Down load pc games

Huzzah 2019 is over, preparations for 2020 have begun! I'm a little stuck at the moment since I need some modelling putty for conversions and for some new master figures but these Prince August SYW Hussars will do fine as les Hussards de la Mort. Image from Wiki article. Sure, in some realities they only lasted as an independent unit until 1793 but on my wargames table, well, the possibilities are unlimited! Don't worry though, the usual variety of posts and periods will now resume.

Nothing like a casual game to wind down after a good but busy convention. Since Rob already had an actual   copy of A Gentleman's Wargame and   Vicky volunteered to play,  Rob was able to GM which was a big help in learning on the go. Ready to Roll. There is a long series of sharp photographs detailing the action which no one took so this is it. We both fielded  4 infantry, a gun and a cavalry unit but this time we used the distinctions. I went with a fire bonus for my battery and my unit which was actually aiming, plus something for the grenadiers.  I can't remember the enemy's distinctions with any certainty. My plan was to stick my gun on the hill supported by my cavalry and a line of infantry then await attack while I carried out a long range bombardment. The resulting firefight was prolonged but the opposing lines were not initially parallel and my artillery was closer so I had a distinct numerical advantage at the start. The result was that Vicky...

This will be a very short post as there are much better pictures and background here:  der resin kavalier blog That's me on a horse, behind the gun. :) It was Saturday night, I was dead tired, I love Charge! and I love 54mm.  This was enough to make me nostalgic for my 54mm plastic 1812 and AWI armies, just not nostalgic enough to be tempted to rebuild them. It was a real pleasure to play with these ones though. What better way to end an excellent weekend of gaming and talking than to play in a game of 54mm Charge! run by veteran gamer Alan Coughlin?  There isn't one really. Overview but really, check out Alan's blog for some actual pictures of these beautiful toy soldier armies and a  2 part battle report. And that was a wrap, just another breakfast with 7 friends at the Cracker Barrel next door and then...well....and then Rob said "We have time for another AGW game after breakfast".  We're not done yet folks!

Saturday afternoon was what I thought of as our main game though it wasn't much bigger than the previous game once I'd scaled down the unit sizes and table size so we could finish in the time available. I figured 4-6 players would be optimum but was prepared for as few as 1 (or none) with GM's playing or as large as 8. Happily we had 4 players once I succeeded in pressing  Don into service ( with the permission of his wife of course ). The game begins! The scenario was a slight adaptation of Sittingbad, the sample battle from the venerable Charge! rules but played using the FINAL ( Stop sniggering in the back!) version of my With MacDuff to the Frontier rules which were originally published in The Courier in 1997. The game uses a card activation system which allows 1 unit or group of units to act on each card with one side being assigned 1 colour or sometimes 1 suite in multi faction games. The scenario is a delaying action which requires one side to hold up waves of attac...

Home at last! ( Stopped to enjoy some family time and not to mention watching GofT finale in good company. (I liked it btw, pretty close to what I had been expecting for a while but that's not relevant here. ) Back to Huzzah!. Friday night's game was the first ambush scenario from CS Grant's Scenarios for Wargames. This is another old favourite that I have played scores of times and in almost every scale and period. Easy to draw, hard for either side to win. This time the rules were With MacDuff to the Frontier. Pictures are a bit scarce on this one and pretty low quality due to low lighting and inadequate skill on the part of the cameraman. The King Michael Pandours begin their long struggle to push back and eliminate the enemy skirmishers .  The convoy under Brent and Arofan took a rare and ( imho ) rash decision to press ahead with the whole escort, leaving the wagons to trundle on alone without an escort. Luckily for them, the ambushers under Eric and Vicky decided to f...

Not quite home yet but there's time for a blog post. Rob and I RV'd nicely, arriving at our destination about an hour apart after each making an approach march of about 1,000 km. How's that for converging columns? Rosmark's forces deploy. To keep things simple I set out a few terrain pieces and we deployed symmetrical forces.   Rob had grabbed a free table and there was just time for a test game of Howard Whitehouse's new A Gentleman's War rules. I proposed 3 objectives: the 2 houses and the hill. Victory going to the one who held 2 at the end. The Shuffling-Bushwackers deploy. (I may have spelled that wrong...or maybe I've accidently used the Rosmark slang for the enemy. ...)    After lots of page flipping we were ready and the first card was drawn. The game was atable! (Sic) Red for Rosmark! Whats the range on artillery again?"..."FIRE!"    First shot, first blood . Rob's Light infantry seized the first house and he was going to take t...

Oops meant to make time for some quick blog posts but between yacking with friends and playing 4 games in 2 days....well... Great con with a LOT of great games and great people. More later.

Up packs!  Time to go, and... we're off!  That's us, Martin in the driver's seat and me in the coach crossing over the Kennetcook towards the Wentworth Pass and points South. Hopefully everything that is needed is in the bins and bags or can be borrowed, bought or improvised on site!  We fully expect reports to be wired in by our correspondent at the front. Meanwhile, for your listening pleasure: The Corries with "We're no awa to bide awa"

No its not that I decided to put aside more important things to add 6 figures to the Rosmark Provincial Regiment so that I can take it to Huzzah rather than one of 3 other regiments. No, if you look at the picture you see a crumpled, empty, tube of superglue like glue. Empty! I don't think I have ever suceeded in accessing all the contents of a tube yet. I even poked a hole in the side when I couldn't get anyout despite sending a probe down  the nozzle to be sure it was clear. It would be hubris to claim that I was learning, and it is a small tube, but we'll see how the next one goes.

