Mandarin's Manor Photo Gallery

Cold Wars ’04 (3/15/04)

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Historicon ’03 (7/03)

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Fire and Sword In Peking (10/7/00)

In the last minicon club meeting I finally ran my Siege of Peking skirmish game. It's designed to use a home brew set of rules that uses area movement for a quick, convention friendly game. This is the first test drive through the rules, and even though there are some holes in the system that made the game a bit long, the overall feel seems good. I'll post the rules and background material on my Savage & Soldier site in the near future. In the mean time here's some photos to wet your appetite.

• View of the Battlefield from the South: The view of the battlefield over the Tartar Wall before any of the troops hit the table.
• View from South East: A closer view, In clockwise order: British Legation at the top, French legation, German legation, and American Legation. The little rocks I used to denote area boundry is clearly visible.
• View from the west
• View from the north
• View from the North with Bob on the Background: Bob "Shiba" Bergman contemplating his fate.
• Boxer Attack on the British Legation
• Final Assult on the hospital: The Chinese attack has penetrated the British legation, and the desperate struggle in front of the hospital is what you are seeing here. (The Allies did held by the way, however the final hand to hand combat was so intense that a number of non combatants were killed, including a score of women (Ava Gardner, AKA Baroness Invanoff, was killed by boxers after she killed tewo Boxers with her cigarette, but that's another story...)

At the end of the game the Allies held on to the Legation buildings, but just barely. Nearly all the officers perished (commanders of the French, British, American, and German all died in combat, the only surviving officers were the Russians and the Japanese, and that's only because they were involved in their own little pissing contest.

We also know the real reason why the Russo-Japanese war broke out five years later.

Miniature Games at Dave Love's House (8/26/00)

    The following games were at Dave Love's house. There was a Roman vs. Sassanid Persian Warhammer Ancient Battles game, as well as Brandon Chamberlain's truely insane 12" scale action figure game.

The WAB Roaman vs. Persian

• The Roman Commanders (from left: Jim, Charles, and Chris).
• The Persian Commanders (from left: Marc, Bob, and Bill).
• View of Imperial Romans.

The Truely Insane (12" Action figure WWII skirmish game)

Brandon hosted a WWII skirmish game using his house rules using 12" action figures (i.e. GI Joe figs). It's a British para assult on a German radar station in France. There are tens (maybe even hundreds of figures), with authentic looking weapons, uniforms, cars, tanks (a scaled late model M5 I was told, too bad I didn't have a photo of it!). The sight of grown man on their knees moving dolls (hmmm, I mean action figures) is truely a sight to behold.

• The British Advence: The view from the Germans as the British surprise attack was sprung (the surprise was ruined somewhat when the geese alerted the intruders)...
• German Patrol being ambushed: If look carefully, you can see the M5 tank (which I don't think is actually used in the game, it was just there drawing oh and aws from the onlookers) on the top right behind a tree.The wooden poles you see in the pic are very convincing telephone poles ( I just know that the mission for the Brits features wire cutting).
• Behind British Line: The same moment in time as seen from behind the British line. Daryl and Pete is hunching over the British objective: The radar station.
• German commander around the radar station: Peter looking into the radar station. A small part of Daryl's stomach is on the left.

Miniature game pix taken with the new Kodak DC280 Digital Camera (7/17/00)

• Pictures of our Grognard Piquet on a Hex Game: Inspired by Rochard Borg's Battle Cry Board/miniature game, I decide to convert Piquet miniature rules to the hex sheet. I convert the Pennisular game scenario that appeared on Courier (originally for Napoleon's Battles) and adopted to PK, here're some pictures of:
• Freddy "Erskine" Avner and his shattered command (Freddy got a bad string of initiative rolls, a common complaint againt this rule set.
• The French Attack on British left: Due to my string of good initiative rolls, the right wing made the push and took the pivotal hill.
•  The Sudan Din of Battle game at the June minicon depicts an early Sudanese incursion into Mahdi territory (sort of a Hicks pasha scanario with names changed to protect the innocent).
• Ansar cav charging Egyptian lancers
• First fire from Egyptian regulars
• The Sudanese Commander attepmt to save his left flank
• Sudanese Right sweeps off the Egyptains
• View of Sudanese Regulars

Some pictures of our miniature games past and present:

• 15mm renaissance campaign game - Our "grand miniature campaign" back in the college days. Using WRG green book for the tactical battle, and home made strategic rules by Ed Allen, A host of renaissance army co-existing on a fictitious continent (my Italian War Germans is right next to a early 16th century Poland). The campaign game kind of bogged down, but we had great fun on the miniature table. Here's one of those games.
• More renaissance game - A picture of Ed ruminating over the fate of his forces.
• Napoleon's Battle, Quarter Bra - The scenario that appeared in the General. Played between Milton Soong and Nick Stern.
• Command & Colors, Vimeiro, view from British right - Command and Colors is a set of simple miniature rules that's played on top of a hex grid. The flow of battle is card driven, casualty is marked by stand removal. There are no morale checks and no rosters. The battles are stylize, and a battle can be played between 60 ~ 90 minutes. The rules are designed by Richard Borg, and is currently in playtest. This is our first outing.
• Vimeiro, view from British center
• Vimeiro, view from British left

Indian Mutiny game in Celebrate History '99

Nick Stern and Bob Abra ran this beautiful looking Indian Mutiny game. The Residency full of woman and children is being surrounded by Mutineers who's been trying to take the city for days while the relief column is trying to break through the throng of ambushes to reach them.

• View from behind the residency (see the woman on top of the roof)
• The relief column (on the left) is approaching the village through a bridge.
• A close up view of the attack across the bridge.
• A view of the same action from the other flank (note the Gnisha statue in the Hindu temple).
• A view of the courtyard in front of the residency.
• The left flank relief force is fighting a bloody battle through the village.
• Roman re-enactors and their demonstration during the con.

Fire Et Furies Game

MWAN published a set of Fire and Fury variant for the Napoleonic period some time back. We decide to give it a try. This is the Battle of Albuera using my 15mm figures. (all mounted according to Napoleon's Battles)

• A view of from behind the British center
• The Spanish is holding!

Playmobile DBA at the Gamecabinet

Boardgame guru(s) Ken Tidwell and Mike Siggins decide to play a game of DBA using Playmobile figures. The armies are Medieval English and French I believe. There are more pictures on Ken's page.

• top view
• side view