Auckland Wargaming Club

The AWC’s Lasalle Napoleonic Tournament in 15mm scale is due to start soon. It has yet to be confirmed if players will get 1 or 2 Support options – but looks most likely just one for this initial competition (as many players are still busy painting their figures and learning the rules). The Tournament will be played over the course of several weeks with games occuring either at AWC meetings or at mutually agreed alternate venues.

It’s hoped to have the entrants confirmed by Sunday 23 January 2011 if possible so the competition can begin in February – so any members interested should check out the AWC Yahoo Group for more details and advise the organiser of their Army & Theatre (i.e. sub-period) for the competition. Napoleonic Gamers in the Auckland and Waikato (& similar) regions who are not AWC Members and are interested in participating may be able to do so - they should also contact the organsier through the AWC Group.

A subsequent 28mm scale Tournament is planned for the middle of the year...

Equinox will run at the Freeman's Bay Community Centre in central Auckland on the 19-20 March 2001, and is hosted by the City Guard. Primarily a Fantasy/Sci-Fi event it also includes Ancients (FoG) and World War II (FoW). The venue includes shops & a cafe.

Early Bird Registration before 30th January is $35 and go into a draw for a $50 Games Workshop voucher. Otherwise Registration from 31 January to 03 March is $45. Entry & Registration to the tournament closes on 03 March 2011.

Competitions being offered:

UPDATED: Reg Newell reports that at the Hutt Valley Wargaming Club they have a number of people interested in the SYW. They are trying to gauge whether there might be interest in a 1-2 day convention next year with a SYW theme – probably mainly 28mm Die Kreigskunst, possibly Black Powder, but also skirmish level games, naval, F&IW (French & Indian War), SYW boardgames, etc. There is no specific date in mind at this time other than beyond midway through next year.

Der Kreigskunst is a set of battalion level rules based on the General De Brigade system. Battalions are 4-6 bases of 4 castings on a 40x40mm base. Cavalry are in units of 20 or so castings. Many people have SYW armies in mothballs and this might be a good opportunity to dust them off and give them a run

The Christchurch Wargames Club is starting to publish details on-line for the Nationals in Easter 2011. Player packs look to be available for several fantasy systems as well as 15mm DBA and 15mm DBR. For more information See Here.

Events being offered are: Warhammer Fantasy Battle ; Warhammer 40k; War of the Ring; Lord of the Rings; Flames of War; FOG; DBA; DBR; DBM (apparently not DBMM); Bloodbowl; & Warmachine. No scales specified, except 15mm for DBA & DBR, so unclear exactly what scales are being played for the Historical (Ancients) rule sets (but sounds like 15mm only)...

Today MEDBAG had its biggest event to date; that said, it involved as many participants as the event at NSWC, and there were even as many games; however, this time they were themed, which added a good deal of interest to the event. There were six of us, and Andy provided the armies (with a few Gallic warbands from John, as Andy’s were double-based)...

Read More at AWC member Mark Davies Hesperiana Blog...

Postcard from the Derby World Teams FOG Championship - 2 & 3 October 2010 at Derby University - from AWC member Ben Hill.

This was the convention and competition I was looking forward to since arriving in the UK. I was just hoping that my game play would not be distracted by the retail opportunities in the other hall! More on the trade stands in the next postcard.

Once again to be held at the ASB Stadium, Kohimarama, Auckland (beside Selwyn College). You can visit the BattleCry Website or Email the Organisers. Registrations are now open and costs are:

Up to the 15th November 2010 - $25.0015th November 2010 to 31st January 2011 - $35.001st February to 19th February 2011 - $40.00

Several Tournaments have numbers caps so get in quick if you want to play... Currently confirmed are:

Why ME? Since the international success of The Lord of the Rings movies, New Zealand has been identified (rightly or wrongly) in the eyes of many as the home of Middle Earth. MEDBAG is a site dedicated to keeping people around the world informed of DBA and HotT activities in New Zealand.

DBA is quite popular overseas, where its small scale and quick play time allow enjoyable one-day competitions, where six games can be comfortably played. These can be themed to a period or have some sort of campaign mechanism. The liveliness of the DBA community is attested by their Fanaticus Website. In New Zealand the game is quite strong in the South Island, with a number of DBA competitions in recent years in Timaru and Christchurch. It's also a rule set that is being offered at the IWC next February and has 17 players already registered.

AWC Member Ben Hill reports in from Oxford, UK, on the local wargaming scene there:

Herro AWC,

In March this year, my wife and I moved to Oxford in the UK. We will be here for a several years while my wife does genius things that I do not understand, similar situation to my wargaming.

I miss the AWC and its excellent members not to mention my Romans and newly painted ACW army. However, with England being the home of toy soldiers I have an excellent opportunity to buy buy buy. With that in mind, I visited the Foundry in Nottingham on July 23 for their open day with Sean (who was visiting the UK). Firstly, Nottingham has very few trees, no men in tights, no sheriff, and maid Marion had no teeth but she knew where St Mark’s road was luckily.

Below is a first attempt at an unofficial points system for the Napoleonic game - Lasalle.

Lasalle contains a number of set army lists for the main armies. They provide a great introduction. But they only reflect a fraction of possible lists. Playing the same few army lists repeatedly against each other could get dull fairly quickly.

This points system below tries to address this.

Using this points system and the excellent (and now free) Nafziger army lists, players can construct any number of armies that are consistent in size with the army lists in the Lasalle book.

