Huzzah 2013 Day 1

Yes, it’s that time of year again, Huzzah is upon us, starting today. I haven’t been blogging much and so didn’t have any lead up posts, but will try to at least blog the convention while I’m here.

I rolled in to Portland at about 3:15 to the convention’s new location at the Doubletree in South Portland.  Right next to the airport.  It’s as beautiful as it sounds.  The internet doesn’t do sarcasm well so, in case you might be confused, that’s sarcasm.  Location aside though this venue is probably going to be better than the old location, which the convention has already outgrown.

I strolled around a bit to get my bearings and located the rooms where the con is being held.  Not a lot was set up yet as it is still way early, but a few vendors were set and ready to go.  I had a chance to chat with Gordon from Adler Hobby for a few minutes; they are running demos of Bolt Action all weekend long. There were a few games going on but pretty quiet so far.  That will all change starting around 6pm or so.  My first game is at 7pm and is an American Civil War battle, the Battle of Brandy Station using Regimental Fire and Fury for the rules.  I’m very much looking forward to it as I haven’t had a chance to play Regimental yet and am hoping to get my gaming group going on it.  Having some play time with it will make introducing the rules easier.

Time for dinner now then a short nap before the long night ahead I think.  There is a Cracker Barrel right next to the hotel guaranteeing that I will return to MA 25 pounds heavier than when I left.

 

Huzzah 2012 – Day 3

Finally the last Huzzah! post.  I hate having so much stuff that isn’t wargame related to do.

Day 3 this year culminated in the Battle of Dennewitz.  This event began as an idea put forward by, who else, Rich Claydon of Boston Trained Bands on the Black Powder New England Yahoo group months ago.  The thought was to play a large battle that board members would contribute troops for that we could use as a showcase for our outstanding brushwork (by ‘our’ I mean, ‘not mine’), show Warlord’s Black Powder rules in their best light (tons of models on a big table), and finally to get some board members fired up about painting troops that can be used in the once monthly ‘Black Powder Sunday’ put on at Adler Hobbies.

I promised to provide a Prussian infantry brigade consisting of 5 line battalions and an artillery battery.  I managed to actually finish 3 battalions, basing the last unit the night before the con.  Fortunately, other members weren’t so lazy and my brigade was fleshed out by 3 Landwher battalions and a foot artillery battery.

My brigade in their start position in the center of the Prussian line. The line battalions are Perry Plastics painted by me. Notice a problem with them?

Dennewitz showing everyone in their start positions. French to the right, Prussians to the left. Rich finished spray painting the cloth table top the night before the game, so I wasn’t the only one doing last minute work!

Having been beaten soundly by the Prussians the day before at Wartenburg, I was looking forward to sweet revenge today.  One of the great things about playing a game this large is that, much like a real battle, you don’t really know what’s going on except for the area immediately around you.  So I can’t give a good blow by blow of what happened everywhere.  I know that I faced two French brigades in my front with nothing but open ground between us.

The commander of the two French brigades was an aggressive type and he gave brigade orders to both units to advance on my position.  Thankfully one brigade failed its command roll and so did nothing on turn one.  This was excellent news for me as I would be able to deal with them one at a time.

One of the two brigades facing me advances, the other, having failed command remains in place.

I’m not timid either and advanced my brigade down the low hill they were on.  I faced off against the French to my front with 5 battalions having detailed one of the Landwher battalions to demonstrate against a French light infantry unit that had occupied a villa to my right.  My opponent wasted no time in hitting me hard, with his Frenchmen in their characteristic dense attack columns.

The melee begins. With supporting battalions to the flank and rear, one of my line battalions accepts a charge from a densely packed French assault column.

We each continued to feed battalions into the meat grinder, with unengaged units and artillery exchanging fire where possible.  We both held on with determination.  I broke two French battalions forcing them to flee, but my casualties were mounting quickly.  Before long my brigade was broken, forcing all battalions not actually engaged in melee to withdraw from the enemy, but lo and behold thanks to some supporting fire from Prussian units in the town to my left, both French brigades were broken as well!

