Categorie: Internetblog

I had already done the priming and organization for roughly 80 horses before Historicon.

I realized I needed horses for 2 regiments of Chasseurs a Cheval (Piano), 2 of Dragoons (Piano), 3 regiments of Gardes d’Honneur (Perry), 1 Austrian Hussar (Piano), 1 Austrian Dragoon (Piano), and a number of Austrian command figures (Piano). 

Black, Dark Chestnut, Light Chestnut, Dark Bay, Light Bay, Dun, Roan, Palomino, Dapple Grey, Steel Grey, and White horses are all represented!  I used the method set out by “Mr. Tin” well over 20 years ago. Now I need to tackle the riders and the rest of the horse furniture in smaller groups!

The painting stats don’t include those 5 x 10 mm buildings!

15 mm AWI, historically plausible alternate action between Washington and the British in New Jersey, GM Kelly McManus

Star Wars on Tatooine: “Welcome to Mos Vegas.. now GET OUT!”

Edward III awaits the first of three French attack waves at Crecy; GM and rules author Tim Couper chats with Hugh as John Mumby from Colorado looks on. 

View from behind the English lines. 

The English position. 

French attackers.

The appearance of a Longship of your shores is seldom a welcome sight!

“Elementary, my dear Watson”

The meerschaum pipe, cape and deerstalker cap were trademarks of Connecticut actor, William Gilllete, and not actually found in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Indeed, the phrase above was Gillete’s as well, and not found in the published stories. Gillette, with the author’s permission, wrote, produced, and acted in a number of plays based upon the stories of Sherlock Holmes, becoming quite wealthy in the process.

Rebellion on the Northwest Frontier!

Awesome table by my freind and 20 sided gamified podcast  host (check it out – especially great for painting and long drives to conventions!), Jared Fishman.  

The game won a well deserved PELA award. 

Rules used – The Sword and The Flame. 

The computer tells this is Napoleonics with Carnage and Glory!

American Civil War action. 

Desert Rats!

Check your Six!

A different bridge, with Chain of Command. 

Battle of the Bulge

That awesome bridge at Arnhem again!

Another (blurry) version of Circus Maximus. 

Battle of Crecy with Test of Resolve: Hundred Years War

Jared’s awesome Pathan revolt table – The Sword and the Flame rules. 

Zulu!  Battle of Isandlawana – Dave Waxtel and HMGS NextGen

Back to the Pathans on the Northwest Frontier in 1878. The British have to shut thing thing down right away before the native get out of hand! Jared won a well deserved PELA award for this game. 

The ever popular jousting lists!

The attack on Pearl Harbor

6 mm Napoleonics, “Soldats de l’Empire, formerly Houserules Napoleonics by Brian Stokes” 

Massive D-Day game

Tanks for the memories!

Some tables in the Ancients tournament area (my Saturday games were in that space as well). 

Norse village – very well done!

Kelly McManus – The Battle of Great Notch. 15mm American Revolutionary War, Live Free or Die rules. A “what if” scenario involving General Washington and his army in New Jersey in the aftermath of Benedict Arnold’s defection. The hypothetical combat took place not too far from where I did my residency training… 40 years ago!

Ginormous Sunday game with To the Strongest! Simon would be proud!  Strasbourg 357 AD, Germanic Allmani tribe vs Imperial Rome. 

I chatted (mask on by this point) briefly with the trio of young guys who ran this; they all FLEW to the convention from quite a distance, figures in tow. Run 3 times, GM’s Andy Hewitt (I think that’s Andy talking to long time freind Jeff Grein, newly relocated from San Francisco to North Carolina). Dude is taller than I am… which I don’t see very often (I’m 6 foot 4″ myself). 

Other GM’s for the games Harry Voelkel and Drake Wizza. 

Tim Couper and David Knight ran a demo game of ToR – WotR in place of my planned Tewkesbury game; I didn’t want to expose players to what would be confirmed to be Covid when I got back home circa 4 PM. 

Dinosaurs and VSF – Riders of the Storming Hens! 

A few shots of t of my friend Jim Mauro’s To the Strongest! games – I think this is Kosovo 1389, Ottomans vs Serbians. 

Photos courtesy of Eric Burgess. We finally got Eric to try TTS!, and he raNn 2 Greeks vs Persians games back home the following week. 

Jim’s 15 mm troops look great!

We’re trying to coordinate a number of To the Strongest/For King and Parliament games for Historicon 2025, and have hopes of enticing rules author Simon Miller to make the trip across the pond for the occasion. We’ll see!

Table set for game 1 with Field of Battle 3rd edition; Rhine Confederation near, Hiller’s Austrians far.

I wound up having extra players who wanted join in, so we had 6 Austrian and 5 Allied players. 

Herman has the Austrian Morale chips hidden behind the placard in true FoB style. 

Both dies had superiority of numbers and position on opposite sides of the field. One objective was to control the river crossing and the villager of Bad Bierstein. 

The Wurttembergers are stretched a bit thin, but look to secure defensive positions. 

Bavarinas and Austrians mix ip over control of a key hill; the Bavarian supporting formations are lagging behind due to poor LD rolls on the MOVE. 

We had a nice mix of experience and new players. 

2 Austrian Hussar units charge the Wurttemberg Light Dragoons. 

Firefight between the Wurttemburgers and the Austrians

Hessian Chevaulegeres and Baden Light Dragoons charge 2 Austrian batteries. 

The charge failed, but the Bavarian infantry is getting the edge on the Austrian defenders. 

Overview of the action mid game. 

A Wurttemberger General goes down on an ARMY MORALE card!

Battle for the Town! An Austrian attack is repulsed. At one point the Austrian s reached zero Moral points, and were paying the Rheinbund troops, but they managed to reverse the tide and before long it was the Rheinbund who were in negative Morale territory and paying the Austrians. Overall, a hard fought battle with the edge to the Kaiderlicks!

I reset the table, and had dinner, returning the run the second game with Battle Command. We had the official 3 players per side. The game played out fairly similarly, with the Rheinbund winding up with the edge in that version. I would say that both game pretty much played the same speed regardless of the rules. It looks like I forgot to take pictures on the second game; by now the hoarseness had developed into a definite runny nose. One of the players very helpfully assisted me with packing up the troops at 10 – 11 PM, so I hope he didn’t catch the COVID it became apparent that I had come down with by the following day!  I have some thoughts about FoB 3 vs Battle Command, but those are for another time…