Mountain Lard Weekend

Over the weekend, I managed to head up to Hendersonville, NC and attend the Mountain Lard game day. It was a great games day. Even though there were some last minute cancelations, there were still four games going simultaneously for both periods. In the morning, I ran a Sharp Practice scenario based on the Horseshoe bend scenario that I had written. Though a small scenario designed for 2 players, we had three at the table. The Loyalists divided their forces. The game went rather well. Unfortunately, one of the Loyalist players had to leave mid game due to a family emergency. The Loyalists won the game when a random event set the house on fire triggering the end game event - Colonel Alston's wife forced the rebels to surrender to protect her family. The player running the Raiders had achieved their objectives and had successfully looted several buildings. They were the only unit to take no shock for the entire game.

The Loyalist advanced unobserved to start the game and nearly reached the sentries before being spotted.

The two Loyalist players (Dave P and Mark C). The one on the left, Dave P, had to leave part way through the game. (Hope everything was OK, Dave.) He commanded a unit of militia and a unit of Loyalist Raiders. The raiders as mentioned earlier were very effective.

Once spotted, the Loyalists quickly came under fire. The unit of militia took no losses but plenty of shock.

It took a while, but the main body of loyalists began to move and advanced on the house. They approached the side and took the house under fire.

Seeing an opportunity, the Rebel player decided to attempt to charge the broken militia and Loyalist Raiders in an attempt to reduce the Loyalist force morale. But did not roll well enough to leave the yard.

The risk did not pay off and the main body of Loyalists charged an destroyed the single rebel group, killing its big man. The picture is from the Facebook post from the event as I forgot to take a picture of this.

The main body of loyalists then charged the house repeatedly and took the bottom floor. Several attempts were made to run upstairs as well. A firing random event from the Rebel player led to the house catching fire which ended the game in a Loyalist victory. The house and home was lost. Here is the defeated Rebel (Allen on the left) and the victorious Loyalist (Mark on the right).

At the same time, Mark Luther was running a game of Coastal Patrol featuring Soviets against Germans. Over lunch, Mark told me that the game ended as a draw with both sides left nearly broken.

The other two games were a game of O Group with 10mm miniatures and a 1st World War game of Chain of Command in Africa (28mm). The Africa game was amazing and I really feel like I missed out playing that one.

The Chain of Command game was run by the gentleman in white.

In the afternoon, Mark and I were in the Bag the Hun game that was based on the TV show Black Sheep Squadron. I had a Japanese Shotai of three planes commanded by a top ace. The target was to shoot down a flight of two Avengers. My ace maneuvered perfectly and got on the tail of an Avenger at point blank range. He had no less than four opportunities to fire on the Avenger. He managed to lightly damage the aircraft but received engine damage in return and had to flee the battle. My other two planes were shot down pretty quickly. I think Mark lost one of his Zeros. All Corsairs and Avengers were able to exit the game. Not my best flying.

My forces before the game starts.

Things looked promising as I quickly got on an Avenger's tail. My two wingmen are still alive at this point.

No matter how much my Ace shot, I failed to strike damage on the Avenger. A Corsair (not piloted by Boyington) shot down one of my other planes and here the other is about to be killed.

After some lucky shooting by the Avenger, my ace gets engine damage and turns around to retreat.

Mark (left) commanded the other three Zeroes and the Drew M, who piloted Boyington and his wingman (right).

And our host for the game, Mark B. Fantastic job running the game and the "Emmy" dice mechanic that he added added alot of fun.

The other afternoon games were a second run of the WWI Chain of Command game, a game of What A Tanker set in Stalingrad and a game of Charlie Don't Surf (20mm minis I think). All of the games seemed like great fun. The What a Tanker game seemed to be a 10mm game.

The What a Tanker game looked like fun.

The Charlie Don't Surf game also looked like a great time.

The event host, Chad, did an amazing job pulling this together. There was a raffle that i didn't win. But everyone got a gift bag.

