A Wargaming Odyssey

Action at Sea Revisited....Preparing for Game Number 4

2012-02-17T06:16:00.003Z

For Facebook read blog (or not as the case may be!)....;-)

It has been a fairly busy week one way or another - especially as I am now trying to chase down a new contract of employment when my existing one ends on March 2nd. Sadly this is the perennial lot of the contractor and so at present it looks as though I may well be having an impromptu holiday very soon!

However, in order to shake off the doom and gloom I plan to run game number four over the weekend and plans are afoot for the same. It will be a naval action as although I have something rather special planned by way of a land action there are still a few angles that require attention and so this will have to take place at a later date. So, in the interests of convenience I shall be heading back to the high seas for a small naval action - featuring those old stalwarts, the Greeks and Turks. I shall be using the current version of Memoir of Battle at Sea (MoBaS) and with specific ship ratings rather than the generic version. I am also trying to work out haw to upload the PDF of the rules to the blog so that anybody can download a copy should they wish.

As soon as I have worked out how to do this they will be freely available!

Tree Menders Fun

2012-02-15T06:12:00.001Z

The famous Town in a Bag - note the beautifully rendered (purely representational) trees....

Firstly, an apology. The number of blog posts over the recent week has dried up somewhat for one simple reason. I have been busy drafting an article for a couple of journals which has grown into two such articles with a third to finish off with! I have really enjoyed this but it has taken up rather more time than I thought it would. They are now complete - at least the first two are - and so I can now get back to more pressing matters.

Trees - you know, those tall green and brown things.

Sometime ago I waxed lyrically about the old range of trees that used to be produced by Merit and indeed, I have acquired some of the same. The only problem with them is that some of them are so old they are suffering from the dreaded brittle plastic syndrome that some old polythene models succumb too over time. I still wince at the fate that befell two battalions of painted Airfix Highlanders from my 1975 vintage 1815 Anglo Dutch army - with the exception of both units musicians some 56 figures all snapped off neatly at the ankles. It was enough to make you weep! Now that I have a supply of Merit trees I am unsure if I will use them going forward and so expect they will eventually be offloaded - sadly my fondness for them has been offset by the ravages of time.

One thing I do have as a fall back position is a large number of the 'trees' supplied in the Torn in a Bag wooden play set. By no stretch of the imagination can these be described as beautifully detailed examples of model trees but they a number of advantages if used carefully. To begin with, they are to hand - which is an important consideration when facing pending unemployment (the usual contracting dilemma). They also have (and many thanks to Bob Cordery for this observation) a very small 'footprint' on the tabletop. I am sure that most gamers have at some point moved trees around to facilitate movement of a unit and (trees do get in the way - rather like in the real thing I guess!) then have replaced them perhaps not as they were originally deployed (I am not suggesting any nefarious practices here either - just elastic positioning!). Well, using a tree with a small base size will help to alleviate that problem and these models certainly have that.

I will photograph them when completed but in a nutshell this is what I am currently working on. I have a supply of old style fibre rawl plugs which when cut into assorted lengths make very realistic looking tree trunks. These are glued to a 1p piece. A small hole is drilled into the underside of the Town in a Bag tree and piece of wire is then inserted and glued in the top of the rawl plug and the tree - to give a stronger join rather than just gluing the foliage onto the trunk. The 1p base is then coated with PVA and coated with sand. This is then varnished and the sanding is repeated. I will then paint the base an earth brown colour and apply some of the Hexon base green flock so that they match the tiles I have. the tree foliage will be covered in some fashion but I am unsure with what at this stage. I realise that all if the trees will be vaguely Poplar-ish but that is not a problem as I am willing to bet most gamers have used the wrong trees in the part of the world they are representing at some point.

Simple and effective I hope and I should have the finished by the weekend time permitting.

The Greek War of Independence

2012-02-13T20:50:00.000Z

Two of my favourite holiday destinations

Arriving from the USA this morning was a book I have been after for some time and is a very useful addition to the library. The book in question is 'The Greek War of Independence' by David Brewer (published by The Overlook Press ISBN 10: 1585673951) and it covers the Greek struggle to throw off the Ottoman yoke from 1821 to 1833. The book is a detailed account of the war as a whole although not specifically a military history. The story of the Greek war cannot be described as one of a fine example of the military art but that is not to say it is not without interest from a gaming perspective. Small scale actions were very much the order of the day - on land and sea - with raids, sieges, inshore naval action and an interesting combination of ex Napoleonic 'officers' (usually a motley selection of self promoted adventurers, and assorted 'Hellenic admirers' (including Lord 'Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know' Byron and others matched up with a varied assortment of brigands and general ne'er do wells. Apparently Albanian mercenaries featured on both sides and the various international officers in service with the Greeks spent an inordinate amount of time fighting duels amongst themselves!

The naval side is quite interesting - even before the battle of Navarino - as the Greeks were far better sailors than the Turks but used much smaller ships whilst the Ottoman navy had some very nice ships (including some French built 80 gunners) but were little short of abysmal in respect of seamanship.

This is certainly a period to look at further as something a little different - imagine a horde of Greek outlaws with some virtually Napoleonic looking officers attached!

Renovating an old model....Part 3

2012-02-09T22:39:00.003Z

HMS Majestic sporting her new bridge

This post should really be called 'Making a Silk Purse from a Sow's Ear' because that is pretty much what I have done! If you recall I discarded the entire bridge assembly from the Majestic as it was a badly cast lump. In fact, it looked as though one half was upside down when viewed from ahead. My plan was to make use of some Milliput to fashion a replacement and so this was duly acquired from Modelzone earlier today.

HMS Anyone-of-the-classes-following-the-Majestic-and-not-to-mention-the-Japanese Mikasa, merely by swiveling the funnels

I don't know why but I started to take another look at the offending bridge; mainly to see how the new one should look - and so I took a file to it to get a clearer view of the layout. You can probably guess the rest - after some judicious application of a file or two, blow me if the bridge miraculously turned into that which is was supposed to be! I am really pleased by this and I guess that the moral is just because something looks grim doesn't necessarily mean it is!

This now means that the models I have are ready for phase two of the plan - the moulding and casting.

To use a certain sporting/urban expression - 'Bring it on!'

Renovating an old model....Part 2

2012-02-08T20:54:00.002Z

Not a great deal to report as I have run out of Milliput - rather the Milliput I had was virtually fossilized due to old age! - for the bridge assembly so instead I spent a little time with the Majestic funnel mounting. It is rather small so I did not bother with a picture but it is now ready for use.

The first thing I had to do was to make sure the two funnels were the same height which was easy enough with a few strokes of the file. Next, I had to trim the base so that it was level with the circumference of the two funnels - again easy enough with another couple of strokes of the file. The underside of the assembly (the part that is in contact with the hull) needed leveling so as to avoid leaning funnels and this was also easily rectified. Finally, and this was the trickiest part of the undertaking, I needed to remove the built up section at the base between the funnels. This took a couple of cuts and some very careful filing between the two funnels so as avoid any damage. It all worked out OK and the end result is a pair of funnels that now look taller despite being shorter - simply because the base 'clutter' has now been removed. The fixture can now be placed in either direction quite happily in the locating hole in the model's superstructure which means that once the bridge has been built (I shall be visiting ModelZone tomorrow for the Milliput) I shall have the basis for a large number of similar looking vessels.

I love it when a plan comes together!

Renovating an old model

2012-02-07T22:24:00.001Z

Sympathetic restoration underway - note the funnel assembly

Work is underway on the restoration/renovation/refurbishment of my recently acquired Majestic class battleship and I have to say that thus far it is going pretty well. To begin with I was going to strip the paint but it game off with some firm rubbing with a scouring cloth which was handy - as well as saving time. I removed the offending bridge and masts but was delighted to see that the turrets did not need any work. The 'ring' around the base of the turrets was merely flash and it came off easily enough. The biggest problem was the fact that the paint was pretty thick and obscured a lot of the detail and this was what had covered the turret ring and made it look far worse than it was. Some strategic filing and the end result looked pretty encouraging.

Majestic as built although the funnels are too far apart

The biggest surprise though was when I had a light bulb moment with the funnels. On the model these were located via a hole in the top of the superstructure and the assembly, roughly in a 'Y' shape, just plugged in. I was looking at these and was just about to discard them (one of them was smaller than the other although not significantly so) when I popped it into the locating hole facing fore and aft rather than port and starboard - and it gave me an idea!

Spot the difference - and the potential!

By some judicious trimming of the edge of the funnel assembly it is possible to use the hull as either the original Majestic class or as any one of the following classes merely by orientating the funnels. You could even leave this assembly loose and rotate the funnels as needed - although that me be a little too left field for most gamers!

The only remaining thing for me to tackle now is the new bridge assembly. Ordinarily I would just cobble one together using plastic card but given that this model is going into a 'proper' casting set up it needs to be strong enough to withstand the pressures associated with making a mould. This will mean Milliput.

Looks like I am going into the 'master making' business.....;-)

A Majestic Arrival

2012-02-07T16:25:00.001Z

Arriving from the USA and generously donated by Steve Cady (of the blog 'Castles of Tin') is another model for my pre dreadnought 1/1800th scale collection - that of HMS Majestic. The plan is to clean her up and give her a little TLC so that she will be able to used as a suitable master for the moulding idea I am currently pursuing. She will need a little work to get her to this state and so that will be my focus for the next few days.

Firstly, she will need to be stripped (Oooeer Missus!) back to the bare metal and then the real chopping up can commence. Firstly, the funnels will have to come off. Historically these were side by side but the model has them deployed like rugby posts (or American Football) being widely separated. Also, the bridge structure appears to be very lopsided with the 'wings' not matching up when viewed from ahead so I plan to hack this off and replace the same with a Miliput version. I will also remove the wire masts. Finally, the turrets have a very pronounced ring around the base - this looks like flash of some kind - which will need some attention. If that proves to be too difficult then I could always remove them and replace them with some others - I have a number of donor hulls set aside for this purpose. The end result will not have any masts and so these would need to be added later - togther with fighting tops etc. In fact, the keen modeller could make a very presentable model from one of these quite basic castings should they wish.

