Battles of Medieval Britain: Gnome Wars

     This week I have been helping the wife do some gardening. Spread throughout her gardens are garden gnomes. I like teasing her about them, as no one else in the surrounding neighborhoods have gnomes.  I jokingly call her "the neighborhood crazy gnome lady".  While working under the gaze of the gnomes, I was daydreaming of using different time periods or figures for Mike Lambos' different solitaire games. While trying to ignore the gnomes staring at me, I thought it might be fun to play a game using the Peter Pig gnomes.

The Garden Gnomes prepare to defend their garden against invading Wood Gnomes.

After some initial success, the Garden Gnomes was flanked on both sides and were wiped out.  Somehow I can't see gnomes actually killing each other; instead when they take a hit they run home to their gardens.

The inspiration for this wargame.

Ghosts of the Jungle: A Solitaire Wargame

     This last week I have played four games using Battles of Medieval Britain (1 win- 3 losses). I have played the first two scenarios twice. While my continued lack of success (I blame poor dice rolls)was frustrating, it's been good getting some kind of wargames in. I also took the time to rebase some Peter Laing figures to use on the board.  I am even thinking of rebasing more of my Peter Laing Medievals to use with later period games.

    I also bought Mike Lambos' Ghosts of the Jungle and wanted to try a game. As I don't have any 15mm Vietnam War figures, I rebased some Peter Pig modern African War figures.  I did finally get a game in. I do believe that I made several mistakes in the game. Somehow I was continually interrupted reading the rules.  I figured the rules are simple enough that I could just play through. However, I found myself trying to find how certain rules work. Still, it was an enjoyable game. This particular game doesn't have a limited number of moves; after all you are on a stealth mission where you are trying to accomplish your mission without being detected. 

The SAS team is lined up on the right. Their mission is to get to the left hand side of the board. To lose one man and the mission is a failure. There are three randomly placed enemy. In the picture there is impassable marsh in front of the closest SAS man. Then there is an impassable rock. Between them is a village, which a randomly placed enemy occupies. The team decides to slide to their right and work their way around those obstacles.

The team has managed to work their way around the occupied village. However, unfortunately they had been sighted several times and suffered injuries ( each team member can take three hits. The Team leader can tend wounds and take away injuries, but you have to get doubles and both figures have to be in a building square). The upper left figure is Trooper Baker, who in the next move made it to the objective.  However, the enemy has managed to form a blocking force across the road. Unlike BoMB, the AI forces can move randomly. By some unlucky rolls (based on what side your on!!) The random dice rolls worked out for the enemy. I didn't see that happening. 

The end of the game. My dice rolls continued to work against the team. The random dice rolls continued to work in the enemy's favor, and they continued to close in on the team. In this game every time the team shoots, it activates more enemy reinforcements. Also, you must roll a 4 to "hide" a team member. My team rolled very few 4s. At this point Trooper Baker decided to backtrack to aid his comrades.  Baker had already taken one hit on this mission. Baker killed one of the blocking force. The rest of the team was getting ready to attack. Only Sgt. Allen hadn't been wounded. However, Trooper Baker was in the open. Two enemy soldiers on the road spot him and open fire. Trooper Baker is killed; the mission is a failure. 

  At the end of the turn, each AI soldier gets to roll. They can move, fire or Hunt if they roll doubles. Both the managed to roll hits, that killed Baker. 

Battles of Medieval Britain: A Solitaire Wargame Dice Roll

      In my last post about these rules, I mentioned that each unit gets to roll a certain number of dice and can use as many of the dice rolls to activate that unit.  I have never used this in a game before. I really liked this system, although it can prove frustrating in a game. 

    In my first game there was a particular roll that showed how this system can be used. For dice rolls in this scenario if you roll a 1 the unit can form a Shieldwall. Roll a 2,3, or 4 and the unit can move. Roll a 5 or 6 and you can attack.  I will show one units' move below just to show how clever this system can be.

If one looks at the dice, reading from the top the unit can move, attack, then form Shieldwall. You can arrange the dice in any order you like. The swordsman to the left of the 2 is the unit moving. He has already used his movement dice to move next to the spearman in front of him ( I realized at this point that this would make a good example of how the dice system works).

