Battle of Quebec 1775

For the 250th anniversary, I gamed the battle of Quebec using Dominion of Patriots and Redcoats.

The American infantry (blue) storm the walls of Quebec. A whiff of grapeshot holds them back on the right but the Americans gain the wall on the left.

The British Highlanders drive the Americans from the wall (left). The American general, Montgomery, rallies the infantry.

The British wipe out the Americans storming the center. On the right, the Americans overrun the guns.

The rallied American infantry try again. This time, they rout the Highlanders.

With this, Quebec is in American hands!

Game Notes

• I don't have a white battle board to represent snow so I improvised with the box cover. It worked.
• I'm tempted to do a what-if. Could the American have held Quebec?

Skirmish Revolution

As usual, my manias can get triggered by the most inconsequential of events.

My latest was triggered by this picture.

I was working on another project (a dungeon crawl, which I will post about in the new year), when I rummaged up a box. I glanced at the cover - Micro Battle Skirmish. It wasn't even this picture but it reminded me of this one, which was the original MBS cover. This triggered a desire for some Revolutionary War skirmishing.

Rules?

I started looking for rules. Naturally, I plan to experiment with my old Micro Battle skirmish rules. But I could use some help, specifically for campaigns and scenarios. Is there anything that will help me?

I'm looking at a number of rules sets or expansions. Here are a few under consideration:

• Red Hatchets and Black Powder - a supplement for Fistful of Lead.
• Black Powder Battles - an old Two Hour Wargames set.
• Long Rifle - a successor to THW's BPB. It's for the French & Indian War, but I'm sure I could make it work for the Revolution.

I'm still hunting around and welcome suggestions.

"Figure" Basing?

This is another consideration. Obviously I'll be using counters. But do I want one figure on a counter or do I want a small group per counter (still 1 "figure" = 1 man)? The latter might work for a big skirmish, a la Rebels and Patriots.

Current Status

Right now, I lean towards 1 figure per counter. I'm thinking about 4 heroes (Americans, of course) vs. hordes of natives, mercenary Hessians, and dastardly British. 😉

I would need to make counters. I may just make some generic skirmish counters.

We'll see how long this mania lasts. It may dissipate in a few days.

The Year In Review

Another year has almost passed. Let's take a look back at this year.

Going strong without miniatures

This is the first full year of the War Without Minis blog. I have to say I'm doing fine without miniatures. 

Instead, I opted for generic counters. This gave me the flexibility to dabble in lots of eras, such as:

• Pyrrhus
• American Revolution
• Late 19th Century
• Even fantasy!

Semiquincentennial

I began gaming battles to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. So far, I gamed:

• Lexington-Concord, and the British retreat to Boston
• Bunker Hill

I should have Quebec up soon.

Dominion Of

This was my big trend of the year. I discovered Dominion of the Spear in early January and never looked back. I purchased and gamed with many of the other titles in the series. This has become my default set of rules.

The originator

Sports

I got into sports gaming.

• This summer, I did a tournament using major league teams from 1922 using Fast Inning Baseball. 
• I did some fantasy gladiator fights featuring Nocan the Barbarian.
• Recently, I used Fast Drive Football to play the 2025 college football playoffs and have started a league using my own fast play football rules.

Prognostications

Traditionally, I begin the year with prognostications for my gaming in the upcoming year. How did I do for 2025?

• Micro Dungeon - I expected to finalize my quick play dungeon crawl / fantasy adventures rules. I abandoned them in January. WRONG
• More Killian - I planned to continue the adventures of Ser Killian, my main Micro Dungeon character. I played one adventure then dropped him. WRONG
• More GADD - Not a stretch here, and I did jump between many eras, as detailed above. BUT, I settled on a single series of rules - Dominion of. We'll call this HALF WRONG.
• Counter Consolidation - I wanted to consolidate all my counters into a single box. It didn't happen; in fact I went the other direction. WRONG

3.5 wrong out of 4. Well, that was an epic fail!

Merry Christmas!

What is Christmas all about?

May the blessings of the Lord be on all people on this holy day.

WWMFL Halftime Report

I am halfway through my WWM Football League's first season.

