FEBRUARY GAME NIGHT: SHIPS, SPEARS, AND PIKERS

 

Mike, this year's club president, desperately flapping his arms to either achieve lift off or make the usual announcements kicking off a Club Game Night (I forget which), and being received with the customary attention due club officers.

Greetings, dear reader(s).  This is just a quick (and belated) post on our club's February Game Night.  These shots all come courtesy of  fellow club member AJ (of AJ's Wargaming Blog).--who, despite having run his own game managed to take some photos (unlike me...).  But I figure a quick post is better than no post, so I'll proceed. As usual, in this post you may clix pix for BIG PIX.  Per our club norm, there were three games (the third of which was mine). 

GENERAL QUARTERS III 

Charlie (in blue vest) ran a General Quarters III early World War Two naval game after the Fall of France pitting the British, who are trying to keep the French fleet from falling into Axis hands, against the French fleet anchored in Algeria: the battle of Mers El Kabir. The outcome of this game will influence our upcoming April Game Day--also run by Charlie--which will be a big game on the invasion of Malta incorporating air, ground, and naval forces. 

CLASH OF SPEARS

AJ ran a Clash of  Spears game, pitting Carthaginians vs Romans. This set of rules is becoming popular in our group, thanks to AJ who has now run several of them. It expands ancients gaming to the skirmish level, and fits in with the current interest in skirmish-adjacent systems like the "Rampant" series, which cover other eras. Judging by the noise and and rowdiness coming from this part of the room, this was a rousing game. 

BAROQUE BATTLES

The third game of the night was mine, The Battle of Lutzen (1632), using my Baroque Battles system (a Pike and Shot game). I was very involved with running this game, and wound up not getting any shots.   Although we did not complete the game by the end of game night, it was clear that Gustavus and the Protestants were not going to be able to break Wallenstein and the Imperials: decision to the Imperials (Byron and Robert); well played to the Protestants (Warren, Mike, and Dave).  I'll be be running this game at the upcoming Mayhem convention on Friday night (full description here). Although I've run this game at conventions before, it's been awhile, so I used this game to refresh my mojo at setting up and facilitating it. 

I'll add a few more pictures and words on the game, as long as I'm on the subject. 

Some of the "off table" bits that are involved. Leaders (left) and tactics cards (right). 

A closer look at the units deployed at the start of another game (left) and some of the different unit types (right) involved. My figures are mostly Irregular, with a smattering of Heroics and Ros. All 6mm, in case you hadn't noticed...

...and although game systems employing small scale figures on gridded game tables are very much in the mainstream right now, I have to say that I have been running this system since before phones were "smart." I'm not sure if this means that I'm ahead of my time or just out of touch. I guess if you do something long enough, it will eventually come into fashion, even if it ain't "fashionable." 

Excelsior!