At this point the unit used its' "attack" dice (the 6 dice), in which the attack failed.  As the enemy unit could attack at the end of the turn, the unit uses its' last dice (the 1dice) to form "Shieldwall". 

      In this particular game all units are "Warrior" units. To kill a unit, the base roll on two dice  is 8+ without any modifiers. However, by forming a shieldwall,  the unit adds +2 to its' defense.  The enemy  now must roll 10+ to eliminate my unit. The roll failed so he survived to continue the battle. It's a simple system that adds additional challenges to fighting solo wargames. I am looking forward to trying more of these games.
 

Battles of Medieval Britain: A Solitaire Wargame

        While on Youtube, a video popped up of a solitaire wargame by Mike Lambo. It was a set of wargame rules and scenarios for Beaches for the Brave. It turned out Mike Lambo has written 5 books of solitaire wargame rules and scenarios. I watched three of his videos. I ended up ordering two of the books; "Battles of Medieval Britain" and "Ghosts of the Jungle". The first one is self explanatory, the second follows an Australian SAS team though a series of missions in Vietnam.  

         The first part of the book explains the basic rules for using the scenarios. The second part has the scenarios. One page gives the charts for the scenario and the goals of the game. The second is the map for the scenario. The opposition is randomly set up. The player get to deploy his forces as he chooses. To move each unit gets to roll several dice, then based on a chart, can use the options from the chart to move his units. He can use as many dice as he chooses. Although in Battles of Medieval Britain the defensive forces can't move, they can engage any opponents in contact with them. Also, as the game goes on, the defenders get reinforcements, you don't. I have only played one game so far. One reason I chose these books is that I can set up a game without figuring out the battlefield layout and units involved. The game I played was set up and played in a little over half an hour. While on the videos Mr. Lambo used blocks to represent the different units, I broke out some Peter Laing figures to use as markers. The one game I played proved to be engaging and fun. In the end I lost; I hope to give it another go tonight and see if I have better luck.

The first scenario in the book: The Battle of Brunanburh. This is after I moved my first units. As can be seen, the defenders (on top) have a gap in their line. I decided to make for that gap.

One of my units destroy one of the defending units.  My other units weren't getting good movement rolls.

The game after the second move.  Right after this move the defenders got their first reinforcements. Its random dice roll dropped it right in front of my victorious unit, thereby stopping the split of the enemy army.  There are several interesting options; one was that my unit could form a shield wall, that add modifiers to its defense. In fact that's what it did in the next turn, which succeeded in warding off an attack.  In the end I was down to one unit, which in no way could eliminate 8 units in two turns, so had to concede defeat.

I strongly encourage anyone interested in these games to look up Mike Lambo on Youtube to see how the different games are played out.  I paid $14.99 for each book on Amazon and received them in two days.
Hopefully in the coming weeks I can try both rules and decide if I will buy more of his books. I do hope that maybe Mr. Lambo will come up with other periods. 

New Homecasting

    A little over a month ago I purchased an old metal toy soldier mold. It was a three figure mold of Prussian SYW fusiliers. I have never seen this mold, but the figures were quite handsome. I placed a bid, which was successful. Unfortunately, the day it was delivered I had come down with a bad cold, which in turn became bronchitis. What's more, I became so dehydrated that my gout flared up in both my legs, leaving me barely able to walk for 3 weeks. However, the miracle of modern medicine got me back on my feet and back to work.

   My poor wife, after being my personal nurse for four weeks, was invited to a birthday party, with the added bonus that she got to get away from her problem patient. I decided to try the mold out.

    I was surprised that I got some useful figures, as the metal in the pot was low and tends to be contaminated at the end.  The figures themself seem to be about 45mm tall. If they could be molded properly they would be great figures. For me, the mold was bought a a whim and how much use it will get is anyone's guess.

The mold

The completed casting. I had a 50% success rate; although  the  the bayonets didn't come out and the pigtails broke off (due to my clumsy handling).

One of the casting compared to a Prince August 40mm grenadier. I measured the fusilier using a ruler, and it came out to roughly 45mm to where the top of his head would be.