End of Samurai Test and Game AAR

Welcome to new subscribers/followers, Kullervo's Niche of Melancholia,
Sergeant Crunch's Miniature Madness, Roundwood's World
1914-45

All you who read and keep up with my silliness, put me over 3,000 pageviews in one month for the first time in my blog's history.  I hit 3,258 views last month.  Cool.  I'm glad I'm putting stuff up that people want to read or at least click through because they're curious.

Table Setup

To the topic of the post. My most recent samurai game using Kings of War. I set up a scenario I'd found in the most recent Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy magazine.  The battle of the two tombs.

I fought the battle and well. The attacking Eastern Army was struggling. One, they started in too heavy of terrain and were severely slowed.  I should've moved them up for deployment. Two, they were leading the charge with Cavalry and were getting slaughtered at the ford crossing. At this point, no one could get over.

Eastern Army - The attackers

I should've made one of two choices when seeing this road block developing.  Pulled the cavalry back and inserted the pikes in their place for more punch. Or, shifted more of the units to use the completely open bridge to the South. Even when playing solo, it's easy to stick to a plan without looking and adjusting to the developing game.

Western Army - The defenders

Also, I should've also stationed more ranged units to fire over the river while the attack was going on.  I didn't need them to the South in the woods because they could've assisted in the attack across the river and then moved over to assist in the taking of the hills.

Now, the biggest causality in the game. I'm putting up the ancients/medieval/samurai army thoughts for now. I've played both Impetus and Kings of War (I like both rulesets for simplicity and free availablility.) and I just don't get that excited while playing them  or the period. I think it's the lines of blocks and positioning.  I'm not sure.  I have a couple board games, Samurai, and Saints in Armor that I would like to try. I feel these may inform my decision: is it the period(s), the rules, or something else.

First Blood - Cavalry crossing river.

I like reading the rules and reading about the period. But once a game is set up and ready to go, I want to try something else.

This is all good, because I'd begun pricing out what it would cost to have two 6mm armies built, painted and based for me.  Anywhere between $700-900.  Money saved for now.

More casualties and game end - hand of god is done with this.

I'll keep the rules, but I will be putting it all on the back burner for now.

Samurai Testing Take 2 - Kings of War AAR

I think this is the second full play through I had with King of War to find a ruleset I want to play Samurai with.  If I want to play Samurai at all. I think that i do because my last play of Basic Impetus and now KOW were both more fun than the first go around.

This may be partially familiarity with the rules. And it may be a partial understanding of the nuances of this type of wargaming vs WWII gaming.

But the thought of painting a ton of Samurai scares me off just a bit.  However, I don't want to play with blocks of wood forever.  It's shown me that the models are what draw me to this type of gaming.

The color
The majesty
of
MINIATURE GAMING!!!!

Samurai Testing - Black Powder

And now Black Power testing for the Samurai. Any thoughts or opinions on this? 

Samurai Testing - Kings of War - Basing

This is a project that will take forever, but the planning is most of the fun.

Samurai Test - Kings of War - Melee

Previously, I showed how shooting may work for Sengoku (sp) era Samurai battles, with my amazingly drawn up blocks.  Now, let's look at Melee.  There are some rules I need to get down, but this rule set is definitely easy and quick playing.  I'm trying out Black Powder and/or Hail Caesar at the moment.

Samurai Testing - Kings of War - Shooting

I refuse to let go of the dream that I may one day paint up a Samurai army.  I must be crazy.  I also like the idea of gaming this or other similar eras, but I go back and forth.  I'm used to manuever and fire tactics from WWII and like them.  Can I get into the more chess-like, manuever and troop placement that ancient through early/mid-19th  century warfare seems to be.

Understand that the last sentence is an uneducated one and how I've observed these games to go.  I also understand that warfare in such a stretch of time isn't dictated by one tactic/discipline.  I was painting with a humongus brush to generalize.

