Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Wurttemberg Garde zu Fuß Battalion


In 1802 the Grenadier Battalion Zöbel was renamed the Leib-Grenadier-Bataillon, with  Duke Frederick as its inhaber. He renamed the unit the Garde zu Fuβ Bataillon in January 1803. In 1807, the organization of the battalion was changed to mirror that of the line units, and in 1809 a 5th,  light infantry company was added to the Footguards, initially called the Garde-Jäger-Kompanie, and then later (1810), the Garde-Fusilier-Kompanie.  Early in 1814,  following the change from membership in the Rhine Confederation to an alliance with the Allies, three further fusilier companies were raised.  The four light infantry companies were thus formed into a second battalion,  and the resultant, two battalion unit  (one each of Grenadiers and Fusiliers) was renamed as the Garderegiment zu Fuß.

I just love the variety of poses Lucas has sculpted for these figures. 

Note the figure smoking his pipe!


The flag was once again laser printed from the free download files available from the Piano Wargames website. 

Black facings piped in white are worn on the collars, cuffs , and lapels, ornamented by white buttonhole lace (litzen). The turnbacks were initially also black piped white, and then later (1808) just white. 

The uniform of the Fusiliers was identical, except that a black double billed shako with the sides decorated with white chevrons and bearing a tall white  plume was worn in place of the bearskin. The only other difference for the Fusiliers was the wearing of  dark green epaulettes in place of the white one worn by the Garde-Grenadiers.

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Voidfall!

 Voidfall... another of the Kickstarters that delivered the later part of 2023. 


Opening the big box.

Guide to Iconography.

This is a BIG game!

The premise is that an Ancient star civilization has fallen into disorder, with many factions (houses) vying for power, 

Guide to storing it all!

I went for the upgraded version... had to have the cool ships, you know!

Anyway, into this somewhat chaotic scene there arrives the Voidfall - an extragalactic force that feeds upon disarray and corruption. 

More storage guide!

and more!

Supporting App!

Rules... actually less complex than it seems. The complexity chiefly comes from the great many options the players (up to 4) have, as well as a large number of scenarios, including solo and cooperative ones. 

More explanation of what's what~!

Background information of the Voidfall universe, the various (17) different houses, many of which have unique features, and a large number of different scenarios. 

Some sample scenarios. 

Some of many diecut components before the punchout. 

It turns out these will be used to construct the wheels tracking certain points for each of the 4 factions... red, yellow, blue, and green. 

Play aids

Resource tracker templates for assembly. 

Production guides

Special production guides for several types of unique systems which may or may not appear in various scenarios. 

Wheels for assembly ontop resource trackers. 

Voidfall (opposition) items

These are essentially victory point coinage. 

Various production (guild) markers for systems. 

More tokens

and more...

and more!

The cool toys...

Space ship components

and more components.

color coded dice for factions, cubes to track strength, etc. 

House cards, one for each of up to 4 players. These track faction abilities, areas of focus, technologic advances, and so on. 

Board for tracking the opposition (Voidfall). 

Some of the 17 House cards. These slip into the die cut Faction holders

Flip side of the above faction cards

3 more factions

and their flip sides (mostly background information). 

 another three factions

and their flip sides

yet another three factions

with their flip sides

The final 2 factions

and their flip sides

Corruption tracker

The 25 or so sector tiles, about 3" across. 

Various card decks used during the game. 

and a couple of more!

These are focus cards for the various players - choosing an area of focus gives additional advantages and disadvantages to that player. Each player can only choose 2, I believe. I think they can be changed during the game, but at a cost!

and more - each color essentially has the same set

More, with some special development focuses!

Action cards for the opposition (Voidfall) forces

Joint Focus cards s for Alliances. 

Heroic focus cards!

More Voidfall action cards

These Voidfall action cards come from three different decks. As the level of Corruption in the systems increase, the cards are drawn from more intense (worse for the players) decks! 

The game is played in three cycles. These are reference cards showing how many of each kind of Voidfall action cards are draw for each cycle, depending upon the level of corruption overall. 

More cards... did I mention this is a BIG game, with enormous replayability!

Various events 


and more

Corruption cards

Special effect cards - triggered by achieving certain milestones. 



and plenty more of the same. 

A few special metal markers

Space ships and components

More of the same

Assembled resource tracker dials. 

Faction VP counter


This definitely looks like a game to play solo first... and that may have to wait until after I retire, LOL!