Ancients

My Gaming Year 2025

Thomas BrandstetterLeave a comment

Another year, another end-of-year report. Again, I played a variety of games, as you can see in my Boardgamegeek statistics:

At the beginning of the year, I suddenly developed an interest in ancient Rome and an urge to create an urban gang fight project with Song of Shadows and Dust. I got figures and terrain and then stressed myself out painting them as quickly as possible. This was not a good move, and it was made worse when my chronic illness raised its head at the beginning of April. This also meant that we had to cancel our trip to Salute, which was quite a blow as it would have been my first time at Salute and I was looking very much forward to going to London.

Roman street gangs in action.

Fortunately, thing improved soon and out of the blue inspiration struck: I had a tiny collection of WW2 Coastal Forces vessels and tried several rules years ago but never was happy with any of them. Suddenly, I had the somewhat crazy idea of modifying Galleys & Galleons, an age of sail game, for this. And surprisingly, it worked rather well. When I posted some AARs, people asked me if I could share my modifications. As the core game was written by Nic Wright and published by Andrea  Sfiligoi at Ganesha Games, I asked them for permission. Imagine my delight when Andrea suggested that I could make a standalone game out of it and he would publish it!

For most of the rest of the year, playtesting what is now Torpedoes and Tides (and what is subsumed under Unpublished Prototype in the BGG statistics) took up most of my miniature gaming. I had several people willing to try out the game and provide feedback. The most dedicated play tester was Alan Saunders aka Kaptain Kobold, who spotted mistakes, asked the right questions and had great suggestions for improvements. I really couldn’t have finished it without him. Playtesting is now finished and the rules are with Andrea. I am hopeful that they will be published in January.

A starshell lights up the night as a convoy is under attack.

After this, I needed a bit of a break from ships. Along came my mate Christoph, who had been spreading the gospel of Battletech all year and finally converted me. We played a couple of BT Classic games, which, although fun, were a bit too procedural and slow for my taste, and then he showed me the good stuff, namely Alpha Strike, a much more dynamic version of Battletech. I was convinced and got the starter box and officially joined the Battletechmania that is currently raging in these lands (really, it’s crazy). I’m looking forward to many more games with giant stompy robots (that are not really robots, I know – I’ve read a ton of BT novels back in my youth…).

I am very happy that role-playing is a stable part of my gaming diet. The group that was established last year finished the Warhammer Fantasy RPG campaign in typical Warhammer style: mistakes were made that will probably haunt us when we start the next campaign… We now switched to The Wildsea, which my wife is GMing for the first time. She is doing a great job bringing this strange new world alive.

I’m also very thankful for the long-running remote RPG group and I’m always looking forward to our sessions. At the start of the year, Jan ran a great Mothership adventure. After that, Martin GMed Star Trek: Adventures, where I finally could fulfil my dream and become a Starfleet captain! Finally, I ran Mythic Bastionland, which we are now going to wrap up. I’m looking forward to what adventures the next year will bring!

I also participated in a splendid play-by-email game which was run by Michael Peterson (aka The Mad Padre). True to his blog name, Michael was mad enough to give me the role of Admiral von Spee in command of the German East Asia squadron in 1914. That we did quite well was not my doing, but that of the clever commanders of the German cruisers. Great fun!

The highlight of this year was the annual summer gaming event. Not only was the regular group of friends present, this year we also had my mate Jan from Germany (who is also a member of the remote RPG group) with one of his kids as well as four of my ex-students. As there were too many people for one single game, we had four tables: Martin ran Sellswords & Spellslingers, Christoph ran Guards of Traitor’s Toll with his magnificent fantasy town set-up, and I ran a Roman gang fight with Song of Shadows and Dust. Additionally, my wife oversaw the little tavern brawl game for those who wanted to relax in between the bigger games. In the evening, I also celebrated my birthday and even more friends and family arrived. What a great and memorable day!

As usual, I don’t make plans for the next year, as my obsessions tend to be unpredictable. I hope that Torpedoes and Tides will be published soon and I want to support it by regularly publishing free scenarios (I’ve already prepared a couple). Battletech will probably be on the menu, especially with the new Aces expansion that allows to play cooperative games with Alpha Strike. Apart from that, I’ll just go with the flow – this blog is called The Raft for a reason. But wherever it leads me, I’m really grateful to have friends I can share my love of gaming with.

Commands & Colors: Ancients

Thomas Brandstetter7 Comments

After my somewhat disparaging comments about hex wargames, Virago and Sigur decided to teach me wrong and invited me for a game of Commands & Colors: Ancients. This game has been a recurring topic on the Meeples & Miniatures podcast, and as Neil Shuck and his mates seldom err, I decided to give it a chance.

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I have to admit that I was highly sceptical. I had once tried the online version of the WW2 variant, Memoir ’44, but I was bored very quickly. However, I wasn’t sure if the boredom was due to the fact that I generally get bored by computer games or because of the game itself.

Virago set up the scenario for the Battle of Dertosa, fought in 215 BC by the Scipio brothers against Hasdrubal Barca, brother of Hannibal. For the first game, I got the Romans, which have quite an advantage in this scenario. Sigur played the Carthaginians.

