Rerun, but with Hail Caesar rules

Allen then Mike S on the left, opposed by the Moorish commanders, Joel, Brett, Andy, and GM Steve V

 After Steve V read my blog entry about not being particularly thrilled with Art de la Guerre, he suggested we run the same scenario using Hail Caesar. Once again, I was a Spanish flank command taking the battle to the Moors (or "Moops," if you're a Seinfeld fan...). My opponent was Andy, who also had a mostly mounted command like me. In the center, or two infantry blocks were faced off against one another (Allen commanding for our side). On the opposite flank, Mike S commanded our left against Joel, while Brett was the Moorish center commander.

It seemed like a good idea at the time -- Allen commits his Spanish infantry into a clash with Brett's Moors

The command and control for Hail Caesar is highly variable -- much like the morale rules, which tend to make games go very quickly. Depending on what your roll vs. your commander's rating, you could end up not moving at all, moving one movement distance, all the way up to 3x distance. Andy and I galloped into battle with one another quickly. He had an unfortunate command failure, which allowed me to choose the matchups. This was counter-balanced by Andy's good rolling for armor saves against my abysmal ones.

Allen's center begins to splinter - why all my pics are of the infantry fight and not my command I don't know!

However, all was not lost. Andy's rolling began to spiral downward. More command failures meant he could not reinforce his units in battle while I was able to keep up the pressure. I started rolling better for saves vs. the hits his units scored against me, and I begin to win the melees, instead. In Hail Caesar, you roll lots of dice for melee. One after another of his light cavalry units began to flee the battlefield, as Andy proved just as bad at rolling morale checks as he was with command rolls. I've found in Hail Caesar, this is a make or break aspect of the game. If one wing folds under a series of poor morale checks, it will not be long for the battlefield.

Joel maneuvers to hold off Mike S (with ubiquitous McDonalds cup), managing to avert defeat, buying time for the Moorish center to steamroll

This was the case with Andy, but he did inflict casualties and disrupt my command. Following up into their infantry's flank was going to take a couple turns of reorganization and rallying off some hits. Or so I thought! Steve V decided to create his own Impetuous rule which stated that any unit which fails a command roll will go the full 3x distance and hurl themselves onto the nearest enemy. One of my knight units went bonkers, screamed 1/4 of the way across the table, and slammed into the front of a Moorish foot unit that had turned to face us against this eventual possibility. They must have been as surprised as we were, because the knights actually won the combat, forcing them to give ground. I had wildly outrolled Brett. My guess is that it would not happen again. My exhausted knights declined to follow up.

The bitter end as Allen's troops are forced back. You can see my impetuous (but exhausted) knights in the upper right

At this point, we took stock of the game. After two hours, Andy's command was completely wiped out. Joel had suffered one or two losses, but it would take several turns before Mike S felt he could turn that flank, too. However, our center had completely collapsed. Last game in Art de la Guerre, the Spanish foot bested the Moors. In this game, they got their solid revenge and sent one after another of Allen's units reeling from the field. Although honors were about even, we decided that the Spanish would withdraw the field with its center broken.

Hail Caesar is a game that is best for one-off scenario games with a group of players. It is not intended to be a tournament game at all (which endears it to me, though puts off tourney players like Andy). There are wild swings in melee and especially morale, so if you don't like a dash of randomness to your Ancient games (provided by the dice), then you may be disappointed with these rules. For me, though, they're my favorite Ancients set, now. My friends all shake their head every time we play and my dice begin to fail me. They give me that knowing, "You asked for it!" look, as I have a reputation as being a subpar roller of dice. Not this evening, though! I would say Andy wore my mantle, allowing my Spanish right flank to score our side's biggest successes. A fun, quick game -- exactly what the rules were designed for!

Another Try of Art De La "DBA"

The Spanish army after deployment, facing off against their Andalusian foes as the Reconquista rages

 Years ago, I was about as avid of a player of 15mm Ancients using De Bellis Antiquitatis rules as you could find. I ran and played in tournaments a good half dozen times a year. I was constantly painting new armies. I did my best to promote the game and teach new players.

