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!.

Pike and Shotte

This week I have been playing some English Civil War games using "Pike and Shotte" rules. I had forgotten how much fun can be had with the "Black Powder" family of rules and intend to use them more often.

Here's a few photos of the wee men on the table.

 It's been nice to get these old soldiers out again, I've had some of them nearly 40 years.

Happy days.

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.

Seleucids and Romans and some Pike and Shotte.

 I had a game of my Ancient rules with Later Seleucids and Poly Romans yesterday.

 Plenty of soldiers on the table.

 The rules worked very well again.

 The cavalry battle was fierce but the Seleucids eventually won it.

 A view down the Seleucid centre.

 A  very enjoyable afternoon. Seleucids won 13-10.

 At the Shildon show I bought this Conflix building.

 I needed an excuse to get it on the table. So I had a game of Pike and Shotte today.

 Cromwell with his Ironsides.

 Cavaliers opposite him, I gave them the "Ferocious Charge" rule.

 Royalist foot.

 The Roundheads hold the high ground.

 The Royalist right wing.

 The toys are Warlord, Foundry and Essex.

 The bloke in the blue breeks has fainted!.

 Commanded shotte with firelocks.

 They fell foul of the Green coats and routed.

 Cavalry clash.

 Royalist shotte occupy the farm.

 I used the red counter to clearly show shaken units.

 I love that house!.

 Old Robins foot are disordered.

The Royalists fail to take the hill and with Cromwell winning on the flank and the other Royalist flank victorious but spent the victory goes to Parliament.