Our Hammerhead Participation Game

A bit of a late one this, but a few weeks ago we ran our participation game at the Hammerhead Show in Newark.

My extensive terrain collection was brought out and Andy's Bounty Hunting rules were used. We had a load of interest and won the Best Overall Participation Game prize. 

We also featured in a YouTube video of the event.

Here is a selection of photos from the event: 

Blood and Plunder - Gun Emplacements and Corn Fields

One of the scenarios in "Peace Beyond the Line" is attack on a heavily defended shoreline. The attacker has to disable up to 3 gun emplacements along the coast. They could land and assault or sit off the coast bombarding with their ships, or both. In order to make this work though some gun emplacements are needed. Firelock make their own gun emplacements, but of course I would make my own.

The techniques are as usual, MDF base, sculptamold, earth/tile grout mixture and coffee stirrers. With the addition of some 3D printed gabions. 

I also finally managed to get hold of some of the JTT Corn Stalks. These are hard to get in the UK and I had to order them from the US Amazon site. Not cheap, but they look great! 

No game today, these were all set up just for the photos and I thought I'd try out the terraformers up in the form of a rather well defended small island.

Weekly Update #5

It's that day of the week again.

I've just completed another Terra-Former beach and an extension to my city wall along with tile for that as well and have had some fun setting it all up to see what it looks like.

The new corner beach. Not as steep as the first one.

Extended city wall means I can span a 4 foot table now.

The whole set up.

I need a bigger table to set everything up.

On the paint table right now are some extra Boucaniers and Forlorn Hope. Though I do also have some more coastal pieces that I want to get on with.

Blood and Plunder - Amphibious Battle

I wasn't expecting to be able to post about an amphibious battle today. No way was I going to be able to complete the coastline pieces for my Terra-Former tiles... But somehow all the groundcover including a beach came together last night and to my surprise it was all dry this morning!  

The tiles are magnetised like the rest of the Terra-Former system and I've used cork bark for the cliffs along with sculptamold to sculpt the rest. I have plans to make a whole lot more coastal pieces, these are just the first ones. 

It all sat on my new Tiny Wargames sea mat, which arrived this week. I'm very pleased with the new mat and it'll be usable with all my naval wargaming in various scales. My old boards were looking a bit battered and worn and it was time for an upgrade.

To finish it off I quickly printed and painted the wooden jetty and we got it all onto the table for a game this afternoon.

Brendan chose to play the French and defend and I built him a French Caribbean Militia force around Julien Lambert. I took English Buccaneers with a sloop and two long boats and an inexperienced captain.

We were playing "Raid" and there were two objectives. One in the villa and one not far from the beach. 

I set up with some troops in the sloop and some in one longboat. The second longboat towed behind the sloop. I didn't want to pass the land too fast with the sloop so set the sails quite low.

In the first turn the wind immediately dropped. This left me moving far too slowly and meant I had struggle to change sail settings and decided to switch from sails to sweeps on the long boat. Nothing much else happened, though we did trade shots to no effect.

In the second turn I launched the second long boat with the small Fornlorn Hope unit. I soon realised that they may start to block the line of fire of the cannons, and if they went for the jetty as I had originally planned would get shot up by the Boucaniers in the building overlooking it. So I dithered a bit.

Turn 3 and my long boat landed. The militia on-board traded shots with French Militia on land, both taking casualties, and the Sea Dogs charged up the beach at them to keep them busy. 

The Forlorn Hope rowed up to the cliff next to the beach and climbed up.

The Freebooters with the captain jumped into the shallows and the militia climbed out of the long boat.

The French Marins charged at the Forlorn Hope unit on the cliff edge and wiped them out.

The Flibustiers came out onto the balcony of the villa to get a better shot and the Boucaniers crept around the side of their building as the attack had gone elsewhere.

The Freebooters advanced up the beach towards the big chest of gold. They shot at the Marins killing many of them, the remainder ran for cover. The English militia joined the melee with the French militia who collapsed under the extra pressure. The Filibustiers realised the defence of the objective needed support and came forward.

Then they charged right at the Freebooters. It was a long charge for them, and the freebooters held their ground. The English Militia saw this and responded, charging into the Filibustiers flank. This devastating attack forced them back and the English pursued.

The Bouncaniers saw a sneaky move. They moved up just close enough to contest the objective, but not close enough to be in melee. This meant I'd have no chance to kill them as there were no turns left.

My only chance to take an objective would be the other one over by the villa. Luckily this was left relatively undefended when the Flibustiers ran forward. I'd decided to sneak a couple of Sea Dogs over there just in case. Seeing this Brendan had sent a single remaining Marin over as well. I would have to fight for that one as well!

When it came down to it. The lone French sailor was valiant indeed. He fended off the attacks from my two sailors with elan and remained contesting the objective at the end of the game.

So, at the end both objectives were contested and both sides had taken similar numbers of casualties. We had to count the points of the dead pirates to determine the winner. I had killed very slightly more French than Brendan had killed English, so I was the winner... but it was far too close really!

That was quite a game! We had to bring all sorts of rules into play. Most flowed well, but I was unsure about what happens when a long boat hits the beach. In the end we just ruled that it stopped and only when the sloop collided with it did we start to move it again.

So now I need to get more coastline pieces completed. These worked really well, though the ground near the top of the beach was a little steep and the models kept falling over.

