Battleground 2015 part one...Blucher demo game

On Saturday my dad and I ran a Blucher game at the Battleground wargame show at Middlesbrough show using our 10mm Napolionic French and Austrian armies. The show was well attended and it seemed like our game was well received by the public, we had plenty of questions asked about the rule set so I hope we managed to sell the game well. I have taken photos of some of the other demonstration games of which there was was some nice looking games which I will post as a part 2 of the day. My dad had been rather busy printing and lamenting the unit cards for the day so we used these for our deployment. With it been a demonstration game we played 400 points aside, bigger than our normal games but we could get more of our units on show. We kept the terrain simple but effective to allow for a easy running game. I took a few photos of the game when I got chance of the action, we managed to get around 10 turns in throughout the day which by the time the show started to wind down my dads Austrians were starting to hold the upper hand.

The table at set up

French Dragoons move to meet the threat of the Austrian hussars in support of the Bavarians

Austrian hussars and horse artillery

Austrain Dragoons appear from behind the hill to give a nasty surprise to the on coming French line brigades

The Austrain left flank sees a Austarain infantry Corp advance

The table after most of our units had been revealed

Austrain Currasiers charge the Saxon massed battery

My Bavarains push up to support the French line infantry brigades as Napoleon over sees the action

The battle in full action from behind the Austrain lines.

The Saxon corp comes under a heavy attack from the Austrian Grenadier brigades

The Old guard Corp moves up to support the faltering French line attack

The end of the battle looking across the battlefield.

As I stated before I will put up some pictures of the other games I managed to get alook at up in my follow up post.

Battleground 2015

Tomorrow is the day of the Battleground convention (formerly known as smoggycon) held at the Queen's Campus Sports Hall in Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 6BH, running from 10am until 3pm. The independent wargames group are putting two games on, my dad and I will be fighting a Blucher game using our 1809 Austrain and French 10mm armies and Robbie and Colin will be relighting the battle of  Kunersdorf in 28mm. It should make for a good day out so pease feel free to say hello if you pass by our game.

                      An action shot of the figures that will be in use tomorrow 

A Pike and Shotte ECW battle

Work and the daughters first birthday have eaten into my time over the last couple of weeks so I haven't had the chance to update my blog recently. A couple of weekends ago I had a ECW game with my dad using Pike and Shotte so I have uploaded some pictures of the game I took on the day. 

Battle lines from the Royalist side

Parliament Cavalry

Ruppert leading the Cavaliers

The game played out to be a draw but at the final position my dad playing the Roundheads had definetly started to get the upper hand in the game. On the left flank our cavalry clashed through a number of engagements which after initial sucess,some rather lack lustre counter charging saw Rupperts command broken. The Roundhead cavalry still had one command battered up abit but crucially still unbroken

The centre saw our Pike blocks clash with both sides pushing one another back. At one stage I felt I was going to crack my dads centre but although some of my units pushed through the gaps where the Roundheads had broken I was unable to break the second line. By this stage my units were becoming alarmingly shaken.

And yes I managed to get Ruppert slain as he lead what was to be his final charge 

Overall it was a cracking game, different to what we have been playing of late but really enjoyable, it's always nice when you play with a period you haven't used for a while. Up next will be a venture back into the dessert with Britians finest against the massed hordes of Mahdists in a blackpowder game.

I've been drawn to the dark side....

 I've gone and done it and purchased the starwars X wing minitures core game while I was away with the family for the weekend at Blackpool for the illuminations. I must admit I've toyed (no pun intended) with the idea for sometime now, but after seen the trailer for the new starwars movie, seen those X wings dog fighting with the tie fighters I just had to take the plunge. I know I've probably opened a can of worms here as I will no doubts have to purchase an entire fleet capable of taking over the entire universe but I'm a starwars fan at heart and there's just so many cool ships :-) 

Anyhow I played the step by step beginners game with my willing (or not) partner Cathetine tonight who took control of the tie fighters. About an hour later and yes she blew my X wing fighter to pieces, i enjoyed the game, now tomorrow night and the return leg, I'll take control of those Tie fighters this time :-)