FIELD OF GLORY: NAPOLEONIC. Observations.

ABOVE: The French Corp of two Divisions with a Heavy Cavalry Brigade deploy for battle,.. "Ahhhh Prussians again".

Stan and I decided to play a game of FIELD OF GLORY: NAPOLEONIC (FOG-N) over the weekend.

Now I'll start by saying that this IS NOT a review of the rules. The truth is you can find plenty of them on the web.

No, this is really just some observations.

Now some of you may know that my preferred rules for Napoleonic gaming are LASALLE.

So is FOG-N better than LASALLE?

Well, there is no easy answer to that question, and that's because both rule systems are aimed are different levels.

LASALLE for example is a BATTALION level game. That is to say that you the gamer are manoeuvring Battalions on the tabletop within a Divisional Organisation.

FOG-N on the other hand is a REGIMENTAL (or what I like to call a Multi-battalion) level game which is played within a Corps level organisation.

Now you would think Multi-Battalion means you are moving Brigades, but no, not necessarily. In FOG-N you 'Units' (4 or 6 bases) can be a small unit of only 4 Battalions, or you can add on 'attachments' of Artillery, 'Skirmishers' or cavalry or have an 'Officer attached (Brigade Commander). You an also combine additional units of infantry, cavalry or Artillery to form Divisions.

The fact that FOG-N is a 'Regimental' level game is quite controversial in my opinion, as traditional Napoleonic wargames are fought at Battalion, Brigade, Division or Corp level. Using the Regiment seems at first somewhat odd.

But here's the thing,.....

It works. 

LASALLE can be used to fight battles within LARGER battles, such as the attack by the French on La Hay Saint during the Battle of Waterloo.

FOG-N could be used to fight Waterloo, (though this would be a BIG game).

Now the first thing you notice when playing FOG-N is that it's complex. Well in comparison to LASALLE that is but then again a robust game of Connect 4 is complex in comparison to LASALLE also.

FOG-N flows quite nicely, it's just there is a lot within each phase of play you need to come to grips with.

This system was built with the competition gamer mind.

There are rules coving terrain placement, Flank marches and Reserves off table and each army must deploy a Line Of Communication (LOC) marker which when captured has a pretty sever effect on Moral across the entire army.

It simulates the battles of the period quite well. In very simple terms Armies are classed as Un-Reformed (those nations still moving and fighting in lines) and Reformed (those nations that have adopted the Column as the preferred method of manoeuvre and assault).

Austrians in 1801 for example would be classed as Un-reformed and most French and the Prussians in 1813, Reformed.

Where there is a big difference from LASALLE (apart from the scale of battle) is that movement by units is broken down to 'Simple' or 'Complex'.

An advance straight ahead for example is 'Simple'. An assault when disordered by enemy fire or forming square when being assaulted by Cavalry is 'Complex'. Complex moves can only be performed when there is a Commander within range who is willing or able to expend Command Points (CP) to enable the unit in question perform the manoeuvre, (or an additional CP if outside command range).

Failure to past the test can see units suffering penalties such as a fall in cohesion, (not good). What's really cool is that CPs are modelled by the use of ADC figures. Now I can have a whole bunch of young officers on horseback dashing about the battlefield relaying orders from Corps Commander to Divisional commanders and then to the units that need orders to conduct 'Complex' manoeuvres, HUZZAH!!

You could you counters or poker chips, but where is the Dash and Bravado in that?!

Stan and I discovered in our game that once cohesion losses start to build up, sooner or later units become static and or fall apart and as one routs, others soon follow.

The Army Lists are also very different, (not surprising). In LASALLE you build a Division from a set list based on theatre of operation or campaign, with optional supporting Brigades or Allies that are also set.

In FOG-N you have a points based system where you have Minimums and Maximums from a core list to chose from and then chose form a list of 'Attachments', 'Options' and Allies. In short you have far greater flexibility in the composition of yourFOG-N Army (Corp) than you do in your

LASALLE Army (reinforced Division).

What is similar about FOG-N and LASALLE is the gradual collapse in unit cohesion. Units fall from STEADY to DISORDERED to WAVERING to BROKEN (routed).

