Vauban's Wars: 18th Century Siege at Historicon

My freind Eric Burgess ran an 18th century siege game on Saturday afternoon at Historicon using his Vauban's Wars rules. Properly this post should be on his blog, but as he hasn't gotten around to it, and I have photos from several sources, I did it!  :-)

He used his 15 mm figures (I believe British/Hanoverians as besiegers, and French as defenders). 

First line of circumvallation, and the besieger's HQ. The game tracks a number of supply types (food and powder) for both sides; I'm not sure if the wagons or barrels were a miniature representation of those supplies or just generic. 

The fortress is 15mm by Paper Terrain

Sapping forward to start the second line of Circumvallation. 

The third line is now well under way.

Trying to breach the walls...

Trench Raid!

Some stalwart Grenadiers getting ready to assault a breach? 

The Fortress in peril!

    Eric said "My Vauban’s War siege worked out great, but another turnout issue. I had 4, two dropped (unknown to me), then one joined in, then I got a walk-up and got Dan from the Vauban's Wars FaceBook Group to join. (I think he is the president of my Vauban’s Wars fan club! He was very enthusiastic about the game\rules)  Ken graciously allowed half his units to be commanded by Dan. We called it after 5 hours (45 minutes of tutorial as Tom didn’t get any of my pre-convention emails). Rob Dean from the HAWKS group (garrison commander) slid right in like he had played before even though he registered during the convention! I was impressed with his gaming acumen.  Andy and Ken anchored team BESIEGERS, and Andy’s son Sam eventually joined, then Evan joined for the last hour as folks had to drop to go to dinner. Evan ran a Sci-Fi game I played in and just happened to walk by when we lost a player and was a good sport. I believe, based on the response, that everybody had a great time. I gave away the rules (Rob) and Book (Dan) after the game. Some good news is On Military Matters sold out of all copies of VW in less than 24 hours, and PaperTerrain sold more fortresses at a convention than ever before!

Daniel Loych said: "Great game at Historicon! The English did well sapping up to the walls, but we struggled to get our guns up into the forward emplacements due to fierce trench raids from the defenders. By the end, the bastions held but with heavy damage. Eric ran an absolutely fantastic game, and everyone at the table was able to pick up the rules very quickly. "

There is more about Vauban's Wars on Eric's blog (and also here under the Vauban's Wars tag). Highly recommended!