More Chocolate Box War (CBW) Action

 I have played two more games in the Northern Conspiracy CBW Tournament.  I lost to Earl and his Romanian army pretty badly. Earl maneuvered like a pro and the dice really deserted me at key points of the game. As a result, Earl destroyed 9 of my stands and I only destroyed four of his. A real trouncing in CBW. 

In a game last night the Intervention Division took on AJ’s Austrian army at AJ’s game room.  Here is a selection of pictures from the game.

AJ and his beautifully painted Austrian forces the Grenadiers supporting line regiments and artillery.

Here I am making initial moves forward to seize a hill that would play a key roll in the remainder of the battle. 

The 41st Regiment of foot moved well forward to bring fire on Austrian infantry and artillery. They are ably supported by the 24th Foot. 

The 55th foot and 38th Foot support the light RA battery.

The 38th Foot (1st Staffordshire) move up in column to engage Austrian Line regiments. 

The 55th Foot (Westmoreland) Foot support a RA field and light batteries. AJ would soon destroy the field battery, but the light battery would play a key role in the battle. 

British Foot moving into the firing line.

British position on “Artillery Hill”.

Austrian Volunteer Jagers and Line Battalion defend a small Town. The paint jobs on AJ’s units is simply awesome.

The 41st Regiment of Foot at the forward most point of the British advance. Outflanked by Austrian cavalry and facing superior numbers of Austrian infantry supported by guns, the battalion managed to maintain their position and stop the Austrian advance. 

A great shot down the of battle line from the British right flank.

The battle was a tale of streaking dice rolls. AJ really had me on the ropes early in the game then my dice heated up and his went very cold. I think maneuvering was well done on both sides. General dice just had his say. 

Overall another great game experience with Chocolate Box Wars rules system. 

Lots of Gaming Lately

 I have been playing games lately - just haven’t been able to do battle reports. Over the past three weeks I have played  two WWII era games of One Hour Skirmish Wargames. I also played one game of Brother Against Brother  and one game of Chocolate Box Wars.

Here are some random pictures of the games (Note: As I uploaded these, I realized I don’t have any of the OHSW games.  I’ll see if any of the other players took any and share later.)

Setting up the Brother Against Brother (BAB) game. Setting is the Indian Mutiny with the British moving to relieve the siege of Lucknow. TONS of TROOPS!!!

Nobody said the British were going to have an easy go of it! The objective is to cross the table and get over the bridge. Lots of Mutineers in the way. 

About half way through.  2d10’s worth of movement is excruciatingly slow!

When we called it a night. We made it about halfway across the board. It was bloody with lots of losses on both sides. Ralph did an excellent job of getting as far as he did while blasting away at the rouges trying to stop us. 

My Chocolate Box Wars game with Charlie.  It was the first game for both of us in our club round robin tournament campaign. I am using a British Interventionist division circa 1866 and Charlie has a Franco-Prussian era division. Here is my initial deployment. 

Early game.  Both of us moved on our left flanks in strength. 

My light cavalry squadrons did excellent flank guard work on both sides of the army. They destroyed or helped destroy three stands of Charlie’s forces. 

Late game. I tried so many times to get one more hit on Charlie’s badly shot up stand!  At the beginning of the next turn I finally put the last hit on him and ended the game. 

Here is the final location of the survivors. It was a, “short sharp action,” to be sure. Good thing we can re-constitute the division for the next game or we would be in a world of hurt!

All in all both of these games, and the One Hour Skirmish games were loads of fun.

New Units for Chocolate Box Wars

 My painting table has definitely been slanted towards CBW armies lately, especially focused on American Civil War (ACW) Union and Confederates. Here are some photos of my recent figure painting.

In CBW a command stand option in the army build is called a “Chief of Staff”.  Here is my Confederate Chief of staff. A Perry Miniatures artillery officer. I painted this myself. 

For the Union I added a dismounted cavalry unit that I can use as my Light Infantry selection or even a Rapid Fire unit given their carbines.

The other stand of Union dismounted cavalry. 

Staying on the Union cavalry theme, here is my “Uhlans” option for the Union Army. These are the 6th Pennsylvania Volunteers- also known as “Rush’s Lancers”. I have always been fascinated by this unit and CBW is the perfect chance to do them up and get them on the table!

I hope you like these units. I now have three complete armies for CBW - Union, Confederate and British N. American Interventionists. I am rounding out some additional units so I can fill all of the available army building options so stay tuned for more photos in the (hopefully) near future. 

Hungarian (Or was that Romanian?) Goulash!

 Two Saturdays in a row - two CBW era games!  It has been quite a couple of game days at Ed’s house playing a new skirmish scenario from Ed M. of Ed’s Wargame Meandering’s .  We have really taken a shine to One Hour Skirmish Wargames by John Lambshead.  

