Month: September 2014

A couple of weeks ago, we sent the files for BYV off to the publisher, On Military Matters.  Last weekend we reviewed two test specimens.  I tweaked the .pdf files as a result of reviewing these proofs and sent them back to On Military Matters.  These should be hitting the streets very soon.

In previous posts I’ve written about events at which the HAWKs have support Senior Leader Professional Development events and gaming days at Sam Fuson’s War Horse Farm.  One of the unit’s members is heading off to the career course, and as a going away event he requested that we run a Look, Sarge, No Charts:  World War Two game.  How could we turn down such a flattering request?  Since we were running these games in September 2014, it was apropos that we chose two battles that took place in September.

We elected to reprise our large Lvov scenario.  In this scenario, in September 1939, the Russians and Germans are converging on the Polish city of Lvov.  The Poles, however, may not rest on the defense.  While fighting in two directions to keep the Russians and Germans from linking up, they must also advance to seize German heavy artillery that are shelling Lvov from some high ground.

On the flank shown in the picture (above), Polish horse cavalry and tankettes fought against heavy German armor, halftracks, and infantry to hold a line along a stream.  After some fierce fighting, the tankettes and armored cars were overwhelmed, and the Germans broke through.  They were heading toward the key village of Zboiska when the game ended.

On the other flank, the Russian tanks finally broke through another Polish infantry battalion; however, the Poles along another creek and those shown on the hill in the picture (above) managed to strip off most of the Russian infantry support.  When the game ended, the Russian tanks were pushing toward Zboiska as well, despite a pummeling by Polish anti-tank rifles.

When the game ended, the Poles were on the slopes above Lvov destroying the German artillery, and the Russians and Germans were in no position to take Zboiska without a protracted fight.  We declared the game a Polish victory.

The second game of the day was a WWI game with Duncan’s modification of LSNC: WWII (with elements of A Union So Tested rolled in).  The scenario involved the beginnings of the battles around the Marne in September 1914.  This is a period of history in which I have little knowledge, but I’ve really enjoyed Duncan’s early WWI games.  In this scenario, the French were advancing to seize high ground on the far end of the table, while the Germans had to keep the French as far away from the high ground as possible.

Despite terrible casualties, the game was a marginal French victory.  The French had an isolated regiment on the high ground and another regiment in position to advance to the high ground (against substantial resistance).  On the French right (show above early in the game before the carnage), however, the French economy-of-force regiment was nearly wiped out and holding onto the village shown in the picture) by the skin of their teeth.

All-in-all, it was a good gaming day!

As Barrage 2014 was winding down, we set up a “barroom” ala Blood and Swash for some semi-LARP-ing.  The basic idea was to replicate the pirate tavern brawls and Jennifer, Chris, and I run using Blood and Swash with the HAWKs as the figures.  Note in the picture above that we used foam koozies as beer mugs.  We put koozies, paper plates, tables, and chairs around the playing area.

There were four swashbucklers in the game, and they were assigned additional players to be on their teams.  Each swashbuckler was assigned a suit of cards.  I pulled cards and announced the suit.  The swashbuckler would then determine which of his team members would act.

In Blood and Swash tavern fights the objective generally is to get a treasure chest full of gold out of the tavern.  It is every player for himself, with each player controlling three or four figures.  This game was no different.

We used standard Blood and Swash rules.  Each player was given a card with pre-rolled stats (Slug, Shoot, Sword, Save, and Hit Points).  In Blood and Swash, figures are in one of four categories from swashbuckler (best) to men at arms (worst).  For our LARP event, the more dressed up the players were, the better their character type.  Equipped with foam swords, Nerf guns, and other accouterments, we launched into the game.

Sword play, shoving attacks, and fisticuffs were handled with the GM (me) calling out die rolls, which the players compared to their stats to determine success or failure of the action.  Throwing and shooting was accomplished by players physically throwing mugs or plates and firing Nerf guns.  As in Blood and Swash, reloading took four actions.