The situation near the end game. My brigade has withdrawn to its start position except for two battalions still locked in melee. The French have been forced to withdraw as well.

At this point I felt quite good.  True my troops had been mauled but the French to our front were in no position to do anything about it.  I turned to the commander of troops on my left and suggested that if he moved out of the town and pushed the French, they would have to retreat and their center would collapse.  But, as I said earlier in a big game like this it’s hard to know what is going on everywhere.  It turns out the Prussian left had disintegrated early on and there was nothing on my left but broken units.  Since he was occupying a town, my compatriot was not compelled to withdraw, but he couldn’t advance either.

Just beyond my troops you can see the town occupied by yet another broken Prussian brigade. In the far distance you can see the last fresh unit on the board, a French cavalry brigade, moving up the middle about to sweep us all like chaff before the breeze.

All in all, another outstanding game at an outstanding convention.  I believe everyone had a great time; I definitely didn’t see any frowns around the table.  It’s a lot of fun playing in a game that you contributed to however small that contribution may have been!

Plans are already underway for next year.  I don’t think I’ll say anything about it here and now, but it’s going to be big.  You don’t want to miss it, so block off your calendar in May 2013 for Huzzah!

 

Huzzah 2012 – Day 2

Day 2 of Huzzah was a very full day.  I made sure to register for every game session which left not much time in between for meals.  That meant eating at the hotel restaurant which, well, I wish I’d had more time to go out!  Still, if you aren’t going to play, why go?  It didn’t leave too much time for shopping either, but maybe that was a good thing.

For the morning session I didn’t want anything too taxing so I signed up for a wild west adventure game.  It was a blast.  The game was Incident at Prairie Creek using Legends of the Old West and run by Billy  DiGiulio from Maine Historical Wargamers Association.  The game was a free for all between six different factions and two wandering herds of buffalo.  There were US Cavalry, lawmen, renegade cavalry, outlaws (me), and two different bands of Indians.  Each faction had differing goals and no one knew what the other factions had to accomplish, except that everyone knew the Indian factions got a pile of victory points for each buffalo that survived.  Goals were quickly forgotten though as the game turned in to a general melee.

Some how the lawmen and the renegade cavalry troopers formed some kind of unnatural alliance against me, so I had my hands full trying to stay alive.  The different Indian factions ended up tied for the win based on the fact that only 1 buffalo ended getting killed by the renegades.  That was their primary goal, but they were too busy fighting me to bother with it.

The renegades in their starting position. See those boxes? That’s loot that nets me a lot of points as the outlaws, it gives the renegades nothing. They fought me over it anyway.

The lawmen, sneaking around on their bellies. I never saw John Wayne or Clint Eastwood doing that. Their intention was to snipe my gang as we tried to get into the fort. Didn’t work out for them. Four of ’em died right there!

My boys, making use of cover and trying to slip into the fort. We ain’t here to hurt no one, just give us the loot!

They made me do it. The Parson, bible in one hand and a sawed off shotgun in the other slips underneath the lawmen’s perch and erases 2 of them with a single blast. Two more lawmen went down to my gang, one to some fancy six gun work by The Kid and one to a looong range shot from a Sharps 50-90 buffalo rifle packed by Deadeye. The lawmen ran after that.

For the afternoon session, I signed up for The Battle of Wartenberg, a Napleonic extravaganza run by Rich Claydon and Chris Bergonzi from Boston Trained Bands.  This game was played using the excellent Black Powder rules from Warlord Games.  I can’t say enough good about Black Powder; if you’re a thread counter, the type that feels the difference in performance between a .75 caliber Brown Bess vs. a .69 caliber Charleville should be reflected in the rules, then Black Powder might not please you.  But if you want a fun, fast, action filled game that gives good period flavor you’ll love it.

How did the battle go?  I was on the French side, playing the role of the Wartenberg contingent with a portion of Bertrand’s IV Corps to my left.  We had a large cavalry brigade in support as well.  We got the snot slapped out of us.  Our cavalry commander was new to the field and he was a tad timid.  Not good for cavalry.  By the time he engaged the Prussian hordes it was too late.  I had been driven out of Bleddin by superior numbers and the French were fiddling around trying to decide whether to shoot or run thanks to some blundered orders.

