Hammfilade 2026: Firelight Dark Ages Skirmish

 The final game I was involved in (I skipped town early Sunday) was another convention ruleset. This time it was developed by Seth, riffing off the '6's are bad' structure that a few of the group have been working with/on for a couple of years. 

 

 

 

 

In this particular instance there is a mechanic somewhat like 'what a tanker', where you need to allocate dice to units to get them to do different actions. You can always choose to 'roll up' the die to a higher number. In the theme of 6's are bad, the higher numbers are generally less useful. One nice aspect  of this is you call out over the whole table, 'activate all 4's!' and everyone can move (although technically you alternate each sides activation so I suppose there are two 4's activations). 

 

 

Units gain BAPs (bad action points) which functionally reduce the size of their unit in terms of effectiveness. Once BAPs get too high any further gains mean that models start getting removed (fleeing I suppose). 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps the most difficult aspect to wrap your head around is that you roll damage on your own unit.  If 12 vikings attack your unit, you are rolling 12dice (ish) and hoping you don't roll 6's. You never actually roll to hurt the enemy....you kinda set up an environment where bad stuff can happen to them, and then they roll. It definitely made the rules a bit hard to grok when I first starting proof reading for feedback/understanding. 

 

 

 

Seth, James, and Ron all brought up minis and Doug had some as well. The Vancouver Island contingent free loaded on others painted minis. Dark ages minis (and ancients) with metal spears are definitely hazardous to play with and I think a few of us got some decent battle damage to our hands.

Seth had previously run the game at Enfilade this year, and got Ron to design and laser cut all the buildings. They are a clever modular build which allows you to have some fun making them in different ways. 

 

 

 

 

SHAMELESS PLUG: Check out his stuff at 3D-Dzyn . He doesn't have everything up on his website so if you are interested in the buildings just message him (or really anything. He does a lot of custom work). I got him to whip up the blood tokens for me (in acrylic) and happily was dropping them everywhere models died. It helps to show where the action is. 

 

 

Battle wise the vikings are raiding and pillaging. The angloSaxons (maybe just angles?) happen to have a VIP in town and are defending. The defenders started in a few set locations, and the attackers were coming on at random points. Technically the attackers just want to pillage, but anyone close by wanted to get stuck in a start fighting. Doug and I each had a unit on the far side of the table so were just looting the mostly abandoned houses and fields. The lack of two units was eventually telling, which allowed the defenders to drive off the attackers in a fairly decisive manner. 

Movement we decided might be a bit short. And there was one hilarious charge with javelins that vaporized a (small) unit of archers, so we nerfed thrown pointy sticks a bit.  Berserkers needed some more tuning as well. 

Hammfilade 2026 - Saturday. General du Corp. Battle of Siebenkiefern (pt3/final)

 Late in the afternoon the Prussians have finally captured their objective town. The original formations (Prussian and Russian) are very brittle at this point, and players are doing their best to be threatening but not actually get involved in combat much (ever combat you fight drops you by a strength point, win or lose. Most units have 3, sometimes 4, points of strength). 

 

The latest prussian command (top of the photo, angled marching to the right) is marching to intercept the latest Russian arrivals (off picture to the right). My own command (centre right) is uncomfortably positioned between the Russian reserve (now active) & another small Russian arrival force bottom centre, and those off picture Russians marching at my back. 

 

 This second photo shows the latest Russian column and makes it clear this is going to be a large clash. My command is attempting to give ground, falling back towards the objective town, as Seth's command (centre top/top right) marches direct on the Russians. 

 

Overall in the battle every corp (even the late arriving ones) have brittle morale. Losses of whole commands (corp) reduce every other corps on the tables morale. Some bad rolls could have a dramatic effect.  

 

 

 

 

 

 Battle lines forming by the second town. You may notice the black cubes (top is grass covered) on some Prussian infantry. This is the square formation marking (cube = square). Good call as that's a serious amount of Russian cavalry. Unfortunately square makes the cannons much more effective. Choose your poison I suppose. 

 

 

 

 Most of the commands have been whittled down to irrelevancy. Combat is just too risky. Cannons have been depleted. The only action that's really happening is the big clash on the right. Around this time we were discussing rules adjustments and such so I missed taking pictures. This game flies along, turn wise, in the late game. 

 

 

We eventually call it based on turns passing and easily predicted outcome. It looks dubious that the Russians will be able to evict the Prussians from the objective town (in a timely manner, and possibly at all). Victory points are calculated (comparative losses plus bonus points for holding objectives). 

 The Russians managed to squeek out a marginal win, despite the Prussians achieving the objective. Holding the second town (left in the pic below) was just enough of a points swing to be the deciding factor. Interesting what-if to contemplate if my command hadn't zoomed down the road on it's outflank and instead needed to shack up/defend vs the massive Russian column. 

Another exciting and enjoyable General du Corp game at another year of Hammfilade.  

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).