Hammfilade 2026 - Saturday. General du Corp. Battle of Siebenkiefern (pt2)

 Following on the previous report, we have the Russians and the Prussians struggling over the first town (can't remember the name), which is an important victory point for most of the commands. 

 

The Russian reserve is stalled in the background (there's some sort of conditions for them to activate I wasn't and still am unsure of). Prussian reinforcements have arrived on the flank and are threatening both the Russian reserve as well as the defensive line of the first town. 

 

 And things get interesting yet again. A huge Russian column marches onto the table, outflanking the Prussian outflankers. Oooops that's my command. 

 I now face the charming conundrum of how to split my force between hitting the Russian reserve, turning the defensive line at the town, and slowing the juggernaut marching at my back.  

 

I push hard on the defensive line and some more reinforcements arrive: Prussian on the Prussian left. Between the two of us we rapidly unhinged the line, allowing Ron to push again and evict the original Russian defenders, taking out the emplaced guns.  

 

 

 

 

 

 Hilariously (for others) more Russian reinforcements arrive...on MY Flank. I now have troops in front, troops behind, and troops to my left. The troops I have are also rapidly attritioning from the push. 

 

I've been forced to move to a defensive posture and am turtling up, hoping the other Prussian players can push and get their forces into battle. 

Overall, each side is hoping that the other cracks. I think everyone is looking at actual routs on a roll of 1 each turn they need to test morale. Yet the morale holds for longer than odds would suggest.  

 To the left we can see Seths Prussians (background, middle back of the table) marching towards James (barely in shot on the right). 

They are the last two fairly intact formations, but have low morale due to a number of formations/corp already leaving the table (from dissolution rather than routing).  

 

 The focus of the battle now switches towards the clash near the Northern town (closest town in the shot to the right). Doug has a little arrow fence on the table to show compass direction (bottom right). 

 

In the background the crippled formations are all trying to preserve their strength and chisel away at the enemy enough to cause a morale check. One formation routing could cause a cascading failure.  Conclusion in the next post!

 

Hammfilade 2026 - Saturday. General du Corp. Battle of Siebenkiefern (pt1)

 Doug hosted a game of General du Corp. It's a convention ruleset for napoleonics meant to finish large battles in a convention time block (3-4hr) with historical results. It's notable for the attrition of units, large base basing, and easy to learn/remember rules.  

 

Most years Doug will take a historical battle and whip up an order of battle from it, along with battle directions to various commands. He usually hides what it is by changing place names, rotating directions, shuffle nationalities, taking battles from non napoleonic but still horse and musket periods. Usually the reveal occure around the 1/3 to 1/2 mark, after all the forces have arrived (we often have no idea where or when reinforcements, if any, will appear....which seems appropriate). This year we didn't even know who was commanding what as Doug had preselected our commands and only told us as we marched onto the table. 

 We found out (eventually) that this was based on the Battle of Seven Pines, an American Civil War battle. The real battle must have been pretty wild, as we had troops arriving from all around the table edge, often threatening to flank the previous command that had just arrived. Victory was generally determined by control of the central village/town. 

Garret started with a fairly decent sized force of Russians, including some emplaced/fortified guns. He was instructed to hold the town. Ron marched on the table edge and for a good 3 or 4 turns they smashed heads (2 hrs in pretend game time).  

 

Then things started getting spicy. 

 

A reserve of Russian troops arrived behind Garrets line. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Followed one turn later (30min game time) by my Prussian command. 

 

 

 

 

 

 I was given a roll to see how far down the road my clever flankmarch had managed (note: note my plan, it's the historical one I inherited. But still clever).

I aced the roll and was positioned to hit the reserve on the flank in short order, and was threatening Garret's dangling defensive line. 

Ron was low on manpower on the attack so this was a critical assist.  

 

  

 My command challenges were that I needed to threaten the dangling flank of Garrets town defense (my orders were to secure the town he was defending), while also taking advantage of my options against the Russian reserve (and not get murdered by his exposed artillery). 

 

 

 

to be continued.... 

