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The old year was drawing to a close and Sir Gawaine was visiting Old Stones Keep, the holding of Sir Vincent and Lady Johanna. The morning mists were just clearing and the common folk setting about their daily tasks when a horn sounded from a nearby wood. A lilting, almost insulting call, followed by a chorus of battle cries as Dearg Mor ( Big Red ), burst from the woods with a straggle of Picts at his heels. To Arms! To Arms! The enemy is upon us! " MY BULL! " bellowed Sir Vince, " He's after my Prize BULL! "  " TO HORSE!"  "Gawaine, I beg of you to stay and guard the Lady Joan while I teach this barbarian a lesson ". With that, the Lord of the Manor clattered down the stairs to arm for battle. Some of the herdsmen in the field  drove the various groups of cattle back towards safety while others raced to head off the attackers and drive them back. Archers manned the tower and knocked their bows waiting for an enemy rash enough to come in ran...

Just a little teaser.

I think this little skirmish played 10 years ago might have been the first game for my nascent Prince Valiant collection. (See my Prince Valiant page for more) In any event the majority of the games have used Medieval Mayhem, a set of rules written by Rob Dean ( with some input from me ) in 2002 and later published in Battlegames. Its still a viable choice but I've been playing around with other ideas, usually for more of an old  school "battle" set of rules but this is supposed to be my one "skirmish" game so I'm taking another run at it. My first thought was to go back to Mayhem but recently The Duke of Tragardland did a  blog post  about skirmish games on a map with irregularly shaped areas which suddenly reminded me of the one shot  Privateer Raid game  using irregular areas I did five years ago.  (Click here to see the rules) I'd actually forgotten that this game was why I made my little wooden houses! Reviewing that post got my brain cranking o...

Count Jehan shows Gawaine his prize bull and two recent additions to his herd, Aurochs! ( Small Aurochs to be sure but still mighty beasts. ) Gawaine suggests he double the night watch since Saxon ships have been seen offshore.

On Boxing Day morning, the convoy resumed its trek towards Fort Henry.  The occasional BOOM of the Fort's canon and Crack! Crack! of a rebel sharpshooter reassured that the fort was still held for the Queen. As the column approached the little village of Presdelac, shots rang out The steamer pressed forward under a hot fire while the relief column attacked vigorously on a broad front only to suffer heavy losses in a very short amount of time. General Ross was forced to call off the attack and fall back. Overview of the table.  After lunch and a discussion of tactics and the rules of war, the men were ready for another go. This time the approach was made more cautiously and improved tactics were used in accordance with the latest regulations.  Fierce fighting.  A coordinated attack on one flank of the village was successful while this time the steamer was able to push on under the heavy fire until they sighted the fort and were able to signal an order to sortie o...

Hold on boys, Christmas dinner is on its way! Merry Christmas to all my readers and their families and companions large and small. May there be food and drink, warmth and good cheer, and....TOYS!

Idle time approaches!  Hopefully the relief of the siege, well, blockade really, of Fort Henry is near. (S ee Dominion Day Train Tide and following post. ) In the meantime, amongst other things, I had a quick review of 2019's Toy Soldier games, then I looked at 2018's games. There were some good games in both years but only 1/2 as many games in 2019. It was hard not to question whether or not the decrease in number of games was due to the decision to go from 2 stand, 6 figure, units and the Square Brigadier rules to 8 individually based figure units using various proposed off grid rules which didn't last from game to game.  I've decided that 2019 should end as 2018 did, with a  Square Brigadier Toy Soldier game. Designing the scenario is in progress.

"Those are Toy Soldiers Bigawd!" some General is supposed to have exclaimed.  (or not) Gratuitous close up of my homecast,  original,  US infantry  ( apart from the Zinnbrigade drummer .) Yesterday I managed to finish fiddling with the rules ( for now ) and get a game on the table. Since, at this particular point, I was most interested in how it played as a game, I chose one of Thomas's One Hour scenarios, "Counter Attack". A scenario which I had previously played with other rules and enjoyed. Since "Blue", is the attacker, approaching from the south, once again the colours matched the armies and seemed perfectly suited to the historical setting. In this case the British have one unit holding a critical bridge while the Americans have all of their 6 units gathered around a critical village on the southern table edge. On Turn 3 the other 5 British units arrive and have access to 2 secret fords across the river. Victory is achieved by holding both the vi...

