Hobby Funk!

For some reason I feel in a bit of a hobby funk at the moment... I haven't blogged much, and my perusal of blogs I follow and comment on has fallen off of recently. So I apologise to the gaming blogging community for my apathy..

The year seemed to start well with the Hobbit starter set arriving and getting me all excited to get it painted up.

I created a basic Goblin Town terrain board, and set to painting up the Goblins as part of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I got them about half done, but seemed to lose focus and interest... and opened up my pack of PSC half tracks and their conversion kits and set to making these up (mostly sitting out in the sun trimming and gluing with beer in hand, as I find it hard to spend weekend summer time inside painting). After completing their assembly, I then set to work making the PSC Tiger I kits I got at the same time as the half tracks. These went together well, and painting was commenced on these - painting is easy, a quick base coat spray , some camo stripes and a wash and you are virtually done...

And since I've been actively playing FoW for just about 18 months now, there will always be a quick and ready use for them!

But this weekend I hit a brick wall in my FoW-ing... 

 I have never been the best player, scraping out an odd win here and there in a mass of defeats, and as Paul summed up very well, in his article here; (written I suspect for my benefit), these defeats, whilst good to learn from, can also be somewhat demoralizing over time. Even Paul admitted to sulking once after I actually managed a rare victory over him. Sadly, I end up sulking just about every week! Not good for the mental state of affairs!

After Paul kindly offered to host me to a learning game, I had the usual occur; my dice were crap, while Paul seemed to pass every save that was important. Thus crushed again by either crap tactics, crap dice, or both... I slinked off home... wrestled with my thoughts, couldn't sleep, got up and thrashed about on EasyArmy at 2am, gave up and went back to bed... Got up feeling equally frustrated and decided 'bollox', I don't need to feel this way, just give it up...

So I ended up pulling out of Pauls FoW tournie that is only a week away. Yes I feel crap dropping Paul in it like this, but I think I'd feel even worse after screwing up in the tournie, so self preservation has kicked in, for my mental state...

I'll probably come back to it in time and have no plans to sell off my collection. I still like the game, the look and feel, the rules for the most part too. I still like the look of my troops for the game, (the German 'war machine' has always held a fascination for me, and the history of its action and ultimate defeat), and the time commitment getting them done would be poorly recompensed in a sale. So they will remain in the display case until I feel my Germans are worth dusting off again... and have a hope in Hell of getting a win...

So what next?

A change is as good as a rest they say... when I think back to gaming I really enjoyed I recall my Warmaster days from many years ago... Step forward to present and we have Hail Caesar and Black Powder, both rule sets derived from Warmaster, with their subtle differences reflecting scale and theatre of action.

So having recently received the Dark Ages/Medieval supplement for Hail Caesar from Warlord Games sale, my son and I broke out my medieval collection that has been gathering dust for many years, and set to with a balanced English Barons War 'civil war' loosely themed game.

So far we've got about part way through and done a few things wrong while I try and get used to the rules, and their differences from Warmaster and Black Powder, but its been fun and entertaining.

If it goes well, I'll try and get a brief battle report up on blog, as I have taken a few pics along the way.

As for painting, well I'll plod on and try and clear the back log on my painting table, finish the half tracks and Tigers anyway, and the Hobbit set, hopefully before the deadline end of the painting challenge, and see what comes up next... I made a start trimming and assembling my c18th WSS figures for Black Powder, from Wargames Factory. There's something wonderfully romantic about this period with their tricorne hats and frills, and no nonsense warfare, no messing about with skirmishers and squares, just get up there and give them what for ol' chap!

So that's more or less it for now though it still leaves me pondering about our hobby in general, and the mix of people who do it...

It has led me to conclude there are roughly 3 types of hobbyist:

The Gamer:

These chaps know the game rules inside out and the tactics of the game off by heart, and can probably look several moves ahead like some kind of chess champ. They probably manage a reasonably average level of dice luck too making them worthy tournament adversaries.

The Player:

These folks have a fair idea of the rules, and a general idea of what will work tactically, but are perhaps far for masters of the art! Their dice luck may not the best overall, and the combination of these two factors probably makes them bottom of the pile in the tournament stakes.

