Beautiful BBB battles

Travels meant no wargaming for me this week. Others were more fortunate. I'm regularly surprised and delighted by what BBB players old and new have been up to. I love to read people's thoughtfully composed, beautifully illustrated reports of exciting BBB games they've had with their sumptuous terrain and gorgeous figures - putting my own poor efforts to shame. So let me point you towards a couple of examples, in case you haven't seen them already.

First and foremost, the work of BBB stalwart Vincent Tsao, in New York, as exemplified by his latest report on TMP of his Shiloh game. I always enjoy the combination of Vincent's annotated photos and laconic style. I plan to emulate his use of custom-painted battlefield cloths. The casualty figures are a nice cosmetic touch as well, they don't serve any rules-related function, but they do show you where the real fighting happened.

 

Veteran meets new recruit.

Or maybe:

"How about some tips on bein' a REAL wargamer?"

"If yer knows of a better ruleset, go to it!" 

Next let's spare a thought for BBB newbie "Doctor Phalanx". If you'd visited his blog a few days ago you'd have found him thoroughly underwhelmed by BBB after a frustrating and disappointing first game. Fortunately, he talked with us on the BBB Yahoo group and we discovered it was all due to an unfortunate (but understandable) misunderstanding of the rules. Having straightened that out, he rewrote his initial review and is now looking forward to a much more rewarding experience next time.

Let's hope the Doc has as much fun as "Wargaming Addict" Steve Johnson. After two goes at the Langensalza BBB scenario Steve says "I really enjoyed this game and these rules do promise great things". He provides a brief review along with an AAR on his blog. A couple more quotable quotes from Steve's review: "this was a great game that was closely fought right to the end"; "[the rules] allowed us to concentrate upon our tactics, which is just what you want in a game".

As Steve's a professional modelmaker, his is a very attractive layout, of which I hope to see a lot more. Also great to see his opponent supplied an army of actual 1866 Hanoverians for the occasion - quite a luxury, considering this was the only battle they actually fought in the whole war.

I always like to hear about people's BBB games, so whether it's a lavish photo-report on your blog, or just a short paragraph about a game you played, please do share it with other BBB enthusiasts on the BBB Yahoo group.

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Oh, and in case you haven't already seen my announcements about this elsewhere: a great chance to meet other BBBers will be on Sunday 10 April 2016, when we will be holding an all-day "Bloody Big Bash Day" in Oxford UK. The plan is to have a dozen or so tables running a range of historical scenarios, a mix of large and small. People should be able to play two full-sized games in a day, or 4 smaller ones. Watch this space.