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
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.
Excelsior!
Short post is much better than no post! Your Baroque Battles using offset squares looks very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jonathan. I think I would do better to mix up the content a bit with more frequent, shorter posts like this. Putting on this last game of Baroque Battles for our group has renewed interest in the system--I'm now working on a Rocroi scenario (probably will debut after I've done the convention run at Mayhem).
DeleteThanks Ed, I love ‘games night’ posts, always good see what a club is up to.
ReplyDeleteAgree, Norm. I don't mind checking out short updates on other blogs. I could do more of the same 'round here.
DeleteLooks like a great games night to me Ed…
ReplyDeleteIt’s good to see that you were a fashionable rules hipster before hipsters were hip…😁
All the best. Aly
I guess that would make me a hipster without portfolio--I like it.
DeleteI did notice the 6mm, in thst I couldn’t see them…. Lol. I kid. I joke.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a good idea to refresh your memory of a game system before a convention with a less formal game like this. Good luck on the next.
I still think that 3 games with 4 ish players each is a packed club night. 😀
I do like Clash of Spears. Been to long since I broke that out. Hmmmm.
I've got one more game to playtest/refresh running before the Mayhem convention. So far, so good. Pre-covid, the norm was 6-8 players per game on a game night. But we can still count on three games of 4-6 on a game night; still easy to get complacent and start taking that for granted.
DeleteLooked like a good evening's gaming Ed - and maybe you could claim to be a wargaming influencer - you might even be able to monetize it somehow??!
ReplyDeleteHi Keith. I thought about trying to get "commercial" but I figured it was just easier to put my stuff out there for what it was: something I like doing for myself and am happy to share. I like to think that I am giving back a bit to the hobby this way. By not charging, I could even think of myself as a "disrupter" :).
DeleteNice night at the club. A good variety of games. The stepped squares were used up our way in the late 70's mostly because we couldn't draw hexes on table.
ReplyDeleteI
It's soooooo much easier to do offest rectangles or squares than hexes, and my personal take is that they are much better when it comes to fitting things inside of them than hexes. I'm surprised that more of the hybrid mini/board game systems don't use them.
DeleteEnjoyable post. I liked the look and sound of the Baroque Battles.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Richard. Baroque Battles has been well received each time I've run it. I've got an Eastern Renaissance extension worked up that I need to give a test run sometime.
DeleteSome cool looking games Ed, like Richard said, I like the look of the Baroque game.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ray. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes at the convention in April (so far, have three players registered).
DeleteGood looking games and you're baroque game sounds good!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain caveadsum1471
Thanks, Iain. One thing I have established is that the Baroque game actually "plays", which given that it is a home grown product I am rather proud of (whether it's to someone's taste or not is another thing).
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ReplyDeleteThis was a double post, so I deleted it (nothing nefarious about it or the poster).
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