I'm not quite ready for this year's Huzzah, almost but not quite. So, logically (?) I started work on next year's game by doing a test conversion of a F&IW highlander into a War of the First Coalition or French Revolutionary War highlander. I'm not convinced the full belted plaid was worn over to the Low Countries but I have two uniform paintings of it being worn so that's good enough for me.  A picture borrowed from..... somewhere on the net (oops should have made a note) . This game is only in the Proof of Concept stage but the idea is promising. It will be A Gentleman's Wargame affair based around Rob's collection of 40+mm homecast figures which he converted and painted for a series of Scarlet Pimpernel skirmish games 10 or 15 years ago. A picture of one of Rob's Scarlet Pimpernal games from....some Cold Wars a decade or so ago. The  armed sans culottes guarding the wagons are examples of my fairly early sculpting. Picture taken from Rob's blo...

Thanks to all who left a comment they were much appreciated.  For much of the last forty years I have had a sort of fear of being thought conventional. That has receded so while I still abjure trendiness, I'm no longer harbouring a secret urge to be different for the sake of being different. In this case, once the idea of an old toy approach hit me, I was uncertain if I liked it or just thought it quirky and something different. So I asked for opinions  and have decided to allow myself to be persuaded by them to follow my original plan and keep my customary fluff. (Not cotton balls though, salvaged stuffing from ex-pillows and deceased stuffed toys. Waste not etc.. ) I am, however, going to press on with gluing this to a base to raise it to muzzle height and to try to discourage it from floating off on the slightest draft in search of a tree or house to snag itself on. After various internal debates about things like hiding the post in a bush, I've decided to paint it sky colo...

A few days ago, I was gathering up the various bits of fluff that I use to indicate  units that have fired, and thinking about Huzzah.  I decided that it was time to upgrade, but how? What looks better, the "toy" version with just paint or the fluff version?  My first idea was just to get some sort of base to make the fluff ( aka fibrefill ) easier to deploy, control and collect during games. Since I had some spare foamcore on hand, I decided to use  that as a base and glue the fluff to it. The fluffy prototype.   However, while assembling them, it occurred to me that a painted version would be suggestive of the old painted toy soldier explosions  that were sometimes sold with sets of toy soldiers, especially painted flat and semiflat toy soldiers. They would also be easier to store and transport. Hmmmm... One of the Toy Soldier version prototypes. With "real" toy soldiers. I'm used to fluff as smoke and have myself brainwashed to see it as "smoke" BUT...

Not the battle on the table, though it had its moments, it was the struggle in my head. Luckily, Victory has been declared! The 2nd Battalion of the Highland Brigade goes in ! This week I had the luxury of time and the intent to "find" my game for my toy soldiers. Ideally one should know what one wants to do before setting out to do it but my desires were too vague and past good experiences and familiar systems and assumptions were pulling me in several different,  opposing directions as far as not just mechanisms but what I want to show overtly, In short, I didn't know exactly what I wanted, I just knew very clearly that I wanted it. The Black Watch attacked after heavy losses in a prolonged firefight but were met by a hail of 5's and 6's and repulsed.    I played the first 6 turns using 8 or more variations on about 4 different  sets of rules.  Some of these were based on one or another of my own past rules, others were based on Featherstone or Morschauser wit...

One doesn't often hear a reference to Clan Macfarlane in song but I found one today. Hmm I'm not sure, but I think we've been insulted despite helping the MacGregors allies come to their aid......perhaps its as well we're not often mentioned. ( Update, did a bit more digging, it seems we also contributed fighting men which explains why the Macfarlanes were proscribed along with the MacGregors. I've long known we had been prescribed around then but the reason had always been vague. ) The Bloody Sarks A song about the Battle of Glen Fruin  which led to Clan MacGregor being outlawed. lyrics taken from  https://www.kinglaoghaire.com   The young McGregor o Glen Strae wi eighty o his men Upon the Argyll sleekit word pit Finla's glen a flame The burning theiving hieland rant drove a the beast awa And left ahint twa dirkit men to perish in the snaw By Fallisdall the letter come frae black Dumbarton toon To show the way they were tae bring McGregor doon The bloody sarks ...

Two weeks from today I leave for Huzzah!. While I could pack up and go tomorrow, there is still  a lot I'd like to do to get ready and it looks like the next week at least will  be ideal for much needed yardwork and gardening. Two expected down days have been compromised by  unexpected domestic duties. There has been some time to work on honing my 54mm rules but not enough time to get play more than a turn or two.  I really like the way the game is  heading though with a blend of old and new ideas but soon I need to haul my mind away from matters toy soldier and back to preparing terrain and figures for Huzzah. Don't be fooled by the absence of a grid, this game is intended to be able to played either on or off grid. Having gotten the scale monster our of my head for a bit, I've settled on a 4 figure "company" as the basic unit. ( Essentially what fits in a 4" square. ) This may be independent or be grouped into "battalions" of 2-4 companies. A coup...

Back in the 70's there was a set of Quick Play Napoleonic rules published in Gene McCoy's Wargamer's Digest which was a bit of a shock to a young gamer deep into WRG and indoctrinated in the importance of scale and detail. I forget the author and details of the rules but I remember the aim including something like being "close enough to smell the powder but not close enough to be burnt". I like that thought. Experience has shown me that fast and simple is good BUT it can also border on boring if one isn't careful. I put considerable effort into getting my Toy Soldier rules adjusted to where troops moved up into range and quickly got bogged down in a firefight as seems to have often happened in the historical actions I was using for inspiration. It didn't make for a great gaming experience though and didn't encourage the deployment of more units on an already crowded battlefield given the theoretical scales. It also reminded me that past attempts have s...