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.

Galactic Heroes: Saving the Shrine

The ancient Templar Shrine has been targeted by Imperial Forces. They have sent the Dark Templar Oshiro with a Imperial Tac squad and a band of Ornk mercenaries to destroy it.
Standing in their way is a small group of locals led by Templar Wilja Stind (my Jedi name according to the internet).

 A sleepy settlement on Felines V.

 Lord Oshiro and the forces of the Empire

 Skanky Muldoon and his greenskin mercenaries

 Locals

 Orange Julius brings out his Girls to do battle.

 Rat Bastard takes the sniper position.

 As usual, the much muscle bound, armed to the teeth Orange Julius went down in a hail of gunfire first turn. Oshiro, confident in his dark abilities walked down the middle of the street, defying snipers and armed locals.

 He attacks one of the Bettys. Somehow she defies the odds and puts a wound on him. A shot from the sniper, puts him down for good. So much for the Blessings of the Emperor.

(We usually keep the markers on the character sheets to avoid clutter, but we kept them out for this game for pics)

 The Ornks try a flank but run into a horde of Grunts. It turn into a bloodbath for both.

 A lone Juve, Dink, pins down 2 mercenaries....

 ...while Wilja Stind reflects a shot back t a Trooper, dropping him.

Only the Captain remains to fulfill the mission, but he too is dropped by a deflected shot.
Great game with lots of twisted and turns. Shades, one of the mercenaries, almost made it to the shrine, but detoured by his "Bloodthirsty" trait. I had too much confidence in my Dark templar abilities. One of my opponents, "Other Jay", ran his Templar better to win the day.

Galactic Heroes - Battle-suit Alpha!

Poor Hawk, we hardly knew you...

I had someone online ask me if you could use the upcoming Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes with anime type giant robots/battlesuits. The answer: "Why not?!"
To test the idea, I made up 3 opposing teams using the Crew creation rules. I fudged just a bit to give the battle-suits armament to match the minis. I dug out my much unused DP9 Heavy Gear minis and through out some terrain.
The scenario: I recently bombed Rebel listening post contained highly classified Alliance intel. The comms tower was able to download it to 3 large severs before the dish was blown. The rebels want to download it, the Alliance destroy them, and a poor group of mercenaries is caught in the middle.

 The battlefield, 4x5'.

 Rebel forces approach.

 Mercenaries in the middle. "They don't pay me enough for this...."

The game started with a bang. A Rebel sniper, callsign "Deadeye", lived up to his name and dropped a mercenary, "Hawk", guarding a download point. The two Alliance troopers showed up to investigate and were hit with a one shot rocket pod barrage.

 The Mercenaries spring to action!

 Infantry caught in the open!

 The Rebels are hit by a rocket barrage.

 Here's an example of the record cards. These are Regulars, so each gets a 1 trait. Sniper let's Deadeye preroll one shot a turn, Eagle-eyed let's Blaze improve the range of his oversized shotgun.

 The Rebel leader, callsign "Shark", has the Fistful trifecta: Shock, Wound and Out of Ammo.

Scratch one intel tower.

Victory went to the Rebels. They were able to reach two towers and download the intel before they were blown up.
The game went really smoothly. Each trooper had a personality thanks to the traits assigned, and more importantly it had that anime feel. The squads of non-battlesuit infantry I just treated as a single miniature. Each "wound" removed a miniature. They were treated as "Small", so harder to hit, and to show their reduced firepower against the battle-suits, I gave them a d8.