He's dead, Jim.

I need lots of hit markers for Hail Caesar/Pike and Shot. I toyed with using those cool spinny dials, but with amount I might potentially need, and fact they're kinda hard to read on an 8x6 table, I made my own.
I just cut a frame from heavy mount board to snuggly grasp the die, glued to base and stuck a dead guy on.
He's a little too late for the Italian Wars, but he'll work.

Basement-con 2 AAR: Friday

Compared to Thursday night, Friday's Basement-Con was fairly light. Only Lead Addict showed, which turned out to be cool because the blessing and the curse of the Basement Generals is there's a lot of us. Most Thursdays are, in fact, mini conventions. Its hard to find 6-8 player games we can do in 3 hours or less.
So, when I got a chance to do some games 1-on-1 I was excited.
We started with Black Powder: Pike and Shotte. I dug out my Italian Wars, work in progress troops. I had 4 cavalry and 6 foot units, split into two battalia a side. A relatively small fight by P&S standards, but the last battle we did, I used Hail Caesar, and wanted try these out small.
Pike and Shotte is closer rules-wise to Black Powder than Hail Caesar.
The battle opened with Cavalry charges on the flanks which quickly left us both horseless (I found out later my Gendarmes were tougher, but oh well).
When the pikes finally got to grips in the middle it was bloody and short.
The whole thing lasted about and hour.

Yes, the bases aren't finished...

The heavy horse charges forward

the push of pike

Despite the quick fight, I really liked how it played. We're going to have to be a bit more tactical and subtle. More historical tactics would have paid off better. We should have held the horse back for exploiting the infantry fight.

I was too liquored up to remember to take pictures....

With the evening still early, and the booze flowing, we tried out a game I've wanted to play for a long time: SAGA. I have a full 6 points of viking warband. Lead Addict was able to cobble together 4 points for the battle. My vikings became Saxons and using the intro scenario we began. Whomever kills the other guy's warlord first, wins.
Neither of us really had time to study the Battle Boards, which are the heart of the game. The actually battle mechanics are simple. It's the subtleties of the use of Fatigue, and Battle Board abilities that win the game.
Warlords are tough, but mortal. We found that out about turn 2. We ignored the Warlord's death and kept playing. It was all I hoped it would be. Multi-player would be hard. If we play on Thursday's it would mean setting up 2-3 battles simultaneously.
But over all, SAGA was everything I hoped it would be.
Next: Saturday.....

Neopolitan Spanish

For the Italian Wars Project. These fellas are from the great The Assault Group miniatures. A pleasure to paint.

Ow! My eye! Yes, in this period the Spanish should technically have "half pikes" or just long spears, but I couldn't bear it.

PIke and Shotte Playtest

I've read the rules twice. Now, time to give them a test drive.
I suspended all preconceived notions and played the game as is. As I don't have hordes of figs painted up for this (which is odd since its my favorite period), so I made some paper armies using the foot print/stand sizes in the book. P&S doesn't tell you what size stands or how many figs in a unit, but the pictures pretty much show a 40mm x 40mm base for infantry, 3 stands for shotte and 4 for pikes.
We had 6 players controlling a Battalia a piece except for the horse who got two Battalia. The infantry commanders had 3 units/regiments/brigades each of 2 shotte units and and a pike. Using the convention that the pike and shotte operate as distinct units, that meant each commander had 9 units. That meant a grand total of 31 UNITS ON EACH SIDE. Sound extreme for a first go?
We were done in 2 hours. Two.
By turn three I had to tell some players to slow down because they had picked up the mechanics and were essentially fighting their own battles in the middle while the rest of us were still moving around.

My biggest objection to the rules had been the pike and shot elements acting independently. In practice, no one seemed to care. As thing became jumbled up, it did seem weird some shot was wandering about without the protection of the pike. This was my fault, running the Horse. Mostly likely, still smarting from an earlier sound defeat from my opponent, I was rather rash with the horse. We both went careening headlong into each other. In two turns we were both combat ineffective. Both our Battalias were broken. So, the foot was allowed to run around blissfully free of danger from marauding horsemen. In fact, only one unit the entire game had to form "hedge hog".
A good game. A close game. Next round I'd like to try something with more mixed forces, and also let players mix up the battalias.

Pros: We did a huge battle in a decent amount of time, and the battle "felt right".

Cons: Space. Below is diagram of how big the units are vs how I've got a few units based up for Victory Without Quarter. A thirteen inch frontage is huge for pike and shot formation. Especially on my 6x 8 foot table, which is a little bigger than most people's 6 x 4. Even devoid of terrai for this playtest, things were really cramped. No room to manuever. This has been a complaint about the Warlord games before. Most people don't have the huge tables of the developers. After showing the boys my how my other units are based, they agreed not a lot of playability is lost with the larger bases but fewer. In fact, the only loss of have a one base unit is that of showing a unit in column. They also brought up the paim of moving the 4 pike bases as opposed to one.
I must ponder this.
From a purely esthetic point of view, the Foundry and Perry mins I have in abundance look too spaced out on a 40mm square. The newer, bigger miniatures, not so much.

with Pike and Shotte

As you may know, I have a soft spot the pike and shot era. I have tons of unpainted lead for this period, but have been hesitant to paint or mount anything up, til I find "the" ruleset. I've been eyeing "Victory without Quarter" for some time, a free ruleset by Clarence Harrison. I've been following a campaign over at Lead Gardens using the rules, too.
So, when I saw some cheap printable armies the other day on TMP, I decided it was time for a playtest.
The rules are card driven, a card for every unit and commander, with commanders being able to activate units within their command radius. There are also cards for events (if you want them), reloads (there's a bonus for firing the first volley) and a Turn Over Over card to screw with your best laid plans. First off, we noticed the card sequence could cause some maneuver issues if units in the back got activated before the ones in front, which actually caused a more historical checkerboard formation. The cavalry had more cards so they seemed to move more (duh). The Turn Over card came up alot initially, but thanks to the commander cards, some units got to move.

The fighting and shooting mechanics are owe a lot to Warmaster, but morale is different, with your standard "Steady/Shaken/Routed" status.
As I expected from my reading, the rules are very simple, but have a subtlety. You have to soften up your targets first before moving in for the kill. Units tended to dissolve from morale rather than combat. All things I like. And, they use a basing standard I had already settled on., 60mm x 60mm bases, 2 shot, one pike.
Over all, worth a another replay. One question came up, and while I try to contact the author, anyone who's played before, pipe in: The horse are allowed to operate in squadrons of two bases and from 2-4 squadrons to a regiment. These squadrons can double up, back to back to provide depth in melees. But, they are only allowed to provide these extra stands in the second round of combat. The problem, from reading the rules, is there is no provision for a second round of combat. Battles are fought, with the rare tie, with either one side winning and driving the other off.
Also, not sure when you can fire. Can you move and fire? or just one or the other?

More Pikes

10mm this time. I think they look great at this scale and give the proper amount of mass without having to paint too many. The figs are the much maligned Old Glory. They were fun to paint.

More Swashbuckling Swordsmen

I kinda phoned it in on these, but I'm kinda in a "clear off the table" mood. I'm working on the Four Musketeers themselves next. Then, hopefully start on some more Renaissance.

PIkes forward!

Here's a stand of shot I put together. This has always been my favorite period, don't no why I haven't spent more time on it. These boys need some firepower...