Bolt Action Tournament!

Bolt Action Tournament!

Oh, Panzerbaum, oh Panzerbaum...
Wie stark ist deine kanone?

The Spotsylvania Area Gamers have many members who are members of another miniatures group in our area, which meets at our local game store, Your Hobby Place - Fredericksburg. This group, YHP Bolt Action Club, meets roughly once a month at Your Hobby Place to play Bolt Action, generally a series of linked scenarios related to a single campaign. We've done Operation Barbarossa and beyond, Operation Market-Garden, and now we are doing Afrika Korps versus 8th Army.  The games are a lot of fun and open to anyone interested in playing Bolt Action. We might even expand to Konflict '47 sometimes.

On 7 December 2019, the club sponsored a Open Bolt Action Tournament, each player brought a 750 point Bolt Action infantry platoon list, any from a published book (No vehicles with an armor value 8+).

We played three rounds in a round robin style tournament, 2 hours per round. The first mission was Meeting Engagement, the second Key Positions, and the third Top Secret (the latter two modified for tournament play).

Your Hobby Place provided prize support and we also purchased pizza for lunch.  It was a fun, light-hearted tournament; we ended up with 10 players from all over the area.

In the first round, there were many more draws then expected!

We tried to vary the terrain, with two snow boards, two temperate boards, a jungle board, and a desert board. Unfortunately, a couple players ended up on the same board twice.

Win-loss-draw record determined the standings, with total earned victory points as the tie-breaker.

Here are the final rankings (Wins-Losses-Draws, Total Victory points):

1st: Jacob Nedza, Japanese (3-0-0, 16 points)  Jake was the only undefeated player!

Jake Nedza plots his victory in the jungle
on his way to tournament dominance!

2nd: Mike, U.S. Army (2-0-1, 8 points)
3rd: Ben Pixley, USSR (2-1-0, 16 points)
4th: Allen Adams, German (1-0-2, 13 points)
5th: Ren Westermeyer, Gebirgsjäger (1-1-1, 13 points)
6th: Matt, Deutche Afrika Korps (1-1-1, 10 points)
7th: Eric Gauldin, SS (1-1-1, 8 points)
8th: Josiah Andrew, U.S. Airborne (0-1-2, 9 points)
9th: James Carroll, USSR (0-1-2, 6 points)
10th: James Young, U.S. Army (0-3-0, 7 points)

The tournament really was a great success,the player's asked for another in the Spring, so we will definitely have another one then.  We might change some things up, maybe allow armor with 8 armor value, maybe different missions. Please let us know in the comments if you have suggestions.

Here are some pictures of the games, some great painted figures appeared on the board!

Age of Sigmar!

We had a nice turn out at the club last night, but only two games, both in the Age of Sigmar escalation campaign which we run on the first Friday of each month.

In the first game, my Seraphon army took on Chuck's Maggotkin of Nurgle.  The Seraphon lizard men all have a jaw attack... and Nurgle's followers are nearly all walking pus boils... imagining the taste truly sickens...

(I forgot to tak pictures, here are my Seraphon 

taking on Buck's Daughters of Khaine a few weeks ago.)

Technically, I won the game on points... but it feels like a cheap win.  The game has an artificial deadline of 5 turns of play, with an additional turn or two Chuck would have won.  And holding objective is based solely on number of models within 6", and a huge powerful figure, like say the bastiladon in the center of the picture above, counts the same as one of my tiny skinks that die in droves.  

Chuck out-played me, and he ended the game in a much better position then I did from a purely tactical position (ignoring the 'victory points').  He deserved the victory. 

The models are cool, but I'm just not a big fan of GW games, I still much prefer TSR's old Battlesystem 2nd edition.  I'm hoping to run a game of that for some of the guys later in March. That said, having fun playing with the club, and getting to play a fantasy game is awesome. and I really do love my ragtag, home-kitbashed lizardman army coming from multiple GW eras combined with toy dinosaurs.  And I also love that I can use them as Venusian lizardmen in Space:1889 games. I'm all about multi-use minis. ☺

In the other game this week, Chris' Orks took down Buck's Daughter's of Khaine and allies.  It was a close game, but Buck is getting a bit frustrated, I think. His miniatures rock though. I should have taken some close ups. 

Fate of the Nation, L'Art de la Guerre, Kill Team, Shadespire, and Blood Bowl

On the last Friday in February we had a good turn out of players and a lot of different games!

John played Isrealis versus Wayne's Egyptians in a game of Fate of a Nation.

John's Isrealis won the day versus Wayne's Egyptian armor. 

