Fancy a dabble at board wargaming?

I have a players copy (punched and played) of Napoleon’s Last Battles to give away - free game, free postage - UK only, sorry.

This boardgame is the 2016 version by Decision Games.

It includes the classic original rules from the 70’s, with the additional variant rules that the fan base have introduced over the years. The player can choose just to use the original rules or to bolt on any of the variant suggestions.

It includes the four battles of the Waterloo campaign, which can be played individually (Quatre Bras, Ligny, Wavre, La Belle Alliance - Waterloo), plus the maps can be combined to do the whole 3 day campaign.

If interested, please use the ‘CONTACT’ tab at the bottom of the menu on the left and indicate your interest. I don’t need an address etc just yet.

I will keep this open until 6 PM on Sunday evening to give a chance for the usual visitors to catch this and then I will do names in a hat … or rather, Mrs. Wargamer will …. I think she might be pleased that something is actually going out of the house! :-)

I will post with the Royal Mail 48 tracked service, hence being limited to a UK address. As always, thanks to all who regularly pop by to check these ramblings out.

In total contrast to the very complicated ‘By Sword & Bayonet’ boardgame that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, today I put this ‘Quick Play’ system on the table.

This is one of the mini folio games from Decision Games in their Musket & Saber series and it has the advantage of carrying the latest rules version, which offer an appreciated 'tidy up' over the previous version (and these are backwards compatible - good!), which also includes the Combat Result Table operating as the designer intended.

The series folios have 6 pages of none illustrated rules, an 11” x 17” map, 40 counters and come in at an attractive price of around £11 plus postage (at Second Chance Games in the UK). The latest four folio releases including his title, are The Hornet’s Nest (Shiloh), Balaclava and Hougoumont.

The photo here shows the map with the armies in their starting positions. The Confederates clearly look like they are about to overwhelm the Union positions, but in this 5 turn game, Union reinforcements come on early and their line becomes steadily stronger, so the Confederates must do what they can early, before they get contained.

There are two interesting aspects to these short rules.

1 - You don’t have to attack a unit that is next to you (i.e. Combat is not mandatory) ….. but, if you don’t, at the end of the combat phase, those ‘not attacked’ units can each launch a counter-attack and they have their strength double - so there are some nuanced choices to be made here.

2 - The combat system is unusual. There are 5 potential results on the Combat Result Table (one being no effect), but whichever side suffers the effect, it has to also take a morale check. If passed you check the result on the first column, but if failed, you check in the second column - the differences can bring a nice narrative and passing your morale might not always be the result that you want!

So a result of 'Dr' means the defender (D) suffers an ‘r’ result. If they fail their morale they will disrupt and retreat, but if they pass their morale, they stand in place and both sides take a loss (the good old 'Exchange' result) .... obviously they have put up stiff resistance and heavier casualties to both sides flow from that.

On first sight, with just 40 counters in play (6 of which are game markers) and a frontal assault, you might be forgiven for thinking there isn’t much opportunity for dynamism here, but you quickly get drawn into the game down at the individual hex level, looking for local advantage. 

There are 9 victory points to gain from occupying locations - The Wheatfield, Devils Den, Little Round Top (but not Big Round Top) and the various road entry points that reinforcements arrive at. To win, the Confederates must score at least 5 VP’s ….. getting 4 seems straight forward, but you have to work for that 5th point and this I think is where the game tension sits.

It plays quickly. They say 60 - 90 minutes, that is probably about right in a face-to-face game, but my solo games have been coming in at around the one hour mark.

The scale for this battle is 176 yards to the hex and 45 minutes to the turn. Generally a brigade is represented with a pair of counters, for example Semmes ‘A’ and Semmes ‘B’.

There are no command and control rules, but I feel compelled to keep the A & B counters of each brigade operating together (adjacent or stacked), rather than doing fancy footwork to ‘count and perfect’ odd ratios in attack. Applying that discipline does bring some naturally occurring moments of frustrations and opportunities - nice!

