FoGR - Eastern Mounted Bow

Finally sat down and painted up my last mounted bow.  These will be used for generic superior bow for various FoGR armies.  

Gruntz - Tank Assault!

Tamsin and I got Gruntz onto the table again.  The scenario was 300 points to Tamsin's tanks deployed off the table and had to get a randomly chosen vehicle off the other side of the table.

I had 250 points of infantry deployed on the table with no more than 100 points of tanks.

So, my UNSC deployed their newest tank, the Spider Heavy Assault tank.  Let's see how well a tank designed by committee and the lowest tender goes.

The table with a small settlement (buildings from the Ion Age range)

Tamsin's german tanks deployed off table, ready to move on

Hover Missile launcher tank

Hover tank with big gun

Hover AA tank, lots of barrels

The tanks arrive on table, it doesn't start well for the UNSC, a heavy missile launcher team get's killed in one turn.

The UNSC manage to kill one tank, but are getting hammered.  The Germans have built their tanks well

The Spider Assault tank fails to tank down the enemy tanks and gets nailed shortly afterwards

In the end, the UNSC were over run by the Germans very convincingly.  A committee has been formed to review the procurement of the tank to determine why it failed to meet set specifications.

The return of Ambush Alley rule set

The team over at Ambush Alley games have announced the return of their original set of rules, Ambush Alley.

I'm interested to see what they do with the rules as while the Force on Force rules are a lot of fun, they do have a high learning curve. 

I like their approach to not trying to ditch the current set of FoF rules and expansions like other vendors do.

FoF is one of those games that I want to play more of, just never get the time to do it.....

From the Ambush Alley site

When we followed Ambush Alley  up with the first edition of Force on Force in 2008, we expanded the scope of the game to larger, more conventional battlefields. Little did we know that book would attract the attention of Osprey Publishing and make Force on Force our major focus for nearly four years. After publishing a 2nd edition of FoF and eight companion books behind, we found ourselves nostalgic for the tighter scope of Ambush Alley. 

What's more, we've learned a lot in the past eight years (you guys are good teachers), and we really wanted to apply those lessons without gutting Force on Force. We're well aware that many of you have sunk a lot of your hard earned cash in FoF and its eight companion books and we really didn't feel right about putting out a new edition - it wouldn't have been a money grab, but it sure might have looked like one to some folks. We pride ourselves on being a game company run by gamers for gamers, so the last thing we want is to look like we're falling into some sort of planned obsolescence based version release strategy. We decided it would be a much better idea to kill two birds with one stone by putting out a new version of our much loved Ambush Alley  rules that incorporates the lessons we've learned in the "FoF years."

Campaign 2015

Last weekend the Central London team went off to the shopping mecha of Milton Keynes for the team competition, Campaign.

Campaign is one of our favourite comps as the themes are very tight and usually the power armies are excluded.

These were the periods for this years comp.

The Periods

1) By popular acclaim:

Last Trumpet of the Elephants, Southern Asia 1650-1698

Minimum of 4 Elephant bases, no more than 16 bases of Superior Battle Troops

Mughal
Vietnamese (May have Khmer allies)

Thai Burmese and Khmer (May have Portuguese allies)

Indonesian or Malaccan (must be an option that has Elephants),(may have Dutch allies if Johor Sultanate)

Hindu Indian (May have Dutch allies if Sinhalese Kingdom)

Muslim Indian

2) Close one but more peasants than religious fanatics in today’s war gamers:

Peasant Revolts and their Overlords. An army must have as many poor bases as it has sup/elite bases. (mob and LF count towards these totals)

Peasant Wars (Please specify your uprising)

German States 1524-1526 (may have German State allies, and use South or East Germany options)

Maximillian Imperial (no Italy options) 1514-1516

Hungarian 1514

Vasa Swedish 1542-1543 (Any bases may be downgraded too Poor to obey the poor/sup rule)

Early Danish 1534-1536 

3) A tie so Umpires choice:

Friends and Enemies of Charles II and his wife 1660-1685. 

Later Dutch included as although the war was fought at sea, there could have been a land battle.
Restoration British (Includes Tangiers and In Scotland options)
Later Spanish (Spain only)
Late Restoration Portuguese
North African States
Covenanting Rebels
Monmouth Rebellion
Later Dutch

I went for period 3 and took Later Dutch.

There were five teams and five games, so, the draw was nice and easy, everyone fights everyone.

We ended up 2nd place, which were very happy with.  Even better, the 2nd place prize was chocolate, so, something for the missus!

I managed three wins, a draw and a loss.

New Thunderbirds show

Something completely random, was walking past ITV studios and saw these in the window

Hannover FoGR

A wargaming club in Hannover put on their first FoGR comp and I went over to say hi.

I've never been to Hannover and what can I say, German Beer!

So, I dusted off the 30 Years War Germans and my new Castle baggage and made the journey over

Here is the runners and riders

Dave Allen – West Sudanese
Bodo Listner – Later TYW German
Stefan Liedtke – Later Luis XIV French
Andreas Grunwald – Kalmar Union
Frank Bauer – Early TYW Swedish
Thomas Peters – Kalmar Union
Martin Wirt – Mongol
Simon Lenz – Italian States
„Strand“ – Mughal
Ulrich Göppel – Italian States
Simon LeRay-Meyer – Later TYW German
Jürgen Müller – Later TYW German
Sebastian Welkerling – Early TYW Swedish
Christian Pelka – LoA Anglo-Dutch
Olivier Todorovic - Early TYW German Catholic
Partrick Gehm - Caroline Imperialist

The result?

I WON!

The Hannover club put on a nice and friendly comp and lots of beer, so what more could a gamer want?

The results

1. Simon L-M. 78,7
2. Dave A. 63,1
3. Thomas P. 59.0
4. Jürgen M. 56,6
5. Frank B. 55,7
6. Patrick G. 54,5
7. Martin W. 45,9
8. Stefan L. 44,6
9. Bodo L. 41,6
10. Gero 40,9
11. Ulrich G. 40,0
12. Simon L. 36,8
13. Christian P. 34,7
14. Olivier T. 32,0
15. Thomas F. 27,0
16. Andreas G. 26,6
17. Sebastian W. 17,3 

here a couple of photos

Game 1 vs Early 30 Years War German Protestants

My Marksburg castle is my baggage

The lunch offering, note the raw mince meat.......

Game 2 vs Kalamar Union

They be tough!

Now that is an Elephant C n C

Marienburg Castle, just outside Hannover

Roll Call 2015

And that was Roll Call 2015.

It was my first time at playing 25mm FoGR and it was a lot of fun.  Its less of a manoeuvre game than 15mm and more of a get stuck in.

I changed my army slightly and went for the 30 Years War French rather than Later Louis XIV.

The reason?  Cav.  The Later Louis needs Cav and I didn't have enough painted.

So, I ended up 4th.  I got two big wins, a draw and went down screaming in the final round.  A Samurai army showed the French why their swords are world renowned.

The players

A few pictures




Game 1 vs Scotts - Big Win

The French eying off the Scots

Scottish warriors coming charging towards the French

Game 2 vs League of Ausburg - Big win

Lots of shooting

The lines collide

Game 3 vs the Imperial Spanish - Draw
Lots of Elite foot

The two sides eye each other off and then decide, pub is a better option

Game 4 vs Samurai - Big loss

The Samurai line up against the French, it didn't go well for the French

Random photos