FIASCO! Edit: Link to Fiacso video added at bottom of post.

Fiasco 2019 will take place this coming Sunday, 27th October, at Clarence Dock (across the square from the Royal Armouries Museum) in Leeds, doors open at 10 a.m. A war games show and a free military museum in the same local, what more could you want on a cold Sunday.

This is our nearest, and dearest, war games show, and we've been supporting it with demo games for who knows how long. We started presenting games when Fiasco was held in Armley - so, how long ago is that?

This year, The Ilkley Lads (Peter J. Graham H. and myself) will be putting on a Peninsular War demonstration game. You will have no idea how much it pleases me to say that. Getting the armies up to the 'just enough to take out on the road' stage has been quite a struggle. Even now, all this time after the project started, there are only 38 units done - 18 British and 20 French.

Among the new units, this one will fight for the very first time. The British 27th Regiment of Foot, The Inniskillings. This is one of those contrary regiments which goes against the rule of buff facings, buff belts - it has buff facings and (as per pictures and reenactors) white belts.

 

The game is going to look very much like the recent fair you have seen here, so please don't expect something different. What we will do, for the first time at a show, is go through the set up (less a boring string of unit quality rolls, which I've already done to save a little time) and deployment procedure; so the game you will see will be a 'proper' game, as opposed to a more usual scenario style demo-game set up. If you get to the show early, this might be the most interesting bit of the game! But, hopefully, not.

We'll be using our home grown Classic Piquet / Field of Battle hybrid rules, and we'll be using 'Domino Theory' for deciding initiative: This might prove interesting to seasoned Classic Piquet players - in our opinion, whilst producing asymmetric initiative runs, it beats the pants off d20 rolls, especially when combined with our version of the Field of Battle Lull card. 

If you've been watching what we have been doing with this Peninsular War project, and you are interested, and you can make it to the show, don't be shy - we'll be glad to chat and answer any questions you may have. 

Also, as there are only three of us to do the game, there will be a couple of table spaces open for Olicanalad's Games blog reading convention attendees (spaces available on a first come first served basis - see below) to join in, shuffle some cards, move some lead about and throw some dice for some of the day: Let us know if you want to play. 

However, and treading as carefully as I can, please be aware, this game has not been set up as a participation game, nor is it officially advertised as such - it is categorised as a Demonstration Game. Consequently, and to avoid disappointment, because the table is 6' wide and the rules are quite complicated, playing spaces will not be generally available to younger players - they are very welcome to watch and ask questions but, not play. 

See you all on Sunday! And remember, the clocks go back an hour on Saturday night.

EDIT: I forgot to take a single photo of the game - fortunately, Storm of Steel has done a You Tube video which features the game: Link here

Ravenna at Fiasco 2018 - fought to a conclusion

As the clocks changed from BST on Saturday, most of us got an extra hour in bed so the early start, for a Sunday, didn't feel quite so harsh. The day was bright, cold, but rain-free, which is always a bonus when you are loading open topped boxes of soldiers in and out of cars. Furthermore, although the Ravenna game employed 999 toy soldiers (exactly) it is relatively 'terrain-less' so it all fitted into six large tomato boxes and a carrier bag (plus cloths) - small in comparison to some games, where a removals van would be handier than a car. 

We arrived at the venue at 8.45 and were set up by 9.45, 15 minutes before the doors officially opened. I was suffering with a bad head cold, that I've had for a week, so I was pleased that everything had gone so smoothly. Members of the Leeds club were as helpful and welcoming as always - which is always nice - and we had a volunteer gamer to help push the troops about - so things were boding well.

From behind the left of the allied line - commanded by the 'Holy League' of Graham and guest player 'dice chucker' Bob, or 'Chuckie' as we will call him from now on.

From behind the French left, looking north to the Ronco. The French commanded, on the day, by Peter. 

  Following the artillery bombardment the League, as historically happened, were forced to send their cavalry out before it was destroyed without purpose to French gunnery. They didn't fair well and soon the French army was launching itself, en masse, towards the League's entrenchments.  

