more NEW game books (okay new to me)

 a fast trip to Vancouver recently allowed me the time to pick up two rules books I had meant to acquire for a while now, and also a new version of one I have had the older one of for many decades

first the new one:

version 3.0 from 2014

 

I have been doing DBA since the early 1990s, introduced to it by gamers in Winnipeg and Minnesota.

I have had versions 1.1, 2.1 and now 3.0.  Giving the quick glance at it, I think I will need to make a new measuring 'fork', otherwise all my minis will still work with the system - neat part is that DBMM stuff is also covered in this rules set (it looks like - I haven't read it all the way yet).

 

hardback Brigade Fire & Fury

 I have been playing this rules set, using others books most of the time and have been busy building my own game set of the full armies for Bull Run 1861 and Shiloh 1862; now started on the battle of Gettysburg 1863 armies, with the aim of having a full campaign set for 1863 (with all of the cavalry for both sides) and the intent to use games like Bobby Lee and Sam Grant for the strategic setup, then transition to an operational system (of my own devising), then to the tabletop - most likely with BF&F, thus the need to finally have my own copy.

softcover P&S

While "Black Powder" might have worked out as well, I chose to pick up Pike and Shotte, as Rob has been using these rules for many of the English Civil War games that we have run and many of the minis I have are from the Warlords set, it was time to have the rules set to go with them all.

D3 ECW games online

Many thanks to Jeffrey for coming online and playing as my opponent in two games of the D3 ECW rules from Grid Based, but not always.

We used the system put forward by Grid Based, with the following addendum:

Trotter horse *may not* initiate close combat, but may continue any close combat initiated by others.

Trotter horse may initiate close combat only if  'out of ammunition'

in all cases Trotter horse fights at a d3-1 in close combat

This change made, we entered into combat.

first battle, the Royalists had the 'attack' position - I was commanding the Royalists for the first time

the Royalists had purple 'paper' under them

Parliament had orange 'paper' under them

the colors idea came after the last Napoleonic game where the units got close and we had troubles telling them apart with the green grass paper ... again the pebbles denote hill slopes, the outer limit and the 'ridge line' or center 'top' of the hill

after a few turns I was in trouble with too many units far apart and taking damage from multiple shooters

at least the units can all take a few hits and not just vanish instantly (each can take 6 hits)

the artillery is sometimes more of a hindrance than a help - certainly it cost me in this battle as I was unable to keep it safe from being charged ... on contact with close combat artillery is eliminated

Parliament took that hill and held it

Royalists attempted to make a stand on the other little hill

just not able to make the same level of fire

Parliament kept their firing capacity (no 3's rolled in shooting)

in the end a melee was needed to resolve the situation, Royalists came up short

No doubt it was the Parliament that won the first match (though it was 3-3 tie at one point) as the Royalists just never collected together

Time enough for a second game and to watch even closer on the moves and command 'pips' from the commanders.

This time Parliament was to be 'attacker'

even using random die to determine where we came from we ended up fighting from the same sides as before

Royalist was more embedded in woods

Parliament was even more spread out on the hill

in progress, Royalists had hit the left of Parliament with horse, while Parliament had shot the Royalist left

scoring damage, but in so doing rolling a '3' - meaning no powder left and the pike & shot must go to close combat

horse battle on the hill flank

Royalist foot move hard behind the Horse

Royalist Lord General had to keep in motion to keep the most 'pips' available for command

eventually the battle began a counter-clockwise movement as the Royalist Gallopers shredded the Parliamentary Trotters

artillery got in a couple of shots, yet again were mostly useless

luckily (for Royalists) not so lucky for Parliament, their foot ended up all 'out of powder'

this meant a charge was inevitable

a charge which would not work against solid pike & shot which could fall back and shoot up at 2:1 the Parliament troops that were out of powder

at the end all remaining horse formations for both sides 2 Gallopers for Royalists and 1 Trotter (of the 4 started with) for Parliament were at 6 'hits' and just barely existing - Royalists won this battle, though again at one point it was 2-2.

With the small adjustment for Trotters , this ECW game system plays like a DBA for English Civil War and I can certainly see myself using it to tell tales of the War between the Kingdoms.

Thank you again Jeffrey!

A look back at 100 Days Campiagning Nr. 7

The fifth installment of the 100 days campaign was run in 2005, before I was introduced to blogging here.

The game again included allowance for destroying bridges, something that I would not now include.  Many of these 'metaled' roads have significant bridges which even destroyed would still be able to be formed into crossings.  None of the rivers in the region are as significant as the Danube, which in 1809 formed a real barrier to armies of the age.

First in the campaign came a major action at Braie le Compte.

this time more promotional images were made to tell the story on the Arcadian Guild site

while the normal panorama shots were still made for the players

Rather than post all about the plans, I shall highlight the different map symbols used to identify troops after they have been encountered on the battlefield.

France map

British Map

The campaign actions again led to a battle at Brussels, this time with both Allied and Prussian armies facing off against the French.

promotional view, showing off the new smoke and burning effects

greater detail of the burning effect, I like how the pond looks in this shot also

late in the battle, the French could not win the day ...

The combined forces held their ground in Brussels.

Prussian map

Unable to push out the forces in Brussels, Bonaparte was forced to abdicate ... again.

A look back at 100 Days Campiagning Nr. 6

With the fourth and fifth games I ran in 2005 I started to use new 'tactical' images on the map to give more of a sense of what each commander was facing.

While I chose not to use these in the end, here are some commanders:

 The tactical information, collected by light horse or dragoons ... so whenever large cavalry formations were present, then the road between them would have these as warnings:

Then when the main line units were detected, the map would include them ...

These troop icons were used in game four as depicted in the look back number 5.  They were a feature in game five which will be the topic of the next look back number 7.

Have you designed your own campaign system?

What were the results?