Battles of the Week, 17 July 2016

Before I get to the week's battles, I owe a pitch to the game I played this weekend, a modern action involving some mercenaries trying to kidnap an African colonel to facilitate the rescue of western executives held hostage by a despotic regime.

Read the whole thing.

In a related vein, Band of Wargame Brothers has a modern African campaign playing out here:  Part 1 (setting) and Part 2 (gameplay), using a combination of the Force on Force rules that I enjoy so much in combination with other modern rules.  Big board, very cool.

Preacher by Day has a Pulp Alley game posted, a unique diplomatic/social contest.

Hook Island has some Hail Caesar! posted, with Greeks versus Persians in a battle from antiquity.

Campaigns in Miniature has a report on a Flames of War tournament.

Kaptain Kobold has some Saga action with Anglo-Danes, Welsh, and Normans squaring off.

Into the Maelstrom has some Napoleonics posted, pretty cool pics.  And some Warhammer 30k posted, too.

Until next week, happy wargaming!

Battles of the Week, 10 July 2016

Another week, another batrep roundup.

But first, you should check out my latest fantasy skirmish game in the Campaign for the Darkened Wood, played with the Savage Worlds Showdown rules, where the king's men take his tax collecting cousin for a stroll in the woods, only to be ambushed by Robb and his rebel archers.

And here's what everyone else was up to this week:

Speaking of fantasy battles, Bob has some Dragon Rampant posted.

Big FoF has a violent what-if Brexit scenario, with Muslim and Christian militias tangling with each other and the army.

Sound Officer's Call plays some Napoleonics with Blucher, and Joy and Forgetfulness has a Napoleonic game set in Spain.

Campaigns in Miniature re-fights the Battle of Dettingen,

Wargaming with Barks gives a write up of the Bloodbowl event the Eucalyptus Bowl this week, and posts another of his wonderful comic book-formatted Star Wars games.

Kaptain Kobold gives us some superhero action with Clobberin' Time, where Captain UK and Captain America take on some villains.  Sadly, my main man falls prey to those villains' villainous ways.  The good Kaptain also gives us some Chain of Command.

Baron Von J has his own superhero game up, with the Liberty Legion squaring off against evil Axis villains.

Sparkers Wargames provides some magnificent, grand scale Gettysburg Day 2 that's just a feast for the eyes.

Big Lee posted a Carthaginian cavalry clash, played with the next generation of wargamer.

Here's a Chain of Command game, the Korsun Pocket, from three different write-ups... Sediment's, Counterpane's, and Renegade of the Atomic Age's.

Into the Maelstrom has some WH40k posted, played on a pretty spiffy game board.  And a really neat Rorke's Drift-style LoTR game.

Battles of the Week, 27 June 2016

The boys and I played a game of Car Wars.  Our three mostly-painted cars had a close fight, you should read the whole thing.

Everyone else on the internet was reasonably busy.

Kaptain Kobold has a game of SAGA up, with Vikings squaring off against a coalition of folks who don't appreciate being raided.  A close-run thing.

Speaking of close-run things, go check out the MASSIVE Waterloo game that Kaptain Kobold pointed out to me.  Truly epic.

Baron Von J has a post-apocalyptic variation on Fistful of Lead in playtesting.  Pretty cool, but the playing cards-western shootout thing is a much tighter connection than poker and the end of the world.

Found a new (to me) gaming blog, Double Six, which has a couple neat batreps up:  one from a Mordheim game, another from a LoTR game.  And a Dux Bellorum mini-campaign from 565 AD, part 1 and part 2.  Site added to the blog roll.

Speaking of eras I've never gamed, here's a prehistoric wargame report.  Beautiful miniatures, surprisingly cool.

Wargaming with Barks continues a Star Wars comic-formatted campaign - part 1, part 2, and part 3.

And here's some video batreps I've stumbled upon - one in a system called Relic Worlds, which is based on the Savage Worlds Showdown system, which I'm a fan of and have used in fantasy gaming (see here and here).  And here's a video batrep in the LoTR world - the main page and the YouTube video link.

