Off the Painting Table (March 2020)

I have been struggling to decide on my next project, but the cancellation of Salute and other shows due to CoVID19 prompted me to come up with a decision and buy some figures. I’ve decided to focus on the American War of Independence in 28mm. Next I looked up various OB’s but the brigade structure appears to be very fluid, so I planned to focus on one battle and Monmouth looked good. When the Perry boxes arrived, I flicked through the British painting guide and the name of the 55^th Regiment of Foot stood out i.e. The Westmoreland Regiment. My wife hails from Cumbria, a county that is an amalgam of the old counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland. I immediately abandoned the notion of historical OB’s, and will instead use British regiments with a personal connection. It is almost certain that the wife’s ancestors would have served in the local regiments at the time of the American rebellion! So, below is my first unit, the 55^th Westmoreland Regiment of Foot.

I’ve not yet decided on a set of rules to use, but I thought a 16 figure unit looked about right. I did consider using a larger number of figures, but on a 6’x4’ table this would have severely impacted on the number of units that could be fielded. I finally have a project to work on. I still need to do much reading and research concerning organisation etc. For example do loyalist units (e.g. De Lancey’s battalions) carry flags? If so, what did they look like? Anyway, next up is the 34^th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot.

AAR; Napoleonic (Sharp Practice), 15Mar2020

My Napoleonic rules odyssey continues, this time using Sharp Practice. I played used my Peninsular French against Ian using Spanish. A simple encounter game fighting over a small village with 55 points aside. In the opening moves Ian deployed and moved 2 groups of guerrillas in to woods on his left flank, whilst advancing with a formation of 2 groups of line troops between the woods and village, and a 3 group formation of line troops in column moved down the village main road. I opposed his main column with a group of voltigeur skirmishers, and on the other flank another group of voltigeur skirmishers held off his guerrillas. Between these forces I had a line formation of 3 groups of fusileurs, and a group of mounted dragoons were to move around the Spanish left flank.

I have noticed a peculiar phenomenon when playing Sharp Practice where the opening movement dice always roll low numbers, and the same happened in this game; my dragoons seemed to be cantering through quicklime and Ian’s columns were equally slow. I soon found out that irregular guerrillas in cover are not easy to shift, and in no time my voltigeurs were running for cover (in fact they never returned to the action). My other voltigeurs were happily taking pot-shots against the slow Spanish column, and my fusileurs got a couple of effective volleys at the other Spanish line formation. Suddenly the Spanish C-in-C motivated the column moving through the village to ‘step out’ and rolled high dice, so they plunged into fisticuffs with my voltigeurs who thought they were safe. The voltigeurs were wiped out but they did manage to wound the Spanish C-in-C, rendering him unconscious. Next turn he recovers, leaps back into the saddle and leads his men in a charge on the end group of my fusileur line! Luckily I hold and the round of fisticuffs is a draw, but the Spanish are now at 50% strength and the C-in-C gets killed. The resulting second round of fisticuffs was very one-sided, the Spanish are thrown back in to the village street and mill about without any leadership. My fusileur line formation is fragmented, but could be recovered. This was very much the turning point of the game, if the heroic Spanish leader had survived then victory could have been achieved. The loss of the Spanish leader effectively ended their aggressive moves and, finally, my dragoons were in a position to charge the recoiling Spanish. This they did and quickly destroyed any opposition, tipping the game and reducing the Spanish force morale to zero. So, a French victory!

A fun game that neatly fitted into an afternoon club meeting. The randomised leader activation mechanism works very well and introduces the right amount of uncertainty. The game turned on the performance of the heroic Spanish general; if he had survived then a glorious Spanish victory could have been achieved. I also learned that once irregular guerrilla skirmishers are established in cover, they are a very tough nut to crack. Cavalry can be devastating if they can get into a position to charge before they take casualties from firing.

Boardgame Session; 8March2020

This will be a short entry because we only played the one game before I started to feel a migraine coming on and the session was abandoned.

Anyway, we tried Val’s new purchase, ‘Ecos – First Continent’. In this game players jointly construct and populate a ‘new’ landmass, scoring points as they do so. One player draws resource tiles from a bag, which all players then use to distribute power cubes to complete cards previously laid in front of them. Once completed, the cards trigger a set of actions; adding terrain tiles, adding new animals, adding terrain (mountains and trees) to existing tiles, moving existing animals, gaining victory points depending on circumstances etc. Once used, the cards age (rotate) at differing rates. An interesting touch is the ability to use a resource to rotate a ubiquitous player tile and eventually trigger a ‘bonus’ effect; gaining a power cube or new card, or laying another card. This means a player can always perform an action of some sort. The game proceeds until a player reaches 80 points, triggering the final round of play.

The component quality is good; the tiles are sturdy, the animal chits and player cards are fine. The terrain markers stand out, and the resource tiles are excellent. Game play is quick and smooth. It soon becomes clear that what you are really doing is creating an ‘engine’ where the effects of one card can trigger a sequence of beneficial consequences. The problem is the potential to set other players up, because the ‘landmass’ (and animals) are a joint project and available to all. Therefore you need to pay attention to the cards others have in front of them, and the options they are striving to complete e.g. you may have created a nice herd of antelope and scored some points, only to allow a subsequent player to activate a cheetah which eats them all!

I would have liked to play another game because I’m sure there are hidden depths to this game. The game mechanisms are not difficult but require thought, and are sufficiently different to those used in other games to make ‘Ecos’ stand out. I can see this game being a hit in 2020.