The next day, I met my college roommate who presented me with a gift. A big box of mostly painted 15mm Minifig Napoleonics. I was shocked with the number of figures that were there. Aparently, there was a church member at his mother's church who was a wargamer who passed away. His wife, not knowing what it was, sold it at a church rummage sale. My roommate's Mom purchased them and gave them to him thinking he might like them. Having no use for them, he gave them to me. I am still trying to sort these miniatures out and figure out what is there. In the box, there were two very old Warhammer 40k miniatures. Still in the blister Packs.

Games Day - 12-07-2019

We did another Historical's Games Day at Gigabytes in Marietta. I ran a game of Sharp Practice based on the War of Jenkin's Ear scenarios that I had written. This particular battle was the Spanish Attack on Fort William in July 1742. The Spanish were in retreat having been driven off of St Simons Island they engaged in a campaign of burning on Jekyll Island and Cumberland Island. They found Fort St Andrews abandoned on Cumberland Island but Fort William was occupied.

Sharp Practice - War of Jenkin's Ear

In a last ditch effort to gain some glory from their failed campaign, they assaulted the fortifications of Fort William. Historically, this battle was a win for the British as the Spanish failed again to take the fort by force. The Spanish left the island and returned to St Augustine, Florida.

Fort William was constructed with a ditch and a wooden palisade surrounding a block house and other buildings. The Spanish assaulted several sides of the structure. This scenario simulates part of that force attacking a corner of the fort. The actual scenario calls for the British force to be made up of Oglethorpe's 42nd Regiment of Foot. I didn't have time to finish painting my Khurasan miniatures for the 42nd, so I had the brave Scots of Darien be the defenders of the fort. These are AWI militia figures led by a Scotsman wielding a large sword.

The layout of the table had the corner of the fort dominating the bottom of the table. If I were to run this again, I will paint up more palisade sections and create a ditch that will go in front of the fort. Without the ditch, it was too easy for the Spanish to scale the walls.

The buildings represented the small town that existed outside of the fort. The scenario called for the Indians to pass a looting test if they ended a phase within 4" of any of the buildings, else they spent time looting said building until brought back under control. When the incident would first be applicable in the game, I forgot about the rule and the Indians ran merrily along to some small woods and proceeded to shoot the defenders on the wall. That was a mistake.

Below is the Spanish and Indian force. The Yamassee Indians had an initial group of 2 groups of 6 and a reserve group of 2 groups of 6. Each force had a scaling ladder with them. The Spanish had two separate forces. The first was the command of Spanish Regulars from Havana. This consisted of three groups of 8 men. They were accompanied by a force of Spanish Militia from St Augustine, Florida. The two Spanish forces detested one another and ideally should not support one another due to the animosity between the sides. This is tough to model in a game where players want to win.

The Spanish and Indians were ably commanded by Kris and Sebastian. Each took a Spanish force and one of the Indian forces. Each had a reserve element that they could bring in after 2 turns of the blank card. The blank card came up very quickly in the game, allowing the Spanish to get their full force on the table much quicker than anticipated.

I spent some time making markers for the game. I only managed Unloaded Markers (polyfilla on tongue depressors), Present markers and Uncontrolled markers. To show what unit had activated, I was placing pennies behind the units. I also had a number of shock dials from both Warbases and Charlie Foxtrot.

I had anticipated more players but it was an early game and many of the potential players had yet to show up. So I ended up running the British forces. I had a swivel gun with three crew and a leader, two groups of Darien Scots (8 men each) with leader and a single group of 6 skirmishers with a leader. This proved to be just too few troops to hold the day.

The whole day started a bit rough as I realized that I left my ground cloth at home which was over an hour away from the venue. Fortunately, Mark lent me his from his Maylay game. The game began with the swivel gun deployed on the fort walls. I have both a large fort corner and a blockhouse that I could add to expand the British space up considerably in the future.

The Yamassee and the Florida Militia deployed from the left hand side of the table. Here is where I forgot to make the Indians pass a looting test. That would have greatly helped me out if they had taken the test.

The Spanish Regulars deployed from the right in column formation. They advanced quickly but became a great target for the swivel gun and took some shock from the first blast.

After this, I was able to deploy my other troops to the walls in the hopes of driving off the Spanish. This never happened. While the Spanish Regulars took losses, they didn't accumulate much shock. They were able to deploy in line and lay fire against the swivel gun and Darien Scots. With both the Militia and Regulars in formation, they were able to move their attack forward without loosing too many men or getting loaded with crippling shock. I treated the palisade as light cover and as the Spanish and Indians advanced, they were able to kill a number of the British defenders off of the walls. Surprisingly, they took almost no shock.

