Sunday, January 21, 2018

In Sunny Italy

I headed up the valley yesterday for a game at Jeff's place (Armchair Commander blog). What with one thing and another we ended up with only 3 on the day instead of the hoped for 6-7 players but three was more than sufficient for a very enjoyable social gaming day.

Me on the table.
A 15mm Battle Honours FRW Austrian General that I painted back in the late '80s/early 90's but who now fights for Jeff. The stand with him is the remnant of a brigade about to launch  a final Death or Glory charge.

Jeff had the Battle of Raab set up in 15mm for Commit the Guard. These are a set of army level rules with Brigade sized units for play on hexes. It was only my 2nd time with the rules but I'm starting to get a handle on them and they flowed well and provided an enjoyable game with a reasonable feel. 

Its also a set with upside down dice, which is to say that 1's are good, 6's bad. I like to think my tactics were appropriate but I'm afraid that what would have been a horrible dice day with many rules, turned 'appropriate' into 'brilliant'.

Reviewing the rules before we start.The hex mat was homemade by Jeff.

In any event my mostly militia light cavalry managed to successfully defend the river crossing against superior numbers of France's Italian minions and Elite French cavalry. Technically we were only halfway through the wargame scenario when we had to call it but it ended with a bang when  my leader  led the remnants of one of my regular Hussar brigades forward routing a French cavalry brigade through  an Italian Brigade formed in Square and following up to disperse the infantry as well, wiping out the last French bridgehead in my sector, but dying at the head of the exhausted Hussars.

Late afternoon, just before the second French offensive established two short live bridgeheads on their right flank.

An excellent day with friends and miniatures.

6 comments:

  1. Nice battlefield, the 15mm are a good match to the grid. Would the game have been big enough for 6 - 7 players?

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    1. Yes the figures fit well on the 4" grid but I was so used to seeing the units as battalions that it was hard to remember that they were brigades! 20mm plastic would also do well.

      Probably the optimum number would have been a non-player GM and 4 players (the GM largely because we were still learning) but there was easily room for 3 or even 4 per side and the game would have moved much faster with all the players on a side acting at the same time. With only 1 French player, there was no advantage to have 2 Austrians because the game is very interactive and you need a player from both sides for everything except a straight move at a distance from any enemy.

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  2. Looks great, what a beautiful battlefield!

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  3. Nice looking game Ross and fantastic painting of those tiny figures.

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    1. Only a handful were painted by me and that was over 20 years ago!

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