ACW Pickett's Charge: Bloody Lane, 1862 (Antietam)

After a long hiatus of hosting games at my place, I finally hosted an ACW game this past weekend (we've been playing at conventions and other locations this year).  It was great to get back to rolling dice and pushing around some miniatures in the game room.

I pulled out the Bloody Lane scenario from the back of the Pickett's Charge rulebook.  Dan Kerrick, Roy Scaife, John Lantz, and Adrian Turner all came over.  Roy, John and Adrian ran the Union brigades that had to assault and capture the central running road.  The Confederates had to hold it.  This is a well known part of the larger battle of Antietam from 1862.

Nice camera pictures first --- followed by phone camera pictures ...

The battle was extremely historical --- bloody for the Union and somewhat of a foregone conclusion.  It is almost impossible for the Union brigades to realistically break the Confederate lines as there are just ultimately too many Confederate regiments present to fill gaps and push back Union successes.

Solid Confederate victory at the end of the day.  We all had a great time though --- and I've been meaning to give the Pickett's Charge rules a proper run through.  I look forward to the 2nd edition of General d'Armee, which has some great updates that we will use for Pickett's Charge as well.

Phone pictures below ...

The scenario in the book calls for 16 turns.  We had fought the battle to a decisive conclusion by turn 8.

Next up I hope to host some more ACW games, and I will be play testing my Borodino scenario that I'll be running at DundraCon in February.

Some New Units for Borodini and ACW

Finally getting some hobby time and new units finished.

I've decided to run a Borodino game at DundraCon in February.  I'm planning to run a play test of the scenario in November.  This is the push I needed to finish up some odds and ends.

First up is so.e Russian Jager skirmish bases.

Two iconic units that are a must have for Borodino is the Zastrow Cuirassiers and Saxon Guarde du Corps.  Below you can see the Zastrow Cuirassiers.  These are 28mm figures from Eureka.

Also from Eureka, Saxon Guarde du Corps.

Added a new Confederate artillery battery I need for an upcoming ACW game I'm hosting.  These are 1st Corps miniatures.  Lots of character in the poses.

I'll be hosting an ACW game next weekend using Pickett's Charge rules.  Playing the Bloody Lane scenario from the back of the rulebook.  Stay tuned for pictures from that game.  

Close on after that I'll be looking to host my play test for my Borodino game.

PacifiCon Game Expo 2023

The PacifiCon Game Expo was held this weekend in Santa Clara, CA.  I was finally able to bring my Battle of the Pelennor Fields game to the tabletop in a large battle with my freshly painted (after some panic painting into Thursday evening) walls of Minas Tirith.

The excellent Stewart Blain was kind enough to snap this picture above just after I had completed setup.

One of our group was down and out with COVID (he was fine, just testing positive still so didn't attend the convention).  He was missed but the rest of us trundled on and had a great low stress fun filled weekend of gaming!

On Friday I ran my Orclands (Gaslands) game followed by several board games.  Saturday was the big day for the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, also followed by board games.  And finally, Sunday I played in games ran by Thomas Foss and Stewart Blain (more on that below).

I didn't get as many pictures as I would like to have.  I ended up playing in the War of the Ring game while also hosting, which took the bulk of Saturday and meant I didn't get to go around to other tables to get pictures and even didn't take but a few pictures during my own game!

Battle of the Pelennor Fields

The great battle of our time --- or well, at least this last Saturday!  Mordor managed to pull off a pyrrhic victory in the end as they would not have been able to push on into the city, but it was clear our brave defenders of Gondor would have had to withdraw back into the city to regroup and reorganize.

This was a unique table, in a plus sign/cross configuration.  This allowed me to have the Rohirrim coming in from one side, the defenders led by Prince Imrahil coming from the city, and Aragorn leading the Grey Company and fiefdoms forces from the other side. 

Nice pictures below from my DSLR camera after I finished setting up ...

Phone pictures below ... 

I did also manage to complete a few new units (and one unit expansion) before the event ...

And, if you are curious about the painting ... here are some "as it progressed" pictures of the walls getting painted over the last month or so ... from raw 3D printed to completed.  Lighting and pictures are a bit crap ...

ACW Fire & Fury - McPherson's Ridge

The excellent Stewart Blain ran this game.  I took on the forces on the Union right.  I pushed hard against the Confederates, who didn't expect me to attack.  I managed to push the Confederate left flank, which forced the Confederates to dedicate desperately needed reinforcements for the center to the left to counter my remaining forces.  While I spent the entire force, it more than made up for it and managed to give us the time needed in the center to hold off the Confederates until the end of the game (turn 12).

Red Riding 1812

The famous Thomas Foss ran a game "in 3 acts" called Red Riding.  It was based off a diary from a Polish lancer in 1812 who was in an escort that was in fact attacked by a large pack of wolves (60'ish) - which turned into a running battle.  It is a great story (Thomas has all the details).  Thomas spiced it up with some eventual undead, vampires, werewolves, etc.  A great experience and based on a very interesting story!  This game used the Wiley Rules Horse & Musket based on the popular Fistful of Lead old west rules.

Orclands (Gaslands)

Orclands is always a fun time.  My hopes of one day getting to the 3rd gate were crushed.  I ran two cars, one which blew up before the first gate, and the second rolled over and exploded just before the second gate.  That being said, being goofy with Orcs for a couple of hours is fun.

Other Games

I took some pictures of other games and a few of the board games we played.  I particularly like Wonderland's War and bought some must have extras for that game (stickers for the meeples, MDF player board holders/overlays, and ally token/card holders).

Below - throwing ourselves back to the 1990's with some Samurai Swords!

And that's it for PacifiCon.  Next up I think we are hoping to go to Conquest in Sacramento in October, but if not the next convention will be DundraCon in February.  Time to maybe get back in the saddle and host some games at home.