The League of Augsburg

Master Darbyshire prepares his ship for the Royalist attack.

After a work enforced pause which lasted three weeks, our Rupert on the Gambia campaign resumed last night. It brought one of those golden moments in gaming the always come unexpectedly. The campaing resumed on Day 9 of the thirty day odyssey with Rupert haveing failed to capture a grounded English slaver lying in a difficult position on...

Irish defences south of Athlone Castle and the bridge

Having spent time walking many of the battlefields of the Irish wars I am constantly gaining a better understanding of the actions that took place. The recent Promenades Travel Jacobite Wars tour gave me a chance to do some more sniffing around.

The Castle and bridge in 1691

Being based in Athlone allowed considerable time to explore this small...

I  am getting more and more excited about amassing Muslim armies and these examples of what can be done with Warfare Miniatures Ottomans and Tatars are working out exactly the way I anticipated. 

The number of horse and arm variants offer enormous scope for creating totally unique units. I am swithering about using the Ottomans to build a Safavid army too (although we may need a few variants for...

Ottomans and Tatars to the left, Cossacks and Commonwealth to the right.

Following on from the Candia Magnificence, my bijouterie lived next door at Newark, offering the Partizan audience an intense little corner of Turkish Delight which seemed to please them. 

Timariot ad Kapikulu Sipahis representing about 1,500 high quality cavalry

It's been a curious thing, but over the last few months the number...

Sense the scale of this epic!

Devotion to the cause is the mark of the 17th century gamer. It doesn't come at any higher level than Jean de Dieu Labedoyere's (aka Ian C) game modelling the epic 21 years siege of Iraklion (Heraklio), Crete between 1648 and 1669.

Close in naval support

I am told it was perhaps seven years in the making. My game and this tour de force were side by side at The Other...

Christians approach through the narrows

With the anniversary of this enormous sea battle occurring yesterday, I thought I would fight a little game to mirror the setting and the ships. This is a 1/1200 scale game using Ark Royal Miniatures and a few Langton Christian ships. 

The Ottomans are holding a strong defensive position

I used Mad for Warcombining the galleys and square rigged rules sections...

Héros close in during the heat of the action!

Although co-architect of the attack on the stranded English slaver Temperance, Rupert was prevented from playing anything but the role of spectator on account of a strong north westerly wind. Thomas Darbyshire, master of the grounded vessel, used his long experience at sea to make the best of a difficult position. Lying high and dry in an extremely...

Off the Bakendik Bolong, Rupert attacks the stranded Temperance.

Eight days (15 turns) into the campaign, we are at the 25% mark. It has been an eventful journey so far and the Royalists are no further than four miles from the mouth of the Gambia River. They have had two encounters with Berber pirates coming off worst in the first encounter and being mere spectators to a French victory in the...

I would not normally review a work of fiction on the blog but am happy to make an exception for Robert Harris's latest novel Act of Oblivion. It is a historo-fiction set in 'my period' as the purchaser, Mrs H described it. I have little time for fiction these days with other overlapping commitments, but decided to make the effort and consume this as quickly as possible. I like Harris's writing...

Field guns at Oldbridge

We packed a helluva lot into four and a half days visiting Oldbridge, Donore, Duleek, Athlone, Aughrim, Portumna, Nena and Limerick. We spent long enjoyable days walking the fields, forts, castles and sites of the campaigns of 1690 and 1691 in Leinster, Connaught and Munster.

Sean O' Brogain's artwork in the cafe at Oldbridge

We had an outstanding group of friendly, curious...

I really don't remember having this much stuff, but I guess it has been accumulating over the past few years. Although I will have to top and tail a few units the armies are pretty solid  in terms of numbers and troop types. Here are a few shots of Polish, Cossack, Ottoman and Tatar forces.

They will feature in a few new foreplay scenario packs I am currently working on so, if you are a fan of With...

The campaign has a full and detailed narrative which accompanies the turn by turn mechanics. All of the narrative is based on events which happen in the table-top wargames combined with the role-play conversations and the umpire controlled activities. 

So far, the narrative runs to over 5,000 words for the first ten turns. Below is an extract from 5th March, five days into the campaign and it...