Campaign Rules

A really interesting look at published campaign rules and the way they interact with tabletop wargaming rules here :Link

More food for thought for me while I work on my own sustainable campaign.

More Thought-Provoking Stuff from the Polemarch

The Polemarch Blog is full of interesting takes on wargames - some fascinating stuff on both the design and morality of wargames (amongst other things).  This is the latest, examining some of the concepts in Paddy Griffith's ideas of 'black' wargames: Link

Peninsular War - Attack on a Prepared Position

Played the first scenario from the Grant & Asquith  Scenarios For All Ages book this afternoon:

The Anglo-Portuguese advancing from the South

French infantry and artillery defending the central hill, a regiment in reserve

The French forward position - a Light Infantry regiment deployed in the woods

The French about to collapse - they are holding off superior forces on the central hill, but the brigade on the left has succumbed and the French artillery has been taken

 

 

 

A close-up of the French defeat; the red counters show high shaken levels amongst the remaining French infantry

It was a really enjoyable game, with the usual characteristics of a Polemos game - lots of ebb-and-flow, and the difficulty of carrying off successful first assaults.  Two British units were broken, with another four suffering disorder.  The French lost rather more - two light infantry battalions in the fight in the wood, then two line battalions in the pivotal moment of the game: a French counterattack from the central hill on the British troops temporarily shaken by their own, which did not quite come off...

Some Recent Games

I've managed to get a few games in recently - I've definitely done better than usual!  I managed to get a game of  Polemos: SPQR in against my opponent.  The scenario was Gauls vs Romans, 20 bases a side, with the Gauls doing a half-cocked ambush against the Romans.  Despite the usual hesitancies of a 'first game', it was a very hard fought affair.  I was sure after five turns I was going to be utterly trounced, but the Romans fought on and in the end, triumphed.  There were some parts of the rules we never quite figured out properly (mainly with pursuits) but lots of good elements: the order system and the manoeuvre rules were particularly good.

I got a really fun game of Heroquest played with the family.  All very enjoyable, the dungeon-bash really appealed to our five-year old!  I played the Evil Wizard since I know the rules best, but  I'm hoping to get a go playing the heroes next time.  I'm even toying with the idea of getting some female versions of the four adventurers from Ral Partha.

Solo-gaming has been mainly Napoleonic, both Polemos: Napoleonics
and the Napoleonic Wargaming rules.  Both have there plus points but both have a couple of difficulties for how I wish to use them at the moment.  More on this in a later post, I think, as it ties in to some problems I've encountered with setting up a campaign.