Sunday, September 23, 2018

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

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

5 comments:

  1. What on pictures of the old Farts? One thing nice about wargames, D&D and games is that one makes good friends for a life time..

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    1. So true, I only see one friend from high school at all anymore, all of my other best friends are wargamers, or shooters, or both!

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  2. Nicely done sir. From the first game to the second reinforced the saying, “best laid plans.... stupid lady luck!” It was fun though. On Sunday we played using our Samurai hordes and played the rescue the important person scenario. That was a blast as well. In the next day or so I’ll post some pictures.

    Cheers
    Kevin

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  3. I had a blast! Thank you Sir for hosting this Pikemens Lament marathon. 2 great games with old friends and there was "squirt" which I've not drunk in ages. It just doesn't get any better!

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  4. I would love to sponsor a repeat session sometime soon.

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