Ancient and Renaissance Blocks

The great block reorganisation has made some significant progress this weekend as the core sets for red, blue, grey and grey have been completed. It was not quite as onerous as I originally expected but was time-consuming all the same. One thing it has made me think long and hard about though is the possibility of using the block armies for earlier periods of warfare.

I have previously mentioned that I have played ancient games on a number of occasions and have owned Carthaginian, Ancient Indian, Gallic, Viking and Late Imperial Roman armies over the years. At the present time I do not own any painted ancient armies - in fact, the only ancient exposure I have is a complete set of all the Command and Colours Ancients series of games by Richard Borg (as I do for most of the Napoleonics as well). Now you could be forgiven for thinking that as devoted block user having these units available via the games would be sufficient for my needs. To be honest I certainly thought so but now am not so sure. The Command and Colours blocks are really good to look at but my feeling now is that it would be more in keeping with my current usage to use blocks of my own design.

Initially when I thought about this my head quickly became filled with a myriad of unit type permutations - pikes, spears, javelins, archers, swordsmen etc - which threatened to derail the entire idea or at least making it incredibly complicated. I then stepped back and thought about it rationally (which sets a rather dangerous precedent for me!).

Now that I have added some distinguishing marks to the existing horse and musket blocks - the black and white stripes - I should easily be able to differentiate between troop types so, for example, I could have Roman legionaries, auxiliary infantry and assorted allies represented readily enough. The same principle could be applied to cavalry so everything from Pathian Cataphracts to Numidian light horse can also be tackled simply by designating the appropriate label as the specific type required.

I must confess that my thinking was helped somewhat by referring to my copies of both DBA and HOTTs for reasons that are easy to see. As both sets of rules merge similar troop types into unit categories it makes it a lot easier to represent units using blocks - as long as they are clearly defined beforehand. This is something I will need to work out but to be honest, will be fairly straightforward to do by making use of the aforementioned different labels types and by standardising unit compositions in some way.

The biggest single problem I am facing with tackling this project is how to represent formed bodies of troops are with ranged weapons. The horse and musket era assumes that all infantry types are armed with a firearm of some kind (excepting those blocks used for native types - Zulus etc) but in the earlier period having having some way of identifying separate 'shooters and fighters' is required. After thinking about this I have decided that a new label type, based on the standard infantry label, will need to be designed. This will enable units of formed shooters to be represented and, by dint of the idea I am currently pursuing, will also double for pike units during the Renaissance period where the standard infantry block can be used as per its more usual horse and musket incarnation.

I realise this may seem a little on the confusing side for which I can only apologise but once the new block type is ready it will all make a lot more sense.

The plan is to tackle the ancient (taken in its 1500 and earlier guise) era and also the Renaissance in some fashion - simply because the lure of the Ottoman Turks of the period is something that I am unable to resist.

Greece in the Project Machinery

An entertaining and inspirational read in 2013....

Following on from my previous post I have just completed reading the book you see above - a book acquired by chance at a boot sale ages ago. The author, David Howarth, is a particular favourite of mine for no other reason than that he had written one of the most inspirational books of my war games career - A Near Run Thing, covering the battle of Waterloo. I read this avidly back in the early 1970s and still have a copy of the same which I dip into occasionally and still be inspired by.

....and the same in 1973!

The Greek Adventure flows along in an easy fashion and like his Waterloo title does not contain any orders of battle or maps of any of the numerous sieges etc. It just reads very nicely and represents a great primer for the subject (and yes, I have a copy of David Brewster's far more serious study of the war to read next). I particularly like his personal anecdotes as he sailed around Greece interspersed with the story he was telling - it gave one a real sense of almost being there.

It is not an in depth analytical study but is a cracking read and hugely entertaining - and more importantly, inspiring in many different ways.

Just like his Waterloo title was all those years ago....;-)

Greece is the word....