  At this point Chuckie, possibly working out a trajectory to lose another dice, is looking rather worried by the Landsknechts who have struggled across the 'hidden ditch' under heavy fire. 

 It's an awesome sight, and what's more the League's cavalry is now streaming to the rear in rout.

 The Landsknechts have been badly mauled in their approach but their commander, Jacob Empser, has managed to rally and inspire them to further effort. They breach the Spanish infantry line.

 Everywhere the The Spanish and their Papal allies are close to breaking point. The French cavalry are behind the earthworks at both ends of the line.

 The French are moving to exploit the breach made by the (now almost spent) Landsknechts with the Italian and French infantry following in their wake. The Spanish are at zero morale points, the French have seven. The game is called - a French win, and fairly historical in every respect.

Aside from the bad lighting (for a modern venue the lighting is awful) , and my head cold, the show was a good one for me. I was pleased by how busy it was, certainly much busier than the last couple of years, and how many people dropped by to say hello, and stopped to watch the game. One chap, yes, that's you Robbie, said he only came down from Newcastle to see the Ravenna game - the silly sod (and I told him so). There was even a photographer, who apparently sold her photos on to one of the national papers (Telegraph), who took a fancy to the game, so it might appear UK wide this week - that would be a first.

The game, as convention games go went extraordinarily well, though I was wilting by 2 pm. The scenario worked, and the rules worked. A historical result was achieved. Everyone said they liked the whole set up - job done. 

I got see a lot of the usual suspects, and some suspects who had obviously just been recently released. Good to see all of you.

When sources don't agree, is it a good thing?

This year Fiasco will be held on Sunday 28th October at The Royal Armouries in Leeds. In memory of Brian Hicks, who died in February, a long standing member of, and benefactor to, Leeds Wargames Club, entry will be free this year. Instead of entry fee, voluntary donations to charity are the order of the day - charity buckets at the door (?).

This year The Ilkley Lads are going to do a demo-game of Ravenna 1512. We will use our home grown rules, Hell Broke Loose, to re-fight the battle.

At the moment I'm not going to do the potted history or a full OOB for this demo-game but, I will do so before Fiasco. As per usual, we will not be giving out information flyers (a waste of ink and paper); we will have a stack of blog address slips at table side so that people can find the information on line if they want it. 

I've used the usual contradictory sources for this battle and chosen the most useful bits from each. To my mind, contradictory sources are very useful. They allow us to tailor things to suit our ends without trampling over concrete fact. My sources for Ravenna differ greatly, both in troop numbers (for example, the Landsknechts number from 5,000 to 9,500) and their general deployment. I've used Taylor, Oman, Sides and Arnold - none of whom are in total agreement with one another.

Until my full post comes out, probably this post edited, here is a taster. 

I've set up the game on a 10' x 6' table (the length of wood in the shot below marks the 'table end'). We have a 12' x 6' table at Fiasco so this will give us some room for the usual gaming paraphernalia, drinks and other gubbins to be kept 'off table'. 

The terrain is about as simple as it comes. The embanked river Ronco and causeway form one boundary edge to the set up (impassable terrain always being useful for such things) and it being as straight as a canal is a dream. Then it is a flat treeless (almost treeless) plain cut up by field boundary drainage ditches (which will not be a hindrance to movement); these help break up what would otherwise be a 'barren wilderness' of a war game table. The road behind the French deployment might have existed but was probably further back and is useful for Ferrara's artillery to move along; the farm is purely decorative. There is a large area of boggy undrained land at the far end of the Spanish line - this secured their deployment. The Spanish, as was their want, had dug an earthwork to protect their deployment and camp. This earthwork is described by some sources as extending from the river at right angles and bending back at it's far end. At either end there were gaps from which the defenders could sally. 

Figure scale is about 1:50. 

The full table - about 700 foot and 220 cavalry figure plus guns -ish.

The Spanish deployment.
Note in the foreground, on the other side of the river, a sneaky French gun has taken position to enfilade the Spanish cavalry.

