Hot Lead 2026

 It was March, which meant that it was time for my annual pilgramidge to Stratford for Hot Lead. For a change, I had preregistered for my games, which made things super smooth in terms of entry and for not having to fight the crowd to pick my first game.

Speaking of which, my first game was the Battle of Kernstown (ACW), which was Jackson's first independant battle. The rules were Two Fat Lardies' They Couldn't Hit An Elephant, which I had not played before, but is similar enough to many of their other games. The Union army was severely hampered by command limitations and inferior troops, but we (I was a Union commander) managed to wreck the Confederate's plans with a reckless but genius placement of our cavalry brigade.

After a couple of turns. The hands are actually the Union cavalry commander working his brigade to the flank and rear of the Confederates occupying Kernstown. I'm in the lower right marching to the other Confederate flank.

Union troops capture Kernstown and prepare to defend it against the Confederates to the upper left.

The Confederates moved quickly to capture Kernstown. But the Union cavalry deployed on their flank and moved to threaten them from the rear. This threat diverted a significant part of the Confederate centre to deal with them, which in turn let a Union division to evict the Confederates from Kernstown and set up to confront the rest of the Confederate centre. Meanwhile, I was on the Union right doing a long march to occupy the hills on the flank of the Confederates.

I've reached my destination and start a bruising counterbattery.

At this point, the Union artillery started to pound Confederate centre from three directions. This was basically the rest of the game. My thanks to Brian for running an excellent scenario and game.

The Confederate artillery is getting pounded from three directions.

With nothing left in Confederate centre, the Union apply the coup de grace by advancing up the hill unopposed.

Next up was a game of General d'Armee set in the first day of the battle of Lipzeig in 1813. I like these rules but unfortunately, we barely got going before we had to pack up. The figures were beautifully painted 28mm.

The third game was the Mystery Game. It turned out to be Muskets and Tomahawks set in the 7 Years war. I was commanding a couple of units of Huron defending their village. One of my units were outside of the village and played a huge role in its defense, starting with a lucky but effective volley to drive off a unit of British militia and then launching a devastating attack from the woods on a unit of British lights. After 3 turns, they were wiped out.

The British forcing their way into the village. My warriors are to the lower left returning from having finished off some British light infantry. I also have a unit of lower grade warriors in the village defending it (but not very well).

Despite what seems to be small movement values, the game moved along at a good clip. It was too bad that we were slow starting the game and therefore, couldn't finish it. My thanks to David for running this interesting game.

I went in looking to add to my 15mm Zulu armies. I found a couple of packs of Confederates that I will repurpose into irregular British auxillaries and, because they were cheap and why not, a bunch of Dervish and Egyptions.

KEGSCon 2025

 September is KEGSCon month and I made the pilgramage to Chatham. I had planned things well and was able to attend the whole day.

This year, attendance seemed slightly down, but the quality of the games being played was up. I participated in three games.

The first game was a battle between 18th century Mughals vs Durranis (Indo-Persian empire) in the battle of Manupur (I think). Historically, the Mughals got massacred. This game was much closer, but the quality of the Durrani troops and timely reinforcements made eventual defeat inevitable. I had command of the Turks on the right wing. Things went well for me at first but a couple of ambushes slowed me up. Additionally, there were a couple of times I failed my command rolls that also put sand in my gears. Eventually, I ran out of troops at the front and could not rally the troops in the rear. A similar thing happened to the rest of the Mughal troops but to a lesser extent.

Mid to late in the game. My units are pushing hard with some success but also with significant losses due to routs (the units to the bottom of the pic)

At the end of the game. Despite heroic charges by two units of cavalry that routed four units in total, I don't have any units available to follow up their success. I have five units in poor shape that I will not be able to recover. We called the game at this point. The other Mughal player was in similar shape.

My second game was General D'Armee 2 with French-allied Bavarians defending a village against a Russian attack from two directions. I had command of the division on the upper right plus a reserve force that I could have come on. I chose at the beginning of the game to have the come on to my right. 

The start of the battle.

Initially it was a mixed bag for me. I lost an infantry unit to a cavaly charge and some poor die rolling. The other Russian player lost his cavalry unit early and spent much of his time trying to protect against the Bavarian cavalry on his right while pressuring the Bavarian infantry to his left. 

Mid to late in the battle. The Bavarian cavalry is being stymied by my squares while my skirmishers, having previously sent off the Bavarian skirmishers, are now firing away at the advancing Bavarian line. My artillery was making life miserable for the line as well. The line routed shortly afterwards. 

Meanwhile, my cavalry units in my reserve hit the Bavarians in the flank, seeing off a unit of infantry and a unit of artillery. They pinned another unit into square, which the Russian artillery subsequently started to pound. The Bavarian cavalry continued to threaten the Russian right, but the square managed to hold them off long enough for my charge to take effect.

About the same time on the other flank. 

The Bavarian morale basically collapsed at this point, but they had been able to hold the village for long enough that the GM declared a draw.

The third game was a Wild West shootout with every figure for themselves. I think we started with 14 players.

The view down the main street before things heat up.

I started off in the blue building in the lower right.

I had placed my figure early. Three players joined and they placed themselves close to where I was. They started shooting at each other. One was shot dead right away and another one was wounded. I seized the opportunity to go to an open window and gun down another player in the back. Every man for himself!

Me about to shoot someone in the back. I guess my hat is more black than white.

After a while, I got tired of trying to kill someone who couldn't do much (down to one action per turn, severe movement and firing penalties). While it was easy to hit someone, killing them was tough to do.

This was near the end. Bodies everywhere. I'm near the fence and starting to draw fire from the buildings on the other side of the tracks.