Showing posts with label Muswell Militiamen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muswell Militiamen. Show all posts

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Full Muster of Militiamen

Out microclub, Muswell Militia, boasts that we can fit our entire membership in a telephone box; well not this week!  No less than 5, yes 5, players were present for a very enjoyable game of Black Powder.  In fact, we were only missing Gloarmy Greg!


The game went very quickly and there are signs that we are mastering the rules.  We are now able to use all the available figures and bring the game to a conclusion in around 90 minutes. We used Dr. Simon's Mexican Intervention figures- there are rumours of the arrival of reinforcements and possibly a campaign setting.

I've been away because I've been very busy painting Napoleonics, but I'll be getting back into ancients for at least a week or so because I need to finish some Romans for Greg's "Big Parade" challenge on 14th July; I want to be able to deploy my complete Early Imperial Roman Legion, for the first time.

Friday, 8 January 2010

I'm a Dreadnought!

I was surprised (nay delighted) to hear this morning that the Galactic People's Republic have named their latest Stalingrad Class Star Dreadnought after me.  There's a lot more about it on Gregs's Blog:-

http://gloarmy.blogspot.com/2010/01/arsenal.html

I'm very much looking forward to seeing Greg's game; it should be stunning.  It'll need a large table to play on, though!

In other news...  I've not posted for a few days because I've been breaking my back trying to finish the basing on my Numidian army.  It has been a tough job, not helped by the fact I mistakenly used PVA, last night, instead of ScatterGrip and most of my flock has fallen off.  :-(

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

For a Fistful of Pesos II- the Battle


Before Xmas I showed some shots of the deployment for the Muswell Militia Xmas game.  A brief account of the game follows...

The game broadly split down into two separate battles; the French assault on the village (below) on their left wing, and a holding action on their right wing.



A couple of turns in, the French left rush towards the village which is their objective.

 

The brave poilus reach the buildings.  The red dice with the 6 shows that one unit has taken a terrible pasting from revolutionary artillery fire.

 

Above, the Legion occupies a building which was subsequently assaulted by the revolutionaries.  Although they repulsed the first assault, their supporting troops were driven back and General Georges, their commander, started to look rather concerned!

 

On the right the infantry element of my holding force (above) advanced...

 

And then was shot to pieces and ran away!  Dave roleld some fantastic shooting dice...   My blighters wouldn't rally.  I found myself facing 7 revolutionary units with my three squadrons of cavalry.  To my left, the battle for the village looked lost.  I broadly had two options; "charge of the light brigade" or...

 

..."discretion is the better part of valour"; I legged it!  I couldn't see much point in the senseless effusion of more French blood.

At the end of the previous game we'd made some changes to firing and morale, which made firing more effective and morale more challenging.  Taken together, these made the firefights extremely bloody and also made it very difficult to rally units.  Now we need to tweak the rules to reduce the effect of fire before giveing them another go.  We did learn some useful lessons about turn sequence from this game.

Friday, 18 December 2009

For a Fistful of Pesos

The Muswell Militia Xmas game (see previous post) was another battle between a Mexican Government army (mainly French, but also including some Mexicans and Austrians), and sundry Republican rifraf.  The forces were broadly similar in size, including roughly 7 battalions of infantry each, 3 squadrons of cavalry and a couple of guns.  Both sides were trying to capture a village; perhaps, from the enthusiasm with which they later assaulted it, it  was rumoured to contain a paychest full of pesos...

This game was to be the second playtest of the rules which Dr. Simon is designing; all the figures are his, and there is info about them on his blog.



Above, on the left are the Government forces; I commanded the cavalry (left foreground) and a couple of units of infantry just beyond them, and General Georges the five units of infantry and the guns in the left distance.



Above is a closer view of General Georges' Government infantry and guns.  If I recall correctly, the majority were French, including the Legion.  The hacienda in the distance is my Roman villa!  Dr. Simon has included a lot of cacti on the bases, of various kinds, which help build the Mexican atmosphere.  The guns feature some fine succulents.



Above, commanding the Republicans were General Ian (furthest from the camera) who commanded a vertiable phalanx of revolutionary infantry and guns facing the village, and General David who faced (and marginally outnumbered) my wing.

 

Here is a closeup of General Ian's revolutionary scum who contested the village with the brave poilus.

 

Both cavalry wings included a lot of lancers; mine were mostly Chasseurs d'Afrique; I'm not sure what General David's (above) were but they looked extremely scary with lances as long as kontos! 

Tomorrow I'll run through the battle.

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Muswell Militia Xmas Game


Tonight we gathered for the last game of the year.  We had pretty well a full turnout of the local (as opposed to virtual) membership of Muswell Militia; the clubhouse was packed!  From left to right Wabby George, Dave, Dr Simon (who brought all the Mexicans), Ian and yours truly.