Wargaming4grownups has a World War I AAR up, with a neat way to play 'cards' for initiative.  Campaigns in Miniature has a World War II desert game up replaying the Italian invasion of Egypt in 1940.  Their result is characteristically Italian for the period.

Hook Island has a rather good-looking game up played in Liber Militum Tercios, while Platoon Forward has a "milk run" mission in the Green Zone posted... no such thing.

Battles of the Week, 19 June 2016

In case you missed it, the boys and I played some more Force on Force, posted here.  It's an expanded version of the Contracting Trouble scenario from the FoF rule book.

And here's what everyone else was busy with:

Into the Maelstrom wins the internet this week with a great game of Bloodbowl featuring Elves versus Humans (Part 1).  Narration is in the pictures, so if your browser supports it, you may be able to just click through the pictures like a slideshow.  Works great in Chrome.  He also has an LoTR battle posted, with Nazgul chasing Hobbits.

Speaking of click-through slideshows, the same worked for this Star Wars:  Imperial Assault game from Wargaming with Barks.

Joy and Forgetfulness has a quirky Napoleonics game up and a Victorian Afghanistan battle posted.  The latter is quite fun.

For some more Napoleonics, check out Kaptain Kobold's big Waterloo game.  I've always wanted to play one of these expansive affairs.

Fawcett Avenue Conscripts has a tournament dungeon crawl game up, played with the Otherworld fantasy skirmish rules.  I'm not acquainted with the rules, but it looks like it was fun.

Toy Soldiers and Dining Room Battles has a LoTR battle report posted in two parts - Part 1 and Part 2.

And, as usual, we close with Frostgrave.  Nerdly Darkness has a game on a neat hand-crafted board up, complete with an ancient library.

Battles of the Week, 11 June 2016

Another week, another round of battles.

First off, the boys and I played another chapter in the Modern Warfare:  Alien Invasion campaign, this time with a game set in the Middle East, where US Mechanized forces on a training mission in Kuwait are suddenly pushed into a fight for Kuwait City.

We do not come in peace.

I also played a game of Force on Force with the boys, which I'll have posted sometime this week.  And we've been busy with painting a number of things.  One of them being Hotwheels/Matchbox cars for Car Wars, inspired by this outstanding event.  Stay tuned.

Speaking of Force on Force, Platoon Forward has an AAR up with FoF rules mixed with Combat Patrol.  He ditches the FoF activation/reaction rules, which I think are actually quite good.  To each their own.

And before I go any further, Nerdly Darkness wins the internet with this outstanding Force on Force game with a wild twist.  Go read it, seriously.

Kaptain Kobold posts a strong second-place showing (won last week) for this Batrep of the X-Men versus the Fantastic Four.  And he's got an epic 17th Century game posted as well.

Baron Von J has some Black Powder ACW and a review of Star Wars Armada.

Sound Officer's Call has Quatre Bras in 10mm...check in to see if it follows history.

Speaking of Napoleonics, here's the battle of Marengo.

And, here's Preacher by Day's 100th Post, with a link to his handy urban tile tutorial that I hope to follow up on soon.

If you need some pulp adventure, go check out Allan Quartermain at the Earth's Core.

Wargaming with Barks has a Star Wars batrep up in comic book format... pretty cool.  I wonder how much extra work it is to use that format.

Fawcett Avenue Conscripts has some Epic 30k up - a pretty one-sided affair.

Craig has some more Bolt Action posted, with Free French versus Germans.

And, as is becoming tradition, I close with Frostgrave.  This week, it's from Wee Blokes.

Batrep Roundup, 4 June 2016

Well, it's been a bit more than a week since my last Battles of the Week report, so this will just be a Batrep Roundup.  Lots of tabs to clear.

First things first - you should check out my Memorial Day game of Force on Force with the boys.  Set in modern Syria, with US special operators and Kurds making a lightning raid on a pesky GPS jammer that's holding up the bombing campaign against ISIS.

US operators departing the objective.

