General d'Armee trial game.

Having moved house back to the Settle area last summer it has taken some time to be able to meet up with many of my old pals due to covid and lockdown. A couple of weeks ago I finally met up with Ian, Howard and Phil for a few drinks (well actually a few drinks too many) and by the end of the night the Settle and District  (SaD) Wargamers were formed. We used to game together in our late twenties, early thirties; we are somewhat older now! Our first game was planned, 15mm Napoleonics using the General d'Armee rules in early June. 

Move forward to today and Howard invited me round  for a quick trial game of General d'Armee so that we could try the rules out prior to our 4 player game next week. Oh the joy of being retired so that you can just pop round for a game at a moments notice. We were using Howards very splendid collection of 15/18mm Napoleonics. The entire collection comprises of AB and Battle Honours figures, both cracking ranges of figures despite the size difference. The idea was that as the British, I had to hold the line and prevent Howards more numerous French from breaking through...whilst actually learning the rules. 

The British Line

The French about to advance. 

The main area of interest was on my right flank where Howard was able to assign his ADC's well and advance at a very rapid rate. This French attack took us through rules for artillery and musket fire, use of skirmishers, rockets and how to work through a charge. My valiant British managed to repulse Howards first attack, captured in the photo's below. 

Sadly we ran out of time to play any further but we do feel that with a bit more reading we will be ready for our 4 player game next week. It was great fun and the first of hopefully many games. 

Wargames Allsorts

 True to my wargaming butterfly nature I have completed a mixed bag of painting recently. First up,  I return to the 'Wars of the Roses' with a unit of 28mm Burgundian Handgunners, plastic figures from Perry Miniatures. Lovely figures to paint and I am hopeful of a game of 'Never Mind the Billhooks' very soon. More Wars of the Roses figures are currently being assembled. 

I also finally got round to painting the first few bases for my 15mm Macedonian army. It was only when I started to clean up the pikemen that I discovered that they were wearing trousers which really makes them more suitable for a later army of Alexander if not even the Successor's. These are Museum Miniatures original sculpts and I used transfers from VVV for the shields. The Cretan Archers are from their new Z range, lovely figures to paint. I also made a small pond or spring for my ancient battlefields. 

Next, inspired by the recent games of 'Galactic Heroes' with Chris, I speedily made and painted some of the new Stargrave miniatures which Chris and his son kindly gave me. These are easy to build and are ideal for GH. I made just enough for a crew.  

Galactic Heroes in a Galaxy Far Far away- well somewhere near Halifax!

 Today Chris and I were delighted to play our first game in over a year. We have been eagerly waiting almost as long to play a game of 'A Fistful of Lead' skirmish rules. The rules cover several periods in time (and Space) and we opted to play the Sci Fi version, 'Galactic Heroes'. During lockdown (and having found his old collection in the loft, Chris suggested this so it is all his fault!) we busily collected and painted many of the old Star Wars Micro Machine figures which are about 20mm tall and scratch built a small part of a Tatooine settlement.

The first scenario was a typical Star Wars setting of finding the droids with the vital information. The only problem was there were various 'dummy' droids and only the correct dice throw would reveal the correct one. The Rebel forces started the game in possession of one droid and had to find the other droid and escape the board on a small spacecraft awaiting them on the far side. The Stormtroopers had to try and capture both droids. FFoL uses a card driven activation system which works a treat and there is a built in set of bonuses on some of the cards that you can use as you activate your figures. You are never quite sure who is going to move a figure next or what extra bonus they may have. I had invested in a themed set of cards and some tokens which all helped add atmosphere. 

This was very much a learning game but FFoL is a quick and simple rules system so we were soon getting through the turns quite quickly. True to their poor image, the Stormtroopers could not hit a thing in this first game but did manage to capture the rogue droid. Chris, in charge of the Rebels managed to take out my officer and keep hold of his own droid but failed to get to the space ship in time before it left so we called this game a draw. 

Game two saw my Stormtroopers having to defend a large antenna array and Chris's Rebels had to try and get a bomb in place to blow it up. An added ploy of this scenario is that every time a joker was played the Rebels were aided by a group of 3 'grunts' which we decided should be Sandpeople/Tusken Raiders. Happily my Stormtroopers actually managed to target and hit a few things this game taking out a Rebel trooper and a couple of Tusken Raiders who had only just arrived. We also wounded one of the two Rebel troopers who were carrying the bomb so slowed it's progress down enough that it could not get across the board fast enough. Sadly we ran out of time to complete this game but it seemed like the Stormtroopers were getting the upper hand, but then more turns could have led to more Tusken raiders turning up. 

Overall we really like these rules and cannot wait to get some more games in. The scenarios in the book are also well thought out and provide fun games.