Bronze is brilliant!

I pulled out my beloved 40mm Prehistoricalistical Europeanoids (a.k.a. North European Bronze Age) minis for a game on Saturday. My last game with them was in 2016 with Kevin Smyth and Phil Bardsley, when we adapted Osprey's En Garde rules to ca. 1800 BC. It worked OK, but rules for dashing swordsmen ca. 1650 aren't exactly suited for bronze age warriors going at it with axes, spears, swords, slings, and arrows. So, I went back to Ganesha Games' Song of Blades and Heroes, which is the rules set I used when I started with them almost four years ago. There's an advanced version, which I purchased after our game (see below).

So off we went in the Wayback Machine to the Bronze Age. Why? Because bronze is brilliant!

The players were Mike Lombardy, Troy Wold, Ralph Holloway, and I. Troy and I were the defenders keeping the forces of Mike and Ralph from disturbing the religious rites being celebrated at the stonehenge-ish site. It gave me my first opportunity to use the mini stonehenge I bought from Daryl Nichols at Enfilade! earlier this year.

Protecting the shameless naked cavorting at the megaliths

The forces were all roughly equal and I used pretty generic characters. Each warband had a leader figure with the values Q2:C5, plus special rules "leader," "Hero," and "tough." Our leaders all got into combat, but no one got killed. The rest of the forces were swordsmen (Q3:C4), spearmen (Q3:C3), Slingers (Q4:C3, medium shooter), and bowmen (Q4:C3, long shooter). Troy and I also had standard bearers who were like swordsmen (Q3:C4), but had the "tough" special rule. Each warband numbered 13 figures.

Separating our warbands was a mostly dry river, whose wet bits were impassible (but bridged). On one end of the table, Troy and Mike squared off, while Ralph and I went at it on the other end.

The field of battle, Mike and Troy at one end

Mike started out with his figures in two groups and used his leader's "leader" rule to move them forward. Troy and Ralph did similiar.

Ralph's boys start off in neat groups

I was just scattered all over and came at Ralph piecemeal. Why be methodical in my mayhem?

Dave's boys running higgeldy-piggeldy across the terrain

My initial clashes against Ralph did not go well. I was down three swordsmen before he'd lost anyone. He was able to get 2:1 and 3:1 against some of my figures. Being on the ropes, I started concentrating my forces and finally got methodical with my mayhem.

Mike started initially getting badly hurt by Troy's forces, but the worm eventually turned. Both of them fought in tight opposing lines. Ralph and I were more scattered with little clumps fighting in various places.

Ralph's initial successes left him a bit scattered and vulnerable for counterattack. A few good activations later and I was on him in force.

The axeman cometh

The first tough clash is known in my tribe's lore as the "battle by the tree near the swampy bit." It was here that I took my initial losses, but by bringing more warriors to bear—and my hero leader—I turned the tide. My leader exerted only moral force by the tree; when it came time to kick some Bronze Age butt, I rolled two failed activations with him. I just repositioned him with my one action and the battle by the tree near the swampy bit resolved itself when I brought my standard bearer into it.

My leader weighs whether to join the fray (he didn't)

My standard bearer shouting his enemies to death

The fighting was pretty hairy for a bit. Two of my swordsmen held off four of Ralph's spears. It started with just one.

2:1 in my favor and no luck

My failure to kill the lone spearman, however, drew in the rest of Ralph's spears. Another swordsman came to my help and I was then 1:2.

Suddenly a wall of spears!

I got one of my swordsmen killed (and one of Ralph's spears), which left the odds still decidedly against me.

Now 1:3...

However, the lone swordsman prevailed. I'd like to claim skill, but it was just lucky dice. Try as he might, Ralph's attacks were foiled by low scores which left us tied (no result) or had me pushing him back or knocking him down. Once down, a figure is pretty vulnerable to kills or the dreaded GRUESOME KILL (of which we had none this game).

Whittled 'em down to two and soon to none

I lost several chances to kill Ralph's leader. I engaged him with my leader and managed to have him at 2:1 and fallen, but only managed to wound because of the leader's "tough" special rule.

So close...

