My Wargaming Week, 9th Jan 2016

My blogging was rather hit and miss in 2015 so for this year I am going to try to post a weekly entry with a summary of what (if any) wargaming things I have been up to. Lets see if that works a bit better!

It was nice to see my latest scenario article in print in MWwBG 393. I posted about some of the games I played to develop this scenario towards the end of 2015. I'm taking a quick break from scenarios now and have put together a couple of articles for the magazine that present my modern skirmish rules, so look out for those in upcoming issues.

Over the week I have finally finished the brushwork on my Lossberg Fusiliers and stuck them to their bases. I plan to get the groundwork finished this weekend and have a couple of flags on the way from GMB to finish these off. I usually hand-paint flags but am using GMB for the hessians for now.

I finally managed to get to the club in Nottingham this week. The group now meets at the Rose and Crown pub in Lenton, which is a bit of a blast from the past for me as I was an undergraduate just around the corner so know the area fairly well (or I did 25 years ago).

This week I had arranged a game with Matt of Morningstar Publications to test out his rules for AWI battles. I have to congratulate Matt on producing a two-page rules set that manages to capture much of the flavour of the AWI. The playtest was really useful and interesting but already gives a pretty fast-flowing game that doesn't require much in the way of markers and seems to work well for those "small" (1-2 brigades a side) battles so typical of the war. They obviously aren't available yet as Matt is still tweaking them but if you are interested in the AWI they will be a good (and low-cost) option.

Game play seems quite similar to what Joe Krone has achieved in "Land of the Free" but in a more streamlined way witha bit less fuss and a lot less markers to clutter up the battlefield.

Below is a shot from the game which we fought to a conclusion in around an hour of actual playing time. As expected the British forced the rebels from the field but at huge cost to the 23rd and 33rd foot who did the bulk of the attacking. As I was going straight from work I used a plain felt cloth rather than my customised terrain boards, but I think it still looks OK.

There were a few interesting games also going on at the same time. As ever James and Scrivs put on a pretty battle, this time using James's now well-known Italians vs Ethiopians...

...and finally I was reunitied with my Julius Caesar command base that I lent for a photo shoot about 2 years ago and who has been on a roundabout journey back to me. Finally he can take his place at the front of his legions.

Not a bad week overall.

The only disappointment was finding out that the Irregulars may not be able to present James and Scrivs's superb Verdun game at Salute as we are on the "reserve list". This is a real shame as we have supported Salute with some good looking games for 15 of the last 16 years, even picking up some awards. Hopefully the club will get a place as the game seems particularly apt, with 2016 being the centenery of the actual battle of Verdun and as with many of our previous effort (Arthurians, AWI, Abbysinia, El Cid, etc) tries to bring a fairly "niche" period into the mainstream. For pictures of the Verdun collection check out Scrivsland and the latest Wargames Illustrated.

My understanding is the reserve list also includes Simon Miller, the "bigredbat" , producer of the fabulous "To The Strongest" rules and stager of spectacular demonstration and participation games. I really hope Simon gets a place as he really is one of the "good guys" and his games really show off our hobby at its best.

I still have a few Christmas presents to try out and review so I'll keep you posted. These are two sets of rules: Art de la Guerre (ancients) and Iron Cross (WW2) and a board game "Clash of Wills" that covers the battle of Shiloh in a fairly abstracted way.

Right ho, off to start the groundwork on those Hessians, see you next week.