ADLG: Northern League Round 2 (Manchester, 07 May 2023)

Introduction

It's fair to say I had to force myself to attend this round: I have a lot going on at the moment. Not least the residual upheaval surrounding my recent relocation.

When this year's themes were announced I thought I'd be able to field a new Arab army in this round. No chance: I've still got to finish the heavy cavalry. I had to borrow four bases of heavy cavalry from Gareth Jones: thanks Gareth.

Kevin Johnson at the day's organisational nerve centre. Thanks Kev.

I was surprised by how long it took me to get ready on Saturday. Nothing was in its usual place. I'd unpacked things in new places and everything took longer to find.

Of course I forgot a few things (play sheets etc) which was annoying. Then I ended up with one too many army lists (see below). To cap it all, I didn't realise that my camera wasn't set up properly until right at the end; so apologies for the quality of some of the photos.

The match to decide first place. Or was it?

Muskets & Springfields (ACW)

In 2020 I collaborated with Nigel Emsen on his ACW rules Rebels & Yankees.  Mainly, I was indulging my penchant for rules editing and table tweaking.

In the intervening years, Nigel has proved to be a constant source of innovation.  His output is prodigious and he now has quite a portfolio on Wargame Vault.  It's a mixture of free and "pay what you want" downloads covering many periods.  It is well worth a look.

New rules
His latest project is a commercial set of scale agnostic, grid based ACW rules: "Muskets & Springfields". It was published earlier this month and was launched last weekend at Salute 50.  

I'm pleased to say that I made a small contribution to the finished book: a few of my painted 15 mm ACW figures feature amongst the text.  You can see the originals here.  I'm looking forward to receiving my copy later this week.

The rules are currently available with £5.00 off the £25.00 RRP, and free delivery, from the Helion website.

Read Nigel's introductory & design notes.

Revisiting The ADLG Mega Table

Way back in mid November 2021, I wrote about my latest attempt to:

".. hammer the combat factors [of Art de la Guerre] into my head and the quirks I encountered along the way."

I listed a few wrinkles; many of them stylistic and some logical (shooting factors in a close combat table for example). I closed with this comment:

"Having done it myself many times, I appreciate that laying out a set of rules in play sheets or tables is a hard task ..."

I ended thus as I had promised myself not to re-invent the mega table. If you haven't guessed by now, I have now attempted just that.

If you don't want to read about how I reconstructed the table here's a link to a pdf for you. At first sight it may not look significantly different, but close examination should show numerous small changes and improved readability. Let me know what you think in the comments.

All other brave souls read on.

Northern League - 2022 Review (*)

It’s that time again: time to review the state of the Northern League (the wargames competition scene in the North of England). I'm glad to say that this year I managed to participate in both the opening and final rounds.