The "tough" rule helped Troy also, whose standard bearer (a.k.a. "Penis Man" due to the ithyphallic deity totem he carried) was knocked down and wounded multiple times, but survived the game and was standing proud by the megaliths at the end.

I get knocked down, but I get up again...

On the periphery, the missile troops plugged away at each other. I tried a long shot at Ralph's hero, but the odds are so far out the best I could hope for would be a "fallen" result, which I didn't get. However, Ralph and I each took out two opposing missile figures.

Bronze Age firefight

Both Troy and Ralph had to make morale checks for losing more than half their initial force (more dead than alive). For Ralph, this affected only his leader, who scurried back one move. The rest of his force stood their ground.

By game's end, Ralph had four survivors: His wounded leader/hero, one intrepid swordsman, a slinger, and a bowman. I had my leader/hero, my standard bearer, three swordsmen, a slinger, and a bowman.

My men glower menacingly at Ralph's survivors

Troy was on the ropes, pretty much a mirror image of Ralph's situation, but Mike was almost as badly beat up. We called the game for the defenders. The henge ceremony went on without further interruption.

And there was much rejoicing (and gratuitous nudity) at the megaliths

It was a good time despite the pain (see postscript below). I really like my 40mm figures and need to get more—although they're not really available right now, but there is hope...


Final thoughts: Song of Blades and Heroes (SBH)

I like SBH as a system. The game moves along quickly and the back-and-forth can be tense. They're also great for limited numbers of figures. We each had 13 figures in a warbands. We could easily have handled more—if I had more.

They are, however, not quite what I want for the period.

SBH was created for fantasy skirmish battles. I use about 40% of the rules for what I do with them. They don't take into account weapons and armor and there are no rules for my big 40mm scale chariot. The other 60% of the rules cover fantasy rules staples like monsters and magic.

There was once some development on a set of rules to be called Song of Spear and Shield (SSS). I had some correspondence with Andrea Sfiligoi about them going back to 2014. They seemed to be always just on the cusp of being released, but other projects kept getting precedence and they're not even listed in the Work in Progress section anymore. As recently as a few days ago, Andrea confirmed that they will be released, just no indication when. Needless to say, I'm a bit flustered. Patience has never been a virtue I was overly supplied with.

However, I just got the PDF download of the Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes (ASBH). It has a bit more of what I want (and a bit more of what I don't). The only armor rule is the same as what was in the standard SBH, i.e., "heavily armored," which adds +1 to your combat score if you're beaten, i.e., it can be decisive in turning a kill into a pushback. It's kind of moot for the Bronze Age, though. I have figures in cuirass and helmet, I have figures with bronze chest discs, I have figures with just shields (small and large), I have figures with nada but a weapon. It would be nice to have varying degrees of armoredness.

ASBH adds "reaction" to the options for players. It basically works that when a player rolls dice for activation, any failures can be rerolled for an activation attempt by the opposing player before the first player conducts his actions (if any) or rolls his next activation. If two dice fail in an activation attempt, which normally ends a player's activations, the opposing player can choose to have the normal turnover or re-roll the two failed dice as a reaction, which keeps the first player the active player. I can see a lot of advantage in this.

Weapons have been added in some way. Long spears, for example, can benefit from the "long reach" rule, basically letting you attack through/over a friendly figure. I'd give this to my spear figures. There are also rules for heavy weapons like two-handed axes (I only have one figure with that).

All in all, ASBH looks promising—but I'm still eager to see SSS released!

Postscript: Ouch!

I tweaked my back as I was loading my car to head out to The Panzer Depot. By the time I got there and was unloading, I was suffering. I made it through the game, but was only able to load up for the return trip with the help of Mike, Troy, and Ralph. It's Sunday afternoon now and I haven't unpacked yet. In fact, I've been resting since I got home yesterday, groaning every time I have to move.

I've been downing ibuprofen and applying heat and cold alternately. I'm barely mobile, but still able to sit and bash this post out. I'm about to go back to resting with the hope that by tomorrow, my back will be better. It's not spinal, it's a muscle spasm of some kind, just on my lower right.

Post-postscript: Grrr!

