Song of Clan Bitterspear (a Song of Blades and Heroes AAR)

Winter had been cruel to Clan Bitterspear...Gru'Ulan the warchief of the clan had seen his group shrink to just a couple of dozen warriors, women, and children. Of his five orc warriors only two knew the joy of bloodletting. Fortunately, Cruk and Druk Bloodtusk were as tough as any warriors Gru'Ulan had seen. Besides his orcs he had the half-starved ogre warrior Ugroth, who was as dumb as he was vicious. The Chief's last (and least) "warrior" was his goblin slave, Wart Lickspittle, whose only contribution was his ability to disappear in battle until he could plunge his dagger into a hopefully defenseless enemy. All in all, it was a pitiful warband, but it would have to do if Clan Bitterspear were to survive another year. All of this ran through Gru'Ulan's head as he pointed to the hill peoples' farm and growled to his motley crew, "Blood and loot over yon hill, attack you dirty bastards, ATTACK!"

Clan Bitterspear arrayed for battle

The Hill People are ready (except the guy on the end...)

The table from the orcs' end

The Hill People move to the gap in the hedge

Ugroth the Ogre uses his long move to make an end around, much to the misfortune of the hunters who were hoping to snipe the orcs from the flank

Wart sneaks around the other flank

A human hunter suffers a gruesome kill, sending his partner scurrying for the rear

The Bloodtusk brothers follow Ugroth looking to take the humans in the flank

The barbarian Hill People can't take it any longer and charge uphill towards the orc warriors, hoping to take the hill before the more experienced orc forces can come to bear

Unfortunately they make it up the hill piecemeal

down goes one barbarian to Gru'Ulan

And another is slain...

and another...

\

Ugroth gets knocked down (but he gets up again)

The barbarians finally take out an orc warrior

But the casualties are too great and all but two of the Hill People run to the, um...er..hills...

Only one left...

and he is ruthlessly hunted down

Gru'Ulan looked over the bloody field and smiled...only two casualties and they will return soon enough. Eighty-one hard won pieces of gold...It was a good start!

First Section of my CoC Americans

These are Imex "Easy Company" 1/72 plastics I picked up at Hobby Lobby. I plan on ordering some Plastic Soldier Co. and HaT figures come the first of the month from the Toy Soldier Company My painting is pretty awful, but they are passable from 3 ft away on the table...

Chain of Command AAR

I played a solo game of Too Fat Lardies Chain of Command. I am in the process of buying and painting 1/72 plastics for CoC, but until I have completed that I am using paper mini's from Junior General to play. This game was an attack and defend scenario pitting a regular American platoon against a regular German one. The Americans rolled an 8 for support and took a Sherman and a pregame barrage. The Germans took a sniper and a panzerschreck team (because I am playing solo and knew the USA had armor!). All of the buildings are Dave Graffam and much of the terrain is scratch built (scouring pad hedges etc.) The Sherman is built up from foam core and art work from Junior General. The comments refer to the picture above them...

I decided that the two story house on the German board edge was the American objective. The patrol phase saw the Americans getting the upper hand and hemming the Germans in around the objective.

Here are the German jump of points.

The American jump off points

The GI's deploy first on the German flank

The Germans counter...

...by moving into the bocage

The Americans then send in the hammer to the anvil. 

The Germans' sniper takes his place on the objective rooftop

The Germans try and drive off the American flanking force by deploying their 2nd squad

So the Americans bring in the heavy metal!

The German squad in the bocage breaks and runs

The Americans follow up looking to trap the 2nd squad

 

The Germans spring an ambush...with little effect

The game ends with a close assault that sends the Germans packing.

The game ended with the Germans morale falling below zero. I should have been more patient with the German forces and let the Americans get closer to the objective before deploying. It didn't help that the German senior leader was killed the phase after he deployed to the table! CoC gives a very satisfying solo game and I will be trying another scenario very soon.

My Briton Warband for Dux Brit

Painted a based. The buildings in the background are paper from Dave Graffam Models

Yet to be painted...I also have 16 more cavalry and 6 more infantry waiting in the queue.

Welcome internet travelers!

I thought I would begin this blog with a few words about myself and what I intend to post here. I am a long time board, role playing, and war gamer. I first started war gaming when I was 5 or 6 years old by taking Lego blocks (this was in 1975ish so we are talking generic Legos) using them to build opposing castles and then laying out different colored blocks to represent knights and soldiers who would then fight epic battles to capture said castles. These epic Lego battles would usually end with the castle completely demolished and my mother yelling "CLEAN THIS MESS UP... NOW!!!"

As I got older I played Crossbows and Catapults, fought deadly bb gun and firecracker wars using Star Wars figures, and was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons by my older brother. However, it was when I got to Junior High School that my life was altered forever (to my wife's present day chagrin). I met a guy in class who invited my over to his house to play Panzerblitz and boy-howdy did I love it. I immediately went out and bought the Avalon Hill classic Afrika Korps followed very quickly by Squad Leader.

The next logical step in my wargaming career was, of course, miniatures...unfortunately, I could not afford those little lead guys. So for a long time I just read Wargaming Magazines and wished I was rich. Fate would intercede in High School when I met a fellow wargamer who could actually afford multiple Napoleonic miniature armies! We spent entire weekends refighting Waterloo, Austerlitz, Borodino, and whatever else we could think of. We made up rules or tried to decipher Empire III  (I still have them and have still never successfully played them!). Still not being able to afford lead figures I bought all I could of Airfix and Revell plastics for the American Revolution, American Civil War, Zulu Wars, and Plains Indian Wars. I found out very quickly that I am rubbish at painting miniatures. However, my lack of artistry did not stop me from continuing to collect, paint, and play with miniature figures to the present day.

Today, many years later, I mostly play solo because of demands of work and family but also because the historical wargaming community here in middle Georgia has remained elusive. That does not deter me however, and I continue to collect figures and rules.

I prefer rules that can be easily played solo and that have a good sense of historical flavor while being fun and manageable in a reasonable amount of time. I play many different periods and many different rules. The level of the rules I use depends on the period. For the horse and musket period I like to play large scale battles, for World War II or modern I prefer skirmish or company level, and for ancient/medieval/ fantasy I will play any level but tend toward small armies and skirmish.

The rule sets I use for the horse and musket period are my own home brewed rules for the American Civil War, the original Piquet rules, Fire and Fury and Volley and Bayonet. For World War II and modern I use Chain of Command, I Ain't Been Shot Mum, and Charlie Don't Surf (all from Too Fat Lardies). For fantasy/medieval rules I use Songs of Blades and Heroes, Dux Britannarium (TFL), and Rally Round the King. I have other rules but those are the ones I play the most.

I still cannot really afford metal miniatures...in fact the only metals I own are 6mm Baccus Napoleonic French (that I am only halfway finished painting). I do have a large collection of  1/72 plastics for the American Civil War, as well as Briton and Saxon warbands for Dux Brit, and the beginnings of platoon level American and German forces for World War II. For everything else I use paper minis. For fantasy wargaming I use Mayhem in Paper, Okumarts, and Sanity Studios. For pretty much everything else I use one of the greatest websites on the net, Junior General.

I haven't even scratched the surface of my obsession but I suppose this is a decent overview of what to expect from this blog. Thanks for reading and I will see you soon!