Campaign Diary in Photos

Haven't had much time to write, lately. My mother just finished her visit, and between her time here and my busy schedule getting ready for my new teaching position, things have been a tad bit hectic. Several of you who know me personally are probably awaiting emails - you'll get 'em, I'm just swamped atm.

As a bit of evidence that I am not, indeed, dead, as has been rumored (funny story about that I'll have to tell one day, incidentally...), here are some photos from recent engagements on the field of miniature battle - I've listed them in (very roughly) chronological order, beginning with the first engagements of July, and working through to our struggle tonight, my first game of Aerodrome WW1 in two years, along with some brief explanatory notes.


"Might of Arms"
Late in June, Paul put on a game of MOA. It was my first game of MOA and I was pretty impressed by the ruleset, despite some truely awful dice rolling and very bad luck on the Macedonian side of things. Unfortunately, Jay had a hell of a time against the Persian cavalry on the Macedonian right (one guess as to who was in command of that cavalry - and yes, she was just as merciless as always), while I really suffered on the left with a combination of bad strategic decisions on my part, lousy dice rolling, and that bloody inconvenient river. If Alexander really was Zeus-Ammon, you'd think he would have picked a better place to put the damn thing. Of course, I was the moron who chose to follow the Persians into the water rather than letting them cross. You know, perhaps the fact that Alexander and I share a name really is a mere coincidence. This Photo was taken by Paul - all of my photos of the engagement came out like garbage.


"British Grenadier"
Next session, Mike put on a very interesting game of "British Grenadier", a set of Revwar rules that my good friends Tim and Phil M. had both mentioned several times.Unfortunately, I haven't been able to play them with Tim or Phil yet (hope to do so on one of my trips back east), but I did manage to get in on Mike's game, based upon part of the Long Island Campaign. Impressive system, indeed. Of course, I was playing on the only side that any loyal subject of his majesty would consider, even briefly. Left is a pretty good shot by Paul of the battle setup.

In general, we needed to cut the road and mop up the remnants of a Continental force before it could retreat to safety. Our subsequent plan worked out as well as it could, though the advance moved pretty slowly. British Grenadier has an interesting initiative and command system, and units sometimes fail to move quite as far as one might like. To the right, you can see the (unintentionally) staggered British line approaching while a thin blue line of Militia, holding a solitary hill in the middle of the killing zone. (Paul took this one, too.)

On the American right, another unit of American militia held the woods near the bridge that you see in the setup photo. Amazingly, these doughty little bastards, lead by none other than Old Put himself, held off assault after assault, up to and including efforts by British Grenadiers and Hessian Jaegers. They had seemingly limitless endurance and an iron-shod constitution. Finally, they succumbed to a flank march, deftly directed by Jay, but not before Paul dubbed them"the bravest militia known to man." Of course, the collapse shocked all of us at this point, after witnessing the little bastards stop everything that King George could throw at them. I was prompted to remember the favorite DeForest Kelly quote often offered up by Bob at Revwar and ACW games. "Militia! That's what comes of leadin' militia!" The route of the rest of the American force, after a heck of a fight, soon followed. I'm sure there's a joke about "right wing militia" and "constitution" somewhere. I'm just too tired to find it.(Yep, you guessed it. Paul took this one, as well. I really don't get along well with cameras.)


"Aerodrome"


Aerodrome is an interesting little game of WW1 dogfighting that Aaron and I first discovered at Historicon three or four years ago. We thought it was a real gem and brought it home. Some of the Irregulars loved it, others hated it. It's very popular here with the San Diego Historical Wargamers. I much prefer it to other WW1 aerial combat games I've played. The image you see here, this time taken by me, depicts the control panel used to plot movements and fire in Aerodrome. (They sell laminated plastic sheets that do the same thing, too.). All of the materials and most of the aircraft in this case were provided by Rob S.; I threw in a few Austro-Hungarian and Italian planes for good measure, but Rob's collection is really lovely, and totally stole the show!

During the game, I did some pretty severe damage, but got only one (that's right, ONE) kill, and that was during the warm-up skirmish, and so didn't count. This time around, I flew a Roland CII in the warm-up round, a Hansa-Brandenburg D1 in the first round, and a very interesting Halberstadt seaplane in the final round. Got one kill in the warm-up, did some heavy damage in the first round, and managed to get myself blown to pieces during a balloon busting round on the third. And guess who sent me to my untimely death? Why the she-devil herself, my lovely wife!

I enjoyed flying the CII perhaps most of all; this is probably because I managed to gain my solitary kill of the evening flying it. (Even if I didn't get credit for the kill!) Sadly, I can't seem to get the photos of our aircraft to load up properly, but it was a good game. Has inspired me to want to do more with Aerodrome again.

At any rate, it's been a real joy gaming with these new friends, and it was a good feeling to take to the skies again. Even if I really stink at it.