King William's War

I've posted another Donnybrook scenario set in North America in the 1680's during the period known as the King William's War on the League of Augsburg Blog.

http://leagueofaugsburg.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/king-williams-war.html

Forage for Food

 

This was another Donnybrook scenario that I put on for Colin and Ray since they enjoyed the previous game so much. All the figures and animals supplied by me and terrain by Colin and myself.
I had previously fought this scenario before with Bob Talbot but that had been a two player game but this time I adapted it as a three player scenario.

The basic scene is that the Moorish and English forces are advancing on a nearby village to round up as many animals as they can to feed their troops and the third player are the villagers who are keen to hang onto their animals. Goats are worth 1pt each, sheep are worth 5pts each and cattle are worth 10pts each, the camels and market stall are for scenic purposes only although they could also have been added as further victory points.  I set up the three factions then allowed Colin and Ray to pick which ones they wanted and would have what was left. Colin decided to go for the Moors this time since he commanded the English in the last game and Ray decided to take the local villagers which left the English for me.
I haven't posted all the scenario details here as they will either appear in the Donnybrook rules book or I will add them into the League of Augsburg Blog http://leagueofaugsburg.blogspot.co.uk/

The game started very well for the villagers as all their troops came out in the first four moves whereas half the English troops were still waiting to arrive but this ended up actually being an advantage as it meant that the two Moorish factions were left to fight themselves whilst trying to round up the animals.

Eventually all the English troops got on, you can see them sneaking up in the left of the above photo.
The only unit of theirs that actually got into combat were the pikemen who ended up destroying the Moorish heavy cavalry and relieving them of the animals they were herding off whilst the rest of the infantry quietly rounded up what was in the immediate area and the four goats they got in the last move game them the victory by collecting 84pts of animals against the Moors 80 and the poor old villagers were left with nothing.

Again both Colin and Ray enjoyed the games so much that they are already planning their own Donnybrook factions.

Saving the Slaves

I've fought this scenario a few times with Barry Hilton and Bob Talbot but thought it would be a good one to introduce Colin and Ray to Donnybrook, a set of skirmish rules for actions fought between the period 1660 - 1760.


The basic scenario is that a group of English civilians and servants have been taken prisoner by the Moors during one of their many raids and are about to be sold at one of the slave markets in a nearby village as seen above. A detachment of troops has been sent out from Tangiers to go and rescue them. Colin commanded the English troops and Ray commanded the Moors although the only troops he has available at the beginning of the game are the slave traders bodyguard, reinforcements will come from the local villagers and from cavalry from off table.

The game started well for Colin as he managed to get all his troops on the table whilst the Moors only had the bodyguard unit and two small units of villagers that had rallied to their cause.

Eventually Ray's cavalry arrived and he tried outflanking the English troops but rashly ended up charging the English pikes which surprising turned out ok for him as he managed to push the pikes almost off the table. Instead of continuing to finish them off he decided to go and attack the musketeers where it all went horribly wrong.

The only success the Moors managed to achieve was to kill the English leader but by that point they had lost 50% casualties then failed their morale test. This would normally be the end of the game but they were both enjoying it so much they decided to carry on but it didn't get much better for the Moors and with the defeat of the bodyguard there was nobody left to stop the English from rescuing the prisoners.

The League of Augsburg

 

I have been asked to contribute a number of articles to this new blog set up by Clarence Harrison which covers the period 1660 to 1720 which actually takes in more wars than just the League of Augsburg also known as the Nine Years War.

http://leagueofaugsburg.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Apart from writing on the blog I have also been involved in playtesting a set of skirmish rules written by Clarence called Donnybrook.

This is the finished illustration for the rules, title and graphics still to be added.

Myself, Barry Hilton, Bob Talbot, Adrian Howe and Gerry Donohoe put on a display game at Carronnade, the wargames show by the Falkirk Wargames Club to promote Donnybrook and it seemed to generate a huge amount of interest.

The first article I've written for the blog is about the fighting around Tangiers in the 1680's and how I went about producing a force for gaming the numerous actions.

The next article is about the opposition, the Moors.

Carronade display

It's been a few months since I've last posted mainly due to family, friends and work getting in the way of a lot of gaming and me forgetting to take a camera to the few games I did have. Fortunately my mate Barry Hilton took his camera long to take some shots of our demo game we put on at Carronade, the annual show of the Falkirk Wargames Club.

This was also the first outing for the new range of fortifications from our mate Adrian Howe and Adrian's Walls made a stunning background to our skirmish game which was also the first public outing of a new set of late 17th early 18th century skirmish rules called Donnybrook by Clarence Harrison. Other top mate Bob 'Toggy' Talbot also took part in the demo.

A couple of great views of the front and back of Adrian;s walls.

The show was also the first outing for my latest painting project

The Tangiers regiment for fighting against the Moors in the 1680's

The figures are individually based on pennies for skirmish actions but

also fit into these larger bases from Warbases for use in different styles of gaming.

This photo shows them being used in the skirmish mode,

group of pikemen have two characters, a drummer and ensign

attached to them while the small unit of musketeers in the background

are led by a sergeant.

I hope to take more pics of this unit and show the number of units

and characters I can get from it for using in Donnybrook.