Greek brigands in action

Sometimes you come across a war or campaign that appears to offer little in the way of tactical or strategic interest. Notably absent are any great examples of the art of war; no 'great captain' or crack formation of troops cross the stage of the conflict but for all that, the war or campaign still manages to inspire the gamer in some way or another. Sometimes, the idea of the conflict is more inspiring than the events in actuality - in this case I am talking about the Greek War of Independence.

In a nutshell, the war consisted of gangs of brigands overcoming the bulk of the Turkish occupying forces - usually with a view more to the local situation rather than the 'national' one - and a makeshift 'navy' sailing rings around the far more powerful Turkish fleet. This was then followed by a determined Turkish response on land as the specially requested Egyptian army managed to take back pretty much all of the liberated Greek territory from the assorted rebels. By this time the great powers had taken an interest and the culmination of this was the destruction of the Turkish/Egyptian fleet at Navarino in 1827 which effectively ended the Turkish occupation.

The legendary Greek female admiral - Bouboulina. She was said to have had six children and was so unattractive to look at she had to seduce men at pistol point!

The Greek forces consisted of various bands of brigands - the Klephts or Armatouli - that operated across Greece and were usually more concerned with being the top dogs in their particular location and of getting one over their rivals. The idea of nationalism was very much a foreign import which the Greeks themselves were initially sceptical about. Even the foreign volunteers and adventurers were indifferently welcomed and the theatre of war led to many cases of destitution as the Greeks had little money or death by disease. Byron himself being such a victim.

From such unpromising material though a number of great gaming opportunities can be explored. My opinion is that for the most part this is very much like a Colonial campaign - the North West frontier springs to mind - except with a naval dimension. I like the idea of gaming irregulars against regulars as this always makes for some interesting actions given the differing priorities and objectives of the combatants. I am planning to try a couple of actions once the remaining block armies have been completed just as an experiment but I reckon there is much potential with this war - more so than would first appear from reading about it.

As ever, much to ponder methinks....;-)

Of Christmas, Blocks and the Adriatic....

It has been a busy weekend and no mistake. The first weekend in December is when we traditionally put up the Christmas decorations and so much untangling of lights (invariably accompanied by that seasonal game of 'find the blown light bulb' from amongst some hundred or so others - real men shun the use of bulb testers!) and trying to remember how they all went up last year. After several false starts and a quick trip to the local supermarket we managed to get this first part of Christmas completed yesterday - including the all important Christmas tree. From a practicality point of view we have an artificial tree but it is a very nice looking one all the same and now proudly occupies its usual haunt in the lounge - reminding all and sundry that it 'tis the season to be jolly. At this stage a special thankyou should be extended to the three family cats - Maisie and Mango never stirred from their feline slumbers whilst all this tinseled mayhem was going on around them whilst Minnie's sole contribution was to explore the inside of one of the boxes used for storing the decorations - luckily when she chose to jump inside all the breakables had been removed! I realise that may seem a little early in the month but December is a busy one for use this year especially as it will be featuring my daughter's eighteenth birthday in a couple of weeks and so the preparations for this auspicious event also have to be factored in....;-)

I made a lot of progress with the blocks although they are not quite finished. Whilst labelling and reorganising the collection I have changed the number of types by colour somewhat meaning that some additional labels had to be printed. Previously I opted to have the six colours available in identical permutations as far as unit types are concerned. This meant that for the red, blue and green set I also had various modern units - tanks, anti tank guns and infantry support weapons (machine guns and mortars) in the same way as the grey, brown and olive coloured set. I have now changed this. The brown and olive set are now mainly modern whilst the red, blue and green set are, for want of a better description, pre mechanised. The sole exception is the grey set which will feature both types. Looking at the new arrangement begs the simple question of why I did not think of this before. The new configuration should be complete over the next few days.

