Show and Tell 20 November: 15mm Early Persians

At one point Deej and I thought that we were going to opt for a Median Ally to go with our Neo-Babylonians. As it was, they turned out to be (as per their name) rather average. So we ditched that option, but not before I had bought two units of figures to represent them. These are Xyston Achaemenid Persians - a mix of their cavalry options to represent their earlier cousins. In Field of Glory they are Protected Superior Cavalry with Bow and Sword. The linen armour is anachronistic but they'll do as Medians or indeed as Later or Earlier Achaemenid cavalry. The battle standard is more appropriate for the later period too. Some of the figures have wooden swords (carefully cut down cocktail sticks...).

Texans and Mexicans II - the Mexican cavalry

They did look really very good. And they charged magnificently across the field of battle. And then they got shot to bits and died.

Texans and Mexicans

A return to Jonathan's place for a battle of independence.  We were Mexicans and Texans (or Texians) fighting over a town.  We used Black Powder rules, recently published by Warlord in an entertainingly-written and well-illustrated book.  The rules proved very playable - no detailed tables or army lists and points to worry about.  Groups of figures represent a unit, and several units make a brigade.  For example, the Mexicans had two brigades each with five infantry and one artillery unit, and a third brigade of two cavalry units.  A particularly nice mechanism was the command of the brigades - players just say what they want the brigade or unit to do (accents optional), roll a dice against their command score, and depending on how much under it they roll, they have that many movement turns (up to three).  Or alternatively they won't go anywhere that phase.  So there is scope for charging out and not quite reaching your objective, or moving up to 36" in one go and outflanking your opponent.

The Texans (Jonathan and Andy) had an advance guard holding part of the town with reinforcements arriving from the near table edge.  The Mexicans (Adrian and James) moved first, bringing troops on the far table edge.

The Mexicans rushed forward to attack the central town and to take the village (on right of photo) to threaten the flank of the Texans.

The artillery unit had a great view...

The Texans starting bringing up their artillery and infantry to support the town and thwart the attack.

The small Texan cavalry unit above left their mounts and occupied the building which was soon under attack by James' brigade.

Adrian's brigade similarly surrounded the central town and began the long slog of trying to chase the small Texan advance guard out.

Eventually both buildings were cleared and occupied by Mexicans.  James' brigade was occupying the compound and threatening the Texan flank.  Adrian's cavalry entered the fray and started streaming down the other flank.  In the centre, Adrian and Jonathan were exchanging shots in the town.  Overall, things were looking bleak for the Texans...

But then disaster.  Adrian's cavalry lasted such a short time I didn't even manage to take a photo of them on the table!  As they came in for the kill, the first unit was peppered by artillery and infanty, and broke immediately.  The second attempted to ride down an infantry unit (which couldn't form square as in Napoleonics) but was similarly broken.

On the other flank, Andy's artillery made salsa of James' infantry.  The Mexicans carried on forward and started hand-to-hand fighting with the Texans, but a few rolls later and the Mexicans had started to fade away.

Andy's Texans then surged forward to encircle one of the remaining Mexican infantry units and opened fire, breaking the unit, brigade and army.  A victory for the Texans!

Despite all that action, at least one Mexican slept through the whole thing...

The whole game was over in five turns.  As we were learning a new ruleset, we did go relatively slowly and probably played around 4 hours or so in total.  But as we get more used to it, this looks like a way of playing quite a big figures game in a single evening.

So a really good game - with impressive figures, scenery and rules.  As Adrian put it - it was a Santa-Anna-tastic game!