Two of our three opponents -- Andy (enthusiast of the rules) and easy-going Allen, who will play anything

And then, after more than two decades of enthusiasm, it abruptly died in me. I simply lost all enthusiasm for the game. What before seemed elegant and simple seemed vanilla and stale. The idea of rolling for movement pips and then out-rolling my opponent in combat was just tired to me. DBA had a good run with me. I pretty much played it from the beginning. But all good things must come to an end, they say, right?

Things are getting a little iffy on my flank, as Keith's light horse maneuver all around me with their speed

Ever since then, Ancients has kind of languished in our Sunday night gaming group. There was a brief period of reinterest when Steve V ran games of Hail Caesar for us. Several of us went out and bought the rules. I made it a point to say I enjoyed them -- even though they were possibly even more die-rolling intensive than DBA was (by the way, rolling dice is not a particular strength of mine...ha, ha!). But Steve lost interest, and veered to Might of Arms, which excited zero interest in me. He later tried a game of "To the Strongest" (or something like that), but that was one of the worst Ancients systems I'd ever played.

With poor Joel crushed on our right, and Keith making me nervous on the left, Mike S and I order in the spearwall

Lately, a few of the people in our area started buying, playing, and talking about a French set of rules, Art De La Guerre. Andy was a fan of it, in particular. We heard others liked it -- Mike S bought the rules at Historicon last year, and Steve V once again had a new Ancient rules set he wanted to try! One night, they did a small playtest, but we had a late family dinner and I showed up only to kibbitz at the end. As they talked their way through combat, it sounded a LOT like DBA. On another evening, I was there for the playtest. I was not impressed. WAY too vanilla, in my book. And way too much like DBA. That was when I coined my own name for it: Art De La DBA.

But surprise, surprise! I manage to run off some of Keith's lights, and then hammer with my knights

Steve and Andy were enthused, though, and Mike S was intrigued. So, we tried it again -- this time with Steve V's El Cid era medieval troops. The figures are gorgeous, but it was a little confusing differentiating the "Light Horse" from the "Heavy Cavalry," as they all had the same number of figures on the base. This caused a blunder on my part as I gave my right wing commander a force of mostly Light Horse, thinking he didn't have a strong enemy opposite him. He was outclassed and quickly crushed.

The right wing was looking very shaky when the Spanish managed to pull out victory over the Andalusians

It ended up being a close-fought game, with the Spanish winning by one point. So, what do I think after a third exposure, second time playing? Honestly, I feel it is simply a DBA variant. It has troops based by elements, like DBA. You roll dice for your movement pips, like DBA. Each troop type has a combat factor to which you add a roll of 1d6, like DBA. When you are beaten badly in combat, your element is destroyed -- like in DBA. The "variant" part comes in with each type of troop being able to take a limited number of "fatigue" or "hit markers" (or whatever they call them) before their element is destroyed. You receive those when you are beaten by an enemy in combat (or shooting), but not badly enough to be destroyed. And, like DBA, the game is over when you lose a certain number of elements, with some small variation on counting "disordered" units for half-points, as well.

The rules...popular with some in our group and not-so-much with Keith and I!

For all intents in purposes, I see Art De La Guerre as simply a variant of DBA. I would much rather play Saga or Hail Caesar. Maybe it is me -- maybe my jaded-ness from DBA prevents me from seeing this as a new and interesting set of rules like some of my friends do. However, I can't help the way I feel, and am not particularly looking forward to more games of Art De La DBA.

Giving Saga Dark Ages skirmish a try

Andy's borrowed Viking army

One of our friends, Andy, offered to run a big, learner game of Saga -- a Dark Ages skirmish set of rules -- for us this past Sunday night. It must have struck a nerve as 8 of us showed up to game. I brought along my own 28mm Dark Ages figs, which had not seen the tabletop in a long time. Typically, I've used Song of Blades and Heroes for them. But I was not averse to trying a new rules set.

I was a bit worried how it would work, as the rules are set up for a one-on-one game. However, with four players per side, and each of us having our own "battle board," it worked just fine. I had actually played it once before at least a year or more ago at the home of one of Andy's friends. So, I was familiar with the basic concepts. Andy did a great job giving us a primer, and for the most part, the players understood how to use the game's dice allocation system. That's the trickiest part, actually. Most experienced Saga players say it takes a while to "learn" your chosen army's board. You roll a handful of special dice (although you can use normal 6-siders) and allocate them to certain spots on your battle board. This becomes your command and control and dictates what you army can do. You don't simply move or shoot a unit. You must spend the dice to do so. The only "automatic" is if you are engaged by an enemy unit in melee, you fight back.

