Saxe-Bearstein v. Stagonia in a meeting engagement

 The wonderful BloodAxe minis collection of Bluebear Jeff was in action on the tabletop this November.


Details can be found at MurdockS MarauderS

Wars of Stagonian Aggression return!

 

a Stagonian Brigade arrives

Codsticker's Historicals and Murdock'S MarauderS teamed up to bring the Stagonian wars to the tabletop again!

 

CROSSROADS 

 

The battle action was played out using Black Powder rules and the miniatures collection of Bluebear Jeff. 

Fashion/military

 So i hope it will begin soon 

March Madness

 To some extent, I am feeling like we are in middle of the long decline of the personal blog, but that might be just because I am having trouble getting anything posted lately …

March has actually been a good month for some gaming.  I met with my brother at Cincy Con the first weekend of the month, and had the opportunity to play in several historical miniatures games as well as a big game of Ral Partha’s Chaos Wars.

Chaos Wars on Sunday morning

Philistines against Israelites

Scrum Con in Silver Spring, Maryland, is coming up on the 8th of April.  I volunteered to run a 40mm Renaissance game with Leonardo da Vinci-style war machines, from my collection of stuff that hasn’t been on the table at a convention too recently.  However, I had been uncertain about the rules I was going to us, so I arranged to meet with my sons on the 11th for another game day.  

 Landships and Landsknechts for the first time in over 20 years

The DBA tournament continues

We continued the ongoing DBA preliminary elimination tournament with a few games, then set up the 40mm Renaissance (enhanced) using Nic Wright’s Fantastic Battles rules.  Unfortunately, despite having provisions for Renaissance troop types, and customizable war machines, as well as being designed for troops on 60mm square bases, the rules were not going to work for the convention game that I need to run.  I would like to try them again with something closer to their intended purpose before I say too much more about them.  However, vis-a-vis Scrum Con, it was back to the drawing board …

I missed a HAWKs meeting on the 3rd while I was at Cincy Con, but I made it out to the meeting on the 17th.  Duncan Adams was running one of the legendary “Space Station Accipiter” games, using the HAWKs collection of 54mm semi-flat Buck Rogers figures cast from vintage molds sold for home use in the 1930s.

That send me down a nostalgia trail, and I spent some time the next day reorganizing my Buck Rogers figures.

Possibly there will be more about that, too …

My brother and I have volunteered to run several games of Burrows and Badgers for Gen Con in August, so we decided to take a little time on the 19th to set up a remote game (using his table and figures) to remind ourselves of the rules.

Screen shot from the game in progress

Finally, I rounded out the month by meeting with Chris Palmer on the 25th for another try at the Renaissance game.  Chris had built all of the amazing war machines back in the late 1990s.  We ran at least one game at a Cold Wars using home rules, after which that project went off (for me) in a different direction.  

For this game, I decided to use the usual Rough Wooing, Ross Macfarlane’s home rules, with some war machine rules improvised from what I remembered of what we had done in 1997.  We also set it up on a full 6x10 table to see how things fit.

It worked well enough, so I just need to type up the Rough Wooing modifications into something neat enough to use with players on the 8th.

I was amazed, though, to find that Chris still had a folder of rules and handouts from 1997 through the convention game we did in 1999.  

That included a copy of the page from my notebooks of record with the basics of the rules, so I was able to pull the appropriate notebook off my shelf and see what else was occupying my mind in late 1997.

Not much painting has been getting done, but I have no complaints about the gaming this month …

In the Glen

 Today I caught up with old friends in the Glen. To get there I passed the palace and other historical sites. I thought some of the readers of this blog might enjoy seeing the photos l took. As ever click on them to make them bigger.

The full AAR of Saxe-Bearstein v Stagonia at Kallais.

 Murdock'S MarauderS has put up a full After Action Report.

 

Saxe-Bearstein was in retreat.

Stagonia managed to halt the evacuation.
Could they defeat the Saxe-Bearstein army now?

Saxe-Bearstien Marches again vs Vile Stagonia

 June 27, 2021 saw an opportunity to have the Saxe-Bearstien and Stagonian armies of Bluebear Jeff face one another again on 'the field of Mars'.

mid-game looking from the left rear of Saxe-Bearstein's lines

 

The video picks up during deployment of the troops.

TWITCH TV VIDEO

The full game is in the one video. 

Codsticker has a summary:  CLICK

Murdock has an overview:  CLICK

Joining Emperor vs Elector Blog

To whom would one make an application to join the Emperor vs Elector blog?  There is a new imagi-nation gamer who just posted on The Miniatures Page.  If the moderator of this blog could make a post on that TMP thread, I'm sure not only Johann Margrave von Gluhwein but others might like to know.

Thanks,

Jim (Col Campbell)

The Passing of Richard Ansell

I just saw the announcement on The  Miniatures Page that sculptor and wargamer Richard Ansell passed on Feb 11 due to a heart attack.  You can read more about the sad event on the Two Fat Lardies blog .

Many of us have figures sculpted by Richard and his passing will leave a huge hole in the miniature gaming world.

Jim

Command Zone VIRTUAL online live

A weekend of tabletop escape.

COMMAND ZONE VIRTUAL 17-18-19 April 2020

Online LIVE games that you may join in or just watch on:
https://www.twitch.tv/murdocksmarauders/



Starting on 17 April: Victory Without Quarter: Alpian Wars, 7 pm Pacific Time (same as LA, USA)
  - another of the many meeting engagements between Alpia and Stagonia

Continuing on 18 April: Ripple Field, English Civil War, 11 am start, with a potential to run the game twice with different players (depending on time and performance)

Ending on 19 April: Napoleonic battle, SHAKO II rules set: 11 am start with a gentle paced battle between Austro-Russians and Italian-French forces.

