HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

From my family to yours we wish you a safe and prosperous 2012.

A test battle using "This Very Ground"

In the search for a set of American Revolutionary War skirmish rules, I picked up the set "This Very Ground" by Iron Ivan.  Even though the rule set was designed with the French and Indian War in mind but in my mind there isn't a whole lot of difference between the two conflicts.  I'm sure I will catch some flack for this.

The rules themselves were very easy to comprehend after a couple of read throughs and what I read seemed to translate well to the table top.  What I mean by this, is that the movement, firing and overall flow of the game went well with very few reasons to look up different things in the rule book.

Here are some photos from our game.

The British form up to take on the rebel militia.

The rebels spread out and use the trees as cover.

The rebels swarm out into the field.

More British use the road to swarm around the rebels flank. 

The rebels try to answer the British flank attack.

A close up of the rebels.

The British line takes a casualty and returns fire.

The rebels hold their own in melee.

But the British keep up the pressure.

The rebels fall to the man in the bloody melee.

The rebels in the trees open up on the british causing the british to go disrupted.

More rebels fire at the oncoming British.

More volley fire from the British.

The British start to force their way into the fields.

A close up of the British.

More melee and rebels hold their own.

A few more British fall down dead.

The rebels seize the day with the British deciding to fall back due to heavy losses.

Over all our experience with Iron Ivan's game was very positive.  We like the mechanics and the feel of the game as well.  The system also allowed one to use period tactics which allowed the rebels to use cover and skirmishing to their advantage but when they came out in the open against the British line they took heavy losses.

We will be playing these again.

Some vintage WWI photos.

While my friends and I attended Enfilade (the Pacific Northwest's premier gaming convention this past May), my friend James purchased two books for me.  They are the Collier's Photographic History of the European War and Collier's Photographic History of the World's War.  The first one was published in 1915 and the second one was published in 1918.  The photos included are some of the best I've seen and I have been studying the First World War since I was a teenager.  Needless to say I have been devouring the contents page by delicious page since he gave them to me.  In a moment of clarity I decided to take some photos of the photos and post them here.  My parents always taught me to share. :-)
All of the photos have captions and most of them were written as propaganda for the viewer.  After reading some of them, I have laughed out loud. Some of the photos are definitely staged as well.
So enough of my rambling, here are the pictures.

This first set contains the covers and splash pages with date of publication.

 The rest of these images are just random selections from both books.

 German cavalry!

 French cavalry escorting German prisoners.

 This particular photo above shows British Marines defending a road in 1914.

 The top center photo here shows Russian artillery preparing to move out.

A German armor car observing the artillery attack on Belgium.

 Recovering a British plane from the sea.

 A destroyed French town.

 The above center photo shows French soldiers firing over dead comrades.

 French soldiers firing at the Marne.  I thought it was interesting that they are wearing white caps.

 Austrian Skoda gun.

 Cossacks!

 Planes!  

 Top left photo shows how planes were moved from one place to another.

 The British have invaded America!! This tank went down 5th ave in NYC.

Austrian infantry advancing up hill!

 French Lancers waiting for a break through moment.

The desolate, muddy, Western Front.

I Ain't Been Shot Mum! v. 3 The iPad Version

It's no small surprise that I've purchased the newest version of the Two Far Lardies rule set "IABSM!"  The copy I purchased was designed for the iPad and I pretty much use it for all of the .pdf rules I have collected.  I bring my iPad to the games I run and turn it on and there's the rule set waiting for me.  The only thing I've had to print out in the past is the QRS for the other players.

This particular version of the rules was designed for the iPad and contains some neat features.  So I made a short video of using the rule set on the iPad.  It's nothing fancy and I did it all in one take, so it's not perfect (so don't expect a Spielberg type movie). 

I also hope Richard Clarke likes this as well. :-)

Muskets and Mohawks: Trying out the rules battle

After painting up some 1/72 scale Rebels and Redcoats for some skirmish battles, it was time to find some rules to go with the figures.  I'm a fan of Two Hour Wargames and while attending Enfilade one of my friends bought the rules Mayhem: Muskets and Mohawks to try.  See below for our first run of this set of rules.

A cool autumn day broke over the hills and valleys of New York.  My detachment was ordered to flush out the rebels rumored to be massing for an attack on one of our columns moving up from New Jersey.

I broke my 20 man platoon up into 10 men sections sending the able bodied Sgt. Fitzsimmons to the west and to push north towards one of the farms.  My section pushed through the woods hoping to flush out the rebels.

The inexperienced rebels fired first and ran when our disciplined troops opened up with a proper volley.

The second detachment ran into a stiffer defense of rebels surrounding a small farm house.

After stiff fight for the farm house the leader of the rebels surrendered to our troops.  I'm sure he will be hung for his sedition.

Our troops followed up on the retreating rebels, pressing hard to capture them.  Our pursuit ended with some good shots from the rebels.  They had found their back bone and put up a solid defense.

As we moved closer to the edge of the wood, more and more rebel troops appeared.  I formed my troops into a line and waited for the rebels to make the first move.  

After the fight at the farm house the Sgt. moved his troops out to a field when they ran into some rebels holding the stone wall across from them.

The Sgt. knew the rebels would run at the first sight of steel, he pressed a charge over the open field.  Those rebels gave a good account of themselves and fought to the last man in a bloody hand to hand fight.

In front of us the rebels grew in strength as we fired, trying to scatter them.  They did not run, but recklessly charged at us.

Our discipline held off the rebel attach and soon they scattered again back into the woods.  Exhausted and out of shot we pulled back with one captured rebel captain.  Over all the colonel was very happy with our expedition.

We had a great game with only a few rule snafus for a first time out.