Anno Domini 1666 Kickstarter

A brief presentation about a Kickstarter project I think it deserves to be funded.

Anno Domini 1666 is a boardgame by Wargamer Games Studio LTD, the same authors of the wargame rules "By Fire and Sword". The boargame is completed by stunning 28mm miniatures (available both in resin and in metal), set in...ok you guess right, 1666AD. The background is the following: at the end of 1665 the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Leopold I dies in Vienna. The struggle for the succession is open. Lot of envoys and pretenders conveys in the city with gangs of soldiers, diplomats and spies, attempting to gain advantage from the situation for their nation...or for themselves.

The mechanics are diceless, using cards to resolve both actions, skills test and combats. Each character has it's own card with stats and special abilities (as seen in Malifaux). The maps are 2D printed on cardboard, even if some 3D items are aivalable (Heroquest could be a good comparison).

Apparently the gameplay won't focus just on straight fighting, but it will involve missions as recovering top secrets documents or similar. Probably some sort of diplomacy will be involved, so resembling an RPG. Some low level magic/sovrannatural feats should be available, leaving the game mostly historical.

I was caught by the figures: 28/32mm realistic proportioned depicting soldiers, heroes and commoners. Polish, Imperials, French, Ottoman and secret guilds are the factions presented, but there is plenty of space for more to join the fight.

I don't know if I will play the game as it is (well, I suppose I will give it at least a try), but I see an huge potential for skirmish like games as En Garde! to reuse the figures (and the boards if you wish).

For sure, Anno Domini 1666 is a project worth to be backed if you have interest in historical tabletop RPG, or historical skirmish wargames of XVII century. You've time until 14th  of June!

Furioso! - first game

Our first game of Furioso!

This new (published in 2017) ruleset from Alternative Armies (Flintloque), aims to cover the 16th century warfare, a century of swirling mutation between medieval and pike and shotte warfare. Wars of Italy are least for us the most interesting theater covered by the rules, which addresses field battles (a nice variation from all the skirmishes we had recently) and can be played both with 15mm and 28mm figures.

My clubmates had a large collection of 15mm Wars of Italy figures, some dating back to 90's. So we organised a simple battle between Italians and French armies. It ran quite smoothly even if only Luca studied the rules.

The rules looked interesting, particularly the activation system: each unit rolls one die, and adds its movement factor. then the units resolve their activation in decreasing order. The result also dictates the distance the unit must move if you decide to move. If you roll too high, units may become furious and start moving toward the nearest foe. This adds quite a lot of unpredictability to the game and I like games where you are not entirely in control of your units.

Shooting and melee are resolved quite straightly, and I will deal with them in another post.

Another nice addition to the game is the casual choice of generals (which can be quite incompatible, leading to distortion of battle plans, just as in reality), and a lot of prior to battle options, casual events and armies strategies, which we didn't tried last time, but which looks quite fun.

So first impression: rules are quite fast, easy to learn and in about 3 hours can a complete battle. They possess the right amount of period flavor and the lack of control I like in a game. So definitely a nice addition to our club game assets.

5th of May 1860: the beginning of the Expedition

158 years ago, during the night between the 5th and the 6th of May 1860. Garibaldi and the Thousand volunteer sailed from Quinto, near Genoa, directed to Sicily.

So time for some updates about my Risorgimento project.

I recently started reading Garibaldi, from Osprey Commander series (Command #14). The book gives a good basic introduction of his personal story, mainly dealing with his military deeds, of course. 

Concerning painting: so far I finished 8 garibaldini red shirts, 9 Bourbonic cacciatori (sharpshooters) and one picciotto (Sicilian volunteers joining Garibaldi expedition). Of course pictures will follow, so keep tuned.

Considering the little time I can dedicate to painting I don't think I'll be able to play rebels and patriots at the release date, as stated in a previous post. Nor any other large skirmish game. Additionally, I think that using my painted figures as soon as possible will keep my motivation high, so I started looking for some skirmish (1:1 ratio) rulesets. 

Here a brief summary of those I've taken into account so far. Bear in mind that only Smooth and rifle has a specific list of the period and that I just read most these rules.

Forager

I played a couple of turns at Salute last month. The game flows well and require just half a dozen figures. Every figure is a character, and uses his own cards for stats. These are available IIRC for Peninsula game at the moment.

Cons: too much unique characters, I don't own a copy (my bad).

Songs of drum and shakos
This skirmish game by Sergio Laliscia of Ganesha Games, is set during Napoleonic wars, but can easily be adapted to 1860. My favorite so far (by instinct, I confess).
Pros: nice activation system, needs about 12 figures per side.

Smooth and rifle

Written by Lorenzo Sartori (Impetus and Dadi e Piombo) aims to cover the black powder period skirmishes. There is a bit of emphasis on squad action (quite strange since if I calculated correctly you field about about one dozen figures per side). Overall seems quite a nice ruleset, well laid and complete. It deserves a proper reading.

Legends of the high sea

The popular pirate age ruleset from Warhammer Historical, out of production, but I luckily own a copy and have played it several time (in the appropriate setting, i.e. in the Caribbean).

Pros: solid basic mechanics, I already know the rules

Cons: completely different theme, so I'd have to draw some list (minor issues) and most missions would feel...weird. Plus I'm not particularly fond of the complete IGOUGO separation of turns.

So it's time for some reflection (usually while I'm painting), keep tuned!