My troops (bottom) and Joel's mix it up in the field of crops

Andy's scenario was four Viking armies (one of which was mine) are caught after a raid by 3 Norman and 1 Anglo-Danish one. I was matched up against the very similar Anglo-Danish one and we fought in a field of crops on our army's left flank. There was a minimum of shooting and mostly charging. I was getting the better of Joel, my Anglo-Danish opponent -- but we were wearing each other down. The other sides of the field saw us getting crushed in the center and winning on the right flank. The crushing was outnumbering the winning, and after a couple hours of play, it was obvious the Vikings had lost.

I think a lot of the players were interested in Saga, and I would not be surprised if some of the eight players pick up the rules. I've been looking for a set at the flea markets at conventions for some time. I just haven't felt like parting with $40 for a rules set I may not use much. However, if it is going to be a regular feature of our games, I'll probably shell out the money. I have quite a few 28mm Dark Age miniatures already from the Viking period in Britain. So, who knows? Andy may have made a sale in our group...!

Giving Battlefield Evolution a try

A Middle Eastern force rushes up a hill to wipe out a Marine recon unit before the "cavalry" arrives

 A number of years back, a historical miniatures gamer in our region had the score of a lifetime on gaming merchandise. Mongoose Publishing was discontinuing their "near future," pre-painted game Battlefield Evolution. Someone in the chain of command instructed a store/distributor to toss all of the miniatures in a dumpster. The gaming version of WikiLeaks kicked in and soon someone had boxes and boxes of the pre-painted U.S., Arab, Chinese, etc., 1/72 scale miniatures which he was unloading at great prices at various conventions.

Remnants of the hapless Marines atop the hill, with some of their rescuers dimly glimpsed in the background

Mike S and Keith had picked up bunches of them and had been hankering to try out the game. So, Mike set up a game and five us sat down to play one Sunday evening. The figures, by the way, do NOT match up with either 28mm or 20mm scale (which is the size I do my modern wargaming in). However, they both had plenty of figs so that shouldn't be a problem. The first order of business was to piece together the squads to match the cards that came with each group. Tiny writing on the bottom identifies the weapon and figure and it took a good 20+ minutes to sort out the figs to match the unit cards Mike had given us. Next up, was reading the cards. With my "modified mono-vision" (in other words, wearing one contact for distance and one for close up), I generally don't have issues with reading print anymore. However, this font was ridiculously tiny, and I would struggle all night.

My traffic jam of Chinese troops try to make it up the hill in time to shoot something before they're all gone

Once we had our troops sorted and deployed, we began to play. The next thing we discovered was that the rules are NOT well-written. We decided they were written in English by a non-native English speaker -- they had that lack of expertise with the language. We were never really sure if we were doing combat right. Speaking of combat, we found out that fire is exceedingly deadly. Entire squads were wiped out to the man with one turn of firing (assuming we were doing it right!). I know this is supposed to be modern warfare and all, but it seemed relatively pointless. Perhaps it was the scenario, as once we actually reached the cover, troops survived a little better.

A close up on the 1/72 scale (ish?) that were part of the short-lived, pre-painted Battlefield Evolution line

It was one of those games where I was given more troops than I could ever possibly get into the fray, so it seemed I spent a lot of time moving troops around and trying to keep track of which figs belonged to which squad. In sort, the game was very unsatisfying -- at least for me. Both Keith and Mike S seemed interested in giving it another go sometime. Personally, I was of the opinion we found out why the plug was pulled on the game. There was a lot of fiddly figuring out which figure was which, but that didn't really matter, as they all died in droves.

There is a definite possibility we did things wrong, but I was left thinking this is a game I won't mind to never play again.

Running Games, games, and more games at Historicon!

The First Command banner in the Main Hall of Historicon 2017

As most of you know, my friends and I started a wargaming company a couple years ago called First Command Wargames. This year, we decided we would attend Historicon 2017 as a company. We would all go and run all of our released games (plus one about-to-be-released one). Everyone agreed, we sat down and created a schedule beginning on Thursday evening, and running through Saturday night. It would be a long slog, as we committed to running our games often (in my case, twice a day Friday and Satuday). We expected to be tired at the end of it, but we thought it was a great way to promote our miniatures rules to players from all around the country.

