CC:N Waterloo played.

Well I played the game last night till bedtime and finished it tonight. Here are some photos of the finished game. As always the game was packed with incident and drama and very entertaining.

 The French had very little remaining of their centre, even the Old Guard were destroyed attempting to take La Haye Sainte.

 Both Hougomont and Pappelotte were taken by the French but they were quickly evicted from both strongpoints.

 Their last gamble was a cavalry attack which was subsequently defeated by an Allied cavalry charge.

 Eight banners for the Allies.

 Only six for the French.

A smashing game, I enjoyed playing it on the larger board. I own the Austrian and Russian expansions and the Prussian expansion may be brought by Santa Claus.

Happy days!.

Commands and Colors Napoleonics

After many games of Conan, all very enjoyable, I fancied a change. So I set up the Waterloo scenario on my big MDF board with some 3D terrain...

 La Haye Sainte

 Hougoumont

I'll play this later, maybe a strong French attack on the relatively weak Allied left wing. But who knows what will happen with a game of Commands and Colors!.

The coming of Conan.

I have been enjoying a weeks holiday from work and had planned to get some games with the Neil Thomas 19th century rules I recently bought.

But last week my long awaited and sometimes completely forgotten about Conan kickstarter thudded through the letterbox. 

Two muckle big boxes filled with goodies. All of the components are top quality, there is so much stuff I was quite overwhelmed and didn't know where to start.

I tried a the first scenario a couple of times solo and found the rules as written very hard to follow and full of holes. However, I found help on line and my wife and I had a game which was fantastic. We have played the scenarios many times now. Here is the helpful video.  video link

When it hasn't been played I've been re-reading the Conan stories, it's become all consuming.

When the kickstarter came out I was fairly interested but had no intention of backing it. It is the only kickstarter I have had anything to do with. It was my son John who talked me into it, I told him it would probably be hard to play solo and he said that he would play it with me. So I bought it.

Of course that was eighteen months ago and now he's at university, but I am very glad that he persuaded me. I can play it solo too.

CROM!.

Stand To, 2016

We had a ride down to Shildon today to the wargames show Stand To. Here are some photos...

A very nice Sudan game.

 More desert action. Rapid Fire!, Knightsbridge I believe.

 A nice looking 40k game.

We had a nice look around, we had a look at the trains too. We had a nice lunch as well, and I bought myself some very nice Leven Miniatures 6mm buildings which I have primed already. I also bought this for only £10.
                                
I'm very pleased with it.

A grand day out!.

Commands and Colors : Lobositz

Today I set up a game of Commands and Colors and based the scenario on the battle of Lobositz. I used some of my 1/72nd plastic Imaginations toy soldiers to battle in the guise of Austrians and Prussians.
I sketched out some statistics and based the game on Commands and Colors Napoleonics.

 A view of the Austrian right flank.

 The left flank with units behind the Morellenbach.

 A view down the Prussian line, the Lobosch in the foreground. The Austrians started the battle strongly with a succession of good cards to batter the Prussian centre. But they became spent and the Prussians reinforced their centre before counterattacking and routing the Austrian centre.

 The Austrians finally begin to cross the Morellenbach.

 Last card of the game sees the Austrian artillery destroyed by the Prussian cavalry charge!.

 I enjoyed the game so much that I set up a fictional scenario with the same forces. Here are some shots of the set up...

 Once again the Austrians started strongly and were winning six banners to nil at one point. Then the pendulum swung...

 Which idiot deployed that cannon there!.

 The last card of this game saw Prussian musket fire smashing the Austrians.

 The Prussians won eight banners to six!.

 I love this game system, I really do.

Memoir 44 in 15mm and English Civil War.

 After playing Commands and Colors Ancients to death over the last few weeks, I fancied a change. I brought out my Flames of War collection to play Memoir 44 on my board.

 I had to use 6mm buildings for the towns but it was OK.

 I played an Operation Goodwood scenario from the Days of Wonder website.

 Tigers on the prowl.

 The game played very well, but my collection has limited scope for Memoir 44.

 I could maybe use my 1/72nd models.

 Bit I think it would shine with 1/300th models.

 We had a visitor to the bird feeder today so I gave him some of the birds mealworms.

 He loved them and was in the garden most of the day eating and sleeping. Cute!.

 This afternoon I got out some 28mm English Civil War models and had a game based on Commands and Colors Napoleonics.

 I sketched out some rule amends and got to it.

 It played well also.

 Cavalry battles raged to and fro.

And the battle was decided by the infantry clash.

Loved it.

Now Tony at link has a well developed ruleset for Commands and Colors ECW which I will download and use in future. His blog is brilliant and has been a great source of inspiration for me.