The Painter:

Loves the pomp and circumstance and look of the game, rather than the game play itself! Luck is rarely a factor! Wouldn't know where to sign up for a tournament!

In these rankings I am somewhere in the middle I guess, and I assume these are over generalisations, but its been fun pondering this dilemma, and perhaps will get me part way out of this current funk!

Best regards to all and thanks for reading my inane witterings.

Scott

More period books and a tournament!

A couple more supplement books arrived in the mail yesterday:

I got into ECW a few years back, through GW Historicals (now defunct) WECW book. I hooked up with a chap up north, and we started building armies for it and had a couple of trial goes which went OK-ish. But then I moved down south and that knackered that. 

I then hooked up with a couple of guys down here, and tried WRG and WECW again, but it didn't really go anywhere, and my troops as usual got abandoned, and left as pretty figures in my display cases.

Black Powder, and later Hail Caesar came along, and I really enjoyed the rule mechanic from these games, after enjoying a long time playing Warmaster, from which they are based.

But there was no ECW period covered by the rules... a period gap between the two supplements/versions, but there were rumours that ECW would follow. And sure enough it has! I will be intrigued to try these out, though it is unlikely to be soon, as other things have me very wargamingly busy at the moment...

Next up, and this book was more readily looked through as soon as the box was opened...

The Eastern Front, for Flames of War, their MidWar supplement covering all forces that fought here, both Axis and Soviet.

I wasn't really a huge fan of Eastern front stuff and the Russkies... I always found the Normandy and European stuff of the later war period more interesting...

However, there is no getting away from the sheer scale of events on the Eastern front, and the length of involvement in time that both sides fought here; indeed the majority of the whole war period.

There is one battle that always intrigues me; Kursk. Reputed to be the largest tank battle in history... How cool would it be have a chance to replay the events of that epic battle?

And so, as local players have Russian forces there seems no getting away from it... I can see a pile of PSC 251/c hanomags arriving at Bowman Towers in the not too distant future...

But that will have to wait because, after the last six months worth of frantically painting Late War German Wehrmacht forces, I have found something to do with them...

The Wellington Warlords are hosting their annual Call to Arms tournament, which will feature a Late War Flames of War tournament, pitched at 1750pts, and with 5 battles played over a weekend.

More details here:

http://www.warlords.org.nz/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=2&Itemid=5

So I am now considering my optimum, 'take on all comers' German force. I'll be taking my Mechanised troops in their Hanomags, and will have to decide the best mix of support elements to get the job done.

I hope to get a load of practice games in, in the meantime, to sharpen my knowledge of the rules, and tactics of my chosen force, so I can try and play at a reasonably competitive level at the tournament. I don't want the experienced hands groaning at having to play the newbie... 

I am not expecting to win anything, far from it, unless its the wooden spoon, but I expect to learn a lot from the better players out there, and hopefully have some fun while doing so!

Wish me luck!

Black Powder - Last Arguement of Kings - 4 Player Battle report

Saturday saw a fine game of Black Powder played between myself, Roly, Brett and Reg.

Again I was unable to provide any figures of my own as yet, though was able to provide the venue and table and terrain ;-) And my good lady offered snacks and refreshments so hopefully that counts for something!

Roly and I teamed up and played against Brett and Reg.

There was no particular theme to the game again, call it imaginations if you wish.

Again for simplicity we did take very similar forces, each player commanding two infantry brigades of three battalions each, and a cavalry brigade of three units; two lights and a heavy.

One general commanded each army and each brigade had a brigade commander for which we rolled off for aggression, decisiveness and independence. All of these factors could affect how well our brigadiers would give commands through the game.

All units were considered standard size.
One of the things I rather like about this period are that there are no, or at least few, skirmishers to worry about, nor are there form-square rules to concern ourselves with.

Here's a few pics from the game:

Initial deployments - Brett is checking out Rolys troops. The large hill we played as a 'crested hill', not  a plateau, so you had to be beyond halfway acros to see the other side, in both orientations.

Roly and I advance our forces on the first turn as Reg and Brett look on.

Snacks and refreshments consumed - an army marches on its stomach after all!