I used to have a lot of these folio games, but they were thrown away in the big and unforgiving clear-out last year! I can see myself buying back a few of those titles and having a more enjoyable game using these updated rules. They would make very good vacation games.

Today the 9th Confederate regiment moves from the painting corks and advances to barracks. I am painting the regiments in pairs of two bases, so altogether, I now have 18 Confederate infantry bases.

Mathematically this hits a useful number. With regiments made from two bases, I get 9 regiments, if made from three bases, I get 6 regiments.

Visually, I much prefer units formed from three bases and this is ideal for small engagements, say two brigades at three regiments each or some such. If needing three brigades, I can drop the units down to two bases.  

There is also the opportunity to mix and match to reflect regiments that are notably smaller or bigger than those around them.

Anyway, it’s time to take a temporary rest from ACW painting now and jack-up something else. I can’t decide what deserves the attention of the brush next. I have some Epic French infantry that were recently commission painted, so it makes sense to spend July painting up a few Prussian units for some early gaming, but the urge to get a Hannibal pairing to the table is strong!

In the background, I am putting WWII city block buildings together. These are going to need to be spray primed, so I need to get to that point while we still have the good weather and I can do the spraying outdoors.

I sometimes wish that I only figure gamed in one period so that army building could be a more leisurely activity!

I have been looking through the new battle box for Warlord Games' Epic Revolution (AWI) and have put a few thoughts down about the content and what I initially plan to do with it.

There are a few pictures, which doesn't work here as a long post, so I have put it up over on the Battlefields & warriors site.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/06/epic-revolution-awi.html

Here are the first three of the eight MDF building packs that I bought from Pendraken at the Phalanx wargame show.

I will build all 8 before doing any decorating as that way, doing them all at one time should give a visually consistent look amongst them.

The two buildings on the left are small, the one on the right is medium and I have two large buildings amongst those kits that still need building, so there will be a nice mix in this slice of town that I am building.

For scale comparison, I have put a 1/144  vehicle and rifle section into the picture.

So far, each of the builds has had some minor 'fit' problems, but I have worked around that without much issue.

Once built, I will need to give some thought as how best to 'dress' them with regards to building texture, internal and external rubble and whether pavements need to be added.

The first of some coverage of things bought at the Phalanx show and the fall out from that.

This is the Geek Villain fleece gaming mat bought from Bow & Blade Games (£60) to cover a 6x4 table. It was all bagged up and so I wasn’t sure what the full mat would look like. I just wanted a general anonymous ‘countryside’ mat that would have some lighter greens and so look a bit different from my current mat.

Once home and opened, I saw that it offered a road and river junction. At first I was a bit disappointed that it was not just rolling fields as ‘imagined’, but the image is really growing on me and I think it will be quite useful. There is certainly plenty of visual texture.

Thinking about it, I have run a few bridge / road scenarios over recent months, with Napoleonic Marengo, the ACW fictitious Mill Creek from my own rules and the battles for. the two bridges over Mott’s Run in my home brew ACW Graysville Campaign.  

The mat comes folded in a bag and unsurprisingly is creased when you take it out. I just placed it out on the floor to settle and incredibly all the creases had pretty much fallen out when I next checked, half an hour later to photograph it - impressive.

Today I visited the Phalanx Wargame Show in NW England UK. I had a great time there and have taken plenty of photographs and offered some observations.

All of this is over on the blog (link below). The post opens with a Fake News posting, if you don't like sort of thing, just scroll straight past it.

One thing, the new Warlord Games Epic Revolution was released today and is in my hands :-)

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/06/phalanx-2025-wargame-show.html

The courier has just delivered this to my door!

This is Volume 9 in the series Great Battles of the American Civil War boardgame by GMT, a series that can be traced back to the late 70's, but it is fair to say has become a complicated system..... or deep and immersive, depending upon your take.

Either way, By Swords & Bayonets sets out to be the module that is friendly to the newcomer as a 'manageable introduction to the core mechanics and rule systems of the series'.

