Baroque - English Civil War.

 Well I'm still battling away with me ECW toys. After many good games with "Furioso" rules I found the rule set I originally fancied at a good price.

These rules are entitled "Baroque" and are published by Dadi&Piombo. I decided to half my unit size to suit the rules on my small table.

The rules play well with commands activating by initiative as the opposing units may react to the activating sides actions. It is all very to and fro.

There is a very good blogpost featuring Baroque here... link It is well worth a peep for anyone interested, I have found it very useful.

I discovered that I needed a couple of camps to be protected so I set to and made some today.

I've spent some time improving my terrain a bit too, I've invested in some new trees, painted my fields and had a right good time of it.

I love learning a new rules set and I reckon Baroque is well worth learning.

Furioso

I got my English Civil War toys out and have had a lot of fun trying out rulesets with them. I played "Warhammer ECW" for a few games and that was enjoyable but didn't quite hit the spot.

 Then I tried out "Furioso" by Steve Danes, I bought these rules a couple of years back when I had wild ideas about wargaming the Italian Wars.

Furioso is designed to wargame the sixteenth century, somewhat earlier than the English Civil War so I had to use similar unit stats to suit my collection.

I enjoyed my first couple of games, I particularly liked the initiative system.

The next couple of games knocked me back a bit, one or two implausible events occurred. 

Then I found that I had missed some rules so I had another game which was much better.

I played more, introducing some skirmishers and found some more depth to the rules.

The upshot is that I am very pleased with Furioso, the rulebook was a bit hard for me to grok but definitely worth persevering with.

For those that are interested in Furioso there is a great blogpost here... link

The rules are available from Alternative Armies... link

I foresee plenty of good games ahead.

Great stuff!.

Old School Tactical

 Old School Tactical is a fine addition to my tactical wargames collection. I am lucky enough to own the first two volumes and the Airborne expansion.

Here are a few shots of tonight's Eastern Front game.

The maps are beautiful, here are a few close ups.  

There are info cards for the units and they are very useful.

The game plays very well solo and the back and forth impulse point system gives you some tough decisions.

Smashing!.

Another 1000 miles done.

 I've managed to walk another thousand miles since the end of August last year, that makes 1000 miles in 40 weeks.

I am now lighter by another half stone, that is three stone lighter since lockdown. Also my heart is now in normal sinus rhythm and I feel as fit as a lop.

One of my neighbours, Les often walks with me. Les was a shepherd in the Lake District and he walks between eight and twelve miles a day, not bad considering he is eighty years old!. He is an inspiration and puts a lot of younger folk to shame. 

In fact there is quite a community of old gadgies that walk these country lanes, they're amazing really.

Well, I'll maybe get a couple of hundred more miles walked in the next twelve weeks.

And then I'll start again.

Happy days!. 

A game of Battle Fleet Gothic

 I had a canny little game of Battle Fleet Gothic...

Chaos fleet.
The Imperial fleet turns around a small moon to engage the renegade fleet.
The escort squadrons clash.
The Chaos cruisers turn.

The Imperial Firestorms attack a cruiser.

The Imperial cruisers fire at long range.

And one of the Chaos cruisers is crippled!.

A comets eye view of the action.

An Imperial cruiser is under heavy fire.
And becomes a drifting hulk. 
Fighters and bombers clash.
And the Chaos bombers make it through to attack the Imperial vessels.
The Imperial flagship is crippled by the bombers.

Things are looking bleak for the Imperial fleet.

In a tense moment Chaos torpedoes do a little more damage but mostly miss.
The crippled Chaos cruiser breaks off and escapes.
The Firestorm squadron do their duty and bravely put themselves between the battling cruisers.
Which allows the battered Imperial cruisers to escape.

Good fun, it was very nice to get these old toys out again.