Soon enough, the Spanish reached the walls. They were in good shape over all and able to press home the attack.

With both the skirmishers and the swivel gun team killed to a man, the fort was doomed. The leader of the skirmishers was wounded and knocked off the wall. He would then end up with a random event that saw him with a sprained ankle. The leader of the swivel gun was wounded and knocked out. When the Spanish poured over the walls, the knocked out skirmisher was captured. The Scots attempted to fight off the troops scaling the wall. They did win a round of fisticuffs before being shot to bits by the next group to scale the fort.

In the end, the fort fell. *Sigh* It was still a good game and with some tweaks will be a really good game. This is the second version of the layout for the game and I enjoyed it much more than the initial version. I just need to get to painting more terrain to round it out.

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Chain of Command - Normandy Game

William ran a Normandy game in the afternoon. It was a six player game with William as umpire. I played a reduced American paratrooper platoon. I was joined by Sebastian as the Armor commander and Rick as the second infantry commander. The Germans were played by John, Rodger and Stephen.

It was a great but slow moving game. The American's were the defenders and we were tasked with holding the town square. I held the right side of the table while Rick held the left. I actually didn't do terribly but managed to loose my only anti-armor asset (a bazooka team) early on. With two Panzer IVs parked near me and nothing to counter them, a squad was forced to break off and fall back off the table. I attempted to drive off one tank with MMG fire but to no avail. Part of the issue was terrible dice rolling. I took little shock and few casualties (lost the bazooka team). My force morale was in good shape (8) but just had no where to maneuver that made sense without it being a suicidal charge. In the end, the Germans gained a tactical victory as the US armor suffered 3 lost tanks out of 5. I don't think the Germans lost any armor. They did take some infantry casualties from Rick.

It was a great day all around. I was supposed to run an Infamy, Infamy game but by the time the Chain of Command game ended, it was too late.

Gigabytes Historical Games Day - Part 3

Unfortunately, I didn't get much of a chance to look around. There were some wonderful games going on around me. Right next to me was a large game of Chain of Command set in the Spanish Civil War. It was a 28mm game and looked great and the players all were having a good time.

These were the only pictures I got of the game. With the windows behind it, the picture turned out horribly.

There was a pirate game using Blood and Plunder (I think) in 28mm that had some nice but large ships.

Mark had a game of Wings of Glory with a balloon busting scenario on hand. I really wanted to play this but didn't have time. He also ran a Coastal Patrol game that I really wanted to play but again, no time.

There was a Team Yankee game that I got a picture of him starting his set up. It was taken down by the time I got to wander again.

Right next to me was one of the two other Sharp Practice games that was ran that day. This was using elements of Sharply Buffed. It was set in the Netherlands and looked really good.

Mark ran a third Sharp Practice game featuring the Seminole Indian Wars. It was fantastic but apparently, I took no pictures of it. There was also a gladiator game with a fantastic arena setup. My phone was at the table and I saw it waiting to order some food before my blood sugar completely collapsed. There was rumors of another chain of command game. And some other stuff I never saw.

Again, thank you to William for setting this up. I hope we can make this a regular event.

Gigabytes Historical Game Day - Part 2: Sharp Practice

Once the Kiss Me Hardy game wrapped up, I managed to get the table reset for a game of Sharp Practice. This one was a Napoleonic game based on the Dewey Lambdin Book, Troubled Waters.

In the book, Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, is in command of a small squadron. These include sloops, schooners and cutters below the rate. In the course of the book, he is dealing with spies as he operates off the coast of France. Near the town of Royan, there is a battery of guns guarding the mouth of an estuary that protects the river leading to the port of Bordeaux. A fort is being constructed at Royan but is not yet operational. Lewrie hatches a plan to take out the battery and then move on and destroy the fort that is under construction.

This is where the scenario picks up the action. Lewrie has commanded two of his vessels to land a force of marines and sailors to attack the battery. Guarding the battery is a small group of voltigeurs from a light battalion situated in the town of Royan. The battalion has sent out strong parties of men to search the coast for British sailors that have been getting water and firewood recently.