 

FLASH FLASH FLASH. Late breaking front line accounts from Klendathu

 Post action battlefield analysis has salvaged declassified exciting front line imagery from the debacle bravely fought action on the Bugs homeworld Klendathu. 

 Post battle inventory of tactical nuclear javelin missiles has indicated a massive loss consumption of munitions. The bugs homeworld has had an questionably effective nuclear blow struck. Pity our Well done fighting men and women of the federation!

 

Hammfilade 2026 - Friday. Starship troopers. Would you like to know more?

We have successfully concluded another Hammfilade weekend of gaming. This year we were later (Sept) than is typically as the summer was incredible busy for a number of us. We went for a slightly smaller cohort this year for logistical as well as socialization reasons. Our big game happened on the Saturday so we aimed for some smaller games Friday, Saturday (if we ended early) and Sunday (for those who could start their commute home later). 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday night Ron and James brought out their starship troopers setup. It had been run in Tacoma for Enfilade earlier in the year. I think most of the minis are from wake's emporium. Rules were modified pony wars I'm led to believe. 

 

 

 

 

 

Doug usually gives us a strategic overview and historical account of the big napoleonic battle on saturday (usually after we've been playing for a while, or when some of us finally figure out what the historical battle actually is...it's almost always a surprise). We insisted on doing the same in some good natured ribbing of Doug. Many many quotes from the movie and book were used. 

 

 

 

 

The battle is from the 1st invasion of Klendathu, the bugs homeworld. Buenos Aires had earlier been pasted by the bugs, promoting an escalation to full war. The intent was to hit the homeworld and end the war quickly....everyone should be home by Xmas. Of course, historically this did not occur and it was a total fiasco. The mobile infantry were ill prepared and the necessary tactics and technology not yet developed. 

 

 

Our commands were instructed to insert by dropship, take command of the area and investigate points of interest. Additional commands ended up generating as the points of interest were touched. For some strange reason the 'random discharges of plasma energy' seemed to preferentially target our ships and our ships were grounded fast. Poor Ron take a hit on the first turn and was humping his command across the table.....it made for a decent reserve when everything started going haywire. 

 

 

 

 

There were two lines of impassible terrain (for the humans only) which channeled us into 2 passes at each line. The bugs continuously spawned. Gun ranges were approximately the same distance as the charge range for the bugs, so this wasn't any turkey shoot. 


To the left we see that the Federation TV Team was left filming near a massive swarm outbreak as Seth pushed on aggressively to retrieve some critical intel from a fallen fort. 

He managed to buy a bit of time with a nuclear tipped javelin missile launch. Unfortunately the radiation was poorly passable for the humans, but didn't bother the bugs much (at all). 

With the situation getting dicey we all ripple fired our contigent of tactical nuclear weapons. The Bugs were lurking near the passes making attempts challenging. To most peoples amusement one of the nuclear missiles failed to hit the bugs when it accidentlly hit a unit of MI along the shooting path. A good third of the platoon was instantly vaporized. 

My own point of interest had a Doogie Howser looking political officer show up and insist we get across the table to another point of interest. Loyal to the end to the human race and unwilling to catch a bullet at close range I complied. 

Ron's slow walker began to establish a central perimeter as the rest of our commands were mostly savaged trying to cross the second line. 

 

We were regularly trying to call in air support and bombardments, often successfully, but hilariously (for the GM) he wouldn't let us use the templates to plan the strike location, and strikes landed after the bugs got another move. So you were trying to predict where they'd be. 

Danger close and blue on blue fire were definitely a thing.  

Seth was doing great work and managed to get to the fort and seize the intel. He was uploading it on the 2400baud modem while bugs massed. 

 

The GM announced an end game state and started an unstoppable wave of bugs moving from the table edge. Lt Seth's command was post humously awarded numerous medals for their successful mission. 

A handful of troops managed to call in extraction and were able to help relay first hand accounts of the historically accurate catastrophe on Klendathu.

