Thursday, November 14, 2024

Catch up on another disrupted gaming week and a blast from the distant past


















No face to face game again this week (boo hoo) as wifey needing car for last minute dentist visit, and Stephen off to Warfare at weekend.

We had planned to try a Rapid Fire Reloaded scenario at Stephens based on action at Rauray during Op Epsom and hopefully we will at some point.














I had quick solo session with Fire In The Lake game using the 'medium' scenario which plays much quicker (only 3 decks) than usual full scenario I play. 

NVA start much stronger in this and US with many more boots on the ground but the sneaky VC came through victorious after a really powerful 'Tet Offensive' card play. 

Great game.



















I also set up a solo test for latest (Sept ?) version of Valour and Fortitude rules with a basic 350 points encounter type game with French vs Prussians 1813

Only major difference I can discern from last version is that Rallying units hits is much harder (6 needed rather than old 4+), some other minor tweaks to unit abilities etc.

I consider V&F an alternative to Black Powder (feels very much like a variant) as only failing to activate Brigades on a 1 seemed better than 2D6 method in BP, but have to say so far in my outing there have been an awful lot of 1's and therefore inactive formations. 

But the 'event' cards are a nice addition (if a bit gamey) and the various systems for movement, shooting, melee and morale all work fine and are a tad less 'dicestatic' than BP. Fine as a quick play easy to balance (ie points) system although still well behind FOB in my own estimation. 


 




















Also I came across some real vintage pics from my very early miniature wargaming days ie 1978/79.


Couple of (poorly lit as it was in our loft) early games with 6mm kit on an unpainted board with some unpainted terrain items. 
Believe this was during Christmas holidays 1978 when I was off school and Dad off work and think we used No 1 Wargames Command World War 2 rules.













Skip forward 6+ months and terrain has improved somewhat with a Hornby grass mat and more painted items of scenery (several old Bellona 'cut outs') 
Hard to tell but AFVs are mix of old GHQ and Heroics and Ros and all unbased ahh those were the heady days of yore.

I started gaming with Airfix 20mm around 1975 but cant find any pics (possibly some cave drawings someplace)









8 comments:

  1. Cool looking games. Great to see some Old Skool pics too!
    Hopefully we'll bump into each other at Warfare?

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    1. Anonymous9:32 pm

      Sadly not for Warfare but two lucky sod mates are going

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  2. Love the 70's pics! You are lucky to have some photos fromthat time - I started playing arund then as well but the earliest photos of my gaming is from the mid-90s.

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    1. Very few from 70s (taken by my Dad) only really started taking odd pic in 1980s and nothing like today with mobile phones and the old 36 exposures per film roll limited us somewhat :-)

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  3. Great to see those vintag pictures. I don't think it ever occurred to me to take photos of games in the 1970s. In fact Ithink I only started taking game photos when I got my first digital camera around 2000ish.

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    1. These were taken by my Dad and are in the form of photo slides (remember those !?) that you projected onto a wall/screen.

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    2. My dad was a big fan of slides in the 60s and early 70s. We used to have slide nights in the 70s and randomly dive into them.

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    3. Slides were certainly popular along with the projectors or viewers (we had a hand held back lit bow you looked into which also magnified the slide image) and recall lots of training lectures etc used them

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