We had a lot of L'Art de la Guerre games, I converted my first De Bellis Antiquatatis army, Alexandrian Macedonians, into an ADLG army, (list #39). I first played against Eric's Later Achaemenid Persians (#68).  It was a fun game, but Eric had my number early.

Meanwhile, Chuck played Jake in an introductory game, they both played Middle Imperial Roman lists (#85), fighting out one of the many Roman versus Roman encounters.

It was a hard fought battle but Legatus Chuck pulled the win.

Ken's Selucids (#42) took on Doc's Alexandrian Macedonians (#39), Ken took the win.

Then we switched up opponents.

My Alexandrian Macedonians (#39) took on Ken's Selucids (#42), and lost handily.

At the same time, Eric's Later Achaemenid Persians (#68) fought Doc's Alexandrian Macedonians (#39) to a draw.

At the same time, Matt's Chaos Cultists beat Chris' Orks in a Kill Team Arena game.

The Matt's Khorne Cultists beat Chris' Orks in a game of Shadespire.

And they finished up with a game of Blood Bowl, Orks versus Ogres.

Kill Team, Bloodbowl, and L'Art de la Guerre

Another decent turn out, perhaps not as large as the last couple weeks but still respectable.

A quartet of players ran some Kill Team games as we get ready for the clubs upcoming Kill Team narrative campaign. Matt ran his Gene Stealer Cult against Chuck’s Grey Knights and grabbed the victory.

Meanwhile, Chris’ Orks raged against Eric’s Adeptus Mechanus list, he managed to grab then win despite all but one of his orks being slain.

Switching players, Matt’s Gene Stealers defeated Eric’s Adeptus Mechanus, and Chris’ Orks fought against a Tyrannid list Chuck switched over to. After drawing on points, Chris pulled the win by having inflicted casualties when Chuck when Chuck inflicted none.

After Kill Team Matt, Chris, & Eric played an introductory game of Blood Bowl, Matt's Dwarven team rampaged easily against  human team.

Across the room, ancient armies clased in games of L'Art de la Guerre. Mike's New Kingdom Egyptians (#14) took on my Hyksos (#13) in a historical match up. I built my ADLG Hyksos army up around a DBA army I won in a tournment 20 years ago, and after painting it up a year and a half ago I have never gotten the chance to play it against a truly historical opponent before.  Mike proved a skilled and fun opponent as always, his Egyptian's handled my left flank handily, and while my elite chariots on the right had some success, my crushed left flank handed him a solid victory. 

Next to us, Ken's Selucid's (#42) played against Paul's North Dynasty Chinese (#120), they managed a draw. 

We then switched opponents, and Paul's Vedic Indians (#35) smashed my Hyksos (#13). Despite managing to isolated his elephants and keep them out of the battle, his two handed swordsmen swept away my own impact swordsmen and the Hyksos yielded the field. 

Ken continued his evening of draws, as his Samurai (#210) held against Mike's Medieval German list. 

Age of Sigmar & Team Yankee

This past Friday was another well attended SAG game night, with a Team Yankee game, our ongoing Age of Sigmar Escalation Campaign, and a Konig’s Krieg French & Indian War battle.

It was a rare NATO win in Team Yankee, as Ren’s American armor company and John’s French cavalry company took on Jake and Wayne’s Russian T-72 company.

For once, Ren’s M1 Abram’s lived up to the hype and slaughtered the opposing Russian armor. 

In the Age of Sigmar we ran 1500 point games.  Jason’s undead Legions of Nagash clashed with Chris’s orcs on a grassy plain dotted with ruins.

Jason managed to grab the victory.

Meanwhile, my Seraphon lizardmen were faced off against Buck’s Eldar Daughters of Khaine on a gloomy plain dotted with ruins.  The gloom was so thick that visibility was limited to 6”, which severely limited the options of my skinks. Still, my Chameleon Skinks managed to sneak up on his cavalry, and get off a couple devastating volleys, allowing me to grab an early lead in points, which despite the ferocious hand to hand abilities of his Sisters, Buck was never quite able overcome.  I was very happy with the performance of my home-built, kit-bashed Bastiladon.

Ken played the British against Eric’s French, both with Indian allies in a gorgeous looking 28mm Koenig’s Krieg game. I wish I could have watched more of that one, I love the period and want to give the game system a try. Ken's Brits took the win.

Cruel Seas and a Frozen City

Cruel Seas and a Frozen City

 This past Friday the club was very packed, it has been for the last few weeks (late fall, in contrast, was sparesly attended). 

The gaming kicked off early with Chris, Chuck, and Matt playing some Kill Team; Chris played his orcs, Chuck some Grey Knights, and Matt played 10,000 Suns (sons?).