 

Congo: Forest Tribes (Foundry Figures) - part 2 (of 2)

 Continuing on my showcase of the forest tribes for CONGO (studio tomahawk). If you are interested in the 'official' pictures of minis there is a handy pdf with cards of all the units here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First up is the pygmy king (a leader required if you want a pygmy unit). He has a unit of spearmen, and archers.  I tried to use some consistent colours across the whole force as, to be honest, there is a lot of replication across the 4 armies (like everyone gets young warriors, archers, scouts, and porters). My forest tribes have blue, red, orange, turqoise.

 

 

 

 

 

The pgymies may be overpowered based on the game we played. The archers, conveniently, are 2 separate units but activate on a single card/token/thingum. Small units are SUPER brittle, but the extra mobility was pretty awesome. There is, functionally, some march blocking which allows you to slow down your opponent if you are close to them. 

 

 

 

 Speaking of small units, we have a group of 3 scouts. They have an ability to enter terrain and NOT trigger a dangerous terrain test (there's a d66 table which can include some wild animals showing up on the table). Once a piece of terrain is occupied, it won't generate a test when another unit enters (but if it gets unoccupied and then return, you need to test again)

 

 

 

 Bundukis are another fairly common unit (warriors with muskets). Muskets and rifles have similar ranges, and attack dice are more about the troop competence than weapon. The difference is that muskets inflict a 'stress' token on a unit taking fire....but then they need to reload on another fire action. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last unit to be shown is the archers. I should probably base everyone, but I'm undecided on what to use. I'll probably just wait to finish my 3rd army/force and then base everyone the same way. Though there are arguments for having slightly different basing for each force I suppose to create some additional visual elements that differentiate them (makes it harder to steal/share the units between forces though). 

 




 

Congo: Forest Tribes (Foundry Figures) - part 1 (of 2)

I decided to pull out some figures I'd previously painted (years ago) for some photos. Painted but not yet documented. The impetus to get them out was a weekend visit by Doug, and the fact I was going to force him to play some games that have been on my shelf for a while, but not yet hit the table top. 

Congo was one of these games. A local gamer said he was interested, and I saw a screaming deal on figs on TMP (many years ago) so I bought a lot of three forces. I believe most/all of these figures are foudry. The zanzibari's have previously been photographed.  

First up are the leader types. I think I'm missing one or two for the game and possibly over subscribed for one or two. I think it will be tricky to fill in the gaps, as they are pretty niche (drummers, a newspaper ma for the white mans expedition, zanzibari slaver,etc). 

 

Next up we have some young warriors, (blue shields) and warriors (with the head dressings. Missing from my stock are the cannibals....which is mostly differentiated by painting. So that may not be too hard to fill in if I want to expand. 

 

Broadside Empires of Steel: Blockade of Rabaul (first game)

Broadside Empires of Steel is a print and play game that kickstarted many years ago. I thought it'd be a good entry into naval (which I've been vaguely interested in, but put off by the crunchiness of many rules and the steep learning curve).  

In principle the ships could be printed in FDM, but my original printer (Ender 5) didn't really give me satisfying results. So I waited till I was dabbling in resin, which I don't really like to print with (too stinky for my space and too much post print clean up....with stinky cleansers). 

Doug visited a couple weekends ago and I dragooned him into playing a game with me. There are rules for creating point based fleets and missions, but I don't have that many ships and my space is small. I decided to go for a small scenario based on a kriegspiel the mad padre ran, Swan of the East. 

 In the game I had a command of 2 ships (The HMAS battlecruiser Australia and the HMAS light cruiser Chatham. I was blockading Rabaul to try and catch the german raiders (this was a ww1 game). The Australia was in close blockade with the Chatham over the horizon (or vice versa). Wireless from the base ended up summoning the sister ships (armoured cruisers) Scharnhost and Gneisenau, looking for some easy kills. In the campaign one of the German ships took a critical hit and started to spin, the other one retreated, but not before Australia was sufficiently damaged to sink over a few hours. I wanted to replay the encounter to see what might happen. Amazingly the points values were almost identical.