12 December 2017

Annual Napoleonic Clash: South Auckland Gaming Club

What a year!, its almost gone already!

On the last club day of the year, the usual Annual Napoleonic Clash took place using the very old rule set of WRG.
And some equally very old miniatures. (Thanks to Glen and Bryan for supplying much of the figures)

With Arthur now lost in time to his other pursuits the table was slightly less crowded that previous years.
Although I did manage to get one unit of Highlander Scotts onto the table as I have just started working my Napoleonic army… (Yes I caved in and have started an army)

This year the teams were Glen, Cavan and Kevin with the French Spanish versus Bryan, Steven and myself with  Russian, Bulgarians and British.


Now over the years a few games of WRG have been played at the club, and victories have been hard fought and won after much debate. So this year Glen started us off with a really nicely laid out table with some of his newly made terrain which is mighty impressive.

The table had 5 objective’s, making sure there was little chance of a draw and little chance of dispute.

So Team Bryan made a plan before deployment….
And then we complete ignored the plan in the frenzy of deployment.
 
My job was to hold the hill and assist Steven taking the village while
Bryan was to mess with the bridges and assist Steven taking the Vineyard.



So with a well laid plan which we ignored we got straight into the game.



Deployment




My troops raced over the hill and a snail’s pace while get pounded by artillery fire, with one unit of my Cavalry disintegrating quickly and a unit of troops soon after.
In the first few turns most of which was maneuvering, my artillery took out a couple of canons for Glens.

Here's some random photos from the game.











Glen’s troops got into an awesome position and took to Stevens troops and did some serious slaughtering.

 

After lunch Steven had a little surprise for us.
A shot of Christmas cheer … 
Thanks to Steven ..

I believe a new tradition has been started .






After lunch things really started to get bloody, as Cavan’s artillery dealt out the pain and decimated Bryan’s Russians. Glen’s troops in the vineyard had a hard fight on their hands as Steven
managed to attack the well-fortified position and push his way into the vineyard, only to get outnumber and surrounded. The covering hedges were just too much for Steven’s poor old troops
as they got cut down by the entrenched French.

So by about 3.30pm the Allies had been blasted to bits and the stragglers we just holding on. When we called the end of the game we we 1-4 to the French. (another turn and it would have been 0-5)

As always with the WRG games.. a slow and sometime confusion games, but made fun by the the guys and the odd really good dice roll.  


Oh, Leo and the new comer to the club, Matt played out a few games of Sail of Glory, which looked like an interesting game, and according to Leo not a bad game at all. 




And for the record… according to my previous blog posts, this is how the last few years have stacked up in the WRG conflicts...... 

2017                French and Spanish
2016                French and Spanish
2015                Russian, Bulgarians and British

2014                French and Spanish


.... next year the Scotts will invade en-mass for a slaughterous win (thats my prediction for 2018) 

17 October 2017

ACW

Saturday past was the monthly South Auckland club meeting. Bryan, Saul, Mark and myself had teed up a big game of ACW. After a bit of mucking around we got a 6 foot by 16 foot table up and terrain placed out. Using the Black Powder game rules with the Glory Hallelujah book.

 
Bryan and I took our Union troops along with some extra's Saul had supplied. While Mark and Saul took up the Confederates. The Union ended up with 23 unit's while the Confederates had about 21.

We rolled off and started bringing on the troops, with both sides keeping reserves off table until turn four, at which time we could start rolling to see if they turn up, adding 1 to the roll for each turn after that.



 
 Mark's confederates lining up to hand out a beating to Bryan's Union.

But Bryan's men turned on the stamina and helped me hold the center table, while I did the sneaky and got my reserves to turn up just in time to blind side Saul's confederate attack from the right flank. It was a little dirty, but it did win us the game.


 
I got into a CAV vs CAV battle going with Saul. The resulting battle of which saw both sides take a beating. With my CAV coming out on top... just. But I did lose Custer and then my CAV folded.

 
The Center of the table was hard fought


Great game, lots still to learn and great fun. So much so I've already ordered a few more units.



17 September 2017

Banzai

So after a very long wait,(some18 months), Mark finally in his new house we got to christen his garage with some games of Bolt Action today.

I rolled out my Jap's in a 1000 point game up against Mark's Brits. I haven't played Bolt Action for an age, in fact this was my first 2 edition rule set game. We made the usual blunders with the rules along the way as we got our brains back into the rule set and changes. After 6 turns I managed to win. The Banzai charge worked a treat for me and a well timed ambush order.





 The second game was a smaller brutal brash, 500 point game against Will's Germans. Unfortunally for Will my flame thrower team was on fire. They rampaged through several of his units before the rest of my troops cleaned up. So some fun games.
 