I deployed one battalion of my Wartenbergers as skirmishers to harass the Prussians as they approached. I planned to fall back if engaged in melee but it didn’t work out. The battalion was broken by musket and canon fire and retreated.

Prussian infantry attacks the first block of the town of Bleddin.

Our cavalry finally moves up. We were hoping to bottleneck the Prussians at the bridge in the distance since it was the only place they could cross the river. The cavalry commander failed some early command checks though and so could do nothing. The French infantry on the left are in trouble and are about to be knocked off the heights.

For the final gaming session of the evening, I had signed up for the Aerodrome 1.1 tournament run by Andre Kruppa of MHWA.  This event has become a must do for me.  Andre is a great GM and the event, despite being a tournament, is the most enjoyable of the weekend.  The atmosphere is friendly and casual and the beer flows relatively freely 🙂  There’s a lot of good natured trash talking too and it all just adds to the enjoyment of the event.  Aerodrome is a simple game of aerial combat in WWI.  Sadly, I didn’t have my camera with me so I don’t have any photos of the game or the gorgeous models and control panels that Andre supplied.

Aerodrome features pre-plotted movement, but the plotting isn’t burdensome, and there are no dice involved in combat resolution.  You plot if you are going to fire at the end of a phase (3 phases per turn) and if you have plotted fire, if there is an enemy aircraft in your arc and range then you WILL damage him.  The amount of damage done varies based on the number of bursts fired, range and relative position of the two aircraft.  I ended up with 2 kills for the night.  Better than my performance last year, but certainly not tournament winning!

Day 2 ended with me exhausted, but that’s as it should be after a full day of warfare.  I had to be up early in the morning though because day three is the Battle of Dennewitz…

 

Huzzah 2012 – Day One

First day of Huzzah is always exciting.  I won’t quite compare it to Christmas Eve (yeah, I still get excited.  What of it?) but it’s right up there.  I always try to get in early so I have time to settle into my hotel room and have dinner and maybe look around at some of the vendors before the evening gaming session begins.  I got to Maine a little bit later than I wanted, but still had plenty of time.  In fact I was in the hotel for all of 20 minutes before I spent my first money of the weekend.  I bought 3 books from John Durant at fire sale prices.  He’s getting out of the business and so was letting his stock go at a deep discount.  I could have bought a bunch more but, like most of us I imagine, I’m short on funds of late so had to settle for three.  I was actually pretty good for the weekend; I bought the books, some metal bases for the 10mm AWI army I’m working on and a copy of Regimental Fire & Fury.  I don’t need more rules (no one does) but I’ve been interested in these since they came out and ACW is a favorite period of mine.

I only played in one game on Friday night and that was First Battle of Sacket’s Harbor which was put on by Rich Claydon of Boston Trained Bands.  This is a naval engagement, fought during the War of 1812 on Lake Ontario.  Rich used 1/100 scale (i.e. way big) ship models and the Trafalgar rules from Warhammer Historical.  Trafalgar is a very good set of rules for convention play as they are simple, but give a very good feel for fighting in the Age of Sail.  The ships in the battle were smallish, built from green timber, and largely manned by soldiers rather than sailors.  The armament on them is what could be scraped together locally and consisted largely of powerful but short range carronades.  The biggest ships in the battle (Oneida for the Americans and Royal George for the British) mounted around 20 guns each.

The background was that the American forces had captured a small British sloop, Lord Nelson, and the British wanted her back.  Point of pride and all.  The forces in the game were Oneida and Lord Nelson for the Americans, Royal George, Seneca, Governor Simcoe, Prince Regent, and Earl of Moira for the British.  Lest the sides seem unfair, know that the Americans had control of a fort at the harbor entrance that was well armed and protected.  British goals were to capture Lord Nelson and, if possible, neutralize the fort.

I’ll jump to the end.  The British (myself and Adam of Fencing Frog) captured Lord Nelson and pummeled the fort into submission.  Overwhelming British victory.