Current Standings

Here are the standings (the teams are listed alphabetically)

New York is opening up a good lead in the East while Dallas and Denver are in a close race in the West division.

Notable Games

Here are some notable games so far.

• In week 2, Seattle and Dallas played to a 10-10 tie, with each team missing  a field goal. In WWMFL overtimes, each team gets a chance to score. In this game, the teams traded 2 touchdowns, Then Dallas held the Seals to a field goal and score a touchdown for a 31-27 win.
• Seattle is involved in another overtime game in week 4. Washington scores first then the Seals respond with 2 touchdowns to lead 14-7 at half. The Warriors score early in the 3rd quarter to tie it up. Seattle goes ahead with a field goal at the end of the 3rd. Washington ties the score in the 4th. In OT, Seattle holds Washington to a field goal then wins it with a TD. Final score 24-20.
• A number of close games in week 5.
• Dallas holds on to a 37-34 win vs. Chicago
• Down 7-0 at half, Seattle scores 13 points in the 3rd quarter then holds on for a 13-10 win.
• Dallas scores a TD in the 4th to squeeze by Washington 14-13.

WWM Football

What's Next?

I had a lot of fun with the Fast Drive Football college football playoff. I want to keep playing some football.

However, I decided not to use FDF. It's a good game, but games take a little longer than I want. And the instant result rules are too quick. Therefore, I chose to try creating my own rules.

The Rules

FDF works well, but each side gets a lot of possessions, many of which don't result in scores. To speed things up, I created rules where each side gets fewer possessions but score more often. I assume that there are more non-scoring possessions but the game skips over them.

In general, here is what I came up with.

• Each team starts with 1 possession per quarter.
• Roll a D6 to find the result of that possession: 1-2 no score, 3-4 field goal attempt, 5-6 touchdown
• If the roll is even, the team will get another possession in the quarter, up to a max of 3 possessions.
• It requires a roll of 3 or more to make a field goal.

Those are the basic rules. I also wanted to account for differences in team quality. I settled on three categories, offense, defense, and kicking, rated as superior, average, or inferior.

For a team's first possession of a half, roll 2D6 and determine the results as follows:

• If the offensive rating > defensive rating, use the highest roll.
• If the offensive rating < defensive rating, use the lowest roll.

If there is a 2 degree difference (for example, superior offense vs. inferior defense), roll 2D6 for the first possession of each quarter.

Sample Game

Here is a sample game for team A vs. team B.

First Quarter

• Team A scores first with a field goal. Team A leads 3-0.
• Team B drives but misses a field goal. Not surprising due to an inferior kicker.

Second Quarter

• Team A scores a touchdown. 10-0.
• Team B misses a field goal.

Third Quarter

• Team B actually kicks a field goal! They're down 10-3
• Team A gets a TD. They lead 17-3
• Team B gets a TD. 17-10
• Then they miss another FG. That's 9 points missed!

Fourth Quarter

• Both teams miss field goals.
• Team A then ices the game with a TD. 24-10.

This game took only about 5 minutes to play.

The WWM Football League

Now that I have rules, I decided to build a league and play a season.

Key features:

• Eight team league with two 4-team divisions
• Each team plays 10 total games - two each vs. division rivals and one each vs. the teams in the other division
• Division champions will play in a championship game

I asked Chat GPT to generate helmets for the 8 teams. Here they are

Protecting Pearl - Part 2

Last time, Lts. Crowe and Raven stopped the Japanese attack on Hickam Field on Dec. 7 1941.

Now the radio crackles, "Incoming torpedo bombers heading for the battleships! Need assistance!"

Crowe (Green 1) and Raven (Green 2) get a jump on the Japanese. Crowe chases the escorting zero while Raven attacks one of the bombers. Both miss.

Crowe goes head to head with the Zero. As bullets whizz by, Crowe damages the Zero. Raven misses.

The Zero is on Crowe's tail and damages him. Raven misses again!

The Zero fires and misses. Raven gets a kill!

Another head-to-head attack. Both miss, as does Raven.

Crowe shakes the Zero and downs a bomber. Raven is rattled by defensive fire from another bomber.

The last bomber gets through, but anti-aircraft guns take care of business.

The battleships are safe!