Waterloo - The Action Around La Haye Sainte

Me? The Kaptain of Kobolds? Playing a scenario set during the Battle of Waterloo? With my reputation? What were they thinking?

But play I did. Despite my relative indifference to what I know to a few wargamers is an important anniversary in a few weeks I played, and enjoyed, this Black Powder game which Ralph put on for us this evening, using figures and scenery which will be deployed for the truly enormous refight of the whole battle in a few weeks time.

We played along the long axis of a table. At one end were hordes of Frenchmen and a teeny, tiny Corsican. At the other a thin red line of British troops. Mostly British troops. They looked mostly British. And the road to Brussels.

In the middle was a farm, which looked just like that Airfix one I used to have many years ago. It had a garrison of troops which may or may not have been British, but who were certainly not either French, nor friendly to the French. Next to it was Sharpe, or at least some of his known associates, in a sandpit.

Here we can see loadsaFrench.

The British looked a bit thin on the ground. There was some cavalry off-table. Guess who had command of the cavalry. Yes - me!

To confuse the French the road-signs had been written in English.

Ah, the peace of the Belgian countryside.

The British cavalry arrive, with one of the four units coming from the civilised part of the country, and the rest from the barbarian fringes.

At the other end of the table the French began to mass around La Haye Sainte. The defenders look thin on the ground, but more were implied - the farm was fairly well defended, even if the defenders were not all depicted.

The thin red line formed up on a sunken lane on our left flank.

Sharpe in the sandpit.

On our other flank Peter went for an advanced defence, hoping to provoke the French cavalry into a charge by shooting at them a lot. Caesar ordered a charge - an order to which only one unit responded with that unit falling short.

Unfortunately a French light cavalry unit swept past the farm on the other side, crossed the Brussels road and swung into the left flank of Peter's infantry. The Kings German Legion got hit hard, and routed, along with one of the supporting Foot Guards units. In one turn Peter had lost two-thirds of his infantry

A breakthrough charge saw our guns lost as well.

The French commander pointed and laughed at his British counterpart.

Time to save the day! In go the Scots Greys.

Charge brought to you in glorious Multi-Angle Vision!

Even from the back. Top that, Lady Butler!

Actually as cavalry charges go it was pretty pedestrian. Despite all our advantages we pretty much fought to a draw, and both sides withdrew to lick their wounds.

It was at this point that I discovered that our part of Wellington's army was being led by a young Abraham Lincoln (who was, in fact, six years old when Waterloo was fought, as was, incidentally, Charles Darwin, who was born on exactly the same day in 1809). Well, either it was Abraham Lincoln ... or The Penguin. Top hat and umbrella; it's a dead giveaway.

My cavalry got stuck into the French cavalry, and we all had a jolly good time, even if it was all a bit inconclusive.

Aiming to make things more decisive The Penguin ordered the Scots Greys to forgo their Irn Bru and shortbread break, and to move up in support of the Dragoon Guards who were, we discovered, very handy in a fight. So handy, in fact, that they made two lots of French cavalry run away.

On the left Sharpe had a play-date in the sandpit with lots of Frenchmen, who decided that they'd probably like to go home now, if that was OK? Other Frenchmen had tried to join a wine-tasting event at the farm, but apparently the defenders were German and had pre-booked all of the seats very early that morning, thus denying Napoleon's troops a chance of getting in. Killing a few of them reinforced the point. So those French went home as well.

Cavalry having a jolly time.

So jolly, in fact, that the French ones decided to go home and tell their friends all about it. Bye-bye.

Unfortunately whilst a load of French cavalry had run off, ours was getting a bit tired, and a tea-break was definitely being suggested. Sadly this would leave one unit of British Guards between an enormous blob of Frenchmen and a mid-June city-break in Brussels. Obviously this wasn't the kind of thing we were willing to put up with, but what were we to do? Run out of time, that's what.

So there the game ended. Caesar still had some stuff to throw at the wobbly British right, although Bryan was looking strong on our left and had troops to spare to bring up in support. There was probably an interesting game still to be played, although my contribution would mostly be based around rallying cavalry.

Thanks to Ralph for organising the scenario and the figures, and to Bryan for remembering how to play. It sounds like the game was a useful exercise in advance of the main event, and we got to push big piles of figures around. A win for everyone!

The Adventures of 'Tom Sawyer'

A modern day warrior

Mean, mean stride

Today's Tom Sawyer

Mean, mean pride

We haven't seen the new Mad Max film yet - we're aiming to see it as a family towards the end of the week when our four work, college, university and social lives co-ordinate - but it's inspired me to get Machinas out again. I decided that rather than do a race I'd try a road chase. I'd like to explore these more, as they are a chance to use a mix of vehicles and have a different feel to the races.

In the basic set-up a single vehicle is chased by a random number of pursuers, and must either destroy them all, or survive until they all drop out. At the end of each turn there's a chance each individual pursuer will give up. This increases the longer the chase lasts. There's also a small chance of additional vehicles joining the chase.

Here's 'Tom Sawyer', a hobo vehicle on the grim and dangerous roads of the future. It has a skilled pilot and a big rear-facing machine-gun to discourage pursuers.

But it doesn't discourage these two.

The chase is on. The black car moves up first, with its big flame-thrower.

But fuel is precious - a flamethrower has limited shots - and our hero finds himself being bashed rather than roasted.

He's lucky, and the attacking vehicle falls back. 'Tom Sawyer' is penalised in bashing attempts because of its size, so had to burn a lot of bonus dice to avoid disaster.

