Battleground Show 2019

Today we at the Old Guard gaming club put on our Bolt Action Demo game at the Battleground Wargames Show hosted by Pendraken. Several players contributed figures and scenery to help create a great looking gameas can be seen in the photos below. 

We never actually completed the game due to too much chatting and too much shopping!

I must say a big thankyou to all the players who both made and painted the tanks and figures and all the wonderful scenery that helped make the game look so good. 

Shopping wise, I got some 15mm Xyston Ancients from Col Bill, 28mm Romano British Spearmen from Newline and off course, my 10mm Dark Elf army from Pendraken. Plus lots of mdf bases for a whole variety of projects. 

A bit of Bolt Action

Today Pete came across to my house for a test game of Bolt Action in preparation for our larger demo game at the Battleground show on Saturday. I couldn't help playing at parading my DAK vehicles whilst setting up the table.  

In the actual game we were very rusty with the rules to begin with but after a few turns we were speeding through them. I made an ill-fated dash to control the central building which cost me dearly and my forces never really recovered from just how many 6's Pete was throwing. Best moment of the game for me was my AT gun blowing up Pete's armoured car first shot! Although both sides were badly battered it ended a convincing 4-1 win for Pete as he had destroyed four of my units whilst I could only claim the armoured car despite having lots of pinned markers on his other units. . 

To the Strongest in 28mm

I went over to Pete's house today for a couple of games of To the Strongest between my Gauls and Pete's Persians. Pete's Persians are a very balanced army with a good mix of infantry, cavalry and missile troops. My Gauls are full of Warriors with a few bases of cavalry and skirmishers. 
In the first game Pete won the scouting and soon put me under pressure with his shooting so I felt that I had no choice, in went the warriors and being 'deep units' they are a hard nut to crack. It was very close fought game but my Gauls just won.

In the second game I managed to win the scouting and opted to rush straight in at Pete. On my left flank Pete got around my line with some light cavalry whilst I managed to threaten his right flank with my cavalry. End result was Pete destroyed my entire cavalry command in one turn whilst I then destroyed most of his right command. My brave warriors in the centre were badly damaging Petes heavy infantry and starting to threaten his camp. Sadly for me Pete's light cavalry captured my camp and thus won all my victory coins just ahead of me captruing his. Final score = 1 v 1.

These were great games and To the Strongest is a good set of rules. There were one or two things that did not seem quite right, the all singing and dancing scythed chariot being the main one. They are far to versatile under the rules as written and need some serious thought for any fiuture second edition. 

15mm Ancients

I recently finished re-basing my 15mm Greeks onto bases more suitable for rules such as 'To the Strongest', 'Impetus', 'Hail Caesar' and 'Sword and Spear'. I also had to add a few extra figures to most of these larger bases plus a few individually based figures for 'heroes' in TTS. I have continued to work on my Persians too. Here are some photo's of the most recently finished bases, some Hoplites and Egyptian Marines-note the differing shield patterns on the units of Marines.

 The bulk of the figures are from Westwind/Forged in Battle and they are really nice 15mm. I owe a huge debt to Westwind as when I first placed an order with them for the Greeks it went astray/missing and they very kindly replaced the whole £80+ order at their own cost, now that was terrific customer service and a very relieved wargamer! There are some Xyston and Magister Militum figures mixed in too. 
As I was placing the new figures into their army boxes I decided to have fun taking some photo's of where I am up to so far...

I am really enjoying painting these and adding in a variety of buildings and baggage elements. So far I have 20 bases of Greeks and 11 bases of Persians completed with plenty more to paint. The army of Alexander the Great will be added to these at some future point. 

First Battle with Kings of War 3rd edition.

Chris and I managed to get in our first  game of Kings of War new 3rd edition using our 15mm ogre and goblin armies. Happily we can report that this is essentially the same fun game. Movement has become more intricate but I am sure we will soon master the changes. There are also tweaks to some of the army lists and a few new spells and magic items. 
We decided to play scenario 6 where the two armies battled to control the board which is divided into 6 squares, the winner being who could control each square by the end of the game. This is how Chris set the scene for the 1,000 point battle 

ABOVE THE COLD PLAINS: Goblins vs Ogres, 1,000 pts each

Brak-na-Hak looked out on the goblins scurrying around before him. It seemed they never learned the natural order of things, and kept trying to oust his people form their rightful homes (i.e. where ever they wanted to live). Clearly they must be taught a lesson, though he was aware that the goblins themselves would be doing their best to take his lands.

So be it then; let the best ogres win.

The goblins have sneaked a force into the barren lands above Cold Plains. Fortunately, the ogres’ Red Goblin allies have got word of this and alerted their masters, so a response has been mounted.

The scenario is the Control scenario, (p 60).

