Commands and Colors blocks used for Black Powder.

As I was driving home from work last night the ABS warning light came on. The brakes were ok and I made it home alright. This morning though, when I set off I found that I had a grinding noise and very little in the way of brakes. Luckily the roads were quiet and I made it to the mechanics safely. Well I couldn't get to work, what could I do...

I had this game set up since the weekend. I had planned to play it tomorrow (day off) but I'll make up the time then.

 The inspiration for this was the maps in Bruce Quarries classic book.

 I used my Commands and Colors blocks for the armies and used the lists from the Napoleonic scenario in the Black Powder Rule book.

 I used centimetres instead of inches for all ranges and movement.

 French marching columns.

 As always I forgot about the broken brigade rules until too late, ah well.

 The lying down artillery pieces signified limbered guns.

 At this point I decided that I should check brigade and army morale and marked the broken brigades with a red counter.

 Both armies were beat. I called it as a narrow French victory.

I will do this again probably on a 4x4 board rather than 2x4 with a bit more forethought, a proper scenario with objectives.

But as an experiment the little blocks work very well in my opinion. I could even use my ancients blocks for Hail Caesar.
What do you reckon?.

Dropzone Commander drops in!.

I've been painting up the Dropzone Commander Starter set that I was lucky enough to receive.

I had a try out today using the starter scenario from the set. Here are a few shots from the game.

 UCM, I painted these with a Soviet look as I found some of the photos in the rules reminiscent of Red Square parades.

 The UCM infantry.

 Scourge infantry.

 Scourge vehicles, I just copied the rule book scheme of purple and silver as I thought it looked best.

 Some action shots, I was rather reckless with the UCM dropships.

 A big scrap in one of the buildings.

 The Scourge evacuate an objective!.

And successfully steal another one to win the game.

Good game with simple rules but requiring tactical skill.

I'm going to have another game now...

Another quick game of Flames of War

I had a quick game of Flames of War this morning. Crucially the Allied air support failed to show up and the battle was a disaster for them as a result.
Here are a few photos taken at the end of the game.

I quite like FOW, it seems like a tank orientated game, it might be good with micro tanks.

Kings of War Horse and Musket game.

Tonight I had a game of Mantic Games rules Kings of War using some of my 18th Century imaginations collection.

The rules worked very well indeed and a very entertaining couple of hours was spent.

Here are a few staged shots after the game.

You don't need high fantasy armies to have a good game of Kings of War. The rules handled the horse and musket period in this test game without any wacky occurrences. The melee between the two light horse units went on a bit long but a tweak of my unit stats would sort that out.

The rules are free from Mantic Games, give them a try.

http://www.manticgames.com/free-rules.html

A quick game of Flames of War

I had a quick game of Flames of War tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it, below are a few photos of the action.

 As the Germans advance they come under attack by the RAF.

A British tank platoon charges over the bridge.

 As the other tanks line the riverbank to duel with a PaK 40 platoon and a StuG platoon. There wasn't much cover on the board so the game was fast and furious.

 The StuG platoon is overwhelmed by the firepower from the riverbank.

 Typhoon returning to base.

 The Typhoons attack the Tigers again.

 A British tank platoon machine guns the infantry.

The Allies storm over the bridge as the German company morale fails.

I've also had a couple of very enjoyable Memoir 44 games with my new Winter Wars expansion. On Thursday evening I had a good game of Kings of War using some of my 15mm ancients collection. It was very thought provoking and has a lot of wargaming potential for me.