Archive for the ‘ drums and shakos ’ Category

Battle of Tolentino 1815-2015

200 years ago, at the start of May, the Battle of Tolentino took place. Neapolitans versus Austrian, at the end of Napoleonic age, one month and half before the last act of Waterloo.
So for the celebration we went to this city to participate with our Ganesha Games stand in the model and wargame area. We were three days inside the castle (Castello della Rancia) where the battle was. A sort of mini-convention together with some friends of us, organised by the great local Marchigiano wargame club, ASM – Civitanova Marche.
Meanwhile around the castle a lot of reenactors camped and recreate some phases of the two days battle, as you can see on videos taken by Diego.

We were among cavalry charges, rifle volleys, cannons smoke and rumble. My only regret is that all was so realistic that I wanted to see some blood! This was the largest reenactment event that I ever see. At Waterloo this year there will be all this but ten times more. Awesome.

For what concern us, our area contributed at the event with wargame proposals on Napoleonic themes. As this luxury scenario by Bizio and company, a Song of Drums and Shakos skirmish combat. He is a great demonstrator and he made all this for entertain young people with wargame. In the photos you can see Diego too. He is not so young in aspect but young as mind…

And now some personal news. My photos are a little bad because I took them with my old phone camera. Here the glass and touch of my new smartphone. The accident was during Poggio Rusco event due to scarce knowing of my uniform possibilities… Now, after a 150 euro fixing up, it is as new. However during these days I had a series of unfortunate events: toothache, stomach-ache, bed bugs infestation at home, problems for the refurbishment of the new home, and more! I hope in better moments.

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Song of Drums & Tomahawks

The boom of a flintlock musket, a cloud of acrid black powder, and the drumming of feet as they rush towards the fallen foe. A knife is unsheathed, and with a few quick movements, the enemy’s bloody scalp is ripped free. Warfare in the Eastern Woodlands of America was one of raids, ambushes and sudden violent encounters. These are the skirmishes that Song of Drums and Tomahawks seeks to recreate. The French & Indian War is the most well-known conflict of this period, but these rules cover from the time of the European arrival until the mid-1800s. Players will generally control less than a dozen figures in multiplayer games, perhaps more in one-on-one contests. The fast-paced play, the tense decision making using simple, easy-to-learn rules, will lead to many fun and gripping games.

This book includes:
•All rules needed to play.
•Historical background detailing the Native American tribes and their Europeans foes (and sometimes allies).
•A map showing the locations of the major Native American tribes.
•Timeline covering the major and minor wars from European arrival in North America until the 2nd Seminole War.
•Army lists for the Native Americans, as well as the French & British.
•Complete list of Traits to individualize your troops and reflect the various fighting styles of tribal warriors, European soldiers, or frontiersmen.
•Suggestions on how to set up games and scenarios.
•Detailed description of warfare in this period.

You can buy it here as pdf or here as paperback.

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DSLB Big Battle

The 18th of the last month we met at Sergio’s house to play a “big battle” with Drums & Shakos Large Battle. Four people versus four people, French versus Russian on a large 300×180 table. Armies were divided in three sub-armies with three players and another player was the commander in chief. People from Arezzo took Russian, Sergio and Romans took French. Sergio is thinking about some definitive rules to administrate these big battles. He will publish them soon or after.

French troops toward the battle.

Russian march column towards glory.

The centre of the fight. Coloured cubes are troops fatigue.

To have a detailed explanation of the various phases of the battle go to the Sergio’s blog. Under a photo-video of the battle made by the winners, the Russian.

They started almost at 10 and finished in mid afternoon. With a pizza lunch in the middle. While these brave men from two opposite empires dying, in another room, I and Andrea tested something for the 2016…

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DS very LB

The game that I won without be in the place, without be in the same city. Well, all this is a little unusual, but it could be. Sergio, Drums & Shako author, thought about a very large battle for his Drums Shakos Large Battle. It was the 12th of December, and this is a chronicle from far.

