchstick to construct my own than modify the resin 25mm emplacements that were available.

Bought three editions of the Thrud the Barbarian Comic, by Carl Critchlow, after some not so hard selling by the Heresy Miniatures stand. A staple of White Dwarf of the 80's and arguably one of the main sources of the Games Workshop 'Chaos Death Spiky Bits' obsession.

Also bought some inks on the cheap. Have never used them before, but want to try inking and washing on the Dragon Lord fleet that I bought on the cheap from Jabberwocky a month or so ago. Unlike the Elven fleet I've base coated them white instead of black but am a bit worried that the inks are going to be too dark and shiny.
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Deep Fried Martian Barred

2010-03-26T22:00:00.006Z

Another round of the Martian Invasion of Britain.

Instead of last weeks three Martian forces there was only the two. Since the Martians have fewer units to defend with, yet alone launch a serious attack straight off, it was decided to once again start off in Scotland.

A string of lost initiative rolls kept the invaders on the back foot\tentacle. They could clear a city but not move in. The implementation of an advance after combat midway through the game helped alleviate this problem.

With the inability of defenders without attack values to cause damage in a run over attack, the Martian Bases and Factories are now instantly killed. The same applies to the cities as well, but the British have, at least initially, more than enough units to defend. Despite using their aerial units to cut the incoming rail lines British reinforcements still managed to get through.

The RAF isn't as tough as they once were, being forced to do over-run attacks by default and so giving the Martians first crack at them. Unfortunately this weakness is more than made up by the ability for Air Armadas to gather out at Sea ready to launch a massed attack anywhere on the board. If they risk running out of supply then they are capable of striking anywhere on the board.

With one base destroyed and the second under immediate threat the Martians called it a day.
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Green and Unpleasant Alien

2010-03-18T23:30:00.004Z

The Martians, not having the best of times in 1940's Russia; travelled back in time to 1920 and decided to invade a small group of islands to the west of the main land mass. Just how hard could it be?

Judging by the map the Aliens had been busy prior to the invasion of Great Britain, demolishing the Isles of Wight, Man, Anglesey and dumping the remains to fill in The Wash.

From Furness Wargamers from Mars

The rules consisted mainly of details on the crib sheets; separate ones for British and Martians. There was a single double sided sheet that clarified certain things, but most rule queries were adjudicated by Paul on the fly.

The main force of Martians landed in the Highlands of Scotland, with a secondary force landing near the North Wales coast. The Scots were basically on their own as 'England First' became the order of the day, leaving the Scots to make do with only what they started with and could build in the future.

The Royal Navy proved their worth hanging out at sea and sending damaging salvos into the invaders who had to venture near the Fife coast while launching assaults on both Edinburgh and Dundee. Dundee eventually succumbing to the machines with the inhabitants being turned to Jam.

The Scots and Navy combined did manage to destroy three of the smaller war-machines, but with the Martian 'Crabs' building extra factories, which in turn would produce more machines, the defenders had no chance in a war of attrition. So the Navy decided to take a risk, and sailed into the Tay Estuary to have a pop at a Crab, and hopefully slow down the Martians production. This would be a one way mission as once in the estuary the Martians could cut off the Fleets escape route, and in the end didn't quite work out as the crab managed to survive with one hit left.

The fleet did draw off a number of attackers away from the main cities and managed to last a couple of turns under death ray bombardment. Meanwhile down the coast in England a number of new fleets came of the slipways and into the North and Irish Sea.

The Martians finally got squeezed out of Wales. The RAF, flying some anachronistic craft due to lack of appropriate biplanes, managed to inflict the initial damage, and crucially helped in taking out the Martian Factory, putting a stop to any new war-machines and preventing the part built colossus war-machine from being completed. When the Tanks finally arrived they swarmed across Central and North Wales and in the next few turns removed the remaining Martians, who desperately kept rebuilding their factory only to see the unfinished structure destroyed repeatedly.

