First Look at Rebel Fury by GMT and Mark Herman

Hello friends:

Not a lot of activity here due to time constraints but the gentler pace of summer beckons, I devoutly hope.   Some gaming and painting happening nevertheless.

Recently I had a chance to open and play a recent tabletop game purchase, Rebel Fury: Battles of the American Civil War by legendary designer, Mark Herman, and published by GMT Games.   It promises to be the first in a series of games using the same rules and mechanisms.  It's a somewhat abstract game, at divisional scale, but with an interestingly fluid turn sequence rather than the traditional IGUGO approach.

I only had the chance to play the introductory scenario, Fredericksburg, using the solitaire rules, which is basically a chance to learn the basic game system and not have a good time as the Federal player.  

Here's the initial setup.  The glossy counters on the river are the pontoon bridges.   Most of the Federal force is well back and the limited number of turns (four if I recall) mean that the Union divisions will be committed piecemeal.   In the solitaire rules the Confederates don't move, they just sit in their entrenchments and blaze away.  It's a stark realization of what a foolish battle plan this was.

The game uses a fairly conventional ZOC mechanic which can favour the attached if the attacker can get a supporting unit into the same ZOC as the defence, which can work in the first attacks if the Union is lucky with die rolls.   Here French and Getty were able to dislodge one of McLaw's units and force their way onto the Heights.   However, in most of the attacks, when one attacker is destroyed or forced to retreat, its adjacent friends have no support and their attacks will inevitably fail.

At the end of the game, the Union had two divisions inside the Confederate positions, which was a better result than I expected, but the US needs five units inside the Confederate lines to win the game.

I replayed the game without the solitaire rules, which gives the Union more freedom of maneuver, but it's hard to outflank the Confederates because in the two-player scenario they get extra units which can enter the map from the south and fill in the lines.   So other than learning the combat mechanics, the Fredericksburg scenario is as much fun as a root canal.  Even so I liked the mechanics, and found the combat resolution quite simple once I mastered the basic system of modifiers.   There is command and control, but it's not overly constraining.   Herman's basic idea here, I think, is to help players understand what brittle instruments Civil War armies were.  Divisions can burn out quickly and players should husband their forces for decisive strokes and broad flanking maneuvers.

I look forward to playing the Chancellorsville scenario using the same map, it promises to be much more interesting.

Blessings to your counters,

MP+

A Battle In Germania: Playing Three Ages of Rome

 Three Ages of Rome (3AoR) is written by UK wargamer Philip Garton for the Helion Books war-games series (published 2022).  Garton has a number of ancient and early modern rules to his credit.   Even though it is written with massed armies in 6mm and 15mm in mind, I found 3AoR an easy and quick way to play an Ancients battle using my 28mm figures, using the recommended adjust of +50% to movement and ranges for 28mms.

Troop types are quite simple and familiar to old school gamers, with infantry  being either Massed, Skirmish, Adaptable (can change formation from Massed to Skirmish, eg Roman auxilia).  Cavalry can be Massed or Skirmish. There are also unit types for Pike Blocks for Hellenic themed armies, artillery, archers, and rabble.   Different troop types can be armoured or unarmored, shielded or unshielded, etc, which matters in missile and melee combat.   Troop quality can be either Raw, Trained, or Veteran, and commanders can likewise range from Political to Normal, to Veteran.   There are rules for setup (which can depend on how many units in an army confer a scouting advantage) as well as discerning omens before a battle!  Once the troops are fielded, every turn players each choose one of three possible orders:  Attack, Hold, or Withdraw.

My existing collection allowed me to field three units of Roman auxilia (2 trained, 1 veteran) and two units of cavalry (1 trained, 1 veteran).   The Germanii had a veteran unit of armoured infantry with their chief, four units of unarmored massed infantry with shields (2 raw, 2 trained) and three units of javelin armed skirmishers (all trained).   I used bases I'd bought years ago for GW's War of the Ring and they worked fine, as 3AoR is basing agnostic, though it has recommended base sizes for those that want them.