Three gaming tables, six players and two coordinators for faction, one master. At the coordinators were referred the duty to plan the battle, to supply troop reinforcements, to order strategies to players. And they couldn’t see the tables. So a fog of war occluded the real development of the battle. Moreover messages between coordinators and players, commander-in-chief and generals, were slowed and confused. To add fog of war, the players had various shapes instead of real miniatures to concealing troops at the enemy. Stratagems and surprises were planned by Sergio along the battle. I played as French coordinator, so I had a map of the terrain and could refer to it to give orders. In those days I had an allergic rash so I couldn’t go to Terni. Thanks to Sergio I could play through mobile telephone and emails.

Often what you plan is not what you realise. We had more people than we planned, nine players for the tables. But at most they didn’t remind the rules so well and play turns took too much time. So the battle was stopped before the natural end of the conflict. The communicating system between me and generals lacked due to not strictly rules about my role. I planned the battle but I couldn’t intervene in it. But my faction won. All lessons for another time and another very large battle. We are thinking how to play it better another time.

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Annual Legio Palatina reunion

Christmas is the time of the year when Luca come from London to meet his old mates here in Rome. His wife is a writer for the Roma guide by Lonely Planet so all the family is here for the copy edit of the new annual edition. So we have got Luca, while Narciso come from Canino. Hence we can organise a Legio Palatina reunion year after year, even if Maurizio is missing while Paolo is in Switzerland with his pregnant wife. Our club still lives for a day.

This time we have got two new full members: Gabriel and Jack. Their father is teaching them the wargame basis for future glory on the game boards. But they still have some confusion. Gabriel displayed some 15mm single based modern troops with flamethrowers in our mini Large Battle SDS in 28mm scale. Smaller but more deadly indeed.

Diego opened his house for the first time ever! It could be perfect headquarters for our club, but he wants to preserve it for something less important. As you can see, it is along a railway. This fascinate me in some way.

Andrea was with us from the morning. We playtested again Song of Spear and Shield with Diego. Later we did a collective visit to the local wargame store, now only few blocks from Diego’s house. And after a lunch with pasta, the afternoon with the kids, SDLB and snacks, the evening with some ugly reality shows about Yankee food while we were waiting that Luca consigned the kids to their mother in another part of the city, we ate the annual dinner based on pizza and beer.

To digest we playtested a new game from Ganesha based on western films. Four players, two sides. My dices were so bad that I did nothing at all! At least the others had fun with the game.

The classic reunion photo. So we can see photo after photo the passage of the years, but even the fact that we are always here together year after year!

In the night Narciso and Andrea slept in Diego’s house. Because they are two famous long-winded people, they fell asleep very late. In the late morning we visited IKEA to buy some stuff: assorted for Narciso, two bookshelves to put inside the miniature closet for Andrea, some Zen Garden bases for me.

Then me and Andrea made another playtest to the western game. On my Christmas red tablecloth. This time I had only good dices and Andrea the bad ones. I can say that they are some interesting concepts in the game but there are lots of things to do before it can be full playable. Something for late 2013 or 2014 because there are so many new rules that have to be published by Andrea this year, and the next.

The 2012 passed away, the begin of 2013 was still with a holidays atmosphere, Luca was almost leaving for London, so we setted another reunion, even if shorter. This time Diego and Narciso were playtesting Ferrum et Gloria with some tweaks about thraeces and andabatae.

Another club photo before of another pizza and beer dinner. Maybe I will see Luca in London for Salute. Maybe we will be here another time 12 months more later.

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Alt si gioca 2012: the report

More on the beautiful Alt si gioca convention. This time some photos and comments. There are some previews about Ganesha Games new games too. But if you want to see more photos go to the two Dropbox photo archives:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/upm85fpqbni2m3y/jmdS3HOhyL
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3hezsv8m5sm74as/-rvZ1WN1bT

Former city of Bologna fair manager, now author of SDS game series and other games, Sergio Laliscia at the convention organisers desk.

The huge Ganesha Games stand with the Origins prize among Napoleonic rules. A show of some of the rules produced by Andrea Sfiligoi. Some are still in the works. On the wall some funny posters about dance folk music performed when the hall is populated by local elder people.

A demonstration game and playtest of the upcoming Of Gods And Mortals, out the next year for Osprey publishing. A classic: Greeks versus Vikings. Another time we have to test it with Egyptians…

Monsters Island with Mighty Monsters rules. This is only a display indeed. An usual fight is with 3/4 monsters per squad.