Tom running his For Queen and Planet game, while our friend Terry ponders how that huge thing could fly

And so it was! Tom ran his Victorian Sci-Fi game, For Queen and Planet, four times, Steve ran his Seven Years War rules, For King or Empress, five times, and Keith and Jenny filled in for Mike S who couldn't make it, running Raid on Deerfield, 1704, using Song of Drums and Tomahawks rules, five times, as well. I ran my Wars of Insurgency modern Africa miniature game four times (and helped Keith and Jenny on Thursday evening). I was incredibly pleased with the turnout for our games. Virtually every slot in all four games was full. I know I had the full five players in all of my events. We had steady sales, too, of all of our rules sets plus the Beaver Wars campaign rules that were just released a month or so back. I have one last bit to tally for total sales, but we were all pleased.

A slice of my Congo table with my MDF container ship, Acheson Creations pier, and view of the town square

The interesting thing about a large game convention like Historicon is it teaches you humility. After I'd set up my "That's My USAid - Congo Chaos" table, I was pretty pleased. I thought it came together really well, what with my new ramshackle tin huts and the big MDF cargo freighter that were on the table. Throw in the Acheson pier, destroyed concrete wall sections, some cool buildings, and I was satisfied. That was until I looked around...there were LOTS of great looking games. I realized that, no matter how pleased I am with any table I set up, there will always, always be someone whose artistry outshines my own. Just like in the Lead Painters League, I know I will never be top tier, but will have to be satisfied with being second tier. This year, the eye-catcher was the Frostgrave table -- a stunning medieval-fantasy winter stronghold city with an iced up harbor, long spans of elevated walkways, and even a flashing wizard's light that puts my burning cabin on Deerfield to shame. It was amazing to walk around an admire it. Heck, it made me want to go out and buy the rules, and I really don't know much about it other than it is really popular now and involves some sort of magical skirmish/roleplaying aspect.

 

The showstopper - a 28mm Frostgrave set up that made me feel, well, second tier at best!

I did not get a chance to look around the whole convention hall, having to be content with wandering the Main Hall where the First Command games were. We were up near the front, a few rows back from the entrance. Steve's banner he'd created for the company hung proudly, announcing our presence next to the display of our rules sets. I never made it to the side rooms, where I'd been trying for months to land us a spot. We were supposedly penciled in on one of the small ballrooms to the side, but a late influx of games by an established gaming group shoved us back into the main area, I was told. In all honesty, it was probably better for visibility to be in the Main Hall. It was just really hard on our voices, and for our players to hear us. The main hall of pretty much any gaming convention is always crazy noisy. I think I do a pretty good job of projecting my voice, varying the tone and stuff to allow my voice to carry to my players. However, all of us said our voices were shot by Saturday night.

I bought this fun board game in the Dealer Hall

I actually didn't mind my schedule for running Wars of Insurgency. I ran it the same times Friday and Saturday -- 9am and 7pm. That gave me a long break in the middle to have lunch, relax, and hit up the Dealer Hall. I ended up not buying very much, actually. This was probably my most restrained purchasing year at Historicon, yet. I bought a board game -- Kings of Tokyo (mainly for my student board game club); Howard Hues paints that I needed; two 3-D printed zodiac boats from Sea Dog Studios; and three "Technical Crew" packs from Stan Johansen Miniatures. As you can see, the only miniatures were for my 20mm Africa games, so I guess that's where my focus is now.

I picked up two 3-D printed Zodiac rubber boats from Sea Dog Game Studios

Of course, we had some fun while we worked. My buddy Jason was there with us at Historicon, as usual. It is the only time all year we see him anymore, it seems. I know, I know...I can hear him saying: "Come back down to Siege of Augusta and you'll see me twice as much!" Every evening, we went out for food and a beverage or two. So, it was fun to reconnect and razz each other.

The only miniatures I bought were 3 packs of this set from Stan Johansen Miniatures

Speaking of good times, I had some great, fun players in my games. I think this year's group of players are some of the most pleasant that I've had at East conventions. I heard the same from the Deerfield GMs. They said everyone seemed to be having an awesome time. So much so that Keith won a Pour Encourager Les Autres (PEL) award for the game. That's the second time that Song of Drums and Tomahawks has won the award at an East convention. Good stuff! I will add some photos below of my best iPhone shots at the convention. It was a great time. The drive is long, but the good times are worth it!

