Acquired some new items

Over the last couple of weeks I picked up some new items and they have arrived as of today. Which makes me excited!  Some cool new gaming things!!!

To start off with I picked up a copy of "To The Strongest" by Simon Miller.  I've read some good reviews for this set of rules and decided to take the plunge and see if they will work out with our group.  If interested in these you can order them from http://bigredbatshop.co.uk/

Along with the rules order I also picked up from Simon, three hills and 6 patches of rough ground that he uses for the above set.  I of course will use them no matter what.  Also on top of the hills and the rough terrain are my latest Spanish Knights for my Renaissance army.

This is the large oval hill.  It measures about 12.5" from end to end.

A close up of the hill and troops.

I also picked up two smaller hills. They are nicely done and the flocking on them is very interesting. Lots contrast!  I like that.  These hills are a little over 6" round.

More close ups of the Knights.  I would just like to say that I'm glad I'm done painting the knights. What a pain.  Each one had a different color set which made using a assembly line approach very difficult.

These are the rough ground patches.  I'm not 100% sure of the material used to make them but it almost feels like straw.

Now for something completely different.  About 3 weeks ago I stopped by Powells Bookstore here in Portland, OR and came across this book in the WWI section.  It's a travel guide written for people who wanted to tour the battle ground for the 2nd Battle of the Marne.  It was published in 1920.  The best part of the book are all of the great maps and each page has pictures on it taken during or after the battle.  This to me was a great find.  They had other books as well for the Western Front.

Great maps!

Impressive detail on the maps as well.

Fantastic photos on each page.  This book has been a joy to go through.  Lots of gaming ideas are popping up from this find.  :-)

Medieval Battle-Bear Yourselves Valiantly

On the 27th of February the group got together at Guardian Games and we had another test run of the rules Bear Yourselves Valiantly.  If my count is correct this is the third time with this rule set.  We generally like them but are still making mistakes with some of the mechanics which is causing frustration for us. Over all we enjoy the rule set.  Also this game was a test run for Alyssa to GM the rules, who will be running a Roman vs. Celtic battle at Enfilade in May.  

This particular battle was just a line them up and beat on each other type of game.  We had 6 total players with Alyssa being the GM and me as her assistant. 

Four of players had a winger commander and two battle groups except the two players Ken and Kevin who were the respective Kings for their sides. They had the King, a wing commander and a battle group.  The wing commanders in this game each had 1 to 2 units to control as well.  My thought behind this was to give the forces a chance to exploit advantages or plug holes where needed.  Even the Kings had their own units.   I forgot to get a picture of the units on their starting lines.

This is was after the first set of moves with Kevin's army (the right side of the picture) pushing forward.  You can see how full the table is with miniatures. Outside of a dozen stands or so these is the total of all of my 10mm medievals on the table at once.  Looks AWESOME!

Dave was holding down Kevin's left flank and continued to push forward on Jesse who had one battle group Retreat after 1 turn.

On Kevin's Right Flank Jack pushed forward to only be met in the middle by Jeff's forces defending Ken's Left Flank.  The battle there would seesaw all night.

Dave's forces are moving in after Jesse's battle group retreated.

The middle of the battle field between the two Kings was a bloody mess.  Both sides hammered away at each other turn after turn.

A close up of the action between the two kings.

Jesse's battle group never recovered from their retreat but he was able to throw one stand from his other battle group in between the retreating force and Dave's steamroller.

More of Dave's forces engaging Jesse's.

The battle between Jack and Jeff was a bloody affair with Jack's Battle Group finally retreating. 

One last overview of the battle before we called it.

The battle ended up in a tie with the opposite flanks, Jesse and Jack's forces retreating.  Next time we run a game of this I will create some sort of victory conditions as I feel we have gotten over the hump, somewhat, of learning the rules enough to a go at a proper scenario.  The Yahoo Group for this rule set "Look Sarge! No Charts" are great at answering questions when we have issues and that has helped immensely. 

Overall we had a great time as usual. We have a great group that taunts each other and likes to have fun. We argue sometimes over rules but this a great bunch of people to be associated with and I'm glad they let me play.

Wargamers and Tactics: Everyone Charge! vs. Real World Tactics

About a month or so ago an observation became forefront in my mind and I wanted to post something about it.  After a game I ran for the group, I noticed no one bothered to follow the examples of the tactics I had provided them before the game.  It was a skirmish level WWII game.  Each side had either 3 or 4 squads each plus some support units.  One side was attacking and the other defending. I had told the attacking side that they should work together i.e. covering their approaches, mutual fire support, use SMOKE! and stuff like that.  The defenders were coached on using their machines guns to overlap their fire zones, hold back a squad or fire team to plug a hole and so on.  Neither side really paid attention.  The defenders went about their task of setting up and threw everyone on the firing line, the machine guns had poor lanes of fire mostly being blocked by obstacles.  The attackers, once they started, ran full speed into the waiting fire of the defenders only to get decimated! The one fire team that made it to the defensive line and past the defenders was able to catch an objective but it wasn't enough to win the battle. Had the defenders placed someone in reserve that fire team wouldn't have made it.  I've noticed this same behavior at conventions as well.

