JANUARY GAME NIGHT

 

The usual suspects gathering for our January Game Night.

Although I've been working away at several projects (none of which I've reached a point to blog about), there has been some hobby activity that I can report on. Specifically, our January Game night.  As usual, there were three games on tap. As usual, you can clix on pix for BIG PIX. 

Phil (thumbs up) ran a French and Indian Wars Brother Against Brother game, The "Battle on Snowshoes."  

I can't say much about the game or scenario, but I do know that this is an old favorite among our BaB players, and Phil runs a good game. This was a warm up and playtest for him. He'll be running this game on Saturday Night at the upcoming Mayhem Convention in April. 

Mark D brought his  "Ambush at Black Rock Cross" Pikeman's Lament game. Like Phil, Mark was using this as a playtest and warm up for the upcoming Mayhem Convention where he will be running this game on Saturday night. 

It turned out to be an introduction to the PL system for the players, who were curious about the rules--and a successful one it turned out to be. All said that they would be getting a copy of the rules: well done, Mark! This is one of the good things about our club; although we don't chase trends and do run "old school" games, it is often the case that game nights provide the opportunity for us to experience new rules sets as well.

Ralph (at right) ran the third game, The Battle of Plevisek, a speculative encounter the Mongols raiding a town in Hungary using the Lion Rampant II rules. Before coming to game night, Ralph had play tested this game in his basement, as previously reported in the Mangled Mongols post in this blog. AJ, at the end of the table, would play one of the Mongol Khans in this game, opposite Earl. 

As usual, Ralph cuts no corners when it comes to laying a table, even though it means packing it up, schlepping it across town, setting it up and then tearing it down in an evening. 

Earl (red shirt in the left picture), and Dave (blue shirt, black baseball cap) would play the part of the defenders. Bob (light colored baseball cap in the right picture) would be teamed with AJ as the other Mongol Khan. As in the playtest, General Dice was not with the Mongols--as if that weren't enough, Dave's dice were nothing short of amazing!   Thus, the Mongols were, once again, mangled!

You may be wondering where I, your humble correspondent, was on this fine evening. That's me in black, arms crossed, at the end of the table. Seeing as all  games had their quota of players, and since I had already played in two of the three, I decided to help facilitate Ralph's game--and most welcome I was too!

With several people out with sickness and family emergencies, this was, by our standards, another light turn out.  There were, nevertheless, 15 gamers in the room, including  the game hosts, and three fully prepared convention-quality games, each of which was supported with enough players. Still an enviable situation, I think, and one that is easy to take for granted.  And, of course, it's always a fine thing to gather with friends on a dark January evening at the end of the week. 

In other news, in my "adjacent" hobby of collecting swords, I scored a major acquisition this week: an Austrian M1861 cavalry sabre. I have been watching for one of these for at least seven years: they just don't come on the market. Even better, this one was flying under the radar given the way it was listed, so I was the only bidder and got it at rock bottom price. This is the pattern carried by the Austrian cuirassiers and dragoons in the Austro Prussian War of 1866 (a slightly shortened version was carried by the hussars and uhlans). This is an actual service sword, marked "13 DR" (13th Dragoon Regiment) on the Riscasso. It is a beast: the blade is 36" long. It needs a bit of cleaning up (some damn fool painted the hilt and scabbard silver), but other than that, it is sound and tight, and the blade is clean and still sharp. 

So, another sword and a another good game night; a good few weeks since last I checked in, I think.  

Excelsior!