Then they joined Eric for a game called Underworld, which I pretty much know NOTHING about. They seemed to have fun though. 😊 

Meanwhile, across the room, the Tokyo Express was making a run down the Slot, trying to bring supplies to Guadalcanal.  This was my third game of Cruel Seas and the first which I felt really captured the systems potential. I played with Wayne, John, Jake, and Jason, and I had a blast. 

The Japanese, played by Wayne and Jason, ran two minesweepers & 2 patrol boats escorting four small freighters.  Given the composition of the force, I think this was an early mission, perhaps in October 1942.

The Americans fielded 6 PT boats, 2 per player.  The scenario was set, appropriately, at night.  The Japanese simply had to slip through a channel between two islands. The game started off with Jake and John sending their four boats straight at the Japanese, firing off several spreads of torpedos. Meanwhile, I moved ahead of the Japanese, hoping to get them in a cross-fire of torpedos.

One freighter went down right away, as well as a minesweeper, but the Jake's PT boats were both shot up horribly as well, and went down.

I'm finding the need to think a turn or two ahead for movement an interesting challenge in this game, in my first game I caused two of my ships to collide, in this game one of my boats nearly got pinned between a minesweeper and a freighter.

The last minesweeper went down, as did one of John's PT boats. My second boat was forced to slow to stop to avoid colliding with one of the freighters, but was too close to fire torpedos effectively. Both of the remaining freighters were badly damaged by torpedo hits though and my PT boats managed to finish them off with gunfire.  

I've been wanting a good, quick playing game covering patrol craft in WWII for a long time, and so far Cruel Seas meets my expectations, though I am being tolerant of historical mistakes and typos and mistakes in the rulesystem.  

Looking forward to more scenario games, maybe MTBs escorting landing craft for a Commando raid? 

I really want to try a quartet of Schnellboote versus a Fletcher-class destroyer!

Brandon ran Allen through a demo of his Hail of Fire WWII system, Brandon's Panzergrenadiers versus Allen's Canadians.  They seemed to have fun but I never found out who won. 

Finally, after the other games ended, I, Chris, Chuck, and Matt played a Frostgrave game, the Library scenario from the main rule book. 

Chris ran his Wizard of Oz themed war band, led by the witch Elphaba.

I ran a warband led by my enchanter, Fritz Franzen, and my captain, Elrohir Amroth. My warbands are all based off of my old AD&D player characters. It's a way to reconnect with those old friends. 😉

Chuck, who hates back stories, ran his necromancer's warband.  Since the necromancer is a Nazgul figure I imagine he's one of the wizardly survivors of the frozen city. 

Matt ran his illusionit's warband, no back story but all the figures are his old D&D characters. 

Matt opened the game slaughtering my ranger with a volley of arrows... our boards are way too open. 😉

We've been playing Frostgrave for several months now, and we are finding it is losing its shine, I believe. I think the problem is that there are too few monster, too little variety in what the monsters can do, and the d20 system creates too random a set of combat results. I think we can house rule it better with scenarios. For example, maybe many more monsters in each game and fewer treasures tokens, but each token worth more treasure. 

Any way, another great night of gaming! 

Here we are!

Here we are!

     The SAG in 2013.

The Spotsylvania Area Gamers are war gamers in the Spotsylvania County and Fredericksburg area.  We generally meet on Friday evenings to play science fiction, fantasy, and historical war games. These days we play a wide variety of games: Cruel Seas, SAGA, Flames of War, Bolt Action, Chain of Command, L'Art de la Guerre, Napoleon at War, Blood & Plunder, Song of Drums and Tomahawks, and other historical war games. We also play Frostgrave, Warhammer 40k, Killteam, Age of Sigmar, and other sci-fi and fantasy games. we have a subgroup playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2e).

In age, our group ranges from crusty old grognards who started gaming in the '70s, to 15 year olds who are already gaming veterans of five years.

SAG in 2016

In this blog we'll discuss our games, our thoughts on war gaming. and share battle reports. I will try to post an entry at least once a week, usually on Saturdays. 

WWII returns!

WWII returns!

We haven't been playing a lot of World War II games lately, but some got played last night.  

First off, American Paras and British XXX Corps faced off against the Germans.

The game was played using Flames of War v4, a system which has caused some controversy in our group, some of us like it, others really dislike it. Last night was the first time playing it in a while, the Germans hung on for victory following a tough fight. 

On another board, Hail of Fire saw its creator, Brandon Fraley, introducing the game to a veteran Flames of War player in a Panzergrenadier versus British paras showdown, which the panzergrenadiers won due to overwhelming force. 

Finally, there was a game of L'Art de la Guerre played, pitting army #210 Samurai versus #124 Andalusian Arabs. The Arabs eventually carried the day.