Impact 2013: pictorial report

Last sunday I visited the Impact covention, hosted by the Hired Guns wargaming club from Uden. A tad short on visitors alas, but that aside a great athmosphere and lovely people. I played a most enjoyable game of Black Powder against Sander complete with thundering cavalry charges followed by my  crushing defeat. A wonderful day! 

And the cleaning up afterwards....

John Carter Project Pt 2: Barsoomian skiffs

While my order of |Barsoom figures is speeding towards me I thought it fitting to start building some vehicles for them. 

Scratchbuilt from foamboard and cardboard and still only in primer but I am quite content with the results so far. 

The 28mm figure (a converted WF Zulu) is shown for scale. 

Impressions of Indiana Jones Game

The table at the outset 

A sample Team sheet

The Jones Team

Wu Manchu's team 

Maj Helga and her Thule Commando

The perfidious Stahlhelm and his henchmen

The first game in full swing

The perfidious Stahlhelm cowering cowardly behind some scenery

Yikes! Snakes! Fortunately the brainswashed Dacoits of Dr Wu Manchu aren't afraid of anything...

Some gross overestimating of German driving skills resulted in this monumental SNAFU.

Maj Helga speeds on to a glorious victory

Someone managed to start the plane...

  

..although the steering controls remain a mystery....

Aerial view of the table. 

Indiana Jones Participation Game

A sneak peek into my Indy Participation game for Ducosim next month:

Meet the cast: 

Why do it always have to be snakes?

Played for young and old at Ducosim, Amersfoort on May 11th !

Some pictures of our test game: 

The John Carter Project pt 1

I am expressing a serious ambition here: to stage a massive John Carter demo about a year from now. I have done some research already, a miniature ordering list is being made and drawings for Martian flyers being done. I am planning to stay as close to the movies as possible.

A few feeble first steps are these Wargames Factory Zulus converted into Red Martians. I hope many will follow!

Night at the Slaughtered Lamb Action Report

This weekend I played my latest participation game: Night at the Slaughtered Lamb (extra points for those who know which movie that one comes from) at Ducosim. It was a Witchfinder General game for 4 players with some RPG elements thrown in. What was happening?

This rustic tavern deep in the woods has become the last refuge of an evil witch. Hunted by the Witchfinders she has hidden in this tavern; The Slaughtered Lamb, killed one if its inhabitants and has glamoured herself into his or her form. It is the Witchfinder's task to find her out and prevent her escape. However, the other guests are not to be harmed, night is falling and sinister shadows growl and skulk at the dark forest's edge....

The Witch player(s) control the five guests (the witch among them) that start inside the tavern and the monsters that start at the forest's edge. The Witchfinder player(s) start inside or near the tavern, ideally surrounding it with their musketeers. The Witch may use her monsters and (to some extent) the other tavern inhabitants to draw attention away from herself so she can slip out of the tavern and dissappear in the dark forest. The other inhabitants are of course in awe of the armed witchfinders, may not initiate violence and such, but may otherwise act as suspicious as possible. As soon as the Witch reveals herself (by magic or violence for example) her miniature (only the Witch player knows which one) is at once replaced with a Witch figure.

The Tavern from a Noctelingers point of view.

Noctelingers and Werewolves aid the Witch from outside the tavern, arriving at sunset. 

The Witchfinder and his musketeers.

Here is the only picture I managed to take of the game in progress. Running a game with four enthusiastic and noisy players with some audience thrown in leaves little time for taking pictures, so I am glad I managed this one. (This is also my excuse for the gratuitous use of older pictures in this blog....)

I ran three fully manned games in a row, had a lot of fun and some spectacular endings. The Witch managed to dodge the bullets once, got shot once and in the final game, while still disguised as the innkeeper, got ripped apart by one of her own Noctelingers (the monsters were played by a second Evil player) before the Witch player could call out a warning! I didn't see that one coming....

A great day with a great audience and a great little ruleset!

Tomorrow's War: Maisoncelles II

Last saturday night we played our latest game for Tomorrow's War. We used an historical WW2 scenario (originally written for FOW if I am not mistaken) and adapted this to TW. 

Below you see the table. Left center is the village of Maisoncelles, for TW purposes situated in the Republic of Arden on the planet Glory but originally placed in France in 1944. From the lower left corner DPRG troops and armour (originally British with Sherman tanks) advances on and past the village. They will encounter entrenched elements of the United States Marine Corps (originally SS Panzer Grenadiers with two Panthers and an 88mm FLAK gun) that  have taken position in the woods and fields top left and center and are reinforced with a heavy AT gun (right top center) on the hill on the right and two Perkins Grav Tanks. The USMC armour is somewhat surprised by the DPRG advance since they are performing maintenance and neither tank is ready for action. They will be operational on a roll of 5-6 on a D6. 

Below you see US Marines taking cover in the woods in the center of the table. Two squads formed up the vanguard, one defended the AT gun and one was held in reserve on the right flank. 

Here the AT gun is placed behind cover and defended by Marines. Placed on a hill it occupied the ideal defensive firebase and used this to devastating effect. 

The DPRG opted to advance their infantry on the right flank and center and intended to follow up with a punch throught the woods in the center, taking cover from the woods up until the last possible moment before engaging the AT gun.

Here DPRG tanks cross the road into the last remaining woods that separate them from the AT gun. In the meantime one of my Perkins tanks managed to start and advanced at top speed to outflank the DPRG armour. In the foreground one of my front squads just before they gave way and retreated before the DPRG tanks.

Here DPRG troops advance beyond the woods and village. They took heavy casualties from my front squads and HE rounds from the AT gun. One of my front squads dallied too long and got wiped out by the advancing DPRG armour. Lacking AT weapons, they should have stayed out of harm's way anyhow, but taking potshots at the DPRG infantry proved too tempting...

Here the DPRG tanks met their Nemesis. The AT gun started firing as soon as they cleared the woods, resulting in heavily damaged and knocked-out tanks. I don't think the gun lost a single Reaction test or missed a single shot.

 
Burning DPRG tanks at the edge of the fields. DPRG infantry had been stopped dead in their tracks by now.

I didn't get it all my way however. My one functional tank got hit by a lucky shot from a DPRG tanker without getting off a single shot (mainly due to me completely forgetting to make reaction tests for it as soon as the DPRG tanks cleared the woods....)

The final stage. Burning DPRG tanks in the center, an invincible USMC AT gun still firing away and DPRG troops decimated and retreating. I lost one squad and one tank. The second tank sat out the battle still having its gearbox re-assembled or something.

The translation from a 1944 scenario to a Sci-fi one worked flawlessly. Having the USMC at quality 10 was perhaps a bit too much, but the rest worked as it should. We used Tech Level 2 tanks for the Shermans and TL 3 tanks for the Panthers that originally fought at Maisoncelles. The 88mm gun was just a Heavy AT gun with HE rounds for anti-personnel fire.  7 DPRG squads against 4 USMC squads made for the right superiority in manpower that was orginally the British advantage.

In 1944, the British Guards eventually took the village with heavy losses. Here however, things turned out differently.