Wednesday 31 January 2018

Some French Odds & Ends

Getting back into Napoleonics via General d'Armee so I thought I'd get these figures finished. They were left sitting on my painting desk after 2016's foray into the old Bruce Quarrie rules petered out.

My French force is small. Over the years I've tried to replace my 20mm corps with 28mm. But I haven't been playing Napoleonics due to a bit of a falling out with the group I use to play with. Or, more accurately, a falling out between me and the rules played. So the rebuild of my French has been sporadic. A few years back I painted a Wurtemberg brigade and, if a fit of despair, ended up selling it because I couldn't see me ever getting to use it. I've resented that decision ever since.

I've even commissioned a friend to paint up a regiment of leger. The first time I've ever asked someone else to paint figures for me!

Anyway, GdA looks like it's going to get me back into it and I decided to get these little fellows done.

Some generals and a skirmish line. Not much but these figures have been sitting half finished, looking at me with their little painted faces saying: "Paint us, Ian. Paint us and put us on the table and we'll win battles for you. Just paint us and give us a chance."

Finally their day has arrived!

Notice how I forgot to paint their cockades? Fixed now.


Ready to get into the enemy's faces and cause havoc.

Saturday 27 January 2018

General d'Armee - First Try

A few friends and I played a game of General d'Armee yesterday to see how they felt. We are all long time, former Napoleonic players who are all a bit disgruntled with the rules that we've been playing in recent years. So, Robin, Peter, Andrew & I set to!

Robin & Andrew ~ French.
Peter & I ~ Prussians.

I got the rules when they were released last year, read through them and put them away. But, a couple of weeks back talk turned to Napoleonics and I suggested GdA. So, we all read them (I watched the You Tube videos too) and yesterday we put some figures on the table for a run through.

The first thing we liked was the size of the battalions. We'd been playing a Empire-esque, home brew rules for some time with small 12 figure (1:60) battalions. We opted to double the size and they looked good. We were a bit short on Cavalry but we'll sort that out by painting more horses!

None of us were sure of the rules and we expected to get through 3 or maybe 4 turns. I was expecting to get bogged down with the turn sequence and I was dreading the Charge Sequence. However, we ended up playing 6 turns with plenty of time buggering around and chatting. After the first couple of turns the Turn Sequence was easy. The shooting was simple and reflective of what we expected.




Note the small buildings.


Just a note: My cavalry got caught by Andrew's artillery. He rolled 12 (-2 for unlimbering) ~ 3 hits and a Discipline Test! Next turn... Should I move them or let them be? Surely he couldn't do that again. WRONG! ~ 3 hits and a Discipline Test! Damn those French gunners!

Time for my guns to fire... Hee, hee , hee, This'll learn 'em... I rolled 1 (3 -2 for unlimbering). Fatigue casualties but at least I wasn't Low on Ammo (natural snake eyes for that). Damn those Prussian gunners!


Note how the buildings grew in size.

I brought a box of cardstock buildings but we put some smaller buildings on the table. Robin and Peter saw the box of buildings mid-game and decided to replace the original buildings.

Anyway, back to the game...

We ended up with a several instances of charges. We just took our time and went through the process and it was much easier that I expected. Only one charge drove home and the Prussian cavalry demolished a battalion of French Infantry. We pretty much realised we'd done some things wrong and worked it out again. The French were hurt and the Prussians returned to their lines to lick their wounds.




My big move of the game was an Infantry Assault. I got one brigade into position and applied all my ADC taskings for Infantry Assault & Glory.

The troops got up to the 3" mark. Dice were rolled. I took a punt and re-rolled one dice and got a 6. But it wasn't enough and the attack stalled on the hill crest. But my troops did not become unformed.

Next turn I had 3 ADC's I gave them one for Glory! and allocated the other two to my other brigades. I then failed the Command Roll for everything. EVERYTHING! My whole line halted. and my attack was relegated to being shot up by the French lines.

All in all, we were all impressed by the rules and we want to give it another go as soon as possible. Or, in the words of Andrew: "Before we forget everything."

Despite what I thought was a pretty confusing turn sequence when I was reading, proved to be easy in execution. The shooting was also pretty easy once we worked our way through the process. So too were the charge and melee sequences.

So, we're keen to get more games under our collective belts.


Robin doing some serious generaling in our new club setting
at the RSL (Returned Servicemen's League).

P.S. I made some tokens using Photoshop. They were printed onto an A4 sticky sheet, attached to some card & cut into bits. I did them in 5 colours and I'll make them available for download as pdf's soon.





Sunday 21 January 2018

The Prussians Are Coming (Again)

I finally got my act together to get a my Prussians into a working force. I painted up most of Yorke's 7th Brigade (1814) in 2016 but got stalled on the Landwehr. But last years Black Friday sales landed me some bxes of plastic Warlord's Landwehr. I don't think they're great figures but they were very cheap.

So, after getting to a point with my 15mm Macedonians I decided to take a break and get these Prussians done. I've only finished two battalions at the moment and still have more to go, but I decided to take a couple of shots of them anyway. I still have more to do and, considering how easy they are to paint, I hope to get them done in the next few days.






