The Grand Campaign begins...

With both children growing way too rapidly (one in college, one almost finished with high school), I decide to slow things down a bit a host a one on one Civil War campaign with the Boy. It's a chance to spend some time together and share one of my first loves in wargaming: the American Civil War.
I decided on Longstreet, as it provides a crisp, concise campaign with lots of character and it's easy to learn. Time to dig out my ancient 15mm ACW armies.
We created our forces, 3 infantry units, 1 cavalry unit and a battery of cannons, All Eager Recruits. We randomly created our personas.
Me: Col. Cletus Wayne Guthrie, a politically savvy up and comer who raised a regiment of native troops, the 1st Missouri Volunteers (the Ozark Zouaves, even though only a half dozen men actually have the fancy outfits).

The Boy: Eustus Marshal, a hot headed cavalry officer commanding a group of Northern Aggressors.
We randomly created the battlefield and and scenario per the rules. Marshal would be the defender and I would be on the attack.

I divided my forces and sent my cavalry charging down the turnpike to capture one of the objective, the small town of Prairie Landing. It was decided all battles for the campaign would be named after local housing divisions...

They were assisted by a unit of infantry. It was risky move I would later regret.
The rest of my troops moved solidly forward, forced into a deeper formation due to terrain. This limited my opening volley, but not the follow up charge which sent the Pennsylvania troops reeling back. This would be a push over....
Then Marshal swung his cavalry around and rode hard at my flank, including a still limbered battery. I blew through my best cards keeping him at bay, including throwing an unspotted swamp in the way.

Meanwhile, his other troops had recovered and were steadily blasting away my poor Arkansas troops.
The only satisfaction I got was cutting his other flank to pieces trying to cross a stream to capture Prairie Landing.
The turns quickly blew by along with my losses. My untested troops were holding, but dying in droves. At least they died on native soil.

The victory for Union was complete. I lost 21 stands to his 9. UGH!
The post battle process followed.
Thanks to my political connections, despite my horrific loss I was promoted as did the Boy.
We regained some losses as men trickled back into camp. But a few of my units dropped from Eager to Cautious after "Seeing the Elephant". Our post battle camp losses were terrible. My once 10 strong units were dropped by to 7, 7, 6 and 5. The Union fared little better.
But, our Campaign cards helped a little. I was given a Veteran unit from back East to bolster my losses while Marshal got a few new rifled guns.
As 1861 closed, it was great fun. We have 8 more games together, and hopefully some good memories.

Galactic Heroes: World War II?

Yes, but with a little Weird War 2 in it....
I wanted to see how ell GH could stretch into other genres, and I've always like WW2 on a small scale skirmish. Enter some of my Golden Age heroes and a few borrowed German miniatures.

"Recently, rare photos have been obtained from the secretive Section 13 of the DoD through the Freedom of Information Act. They show accounts of a raid on a top secret German facility by few members of the now famous Liberty Legion."

 "Major Victory, in a rare pose with some G.I.s."

 The Sentinel of Liberty.

 A sleepy village hides a dark experiment.

 The guards are alerted to the US forces. One goes down wounded.

 Major Victory prepares to take to the skies.

 The price of victory. The Yanks are caught in the open trying to reach their late dropped explosives.

 Kreighunde bursts from a nearby house and attacks the Major! A brawl between titans!

 Sgt. Stone, the human rock, opens up on group of German defenders.

 Professor Klumpf is found, but not before his vile experiments are unleashed.

 The village is slowly cleared.

The Sentinel leads the way.

Totenkopf is cornered!

It turned out to be great game. There were 8! players. It was a dawn attack. The Germans were only allowed one squad to stand guard, the rest were barracked inside. The Allies were able to "Creep" and were undetected until they got within 12" of a guard, An overanxious private fired early at a guard and started the fight. 

The Allies had three objectives: blow up the radio tower, capture Von Klumpf and take out the General. Before they could blow the tower, they had to grab their explosives from a parachute drop. The drop happened when an Allied player played a Joker. Then I made them stand at the other end of the table and toss a wad of cotton where they wanted it. It of course went off course.

It landed in an open field covered by German soldiers in the nearby windows.

The Germans had to finish the Experiment using a Joker, which didn't happen, until the game was nearly over, radio out the secret transmission and get the General off the table.

Both sides had "super powered" leaders. For instance, Major Victory had "Leader" for free, "Flier", "Veteran" and "Energy Beams" (his Star Spangled Vision).

They weren't overly powerful. Krieghunde pummeled Major Victory into the dirt and charged forward to stomp a terrified GI. The frightened private popped off a shot and brought the mighty war dog down.

Uberman sat out most of the game for some reason. When he finally emerged, he racked up  a massive body count of 7 defending the radio tower. The Allies finally blew it, a lone GI sacrificing himself. 

The game ended with the General dispatched, the tower blown, but the deadly "Iron Soldiers" loosed upon the world. It was a lot of fun if I do say so myself.

Dragon Rampant: The Heart of the Mountain

The Heart of the Mountain has been stolen by dark forces! The disparate tribes of the mountains have banded together to stop them.

 The quiet valley...

 The Northern Tribes unite!

 Green kins and Chaos pour from the Mountain.

Chaos Centaurs ford the stream, only to be showered with boulders form  local guardian of the Mountain, a Stone Giant.

 Bugbears made their debut and avoided the "Newly Painted" curse of all wargaming troops. 

 A troll takes on the lightest armed humans., and quickly routes them.

The final battle sees to giants collide.

This was a 4 player game of Dragon Rampant, and a particularly bloody one. We had some units break after taking just a few casualties, while others hung on to the last (we had one archer " Legolas" who just wouldn't give up until he was finally crushed by a boulder).
Usually, light troops and giant get destroyed early in our games. Not sure why, they just do. This time, they were the last to go.
DR always inspires me to get painting more troops.