So I keep trying rules to see how I may want to play with these little soldiers if I decide to dive in.  And to see if I like this style of gaming.  I'm looking for fairly simple and fast playing.

Here I test the Kings of War set with 40mm x 20mm blocks and lists I've found on the web.



I had fun playing this short test.

Links to Phil's Blog and some of his Samurai stories
http://philbancients.blogspot.com/?q=samurai
Free Rules from Mantic
http://www.manticgames.com/Hobby/Gaming.html
Free Historic Army Lists
http://files.sigil.biz/data/kings_and_khans_1600bc_to_1700ad_22jan2013.pdf

Kings of War Sengoko Period Test

Tested out the Kings of War rules as another possible set for Samurai gaming when I had an hour during a recent trip. (20 year anniversary trip with my Awesome Wife to the town where we were married. Great time.)

There currently isn't a list, but I modified an English Civil War/Pike and Shot list someone has created as well as taking some hints from the Kingdom Of Men list. Needs some tweaking with the lists.

Also, I had no leaders, banners, or musicians...of which there would be some...and they are necessary. Otherwise units hit their nerve tests way too easy and are quickly routed off the field. Also, cavalry is way tough. I also made it way to the blue's favor just so I could get a quick result. But this was crazy fast.

One thing, the arquebus has the same range as the bows. It seems as though this era of weapon technology, the bow would shoot further than the guns - and be more effective. But I'm very new to this era, so I'm open to opinions/facts on this issue.

Cool thing about this set - even easier than Impetus and Black Powder/HC.

Will have to try this again.

Yellow Clan against Blue Clan on snowy fields

You'll see Yellow is down one unit and Cavalry Samurai unit (blue) will charge the yellow Samurai next turn

And, the end. Only the long blue Yari (Sprears) have one wound.

Hail Ceasar Arrived!

The rules I'm going to try for the Samurai period. And it's a good looking book to boot. And it's roughly based on Warmaster. I've never played a game but only one very closely designed: BKCII and FWC.

From the Warlord's Website - go buy it.

Ran, Breakfast Club, and A Tough Chic

I've always wanted to see this, but I saw timmy! this week and he suggested strongly that I see it because it shows Samurai battle and armor well.

He was right. It's very well filmed. I thought it was an old one. Not really, 1985. Wait. Is that old?

Breakfast club is older. Oh boy.

Good movie - I'm currently on the scene where the widow becomes the brothers wife and licks his blood - crazy scene but awesome. She's gotta be one of the toughest women in movies. Toughest characters - man or woman.

As I'm typing this, she's still going. Incredible.

Watching this gives me hope in painting Samurai. In fact it may be fun to paint these armies.

Battle does seem to be a bit more chaotic.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ran_(film)

The Japanese woman is the actress that plays the wife - Lady Kaede
http://www.google.com/search?q=Mieko+Harada&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

Oh yeah, happy BDAY mom!

WWII 6mm Painting Progress and Basing

Blasted Basing
Go back and forth 60x30, 40x20, 30x30, 20x20... No one warned about The Hardest Decision in Miniature Gaming. And, I don't even know if I really want to play Samurai. Sounds cool.

But is it?

I cut out 60x30s with heavy card stock. Tried playing a couple moves and shooting steps from Black Powder. Something wasn't quite right.

I make it sound like it's a big deal. But I believe there are bigger issues out there. This is what the news tell me. Anyway...

But in the "progress is cool" camp - #hobbytime today saw me prime the 16 US armored units I assembled last night.

Stuff I'm doing lately - variety edition

Gaming and Modeling time is at a premium lately with work and AW's business, and kids, and, and... I thought for this post I would discuss, like many of the podcasts I listen to, my general hobby/somewhat related activities:

The pic to the left shows me working on a "painting" project with my 10 year old. Helping him to color in the letters on a homework assignment. (If figure I would let him figure out the answers and read the stuff to get the work done and I would help him to do the filler work. I'm pretty confident he got the coloring part of his education down about 6 years ago.)

