The Battle of Laguna Morales

Hi All! Been awhile since I last blogged so I thought I had better get up to speed! Last weekend, my friend Mike had us fight a battle for his Mexican American War campaign he began. The Mexican commander for the campaign as well as the American, are both players from out East. They do the strategic moves for the campaign and we are to fight the battles when contacts are made.

As part of the campaign, those of us who were the overall commanders for the game were to write up a report of the game/battle. I was the Mexican commander, so I was tasked with the report to write. Below is the report I wrote:

The Battle of Laguna Morales

After recieving the message that the American's had landed at Laguna de Morales, General Alvarado assembled a quick force to replulse the invading Gringo's! Along with the message, a special directive had been delivered from his Excellency to be read to the troops, but the wise general would read it at the start of the attack!

Before the men made their assault, General Alvarado read the speech from his Excellency. The speech had caused such an enormous sense of pride among the units, they launched themselves into the attack with tears in their eyes and the words echoing in their ears! A true sense of patriotism could clearly be seen as the men stood tall and marched smart! With a loud roar, the men took up their positions and readied for the great battle!

General Alvarado used his advantage of the Gulf to secure his right flank. The Cavalry units moved directly from Laguna de Morales straight into the teeth of the Gringo stronghold!

Emotions were high as the men moved at a rapid pace catching the Americans by surprise as the infantry units had struck the weak spot of the Gringo's! The day would be theirs!

The Zapadores took a small mesa as the 6th Regs secured their left flank. They faced a small unit of Americans, and another that had been protecting a Gringo cannon. The San Patricios and the 10th kept pace to the left of the 6th. With an eruption of muskets, the battle was engaged.

The Zapadores and the 6th made quick work of the small unit of Americans, routing them from the field. Minor casualties were recieved, but this seemed to only spur the men on to avenge the deaths of their friends and familiy!

The 10th and San Patricios manuevered further to the left to support the Cavalry.

The cavalry came up in column, but quickly changed to line as they faced a cannon and a larger Gringo unit. They marched in unison until reaching the pivotal point to launch their charge! The Gringo's seemed to be taken by surprise as the cav came in.

The cavalry Presidial, with morale high, came in and struck the Gringo cannon! With the men launching their horses over the embankments of the protected gun, the Gringo's fled at such a glorious sight of precision horsemanship!

The Gringo infantry supporting the gun, seemed to be leaderless as they tried to make a fight of it. With the Presidial's moving against them and being overwhelmed by our infantry, they decided to form square for they had no place to go. With a combination of muskets and the cav charge, the Gringo unit was routed away, never to return.

With their honor running high and the routing of 2 Gringo infantry units and a cannon, our infantry continued onwards. Seeing that the Gringo's were flanked, the lines of infantry opened up on a second Gringo gun. The cannon managed a couple shots, again causing minor casualties, before it was in turn destroyed!

With Genaral Alvarado urging his men forward, the men continued the attack, victory within their grasp! Gringo Marines soon turned their guns upon our glorious units! With the flags of Mexico and the regiments fluttering in the wind, the words of his Excellency ringing in his ears, General Alvarado ordered the men into the breech one more time!

From his perch upon his great steed, he watched the units of the San Patricio, 6th Regs and the Zapadores hurl themselves in. General Alvarado repeated the words of His excellency to urge the men onwards! However, as fate would have it, only the San Patricio's made the initial assault.

The Marines of the US Navy had held their ground as our units were repulsed. General Alvarado decided it was too much and ordered a general retreat. The Gringo's had offered to let him leave, but must sacrifice the cannon. Alvarado scoffed at such a request and decided to let the Gringo's try and take them by force.

Though General Alvarado was proud of the way his men had fought, he felt a sense of dishonor for failing His Excellency. As the Gringo's tried to take the guns, General Alvarado kept command of what was left of the 6th. While fighting this delaying action to save the cannon, he too was sacrificed in the great battle of Laguna de Morales! Taking a bullet to the stomach facing the enemy, directing fire till the end, he was brought back by his heroic troops so as not to fall into the hands of the Gringo's. The cannon had slipped away!

Before he died, General Alvarado was heard saying; "I have watched my men shed blood for me, now I must shed blood for them!" With the words of Attack, Attack, Attack, Attack echoing in his ears, General Alvarado had slipped away from his earthly confinement.

Some pictures were taken of the game, but I wasn't one of them. The other guy's camera was giving him trouble so I am unable to attach any. The Mexicans in this particular game proved themselves rather well! Of course the die rolling plays a major part, but the rolls went our way till the end.

Till Next Time!

Chariot Lords Part 2

This past Saturday night, our little group got together and finished the Chariot Lords game we started. One of the guys was unable to attend, fortunately, another guy showed up and was able to take his place.

We had written down all the placements before we finished up our previous game. After a brief rules review for the new guy, we placed our games pieces down and commenced to gaming. As the Assyrian player, odds were in my favor that I was to prevail. However, the gods had other plans. Again, I can't remember all the groups of people that arrived over the game span, but it basically came down to me and the gentleman who was playing the Egyptians and their ilk.

It was touch and go for awhile, and the game went on until it reached almost midnight. When the smoke cleared, I was in 2nd place and the Egyptian player had won outright with the points tallied. Basically, he beat me by grabbing up more land. I had the opportunity to grab more myself, but failed to do so on several occasions. Also, I had made a mistake when totalling up my points for the lands I had occupied. Instead of counting 2pt's for some hilly terrain, for some reason, I only counted them as 1pt each. This had gone on since the first time we played. No excuse though. The rules were clearly explained and written down. I just failed in my adding and I am of the belief, I would have won if I had tallied correctly. We can't go back and change things, so I accept my defeat and look forward to another game of Chariot Lords.

We did come across one problem and resolved it as best we could. During the game, a group of people arrive from off the board and go against the Egyptian peoples. The stacking rules are pretty clear, which seemed confusing. The arriving people had more counters than the rules allowed as written for stacking purposes. They could only arrive on one particular space. We had them come in all at once and battle the Egyptians. However, the arriving group failed to defeat the Egyptians in battle and were forced to leave after 2 rounds of combat. They sat off on the board edge until it was their turn again. The rules did not specify what to do if defeated, so we house ruled the situation and let them try again. They arrived and again were defeated soundly hence ending their short lived regime. The gamer of said peoples was going to e-mail the game designer for clarification.

There is no game this upcoming Saturday, but I still plan to blog down the road.

Until then, Good Gaming and may the dice be with you!

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.