Busy week - Gitschin 1866, AWI and SKELP 2011...

This week has been a busy time for games.



Patriot Continentals open fire...

 On Tuesday I played an 28mm Black Powder AWI game at home. The game was basically a reduced version of Camden played to introduce the rules to Dave Paterson and Mark Taylor. The British commanded by Dave had a regular brigade, loyalist brigade and a cavalry brigade of 2 small units of British legion cavalry. The Patriots commanded by Mark had a continental brigade, a militia brigade and small mixed brigade of riflemen and cavalry.

British regulars brek their opponents thru volley fire...

The Patriots took the offensive with their continentals and the mixed brigade but were worsted in a long struggle by the regulars and the legion cavalry. All 3 units of the continentals broke. However the militia defending a fence line got the better of the laylists breaking 1 unit and forcing the other to retire. At the end of the game only 2 of the surviving patriot units were not shaken. It was a rare British victory. As it was a starter game for Dave and mark we played the rules using the standard sequence of play not the revised one from & Blenheim I have used in recent games.

Austrian centre...

On Thursday at Hugh Wilson's I took part in a test game of Gerry Henry's latest large scale 1866 game. It was a refight of the Seven Weeks War Battle of Gitschin (or Jicin) with 10mm fgures played over a 10ft by 5 ft table. Gerry had once again produced very detailed contoured terrain. All the trees were individually inserted into the terrain so it took a lot of effort from Gerry to set up in advance. We were again testing the 1866 version of the Piquet rules. With the card driven initiative and order system you can get very variable levels of activity for each side. The Austrians got the run of the cards at the beginning and pounded the Prussians (mainly my command) with very effective fire. Later on we got the run of the cards and Colin Jack commanding the Prussian flank march made good use of the Schnellfeuer card! An enjoyable game and it looked great. My thanks to Gerry.

Prussian flank march unfolds...

Here is the link to Gitschin photos on my FlickR site

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bill26048/sets/72157627716290169/

At last my command reaches the ridge..

Update - Photos from SKELP 2011 held this weekend in Forfar staged by Angus Wargames Club. Our Canadian Arctic 1944 game won best PP game and Best game with a Naval combined Ops theme!

Our Arctic PP game - crashed Nazi disk at this end...

Poster says it all......

RAF Leuchars Great Escape PP Game - with music....

Independent Wargamers Chinese Siege - great buildings..

Highest score of Penguins inspected by leader!!!!!

My last post for 2 weeks - my own great escape on vacation....