Sunday, June 21, 2015

Hougomont in Napoleon at War

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a Waterloo refight at Haven Gaming in Salem. Well, due to some confusion in the arrangements, it turned out to be separate refights of Hougomont and Ney's cavalry charge on separate tables. I took command of the French light infantry assaulting the British position at Hougomont.

The game was Napoleon At War, my first time playing it, and this scenario was drawn from the Hundred Days supplement. We used plastic 1/72 figures from several manufacturers, I think. (I painted one battalion for the organizers, and my take away is that I'm fine with the scale but detest the soft plastic material.)


French light infantry deployed in attack column in the foreground.
We deployed as we chose, French first. The British deployed with one battalion holding the farmhouse, the Nassau battalion holding the wall, and another battalion to their left in the woods. (The treeline in the photo above represents the edge of the woods, which extend back to the British table edge.) I deployed my six battalions with three in attack column to move up to the Hougomont, two on the right flank in line to prevent any outflanking, and one just behind in attack column to act as a reserve.

French advance. Leftmost battalion has taken the house.
The first two turns went swimmingly for the French; the leftmost battalion performed valiantly and stormed the farmhouse, destroying the occupying British battalion. In the center, I advanced more cautiously; on the right, advanced to exchange fire with the Allied troops in the woods.

Same table state as above, different view.
British reserves trickled on throughout the game, but did not get into action until turn five and six.

Turn four...
By turn four, the French light infantry had two battalions, one at full strength, occupying the farmhouse. An initial assault on the Nassau troops behind the wall had failed, but they now faced three battalions in attack column. Meanwhile, the battalion on the right had inflicted a nasty blow to their opponents, who had fallen back in good order, and took up position behind the wall.

Battle's end.
At last the line infantry came up from the French reserve. The three battalions opposing the Nassau troops assaulted, but the Nassau troops held the wall and nearly destroyed their attackers. In the farm compound, one Landwehr battalion was able to move into position to assault the French defenders... but they got cold feet at the last moment and the assault faltered.

The final result: a reversal of history, as the French gained a foothold in Hougomont from which they could not be dislodged.

As to the game, I found it rather nice. It played quickly; with both the French and British commanders completely new to the rules, we finished the game in about two hours (with considerable help from two experienced players acting as referees). It's been said that Napoleon at War is "Flames of War: Napoleonics" and that really rings true. It plays faster than FoW, though, and seems less fiddly. I liked it, though I thought the basing was maybe not to my taste.

Congrats and thanks to Oliver and the Wargames Oregon crew for setting this up and running it, and thanks to Haven Games for hosting it.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Lock & Load 2015: Master's Qualifier Report

Lock and Load 2015 was this past weekend, June 5-7. Since I live in Portland, it's an easy drive and after Enfilade, it's my favorite convention. This year I signed up for the first heat of the Masters Qualifier, so James and I left Portland before 6 to get there in time...

Qualifier Tournament Report

I brought carbon copies of Martin Hornacek's Masters' lists, because I'm terrible at list building and wanted to use the ADR rules. Mordikaar, who's a favorite caster, and Naaresh, who's not. But it availed me not...

Round 1

Deployment
Up against Brandon Anderson playing Body and Soul for a bad matchup to start things off, but this was the only game I won. His list was pretty straightforward B&S, and I dropped Mordikaar.

I was able to weather his feat pretty well due to him being about 1/4" further back from my lines than he thought he'd be, thus leaving huge amounts of my models able to move. We traded pieces back and forth until I was able to go in for a sneaky Essence Blast assassination and win the game.


Post assassination

Round 2

Deployment

This round saw me playing Jamie Perkins, noted tourney player, who was running Sorscha 2 with a bonded Conquest, Nyss hunters with Valachev, and the Winterguard Death Star. I dropped Naaresh into this one just to get him out of the way. Highlights of the game were Jamie's first turn, where he tried to pull off a double-handed throw assassination by pitching Alexia 2 at Naaresh. This, he told me, was to win a bet with Trent Denison. The assassination failed, but he was able to run roughshod over me with really clean, careful, fast play. Even though I lost to an assassination on turn 3, this was probably the game I most enjoyed playing in the tourney.

Post assassination

Round 3

This game wasn't a lot of fun. Not the fault of my opponent, save that he dropped a Skarre 1 list that pretty much took my Mordikaar out behind the woodshed and beat it six ways from Sunday. (Also, my opponent, Robert, was from my local meta, which always a little bit of a disappointment when you're hoping to play new people.) For his Ritual Sacrifice over the four turns of the game, he rolled 6 6 5 5, which pretty well put me on tilt. I lost on scenario.

End of game

Round 4

After my first turn.
Played Jon with his Khador. He ran a Harkevich list with Black Dragons, MoW Shocktroopers, Demolisher, Behemoth, and Black Ivan. For the first few turns, I pretty well had this game under control, to the point where I was able to jam his Black Dragons on one side and start scoring on my flag by turn 3. However, I'd shifted Tiberion too far to the left to deal with Behemoth and the MoWs, and when he slammed the Demolisher into my lines, I wasn't able to deal with it. I was running low on time, so I went for a low-probability assassination. It failed, and he was able to use his Demolisher to squish Mordikaar.
Right before the assassination.