The Americans came out with what looked to be a very good plan.  Oneida pulled out of the harbor and anchored in front of the fort with her formidable weaponry pointed right at the British fleet bearing down on her.  Rather than moving Lord Nelson to a position of safety behind Oneida and the fort though, Admiral Reinhart brought her out in front of Oneida and attacked the superior British fleet with her!  Bonus points for aggression.  He was counting on Lord Nelson’s speed and maneuverability to save him; he didn’t count on getting dismasted by a well aimed broadside from one of Adam’s ships.

After crippling Lord Nelson, her capture was just a matter of time and Adam pulled it off with alacrity.  In the meantime, I was concentrating on reducing the for with my two ships.  I had the Governor Simcoe and the Royal George with her 22 carronades under command and so was best equipped for the job of reducing masonry to rubble.  Simcoe is a very fast ship and quickly pulled ahead of the Royal George.  I anchored her in a position between the fort and the anchored Oneida so I could bring both under fire.  This plan worked wonderfully until the fort found her range and hammered her badly.  Fortunately by the time that happened, Royal George was up and I was able to weigh anchor on Simcoe and continue firing on the fort with George.  I silenced the fort’s guns, which, combined with Adam’s capture of Lord Nelson, earned us an overwhelming victory.  Not a bloodless victory though.  My Royal George and Simcoe were both severely damaged by the fort’s guns.  Allen, the fort’s commander also managed to sink one of Adam’s ships.  Oneida also put a hurt on several of Adam’s vessels.  So the victory was dearly bought, but tasted all the sweeter for that.

Oneida and Lord Nelson standing out from Sacket’s Harbor

British fleet bears down on the American forces.

Oneida anchored, while Lord Nelson moves out to attack.

Adam captures Lord Nelson at left, while Oneida weighs anchor and moves to assist, but is too late. Simcoe and Royal George pound the fort into submission.

 

Huzzah 2012 – In the rear view now

This past weekend (May 4-6) was the annual Huzzah Historical Wargaming Convention held in Portland, ME and sponsored by the Maine Historical Wargamer’s Association.  This is the event’s third year; I have been lucky enough to attend all three years and can’t say enough good things about the guys from MHWA and the con they put together.  It is a full weekend of gaming, I played in every session available and was sort of done in by Sunday afternoon.  Totally worth it.  The quality of events run at Huzzah are second to no one.

I will try to put together a more coherent AAR this week.  If nothing else I have a number of photos I want to put from some of the weekend events.  For now though, I think bed.  Long week at work after a long weekend of gaming.

 

On Thursday I placed an order from Architects of War for some Perry plastic Prussians and the Operation Squad rulebook.  The Prussians I needed for an 1813 campaign that I’m participating in; well, nominally anyway, I haven’t made any of the games yet 🙂 and the rule book I just wanted.  I’ve been after a good set of fast play WWII skirmish rules for a while.  I’ve played a couple of different sets at cons, and they all have their pluses and minuses, but what I really am after is a set of rules that is true squad level skirmishing.  Operation Squad promises to deliver that as it is playable with only 8-12 figures per side.

As I said, I placed this order Thursday and Architects of War, in true gaming god like fashion, got the order to me today (Saturday) via USPS.  If you don’t know Architects of War, check them out.  They have an ever expanding line of top quality products, and are nice people to deal with besides.

Once I’ve given the rules a good read through I’ll post a review of them.  Next step will be to paint up some 28mm WWII figures and give the rules a go.  Where I’ll find time for that in the midst of all the Napoleonic painting I don’t know!

 

Most Awesome TotalCon Ever!

Hmm, seems my last post was in August.  I suck at blogging, but I hope people will keep checking back periodically anyway!

Go to your kitchen calendars (oh who am I kidding, open up your scheduling app of choice) and block off February 23-26.  Those are the dates for this year’s TotalCon.  The convention is held at the Holiday Inn in Mansfield, MA and is always a very enjoyable time.  Lots of D&D, Magic, 40k, Warmachine and the like, as well as plenty of board games.

