Games in the Gazebo (SHQ Day Q3 2025)

The weather has been so lovely that for this quarter's meet up I resolved to reutilise my gazebo and fold up tables for our gathering. I have done this once before. That was in July five years ago, when there were various rules about only meeting up with people outdoors. I'm sure you remember. My account of that event can be found here. It seems both not long ago and also a life time away. It was before Phil suffered his stroke and a number of other life changing events happening. It's been a very full last five years.

Well, enough of that. What of this year's al fresco meeting?

Here's the gazebo with the game set up in the grounds of Trebian Towers. When the sun shines it's a lovely setting, although the flower beds and plant pots are suffering from the heat and lack of rain. The lawn is normally greener too!

I put on another "From Pike to Bayonet" game. Chris K & Richard had the Imperialists, supported by a brigade of Dutch. Chris A and Phil had the French and a brigade of Bavarians. There were 20 or so units on each side. Each side started with two advanced brigades on the table, and their main force advancing to join the battle from off table.

The artillery exchanged fire with little effect. Chris K moved his infantry up, screened by his cavalry. Richard was more cautious.

Phil, has (surprise!) sent all of his cavalry forwards in a brave move, hoping to sweep away the opposing infantry. Chris K has spotted an opening and has sent his light horse to loop round in order to overrun the French guns.

Which duly happened in the next turn.

Phil threw his cavalry frontally into a platoon firing Dutch battalion. It did not go well. He took a lot of damage from defensive fire, and had his general killed into the bargain. Sort of summed up his day, but honestly it was unwise. We haven't had any platoon firing infantry on the table for a while, and their deadly fire seemed to have been forgotten.

This is a bit confusing as the Hanoverian cavalry are in white and the Bavarian cavalry in red. Chris K is trying to force the passage of the stream, using his cavalry to clear the way. Chris A has forestalled him.

This is a rare shot of Phil actually reading the rule sheet. It is placed here for posterity.

The main body of the French army arrives.

This low down shot shows the Hanoverian cavalry have been driven off, but the Bavarian horse has rallied back to avoid running into the Hanoverian bayonets.

Chris K has occupied the stream line but is struggling to advance out of it. He is brining up infantry to support his lead elements in anticipation of a prolonged fight.

Chris A sends forwards his Bavarians, standards fluttering in the breeze.

The Imperialists have hitched up their artillery and are trying to bring it forward for close support. Chris A and Phil attempt to disrupt this deployment by committing their fresh cavalry units. Chris K intercepts them with his own horse, who suffer badly in the melee. 

Phil is having the worst of it at the far end. Richard has set himself up and just let Phil throw units at his Dutch infantry. This hasn't worked. Phil went in with two attack columns, both of which were repulsed . I'd made a rule change to enable two or more units to charge the same target simultaneously. Players have been trying to do this for ages, so I finally gave in. It all went badly for Phil, and everyone is now clamouring to go back to the way we were. Phil may have suffered equally badly under the old system, but who knows? It wasn't all bad for Phil, however, as his dragoons succeeded in driving Richard's hussars out of the woods.

At the other end of the table the Hanoverian/Bavarian cavalry fight recommences.

The massed cavalry charge in the centre from three pictures ago resulted in a rapid repulse behind the infantry supports.

A major firefight has broken out on along the line of the stream. This will prove to be particularly intractable to resolve.

Phil's dragoons force the hussars back into the village. 

Chris A's Bavarian cavalry have triumphed. I got the rout pursuit sequence badly muddled at this point. I need to write all of this down properly.

The Imperialist main body arrives.

Another massed cavalry battle occurs in the centre.

It goes badly for the French. Again. And, yes, that's a Bellona bridge under all that cavalry which is mostly Airfix. It's like being back in the 1970s.

The Imperialists are looking pretty pleased with themselves. Everything the French try to break out of their position is frustrated by one of a number of things. The two main things are (1) poor decision making, and (2) poor dice rolling.

The Imperialist gun crew are forced away from their pieces by French infantry...

...who overrun the centre.

The fire fight on the left persists, but it was time to take the game down.

We got a lot of play in over about five hours, although that included a couple of coffee breaks and lunch. Game play was a bit slower than I would have liked, but who can deny the players the opportunity for a bit of witty banter? We had a couple of rule discussions too, about how things should work out, and I have a thread or two to pick up with Richard, who is pretty knowledgeable on the period.

After we'd cleared the table Chris A got out "Seastrike", the late 70s naval wargame from WRG.

This has been going through a bit of a "vogue" with WD members of late, and I will admit that I have never played it, although I think the university club had a copy in their cupboard back in the day.

Phil and I were Blue. We had a special mission to sink half of the Red Fleet and prevent them from capturing our HQ.

We had a bold plan. We noticed that they had three Fast Missile Boats out of 8 ships. As these blow up on a single hit our path to victory was to destroy them, then gang up on a single other ship. We were aided in this approach the Chris K & Richard using said boats to screen their forces, making them easier to pick out and sink.

They had more aircraft then us, but were unable to make them pay dividends. We managed to sink a missile boat with one of our sorties.

The game ended as we planned, although this picture isn't the end of the game. We lost one of Phil's frigates, on the right, but were otherwise mostly unscathed.

"Seastrike" has a novel combat system that involves a bespoke card deck. These mostly have a central circle which is either blank, or has a red or black cross, in a 50/25/25 ratio, I think, together with a number of "System Failure" cards. The card is also divided into four quarters, one per weapon system type, which tells you what has been hit on the ship, or if it has suffered a catastrophic failure.

It may be an old system, but it is superb. Flipping cards gives you target acquisition, whether hit or not and outcome all by turning two or three cards. No dice rolling or looking up tables. There's no tedious crossing off of hull points, just ships losing capabilities until they explode, sink or run away.

Really pleased I got a chance to play this.

Then it was time to fire up the barbecue, clear the table and sit down and put the world to rights over a beer and a burger. What an excellent day all round.