Band Of Heroes first outing for Lock N Load system

Played Lock N Load: Band of Heroes game tonight with my Dad the first we have tried the game together. Played the Neuville scenario.
We had good fun with the game despite having to get heads around a few novel gaming systems within the rules.
Nice to have tactical game with Tanks again and I would rate this game system as just behind Combat Commander but ahead of Conflict Of Heroes. Components rather nice (even the original 'haloed' maps I have) with good clear info.
The Operations Phase is an Impulse style which I like with players alternating Activations of hexes/units. AFVs took a bit of getting used to being essentially mobile support a few hidden vulnerabilities.
For instance an AFV hit by enemy weapon but which does not penetrate and destroyed they still test morale and can go Shaken if failed with two such occurrences causing Abandonment for game duration.
I found this sits well with bulk of battle accounts I have read but did seem strange when used with uber Tanks in many board or miniatures rules.
Movement is fairly intuitive but firing bit different in how it is calculated (a differential system) and resulting effect on troops (a morale test with differential added).
Leaders are important for their ability to co-ordinate adjacent hexes and especially for Rallying as bulk of units can only Rally if leader in good order in same hex.
Some units can attempt self rally like Tanks, Snipers and the like.
Infantry can become Shaken (no firing or moving) be reduced to half squads or Eliminated outright.

Units can use some low level tactical moves such as Low Crawl or Assault Moves if capable in addition to normal movement.
These little nuances are reminiscent of Squad Leader of course but scenarios are generally smaller here so bit less complexity overall.
Several items we did not come across in game were Hero generation and the various Skill cards and Events of other scenarios.
Looking forward to trying this one again especially as I have the British Para expansion and the 1940 Blitzkrieg stuff.

FOGR Celtic Cup day two - another hit another miss

Second day of the fray today and another two excellent games of FOGR.
First was against John 'brushstroke' Lavery who was using a very nice Jacobite Rebellion Scots army.
Nicely painted plaid and some really nice little touches such as Highlanders being blown into the air and dead English on his bases (my photos do not do the army justice).
John set up in a fairly defensive configuration but manly came out to play (probably once he saw how slow and cumbersome the Tercios are.
I had good luck with my Cannons for once routing a unit to their front.
On my left I was reluctant to move my mounted too far forward as their would be flanked by Musket armed Warrior units in a vineyard. On my right John had a large enclosed field which he occupied with one unit but failed to get second unit in and these succumbed to charges by my Kurraiser aided by Croats. He had a unit of Irish muskets that went disrupted leaving another unit of Scots to get hit and defeated by a Tercio.
The Scots mounted are weak being only two units of two bases and the victory was mine when they both Auto Broke due to failed Death rolls.
I was however lucky with a 2 base Kuirassier unit to survive a 4 hit Death roll and cohesion test.
So another morning win with my only loss being my unit of Dragoons.

Afternoon and this time a 80 Years War Dutch army commanded by Scottish bloke George.
He had three units of medium Cannon which played merry hell with one of my Tercios rolling a mighty 14 hits out of 18 rolls from which I failed Cohesion tests to become broken rather quickly.
Both flanks saw clashes of mounted forces.
Dutch had a Swedish ally with Determined horse on my right one of which crushed a unit of Kurrassie and then swept over my isolated Cannon.
My other Kuirassiere and a Reiter unit manfully held on but could not destroy any enemy and the Reiters then broke under the pressure.
On my left we had a Kuirassier vs Kuirassier clash that went on for several combats with my lot losing a base and going Disrupted and losing their General ! for no effect on enemy.
I did however manage to swing my other Reiter unit around in the rear of the enemy but unbelievably in the Impact I failed to gain any hits (needing 3+ on 2 dice) but suffered 2 hits (needed 5+ on 2 dice) for a Cohesion and Death test of course I managed to fail both and ended up Fragmented !!
By this time my army had Broken for no loss to Dutch so a 25-0 defeat, which gave George the win in the FOGR competition and Team Scotland the team title.

