More on St. Michel

I took the opportunity to raid my son's archives for a few of his shots from the St. Michel games.  Here we step back from the imaginary world for a moment, and find co-gamemaster Ross refreshing his memory on some aspect of the Charge! rules (here the 1986 Athena reprint that I carry to conventions) prior to the start of Scenario 3, the Battle of St. Michel.

Scenario 3, for reasons that are not clear to me, since I thought that we started at a sensible time (6pm on Friday), was massively undersubscribed.  We press-ganged my sons, my older son's college roommate, and a spare Hawk, also of college age,  to actually play the scenario.  This was the one scenario where Ross and I dropped our mask of impartiality and commanded some of our own troops, though we chose to face each other on the quiet flank of the action, leaving the meat of the fight to the younger generation.

Ross will cover this "in role", but my player-level observation on Charge! is that a major infantry assault will not reach the target without losing a screen of some sort, and if you're not prepared for that, it would be better not to make the assault in the first place. The advancing Pragmatic infantry in the center of the table suffered severely under Alliance artillery fire, so much so that we never actually were able to assault the town.  Had we started with a major cavalry advance, the infantry might have been able to advance within musket range of the objective in a fit condition for the assault.  As it was, the Alliance delivered the bold cavalry charge at just the right moment, not us, and a regiment of Freedonian infantry crumpled under a charge by the Yellow Hussars, undoubtedly itching for revenge after their rough handling at the hands of the S-B dragoons some days previously.  It only took six or seven turns to realize that we would have to withdraw or risk having the entire army cut to pieces in the follow-on scenarios.

Here the S-B Prince's Dragoon Guards, deployed at full regimental strength for the first time for this raid,  have nothing to do but stand around looking pretty, trapped as they are behind all the infantry to their front in the center of the table.

On St. Michel

I'll let Ross tell the story as proper battle reports on his Battle Game of the Month blog; I'm lucky that he has a way with words in that respect, although it does mean that I am going to lose the propaganda war every time...

My son had the camera, so the only pictures I got were from my cell phone.  The lead shot here is the Pragmatic Army drawn up for the attack on St. Michel (scenario three), showing the rather wide variety of uniforms.  It's a good thing there are no rules for friendly fire incidents in this game, as the Pragmatics must have had quite a time with IFF issues.

The second shot is actually from the Sawyer's Farm/Sawmill Village pre-convention game, showing my sole S-B general, plus his newly completed personal standard and an aide-de-camp with a rolled order galloping off...I was glad of the opportunity to paint a few figures as the convention loomed, and have been working on preparing a few things for painting this week.

Focus?

After Ross's visit and Cold Wars, I'm inspired, and I wanted to make some use of that inspiration before it dissipates.  I wanted to work on my next pair of Egyptian chariots tonight, but with an eye to clearing my bench a bit, I also finished up one stray Schoeffen-Buschhagen dragoon (who'll need a little foliage clump when basing to hide the casting flaw on the left hind hoof) and an Airfix billman for the Medieval Mayhem project.  Both of the latter had been hovering in a mostly completed state for months, so it felt good to actually get them varnished and be ready to move on to the next thing.  However, that is stuff from three different projects.

Lack of focus has not been the main reason for lack of progress this past year, but it certainly hasn't helped, and I'm hoping to increase my discipline with respect to having too many things on the work bench at once in the near term.

On Charge!

I still haven't had time to pull pictures together for a full St. Michel report.  Here's one brief story from the weekend:

My son brought one of his gaming college friends along for his first time at the convention.  Having heard from my son beforehand about the NQSYW and having been press-ganged immediately upon arrival into filling out Scenario 3, he asked afterward about why he hadn't seen too many other Charge! games going on.  My son's reply: "Dad and Ross are like people who take their antique car out for a ride now and then."  I must admit that I'm so used to doing these games that I don't think of Old School Gaming in quite that way, although a famous gamer wandered by in the middle of things and opined that "Charge! projects are like the weather; everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything."

Upon reflection, I don't recall seeing many (if any) other Charge! games at our conventions.  Perhaps I should wonder why we don't have emulators?

Cold Wars/Fire and Stone

Cold Wars is over and, sadly, the troops have been sent back to winter quarters after a most entertaining week.  I'll write up something on the St. Michel campaign from my perspective shortly.  My most interesting acquisition at the con was a copy of Christopher Duffy's Fire and Stone on siege warfare.  It includes what amounts to a siege supplement for Charge!, and Ross and I are now considering what it would take to do an NQSYW formal siege of a fortress in 40mm.  Our Haddington 1549 game in 2004 had the fortress, but it was incidental to the game, so this would take things to the next level...

Sawmill Village/Chance encounter

Ross and I were looking for a quick scenario today which would require us to refamiliarize ourselves with the building rules in Charge!, as we expect to be needing them this weekend. The scenario chosen was #41 from CS Grant's Scenarios for Wargames, "Chance Encounter" (also known as Sawmill Village, as described in The War Game Companion), I chose to use my freshly painted dragoon squadron as one of my units, and was amazed as they won a two-turn melee with a squadron of the Rosmark Yellow Hussars (seen here at the start), and then proceeded to win a second melee with the Yellow Hussar's second squadron, despite being down on dice due to a need to rally.

The victorious dragoons are seen here at the moment of victory. Unfortunately, that was the highpoint of the game, as the remainder of my troops were sacrificed in a fruitless attempt to break into the town against determined Rosmarker (er, Rosish) resistance. Ten turns were played in about two hours, reminding me why I like Old School games...

On to Cold Wars and the first Not Quite Raid on St. Michel scenario tomorrow!

Pre-Cold Wars

Ross Macfarlane arrived yesterday evening for the now-traditional pre-Cold Wars visit. While we have not yet had an opportunity to put a game on the table, the day was spent comfortably finishing off a couple of units destined for the weekend's games. I have a squadron of Schoeffen-Buschhagen dragoons finally completed, and Ross has been working on a batch of Rosmark militia intended to defend against the coming S-B incursion.