Saturday 13 January 2018

Hello 2018 ~ A Game of Dropfleet Commander

After being aborted three times in the last months of 2017, we finally got to play another game of Dropfleet Comander. My opponent Peter and I decided after our last game, to play some consecutive games in order to cement the rules firmly in our collective craniums. Alas, this was not to be, due to family issues that cropped up, one after the other.

I was beginning to think our game was cursed.

But the first week back at the club (NWA) for 2018 and we finally got the game played.

I decided to try my Shaltari for the second time. They proved to be a pretty tough opponent first time around but could they do it again or would the UCM see them off?

We just played a standard scenario again using the starter sets.

The UCM (United Colonies of Mankind) got the initiative on all the card draws and chose to make my Shaltari deploy first.



 My cunning plan was for my eastern (right) battle group to clear the way and swing around to the center. My center battle group would fight in that area and support the Mothership & void gates.



Meanwhile, the Mothership and voidgates would to go for the center and the western (left) clusters and then reach out to the east (right) and drop some ground assets there in the final turn of the game.


There was no fighting during the first turn and the only shooting in the second turn came from my Topaz Frigates in the center after they active scanned the Berlin Cruiser and managed to inflict a single hit.


The UCM carrier launched some bombers at the Shaltari mothership but due to the distance they didn't strike in this turn.


In the eastern skies the Shaltari battle group led by an Amber class cruiser came up against the mighty UCM heavy cruiser Moscow at the start of turn 3. Shots were exchanged with the Moscow receiving minor damage.



The Moscow, then forced it's way past the frigates and took aim at my Amber cruiser inflicting several hits resulting in three damage points.


By the end of turn two I had landed troops in the western cluster, and with no UCM present I felt I would be able to claim the cluster when the time came. In the center both sides were now contesting the that cluster but I was coming off second best after the UCM ground forces destroyed one of my assets.

In the previous turn, because I needed to stop my mother ship, I had to call a Station Holding special order. This caused a minor energy spike making it easier to target. The two UCM Toulouse frigates took advantage of this and zoomed into the attack. The mother ship took some minor damage but was otherwise okay.

In it's turn the mothership destroyed one of the frigates after the Berlin took out one of the Topaz frigates. The bombing run on the mothership also inflicted a hit and the damage was beginning to mount.


As I planned the Amber led battle group made a course change and by-passing the Moscow, made for the center. The Amber also let loose a broadside and added further damage to the UCM heavy ship.


The Shaltari mothership was now under heavy attack from the remaining Toulouse frigate and the  Berlin, which was itself under attack from my Obsidian heavy cruiser. The damage on the mothership was over half and a roll on the Critical Systems chart was insignificant - Loss of comms. But is still had a minor energy spike.

In the previous turn, thinking to get my void gates moving, I made a silly mistake and moved them far less than they were able and now they were bogged down in the atmosphere. The UCM New Orleans dropships, on the other hand, did exactly what I intended to do. But they did the maneuver properly and headed to the eastern cluster.


Having been out maneuvered the Moscow moved straight ahead and seeing the mothership all lit up like a Christmas tree called a Weapons Free special order and opened fire. The result being two normal hits (both saved) and 6 critical hits.

The mothership was doomed and a roll on the Critical hit table (I can't remember the right name) resulted in a Disruption Vortex (I think that's what it's called). The worst result.

The table before the mothership exploded...

And after the mothership exploded...

The mothership was vaporized. The remaining Toulouse frigate was vaporized, the Berlin was destroyed. A voidgate was obliterated and the Obsidian heavy cruiser was badly damaged.


The last turn and the UCM dropships moved into position over the eastern cluster ready to drop their troops at the end of the turn. The rest of their battle group was gone so little else happened.


The Amber battle group moved and the Jade class frigates took some shots at the UCM carrier with little effect. The Amber, again took aim at the Moscow and inflicted enough damage to take it below half it's hull points. The resulting rolls on the Critical Systems chart resulted in a fire on board. Not enough to take it down.

Alas...

The Moscow again called Weapons Free and took aim at the Obsidian. The result was identical to the previous one two hits and 6 critical hits, and the heavy cruiser fell into the atmosphere as total wreck.

There was nothing more the Shaltari could do with two little void gates and no troops available now that the mothership was gone.



So the game was lost but out of the chaos the one positive light was that my fast maneuvering Amber battle group remained on the table in its entirety with only minimal damage.


And the hero of the game was undoubtedly Peter's Moscow Heavy Cruiser. It achieved, in one single broadside what the Berlin and its frigates had been trying for three turns. And even when it was burning, "like an attack ship off the shoulder of Orion," it managed to pulverize a heavy cruiser.


Conclusion...

A great game with some overly dramatic results. For most of the game the damage and casualties were pretty minimal until the big UCM heavy got it's weapon systems firing on all cylinders.

We really need to play more games and start to use larger fleets to get some more tactical options working. Hopefully the "Curse of 2017" is over and we can get more games in this year and really sink our teeth into it.