1st game of Cry Havoc

 I posted a little while ago about the reissued version of the classic 80s boardgame Cry Havoc.  I have fond memories of playing this at uni and loving the narrative feel of the scenarios.... rather than a rather boring description of eg 2 forces encounter each other in a village, you have a story about insults between named characters which lead to a brawl.  This is a summary of scenario #1 and feels much more evocative.  So how did the game go, and do the mechanics hold up after 40+ years.  Hmmm......

On the plus side....

• The maps are nice and make for an interesting battlefield... in the 1st scenario the fighting takes place around a few buildings with a central street and there are lots of tactical choices about where to try and funnel the fight and make best use of doorways, widows etc
• The characters are distinct and named which adds to the feel of the story
• The rules are relatively simple and are quick to pick up

Sadly there are quite a few more negatives... 

(...and I'll caveat this by adding that I lost the game so maybe some of this is sour grapes, but I don't think so...)

The game was relaunched with a real emphasis on it being very faithful to the original and sadly that includes lots of gaps in rules which require house rules or modding, and some real imbalances.  I get the nostalgia appeal but there was a real missed opportunity to tidy up the many gaps in the rules (eg line of sight) or rebalance some of the issues.  Similarly the counters could have been made a bit more substantial.

Archers.  I don't remember them being hugely overpowered but reading old reviews this seems to have always been an issue and should definitely have been addressed.  Bow armed characters get to fire, then move, then fire again and then fight.  At close range they can't miss and are guaranteed to kill or wound an opponent (and 2 wounds are a kill).  I guess they were armed with some kind of laser-guided armour piercing bow! They are also able to fire over multiple intervening figures... this makes some sense in a battle with massed archery fire, but in a skirmish doesn't feel right at all.  I have a feeling some of this may have been picked up in the follow up games to Cry Havoc back in the 80s (Viking Raiders, Outremer etc) but I'm not sure.  It would be easy to add some simple house rules to make things more realistic, eg archers can only fire once if they've moved, change the overhead fire etc.  Maybe reduce their melee effectiveness if they've fired earlier in the turn or not allow it as they're still carrying a bow.  Of course these all make a simple game more complex.

The counters.  Each character has 2 double sided counters with a fully healthy character, a stunned version, a wounded one and, finally, a corpse.  This quickly became a little fiddly swapping out counters and making sure we had the right side showing.  In our game we only has 6 characters but I can imagine with a large force this would become a bit of a headache.  I had thought you could replace the counters with 15mm or 20mm figures but this would need assorted counters to mark their status.

If I'm honest I came away a bit frustrated from the game.  Not because I lost (probably)... my opponent Anthony had learned a lot from a previous run out of this scenario and played a smart game, using his archer to kill several people before hemming my remaining peasants inside a house and ganging up on them.  Everyone's favourite cat, Leonard, arrived to help but sadly turned up too late... I could have done with him batting a few of Anthony's counters off the table!!

Reinforcements arrive too late!

The village

Starting positions

The bodies begin to pile up

Sir Leonard de Woking

So the verdict so far isn't great... I'd be tempted to give a larger game a go to see how that works but realistically I think Cry Havoc may be destined for the loft or for eBay.  I did find some Advanced Cry Havoc rules online which might address some of the flaws but, at first reading, they seem to add lots of complexity but I'm not sure they'll make for a smooth game.  They have shades of the piling on of layers that you get in games like ASL, but I haven't read them properly yet so they might clear up a lot of the issues.  I guess I'm looking for something simpler and more 'fun' and there are a host of more modern rules around like The Barons War, Ecorcheurs, 1 Hour Skirmish Wargames, Lion Rampant, or (my 'go to' skirmish rules) Fistful of Lead

Sometimes things weren't better in the good old days...

Bucklers Hard

 We had a short trip away to the New Forest this week... just one night but a lovely break, staying in Lymington.  We stopped off at Bucklers Hard for lunch and a wander and stumbled across an archaeological dig in progress.  It's running till August 7th and is exploring one of the 18thC slipway.

Bucklers Hard sits in the Beaulieu River and was originally modestly named Montagu Town by the Duke of Montagu.  It's famous for shipbuilding from the mid 18thC through to a decline in the post-Napoleonic period.  43 Royal Navy ships were built here including 3 that fought at Trafalgar.