I went to work on this blog only to find that all the pics I took with my iPhone came out as HEIC files (i.e., Live photo). This is what the iPhone camera keeps defaulting to. Photoshop can't read that format, so I had to monkey about with a conversion utility just to get everything to work.

Apparently you can set the iPhone camera not to default to Live, which I thought I'd done, but it still defaults to Live. I wish I could just disable it.

Taking Meg (or Pike me, baby, one more time)

We played our second game of The Pikeman's Lament this Saturday at The Panzer Depot in Kirkland, WA. We'd been pretty much on haitus through the summer, but now that Fall is here, there's more time to play.

The forces

We had four players on a 6' x 8' table. Mike Lombardy and I were on one side, Troy Wold and a new player named Ralph (or Malcolm depending on when you asked Troy) were on the other. The forces were two 24-point companies per side.

Mike Lombardy had his atomic Poles:
2 x Elite Aggressive Gallopers (wingéd hussars)
3 x Aggressive Gallopers (pancerni)

I had my 16th c. Irish in their first game:
1 x Elite Forlorn Hope (redshanks)
1 x Aggressive Forlorn Hope (gallowglass with my commander)
1 x Pike
1 x Shot
1 x Commanded Shot (kern with calivers)

Troy had a 30 Years War force:
2 x Elite Pike
1 x Pike
2 x Shot

Ralph had a force using my ECW figures:
1 x Aggressive Forlorn Hope (angry pikemen plus the commander)
1 x Elite Forlorn Hope (firelocks)
2 x Commanded Shot (dismounted dragoons)
1 x Field Gun ("Murderin' Meg")

Scenario and deployment

We played the Gå På scenario, basically a free for all. No objective other than the enemy.

The field I set up had a lot of terrain. I was fearing a replay of Mike's Pancerni division coming at me and wanted enough places to hide to make a game of it. It turns out that Mike was my ally this game and so I gave good ground to Troy, who was opposite Mike with his units taking position in difficult terrain and behind stone walls and hedges.

Ralph was opposite me. He had a bit of a problem in placing his field gun, which is immovable in the game, but can command the field—if you manage to keep rolling 8s for activation.

I put my pikes and shot just left of our center with the idea of advancing them up to fight on the hill that dominated the center of the board. The kern, redshanks, and gallowglass were on the far left in the town on the other side of the river. My plan for them was to advance up the side and attack Ralph's field gun from the flank while my pikes and calivers were getting shelled from three feet away.

Kern in the bog, gallowglass and redshanks in the town

The game

Mike's aggressive Poles couldn't help but quickly pitch into Troy's pikes. Aggressive Gallopers in TPL really aren't a subtle unit type. In a broader tactical situation, you might keep them as a force de frappe to be unleashed after you've softened up a position with shooting. But with no shooters, Mike had to go pretty much straight at 'em from the get-go.

It wasn't pretty.

Mike's Pancerni division crashes into Troy's pikes

Mike managed to inflict a lot of hurt on Troy, but at a cost. Hard-hitting 6-figure units can do a lot of damage, but can't take a lot before they're in trouble. In the initial clash, Mike managed to rout one of Troy's pike units, but had to struggle against another.

Donnybrook on the right

The advance of my pike and shot in the center was harassed by "Murderin' Meg." There were enough attempts where Ralph failed to activate—rolling an 8 is on the wrong side of the odds. However, when he managed to shoot, it was Katie-bar-the-door.

The Hiberno-Polish center advances

The shot wavered and rolled back from one shot, but the pikes seemed to stand it well, even after taking losses.

Irish pike crest the hill and on to glory (and death)

Working my flanking force along the river took a while and it was several turns before I got in range.

Gallowglass and kern leaving the town to march on the flank

By then, Ralph had moved his firelocks over to protect "Murderin' Meg" and there was a brisk firefight at long range between his firelocks and my redshanks.

Redshanks engage the firelocks at long distance

My kern, however, entered in and the weight of shot soon took out the firelocks.

"Murderin' Meg" and the firelocks

In the center, my pikes managed to crest the hill and drive one of Ralph's dismounted dragoon units out from behind a hedge. That was their high-water maker, however. I couldn't get them to advance across the hedge to the green fields beyond and Ralph's other dragoon unit and Troy's shot peppered away at me until I spectacularly failed my morale test. Good-bye pikes.