Here is a birds eye view of both sides deployment, with the ogres at the top and the goblins coming in from the south. This picture shows how we use bases cut to 60% of the normal 28mm size and also shows our gaming mat also reduced to 60% of 6x4 foot. 

The ogres started strongly, wavering my new bolt thrower and causing me all sorts of problems. By tiurn 2 I was convinced we were going to lose again. 

However, I managed to get a couple of deadly flank attacks in and suddenly it was the ogres that were in trouble and I managed to wipe them all out by the end of turn 6 to record a first ever win for the goblins (about time too!). I think the dice gods were definately on my side this game.

As always it was a really fun game played in our usual gentlemanly manner. We even found time to pop to the Halifax Model shop so I could purchase the first box of figures for my 2020 project...more of which another day! 

Testing our Bolt Action demo game.

Today the Old Guard club met for a trial run of our demonstration 1942 Western Desert themed game of Bolt Action for the Battleground show in November. Setting up on a 12x6 foot table with a huge ridge across the middle. The scenario was the 8th army set up to defend the ridge from the advancing Italians. The Afrika Korps were sweeping around the 8th armies flank. 

Here are Pete's Italians trying to advance, the fact that none of us really knew the rules very well slowed the first few turns down. 

After a couple of turns we were progressing much better. 

Amidst much confusion and laughter the game moved along quite quickly. Here, Stig's armoured car moves to intercept the Italians. 

 John's Panzer 3 proved to be quite effective.

 The British position on the ridge.

Soon the Axis forces with their superior numbers and fire power seemed to gain the upper hand and after 5 turns the 8th army players conceded the game as their casualties began to rise. 

Overall the scenario played well but the 8th army needed a bit more fire power, a couple more vehicles or AT guns and we should have used a few more bits of scenery for them to cower behind. Hopefully we will all have read the rules by the end of November. 

And a few more photos, thanks to Steve.

By Eck - a 1,000 Goblin v Ogre game of KOW

Today I enjoyed another splendid day of gaming with my good friend Chris. We were playing Kings of War again, slowly preparing for our campaign between his Ogres and my Goblins, this was another practise game with time left over to discuss our campaign plans. 

We like to theme our games and add background detail and this was today's scenario...

The faint pencil cross by the river shows where the battle took place. 

'By Eck', Grab the Loot: adapted from 'Push', from p76, COK 2019.

Pulling hard on the reigns, Skrel hauled his mighty wolf to a halt. Sent out to protect the goblins new secret weapon by King Krag, Skrel and his large patrol had come across a band of merchants trying to cross the lower slopes of the mountains undetected by the goblins. Before him now, the human merchants fled dropping their goods all around. Beyond the humans, Skrel watched what had caused him to halt. Appearing over the river Eck was a large force of Ogres, now seen by the panic stricken humans who fled in all directions, their merchant goods scattered and forgotten in their rush to escape both Skrel's goblin host and the ever nearing Ogre Warband.

By Eck was where the spoils would be fought over. 'By Eck' thought Skrel 'my blade will taste Ogre blood this day' and urged his wolf forward.

After both players have deployed their forces, roll a D3. Each player places that many Loot counters within their set-up area; giving them to units to carry if they wish-rolling a dice to see who places a counter first.

An additional Loot counter is also placed in the exact centre of the board. The aim of the game is to capture as many Loot Tokens as you can.

Victory Points: are awarded as follows...

2xVP for each Loot token you hold in the opposing side of the board

1xVP for each Loot token you hold in your own half of the board.

(use the rules on p75 regarding Loot Tokens, maybe using our Frostgrave tokens for these?).

Game Length: is 6 turns, throw a dice at the end of turn 6, on a score of 4+ play a final seventh turn. 

This was the goblin secret weapon, fairly useless for the points, it only ever hit on turn 2.

The game started well for my goblins as the ogres forgot to move some of their troops on the first turn allowing me to manoeuvre into good positions. Once combat began it was amazing how many Nerve tests were passed by both armies, thus causing more rounds of melee than expected. 

Initially the goblins were giving as good as they got, however...

The ogres had a new secret weapon themselves, a unit of heavy crossbows which were far more effective than the goblins catapult. 

Melee was close during turns 2 to 4 with fortune swinging both ways. Sadly, a poor turn 4 from the goblins allowed the ogres to gain the upper hand and eventually they were able to grab 2 of the loot counters in the goblin half and the third counter in their own half, thus scoring a 5-0 win and not a single goblin left standing. 

I think that by now, having lost the last 3 games to the ogres, my goblins have  lulled them into a false sense of superiority so that we can surprise them with our tactical genius and fighting skills once the camapign begins. 

It was a great game once again, really close up until the end of turn 4. We are looking forward to getting 3rd edition KOW soon and plan to have a couple more practise games to get used to them before we start the campaign proper, we both also need time to paint a few more units.