Trumpeter in March

With the rush to finish our home renovations, posting (and all miniature activity) has taken a back seat. Renovations are done (yea!) so I'm posting about the Trumpeter game on the first Friday of March.

It was an interesting English Civil War battle with 2mm figures using the Rampant rules engine (in this case Rebels and Patriots with some modifications, instead of the more temporal Pike and Shotte).

The main modification was automatic passing for movement activation. This made keeping formations possible and worked nicely. I'm not entirely sure whether the formations are built into the game and just renamed or whether they were modifications.

The battle started from a historical deployment. You can see more pictures at The Dying Gaul and he has another account of the battle.

 My initial thought was to push on the right and hold up on the left, falling back if necessary. Another Parliamentary commander showed up so I gave him command of the left starting from the artillery.

I had expected the Royalist to really push hard with both cavalry, so I was surprised when that did not happen. I felt a little bad for giving the other guy a command that wasn't really seeing action, but that wasn't what I anticipated when I gave him those troops.

On my right, I managed to win the cavalry battle by 1-2 punching the Royalist horse with one of my reserve units. I then used them to roll up the infantry.

 Here you see the Parliament horse on the right chasing off the Royalist cavalry, before wheeling to roll up the infantry.

Eventually, after doing nothing for a couple of turns, Rupert finally got the Royalist horse moving forward. However, they suffered from dismal activation rolls so no more than one unit was able to attack per turn.

This meant that the lone Parliament cavalry unit was able to fend off the entire Royalist attack, with minor assistance of a dragoon unit.



The end is nigh with the Royalist infantry threatened from the front and rear.

Good fortune was on the Parliament side for even when I lost a battle, I managed to take out the opposing horse through distracting them with a pursuit.

Trumpeter in February

After being snowed out for January's meeting, I wanted to make February's game. I was a little late in arriving but managed to get in a game of Rebels and Patriots but set in the French and Indian war.

It started out two players a side with the British attacking a French settlement. The bulk of the French set up in the settlement. I had the left with a couple of militia units and a unit of Coureurs des Bois. This unit I made the backbone of my defense because of their better shooting. I would keep them at long range and use them to snipe the British. I took the three units on the left and the reinforcements.



This first shot shows after turn 2. The French got lucky with their reinforcements showing up on time and in a good location on the far right. Being veteran line, I had one unit in close order and had it charge a British unit right away. Despite taking heavy casualties going into the fight, I made it to contact. For the rest of the game, the French line would keep pitching into the British unit, slowly grinding down.


Elsewhere, the British tried to shoot their way into the centre. That was going to be tough to do because the French militia unit behind the stone wall mounted a stubborn defense. Eventually, the French got reinforcements to support the gallant militia unit and the British conceded the day.

In this image, you can see the remnants of the final British push on the walled paddock. The sustained and effective fire of four French units concentrated on these two British units proved too much.

Trumpeter September and Call to Arms

On September 13th, Trumpeter held their regular monthly club meet. I managed to get into a 2mm game of American Civil War. We were doing the opening day of 1st Bull Run using a set of rules call Bonny Blue Flag. I found the rules very interesting if slightly frustrating in that you could spend a lot of valuable command points and not accomplish much. But on the other hand, I did launch a very successful attack late in the game on the far right. I think I'd very much consider using them for my own 2mm figures. As an added bonus, I met Doug from https://dotsofpaint.blogspot.com/. He has a very nice blog and you should check it out.

On the 14th, Trumpeter held a brand new event for them. A whole day of gaming in the fall.

The morning saw me back at ACW with a set of rules called Stars and Bars. It's a set of rules written over 40 years ago and it shows: written orders as its command and control, features a complex damage table, and relies on details to try to achieve a "realism". Unfortunately, it took a long time to set up and get the game going, so we ran out of time before getting really stuck in.

The afternoon game was French and Indian Wars using Rebels and Patriots. Basically, it's the same rules engine as Lion Rampant. I enjoy the system but I'm thinking it's a bit too loose for my taste.