I would love to say that the points system above was based on careful consideration of the relative merits of units, simulations of performance and a large number of test games. Alas no. Instead it was a rather crude attempt to back-fit the army lists in the book. What points system could generate something so that the Core Lists were all about the same points, and the Support Lists were about the same points?

Call to Arms will once again be held at St. Patricks College at 581 Evans Bay Parade, Kilbirnie, in Wellington. Gamers are expected to arrive no later than 8:30am on Saturday and Sunday as the rounds for each competition or event are scheduled to start at 9.00am prompt. Players registering before 15 July 2010 will save as registration will be $40, otherwise registration will be $55. Junior players (under the age of 18) will be able to enter an event or participate for just $10.

The main events happening are:

Auckland's City Guard Tournament happens third week of March. It will include a small Ancients tournament - FOG (Field of Glory) at 650 points on 6'x4' tables with 2 or 3 generals. There will be a reduced amount of terrain due to the small tables and smaller deployment areas. The standard sized measuring sticks used in Auckland for 28mm FOG will be in use. Tournament is planned to be 4 games, with possibly 5 if games are concluded speedily.

There are only 8 slots available for this tournament (due to a table resourcing issue) so it's vital to sign up ASAP if you are keen. Currently there are 5 confirmed entrants so just 3 remaining openings. Registration is $40 and closes Friday 05 March.

The Tauranga Table Top Games Club are proud to host NICon (North Island Convention) 2010 in association with Battlezone Ltd. NICon 2010 will be held at the Cosmopolitan Club, Mt Maunganui, located at 56 Miro Street, in Mt. Maunganui on Saturday 5th and Sunday the 6th of June (Queen's Birthday Weekend). Entries close 28 May 2010. The venue will be used for all games and for Sunday evening's After Tournament Dinner. Planned tournaments & competitions are: 25mm DBMM Ancients; 15mm FOG (Field of Glory) Ancients; 15mm & 25mm DBR Renaissance; 15mm Napoleonics (ruleset not specified); FOW (Flames of War) World War II; Warhammer 40K; and Warhammer Fantasy Battle. For more details see the NICon 2010 Website...

NatCon (National Convention) 2010 will be held over Easter Weekend 2nd - 4th of April 2010. Normal registrations close 01 March; then at Registrar's discretion until 19 March. The venue is the St Patricks School Hall in Upper Hutt. The school has recently completed a significant expansion of the hall and there's a lot of new space. The Convention Dinner & Prize Giving will be held at the Totara Lodge. Planned tournaments & competitions are: DBMM Ancients; FOG (Field of Glory) Ancients; DBR Renaissance; FOW (Flames of War) World War II; Spearhead World War II; WRG Moderns; Warhammer 40K; Warhammer Fantasy Battle; and Warmachine.

For more details see the Hutt Miniature Wargaming Club's NatCon Page...

I gave up DBMM at the start of the year. Had a few too many games where, as a result of army matchups, terrain, weather or time of day, one side had an edge before the first pips were thrown. Just did not suit my (emphasise my) preferences - so I played the other game this year instead. However, Benny pushed for DBM240 games, and having 2 games on a club day, or 3 games per day in a competition seemed to offer a way around my problem - one game might be a bit dull, but the next one good.

This is exactly what I found. At the comp, my middle game was not that enjoyable (I attacked an encamped enemy in pitch black with 3 hours till sun-up and my magic night-vision allowed me to avoid his KnS and attack the softer bits of his army to win), but the other two were good well-balanced games (admittedly both Free Company vs. Free Company which naturally balances play).

The tournament in Auckland used the latest draft of the DBMM v1.1 rules. There was a nominal theme (blatantly plagiarised from an event in the UK earlier this year) which asked players to base their armies around a film or TV series. This resulted in some interesting army choices, although a number of the more 'hard core' players paid only lip service to the theme and chose highly geared armies that ensured the rules were given a reasonably thorough workout.

A successful DBMM240 “Armies of the Movies” tournament was played at the AWC on the 6 December 2009. A full report will follow elsewhere, meanwhile here are some photos of the event and some of the armies involved…

Note: No Spartan Rhino’s were harmed in the making of this Photo Gallery!

With all lists now in and checked it is time for the first round draw to be revealed. The usual 'nearest historical date' pairing, but slightly modified to avoid the North Shore boys being paired against each other. Some good reference material, some perhaps not so good and then there's Cam's........................

1. Al Donald (AWC) - Early Hoplite Greeks 479BC (Reference: Movie "300" - what else?!)2. Andrew Fergus (AWC) - Thracians 200BC (Reference: French TV doco about "Seuthès l'Immortel, les Secrets d'un Roi Thrace" - The Immortal Seuthès; secrets of a Thracian King)

Our friends down at the North Shore Wargaming Club (NSWC) look like they have been sneaking in some DBMM240 practice for the tournament this weekend...

Three games were played at the NSWC's first November meeting and another 4 games at the following meeting (this weekend just passed) - sounds like some serious preparation down at the NSWC! Check out the NSWC Site for the results...

I've finally got my act together and written up the DBMM240 conditions for the 6 December 2009 tournament. Please have a read and get back to me with any (sensible) questions. It should all be straightforward as I've simply tried to tabulate the important variations into one document, trying to reconcile any inconsistencies in the process. The major exceptions are Baggage and Terrain.