Victorian Steel

Sunday 25th October - Fiasco @ Leeds - helping out with a participation game (Napoleonic).  Bought some MDF bases and a new set of rules:

These (left) seem straight-forward and fun....and at only £5 it wasn't a big investment.  Hopefully I will get a chance to try them out!!!

Fiasco was lively at the start but soon trailed off after lunch.  Too many empty tables where demo or traders had failed to turn up.  Perhaps the nightmare of finding somewhere to park put them off!  I spent 20-25 mins touring around and eventually parked 2/3 of a mile away.  Of course I could have used the Armouries car park at Rip Off prices.


Monday 26th October - DBM - Arabo-Aramaean versus Maccabaean Jewish.  Another close run thing with few casualties.  Al's centre command was within 2 elements of defeat but the other command was untouched.  Jim (guest general) lost one element right at the end (as did I).  The only consolation was that Al was getting most of the lousy movement dice and not me.

On the other tables - "Hammer of the Scots" boardgame with Andrew & Ian - WW2 scrap between Germans and Russians with 6 playing.


Tuesday 27th October - after being shaken out of bed by hammering and drilling coming from next door I found myself shut in my bedroom with the radio on and a paintbrush in hand.  My new DBA-RRR army is taking shape - only 2 naked horses left - everything else has some degree of covering.  Hopefully the first of them can be photographed soon (today would have been impossible anyway - thick fog in the morning only thinning a bit after 1400 hrs).

Thursday 29th October - 2 bases/elements of my new DBA-RRR army ready to be photographed.  As miserable grey weather prevails the camera stays snug and warm in its case.

Have managed to find my De Bello book "Le Guerre Colonali Italiiane 1885/1900" so 'Victorian Steel' may get an outing soon.  It's now just a question of finding those colonial soldiers........................

Dunbar or Bust!

Saturday 17th October - FoG Renaissance - I turned up around midday to see Chris and Al still playing the battle of Dunbar.  I took over the English (hiss!  boo!) and developed the cavalry attack on the Scots.  I had to make whatever headway I could as soon as possible.  If I didn't the Scots foot (twice the number I had) would fall upon my pbi.  As it happened we drew stumps at 16:00 when I had just attacked a foot unit in the flank.  There had been much consulting of the rules and head scratching.  Looks like we all need to become a lot more familiar with this particular rule set!

Wednesday 21st October - finished another book:

This volume is all about the slowly developing American colonies - English, Dutch, French, Swedish & Danish.  The period is characterised by religious intolerance (yet again) and empire building.  For those who play "Muskets & Tomahawks" there is a mass of information about real and projected conflicts.  The natives fought for and against various colonial powers sometimes as allies and occassionally as the dominant partner.

It becomes clear that political in-fighting meant that 'paper' strengths did not translate into boots on the ground.  Even if these theoretical numbers were achieved some garrisons were still tiny (and the guns in poor condition).  No surprise then as to how many times forts, outposts and minor colonies changed hands or were destroyed.

This volume does suffer from some rather poor english but does not become unreadable.


I shall take a break from factual books and go back to Star Trek or Star Wars -  just to give my brain a rest.

Sunday 25th October I will be Fiasco (Leeds) as I have voluntered to help out at a demonstration game - more of that next week.

An Ignominious Defeat

Monday 12th - DBM - Lydian versus Early Aechemenid Persian

The terrain fell not  entirely to my benefit but I could live with it.  The Persians threw reasonable dice and pressed forward.  My starting dice were 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 (luckily the 2 was for my allied command).  The (movement) dice gods were not in our favour as I threw 1 - 1 - 3 - 4 on my next go.  

Fighting dice were pretty even so no complaints there but on the last round of the night I had one broken command and looking at a 6:4 defeat.  I only had to hold onto one last Lh not to loose half my army - guess what happened! 

Well my deployment wasn't the best and my heart wasn't in the game from the start but did I deserve such a drubbing?

One minor niggle was Andy's exocet guided missiles.  There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with Expendables under DBM.  I have always thought of them as a 'point and go' weapon not a formation dance troop.  Being able to manouvre them into the best possible position just feels at odds with reality!  Maybe I should look at the DBMM rules to see if there have been any improvements.

Another Close Run Thing

Monday - DBM - Jurchen Chin v Early Crusader.

The JC presented a solid centre of Bw, Reg Bd(F) and Art(S).  The flanks were mostly Lh(S) with some supporting Kn(F) on the right.  I managed to keep my Lh under control and (just) out of trouble.  The centre pivoted but didn't do much else.  Chris had the main scrap opposite Andy with both commands taking hits.

The EC central command  sat on, and behind, a steep hill.  Everything else was formed up on their left flank.   AL tried to get his Bw over the hill to support his Kn(F) but it was a slow business.

So while the 'plodders' messed about in the centre a fierce fight ensued between Chris and Andy.  At close of play our C-in-C's command was one off breaking and so was Andy's.  Had we continued it would have been a 6:4 win to the opposition.  As it was the score was yet another 5:5 draw (like round one).

Next Monday I have to choose the army so I'm going to take a force that will either win spectacularly or blow away with the first puff of wind.  I care not which way it goes - I'm fed up with 5:5 / 6:4 / 5:5 results.