Games days dates are set for early 2024

 The next three games days are scheduled for January 21, February 18 and March 21, 2024

So far I have planned ACW in January, a request for Pulp in February and looking at Napoleonic or ECW for March ...

Expect pictures/time lapse etc from each one.

Terraforming Mars

 My eldest son has always had a keen interest in a number of board games, this one he's had for a while and got some expansions of - including a set of 3d markers.

game at setup

It has a set of general rules, then there are the 'contracts' that are the cards that drive the action and form some of the 'victory' conditions.

Mostly non-competitive, other than a few cards that 'attack' and you will pay with loss of victory points.

game end

there was a 'nuke' dropped on Mars
- to increase the temperature -

there were four players, I was tied for 4th

Workbench: King of the Tabletop

 I have been a role-player in times past, including AD&D, and played the little game from Dragon Magazine #77: King of the Tabletop.

I found a copy online a decade ago and printed the pieces and parts and stuck them to foam core, my sons and I all played it a few times.  Trouble is that the parts wear so much that we cannot read them properly.

So this spring when I discovered these neat thin wood pieces at a local dollar store I decided to re-do my set of pieces and make them personal.

the 'troops' for King of the Tabletop

the full set, just finished painting

now gloss varnished

I decided to use hexagon shapes for the 'terrain tiles' since they are not pulled from a bag randomly.

I also had some coin molds, so I busily cast up all the coins needed for a full game and painted them all gold.

Terrain and heroes along with gold
from the original set

 

Sometime this summer we shall have to go back to the tabletop to determine a KING.

Twilight Imperium - a play test game

 Last Sunday, the 13th, we did a run of the Twilight Imperium game in preparation for a possible full game in October.

A huge layout

early game was 'planet catching'

later game included some different political elements

Ideally we will get in a game (or two) in the fall and winter this year.

Campaigning season nearing an opening?

recently reviewed titles

I have been away on a road trip with family, during the little down time I had (#1 driver on a 7800 km round trip over 14 days), I managed to get in a re-reading of the Grant and Bath titles.

While Tony Bath did have some interesting input for just the ACW period, sadly most of his work revolved around the details of a long-running Hyborean game that he had run in the 1970s and was very much an ancients and points system tour-de-force.  GDW must have been happy with any 'uptick' in sales after his product hit the shelves.

Grant was more of a generic approach and touched on loads of subjects in all time-periods and even some of the speculative fiction in high-tech and fantasy realms.

The Nanaimo group has been discussing a campaign in ACW for some time now and I have put in a few immediate observances from my 21+ years of running Napoleonic (100 Days and Campaign of Nations) and Sci-Fi (Battletech mostly) minis campaigns on written postal, email and electronic forum systems as well as playing in at least three 'local' campaigns with Jeff Hudelson (of BlueBear fame).

The responses prompted me to review these titles so as to come at the resolution from a text supported point of view.

As this is potentially a local based game with email as a control factor, two methods come to the forefront by Bath and Grant:

Mini Campaigns (p61. of "Setting up a Wargames Campaign")

For this a series of teams of twos or threes were used.

While Tony did it with ancients and Wars of the Roses, we could just as easily use this for ACW:

Each 'side' breaks their available forces into three parts, then decides on the strength of forces to engage on one of three battlefields (which could be blind random or known by both sides and thus make overall plans for), with retreating forces kept track as well as the surviving winning forces (with each side having some recovery of wounded and routed troops, as well as the winning force on a field getting better re-supply) for a 'final push' game where the winner of the best of three takes on the looser of the best of three with the surviving attacking forces against the surviving retreating forces.

Thus you could see the first two battles going to one side and the third battle simply conceded, with a sacrificial blocking force to allow the majority of the troops to retire to the 'final battle' to attempt to shore up the final defender forces.  Alternately the first two might split and make the third an all important tie-breaker and deciding battle for who will be having a chance to conquer and who will need to last-stand defend.

Okay, so much for something quick, as this will only take four table-top encounters to come to a conclusion, Bath writes about 'mini-campaigns' as something to fill in while a larger one is being organized or when a larger campaign has 'gone quiet' and isn't generating the expected field battles.

four battle mini-campaign

The Use of Board Games (Chapter 23, p134-136, "Wargames Campaigns")

Here Grant uses a full chapter to expound on the value of using already existing board-based war-games to conduct the 'strategic' or 'operational' level of movement on the board map system, then convert the 'encounter battles' to the appropriate tabletop system that you may already be using to run the miniature battles.

While Grant admits to not having used the system himself, he vouches, as do I, for the effectiveness of using such games.