 
 
 

13 August 2017

Wife beating in Suburbia

Ha..Ha..Ha ..It's not what you think... its a board game!
So after a long hiatus in blogging, I though I get back into my blogging and start with the latest board games I've been playing.

 Yep, that's right, the wife has been beating me senseless in every game of Suburbia we have played so far. I picked this up a few weeks back, and after 6 games I still haven't won any. Dispite the losing, it's a fun game and something quite different from the typical board games I normally get. I would have actually never bought it, if I hadn't started a conversation with a gentleman in the shop at the same time as me. I'm glad I took his advise.

Here's a couple of shots of the box and a game in progress I swiped from the internet. I'm not going to review it as there are plenty of reviews out there. It's an enjoyable game for two players, I'm looking forward to trying it with 3 or 4 players.  Well worth a go if you get the chance.



I also picked up Mainframe on Friday, being a fan of the Android universe. Have yet to play it, but looks like a fun none brain taxing game. I'm pretty certain I'll be losing at that as well.



Now for a brain taxing game, have four or five drinks, then late at night bust out Ticket to Ride.
Yep, Ticket to Ride.. not just any Ticket to Ride, but the latest version, the Rails and Sails version. Oh and play it for the first time while your well into a Scotch bottle.  My wife is a huge fan of ticket to ride, so I bought her this as a random gift. 


It's definitely adding another spin on the game and a little mind bending with boats and trains and the need to manage how many of each you start with. Still, it's ticket to ride, so you cant go wrong.... unless you have had one or two to many drinks before hand.


And yep, of course I lost.

The telly so far, in the last few weeks since I started tracking our boardgames is 

Wife 13 
Me  2 





12 August 2017

American War of Independence

Wow, its been a long time since I last posted. How time fly’s.
Today was the Monthly South Auckland Club meeting.

So after many months of planning, we finally got around to playing a game of American War of Independence (AWI). The instigator of yet another game, so many months ago, one Mr Hazell ended up having to work today, so missed out. But thankfully we had had enough to field both sides and make up a good size table of 6 x 12 foot.

Glen and Saul had the British command, with Bryan, Cavan and myself fielded the American independence forces. Saul had come up with a planned scenario and kept the rules nice and simple for us.

One side would be defenders of two camps on the table, while the attackers entered the table at one of six locations. One at each short table edge and two on each of the long edge.

The British troops all had the elite rule, while the Continentals all had the wavering rule, and all the skirmishers for the Continentals also had the sharpshooter rule. The elite British troops we outnumbered by the lesser trained Continental troops, so that should balance out the sides.

Saul and Bryan rolled off as generals to see who would be attacker or defender. Bryan wining, we chose to be attackers.

The camps were deployed and Cavan rolled to see where he would come on and ended up with position 1, I then rolled after Saul deployed the first of his troops defending the first camp and came on at position 2.Glen then placed his British around the second camp in a square type defense as he had no idea where Bryan’s troops would enter from. Bryan then rolled up position 3 coming in beside my troops.

This overall table shot was from about half way through the game. 


The game then got underway with the Continentals moving onto the table and spreading out. Cavan got in a couple of canon shots into the Scots dealing damage, and halting them. My Indian skirmishers got stuck in to some of the British skirmishers that got to close.

From there things swung back and forth with Bryan's one unit of Cavalry breaching through the British lines and streaking along in behind them, mean while Glen held his positions.




Saul pushed forward taking the house and positioning around it.






With Cavan and myself pushing two directions into Saul's British that had come forward we soon dealt out some serious damage


My Indian unit were the heroes for the Continental's scalping everything the came into contact with.
(Awesome paint job by Saul)








Just after lunch Cavan and I had whittled down Saul's units breaking the British and wining the game.
Since it was still early we decided to continue on, with each side bring on reinforcements. So Cavan and Bryan bough back on a unit each (i think) while Saul bought back on about four units as his surviving ones retreated.

My Indians continued to be hero's scalping another unit and I finally managed to roll some decent command rolls and move all my troops across the table as did Bryan and Cavan bringing the British to there knees.

So a convincing victory for the American Continentals.

Great game and great fun. (its always great fun when you win ) The wavering rule for our troops wasn't as much of a hamstring as we expected it to be, but overall I think it worked quite well. Saul's fast advance I think undid him in the start and he couldn't recover.

Looking forward to another game in the near future.

While all that was going on Kevin and Jason played a few games of Saga, in between arguing over rules. I think they managed to get two games played in the end. More discussions over rules than actual play I think..all well mannered of course :-)