The sailors are from the a schooner and a sloop that are anchored off of the coast. The marines are from Lewrie's flagship.

The game had two British players and two French players. The British made good progress getting their men headed to the shore. They had three larger rowboats and two smaller ones. This enabled them to land their entire force without having to return to the ships. One group of marines, however, had some issues moving and remained stranded in the water with the one rowboat armed with a gun.

The French deployed their voltigeurs to block the British advance on the gun and opened ineffectual fire on the seamen on the shore. In return, Both the musket armed seamen and the schooner opened fire on these troops and basically neutralized them for the rest of the game.

The French sent out a runner to get reinforcements from the town this was accomplished quickly, but the reinforcements were distracted by the tavern in the village as they spent several turns there.

The next French reinforcement was in the form of three groups of chasseurs that arrived in the top left corner of the table. These troops deployed in a line and advanced through the woods. They lost formation and were picked apart by the marines and the guns from the the sloop.

By the time the second group of marines landed and the gunboat moved off, the French force morale was largely broken. The force from Royan barely played a part as their cards didn't show up before the Tiffin card until toward the end of the game. The French did have their own naval vessel arrive in the form of a single gun gunboat. This opened fire on the schooner and caused some damage but not enough to make a difference.

It was a fun game and played in 15mm. The ships were Sea Dog Studios models with three of the rowboats being Old Glory models. It was a fun game but probably needed some adjustments. Swapping the arrival order of the chasseurs and the gunboat may have helped. That would have distracted the ships from the infantry.

Originally the scenario was going to make the French vessel a small 4-gun sloop but I ran out of time to paint it. The gunboat, I think, proved to be a better help as it was equipped with a heavy gun.

Giga Historical Games Day - Part One of Three

Saturday, November 10, 2018 was a historical games day at Gigabytes Cafe in Marrietta, Georgia. William Thorpe did a fantastic job or organizing and getting games lined up for the entire day. He even got sponsors to donate prizes for a raffle that we were doing. Very impressed. He almost had the games running on time, but given the material he was working with (me included) that was asking too much of the poor man.

Starting at 10am I didn't leave until 7pm when my games finished and I was able to pack up. It was a great but exhausting day.

It was a terrific event and it was used as a fundraiser for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. From what I gather, there were 16 games that went on throughout the day. I hosted two games: a Kiss Me Hardy variant and a Sharp Practice game. In both games I had a full table of participants and they were at least kind enough to pretend they were having a good time for my benefit. :) Well I had a great time anyway. I also did a poor job of getting pictures of the games as they developed. Half the time I just forgot and the other half the pictures were questionable.

The first game was a five player game of Kiss Me Hardy using some modifications that I made for ships under the rate. It was a quasi-historical scenario based on actions of the Georgia and South Carolina State Navies in the American Revolution.

The game began with a merchant brig anchored in the center of the table. This is a Sea Dog Studios 6mm Brigantine model. The dots that you notice on this mat are markings from an attempt to make a hex mat on the reverse side of the felt for a game of Bag the Hun. It taught me to never make my own hex sheet.

To the southwest corner was a sloop from the Georgia Navy named the John B. As for the name, I am sorry, I couldn't help myself. During the game, I only heard one passerby groan when they noticed the name so I am guessing there is a dwindling number of Beach Boy fans left. The John B was a six gunned sloop armed with 6-6pdr guns. This model is a Sea Dog Studios 6mm Bermuda Sloop.

In the Northwestern corner was two small vessels from the South Carolina State Navy - the Defiance and the Liberty. Both were actual ship names but applied to different vessels. The Liberty was actually the name of a Georgia sloop. Both were very small vessels. The Defiance had a single gun in the bow and a stern gun on a pivot. The Liberty was a pilot boat with a single bow gun. Both of these miniatures are from Langton Miniatures 1/300th scale Napoleonic line. One is a armed ships's launch and the other is a British Gunboat. Excellent models that my painting does not do justice to.

