Chariot Lords

Been a few weeks since I last posted. I haven't gamed the past two weeks, but 3 weeks ago, 4 of us in our group sat down and played a good old fashioned board game! The game was Chariot Lords. I have never played the game before, but one of our members had in the past and recently bought the game. I don't remember all of the nations each player could have, but I did know the Assyrians well, and I was lucky enough to have them in the game. Below is a description of the game I got off the net. I figured it would be better this way, than trying to explain it all. One thing I can explain is that the game has assigned victory conditions for each particular group. The victory conditions are in the way of points for completing assigned tasks/victory conditions. We did not complete the game that night, however, we did write down the locations of each players units and victory points so we can continue playing it at another time. I found it enjoyable and real easy to learn and am looking forward to finishing the game.

Between 1500 and 600 BC, Asia Minor and the Mediterranean witnessed the rise and fall of several mighty empires. Often the birth of one empire precipitated the death of another. How could a small people like the Judeans establish an empire when located between such giants as Egypt and Assyria? Why did some Empires endure for centuries while others lasted only a few generations? Chariot Lords shows you the how and why.
Each Lord controls between 5 and 6 nations, some strong, others weak, each with varying goals and objectives - indeed some of these countries may not even exist at the same time. Players compete against one another to achieve the victory criteria for their empires. Nations quickly become rivals, involving them in death struggles over expansion. Each turn (90 years) will see new countries come to the fore, while established empires struggle to levy reinforcements and arrange alliances. A fine line must be walked between conserving one's forces and expanding one's empire. Too much expansion will see your resources spread thin and possibly swept away by a new emerging empire, but not enough aggression will see your empire fail to garner sufficient victory points to win.
Armies are of a mix of foot and mounted units, along with the occasional leader of note. It is not enough to conquer -- you must be able to keep what you have taken. The winner will be the one who has the most victory points after all the armies have had their moment on the stage. It is up to you to determine whether your empire will be relegated to the dustbin of history, or whether others will hail you as...The Chariot Lord.

French IndoChina Game Report

This is the report from the game we did on May 5th. It was our first battle with these figs and the rules were homemade. The game featured 4 of us versus' the ref. The Vietminh were already in place and all we had to do as the French was make our battle plan and execute it. The report was written by the ref for the game.

The premise was that the French were launching a three pronged search and destroy operation against a VietMinh valley. To do this the French came from three ways: a riverine column with patrol boat leading LTV-4s carrying an infantry company, a road column of trucks, tanks, and two infantry companies and finally a parachute drop of a battalion of Legion paratroops.The decision was made to delay the paratroop drop until Turn 6 to give the road column a better chance of co-ordinating the assault. In retrospect this was a debatable strategy IMHO but it certainly was well timed - they had predicted right where the road column would be. What they lost though was precious time which allowed the Viet Minh leadership to reach their tunnel in the church and sneak out of that place to a bolt hole in the jungle. Though the paratroopers eventually found that tunnel, it was too late by then.The riverine force was quite successful early, with its heavy MG firepower it blasted two sampans to bits and dominated the landing zone by the riverbank. The ANV company (which are Vietnamese troops fighting for the French and not very good troops at that) performed quite well, seizing a hill in the teeth of VietMinh resistance and sweeping the jungle quite successfully. Kudos to Rich who commanded them.The French did find most but not all of the supply caches hidden about the table. Once the paratroops actually landed a company almost right on top of two supply caches but never did find them.Overall the French commanders cooperated well enough and fought well, winning the battle as I expected against out gunned Viet Minh resistance. It wont always be this easy.Victory Point wise the winner of the game was DaveR, who ran the paratroops, with Dave F and the riverine force coming in second.I was satisfied with the rules, of course I will no doubt tinker with them a bit more but they worked fast. We got in a lot of turns. I liked the look of the table, yet I do plan on getting even more trees for my jungle.

My thoughts: The game was fun and played out rather smooth. I (Brumbar) played the paratrooper commander and that was challenging enough. I dropped numbered pieces of paper from a height of 16". Where they landed as the fell was where I started. Very challenging! I tried to drop one company onto a hill and a second company onto another. Out of 12 stands from the 1st company, only 2 hit the hill. The second company, had only 1 stand land on the hill out of 9 stands. I had a mortar stand from the 1st company land smack dab into the middle of a rice paddy. They were quickly eliminated by a Vietminh group who were walking down a road. The other rifle stand that landed with it, managed to run away and join the rest of the company.

The figs used are 12mm. I made a mistake in my previous post that they were 10mm. Again, a very enjoyable game and a neat scenario with all players on the same side.

