Happy new year fight fans!
Our local group hasn't been ther most active over the past year, we will see what 2010 brings.
People has been busy with work, family and new activities. So while we may not post much over
the new year (if at all) you guys all have access to our archives of reports, tips, links and memories.
Best of all access to the rules and army lists ... enjoy them, complain about them, modify them.
All the best in the new year!
Finally here are the photos from KeithCon 2008!
I would like to give a hearty thanks to everyone who made this year's KeithCon a success.
Specifically,
Erik & Skip for arranging for an excellent venue.
Steve for driving all the way up from new Hampshire to host the Kolin scenario
Dave for loaning his figures for the Kolin scenario and running the Funtes de Onoro scenario
Gary for organizing and running the First Manassas scenario
Don Cameron of Five Arrows Figures for being our vendor and sponsoring the day with gift certificate prizes
and of course....
all the participants who came out and made the day fun.
I hope to see you all (and those who couldn't make it) again next year.
If people could send me anypictures they took, I will try to get them up on the website.
Keith
Mark your calendars everyone!
This year KeithCon will be on June 7th, 2008.
The format will be entirely different this year. Instead of a single tournament, there will be a multiple historic scenarios in a variety of sizes (of battles) and scales (of figures). The time period covered will still be the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries using our Make Ready! rules.
It's really important for me that lack of familiarity with our rules should not stop anyone from having a good time at the Con. Last year, the time constraints of tournament gaming (and a few other issues) detracted from people's enjoyment. This year will see a more relaxed pace. There will be more time to yak with old friends and check out our Vendor: Five Arrows Figures.
The location will be the Military Family Resource Centre at 50 Rivers Drive East, Trenton. It's a great venue with lots of space, good lighting and it's right next to a Timmies and a pub. (No alcohol allowed on MFRC premises)
Start time will be 9AM and we will finish at 4:30PM. Afterward we will go out for dinner at the Britannia Pub.
Below is a list of the games that will be going on.
Table #1: The Battle of Kolin
SYW Prussian/Austrian
Scale: 25mm
Players: 4-8
Time: 4-6hrs
Table#2: Seven Years War Campaign
DBA campaign SYW
Scale: 2mm
Players: 5
Time: All day
Table #3: Yanks & Rebs
ACW: First Manassas
Scale: 15mm
Players: 2-4
Time: 2-3hrs
Table #4: The Thin Red Line
Napoleonics: Fuentes de Onoro
Scale: 15mm
Players: 2-4
Time: 2-3hrs
Your options are:
a) Spend the day at table #1
b) Spend the day at table #2
c) Spend the AM at table #3 and the PM at table #4 or
d) Spend the AM at table #4 and the PM at table #3
You can always wander by tables of other games and check them out during lulls in your own table, of course :-)
Please let me know if you are planning to come and what table(s) you might be interested in. If we get more attendees, we can easily open more tables.
I look forward to seeing you there. Please feel free to email me with any questions or comments.
Well, it's finished! I have completed a SYW Russian army in 2mm.
The plan is to complete all five major armies of the Seven Years War for a DBA-style SYW campaign which will be part of the festivities at KeithCon this June!
Watch for announcements about KeithCon soon. Until then enjoy the picture of my "hot off the press" Russians on a standard DBA 2'x2' board.
I had a chance to play out a Napoleonic solo game set in the Peninsula this week. The picture below shows Wellington ad his boys forming up at the top of the picture. The brown cut out hills are steep, the lighter ones are gentle sloped, but rocky. The British left is held by the light troops, with a brigade of heavy infantry held in reserve. The center of the line is held by the Portguese and on the British right, we can see a brigade of cavalry and a brigade of infantry in column.
The French have formed up with deep columns of infantry in the center, some light infantry holding the left flank and with their entire force of cavalry off table to the right, trying to out flank the British left. Unfortunately for the French the opening dice favoured the British, who seized the initiative and brought the fight to the French before their cavalry could arrive. By the time the French cavalry were getting into position, the British heavy cavalry had raced forward and caused the French light infantry to retreat to the safety of the hills, leaving their left flank exposed as we see below.
Here's a close up of the British attack on the French left one bound earlier. The British light dragoons are charging down on the French guns who have been unable to withdraw due to the fire of the British horse artillery. A regiment of Portguese dragoons rushes in to help.
Fire from the French guns decimated one of the light dragoon regiments, but the other one and the Portuguese moved in as well, the guns was overrun and (since the French infantry had turned to face the threat) the victorious cavalry pulled out to allow the horse artillery to continue doing its work.
But the British infantry had managed to get into fairly good position to stem the tide and held back the mounted onslaught with their unshakeable "thin red line".
With the French left in tatters and their cavalry attack on the right repulsed, the ongoing losses in the center of the battlefield tipped the balance and the French army quit the field in some disorder. The British were hard hit on their own left flank, but otherwise had suffered minimal losses. British 9-1 victory.Well, I finally got a chance to put together a few pictures. Emen and I played a little French & Indian War game recently. Here we see the opening stages of the game. A fleury of French & Indian skirmishers has raced forward to pin the British in their position in the corner. The British are deployed there as they are concerned about what mught be lurking in the woods off to their left....
Here's the view from the British side. Regular troops to the right of the gun with grenadiers and militia to the left. More militia and some ranger elements are moving to the right to fill out the line and possibly drive off the French skirmishers.