This AAR has also been added to my Force on Force:  Iraq (maybe it should be Iraq/Syria?) page and Force on Force:  Special Operations page.  Check them all out.

Here's what everyone else has been up to:

Winners of the Internet:  This title is temporarily held jointly by Kaptain Kobold for his superhero batrep focusing on Excalibur (extra points for semi-obscure comic title - I've got issue #1 in my closet) and Natholeon with the adventures of Delta Wave.

Sound Officer's Call has been busy.  Here's the second half of the Napoleonics report I highlighted in my last post.  Here's a 2-part World War II game with Germans and Soviets squaring off:  Part 1 and Part 2.  And a surprisingly good experience with Axis & Allies Miniatures.

Baron Von J has a neat battle report focusing on the French Foreign Legion in Mexico, where they have another opportunity to give their lives in a miserable place for the glory of France.

More outstanding LoTR from Into the Maelstrom.  And another battle in that game by Little Wars VA with some cool terrain pieces and about a hundred models on the field.

ForkusPrimordius has an Infinity batrep up, with some great modular terrain on display.

The Man Cave's gladiator campaign kicked off.  Not a genre I've ever played, but it seems one could have a good setup on the cheap.

Some gorgeous Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes over at Stalker 7's place.

Title of the Week:  The Conclusion of the Bloody Battle of Hacking and Slashig with some Roaring and Rolling of dice on the Kitchen Table.  Ha!  Site added to the blogroll.

Rabbits in My Basement has a modern Afghanistan AAR up.  And BIG Force on Force has a what-if violent Brexit game posted - here's the mission briefing and the gameplay.

Craig's got a game of Bolt Action up, with Free French versus Zee Germans.

The Fawcett Avenue Conscripts have several Necromunda games posted.  Very cool.

Here's some American War of Independence played with the Guns of Liberty rules.  I understand that the rules are due to be released by a commercial publishing house, looking forward to picking them up.

Preacher by Day has a couple more Pulp Alley games up - a VIP Escort and follow-on Investigation scenarios.

And finally, a Frostgrave roundup:  Two from Fencing Frog - Lair of the Ice Spider and The Hanghaied Princess; The Dark Templar suffers losses in a game that got nasty (discussing the probability curves of the Frostgrave rules and coming up wanting) and chronicles his warband's recovery; and one battle shown from three different perspectives - Illusionist, Necromancer, and Druid.

That's all for now.  I played another game with my boys last weekend that I've yet to write up, so check back in soon for the AAR.

Battles of the Week, 15 May 2016

Another week, another roundup of the week's best in battle reports.

First, I should note that I finally got around to playing a game and writing it up.  Here's the first chapter in my new campaign, Modern Warfare: Alien Invasion.  I've been searching for a rule set that can smoothly handle superheroes mixed in with hordes of henchmen, and not found what I'm looking for.  So I'm writing my own set of rules, with a working title of Heroes, Heavies, and Hordes.  Before I throw in superheroes, however, I'm going to ensure that it gets combat right.  More reports to follow.

Battle of the Week:  Big Lee wins the internet this week with a pirate treasure hunt skirmish game.  Gorgeous board, good write-up.  Would love to do something like this sometime.

Close runner up:  Bridge of Kazad Dum at Into the Maelstrom, recreating the iconic battle from The Fellowship of the Ring.

Little Wars VA has a Team Yankee AAR up.  I remember reading both the novel and the comic book back in the day.

Some Napoleonics up at Sound Officers Call!  I've never fallen in love with this genre, but have seen some amazing day-long games recreating Jena and Waterloo.

Kaptain Kobold takes his 40k on the road, which looks like a very relaxing time.  And some WW II Chain of Command, with a good-looking board and minis.

Battlegroup Overlord at This War Without an Enemy.  Glad to see someone else digs 20mm/1-72 scale.

And, it wouldn't be a week without a bit of Frostgrave, this time from The Miniatures Man.  I've never played the game, but it does produce a lot of great batreps.