The final game was modified Force on Force for WW2. I enjoyed the game except for when we had a PIAT team sneak to the rear flank of a buttoned Panther only to lose the initiative roll and be vaporized by a lightning-reflexed tank crew. The Germans attacked from an unexpected direction and it looked grim for the Canadians. But then the Germans became fixed on firing LMGs from their halftracks. The Canadians moved troops to the threatened flank and then every slight German burst was met with a massive volume of fire in response. It was an interesting game and I didn't realize how the Canadians were winning until I saw how their reaction fire was taking its toll. They were also helped by a very effective rocket attack by a Typhoon.

No pictures because of my phone. I have an ancient camera somewhere so I think I will have to look for it so that I can take some pictures.

Trumpeter in May

For the May meeting, I decided to get involved with some micro micro armour. 3mm to be precise and they are very good Oddzial Osmy (Picoarmour) models in that I can figure out what type a tank each one is supposed to represent.

I played the German commander of a Kampfgruppe composed of teachers and students from a tank training school pitted against a brigade of British tanks. Basically, it was their 45 tanks vs my 13. On the positive side, 4 of mine were Tiger 1s and 2s along with 5 Panthers. However, half the British tanks were Fireflies with those nasty 17lbers.

I decided on a defense on depth with the Panthers blocking the left, which represented the most covered approach. I put my junkiest units up front on the right, and the heavy hitting Tigers at the back to keep the range as long as I could for as long as I could. I put one minefield on the extreme left to prevent slipping around the back of the Panthers while the other minefield would prevent the British from setting up a good fire line on some key hills.

Things started out moderately well with the Panthers taking out some Shermans way out on the far right making up for the blindness of the student tank hunters on the right. That caused the one company to fall back.

As a knock-on effect, the Sherman company on my left thought better of going up the centre out in the open and went around the hill to my far left. While they were doing that, my Panthers, Tigers, and others proceeded to pound the centre Sherman company.

However, it was not entirely one-sided. As I was reducing the centre and right Shermans, they did manage to wipe out my two units of tank hunters, which left me with nothing on the right. But while the remnants of the centre and right companies worked their way down the right (joined by the 4th company, which was created from earlier casualties), I turned my attention back to the leftmost Sherman company. A quick duel turned into a rout at the cost of a single Panther and the Sherman company retreated back around the hill, only to eventually reappear in the center after a couple of turns.

Eventually the weight of numbers began to tell as the Tigers brewed up under the attention of the Sherman companies on the right. Then the Panthers began to die until the German side had only one Tiger 2 and one Panther facing more than a dozen Shermans, at which we called the game. The Germans had killed more than 2 Shermans for each of their own casualties but it just wasn't enough against all of those Fireflies.

Chris has written a pretty interesting set of rules that have a lot of potential. They flow well and are pretty simple. I think the one refinement that needs to happen is to ditch the precision of the gun penetrations and adopt the simpler system he has for the armour.

Trumpeter Salute 2019

 (Apologies for the bad photos but the lens on my phone is badly scratched and smudged)

On April 13th, I went to Trumpeter Salute 2019, which is the biggest miniature war gaming convention in the Vancouver area. They had a good selection of games last year so I was really looking forward to this year's event.

A new feature they had this year was an online game registration where you could pre-register for one game. Very good idea and I hope they continue it next year.

Game 1

This was my pre-registration game. The rules were General D'Armee and the battle was Maxheim, which featured the French battling a combined Prussian-Russian force. One of the quirks of the allied side was that the Prussians had brigades on both flanks with the Russians in the centre.

In an omen on how things were to go, the French won the initiative and immediately occupied the village to my front. I decided I was not going to assault the village and instead opted for a delaying action, especially as we needed command dice to re-position a Prussian cavalry brigade to counter a French cavalry brigade. 

Being on the left flank, I'm a little fuzzy on the details on what happened on the right, but a disaster happened early over on the right where the Prussian cavalry and infantry routed. My contribution was to roll 0 aide d'camps out of 6 dice to try and rescue them. I think the Umpire just moved them back to the edge of the board rather than off. 

Meanwhile, on my side, I had lured the French beyond the garrison range and got ready to counterattack. First attempt met with a 12 rolled for casualties and my charge pretty much stopped before it could begin. Second attempt actually led to us rolling for the charge effect, but me rolling a 2 compared to a 10 or something saw another fail. 

