Albuera report, a catch up and a look ahead to Lutzen 1813.

It's been ages since my last post.

I could apologise and blame work/life, long hols etc but in truth I haven't really been bothered about blogging recently. Now I am, so here we go again - I found my mojo!

We have played all kinds of games recently, DUST Warfare, Maurice, Napoleonics and Chris and I are planning some 6mm Cold War Commander games at some point - always fancied that.

Pic of  DUST Axis force found online - not one of ours! 

DUST also has a girl with big bazookas!
Essential. 

DUST provides a points based head to head shooty killy game set in a Weird WW2 environment, the armoured walkers are excellent models plus you get all kinds of silly kit to play with, zombies, gorillas, jet pack troopers with exploding fists, gunships and jet plans. Maybe I'll do a post of a game or a gallery entry maybe, if you'll tolerate it. DUST is a good pick up game and definitely nothing too serious.  DUST scratches a competitive itch possibly left since we ditched Warhammer and 40k, its better than either in their current incarnations. Its also well supported and packaged. I suspect the creators and Battlefront will milk it for everything it's worth much like the Flames of War business model.

Maurice is one I pondered with for ages. I picked up some old school wargame books a while ago and whilst the rules don't appeal the whole imagi-nation, tricorne/bicorne, wigs and wines thing does. Phil Oley put me onto John Ray's amazing book A Military Gentleman and subsequently I found his website and private forum - seriously inspirational. I have most of the Wargames Annuals and those mini campaigns they do, Annexation of Chiraz etc, lots of fun. What was missing for me was a mechanism for pushing the toys around.

Sam Mustafa's Maurice rules - excellent.

Maurice does the job and then some, it even adds a campaign system - Succession Wars. We played a few games using 28mm Napoleonics, even Tony Laughton joined us for a day to help us along with the card driven rules, we'll do that again I think. I spent hours in the  Spanish sunshine inventing my imaginary Duchy whilst on holiday and I have bought some models, we went for 15mm in the end. I'm using Eureka for the cavalry and generals, possibly Peter Pig for the foot. 28mm would look magnificent but the cost and painting time don't stack up for us - my cash needs to go towards our Alpha period - Big battalion 28mm Napoleonics. Have nothing to fear about that - Nappies is still our number one focus.

On the subject of Napoleonics we played a one day Albuera refight in early August. As is often the case the scenario came from Chris Leach's excellent book Fields of Glory. I'll post some piccies below but not a full report. The game featured Rich and I with Brits, Portuguese and Austrians masquerading as Spanish versus Chris and Tony with Frenchies. Here's a peek at how it looked...

Albuera held by Alten's KGL. Hamilton'S Portuguese ready to rescue them. Cole's Brits get ready to help out.  

Ballasteros and Zayas Spanish pretend to hold the ridge line... 

Wrele, Gazan, Girard and Latour-Maubourg arrive on the Allied flank. 

Same people different angle.

Spanish and Brits in buttock clenching mode.

It hits the fan...

Portuguese and surprisingly some Spanish attack Godinot's French near Albuera.

Reserve redcoats march about!

Lumley and Latour mix it up on horseback.

Tense! Rich's legs cannot be seen as he is wearing camouflage trousers.

Portuguese drive back Godinot. Alten's men are up on the rooftops in Albuera in true prison riot style.

The Spanish piss off to Mama and a siesta.

Albuera holds out and the French are driven off.

It's nasty on the flank though.

French getting a surge on.

This was an excellent days gaming played in a tremendous spirit by the Marauders. We retired to the Quarrymans Arms near Box and assaulted the real ales on offer, devoured the menu like madmen and then walked/fell/rolled home in utter pitch darkness which was hilarious, rural Wiltshire has no light pollution and many woods, it was also a very steep slope - you had to be there!

Oh I nearly forgot, the allies won as the Frenchies never really broke through and failed to capture Albuera. We would play this again infact Rich is suggesting we simply play every scenario in the book as they are all such great games, its a possibility.

Some new scenery.
   

One of my new flat pack mdf villages.

Another shot of the same. Perry Spanish women fuss about.

A rough red wine is served from an earthen ware jug.
 Perry civilians by Blue Turkey Painting Service - fast efficient and friendly.

Some changes at Marauder HQ.

We changed the table around! Now we have parallel boards 12 x 6, 12 x 4 and 9 x 4, this means a narrower frontage but far more depth. We tried it out with a refight of Lutzen 1813, this is our next biggy, sneek peek below...

Tony look positively Imperial on the field of Lutzen.

Allied deployment on the Monarchen Hugel. Blucher leads Prusso/Russo forces against scattered Frenchmen.

Pretty bucolic scene in Germany 1813.

This village is out of place.

Gross Gorschen, one of my new creations - Prussians attack.

The other side of Gross Gorschen under violent, vigorous assault. I am very pleased with it frankly, nearly finished.

So I found my mojo again and we have a proper big game to report on over the coming weeks with new toys and new scenery on a new table. Life is indeed good.