Saturday, July 17, 2010

The League of Extraordinary Truants

Several weeks ago, a few local NHMGS members who are free on Fridays decided to form an ad hoc group to meet at The Game Matrix and play whatever game we come up with. The name decided on was the "League of Extraordinary Truants." I didn't provide input, as I wasn't sure how far we'd go with it - we've met three times already - I think we should've been named the "League of Urban Truants" or L.O.U.T's.

Kevin Smyth, who also happens to be the current Prez of the NHMGS, kicked it off with his Spanish Civil War game - something he holds near and dear to his heart. It was his home-brew rules and truly becomes bloody in the hand to hand phase. The shooting wasn't so deadly - or was it just my crappy dice rolls. Maybe both. Adrian took all of the following photos - more can be found on the Puyallup (War)gamers Yahoo Group . All of the figures and terrain are Kevin's.

This one has some Bando Republicanos advancing on my flank with newly arrived Carlists (super troopers) defending the town.
The next photo shows Republicanos swarming into a trench line held by low morale Nationalists- who actually held out for little while. As you can see, another Nationalist trench has already been cleared.
The next photos are from the game hosted by Mark Waddington last week. It was another fun game, this time a Colonial game set in Africa. Not only were the beautifully painted figures and terrain Mark's, but so were the well written fast-play rules. Along with Mark's son Joe, I played the Germans, whose mission was to get the porters across to the far side of the table. I ran the right flank of the movement, and ran off some Sikhs and a British medium machine gun team from a hill - in spite of my below average dice rolling - yet again.
This week's game was another one run by Kevin. It was a semi-historical (is there such a thing?) ACW scenario with land and sea action. I was part of the Confederate forces who held the garrison and town, as well as several shore batteries. My shore battery was out-ranged by the Union ships' guns and put out of action by turn six. This was perfect timing, as the one Confederate ironclad that I commanded came on at the start of that turn (predetermined by die roll).  Here's the baby that I commanded - it survived a close encounter with a monitor class Union ironclad run by Joe Waddington. Joe's ironclad left the table due to failing his morale test after suffering enough damage.
 Not to be outdone by the navy, the land forces are mixing it up too.



3 comments:

  1. Looks like the beginnings of an excellent club - I do hope you've alerted the local police to put on extra shifts on your game nights.

    I'm working on a similar land / naval campaign for my club - what rules did you use for the ironclads? I've settled on Black Powder for the land portion but still looking for a ACW naval set

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  2. See, this is how GFC's come about, blokes taking time off to push lil soldiers about a table when they should cracking on making the country profitable.

    Oh yeah, Im just bloody envious........

    regards
    dave

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  3. Thanks, Gents - it is a load of fun and great meeting with like-minded folks on a routine basis.

    Miles:

    Here's what Kevin wrote me when I asked about the rules: Dean,

    "The rules are called Ironclads. It's actually a board game from by Yaquinto from the late 70's. David Sullivan and I adapted it over to miniatures in the '90's. The rules were reprinted by Excalibur games in the late 80's, early 90's, and are currently out of print. However Thoroughbred Figures
    holds the copyright, and I've been nagging Toby Barrett for years to get them out. He keeps tweaking me on the Miniatures Page every now and then about publishing-I'm still waiting. Think I'll send him pictures of the game."

    There fairly simple rules, but Kevin and a couple others who've played it before were reading the shooting and damage charts off for the rest of us.

    Oh, and we actually start at noon at the local game store & usually are done by 4:00pm-ish - then we yap for about another hour.

    Regards, Dean



    K

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