On a Hiding to Nothing

Saturday (22nd) - Cloudburst - large puddle in the kitchen and the water started to over-top the front door sill.  I was lucky as one of my near neighbours had raw sewage flowing through his garden.


Monday (24th) - DBM scrap between Al's Later Crusaders and my Later Muslim Indians.

My able SG (Chris) did reasonably well in the centre and right flank.  The Reg Bd(F) lost a few bases but caused quite a bit of damage in the process.

On the left flank yours truly had the C-in-C's command of  Reg Cv(S) supported by Irr Bw(I)  and a couple of  Lh(O).  My opposition didn't look too bad but then up popped some Reg Kn(S).   I fared badly and blamed the match-up.  I also thought that my Bw(I) might have done better.

Working out the tables, and allowing for 'superior' and 'inferior' status (plus 'quick kills') the results were not as I expected.

Bw(I) v Kn(S) = 58.33% Bw deaths / 27.78% Kn / 13.89% draws
Cv(S) v Kn(S) = 27.78% Cv deaths /  27.78% Kn / 44.44% draws

So, in theory, I had an equal chance!  That's not accounting for the dice gods of course.  Oh well - it's only a game!

Tuesday (25th) -  taking cat to the vets - 6 teeth removed - £220 - eeeeeeek!

Wednesday (26th)  - calling at Barnsley U3A  Kitchen carpet finally drying out.


The trials and tribulations of a wargamer huh!

Something to Show For It.....

 For the first time of regular posting I have some pictures (scroll down).

Saturday - club meeting with a World War 2 game going on.  Not my 'cup of tea' so I turned up around midday to do some stocktaking.  Ended up doing precious little of that but did carry out a thorough tidy-up. 

There was also a 'book-swap' going on in the church.   I managed to pick up a Christian Jacq title that I didn't have in my collection - "Ramses: The Lady of Abu Simbel".

Monday - no club meet.  I had planned to make my annual visit to the Wakefield Games club but my car had other ideas.  The steering wheel was shaking when I applied the brakes.  Booked in on Wednesday at the garage.

Wednesday - started reading this book:

I get the feeling that it's going to take a while - will review it properly in the fullness of time.

Thursday - photographed some figures that I finished the previous day

These are all for my DBA-RRR "Transylvanian, Moldavian & Wallachian" army - 2 x Kn, 3 x Shot, 1 x 5Wb & 1 x Lh.  This still leaves 3 elements to be finished - 2 x Lh & 1 x Kn.

On the left - two elements for my "Dutch Rebellion" army.  It now needs only the 1 x Kn (Huguenots) for completion.
On the right - one more shot block for my European colonials.  They will pass for Spanish, Portuguese, English or Dutch forces for my Irregular Wars scraps.

Just the way I paint with odd figures sitting around.  The result in this case is a Wars of the Roses organ gun - Art(I) in DBM terms.  I had to add a block of balsa wood underneath in order to give the model some rigidity. 

Another Week Gone By

 ...and this time it really is Thursday (afternoon).

Monday - Irregular Wars - the first time played against a live opponent.  Chris won convincingly with his Mesoamericans (versus my Conquistadores).

My crossbow & shot proved to be very weak in melee (1) and the artillery even worse (-1).  The knights, on the other hand, were unkillable.  'Natives' out of command range were skittish and prone to run away.  Suit-wearers & cuachic were made of a much harder material.

Setting up went more smoothly than expected although I pre-set the terrain but offered the choice of starting side to my opponent.  Cards were drawn (but were largely forgotten about).  Dicing for army composition gave the 'natives' plenty of troops and the Spanish precious few.

We soon fell into the rhythm of Initiative - Shooting - Movement - Melee.   I'm sure we missed a lot of things in our 2 hours of play but there you go!  Finding references in the rules section was far from easy (not happy with the layout/format).  Didn't find the QRs very helpful either.

Looks like I am going to have to revise the rules layout. So far I have split them into sections - set up, main, campaigns, chance cards and QRs. Now I need to simplify and clarify.

An unforseen difficulty was that my opponent could not remember which figures represented what (he also had trouble with the facing of same).  I will have to come up with some way of marking and/or numbering each base.  Initial thoughts are for a 'rock' at the back of each base with a number painted on.  Needs some thought.

All in all it was a useful exercise and thanks to Chris for indulging me.

Weakly Posting

One of my readers suggested that  I post every week. I decided upon Thursdays.  Well it's 0049 Friday but that's close enough:

Monday - DBM - Chris put up Fanatic Berber versus Andy's Western Sudanese.  A slow business with both sides playing cagey.  Chris was waiting for his Spanish flank march to arrive (he's still waiting).  The game ended in a draw with the Berbers being close to a broken command.

Tuesday - turned out my Renaissance boxes to see what forces I could field for" Irregular Wars - Conflict at the World's End".  Looks like I have enough for an 'Aztec' type army or a Mayan one.  The Europeans can be fielded as Conquistadores, Colonial Spanish or Colonial Portuguese.  A few more bases of general-purpose 'natives' would be useful so I based up & flocked some slingers & warriors.

Wednesday - woken up at an ungodly hour so decided to get my computers sorted out.   A whole day to install Win7.  Reminded me of  a poem called "Reinstalling Windows" by Les Barker.

Thursday - so I got on with my painting didn't I?   Had a surprise visit from a friend with accompanying mutt.  Spent the day walking around the local reservoir and socialising.    The best laid plans............