The other pursuer races ahead. This is a behaviour that can happen in chases, and is pointless in the rules as written. I have added a modifier that makes it less likely pursuers will break off the more vehicles they have ahead of the chase. So there is an advantage to getting at least one vehicle ahead.

The driver of 'Tom Sawyer' is boxed in now.

The lead car skids, and 'Tom Sawyer' is bashed again, losing more bonus dice.

Meanwhile the black car closes in with the flamethrower this time, but some nifty driving sees the shot miss.

The chase continues. I opt to keep the 'Tom Sawyer' behind the lead car, as it stops it dropping back and deploying its machine-guns, and gives me more bonus dice for drafting. I can keep drafting - time is on my side after all.

A random event places a large boulder on the road. The lead car easily avoids it ...

... but 'Tom Sawyer' scrapes its paintwork.

The grey car suddenly drops back and we collide again.

This time it's terminal. 'Tom Sawyer' flips ...

... rolls ...

... and is wrecked.

Game over.

Exit the warrior

Today's Tom Sawyer

He gets by on you

And the energy you trade

He gets right on to the friction of the day

I never got chance to use the rear-gun. Early on the black car kept trying to pass, and succeeded or failed too narrowly for me to deploy it. And later on I was more concerned with maintaining a good position behind the grey car. 

I like the idea of a bike-gang as the pursuers, and have ordered some resin ones from Ramshackle Games, which I hope will come soon. A mix of bikes and other vehicles would make for an interesting game I reckon.

Bolt Action Tanks

We played Bolt Action last night, but Bolt Action with a difference - we only used tanks.

The scenario was set in Poland in late 1944 (not 1939, as I had somehow managed to misinterpret the pre-game blurb to imply), with a force of German tanks holding a village, bridge and railway crossing against some attacking Russians. Both sides chose their force from a limited set of options, unaware of what the other had picked.

In the first game the Germans went for the power-play - five Tiger IIs. The Russians went to the other extreme - a horde of inexperienced  T34s and SU85s. The Germans were outnumbered three to one. Five to one when, on virtually the first turn, a lucky Russian shot knocked out the lead Tiger.

Not Flames of War - those Russian tanks aren't touching

Another Tiger took so much fire that the crew panicked and ran. This left three Germans to defend against an undepleted Russian horde. It didn't go well. The German shooting was appalling, and the Russians could put down such a volume of fire that German destruction, or total suppression, was inevitable. The Germans eventually lost all five tanks and all three objectives, with the Russians having two tanks immobilised.

The second game saw more balance, with five Panthers against a smaller number of more experienced T34s backed up by ...

... a couple of JSII heavy tanks.

The Germans defended back from the village. One T34 tried to  rush the bridge but was immobilised. In this game the Russians actually took some real casualties, but were also trying sneaky flank moves when we ran out of time.

It was mildly entertaining trundling big (relatively speaking) plastic tanks around the table, and it almost made me nostalgic for all those games of 20mm Rapid Fire we played with the Staines Wargamers. Obviously Bolt Action is a far superior game to Rapid Fire, because whilst it's about the same level of complexity, the rules have more and prettier pictures, are the size of an encyclopedia, have a Hard Cover, and, to clinch it all, they have Special Order Dice.

Ralph set up the game, and his more detailed writeup is HERE.

Gooooaaaal!

You'll have noticed that posts here have slowed over the last few days. This was because, with the Hallmark Mother's Day* at the weekend and my birthday yesterday, Mrs Kobold and I decided to have a weekend away. We went to Katoomba, on the edge of the Blue Mountains and had a lovely time despite the cold and the wind. The cold was expected. The wind wasn't.

Still, we did scenery, cafes and all sorts of other tourist stuff. But we didn't play much in the way of games, despite discovering  a small games and steampunk shop, Afternoonified,  in the town which offered all-day games on a Sunday.

I did take some games, but we only had one session, and then only one game - StreetSoccer. We hadn't played this boardgame of five-a-side football in years, but it's simple enough and easy to pick up, even after a bottle of wine.

Here's the first game in progress - Catherine (orange, and playing towards the camera) is winning 1-0.

The Hand of God ...

... leads to another goal for orange.

Final score - I lost 4-2.

We played again. In the following games we got better at keeping the players in the kind of lines which allow you to move the ball right down the pitch. The game uses a PIP system, which allows you to move one player, then use the remainder (if any) to kick the ball. Each friendly player the ball passes through gives it a small boost. The ball's movement is allowed one change in direction per kick - you can curve your shots.

An intense midfield scramble sees some players blocked from each other.

The second game was a draw and went into extra time. The game is played for 25 pairs of turns, with 10 more if extra time is called. because of a tie. After that the player who scored last wins. That would have been me, but Catherine sneaked in a goal for a 4-3 win.

I won the third game 4-3, before hitting my stride in the fourth game just as Catherine had an appalling run of dice and picking up a 7-0 victory. So we ended the evening with two games a piece.

I'd forgotten how much fun StreetSoccer is to play. It can turn on good or bad PIP dice, but there are tactics and positions which can help or hinder play regardless, and that makes the game work.

Incidentally, the orange team were dubbed the Newtown Moles, who as anyone will tell you are Australia's premier exponents of ball-based games. Go The Moles!

And here's my lovely wife at the Three Sisters, rugged up against the cold and the wind after I hauled her out of bed so we could go and see the dawn. It was worth it though.

*As opposed to proper, UK Mothering Sunday, which is sometime in the run-up to Easter.