Cobblestone Roads and Streets from Barrage Miniatures

This is a review of the latest release of warganing scenery by Barrage Miniatures: the new cobblstone roads/streets and sidewalks range aimed to 28mm games. This comes to fill a gap of scenery we had in our club.

Made of flexible rubber-type resin materials, sold in dark grey pre-painted colour, they come in different sizes and shapes and are fully interchangeable, so you can adapt to any type of table or scenario, and across different ages as you'll see.

Below I show see the road and street sections...

 ... and now the sidewalks!. Notice the amazing level of detail, including tree wells, manhole covers and  sewer grilles. 

Testing Soldiers of God

Soldiers of God (SoG) is a set of rules for the Crusades era written by Warwick Kinrade and published last summer. I came to notice the rules very recently in a Twitter post addressing this review in the Historical Games website.

Frequent readers of this blog know my preference (obsession according to my gaming group's pals) for playing games designed by TooFatLardies and this review left me intrigued. After circulating among my group, we acquired a copy and finally played a game today.

The rules are very nicely printed in 94 half A-4 size pages, with soft cover and contains enough photos and diagrams explaining the different topics covered in the different chapters. The text includes detail explanation of the mechanics and examples of play. The game engine is card-based and the book is sold together with the full deck.

 

Operation Martlet - New Games 3 & 4

Strong jumpstart in 2016: 3 days of the new year and we have played two new games of the Martlet Campaign for Chain of Command. We fought on the scenario 3 table, with a first German victory on New Year's day but only to be defeated afterwards on Sunday.

The Scenario 3 represented a key position of the German defense line and its loss represents a major setback. In addition, the German infantry has suffered significantly in the process; and despite causing casualties to the British, the latter has a full fresh platoon in reserve while the Germans have to play with the forces supplied at the beginning of the campaign.

Scottish Troops moving inland in Normandy

Planning 2016 and Happy New Year

A traditional final year post, taking stock of my activity in the year about to end and describing my plans for the year coming.

First, how I did in 2015 compared to plans... well not good at all, missing most of the marks looking at what I wrote at the end of December 2014:

- The Jarama Campaign for the Spanish Civil War never took place, actually it was not even discussed in the gaming group... I wonder who's idea it was (not me for sure) and why it never took off.

- The El Cid Project for Crescent and The Cross, was supposedly the star project of the year... never took off too... quite bizarre as we (me included) painted models like mad during the first months of the year but it just faded why. Honestly, I cannot remember why we did not pursue the project (must ask my mates). Well ate least I won’t have to invest time in painting Moors next year…

- First World War: the TooFatLardies Xmas Special 2014 with an adaptation for Chain of Command created some excitement but was short lived

So as you see, nil out of 3. But was 2015 a terrible year then? Not at all. On the contrary, gaming wise has been one of my most active periods in years and I have to put marks, I would say 9 over 10.

Operation Marlet Campaign - (New) Game 2

The second game of the new Martlet campaign for Chain of Command concluded with a new British victory, a most remarkable feat considering this was in  table where in the first attempt to play the campaign, we bogged down for four games and could not break the German defensive scheme.  Being honest, I did not well with the Germans, deciding to withdraw in the heat of the moment…  a quite stupid move as you’ll see.

In this second game the British must break through the village of Fontenay, where the German outposts are located, before crashing with the enemy’s main defensive line. This is a scenario Three of the main rules (Attack-Defend);  to win, one side must force the other to withdraw or surrender due to fall in the Force Moral level.

Merry Christmas

May you all enjoy a most Merry Christmas, peace and health.
I hope you spend a happy night with all your dearest family members and friends.

Operation Martlet Campaign - Game 5 ... And a New Beginning

Today we had an international visitor at the club: Will is a young 14-year old historical (!!!) wargamer from Virginia, with a deep afection for the Spanish Civil War. Showing a surprisingly mature personality for his youth, he's spending the Christmas holidays in Spain with his family, have already visited the Ciudad Universitaria and tomorrow the Jarama battlefields. 

After contactting our club email, we invited him to play a Chain of Command with us this morning. As I know he follows this blog, I'd like to thank him for his visit and hope he has enjoyed the morning despite some lack of action in the two games played this morning. Obviously, the invitation to visit us is open to any you travelling to Madrid.

The fifth game of the Martlet campaign for Chain of Command was the straw that broke the (British) camel's back. Already the patrol phase was far from auspicious to the British interests, as the Germans got 5 (!) free moves that basically cornered our deployment area to a narrow belt along the table edge, hindering our options.