Trumpeter Salute 2026: Battle of Luetzen (15mm Honours of War)

I played in this game during Trumpeter Salute, hosted in April in Burnaby BC (in Greater Vancouver). Dennis was the host and had painted up some lovely figures over the year. My opponent was Malcolm, who often takes command for Napoleon in the napoleons battles games featured elsewhere on this blog. 

The battle was Leutzen which, like most historical battles, I don't know a lot about. The crash course was that the Austrians held a town/bridge over the river and felt comfortable holding it vs the Prussians. They hadn't done a very good job with recon over the area, and the Prussians discovered a ford, promptly marched over to it, and deployed on a hill with command over the Austrians lines of communication. Now Austria needed to switch from defensive to offensive with all of the typical challenges of the time, and national army, that that entailed. 

 

 

Our game started off similarly. I was able to steal the march on the Austrians and hurtled most of my troops towards the ford, and hill with the objective. Ahistorically, Malcolm/Austria launched a strong counterattack across the river. The Prussian command was split, and faced a bit of a challenge of how many troops to leave on their side of the river to threaten the village, but not denude their drive on the objective too much. 

 

 

 

While the game looked nice, and I have (in the past) enjoyed Honors of War, there was a bit off. Some changes were made by the GM (I think in the interests of time and convention realities) and I think he wasn't too solid in the rules. There were some options for 'pass through' fire (overwatch/reaction fire) that could have made quite a difference but we were told it wasn't a thing in this game. After the weekend I checked my own rules and let Malcolm know, as he was (rightly so) a bit disappointed by the rules and the outcome. I do think it would have made a major difference. 

 

In general, the Prussians were able to sort themselves out on the hill in a strong defensive position. The two armies cavalry forces were slightly overlapping, so a cavalry vs cavalry charge quickly morphed into cavalry vs infantry attacks (which are very iffy in this time period). Some good rules by the Prussians vs some ugly roles by the Austrians quickly made the writing on the wall clear and the battle was resolved in a timely fashion within the block. 

 

 

 

I didn't feel like I'd done great generalship, but a combo of lucky roles, & some missed reaction fire opportunities ended the battle early. The pressure was definitely on my leave behind force, and I suspect the hill battle could have been fairly interesting/close had the cavalry action not been so decisive. 

 

 

 I feel like this is was one of my somewhat typical convention experiences, where you play with pretty figs and terrain that someone else has made, but the actual gaming experience isn't the most uplifting. It seems churlish to say it though and I don't think it's really a function of the GM (in most cases). I think that the convention setting and time constraints, vs the rules that are available (specifically the complexity and time requirements), make for a challenge that often is imperfectly solved. I think my expectations for conventions have gone up as it's hard for me to get to them. The time and monetary costs are balanced vs the other things I could be doing (gaming or visiting with friends) often means that what would otherwise be entirely satisfactory games are seen through a more critical lens. 

Trumpeter Salute 2025 - Close Quarter Battle AAR (VIP extraction BARRIO)

 In the continuing theme of close quarter battle, I decided to post some long overdue photos. Trumpeter Salute happens in April in Burnaby (part of Greater Vancouver, BC, Canada). This was the first time I played CQB, and was encouraged by my friends to play it if I had a chance as Darren (the writer) puts on a good game. 

 

This will be fairly description light as it's been 16months since I played the game. Darrens tables are good for eye candy photographs though. The buildings are 3dprinted from corvus (I think) and were (possibly) a gift of some sort to Darren. The graffiti  does SO MUCH for the terrain and I loves it. I sent my brother some photos as we was really into graffiti art when he was younger. 

More after the jump.... 

 

Trumpeter Salute 2026 - Close Quarter Battle AAR (Narco Terrorist Port Raid

April 2026 Trumpeter Salute occuring in Burnaby BC at the Bonsor Community Centre. I had the fortune to get into another game hosted by Darren (of strategies hobby store & the author of Close Quarter Battle). Darren runs the games with his own published ruleset probably as a mix of funnsies, as well as advertising for the game and it's associated minis. 

 

 

insertion via clipping the wire

 

He runs a good game. He know the rules and has devised some challenging, convention friendly, scenarios. They usually is a time crunch, in terms of terms/action economy, and it's very easy to get bogged down and over extend. The agents are much (MUCH) better than their opposition, but the opposition is plentiful. It's really the threat of the timer which is the biggest constraint, unlimited turns would really only see very unlucky agents getting taken down. 

 

This particular mission had the agents infiltrating a local port that is under the influence of a drug cartel. There is a cartel boss on site, but the local army base is on call to assist. The agents have a certain number of turns to achieve objectives AND LEAVE THE TABLE before the army arrives. Should the Jefe manage to make a phone call the number of turns available decreases quite a bit. 