I appreciate that this may all seem a lot of work for one model but the reason is quite simple. The hull and superstructure configuration of the Majestic class is about as close to being a generic looking pre dreadnought as you are likely to get so if I can pull this off the potential in terms of repeat castings is enormous. Being cast without funnels may seem odd but adding these from plastic or metal tube afterwards is very easy and also has the added attraction of not only being able to add as many as required but also placing them in whatever position is needed; thereby maximising the ship classes the basic hull could be use for. Having said that, once the existing funnels have been removed adding some new ones from Miliput or metal rod would not be too difficult so I may even consider that as an alternative - it will depend on the state of the hull. Once the basic hull has been refurbished and is ready to be cast then the real attraction of this model becomes apparent. For the Royal Navy alone the resultant casting could be used (as long as you are not overly offended by the lack of detail) for any of the battleship classes put into service up to the King Edward VII (I already have Swiftsure). Many foreign navies used a similar looking configuration although anything with a pronounced outward curve of the hull (the 'tumblehome' so beloved of the French and Russians) would not probably not be suitable.

Should my modelling skills not be equal to the task then I have a 'Plan B' to fall back on - I will concede defeat and use the King Edward VII casting as my generic pre dreadnought battleship. Just think of the superstructure 9.2" guns (one on each corner) as being 6" guns on steroids! They actually look more like casemate types in any event and are also larger than the turret mounted 12" weapons so could be called whatever was desired - scale considerations and fine detail were never a major feature of this range of models!

Once again then, I would like to extend a massive thank you to Steve Cady for his very kind donation and I hope that I shall be able to restore the same to something like its former glory and for future use - I hope to be able send him a newer version back across the Atlantic in due course!

An Indian Takeaway

2012-02-06T20:47:00.002Z

One of those books that is a real pleasure to have in the collection

By way of a pleasant diversion (and a welcome surprise) I acquired a copy of 'Britain's Army in India - From its Origin to the Conquest of Bengal by James P. Lawford (ISBN 0 04 954020 3)' via Ebay for the princely sum of £2.80 (including postage)! The author needs no introduction (at least he shouldn't!) and the book covers the period up to the end of the Seven Years War. The period in question is really the story of the army of the East India Company and that of Clive of India. The machinations of the various Princes, the break up of the Mogul Empire, small forces of European infantry vying for favour and influence and facing enormous odds. The book contains maps, orbats, campaign and battle accounts as well biographies of some of the leading personalities of the period. This is the stuff that war gamers thrive on and given half a chance I would happily build up armies and navies for the campaigns of the 18th century on the Indian sub continent.

Mike Kirby's special - believe it or not this was free!

To support the above I had lurking in a forgotten corner of my collection a Miniature War Games special on the campaigns in India written by Mike Kirby. This is a very useful publication and is designed for use with the Volley and Bayonet rules written by Frank Chadwick - which is a favourite rule set of mine.

I cannot realistically see myself ever tackling the armies for this period - the numbers would be too vast for one thing - so the prospect of emulating the exploits of Clive on the tabletop will sadly have to remain a tantalising one.

Warship Models and a Plan

2012-02-05T13:57:00.000Z

Readers of the the blog will have no seen mention of the range of warships available for a short time from Minifigs at the back end of the 1960s and early 1970s. Through various means I have been able to acquire a modest collection of these models and the plan is to either drop cast some more copies or to approach a manufacturer with a view to having the models professionally moulded and cast and available once again for battle on the table tops (or even floors!) of the world. Negotiations for this are underway and I will post on the blog if and when this comes to fruition.

In the meantime though, I thought it would be a good idea to illustrate the models I do have and then you will be able to judge for yourselves if this idea is a viable one. I am certainly very excited about the prospect of seeing these models back in production but I fully appreciate that they will not all things to all men!

Minifigs Number 1 or a mysterious B4 - the number on the stern. Lord Nelson and 76mm long.

The first model is of a Lord Nelson class Battleship and was numbered as number 1 on the Minifigs list I have. However, the model depicted is both hollow and die cast unlike the Minifigs version which is a solid casting - I have one of each. The die cast version came from the same source as the Swiftsure below.

Minifigs Number 2 or a mysterious B2 - the number on the stern. Swiftsure and 82mm long.

The second model is a Swiftsure class Battleship which was number 2 in the Minifigs list. This is the die cast equivalent and features a B2 on the stern. I was fortunate enough to acquire a pair of these at my local Toy and Train Fair.

B3 or the rather imposing King Edward VII - note the 9.2" at either end of the central superstructure. She is 82mm long.

The next model is of a King Edward VII class battleship and this particular ship was not available from Minifigs. Again, this is a die cast model with the number B3 on the stern. This one came from Ebay and cost me a mere 99p!

At the time of writing I have Majestic class Battleship en route from the USA (Minifigs list number 3) and so I hope to add this to the collection as a possible candidate for recasting. I really want to get hold of a Minifigs Number 6 - a Canopus class battleship as this is the most generic looking example of a battleship for the whole period and so would serve as many different classes of ship. I would guess that its popularity for this very reason is probably why I am unable to find one!

Minifigs No. 7 - HMS Drake - a Drake class armoured cruiser 84mm long

Minifigs No.7 is the cruiser HMS Drake and with a little imagination could easily be used as a Cressy or even a Diadem class cruiser without too much difficulty.

Minifigs No. 8 - A Devonshire class cruiser

Minifigs No. 8 is a Devonshire class cruiser. She comes in at 81mm long.

Minifigs No. 13 - 'Early Turret Battleship' - I don't think so....

Minifigs No. 13 is a Highflyer or Arrogant class cruiser although is described on the list as an 'Early Turret Battleship'. She is 69mm in length.

The next selection of models are all destroyer or torpedo boat types and to be honest, I have not attempted to match them with their historical counterparts yet. They seem fairly representative of the myriad types the RN had on the go during the 1895 to 1905 period and needless to say, 'turtlebacks' feature quite prominently.

Minifigs No. 19 Destroyer 46mm in length

Minifigs No. 20 Destroyer 47mm in length

Minifigs No. 21 Destroyer 45mm in length

Minifigs No. 22 Destroyer 46mm in length

Minifigs No. 24 Destroyer 53mm in length

There are even a couple of submarines in the collection - as well as a single example of merchantman.

Minifigs No. 15 Transport ship 71mm in length

Minifigs No. 26 Submarine 45mm in length

Minifigs No. 25 Submarine 42mm in length

At the time of writing I am very keen to acquire the aforementioned HMS Canopus (No. 6) and also Minifigs No. 14 which is described on the list as an 'Early Turret battleship' but is in fact an Edgar class cruiser which could also be used for a Blake class.

The models above are very basic in terms of detail for sure and would certainly not win any prizes in terms of accuracy BUT as gaming pieces indicative of the type and with a little work could be turned into something pretty respectable looking. The models originally were cast with masts etc in place but sadly none of these have survived and so I will clean up the stump prior to casting. In fact the models all need a little cleaning up in respect of flash etc but it is hardly a major undertaking. I suppose these ships can best be described as 'Marmite Models' because you will either love them or you will hate them. For my part I love them and so will press on to see about making these models available to the naval war gaming fraternity once again.

"Hexon, Hexon....You're my Hexon....!"

2012-02-02T20:24:00.001Z

A very odd looking battlefield but you get the gist of it!

(The post title should be sung like Sex Bomb by Tom Jones and some modern dance group I can never remember the name of as I am over 30....)

The missing pieces arrived this morning and so phase one of my Hexon accumulation is now complete. I have the hills, roads and rivers I need and anything else will be acquired on an as and when basis. There is a sufficient quantity and selection of types for most of the ideas I have and was purchased with the a standard Command and Colours sized set up in mind - 13 x 9 hexes. I am really pleased to have finally landed this lot and the plans for the inaugural game can now proceed, hopefully at the weekend.

Order - Counter-Order - Missing Order

2012-02-01T05:45:00.000Z

Oh well, there goes the brain cell for another week....

Ho-hum. I would like to say it could only happen to me but I suspect I am neither the first nor the last to have done this. I placed my order with Kallistra for my Hexon terrain pieces over a week ago and the package duly arrived yesterday morning. It is really nice and I am delighted to have taken the plunge with the collection and am looking forward to using the same for my gaming adventures. The order was made up of a selection of flocked hills, roads and stream sections in what I thought would be a suitable varied selection for creating any number of battlefields.

Nothing wrong with that idea or so I thought....

Picture the scene if you will. There I was parked in front of my PC constructing the order and yes, you've guessed it, going through various permutations of what the final order will look like. In a nutshell, what I had ordered was not what I thought I had ordered. I should have checked the end result more carefully but failed to do so and am now down one pack of stream sections as a result!

The new and correct order has already been placed....

D'Oh....

A Load of Blocks

2012-01-31T10:31:00.001Z

A selection of modern unit labels of the type for which a half sized block was made for.

Readers of the blog will no doubt be aware of my fondness for block based games and indeed, some of the most purple of my purple prose has been devoted to the after action reports arising from games using these. The blocks I use are sized at 63mm x 21mm x 12mm and with the MS Paint drawn labels look pretty good on the table top. I am also really looking forward to using these for the inaugural game on my Hexon terrain (once it arrives of course!) in due course.

However, they are not without their disadvantages. As deployed they look fine for anything linear and ordered but are a little clumsy when used for detachments or smaller units - I am thinking gun batteries or skirmishers here - and so having a smaller size would seem to the ideal. In fact, when I first mooted the idea of using blocks my pilot set made use of some blocks that had been cut in half. With my current version however, I have no such provision simply because I lack the correct tools to cut these accurately enough as they are produced in a hard wood. My joinery skills are modest and the tools of the trade are lacking so rather than try and have a go at cutting them in half I simply didn't bother.