This made me think about how wargamers play a game vs. what the real world tactics would be for a given situation, whether that's a skirmish game or Corp level game.

I'm not a strategist and was unable to serve in the military so I am by no means an expert on tactics of any sort but through reading books and studying I've attempted to learn what tactics were used in the periods I game.  I know I've succumb to the idea of, "well I have this unit of heavy cavalry lets charge that totally unmolested guard unit of infantry!" Which usually turns out badly for me.
Is there an underlying thought that these are just little men on bases and they have no real world impact if they all die to the man?  Does it matter to Joe Gamer that he is using the same battle plan whether its ancients or modern regardless of the scenario/battle he has decided to play.
In our games don't we try to emulate the type of warfare that fascinates us? After all of our preparation, we present the scenario and then someone runs the troops right up the middle into close combat and the game becomes unwinnable for that side.  We've all witnessed this and have probably done it ourselves.  I realize that these questions are not new and are multi-layered and the answers will vary widely.

I will start with the my first question "these are just little men on bases."  This is true! They are just little men on bases and the fact that they lose 80% of their unit strength in a given day does not matter in the real world.  Unless we are playing a campaign game then there's some sort of ramification to our actions as players.  Other than that we don't care about them.

The 2nd question about Joe Gamer using the same battle plan regardless of era he/she is playing.  I find this true as well only because I've fallen victim of it.  Some years ago there was a gentleman who ran a lot of Napoleonic games here in Portland.  So I got use to lining my units up shoulder to shoulder, sort of speak, and marching across the battlefield.  Well one day I sat down with a different group of friends to play Advanced Squad Leader and I did the same thing with the counters for my troops. I lined them all up shoulder to shoulder.  My opponent looked at me and said, "Boy you have been playing a lot of Napoleonic games."  That moment brought into focus a mentality of playing that I hadn't realized. Since then I tried to understand how particular armies fought in the time periods that interested me and hopefully bring that about in my playing and my scenario design.

My 3rd thought about the amount of time and effort we devote to our hobby to make the shields, uniforms, study the history, find a descent set of rules and so on.  I know I devote a lot of time to building armies and to studying the history of that particular time period and creating scenarios to allow others to enjoy our work.  Now its game time when you explain to a player that he/she better not charge the cavalry into the  pike wall of infantry on the first move because it will not go well and that they should spend a few turns softening up the infantry with bow fire etc. On the first move they charge and then look at you completely dumbfounded that their cavalry was routed.  The defense they use usually falls on the "rules aren't historical" because of some obscure fact they once read (which is an exception to what normally happens) or that you aren't giving the correct bonuses to their units and so on.  We've all heard these arguments. So who's fault is it? The players for not paying attention to the GM about what not to do and what you should do.

In conclusion as I reread this piece I realize that it is not as comprehensive as I would like but I hope it conveys my thoughts adequately.  I am going to venture a hypothesis that most gamers are playing for the enjoyment and not so much about the realism the game provides.  I say this based on my observations and absolutely no hard evidence.  So I throw it out there to the rest of the internet, what do you think?   

My daughter's first painted miniature!!!

 My daughter asked me to teach her how to paint miniatures this morning. So I struck while the fire was hot!! Luckily I had some primed figures waiting for some paint. She and I sat down and I walked her through painting a 28mm Pulp figure.  I allowed her to pick the colors she wanted etc...  She listened and did everything I told her.  She is going to do the other two on this popsicle stick as well.  She says she had big plans for the evil scientist.  I can't wait.  This makes me so happy.  She's 9 years old.  I hope she learns to like it.

10mm Italian Renaissance Knights

Just finished up painting some 10mm Italian Knights for my Renaissance army.  They painted up pretty quickly. Lots of detail for the size.  I just have to add the flag for these guys.  Time to prime the next batch of cavalry.  

Renaissance Army Partially Completed

Today I've finished up 80% of my Spanish/Imperial Renaissance Army. They are based but need to have the bases flocked now.  The cavalry are getting primed and will be painted over the next few weeks along with leaders.

I must say I was pretty apprehensive about painting these guys only because the uniforms are so flamboyant. Trying to find color combinations bothered me mostly because I'm color blind.  So in my internet travels I came across this site and it provided some great advice. paintinglandsknechts  The other source I found to be a great resource was Pinterest.  I ended finding a lot of reenactor pictures which helped as well.  It's great resource if you've never looked at it.

Well onto the pictures of the little guys.

Three units of pikemen.  Each unit is 4 bases.  I'm waiting for flags to arrive from England.

Swordsmen!

Arquebusiers! 4 units ready to protect the pikemen.

All of the units together.