Napoleonic Sails of Glory Game 24 September 2014

The man with his new camera was active again last night.  Stephen N in HMS Royal George (100), Mark B in HMS Goliath (74) fought a bruising battle against Greg in the Imperial (118) and Mark H in the Generaux (74).  After three hours and the two 74s wrecked the HMS Royal George started to retire after having suffered half damage while the Imperial remained fairly intact.

WW1 Wings of Glory Game 17 September 2014

This post is to show case Mark B's new camera.  Stephen N's miniatures, photos and commentary from Mark B.  The photos can also be accessed on the NWS website by downloading the PDF document.  http://www.nws.org.au/game-reports

WW1 Aerial - "Rule #1 - Stick Together When Outnumbered 3:2"

 The towns on the mat come are nicely visible (good investment Stephen)

The DH4 heads bravely out by himself, while..

The Camelman stupidly loiters around the beacon.

Camelman races to catch his comrade but sees flames in the distance.

The camera catches the flame marker brilliantly (an excellent investment!)

Huns move into finish off the DH4.

DH4 death dive.

Camelman’s blood is up after seeing DH4 death dive and lines his guns onto the rear gunner.

Close-up of The-Hun-to-Die.

The Camel’s Victory Roll, and boy do those flames look real!

This was the last image received before the Camel’s engine was hit a second time …

NWS Survey Part 2 - Plans by members of the NWS for the coming year

Rulesets and Genres over the coming year

Impetus - Ancients

ACW - 15mm

Siege rules - Napoleonics

La Salle

Saga

WW2 28mm skirmish

28mm Zombies

28mm ECW

28mm 7YW

Home made Napoleonics

Songs of Drums and Shakos - Napoleonic Skirmish

Songs of Blades and Heroes - Fantasy Skirmish

New Armies

28mm Ancient Italian

8th Air force (WWII WoG)

6mm Austrian and French 1813/14 period

Vikings

28mm Sci-Fi

28mm Napoleonics

28mm Ancient Persians

28mm Saxons

Assyrians

15mm 7YW armies

28mm French Infantry Battalions

Swiss

Free Company

Landschnechts

Scots

NWS Survey Part 1 Waterloo 1815 - 2015

Responses

We had seventeen responses which is about half the membership I think.  There was  very little consistency in responses.  Given the small pool and variety of answers analysis is therefore somewhat abstract. 

Scales

Seven people preferred 28mm, five people 15mm and one person 6mm.  However one person preferred both 15mm and 28mm and one person preferred both 6mm and 15mm.  When second preference is considered nine people effectively indicated the scales they had not selected as their first preference or simply said all.  As part of second preference, 20mm, 25mm and 1/72nd were also mentioned.

This part of the survey did not ask what figure collections people had.  My conclusion is that while an individual might prefer 28mm or 15mm, they are happy to game in either scale and this includes 6mm, 20mm and 1/72nd.  There was only one response that implied 28mm and nothing else.

Rules

Preferred rules mentioned: General de Brigade, La Salle, Napoleon's Battles, Black Powder, Marshal's Baton (a local rule set) and Column of March.  Three people mentioned General Brigade, the others were mentioned by one person each.  Four people responded that they were happy to play any rules while the remaining five indicated they were not active Napoleonic players.

When it came to second preferences two people mentioned General de Brigade, one person Black Powder and one Marshal's Baton with six saying any and four saying none.  Other rules mentioned included Empire, Sharpe's Practice, March Attack, Shako, Grand Manner, Field of Glory and Songs of Drums and Shakos.  Players of Slaughterloo, what could be described as fantasy Napoleonics, have also been observed at the club, but this was not picked up by the survey.

There was no correlation between preferred scale and preferred rules.

Bicentenary Event

People were asked if they wanted a big game, display game or smaller game.  An overwhelming fifteen wanted a big game, with only one saying no and another saying maybe (the later due to availability on the date).  

There were seven positive responses for a static display and eight negative with two maybes.

There were seven negative responses to participation in a smaller game, mainly from people who were not active Napoleonic players.  There were four maybes and six positive responses.

Relevant comments suggested a static display of 54mm figures and using Sharpe's Practice for a skirmish game.  There is also the need to have someone to welcome visitors on the day, this could also cover the need to have crib sheets for any casual gamers.

Observations

My initial reaction to what to make of the survey results were FIIK.

There is no definitive result that would lead me to say that people want a big bicentennial game in a particular scale using a specific set of scale.

Clearly there is an interest in doing something, but diversification in the player base makes a single solution a challenge, particularly when the logistics of organising a big game are taken into account.

My conclusion is to work with the nine people (and the four maybes) who expressed a willingness to be involved in the sub-committee for the NWS Waterloo 2015 event.

My current thoughts are to identify people who would take a lead in organising games or displays and then determining the fit given the physical space available, time and potential number of players.  This has the potential to show the diversity of gaming Napoleonics through multiple figure scales, rules, game size.  The bicentenary would be honoured by having all the games linked back to the Waterloo battle and potentially the wider 100 Days campaign.  The coming battle day on 8 November would be a test case for this approach.

NWS Saturday Wargaming

Some of the games played at the NWS games day on Saturday included Ancients using Impetus, WW1 (land and air), Napoleonic naval and, eh, um Slaughterloo.  There was even time for a DBA game.

Bombing mission with Wings of Glory.  Some more photos of the game can be found here:  http://onesidedminiaturewargamingdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/bombers-of-glory.html

There was also a Sails of Glory game.  More photos from it can be found here:  http://onesidedminiaturewargamingdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/sails-on-ice-blue-sea.html

Plus a DBA game which is something of a sneak preview of the next NWS gaming day, a battle day based on the 338BC battle of Chaironeia.  More photos can be seen here:  http://onesidedminiaturewargamingdiscourse.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/chaironeia-in-dba-take-1.html

Free Wargames Magazine

This is well worth looking at.

Background to the issue appears below, copied from: http://bigredbat.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/wargames-bloggers-quarterly.html.

The Wargame Bloggers Quarterly (WBQ) is a FREE community driven electronic magazine (PDF e-Zine) composed of the best wargames and miniature painting content from the collective blogosphere.

The purpose of the WBQ is to help promote wargaming and miniature painting and ensure that the best material generated by participants in the hobby is available to the wider community in the long term.

Any individual is free to submit content to WBQ for publication. Submissions may not have been published in any other e-Zine, printed magazine or other publication to prevent copyright infringement (with the exception of the author's own personal blog). All content remains the copyright of the author at all times and will be fully credited upon publication.

If you want to know more about WBQ you can read our charter hereor you can contact the current Editor-in-Chief via email onwargamebq@gmail.com.

Important: WBQ is specially designed for tablet and/or PC viewing and contains high-resolution images and other content that look great when zoomed in or viewed full page. Make sure you download your copy rather than view it online to get the very best experience!

Issue List

• Volume One - Issue One - August 2014 (PDF - 25Mb)