I love the rules but this was a brutal game to play. All of the key die rolls by the Prussians and Russians were miserable failures.

Game 2

Mongolmania pitted Mongols against Rus in an all cavalry battle using Lion Rampant rules.  The Mongols started as a massive horde at one end of the table with three different groups of Rus trying to prevent them from exiting off the other side. Colin modified the rules slightly so that a failure to activate a unit didn't end your turn. Also, he had some special effects for rolling a 2 or a 12 when activating a unit.

I took a group of Rus. There wasn't much strategy in this and it was close. The turning point came quite late in the game. I had a unit of light horse that got the benefit of +1 to hit with archery and +1 to bravery because of a couple of 12s I had rolled. This unit was like a tactical nuke in that it took out 5 Mongolian units and it was untouched, while most of the remaining Mongolian units were pretty worn down (as were the Rus as well). However, a Mongolian player rolled a 12 and got a free shot on my super unit. Worse, he rolled really well and took out 3 figures. I then rolled a 2 for morale and that was it.

With not much Rus left, Colin declared the Mongols the victor in a close and bloody fight. Good fun!

Game 3

 In this game, the French were out to burn down a British fort using the Musket and Tomahawk rules. I was commanding the British provincial regulars in the fort and the provincial militia and Indians in the woods. Marching to my relief were two units of Scots regulars and two units of rangers. The French surprised me a bit by starting out on the far right instead of closer.

I decided to get aggressive with my Indians and advanced them into the woods that I expected the French to have been in. After a little hesitation, I advanced my militia down the centre. This turned out to be a minor mistake that lead to bad consequences. Meanwhile, the French slowly moved on the far right, staying largely out of sight in the woods.

My Indians reached the far edge of the woods and got into a musketry duel with 3 units of French irregulars. Despite being outnumbered, over the rest of the game, the British Indians decimated the French irregulars with remarkably accurate musketry. The British Indians suffered 2 total casualties while the French lost 30 of 36. However, the French did achieve their objective of keeping the British Indians away from the rest of the French forces (and even distracted British militia a bit).

Meanwhile, back at the fort, my regulars saw little until the French Indians and more irregulars arrived within 6" of the fort. (Seriously, who the heck builds a fort that close to dense woods?)

A remarkably poor morale roll saw my regular retreat from the walls early in the turn. That really was the game because the French Indians used remarkably effective flaming arrows to set the walls alight and also ran up to the wall and use torches.

Even getting a unit of regulars into the fort had little effect. The fire arrows were too effective and there were too many Indians and the fort started to burn.

Credit to the French for coming up with a good plan and being persistent in executing it, even if they left the French irregulars to get massacred by the British Indians.

(Photos to come)

General D'Armee at Trumpeter

So for the February edition of Trumpeter, I played in a game of General D'Armee. It was a refight of Quatre Bras with an Anglo-Dutch force trying to prevent the French from capturing the crossroads.

I took the Dutch brigade on the right consisting of 2 regular battalions, 2 green battalions, a battery, and 3 stands of skirmishers. My right was anchored on woods and to my left was a British brigade. Facing me was a brigade with another one pointed at the junction between me and the British brigade.

We got the initiative and immediately I sacrificed one of the green battalions to reinforce the skirmish screen. If I hadn't, I think I would have been overwhelmed quickly. The opening cannonades played havoc with the packed French deployment (lots of high die rolls) and the skirmishers also did quite well.

As the game progressed I gave ground slowly and the French artillery began to take its toll on my line troops. Additionally, my artillery eventually succumbed to skirmisher fire. Fortunately, they had taken quite a toll on the French before they quit the field.

(I had a picture to insert here but it has disappeared. I may have accidentally deleted it)

Meanwhile, on my left, the British brigade had been doing reasonably well holding up the French but they were being threatened by a small cavalry brigade to their left rear. At this point, our reserve brigade made a timely arrival after marching rapidly across from right to left. Using a forward tasking, they launched a long distance charge with the two attached cavalry regiments. We had a slight disadvantage going in but rolled sufficiently well to get into combat. At this point, the Dice Gods deserted us. Throwing 10D6 with a 4-6 meaning a hit, we could only cause two casualties. Coming back was 6D6 that caused 5 (I think). Our cavalry returned from whence it came.