Colonia, 17 November

Everyone but Stu round at Adrian’s for a game of Colonia. We opted for this to give it its final road-test as opposed to the tried and tested six-player Imperial. As it turned out we felt that it was a good game, certainly a pleasant way to enjoy a Rivals evening, but that it was ultimately unsatisfactory - probably because of the way the luck works in the game. All of us played a solid tactical game, planning ahead as far as we could, but the randomness introduced into every phase of the game from both the random set up, the random draws and dice rolling, and the player interactions meant that one could never really plan ahead and in many cases the hard-set-up schemes came to naught as players were pipped by another Rival to the action that they had been relying on. Going into the final turn we had thought that it could be a runaway win to either Deej or Adrian. In the event it was much closer than we thought, and James clinched it from a steady accumulation of Relics. Scores: James 15; Adrian 14; Deej 13; Kieron 10; Andy 9. So, although an attractive game with lots of nice bits, we wondered whether it would be tweakable into a classic. Must look it up on Boardgamegeek...

Show and Tell 10 November: 15mm Later Polish

I thought I’d start up a thread as a virtual Show and Tell of figures completed (not least to showcase the products of the pact between me and Andy to paint up the armies from Agincourt over the course of the next year). In the meantime, these are the first 3 elements of mounted crossbowmen needed to convert my Later Polish DBM army into a Field of Glory army. The FoG Knight battle groups for the Later Polish consist of a front rank of Knights and a rear rank of mounted crossbowmen (their retainers) allowing the BG to shoot. Not sure how effective these will be but I thought I’d have a go and paint them up. So these are the first three elements - I plan to do 9 in total to provide 3 BGs. The figures are Essex; the flags are handpainted; the heraldry of the whole army represents the Polish force at the Battle of Tannenberg in 1410. The pictures show the crossbowmen on their own and as the rear rank of their Battlegroup - led by Jakob of Koniecpol (Horseshoe flag), Sedziwog of Ostrorog (Loop of rope flag) and Jan Mezyk of Dabrowa (Fish flag).

FoG, 27 October - Babylonian v Early Nomad

Half-term games and numbers were down so we went for a FoG session at Adrian’s with the host and Orhan taking the Babylonians into battle against Kieron and David with Kieron’s Early Nomads. This was the experimental camel approach seeing whether unprotected average camel with bow were a match for the Babylonian chariots and heavy cavalry. In short they weren’t. the armies lined up broadly with mounted wings on the Babylonian left and Nomad right. The centre and opposite wings had mostly light and medium foot. The clash of the mounted happened early, the Babylonians cutting and shooting their way through the camels like the proverbial knife through butter. “No matter”, said Kieron, “I have a lot of butter”. But despite this quantity it was not enough to stop a pummeling on the left. In the centre and right things were a little more balanced with some light foot losses to the Babylonians, but by finishing time it was a fairly conclusive 15 points to 5 in favour of the Babylonians.

Fagin's Gang, Gold Diggers - 3 November 2010

Finally, the first outing for Fagin's Gang, a game James bought back at the Birmingham Games Expo last June.  This is sold as a 'euro-style' strategic trading and commodity-collecting game for 2-6 players. In reality, it's a complicated version of Ludo.  Each player has five urchins that move around six areas of London, stealing goods and money.  The goods are required for the movement of the urchins, and the money is required (15 a time) for an urchin to leave the board and take it back to Fagin.  The first to have three urchins leave is the winner.


It's hard to dislike this game.  The mechanisms worked, it's got an interesting setting, it played in 2 hours with four of us.  But it's hard to get really excited about it too.  Perhaps it's just too mechanistic, certainly when someone is a few turns away from winning, there's little anyone can do about it, and the wandering constables (which "bump" the urchins up and down the goods tracks) mean that following a strategy can be more a matter of luck.


So a reasonable game, but given the competition it has from the contents of the various Rivals games cupboards, I don't think we'll see this one again.  The final outcome was quite close - towards the end James, Kieron and Adrian all had two urchins free, with a third just a handful of steps from leaving, and Andy, although still having all his urchins on the board, had three within a couple of steps each from leaving.  So was all about who could collect the right goods fast enough, and James had the luck this time.


With an early finish, we got out Gold Diggers - fast becoming a favourite short game.  We had three hands - all pretty close in the first two but Adrian really pulled ahead in the third round, getting a sole share on one mine worth double figures.  Final scores Adrian 41, Kieron 30, Andy 29, James 26.