For Queen and Planet: "55 Days to Helium"

Tom ran his Victorian Sci-Fi game 4 times. It was the first time my Da Vinci flyer made it to a convention tabletop!

The British War Machine provides covering fire for the advance of their troops

The steampunk version of Leonardo Da Vinci's aerial screw that I built

The Martian walker takes aim at the oncoming British war machine

Song of Drums and Tomahawks: "Raid on Deerfield, 1704"

We've been running this game in Great Lakes country all year, so it was a natural to take to Historicon to showcase our very first set of rules we released! Keith (assisted by Jenny) ran it five times - a grueling schedule, but one that saw a full table every time.

Eight players - a full table - refight the wintertime raid on Deerfield, MA, at Historicon

The French & Indian raiders begin to fan out and look for townsfolk to capture in the cabins

For King or Empress: "The Seven Years War"

Steve ran his big battle Seven Years War game five times over the course of the convention. He taught dozens of new players the rules. His hard work meant his rules were our best seller at the convention...great job, Steve!

Steve points out the tactical situation developing on the tabletop and explains how the rules resolve it

 

Another running of For King or Empress, and another packed table!

Wars of Insurgency: "That's My USAid - Congo Chaos"

Although the rules aren't in production, yet, I ran four games of my modern warfare skirmish set. The scenario took place in The Congo in the 1960s as the country gains its independence. It was a free-for-all scenario, with each player controlling a different faction, all with their own agendas and goals.

A UN peacekeeping contingent from Ghana guards the food and medicine offloaded from the cargo ship

Congolese paratroopers demand that the shipment is turned over to them (graffiti displays what they think of the UN!)

The local militia, the Leopoldville Leopards, marshal their forces to seize the shipment for themselves

A force from the Congolese army -- archrivals of the paratroopers -- move into the outskirts intent on getting the goods!

The final faction -- river bandits from Boma, Congo -- followed the freighter and now swoop in to attack

Congolese army squads move through the shantytown and past the destroyed factory

 

The .50 caliber jeep-mounted machine guns of the Leopoldville Leopards begin to hammer away at paratrooper positions

The army enters the outskirts of the town square and begins to fire upon the paratroopers

The river bandits from Boma race their outboard canoes into contact with the dock and fire at the UN from close range

Afraid their riverborne rivals will make away with all the loot, the Leopards redeploy their jeeps to fire upon the canoes

One squad of the rivermen actually seize the bridge of the freighter and open fire on the peacekeepers below

A canoe veers off to assault the Leopards to try to knock out their .50 caliber guns

African Shantytown Huts

    20mm Congolese paratroopers patrol a shantytown looking for signs of insurgents

"That's My USAid - Congo Chaos" at Drums at the Rapids, this May, I felt something was missing from my table. It looked okay, but needed some more pizzazz. I decided that it was that there just wasn't enough stuff on the table. In particular, it needed more buildings. This was supposed to be a town, and 4 stone buildings around the square, a scattering of tribal huts, and ruined concrete wall sections just wasn't urban enough. On my vacation overseas this summer, I saw shantytowns on the edges of the big cities. The poor scraped together whatever building material they could to construct a small hut. That was what this town needed!

 

    Paper mache buildings from Michaels craft store that form the shell of the buildings

 

 I like to use the paper mache boxes that Michaels craft store sells as the shells of my buildings. I stocked up on 9 of their 2.5" square boxes (1.25" tall). I cut black plastic styrene to just a bit larger size as bases, and epoxied them to the bases. Then I opened up my supply drawers to see what kind of building material I had on hand. I had two sheets of styrene material that looked like corrugated tin, but felt it was too small a scale. It would look good for 15mm or smaller, but you couldn't see the 3-dimensional aspect well. Luckily, my local Hobbyland carried JTT Plastic Pattern Sheets. I picked up a package of O-Scale Corrugated Siding (#97403) and it looked perfect. Since it is styrene plastic, I would only have to score and snap it to cut the pieces to size.