Gladiators

I know it has been a couple of weeks since I last posted, so I thought I had better get an update out there. As stated in a previous post, with the advent of spring and soon summer, my painting has slowed down. However, I have managed to paint up a General for my ACW collection. I am currently working on another. We haven't done the last two battles as of yet related to the ACW campaign our group has been conducting for the past couple of years. I hope to get them completed soon with complete battle reports.

What we have done though was a game involving 25mm Gladiators. We have a hex board set up for this. Like the arena in Greece. We did this a couple of weeks ago and in the end, I was the overall winner. We used pennies and placed real bets based on the Gladiators outcome.

As per the rules, a list has been made up detailing how a battle is to be fought based on a die roll. All Gladiators are categorized as either light, medium and heavy. This list could have one fighter vs another or multiple fighters in the arena at one time. This did happen! Our group has the home rule of bidding on a particular Gladiator based upon his above mentioned status. We also pay for his armor, helmet and shield if applicable.

The rules are set up that the winner of the scheduled fight is to win X amount of gold from the bank. Players are allowed to make side bets to supplement there existing funds. This was how I was able to win in the end. Supplemental bets are a wonderful thing!

One particular fight had 4 Gladiators fighting at once. I placed a bet that the weakest Gladiator would die first. All he was armed with was a knife! I was one of the Gladiators taking part in this fight. I was "teamed" up with the weakest fighter, so in order to secure my bet, I hunted him down and killed him myself before I died at the hands of the other 2 fighters. It was a glorious death!

We had a few marathon fights as well between some heavy and medium Gladiators. But in the end, it always came down to money and I prevailed. My stable may have been depleted, but with my winnings, I will be able to recoup my losses.

As mentined in the last post, the Vietnam vs the French figs have been completed and the first game is scheduled for tomorrow night. I plan on attending and a report will follow.

French IndoChina War

One of our members has began painting up a large number of French and Vietnamese for this period. They are in 10mm, but they look nice. This idea just came about after he saw someone else gaming this period. So, his idea is, to have all the French and their various allies be ran by gamers. The Vietcong will be run by a referee. We have done games like this before, and they are very enjoyable. One site that dabbles in this period is: http://www.hksw.org/index.htm

This is the Hong Kong Society of Wargamers. They have some gaming reports on there that are very interesting.

We have done the French Foreign legion vs the Arabs. This was done in either 20mm or 25mm's. The scale escapes me. Each player was assigned a certain number of troops with various victory conditions. Very enjoyable! We even had a fort for the Legionnaires to defend. We have done scenarios where the Legion had to get from one side of the table to another with supplies they needed to protect, make dashes to an oasis to bring water back to the fort.

I have put on a WW2 micro armor game in this same fashion. I had a German counter attack against an allied invasion. Yes, D-Day was what I fashioned the scenario after with some modifications.

We actually find that games like this result in fewer arguments as everyone is on the same team. Yes, I said arguments, but these are usually in the spirit of the game. No one likes to lose(Grin)

As we progress in this era, I will be sure to post!

As for what I have been doing lately, well nothing. I haven't gamed in a couple weeks now. The Little Wars convention was just completed, though I did not attend, a few of our group did. I haven't painted either as my regular homelife activities have kicked in with the nicer weather.

I am sure I will be gaming this coming week and a report of some sort will be filed. Until then....

What's on my Workbench

Well as the title says, here is what I have been doing. Today, I managed to almost finish up my Rebel dismounts I mentioned in a previous post. I have them mounted and just need to touch up the bases, put some flocking and label them so they can be set up with their mounted units. Shouldn't take too long. As for labeling them, I just print out the unit name from my computer on a small font. Then I cut them to fit the stands and glue them down. My stands are 1"x1" metal stands. That way I can have them stick to the magnetic strips I have in my carrying drawers. Not all my units are on metal stands. So I had small flat pieces of metal on the bottoms, but this doesn't always seem to work. They like to fall off. Sometime down the road, I would like to remount those so they are all alike.

I looked at the figs I purchased from Bartartown. Again mentioned in a previous post. After getting a better look, I realized they were more like 20mm as opposed to 15's. Not a good match for my figs at all. I plan on putting them up for sale soon, hopefully just to get what I paid for them. They are nice figs, just to large. I did get a package of 15's that came with this batch. Those I intend to keep. I have a few more Rebels on tongue depressors waiting for me to begin work on them. I plan on getting those done quickly. I also have some Reb cavalry to get at, but without anymore dismounts at this time, I plan on putting them on the back burner. I will focus more on the infantry I have. Plenty of them to keep me busy for quite sometime.

With the change in daylight savings time, I have the urge to be outside more now. Especially with the weather improving towards spring/summer. Not so much in the basement. My gaming and painting tend to slow down. But as I look at it, it is just a hobby and when the hobby seems to be morphing into work, it no longer is a hobby. I figure this is nature's way of telling me to slow down some.