At around the same time Wales was liberated, Scotland finally fell as both the strongholds of Glasgow and Edinburgh ran out of defenders, the Martians wising up and cutting the rail links into them as well as blocking retreat routes. With Scotland gone the main force of Martians moved into the border area, poised to descend into Northern England where the Sappers had been working like mad to build the high fences that hopefully would slow the land based war-machines down.

We never did find out how effective the high fences were at stopping the invaders as the game ended before they could advance down the Pennines (out of range of the Navy guns!). The North was otherwise thinly defended as the bulk of the British Army (or English Army given the demise of the Celtic population) was stuck in Wales and away from the Rail Network.
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War of the Worldski

2010-03-06T23:00:00.001Z

Sat out again this Tuesday and instead watched another of Paul's games with micro-armour. The rules this time fitting to three copies per A4 sheet!

In a move sort of reminiscent to Turtledove's 'Balance' series of alt history the Martians have landed right in the midst of World War 2. Just prior to Operation Barbarossa in fact.

From Furness Wargamers from Mars

The map covers the whole of central USSR, from Vladivostok and the Pacific through to Leningrad and the Baltic. The Martian landing site is of course Tunguska. The scale is one hex equals 300 miles! Pity the poor Soviet infantry who had to march the thousands of miles to the front line at one hex per turn.

The Martians have a number of turns to get organised prior to any serious opposition reaches them, but had to make a decision as to whether to fight a two front war or try and take out the weakly held east in force first. They chose to split their forces almost evenly.

The Soviets can get Infantry from Cities, Tanks and Planes from their respective factories. The arrival of the reinforcement is dependant upon a die roll for each location, with the quality dependant on how high the roll is. The Martians only have factories but can construct more. The USSR can gain additional factories randomly.

The East looked lost, as the Martians moved in to destroy the mostly unoccupied cities after the Soviet forces moved out to meet them and paid the price.

A brave assault by the majority of the Soviet Air Force against some of the Martians weaker elements came to nothing.

The first glimmer of hope came when a southern outpost managed to hold on against a concerted Martian attack. Rotating troops out of the city and the first wave of western reinforcements, lead to a Martian withdrawal.

So at the end of turn 8 the game came to a close. Two long streams of Soviet troops were heading eastwards, but the Martian factories had also built some reinforcements. There was still a lot of action to play out; certainly more of an all-day or convention game than a single nighter.

There was a bit of discussion as to whether the trans-Siberian railroad and/or Armoured Trains should have an effect on the game and what was the status of the Soviet Navy. Also the possible inclusion of weather which currently had no effect.

Also being shown round the club was a letter sent to us from Kieron who's currently out in Afghanistan with the Scots Guards. His phony scotch accent must be improving as he's now a Lance Corporal. Apparently he's enjoying watching his unit fire off a few million pounds worth of Javelins and the (very) close air support from the Americans.
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Three Way Furball

2010-02-24T23:00:00.001Z

Due to a number of no shows due to the terrible weather I finally got a chance to play some Wings of War with Baldy and Colin. Baldy claimed to be new to the game, despite playing it in the past, so we started off with a simple everything goes battle with no altitude rules. Both Colin and Baldy chose two seaters, RE.8 and Ufag respectively, I chose a Fokker D.VII.

From Furness Wargamers in the Air

For the second flight we brought in the altitude rules and the others switched to proper scouts\fighters. This lead to the strange situation of having Ernst Udet (or Captain LO! as Colin calls him.) in two planes, the Fokker D.VII and the Albatros D.Va vs Colin's Barker in his Snipe.

With the use of altitude rules we decided to use the collision rules, and due to the use of the C damage deck it became highly dangerous. Not certain that I got the rule right as I'm not sure if special damage from collisions count towards the two engine damage and out rule. For things like fires, the specials don't count. My plane was knocked out by the two engine loss rule due to a collision with Colin's which was later revealed to have received no damage from the mid air clash.