The pikes take the hedge

Troy and Mike kept at it hammer and tongs on our right. It seemed bad for Mike, he lost his commander along with his unit and two of his pancerni. But he rolled the blesséd 6-6-6 activation (boxcars followed a by a 6 on the special chart), which brought 4 points of units on the table for him. He resurrected on of his pancerni and went right back to it. Troy, meanwhile, had lost his other two pike units, including his general, and had his centermost shot unit—the one that shot up my pikes—in danger of being overrun.

Ralph blasted my shot unit down to three figures and I couldn't pass the moral test to keep 'em around. That left him free to turn "Murderin' Meg" towards my flanking force. But I was able to shoot his crew away before he could unleash a whiff of grapeshot at me. My gallowglass, The O'Sullivan at its head, rushed in to take the gun position.

The O'Sullivan and his gallowglass take "Murderin' Meg"

Mike had swept away Troy's shot unit in the center, leaving Troy with just his one shot unit that was over on the other flank. Mike then started to move towards Ralph's troops, ignoring Troy's surviving shot. He caught Ralph's dragoons, who failed their evade test, and killed every figure in the unti. Being Commanded Shot in the open, the dragoons had a stamina of 1, which is not what you want to have when you struck by Polish Wingéd Hussars.

At this point, all that Ralph had left was his Aggressive Forlorn Hope. Troy only had a single, damaged shot unit. My redshanks and gallowglass were in great shape, Mike's hussars and pancerni were both at full strength. We'd been rolling for game end for a couple turns and still getting to roll to play on, but Troy and Ralph threw in the towel. They'd lost 38 out of 48 points. We'd lost 22 of our original 48, but Mike had gained 4 points in reinforcements.

This is the end

The whole game lasted about 2 hours and we all had a great time at it. I've come to love the "Rampant" series of games from Dan Mersey. The Pikeman's Lament is especially nice because there's a lot of versatility with defining unit types. For example, I used the dragoon units in our first game as Dragoons, but made them Commanded Shot to try out how they'd work in a terrain-heavy game where they could skulk and shoot. Although Ralph put them in open ground and even my kern (also Commanded Shot) spend the game in the open. It never really came up to have to put them in cover.

I'm happy that my Irish did reasonably well in their first game as a company. When I made the ECW company list, I gave it "Murderin' Meg" thinking that I'd be the one throwing thunderbolts with it. It's not a pleasant thing to be on the receiving end—but I have the delight of having captured the gun by game's end.

Dice and accoutrements

I was able to get another of my unique "Rampant" barker markers into play.

I have two of these, which I got from Warbases in the UK. They're made of MDF and assemble quickly with a bit of white glue. After they were assembled, I distressed them severely with a small knifing file to make a lot of nicks in them. Nothing looks pretty after sitting in the Irish countryside for a few centuries.

I also went back to using my beloved Viking bone dice. My game, my misshapen non-cuboid instruments of chance.

They didn't fail me. My rolls were never spectacular, but I passed nearly all of my activation tests, even getting boxcars twice—and never rolled snake-eyes. My shooting and combat dice were well enough to do the job, so I was happy with the little guys.

They didn't get in the game—but might have if I'd rolled the 6-6-6 activation—however, I wanted to show a pic of the first of my English units for the Irish Project: Pikes.

Lizzie's boys looking formidable

The Timeline/Graven Images/Hoka Hey! line makes a nice command set for the "garrison troops," so I can add some flags for color. The flags I used for them are Pete's Flags, which are available from his eBay store. He only has one sheet of Irish flags, but three for the English. It's a pity, though, that there isn't a corresponding command for Irish pikes. Even with the flags, there's no one to wave them.

Rampant in Gig Harbor

This Saturday we had a Lion Rampant game day at the Gig Harbor, WA public library. Pat Lowinger runs this annually. I was all set to go last year, but Grendel's sickness and death took the mickey out of me and I didn't manage to get my El Cid Spanish retinue completed. (It is, in fact, still uncompleted, which necessitated my borrowing an army for the day.)