I have put my painting of the Friekorp also on the back burner. We haven't even discussed them in awhile regarding rules etc. I just recently finished up what I had started. My latest idea I have is based upon some rules I found on the Internet. They are for micro armor and I do have a large collection. They seem simple and fast so I plan on working on them soon. I need to organize them and do some painting and mounting. I would like to mount them on metal bases as well. I have some storage drawers with magnetic strips that I haven't used in awhile. These would be nice for the storage of the micro armor.

Well that is about it for now. As more games and projects come up, I will be posting.

WW2 Germans vs Poles 1939

Last night, our group did a WW2 skirmish type game. It was Poles vs Germans in the fall of 1939. I had only played these set of rules once before, so I had a little adjusting to do. They are called Broadsword. The rules, however, don't have anything for the Poles, so the guy running the game did some modifications.

The background for the scenario was the Poles were attempting a breakout after being encircled. They had to get as many units off the table as they could. The Germans has alot of infantry, a couple IeG 75's as well as a couple mortars and ATG's. Their mission was to prevent the breakout. The Germans also had a relief column to aid the Germans on board, however, wouldn't arrive until turn 4. This column consisted of 2 Pz 35t's, 1 Pz 4 short 75 and 1 Pz 3. They also has 3 trucks with infantry. A Stuka could also be called upon.

The Poles started a good portion onto the table. The had 3 Tanket's and a couple other tanks. Their type escapes me at this point. They had some cavalry, plenty of infantry and a couple artillery guns. Later in the game, a couple of Polish trucks arrived w/atg's attached.

The game started out a little rough when the German IeG's opened up on the mass of humanity approaching them. However, a flaw was noticed after so many Poles were killed. The burst circle was to large. It should have been a 2" diameter blast area as opposed to a 2" radius. This was adjusted and the game continued.

To make a long story short, several problems were observed regarding the rules and this caused some time on our part's to try and decipher them. This slowed the game down alot. Plus we had a late start to begin with. The game did continue with the Germans actually taking a few losses to their artillery guns. The Poles made a huge push on the one side of the table. With the Germans split up defending the entire board, it gave the Poles quite an advantage. The Stuka did make an appearance. It was used for 3 turns before heading back to base. It did some damage to the infantry, but not as much if it was equipped with bombs! Mg's were OK but...

By the time my relief column was on board, it was almost useless. We had to roll to see where we came on. Of course, Murphy's Law played a roll in our game as we ended up coming in at the furthest point of the attack!

The Poles quickly began to make their way to the opposite board edge as described in their briefing. The game was called as the Poles brought up their 2 atg's and had a couple of the larger tanks take up a position to hinder the relief column from assisting.

In the end, I figured it would be a Polish victory just based upon their victory conditions. They would have plenty of time to get their troops off board before we could intercede.

For me, it wasn't a very enjoyable game. Mostly because a few things in the rules seemed to bother me. One thing was that a buttoned up tank could see better than a tank moving, with the commander unbuttoned. The spotting rules for the game seemed to slow it down, plus the Poles weren't rated as good as they should have been. Not to mention that the time spent to decipher the rules was a problem. Not everything was clear cut as it could have been. The charts were'nt as organized as they could have been.

My friend bought the rules based upon a couple games he played at a few conventions. The convention games went so much faster as opposed to the few we played at home. Maybe in time, they could be figured out to make them flow. But until then, I am not a fan of Broadsword.

What's New

Not much to report. I didn't game last week nor am I gaming this week. Our group is doing a 15mm WW2 game but I cannot attend as I am going out f town for a few days. However, I have been painting up some Confederate cavalry dismounts. I have a couple Confederate cavalry brigades that don't have dismounts. I had a good number of Union dismounts, so I just painted them as Rebels. I figured they were wearing captured supplies. I did purchase a large number of unpainted figs from Bartertown. Bartertown is an online source for gamers to buy/swap figs or whatever. I purchased about 200 figs for $35. They are Essex figs so I know I got a good deal. The gentleman I purchased them from also through in some extra arty as well as some stands for mounting. Once I finish with the Rebel dismounts, I plan on working on the new figs I bought.

As for our ACW campaign, we have 2 more battles/games to complete before the next strategic turn. Based upon one of the battles we have coming up, I believe I may need to get those new figs painted up! I am not too sure if I have enough brigades involved in my attack upon a Union city. The other battle as me as the defender.

Coming soon, I intend to publish a few pics of my hobby area. I just completed it this past year after about 5yrs of stalling. I manage to get more things done in an hour than I did just doing the painting etc. upstairs. My area is in the basement. Now with daylight savings, I find it somewhat difficult t go down and paint, but I am sure I will get over the change:)

Until next time, good gaming all!!