AAR: This Hallowed Ground: First Cavalry Engagements

      In this recent game, Kalissa and I went out to our local Hobbytown, USA to play in hopes that the local Star Wars X-Wing Tournament did not take up all of the tables for gaming use. It had been months, since the last time we played here. It dawned on me that our neighborhood cut-through under reconstruction from the damage of Hurrican Mathew played a part in us not heading out that way. It seems kind of lazy on our part, since it was not like there were no other ways to get there. Needless to say, we went as another "wave the flag" moment for historical wargaming. People need to know that there are plenty of other games in our hobby. Several of the X-Wing players stopped over at our table to ask questions. We, even, had gained some spectators.
    The other point of coming out was to test some the finished/ mostly finished cavalry units for our ACW collection. It was time to take them for a spin. We needed to try out a couple of special rules, as well. This is all part of the balancing involved in my Olustee Project for Historicon. I have to have all sorts of rules questions figured out for the game in July, since I will be running this game by myself. It turns out that my wife, Kalissa will be running her own convention games. This will be a first for her, but I am sure she will do fine. I might have a little more issues, but that is the point of play testing certain things. This game was fairly bloody. I believe the totals were 95 Yankees killed versus the 86 Confederates lost. It was a clear victory for the Confederates driving off the Union forces. I will say that Kalissa's rolling was not a great as it could have been. We gave the Union cavalry "repeating rifles" that I expected to take down so many more of my Confederates. I seemed to have a better rolling day. Anyway, below are the action photos, despite forgetting my smoke for shots fired. Enjoy!

The board.

My lovely opponent!

The yellow paper strips on the Union's side represent the dismounted cavalry marker. I have not paint the Union horse holders yet.

Taking down this Union line should have been harder to do.

Commission Mission Success: Part One of Scarif

     I would like to say that I was slightly disappointed when a client of mine decided to change his mind on a project for making a board for Endor for the new Star Wars: Legion rules. I had one of the those wonderful terrain dreams. It was a "Commission Mission" dream, so to speak. I tend to have quite a few of these in the early morning hours, since I am more of a night owl. Within a week, I had figured out the exact materials I was going to use for making terrain pieces for the Endor forrect, my color scheme, the plastic plants I was going to use for the nearly never ending ferns for the forest floor and etc... I had the whole nine yards planned, since I have been a big Star War geek. Then, the plan was scraped for a project for Scarif from the Star Wars: Rogue One movie. At first, this was a bit of a let down. However...........
      So in one of the previous posts back in the day, I had quite a few convention project ideas. Soe of these have been on the scary side. I managed to choose a Sicily 1943 project using Bolt Action rules for a game in Historicon 2017. One my say that it was smashing success. It does not seem to sound the same out loud as an American using "Smashing." However, before that decided project, I had listed the idea for running a WWII Pacific Threatre game for the Battle of Peleliu. My mind was not completely set for this project, but the honest truth, I have been having fun with the challenge of making interesting, unique convention games. This board for Scarif has answered quite a few questions for my Pacific Idea. I would also like to say that those fantastic gentlemen that came up with Blood and Plunder also helped with ideas. After talking to them at their booth at Siege of Augusta, I thought about coming up with board ideas for a tropical island that leads from water grass flats into mangrove swamps. Yes, I have a plan for mangrove trees I want to try!
  Either way, I just wanted to showcase the first part of the Scarif board I have for a nice guy in California. I have the second section to do later in the week. I might not make much money in making this, but I look at it as expanding to a new template of what I can do. I always like to remind people that everything I do can be made by "You", the reader of this blog. Most of my goal is to inspire people, if I can. Anyway, here is the some more shots of the board. There are some Star Wars Miniatures that I have not completely painted that come from our Imperial Assault game. They are going to be a little smaller that the Star Wars: Legion figures.

AAR: What a Tanker: Taking Some New Rules On A Spin!

    As the running joke goes amongst our gaming friends, we have a tank problem. Well, it is a shared problem between my wife and I, but she tends to have a little more tanks. Despite this, when our friend, Hugh informed us about Too Fat Lardies upcoming rules "What A Tanker", we did not jump on board. Part of this stems on my wife's thoughts on their rules Chain of Command. She just does not like them. I have a little more mixed opinion about those rules. So with that in mind, What a Tanker did not seem as appealing.
    This last weekend, Hugh brought over his copy in a PDF form of the rules in question. Somehow, it seemed pretty strait forward. It still has a COC feel for a game, but somehow does not have the same problems that we may not like about COC. Plus, it is just tanks. There are no rules for infantry or other issues. You can strait out play this with just one tank each. And they set these rules up to play in a campaign form so you can make your crew into an ace in their particular tank or upgrade to bigger and better things. Pretty niffy to me!
   So to play this game, all we needed were a board with terrain and a tank each. Kalissa took a Cromwell, Hugh had a Sherman, and I had a Stug III G. Bill showed up later to take a Panzer IV H. Needless to say, we had some interesting epic shots. I destroyed one of my wife's tanks only to have her crew escape to get another tank. Hugh lost a Sherman to Bill after he arrived. They had a pretty good exchange of fire. Hugh knocked my Stug III bad enough to nearly destroy my drive train. The picture of my Stug facing off my wife's Cromwell was pretty epic considering I could barely move. What I do know in the end is that I will have to pick up a set of these rules. Below are the rest of the photos of our game. Enjoy!