With the certainty of night following day though this was never going to be a permanent solution and so the niggling itch has taken hold to the extent that something needs to be done about it. As a result I have made a few enquiries in my local area and I have managed to locate a joiner that is prepared to chop the blocks in half using the appropriate tools and above all accurately for the cost of 'a drink' aka cash in hand. I will have six sets (288 blocks so the 'drink' may have to be a fair size!) that will be treated thus and so it will mean a couple of relabeling sessions in due course but that is of no matter. The following half sized blocks will be produced - command, infantry, cavalry, crew served weapons (artillery, AT guns, MGs), skirmishers and vehicles. When used in conjunction with the full sized versions this will give me a whole lot flexibility on the tabletop and thus the overall look of the thing. The significance of this is immense as I will also be able to use blocks almost as stands which will place less reliance on the use of rosters - especially when using the 'Memoir of' or 'Portable…' series of rules. A good example would be to use a full size block with a couple of half sized versions to represent a unit. The unit takes a casualty and so one of the blocks could be removed. It also paves the way for a better representation of unit formations.

I am really pleased about this development as it offers a lot of potential for the blocks going forward and it will give me a much greater degree of flexibility in their use in the short term.

The smaller size is also eminently suitable for naval usage….;-)

Action at Sea....Game Number 3, Part 2

2012-01-30T20:24:00.000Z

The game was enormous fun to play albeit pretty quick. I was very pleased with the way the rules worked out and even more pleased with the fact that the inevitable revisions were fairly minimal. To be honest one change was fairly extensive but I was very pleased with the fact that change did not appear to upset the balance of the rules to any great degree.

The two biggest changes were that I have bowed to the inevitable and have increased the gun ranges by a hex. This does not sound much but using the larger models (the Minifigs ships) it looks better having them slightly further apart. I have taken this decision with one eye on including dreadnoughts at some point and I am looking at a maximum range of 8 hexes. With this in mind it means that Heavy guns now have a range of 6, medium 5 and light 4. I have added an additional gun category - quick-firers - to include anything smaller than a 3.4" and they have a maximum range of 3. The reason for this is because during the period under consideration many ships made use of untold numbers of 3, 6, 9 and 12 pounder weapons which should not really be included within the light guns category. I am sure that salvo firing 3 pdrs looked pretty effective but probably wasn't when used against anything with any form of protection. Light guns are now for weapons between 3.4" and 6" in calibre. The final touch with gunnery is that within each category there are now four increments of combat dice, reducing in effect in alphabetical order i.e. B is worse that A, C worse than B etc.

Movement is unchanged other than to turn a hex side now costs a movement point.

At the moment I have no lists of ships specifications completed although I will add some guidance notes for those that wish to customise their navies - as I will probably do for my own in due course.

In the meantime I will see about getting the rules on the blog for all to see - once I have grappled with a couple of formatting issues!

Action at Sea....Game Number 3

2012-01-30T06:36:00.002Z

The write up for this game will be a little different from my usual approach for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the game was very much a play test of the latest version of Memoir of Battle at Sea 1890 to 1905 (with thanks to Bob Cordery for the loan of the title!) and also was fought using unpainted models. Apologies in advance then for the less than flattering pictures!

For inspiration I have used the River Plate action from WW2 but with a pre-dreadnought twist - the red fleet consisted of a Lord Nelson class battleship whilst the blue fleet had a pair of Highflyer class cruisers and a Drake. In terms of the game the ships were rated as follows:

Lord Nelson: speed 2, 10 hit points, Heavy Guns (A rated), Medium Guns (F rated) and Light Guns (K rated) and one torpedo attack.

Drake: speed 3, 7 hit points, Medium Guns (F rated), Light Guns (K rated) and one torpedo attack.

Highflyer: speed 3, 5 hit points, Light Guns (K rated) and one torpedo attack.

The gun ratings are based on the number of combat dice rolled at the range to the target ship and they decrease in alphabetical sequence. Heavy guns are rated A to E, Medium guns from F to I and Light guns J to L. Heavy guns have a maximum range of 5, Medium 4 and Light 3 - which is also the range for torpedoes.

Firing is very simple. Heavy and Medium guns may only fire in the gunfire phase (which is the first phase of the turn) whilst Light guns may fire during the gunfire phase and in the Torpedo Attack phase. A 6 scores a hit with a 4 and 5 being an additional hit - provided at least one qualifying 6 has been scored from the current salvo. Light guns firing at Cruisers or Battleships or Medium guns firing at Battleships need to score hits in pairs. Battleships firing Heavy guns at Cruisers count 5 and 6 as qualifying hits. Any hits scored can be applied at the owning players discretion against the hit points, speed, or weapons. A hit applied to a gun type reduces the letter to the next one e.g. A to B, C to D etc. Torpedo hits can only be applied to hit points or speed.

The action commenced with the battleship, having no doubt returned from a raiding foray, being intercepted by a cruising force of the enemy. In order to minimise the effect of the heavy guns being concentrated against a single target the cruiser commander split his force into two - the pair of protected cruisers to the north and the armoured cruiser to the south of the enemy battleship.

The opposing plans were very simple - the red fleet needed to inflict as much damage on the opposition as possible (at the very least slowing the enemy ships down sufficiently so that an effective pursuit would be impossible) in order to make good their escape whilst the blue fleet needed to sink or seriously damage the raider so that the heavier elements of the fleet could catch up with the action and finish off the battleship.

The end of turn 1 and with continued apologies for the unpainted models in use!

The opening turn saw the blue ships heading straight for the red and maintaining their course and heading in order to assail the red ship on either beam. The red ship responded by lining herself up to do battle with the largest of the blue ships - the armoured cruiser - whilst turning towards the pair of protected cruisers.

Turn 2 was virtually a continuation of the opening move but with the difference in that the battleship and the armoured cruiser were close enough to exchange long range shots with their Light guns (at range 3 either ship could roll but a single d6 and both missed).

Turn 3 saw the battleship and the armoured cruiser open fire with everything they had at a range of 3 and despite having the superior weight of guns the red ship missed entirely whilst the blue ship was able to score two hits - one with her medium artillery and one with her light. The battleship opted to take these hits from her hit point total of 10 reducing this to 8. The movement phase for the turn saw the armoured cruiser cross to the rear of the battleship whilst the two protected cruisers turned in to face the foe.

Turn 3 - whilst the armoured cruiser keeps a healthy distance after her bush with the battleship her two lighter compatriots take up the gauntlet (the shell splash markers are from the game Mastermind and serve merely to illustrate the action).

A swathe of Light guns opened fire during the Torpedo attacks phase with the battleship missing her nearest opponent whilst suffering a long range hit from the furthest of the two protected cruisers. Both the battleship and the nearest protected cruiser elected to use torpedoes with disastrous results for the blue fleet as the protected cruiser was torpedoed and suffered four points of damage. Captain blue opted to take 3 hits from the hit point total of 5 leaving 2 and to reduce the ships speed from 3 to 2.

Turn 4 saw the battleship open fire with all her artillery against the battered protected cruiser but only managed to score but a single hit - much to the red Captain's disgust and the blue Captain's relief! The armoured cruiser fired speculatively at long range but failed to secure a hit.

Turn 5 saw the battleship again give her full attention to the damaged cruiser and this time her persistence paid off as she managed to score a further three hits which the blue Captain used to reduce his hit points by 1 (leaving but a single remaining point of damage) and his gun dice by two from J to L. The ship was riven with shell holes but was still able to make a speed of 2. The other cruiser kept a healthy distance and headed around the rear of the battleship whilst he armoured cruiser attempted to take up the fight once again.. Some long range Light gun salvoes were exchanged but with no damage inflicted by either side.

The damaged blue cruiser headed away at best speed from the action - her temerity in attacking her larger and more dangerous opponent being unsuccessful.

Turn 6 proved to be the climax of he action as the battleship proceeded to hammer the armoured cruiser at a range of 2 with all her guns and managed to score four hits for no return, the armoured cruiser being bow on to the battleship and thus firing with a reduced number of guns. The Armoured cruiser took the damage as 2 points from the hit point total of 7 leaving 5 and reduced both her Medium and Light guns by one each: from F to G and J to K respectively.

Endgame - The Red battleship about to hammer the blue armoured cruiser in company with the sole undamaged ship on the table.

At this point the blue fleet conceded the action as with two heavily damaged cruisers (one in imminent danger of sinking) she was unable to prevent the escape of the enemy warship.

More to follow....

(Funny) Little Wars - The Insanity Commences

2012-01-29T16:07:00.001Z

Nothing a new coat of paint, a change of wheels and some plastic card detailing couldn't put right!

It was the first of this years Toy and Train Fairs at my daughter's school today and so I went along to take a look and to seek some inspiration. Nothing to report on the ship search but I was able to acquire a brace of firing artillery pieces for the long term Little Wars style project. Usually this show is awash with such items but today, despite being packed to the rafters with visitors and several new dealers, the artillery was minimal - or more accurately, either too expensive or in need of too much restoration to be worthwhile (sorry Tim, nothing useful to report!). My acquisition was a pair of 'Britains' (yeah right!) firing pieces which look suspiciously like 25 pdrs although are quite basic models which leads me to believe they may be copies. I am not hugely keen on the wheels as they look a little on the modern side but beggars can't be choosers. The gun barrels are fixed with no means of elevation and the muzzle brakes are missing. The paint is a little chipped around the edges and so a repaint will be called for - probably in a shade of grey.

The firing mechanisms for both pieces are absolutely fine and the obligatory matchstick round fired from each reaches to a very respectable 9 or 10 feet. The pair of pieces cost £5 which is pretty good value and with a little work they will be added to the artillery park of my Little Wars collection. In fact, at the moment they are my Little Wars collection....;-)

At the moment....;-)

On the Hunt for some Old 'Toys'

2012-01-28T19:57:00.002Z

At this point in time there are two things I am looking for. Firstly there is of course the Minifigs Canopus from their old warship range - this is in danger of becoming something of an obsession as I am desperate to get hold of one! I would also like to get of their 'Early Turret Ship number 14' which I have on good authority is an HMS Edgar class cruiser.

The second item(s) I am after may come as a little bit of a surprise but I am after some Peter Laing 18th century figures - specifically AWI infantry command figures; officers, drummers, ensigns, sergeant and perhaps mounted officers if possible. I have said Peter Laing simply because these figures need to be small and most current 15s are too large. Even Irregular Miniatures 15s are too big but the Laing version would be ideal.