It appears to attempt this in three ways. 1. Smaller Actions on half-sized maps 2. Needing less of the system i.e. no cavalry 3. It includes a new 31-page full colour illustrated body of examples of play - excellent!

Likewise, the rulebook comes in at 41 pages and the scenario book has 30 pages and the latter brings additional specific rules to each scenario, so this is all quite meaty.

For me, I have two things in mind. Firstly I am looking for a really immersive system for the period, one that has some of the aspects that you would find in a figures game such as orders, refused flanks and extended order etc. 

Secondly, the next game in the series is a reprint of the rather large 3 Days at Gettysburg. This has plenty of smaller scenarios, including the opening hours of the Gettysburg battle, which is of particular interest to me and I would like to play that with a more involved system that works hard to get the history right.

I have read somewhere that a 'Simples' style rulebook is being designed for the series and will be released the same time as Gettysburg. I hope so, because I enjoy the 'Simples' type rulebook that I have for the Great Battles of the Ancient World Series. It just gives an alternative so that I can choose the level of complexity that I wantto engage with.

Anyway, the four battles that come with By Swords & Bayonets are;

Big Bethel, Mill Springs, New Bern and 2nd Rappahannock Station.

The game scale is 140 yards per hex, 20 foot height gradations, 1 turn represents an hour and 50 men or 1 cannon i.e. represented by 1 strength point. The counters are regiments.

I will need to give this some dedicated time. The individual rules seem straightforward, it is their volume and the number of exceptions or special cases that brings the complexity.

(Hi Mark) I decided to set up a small situation with the Warlord Games Epic Hannibal figures to give the Ancient Rule Box set by irregular Miniatures a run out. I did play making a lot of detailed notes to show the various interactions of the phases, but it ran in so many directions and was getting complicated to write that I decided a brief overview would be better ….. Phew you say!

The above is not to say there is complication here, there isn’t, but there is nuance aplenty.

For the trial we have 2 x Celt Warband on a hill, with Republican Romans below. There are two units of Hastati in front and two of Principes behind, in the chequered formation that we are familiar with for the period. The rules allow rear support from a unit directly behind, but I thought here, it would best represent the manipular system to allow the diagonal second row to count as support to the first row and also to allow them to step forward in the movement phase, to fill those gaps and create a long phalanx type line, again in keeping with the maniple system. 

I should really also have put some Triarii in the rear to complete the scene, but hey ho, I never thought they might be called upon!

We will count all of these units as ‘battle troops’. They will all be Class ‘C’, so they each run everything off a D8. The Romans will count as Regular and the Celts Irregular. The Romans have a strength of 6 per unit, the Warbands 7 (arbitrary numbers that I gave them).

All units are given ‘at start’ orders. The Celts are ordered to ‘hold the hill’. The Romans are ordered to ‘destroy the Celts’!

The hill will count as rough ground. This not only slows troops, but troops moving over rough ground temporarily lose 1 strength point (or strip depending how you are representing forces and casualties) - they will regain that point in a later movement phase if they don’t move, so it is a sort of cohesion thing.

The units might have to take Panic Tests. To do that they roll their Class dice, in this case D8 for everyone and try to score more than their number of losses to date. If they do they pass, if not they fail - nice and easy.

For combats, a unit generally creates a number of hits. An automatic hit is landed if the number of hits reaches the units class value (all 8 in our scenario). Any remainders or the number of hits if the Auto hit level is not reached is tested against a class dice, so D8 here. The defender has to roll higher than the remainder to prevent the hit getting through.

So 6 hits against any of our units would not give an auto hit, because the units are dealing with 8’s, so that 6 would just be treated like a remainder. Roll higher than 6 with a D8 to prevent the hit being made against your unit.

With all that said; 

Our Romans advance to the foot of the hill. Next turn they moved up the hill. Because it is rough ground the movement penalty means the Romans cannot make contact, so no charge this turn. The Hastati though do suffer 1 hit each (temporary) for moving over the rough ground.

The Romans are now close enough for the Warbands to throw some missiles, which they do and the left hand Hastati takes an extra hit.