If you are keen to join in, as an active player, contact Murdock via blogger mail and get the connection code.  Otherwise feel free to drop by on
https://www.twitch.tv/murdocksmarauders/

Merry Christmas from the Duke of Tradgardland

Father Christmas has enlisted some help in delivering the presents this year in the Duchy. I do hope these fellows can be relied upon..

Merry Christmas to you and yours from me and mine. Remembering Blue  Bear Jeff without whom the hobby would be so much less for so many of us.

The Great Blue Bear now on his way to the summerlands.

Emperor vs Elector readers, one of the originators of this group blog, Jeff aka Blue Bear of Saxe-Bearstein has passed away.

Jeff had been in hospital since July and moved to Hospice care in late September.

October 2, 2016 at 7:52 pm Pacific time, Jeff started on his journey to the summerlands.

a pictorial memorial for Jeff

On October 13, 2016 there was a celebration of life for Jeff and we all recounted many tales from the past 20 years.

Saxe-Bearstein shall be going silent as was Jeff's desire.  There is no reason to stop posting here and continuing a game-filled conversation.

Regiment Bauer Bar

Regiment Bauer Bar ,in Tradgardland  service, on parade in the forests of the Duchy of Tradgardland.

Rest in Peace Jeff and thanks for everything.

London war room North West Pacific tribesmen figures?

Does anyone know if the range of tribesmen and Russian fur traders are still available?
Thanks
Alan

Building scale ships

Some hopefully refreshing pictures of my first ever serious painted sailships:

If curious to see some pictures else, please click on the caption above.

Lluís
what-if-catalonia.blogspot.com

Wars of Stagonian Aggession

Finally after years of painting (and not playing enough), my friend Rob and I have begun a series of early 18th century battles between the vile Stagonians (Rob) and those much-beloved Saxe-Bearstein troops (me).

We are trying out the "Black Powder" rules (and making mistakes of course).  So far we have fought two battles:

The Battle at Bittewasser (clicky) and The Bridge at Kronstadt (clicky).

Early action at Bittewasser.

Early movement at Kronstadt.

And a bit to my surprise, I have been liking the "Black Powder" rules . . . so we hope to fight more battles as my health permits.

Future encounters can be found at "The Wars of Stagonian Aggression" blog (so you might want to bookmark it).

-- Jeff

New Sovereign takes Oath

Today 6^th March 1714, Princess Elisenda has just taken oath on the Defiant Principality Constitutions as customary (not without previous harsh negotiations with the Commons, as it can be read here). Chancelleries of all around Europa are invited to the Coronation Ceremony event, which is due to be held on next 21^st March at Saló de Sant Jordi (=Saint George Hall) in Catalonia's Generality Palace.

How to downsize an already small army, and other musings

Sure that I would reveal no secret if I stated that Gibraltar was taken in 1704 by an Anglo-Dutch fleet on behalf of Archduke Charles Habsburg. By virtue of Utrecht Treaty (1713) it was agreed the enclave to come under British sovereignty, as most already know for sure.

OK so far. But, did you know that Gibraltar kept being ruled by an Austro-Catalan governor until 1719, when he was finally substituted? Besides, I've recently learnt that right after the rock conquest, a group of Catalan businessmen created there a West Indies trading company in 1709, that was christened as "Companyia Nova de Gibraltar" (=Gibraltar New Company).

We're going to combine and cook at will both curious stories as a starting point for an epic adventure in the Spanish Main, starred by an audacious band of Catalan settlers. Such campaign will be mostly RPG driven, with some wargaming sideshow around. If curious about this and other musings, please take a look into our blog latest entry.

While revamping that blog illustrations and broken links, I've taken advantage for posting a couple of early 18th century flag plates else. This time, some of the Holy Roman Empire states. Please enjoy them at will, if wished:


You can watch and download them from this particular page.

18 Cent. Flag plates

Hi, just a short note to acknowledge to anyone eventually interested that, while in the process of refurbishing The Defiant Principality blog, I'm taking advantage for restoring some flags and uniforms plates hosted there that went missing --whatever the reason why. Well, not just restoring them but rebuilding these at some extent. Besides of those plates directly related to the Principality itself, I have now online again a couple of plates else: for the Kingdom of France theone, and for the Kingdom of Spain the other. Just click on each to see it larger, if curious.

Plates themselves are a bit crude if compared to those professionally printed that can be found in market, but perhaps their uncommon subjects (land and state flags, as well as maritime ensigns) may be useful to someone. In any case, I'm getting a lot of fun at drawing them!

The whole flags collection will be posted on this particular page of my blog: what-if-catalonia.blogspot.com/p/flags.html

A battle to help explain a peace

As announced a few days ago, I've already started to explain how The Defiant Principality manages to survive the War of Spanish Succession. A much needed piece of information on how and why it happens is the critical battle of El Bruc, fought between 8 and 14 December 1713 in a key pass in the route toward Barcelona City.

Well, we gamed it three years ago (some weeks before our will to keep gaming faded away) and was still pending an AAR. Now that we've happily agreed to resume the story, it becomes compulsory to tell what happened there, and how it affects our currently projected setting.

Wish you enjoy it, despite my poor English! what-if-catalonia.blogspot.com/2016/04/post-war-1-decisive-battle.html