German Uhlans, 1914

World War 1 may not be known for its cavalry, but armies retained extant cavalry forces throughout the war, cavalry played an important part in the opening weeks and months of warfare in Belgium and France, and of course played a larger role in battle through the war on the eastern front and the middle east.

These German Uhlan (Strelets, 20mm) are the next step in modelling forces for some possible cavalry actions using the Great War Spearhead rules. The foot figures are the HaT German Jager.. and very nice figures too.

Warpath in 6mm

Andy and I toyed with the Mantic warpath and Firefight systems not long after they came out. We decided to get back in to some Warpath .. we like the system, which I described as Epic Armageddon Lite. The activation system creates a really interesting game dynamic far superior to anything in the sci fi genre that we have seen before.

We did ponder whether some Spearhead mechanisms might adapt to this too, but that's a very different matter. Anyway, no AAR, just few photos. e sue the perspex explosion markers to mark suppressions on units.  

A couple of very different 6mm 'games

I managed to fit in two games over two nights in my attempt to get a few games before the tyranny of work's time demands kicks in. The first was a four player ACW game played using the Volley and Bayonet rules, and Keith's figure collections. Here a re a few sample photos, no commentary (just lovely armies to look at and to use on the able).

Then Andy and I got together to try to re-acquaint ourselves with the Mantic game Warpath, again using 6mm figures (well, they re all GW Epic figures, and probably more realistically 7mm).

An interesting contrast to the ACW game the night before.

Warpath: take 2...

Andy and I got together for our second game of Warpath, again using our 6mm Epic armies. My 'Space Marines' counted as Enforcers, while Andy's Eldar counted as GCPS. We used a table 5' long, with 2000 point armies, playing the 'Ambush' scenario.

The 2000 points allowed us to add in some additional unit types.. vehicles and aircraft in particular.

The battlefield seen from the Enforcers' deployment edge. The Enforcers air support (carrying an assault team) was deployed on the opposite edge

GCPS Marines deployed behind the ridge, striders atop the high ground

GCPS Autocannon

Armour... a Lancer battle tank - eeek

More GCPS Marines

Enforcers Heavy Weapons unit

Enforcer Strider

The Enforcers pushes a team forward into a copse on the left, but were then assaulted by a unit of striders.The Enforcers lost one team and the other was pushed back out of the woods, into the open

One GCPS armoured vehicle pushed forward to engage the Enforcer strider

The Strider survived the attack but carried a number of suppressions

However a Weapons team using AT missiles managed to destroy the GCPS armour

The Enforcers air support came in, conducting a strafing run... 

And it just kept getting worse for these guys who also took fire form an Enforcer unit

Next turn a second strafing run caused moire mayhem.., 

The striders atop the high ground also took fire

A unit of snipers on the GCPS left flank started to take concentrated fire

Meanwhile on the Enforcers' left flank, a heavy weapons unit, and the remaining team form the unit assaulted in the woods, find themselves in the open, and taking very heavy fire.

The heavy weapons unit loses a team

Enforcers occupy a small village in the centre

The GCPS left flank is devastated, the striders destroyed, and the unit of Marines behind the high ground now coming under pressure. The aerial assault team uses its anti grav equipment to complete a drop from the Accuser Interceptor to add to the pressure. The dead Lancer battle tank can be seen lower centre

The remaining team from the Marines unit faces devastating fire

The second  Lancer Battle Tank deployed on the GCPS right flank takes AT fire, but has already caused mayhem amongst the Enforcer units

The Marine son the GCPS left are about to be assaulted by an Enforcer unit, IF they survive the fire.

The battle ended in a major victory for the Enforcers with over double the VPs of the GCPS. We are getting the hang of this, although this was the result of only three turns, remembering that each unit activation 'feels like a whole turn in itself'. We are getting faster, but a couple of new parts of the rules took a little thinking about.

Still, an interesting game, with layers developing as you vary troop types, objectives, and weapons systems.

Testing the 'Warpath' rules

The Epic Armageddon armies languish in the drawer .. GW Space Marines of old, rarely used in the decade or more that I have owned them. When Mantic's Firefight and Warpath rules came out we bought them, not because we were dissatisfied with Epic. Quite the contrary, a great set of rules. We sadly play them too rarely to be able to master them with any degree of confidence. What I thought I was seeing in Firefight and Warpath was what I have described as 'Epic Lite'. Similar clever mechanisms, simpler rules, and similar nuance.

We'd tried Firefight a couple of years ago, but had yet to try Warpath, the macro level version of the game, and Andy felt that this would be a good use of those 6mm Epic armies. So tonight we gave them a try. The figures work well, although mapping the old GW armies across to Warpath isn't totally seamless. However, the rules worked well, we used a very simple version with small forces and no orders. Next step will be to add greater variety of forces, and use of the orders system which is simple but again almost elegant.

Here, some photos of the small game in action, using the 6mm Epic figures: my 'space marines' counting as Enforcers, Andy's Eldar counting as GCPS