Actually, a 12mm figure would be about right but to the best of my knowledge the only 12mm figures I can ever recall were those available from Hinchcliffe and they were only Napoleonics but I stand to be corrected. I know Minifigs has a 12mm range but I am unsure what is available - I know there are WW2 and ACW but I think that is about it at present.

Still no Hexon so the game tomorrow will be plan B and I apologise in advance for the fact that the models in use will be, shock horror, UNPAINTED!!!

Planning for an Inaugural Game....Part 2

2012-01-27T06:14:00.000Z

"Meep, meep!" - Straight from the ACME Inc. School of Advanced Project Planning

At the time of writing my Hexon terrain has still not arrived so is probably still in transit. Despite this however, the planning has continued for my first action using it and is now pretty much complete. I have drawn up the roster sheets, ensured that all the gaming related material is to hand - dice, hit markers etc (not essential but useful for purposes of photography) and that the appropriate blocks are mobilised and ready for use.

As a matter of course I have also reread the single account of the battle in question that I own and shall be endeavouring to refight, purely for some additional inspiration. I will explain the rationale behind my choice of action after the game has been played but I suspect that given my fondness for certain periods of history, even those for which I have no intention of acquiring figures for, it will not come as a surprise!

I have even mapped out the terrain on hexed paper so that once the Hexon arrives the set up should be very straightforward. My intention, assuming all is well with the post, is to fight this action on Sunday and to have the after action report on the blog that same evening. I am looking forward to this as much as the game itself and the first part of this is already half written. As an aside I have settled on writing battle reports in three separate posts - the background (this will be my pseudo-historical setting - purple prose and all!), the battle itself and then the review and conclusions from the affair.

I hope that having done all of the above that the end result will be worth it - knowing the action as I do I have every confidence this will be the case! In fact, it would take a really concerted effort to get it wrong and mess the whole thing up! Just to be on the safe side though, I have a Plan B in the shape of another game that can be drafted in as a replacement if needed should the Hexon not arrive in time.

To be honest, I can't wait!

That Warm and Fuzzy Feeling....

2012-01-26T06:12:00.003Z

1:1200th Warship heaven - "Gonna need a moment alone boys...!"

Yesterday evening was a shocker. I had an interview after work (my contract has just been extended for an additional month but such is the lot of the contractor that you are always on the lookout for your next contract) which meant that I was not back to Liverpool Street station until 6:30pm - earlier than anticipated and so a visit to the club was certainly on the cards.

Overhead power cable problems meant that everything was slow and crowded and as a result I eventually wandered into my house at a miserable 8:35pm. Why are the trains always messed up when I am late anyway?

My low spirits were very soon revived though by the arrival of two of the three parcels I am expecting this week - still no Hexon though.

Basset-Lowke Waterline Ship Models by Derek Head (ISBN 1 872727 72 7 and published in a limited edition of 1,000 copies by Golden Age Editions) is one of those books that can best be described as a piece of pure indulgence and it is absolutely gorgeous, albeit only 160 pages long. the book covers the history and the models produced by Basset-Lowke between 1908 and 1950 at a scale of 1:1200th or 100ft to the inch. Of particular interest to me though is the models that were subcontracted and made as cheaper version of the 1:1200th models (these were being handmade) at a scale of 150ft per inch as these are the models I have a selection of via the Minifigs versions and some die-cast copies of indeterminate origin. These cheaper versions were produced in more limited numbers and production ceased in the 1920s. Sadly the book describes these models as being out of the scope of the title but having said that it has for me answered a number of questions.

Of the 1:1200th models there is much of interest. Ships were produced for a whole range of navies for WW1 and 2 and one wonders if the cheaper and smaller versions were ever produced of these other navies from the earlier period.

I recently saw some Basset-Lowke 1:1200th models on ebay going for some staggering amounts of money as these are effectively antiques and priced as such.

If you like ship models you will love the 'eye candy' in this book and it is a fabulous title to dip into. It is also very expensive (check out amazon!) and I was very lucky to have acquired this copy via ebay for £12.50! I will be honest and say that I would probably not have purchased this book any other way but I am certainly happy that I was able to!

It certainly brightened up what was a depressing evening transport wise!

Rolling up the Loins and Girding the Sleeves

2012-01-24T22:25:00.004Z

"Do, or do not. There is no try." Yoda.

I would like thank everybody for all the comments re my 'Great Debate' - as ever they have been very supportive and have also served to bump start my 'reality chip' and so the plan is now back on after my temporary blip. My FLW set up will have to wait awhile (there is plenty of time in any event - especially from the funding perspective!) as I shall refocus my efforts on matters closer to home.

I shall be making a concerted effort to tackle the 15mm Balkan Wars figures first in the guise of the Russian and Turkish armies of the 1890s or Fezia and Rusland as they will be known. The 1935 kit will join the ACW ships on the back burner for the time being - especially as I hope to unveil some really exciting news very soon which will take up even more time but in a very good way.

The two 15mm armies (for which I have everything I need) consist of around 80 foot, 15 mounted and three guns a side. The great figure clean up is already underway and I am really keen to get some figures on the Hexon terrain so want to push on with this as much as I can. Meanwhile, the blocks will be in action once again as plans continue for my inaugural game on the new terrain as and when it arrives.

"All right, let's move like we've got a purpose" Corporal Hicks, Aliens

The Great Debate

2012-01-24T06:07:00.000Z

Curse my fickle nature! It has been a funny old week or so as I continue to wrack my brains over a solution to my ongoing dilemma. The dilemma concerns exactly what I should throw my painting energies at first of all in respect of figures. The obvious solution is the 1890s Fezian and Rusland troops as not only do I have everything I need to fight with in terms of figures (even paint!) but also the rules and the soon to be arriving Hexon terrain pieces. If not these chaps then the Russo Turkish war must surely feature at some point. The problem I have, which as usual completely defies logic or sanity, is to press ahead with a Funny Little Wars set up for which the only thing I currently possess is an electronic copy of H.G.Wells classic: Little Wars on my ebook reader.

No figures, artillery, scenery, or even the financial wherewithal to start such an undertaking as the budget for the month has been well and truly blown out of the water with the aforementioned Hexon.

On balance the most logical, practical and sensible (not one of which I lay claim to being!) course would be to tackle the 1890s set up on the basis that it would provide me with the tools for continuing the struggle between the Czar and the Sultan but I know from past experience that unless my head is completely engaged with the task in hand the heart will eventually take over and chaos, coupled with yet another half started project (or should that be half completed?) will inevitably follow.

Note that absolutely no mention was made of anything 'ship' related....until then that is!

Planning for an Inaugural Game

2012-01-23T12:47:00.001Z

This coming weekend will hopefully see the first game taking place on my Hexon set up (assuming it all arrives in time). I have given a lot of thought to how I shall be using this terrain over the coming months and have decided that the first game I use it for will be something rather special and rather out of the ordinary. I am not going to spoil the surprise but suffice it to say it will feature the blocks, the Town in a Bag buildings and the musket based variant of Bob Cordery's Memoir of Battle rules for the 19th century. Essentially these will be the rules I used for the Belgium fracas (both of them and should the plural of fracas be fraci?). Fairly obviously then, it will be a horse and musket era game.

For reasons that will become obvious I am really looking forward to this action as in many ways it represents the completion of a circle in my war games career so to speak.

More to follow as the week goes on but I should point out that if the Hexon does not arrive then this particular game will have to be postponed - it would not look as good on the Axis and Allies maps to start with. I do have a plan B though so at least one game will feature on the blog over the weekend at some point!

In Terraining - The Hexon Way

2012-01-22T21:05:00.000Z

I own in my collection two sets of Hexon terrain tiles and I am very pleased with them both - the blue and the green flocked set. I have used the blue set on numerous occasions but as yet not the green set. The main reason for this is the absence of any suitable terrain in the shape of roads, rivers and such like. Buildings I have plenty of - the Town in a Bag wooden variety and my Greek ceramics - and a reasonable selection of 'greenery'. I experimented with using felt for roads and rivers but not with any great success. This was the primary reason for my using the Axis and Allies maps for my block games. Well, with a deep intake of breath, I ordered a selection of the scenic pieces available - hills, rivers (actually streams) and roads. I also ordered a bag of the appropriately coloured flock for use with figure bases as and when I get to them.

Hexon looks really attractive and I have been planning this for some time and so I am pleased to have finally been able to secure what will be the missing link in my set up.

The last few days have, for a variety of reasons, given me much food for thought about my gaming plans for the year and I hope to post in a few days the results of my far reaching deliberations.

Megablitzed and a lot More

2012-01-20T05:51:00.000Z

For me one of the great joys in writing a blog is the contact with other kindred spirits and the exchange of ideas, comment and observation that such a relationship brings. In many cases this is the precursor to establishing long term genuine friendships above and beyond the mere comment on a post. An added bonus is of course that such long distance contact sometimes results in a face to face meeting and I have been singularly fortunate in that I have managed to meet a number of people via the blog that perhaps I may not have had the chance to ordinarily.

So it was yesterday in which I had the pleasure of lunch with Tim Gow of megablitzandmore fame in the West End of London. Tim was in town on business and suggested meeting up for a chat and lunch etc which I had readily accepted and so was delighted to meet face to face to discuss numerous topics of mutual interest aka war games many and varied!

The two hours flew by and during that time the conversation ebbed and flowed and touched on Fletcher Pratt, painting techniques, Funny Little Wars, Megablitz, the advantages of having a dedicated war games space, Tradition, COW and COWs past and present (the annual Conference of Wargamers), WD (no, not WD 40, this being Wargames Developments), Funny Little Wars, my appalling timing in booking a holiday to miss COW 2012 (point noted and borne in mind for 2013!), 1/6000th versus 1/3000th as a scale for naval games, gamers we have known and their legacy, H.G. Wells and the forthcoming centenary of 'Little Wars', Funny Little Wars and the joys of using firing artillery in a wargame.

Oh and Funny Little Wars.