Dr Simon has written about the miniatures in his new blog.  An account of the battle (or should I say rout?) to follow. 

Saturday, 28 November 2009

Profiles of the Muswell Militiamen

Our micro-wargames club is situated in Muswell Hill, and has been running in various incarnations since the late 1980s, but has always included Ian and BigRedBat.  MHM is very much a "micro" wargames club; with a membership, including affiliates, always in single figures.  We claim to be London's smallest and friendliest wargames club.  Dr. Simon, a relative newbie of 5 years standing, has suggested that we post some brief profiles of our members and associate members.  There will be additional members that I'll add to this page as time permits.


Dr. Simon writes that "Lording over toy soldiers seems to be in my blood - I voiced my first swear word when I was three as my parents shagpile carpet wrought havoc with my attempts to line my plastic armies up parade style. Since then I have evolved from throwing marbles at them to throwing dice at them (with little improvement on my generalship). My collections are mostly 28mm -from Eastern Caesarian Roman, to the Moorish Conquest of Spain, taking in the Italian Wars, French in Mexico and the French Foreign Legion along with way - and ending with 15mm ww2). The small membership of the club means we get to try out varied stuff without too much objection (just don't mention Skirmish to Simon). Mostly known in club for my ratio of painted figures to unpainted bases. Currently working on a Command and Colors version for Star Wars battles... Style of generalship might be best described as 'erratic'."


Bloggerista BigRedBat (the other Simon) has been wargaming ever since he can remember.  From Airfix Romans he eventually graduated to 15mm Donnington and Minifigs Romans, and more recenty hulking great Saleh, Copplestone and Aventine Greeks and Romans.  In the past he has been obsessed with WW1, WW2, W40K, Indo China, Roleplaying, and Hordes of the Things (amongst many other periods); his tag comes from his Glorantan-era BigRedBat model.  Simon is particularly obsessive about basing, and gets very stressed about Dr. Simon's eclectic approach to the subject!  From time to time he likes to tackle a vast project  and is currently organising a big Zama game for 2010, with the help of Dr Simon and various associates, including Dr Simon, Gloranthan Greg, Nick "the brush" Speller, Craig Davey and the helpful chaps at Aventine


Ian is BRB's 20 year plus wargaming nemesis.  Ian's historical hero is Alexander the Great.  He always has an excellent grasp of whatever ruleset we are playing; he plans turns ahead, and always seems to have a reserve of heavy cavalry or tanks massing near the schwerpunkt.  BRB has established two key tactics to deal with this: firstly, he has learned to be very lucky at critical moments, and  secondly, when things are going badly, he handicaps Ian's superior intellect with generous libations of red wine.  Consequently honours remain broadly even.  Ian has a splendid collection of board games, and a very impressive Xyston Hellenistic army; also some stunning Praxian nomads.



"Gloranthan" Greg Privat lives near Paris and is an associate member of the Militia.  Around 6 years ago BigRedBat stumbled across Greg's Gloranthan Army site and emailed him; a couple of months later (not that he's bitter!) Greg replied, and the rest is history.  Greg visits the UK once or sometimes twice a year, and BRB and he have colllaborated on various projects, including the Salute Dwarf Mine game (the Mine is gently decomposing in BRB's cellar).  Greg is the fastest and most prolific painter BRB has ever encountered, and has painted perhaps 250 minis for the Zama game, alone.  BRB also got into blogging after enjoying Greg's efforts.  Greg should stay off the coffee!



George M, who is often known by his alter ego of Father Georgi, and is often mistaken for Jesus, has been gaming since 1990, when, at the impressionable age of 11, he was taken to the Games Workshop store in the Plaza. Somehow, all those demons and harsh gothic space marines fired up his tender young mind. Thus began a long downward spiral into collecting and painting a large number of toy solders. He discovered Ancients in 1998 when he attended the SOA open day at Red Lion Square and saw the Parries playing a games called WAB. Over the next few years he experimented with a game called Deadly Boring Manoeuvres or DBM as it is often called and Vis Bellica ( which was truly awful) These days he counts listening to obscure progressive and psychedelic rock bands, travelling through Europe and worrying if he will ever clear the lead mountain as his main interests.  Years in the Hobby, approaching 20. Despite BigRedBat's best endeavours to rescue him from such base heresies, George M still plays WAB and the occasional game of WMA.  Armies: Classical Greek, Sassanids, Normans, Burgundian Ordinance, Medieval Swiss, Medieval Venetian, Medieval Albanian, Italian Wars Spanish,

Other occasional Muswell Militia gamers and associates, whose profiles will be added as time permits include: Sebastian, Nick "the brush" Speller, Chris, TimeLine Barry, Craig, Dave and Aventine Keith.