En route

Having 58 miles to cover, and always unsure of how the traffic will be, I took my trip south in stages. I started out from home around 9:00 and stopped to have delicious Swedish pancakes for breakfast at Family Pancake House in Edmonds.

From there I headed down I-5 and when I hit Tacoma, I turned off to visit the Tacoma Book Center. It looked even more packed than before. I meant to just stroll in and browse—the game day started at 12:00 and I was making good enough time that I had time to kill. However, I didn't manage to leave until I bought four books on Medieval warfare. I seem unable to ever leave a bookstore without books in hand. C'est comme ça.

From Tacoma Book Center, the next stop was the Gig Harbor library. To get there, I had to cross the Narrows Bridge, which was made famous back in 1940 for its spectacular collapse.

The only life lost back then was Tubby, the poor cocker spaniel who was left in the car and went down with it when the bridge collapsed. An attempt to rescue him before the collapse failed when he was too frightened to get out of the car and bit one of the people trying to pull him out.

My trip across the bridge (rebuilt in 1950 and with a second span completed in 2007) was much less eventful. No lives—animal or otherwise—were lost.

Doubly stable now

I got the the library just after 11:00 and we started setting up. The venue is very nice, with room to fit six tables comfortably (and more uncomfortably). There's access to the meeting room from outside and it was a very short schlepp to bring in our toys 'n' terrain 'n' stuff.

Setting up

We set up 6 tables and had about 10 people playing. There was no tournament, just find an opponent and play. I got two enjoyable games in.

Game 1

My army for the day was borrowed from Mike Garcia. He was playing Medieval Russians and I used his Mongols. I think I gave him reason to think he ought to have loaned me the Russians and played the Mongols himself.

We played on the table I set up with all my terrain. It was nice to get my new trees on a table. We set out the units in our retinues and I won the die roll to start first.

Mongols are, I have learned, a lovely army. I made a retinue with 2 x Mounted Sergeants with bows, 3 x Mounted Yeomen, and 1 x Bidowers. The whole army is fast-moving missile troops. The Mounted Yeomen can skirmish and evade, the Bidowers can scoot through terrain, and the Mounted Sergeants provide a bit of close combat backbone.

Opening moves

In the initial sparring, I lost one of my Mounted Yeomen units when Mike got off a nice shot at it, taking out two figures, and I rolled snake-eyes for my courage test. That had me worried because that unit constituted my entire right wing. Everything else was concentrated on the center and left.

But in the center, I managed to get the advantage on Mike's two Foot Yeoman units. They suffered under the Mongol bowfire. I charged one with my Mounted Sergeants and that was that. The other one broke from an extremely failed courage test.

Running down the oiks, Mongol style

Through bowfire and combat, I managed to wipe out Mike's center. Mike's dice didn't treat him well. I think I had better than average luck. I used my reliable, venerable bakelite dice. I brought my beloved Viking bone dice, but since they're only vaguely cuboid, I figured someone may object to agents of chance that couldn't possible be truly random (though I can attest that they fail me as often as they favor).

The ending action was the combat between Mike's general's unit and mine. We were both Mounted Sergeants, though I had bows. I took it badly in the combat, being beaten twice, but my supporting units managed to put enough arrows into Mike's unit that it evaporated.

Vladimir's last stand

Game 2

For game 2 of the day, Dean Motoyama and Ron Beery challenged Mike and me to a 2:2 game. They'd played each other earlier and were looking for another game. So we added another table to the one Mike and I played on and rotated my felt mat so it perfectly covered the 6' x 8' surface. (I was worried initially that the mat I brought would be too big.)

Table set, forces deployed

I was on our right, Mike was on the left. Opposite me was Dean with his bowless English 100 Years War army. Dean was trying to bring the minimal number of figure, so he had four expensive 6-figure units: 1 x Mounted Men-at-Arms, 1 x Mounted Yeomen with bows (+ expert), 2 x Foot Men-at-Arms. It looked to me more formidable than it turned out to be. Englishmen without bows are kind of a toothless dog.

Mike's force was the one he used in our earlier game: 3 x Mounted Sergeants, 1 x Mounted Yeomen with bows, 2 x Foot Yeomen.