In addition, I saw the movie Valkyrie again. It's an enjoyable flic, keeps the tension up and is well acted in most parts. And the one battle scene seems well done. I don't  know much about the desert theatre to comment on the equipment, etc. Something doesn't seem right about the aircraft used...

And I don't know much about this particular attempt on Hitler's life. Fodder for future reading.

Saw Conan, the new version. Hmmm it re-energized my love of the Conan lore that I've had since I saw the Arnold Conan, then read the Marvel versions. However, the movie seemed flat, not epic...though they tried. It's like they ran out of money. At one point I thought I was watching a TV show - which might actually be better. Seriously, Howard's writing is very stylized - but it works for the genre and time period. I think any adaptations should adapt this somehow. I'm going to back and watch the Arnold version again. I wouldn't recommend this movie.

I'm thinking I would have enjoyed if they would've covered more Conan growing up and going through his early adventures...Not sure. Really, as I think about it more, it would make a better TV series - fits the form of the stories better.

Though I had said in an earlier post that I wasn't sure of Samurai, I'm following with interest a blog called, The Wargaming Site as he begins his journey down the road toward 6mm Samurai miniature wars.  He also did this great post of his searching for buildings and terrain of the Sengoku Samurai era.  Also, I like the way his site creates a magazine style.

Dry Dock paining - some completed ships

Lutzow

Lutzow

Started painting ships for Naval Thunder. These are the 1/3000 ships I found for a $1.00 each at Miniature Market.

This is harder than I thought.

And I will paint my destroyers from here on out with a grey paint and a couple touch ups like black on the stacks and perhaps some dry-brushing. I painted the HMS South Hampton and Arethusa. Yeah, this is not pretty. But I want to keep them the way they are to hopefully see how I improve.

The South Hampton I could find only had two stacks and I couldn't find anything about retrofits. Mine has 3 stacks - maybe I can say it's extra fast! Just kidding purists!

The Graf Spee and Lutzow however, were fun to paint.

And yes, I've reached new levels of Nerdaton with my attempt at painting a swastika flag on the bow of the Lutzow. Yes, using a filament off an old toothbrush. Better luck next time.

Graf Spee

It's fascinating the paint schemes they used on ships in WWII. Some of them are quite effective making the ship look different than it  is. You can imagine at sea and dusk that it would be hard to get a good spot while targeting.

I've been thinking of basing and was going to get some Litko But I'm really trying to not spend money. I'm either going to try cutting some plexiglass I have (though I hear it's challenging) or perhaps using a heavy letraset. Like a heavy cardstock. With the latter I'm concerned for warping.

On another note: tried playing Basic Impetus again with the paper representing Samurai and Korea. And not so much interest this time. Impetus is a good set. I like the rules. Nice and easy to get, like Naval Thunder. However, I just wasn't interested in finishing out my test. And, when I was looking over the rules to clarify a few things, I found myself forcing the issue. It's my hobby and have other things I would like to try. I'll put thoughts of this era aside for awhile. When I get around to reading the books I bought for the era my interest may be rekindled.

On yet another note: watched the original True Grit and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I'm leaning toward the new one as my favorite. I was impressed with the 1969 iteration though.

Here are a few of the sites I'm using as guidelines for painting and books for inspiration:
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/index.html
http://steelnavy.com/gallery_cruisers.htm
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/index1.html
http://uboat.net/index.html 
 

From Amazon

From Amazon

From Amazon

You Guessed It, From Amazon

And My Favorite, From Amazon

Xmas just kills hobby time

A huge work project, kid stuff, wife's new business, xmas travels and festivities, etc, etc, etc, all put a damper into any kind of hobby time. Go to any hobby blog and you'll see a similar kind of note. Not any different here.

