The Good the bad and the Ugly

Starting with the Good.

I was at the wargames club yesterday and I had done a deal with Matt. I am now the (Semi) Proud owner of a LOT of unpainted lead. Yay me! WE all like lead and this is something I am after in particular. About 2 and a half armies of un painted 6mm American Civil War lead, all Irregular miniatures and knowing Matt more ACW siege cannon that any club member could ever waggle a stick at. Ok Only about 8 guns in all but all whopping great siege guns in 6mm. I am only mentioning the siege guns as I have never seen them in a game of 6mm ACW.  There are also a LOT of Infantry and Cavalry and quite a few artillery. SO we now all know what I have planned for the next Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge..... Most if not all the troops are undercoated already in a dark grey so I will probably re-undercoat in a lighter grey. And that is the good out of the way. But a very nice Good as far as I am concerned.

The Bad. Well there are a couple of bads really. The local council are looking to change the classification of the charitable status of the hall which may mean that after 30 years we are forced to either close the club or move the club. Only time will tell what happens so .... Moving on.

The second Bad is that I have not yet finished the latest turn in the Klintanistan Game. Sorry guys real life (and the rugby). I make no excuses, I just did not get round to it. The good news is the one person who got their turn in 2 hours after the deadline will not be penalised in the game now. I will get the turns ready end sent out NEXT weekend. Sorry about that just realife stuff getting in the way.

Now the Ugly. It is ugly because I forgot my Camera. At the Club yesterday Graham and Richard (called Dick in the club) played a game against Matt and myself. We played "Bloody Barons" by Peter Pig and while Matt and me were Yorkist, Dick and Graham were Lancastrian. here are some of the highlights.

1. Poor dice rolls meant we were Defending.
2. Dick has the King arrive and fight on his side. (darn it)
3. First shot (Artillery) Matt manages to kill an enemy Household cavalry stand. No saves versus cannon so just blown away.
4. Lots of our troops do not arrive in time for the start of the battle.
5. Treachery means that a Lancastrian Noble considers changing sides and he need persuading to join the fight. This means our left wing is not under pressure at the start of the game. But he can join the fight 2 turns later. But te left wing did have a breather.
6. I Fail to moyivate any troops for four turns in a row.... 2d6 with 2 or 3 being no motivation.... yeah bad dice rolls what can I do.
7. Matt makes an inspiring defence of a town. Matt in the town only had levy troops and mostly archers. Yes being charged in the flank and being attacked by retinue quality troops managed to first hold the charge in one turn and then beat them off. being beaten by levy must have hurt them as they then failed a morale check and routed from the field. Three cheers for the levy troops.
8. The following turn The Lancastrians attack the centre (again commanded by Matt I was still twiddling my fingers due to lack of in game motivation). Again a Brilliant defence saw Matts Retinue troops beat of lance armed Houshold heavy cavalry in the open. And as a bigger surprise they also routed from the field. Bye bye Lancastrian cavalry. Another brilliant defence by Matt.
9. A Lucky (and I do mean lucky and not skilled) opportunity shot by my unmoving retinue unit close to the centre manages to kill the KING. (I called myself Kingslayer at every opportunity from then on!)
10. I finally manage to motivate myself from now on.... Honest Matt it was the Dice I was not holding back despite what the opponents were saying. (It Really was the dice).
11. I send my retinue from the laft most side of the hill and engage Dicks Retinue. As a peculiarity of the rules Once combat is met you can decide to carry on with your turn OR to fight it out there and then. I chose to carry on with the turn.
12. The Yorkist cavalry motivate and being household troops get D6+1 action points. I rolled and got a six. So I sent them charging into a levy unit which had come out into the open. (This was the reason for my delay in sorting out the combat, as if I had failed to motivate or failed to motivate sufficiently I could have moved the Cavalry into a supporting position.)
13. Crash band wallop. heavy armoured Knights against a peasant levy (Yes things could have gone terribly wrong but instead 5 enemy bases removed and no casualties to myself. The Levy routed from the field immediately.
14. This bolstered me and with no side support the Lancastrian Retinue that my retinue wee fighting Also lost the fight and were swept away as well leaving the left wing with but a single unit to fight my pretty much undamaged horde.
15. The Center Hill does get taken despite Matts best effort and they are pushed off of the hill. But as Mat was facing at that point 3 enemy units to the 1 he had irt was only really a matter of time. And matt manages to bring the last of our LATE reserves on just where they are needed and hold the line.
16. The countdown clock reached the allotted time and the game was over.

We only had enough time left to pack up and not to work out victory points but it was clear to all players that the King was now dead and the House of York still had an intact army. The Lancastrians only had about 2/5ths of the starting bases left.

And that was the battle we fought yesterday. I know you would have liked some pictures but All MY fault, I have no camera phone (nor wish to have one) and I forgot the camera on the day. All I can say is sorry about that.