 

 

 

Objectives included: search the sea cans and find 1/. drug money (and blow it up) 2/. drugs (and blow it up) 3/. refugees getting trafficked (and get them off map) 4/. Russian weapons (take an example weapon and blow up the rest). Also, assassinate the Jefe OR abduct the Jefe for interogation back at base. It's basically impossible to acheive everything. 

 

 

 

Insertion is via a boat or the road. Chainlink fences must be cut through. Sea cans must be picked (or cut if you use your equipment slot to have bold cutters). The area is lit, though the generator can be blown meaning show sight ranges (and you can use an equipment slot for night vision goggle making you a lethal hunter in the dark). Vehicles can be hot wired. Lots of interaction is possible with the scenery.  Also, each agent is run by a different convention player, so it's easy to have imperfect communication and planning. I love friction in games, so this is wonderful to me. 

 

Prior to the alarm being raised the GM's and players would dice off for each cartel members, high roll would control where they talked.  

 

 The alarm would be raised if the cartel members saw the agents at the beginning of their turn. So the agents had a whole turn to react and try and cap anyone who saw them. Explosions would raise the alarm (and did). 

 

 

 

 

Bodies also needed to be dragged out of site of cartel members which was pretty dicey at the beginning. We went for the generator early, which was good and bad. Line of sight went down, alarm went up (explosion), engagement range went down (safer), the jefe started walking towards the phone with intent (more dangerous). 

The jefe and his bodygaurd (more competent and dangerous) were on the boat. They walked towards the construction office (sea can with stairs on the left). 

 

Meanwhile the agents were searching sea cans, struggling with picking locks, and queuing up more explosions. We almost got blown up more than once. The explosives have a timer which is slightly counter intuitive (I didn't use them but it's a set one turn and it counts down at a weird time, so it's easy for you to short yourself the time needed to get clear).  

The guards at the front gate I think were a touch more competent, and EVENTUALLY, there was a firefight across the open area. 

 

 Count down timer seen on another sea can. It was awesome as the agent just got far enough away, but the cartel members swarming like vermin towards another agent mostly were blown up. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Refugees were found. My agent managed to hot wire the truck and back it up close enough to load them up. As the jefe approached the office all the agent were running for the slowly departing truck. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We ended up doing a driveby shooting of the Jefe, one of the agents in the front cab was wounded during the firefight, but we were racing out under the wire. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  There was a moment of collective breath holding as we hit the barriers. It was entirely possible to whiff the damage roll and mess up the truck enough it wouldn't move anymore (or worse). It would take catastrophic unluck to roll that bad......and thankfully it didn't happen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Victory picture! 5 of 6 objectives achieved (no kidnapped jefe). Wounded agents but no deaths. Lots of fun. 4 stars, would recommend. 

 

 

 

 

 

Salute 2011: Bob Murch China Station

 Vagabond posted some pictures of 'China Station' the (somewhat) famous table of Bob Murch (sculptor and proprietor of Pulp Figures ). He is/was hoping to do something in the same feel....colonial, edge of empire, heart of adventure aesthetic (If I'm groking his post correctly). I casual mentioned in the comments that I had played a game on the table before and he asked me if I knew where any more pictures were......

 

 

 Trumpeter Salute (Vancouver BC April) often sees Bob Murch visit/come out (he lives a couple hours away). I'm not sure how often he hosts games but he certainly has his stall with an awesome display of figs to tempt your spending cash. In 2011 I was lucky enough to sign up in time to play. He game each of the players a hat corresponding to the command. Damn there were a lot of them. Also the secret objectives of every player sometimes overlapped and sometimes completely opposed other players. 

 

What I recall is I was a British commander of a small column of colonial troops (sikhs) and an armored car. We needed to escort some civilians (science types and ladies) safely to the ships. There were some Germans in our way, I forget their exact mission (maybe find some science maguffin in a crate), but VERY USUALLY we joined forces to march on the town. The Chinese Warlord wanted to extract as much money and goods from anyone coming into town (the combined force was able to stare him down well). The science types (suspected of having the maguffin) wanted to sneak a crate containing a poorly sedated giant gorilla to the ships. The zepplin troopers, a radical german outfit, needed to hit the other germans for something but didn't feel confident to do it with the combined brit/german column. The Tong were somehow duplicitous to the Chinese warlord (maybe wanting to steal equipment in town). And there was some sort of two fisted larger than life Hero character also trying to achieve something (possible related to the scientists, the gorilla, or something else in town). 

Hilariously the British-German truce finally broke down in the alleys of town very close to the ships as the British opened fire with their machine gun armoured car on the Germans (it only seemed prudent). It's possible I wasn't a total jerk in that the Germans may have triggered something (The gorilla, now in a frenzy, escaping from his box)....but I can't quite remember. There was hilarity all around. I think the Zepplin trooper was the only person who had quite limited game options (I really was hoping to see the flying zepplin trooper models hit the table). 

 Here is the eye candy pictorial essay to follow.