A Spanish colunela. For this game they are 46 figures strong - each representing four combined 'colunelas' of about 500 - 600 men each - 20 shot, 18 pike, 8 sword and buckler.

Papal and Spanish cavalry in three commands (Two with 2 x 12 figs, one with 20 figs, representing about 3,500 heavy cavalry - 1,720 lances).
The command to the left rear (20 figures) represents the rearguard. In reality this command should probably be behind the other two commands but there wasn't the table space to place it there.

Papal foot. The standard with the gold tangled tree on blue background is the crest of the Rovere family - kin of Pope Julius II who was pope in 1512. Sources vary but to even the odds I 4000 represented by 78 figures.

(Note that I don't have war carts so we'll use light artillery to represent them - it's a long story, ask me about my travails at the show).

Behind Cardona, the Spanish C-in-C, are the 1500 light cavalry. I've already changed the structure of this group - it now has two units of 16 figures, one Genitors the other mounted arquebus.

The French under Gaston de Foix. Zulus, thousands of 'em.

The French Van and Main Battle comprising French and Italian heavy cavalry.
To get numbers I chose to count each lance as two heavy cavalry - the absolute minimum: at 1:50 the French get 68 Gendarme figures.

French and Italian infantry. There were 8000 Gascon crossbowmen and Picardy pikemen.
There were 3,900 Italians.

As mentioned earlier, the number of Landsknechts present varies from one source to another. I'm fielding them at 9,300, including their shot. This block of pike, 162 of them, will probably move and fight as a single unit.

Ferrara's guns trundling down the road to get into a position behind the Spanish flank.
Behind them (or in front of them, depending on your point of view) are the 2,000 French light horse. Again I've already changed their make up. They will now be fielded as two units of 12 Stradiots and one unit of 16 mounted crossbowmen.

So there you have it in a nut shell. I've still to do the commander's name tags and such, plus the all important potted history and OOB, but it's almost there. Life is so much easier when everything is already painted.

I hope to see you all in Leeds. Free entry war games show; fantastic (and also free entry) military museum on site; what's stopping you?

Some pics of Zorndorf from Fiasco 2017

Firstly, I'd like to thank Graham for driving the game to the show, and I'd like to thank Kev C. and Bob (L&LS) for volunteering on the day to fight the battle. 

I'd also like to say a special thank you to Martin from War Bases who kindly donated some of his excellent wagon kits for the game. I'll do a post on these after I do the others I picked up at Fiasco.

One benefit of taking a big game to a wargame show is the ability take shots of the whole table from either end (before the punters turn up in force); this is something I can't usually do in my wargame room. The table turned out to be 14' 6" x 6', almost exactly the dimensions of my own table.

Like the show, the game went quiet after lunch and became something of a static display but, it seemed to attract quite a lot of interest and provided some eye candy.

From behind the Russian right. Quartschen should be off table but it serves well to represent the impassable terrain (including the Metzel) to be found in this sector whilst adding height and interest to a generally flat table.

From behind the Russian left. Here, Demiku's cavalry protects the flank of Browne's Observation Corps.

From behind the Prussian right. Scorlemer's cavalry protects the flank of Dohna's infantry.

From behind the Prussian left. Here the cavalry of Sydlitz, Marschall and Malachowski  stands ready to support the attack of Manteuffel and Kanitz.

Following a heavy bombardment (60 dice), the infantry of Manteuffel and Kanitz attack.

On the Prussian right a cavalry battle seems inevitable.

Things started to get historically messy in the Quartschen sector. Three of the Martin's War Bases MDF wagons can be seen in this shot, including one converted into a pontoon wagon - I've just finished making the second - a 'turnip' cart (with home made teddy bear fur 'hay' load), and his wonderful engineers cart with cast resin load. Other carts are by Front Rank, showing just how good the WB ones are and how well they fit in with other commercially available metal stuff.