Another two entertaining games against another two gents.

Couple pics of other games/players

Celtic Cup day one - Early TYW Catholic hit and miss

First day of Celtic Cup today on Belfast with my Early Catholics in action.
First game was a rather ecumenical style confrontation with myself the die hard Ulsterman fielding the Catholics against Mick Hession from Munster/Kerry direction fielding....... wait for it............... 1690 Williamite with King Billy himself in charge !
A very pretty army it was too (painted by the talented John Lavery) and Lukio (?) figures I believe.
More in the 18mm size range but very nice indeed.
This was a bit of a straight at them game as I was completely out gunned by all the Williamite shooters and closed as quick as possible.
I was rather lucky when Mick shot at my chaps as I managed to pass several Cohesion tests and only lost a couple of bases to Death Rolls.
The one exception was a unit of Kuirassier on my right which got shot to bits by Artillery.
I also lost a unit of Dragoons on my left to enemy Dragoons but thankfully two charging Kuirassier units managed to ride down 2 units of Foot and my Tercios got to grips with more foot breaking their opponents to give me the win (not sure how it was scored but something like 21-4)

Second game saw me playing Hugh from bonnie Scotland who also rather oddly fielded Royalist English commanded by Prince Rupert complete with his dog.
This game saw my dice rolling skills plummet to the more standard awful setting as I could not pass a Cohesion test at all.
The Superior status of key Royalist foot (and a hill gifted by me) proved decisive against the Tercios.
The Royalist horse led by Rupert himself managed to destroy a unit of Kuirassier lead by a General on my right killing the hapless sod in the process.
On my left another General succumbed leaving me unable to recover the numerous Disrupted units.
These soon became Fragmented or Broken giving Hugh a complete and utter Rout of my army (for 25-0).
I did not manage to even so much as Fragment a single English unit !!

Two excellent games against two gents and am looking forward to tomorrows games.

Couple pics of other games of FOGR (there were also several Dbmm games ongoing)

Field Of Glory Renaissance - Early 30 Years War Catholic vs Later 30 Years War Protestant

Had practice game of FOGR at Stephens using an Early TYW Catholic army (with Early Tercios) against his Later Protestant TYW force.
What a bloody and extremely fun fun game this was. For once my dice rolling was ok (certainly could not be worse than last outing) and Stephens bit less successful than his normal.
One turn of combat between three of his Kurassiere units with two Generals and two of my Kurassiere and one unit of lowly Reitiers saw me roll 12 twice in a row to kill both his Generals !!
Mine then died the following turn of course.
My Tercios trundled across the table taking some hits from heavy and medium Artillery batteries but passing most death rolls (for once !).
They then managed to shoot up one Pike and Shot unit and bash another in combat causing their mates to waver alongside and leaving the center of his army in danger.
The big melee on my left involving the opposing Horse units was pretty much a blow out for us both.
We called it quits with both sides on 7 loss points (out of 12 each).
A really good game with lots of tense moments hinging on some key combats and dice rolls.
We also discovered a couple of rules we had overlooked before in that any hits involving Artillery that cause a Cohesion Test incurs a -1  and that Disrupted non-shock units must pass a CMT test to charge. (don't know how we missed these ?)
Looking forward to the competition now at end of May(Sat & Sun 24/25th).






Protestants deploy

My Horse units on left wing 

The Tercios 

 Horse wings approaching each other

 Tercios advance

 Action on Catholic right wing

Panzer Leader going even further back into past...........................

Played a game of Panzer Leader, which was my first ever board wargame, last evening with my Dad.
Hard to believe this was out in 1974 !!!!
We played a scenario from one the General Magazines based around actions near Arracourt in September 1944.
A really fun time we had to with a game that has a low rules overhead (interesting to see that it was rated fairly high complexity back in the day) and easy game system.
Lots of abstractions in the game but do you know what ?
It was just such fun to play these were easy to overlook.



Only one pic as we got so engrossed (note a home made duplicate Board D on right)