Quarterly Wargames Day, Q3 2025

It's that time again for our quarterly meet up with our friend Richard from the West Country, which took place on Wednesday. Due to various health issues we switched from the scheduled Shed West location to Shedquarters. There were five of us: Richard, Chris K, Phil, Gary and me. Chris A had failed to secure a day off work, so was absent.

For our opening game I went with "Blood Red Roses". I have blogged about this set of Wars of the Roses rules before, (here and here) and these have now been published for purchase by the Society of Ancients. The publication includes two packs of printed cards that are an important part of the game system. It's been nicely produced and is reasonably priced at £15, given the cost of printing bespoke card decks. Richard is the President of the SOA so it seemed sort of appropriate. I have corresponded with the author and he has taken on board some of my thoughts and given me a credit in the rules. I have paid for my copy however so feel able to comment fairly on the game, without suggestion of freebie bias.

The rules give a stylised Wars of the Roses battle with a lot of period feel. I think it is a good model for how armies form up and fight and is a different take to the normal approach. It's a game system that should be tried if you have an interest in the period. It has issues. I pressed the author heavily to include historical scenarios and he did one, Blore Heath, which personally I don't think is enough, but it's a start. 

The cards produce randomised armies of mixed quality and type, which works really well. Then another small deck allows for different quality of commanders and other variables ("Field Defences" for example). Players divide these cards up into 2 - 4 groups (Vaward, Main Ward, Rearward and Reserve) and determine where they are to enter the battle. The games is played on a 5 x 5 grid, but mostly it takes place in the 3 central zone columns. The system also has a crude terrain generation system which does the job but as it's mostly random you can get odd outcomes. We had four terrain pieces, all of which ended up at the same end of the table, mostly in the same column. 

Richard partnered Gary as the Yorkists, and Phil and Chris teamed up for Team Lancaster. I have prepared sheets simplifying the set up process and done labels for "Battle Stance". There's a BGG page for the rules, and I've uploaded the two files for these playing aids (although at the time of writing they're stuck in web master review limbo).

As the battlefield was squeezed by the terrain, Gary and Richard went for a Vaward and Mainward and a small reserve. Phil & Chis went for three Wards and a LARGE reserve. Despite prompting they put all their cavalry in the centre of the army whereas I think it's best use is as a reserve to appear on an open flank. 

The Yorkists, on the left, went forwards immediately. The Lancastrians sat on their base line. Phil wanted to move forward, but kept failing his Mettle test to change Battle Stance to something more aggressive.

Gary cranked up the aggression in the distance and launched an "Assault" on the opposing Lancastrian ward. They outnumbered them and quickly inflicted a lot of damage.

A couple of turns of combat and the Lancastrians facing Gary were heading for the exit. Phil, frustratingly for him, was still unable to move. Chris' tactic of sitting on the base line was causing him some issues, but it did mean he could bring his reserves on to cover his open flank quite easily. 

Richard stormed into the opposing ward, and it seemed to be going quite well. He inflicted a lot of damage to little on him. Alas this was not the full story.

The Rummikub tiles show the Ward Cohesion level. It starts at six and normally only goes down. A Ward breaks when it hits zero. Chris passed most of his "Mettle Tests", and having boosted his Cohesion due to the presence of Margaret of Anjou was looking safe. Richard failed all of his and went from 6 to 2 in short order. Ooops.

Phil finally was able to move forwards, whilst Gary tried to rein in his battle from pursuing off the table.

And Richard then failed some more Mettle tests and that was it. He was off the table, despite having the larger Ward and inflicting more casualties. That meant it was game over. Having opted for a two ward set up that meant their army was broken.

Despite having approved the publication it was Richard's first game of  "Blood Red Roses" and he pronounced himself keen to play again. We suffered slightly from only me having the rules. I think I got it right, but it would help having other players knowing how it worked. Phil's experience was less satisfactory as he was unable to get things moving, and rather grumpily remarked that it's a two player game. 

We finished in time for lunch, so the figures were rapidly put back in the boxes and Richard set up the next game whilst I made some sandwiches.

Richard put on "Crossfire" again. Most people have a view on Crossfire, and most people who know it regard it fairly well. It's a clever game, now mystifyingly out of print. My copy hasn't seen a lot of use. Second hand copies are priced around the £30 mark. Honestly, with modern print on demand publication I have no idea why Arty Conliffe doesn't just upload the files and be done with it. Phil & I have played it before, Gary & Chris hadn't, and it takes a while to get used to. Gary & I took the Russians and Phil & Chris the Germans. 