Rolys cavalry advance on our right flank

The Duchess leads Bretts forces against Roly

Bretts "HQ" - a fine place to watch the spectacle and enjoy a cup of tea... perhaps a little too 'early' for our period, but it looked too cool to leave out!

Meanwhile the kids had their 40k game in the family room...

...old school orks vs space marines... I believe the orks won! The orks are mine from 20-odd years ago, played by my son Chris. The marines are Bretts son's; Rhys's.

Reg and Brett advance their forces

The first engagements, both shooting and melee

Cavalry set to it on our left flank

Brett advances his infantry boldly presenting my infantry with an enfilade shot!

Cavalry fight and retire as is the way with Black Powder

Rolys fine horse...

...drive back Bretts cavalry - the Duchess is not amused!

Things really hot up in the centre.

Roly sees his error, two fine moves from one command allow him to advance rapidly to meet Bretts line, but then cant fire! And they then face a close range first fire volley backed up by 2 battalion guns - it wasn't pretty!

Can our artillery save the day in the centre? Boom!

Brett throws his cavalry forth again only to see them rout the field

More cavalry shenanigans on the left flank

One of my infantry battalions breaks

...and a cavalry one too!

Final positions

Roly has won the right flank but lost the centre and I have held the left flank... net result, we called it a very enjoyable draw, as we had set no objectives at the start of the game.

A thoroughly enjoyable afternoons gaming. Fine fellows, fine food and drink, fine weather, and fine gaming :-)

Black Powder - Battle Report - SYW 'refresher'

Good pal Roly and I managed a refresher game of Black Powder tonight.

We are both big fans of the game though don't get to play too many games, (mostly because I don't have any complete armies for it as yet) and we have a 4 player multi-header planned for next weekend so thought we'd better get in a quick refresher game to re-acquaint ourselves with the rules.

We played a SYW period game utilising some of the concepts from Last Argument of Kings -  a BP Age of Reason supplement.

We kept it fairly simple, each with identical forces:

• A brigade of two regiments of cavalry - one light and one heavy.
• A brigade of 3 battalions of standard infantry
• A brigade of 3 battalions of standard infantry plus a battalion gun.
• An artillery piece.

We played over a modest set up comprising a small village and fields, with a couple of woods and hills and a small marshy area.

Here's pics from the game:

Initial deployments, I'm holding the side with the village, with Roly advancing toward me.

Rolys opening moves, cavalry advance and flank infantry brigade advances, but centre stalls.

I advanced to meet him, but my artillery blundered and headed off past the village...

I fill the gap between woods and village protecting my flanks

Roly is in range but only with his battalion gun.

Rolys centre finally advances, whilst the opposing cavalry eyeball each other.

I adjust my infantry and refuse a flank. Cavalry fight behind woods.

Roly pauses his advance, we are both waiting to see what will happen on the cavalry flank...

Cavalry mix it up.

I lose a unit that withdraws, but Roly is also shaken and stuck in front on my cavalry that are shaken from prior action!

I manage to recover from shaken and charge back in.

 Scattering Rolys cavalry in turn...

While the cavalry kill each other inconclusively the infantry recommence their closure

 Having shaken two of my leading infantry battalions Rolys risks a charge order but only makes it part way with central unit.

I swing refused flank battalion round into enfilade fire position.

 Roly has taken the fire but 'dodges a bullet' from the enfilade fire... with some good saves.

 But the advance unit is shot to pieces and flees the field.

But Roly's return fire now scatters my two shaken units, breaking my brigade...

Who are forced to retire towards the village.

I finally break the end of Rolys line routing his unit to sustained fire.

Roly's cavalry finally break my last cavalry unit. This breaks a second brigade of mine, and effective breaks my army ending the game.

The final positions. Roly holds the field as my forces are forced to withdraw and abandon the village and crossroads.

My mascot "Tidy" failed to help my dice luck!

A great game as always with Roly, and I love this set of rules.

I claim no honour in presenting these figures to you, they are all Roly's splendid work. They are a mixture of Front Rank and Minden figures.

Oh another little note, we decided to sue pebbles from the garden to record casualties, as we didn't have dead figures, and dice often get knocked away or picked up by mistake.

Looking forward to next weeks game.