My first game was the rigorously playtested Isola della Scala (for six players). While the first playtest, while not completed, resulted in a fairly balanced result, and the second result (run at Ambuscade!) saw a Venetian victory due to some spectacular dice-rolling, the Enfilade-version of this scenario saw the French absolutely steamroll the Venetians, destroying many, many Venetian units and burning many, many tents! Fortunately (?), the reason for this was evident to everyone involved (including the Venetian players, who, if they were feeling put out by the table results, did a great job of concealing it): some bad dice rolling (the Venetian center did not wake up quickly enough) and some extraordinarily bad dice rolls on the Venetian right (which needed to make a stout defense of the camp). As such, the game was over in just barely 2 hours. This really put a cloud over the rest of the weekend for me, because when you host a game you want it to be competitive for both sides.
(Above: things underway in the Isola della Scala game)
(Above: things underway in the Isola della Scala game)
(Above: the French close in on the Venetian camp)
(Above: participants participating)
(Above: three tents set afire)
(Above: my, that's a lot of tents on fire!)
(Above: someone else's pod-racer game)
My second game was the Battle of Ravenna (for eight players), which I had only done a playtest-by-proxy for using the Barletta scenario. This game was much more satisfactory, with interesting and compelling actions on the flanks between the French and Spanish cavalry, and an real slugfest between masses of infantry over the Spanish earthworks in the middle. While the Spanish took more casualties, they were also able to secure more victory conditions, including winning the game's one and only duel between officers (each officer killed/destroyed/routed was a +1 bonus point) which was effectively the tie-breaker as the Spanish won the game 11 points to 10!
(Above: Ravenna game underway)
(Song of Drums and Tomahawks game)
(Above: Ravenna game)
(Above: Ravenna game, the first French troops are assaulting the earthwork)
(Above: Dave Sullivan's Irish rebellion game)
Saturday I played in Dean's Black Power 2 game, Sven's Deus Vult game, and Doug's Hussars Rampant game. Hussars Rampant is a variant of the Lion Rampant Doug has cooked up that is for nothing but Napoleonic cavalry, and I found it very enjoyable.
(Above: Dean's Black Power 2 game)
(Above: diorama from Dean's Black Power 2 game)
(Above: diorama from Dean's Black Power 2 game)
(Above: diorama from Dean's Black Power 2 game)
(Above: artillery and crew from Dean's Black Power 2 game)
(Above: these three units of American militia in Pete's Rebels & Patriots game were painted by me!)
(Above: Sven's Deus Vult game)
(Above: Sven's Deus Vult game)
(Above: Doug's Hussars Rampant game)
(Above: Doug's Hussars Rampant game)
(Above: Doug's Hussars Rampant game)
(Above: Doug's Hussars Rampant game)
(Above: Doug's Hussars Rampant game)
Sunday I played in Bill's Men Who Would Be Kings game set during the Boxer Rebellion (sorry, no pics).
I sold some old Dark Ages plastic figures at the Bring & Buy, and managed to pick up these 122 Swiss Renaissance figures at a great price. I don't really need them (wish they would have been at the B&B last year!), but you can never have big enough armies, amiright?
The games looked great even if they were over quite quickly - that can happen sometimes in these wargames I find. I look forward to seeing what you do with those Swiss figures. The Irish Rebellion game looks like it was interesting as well.
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