....And King Boris III and the Forbodian Army.

It is always a pleasure for me to be able to ramble on our hobby to a like minded individual and the experience was one that I hope to repeat next time Tim is in town - with the proviso that we discuss Funny Little Wars as I am quite sure his campaign of subliminal suggestion may have planted a seed of some kind.

"You cannot escape your destiny...."

As an added and unexpected bonus Tim also presented me with a very eclectic selection of 1930s 1/1200th aircraft from Hallmark which will be adorning the Fezian Naval Air Service in due course.

It was a great day albeit far too brief and I should like to extend my thanks to Tim for lunch (next time on me) and for the occasional mention of Funny Little Wars.....;-)

Smokestack Lightening....

2012-01-19T06:12:00.000Z

The legendary bluesman in a cheerful frame of mind

" I woke up one mornin',
Feelin' so bad, I thought I was dead....
Got the wrong warships in my collection,
So I got me a plan instead...."

Ok, so I know it is not classic blues as played by Muddy Walters, Howlin' Wolf, Johnny Lee Hooker etc but the idea is broadly the same!

The offending model, of which I have but a single example - note the obvious large calibre guns on each corner of the superstructure.

The warships in question refer to my collection of Minifigs/BMC style 1:2000th scale models and my plan to drop cast those models that I need more of. I have hit a bit of a problem. In a nutshell, the model that I thought was a Canopus type pre dreadnought (and therefore as near to being a standard configuration for the type as you could get) is in fact nothing of the kind. On closer inspection it appears to be a King Edward VII class battleship as it has a distinctive 9.2" gun on each corner of the central superstructure. Although it has the symbol 'B3' on the stern it appears that this was a 1950s era copy of the original BMC models incorrectly described as a Canopus. This is a blow but one I have given some thought to along the lines of some fairly drastic remedial action.

Swiftsure and Triumph - and the potential saviours of my cunning plan!

Take a close look at the model above - that of HMS Swiftsure, the second class battleship taken over, with her sister, HMS Triumph, and completed for the Royal Navy. They have virtually a typical configuration for the pre dreadnought battleship type - the central superstructure with a pair of funnels atop. There is plenty of space on the top of the central superstructure to add a further funnel if need be and this was something I was considering going forward for representing different classes but then, it came to me (and this is the drastic part).

If I removed the funnels entirely (Smokestack Lightening if you will....) and ensured that the top surface of the superstructure was suitably 'flush' then the resulting casting would need to have these added afterwards. This would be no problem and plastic tubing in various suitable sizes is available for that very purpose.

Why bother? Well, simply put, by having the freedom to position the funnels where I choose, not to mention the quantity, I can represent any number of battleship types, albeit in silhouette. There is room for three funnels easily and so this would allow some of the German types to appear.

The cruiser being considered for some novel surgery

The same idea can also be applied to some of the cruisers I own and so that is also an option I will explore further. It does mean that a couple of originals will be sacrificed for the greater good though - the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few....

Live long and prosper.

More on Napoleonics

2012-01-17T20:38:00.003Z

Napoleon at Borodino, accompanied with his glittering staff although the man himself looks bored with the whole thing!

My first ever painted army was a 20mm Airfix plastic 1815 Allied army organised as per Bruce Quarrie's Airfix Magazine Guide: Napoleonic Wargames. I fought many a dramatic action using those rules against my old fighting partner, Paul, back in the mid 1970s. When we decided to move up into metal figures another gaming friend of mine had already usurped the British army (his elder brother was a very talented 54mm painter specialising in the Napoleonic British army - to this day I am unsure if my friend painted all of his 25mm figures himself!) and so with Paul sticking with the French I needed to trawl around for something different.

Inspiration came from a number of directions.1812 by Anthony Brett-James was a collection of eye witness accounts and diary entries in a single volume covering the invasion and the retreat and I had occasion to borrow a copy from the library (mainly because David Howarth's book - A Near Run Thing covering Waterloo was out on loan and these two books have served me well over the years for sheer inspiration value) and was gripped. A quick read of the Russian army section of Bruce Quarrie's book and I was hooked. Enormous gun batteries, Cossacks and infantry that would not lay down seemed ideally suited to my modest tactical ability and so a Russian army of 1812 it would be. The figures I used in those early days were a mixture of Hinchliffe and Tradition (they still 25mm figures than and were still at 188 Piccadilly) and I managed to complete two battalions on infantry in greatcoats, two battalions of grenadiers, two of Moscow militia, a unit of Cuirassiers, some Cossacks and a couple of artillery batteries. Chris Hardman painted a unit of Hussars to add to the collection. Parts of it saw action but the whole lot was sold to Eric Knowles to finance the first of mt naval forces just after I had moved to London.

The years rolled by and so whilst I have dabbled with Napoleonics on and off over the years it has never been with any serious intent until now. 1815 was always my campaign of choice (meaning that most Napoleonic purists would dismiss me as a mere amateur!) and still is bit now the net has broadened to cover from 1812. I suppose because by then the French, whilst formidable, had shot their bolt to an extent as the rest of Europe had their measure.

The only new addition to this is the Egyptian adventure at the earlier end of the wars and that is a campaign I would love to try at some point.

The rules I have used and are currently tweaking are based on Bob Cordery's Memoir of Battle (which are designed for the latter half of the 19th century) and the early test was great fun to play. I was particularly pleased with the fact that the tweaks I had applied beforehand seemed to slot in almost seamlessly with no obvious detriment to the game play. Undoubtedly this is a testament to the soundness of the original concept; fashioned and honed as it has been. Aside from the Napoleonic wars I am thinking that the revised set would also work for the second half of the 18th century and so in due course I will investigate further - especially as I have a plan for something rather special in this respect....;-)

That Old Block Magic....

2012-01-17T06:01:00.001Z

Yesterday evening was a useful one of the pottering variety. I had a number of minor tasks to attend to including clearing the Belgium game away from Sunday and so whilst doing this I took the opportunity to review the Block collection. You may recall that I produced sets of labelled blocks in six colours - red, blue, green, grey, brown and olive. The first three are in sets of 48 whilst the remaining three - grey, brown and olive - have an additional 36 blocks apiece to cover the modern era. This means machine guns, mortars, anti tank guns, tanks, SPs, tank destroyers, armoured cars and half tracks. I didn't bother with lorries as I see these as being more pre and post battle transports rather than 'battle taxis'.

Whilst these are complete in respect of having the labels applied the one thing I have yet to finish is applying the ID labels. These are basically numbered stickers applied to one of the long edges of the block and they serve a dual purpose. Firstly, the convention I have adopted is that the number is always facing the owning player and so is the rear of the unit and is therefore handy for determining facing and secondly, the number also serves as a unit identifier when used in conjunction with the roster sheet. For my recent games the units titles have been largely anonymous and have nothing more elaborate than, for example, 11 Infantry, 45 Cavalry or 63 artillery (the number being from the block and the type being what the unit is). This is functional but hardly inspiring! I plan to make the unit roster sheets more personalised with specific units as I research particular historical campaigns or even the hypothetical ones I plan to undertake. As an aside this will be great fun to do for Fezia and Rusland and that is a task I shall look forward to in due course.

I added the number labels to the grey set last night - at least the base 48 blocks and this means that I have blocks of four colours suitable for the period 1700 to around 1870 - red, blue, green and grey - thereby increasing the army options and gaming potential. The one thing I did not do though was to add machine gun units to the original three colours which will require rectification although not to the scale of the 'modern' types.

After much consideration of how I want the block armies to develop I am looking to greatly increase my Hexon terrain collection by the addition of their road, river and hill pieces as using the blocks on the larger hexes looks really good and with the very attractive terrain pieces available will add enormously to the 3D military map effect I am trying to achieve.

Belgium, June 1815, Game Number 2 - Part 2

2012-01-15T22:00:00.001Z

Seconds out, round two!....Note the increase in the size of the French force

Well that was much better! It just goes to show that the seven 'Ps' of my earlier post are worth their weight in gold when used properly (or even at all!).

The Allied set up - the 95th Rifles are in the woods in the right centre of the picture

The set up was broadly similar to my earlier game but the forces had been adjusted somewhat. The allies lost an infantry unit whilst the French gained three more; together with another cavalry regiment and an extra gun battery. The allotment of total strength points came out at 54 for the French and 36 for the Allies meaning that the break points were 18 and 12 respectively. The rules were primarily Bob Cordery's 'Memoir of Battle' but with some in house tweaks applied - more of which later. The break point idea is loosely based on the idea of an exhaustion level and features in Volley and Bayonet by Messrs. Chadwick, Novak and others. Essentially when a formation has lost the number of strength points indicated by its break point level it must then beak off the action. I picked 33% as a test figure but of course it could be varied depending on the quality of the army or the scenario.

The approaching French - with extra Va-va-voom!

I will let the pictures do the talking but I will summarise what happened.

The French force essentially attacked from its line of march (a 'hasty attack' to use NATO parlance I believe) but was impeded by the stubborn resistance of the 95th Rifles deployed in the wood astride the road. The French attack was hindered by this for a time until overwhelming numbers began to tell and the Riflemen were forced out of the wood. Despite the support from their cavalry the Rifles were forced to evacuate the wood in the face of overwhelming odds. The leading French infantry unit was able to catch the gallant 95th in the open as they scampered away from the wood they so gallantly defended and with a withering volley decimated the survivors. It had cost the French some nine points of casualties to do this - a skirmisher unit was destroyed; another forced back and hits scored against the cavalry and some regular infantry.

At the end of turn one the Rifles had taken casualties but were fighting hard as the rest of the French force continued to march to the sound of the guns

The Rifles are hanging on with a furious cavalry melee securing their escape route - for the time being

Both sets of cavalry withdraw to reform and reorganise - with fatal consequences for the embattled Riflemen. The black counters indicate artillery hits, the white from everything else

The end of the Rifles; caught in the open and on the flank the survivors were decimated

The French cavalry paid for its temerity as the troopers of the Dragoon Guards charged them and put them swiftly to the sword. Whilst this was going on the remainder of the French army was attempting to deploy into the open and out of the narrow confines of the road; inhibited as it is with an area of rough ground and the aforementioned wood. Sadly for them as soon as a unit appeared at the head of the column so it became the target for the Allied artillery (very effectively handled) and soon the entire leading regiment had suffered grievously from the guns.