Samurai Robot Battle Royale is in an advanced development. We are thinking about a Gundam style match at my home soon. We have the book cover and some posters will be ready for Lucca Games in Halloween time. The rules are almost ready for an open playtest.

A display with Apocalypticum miniatures. Andrea postponed the development of these rules because he wanted to dedicate himself to other books. But now he wish to fix the rules utilising the notes that he collected with playtests. To start a new and definitive playtest phase.

A game with Drums & Shakos Large Battle. I think that these rules don’t have the right attention that they deserve from the potential players. It is a really valid Napoleonic system. Well, it is a bestseller in Ganesha Games sales but I don’t read about it often on the web. Please, give it a try, it is revolutionary, historically determined, fast and fun.

My children: Zen Garden and Ferrum et Gloria. I sold two boxes of the former at the convention. The gladiator game instead was practically proposed in a display mode here, but at Lucca Games convention I will present a scenario to show it easily to people.

Sherlock Holmes display. A gracious scenario full of Victorian little scenes: lamps, cobblestone ground, coaches, tramps, dogs and cats and other life scenes. I fell in love with it! I like the houses very much too. I saw them in Salute a year and half ago but here they are painted better. I want them for my Flyton city.

The huge 15mm Napoleonic display. Almost 11000 pieces. Sergio spent 5 hours to place them on the tables! Maybe next year he will have got more miniatures…

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Alt si gioca 2012: the videos

Alt si gioca was a wargame convention in Terni who took place the 7th of October. When I was free from my demonstrations I realised with my mobile a movie to report the event.

Some main topics:
0:12 – Blood Bowl tournament
0:51 – Flame of War scenario
1:00 – Battle on Ice in 10mm from Aster
1:20 – Heroquest
1:38 – Bring & Buy
1:53 – A La Guerre
2:30 – Gino Pilotino
2:48 – Subbuteo
3:01 – Operation World War II
3:17 – Wings of Glory
3:54 – Drums & Shakos Large Battle
4:20 – Zen Garden
4:28 – Ferrum et Gloria
4:34 – Samurai Robot Battle Royale
5:05 – Mighty Monsters
5:43 – Of Gods And Mortals
5:51 – Zulu on rampage
6:08 – Weird War II scenario
6:23 – Sherlock Holmes scenario
6:44 – 6mm
7.07 – 11000 Napoleonics in 15mm by Sergio Laliscia

To view a better show of the Napoleonics array, here another video.

And to know more about this convention go to altsigioca.6sided.net

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Birthday Battle

Once again it was the time of my birthday! Now they are forty-three. My mate Diego had his birthday the day before, so I tried to create a birthday event with miniatures for both of us together with our friends. The choice for the location was Terni, our adoptive city as regard to the miniatures. This is the picture of the participants. You may notice that Andrea Ganesha is sponsoring a vintage box of D&D miniatures that he found at Sergio’s home. A little pirate instead taught us Blood Bowl secrets.

A big surprise for us was a prototype test for a new rule engine by Sergio, the man behind the revolutionary Large Battle Drums and Shakos. It was only the basic engine without historical and terrain features, and it just worked very well! It is a game based on area movement and presence, driven by cards and a fighting style adapted from the LBDS dices. It can be develop for various periods. It is very great! An entire family of rulesets can be generate from this engine. The only problem is that wargamers are not fit with the concept of areas, they think that this is not for wargames but boardgames.

The latter half of the day was with Blood Bowl, a game that I tried a lot of years ago when the first edition was out in the eighties. At that time we haven’t got the miniatures but die cut cards on plastic bases and Games Workshop was only a creative company from Nottingham. My friend bought the expansion too. We didn’t understand the rules very well, we hadn’t experience with games, I don’t didn’t speak English, so we put the two boxes in an angle and forgot that fantasy football field. Now after ten years with DBA we want to find something new (!!!) and we are interested in Blood Bowl. I made my first game after 25 years and I liked it. The beautiful football stadium is made by Sergio and will be present at the next convention in Terni “ALT si gioca” in October, when a BB tournament will be held.

The day went very well, we had fun, we celebrate our birthdays. Sergio cooked the Bulgarian national dish, a fresh mixture of yogurt, cucumbers and herbs. Cheese and a rice salad as side dishes. In the evening we ate a great “piadina”, even if Diego suffer from Bulgarian “counterattacks”. I feel happy : )

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