Bucellarii: November 2024

Monday, November 25, 2024

Sumerian Midgard Game

Armies of Lagash and Ur deployed

Opposite end from the Lagash side

Ur attackers advance

Lagash defenders advance

Battle cars charge and counter-charge

Infantry combat in the centre

Battle cars in combat on the Lagash left flank

Last Sunday afternoon I played a solo game of Midgard Heroic Battles with my Sumerian armies out in the shed. These beautifully illustrated rules, written by James Morris, published by Reisswitz Press and available on the TFL's website, have only been just released. I played a set battle with similar 300 point armies, the attackers of Ur and the defenders of Lagash. As it was my first game, it was quite slow going, I had to check a lot of the rules and look things up especially the traits of units and heroes. The rules are designed to cover historical, legendary and fantasy battles in an age of heroic deeds and are well supported with a QRS, army lists and rosters. Managing your army's reputation (represented by tokens) while destroying your opponent's reputation is the key to winning games.

After a slow start I got on a bit of a roll after a few turns and the casualties quickly mounted. In the end the defenders of Lagash won a mighty victory by 8-4 reputation tokens. Heroic deeds performed by the heroes of your army can certainly change the action in a game but most of the fighting in my game was done by units of warriors. There is a lot to like about these rules, they are fun and remind me of WAB and Dux Bellorum games I've played and enjoyed in the past. Much of their appeal for me is for heroic Bronze Age and Dark Age games but I'm sure they will be very popular, whatever your gaming interests and preferences may be.

Ur battle cars on the left are destroyed

Infantry combat continues

Ur skirmishers support in vain

Skirmishers fail to evade

Army of Ur's reputation is in tatters

Lagash wins 8-4

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Command and Colors Medieval Crusades Game - Nicaea 1097

Command and Colors Medieval Crusades

Original CCM board game and rules

Nicaea 1097 scenario

Seljuks win easily 5-2 Victory Banners

Yesterday I received my long awaited copy of the new GMT Games board game Command and Colors Medieval Crusades. This is the first expansion on the original 2019 Command and Colors Medieval game and you need a lot of the components, including the board, cards, terrain hexes, blocks and tokens from the original game to play it. After putting on all the stickers on the wooden blocks and reading the rules and scenarios yesterday, I decided to play Nicaea 1097, the first scenario in the booklet out in the shed this morning. This scenario sees the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan 1 attempting to disrupt the Crusaders' siege of Nicaea outside the South Gate in 1097. Both sides have six command cards and four inspired actions tokens.

There are a number of new troop types and special rules, so there is quite a bit to absorb and get used too, including combined arms tactics such as the Light Cavalry Swarm attacks. In my solo game the Seljuks won fairly easily 5-2 Victory Banners, making good use of the Darken the Sky card. There are twenty scenarios in total (three of various stages at Dorylaeum and four of Hattin) so many hours of fun gaming with the early Crusades up to 1187. I like to play these games with figures where possible so I'm keen to paint more figures for my Crusader, Seljuk, Fatimid and Ayyubid armies.

We've been away on holidays for a couple of weeks down on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. We did a popular five day, 66km bushwalk, the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail, on the western part of the island in the Flinders Chase National Park. Below are some photos of our walk.