Using the Internet to Connect with Gamers...2km away

Last night I played 4 games of Strange Aeons with Curt of Analogue Hobbies.  It turns out that Curt (who's blog I've been following) lives 2km due west of me (as Google map drives it).  Who knew.

A comment I made on the Fawcett Avenue Consripts blog led to contact with one of Curt's regular gaming foes Stefan (who couldn't join us last night) who is also a faculty member at UofR.  Small world!

Anyway it was a fun night with Curt and his bud Stacy.  It's really good to connect with local gamers into historical minis - even if we did play with HP Lovecraftian themed scenarios!  The greyscale paint scheme Curt uses is really effective for the setting.  Strange Aeons gives a quick, fun somewhat goofy (and I mean that as a complement) game.  We played two scenarios twice (i.e. we flipped sides after each game) and the end score was Stacy 3: Peter 1 with Curt acting as GM.

June Is Always a Busy Month

Ok, I checked my calendar for the coming few days. From Thursday to Monday my daughter has 3 rehearsals, 3 concerts and a recital. There are 3 instruments, 5 locations, 4 groups and 3 different styles of music.  Good thing we only have one kid!

Plus I've got a long list of gardening todos this weekend. 

The Reading List

Earlier this week I finished Robert Malcomson's A Capital in Flames.

This books is highly recommended- great details and well written.  The battle of York doesn't get a lot of attention, mostly because it was a disappointment for both sides.

The Americans took the town and got away with a bunch of stores and equipment, but failed to cripple the British lake squadron or deliver a major blow to the army.  They executed a well organized landing and defeated the defending forces, but lost 200 men and their leader in a magazine explosion.

On the British side, they prevented the capture of the warship under construction by burning it and the regulars got away to fight another day.  However, they lost the use of the warship themselves and had the town burnt and some stores.  The sight of the redcoats retiring in good order and leaving the town to the mercy of the invaders left a lot of bad blood and cost General Sheaffe his job ()even if he made the right decision militarily).

However, there's lots of potential for a good landing scenario here and it could be expanded to give the defenders the objectives of getting the stores and army away safely.

Games Night and Painting

I made it to the monthly games night again this weekend and played 3 board games.  The first was a tile/path game with a Japanese theme.  It turned out that I tied for first wince the game was constructed in a way that did not always allow for a clear winner.  If the game had 36 tiles instead of 35, there would have been a winner but the list on contents clearly showed that there were only 35 tiles to fit a 6*6 grid.  There war some interesting minutes searching through the box and around the floor looking for tile #36 before we reread the rule book!

I also played two games of 1812, both times I played the US.  I got my butt badly kicked in the first game by not protecting Pittsburg (one of my reinforcement points) and because the Brits took a wild flyer to attack it!  For the second game, we used the 1813 set up instead of the 1812 set up.  This had the brits occupy Detroit and Ogdensburg while the Yanks had Fort George and York.  There's an obvious time line problem there as the troops and ships used to take Ft George were the same ones used to sack York and then run away!  But oh well it gave a good game and it ended up as a tie.

1812 works well as a 3 or 4 person game too - there are 2 US forces (regulars and militia) that can be played separately.  On the Brit side there are 3 forces - Regulars, Canadian militia and native americans.  it worked well with 2 players taking the brits and militia and sharing the native forces.

On the painting front the 13th US Infantry is nearing completion so I'm looking ahead to figure out he next US regiment to paint.

The Easy Bit Done - Now for the Hard Bit

On the final stages of the painting assembly line are 3 eight man companies of the 49th Foot and one from the Glengarry Regiment Light Infantry Fencibles (GLIF).  All of these were taken straight up from the Perry Napoleonic British Infantry plastic box set.  The 49th wear the stovepipe and white trousers (grey might be more historic but less attractive) and the GLIF are the rifles figures except that I have not tried to replace the Baker rifles with muskets.  These chaps were actually pictured in an earlier post as the 60th Rifles, but have since had their red facings traded for black.

Next up the quagmire of uniforms for Yankee regulars.  Both the official regulation shakos and the jackets changed during 1813, and worse still many regiments made do with what was available.  In most cases, simple work with Xacto and brush will convert the Perry plastic Brits to US regiments.   But which particular set of uniform pieces to go with?

After some hhhmming and hawing I decided to go with Lake Ontario and the upper St Lawrence river theatres in 1813.  This lets me take in York, Sacket's Harbour, Fort George, Stoney Creek and Crysler's Farm.  That most leaves my regulars in the old (laced) jacket and stovepipe shako, meaning Xacto work is limited.  Some units will appear with a laceless jacket and/or mock-belgic shako.

So to make life even easier I went with the 13th US Infantry in laced jacket and stovepipe (although I have at least one illustration of them in the belgic).  This unit fought well and was noted as being well equipped.  Plus who can resist unlucky 13?

Naval Warfare Blog

There's an interesting post today at naval warfare , covering the Italian Battleship Roma.  Her history is covered in full on the blog, but her most noteworthy action was being sunk by a German guided missile while trying to surrender.  There's a lot of interesting photos, including several of her last moments.

More Reading for 1812

Highly recommended, a very coherent account of a not so coherent action!

Worth the read but not in the same league as the Graves and Malcomson books.  It was a very confused action - a night attack on a camp, with both US generals captured and the British CinC gone missing!  Some good stuff on Stoney Creek and the landings at Fort George, but lacks the overall flow of the other authors (IMHO).

Next up is Malcomson's book on the burning of York (seeing Toronto get burnt - the dream of many Canadians).