After reforming the French cavalry set off to outflank the Northern end of the village - only to suffer from long range light infantry fire and the attention of the Allied cavalry. A furious succession of charges, counter charges, push backs and rallies took place which ended up with both sides losing a unit leaving the Allies with a single regiment and the same for the French although the remaining Gallic horse were on the opposite side of the village,probing the Southern end of the village.

As the Rifles were flanked so the cavalry of the opposing sides continued their bloody work with far reaching results

At this point, after some exchanges of long range musketry fire in the centre (where the French had finally managed to deploy units of regular infantry and the artillery was coming up to enter the fray) a quick head count had revealed that the break point for each side had been reached simultaneously and so the action ended as a technical draw.

Endgame - with their cavalry ruined and heavy casualties in the centre, the French attack has ground to a halt but with telling casualties inflicted on the Allies

The game was huge fun and the tweaks required are very few and are more around clarity of purpose and personal choice as much as anything else. I want to formalise the melee procedure - especially for cavalry - and write up fully the break point/exhaustion level process. Movement and firing worked a treat although I may reduce infantry fire for units that have moved in some fashion otherwise light infantry are only just slower than cavalry and as deadly at close range (as the Rifles found out on turn one when they were 'bounced' by two units of French skirmishers and suffered three hits out of four dice rolled!).

As a battle I would say that it felt right and suitably Napoleonic - cavalry charges, skirmishers and Riflemen all playing their part - and with a little work the rules will be absolutely bang on the money for what I want. The beauty of this particular rule set (primarily designed with the second half of the 19th century in mind) is that it can be dressed up with period specific tweaks as required without the underlying mechanics being compromised in any way.

All in all then, a good recovery from the previous effort and I shall look forward to not only using the rules again but also reacquainting myself with the wars of Napoleon.

Belgium, June 1815, Game Number 2

2012-01-14T16:31:00.003Z

Brigadier Hyde-Bowned reviews his troops

After the less than satisfactory outcome to last weeks game I have decided to replay the action using a little more forethought and a different set of rules. I have changed the size of the forces so the allies are smaller and the French larger and the rules of choice will be the latest version of Bob Cordery's 'Memoir of Battle' - a brilliant combination of Command and Colours, Morschauser and with an added dash of Cordery thrown in for good measure. The report will follow tomorrow and I promise to keep the purple prose to a minimum (and no, I did not have my fingers crossed when I said that....).

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.

2012-01-13T06:10:00.003Z

....but for goodness sake let's do it RIGHT!!!

My recent foray back into the world of the Napoleonic war game has given me much continued thought over the last few days. Aside from reigniting my interest in the era as a whole it was, as I mentioned previously, an object lesson in the importance of being properly prepared for a game beforehand. It is something I shall consider more carefully when planning my next action for sure as the time I have for gaming is limited and so making the most efficient use of the time available is an important consideration. Obviously one could plan a game to within an inch of its life and still have it turn out like a lemon on the day but at least all of the basics would have been covered beforehand.

With this in mind I have given myself a mental checklist of points to be covered before even a single dice is rolled. These are mostly obvious but as my own recent experience has shown, even a veteran of some 40 years of gaming can overlook something really basic!

Scenario - the game itself - is it (to use a financial services term) 'clear, fair and not misleading?'
Rules - understood and with the appropriate charts and tables etc to hand - unless the game is a designated play test
Terrain - as required - is it readily available?
Forces - the right toys or if 'subbing' units due to non-availability then clarity of type and purpose e.g. 'I shall use that unit of Moscow militia as the Pavlov grenadiers as the scenario needs them but I don't have the correct figures'
Time - in the words of the Magners cider TV advert - 'Time, dedicated to you'

This is all straightforward stuff and so I hope that by adhering to this approach I will avoid a repetition of my earlier frustration!

Game number 2 of 2012 will take place over the weekend and I have already ticked off most of the above list in readiness.

2012 and Anniversaries Abounding

2012-01-12T06:07:00.003Z

Napoleon no doubt thinking about warmer weather somewhere else - this was of 1814 but is usually always associated with 1812 and rightly so, capturing as it does some of the wintry bleakness of the dreadful retreat, at least in its early stages

From a wargames perspective the chances are that almost every year at some point will bring an anniversary of some campaign or event that strikes a chord and invariably generates a few ideas for games and projects etc. 2012 is for me one such year. For my own particular palette the anniversary calender includes the following major campaigns:

The Balkan War of 1912
Napoleon's invasion of Russia

You could easily add the Turkish-Italian war of 1912, the war with America and of course the battle of Salamanca in Spain.

The two I have mentioned are favourites both old and new as the Napoleonic Russian Army of 1812 was my first ever painted metal army (now in the collection of Eric Knowles) dating back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Balkans are a much newer interest for me but a significant one all the same. Over the course of the year both of these campaigns will feature from a gaming perspective as I shall be undertaking battles using my block collection for each.

Of course 2015 will be a vintage year for sure!

Reflections on Game Number 1 - A Self Critique

2012-01-11T06:03:00.001Z

Awkward Moments Number 1 - When you realise that the no matter how much you dress it up you still cannot make a silk purse from a Sow's ear!

Taken as a whole the the recent Napoleonic game was a largely frustrating experience and my after action report was very much an attempt to 'dress it up' or, if you like, an attempt to salvage something from the time and effort expended! Only two things of note took place during the game - the attempt to drive the rifles out of the wood and the disastrous French cavalry charge and even then the former was a largely half-hearted affair. The write up was very much a piece of self indulgence for which I offer no apologies (apart from the purple prose that is!) and as mentioned, was largely my effort to extract something tangible from the experience.

I must confess that I did not plan this game with anything like my usual thoroughness and boy did it show! The biggest problem was the rules and that was largely my own fault and they are not really designed for the scale of game I had planned. Worthington Games Napoleon's War is all about refighting the great battles of the era which is true to an extent of any of the similar Command and Colours series but for some reason if just felt plan odd with the scenario I was playing. The rules are fine when used as intended; albeit at a much higher level of command. My preferred option going forward would be to use a Napoleonic derivation of Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame or even Memoir of Battle as either of these sets sit far closer to my own rule preferences. Command and Colours Napoleonics would work better at this level but has the disadvantage of not being particularly solo gamer friendly due to the use of command cards.

I felt that the scenario was sound enough although giving the attackers a larger force would have made them more inclined to attack. I would certainly revisit the idea at some point though, subject to those points being taken into consideration.

Visually the game looked fine and it was rather satisfying seeing the red blocks on the map alongside the blue - it had a real battle map kind of feel which was very satisfying. I really need to get the Hexon terrain collection completed sooner rather than later as this kind of affair will look much better with the larger hexes.

Overall then, the game was a frustrating experience but this was largely of my own doing (which made it worse!) as not only did I give insufficient consideration to the rules I also did not think about the composition of the forces engaged. Having said that, the action that did take place was enjoyable in its own way - it is just that I would have preferred rather more of it! Still, and to borrow from Alfred Lord Tennyson:

'Tis better to have gamed and lost, than to have never gamed at all!'

Belgium, June 1815 - Game Number 1, Part 2

2012-01-10T13:23:00.001Z

Poised at the ready, the men of the 95th take aim

Sergeant Bullwood of the 95th Rifles carefully tapped the tobacco from his pipe into his pouch and placed the well sucked clay carefully in his sword bayonet scabbard. He was positioned safely behind a fallen tree trunk with plenty of foliage all around and a quick glance showed that his men were similarly well hidden. Their rifles had been carefully loaded with slow and deliberate practised ease; not with the usual febrile haste employed by the recruits occupying the village. This would be man's work and it fell, as usual to the men of the 95th to do it. For some fifteen years Bullwood had been in the army and in that time he had seen it all and across a hundred different battlefields. The stripes on his tunic had been hard won. He eased the cramp in his right shoulder, a cramp caused by one of a dozen or so flesh wounds he had received over the years. He new that when he was old and no longer a soldier they would give him merry hell but that was for tomorrow and not the here and now. Here and now were the French.

Not a sound disturbed the riflemen's position; the only noise was the sound of an army advancing. The burbling, jangling, clanking, whinnying of a large body of men and horses marching and as the minutes ticked by so the volume increased. A cough disturbed the silence. Bullwood did not even bother to look around. "The next man to even breath loudly will have me to answer to!" He whispered urgently although in such a way that every man present could hear and understand the meaning. "Sorry Sarge" came the sheepish reply. Bullwood did not bother to answer - his full attention was on the advancing enemy, now some two hundred yards away and with a thick skirmish line ahead. "Take aim lads, go for the officers first and wait for my signal". Bullwood shouldered his Baker Rifle and aimed at the central figure brandishing a sword with animated vigour. He tucked the weapon in as tight as he was able and stilled his breathing until his world shrunk to the size of the French officer's chest. It was almost time, and almost the perfect range.

The object of Sergeant Bullwood's careful and meticulous aim was Captain Leo D'Estrees, a career soldier from Gascony and despite his superiority in rank to his as yet unseen adversary could tell a similar story, they being of an identical age. D'Estrees had fought his way across Europe for his Emperor and had proven his valour on countless battlefields from the high sierra of Spain to the snow covered steppes of Russia. He was of humble origins but the army and the Emperor had given him a prestige and status he would never have enjoyed otherwise. His heart was filled with devotion to the little Corsican that had given his life purpose and meaning as here was the epitome of his definition of glory; being the first man of the first formation to first face the enemy in the name of his Emperor and of France. His company was advancing in a loose line with the lumbering heavy columns of infantry to the rear and just cleared a small copse of trees, the first of three en route to the village of Artois. The second one they were approaching was far larger and so caution would be needed. D'Estrees urged his command onwards and so he raised his sword on high and shouted in almost giddy adulation at the top of his voice "Vive L'Empereur!" With a ragged cheer his men took up the shout and soon the whole formation was bellowing at the top of their lungs - the French were coming, so beware!

