catching up: early Autumn 2016

While I haven't posted recently, I've not been neglecting my wargaming entirely. :-)

Black Powder AWI at Army of Central Maryland

I recently ran a Revolutionary War game at the local club using the Black Powder ruleset; I'll soon have a post about that and some related games I'm planning.


A few weeks before that, I also ran a Rev War Black Powder game at a friend's house, mostly as a trial and to gain familiarity with the rules.

Black Powder AWI at Peter's

Before that, I've played a good deal of Advanced Squad Leader (three games in a month, which is kind of a record for me),

ASL with Gorkowski

ASL with Fortenberry

ASL with Frum

 played Red Poppies: Ypres Campaign with the designer,

Gorkowski explains my cruel but inevitable defeat.

 played Star Wars: Armada with my best friend while his teenaged son refereed (with lots of heavy sighs at our adult ineptitude),

Star Wars:Armada with Peter

played a British Grenadier scenario of Frayser's Farm,

Burgoyne's British let loose a volley.

and refought the battle of Vendôme with Bruce Weigle's excellent 1871 rules at the author's house.

Another of Bruce's incredible battlefields.

I also took a day off work last week and had a full weekend at Fall In. I played four different games: two Carnage & Glory games set in the Polish Commonwealth (17th century),

My Russian nobles about to kick Polish husaria ass!

one medieval game with Bob Bryant's new small-battle Clans and Companies rules, and a final Carnage & Glory game set in the American Revolution. I had several other games on my list to try to get into, but none of them panned out, alas. I also did a bit of shopping for an upcoming project.

I'll try to arrange for a few posts to summarize these exploits and get a few more photos up. Needless to say, I've also been continuing to read and learn about the 1777 Philadelphia campaign and to enlarge my Rev War research library.

I've also expanded my board wargame library a bit and taken up two new sports, curling and German longsword fencing. So, it's not like I've been sitting on my duff. :-)

So, clearly I need an update!

I did finish my Medieval Germans, and they helped me win my first (and probably last) HMGS tournament title. I'll post photos of the finished army and its prize in my next entry.

I'll also post the Campanian army that I took to the Two David's Pyrrhic Wars campaign/tournament. Truer to my usual pattern, that crashed out near the bottom of the group.

Since March I've been involved mostly in boardgaming, and that either Eurogames or online ASL games via VASL. I'm currently in three playtest matches and fighting three published scenarios with one playtest and one published scenario recently completed. Hopefully I and a couple of friends will be starting one of the historical campaigns soon...

I did have the pleasure of helping Bruce Weigle playtest another convention scenario for his upcoming 1871 fast-play grand tactical rules for 19th century European battles. They speed up the game considerably, but they take a bit of getting used to, as they change the nature of the game more than a little.

Melissa and I have started sweeping the dust and cobwebs out of our collective chess memories. In our first game I mistook one of her rooks for a bishop and she forgot that pawns take diagonally. I think next time through we'll do better with the rules and be able to start working on strategy. In the meantime we keep our brains fit with Lost Cities and Fjords.