Two historical games were put on at the club Saturday night. Eric Widiger put on a game of Johnny Reb 2.5 and Lamont Anderson and Ed Strecker put of a modified game of Command & Colors Napoleonics. Eric's scenario for the evening was a replay of the Battle of Salem Church, which was fought on May 3rd, 1863. Six players took part in the 10-turn game with three players commanding the Confederate forces and three players playing the Union army. A small battle field allowed for the forces to engage each other quite quickly resulting in a lot of action in a short period of time. Eric's games have become increasingly popular at the club, which is good since American Civil War games are not normally played very often at the club.
Lamont and Ed' game is the latest manifestation of their joint project to modify Command & Colors Napoleonics for use with miniatures while adding features from the miniatures game Napoleon's Battles. In this battle 15mm figures were used instead of Ed's 28mm figures and the setting was changed from the early 1800's to the late seventeen century. This game was a play-test scenario using units adapted from the game By Fire & Sword - The Wars and Rebellions of Eastern Europe 1646-1676. The scenario pitted a Moscovites Border Defense force against a marauding Turk/Tartar force. Four players took part in playing the scenario and Ed acted as game master to guide the play and record possible changes to his rules. Everyone who played thought Ed's changes to the Command & Colors rules worked well in representing the feel of battles fought in the late seventeen century. The rule changes gave more weight to damage caused by melee over that caused by musket fire and game was a lot more fluid due to the smaller size of units and increased number of cavalry units. The positive feedback and suggestion will allow Ed to better refine his ruleset for replaying battles during this time period.