Steve's Fieldworks-DFW Irregulars

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Great Napoleon at War Game on Saturday at the Rat Palace!

We had a great game on Saturday! 5 players. French and Westfalian vs. British and Brunswickers. We played the "Hot Pursuit" scenario from the book. It was a tough game for the defender with the reserve/replacemen rules in place. We did have a good game. If you missed it, you shoulda' showed up!

I could bore you with a long and drawn out AAR. I won't do that. Suffice it that the Brunswickers left the field and were replaced by Brunswick and British cavalry in a rear guard action. This game is a bit strange as some of the victory conditions for the defenders are a bit contrarian. I'd like to play this again as the attacker. Here's a small gallery from the game.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

54mm AWI British Light Dragoons Completed

I've been a busy bee this summer! Multiple 54mm, 28mm and 20mm projects. One of the ongoing projects is my 54mm AWI collection. I added the British 17th Light Dragoons from All the King's Men. Ken Cliffe's productions are consistently great and a joy to paint. Highly recommended.

54mm French Carabiners-1812 By All the King's Men

Finally finished the 54mm Carabiner unit from All the King's Men. These figures were a joy to paint. I really liked the "cut" of the riders. Thanks to Ken Cliffe at All the King's Men for some great figures.

Winged Hussars for Pike and Shotte!
I've started down yet another "black hole of wargaming" again. I really like the Warlord Pike and Shotte rules so painting a 17th Century Polish army is definitely in order. Winged Hussars or "winged cavalry" were common in most Eastern European armies from about the 15th century including the Ottoman Empire. These figures are from The Assault Group in the U.K. Great figures. The flags and pennants from Battle Flag. I'm really stoked to get started on this army. This unit has taken way longer to paint than I wanted. Having a shoulder replaced did impact my painting time this summer for sure! Here you go....enjoy...I sure enjoyed painting these guys!

Sunday, May 17, 2015

How Long Has It Been Since I've Played A REAL Ancients Game?

Steve Bidwell and I dusted off some of our classical ancients collections and threw down on Saturday night at the Rat Palace Redux in Red Oak, Texas. We introduced Rusty Parker to Might of Arms as well. I've been playing several Dark Ages games lately such as Dux Britannium by Too Fat Lardies and Saga by Gripping Beast's rules group. I do like Dux and the period of Late Romano-Britain and the continuous raids of the Saxons. I also like Saga but think the game was "played out" by the game of the week crowd at several local games stores before I had my collections completed. I started my wargaming addiction playing WRG 5th, 6th and a bit of 7th editions. I've missed the larger, massed battles our krew used to play with multiple army flavors and the look of massed battles on my game tables.

Steve Bidwell brought his New Kingdom Egyptians while Rusty and I played Assyrians. Both armies have lots of missile weapons, a predominance of shock and light chariotry and big units of infantry. The beauty of these rules is they're fast, furious and games come to striking conclusions as forces melt away via fatigue, shaken status and rout from other friends routing.

This may seem a bit tedious to a newer gamer not used to playing more classic rules. That's ok. I just like more than 50 figures on the table at one time. My thinking if 50 figures is good, 150-200 per player is GREAT! The game played true to form as Bidwell shot the crap out of my Assyrians that did not have many skirmishing elements. The game lasted five game turns in about 3.5 hours including teaching Rusty the game. That rocks for me. I want to play more Might of Arms. It has and will continue to be my ancients game of choice.

Our collections consist of 25mm Hinchcliffe, Ral Partha, Garrison and some Foundry (some slingers I don't use much). Here's a small gallery of the game. Please take a moment to join our DFW Irregulars-Southern Front Meet Up Group if you're interested in playing in the DFW area. Our group rocks!

Assyrian Heavy Chariots crash into Egyptian Marines

Miller's favorite tactic....chariot traffic jam!

Battle Line Turn 2...these rules get one into melee QUICKLY!

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Dux Campaign! Ludicrous Sextus vs. Theoden! Who will Win?

Has it been three months since I posted anything? Seems as if this is true. The past three months have been a blur as my FIRST Robotics Team 3355 went to kick off, designed, built and competed our robot, my spouse of 36 years went into hospital for a month with infections associated with her leukemia and teaching multiple preparations just got in the way.
Found a bit of time to learn (sorta') a great set of Dark Age rules that are set in post-Roman Britain. I won't go into a long tome about how I like the rules, they're easy to learn but hard to master, are written to flow smoothly as honey and just fun enough to keep my interest through many rounds of Chocolate Double Stout, Dunkelbrau, and Fireball Whisky! These rules are a "winnah winnah-chicken dinnah" for me and a great compliment to Saga Dark Age rules. I've never been a "skirmish gamer" in 30+ years; but, these rules plus another Two Fat Lardies set "Chain of Command" have gotten my attention as our group really hasn't dusted off our HUGE ancients collections in years. OK, now on to the game report.

The game has a "game" within the game for pre-battle terrain set up and for pre-battle inspiration of a warlord's troopers and levies. The pre-game is really fun and sets the stage very well for the miniatures battle. We played on Rusty Parker's 6x4 table with a lot of beachfront property for the Saxons to wade through. The terrain game ended up with a set of marshy areas, a large forested area, two hills and some rocky/difficult ground

The Saxons hit the beach and got funneled into a small deployment area. The forest and marshy areas split the Saxons into three distinct forces. The Romano-Brits were deployed to take and hold the higher ground inland. The game has a really cool inspiration phase that can include giving a rousing, inspiring speech to the men, passing out copious amounts of mead and ale to your troops (liquid courage), consulting the gods, committing your champions to single combat or just saying "screw it" and getting straight to the battle. I proceeded to roll up a big hit of mead and ale. My army went to battle staggering drunk. Sometimes that is a good thing! I celebrated the fact with a long draft of Chocolate Double Stout! Rusty committed his champion to fight my champion (FiddyEuroson). FiddyEuroson wounded the Saxon dog and forced him to leave the field. The Romano-Brits were standing around gobsmacked as their previous encounters with the Saxons had some bad results. This battle would be the pivot point to whether or not the Saxon warlord Theoden could take the province defended by the upstart, wannabe' Dux Ludicrous Sexus. Game on!

This game was nip and tuck throughout. I'll post up pictures, comment and try to give some flavor to the pics. If you were thinking about playing a Dark Ages game, tried Saga, found out it was "game of the week" at your local game store and your collection is collecting dust; try Dux. You can easily play a two person campaign (we try to play weekly) or a larger battle where multiple warlords are utilized. The rules are written in a tongue in cheek style so it's a pretty easy read. If you play other TFL rules, you'll see a common set of mechanics in all of them. They work and work well. Enjoy the gallery! It was a great evening with a great friend!