Iron Forest Club Days 29/03/15: Now For Something Completely Different...

Last sunday's club was a bit of a odd one, it was the first club day where no one actually partook in any wargaming but instead we all, without making a deliberate plan of it, broke out the boardgames.

Well not straight away for me, I first had the important business of sorting out my character for Faction Ray's upcoming Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I am really looking forward to this as I haven't role-played in well over a year and this would be my first crack at the new 5th edition and also Ray creates brilliant settings for his campaigns :).

My character is a Dwarf Rogue by the name of Tralin Thumpinikle. The Thumpinikle Clan were once renowned for there brewery which was located in a town on the bordering outskirts of Dwarven territory where it enjoyed good trade from travellers. But one fateful day the brewery was raided by a human force of unknown allegiance. They ransacked and pillaged the town and the Thumpinikle Brewery, many of the clan perished trying to protect their livelihood and home but the attack was too fierce and only a handful managed to survive the massacre. 

Tralin is the 3rd generation of Thumpinikle since the tragedy and like all of what is left of his broken clan have swore vengeance against those that destroyed their legacy. Tralin also has his eye on restoring the Thumpinikle name and is trying to invent the next great ale.

So there is a rough gist to my character, now I dont know the details on Ray's new setting other than its a black powder fantasy with a Napoleonic vibe - how awesome is that! My character generated pretty good stats, having exceptionally good Dexterity and managed to bag skills such as Insight, Perception and Stealth - aiming for the pathfinder roll. Also can detect traps and speak Orcish, not to mention play the lute! Also Ray suggested to us players (Me, Johnno and Phil) to roll on the personality table. Mine rolls made Tralin a pretty ruthless hermit - believes in survival of the fittest, is distrustful of people, preferring the company of animals - so Aragorn meets Porthos - brilliant :)

After concluding that business Leigh Phillips offered us a game of Spartacus. The game pits arena organisers against each other, you buy slaves, guards and gladiators to build up your "business". Slaves are your income, Guards protect you from Intrigue (Instant card effects) from other players and Gladiators earn you Influence in the arena.

In our game (Me, Ray, Phil and Leigh) Leigh and Ray took a early lead, Leigh specially since he managed to successfully bid on a particularity good gladiator. I initially struggled to stockpile my treasury as early spend outs literally broke me, but managed, using my character's (Solonus) specially ability, traded slaves, gladiators and guards for a slow build up of influence. but sadly not being able to acquire decent gladiators saw me in 3rd place. With Leigh the winner, closely followed by Ray.

It really is a very good game, I personally cannot stand the TV series which it is based on but even the disliked license couldn't prevent me from enjoying the game. The rules are very straight forward and within one round you will pick them up. The combat system is very good considering its a board game and the figures are specially nice.

If your a board game fan or like the idea of gaming the gladiatorial arena - I highly recommend this game and its expansions.

Also, on another table Tony, Dan and Johnno were cracking out the Zombicide. While I didn't join in there games, I managed to play the game the week before and again am very impressed with the game - I have played Last Night on Earth and Zombies!!! as well and defo prefer Zombicide over them - for me its the best Zombie board game and am hoping at this years Salute to pick up my own figure for the game :)

So not much wargaming today, well none at all but sometimes that isn't a bad thing, our hobby is a social one and it was nice to kick back and play a lil less and chat a lot more :)

Thanks for your time - cya soon ;)

Iron Forest Club Days: 22/03/15 - Viva La Aaaaagh!

This sunday was a very special day for me. For the first time in over a decade, I took my 28mm Napoleonics to the battlefield. I was to play my first game of Black Powder, a Peninsular War game against my good friend and long term suffer of myself Johnno.

We was playing a fictitious scenario set in the backdrop of the Retreat to Corunna. Both our forces - me playing the French, John the British, where vanguards, my forces trying to cut off and slow down the retreat while John's trying to slow down my pursuit.

The game was played on a 6ft by 4ft battlefield and we was using single brigade forces, both 7 units a side with a single CnC. Even though our units where only 10-12 figures strong, we still counted them as "standard".

John deployed his line infantry in the centre of the board, supported by his 6pdr Horse Artillery, also his CnC stayed with them. To his right flank near the hill village was his royal marines and on his left flank through the farmers fields was another line infantry and rifles unit. All his units except for one began in attack column. 

Similarly I deployed my three infantry units in mixed column with my skirmishers deployed in the centre. My hussars where positioned on my left flank with another infantry unit in march column to secure the town while on my right flank, a single infantry unit was to move up the farmers field.

Johnno took first turn and after some ace order rolls managed to move everything except his rifles forward, all except the royal marines and the infantry unit in the farmers field changed formation into line.

I on the other hand did not do so great, managed to get three of my centre units advancing, two on the left side adopting line formation while the right hand one stayed in mixed column - but one of my infantry units did a blunder and decided the fight was not for them and began buggering off the field, immediately stopping me moving the rest of my army - bloody shirkers!

Luckily what did advance was now in musket range, with good coordinated fire I managed to decimate the centre infantry unit, making them rout and flee :)

John managed to push a good number of his units forward again, this time including his riflemen. 

This time his weapons where in range and I was about to get my first taste of British firepower! While choosing not to concentrate fire, he did manage to deliver a pretty even spread of damage across the board,his artillery even managed to render one of my units disordered - ouch!

The game continued with me and John trading fire, while I tried the approach of concentrating my fire, I was hampered by bad order rolls and not being able to get my men exactly where I wanted them and some very jammy morale saves from Johnno who in return began to evenly mount up the damage on me across my whole force. Also with the amount of fire I couldn't risk advancing my cavalry who would surely be turned into swiss cheese if they broke in charge.

Then in one fell swoop, the casualties became too much for my French, two units broke and fled while everything else except he Hussars was rendered disordered. With Johnno's army still in pretty fine order and half my army gone, we called that a decisive victory for the British.

I really like Black Powder, it runs at a really nice relaxed pace, it speeds up the whole manoeuvring side and slows down when the musket balls start flying - just how I like it. With 7 units a side the game lasted just under 3 hours with us chatting, drinking and not playing in any kind of rush at all - not a bad rule system at all and cannot wait for my next game :)

Johnno also wrote a report on this game, giving his first impressions of Black Powder and Zombicide which we also played that day on his new blog, link is here.

Also managed to squeeze in a demo game of Robotech RPG Tactics courtesy of Faction Ray - he has written a more in depth review of the game with more picture here on his blog.

So three new games in one day and defo want to play them again - not a bad day at all :)

Thanks for your time, cya soon ;)