I have just finished reading Tom Pocock's book Stopping Napoleon - War and Intrigue in the Mediterranean - and what a fascinating title it has proven to be! I had no knowledge of the various plans afoot that the British had and successively discarded in the Mediterranean - aiding Calabrian rebels in Italy, offering to assist the rebels in the Tyrol in 1809, not to mention the myriad commerce raiding type operations carried out the Royal Navy - including 'cutting out' raids. There is a whole lot of inspiration here for low level games (eminently suitable for the tabletop) and of course with a few notable characters thrown in for good measure. It has given me a few ideas and certainly some intriguing combined operations may well result - especially as I have rather a lot of ships to make use of from the Pirates of the Caribbean game.

One to ponder methinks....;-)

In Blocks we Trust....(Still)....Part 4

Blocks of a more historical nature. Kriegsspiel units taken from the Too Fat Lardies website from which the rules and maps are available see Too Fat Lardies for details

I had planned to have started labelling the new 360 blocks for the collection but hit a minor snag when I discovered that I only had around a third of the number I needed in an unlabeled condition. A further third needed stripping (removing the old labels) leaving a shortfall of around 120 or so. After some juggling of the existing collection I was able to sacrifice around 20 blocks per colour (I reduced some troop types as experience has shown I had rather more of certain units than I needed). After having made up the number of blocks I needed I then set about reorganising the storage boxes to accommodate the additional types.

So far, so good....or so I thought.

It is now impossible to keep all of the blocks of a single colour in a single storage box so I will need to acquire another six boxes for the overflow. The additional box will contain the modern unit types - tanks, trucks and infantry support weapons - and, when I finally get around to it, certain pre-gunpowder types.

As as the 360 blocks are concerned the main task was to strip some 240 of the existing labels prior to adding the new ones. This is very simple but both time consuming and tedious. Using the edge of your thumbnail you need to 'tease' the label off in the attempt to remove it in one piece. If you fail (and these labels are surprisingly resilient to being removed) you can end up with the backing adhesive or layers of paper needing minor attention with a file to remove. I suppose in a way this is the block equivalent or rebasing figures....;-)

Still, it is finally completed so the next step will be to cut out and label the new addition and so I hope to be doing this over the next few days.

In Blocks we Trust....(Still)....Part 3

The artillery labels. By using the same system (the black and white strip) I can at last differentiate between calibre/types of guns in use.

It has been a busy weekend for a variety of reasons with little done on the gaming front. This was not actually a bad things as much of what was done has been outstanding for a few weeks so at least now the domestic list is looking a little more restrained!

I managed to draft up the additional artillery sheet of block labels (see above) and have printed them off. With the other types it means that I now have an additional 360 blocks to label. This is not difficult to do and is something that can be readily tackled when parked in front of the TV. I will need to reorganise the storage boxes somewhat and so have decided that the modern blocks will be stored separately from the core blocks of infantry, cavalry and artillery - simply because I game less often with tanks etc.

All being well this lot should be ready for next weekend and although I shall be equally busy then I am hopeful that I will be able to game in at some point.

In Blocks we Trust (Still)....Part 2

The new labels - note the black and white trim. 

Since my last post I have been messing about with designs for the additional troop types I wanted to make available for my block armies. The main criteria was that the design needed to be visible on the table top. It also needed to be simple to produce and in keeping with the existing designs. The symbols I have used are mainly based on standard NATO map symbols although the commander block is derived from the maps that feature in David Chandler's book - The Campaigns of Napoleon.

I considered a number of ideas but eventually settled on the technique you see above - the use of plain black or white bars across the bottom edge of the symbol. Aside from using this idea with infantry and cavalry - for grenadiers, light infantry and varying cavalry 'weights' - there is no reason why I should not use the same method for varying artillery types and even modern equipment - tanks and similar. Initially I was only going to tackle the red, green and blue armies but have decided to extend the scope to include all the colours I possess. Luckily I have more than sufficient Jenga blocks cut in two to be able to do this.

I am planning on labeling the blocks over the next day or two and will be sure to post some pictures when they are ready.