Meanwhile, an elite British battalion charged a hesitant French column. The French player rolled a 12 and caused 3 casualties and morale test, which the British battalion promptly failed. At least both brigades passed their faltering check (as I did too when I lost my battery).

At this point, the game was called with a marginal French victory because they had the crossroads. A fair enough result because, short of a drastic change in luck, the French were grinding the Allies down anyway.

I really like these rules. They move deceptively quickly (in that while movement rates aren't that high, there's definitely the ability to close rapidly and get stuck in), there's a lot of command choice, and losing even a single unit can really hurt. I have the similar Pickett's Charge but I haven't fully read them yet. I can't wait to try them out, once I have figures for them.

Trumpeter in June

Having done two back-to-back naval games, I thought it would be a good idea to switch things up a bit at the next Trumpeter meeting. That's how I ended up playing War of 1812.

We used a set rules called Land of the Free. Let me start out be saying that I'm not really a fan of what I've seen in these rules. Maybe we made some fundamental mistakes but it seems like units can do a lot of things in a turn, like shoot three times. Now I'll concede that I had really crappy die rolling (I think I only passed morale checks for the artillery all game) and that definitely played a role in how I view these rules. I do think a game should be able to compactly summarize itself into 2-4 quick reference pages. For some reason, these rules use 6 pages and there's no reason they shouldn't have been on 4.

Let me explain what happened prior to the picture. On the left, not much happened all game. I advanced three units to the fence and I was content to leave them there to protect my left and the guns. You are seeing it beginning to crumble because I could not make any morale rolls and my units had to retreat.

On my right, I sent an entire brigade of a large unit, a unit of skirmishers, a medium unit, and a small militia unit vs one large unit (plus one 1/2 unit that could fire out of the house). My skirmisher went first and had no effect but they were driven back. Next turn, I advanced my medium unit and my large unit. The British responded with delayed fire and naturally drove my medium unit back before I could fire myself (reasonable enough, I suppose). My large unit fired twice with little effect, mostly because of crappy die rolls. The British won the initiative and fired three times on my large unit. Each fire was 8 dice and hit on a 5-6. That's basically 2-3 hits per firing and every 4 hits drops the unit's morale by 1. Combine that firepower with my miserable die rolling for hits and morale and I didn't achieve anything. It wasn't until I managed to sneak a small unit of militia onto the road that I managed to get enough hits on the British unit to drop it a level of morale.

Shortly after this photo, my two American units routed leaving only the militia behind. It was at that point, we called the game.

To me, these rules seem too fiddly for playing a lot of units but they also seem to need a lot of units to smooth out the swings in luck. But I'd be willing to give them another go just to see if knowing how they work would improve how they play.

Trumpeter in May

When I arrived in Vancouver, one of the first things I did game-wise was to check out whether there was a convention. Well, yes there is and I had just missed it. But there's a club that runs the con and they meet the first weekend-ish of every month.

So come May, I went to check it out. There were some interesting games but there didn't seem to be much in the way of openings. I found a naval game going on in the corner and asked if I could join in. They were all very welcoming and I took over a couple of British battle cruisers.

The game was a Harry Turtledove-style alternative history with the British fleet fighting against the Americans in the early 20s. I got the Repulse and the Renown (I think).

On the first turn, the Renown took a hit that jammed her rudder to the left and it basically took her out of the fight. My die rolls were so hopeless that she didn't hit a thing until the last turn where the enemy was so close that she couldn't miss. Here you don't see her because she's off the bottom of the shot.

The Repulse, on the other hand, got off a lucky shot that temporarily knocked the stuffing out of the first American ship. I should have turned right early in the game but I went with the original plan of sailing hard and fast to the left.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize how slow the other ships on my side were. Plus they really weren't doing all that much damage. That left me with a bit of a dilemma so I decided to try to burst past the American fleet, lay smoke, and go for the convoy the Americans were protecting. My plan failed miserably as I became the centre of attention.

Cue the Ride of the Valkyries music...