Basing in 15mm is also (thankfully) the same.

I enjoyed my first couple of games of FOG-N and will continue to play more games.

I don't see these rules replacing LASALLE, they just give me another level at which to play.

Ok, below is some photos of our game. 630 points each side. Enjoy, and as usual please feel free to leave a comment. 

Field of Glory- Napoleonics. My copy arrived.

Hi all I've just received my copy of 'Field of Glory, Napoleonics'. First impressions are that it is a very well presented product. The book is very well constructed. By that I mean it's well bound and looks and feels like it will hold together. If you've ever held the Field of Glory, Ancients books you'll know what I mean. Good news for me is I won't need to do any rebasing to play a game. As some of you might know I use LASALLE as my preferred rules, so if FoG-N takes off, my 18mm armies are good to go. Anyway, I'll give these rules a good read and hopefully get a game in soon. I'll post a review after I've pushed some miniatures around. Cheers

LANDWASTER '11. As viewed from BOTH sides of a battlefield

Hi All
Last year I played in LANDWASTER, a DBA tournament in Canberra. This was my 2nd tournament for the year and it had been my 2nd tournament in about the last 4 or 5 years.
In game 4 of the 6 rounds I was matched against my old mate Doug.
He posted a series of game reports from LANDWASTER, so I thought it would be noval to add my comment to the report he posted about our encounter in round 4.
I figured some of you might find it interesting to read about the battle as seen from both sides of the table.
My comments in BIG BLUE BOLD ITALICS.
Soooo over to Doug for the report:

GAME 4
At least I think this was game 4... Things were getting Hazy.. anyway - Scott (Trailape) is a top bloke to play against, hard but fair, and up for a laugh. As was customary by now.. the Waterway went down.. (groan). His army was a mix of Spear and Chariot cavalry led by Hector, looking splendid in his red chariot and shining armour.

ABOVE: Hector on my right, this wasn't the final deployment.
This wasn't the final deployment, with Hector switching to the centre and a Blade element (more of him later) moving to support two chariots on my right.

ABOVE: See those blokes with the bald heads second from the left in the front rank? Grrrrrrr....
I decided to mass my cavalry on my right and overwhelm the two cavalry in front of me then turn the line. Scott decided the best form of defence was attack and as I threw the column foward beside the waterway, he charged me with his two cavalry chariots - I had bow turning behind the column, and suddenly realised that the two Bw elements turning behind couldn't be pushed back and could cost me dearly!


This was my plan exactly. Initialy I was a tad aprehensive as Doug is a very experianced and canny player. His Bw was of concern to me on his right, so moving my Blade (Lukka Warriors) to that flank was a ploy to try and nulify them. Once I saw his 'blunder' with the column on his right I saw an opportunity to sieze the initiative on that flank and in turn roll up his flank.

LESSON ONE of DBA:

DBA is a excellent game for 'siezing' the opportunity, as usually one mistake can be fatal. With most systems, (such as DBM DBMM and FoG for example) you can bounce back from a single error. In DBA it's normally one mistake that can unravel the whole plan.

Luckily for me, the dice gods smiled on me, (oh.. how were they to turn!) and I threw off the first assault at 2-3, then moved out to get my own overlap and got a 4-1 to take out one of his chariots.

Unluckily for me! I really should have made more of this opportunity, but to then have potential success turn in to abject failure was quite disasterous. For the initial attack to fail was bad enough, but to then have the '4-1' result take a chariot out was just plain horrible!


By now I had elements pouring into the space on my right, behind and flanking the spear and blade that were left there as the second Trojan chariot succumbed. On my left I kept Hector and his other Chariot amused with Auxilia and Bw in a wood, supporting my remaining cavalry and LH that were facing off his Sp line in the centre.

Now both Chariots on my left were destroyed, and things looked very grim.
Lesson TWO of DBA:
Even when all seems lost, fight your way back into the game. If luck can be harsh (see Doug's comments on my failed Infantry assault below) she can also be forgiving. NEVER SAY DIE.