This is a set of simple rules based on card draws to establish movement and “action” parameters for each figure in your force as well as combat resolution.  You can find an excellent description of the game here at Dale’s Wargames.  Ed has done his usual great job of summarizing the game into an easy to follow Quick Reference Sheet (QRS) and we have made some slight modifications to the rules as this is the Age of Rifles so weapons and troop types have a bigger impact on warfare than the author envisioned in his original rules.  While being slightly more detailed, the modifications we made do not make gameplay that much more complex.  

Over the past couple of weekends Ed and I had the first play-through of his modifications and then we added in our friend AJ of AJ’s Wargaming Blog to help with the play testing. We had a great time playing through Ed’s scenario to see if we could “break” it. We found a few places that it needed to be tweaked, but overall the game is a real challenge from either side. Even when the dice gods…. I mean the card gods go against you there is still a chance that you can pull out a win from either side. I think this is a really good indication of a solid game system. Both players should always feel like they have a chance of winning. Of course that that is also a function of good scenario design and Ed has come up with a good one in this case. 

Set on the Romanian/Hungarian border in the mid to later 1800’s, this game features a mix of light troops coming to blows over a frontier telegraph office. Ed has done a marvelous write up of one of our games with links to his play sheets and explanations and photos. 

Here are a couple of photos I took when Ed and I ran through our play test games:

I start to move forward. My forces are on the right with the telegraph building in the center left side of the photo. Ed has already dropped one of my Romanians in the forest area center of the photo. Unfortunately for Ed, he killed one of my Dourabanti Militia. His fellow militiaman would not take kindly to this.

The other militia man begins an odyssey of death and destruction which will be written about through the annuals of Romanian military history!  In this phot he is hidden under the tree by the hill where he has just despatched a Hungarian Chasseur. 

Here is the aftermath of the Dourabanti’s continued rampage. He has charged towards the telegraph office the red markers showing the gory trail of his fury. Now he is in the telegraph office with another victim and the Hungarians have one chance to evict him. 

The end of the game.  The Hungarians were unable to defeat the Dourabanti militiaman and he ended up smashing the transmission equipment and chocking up a “W” for the Romanians. 

I do not have any photos from the day AJ and I played our games. To me this is a good indicator of a fun game - we were having such a good time we forgot the photos!  Another point - the game is truly a fast play system as AJ and I were able to get in two games in one afternoon!  This system has some real potential for many different eras and scenarios. I am really looking forward to more games in the near future. Don’t forget to check out Ed’s blog and AJ’s blog - it is well worth the time. 

Chocolate Box Wars - First Armies

 I have been playing a lot of Chocolate Box Wars (CBW) during 2024.  This is a set of homegrown rules by my friend Ed of Ed M’s Wargames Meanderings blog https://edmwargamemeanderings.blogspot.com/. You can find everything about CBW including rules, playing aids and extensive material on building forces in different areas around the world. This is a great game focused on the mid 19th Century (1840-1880) rifle-dominated battlefield. There were a myriad of wars, small and large, where weapons became more deadly and leaders struggled to determine the best tactics for the new age.

Ed and others in our gaming club are collecting and building European based armies.  Just so we have more options for gaming, I decided to focus on N. America.  My first army is the Union Army of the American Civil War (ACW).  Here are some photos of my Union troops:

Here is my complete Union Army ready for combat.  

My Union army is composed of (left to right) four regular infantry regiments, the Berdan Sharpshooters, a Zouave regiment, Iron Brigade regiment and artillery battery, 2nd Dragoons cavalry regiment, a command stand and an ADC (second in command) stand.

A work in progress shot of my Iron Brigade veteran infantry unit. 

Work in progress of my Union artillery battery. 

Having the Union Army, I now needed an opposing force.  I decided to raise a British force based on the excellent Perry Miniatures British Interventionist Forces. With the Fenian movement threatening an invasion of Canada at the end of the ACW, the British moved several units to reinforce Canadian militia units along the Niagara Peninsula.  The British were also supportive of the Confederacy and so these forces along the northern border could have engaged in combat with Federal forces.  In fact, I am working on a scenario for a future club game night that I call ‘The 2nd Battle of Lundy’s Lane’ with an 1866 version of the War of 1812 battle.  Here are some photos of my British CBW forces:

 

My British Army ready for battle!

My British Army is made up of (from left to right) a Confederate infantry regiment Auxiliary unit, four regular infantry units (including a Gurkha battalion), a Royal Artillery battery, the combined Guards light Coys, the 42nd Royal Highlanders veteran regiment, the 11th Hussars and my commander and ADC.

A work in progress of my British 11th Hussar Regiment.

A work in progress of the combined Guard light companies which is my light regiment. 

These forces are great base forces for my CBW armies. I am adding to them and will publish more photos as I get into 2025. I also have a new front on the N. American area of operation. I am currently basing forces for a Maximillian Adventure of my own - a ‘What if?’ of the Union Army chasing Franco-Mexican Imperial forces along the Rio Grande River.  Who knows, maybe some rouge Texas Confederates will join the Imperial cause in fight the hated ‘Bluebellies’!