F&IW Scenario for Recruits

This Recruits' game scenario is taken directly from the This Very Ground rulebook and features Indians vs. Rangers in a true small-unit skirmish format. The map above shows a plan view of a farmhouse, barn and smokehouse at the edge of the forest - a perfect target for marauding Indians - at least until the Rangers show up!

Scenario description:

In 1758, with the chain of forts across Pennsylvania completed, much of the fighting between the French-allied Indians and the British Provincial forces took on cat and mouse characteristics. The Indians could not defeat all of the forts directly, but they could slip through the defenses and attack British settlements. The defending Militias and Rangers could not easily find the Indian camps, but they could try to cut off the Indian warbands as they slipped back across the frontier.

Near Fort Allen, a band of warriors in search of supplies had come upon an isolated farmhouse. They thought the house abandoned until they heard voices out back. The warriors discover the farmer’s wife and young son trying to escape and open fire. The farmer steps out from a shed and exchanges fire with the warriors and is immediately cut down. The wife and son escape to alert neighbors nearby while the Indians ransack the home.

Suddenly, the looting is cut short by shouts from arriving an force of Rangers, and the pursuit is on!

Hope to see you at Recruits in a couple of weeks!

Recon, Recruits and Samurai

This weekend I visited Recon, a local "game event" held at the Geek Partnership Society in Minneapolis and organized by Mr. George Hord (Thanks, George!) Bruce and I planned to play some DBA/HOTT/D3H2, but Bruce wasn't feeling well so I decided to just go and see some friends. Mr. Hord was playing modern MicroArmor, Mr. James was playing 15mm American Civil War with Regimental Fire and Fury and Mr. Ladd was playing a 28mm Napoleonics game with "a new set of rules with an unpronounceable French name." 

Also got to watch a demo game of SAGA played between Jim (Vikings) and John (Norse-Gael). John hosted the game and provided both of the very-nicely-painted warbands. . . so I have to apologize for the lousy cell phone photo of the game above, which does not do it a semblance of justice, taken on the last turn when the game had come down to the feuding warlords and a handful of supporters. I have the rules and the dice, of course, and lots of figures waiting for paint. . . we'll see if this was enough inspiration to start applying that paint. John and Jim were both very welcoming and patient with my watching (er. . . questions). Thanks!

Still making progress on the F&IW game project for Recruits next month. Here are some "garden fields" I made from Build-A-Rama mats, which are also usable for DBA:

Here are the John Jenkins Indians and Rangers with their new basing:

I have a bit more terrain to finish up but the project seems to be well in hand now. I will post a map and a bit about the scenario next week. 

Friday the Steel Fist Miniatures Kickstarter order arrived. It's always fun getting "little guys" (as Lady Amok refers to them) in the mail! Between Perry and Steel Fist we now have all the important daimyo at Sekigahara in 28mm. 

The figures are quite good; well sculpted with some separate heads, weapons and banners. Even the packaging is nice - printed boxes with "matchbox" sleeves.

Steel Fist also has decal sheets for nobori and sashimonos, too. Gorgeous. A lot of the appeal of the Sengoku Jidai period for me is the graphic design. Here are some photos of the minis and decal sheets:

And, because someone I am sure is wondering how the Perry and Steel Fist minis compare, here is a photo. . . wait for it. . . comparison. Steel Fist on the left , Perry on the right. 

The humans work together nicely, with similar size proportions, even if the Steel Fist minis are just a tad heftier. Not so for the horses; the Steel Fist horses are "heroically larger" in proportion, though I think one could use them with Perry models as long as they weren't next to each other on the same stand. We'll definitely see about that sometime in the future. Definitely.

See ya!

Our First Game of D3H2

For our first official game of D3H2, we decided to play identical armies against each other, and keep the fantasy elements to a minimum. So we used two of Bruce's Macedonian Successor armies, vanilla standard except for the Hero General elements of both armies. Both armies are 24 points; nearly standard 12-element DBA armies.

We wanted to work completely through the rules, following each section in turn from terrain placement to deployment to actual gameplay. We allowed a slightly larger than 3 square foot playing area, but otherwise tried to play straight up.

I thought it might be fun to document a game or two using a photo/diagram format - the results of which comprise this post. Bruce's army is shown using white movement arrows and type, mine is in black. Combat is shown using red "bursts" and eliminated elements are denoted with red boxes. The red arrows are are post-combat "flees." The numbers in circles after the army names track that army's losses in points. The first army to lose 12 points, and more points than the enemy, loses the game. I'd be interested to know whether you can follow the action from the photos.

Bruce defended in this game, and from the Arable terrain list chose 2 compulsory "Ploughed Fields," plus two "Gentle Hills" and one "Woods" feature. Dicing for them created the battlefield as shown in the photos. The Ploughs aren't quite legal-sized, but as they counted as "Good Going" in this battle, it didn't matter.

The photo above shows the initial deployment; each subsequent photo captures the game after a further pair of bounds. It was close-fought and neck-and-neck until the final bound.

Then on Bruce's next bound I lost an Auxilia, making the score 9-7. With my Pikes at risk of being outflanked in the center, I decided to break my usual rule about minimizing risk and attacked his Hero General with my own, though with a single overlap advantage. We both rolled high; I rolled a 5 and Bruce a 6, which meant we tied. Normally a tie score is a stalemate and the combat continues next bound. . . but not when Heroes fight each other. An odd total meant that both Heroes died! And so we both died. Our Heroes were each worth 6 points - 4 for the element cost and 2 points additional for the loss of the General - which took both our totals over 12. However, the loss of the Auxilia the bound before meant that my losses were higher by two points, so I lost the game in dramatic HOTT fashion, 15-13.

 
Game over, man!

We shook hands and played another game. . . may be the next post. 

See ya!