The dig looked like hot, muddy work but luckily there was a cooler tent showing off some of the finds.  It did give off a certain 'Detectorists' vibe with shades of the DMDC finds table.

Sheer nostalgia

 The very first 'proper' toy soldiers I remember were from a toy wild west fort that I got for Xmas... apparently my dad had wanted 1 when he was wee so I guess he finally got to play cowboys and Indians.  I also inherited some Airfix 1:32 WW2 soldiers from my big cousin, along with (weirdly) some Airfix footballers.

But... the first figures I remember choosing and painting were Romans and Ancient Britons from Airfix in 1/76 scale.  When I say 'painting' I think I had some enamel paints and daubed it badly over the figures (not sure my painting technique has improved that much!).  I have a very vivid memory of painting these at my Granny's house during school holidays in, I guess the early 70s.

So, in a fit of unabashed nostalgia, I immediately pre-ordered when Airfix announced they were re-issuing them.  The boxes arrived today.  Well, actually yesterday and today since for some reason they were sent separately and in huge boxes for a small package.  3 boxes of Britons and 2 of Romans, although I can see me adding to them.  Now they can join the painting queue while I think of suitable rules.

Orkney road trip

A few weeks ago we went off on a busy 10 day break back home in Scotland.  This was a combination of a visit back home for my nephew's wedding (which was lovely), and a longer break afterwards. After a couple of nights in Ayrshire for the wedding we then headed north on a trip to Orkney.

[Warning... this post may contain photos of dogs!]

This has always been on the wishlist of places to visit and we'd decided that as we were halfway there already, this was the year to do it. Its a fair old journey to the north coast so we headed up the A9 to Imverness, driving through the Pass of Killiecrankie, site of the 1689 battle, sadly without time to stop, although did take a break nearby at Dunkeld and Birnam, of Macbeth's mobile Woods fame.

After a night stop on the edge of Inverness we headed up to Scrabster on the north coast.  On the way we stopped off at Carn Liath to see a very impressive Broch.  These are fascinating structures and although this one wasnt very tall it was quite complete at lower levels.  It dates back to the Iron Age and was built on an earlier Bronze Age settlement.

Later that evening we made the 90 minute ferry crossing to Stromness  and then drove to our Air BnB in Kirkwall.  It was the dogs 1st experience of a boat trip and they were perfectly behaved... thankfully for them, and me, it was a very smooth crossing... I certainly haven't inherited my dad's sailor genes!

Orkney is full of archaeological sites... you can't move without tripping over a standing stone, but I especially wanted to visit Skara Brae.  I still have vivid memories of history lessons in school where they talked about this and being fascinated by it. It's an incredibly intact Neolithic village dating back to 3180 BCE

Neolithic dice!!

Close by are a couple more remarkable sites... the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.

On nearby Lambholm island (connected to the main island by a causeway) is an amazing WW2 church, built by Italian POWs.  It's actually constructed out of 2 Nissen Huts with the interior handpainted to resemble bricks.  Partway through the construction Italy stopped being an enemy but the Italians weren't allowed to go home and were kept on to work on local farms.  Sadly just before it was completed they were all shipped off to Yorkshire so never got to see the finished Church.

And of course Orkney is famously the location of Scapa Flow, resting place of the German High Seas fleet and HMS Royal Oak.  Most of the German ships were refloated and scrapped bit there a few ships still at the bottom of the bay.

Scapa Flow

Scapa Flow with dog

Memorial to HMS Royal Oak in
St Magnus Cathedral

It was a great trip lots to see historically, and this combined with my other interest of birdwatching meant there was lots to do (sadly no puffins which I'd hoped for).  Ive been reading up about the military activity on the islands... as you'd imagine it's mostly naval or air conflicts in the 20thC (and sadly the 1st civilian casualty of an air raid in WW2) but there was the Battle of Summerdale in 1529 between different branches of the Sinclair clan which allegedly featured a witches prophecy and the appearance of St Magnus!  Definitely one to recreate on the table!

We finished the trip back in Glasgow to catch up with family before heading back down south.  The round trip clocked in at around 1800 miles and  was pretty tiring but well worth it.