Columbia Games has a pair of games to simulate the American Civil War from the grand strategic point of view in Virginia, with Bobby Lee and in the west with Sam Grant

Here I leave a copy of the map from Sam Grant, as the discussion has been revolving around using the war in the west as the basis for a series of connected battle actions, hence a campaign.

Sam Grant map from Columbia Games

What campaign effects and systems have you used?
What were the results?

REBELLION - Board Game

I had the occasion to want to see, handle and possibly use the pieces; particularly the space ships, from the new REBELLION board game.  In seeking access to the pieces I found that it was cheaper to order the full game than to just get a sample of the pieces.

Once the game arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the total product.

I then resolved to play out a few games and see what potential the system had.

This Thursday we had a bring and play day at our library games space, so I announced to one and all that the game would be out and they could have access for a busy four player game.

the board fully laid out takes up the better part of a 3x6 table

control cards and simple logos make the game fast to learn and play

card driven mechanics allow for a cinematic experience while the map forces some physical reality onto the game players

the models include 'under construction' death star and all the big Rebel and Imperial ships

this game featured a destruction of the Rebel base and an Empire victory!

game mechanics include such things as taking Rebels prisoner

A fun game to play and because of the card mechanics and flexibility of the system no two games will ever really play out the same way.

Library games day - tabletop with Eagle Games

This past Saturday marked the final tabletop games day until the Autumn, probably September.

I took it as an opportunity to showcase some of the games that I have available for play.

only a sample of the games that could be brought out to the library games days

I had advertised that the Conquest of the Empire game was going to be the feature for the day.

As it was we had five fairly active players, sadly my middle son ended up with the unenviable position of being on the Italian peninsula having to face me and another older boy as adversaries.  My son did not 'reach out' for help in dealing with either of the sides (which could have pulled us back from a confrontation)  so my son ended up having to make other choices.

the digital world could not be contained

at the start of the conflict, we are all equal ...

The game was clearly going to end with Hispania as the leader, no final winner set, just not a clear way to stop me as Hispania.

Then a game of Napoleon In Europe was set out and a fast 'even Steven' game was run.

the gigantic map is always appreciated

deployment

just a little 'even Steven' followed by battles and territory grabs

This then ended the tabletop fun at the Library for the 2015-16 season, our first.

I am hopeful that many players will return and that we may see more in the Autumn of 2016.

Library game days

our library is part of this network

This coming September 19th I shall take part in the opening of a series of games days at the local library.

There is one Saturday in each of September, October, November and December set aside now for tabletop or board games at the same time as some role-playing games, then two other Saturdays each month will also have role-playing games happening.

My eldest son is most happy with the plan.

I am planing SHAKO II for September, Squad Leader for October, then depending on interest, either another SHAKO II game in November or an expansion of Squad Leader.  Allowing for a desire to 'sample' more I could also do Conquest of the Empire and a Cashflow game in November and December.

I am perked up with the potential to connect with some game players that I have only contacted via the net and possibly find a player or two locally for more games in-between the one Saturday per month at the Library.

********************
Amendment Sept 12:

Now the October date for the game day, I will be with a family trip away to Vancouver.  So no game.

Meaning November and December are the only two I get.

********************
 Amendment Sept 16:

Now I shall have to be doing daddy driving duties starting at 3:45 pm.

So I shall be bringing a bit of a show-and-tell of minis and board games with the intent to run a game of Squad Leader.

sigh
*******************

InCon 2015 - Campaign of the Hundred Days - Waterloo

For the Sunday at the 2015 InCon, I had a combination of games, Napoleon by Avalon Hill (now published by the game creator in his company Columbia Games), Eagles - a card game of the Waterloo Campaign by Columbia Games and my own De Bellis Napoleone - using 15mm miniatures and a home-brew from Hordes of the Things by WRG.

the full set-up of the mix of games to run a Campaign of the Hundred Days

Sunday has always been a slower game day at the Dak-Kon, so here at InCon it came as no shock to me to see nearly no-one in the game hall until the early afternoon.  While downstairs the Magic game players were busy with their tournament, there were none in the Warhammer area, even the computer games were only 20% filled until noon.  I took the time to go see other parts of the event and connect with the RPG guys and other game demo group in the downstairs of the hall next door.  This was also when the photo fun happened with the 501st and other costume players (CosPlay).

In the afternoon it was fun to have a family of boys, with their dad engage in a full on game of Napoleon ... the boys dad ended up setting the troops up for the allies and the youngest sat with me and we 'played' the French.  While they were probably too young to understand everything, they did have fun with the dice and competing without having to 'hit' each other.

variant of Napoleon that brings in my 15mm troops

Later in the afternoon I had three keen boys to try out a game that could permit them to take on each other, there are very few good 3-player games.

everything was in action by the end of the day

While the other minis game tables were being packed up and the computer consoles were being turned off I was still in action with the three boys, this time showing off the Eagles card game system.