Gave up on the unlucky Fokker and switched to Olieslagers's Belgium Camel for the third flight. We had agreed that we could use the planes as proxies for all the other types of plane available from the booster packs. Baldy searched through the box and manage to pick the D.VII anyway, but he wanted to change the pilot to Herman 'Fatboy' Goering.

For the final fight we decided to try and operate two planes each. This seemed to work fine without slowing things down too much. Had to call it a day before much serious action took place due to the other games finishing early, but it seems possible to control flights of craft with ease. I think each having separate aircraft (Fokker Tripe and Camel for me. DH4 and RE8 for Colin. Ufag and D.VII for Baldy) and decks helped as the cards were easier to keep segregated.

Given how successful operating at nearly the four plane flight level was, I'm thinking of allowing multi-planes per player in a campaign whose rules I'm currently trying to bash together.
¶

All At Sea

2010-02-18T23:00:00.001Z

A game of Martin's Shipwreck modern naval rules. A set of quick play rules and a lot simpler than Harpoon.

A clash between two small forces of 80's Soviets vs British. The ships started out closer together than standard due to some missing seaboards in Martin's modular terrain.

From Furness Wargamers at Sea

Soviets get the first strike out and take the rear flight deck out on the British destroyer. They sent a couple of Helicopters over the rigs to help discourage attacks against them and to observe the British. The British sent out a flight of Lynx's with more hostile intentions.

The quality of the British Electronic Warfare counted in the end, despite trying to overload them with a swarm of missiles, the low chance of hitting and some bad die rolls meant little damage to the British, while the return salvo of Exocet's and the Soviets poor EW and non-existent defense against sea-skimmers saw 3 ship kills and a badly damage in just the one turn.

Battle of London

2010-02-15T23:00:00.002Z

Still plodding along in eRepublik. Been playing this game in auto mode for quite a while now, spending a couple of minutes a day to click the relevant buttons. Have been dipping in and out a bit as my interest waxed and waned.

Due to my persistence I've now enough freebie gold stored up to do a bit of 'tanking' where you can burn gold to get extra health and so extra attacks, also enough money to get better weapons but not sure whether to stick with the 1* quality weapons or to upgrade and do more damage.

The reason to tank? The current on going invasion of the UK (aka eUK).

The history behind the current predicament...

Middle of last year the PM/President decided to switch alliances, from the roughly NATO based ATLANTIS, to the more continental/asian PEACE as it would be 'fun' and (according to him) get the country more involved in the game. Ironically the country ended up sidelined in the World War that erupted as British territory was ceded to allied countries to allow a 'bridge' over the Atlantic to the Americas, so only government sponsored troops really benefited given the lack of defense pacts; the triggering of which are esential for getting a country involved in other nations wars.

Canada ended up wiped from the map, the US faced with attacks from multiple directions were reduced to a small number of regions. But then the long fightback began, with persistent resistance wars in both Canada and captured US territory, being eventually successful, and eventually the PEACE invaders were driven from North America and the eUS started doing some 'Manifest Destiny' in Asia.

Both power blocs underwent their own meltdown, and new alliances came into existence but still holding old grudges, eUK becomes part of Phoenix, made up of the core remnants of PEACE, and opposed by EDEN, the remnants of ATLANTIS, and with members including some of the in game big hitters such as eUSA, eSweden, ePoland and eSpain. Our allies eFrance and eGermany have already been wiped out by them.

So now the eUK has it's back to the wall, with it's old allies as enemies, and the Battle for London is now under way after the conquest of all other eUK regions
¶

More Tanks

2010-02-13T15:00:00.002Z

Joined in with another game based during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. Another iteration of the Dave M home-brew rules, now using ten-sided dice rather than the D6 of the previous game.

Both sides are assaulting across the table.

From Furness Wargamers in Tanks

I was put in charge of the Pakistani left flank, with a couple of tank battalions supported by a mechanised infantry battalion. Ahead of me was an area of forestation leading up to a ridge-line overlooking the central plain, initially the only defenders were a couple of Infantry units on the far ridge, which were soon forced off. Had to make use of the cover of the ridge as the guns on the Indian tanks in central region out ranged ours by a couple of hexes.