Red Book of the Elf King

 In my recent post about a base coating disaster*  I mentioned I'd been painting some figures from Lucid Eye miniatures.  These are all from their Red Book of the Elf King range and the associated rules, written by Rick Priestley.  The setting is themed around an Elvish Civil War but the range also includes Trolls and Humans.  These aren't Tolkieny elves but are much more inspired by Irish myths with a hefty dose of Michael Moorcock thrown in.  This version of elves makes them much darker and less fluffy.  As Terry Pratchett famously described them...

“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”

I haven't really explored the rules much yet but they look interesting and are aimed at around 19-20 figures per side which is perfect for me.  Lucid Eye also sell 'Elf King Red' which is a smaller skirmish set of rules, again by Rick Priestly, for the princely sum of 10p! 

 

I've picked up some of the figures from the range and they are really lovely and well worth checking out.  I could also see my Arthurian figures fitting in as mortal opponents or allies.

* the figures have all recovered from their disastrous basecoating and are back to their shiny metal state after a dettol bath and a good scrub with a toothbrush!

Its an Ill Wind...

 

Bloomsbury Publishing announced a while ago that they were winding up the boardgames part of Osprey to focus on books, RPGs and wargames.  Sad news as they've published some excellent boardgames over recent years.

The one good thing out of the sad news is that Osprey are having a big sale on lots of boardgames till the end of the month.  Inspired by my friend Andrew's recent shopping spree with them (and a very good sales pitch from him... Osprey should consider employing him on commission!!) I succumbed and ordered a couple of boxes from the Undaunted range (more on these in a separate post).

I've played a few games of Undaunted Normandy (UN from now on) and think it's an excellent and clever little board/war game.  It treads a fine line between being a deckbuilding game and a tabletop skirmish.  I have a copy of Undaunted Stalingrad which I acquired very cheaply from eBay ages ago but which has been in the loft since then and could really do with coming out to play.

Inspired by all of this we dug out Normandy for a game on Monday.  This scenario has the Germans launching a raid against a canal to take back control from the advancing Americans.

UN is a deceptively simple game... players have a hand of cards to activate their squads and can use officers to add to this from a supply pile (think of this as off table reinforcements). Clever use of deckbuilding allows you to shape the deck to match your strategy (assuming you have one!)  

The rules neatly differentiate between troop types... in UN only Scouts can advance into unexplored tiles while Riflemen follow in their wake.  Riflemen can take control of tiles however which is essential for scoring VPs.  MGs are great for laying down covering fire, especially suppressive fire which was crucial in our game.  However as the Scouts move into new spaces, 'Fog of War' cards are added to the deck... these only serve to take up valuable space in your hand which nicely reflects the growing chaos as the battle expands. 

In our game I played the Germans with  Andrew taking on the US.  They begin with 2 out of the required 6 VPs already secured and have a choice between trying to hold the VPs at their board edge or preventing the Germans racing to the canal.  Andrew made good ground quickly and seized another 2 VPs before I'd reached the canal, but then became bogged down due to unlucky cards and increasing fire from the German squads.  

The pinned US riflemen... so close
to seizing the last VPs

The turning point came when I was able to deploy both my MGs in a good central spot.  This was when we discovered how effective suppression fire can be... the US needed to activate 1 more rifleman to snatch victory but he was under a constant hail of MG fire which kept his head down and allowed me to snaffle the victory from under his nose.  

For a very simple game it works really well... troops have different and complimentary roles, planning how you build your deck as the game progresses is key, and officers and NCOs (although they aren't on the table) are key in reinforcing and shaping your forces.  The more I play this, the more impressed I am.  It'll be a shame if it falls by the wayside and perhaps another company will pick it up.

Priming fail!

 Had my first proper failure when undercoating some figures yesterday, thanks to the hot, sweaty weather we're having

I thought id take advantage of a day off to do some painting and sprayed some Epic scale Civil War Highlanders and 4 of the really lovely Jim Fitzpatrick miniatures from Lucid Eye.

When I brought them in after drying I found thet were quite grainy and the paint is very powdery and brushes off on my fingers.  Just too hot and humid I think.  It's off to a dettol bath for these guys and we'll try again when/if the weather ever cools!