In many ways, the War of 1812 makes an ideal setting for Old School wargames. Well, unless you want massed cavalry charges  and huge armies that is. However, like a lot of Old School games with single figures, the logistics of setting up and clearing away are considerable and the games themselves can take a full afternoon or evening to reach a conclusion so they are more of a "main event" than what Neil Thomas calls Practical. A test of the Fort Meigs game I took to Huzzah! in 2013 using single figures and With MacDuff to the Frontier.  Fair enough, but there is a time and place for almost everything and my plan calls for a mix of Practical and Impractical games. Since the War of 1812 lost out to the Not Quite Seven Years war as my Impractical Horse and Musket wargame it was elected to be one of what Stuart Asquith called "A Game in a Box": a small game, quick to layout, quick to play, quick to clear away and easily stored. I have other collections that can do raids...

The Americans are now rebased and I have a draft of a new set of rules which will allow me to refight historical War of 1812 battles within 1 to 2 hours including set up and take down. Here they come again!   I'll have more to say on this but its late.

The British half of the 1812 Reorganize and Refit has completed stage 1 with 5 infantry, 6 skirmisher and 1 artillery units being rebased and I took advantage of the lack of other urgent hobby 'todo' things to finally convert one stand of Light Infantry into Voltigeurs, and repainted the facings on 1/2 the 89th Foot from black to green thus rebadging them to the 49th Foot.    Scruby British/Canadian Light Infantry with shakos carved up a bit to make fur caps and a quick change of clothes. (Yes, should have stripped them first but...) I hemmed and hawed a bit but decided to let stand my decision to keep a few of my 1837 Rebellion British units in the OB despite their having slightly different hats. After all, there after all, there are more than enough stragglers from "done that" 1/2 finished 'projects' hiding  in the cupboard and some of them may as well come out and play since I'm not in the mood to paint yet more War of 1812 figures. This means the much...

 Word reached Brooklyn early on Saturday morning that the Americans had stolen a march and the Bangor Rifles were already across the bridge on the Ste Croix. General MacDonald send messengers to the garrisons at Newport Landing and Poplar Grove to march to the Ste Croix bridge on the Windsor Road and headed out himself with the two battalions he had with him. After peppering the approaching British column, the Bangor Rifles moved to a flanking position in the woods just north of the road, leaving room for the rapidly approaching infantry to cross over and take up a defensive position across the bridge.  However, the British seized the initiative and while the first column  doubled down the road and blocked the road, a second column appeared from nowhere and hit the Rifles from the rear. They put up a fierce fight but were heavily outnumbered and surrounded. The survivors sullenly laid down their arms.  As the two armies continued to bring up reinforcements, the leadi...

I'm getting closer! Haven't had enough free time yet to play but I have managed to finally get the table set for a Saturday War of 1812 game. I randomnly chose a One Hour Wargame getting a surprise river crossing from the South by Blue.  Wasn't hard to decide which army was going to be "Blue".

Not much hobby time recently but I decided that I needed a quick game today. A War of 1812 Square Brigadier game seemed about right. About 2 years ago I decided that having done 1812 for 20 years in 54mm and 40mm at various level from skirmish games to refighting historical battles, I didn't want to continue as I had been doing but neither did I want to drop it. A few test games showed that a Square Brigadier version was just right for short, easy to set up and play, One Hour style games. More experiments showed that 2 stand, 12 figure infantry units on the 6" grid worked well for me. They could also supply 1 stand units for use on the 3" grid portable board.  All I had to do was rearrange my existing units and  rebase, touch up or add a few figures to fill out my existing 40mm British and American armies. So there I was, starting to consider scenarios,  then I looked at the cluster of figures in three different basing systems with various organizations and a few figures ...