Ron brought the big guns. The core of his force was 2 x Crossbowmen with pavises. They were formidable. The pavises make them hard to hurt, but they inflict hurt at 18". They felt kind of like Hussites without wagons, Foot Hussites, or Hussites zu Fuß. He also had an Archer unit and 2 x Mounted Sergeants.

Dean and Ron won the coin-toss, but elected to receive on turn 1. I pushed my troopies forward against Dean, whose units were all deployed back or behind trees. I was soon able to start pouring bowfire into one of Dean's Foot Men-at-Arms. It takes a lot of 5s and 6s to remove a figure, but I slowly whittled him down.

The fight on the right

I was troubled a bit by Dean's Mounted Yeomen, but I was ultimately able to bear more weight of shot against him—though they fought bravely to the last figure.

On our left, Mike had to contend with Ron's death-dealing Hussites zu Fuß. Actually, we both did, though Mike got the brunt of it. I lost two units in the game, both withering under a hail of crossbow bolts.

Attacking the Hussites zu Fuß (to no avail)

Mike managed to attack one unit with one of his Mounted Sergeants—and push it back, though without being battered—but the attack faltered when Ron started pounding him at close range with the crossbows. That was Mike's high-water mark. He soon lost hist two Foot Yeomen to arrows and crossbow bolts (mental note: Foot Yeomen = pin cushions), and had nothing left to challenge the center. By the end of the game, he was riding around the flank with his surviving two units to see if he could worry Ron's edges without coming into range of the fearsome Hussites zu Fuß.

On my end, I had eliminated two of Dean's units, which was half his force, and was working away on the second Foot Men-at-Arms with my surviving four units.

Hunting Men-at-Arms in the woods

I eventually got it, but not before it managed to charge one of my Mounted Yeomen, which failed to evade. They tore it up, but not fatally. Dean's Mounted Men-at-Arms never got into the fray. He held them back. That was the unit his commander was with and I suppose he didn't want it tearing around the field making unwise charges against units in rough terrain.

At this point, we called the game. Dean and Mike were effectively spent at one and two units remaining respectively. I was still above half strength, but barely. Only one of my units was at full strength and one was reduced to just 2 figures. Ron was sitting pretty. He'd taken just a few losses to one of his Hussites zu Fuß units and a few to his Archer unit, but was comfortably above half strength for both. Every other unit was pristine. His retinue hardly broke a sweat and I wasn't about to tackle him.

After that, we picked up and packed up. I had a long drive home and left just after 4:00. I stopped for lunch/dinner at the Carl's Jr. just over the highway from where we played. I grew up in California where we had Carl's. It's new-ish to Washington. There are a few somewhat near to me, but out of the way. Since there was one athwart my path, I had to stop. Carl's was as delicious as I remember it, though they've added menu items and changed their fries. I loved the Carl's fries I recall from my youthful days in CA. The new fries are good, just not as good as before—or maybe my memory is faulty. I left CA 30 years ago.

It was great to have a Lion Rampant game day. I'm quite chuffed to have been able to use my new Lion Rampant version of the "Barker marker."

Lion Rampant is one of my favorite games, though I hadn't played straight-up Lion Rampant in quite a while. Everything I've been playing has been focused on variants like Quetzalcoatl Rampant and Pikeman's Lament.

I have a renewed interest in getting my El Cid retinue finished and in making progress with all the Old Glory Medievals I bought 20 years ago for the Pig Wars Late Medieval variant I did. I'm also getting eager to play Chariots Rampant, Pat Lowinger's Late Bronze Age variant that was published in Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy 82—I've already priced out a Mitanni retinue using Foundry figures...

Game day at Fort Steilacoom

Yesterday was our annual game day at historic Fort Steilacoom. This event was begun by Lawrence Bateman, who has been involved with the Historic Fort Steilacoom Association for several years. The event raises funds ($10.00 donation per attendee) to help upkeep and restoration of the remaining buildings from the fort.

The fort was founded in 1849 to give the US Army a presence in light of recent attacks on white settlements by native American tribes. During the Puget Sound War of 1855-56, the US 9th Infantry Regiment was stationed there. The fort was in use through the Civil War and after, but was decommissioned in 1869 and the grounds were used for the Fort Steilacoom Asylum for the insane, which is today Western State Hospital.