When I came back to work on this post I realized that this first paragraph and blog title are quite negative. Not meant to be, just explaining why the large gap. In fact, despite the fact that I posted a long list of hobby to dos on the 6mm Yahoo group, 2012 is shaping up to be a fairly thin year. After posting the list and going over non-hobby related priorities, I realized that I will be hard pressed to do as much as I did this year. Though I would still like to get more games in.

However, for Xmas I did get a couple of gaming related gifts:

1. Black Powder rules - I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about and to see if I could adapt them for the ACW and Samurai time periods I want to try. I know they're designed for big battles. But being that I'm a miniature gamer, I won't stand by and let the rules as written stop me from changing a few things.  Actually, I'm going to use two supplements I've found written by fans for both time periods.  Gleaming Katanas (battle report/AAR can be found here and the rules can be found here).

From Blenheim to Berlin Blog

The ACW adaptation can be found here from the Contemptible Little Wargames Club.

From TCLWC

2. I used some Xmas money to buy some ACW troops from Gordon and Hague. He's having a special to move out his blisters to make way for the new sculpts and paints he wants to sell. So, it's a better deal than buying his army packs. (Except you can't get all the units on special that are included in the army packs as blisters.)

From Gordon & Hague Site

My armies will consist of the following (both armies will be the same exact OOB):
1 General Stand
2 Artillery Stands
6 Cavalry Packs
4 Infantry Command Packs
12 Infantry Packs
4 Militia Packs

Not sure this will do much in BP, but I've got to start somewhere. I'm not too concerned with paint quality etc. I want the miniatures to be worth it, but at 2.19 a base, I'm saving a lot of time and money not having to experiment, base, etc. I will lose some that satisfaction that I did it on my own. Obviously, at this point, I'm willing to suffer through that loss.

Hobby room update: I cut the raised table wood, legs, metal shelf support and moved it all downstairs. Slow progress, but progress.  - refer to the first paragraph of this post.

First Samurai Playtest

On the living room floor with some more nice paper models, similar to my ships. I got these 40x20 playing pieces from the Warmaster forum for their samurai variant. Cut some out and put Daimyo to the test.  Not too thrilled with the first 4 turns.  Something just didn't click for me.  Not sure what's next, Killer Katanas or the Warmaster Variant. I'm thinking Warmaster because I'm more familiar with the system through the BKCII and FWC games.

Some rules are like that, they just don't click (resonate) with me. Doesn't mean they're not good. I can only think of one set of rules that I thought weren't good. That was a boardgame, the new Panzerblitz. And the reason I think I had this impression - because of too high of expectations. I wanted it to have the same feel of the old Panzer Leader. And those feelings were based on my feelings as a 10 year old pulling out my dad's version of Panzer Leader and playing by the rules that I could figure out and rolling some dice. At that age it was more about setting up and dreaming of battles to come than actually fighting them.

I'm more of the camp that understands that some rules just aren't for me. For example, Firestorm Armada. Enjoyable game, nice models, etc. But after playing through them a few times I just didn't care for them. I don't have the focused energy to worry about some mechanics that may or may not be good or accurate. I just know if I'm not excited, even after a couple of playtests solo or not, then I'll move on.



I understand this isn't fair. Possibly I'm not getting enough understanding of the basics of a ruleset to let the mechanics take over. To the point where I'm not thinking about the rules and just playing the game. But that's okay. This is a big reason I don't make critical reviews. Well, one of the reasons. The biggest of which is that I'm not that great a writer. The second being that I don't have a lot of critical things to say about a game that I believe would help someone else choose or not choose it. I like reading those kinds of reviews. When I do read them, I pick out those areas that seem like the author and I agree/disagree and make a personal judgement.

From theviewfromtheturret.com

A site that reviews rules well is View From the Turret: here's their review of Naval Thunder Clash of the Dreadnaughts.

What was supposed to be a short entry has become a rambling session galore. I could still talk about games I don't play but enjoy very much, again, for lack of time. These would include, Nations at War, ASL, and Combat Commander.