The Rifles engage the French Light Company

"Fire!" yelled Sergeant Bullwood as a hundred rifles crashed out a devastating volley at barely a hundred paces. The timing was faultless; the execution merciless. The proudly cheering French skirmish line was scattered to the four winds like autumn leaves by the raking fire of those terrible rifles. Even before the smoke had cleared Bullwood had given a string of orders; orders that sent more Frenchmen to an early appointment with destiny. "Reload and fire at will!" The riflemen were unleashed to carry out their grimly efficient business.

A bullet from the first volley had caught D'Estrees on the left forearm and had spun him right around and down on the ground. That had probably saved his life as he lay face down across his badly bleeding arm - the blood spreading across his chest and face as he lay. All the while bullets buzzed like wasps over his head. He rolled over to see his faithful servant, Lazard, trying in vain to find some kind of bandage for his master's obviously serious wound. The Captain was momentarily stunned by the impact of his glancing blow but not so his men as they speedily took what cover they could, seemingly oblivious to the plight of their wounded and dead comrades. Shaking his head to clear it D'Estrees quickly realised his would was a superficial one that looked a whole lot worse than it was and so Lazard was swiftly able to bandage his arm. Ordering his servant to the rear D'Estrees readied himself. Gripping his sword tightly he leapt to his feet, just after another discharge from his unseen enemy. "En avances mes ami! Vive L'Empeurer!" He shouted and the remaining men of the light company took up his cry and charged towards the source of the fire. As he stood up, dreadful to behold; his uniform torn and bloodied and death in his eyes he continued to exhort his men to greater efforts. First one, then two bullets found their mark. He sank to his knees, his sword still head high and still cheering his men in a voice that grew weaker and weaker until his sword fell from his grasp and D'Estrees fell face forward into the earth and blessed oblivion.

Meanwhile, De La Salle had taken the situation in with a glance and so ordered his lead infantry to deploy into line to clear the wood in support of his gallant but hard pressed light company. The rest of his force would move up at best speed and he also ordered one of two cavalry regiments to bypass the wood and to position themselves to cut off the escape route for the defenders. It would be like prising open an oyster. Eager to comply, the cuirassier regiment under the command of the mercurial Colonel Lavelle, cantered off into the distance, careful to give the wood a wide berth.

Hyde-Bowned had heard the furious fusillade from the woods and although he could yet see what was approaching had determined that the gallant rifleman would be supported in their fight. Keeping the fight at a distance would waste valuable time for the enemy. He acted quickly. Firstly, he sent a messenger to the Duke informing him that contact had been made but as yet in unknown strength. Through his field telescope he was able to discern enemy horseman positioning themselves to cut off any retreat from the wood so, he correctly deduced, the enemy must be making a concerted effort to first clear the wood before assaulting the village. He pondered this for a moment, the crack of rifle fire carrying over from the wood. A young officer on horseback was at his side, no more than a boy but very smartly attired. " You sir", he pointed at the serious looking young man and beckoned him over. "Take this message to Colonel Wittman of the Light Dragoons with my compliments. Tell him to make sure his tigers are ready and to move forward to cover the wood to their front - there are enemy horse making a nuisance of themselves. Tell him not to engage them unless the enemy act first." There was little else he could do as he had no idea what was facing him as most of the enemy was hidden from view. With a crisp salute, the young officer spun his horse around and galloped away on his urgent errand. With the orders posted, Hyde-Bowned and the remainder of his small staff turned their attention back to the embattled riflemen.

The fight for the wood continued and thus far the rifles were holding their own despite being outnumbered by their opponents. Every time the French skirmishers approached so a withering fire was directed at them forcing them back into cover. With their gallant commander wounded and heading for the rear their efforts lacked direction but what clear leadership could not solve sheer courage and bravery might yet prevail. Remorselessly they closed on the rifles position, disputing every fold in the ground, every piece of cover, no matter how small. Meanwhile though, De La Salle's assaulting infantry units had just about moved into position with the intention of forcing the issue once and for all.

Sergeant Bullwood was getting concerned although he would not show it. He and the company commander, Captain Partridge, had seen the enemy cavalry moving across their rear and both knew that if they had to fall back nothing short of a miracle would save them from the horsemen. They had to stay where they were and although thus far they were fairly secure the impending infantry assault was a different matter altogether. It looked a bleak proposition which ever way you looked at it and so Bullwood bitterly recalled the words of his captain about Johnny Crapaud not being anybodies fool.

The French Cuirassiers had cantered off the road, past the small copse and out on to the open land to the east of the village; thereby giving the enemy occupied wood a very wide berth. Colonel Lavelle, the regimental commander, signalled a halt and was satisfied that his position was far enough way to be out of range (it wasn't but his mistake could be forgiven as he had never faced Baker rifles before) of the wood to be quite safe. He was proud of his regiment and proud of the role they had been chosen to play and like D'Estrees was devoted to the Emperor and his service. He was a thoroughly professional soldier and had never been in a losing battle and to crown his career with an act of brilliance under the eyes of his beloved Emperor would surely see him posted to the Guard. His visions of glory were interrupted as his adjutant drew his attention to the scene some quarter of a mile ahead. Enemy cavalry!

Colonel Lavelle leads the charge

Horseman - emerging from what looked like the far end of the village and directly to his regiment's front across some gently undulating farmland. This was exactly what his orders had covered - the threat implicit and so the colonel acted in an instant. Ignoring the reasoned comment of his second in command that by merely holding their position they would deter the enemy from advancing and that they enemy was too close to the village of Artois Colonel Lavelle gave the order to advance. The sabres sang as one as they were drawn and rested across shoulders; their wickedly sharp blades glinting in the morning sunlight. The colonel took his place in the van of the regiment. The shout went up and so the solid phalanx of armoured horsemen moved off, gradually at first but all the while speeding up and eating up the distance to their adversaries.

Wittman of the light dragoons cursed as the spectacle unfolded with awful inevitability - his unit would barely have time to form up, let alone attempt to counter charge. He was also aware of the grave disadvantage his men would face against such armoured giants. He urged and cajoled his men into formation and hastily ordered the charge. It was not a moment too soon as the great mass of armoured horseman crashed into them. Swords rose and fell, screams and curses cried out, horses snorted and neighed and the whole area became a mass of swirling cavalrymen; all order and formation seemingly abandoned. Wittman's men lived up to their reputation and fought like tigers, and fought for their lives.

The French commander had been too eager to cross swords with the enemy and the approach was longer than he anticipated and so instead of a sold wall of cavalrymen impacting the enemy as one the collision was dissipated somewhat. It was not a disorganised charge by any means but it had overrun its ideal distance and so had diluted the effect. It had also proved to be the salvation of the horsemen of the light dragoons. Although Wittman's regiment had barely began to move off when contacted they were ordered and formed, and above all, fresh, and so with a ruthless efficiency they made this small advantage count. Slowly, but with certainty, the French were losing, victims of their own eagerness to force a conclusion. This wholly unexpected turn of events had just occurred to the French commander just as he had seen off a young enemy trooper with a vicious sideways sweep of his huge sword. He caught sight of the remainder of his command being inexorably forced back by the fresher enemy and so made his fateful decision. He was no fool and knew that he needed to act quickly in order to salvage the situation and so he ordered his trumpeter to sound the recall.

The strident bugle rang out and the furious melee seemed to peter out as, in ones, twos and then larger groups the battered cuirassiers fell back to reform and reorganise; their dead and wounded bearing testimony to the fury of their recent battle.

The French Cuirassiers come to grief and the embattled riflemen continue to harass the enemy

As the enemy was equally disorganised Lavelle reasoned that he would gain a breathing space by temporarily falling back and could yet salvage the situation. It was not to be and fortune decreed otherwise as the light dragoons, abandoning any pretence at tactics and order simply spurred on their battle- frenzied mounts and caught the cuirassiers in the act of reforming. It was more than man and horseflesh could bear and after a minimal and largely ineffective resistance the French simply broke. In vain did Lavelle try to make a stand and to rally his battered troopers. Sensing that the end was near he turned his horse to escape but Dame Fortune had decreed otherwise and so the two young troopers of the light dragoons took him from either flank and without ceremony, ran him through.

De La Salle was incandescent with rage. His plan was in tatters for he dare not push on to the village across open ground with half of his cavalry out of action and with little room to deploy his numbers against the stubborn enemy troops occupying the wood astride his only line of approach. To do so would be folly as he would be forced to bring units into action one at a time meaning that the enemy fire would be concentrated on each in turn. It would not have been so bad had his cavalry obeyed orders and waited for the situation in the centre to resolve itself for the riflemen would not have stood for long against the sheer weight of numbers he would deploy against them. For such insubordination he hoped that Lavelle would have had the good grace to have gotten himself killed in order to save him the inconvenience of a court martial and a firing squad. The light company from the lead regiment had virtually ceased to exist, their commander was being taken to the rear and was not expected to survive his wounds and the survivors were staggering back from the scene of their own private war against the stubborn riflemen. The tattered survivors from the routed cuirassiers limped back; some on foot supporting groaning and gravely wounded comrades, some slumped over their horses sweating and exhausted necks a few in good order but sporting numerous minor injuries. The impromptu blood stained bandages fashioned from anything to hand bore silent witness to the ferocity of the recent fight. He was about to call for the commander when a pair of troopers leading a muddied and sweat streaked horse appeared; tears and blood and sweat and grief competed for space on their swarthy and moustachioed faces. A bundle, unrecognisable swathed as it was in a riding cape was draped across an officer's horse. Colonel Lavelle died undefeated but his regiment did not long survive his proud record.

De La Salle lowered his hat in salute for he could not bring himself to admonish a man whose only fault was to charge the enemy and to die doing so. The attack would now have to be halted and positions taken up to both cover and observe the enemy dispositions and above all, he must get word to the Emperor. Reluctantly, and with a heavy heart the recall was sounded and the French fell back to reform, reorganise and to fight another day.