Dohna and Browne began to contest the Stein Busch whilst the cavalry stood at the ready. You might notice, looking at the field pattern compared to earlier shots, that the fields were a movable feast - something that raised the odd eyebrow on the day. 

Even the pesky Cossacks got in on the act.

Thanks to everyone who dropped by to say hi and ask questions. See you next year.

FIASCO 2017 - Zorndorf hits the road again

Those who follow this blog will know that my expanded SYW collection is largely down to committing to doing a demo game of Zorndorf 1758 at Triples in 2014. Game aside, that show did not go well (the worst experience I've ever had at a wargame show) and the thought of doing Zorndorf again at another show has been a hurdle that I've not been able to jump - even though I had originally planned to 'tour' the game for a year or so. 

However, wounds heal and I've decided that my Zorndorf game will be at Fiasco 2017 this Sunday. 

Here are some shots of the game I took today prior to packing it all up for the show. The playing space is 14 x 6; there are in excess of 1500 figures (including some new wagons from War Bases - see next post).

Fiasco details

Anyone wishing to join in this game for a few turns (or the day) need only ask. There are only three Lads doing the game this weekend, so a few more people to actually play the game would be welcome. As with the Cerignola game last month, places are limited and the game is not child friendly (sorry about the latter but, it's not a 'true participation game' - we leave that for others). 

The rules will be Warlord's Black Powder with some fairly simple house amendments. If you want to play, my address is in the side bar - book a place.

If you are passing, drop by to say hi.

Derby Worlds - Thanks to everyone who stopped by for a chat.

The game, less hills and table coverings packed up and ready to go.

I counted them all out, and I counted them all back. All of the Italian Wars figures and terrain pieces are back in their cabinets and I'm glad to report that they all made the trip to Derby Worlds and back safely.

Steve R., who came all the way from Perth (Scotland) to help out, explains the game  to one of his (many) lady friends.

I'd just like to say thank you, on behalf of the Ilkley Lads, to everyone who stopped by the Cerignola game. We had a thoroughly enjoyable time at the show (despite the somewhat cramped conditions imposed by the smaller new venue) and everyone seemed extremely chatty and friendly this year - I can't remember a game or set up that generated as much interest or as many questions.

(The) Don, dice in hand, who came up from London to help with the game on Saturday, pictured just after d'Ars cavalry crashed into the earthwork following the powder explosion (foreground).

The games, one played on each day, were both played to a satisfactory conclusion: the results came as a complete shocker: the French won both! The first day's result was down to a powder explosion happening on the first turn of the game when the gun in front of d'Ars exploded and d'Ars' cavalry successfully charged the ditch in the French phase of the same turn - it was a case of 'a perfect storm'. 

A good shot of the set up early in the game on Sunday. In the foreground d'Alegre's cavalry can be seen arriving on the battlefield as d'Ars goes into the attack.

The second game was contested rather more closely, with both sides tiring, but the Spanish were eventually forced to throw in the towel when the Landsknechts collapsed. As a re-fight of Cerignola it wasn't that historical, partly due to the downgraded definition of the ditch and earthwork, but as a game it was highly entertaining. 

Steve R. and Graham H. (the designated driver - thanks, Graham) overseeing the French attack on the second day of the show. This shot shows the proximity of the nearby tables - breath in.

Anyone wishing a for a more historical scenario result should count the earthwork as a strong fortification that affords a +2 morale save bonus and a +2 melee result bonus for defending a fortification. However, for a game that keeps the French player interested I would keep everything as it is here.

Bad War, Swiss and Landsknechts go at it hammer and tongs. This shot is from Saturday's  action when the Swiss  suffered heavily at the earthwork.

Fiasco: Leeds Wargames Show 2016

Last Sunday we went to Leeds to do a demo game of Chotusitz 1742.

The show was excellent. Fiasco had a real buzz about it this year and I enjoyed it very much. If you dropped by to say hello, thanks. It is always good to meet people (old and new) face to face.

The Leeds club members were very welcoming and helpful, thank you. I still have my gripe over having to pay for parking but, hopefully if the number of punters and gate takings goes up, perhaps this is something the club might be willing to consider contributing to again in the future. I bit my tongue (again) on Sunday. 