The Indians punched though our weak centre, and, rather than press onwards to take out our artillery, turned to the right to try and flank the left force. This left their left vulnerable to Matt's force moving up on our right.

The only air-strike of the game, which was diced for by both sides at the start of each turn, turned out to be a damp squib as its bomb-load missed it's target.

It was the mech infantry that saved the day as they close assaulted the encroaching tanks on the ridge, and although not destroying them, they did generate enough disruption to force a number of morale saves which the Indians failed in a string of spectacular failures, including 3 nines in a row. The Indians conducted a mass retreat and the game was called.

A Time of War

2010-02-08T22:30:00.002Z

A Time of War, the Battletech RPG is finally out (in pdf form at least) and I managed to get it at a discount by taking advantage of the Beta release offer from BattleCorps, a month back, including a free upgrade to the newly available final release version.

Like a lot of systems, the Character Generation is a bit involved till you get the hang of it, but the Beta test crew have ironed out a few quirks, like the low starting xp that prevented the creation of decent Mechwarrior Officers and numerous template point errors. The extra 500 starting xp helps a lot, and the moving of the first aging table category to 25 from 21, makes having to access the table much less likely during character creation. The trickiest part of generation is probably the balancing of the positive and negative Traits, due to the required quantitising of xp values to the mandatory 100xp levels.

Turns are 5 seconds long, half that of Battletech so not fully compatible with the boardgame, but that not really important as Mech vs Squashes would lead to a very short campaign.

I use to buy RPGs and supplements like other people buy paperback books, just to enjoy reading them. But I've run out of room to store any more of them, and being the type who never throws anything out theres no space that's going to magically appear. In that way the spate of pdf releases is a bit of a godsend. Have resisted updating my existing stuff but It does allow me the have a library on a key-fob. I'm restricted to reading them on my laptop at the moment, but waiting for a proper, but considering I can have multiple tomes open at a time it takes up a lot less space.

Cataylst Games do quite a bit of support for their games via pdf's, with various freebies such as pre-generated mech sheets and quick start rules and primers, strangely enough for their upcoming Leviathans game they are charging for similar sample material. They also allow a free download of any updated versions of previously bought books; and have done this recently with the core Battletech rules, Total Warfare.

Possibly the most off-beat amongst my pdf's is the pairing of the Cold City - Hot War rules by Contested Ground Studios. The first is set in 1950's Cold War Berlin, with monsters lurking behind the scenes; the second is a follow-on, set in London during the aftermath of a 1960's apocalyptic war, with the monsters being used as terror weapons by both Warsaw Pact and NATO. Not sure of the system of setting the characters against each other is to my tastes (It works in Paranoia because that game is played for laughs) but the two campaign settings still holds good. A fine example of how a small company can put out and distribute a quality product in both Hard and Electronic form.

¶

Little Tanks

2010-02-04T18:40:00.003Z

Looked on as two teams played out an Indo-Pakistan War (1965) encounter with micro armour and soldiers smaller than ants. Maybe they were ants, cruelly painted green and sent into action.

From Furness Wargamers in Tanks

Some grumbling as to the scale of the encounter as a couple of players were not happy with the large zoom out to battalion level, and how the initial sweeping movements bogged down into a static slugathon, partially due to the short range of most weapons, e.g. tanks only firing three hexes at max. Also the scenario seemed to of been cobbled together a bit, with re-inforcements turning up at 'fortunate' times to prolong the game.

Given the rather vague victory conditions I'm still not sure who won, the attackers manage to get part of a unit across the bridge after a flank breakthrough, but the rest of their forces were bogged down all along the rest of the front, with the defenders having enough reserves to plug any new gaps that may appear.

Also going on at the Tuesday Club...

Firestorm Armada,
Rogue Trader,
Warhammer Fantasy RPG,

And the start of a 40K Planetary Empires campaign; this is the current map.