In the next turn the Romans want to charge to contact, this is automatic unless the enemy is stronger than you are, then you must take a Panic Test - our Romans need to take the test, they are confident, but roll abysmally and fail ….. Oh Dear!

I decide that this is just too much temptation for the Warbands and they will hurl themselves down hill at the Roman Hastati in a charge.

(Note, if the Romans had been able to charge, they would freeze the charge 10mm in front of the enemy and discharge their pilum in pre-contact missile fire once done the charge would make contact).

The Warbands are stronger than the Hastati, so automatically can charge. They make contact and have a few advantages for modifiers, one is charging downhill and another good one being ‘Irregulars charging who have the Initiative’, though this is only applicable in the 1st round (hand to hand combat can go to three rounds over 3 turns).

Inflicting damage is simultaneous, in each fight, both sides attack and the side taking most hits must take a Panic Test. Both Roman units come off worse and they fail their respective Panic Tests, so they rout. They run 120mm.

The Celts test to see whether they can or must pursue. They roll well and get a choice, but pursuit makes sense because in the pursuit, they will contact the second Roman line - the Principes and that will count as a new charge.

This is done and a new round ‘1’ of hand-to-hand is fought as this is a new combat …… and the Romans stand their ground. In the second round of combat, the Celts loose some 1st round benefit of the charge, while the Romans gain for being regulars.

In this round, the left hand Celt unit is routed. It flees back up onto the hill and then manages to rally, but it has 50% losses.

This allows the freed up Roman unit to support its fellow unit against the remaining Celt unit. It freezes movement at 10mm and discharges the pilum (1 hit) and then charges home.

The second Celt unit also routs and flees up the hill with heavy loss.

The original two Hastati units were unable to rally and they have already fled the field. The two Principes units are holding losses and they are just glad not to have been swept away by the Warband, they have no intention of going back up that hill!

And so it all ends. I thought as a story, than went quite well. The Roman attack uphill faltered, the warbands charge but run out of steam and fall back. If one can imagine similar stuff going on along the whole battle line, then I think these rules would quite nicely manage a whole battle.

It took 7 turns to play through this situation. So I think for my next venture, I will do the battle of Trebia, again with my unpainted Epic figures as that will include several unit types including skirmish, phalanx and elephants and then there is that river crossing of course with its freezing waters - some special rules needed there perhaps.

Anyway a good initial impression for this old school set. I have already had a fivers worth :-)   More to come. 

Things are ticking along. I am playing through some Waterloo battles in a boardgame in preparation of doing an anniversary post. The bad back continues to plague, so I am only managing one or two turns a day, but I am sure I will get there in time for the big day.

I have a physio appointment today and a doctors appointment tomorrow, so getting to the bottom of what is behind the rapid decline may not be too far away.

Yesterday, I put out a Warband and a Roman Cohort and just ran through the mechanics of the Ancients ‘rules on cards’ set that I received the other day and everything seemed to go fine …. but not second nature yet.

The one question that I spotted when first reading the rules relates to close combat. After three rounds of combat, if one side has not broken contact, it is assumed that the attack has fizzled out and the unit with the lowest morale class retreats from contact.

That makes sense, but doesn’t address the question of what do you do when both sides are the same morale class. I decided that in that case, the side with the most losses will break contact, which makes absolute sense. But that chucks the same question into the long grass, because what do you do if both sides also suffer the same number of losses!

I think without a designer comment (unlikely after 36 years), this is where we would all make up a rule that sits with our individual consideration of the matter. For now, if that situation crops up, I will just have both sides take a ‘Panic Test’ to resolve the argument. I won’t implement the penalties of failing the test, but rather just use the outcome to see if a side retreats. The attacker will test first. If they retreat, then obviously the other side will not test.

As time allows, I will run an exercise with a line of Epic Carthaginian Troops Vs Roman and the same exercise with my 28mm Wars of the Roses. This will not only demonstrate the system in action, but see how the rules cope with two much different game scales and two periods of warfare at opposite ends of the ‘ancients’ spectrum.

I will post that here.