    The assembled materials for the huts

However, I didn't want it to be just tin. Every third world country I've visited, I've noticed the shacks are very composite -- they use virtually everything handy. So, I also pulled out my package of tiny wooden craft sticks, as I call them. They would look like good wooden slats. I also had a package of mini-dowels, which would look like bundles of sticks. In addition, I had successfully used burlap material as thatch before on my 28mm Jungle Huts. So, I pulled that out. I also knew I could create a good earth surface by simply painting the sides with white glue and then sprinkling on Woodland Scenics Turf. Once spray primed it gives a rough, wood or mud surface effect.

    Gluing the wood craft sticks into place on a precut piece of cardstock sized, then attached as one

 Then I took a sheet of scratch paper and drew 9 rectangles, each with four sections, to represent the four sides of each hut. I plotted out how many sides would be tin, wood slats, stick bundles, earth, and for the heck of it, I decided to make one side of two buildings wooden palletes created from the craft sticks. This would give a composite look, or more ramshackle appearance. What's more, some of the tin would have grooves going vertically, and others horizontally. To make attaching these to the sides of the paper mache boxes easier, I cut thin cardstock pieces that matched the sides perfectly. I glued the craft sticks and mini-dowels to these directly, and then would attach these wall sections to the box sides as complete wall sides. Paper mache boxes are not truly level and square, so I used paper clips or binder clips to hold the wall sections in place while they dried. This worked like a dream, and before long, I had all four sides of all 9 buildings glued in place. I would used extra craft sticks to cover any gaps between the sides.

   Wood wall sections ready - note the tin and burlap are glued directly to the wall surface

Next, I had to create the roofs. I wanted most to be tin, but I made one of thatch for variety. This was easy. I cut squares of bass wood and glued either the tin or burlap to them. A smaller balsa wood square was glued to the underside sized to set just inside the box to keep the roof in place. To give the tin a more ramshackle appearance, I placed 2-3 tin patches to cover sections, and then used stones to look like they were holding the tin down. I've seen this over and over abroad. I guess nails are expensive, but big heavy rocks do the job well enough to hold a tin roof down. I also placed tin patches on various other wall sides to make it look like holes had to be covered in buildings in a stopgap way as they opened. I made sure to make tin patches on tin surfaces have the corrugation going the opposite way (vertical vs. horizontal), to make it stand out more.

    Dirt/mud wall is done by applying white glue & turf directly to the paper mache

The final step before painting was to spray the roofs and buildings with acrylic black spray paint. I then go over this with a 50/50 mixture of glue and water to make sure all crevices are fully blackened and that I have a good surface for painting. I found it went easier to do all of each type of surface at once. So, I did the dirt walls first, next the thatch, then the wood slabs and stick bundles, and finally the tin. I had Googled photos of African tin roofs and saw that they are a variety of colors -- most heavily rusted. This was the most time-consuming part of creation -- painting the tin. I gave each a base coat, a lighter dry brush in that tone, and finally streaked them with rust. I actually pulled up images of rusting corrugated tin to better understand how it looks. The rust itself was done in a 3-tone pattern. From outside in, I used Autumn Brown, Raw Sienna, and Georgia Clay in my Ceramcoat craft paints.

    A more ramshackle appearance is given by attaching tin patches or boards nailed to sections

Next was the biggest pain -- painting the rocks! In hindsight, I should have applied the rocks after the tin. I could then have simply used natural rocks, or at least tallus of some sort with a wash over it. So, I pulled out various shades of browns and grays, then gave each a base coat and dry brush. I let it dry overnight. When I came back in the morning, I looked at the huts. I thought, "Too bright!" It looked more like a Caribbean village than an African shantytown. So, I mixed up a dark black wash and applied it over all of the tin surfaces. Bingo! This really brought it back down to a crumbling shantytown feel. 

    Mercenaries keep an eye out for ambush as they patrol the "low rent" district

What's more, these went together VERY quickly. I started them on a Saturday and was finished Wednesday afternoon. There WERE a couple long days in there working on them, yes. However, I knew my deadline for the convention I was attending that coming weekend. We were leaving Thursday morning, so they had to be done Thursday. And so they were! I love the way they came out and will likely do more in two-building groups (to allow laundry lines and other scenic items to be placed on the bases).

    20mm UN Peacekeepers in Africa looking for signs of trouble