Shedquarters Day Q2 2025

We were off to the West Country this Wednesday to meet up with Richard. There were to be six of us, but Chris A had urgent work stuff, and Gary thinks he has a sniffle. Consequently it was Chris K, Phil & me who set pout early doors, with CK driving, heading for Aldebourne. 

Richard set up our first game. He wanted to use Lardy "Midgard Heroic Battles" rules with his 28mm Celts and Romans. The rules aren't written by the Lardies themselves but James Morris. He's written a number of wargame books, including the Warhammer Historical guide "El Cid". The point of the game is to do heroic things with your leaders and build up your "Reputation" whilst reducing your opponent's. You get to do heroic deeds with your leaders. The game has a bit of a Dux Bellorum feel to it.

I took the Romans, and Chris and Phil ran the Celts. They were the attackers.

Phil came straight out of the traps with a personal challenge. I accepted it, and was triumphant, earning Reputation, and reducing theirs. This game is great.

Then, for a reason I can't recall, I had to make a command test with my cavalry, who failed it, then decided to retreat and were generally useless. This game is rubbish.

Strangely, shooting for "solid" units like my archers happens at the end of the turn, so they just get to stand there whilst Phil's chariots slam into their front. Bizarre. BTW This only happened because my cavalry decided to run away a bit instead of occupying their equestrian opponents. Yeah. This game is rubbish.

But then...my archers roll amazing dice and stop the chariots in their tracks in hand to hand combat. This game is a bit odd.

A bit of a question over whether my chaps could follow up and get the "Winning" benefit, denoted by the yellow dice. I think we decided I didn't. (Boo! Hiss!)

No matter. I killed the chariots anyway. Rather than running away, Phil's leader decided to stay and fight, pinning my chaps in place. I should probably tried to kill him with my general. This is a Heroic Game, so it doesn't need to make sense. 

The centres start to close. My main hope rests with my legionaries.

The Celts move first in each turn, which is a bit irritating. Phil can now hit my weakened archers with a fresh warband. However, I have got my legionaries into the game.

Ah. The legionaries get bounced. That's a shame. And they take some serious damage.

The Celts follow up and pile on. They get the Charging bonus and extra Reputation for initiating the combats.

Bizarrely my Auxilia units come up trumps, and drive all before then. Both the legionary unis start to suffer.

The archers are under the cosh. The only way out is to challenge the opposing leader to a fight. I lose. Oh b*gg*r. 

Under severe pressure now. Units with damage roll half their normal dice. Wheels dropping off, and i don't have any chariots.

I don't have pictures of the end of the game. It all fell over really quickly in the end, as three of my units broke in quick succession. 

I'm not convinced that the point values for the units are right. The Celts had twice as many units, and as noted above if a unit has taken a hit in a previous fight then its dice are halved, more or less so a fresh unit will really do a number on them.

It was a fun little game, and not to be taken too seriously. Although the armies are from the book, I feel the game has more to say for Nordic/Saxon type games - or possibly Greek Trojan Wars. It didn't sit naturally with Romans. Sure they have heroes, but the idea that a single hero and his small band holds up a whole cohort or warband is a bit off colour. It's also a game with some nuances we might have missed, so I'd be up for playing it again. 

I liked it more than "Infamy, Infamy".

For our afternoon game I revisited "Taiping Era" and the 1st Opium War scenario. Phil & Chris had the British forces, and I ran the Chinese with Richard. I have to say upfront that Richard wasn't exactly despondent by the end, but he found handling the Chinese a bit of a trial.

I mixed up the deployments a bot from the first run through, but it was otherwise very similar.

Phil had the Naval forces this time, and rapidly set off towards the enemy. You'll note that compared to the last game I have also downsized the city walls to a walled compound. The big walls wouldn't fit in my box.

I gave the British a howitzer and a mortar, as I made them knock down the fortifications if they wanted to hit the occupants with their field guns.

Chris had learned from the last game, and went out to outflank the position. Richard reacted quickly (for Chinese) and readied his troops to fill in the open side.

Threatened by Manchu cavalry Phil disdained forming square. I charged him head on. He failed his reaction roll, and so didn't open fire.

To everyone's general surprise this meant I won the close combat.

Chris pressed heavily with his Sepoy troops (they have white trousers if it helps).

With his Sepoys occupying the Chinese reserves, his Queens Regiments stormed the fortification.

Richard counter attacked the battalion on the left of the picture, whilst the other battalion overran their objective. Note that sixes are bad news in Taiping Era.

The Chinese managed to pass some troops round the outside of the Sepoy advance. Chris about faced to deal with this, but was charged in the rear.

On the other wing my cavalry's victorious combat round was revealed to be a fluke, and they were soon heading off the table.

One of the Sepoy units was broken in hand to hand combat (!) and General Gough had to intervene to steady the ship.

The Sepoys attacked from behind clung on by the thinnest of margins, and were able to about face for the second round of combat.

Phil's end of the fortification was being subjected to sustained musket volleys. It would soon all be over for the defenders.

Richard also got some cavalry round the open flank, resulting in one of the Sepoy units being overwhelmed. General Gough tried to salvage the situation, but was killed at the height of the battle.

In fact this flank was a bit of a mess. The Tiger Men overran the rocket troop, and the Sepoys were succumbing to the pressure of overwhelming Chinese numbers. As the game drew to a close the fortification was in British hands, but serious questions were being raised over the efficacy of the Honorable East India Company's native troops.

Gough's reputation was probably only salvaged by him dying at the head of his troops.

I need to look at a way of costing out the tactical victory against the loss of troops. The Chinese were beaten, or at least would soon come up against the hard centre of the British Army and almost certainly would have come unstuck. However, they had delivered a nasty rebuke to the Sepoys, and the Royal Artillery won't be delighted at losing a rocket troop.

Anyway, that was that. It was then time to repair to the village pub for a pint and an excellent plate of bangers and mash before heading home.

Another excellent day of gaming.