I had some extraordinary luck holding the Spear off (in one bound I had 5 combats and rolled 4 x 6 and a 2.. unfortunately the two was against that pesky Blade.. and the sixes weren't enough to do damage to supported spear). I was lucky not fleeing & sticking too much, as that would allow the Spear to contact me front and flank, but in the meantime, victory was turning to disaster on my right. I managed to kill the Sp with Cv in front and side at 3-3, but the remaining Blade (remember him?) was beating off all attacks.. and then to add insult to injury, got a 6-1 to kill a cavalry in front of him.

Clearly my redeployment was a stoke of genius. My Lukka Warriors obviously had a taste for horse flesh, (maybe they were Gauls).

I took a chance at a flank attack on his main spear line, which didn't come off at 3-3, and in return lost the cavalry attempting it. by this stage I was now two elements down, Scott was three down, and all I needed to do was kill this last Blade element, which was now completely isolated and surrounded by LH and Cv. For several bounds this went on, either sticking or throwing me back, I threw a bow in behind a spear hoping to recoil it into the bowmen with my cavalry, another fail... and lost the bow.. By now it was 3 elements each.

See notes on LESSON TWO. With the Lukka warriors fighting like Spartans in a narrow defile, I needed to now do a redeployment and get some support to them. Their luck wouldn't hold out for ever,...

I shot at his charioteers at 4-3.. several times, another fail, and still I couldn't kill the axemen as Hector drove his red chariot the width of the field to crash into the rear of my horsemen attacking the axemen, who again threw their opponents back, to die beneath the hooves of Hector's chariot horses. Game over, and I had gone down.

Hector to the rescue! By consistently using a pip each turn I was able to extract Hector and drive him across from the far flank to assist the Lukka Warriors. Hector insisted he saved them, by the lukka's assert that they had just been "having fun with the horsies".

A fun game, but one in which the dice played a disproportionate part. I was lucky to get away with surviving the first chariot charge, but after that the combat dice were not in my favour. Where I didn't need high dice, I was getting them as in the centre vs his spear, and yet time and again, needing to roll 3 or higher to get that last element I just couldn't do it.

LESSON THREE of DBA:


Just when you need a high roll, you can be sure you have at least a 50% chance of getting a low one.


Scott's Blades should be rewarded with dancing boys, gold ornaments and some clothes. But yet again, I was left thinking that my troops didn't have enough punch to finish an enemy off when I felt he should have been on the ropes.

My lads are Trojans,.... not Greeks! Dancing Girls and a nice Horse steak was reward enough.
You can find all reports from all 6 rounds at Doug's BLOG: A LEAD ODYSSEY

CANCON 2012

 ABOVE: My first game at CANCON 2012. My Brits V French Marines.

BELOW: Prussian Landwehr V French Line.

 Hi All
Well I attended CANCON this year and I must say it was a hoot.
The three day event normally sees me playing all three days, (in the past DBM).
This year I just wanted to relax a bit more, so settled one day (Day 1) of shopping and 'looking around' and then playing 'SONGS OF DRUMS AND SHAKOS' (SDS) on the Saturday and DBA V2.2 on the Sunday.
SDS was a lot of fun. I'd only played a couple of games before, so the whole experiance was a bit of a learning experiance.

ABOVE and BELOW: My Brits give those French scoundrels a bit of a touch up.

All in all I found SDS to be quite a bit of fun. I'm not sure if SDS is as good a game as SHARP PRACTICE, (SP) but they can be played at a tournament, where as SP can't.

BELOW: Egged on by Colour Sergeant Thompson, my Riflemen dispatch some Frenchmen

On the Sunday I played in the DBA comp. I was hopeful of doing well, as in the last two comps I played in I scored a 3rd and 1st place.
Trotting out my trusty Tojans I managed to finished 9th out of 30. On handicap I apparently came 3rd, so not a bad result.

I lost in Round 1 to Early Hebrew, (thanks a lot to dismal dice rolls in combat)
Rd 2 saw me victorious over a medieval Cypriot army. Rd 3 and we defeated Alexander's Macedonians. Rd 4 and we defeated Sung Chinese. Rd 5 and Free Company got the better of us, but a Rd 6 victory over Goths restored honour.

BELOW: The DBA comp in full swing.

BELOW: The shortest DBA gamer I've ever seen. It was great to see so many youngsters playing a 'Historical' game.

