Uncle Duke in the Shop

I was fortunate to meet Duke Seifried today. As some of you may know, Duke used to put on extravagant display games at Historicon. I had met him in the early 2000's, well really just saw him at Historicon, when he put on the Babylon I game in 2005 (see below). So it was really great to actually meet and discuss the hobby with him today.

I was contacted by a local film and video production company (Hostile Work Environment) that is working on a short documentary/bio of a miniatures sculptor and painter from the ‘60s and ‘70s who is no other than Duke Seifried. They needed a historical miniature game store for backdrop and asked if they could film at The Panzer Depot. I of course agreed and so was able to spend a few hours talking “shop” with him. I was surprised by how many aspects of the hobby he has been involved with and look forward to seeing the finished video next year to get the full story.

Duke is going to be in an online movie/series set in the world of Chaldea, as the “Toy Maker”. The world was created by Peter Adkins (the founder and first CEO of Wizards of the Coast), who was also was at the shop. I don’t have many details on it but it should be released at next year’s GenCon.



What they were shooting today was additional content for the website, in this case bio information on Duke. It is even possible that a few seconds of myself might make it into the video … I might literally have 15 seconds of fame after the editors are done with the several hours for shooting! I’ll let you all know when I get more information on the project.

 

To help out with his medical cost (he is a cancer survivor) he is selling off those Historicon displays.

 

Battle of Red Hill

Last Saturday, Wes R. and Bob M. put on a great game of Black Powder 28mm Seven Years War's. It was a pretty low key game, with just three of us participating so getting through the whole scenario was doable.

Wes and I commanded the Prussian-British Force bent on removing the Russians, commanded by Bob, from their commanding Hilltop position. On our far left, Wes had under command a large cavalry contingent split into Light and Heavy brigades. A brigade of Prussian infantry (with a Grenadier Bn) was to the right of the cavalry. I commanded the right with a Prussian brigade of infantry and the mix brigade of British infantry and cavalry.

 

 

Being on the defensive, Bob commanded from his left to right, a small brigade of cavalry, two small brigades of infantry facing off against my force. Then he had a brigade of Russian infantry and Austrian allies to deal with Wes’s infantry, and on his far right was a large brigade of cavalry to deal with the Prussian cavalry. Lastly he had a small brigade of Grenadiers as a reserve.

The Prussian force got off to a slow start, especially my command (the translation of Prussian orders must have been lost on the British command who took several turns to cross the creek). True to fashion of the day, the cavalry on our left flank immediately began to clash, and both sides' cavalry would charge and counter charge each other for most of the battle before the Prussians finally got the upper hand.

The lone British heavy cavalry regiment was able to counter the attack of the two Russian dragoon regiments, though was shaken and unable to pursue. Wes infantry moved to firing range and slowly advanced against the Russian- Austrian infantry defending the hill; he was never able to throw the Russians off it though.

Belatedly, my command of Prussian infantry, less one battalion, moved and engaged the Russians; and over two turns delivered several stunning volleys onto them. By turn five, my British infantry had finally moved up and issued a massive opening volley (5 dice per bn!) … that failed to dislodge the Russians. It would take the Prussian infantry another turn to break the Russians.

With the light cavalry brigade chasing off the remnants of the Russian cavalry, Wes turned his battered heavies to outflank the Russian line. This forced Bob to move one of his Grenadiers to cover the flank.

While the center was holding, his left flank was about to fall as well, so Bob had no choice but to have the Grenadiers boldly move to within a dozen yards of the Prussian Cuirassiers to deliver a knock out opening volley (again five dice) onto them … and failed to do one hit!

The Cuirassiers then swarmed over the Grenadiers and while they held out a turn, eventually broke. This was the last straw for the Russians; with both flanks about to collapse a general retreat was issued that ended the game.

Postscript: Overall I had a great time … thanks again to Wes and Bob for putting the game on. It was so enjoyable I am contemplating rebasing all my 7YW’s figures! We pretty much played the game as written (RAW), and using a few of the rules from the Last Argument of Kings BP supplement.

The one house rule Wes introduced was the allowing a successful command and one move on a roll one or two points higher than the command (everyone had a 7 staff rating). Wes really liked it, as he believes it eliminates the possibility of a player not doing anything for several turns. I was not too keen on it, as I basically made the command rules very generic.