Final Thoughts

To be honest, I'd have had more fun if I'd dropped after round 2; my game with Robert was very much not a fun experience, and I'd have been able to rack up some skulls in the Iron Arena or attend a painting hangout. It was also rather disappointing to face only Cryx and Khador... Still, I learned something from my games (positioning and don't lose sight of objectives), and I had enough fun. I'm also glad I made sure to pack some energy bars, 'cause not having to buzz off for food or dealing with hunger pangs made for a much more pleasant experience.

Final Record: 1 win by assassination, 2 losses by assassination, 1 loss by scenario. I felt I played quite well in first game, but not very well in the others.

I'm also not sold on ADR as a major advantage. I think it's a good edge, but not compared to having really solid practice with a caster already. So I'm excited for the next season's ADR, which has two casters with which I'm pretty well practiced and one caster with which I have a passing familiarity.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Enfilade 2015 in review

Memorial Day weekend is one of the highlights of my year, because that's when the Northwest Historical Miniature Game Society throws its flagship event: Enfilade. This year, it was in the Red Lion at Olympia, Washington, which is a very convenient drive for me.

Friday

James and I arrived in time to check in and then buzz off to the Fish brewpub for a tasty lunch. We got back in time to drop stuff off at the Bring and Buy and register for events. Well, James registered - I volunteered to help judge games for the first period. The highlight of this year's event was two very large Napoleonic games being run in half the hall, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. Friday was Ligny, while Saturday was Waterloo itself.

Battle of Ligny being set up

Something in 6mm
Judging the games was pretty quick; I and the fellow judges wandered around and checked each game for looks, organization, and the fun the players were having. We reached a verdict halfway through the period. With plenty of time left, I headed upstairs for the Warmachine open play.


Rasheth gets eaten by gators
 Sadly, the open play was very poorly attended, probably because of some late publicity and, to be honest, a lot of the attendees have no interest in fantasy gaming. I did get a game in with the organizer, Earnest, in which his gators crushed Rasheth's Skorne. This was damn near the exact same match up I'd played and lost to last week... Fun anyway.

Carthage defeated

After dinner, for second period, I tried out DBA for the first time. It was a learning event, Rome vs. Carthage, using the new DBA 3.0 rules. I liked it well enough to pick up the rules and a couple armies.

Ligny in progress on the big table

Saturday 

Crusaders prepare for the Viking onslaught
We kicked off Saturday with the SAGA tournament; I brought my Crusaders, and lost two of three games. It's really not a terribly good list, but it's all the models I have at the moment. The mounted knights I have on the painting table will improve it greatly, eventually. Congrats to Gabe for taking home the trophy with his Viking hearthguard deathstar.

The Conflict in progress
 For the afternoon session I signed up for Michael Hughes' The Conflict, a homebrew and quite developed set of grand battle Napoleonic rules. I have mixed feelings about this one. The rules were quite complex, in that way that seems simple to someone who's experienced with them but are pretty opaque to a newcomer. I'm still quite intrigued by the game, but I found actually playing - and coming in halfway through the (hypothetical) Battle of Antwerp - very frustrating. It was a case of not knowing what was going on, not knowing what to do, and the noise in the hall didn't help either. It's all the more frustrating because I think I'd quite like the game if I had a chance to play it in a quieter setting with better play aids for learning the game. (The only play aid at the table was a "How to play pamphlet" which involved playing through two scenarios and had a recommended running time of one hour. Not good.)

One good thing about the game was that it sold me off 6mm as a scale for pre-modern warfare. I want a little more pageantry from the figures, so I'll be sticking with 15mm for my ancients and black powder games. At least for now.

All that said, I have to say that I'm tempted to play The Conflict again.

Danes ready for the army of Karl the Great
After dinner, I sat down to try out Field of Glory for the first time, and took command of the right flank of the Danish army opposing Charlemagne in another battle that never happened. I cut out early as this one ran quite a bit later than my bedtime, but I had more action than anyone else on the Danish side: my brave shield bearers took the charge of Charlemagne's cavalry and acquitted themselves... well enough, I suppose.

I liked the system well enough, and it was well run, but I was already a bit grouchy from the last session and a lack of sleep, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I might have.

Karl's cavalry smash into the Danish right flank

Sunday & Final Thoughts

Neither James nor I had anything we wanted to play on Sunday, so we took a leisurely morning and stuck around for the business meeting. (Note for next year: bring a wargame or something to play in the mornings, as I'm an early riser.) Then it was back home for another year.

The Bring and Buy treated me well; out of a very large lot, I only brought home two items, and cleared enough to pay for both this trip and the Lock & Load trip that's coming up on the weekend of June 5. And I brought home a bit of swag:
  • 15mm Essex Attalid Pergamene Flames of Glory army
  • 15mm Essex DBA 2.2 armies for Post-Mongol Japanese, Republican Romans, and Carthaginians
  • DBA 3.0 rulebook (and the Game Matrix's terrain set for DBA)
  • Several Field of Glory Ancient and Renaissance supplements
  • A couple Disposable Heroes supplements
  • Some 15mm terrain for SF gaming
  • Stargrunt II

All told, a quite satisfactory convention.