To the Northeast was a Royal Navy galley Tamar. The Tamar was the name of an actual RN sloop that was very active off the coast of South Carolina but it was most certainly not a galley. It was a galley for this scenario as I didn't have a chance to make the ship that would have corresponded to it. It was an eight gunned vessel with 8-4pdr guns. No individual photos of this ship. But in the later pics, she is the only one with lanteen sails. This is a Warartisan paper model.

The last ship actually matched it's historical counterpart. The RN schooner St John. The St John had an extremely active career in the Revolution. It was involved in a number of actions including the Rebel raid on Nassau. It was armed with 12-4pdrs. It started in the southeastern corner of the table. Another model I don't have a good picture of. Which is just as well as I have dropped it at least 4 times and had to reattach its topsails and equal number of times. It is a WarArtisan paper model. Not the ONLY thing that happened to it when it was dropped from about 4' from the ground is the loss of one or two topsails that were fixed with the application of superglue. In the instructions, it mentions that rigging the ship makes it stronger. This is 100% true. Where I have rigging, it is much sturdier. I ran out of time to complete the job.

At the start of the game, the wind was blowing to the east which confounded the Royal Navy in moving towards the merchantman. The Rebels were able to move with great ease and quickly moved to intercept the merchantman.

The Liberty took a scenic tour through the rocks. One of the things I missed was pointing out that there was shoal water surrounding the rocks. The Liberty was so shallow drafted that it wouldn't have mattered anyway. But she shot through the rocks and spent a good amount of the game out of the action until the end.

One of the items that I was trying out was rules for "Flying False Flags". The Rebels weren't operating in a coordinated fashion as the Georgia Navy didn't know that the South Carolina Navy would even be there. The Royal Navy wasn't sure what any of the ships were. The Tamar and the St John were aware of each other, though. So I had a system of spotting test to determine friend from foe. It worked out mostly well. With the close confines of the space we had availible, it was obvious to the players who was who, but they were game for whatever the dice showed. Everyone was able to avoid a friendly fire incident but only just barely.

This run out of the rules with someone other than my 10 year old was very valuable. The early moves of the game can seem very slow. I am thinking of adding an optional rule to allow the first turn to be conducted in Inches rather than Centimeters to allow the ships to get into action faster. Also, the strike system needs to be adjusted from the base Kiss Me Hardy rules as no one passed a strike test during the game.

This shot is toward the end of the game where the John B has taken the Merchantman and was starting to be pummeled into submission by the St John. You can see the Liberty has made a come back and would sail circles around the St John before fleeing the table.

The scenario played out well. The Defiance menaced the St John for a while but one broadside put an end to her. Not unexpected for such a tiny vessel (a sailed ship's launch). The Tamar was beaten by the John B (turns out a father v son battle with the son as victor). The Tamar struck and had lost a mast in the fighting.

The John B went on to take the merchantman that had started to flee. Once the Merchantman was on its way to safety, the John B and the St John has a quick engagement that forced the John B to strike to the superior gunnery of the St John.

With the Liberty as the last Rebel vessel on the waters, their victory conditions assured by the merchantman's escape, it deftly dodged the St John's best efforts and escaped.

It was a well fought game. Top honors went to the captain of the St John who was our youngest player at the table. He was also a son of the Tamar's Captain as well. He captured two Rebel vessels and re-secured the Tamar. The Rebels also counted the action as a victory as they absconded with the gunpowder.

Rewarding his gallant victory, the captain of the St John was awarded with a 6mm Sea Dog Studios Bermuda Sloop. Ironically, the same model as the John B sailed by his brother who he happened to capture. (Players forgive me if I get this wrong) The St John was captained by Collin. The Tamar was captained by Tim. Jake was captain of the John B. Jim was captain of the Liberty and Chris (not me) was the captain of the Defiance.

One of the things I have noticed, is that I rarely take pictures of the gamer's during events. After Terry Haney's passing, this became evident as I went through a bunch of pictures of our games together and I didn't find a single picture of Terry among them. This one I hesitated to take since it involved a minor but I asked his Dad for permission. I wanted to show Brian over at Sea Dog the recipient of the prize.

I am going to stop for now and make another post on the Sharp Practice game and a third on the other events as this is starting to get long. Thanks again, William for a great event. I came so close to winning the raffle twice. :)