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Emen's fears were founded. Several hundred Indians charge out of the woods and across the swamp..... 
The rest of the French line formed up with them, with the French regular troops double timing it to take their place on the far left of the French line.
The basic French plan worked, which was to use numeric superiority to overwhelm their opponent's advantage in quality by a double envelopment. The Canadiens skirmished with the elite British line and the six pounders in the center,.........
while the Indians raced in against the colonial militia holding the British left flank........
and the French regulars charged in depth, hitting the militia holding the British right flank:
The French took their fair share of losses, too, but did manage to turn both flanks. The British army collapsed and the French carried the day.Good God! No post since September!
What can I say, both Keith and myself are busy with family life. Since the last post we've had a few campaign games played. Sweden, Prussia and the Allied States have joined forces and over-run Austria. France is on the defencive and my beautiful Russia is under siege on all fronts. I've pictures from 3 battles to post ... sorry they haven't been put up yet.
Merry Christmas !! Keep your powder dry and your gaiters clean!
Well, we've managed to get a Seven Years War campaign going!
Our thanks to Steve, who is running the "Grand Strategy" part of the campaign from the States while we fight all the battles here in Canada at our weekly gaming sessions. We are using a map similar to the Sport of Kings map.
I get to play the Anglo-German forces, who have managed to enlist the help of the Dutch to drive the French out of the Low Countries. Anglo-German forces have laid siege to key French fortresses in Berg while the French have similarly besieged my German troops in Franconia. But those actions are but a side show! Last night we played a field battle in Westphalia featuring 520AP of French against 400AP of Brits & Germans and 200AP of Dutch.
In this picture, the Anglo-Dutch are on the right, deployed in front of a small village, while the French are on the left, straddling a large swamp. The terrain was very marshy with a few gentle gnolls scattered across the field. A small lake sealed off my right flank. The French deployed with the majority of his cavalry on his far left, while we British had concentrated our cavalry on our far left. These were supported by British muskets, fusiliers and guards and the Hanoverian guard. The center was held by Hessians and Brunswickers and the Dutch held the far right.
We quickly raced up on the French right and hit their flank with our cavalry. The French responded by driving their troops forward in a series of column attacks on the British infantry, hoping to break through before their flank was crushed by the cavalry charge.
Meanwhile, the French pushed forward on their left against the Dutch, hoping to have more success there. (Note: Emen wasn't here with his Dutch figures, so I substituted my Hanoverians instead) Mark B helped immensely here, delaying the French advance with his hussars (now pulled back to safety behind his guns) and his jaegers until victory could be accomplished on the far left.
With their entire right surrounded, with horse behind them and elite British infantry to the front, it was only a matter of time before the French collapsed. Thanks to a couple of good moves and several good dice rolls, it was a longer time than it might have been and the French managed to bloody my British nose a bit before they went down. The picture above shows Sparky trying to keep his French from fleeing the field and (even more gloriously) my British horse and German cavalry swarming the routers :-)
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. 
It's not a bad thing when you have too many players wanting to play Make Ready! locally. Keith was busy running a couple of games at his place and I was sent to the book store, J&B's in Trenton, to educate Josh in the ways of the Russian army.
Russia won the aggression roll and opted to place an unfordable river. Josh got a BUA and a couple of woods
Josh opted to bring in his heavy horse in dribs and drabs which just got the @$%& shot out of it and what did make it into contact was out matched. Unfortunatly for Josh this is not an uncommon reaction for anyone when facing the Russian army for the first time ... it's the deer in the head lights syndrome. Russian's are every where! What do you do? He is worried about my flanking horse and grens advancing up. PIPs could have been better for him and rather then putting in a mass charge he's on the defensive which is breaking up his strong horse.
Back over on the right:
Josh got his LH on the gun and Grens but his other LH is in some serious horse trouble. Again too little of a commitment if the plan is to fight Russia frontally. You can't win in attrition against Russia, the army is big with higher shake and break points. Once again the dice were not kind to Josh. Except for the lone LH. double over laps and he wins the fight sending me off running from him! It took me 3 attempts at swarming this horse before it died!
The end is near on the left:
With the initial horse attack crushed Josh's left side is now shaken, out gunned and flanked. The Russian horse now go in after threatening for so long to mop it up.
Back on the right:
Josh finally pushes on the right side with his grens but he is still hesitant with his Muskets since they are (I) so he hangs back a bit looking to get my Cr(O) in front of my lines. I'm not sure if his lights should be leaving the woods because with his left side broken they are some easy pickings out of the woods. Josh did manage to silence my gun on this side. Those grens are on the wrong target ... get one on that gun! Where are the PIPs when you need them.
End of game:
Looking from the left you can see the Russian horse eating up the broken command here. I've limbered up my howitzers to move them to the right but it's not required as I've destroyed enough troops from the other 2 commands to break his army. The losses for the Russian's today ... 3 stands. PIP's were great for Russia today and the combat dice were fair as well.
Josh could have used a bit more luck ... especially with his PIP dice. Otherwise for his 5th game or so he is catching on fast. The game was quicked paced which makes it a lot of fun and once he figures out the strengths and weaknesses of the troop types he will be a force to be dealt with!
So I hope you enjoyed this recap of our game. I expect my next encounter with Josh to be a bit tougher and I look forward to it.
Cheers, Gary
