Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Dogs of War

      Among some of the recent Peter Laing figures I got figures that I can only guess are suppose to be Berserkers. I must admit that when I saw them they reminded me of dogs.  I started to make some new molds, and I made one of these figures. The mold seemed to make usable figures and I made enough for several units.

         While out playing with my dog, I came up with a rather silly scenario. An army of dogmen attacking a village.

     " The refugees told a tale of terror. As the sun was sinking low, a terrible howling started in the woods, followed by wolves walking on their hind legs slowly coming out of the woods and crossing the fields, closing in on the village. Then one let out a ungodly howl, and all broke into a run . They quickly overran the village and only stopped when there were enough victims to  provide meals for all the wolves."

       "The Baron armed his peasants and gathered local hunters who were skilled in archery. He would not give up his village without a fight."

The "Dogmen" are in the woods on the left, the villagers on the right. I used  simplified BATTLELORE rules.  Average dice dictated how many units were activated during the turn.

The white Dogman (who suspiciously has the same marking as my dog, Jerry) is the leader of the dogmen. The painted figures are "bold" so they can disregard the first "retreat" dice.

The dogmen move out of the woods.

The village archers fire on one of the bold dogman units. It rolls a retreat, but is ignored by the dogmen.

The command dogman unit loses two dogs. Red arrows show the villagers movement, black arrows are dogmen movement, and yellow arrows are attacks.

The dogmen attack with no success.

The villagers lose 4 killed and the archers at the top are forced to retreat. All the village units, except the Baron's guard, are "frightened" and retreat two spaces for each retreat dice thrown.

At the top of the picture the archers force a dogman unit to retreat. In the center one dogman units attacked from two sides and loses two dogs and is forced to retreat.

Closeup of the advancing dogmen.

In the center the villagers have great success, destroying both of the bold dogmen units and killing the Alpha dog!

All of the dogman units advance.

In the foreground two village units attack a dogman unit and forces it back.

In the foreground the dogmen attack one of the village units. They lose half their unit; another dogman unit rolls two retreat dice. Being frightened, the villagers must fall back four spaces. They are pushed off the board. 

Two dogman units attack the Baron's guard. 

At the top of the picture the dogmen attack kills the last of the Baron's guards, leaving the Baron  alone. In the foreground another village unit is driven off the board.

The Baron drives back one dogman unit.

At this point the Baron kills the last of one dogman unit.

Closeup of the Baron and his victim. At this point the dogmen were down to 50%, and were forced to retreat.

The dogmen melt back into the woods. Both sides lost 4 units; the villagers would have lost if they lost 6 units.

I am thinking of using one of my BATTLELORE boards for these games. The hex fields give retreating units some advantage as they can retreat towards friendly units. However, this was just a quickly thrown together game.

Another "No Brain Wargame"

While my wife was out with friends yesterday,  I wanted to get a wargame in. I also wanted to try a couple of ideas. After watching CALLAN: ACT OF KINDNESS I bought some average dice.  In previous "no brain wargames", once a unit engaged in combat, even if they weren't activated during a move, they could still fight during the turn. This time only activated units could fight. Being a solo game, I would roll two regular colored dice and two average dice at the same time. The regular dice would decide which side moved first; the average dice would be how many units could move that turn.

I have seen on other blogs the blogger using arrows to show movement during their wargames. These arrows are from one version of the game RISK. I thought that was a great idea, and in some (or most) of my previous posts the movements of the armies were confusing. I decided to try using these arrows to show the movement in this game.

The opposing armies: the Mahdi army on the left; the Arab army on the right.

The Mahdi first attack forces one Arab to retreat.

The Arabs moves 5 units and launches three attacks (red arrows).

The result; one Mahdi falls back and one is killed.

At this point in the game I came up with a better use of the arrows. The black arrows will show the movement of the Mahdi, the red arrows will show the movement of the Arabs,  the yellow arrows will show attacks.  In this picture the Arabs  move three units and launch three attacks.The attack results in two Mahdi killed and two (including the Mahdi general) are forces to retreat.

The Mahdi launch four attacks.The result; three Arabs killed and two forced to retreat.

The Mahdi attacks with four units. The Mahdi cavalry at the top of the picture change direction to attack the Arab cavalry.   In the center the Mahdi kills two Arabs and advances. At the top of the picture three Arabs are forced to retreat.

The Arabs move three units. At the top they kill one Mahdi and advance. In the center the kill two Mahdi.

The Arabs continue their attack and kill two more Mahdis.

The Mahdis counterattack with five units, but with little success. They killed one cavalryman and force two to retreat.

The Arabs attack in three places. The Mahdi cavalry is forced back.  The attack at the top left of the picture shows that the Mahdi general and one other man is killed. In this picture you can see the results of the dice throw. Both have rolled for three units to move. The Arabs roll a 6 on the regular dice, the Mahdi a 2; the Arabs move first.

The Mahdi attack kills one Arab and forces another to retreat, and two Mahdi  advance  in the vacated  squares.

The Mahdi attack pushes back the Arab right flank and in the center forces three Arabs.

The Arab counterattack forces the Mahdi cavalry off the field. At the top of the picture other Mahdi s retreat.

The Mahdi eliminates the Arab cavalry on the left.

The Arabs drive off another Mahdi unit in the center.

At this point both sides are scattered across the field.

The Arabs lose the last of their cavalry.

At this point both sides have one strong unit left, the rest of the armies are in fragments around the field.

The Arabs kill two more Mahdis and forces another to the edge of the field.

At this point the Mahdi army retreats with the Arabs in pursuit.

I think that working out how to use the arrows to show the troop movements  would make my games a little more understandable. Also, I think someone could follow the course of the game without reading the entire description of the game.

All Quiet on the Western Front

       My wife injured herself on the job and has been out of work for a couple of months now. She is due for surgery this coming week. Although she gets workman's compensation, she has been feeling guilty that she isn't working. I have been spending as much time as possible with her as she has been down in the dumps. As such, I haven't had much time to work on wargaming.

       I have managed to get some more Napoleonic infantry units done. I  have decided to make units based on Battle Cry, with infantry units made up of 12 man regiments on 4 stands, and 6 man cavalry units based on three stands. Light infantry units will have 8 man units on 4 stands. I have 4 French infantry regiments (3 regular and 1 light infantry) and 5 Russian infantry units (4 regular and 1 light infantry units). In Battle Cry, infantry units consist of 4 infantry figures, of which one is a flag bearer. The flag bearer is the last figure taken off the board. I didn't have a flag bearer for the Russian infantry. However, I found an original 1st generation Russian command strip. I plan to make a mold of the flag bearer. I haven't quite worked out if I will make separate command stands or just add the flag bearer to one of the infantry stands.

The 4 Russian Infantry regiments.

The Russian and French light infantry regiments.

The 3 French infantry regiments.

My idea for a Battle Cry regiment.  bases of infantry, with the standard bearer leading.

The Russian command strip I bought. I have started a mold with a French standard bearer  and the Russian standard bearer.


This last week Donna's friends have been taking her out, to take her mind off the upcoming surgery. Today she went to a baby shower, so I had a few hours for wargaming. Besides painting some figures, I did managed to get a war-game in; the first in about a month. It was a "No brain wargame", but I did try a couple of changes. I will ry to do a report on it. It made for a better game.