Raising HAVOC 2023

I have attended and run games at Battle Group Boston's annual early spring miniature wargames convention, HAVOC, a number of times over the years. The convention was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, and I did not consider attending in 2022, either. Indeed, the last time I attended was in 2019, and that year heavy snow that weekend really cut down attendance. I wasn't planning on attending this year either, but a month or so before the show the organizers put out a call for more games. Up until 2019, when I had attended, I had made the roughly 2.5 hr drive to the convention, set up my game, run it, packed it up, and driven home the same day. The last time I did that, in ? 2018, I decided that was just too much for one day. In 2019, I stayed overnight in a not that nearby hotel with my freind Greg Hansen from HAHGS, and ran games Saturday afternoon and Sunday AM. I answered the email saying that I would run a couple of games, IF I could find someone to share a room with.  The convention had relocated to a new venue, the Best Western hotel in Marlborough, MA, with on site rooms, restaurant, etc. It turned out that Greg was attending and had a room, so we shared it Saturday night. Good deal! 

Saturday afternoon I ran a 28 mm Napoleonic game, set in Spain in 1809, "The Spanish Ulcer", using the new Valor and Fortitude rules (free from Perry Miniatures website).

We had 7 players, 4 Spanish and 3 "French" (which included a Division each of Rheinbund and Vistula Legion troops). 

 

French cavalry charge a roughly equal number of Spanish cavalry; the French had a real quality advantage here. One of the players had to leave an hour before the game was scheduled to conclude, so I assigned him the Iberian horsemen!  :-)

The Spanish cavalry punched above t5heir weight for a while, but ultimately both Divisions broke and ran... as expected. 

The Spanish infantry were another matter. Although their quality was lower, and about 20% of the units were Militia, the advantage they had in numbers wound up more than compensating.

One Spanish Cavalry Division has already broken and run off the field, and the second, down to just one remaining unit, will soon follow!

Measuring command radius for the Spanish  C-in-C. 

The Spanish had a small force of inferior cavalry on their right flank.. but they were unopposed by enemy horsemen, and managed to outmaneuver the opposing French when their Division failed an activation roll. In the end, 3 French infantry commands broke as opposed to 2 Spanish Cavalry, and the Spanish held all 5 objectives, one of which counted double due to the play of a Fate card. For the French, it was Bailen revisited!

Friday night, I actually played in someone else's game for a change. This was a game of Conquistadors under Cortez vs the Maya. This engagement ocurred prior to the Conquistadors encountering the Aztecs and their allies a little later. 

I wound up commanding 2 Maya warbands on the far right of our position. 

Our aim was to delay the conquistadors, and prevent them from sacking the Mayan village (above). 

The rules used were a variant of Feudal Combat Patrol by Buck Surdu; almost all of the outcomes in the game are governed by the cards in the deck that each player has. The Conquistadors had many combat advantages, but in the end they got bogged down in indecisive combats in the vegetation and made little progress. Many Maya fell, but so did quite a few of the "men of Steel". Surprisingly, all of my boys returned home to the village alive! 

Sunday morning, I ran "A Passage to India", with To the Strongest!, pitting the army of Alexander the Great against that of King Porus. Although there was the full complement of 8 players registered, only 4 showed up, so we opted to fight with half of the armies. In many ways, Edgar (in the red shirt) is responsible for this game; he sold me that big trove of  unpainted 28 mm Macedonian figures about 10 years ago. I have now painted most, but still not all of them! 

Edgar faced off against Devin, who was attending his first ever wargames convention. Naturally, the newcomer prevailed, the inferior Indian Cavalry being bolstered by the decidedly impressive Indian heavy chariots!

In the center, the Indian long bowmen loosed innumerable arrows, almost all to little effect (the phalangites were saving on 5+). They used the "Shoot and Scoot" to stay just out of reach of the fearsome Phalanx units as long as possible. When the pikes finally got stuck in, the Macedonian player scored few hits, and the Indians saved almost every one, despite many units needing a 9+ to save! With the Macedonian infantry frustrated, the win went to Porus after an Indian chariot smashed Alexander himself and his companions! 

I had time to take a few quick pictures of other games on Sunday morning. Sci Fi Naval with Silent Death.

Battle of Sidi Rezegh, 1943, Axis and Allies miniatures.

A western skirmish game with Playmobil figuires

Dem bones, dem bones...

Mark Morin was back with the Battle of Lake Texococo; Cortez actually constructed warships inland to seize control of the Lake and cut off the Aztec capitol. 

The new site was a big upgrade, and hopefully will spur further growth of this venerable convention!