A Century and a half of Wargaming

     I'm not referring to the time since H.G. Wells seminal book on the matter (Little Wars, a book every gamer should read, it is free from Gutenberg click on this highlighted section), I'm talking about the total years of wargaming experience that was crammed into my game room the other day when my friends Kevin, Skip and Tom all showed up to play a couple of games of Pikeman's Lament. We had all been wargaming since the late 1970's and it just stuck us just how much combined experience there was in our little company.
       I hadn't seen Skip in ages, and Kevin lives on the other side of town, so we don't often see each other aside from gaming conventions, Tom is a rather more frequent visitor, but few of us are gaming as much as we would like. Skip and Kevin each brought 18 points worth of their ECW troops to stand in for Imperialists and I refashioned the Housemartin's Turks into a 36 point Ottoman force looking to seize Vienna.

 

the Turks went with a smaller force of elite Forlorn Hope Jannisaries in the center 

with the scruffy draftees on the flanks

 

Kev and Skip (who brought their beautifully painted ECW troops to my place) 

went with a more conventional pike/shot in the middle and cavalry on the flanks

 

most of the figures are Warlord Games plastics

 

the Turks tried to press the matter to a close fight

 but found the combination of firepower and disciplined pike too much to handle

 

despite the fortuitous appearance of four more points of troops 

Tom and I were unable to find a path to victory

 

our flanks attack stalled against the walls of the Cottage of Carnage

(which gained its everlasting name during this game)

 

while in the center the battered Janissaries were unable to halt the flood of European horsepower

 

bad dice rolling left me unable to react to the European moves

 

this time the carnage was all outside the cottage

 and had a decidedly Turkish flavor

 

in our second game the Turks hung back and made the Westerners come at them

 

the need to move closer negated the European advantage in firepower

 

my careful placement of the Azabs (treated as Clansmen) 

negated the liability of the Wild Charge rule

 

some lucky dice during my shooting phase told heavily on the enemy foot, 

destroying the unit that one of their leaders was in

 

on the other flank my Gallopers were lucky enough to destroy the Imperial pistoleers 

their Wild Charge follow-up took care of the pike unit

 

on my right the Imperial Musketeers (in the hedged filed in the far distance) were able to keep inflicting enough casualties on my Azabs to keep them having to take Waver tests instead of leaving the woods and Wild Charging at his horse

 

in the center the steady fire of the Forlorn Hope Janissary foot kept pounding the Imperial soldiers 

 

finally both Imperial forces were so battered that they called it a day