Crossfire relies on line of sight as a central mechanism and the placement of figures needs to be precise. Phil struggles with the required precision these days, and I decided not to remind Richard that the actual facing of bases is important as aligning a base to fire counts as movement.

It all went badly for us from the beginning, and I don't have pictures of what happened in the first few initiatives. Suffice it to say it is important when firing to inflict two hits with each burst of fire, so you need to get your bases and platoon commanders in the right place so everything fires at once. If you don't you lose the initiative and can come unstuck quite quickly. 

Shooting at bases in cover requires a 6 to hit. I sent a platoon with a HMG round on a right flanking move down those two woods on the right of the picture above. I was in the open, but Chris could only get at me by exposing himself to reactive fire. He piled into the far most wood and I let fire with everything, rolling 13 dice. Not a single 6, let alone two. That put the platoon on "No Fire" status. Chris then close assaulted my platoon one base at a time and rolled me up as I couldn't fire back and couldn't get a hit in Hand to Hand for the life of me. I was not amused.

Aggression having failed me, I set up a central fire base to dominate the table, and decided we should let the Germans come to us. We were a third down in troop numbers, and it only seemed fair that they should make the running in trying to get a game out of it.

Ah. Another 13 dice, another roll with no sixes. In total over the next few initiatives I rolled about 80 dice mostly in thirteens with one or two nines and failed to get two sixes at all in any roll, and only three single sixes that got the odd pin. That meant that we kept getting "No Fire" on that central team and passing the initiative over.

Frustrated by my inability to hit anything, Gary staged an assault on the left, covered by smoke to get him in range. When the smoke lifted he opened fire (13 dice as normal) and got two hits!!!! He  passed the turn to me and I missed again.

Phil was then able to counterattack with impunity against Gary, rolled nine dice and got three hits (a kill) he repeated and got two hits (Suppress) then again for another two (convert Suppress to a kill) and so on, until everyone was dead, more or less. That was it for us. We just sat tight and indulged in a long range fire fight where we failed to hit anything from repeated rolls of 13 dice (I lost count of the number of failed volleys - we were up around eight or nine if not double figures). Phil and Chris just sat there and fired back. The game degenerated into a fire fight of stunning dullness, until we said we'd had enough.

Not Crossfire's finest hour, courtesy of my dice. And they were my dice, from my dice pot. I should have changed them.

The game took us about a couple of hours, so we cleared the table and I set up another game.

Normally we don't get our first couple of games finished before it's time for dinner, but I'd had a suspicion that we might breeze through BRR at least. I had accordingly done the prep to run a refight of Cannae using AMW.

I nicked some of the set up from "Lost Battles" as usual. Richard swapped round with Chris and took command of the Romans with Phil, whilst Gary & Chris ran the Carthaginians.

To be honest AMW isn't a great fit for what happened at Cannae. Units aren't pushed back, so creating the kettle is problematic for the Carthaginian players, and even with some minor changes the legionaries are a good match for pretty much anyone.

However I know from experience that the rules play quickly and keep everyone involved.

Chris did a good job of encircling the equites with his Numidians, whilst the Roman infantry spread out to engage all along their front.

There was a serious cavalry melee going on at the far end of the table, but I was using my phone camera, so I didn't have my SLR with telephoto to get any close ups. In the centre you can see that Chris has done a decent job of surrounding one of the hastati units.

The Numidians have lost one unit, but are close to wiping out the equites.

The Romans are grinding their way through the centre. Phil complained that the warbands were too tough so the Carthaginians couldn't envelope the Romans. He's not wrong, and it worked in his favour as he was playing the Romans.

The Roman consul in the centre did superb work keeping his chaps in the game, and succeeded in destroying the warbands that had assailed him. Chris is pointing at the dice to show he rolled two pairs of double 6 in combat, but when called on to roll the same to kill the Consul he could only manage a 3.

Hannibal had been galloping up and down keeping his warbands in the fight, but alas his luck had run out and he was killed in the melee.

That was about it, really. It was time to head to the pub for dinner, and the Romans were starting to stamp their authority on the situation so we called it a day.

I think we'd done well to fit in three multi-player games in the day as they tend to run a little slower than their two player equivalents. 

It was a thoroughly convivial day with good games and good company.