We had to wrap it all up at the ending time for the day and my table was the last one from the minis area to be packed up, though all the computers were silent as they had no more power to them, so essentially I was the last one in action in the building as the Magic tournament had ended three hours earlier.

InCon 2015 - Napoleon In Europe by Eagle Games

Continuing my post convention reporting, the Saturday night, I filled my table with Napoleon in Europe, by Eagle Games.

the gigantic Napoleon in Europe by Eagle Games

The game covers the whole of a 4'x8' sheet of plywood set over the tables, with room to spare for laying out the extra troops.

Not a full slate of players as we have had at the Dak-Kon events in the past, yet a lively group that got into the 'spirit' of the international banter back-and-forth with only a few 'ruffled feathers'

as usual the central European position was difficult to hold

the game parts are clear for what they depict

We ended up with a strange coalition of French, English, Spanish going against Austria and Russia

 Much laughter resulted in the four hours the game was played through and we were the last group out of the game hall at midnight.

InCon Comox Valley - 2015 edition

a sweat soaked shirt of one of the event core team

From 1993 to 2012 there was a game-focus annual (sort of) event called Dak-Kon that ran in Courtenay.

I had the chance to be part of the event's inspiration and then to help run a few years of the event from 2001-2012. 

With the end of Dak-Kon there came a new event called InConcievable, or InCon for short.

This past weekend was their second attempt at running this event.

I was able to put on some game demonstrations, which I will post about in future postings here, for now I would like to share some items I saw at the event.

In the games space, there were 40K and Warhammer Fantasy games going on.

fantasy terrain in the Warhammer section

Along with  a series of retro-video games consoles and a couple of the latest game units using projection screens to play on.  Where else would you find Venom and Batman playing?

did I mention there was a lot of COSPlay going on at this event?

 Downstairs from the games space was Magic the Gathering.

Across a parking lot was another presentation space filled with a stage and merchant hall, and more board games tables and a children expo area along with an operations room for the core team of the event.

Oh yes there was also a lot of COSTUME Play (COSPlay) going on all over the place ...

yours truly mugging with a 501st for charity

 The 501st costume players put in a contingent that was raising funds for the local YANA association, that helps people travel and have accommodations when needing medical procedures at more distant hospitals (we are near the end of the road here).

a Mos Eisley MP on patrol in the game area

In all, given that this is a Number two attempt at this sort of event, I was happy to see so many young people come out and had whole families check out the board games and miniatures games that I had on display for demonstration game (more about them in later posts to come).

game token marker

Since the event was of the 1-2-3 series (it felt like a #1 'first time' kind of experience) I could only rate the performance of what I could see.  From that I would say that Saturday was a 6/10 for the game area I was in.  And that I did the full set of demos that I had planned, though it would have been nice to have a few more players in each game - they did come off well.  For Sunday, things were much slower in the game area, until 1 pm - which I did not mind as it let me and my son run off to see the dealers and get some photos with the 501st.  When I got back in the afternoon I did two demonstrations of the game parts and actually used all of them with one group of three boys.

Overall I believe that the event deserves another go round before I could give any clearer rating than this was a "FEAT" of work for the core team!

Opening

Map of the action area for the 100 days Campaign by Columbia Games

At half past two on the morning of June 15, the first French troops were roused from their bivouacs.  Headed by the twelve regiments of cavalry screen, three great columns began to converge systematically on the River Sambre: Reille and d'Erlon toward Marchienne and Thuin respectively; Vandamme, Gerard, Lobau and the Guard on Charleroi.  The timetable was carefully regulated in an attempt to avoid congestion and confusion on the crowded roads.  Every thirty minutes a new formation was set in motion towards the front; the last units were to be on their way by eight o'clock.  All surplus transport -- including the coaches of senior officers -- was ordered to be left behind, the sappers were stationed behind the leading regiment of each column to ensure that the road surfaces and bridges could take the heavy traffic.  The marching plans of the various corps were timed to ensure that the heads of the columns reached the Sambre simultaneously on a narrow front of barely five kilometers.  Once the crossing had been safely accomplished, the two wings were under orders to push ahead for Fleurus and Frasnes respectively, while the reserve concentrated in and around Charleroi itself.  It is important to note that no specific mention was made in the Movement Order (June 14) of the need to physically occupy either Quatre Bras or Sombreffe on the vital lateral road.  Doubtless the Emperor would have been quite happy to see his adversaries concentrate still further forward, should they be so foolhardy.

~ D. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 1026

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.