WOW! Keith Con was bigger than ever this year, with twelve players and several visitors as well. Don Cameron from Five Arrows Figures showed up again with his wares as KeithCon's official miniatures and Osprey book dealer.
Four of the players, who were new to our rules opted out of the tournament and played some non-timed "learning games". The rest played three searing rounds filled with high octane excitement and cut-the-air-with-a-knife tension.
All eyes were on this table in the second round:
Where Martin, the two time Make Ready! champion faced Gary "Going for the Gold" Giles. Gary's ceaseless playing paid off and he wrested the championship title from Martin this year and won a copy of Mark Urban's "Rifles" as a prize.
The rest of the standings were:
Gary Giles - 23.2
Martin Rowland - 16.2
Mark Beaudon - 11.8
Dave May - 10.7
Skip Johnson - 9.8
Josh Garratt - 7
Mike Manning - 5.9
Ron Giles - 2.1
Thanks to everyone who participated. Send copies of any battle reports you want posted to either me or Gary and we can put them on the site
This weekend, June 2nd ... KEITHCON!!!
We've been busy painting our armies, honing our lists and developing winning strategies
to take the title from the current reigning champ, Martin Rowland.
For those of you out there in the wide world of the web who can't be here in person, no problem!
We will be bringing you the reports and pictures right here.
For those who can attend in person and want to know where to go, here's the map:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=eastminster+united+church&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=103.177264,84.023438&ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=44.173463,-77.357655&spn=0.011543,0.027509&z=15&iwloc=B
See you on the tables!
This is what wargaming is all about! A great bunch of guys out having fun. At the back table we see Gary & Mark getting ready for their SYW Prussian vs Russian game.
At this table Dave & Josh played an interesting game. Josh is new to SYW Austrians, so we set him up to play Dave with.... his SYW Austrians. There's nothing like a civil war to test the strengths and weaknesses of an army! The table was set with lots of thick woods and both players initially deployed toward the far side of the table. Dave moved quickly to grab the central wood while Josh went in hard on Dave's left flank, anchored on a little village:
While trying to delay in the village, Dave formed his cavalry up into line on the far side of the central wood and moved forward to pin Josh's hussars, seen here moving in column toward the right.
After a prolonged and difficult struggle, Josh cleared the town, but Dave had managed to reform his cavalry line on the far side and continued to delay Josh's progress and even inflict some casualties as they were slowly ground down.
Meanwhile on the other flank, Josh's hussars slipped the net, but were then hunted down by Dave's dragoons & hussars and scattered in every direction (including into a marsh!) Horse were flying everywhere in a dizzying, glorious mess. One of Josh's hussar regiments managed to charge some of Dave's grenzers coming out of the woods in column, but they were repulsed and some of Dave's cavalry dispatched them, too.
While Josh was finally clearing the town, he also launched a frontal assault on Dave's left with six battalions. Unfortunately, the attack stalled and Dave was able to concentrate his artillery fire and wheel a brigade of his infantry onto Josh's flank, shredding them. Here we see Josh's two remaining battalions making a last stand while some grenadiers rush up to the rescue.
Unfortunately for Josh, the grenadiers were too late. Having sustained serious losses, the center reached the breakpoint. With the cavalry losses on both flanks, the army's morale tipped and they quit the field. Dave, with a shaken left flank and some losses across the rest of the line, carried the day.Thursday was yet another enjoyable gaming session with a great bunch of friends. On table one, Mark (pictured below) took his SYW Prussians against Gary's SYW Russians in a 650point open game with preset terrain. The battle took place in a mountainous area: lots of difficult hills and was quite a challenge for both armies. It seems in the picture below that Mark is trying to seal off the nearest approach with some 12 pdrs. A thin line of his infantry and some advanced gun placements and scouting hussars wait to receive the rest of the Russians on the far side of the table.
But wait! Where is Seidlitz and all his cavalry? It seems they were marching around the Russians left flank. They appeared relatively early in the game. Bet Gary was glad he had his cavalry's extreme left anchored on that steep, rocky hill! That oughta slow 'em down....
While the cavalry came to grips on the left, Gary pushed his infantry forward in the center in deep columns supported by 6 pdr batteries.
until the Russians finally triumphed and routed the Prussian cavalry then chased them off the table. But not before a Prussian cuirassier regiment charged victoriously deep into Russian lines and rode down a Russian general! Mark gets the "Bloodthirtsy General Sacker's Award" tonight.
Gary also pushed his Russians through the gap in the hills on the Prussian left and sent a couple of battalions around the flank of the guns Mark had left there. The Prussians on this wing began to shake. At this point, time was called with Gary's muskets about to charge into the flank of Prussia's remaining 12pdr battery which would likely have tipped Prussian morale over the edge and given Gary a complete victory. Have to make your moves faster next time, Gilesovsky!
An exhilirating game to watch.Thursday's game was a War of Austrian Succession match-up between the Allies (Me & Josh) and the French (Gary). It was a pick-up game, so no particular battle was being recreated. Below we see the initial set up. On the bottom/left are the French deployed with almost all their mounted on their far right. Opposite them are the Allies. The center is held by a "thin red line" of British troops. On their right (picture's left) - with troops in ambush in the town - are the Dutch and on their left are the Hanoverians, moving into position in columns.
The French moved hard on the Allies' left, sprinted across the table and fanned their horse out to attack the Hanoverians who turned to face them as shown below. You can also see a brigade of Swiss troops (in our rules each stand is a battalion) coming up to support the French attack in the center.
Here's a close up from behind some of the French horse and dragoons. (I really need to get some flags on those poles...). The French figures are Old Glory and the Hanoverians are Essex.
While the French were pushing on that side of the table, a Dutch (played by Josh) assault column stormed forward supported by some grenadier battalions coming out of ambush from the town and fell upon "Les Volontaires" on the French left flank:
It now became a question of which flank would crumble first. The Dutch on the Allied right had some initial success and looked like they might carry the day, but the French left managed to hold together even as Dutch troops circled around behind their line as shown below (Note I didn't have enough Dutch troops, so I subbed in some Prussians - that's why the flag is Prussian!):
It took the Allies quite some time to scythe through the demoralized troops of the French left. Conversely, after some initial losses from shooting, the massive wave of French mounted slammed full force into the Hanoverians on the Allied right, who seemed they might hold, then blinked, then evaporated:
The French then careened into a line of British that had been brought up in case the Hanoverians did not hold. With the Brits stretched over the entire board, command control became quite strained. This was the point at which Gary masterfully threw his Swiss in in the center to add further to my difficulties. A few valiant and glorious attempts to turn the situation (including a glamorous counter charge by some British dragoons that routed their French opponents, chased them back to French lines and attacked a battery of limbered, redeploying guns before finally being cut down) brought the French to a half a hair's breadth from breaking before the Allies finally broke and the game was over. 
Here's a picture of my Portuguese dragoons. I really like how the Peninsular British army is turning out. So many different uniforms: Brits, Portuguese, Spanish and even a few Germans.