Battles of the Week, 1 May 2016

Great week for gaming for a lot of folks.  I've been in the garage crafting terrain, so another game will get played shortly with some snazzier woods.  Here's the weekly roundup of batreps/AARs:

Battles of the Week:  Pulp Alley campaign from two perspectives.  Here's one battle from the Egyptian cultists' perspective (great looking website, by the way), and as viewed by the Vatican's hit squad.  Here's a second battle, as viewed by the Egyptians, and again from the Vatican's pew. Apparently, priests make great snacks for giant spiders and sea monsters.  Both sites added to the blogroll.

Shakowkings has two good battles up - a pulpy game of 7TV2 and a game simulating a viking raid using the Blood Eagle rules.  What's brilliant is that the vikings are the characters from the History Channel show, Vikings, and Blood Eagle is an episode named after a particularly nasty method of execution.

Golden Age Supers at the Baron's place.  Gets extra points for superhero gaming.  I need to get back to my planned Avengers campaign.

AWI over at Steve's place.  Very cool.

To The Strongest at Big Lee's place, as he's indoctrinating a member of the next generation of wargamers.

LoTR at Little Wars VA.  Good game.  I'm very pleased with the minis associated with this game, though I've never played it, and my ability to buy them on eBay, painted, for $2 or less a piece.  GW's marketing decisions continue to suck in tons of new wargamers who leave the hobby a year or two later and flood the market with their now unwanted painted minis.  I'm not complaining.

Battlesworn old west shootout at The Stronghold Rebuilt.  Great mashup of game and genre.  If you missed it, here's his pulp Battlesworn batrep, Fu Manchu's Halls of Horror.  And here's some ACW for you, a DBA post with some fantastic pics, and another battle in his One Hour Wargames project.  Dude is just killin' it.

Starship Troopers at Skill Level 0.  Visually impressive battle report.  Good looking stuff; adding to the blogroll.

WH40K at Into the Maelstrom.  Part 2 of a campaign.  Check it out.  Napoleonics at Into the Maelstrom.  LoTR at Into the Maelstrom.  Triple duty in three different genres.  Impressive - adding to the blogroll.

Preacher by Day has a sci-fi Pulp Alley game up.  Recommend you go there and read the archives - a whole slew of cool Pulp Alley games using WH40K minis are posted.  Added to my blogroll.

Frostgrave over at Anatoli's Gameroom.  Great looking board.  Added to the blogroll.

Handy tip:  Wee Blokes provides a link to free paper terrain from Osprey for Frostgrave (though it works fine for any game, so long as you need a ruined city for your battlefield).

Battles of the Week, 17 April 2016

Here's the batreps that I enjoyed the most this week:

Song of Blades and Heroes at Stalker 7 - Best looking game of the week.  Absolutely beautiful, great gameplay and pictures.

Epic Napoleonic game at Big Lee's - I've seen these games played, never participated.  Hope to do that someday.

Necromunda League at Fawcett Avenue Conscripts - Good looking game.  It's a shame that Games Workshop lost interest in supporting this game.

Fistful of Lead variants at Baron Von J's Blog - Cool scenery, and I believe that the downed "spaceship" is an old G.I. Joe toy.  Got one in the garage.

Battlesworn at The Stronghold Rebuilt - Great game that comes right down to the wire, as the scenario intended.  Definitely worth a look.

Naval Thunder at Campaigns in Miniature - Never played this game, but it looks good.

Fighting Sail at Bob's place - Another maritime game, this time pointing out a potential flaw in an Osprey set of rules.

Neil Thomas One Hour Wargames battle for McPherson's Ridge at Sound Officer's Call - Beautiful, detailed, and historically accurate game.

Xin's Lair - Two games of note that I've read at this blog:  (1) a huge convention Frostgrave game with an epic, multi-scale battleground that was put together, at least partially, at the last minute - very impressive; (2) an old-school Warhammer Fantasy Battle game.  Adding this blog to my reading list.

Finally, not a battle report, but cool nonetheless - the GURPS stats calculated for the M41 Pulse Rifle of Aliens fame, and a video of a working mock-up that someone made.  Pretty cool.