BELOW: Travel buddy Stan does battle in only his 2nd ever DBA comp with Sub-Roman Brits. He finished 10th. Not a bad effort!

As usual for CANCON the trade stalls appeared to be busy.

BELOW: Dragon Painting Service (DPS) with Carlo at the helm appeared to have sold a swag of beautifully painted miniatures. I purchased the best part of a new 7 Years war Prussian Army ( all Front Rank miniatures). I suspect Carlo could sell Pork Sausages to Arabs.

BELOW: Between DBA games, a view across one of the game halls.

BELOW: A CANCON regular! Nic and EUREKA MINIATURES. As usual Nic was a pleasure to chat to and always had something new on offer. For me it was 28mm Saxon Guard du Korps Cavalry 1812! (I'll post a review of these magnificent miniatures soon).

And now for some photos of my DBA games!

Below: My Trojans envelope Alexander and his Macedonians.

BELOW:  The 3 photos below are of my game agains the dreaded Goths. This game gave me one of my best results, with the loss of only one element of Spears I got the better of the hairy Germans. My opponent had horrible pips.

BELOW: The following photos from my battle with the SUNG CHINESE commanded by the talented David Lawrence..

The Sung Artillery was of great concern, but by sending my 'Lukka' Blades, 'Hittite' Auxilia and an element of 'Trojan Archer' Psilo through the woods (green felt), I managed to destroy the Chinese bow on David's left flank, sweep through and capture his camp and attack his artillery in the flank.

BELOW: End game for the SUNG.

The results of the DBA COMP were as follows, (and Directly from the Organiser Greg Kelleher) :

"Well DBA at Cancon has come and gone for another year. This year there were 30 players with 6 being juniors. The major prizes went to:
1st place Marcus Treganza
2nd place Stephen Hopkins
3rd place Chris Burg
Junior Champion: Bas Braham
Executioner award Chris Hersey

As can be seen from the list of armies below there was a great spread across the four books. Certainly the Early Hebrews proved to be the surprise army of the tournament.
As always I would like to thank our very generous sponsors Essex Miniatures Australia for providing trophies and prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, Baudea for providing the junior champion prize and Hall of Ancient Warriors for providing the prize for the executioner award.
And thanks to you all. Without your participation there would be no tournament.

Player Army Score Count Back


Marcus Treganza IV/03 Anglo Norman 44 202


Stephen Hopkins IV/66 Later Polish 44 186


Chris Burg I/27 Early Hebrew 43 218


Peter Bismire II/03 Classical Indian 41 201


Jason Dickie IV/13a Medieval German 38 192


Brad Del Munns IV/74 Free Company 37 221


Darryl Hills III/04b Early Byzantine 36 194


Bas Braham (J) IV/83b Wars of the Roses 36 194


Scott Driscoll I/26b Trojan 36 189


Stanley Crabbe II/81c Sub Roman British 34 170


David Lawrence III/61 Sung Chinese 32 176


Sam Braham (J) II/07 Achaemenid Persian 32 164


Gavin Bowman IV/75 Timurid 31 215


Jon Willacy III/39 Later Tang 31 173


Chris Hersey IV/83b Wars of the Roses 30 199


Bruce Bell II/36a Graeco Bactrian 30 170


Jerry Hearn IV/83b Wars of the Roses 30 156


Alex Filewood III/05a Middle Frankish 29 207


Ken Filewood II/39b Ancient Spanish 29 158


Peter Braham II/43 Maccabean Jewish 28 199


Greg Kelleher III/14c Early Bulgar 28 179


Brenton Searle IV/26 Lusignan Cypriot 25 200


Patrick Hersey (J) III/66 Hsi Hsia 25 155


Michael Chellew I/52c Early Hoplite Greek 24 168


Alexander Bell II/12 Macedonian 23 181


Steve Jones IV/09 Eastern American 23 165


Ryan Blake (J) II/47a Early German 21 150


Ronan Hersey (J) II/15 Alexandrian Imperial 18 169


Sebastian Carraro IV/01a Komnenan Byzantine 16 160


Lysander Carraro J II/49 Marian Roman 16 149

Cheers,


Greg"

In summary, CANCON was excellent.