From Furness Wargamers

Helm's Deep Trouble

2010-01-30T18:30:00.000Z

Another game in Middle-Earth, using the same rules as last week. This time I sat out and watched on as the brave Orcs and Dunlending freedom fighters tried to storm the nasty strawhead's stronghold of Helm's Deep.

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies

Concentrating on either ends of the rampart and on the keep itself the hero's manage to scale both with their ladders. Being true to the book and not the film there was only one pointy eared nasty to contend with. Both him and the wannabe king were dispatched and the dwarf sent cowering for the glittering caves.

Re-enforcements arrived in the form of Gandalf, a force of Rohir (Erkenbrand) and the Ents\Huorns. Didn't do them much good as the trees were moving too slowly to help, and a group of orcs managed to surround the Rohir and force them away.

There was also the strange site of Graeme's partially painted fleet for Firestorm Armada, having only finished the capital ships of the Aquan fleet, he padded the fleet out using some appropriately shaped soy sauce bottles.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

Moria Maul

2010-01-23T18:20:00.003Z

The Dwarfs of Moria are camped in their Great Hall. But they soon spring to attention as two groups of Orcs come charging through the labyrinth corridors of the mines.

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies

Another quick play game organised by Geordie Paul. Using some rules he downloaded and tweaked a bit and played out in 15mm. Corridor walls are inverted terrain with a coat of matt black paint on the top\bottom to make them blend in. The ground cloth has a subtle hex grid printed over an unsubtle squiggle pattern. 2 players each side, Me and Dave M are the good guys (Orcs), Paul and the Baddies (Dwarfs).

My first wave of Orcs died as quickly as they arrived; there just wasn't enough of them. There was about 14 vs 10 Dwarf stands (half of the dwarven force) but the Dwarfs had much better stats, double the chance to hit and double saves and morale. Being closer to the Hall meant that these poor Orcs died off before Dave M's force got fully into contact, I don't think a properly co-ordinated attack would make much difference as the dwarfs were evenly divided anyway. Our distant brothers\cousins suffered the same fate despite some good luck in the reinforcement rolls (but never good enough to bring Billy Balrog into play.). So time to regroup and call for some extra reinforcements. Also for round two a rules tweak - the movement cost to change facing was removed, as it was slowing things down too much when travelling along the twisty corridors.

The second wave was a bit more beefed up, 20 bases in my force, of which 4 were second tier troops (wolf riders) and 2 Trolls. Finally had enough forces to start swarming and put pressure on all routes into the Great Hall. Also started to get the hang of the rules, with rotation of forces (individual stands can attack-move or move-attack) and secondary units beefing up the attacks.

A combined force of mine and Dave M's little doggies finally managed to punch a hole into the Hall. The flanking bonuses that they provided was decisive, they also caused the weakening of the dwarfs defenses elsewhere, as forces were drawn off to deal with the threat.

And so the Dwarfs were ground down till their final leader stood alone. Surrounded by Goblinoids, I don't think he's going to get the burial that Balin received in the literature. Time to fire up the Barbie.

Nekkid Northerners

2010-01-16T23:00:00.003Z

On Tuesday we played an Ancient battle in 28mm using a modified version of Warhammer Ancient Battles using Matt's miniatures and terrain. Matt's not too interested in 2nd Edition WAB which is due out soon (after a long delay) and has done his own tweaks to the rules and force composition.

Scenario is based on Mons Graupius. The last remaining organised Celtic force in Britannia are defending a ridge line in their homeland of Caledonia against the Roman forces who have nipped over the wall for a quick bash.

The opposing armies

From Furness Wargamers with Spears

Basic plan was to hold most of the troops on the ridge but send some through the forest on the left to threaten the Romans flank if they push up too quick.

With the large bases for the Chariots and the Light Cavalry there was hardly any room to position them. They were soon routed on the right by the Roman cavalry but did draw them close enough for a couple or warbands to charge in and rout them in return. The warbands, not fancying facing the Cohorts on open ground, then quickly turned around and ran back up the hill.