Why am I promoting a con which is not really geared toward historical gaming?  Well, for one thing, it’s just a fun, well organized event and I believe we should do our best to support gaming in all of its forms.  The second reason is my friend Jonathan Reinhart has been talking with the con organizers and they are interested in holding some historical events.  Broadening their appeal as it were.  In response to that, Jon, myself and our friend Cort Naeglin are going to be running a American Civil War themed Black Powder game.  We will be running a scenario provided in the Black Powder rule book, “Daybreak at Hangman’s Creek”, which is a hypothetical battle involving a surprise Confederate attack on a Union held munitions factory.

And that my friends makes this the Most Awesome TotalCon Ever!

We have been play testing the scenario a lot and think it will work well in a convention setting.  The units in it are pretty basic and it doesn’t make use of too many special rules, so teaching the game to newcomers  will be easy.  Black Powder is an easy game to learn anyway.  Pretty much all of the toys are being provided by Cort.  He has some very very nicely painted 15mm Civil War figures and 15mm terrain, so all thanks are to him because otherwise this event wouldn’t be happening.

I hope to see some folks come out for TotalCon this year and I really hope that you’ll consider playing in our event.  We are hoping to become historical gaming ambassadors to the 40k crowd, some of whom might not even be aware that historical wargaming exists.  Our hobby is reasonably healthy at this point, but without bringing in new blood it won’t stay that way!

 

Black Powder AWI demo game

Today a couple of friends and I got together at Battleground Games & Hobbies in Abington, MA to play a very small “demo” game of Black Powder.  Jonathan, Cort and I are assembling armies so we can run some AWI era games using the Black Powder rules.  None of us have a huge number of units completed yet, but rather than wait until we had “acceptable” numbers of figures ready to go, Jon suggested we play a small scenario with what we had available.  I designed a small, simple scenario using the finished (meaning painted, not yet based) forces that we have.  These lined up as follows:

Hessians (Me)
1 Musketeer regiment

British (Cort)
2 British line regiments

Colonials (Jonathan)
1 Militia regiment
1 artillery battery

The scenario revolved around a hypothetical situation where the British were trying to move a strong column of infantry and artillery south from Boston.  One small regiment of Hessians, the Prinz Carl infantry regiment, was assigned duties as flank guard.  As the column passed the small town of Abington, the Hessians encountered and engaged a small rebel force found to be occupying the town.  The column commander detached two line regiments, the 9th and 62nd Foot to assist the Hessians in rolling up the Colonials.

The colonial militia started behind cover in the town.  The Hessians started out on the board, the British arrived on turn 2 as reinforcements entering on the east edge (from the right in the picture).

Being only one regiment, and a small one at that, I found the prospect of charging the colonials, even drunken militia, to be undesirable; especially given the fact that they were supported by artillery.  I advanced my troops to the edge of the woods and opened fire on the militia.  Unfortunately because the traitors were cowering behind a fence the fire had no effect.  Return fire from the colonials was equally ineffective.

On turn 2, reinforcements arrived in the form of Cort’s line regiments.

The rapid movements possible in the Black Powder rules enabled Cort’s brigade to arrive almost in the laps of Jon’s colonials.  On a small table like this, 4’x6′, it isn’t a bad idea to halve the movement and shooting ranges for units.  We’ll probably do this for our next game.  With the British on the table I decided it was time for the Hessians to charge.  My goal was to make Jon waste his closing fire on my small regiment allowing Cort to freely close in.

As expected, Jon’s closing fire was quite effective, forcing a break test on the Hessians, with the result that they had to fall back a full move.  This cleared the way for Cort’s crack British line regiments though, which was the goal.  At this point I fully expect that the rebels will be rolled up like a cheap carpet.

The British 62nd Foot is unable to engage, having been disordered the previous turn by musket and canon fire.  The 9th charges home however, yelling like banshees and inflict one, just one, casualty on the rebels.  The rebels hit the 9th for 3 casualties.  Even with the 62nd standing in support, this means that the British have lost the combat round and must take a break test.  They are unable to believe that the colonials have hurt them as bad as they did and, discretion being the better part of valor, the 9th Foot flees the field.

