Battle Troll: Brothers from other mothers

We played a game of Battle Troll, hopefully the start of a campaign.

The four sons of the aging hero Ragnar have been sent on a raid to prove which one should fill dad's hairy britches.
The hero that grabs the most loot and returns to the longship in time, wins the honors.

 The village to be plundered.

 The appropo libations brought by Dan: beer from Iceland.  Pretty good!

 And the pig grab begins in earnest...

 One of my karls grabs two pigs and heads for the longship, but Nate's hero "Carl", sends his boys to liberate them for themselves.

 Dan's hero Halvar heads for a hut and some pigs.

 Howard's band led by his hero Ingvar grabs some pigs and searches a house.

 Halvar finds a house full of locals, 2 of which are ready to fight.  One dies, but the other sends an axe into Halvar's foot, depriving him of a few toes.

 Enemy reinforcements arrive and attack Howard.  One throws a javelin into one of Howard's karls.  It doesn't improve his health.

 Ingvar drops one of the horsemen,  but in turn is gravely wounded in the shoulder.

 I searched two huts and after a small skirmish and chasing children around a table, came away with 2 captives and a barrel of beer.

 The mad dash to the boat as the tide goes out.

In the end, Ingvar came away with 3 pigs and 3 horses (and one less functioning arm), Halvar and Karl had 4 pigs each, and I came in last with 2 prisoners and an barrel of beer.

A Gentleman's War, AWI, Delaying Action scenario

Working on some further refinements to Howard's "A Gentleman's War" rules.

This is the "Delaying action" scenario.  A mixed bag of Americans has to hold off some British grenadier, lights and cavalry for the allotted time.

The Continental units hold up on the hill, some militia on the reverse slope.

Disrupted!

The Grenadiers go up the hill to flush out the pesky riflemen.

The riflemen flee the scene, letting the Grenadiers get stuck in with some line troops.

After seeing the US troops off, they turn the American left flank.

But the Yanks arent quite done.  Rushing back up the hill they send the exhuasted Grenadiers packing.

By now the lights have made it up the hill and are engaged by militia rushing to plug the gaps in the line.

Some cavalry do what they do best,  chase away men that are already running away.

The lights charge into the US right flank,  they win, but not decisively enough to crack them.

Some bad horsemen threaten to get behind the US line.

Time runs out!  The Americans,  although badly mauled, managed to keep enough units intact to win the game.  General Washington escapes to Las Vegas with his army.

New year, new rules, and a wargaming sin...

First game of the year, Pikeman's Lament (first time playing) using Samurai.
We have begun the 4 x ? Challenge for 2018, where we will try to play 4 games of a ruleset to get a good handle on it.
Until then i will reserve final judgement.   Game 1 of Pikeman's Lament was played between Dan and I.  We used Samurai,  but as I don't have enough painted you will notice I have committed the grievous wargaming sin of using unpainted miniatures!😲

We used the meeting engagement scenario.  Each side had 2 units of shot, 1 unit of pike and 1 forlorn hope (samurai).

The game ended in a cinematic single samurai vs pike unit combat that saw them both destroyed.
The game was a draw on points.   Both our leaders fell (one wounded, one captured).

We both agreed we would play it again, and drink more Sapporo.

Mad Wookies with blasters: "It's a trap!"

It started off as a joke about overcomplicated Napoleonic rules, but being from the Star Wars generation,  when I hear "Empire", I think Darth Vader.  So I had a box full of Star Wars miniatures I had never used, added Howard's "Mad Dogs with Guns" gangster rules and a simple three way scenario and we had our first Star Wars/gangster game.

The spaceport of Pom Eisley, the second most hive of scum and villainy.  The rebels would attack, seeking at least 2 objectives: the power generators,  the supply bunker, and the HQ.  Dan played the Rebels, Howard played the Empire and I played the Scum & Villany who would fight against both sides in opportunistic fashion.

Lando takes his squad towards the supply bunker.

Jabba's gang, hanging out in the Cantina, gets word that several high bounty targets have arrived in town.

Luke and Leia and R2 squad makes for the power generator.

Han and Chewie make for the command center.

One of Jabba's boys tries to capture the valuable R2 unit.

Perimeter sensors alert the Imperial HQ staff of the intruders, and they prepare defenses.

More bounty hunters arrive.  Luke's attack on the generators bogs down in a firefight.

Despite the heroics of one rebel soldier, Jabba's boys eventually overwhelm and start to run away with R2.

Meanwhile,  Han Solo blows open the command bunker door.

Lando's initial attack on the bunker is repulsed.  While regrouping behind cover, he uses his "silver tongue " ability to convince some local Scum to join him.

Luke and Leia are holding off the bounty hunters, but have lost all their troops and it is looking unlikely that they will get to the generator.

With his new friends, Lando assaults the bunker again.  This time they set the charge and blow the door.

Han's group abandons the HQ attack and rushes to rescue R2.

A thermal detonator clears out the last resistance in the bunker.  The Scum loot what they can carry while the Rebels set explosive to destroy the rest.  1 objective to the rebels.

R2 is rescued by Han Solo. But time is running out.

With time about up, the Rebels make their way to the Millennium Falcon,  which has been cleverly disguised as a "piece of junk".

Howard reveals the secret location of Darth Vader in the command bunker.

Under Darth's command, the Imperials leave the HQ and chase the remaining Rebels out of town.

As the Imperials still held 2 objectives they won the game.
All in all a fun game.  Mad dogs rules worked fine with Star Wars, due to the Pulp nature of both genres.
Figures were all the prepainted plastics from the SW collectible minis game.   The bunker is from MBA.  The HQ is Dwarven Forge sci-fi sets.  All other terrain is handmade from various sources.

Dan's awesome (and appropriate) contribution....