The rules were quickly explained. They are simple and make sense, something I like. At first I had some trouble sorting out which units could do what, but thanks to Sigur and Virago, everything became clear soon enough. Learning a game from mates is always the best and easiest way!

My Romans won the first game due to brute force and extraordinary luck with the cards and dice. We changed sides and now Virago took the Romans. Playing the Carthaginians, I realised that cunning was called for. Although I could hold off an attack on my right flank for a time, I soon got steamrolled by the might of the Roman infantry.

I have to admit that I’m very impressed by the game. As I’ve said, the rules were easy to learn and never got into the way of playing the game. The games were quick – also something I like – but it still felt as if tactical decisions mattered.

My main scepticism had concerned the card system: I feared that it might be too ‘gamey’ and that decisions were too much dependant on the cards instead of the situation on the battle field. However, it was the other way round: The cards are a great way of modelling command and control, but it always felt as if they were tools for achieving certain battlefield objectives.

I also like the look of the game. I know that some people play it with miniatures, but the wooden blocks actually look really nice. I guess I can live with hexes as long as there are no counters!

Joking apart, C&C:A might actually be the way to make big battles interesting for me. I’ve never been captivated by big battle games and all my efforts in this direction were aborted sooner than later. C&C:A is easy to learn, quick to set up and play and it’s scenario based – it might just be the game I was looking for to fulfill that particular niche.

On the Painting Table

Thomas Brandstetter3 Comments

Painting is going quite smoothly at the moment. The ACW is still my main interest and I’ve decided to do a Grierson’s Raiders force for Sharp Practice. I already got the figures from Peter Pig, but before I actually start with them, I wanted to finish the dismounted version of the Confederate cavalry.

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Here you can see dismounted Confederate troopers as well as three horses for the ‘horse holder’ marker – I don’t actually put eight horses plus two guys on the table, but use a small vignette consisting of one horse holder and three horses.

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Here is another trooper and the horse holder. The unpainted guy with the binoculars is for a special project – more on this another time.

As you can see, I’ve also started painting Romans for the Punic Wars. Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy has announced Project 217, which somehow will deal with conflicts in 217BC, and it would be nice to be involved in some way. Those four velites are at least a start – they make up two elements for DBA, an easy way to make progress!

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Finally, I’ve done some figures for the Mice & Mystics board game. Those are plastic models and they are nice, but the details are not as pronounced as one would wish. Still, they paint up rather quickly and I didn’t spend too much time on them anyway – they are going to be used by children and I don’t want to worry about them destroying an elaborate paintjob.

Currently Reading

Thomas Brandstetter3 Comments

While I’m normally pretty restrained when it comes to buying miniatures, my big weakness are books: I can seldom resist a visit to a bookstore and when I’m getting into a new topic, I tend to amass books on the subject. I’ve got an ebook reader and I do buy electronic books, but I ususally prefer paper versions, especially for historical stuff which I intend to consult more than once. Many of those books I buy second hand – platforms like eurobuch.com offer great prices, especially if you don’t mind to get copies discarded from libraries (which have some stamps, but most of the time are otherwise in a fine condition).

So what’s currently on my nightstand?

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I’ve just finished Mounted Raids of the Civil War by Edward Longacre. It’s an older book – it was published in 1975 – and I got it second hand. It presents twelve Confederate as well as Union cavalry raids, among them J.E.B. Stuart’s Chambersburg raid, the botched Richmond raid of 1864 and the famous Mississippi raid by Grierson. It is very well written and offers lots of inspiration for wargaming. In fact, I was so captivated by the story of Gierson’s raid that I intend to paint up a Union cavalry force for Sharp Practice – and I’ve already ordered some more books on the subject…

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I’m still halfway into Barbara Brooks Tomblin’s The Civil War on the Mississippi. Published this year, it tells the story of the Union effort to control the Mississippi. There are already several books on this subject, but Tomblin offers a comprehensive narrative that draws on the latest research and uses lots of sources. This leads to a view that is more ‘from below’ than the studies I’ve read before, so you get to know the perspective of sailors and commanders. This also means that overall strategies are neglected a bit, but those have already been covered in detail in other places. If you’re interested in Civil War riverine warfare, Tomblin’s book is a recommended read.

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I have to admit that I’ve started my Punic Wars project without knowledge of the subject. To change this, I bought Adrian Goldsworthy’s The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146BC. Although I’m mostly interested in Hannibal, it was good to get a broader understanding of the rivalry between Rome and Carthago. The author is not only a good narrator, he also offers critical discussions of the sources. Most importantly of all, he clearly states when sources are contradictory or when we just don’t know enough about events to be sure of something – and there is a lot we don’t know about the period. This can be a bit unnerving, but it also offers some freedom for the wargamer, as no one can prove you wrong!

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I’ve also finally started to read Marko Kloos’ Chains of Command, the fourth novel in his Frontlines series. I’m normally not a fan of military sci-fi, but I really enjoyed his books. He writes in a relaxed style, the characters are interesting and the aliens are something different for a change – at least I’ve never before read a novel where grunts are up against kaiju. The latest book starts a bit slow but picks up pace and seems to head towards new revelations regarding the overall plot line, so I’m pretty curious where this is going…