Trying some new troops

 Today, with Lawrence and Phil away, it was just left to Rhod and myself to attend the club.

Rhod was keen to do Test of Honour again, and I was perfectly happy to comply. We ended up having 2 games, which I took a few pictures of.

Game 1: This was based loosely on the 1st scenario in the book, where 2 Samurai fight about getting first dibs on the Budha!

Rhod had finished painting his Samurai, so chose this force. He focused on extra abilities rather than numbers.

I went with numbers, especially in Samurai.

The terrain for this battle.

I began by getting my forces forward, and shooting anything in range.

I got a 'blood drop' on his Archery Sergeant!

Rhod went to hide in a wood.

My Ashigaru spears charged into the wood and killed one of Rhod's gunners.

Rhod's Lord countered them and rapidly dispatched one of my spearmen...

...following up he killed another!

The 2 Lords met, and bounced off each other, but Rhod's Arquebusiers killed my second armoured Samurai (Yes, my dice were awful!)

However I had one action left and charged Rhod's Lord again, cutting him down and winning the game! I was lucky!

The battlefield at game end!

Game 2: This was trying out troops that have not been used before, Rhod had some Ninja, and I defended a teahouse with the relevant box set troops!

The teahouse of the waning moon.

I started on the front porch.

My Watchman had seen the first Ninja approaching and alerted the rest of the clientele.

The Ninja sent one of their number to kill my Onna Bugeisha...she wafted away his Shuriken with her fan, easily!

I moved her back into cover, allowing my Arquebusier to shoot, another near miss.

I then tried to attack again with Madam butterfly and the Buddhist Monk, both bounced off a group of lesser Ninja.

I was slowly getting more troops forward, but the old man never moved all game!

The Ninja were keeping back, throwing Shuriken at my Lady.

I charged my Ashigaru spearman out who drove back the one of the Ninja, but was amazingly killed by a very lucky Shuriken! My Priest took a leg wound from the Ninja group, but survived! -- Then the Ninja leader charged and drove back my Hostess...

... but she countercharged and killed him!

Thankfully, the Ninja decided to leave before I got overwhelmed!

Interesting games, we tried 'Quick Recovery' for the first time this last game and decided it made the game overcomplicated and clunky, we won't be using it again!!!

New rules to try.

 Today, Lawrence my friend brought in Dead Man's Hand to try, as we gave up on 'What a Cowboy' due to its simple randomness, which is a strength in 'What a Tanker', but not in the Wild West!

Unfortunately I don't think these rules are easy to do a report on as I usually do for our games, but I took some pics (sorry a couple are blurry) of some of the noticeable events. 

The town, mostly Lawrence's, though I provided the water tower, corral, civilians and barrels etc

Rhoderick and I would have the lawmen (21pts each which we soon found was too big for a first game!) - Phil and Lawrence ran Desperadoes and Bandits.

Lawrence got round Rhoderick's flank very quickly and started exchanging shots!

Phil was shooting across the road at anything that moved, even the dubious ladies opposite.

Rhoderick brought reinforcements to stem Lawrence.

I was way down the street, so set my men up behind wagons and crates to cover the road before I advanced to the seat of the action.

A lot of close range shootin' and damn little hittin'.

The civilians were dasing towards my quiet end of the street.

Phil's rifleman hit Rhod's rearguard, though I felt having lost his man to 'Under Fire' tokens he would probably run off?

Lawrence and Rhod were fighting across the ground floor of that building.

My rifleman, a long, long way away spotted one of Lawrence's men atop that building trying to get shots down on Rhod's men, I shot...

A 20 nailed the sucker!

Phil had his good men atop the 'Jackson's stores'...

...and started popping off Rhod's men opposite on the lower roof.

My Riflemen, with a little help from Rhod, caught a Bandit crossing the street and sent him scurrying.

Rhod sent a man upstairs in that building, he shot and missed, Lawrence's man didn't!

Rhod finally dislodged the Bandits pushing round his flank...

...but the victory didn't last as the Bandits attacked across the ground floor with shotguns and killed Rhod's Sheriff and a Deputy!

My men were just coming round the back of the buildings opposite, too late was the cry.

The poor civilians would have to get used to 'Wild Bunch' government for a while!

We enjoyed the game, and will happily do it again!

Over the Yalu!

Today, we returned to Blood Red Skies, having previously had a game of WW2 BRS a few weeks ago, which I didn't take a picture record.

I was so taken I invested in MiG Alley, the Korean War variant. 

As a first game, we decided to split 4 planes, each of our players (Lawrence and Phil as the USAF, each flying an F-86E- while Rhod and myself had a MiG 15 Bis each. We all had a level 3 pilot, so no newbies.

Our MiGs.

The Sabres.

We advanced...rapidly! - and our lines merged.

As Lawrence passed me, I reversed onto his flank. Rhod was probably in a 'rolling scissor' manoeuvre with Phil.

Leaving Lawrence, I 'Split-S' ed and raced to support Rhod, who had got Phil into a 2 circle fight, and ended on his tail!

Lawrence had got out of position, jets are fast!

He turned as quickly as he could and raced towards me!

Phil reversed into a 1 circle fight and we ended up nose to nose, but Lawrence hit me from behind too!

My 30mm cannon must have hit Phil!

Unfortunately I took a lot of fire too, so evaded and headed back to Manchuria, while Phil nursed his wounded bird back to Kimpo! Lawrence and Rhod decided to break off too.

The second game

This time the USAF players had 3 Sabres each...

Rhod and I did likewise, both sides had one 4, a 3 and a 2 in Pilot skill.

We deployed quite a way from each other.

The Americans cruised forward slowly...

I pushed forward at nearly full speed, Rhod swung right to join me.

Lawrence was now facing odds of 2:1!

Phil had speeded up with one of his planes, but it was still far away.

We were soon all over Lawrence's Sabres. (NB we used a red die on the base for Advantaged and a White one for Disadvantaged)

Phil was now turning with all his F-86s to join the melee!

My newbie (a 2) got a killing shot on a Sabre...

...before racing round to face Phil.

Rhod attacked the most advanced of Phil's F-86s which had got a shot at my flight leader

The total number of 'Boom' counters we had caused now made the USAF disengage! - a victory for the Russians North Koreans!!!