Rommel playtest - Sept 23, 2017

Last Saturday some of my club mates organized a first playtest to Rommel, the latest rules system published by Sam Mustafa. Unfortunately I couldn't take part to the battle but it will be for the next time.

Rommel is a game able to re-create great battles for European and Mediterranean  theatres of the Ww2. The players can command a division or a corp. It is not necessary to have a ruler, the table is divided into squares in which different units can be deployed. For this game Ezio (who organized the play test and prepared the table) used simple pins.

Below some pictures of the table (180 cm x 120 cm) ... 

... and a detail of the squares (15 cm x 15 cm)

Miniatures are 15 mm and are painted by Riccardo (the Italians), Luca (the Germans) and Ezio (the 8th Army)
There are no specific rules for miniature bases. Ezio modified some photos to explain better the solutions we adopted.

My clus mates decided to play an introductive scenario that it is possible to download free from Sam Mustafa's web site: operation Brevity 

Brevity was a limited offensive conducted by British troops in mid-May 1941 to attack the weak Axis forces in the Sollum-Bardia area.

It was our first club match.  The rule system is simple and easy to play.  You have to manage your army/division/corp/company using a pool of dices able to reproduce  events and troop movements for offensive and/or defensive tactics.

Roman Civil Wars – Sept, 6 2017

A couple of weeks ago I tried to recreate in my club a battle between two Late Imperial Roman armies. Considering my fascination for Imperial Roman history I decided to prepare two armies: one with a left wing composed by Palmyran catafractatii and the second-one with regular legionary unit and barbarians allies.

All miniatures are 28mm, a mix of Gripping Beast, Armour & Aquila, Fireforge Foundry and they are all painted by me.

A detail of the army on the left of the previous photo. The army is composed by regular legionaries (Menapii and Petulantes Seniores) with a second line of auxiliary archers

The left wing of this army includes heavy cavalry with some Numidian cavalrymen to support them

The second army sees regular legionaries on the left with Goths on the center and Huns to support them

The battle starts with the cataphractarii assault. In the photos below the sequence of the attack with the knights in the typical cuneo formation

A group of Huns tries to stop the heavy cavalry attack without success ... so the knights destroy the line of Lanciarii Gallicani Honoriani

Also on the centre the battle begins

An image of the battle trend

A detail of the two HQ's 

On the left, the Roman-barbarian army suffers casualties but ...

... the heavy knights have created an hole into the enemy army that it is impossible to close so ...

... the false Imperator escape while a unit of Herculiani Seniores surrounds rebellious legionaries

La Piccola Armata - July/August acitivies

During July and August our club continued with battles, games, playtest and the testing of new rule books.

Below some pictures  ... 

Lion Rampart with the Crusaders painted by Ivano

Saga with a force of Normans (painted by Flavio) against the Byzantines (painted by Riccardo)

Victory at sea with some of Ezio's miniatures (painted by Marco C)

The playtests of ACW battles using the rule system wrote by our club member Paolo

But to play it is only a little part of our activities ... 

Thanks to Riccardo and Flavio the scenic elements increase

Maurizio prepares new battalions for Italian Independence wars

Ivano paints Italians ready for TMWWBK

Carlo increases the troops of zombies for Maurizio's scenarios ...

... while I try to complete my ww2 project even if I stayed for a some weeks on holiday