Turn order can be determined randomly by cards or dice.  I gave the Germanii a slight advantage because their commander was Veteran.   In the first turn the Romans were roughly handed and pushed back on the wrong foot.   The red shock markers indicate morale states.  In 3AoR units have four morale states:  Sound, Disordered, Disrupted and Routed.   Units can rally and improve their morale at the end of the turn under certain conditions, but the more threatened they are and the worse their morale, it gets harder.   Units with decreasing morale are more likely to be destroyed in melee.  Thus the rules have a nice feel for that Ancients tipping point when armies begin to disintegrate.

The above photo shows how the battle can become chaotic as units swirl and the battle line breaks up.   The longer units fight, the more fragile they become as disruptions and worse become sticky.  In the above photo, the German bodyguard and the centurion's unit, both Veteran, clash while the Germans move a unit in to prevent another Roman unit from intervening in the decisive battle.

Combat in 3AoR is very simply resolved, always using 1d6.   Units shooting or melting get 1 or 2 dice, and regardless of the type of roll required (shooting, melee, saves, morale) a 4 or better on a d6 always succeeds, though there are some basic modifiers (eg, for unarmored, disrupted, etc).   The basic mechanism is thus easily learned and quite simple.  There are some other clever touches, such as testing to see if units move into close proximity to enemy massed units (depends on the troop rating of the attacker/defender).

The game ended when the Roman veterans threw better than the Germanii veterans, who, having no path for a rout, were destroyed and the Germanii chief captured.  A very close game.

 3AoR divides Roman history into Ages of Expansion, Empire, and Decline, and includes army lists for each of these periods.   It includes a few sample scenarios based on famous battles, and allows players to build armies using a simple points system.  

I liked these rules a lot, they are accessible, give a clear result, and while I am not an experienced Ancients gamer, they felt right to me.    I would recommend them to others, and look forward to trying them again when I get a few more units ready for the table.

Thanks for reading, cheers and blessings to your dice!

MP+

Saturday Workbench: Victrix Roman Archers

After saying in my last post that I was treating my newfound hobby fascination with Ancients with caution, I've spent the day chopping and glueing a set of Victrix early imperial Roman auxiliary archers.   I found it fairly simple to assemble them, each figure has only five parts - body, arms, head and quiver - and yet there's a satisfying number of poses. 

The Victrix set comes with a dozen western and a dozen eastern Roman figures, so I started with the western ones first.

I then started looking at the dozen eastern figures still on the sprues and got to thinking that they looked exotic enough to serve as Easterlings or Haradrim in a Middle Earth setting.   I never did like the Easterlings that Games Workshop released for their LOTR range, but these figures would do nicely, so I got to work.

I was pleased that I could find a use for all of the figures in the set, though these eastern fellows will get put in a box for now while I think about what other historical figures might pass for Tolkien's Easterlings and Haradrim.  Parthians, maybe?   What are your thoughts?

Cheers and blessings to your glue and clippers,

MP+

A Small Ancients Diversion: Victrix 28mm Roman Auxiliary

 I've always tried to be careful about overextending my hobby energies into too many periods, but I often fail.   A few years ago, when Clash of Spears was all the rage at my local gaming store,  I painted a Germanic war band and developed a fondness for Victrix figures.    A little fiddly to put together, but they come with a pleasing range of options and they paint up nicely.    So I thought that my Germanii could use some opponents for solitaire play and decided on, of course, Romans.    My friend James likes to say that the auxiliaries made up the backbone of the Roman armies, rather than  the sexier legionaries, and so that was my next step into the world of ancients wargaming.

Here's the first set complete, and tucked into 8 figure bases from now defunct 4Ground that I bought for GW's War of the Ring rules.

A very mean and scary centurion in the middle.

Shield transfers from Little Big Men.  Once you get the hang of applying them, they're quite easy to do for a whole unit.

On manoeuvres in the forests of Germania.  What could possibly go wrong?

Very easy figures to paint, I quite like how the mail shirts look from this angle.

 

There's a lot of competition to get into the painting queue these days.  On one desk I have a regiment of Union ACW infantry, and on another desk I have a Prussian SYW musketeer regiment just getting started, but I think once they get done I'll return to Romans.  I have some Baleric slingers and some auxiliary arches to paint next.    