Fort Steilacoom circa 1860

Several of the original buildings remain, which are kept as a museum housing several artifacts from the era. There are also a few old cannon on the grounds.

The days of boom are long gone for this old veteran

We set up 4 tables for games in the restored officer's quarters and run two periods, morning and afternoon. So, there's potentially 8 games that attendees can join on a late summer's day.

Our venue

I came (late) for the first game period, but managed to wheedle my way into Kevin Smyth's "America Rampant" game, which is his modification of Dan Mersey's excellent The Men Who Would Be Kings skirmish rules. I have the rules, but this was the first time I played them.

Kevin has a long-running project that focuses on the hypothetical interaction between forces of the nascent American republic and the Spanish influence in the Old South along the Mississippi. Think of it as another French and Indian war, set 40-ish years later, with the Spanish as the French allied with Choctaws.

I commanded a couple units of mounted rifles, who got jumped on turn 1 by two bands of excitable Choctaws hidden in a patch of woods. I got smacked and sent reeling back.

Were'd all them gol-durned injuns come from!?

I had my back to the edge of the board/world. One unit kept failing it's rally test and ran off home to mama. With the other unit, I managed to dismount and start shooting slow rifle shots at my attackers, who kept ripping into me with tomahawks and clubs.

Meanwhile, three units of Spanish regulars were advancing.

¡Adelante, hombres!

In the center and left, American militia and regulars were advancing against a Choctaw stockade and some cornfields, which they had a mind to burn down and deprive the Spanish-Indian forces with food (or capture and make into corn liquor).

Let's make us some popcorn, boys!

Choctaws manning the stockade

The American right (me) continued to crumble. However, the wee American cannon in the center managed to drive the Choctaws out of their stockade. On the left, the American regulars were giving short shrift to the Choctaws skulking in the woods on that end.

I lost my second unit of riflemen under a fury of Choctaw war-clubs and took over command of one of the militia units. I traded shots with the advancing Spanish, but when the Choctaw warbands, fresh from killing my riflemen came on, it was all over.

The last stand

With the last of my units gone, I ran out on a mission to get cash (which I rarely carry) so I could pay my donation and maybe pick up something at the swap tables. When I got back, they were picking up the game. I don't think I ever knew who won. I just know that many fewer militamen were comin' home to their kinfolk.

Other games being played were Dean Motoyama's beautiful First Battle of St. Alban's, which he ran using Lion Rampant rules. Dean's blog has featured his work painting these over the last few months—and really, just a few. He not only paints well, but fast.

Yorkists attack!

The game Yorkists apparently didn't come out like they did historically. The gates of St. Albans (really just barricaded lanes) proved a nut too tough to crack for York and the Neville boys.

Forward to defeat

The one other game played in the first period was a naval game between George Kettle and Damond Crump. I'm not sure what the rules were, but the models were all battleships (WW1, I think), so a hard pounding on both sides, I imagine.

Battleships engage

Kevin Smyth and I went out to lunch in "downtown" Steilacoom where we talked of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings, etc. We also talked up the idea of using The Men Who Would Be Kings for playing the American Civil War. We both have significant ACW lead-piles that we want to do something with. There was talk of doing Fire & Fury Regimental in 28mm, which would be a big undertaking. Doing ACW with TMWWBK is more manageable (for me, the painting weenie—Kevin is another prodigious painter like Dean).

I didn't stay for the second period, but there were a few games setting up. One of them, run by Lawrence, was a skirmish between set in the Puget Sound War using his modification of the Brother Against Brother rules.

After Kevin and I came back from lunch, we chatted with other gamers a bit. Then I headed back north—with a few stops en route—to make it to the vigil mass, so I could sleep in and goldbrick this morning. Last week was a long week.

Summer's end

This is the idyllic time of year. Labor Day is passed and summer is soon to end. The warm (sometimes too warm) days of summer give way to cooler nights and, shortly, to cooler days. These days are like the last few drops of an elixir that has intoxicated us till now. It's like the last rays of light on a warm, beautiful day. You have to just sit and drink it all in.