Using their initiative move Jon moves his colonials back behind the fence line and gives fire to the the 62nd Foot.  The British regiment takes a few more casualties and, having watched their comrades flee, can find no reason to stay behind.  The 62nd fails its break test and runs for the safety of General Lord Howe’s column.  Only the Prinz Carl musketeers remain on the field, and they are shaken and disordered.  The musketeers hold at the line of the woods and exchange some desultory musket fire with the rebels, but are finally convinced to retire after some accurate shots by the artillery.  The American militia wins the day!

This was obviously just a very small scenario, played mostly to keep up our interest in painting.  Jon is right that the danger of waiting until you have enough troops to fight a grand battle is that you’ll never actually get enough troops to fight a grand battle.  Better to use what you have and get familiar with the rules.  This game was a perfect size for that.  A very simple scenario, and not a lot of troops to get bogged down with, so it was possible to just concentrate on the mechanics of the game.  Cort in particular has never played BP and hasn’t had the chance to read the rules, so this was  a good introductory game.  Jonathan and I have each played before, but aren’t hugely experienced with the game, so it was good for us as well.

My hope is that by the next time we play, perhaps in two weeks, I will have a grenadier regiment and an artillery battery completed.  This will give a reasonable sized brigade.  Ultimately I want my Hessian brigade to consist of one grenadier regiment, two musketeer regiments, a regiment, probably small sized, of the Jaeger corps and an artillery battery.  Once these are complete, I will work on some British units or some Continental infantry depending on if Jonathan needs the help.

 

Flames of War – British Artillery

I finished up one gun section of a Royal Artillery  battery (25lb guns).  I bought the box set which I recommend doing since it saves you some money, and you get the very nice sculpted bases from Battlefront.  I painted the unit up in late war colors, but they probably are going to be first used in an early or mid war game and I hope they won’t look too out of place next to Matildas and Crusaders done up in desert tan.

To finish this unit up, I have to do the other gun section, 2 guns plus crews, the HQ team, staff team (which has an AMAZING looking sculpted base to go with it) and the observers.  That’s a lot actually, but I think it will come together fast.  Actual painting time for the 2 guns I just did wasn’t all that long.  Most of the time was spent waiting for things to fully dry.

Below are a few shots of one of the guns.  The camera really brings out the flaws doesn’t it?  😛  It looks better on the table I promise.

Next up for Flames of War I have some Sherman III’s and V’s that I want to try my hand at weathering.  I just finished up a Firefly and the results were “meh”.  I’ll post some pics of that when the varnish is dry.  Also on the table are more Hessian Musketeers.  Will start those tonight, pictures when done.

 

Time for Huzzah!

It’s April 1st and that means registration for Huzzah! is now open and you should sign up.

Huzzah! is a new convention now in its second year.  It is organized by the Maine Historical Wargamer’s Association (MHWA) and is sponsored by a number of industry vendors.  The event takes place May 13-15 at the Fireside Inn in Portland Maine.  This is the same location as last year (though last year it was a Holiday Inn…things change).  I attended last year and was very pleased.  The location is near shopping and dining, though the on-site restaurant was fine for me, and there was plenty of room for all the events.  There is a discounted room rate available for convention attendees.

Some of the highlights for this year (you can get more information on the Huzzah! website):

• ASL Bunker – Around the clock Advanced Squad Leader, all levels of player, from rank newbie to hardened veteran welcome and supported!  This is organized by some members of the Yankee ASL Yahoo group.  There is no fee to play, and it isn’t a tourney, just show up and play.  The event has been expanded to a much larger space than we had available last year.
• There will be a Flames of War tournament running all day Sunday.  This is an Early War tourney with a unique setup organized and sponsored by Adler Hobbies.  Sign up early for that if you’re interested because it will fill up fast.
• Got a gaming club?  Want to “bring it” to some other club?  Then register for the Viking Dawn event!  Hurry though, if isn’t full yet it will be soon.  And you have some work to do before you can play!

In addition there are many different games scheduled throughout the weekend running the range from ancients to modern.  If you are a historical gamer and especially if you live in the Northeast, you owe it to yourself to make the trek to Portland in May.  The MHWA ran an outstanding event last year and now with that experience I can only imagine that this year will be even better.  Get yourself to Huzzah!