I've heard a few complaints about the lighting at the show but it was fine where we were - much better than some venues I've put games on at - and there are definite shadows in the photos below. The black 'star lit' walls were slightly unusual and this might have made things feel darker at the edges of the hall but, I wonder if the effect of this was physical or psychological.

This set up of the battle worked extremely well and I will use it again here at home at some point. 

 

Same time next year? Quite possibly.

On the road again - this time to Chotusitz

Well the Ilkley Lads are out and about again this weekend. This time we don't have very far to travel. We are going to Fiasco in Leeds. 

My intention was to re-run the Lobositz game that won joint first for best demo at Derby earlier this year. Unfortunately the big car has chosen to go on holiday this week so I've had to come up with something less hilly - with less sticky-uppy terrain all round - so that it will fit into smaller transport. 

I've chosen to do an old favourite, the Battle of Chotusitz 1742. We are advertised (at Fiasco), as doing a Seven Years War (1756 -1763) battle, and Chotusitz is, of course, a battle from the Austrian War of Succession: However, most of the characters are the same; the tactics didn't change much in the intervening decade or so; I've always thought of the two Silesian Wars and the Seven Years War as a single war with a couple of intermissions anyway. 

I hope everyone will be forgiving.

So this is how the game has been set up. I've largely used overall numbers and overall frontages rather than counting regiments. The Prussians fielded 17,000 line infantry and the Austrians fielded 16,000. Cavalry was equal in numbers at about 7,000 a piece. For general deployments I am again indebted to Jeff Berry of Obscure Battles (The Battle of Chotusitz) for another piece of outstanding work. I have also used Duffy (of course) and Reed Browning's The War of the Austrian Succession.

The game starts with all of the Austrians fully fielded and ready to attack. Leoplold is deployed in readiness, as is Buddenbrock. Note that the fields are 'virtual', they are for aesthetics only and have no impact on the game. Also, I'm not sure if all of the trees will make it to the show it depends how many will fit in the box.

Waldow starts the game in the process of arriving in and around Chotusitz.

The main feature of the early game, as previous games have shown, is the attack on Chotusitz by the centre and right wing of the Austrian army. The Austrian hopes of victory generally rely on defeating Leopold and Waldow before the bulk of the Prussian infantry arrives.

On the Austrian left, another large encounter generally beckons. 

Here the numbers (in heavy cavalry) are almost equal, and because the Austrians generally see Battyanyi's role as supporting the infantry, by holding their flank, it is generally (as historically happened) Buddenbrock who attacks. 

With all the open ground on which to fight, it tends to be a real ding-dong of a cavalry clash.  

A point of interest: The Duffy map shows the grenzers in this sector as looking rather insignificant; Jeff's map shows them as I have them here. If Buddenbrock doesn't attack, the Grenzers will pick his troopers off in short order fashion. I much prefer Jeff's interpretation - it forces Buddenbrock to do something.

The key to victory for the Prussians is the timely arrival of Frederick. If  the Austrians can swamp the Prussians around Chotusitz before Frederick arrives they have a chance of winning. 

Frederick's command will be deployed as shown, but he can't activate until the start of turn three. Then its a race against time - an early turn end will suit the Prussians down to the ground.

Chotusitz is a very simple, large scale, 'rescue' scenario and Frederick has the role of 7th Cavalry. I've fought this battle on many occasions and I've never been disappointed by it.

So that is what Graham and I are doing this Sunday. Fiasco is at New Dock Hall, The Royal Armouries, Leeds. Doors open at 10 am. 

It's worth a trip out, and you can combine the show with a visit to one of the finest military museums in the world (and the museum is free entry, of course). Ask your missus, if she would like to visit the sparklingly new John Lewis Centre (which opened with much fanfare in central Leeds a week or two ago) that should get you a pass out - the Armouries is just 15 minutes walk down the road. 

If you do drop in, be sure to drop by and say hello.