It's much warmer this year than last. Here in beautiful, bucolic Lynnwood, WA, our high temps are in the mid-80s and the air is very smoky due to the wildfires in the Columbia gorge and elsewhere. By this time last year, high temps were in the 60s and I'd already had a fire or two burning in the hearth.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Grendel's death. This time last year was filled with anguished hope and hopeless despair. I still miss my little man. My heart breaks a little bit every time I think about him. The sharp pain of those terrible six weeks of late summer has subsided, but the sorrow lingers.

I loved that chubby, obstreperous munchkin more than I knew. I love my replacement cow-cat Bogart. He has his own unique personality which endears him to me more each day. I can't help but note the contrasts, however. Grendel was a cool cat, master of every situation. He approached everything with an enviable sangfroid. Bogart is bit more touchy and skittish. He's OK with visitors, but gets a bit agitated if there's commotion. A friend brought her young daughter by a few weeks back and her excitability at meeting Bogart was clearly taking its toll. He withdrew, she followed. I had to back her off in fear that he'd attack her. The window cleaners came by last week and started whumping and bumping their ladders around the house. I had to put Bogey in the windowless master bath to calm him down. He was freaked out and near screeching in fear as strange faces suddenly appeared at the windows. Grendel would just sit at the window and stare them into submission.

I have a week's vacation coming up. I meant to take it in early August, but the demands of work kept me chained to my oar. It will be next week—or the week after that... So, on the plus side, I still have it to look forward to. I'm experiencing what it means to have your cake and not eat it, but the desire to eat the cake is growing. Maybe a week off when the temperatures are cooler and the smoke has cleared is a better option. Painting weather.

Oh no it's not!

Reading

Much of my summer reading focused on The Irish Project. However, I managed to get some reading in that was not project related but pure pleasure. As I mentioned in a post in June, my quest for fish 'n' chips brought me into striking distance of Sea Ocean Book Birth and a few delightful finds amongst its groaning shelves. I've completed The Galleys at Lepanto and Sir Francis Drake. Both were excellent reads. Thomson's bio of Drake was surprisingly rich. The narrative moves along well and the story is exciting from start to end. From the first chapter to the last, you find yourself hanging on in anticipation of the next exploit.

Beeching's book on Lepanto was equally rich. He pulls together so many threads to weave the story that you're entranced by the tapestry. I always wanted to be a historian. It's reading books like these that makes that desire grow stronger (though, I'm not sure if I could ever achieve it). I was able to tie in reading The Galleys at Lepanto with reading chunks of Gunpowder and Galleys. I've had this title for a while and only browsed it. It's a very nice technical work on Mediterranean warfare in the 16th century and allowed for a few excurses into ship details where I wanted a bit more that the narrative provided.

I'm now in the midst of reading Mattingly's The Armada. This is a classic work and is proving to be equal to the first two books. His characterization of Elizabeth is an interesting comparison with how Thomson portrays her in his Drake bio. Thomson saw the Armada as more a response to the depredations of the English corsairs, El Draque chief among them. Mattingly starts by tying it to the tensions between Protestant and Catholic England—and the larger tension between Protestant England and Catholic Spain—and the situation after the execution of Mary Stuart in 1587, the year before the Armada, or rather the year it was intended to be had not Drake preemptively wrecked it in harbor at Cadiz.

History is an opportunity missed if the writer can't tell a compelling tale. I love being able to get details, but they're valuable for reference and become onerous the more pedantic they are. A good story is more to be desired than gold. I've read a lot on the US Civil War, but nothing better than anything by Bruce Catton. He was foremost a master story-teller and my understanding of the Civil War is enriched by his colorful narratives.

Painting

My primary hope for my week off—whenever I manage to take it—is to get a lot of painting done. Mostly on the English and Irish figures I have, but on a few other projects too. I have some new Beyond the Gates of Antares figures that I'd like to get finished, or nearly finished. They're a quick paint and I have most of them started already. I might also like to complete some long-languishing Xyston 1/600th galleys for my Row Well and Live! project. I'm starting to get eager to complete the revisions I noted for it three years ago and play some more. I may offer it on Wargame Vault at some point when I'm satisfied that it will pass muster.