Speed Bumps

Slight accident with a mini when a Naked Gaesti Warrior's weapon dropped off, possibly due to exposure. One minute he's holding it in his hand, next minute it's lying on the ground.

Some freak brick throwing by my slingers in the forest caused the complete destruction of the already dented Horse unit, and inadvertently opened a charge path for his remaining horse.

The Gaesti and friends managed to get through the woods only to be charged by the massed ranks of the Auxilia. The combat didn't last too long, only a single round before both Celtic units routed.

Rout through the forest

Apparently it turned out as history, with the Auxilia causing the most damage. The starting points were a bit uneven with the Romans having an 1000+ point advantage. This is despite the Celtic warbands each being boosted with decent leaders. Rumour has it that there are more chariots on the way for the Celts. In which case we going to need a bigger battlefield.
¶

Easy as One, Two, Six

2010-01-09T19:00:00.004Z

The Battrick season has once more come to an end, with a better than expected final standings.

Managed to bounce back and earn promotion in the First Class after being demoted down to Div VIII last season. This was despite messing up my team selection on a couple of occasions. First using my outdated default team, who scraped an unlikely draw with my nearest rival, and then forgetting to set a lower declaration point against another team, the match petering out to a draw. Still managed to go the season undefeated, 8 wins, 2 draws.

Finished second for second season running in the One Day League, but it looks like we have got a camper stuck in first as, after demoting from Div III last season, he has thrown a number of games including the play-off match. Can't see how, with his quality of team, he can be earning enough money at this level. His throwing of games nearly cost me second place, something similar happened the season before and denied me a long shot attempt at first place.

The last two OD seasons in Div IV have been very similar, with a poor start and string of early defeats followed by a long unbeaten run mid-season. 10 wins in both seasons.

In the 20-20 I merely did enough to survive in it, only playing my best players in key games and using mainly the second XI, Six out of Twelve isn't bad, with a 7-4 record.

Some of my veteran 2^nd XI players are getting a bit long in the tooth now, skills still OK barring stamina, which is now dropping too low to make them useful for anything bar 20-20. Since these 'old codgers' are only 35 I think this sort of puts a limit on how far my players are good for. My current generation of 1^st teamers have reached an higher level of stamina prior to any decline, but will probably drop to 2^nd status at around 34, and the knackers yard at around 37.
¶

Conventions 2010

2010-01-07T19:00:00.003Z

Have just done the annual update of the convention list on the Furness Wargamers site, and am cross posting it here. Not sure which of them I'll actually visit, and details on later shows not really available yet.

Vapnartak : 7th Feburary 2010 (Sunday): Knavesmire Exhibition Suite, York Racecourse.

Warrior Bazaar : 28th March 2010 (Sunday): Park Hall, Charnock Richard, Chorley

Triples : 17th & 18th April 2010 (Sat & Sun): English Institute of Sport, Sheffield.
This has moved from the Octagon Centre.

Phalanx : 19th June 2010 (Saturday): Sutton Community Centre, St Helens.

A more detailed calendar at this wiki site, with some details to be taken with a pinch of salt (true for all wikis).
¶

Back Again

2009-12-28T16:00:00.004Z

Tuesday and the club has got back together after the Christmas recess. Not too many turned up and only a few games in play.

Martin was once again trialling a battle for his scenario book for Cheer Boys, Cheer! and, like last time, was short of terrain as the club owns no wide hills, barring a couple of foam ones, for making valleys.

The Battle of Morton's Ford, 6th Feb, 1864

The Rebels were starting to get a bit worried as the Blues crossed the river unopposed except for the cannons which themselves were coming under counter-battery fire from the Union positions on the far side of the river. This was pretty ineffectual due to the fortifications.

From Furness Wargamers

The Blues continued across the valley and were nearing the empty entrenchments when finally the Greys turned up and it then became a race to see who could populate the trench-line first.

