Or to be more accurate... A young Lady and Gentleman's War...
On Saturday my daughter came round for her first 'proper' game of toy soldiers... Hurrah!
We decided on a game of A Gentleman's War...
This is a set of rules that Howard Whitehouse is putting together to create a table top game that is inspired by H.G.Well's Little Wars...
There are no firing cannons but there is a nice card based turn/activation system and dice based movement, there is also the excellent premise that the game is played by gentlemen (and ladies) so if there is a problem you solve it in a gentlemanly (lady like) way... or dice for it.
The rules are also good fun and easy to pick up .
If you want to know more here is a link to the Yahoo group...
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/groupurlGentlemansWar/conversations/topics
When Mharaid arrived we had a nice cup of tea and she had a quick look at the rules we then set up the table...
We went for a nice busy Wellsian style set up...
You know the kind of thing...
The buildings are from War Bases...
https://warbases.co.uk/?product_cat=vbcw
The sheep , explosions (which we use as disorder markers ) and some fencing came from Irregular Miniatures...
http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/indexes/42mmindex.htm
Trees came from a number of sources.
My troops deployed under the command of General Malchanceux...
Mharaid's troops deployed under the command of General Rust...
Now I am sure I can hear some of you saying "I hope old dad is going to go easy on her?"...
Nope!
You should be asking "I hope she is going to go easy on him?"...
Mharaid has grown up around and works in the games industry, she has played online tactical and role-play games since she was big enough to reach a keyboard and has shrewd tactical mind.
She is "That more intelligent sort of girl who likes boy's games and books".
Oh! and all the gods of luck and dice look kindly upon her .
TO WAR...
Early moves and manoeuvre's... all seems good...
I have General Rust's horse artillery in my sights...
Now... as the rules go, you turn over a card to activate each unit in turn...marking the unit with - in this case a button - to show it has moved.
At the start of each move you get three cards that you can play at any time to interrupt your opponent's move or your own...
Yup! don't you just know who pick that one up right away...
General Rust...
So I interrupted the interruption...we couldn't find a precedence for this in the rules so we decided to fire at the same time...
Now I wonder whose dice these are?...
Now this was one of Mharaid's worst dice throws...
First blood to General Rust...
A bit about the sheep...
There were four flocks and one black sheep...
We decided that you would gain extra victory points for each flock you controlled at the end of the game plus bonus points for the black sheep.
Our rule was if any troops approach the sheep we would throw a scatter dice for direction and a die six for distance...
From the start the sheep preferred to move towards General Rust...
This situation takes a little explaining...
I had decided to move along the road and up the hill to put me in a better position to attack Rust's troops and get some sheep.
As it turned out I managed to move 4"...
Not to worry the Scots Greys were a distance away, even with a good roll they wouldn't reach me...
Mharaid made an excellent role...then interrupted herself... then made another excellent role... this doesn't look good...
And here we see a classic Mharaid Morrison dice roll...there is no need to show mine...
And the result is... I have created a monster....
Fortunately I managed to chase them off with a whiff of grapeshot ...
The state of play before lunch...
My men had bread and wine...
Rust's men had tea and biscuit's.
We had....
Yum Yum...
After lunch... to add insult to injury...
Rust rallied the Scots Greys...
The open ground on the hill became a killing zone...Rust's guns mostly killing my men... me mostly rolling one's and the sheep dutifully heading Mharaid's side of the table...
Even with my men in the way, this lot still want to head to Rust's side...
As the Highlanders move into the woods it looks like the sheep are about to enrol as auxiliaries...
Here we see my Turco's ... the finest of North Africa's light troops dashing into the church yard at about 2" an hour...
And not engaging very successfully in a fire fight with Rust's Guards...
My gun and infantry get to the top of the hill and rush forwards... at about 2" an hour...
The Highlanders burst out of the wood...
My infantry charge in at them...
And I win !!!... and no longer in contact with the enemy become a perfect target for the artillery...
Se la guerre...
Along with their new recruit's Rust's army moves forwards...
Only pausing to stamp all over one of my units that were stupid enough to get to close... oh! and look more sheep... not heading in my direction...
With the black sheep showing his true colours and I conceded the game... which could be taken that I still had a chance...I didn't...
So ended a truly enjoyable day...Mharaid had a great time and so did I
We plan to do it again...Hurrah!
The miniatures are all Shiny Toy Soldiers - Little Britons... Made by yours truly and available here...
http://www.spencersmithminiatures.co.uk/html/little_britons.html
All the best. Aly
Baaaaahstaaaards...........
