Yesterday was Father’s Day (in the U.K. anyway), so obviously fitting that a game should go onto the table!

This was a re-run of my own ‘Action at Mill Creek’ scenario, which tends to come down to a tight finish.

The game pivots on a Union defence of two brigades, with a third brigade coming in as a reinforcement on a randomly determined turn, while the Confederate attack gets off to a start with three brigades already in play.

So, we have the Confederates racing to gain their objectives before the Union defences become too strong.

I made a few battle notes on this game, which are set out on the RECENT GAMES page - see the 3rd tab on the left menu.

Well after what feels like a long wait (there have been some distribution issues in the U.S.) after pre-ordering from Second Chance Games (UK), this arrived today and it is really rather lovely.

Gettysburg, part of the Civil War Brigade series published by Worthington Publishing, continues the series (Antietam, Shiloh and Seven Days already published) and we know that a pairing of Franklin and Spring Hill are due to follow shortly, so as a series it is firming up rather nicely.

After my recent playing of Antietam (see posts below and on the ‘RECENT GAMES’ tab in the menu), I wasn’t sure whether to stay with the series because of the constant die rolling that can become a thing when playing solo in the bigger scenarios.

There are six scenarios here, 1 short, 4 medium (4 hours to play) and 1 long (the full battle (8 - 12 hours to play). The first scenario covering the first day will likely be my favourite, at least to start with.

The future Franklin / Spring Hill games look a particularly good fit for our short face to face sessions - so here we are, for now, the series stays in the collection.

The rules have the new version 1.4 rules, together with the new admin counters that this version introduces, so I look forward to getting properly familiar with those.

I suppose the headline feature is the amazing map, the biggest in the series so far, formed from two mapboards, it is just a lovely thing to pore over and look for the features that ACW fans know so well. Being two boards makes for a big footprint game.

Goodness knows how many Gettysburg boardgames have been released over the years, but I have hopes that this may ‘the’ Gettysburg game that I keep for my collection - we shall see!

The nice big counters just pop out of the frame, so taken together with familiar rules and a shorter scenario, expect this one to hit the table soon. 

BELOW - a small section of the lovely map.

A few posts back, I mentioned the 1/72 Kettenkrad vehicle, which is a sort of mix of a tracked chassis with a motor cycle front end.

It comes in an Academy 1/72 plastic kit together with a jeep and a kubelwagen, plus plenty of fuel drums and petrol cans. Anyway, I found the jeep and kubelwagen immediately useful ….. but what to do with this little fellow?

I scavenged a suitable figure from one of the new rescaled German Infantry boxes by Valliant Miniatures (the Rapid Fire people). He has what is likely a map in his hands and binoculars around his neck, so of all the figures I have, he looked the part for someone involved with a small front line fuel distribution point.

Apparently this was a useful and reliable transport during the Soviet mud season.

It should be a novel and handy little piece for my upcoming run out with Rapid Fire Reloaded (or possibly ‘O’ Group). Overall, I am rather pleased with it.

Last night our face-to-face game was the Wakefield battle (Wars of the Roses) as presented in the 3Ci Magazine, being an expansion module in the Men of Iron (GMT) series.

It serves as very good scenario for sitting in a single session and providing a rules refresher for the series.

Neville (Yorkist - the white counters) has a small window of opportunity to see off the Lancastrian forces (red counters) before their reinforcements arrive.

It proved to be a very dynamic and enjoyable game right from the start. In the photo, we can see that the Yorkists are now positionally vulnerable as the Lancastrians close on their flanks. Things are about to get worse for the Yorkists as Lancastrian reinforcements (Butler) enter the field in the Yorkist rear.

Neville battles on against Beaufort, ignoring the fact that Butler is at a distance behind him and suddenly, due to excess casualties, the Lancastrian left (Beaufort) breaks and flees, giving the Yorkists much needed breathing space to turn and face Butler.

As time moves on and both sides suffer increasing casualties, both Yorkist and Lancastrian are each compelled to take a Flight Test ….. and both fail! Despite the table ‘looking’ like the Lancastrians were in a winning position, the victory point system declared a draw - so we called a moral victory to the Lancastrians.

There is probably a tad too much flexibility in how individual units have the freedom to move and I note that earlier modules in the system had zone of control rules, but these were later ditched when the Wars of the Roses module was released. Command radius appear quite generous. Regardless, it gives a good game and puts the onus on the player to guard their flanks and not to become unnecessarily exposed. 

The battle was historically weighted against the Yorkists and this is reflected in the game, but it is a lot of fun trying to survive this battlefield, each side trying to be the first to push the other over the casualty breaking point.

As an aside, in the Piggy Longton chronicles, Edward has started open rebellion against King Henry VI and a national battle will need resolving, I will be returning to this boardgame to run that.