Battles of the Week, 9 August 2016

Sorry, no games to post over the last couple of weeks.  Been busy, but I had the chance to finish painting a few minis:

The minis are from Enfilade Figures' insurgent range.  It's good to have some dudes with AKs that aren't too Middle Eastern-looking and could probably be tough guys from anywhere.

I was delighted to find someone else playing a game somewhat similar to my Modern Warfare:  Alien Invasion campaign.  Dust, Tears & Dice has a game posted with near-future Russians fighting off alien battle droids.  Very cool.

Bob in Edmonton has a Black Ops game up set in the Prohibition Era, with G-Men and gangsters facing off over an illegal liquor still.  I may need to pick up that rule set, if just for the stealth infiltration aspect.

World War II roundup:  some Battlegroup Overlord at This War Without an Enemy, Sound Officer's Call has a Historicon game of Battlegroup:  Kursk posted, and Craig has a whole tournament of Flames of War from Panzershrek 2016 posted - Game 1, Game 2, Game 3, Game 4, and Game 5.

Big Lee has a massive Romans versus German barbarians game up, you should check it out.

Sediment has an ACW game and a Cold War gone hot game posted, both good reads.

Rabbits in My Basement has an old-school Afghanistan game up, and there's some WH40K over at both Fawcett Avenue Conscripts and Tim's blog.

Fantasy battles:  Fencing Frog has some Dragon Rampant posted, here's a Frostgrave battle from two perspectives - Stanley's and Mike's, and a very positive review of Age of Sigmar from Little Wars VA, a Games Workshop skeptic (I'm in the same boat).  I doubt that I'll get into the game, but it's promising that GW appears to have made an effort to fix chief complaints about overcomplicated rules and being unresponsive to player input.

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, 4 July 2016

Happy 4th of July to everyone.  No gaming on my part this week, just posts of other folks' fun and games.

Hook Island wins the internet this week with some To The Strongest posted,with a Byzantine-Bulgarian game up that's part of a campaign and follows the historical outcome... but just barely.  Very detailed battle report that lets you follow the action quite well.  Strong stuff.

Kaptain Kobold continues a string of Napoleonic games - one of Waterloo, with the French getting edged out at the end (perhaps destined to be a "close run thing"?) and a Black Powder game with ACW add-ons to play out the battle of Antietam.

Campaigns in Miniature has another WW II desert affair posted, one which goes poorly for the Brits who are attempting to break the Italian control of Northern Africa.

Stalker7 puts up a beautiful Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes report, as usual.  The website looks good too, almost enough to make me want to switch from Blogger to Wordpress.  Almost... that would actually be quite a bit of work that's put to better use on gaming and painting.

Double Six posts an Alien Versus Predator game that looks pretty cool in a Space Hulk sort of way.

NCC1717 (ha!) has an old-ish Starship Troopers AAR up that makes great use of some 40k miniatures to augment the visual palette that Starship Troopers usually evokes.  And, hey, let's face it, there's no reason to feel beholden to the movie-inspired minis.  If it held true to the book, you'd play the board game that requires a lot of book keeping so that the bug player can keep track of where he's hidden his hives and where he's set ambushes for the humans... sort of like Battleship... with bugs and nukes.  If someone has cracked the code on playing this at 6mm scale on a big board, with troopers able to jump-jet a quarter of a mile at a time, launching tactical nukes out of the shoulder racks on their armor, and some appropriately cool bug minis, let me know.  I'd probably buy that.

Baron Von J has a campaign for the kingdom that almost ends an ongoing campaign... but doesn't.

And we close with Frostgrave again.  Here's two perspectives of the same game - the RPG-ish version from One More Gaming Project and the more concise one from Archmage.  Pretty epic one, involving dragons.  Who clearly think that adventurers are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

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, 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.

Modern Battles of the Week, 8 May 2016

Doing things a bit differently this week.  I've got a few modern warfare AARs that I've been wanting to highlight, so I've split the battles into two entries:  this one for modern warfare, and this other one for fantasy, historical, and sci-fi battles.

First order of business is to add a new site to my blogroll, Hotel Zugando, where a 28mm scale modern wargame set in a fictional African nation is playing out with the Force on Force rules, the game that brought me back to wargaming after over two decades away.  Some AARs from that blog:
- Contracting Trouble, the ubiquitous Force on Force scenario, swapping CIA agents in for the contractors.  This was the first Force on Force game that I played, way back in my inaugural post.  And its been played and posted on the web by a number of folks:   Donogh, Donogh redux, von Lucky, Dan, and Dave.
- A Few Blocks of Hell, right out of the FoF book and  translated to an African setting.
- Closing Up Shop, another USMC-African rebel showdown with an interesting outcome.

Second on the to-do list is another addition to the blogroll, Rabbits in My Basement.  A couple of posts from this blog drew my attention - one with a day-long gaming session that starts with a Black Ops game set in Afghanistan, then a WW II Chain of Command, then Some Lion Rampant, and finally some War of the Ring action.  And a post where the author kitbashes FUBAR, Black Ops, and Chain of Command for a convention game set in modern Afghanistan.

And, here's a game trying to adapt a Vietnam scenario from Face of Battle into Force on Force, and struggling with the vehicle damage tables.  A common complaint that I houseruled into submission.

And though I've never played Buck Surdu's Combat Patrol, here's a write-up of a game set in Africa with a modern setting, and one set in WW II.

Battles of the Week, 24 April 2016

Batreps/AARs I enjoyed this week:

French and Indian War over at Big Lee's Place - Battle of the Week!  Great looking attack on a British outpost.

One Page 40k at Forkusprimordus - after giving up on the latest edition of the WH40k rules, a foray into the One Page 40k rules.  Gameplay didn't suffer, oddly enough.

Pulp Battlesworn at Stronghold Rebuilt, Fu Manchus Halls of Horror - Great mashup of old minis, old GW maps, and a new-ish game.  Scenario is posted separately here.

Frostgrave at Wee Blokes - Neat scenario of a treasure hunt (it is Frostgrave, after all) with the possibility of an angry Genie popping up to attack players' warbands.  If you haven't checked out this blog yet, do so.  I aspire to having so many cool campaigns posted, and hope to build my site up to something like this.

Flames of War D-Day Game at sediment's wargame blog - massive battle

Batrep/Review of Hail Caesar at Campaigns in Miniature - relatively negative review of Hail Caesar from a fan of the Ancients combined with a batrep of phalanxes clashing.  Worth reading if you are interested in the game.

GASLIGHT at Baron Von J's - good looking showdown between British and German forces.

Battlegroup Blitzkrieg at This War Without an Enemy - neat little WW II game

Other stuff:

Battlezone 1998 Redux at Delta Vector - Not a batrep, but if you enjoy more than one game and like to think about game design, go there and start reading the archives.  Join the Google Group.  Very intelligent thoughts collect at the website and the Group on homebrew rule sets and how to make games that make players make decisions.  Very cool.