JANUARY GAME NIGHT

 

The usual suspects gathering.

Despite being on the tail end of the winter storm that hit overnight and into the day, our club held its scheduled Game Night last Friday. Turnout was a bit light, but we were still able to put three games on the table and had players enough to play two. As usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX in this post. 

I was among the game masters for this game night, but understood that given conditions, mine was the "third" or "filler" game. The other two games, which were more elaborate setups, were the primaries and we wanted to ensure that they would have at least 4 players each before we spread anyone to a third game. This wound up being the case.  [But I'll be bringing this game back for the Feb game night]. More on those games in a bit. 

My game: Joust for the Fun of It: "Manage a Team of Knights in a Round Robin Tournament of Jousting, Boasting, Wagering, and Clever Ploys."

I was prepared for up to four players, with four teams of Knights jousting in a pair of lists. 

This is my home grown set of jousting rules. It is a quick setup and takedown affair, with no terrain (other than my home grown lists) and flexible enough to accommodate anywhere from 2-6 players (which makes it an ideal "filler" game).  I have been working on this for about three years and have successfully run several test games at my place. I'll soon be adding a content page to this blog where you will be able to download it. Watch for it (or consider yourself warned). 

You may have noticed this splendid fellow in the middle my table. He is a Schleich Chevalier Dragon Knight. Right now, I play with a collection of 28mm Bretonian knights that I scored at a convention flea market.  I'll keep those but I intend to move to these splendid Schleich toy knights (I believe that they are 1/20 or 70mm). Being my first (and only) acquisition, he was not in play but served as a nice centerpiece.  I wound up packing the game up and playing in another of the games on offer. Speaking of other games...

Earl ran a Wiley Games Fistful of Lead Horse and Musket skirmish game set in the French and Indian War (one of Earl's specialties). The Wiley family of rules has caught the attention of our club: fast play, low figure count. 

Earl always puts together a good table (above left). This was a four player game, with each player running five figures (I believe). It featured the usual colorful units of the genre, Cours de bois, French Marines, British Rangers, and British Light Infantry.  Post-game discussion indicated that it was a thumping good affair (with lots of thumping going on).

Having packed up my game, I headed over to the other side of the room to play in Phil's AWI Battle of Cowpens game.  For those who may need a reminder, the Battle of Cowpens is famous for the American plan of having two advanced lines of militia (who were not expected to do much other than take a shot and then skeedaddle), and a third line of Continentals who would hold the line. In addition, it had the famous Tarleton (and his Legion) and of course, Cornwallis. Phil was using an AWI variant of Regimental Fire and Fury, which he was still working his way through, and had pulled the scenario from the web. He intends to bring this to table at the upcoming Huzzah! convention (I believe).

Given the stand and figure count (generally 10 stands of 3 or 4 figs per unit) the game provided quite a spectacle, despite being a small battle. And Phil's collection of 28mm figs are quite well done, too, adding to the attraction. 

The starting British lines advance in orderly fashion against the anxiously waiting first line of American Militia. AJ (of AJs' Wargaming Blog) would take up the British right (and Tarleton, when he rode in) and Chris would take up the British left (facing me). John M and I would divide the Americans, with me taking the right and he taking the left (given the table orientation, we divided the lines rather than each taking one). 

According to plan (and history), the first line of American militia gets off a few shots and routs back behind the Continentals. The British continue to march onto the second line of American Militia. In the upper left hand corner of the picture above, you can see the British mounted units swinging out to the right end of the British line. They would not be able to complete this flanking march.

The British advance and close with the second line of American Militia. John's part of the American militia line falls back ahead of them (top of the picture), while those on the hill (mine) give a bit of ground and then hold (for now). This was about as far as we got. The British, who were generally all elite or veteran units, had been chewed up by the militia at this point, and there was no way that they would be able to budge the waiting Continentals (they were not yet through the second line of militia).  Phil was taking notes for the next time through; generally speaking, he will look at the ratings for the militia and make some adjustments.  Still, it was another fine outing with friends playing at toy soldiers.  

Excelsior!