Look what Santa brung !

 

I ordered these two for myself this Christmas , the long awaited extension to the C&C Medieval box which covers the battles of the 1st Crusade and the latest Solo system to cover them (and the Napoleonic C&C as well) . I find I play quite a lot of C&C on and off - it doesn't feature on the blog much as it's not very photogenic - so I'm going to sticker the wooden blocks up and start reading the rules ready for my first game.

Fighting with an addiction .

 

There has been not much "proper" wargaming over the last couple of weeks as I have been playing a series of games using various C&C boxed board games . Now I'm not by nature a boardgamer - I once lost the entire Army of North Virginia whilst playing a Gettysburg game against my wargaming colleague 'B' , but I am a great fan of the Command & Colours system which uses blocks instead of little card chits (SO less fiddly with my chunky fingers) . The problem (?) is once you have a game set up it is so easy to just set up the next scenario and play it . There is also a very good solo system which helps the games move on quickly .Sadly the games are not very photogenic from a blogging point of view - back to figure gaming in the near future .

New recruits and a distraction.

Whilst looking at another blog I found that Del Prado did a couple of suitable mounted figures that would do for my 54mm ECW  collection . On the left  'Prince Rupert' and the right 'Gustav Adolphus' they are a bit chunkier than the plastic figures (probably 1/32nd scale rather than 1/35th  ?) but being pre-painted and quite cheap I can live with that . They will need a bit of tarting up and a gloss varnish before gracing the tabletop .

Speaking of the tabletop people may be awaiting the promised ECW  clash , I had to take the game down whist repairing my table , then I was away on holiday and when I came back I found this awaiting me , I had pre-ordered it and rather forgotten when it was due . I'm a great fan of Command & Colors and admire how they can use the same basic system with a few extra rules and tweaks to produce a totally different game play . I've always been interested in Samurai warfare ever since seeing my first Kurosawa film and having played a couple of the scenarios it looks a very promising game , the ECW will appear shortly .........

 

VERY early Christmas present to myself .

Having sold some surplus figures on eBay and the cash burning a hole in my pocket I decided to buy the new Command & Colors boxed game 'Jacobite Rising' and consider it an early Christmas present to myself (once again seeking to justify spending money on my hobby) . I'm a big fan of the C&C system so this was always going to be a must buy and I'm not disappointed with the game , it uses a similar system to the AWI Tricorne box by Compass Games which uses two sets of cards, the usual 'Command cards' and a deck for each rival army of 'Combat cards' which help to define the different tactics , strengths and weaknesses of the combatants . 

Above is the first scenario 'Killiecrankie , the Government army nearest the camera and the Highland army with blue blocks on the lower slopes of Creag Eallich and the River Garry on the Government right  . The game has 13 senarios spanning from Killiecrankie 1689 through to Culloden 1746 each has its own victory conditions and special rules where necessary . One of the rights of passage about block gaming is the fixing of the stickers to the blocks - a thing many players of C&C hate but which I find therapeutic ! Well with the first game set up I'm off to see if I can change history and beat the Jacobites .

P.S. I have just heard that my gaming colleague 'A' has succumbed to the lure of this box and has purchased it as well ! .

 

Christmas comes early .

I've been selling things on eBay and when I saw that the  Command & Colors Napoleonic base game was being re-issued I thought I'd better spend some of the money and get a copy quickly when I saw one . The thing I have noticed since I started playing and buying C&C board games is that some of them don't seem to be on sale long and disappear till the next print run which could be in a couple of years or more . Having bought it I was going to save it for Christmas BUT being an adult (I do class myself as an adult ignoring the frequent childish lapses) I decided to open it and start stickering up the wooden blocks ready for 'A' calling round for one of our 'gentlemen that lunch' games this week .

I don't normally play these .

I don't normally do board game , being mentally scared playing a Gettysburg boardgame against 'R' and loosing EVERY playing piece of the Army of North Virginia ! -  I never got the idea of 'zoc' (zones of control) . But I came across this boxed game in Waterstones and I had vaguely heard good things about it and it's use of the Command & Colours system , So I bought it ! .

It uses a hex board with terrain hexes on top to produce the various scenario layouts , you also get command and resource cards to play and move your figures around . The rules seem simple enough , the skill is playing the right cards at the right time .

The game uses 15mm (?) figures to portray the various troop types,  here a German machine gun they are rather nice figures in a soft plastic , evidently the original game had hard plastic ones on sprues and numerous breakages getting them off it . 

There are 16 scenarios (sorry for the glare off the glossy paper ) I chose number three, the 2nd Division's diversionary attack at Loos . There are a series of very good videos on You Tube where a German chap plays through all the scenarios and provides some very handy solo adaptions .

The battlefield from the German side , they have three lines of trenches and the British gets a 'medal' when he occupies each of the lines plus one for each unit destroyed ., the Germans when they delay the British and remove attacking units . The British have done the pre-game bombardment and have cut the barbed wire in several places . Let battle commence ! .

P.S. the British won 6-4 on medals,  managing to capture the first two lines of trenches and cause severe casualties on the German defenders