In the meantime, there are rules to master.  Clash of Spears is too tactical for what I have in mind.   I am currently playing with Three Ages of Rome, written by Philip Garton and published by Helion.  Hope to have an initial report here soon.

Cheers and blessings to your brushes!  MP+

The Canadian Wargamer Podcast Is Back

James and I catch up after a few months off, in a conversation that includes the recent Hot Lead event, Henry Hyde's new horse and musket rules Shot, Steel and Stone, and who is the best movie Napoleon.

Front Rank 28mm SYW Prussian Cuirassiers Swell the Ranks

 A bunch of Front Rank swells swell the ranks.   Trotting off the paint bench are these 12 figures, representing the 5th Margrave Friedrich von Brandenburg Cuirassiers.  They been consuming my time off and on since just after Christmas and I'm happy to get to the finish line with them.

As noted, the figures are Front Rank, and I'm so glad that this venerable line of figures was picked up by Gripping Beast.    I just chose the regiment because I like the number 5, and liked the blue on beige uniforms.  I used this page from the invaluable Kronoskaf website as a guide.  The flag is from Adolfo Ramos and the paints used are mostly from the Foundry tri-tone system.

The newly mustered regiment passes in review in front of Der Alte Fritz and are cheered lustily by their cavalry colleagues.

Some shots of my completed Prussian army thus far.   

Next in the Prussian Painting Queue  (PPQ) is another musketeer regiment (No 3 Anhalt-Dessau) and some pesky friekorps, including Von Kleist's uhlans (very pretty, but can they fight?).

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+ 

An Estate Sale Rules Haul and a bit of Memento Mori

 Where do wargamers go when they shuffle off this mortal coil? 

That's a question that I won't attempt to answer.  Even though I am a wargaming vicar, I will leave theology for my other blog.   However, I think most of you, gentle readers, know by now that when our wargaming friends pass away, they tend to leave a lot of stuff behind.

Last Saturday I took advantage of a lovely and sunny early spring day to drive the two hours from Collingwood down to Stratford to visit Hot Lead, ably run by my friend James and his redshirted cohorts.   I only had a short window of time, so it was all about saying hello to old friends, scanning the games in progress, and of course shopping.

The bring and buy was picked over and offered nothing of interest.  I did buy some lovely painted scatter terrain from a local fellow named Dale Jardine (sorry, I don't have his business' name or website), including these overgrown ruins ready for fantasy games or for pulp heroes like these ones to explore:

Fallen trees and stumps!  Perfect for fantasy or for my ACW gaming, where stumps around a homestead or in a second growth forest battle like The Wilderness would be common.   What a clever idea!

Other than these purchases and a handful of specialty dice (including average dice, necessary for Keith Flint's Honours of War rules), there was nothing I really wanted, but then I met some fellows I know who were selling off the wargaming collections of two chaps as a kindness to their loved ones.  

I wasn't interested in the figures on offer, but I was keen to stock up my rules library.  Can one ever have enough Napoleonics rules?

I never did learn the Fire and Fury systems in their heyday, so I feel I should have a look at them.    I've also heard good things about Shako.

Finally, I succumbed to this old school Phil Barker classic, because I love the enthusiasm of people like Barker who enjoyed a hobby before it became an industry.  Coincidentally on social media today, somebody saw this photo and said he'd just received an Easter card from the Barkers, so good to know that Phil is still around.

Why does the elephant on the cover look sad?  Because nobody ever borrowed this poor book!  Either Templeton SS didn't even have _one_ nerd, or the nerd stole the book from the school library. 

So while old wargamers may die, they sure leave a lot of stuff behind them.    I admired my friends for managing these little hobby estate sales;  it is an act of charity to get rid of a friend's kit and hopefully pass some money back to their widow or survivors.   Buying these books seemed the right thing to do, even though it was an intimation of my own mortality. 

Perhaps, as one of my friends said to me, our stuff will  keep circulating in ever decreasing circles as our generation drops off, and eventually there will be only a few us left standing, at which point the last of us should agree that we will be cremated atop a giant pyre of wargames toys.

I have a friend who I've asked to be my hobby executor if I predecease him, and maybe I'll do the same for him, you never know.  What plans have you made for your hobby gear when you fall of your twig?

MP+