My God! I have managed three games at the Whitley Bay 3D Gamers Club so far this year! One a month! 🙂 Tuesdays do just seem to work better for me. So, yes, this evening I descended yet again on the Whitley Bay Masonic Hall for a game of Fire and Fury organised by Ian Logan. It was a relatively quiet night at the club with only two miniatures games on (Fire and Fury and Beneath the Lily Banner) and a game of Conflict of Heroes with Dougie and Alex Robinson and Nick Walker.
Conflict of Heroes looks very nice and the counters are HUGE! But I can’t see it replacing ASL in my gaming… 🙂
My game was a three aside Fire and Fury game (Ian Logan, Andy Blenkinsop, John Peace, Paul Brown, me, Mike Cornish) which saw a Union force trying to take control of a town along the Confederate lines of supply and the rebel forces trying to occupy said town to keep the lines clear. I was on the side of the Confederacy and we had three divisions facing a similar but slightly larger Union force. Artillery was kept low (we had four batteries) and there was no cavalry. The action can be summed up in three distinct parts.
On the Confederate left Andy B took his division wide to draw away the strong Union division away from the town. This he succeeded in doing but had no luck at all in his attack! Despite his best efforts he got shot to hell from front and flank and by the end his whole division disintegrated with the Union losing only ONE stand!
On the far right another Rebel division set up quite far from the town expecting to be facing Union troops trying to flank the town. However, the Union division made a more direct attack on the town and was able to deploy one brigade to face the (slowly) coming threat! With a stream and fences to cross it was a while before the Rebels came to grips. This allowed the Union batteries to pummel one of my brigades and when the first Brigade finally did come to grips with the enemy it was with one of the strongest Union brigades and their valiant charge bounced off…
In the centre my division of two veteran brigades crossed the stream and fences to draw up on the left and right of the town. The right hand brigade suffered from the Union guns and although it held its line it did not come to grips with the enemy. The strong left hand brigade formed up with its guns and awaited two Union brigades. This SHOULD have gone a lot better! I had three rounds of shooting where I was firing on the 30 row. And I rolled 1,1 and 2… After battling with some disorder and finally managing to whittle away the first Union brigade I had several 14+ shots. And rolled 1s and 2s! It was quite shocking and a little depressing… :(. Overall my shooting was rotten and the Union return, although not devastating was enough to cause regular disorder and prevent my pushing any attack.
With the left flank destroyed and Union brigades closing in and the right flank attack faltering it was clear the Confederacy would not be able to take, never mind hold, the town so it was time to withdraw. Hopefully the pictures give some idea of the game flow. I’ve not played Fire and Fury before but the mechanisms seem quite straightforward. The extremes of the D10 were quite noticeable in this game but generally I don’t mind this as anything weird that happens I’m quite happy to weave into a narrative. I’ll happily play again and I might even look at Regimental Fire and Fury. All in all, good fun and a good laugh (though Andy is probably less enthused!).
The other game (Andy Dunn, Darren Byers, Mike Tully) was a 15mm Beneath the Lilly Banners game. I have no idea on the scenario or what happened in the game but the figures did look very nice and the provenance of said figures may be interesting (which I may post about later!).
It was a most enjoyable evening. Added bonus was that yesterday I retired my trusty HTC One phone and replaced it with a Samsung Galaxy S6. The camera on the HTC was great when there was decent light but often at clubs and shows it just couldn’t cope. The S6 seems much better and I’m quite pleased with the results.
And this Saturday I will be in Durham for Wor Lard! But I really should be painting for Ayton…
Fira nd Fury are a great set of rules, when the dice go your way at least half of the time. When they don’t you may as well go straight home and do the ironing!! Love it!
The BLB game looks very nice, I’m always after a scenario or two if you could find out the info???