As usual the DBA was great fun, and I'm very interested in seeing Version 3 of these brilliant rules released.
You can find more photos and comments on CANCON 2012 here: LINK! (the very nice Storm and Conquest BLOG)

That's all for now.

Cheers! 

On The Work Bench: Too Much!

Hi Guys

Above: This is what a work bench looks like when you have too much on the go at the one time.

And this is only about a 3rd,..

What you can see here is VICTRIX French 1804-7, French 1812-15, PERRY Dutch Belgians for the 100 days (1815), VICTRIX and PERRY PLASTIC British for 1808-12, REDOUBT ENTERPRISE Trojan War Personalities and some FRONT RANK Personalities for my Inagi-Nation and my friend.

But I am making headway. Just starting to base my Romans and Successors. See below:

The Romans and successors are mainly Foundry Figures, with some OLD GLORY Phalangites added to the Successor's ranks. 

 Finally, I'm continuing with my friend Arnaud's Duke of Marlborough. The horse needs to be transformed into a Grey, and the whole set will be dipped. He's a nice FRONT RANK miniature.

Successor Elites: Alexander's Foot Companions.

 Hi Guys

A break for a moment from Napoleonics.

I thought I'd share a few photos of my recently completed Hypasapists. I've got six 60mm x 20mm bases. 28mm Miniatures. Mostly FOUNDRY, (insanely expensive but very nice) with some OLD GLORY command Figures for a bit more variety. 

 I based them for DBA but will also use them for IMPETUS.

The Shields are all hand pained.

 My favorite figure is the Officer on the right (above). He's an OLD GLORY miniature, and seems to be 'breaking ranks' to urge the lads forward (as seen below):

"Follow me Men"!

I should add that the miniatures (including shields) were painted by FERNANDO ENTERPRISE to their 'SHOWCASE' standard. I wish I could paint that good.

UPDATE:
I thought I'd addsome photos of my recently completed Companions. Four bases of these Elite Cavalry will help secure Victory for the Foot Companions, (I hope). The miniatures are OLD GLORY. I added lances from my left over WARGAMES FACTORY 'Amazons'.

Back to work on my Dutch Belgians for 1815,...

Dutch, Belgians, French and a Duke!

Hi All

My first posting for 2012! I was hopeful I'd have this post up before the new year but alas 'twas not to be.

Anyhooo,.. What am I working on at the moment you might ask. Well I'm working on a beautiful FRONT RANK miniature of the Duke of Marlborough as a late Christmas gift for a friend of mine, (see above). This is the first FRONT RANK miniature I've attempted to paint, and I must say FRONT RANK miniatures are very nice.

I'm also painting some cracking good PERRY MINIATURES Dutch Militia. Long story here. I purchased some Belgian Line Infanrty online and the guy sent me half a unit of Belgian Line and half Dutch Militia. Anyway after an email or two the mistake was acknowledged and the other half of the Belgian unit was sent. What to do with half a unit of Dutch militia? I placed an order to the PERRY's for the other half of the unit and started painting. One of the 12 painted figs I was sent is on the left. My attempt (thus far) at replicating the paint style can be seen below.  

 I recently received back from FERNANDO ENTERPRISE a swag of EUREKA MINIATURES 28mm French Revolutionary War French Infantry painted to a 'Collector' standard. The are quite nice, but I wanted them to look a little more 'campaign' worn so I've started 'Dipping' them in ARMY PAINTER STRONG TONE dip. about 140 done thus far, with about another 80 to go.
Results thus far can be seen below:

 I have a unit of 24 figs in the old 'White' uniform. I've included a picture of one of them below in amoungst the Blue Coats for comparison.

 Also, below are two pictures of FERNANDO ENTERPRISE work prior to dipping. As you can see quite nice and at about $1.65 AUD for the painting good value for money IMHO.
They sport a very nice MAVERIK MODELS material flag.

I'll eventually issue all my French Revolutionary Demi-Brigades with these very nice 'Material' flags. They produce a very nice 'wavey' effect once attached to the staffs and are very reasonably priced. Highly recomended!

More updates soon. Cheers!