The participants, observers (HAWKs not participating in the game), and GM all had a terrific time.  All of the things that make Blood and Swash fun, such as people slipping on spilled beer, dropping swords, and leaping over tables, chairs, and bodies, all occurred in this game.  The HAWKs are already talking about how to make this better next year.  I suspect at a minimum more people will develop costumes so that they get better characters.

As Elton John said, “Saturday is all right for fighting!”

Several of the HAWKs enjoyed this interesting soccer game.

As usual, we have a dedicate table established for games targeted at younger gamers.  Although the number of younger gamers was lower than we would have liked, the kids who participated all had a great time.

My WWII skirmish was a bit of a surprise.  I planned the game for 6 players, and I wasn’t sure if the game would fill with an 1800 start time.  Not only did the game fill, but I had to add troops at the last minute to make room for 10 players.  I think the games as quite successful.  People keep asking me when the rules will be available for purchase.  I have been developing this for myself, and having just finished the three-year slog to get Bear Yourselves Valiantly ready for publication, I’m not sure I’m ready for another rules publishing project.  WWII skirmish is a crowded field, with Force on Force and Bolt Action being the big players with hard cover books and a lot of marketing oomph.  Too Fat Lardies have the UK market sewn up.  I’m just not ready to try to suffer the slings an arrows of biased reviews and TMP sock puppets right now.

 

The design of the cards for G.A.M.E.R. is mature enough that I wanted professionally printed decks for continued play testing.  I set them all up in the correct template and sent them off to Superior POD to be printed.   We had an early glitch in which I need to make some corrections to the files, but the instructions from Superior POD went into my SPAM folder.  Once that was corrected, in less than two weeks I had 16 decks of cards in my hand.  There are eight different backs so that each player could have their own deck without risk of getting the decks mixed up.  I will be using them for the first time on Saturday at our Barrage gaming day.

I mentioned in an earlier post that last weekend I had started a couple f painting projects.  One was to paint up the Reaper Bones science fiction figures that were part of the Bones I Kickstarter.  For me, these are meant to be opponents for the Aliens-like space marines.

I suppose these figures are meant to be painted in Stormtrooper white and black.  There is no situation I can imagine, other than embassy gate guard duty, in which white uniforms make any sense in a tactical environment.  Regardless of how far future you get, we will always strive to camouflage ourselves.  I opted for a brown theme to distinguish them from the green uniforms of my colonial marines.

Many of the figures (see top picture) are armed with something that looks like a reasonable assault rifle.  Some have silly looking GW-like oversized weapons (see middle picture).  Others are just ridiculous.  I am not a GW basher; although, I’ve played almost none of their games that I enjoy, but one thing that really rubs me wrong are those crazy oversized weapons.  They are stupid from a physical/tactical sense, and they are aesthetically painful.  The good news, however, is that much of the rest of the industry has seen fit to follow suit in order to attract the hard-core Warhammer players.

I can suspend disbelieve with the best of them at times, and I really enjoy old black and white movies.  There is a scene in a really good, old, WWII propaganda movie, called Air Force, in which John Garfield is firing a .30 cal machine-gun from his hip.  Silly.  That scene looks like real battlefield footage compared to the figures in the photo above.   Even if you presume some sort of exoskeleton type of assist to carry and hold the Gatling Gun looking monstrosity, you’d look like a ballerina doing a pirouette as soon as you pulled the trigger.

Anyway, the figures are done, and I am ready to put them into a game.

I spent a fair amount of the weekend helping my son with college applications, taking my daughter to the Demi Lovato concert in Baltimore, and some computer work for my moonlighting job.  Despite an increase in my normal state of ear ringing induced by the concert, I did have some time on Sunday for some hobby work.  I washed, primed, and began painting a bunch of Reaper Bones science fiction infantry in armored suits.  I also glued a bunch of Iron Wind turrets to a bunch of GW Epic Warhammer 40k vehicles as a start on my 10mm near future, science fiction project.  Finally, I painted the tunics on 11 battalions of Not Quite Seven Years War 10mm figures for the country of Bergdorfreuthenheim.  I expect to finish all but the NQSYW figures by the end of next weekend and will post pictures then.