The Union nearly pulled it off, reaching into the encampment, but left a flank exposed and one disastrous retreat sparked a cascaded panic and prevented key reinforcements from reaching the entrenchments in time, handing them and the battle to the Confederates.

Elsewhere in the club Graeme was once more teaching Firestorm: Armada, while a couple of groups of role-players, one setting up a Rogue Trader game, and another carrying on with a Warhammer Fantasy campaign.
¶

Ancient Antics

2009-12-09T21:00:00.001Z

Finally got roped into doing DBA for the first time in a mini tournament with six players. A round-robin with each game was nominally twenty minutes each. Armies were randomly allocated from Paul's central collection of plastics and I ended up with the Sea People, who were apparently half Viking - half Village People.

From Furness Wargamers

With the tables being deeper than they were wide it did mean quite a bit of travelling before any clashes took place.

First game was against Phil and his Hebrews and Sheep, he was also unsure about the rules so this petered out to a draw. The game against Paul, which was basically Blades against Blades, evolved into a bloodless version of the Western front. The Psiloi on the flanks were doing a sort of line dance with synchronised push backs.

The game verses Tony was similar to the first, and we were both to busy asking rules questions to do much fighting. So another draw.

Managed to claim my one and only victory against Dave M when his leader on his chariot became isolated and then killed.

Finally against Matt, whose is experienced in the game and its other variants and managed to show me a couple of gimmicks en route to capturing my stronghold. Might of been better off bunkering down near my baseline rather than going out to meet his force.

The game does seem very critical in having exactly twelve elements per side, no more or less, else things become lopsided. This would make the rules useless for attritional campaigns. Still not sure whether to rebase the Mighty Armies stuff, that I've picked up cheap in the past, to DBA\Hordes of the Things standard.

Elsewhere, Martin doing a trial game for his upcoming scenario book for his ACW rules 'Cheer Boys, Cheer!'. Unfortunately the club seems to have a shortage of trees hence the rather strange looking layout; Most of it should of been forested, but some 40Kers were sharing the trees which lead to the unexpected shortfall.

¶

Recon in force

2009-12-06T15:00:00.006Z

Had nothing better to do on Saturday so went on a trip to the land of Tykes and journeyed to Recon, one of the smaller conventions, and organised by the Wakefield and Ossett Wargamers, being held in (or rather outside) Pudsey. Went the scenic route via Settle before hitting the nightmare that is Bradford traffic system.

From Conventions

Purchases included some Uncharted Seas stuff; another Elven Dragon and a Flagship. Still in two minds about if the flagship is a nice fit, either visually or rules-wise, with the rest of the fleet. Also managed to pick up the latest three issues of Battlegames, the 'old school' wargames magazine. You can tell they are 'old school' as they spell 'old skool' properly.

Did managed to resist buying any of the reprints of the Featherstone or Grant books, can remember reading them twenty years ago when Barrow Library actually had a wargames section. (All five books of it.) The Library itself probably holds less than half the volume of books it once did.

Was wanting to check up on the new Perrys 'Wars of the Roses' 28mm plastics, but it looks like they've not out till next week or maybe sold out on pre-orders as couldn't see any around. Would of been my first foray into plastics since a child, but have never painted any. Was thinking of getting them to use in a quick play game for resolving battles in the Kingmaker boardgame. Did manage to do some prep work and snagged a WotR Osprey book on the cheap (but not the newer one which is just a potted history with no pictures).

Biggest game in the show was probably the 'Very British Civil War' game.

Apparently fighting over Hull, or maybe fighting to get out?

Upstairs there was a horde of Teddy Bear games using all the lines of Eureka Miniatures range. It includes one game set in a which included fake scalextric track in a fake toy room setting. It had to be fake as what sort of grown up would play with toy soldiers?

What the neighbouring Lance and Longbow people thought of this is unrecorded.

Weather was looking a bit grim on leaving the hall so returned via the Motorways. Ended the day by visiting Jabberwocky and picking up an Xmas gift I pre-ordered.
¶