Weekly Update #4

This week really is one of those weeks where I wouldn't have normally posted. Loads of part-done projects or projects that are duplicates of ones I already posted about. All have been Blood and Plunder related.

First up are the two longboats that I completed. One with lateen rig and one with lug rig. We got a game in with them on Sunday, again switching sides, and as with the other sea game Brendan won. 

It's back to land I think this weekend as I've just finished off another set of palm jungle pieces. This more than doubles the amount of jungle I can put on the table with the addition of pieces without palms which we'll use as cover terrain and some singly based trees without undergrowth.

It'll be nice to get some amphibious games in. But for that I need to finish the coastline pieces for use with my Terra-former tiles. I got two started before I ran out of cork bark. More cork bark is on its way.

The coastal pieces are designed to attach to the sides of the Terra-former tiles with the same magnets. I think I may have to work out something to go in the right-angle. I had intended the angle to be less sharp there. Hmmm...

Finally something a little different. I realised that these ships I'm making are big enough to get quite a bit of electronics in them, so I'm busy with trying out that ready for my next ship!

Second game of Blood and Plunder

We managed to get another game of Blood and Plunder this afternoon. Another land game, this time the Search and Recover scenario from the No Peace Beyond the Line expansion book. I took the English this time and Brendan the French.

The scenario required a larger battlefield than I've ever done before with my Terraformer tiles and it's lucky I've been making more. It was great to get it all together for the first time.

Again the game played really well. We both advanced looking for the objective in one of several chests. Chest after chest proved not to contain it though. Much to Brendan's annoyance it was my Militia over on my left flank that found it and his Boucaniers shot at them forcing them to back off, but they were attacked in turn by my Sea Dogs whilst crossing the river to retrieve their prize.

The Sea Dogs were fairly easily beaten off, but much as with the previous game the Boucaniers were quite fatigued and out in the open as a result. My Militia had recovered their wits and returned to the objectives opening fire on the Boucaniers who being out in the open were wiped out. This left the Militia able to hold the objective for the rest of the game, leading to an English Victory.

There were a few notable occurrences. About half-way-through the game an event came up which meant it started to rain. This reduced line of sight and meant that an extra reload marker was needed for troops shooting whilst without a roof over their heads. A good simple mechanic. 

Another was when Brendan decided to put his largest unit in a very small hut... It must have been quite smelly in there and I can't think his captain was too happy about being in such cramped accommodations. 

Anyway, I'm well on with my Brigantine. I've been tying ratlines all night and that's why this report is so late! But I'm well over half way done with those. Just some sails to make for it and then hopefully we can have a sea battle next Sunday!

First Game of Blood and Plunder

With the new kitchen completed (almost) the house has returned to some form of normality and we were able to get a game in on the dining room table back to it's normal position after the whole dining room had been turned into a temporary kitchen. I've been working on Blood and Plunder minis and terrain and so that was the game of choice.

The forces were the English and French starter sets on my Terraformers skirmish boards with Caribbean additions in the form of some Spanish-style buildings and palm tree jungle bases.

I asked Brendan which side he wanted to play and he chose the English. I suspect because they were actually the only real pirates. They were under the command of Robert Searle. My French under command of Julien Lambert were simply Militia forces.

We played the "Take and Hold" scenario, with the bridge over the river as the central objective. I was the defender and chose the side with the Spanish buildings leaving Brendan to advance through the jungle.

Early in the first turn My Flibustiers and Captain climbed up onto the villa balcony to get a good position and this proved a very bad idea as Brendan's Freebooters popped out of the jungle and killed half of them in a single round of shooting. With their tails between their legs they climbed back down again out of line of sight and the Captain ordered the Milicies around the back of the villa whilst the Marins and Boucaniers advanced on the Bridge.

Brendan advanced on the Bridge and soon his Militia was able to count as holding it, though a little too early to score points. The Freebooters covered their position. His Sea Dogs advanced across the river.

With their wits recovered my Flibustiers risked the villa balcony again and from there were able to wipe out the Sea Dogs. They retreated back behind it and as they did the Boucaniers were routed by the Militia.

My Marins had been hiding in the hermitage at this point and they saw they needed to act soon to stop the English scoring on the objective. Believing they had a chance they decided to charge across the bridge at the English Militia who were in the middle of reloading their muskets. The English managed to get just a few shots off at the Marins as they crossed the bridge killing three of them and the remaining one fled the field. However this had flustered the English Militia leaving them on 2 fatigue and 2 reloads. 

Seeing and deciding to grasp this advantage I sent my Milicies around the corner of the villa for a clear shot on them and opened fire. The English Militia broke and ran for cover.

Brendan advanced from the jungle and battered the Milicies with fire, but with the road clear my Flibustiers and Captain moved up to the wall next to bridge and started to claim it. For the next couple of turns they held. Brendan's troops coming out of the jungle had no cover, but the Flibustiers had hard cover behind the wall and their Captain to keep them strong. With the Militia failing to rally their open flank was not under any risk.

The tide of the battle had changed and Brendan lost the Strike Test. Unbelievably it was a victory to the English!

This was a great first game and we're looking to play a lot more. The game flowed beautifully with not too many rule-book references and I just have one rules query I need to look up.

I have a Brigantine on my bench right now which I need to get built ready for sea battles... but there'll be more land games first before that is ready.