Back to the Club - Cavaliers on Thursdays

I guess I've just been busy, for one reason or another, but I haven't been into my wargaming club - The Christchurch Cavaliers - in a couple of months.


I made it in on Thursday night to give Chris (update your blog, Chris!) a game of Impetus, using my Viking and Roman armies.

Chris opted to take the hardy Viking blocks of large units... but opted to avoid the rough terrain and put an entire command out on the flank! That was good for me. Here you see the opening phase of the battle, where all his skirmishers are just about gone. His heavy infantry are super-tough but I am fighting the large command in the middle (I break that, I win) while a significant part of his army must walk at 5 U a turn to join in....

 Over the back of the hall (past the Warmachine, WHFB, 40k and ???? players) Bikewrench (and I see he now has a batrep up) takes on Dave D in a Fighting withdrawal. Dave has something German with pioneers, Stugs SP arty and assorted things. Bikewrench has his standard Yanks but has taken to fielding M-10s since last I saw him. When I wandered over at the close of Chris' and my game game, I thought Bikewrench had lost (as attacker) as surely there would not be turns left to close the deal. Chris later told me that this was only turn three so there was plenty of space to win. For readers out there - we were playing Impetvs, good quick games! 

By the unmanned bar (clearly the managers had not yet received word of my return!), the youngest FOW player - Josh was taking on somebodies Soviets. I am not too sure of the mission.

I should note at this stage, I am technically a committee member charged with promoting/coordinating LOTR type stuff. Tempest, the Cavs' annual event is again being planned for mid-year. It will be one-day as usual... and since people do not seem to sign up for WOTR, perhaps Impetus? That might be a good warmup for TAGCON Impetvs.

But what is this? WOTR at the Cavs! Martin, the self styled 'Goblin King' (he has the t-shirt!) once more leads the little devils into battle. Today he takes on Eric J's Corsair army. They are two of the longest standing and most experienced WOTR players in Chch, so know the rules well.

 Making my way around (yes, it is a wonder that I found time to play my Impetus game out) - here we have Stephen S vs Keith H in a FOW No Retreat. Stephen had is Tigerkompanie, while Keith had something that looked suspiciously US. I have been totally out of the loop, when did he stop playing Soviets and get a US force?

Oh and because there has been so little WOTR on the blog recently - here is more of Martin's army, at about the halfway mark. Martin is using a re-painted D&D Troll figure as a Stone Giant. I think this works well.

Yes, sorry, the Impetvs batrep: I got greedy and tried to flank charge the lead element of Chris' second Viking command with Auxilia hidden in the wood. VBU 6 Vikings ate the Auxilia for breakfast. I had been harassing the heck out of the slow moving Viking large-units and was actually (through generally managing to roll a hit each) wearing them down with skirmish fire. However, given all the bonuses to his cohesion tests (+1-2 for shooting, +1 for FP, +1 for Shieldwall, +1 for general), I was only getting the hit for double-disorder. See in the bottom right, I have turned my Sarmatians back to hit the flank of the Viking advance.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the hall, Keith probably trusted the advice in the 'Open Fire' set too much. That little intro matchup says that US armour can take on Tigers by ganging up and flanking... see how well that worked for Keith? Stephen's Tigers are eating the Sherman 76s for breakfast. I know how Keith feels, I've taken Stephen's Tigerkompanie on with T-34/85s and been quite unable to get him to fail an armour-save. He better not still be using that bad-luck tag (I gave him years ago, when it fitted) on the FOW forum!


Back to the action though. The Viking advance is flanked, but Chris' second command has arrived to mess up some of my lead units. True to form, my Raw Legionary unit at the front just does not want to die. So despite a real see-saw between our respective font lines in the middle, I have actually halted the Viking Juggernaut! However, as you can see here - it ain't pretty for the Vikings. I have more flank charges and have not suffered too many losses. In the end, the Romans break the main command and win it. Chris engaged in extensive AAR on the way home, and I think he has a plan to destroy me next time. I think he quite likes this game.  

Lastly, as I packed up the stuff,ready to get going, I wandered back over to the WOTR game. By the looks of it, they still have most of their armies.

Now, Eric and Martin know how to play and this is just 1000pts but they have plenty of play left there (since Eric's Darkness casters can likely stall that nasty looking flank move Martin has going on). So looking at this has got me thinking about how WOTR really does take a long time. Good fun, but a lot of dice rolling and moving about.


So my last word is that, while I think that BIF-LOTR is not quite right for my WOTR, perhaps I could work on an Impetus-LOTR ruleset that does actually incorporate the best of both systems. That way, I can be playing Impetvs, promoting LOTR, and tinkering with rules, which is my absolute favourite thing about the hobby.

BUT Jason has been emailing again about alternate (as in completely different again from what we already own) games we could be playing, and watching all that FOW has made me want to play it again - just a little bit. I've got unspent money in the hobby budget and some hard thinking ahead - not a bad problem to have!

Cheers