Taiping Rebellion - Oct 16

John Snelling ran a fabulous Taiping Rebellion game on October 16th, at the Hangar.

There were three factions involved, the Taiping Rebellion Forces (and allied Triad gangs), the Imperial Chinese forces, and the British Counter-Insurgency forces.

The British were there to proceed to a temple under control by the Taipings, and rescue a princess of the Imperial Family who had been captured.

The Taipings were defended recently conquered territory near an Imperial riverine trade city. The gangs were defending some mountain temples that they had captured, between the forward area of the Taiping advance, and the Imperial trade city - they had captured a number of very valuable treasures (statuary, etc) and were holding it for turning over to the main army. The Imperials were attempting to oust the British from the trade city, as well as punish the Gangs and recapture the mountain temples.

This was played in 15mm scale, with a buttload of Chinese figures (nicely painted by Snelling), and was played by John Snelling, John Dent, and Chuck Turnitsa. The rules used were heavily modified Victoria's Battles.

Oct 16 - Frontline General

Byron presented a very nice game of Frontline General to teach a couple of newbies how to play.

The terrain was great, the figures nicely painted, and the game was a lot of fun.

Check out the Collins Epic Wargames website, and also the BGG entry.

Byron tells ODMS that he will be presenting a new, scaled back, commercial offering of the game in the near future, that won't be as ambitious as the original release, but that will have enough rules to use it as a set of miniatures gaming guidelines.

Western Skirmish - AAR Oct 2

Danny Jackson ran "How the west was Dan" or "The Dan with no name" or "A Fist full of Dan" or something - it was his rules for Western gunfighter skirmish. Two player groups against each other, and the nefarious townsfolk.

A gang of outlaws, coming into town to rescue two gang members from the jail house.

A posse of lawmen, bent on making sure the Law is obeyed and the gang members get a fair trial.

The nefarious townsfolk, determined to "lynch" the gang members, with or without a trial ("why go to all the trouble of a trial, when we just know the lowlifes are guilty as all get out?").

Outlaws rode into town, immediately were shot at by all concerned, started in towards the jail house, when the citizens began dragging the gang members toward the hanging platform. Long range rifle fire from one of the outlaw gang members took care of the angry citizens, and others (on horseback) rode up to gather the shackled prisoners. Not a few outlaws died (more than one being dragged to death on scared horses). Many outlaw casualties, but they eventually rescued one of the prisoners. The sharpshooter? He was blasted from behind by an old lady with a shotgun. Nefarious town members . . .