OTHER PEOPLE'S CHOCOLATE BOX WARS

 

A shot of the action, mid game: Americans to the left and Russians to the right. 

Greetings, dear reader(s). This is a bit of a delayed post relating a Chocolate Box Wars (henceforth abbreviated CBW) game that I facilitated for two friends. The point of the game (aside from the point of any game with toy soldiers) was to debut their new armies.  Yes, friends, in these parts the CBW fever continues in the wake of our tournament, so much so that fellows are building their own armies...

George (left) brought his newly finished Spanish-American era U.S. Army to the table, and pitted it against Earl's Crimean War Russian army. 

This was a "tournament style" game with each side putting together a force using the base CBW army list, and then proceeding with the "quick start" process of terrain placement and troop deployments. The terrain wound up being rather sparse, with a linear obstacle (two 6" wall segments) in the center of the table and some hills to the wings.  Both sides then maneuvered forward and the battle shook out into two lines having at each other (sounds dull, but there was more back and forth to it in the event).  I won't have a blow by blow description, but I thought I'd share some images of their CBW armies in action. As usual, in this post, you may clix pix for BIG PIX. 

George's Spanish American War U.S. CBW army. 

To generate the different troop types, George used sailors for his Veteran inf, U.S. infantry in the blue over khaki campaign uniforms for his line inf, dismounted cavalry troopers for light inf, cavalry in home service helmets as well as Spanish American type cavalry in the western hats (for his heavy and light cavalry). He also had a few other variable elements tossed in. I must say that I was very impressed at his inventiveness. I knew that, technically, my CBW system would support this option, but was not sure that all the figures existed to pull it off. It is a unique looking force, indeed, and well done!

Earl's Crimean War Russians

Earl didn't have quite the same challenge as George in finding figures to put together the Crimean Russians, but he did get some very nice variety in the army by mixing in different headgear and great coat colors to distinguish some troop types as well as to add color--along with the flags. The touches of color on top of the greatcoats really jump out and elevate the look of the army on the table. Another very well done collection. 

The Game

George's Sailors (in white) leading the assault on the Earl's Russians holding the wall, mid game. 

The game in sum: for the first few turns, both armies suffered the curse of the first outing--with each side exchanging a series of missed activations. However, things then got into a more "normal" range and after some back and forth in the middle of the table, Earl's Russians outlasted George's Americans and had the day. It was a good debut for these new CBW forces, and a good refresher on the rules ahead of a CBW tournament/campaign that we'll be having this autumn (when we'll no doubt see a rematch between these armies, among others).  

Excelsior!