From the village all Hyde-Bowned could see was the back of his own horsemen pursuing the beaten French and the sounds on musketry dying away from the wood. Had it been taken? A moment of stomach-churning unreasoning panic and sickness washed over him as silence descended. Surely the French had not taken the wood? Were the gallant riflemen dead or taken? He had failed, he had failed….but wait. What was this? A ragged cheer went up from the wood so gallantly defended. The unmistakable sounds of Anglo-Saxon voices, hoarse and tuneless but noisy with the lubricant of victory. They had held, they had held! Hyde-Bowned breathed deeply and straightenend his back just as the sound of a large body of horsemen cam thundering and jangling to a halt just behind him. He turned around and his face went white as the Duke himself with and aide trotted over to him. The duke motioned for his telescope. He took in the scene at a glance and turned to the by now ashen faced commander. "A damned good show" was his only comment. "Ready your men to move" and with that he turned away. A thousand questions flooded through Hyde-Bowned's mind but he knew far better than to raise them with the Duke. For now though, he would enjoy the moment and would then worry about the future when he had to.

To be continued....

Belgium, June 1815 - Game Number 1, Part 1

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000Z

The Battle of Artois - the French are making full use of the road from the frontier

A scratch formation of British and Hanoverian infantry, supported by some cavalry, a battery of foot artillery and a detachment of the famous 95th Rifles are tasked with holding the vital Belgian village of Artois against the advancing French. The Duke had ordered them to hold for at least half a day whilst he reorganises his army to meet the enemy.

The French have crossed the river and an advanced detachment has marched forward with all speed with the intention of capturing the village, thereby securing the vital crossroads.

Each side was by coincidence roughly of the same composition and consisted of six units of infantry, three skirmisher detachments (for the allied force one of which was the famed 95th Rifles), two cavalry units (one of the French units was of Cuirassiers), an artillery battery and of course the respective commanders.

The Allied Plan

Brigadier Hyde-Bowned surveyed his motley command of raw recruits, old hands and every shade in between with something akin to disdain coupled with resignation. Two days before he had been enjoying a long and leisurely lunch at his club when a string of orders had arrived and now he was tramping across Belgium with a rag-tag command and no clear idea of what on earth he was supposed to be doing. Not only that, Napoleon was now on the march and so he fully expected the full weight of the Grande Armee to be falling on him and brushing his minuscule force to one side with no more effort than one might expend in swatting a fly. As far as he was concerned it was little short of madness attempting to defend this position whilst the full weight of Napoleon's army was heading his way - and he had been foolish enough to point this out to the Duke. Surely it would be better to fall back on the main body of the army and meet the Corsican Ogre with everything the Duke had? "Damn your impertinence sir, let my order be obeyed!" had been his stinging reply. The recollection of the Duke's scathing comment was still seared into his memory and so he had to make the best with what was available - at least until the Duke was ready.

Perhaps the rebuke he had received from the Duke had served to stiffen his resolve or perhaps he had realised that the stage of history had beckoned; either way Hyde-Bowned determined, despite his misgivings, to seize the day and to make his mark.

The Allied deployment around the village of Artois - note the position of the rifles in the van

His dispositions were simple, conservative and as good as they could be under the circumstances. He garrisoned the village with the Hanoverians and strung out the remainder of his infantry in a line from the outskirts to a small wood. The artillery was in the centre of this line and the far side of the village had the remaining infantry unit and the cavalry. The light companies and the rifles were placed in some small wooded areas either side of the road leading to the frontier. The rifles were deployed furthest forward and so would be able to harass the enemy at a distance and hopefully use up valuable time as a result of their action. It was a compact deployment and when Hyde-Bowned surveyed his small command fully arrayed for battle his confidence, thus far at a low level, rose with the Belgian sunshine.

All he had to do now was to wait on Napoleon's pleasure and so the coming hours would be a test of patience as much as a trial of arms.

The French Plan

With much humbugging the French army under Napoleon have crossed the frontier with Brussels firmly in their sight. Speed was of the essence and so the Emperor assembled a small and fast moving task force ordered to both locate the main body of the allied army and to seize if possible, the small but vital village of Artois. It was perhaps indicative of the malaise that had gripped both the Emperor and the Grande Armee that the orders were both unclear and contradictory to an extent. The force was too small to force a decision if any major resistance was encountered and too large to avoid keeping out of trouble. This was the conundrum facing the young French commander - Brigadier Jacques De La Salle.

As a veteran of many years service De La Salle was under no illusions about the complexity of the task facing him. He was very wary about facing the accursed English in any kind of firefight on even terms with his unwieldy force (had it been his decision he would have taken only a brigade of cavalry and some horse artillery) and so chose to interpret his orders as meaning that he needed to find and fix the enemy rather than trying to force a conclusion. Technically he would still be following the Emperor's orders but silently he cursed the shoddy staff work that left him in such an unenviable position. Such confusion would never have happened had Berthier still been around. He knew full well that the Emperor would need every man available to deal with the Duke's men when it came to the climax of the campaign and so was not about to waste the lives of any of his command in a futile gesture against the English muskets.

The French advance - note the men of 95th rifles lurking in the small wood aside the road

Everything was going down the one road and in the interests of both speed and security De La Salle made sure that all his skirmishers were deployed to shield his infantry. Long experience fighting the English had taught him that usually it was not the troops you could see that were the problem - it was usually the ones that appeared from nowhere that caused the damage. Unpleasant memories of reverse slopes and sudden ear shattering volleys from cover made every obstacle, every clump of trees, every farm a potential threat so De La Salle was desperate to avoid any untoward surprises. It was with this in mind that he made sure that all his light companies were deployed to shield the main body. His cavalry operated on either flank of his main force and could be used as required - either offensively or in support of the infantry.

Speed was of the essence because if the village was unoccupied then De La Salle was confident he would be able to hold it until the main army arrived but if it was not then he would be able to deploy to cover the approaches; thereby fulfilling the letter, if not the intent of his orders.

The scene was set and as the early morning sun rose high on the horizon, bringing with it the promise of a long and balmy summer's day, so the two forces prepared for action; the weight of expectation and destiny laying heavily on the shoulders of the two commanders.

To be continued....

And then there were two....

2012-01-08T16:41:00.000Z

Two of Rusland's finest - Krasnyi Dekabrya and her sister ship

Pictured above are the models of two ships that make up the Krasnyi Dekabrya class battleship as used by Rusland in the Fezian Sea. The ships are based very heavily on the Historical KGV, Nelson and Jean Bart and the construction process I have already described so will not bore you with repeating it!

I have hit a minor snag in the building process as I have now run out of the appropriate thickness of balsa wood for use with the hulls so another trip to Model Zone during the week will be in order.

Painting will be next and of course I will also need to give some further thought to basing the models as well - and the rules I shall be using!

Meanwhile though, back in Belgium, June 1815....

Worthington Games Napoleon's War - The 100 Days

2012-01-06T20:34:00.000Z

The initial release - covering a particular favourite campaign of mine!

The game I shall be putting on over the weekend will be using my blocks on the same mapboards I fought Keder Sirt on from the Axis and Allies miniatures game. The period will be the Napoleonic Wars and the rules will be those from the board game of the title.

The system used is a variation of that designed by Richard Borg and used in his Command and Colours games including Ancients, Napoleonics, Battle Cry and Memoir 44 (not to mention Battle Lore). The biggest single difference is that command cards are not used. Instead each side has a number of Action Points (rather like DBA and similar) that are varied based on a dice roll. The dice used are also standard d6 rather than the more exotic icon dice.

These changes have the effect of making the game seem more like a war game and having played and enjoyed both systems I would say that I prefer the version without the cards but it is very much a personal opinion. The games featured in the two sets available (and the two sets of expansion map boards) are actual battles and so there is no variation in respect of the terrain available. The initial release covers the 1815 campaign whilst the second covers the usual European angle - Austerlitz, Marengo, Borodino and Aspern-Essling. the two expansions are more of the same except that expansion pack two is devoted to the war with America in 1812. the game pieces are hard plastic figures, rather like in Battle Cry and Memoir 44 and are both basic and generic (and roughly 15 to 20mm).

The game I shall fight will be a hypothetical action and, for a change, will probably feature the British and the French. The rules are suitably period specific and capture the flavour of the era as I hope my game will demonstrate.

I have even made sure that Brigadier Gerard is fully loaded up on my ebook reader - just to stoke up the Napoleonic fervour!

I may even have to watch (for the umpteenth time) Messrs. Steiger, Plummer, Hawkins et al for some real 1815 overload!

The First of the Many....(I hope!)

2012-01-06T06:09:00.000Z

I have decided that this weekend I will play a war game at some point. Of necessity it will be a solo affair in the newly tidied man cave. I say tidied because up until Tuesday the boxes used for the Christmas decorations were in plain sight (they live the rest of year tucked away from view in the eaves of the roof) but they are now stored in their customary space until next December.

I shall spend the time today pondering exactly what I shall play - I feel like trying another land action rather than naval - and when having done so will make the appropriate preparations. It may well be something removed entirely from my current interests but variety is the spice of life they say. I will try to avoid this 'dabbling' from growing into a full grown new project though and so will endeavour to keep such excursions into other periods as 'one offs'. I will of course report the action on the blog with the accompanying photos and have also decided to number the games I play in order to see haw many I manage to fit in over the year!

Needless to say I am looking forward to it!

Fezian and Rusland Armour Support....Part 2

2012-01-05T20:19:00.000Z

Mad, bad and dangerous - but to whom?!

As promised (and for the benefit of the treadheads amongst us!) above is the picture of two of the newest additions to the collection being acquired for the great Fezian Rusland war of 1935 - a T28 and a T35. I have two of each of these and they are lovely models. They certainly look impressive enough and I was somewhat taken aback by the sheer size of the T35 - it is huge!

There is a minor amount of assembly to be undertaken with these - including the rail around the top of the turret - and of course they will need a paint job in due course. At the moment I am leaning towards Rusland using T35s and BT5s whilst Fezia has T28s, T26s and Vickers light tanks.

Each side will probably have around 10 tanks which will be more than sufficient but will give me a usable variety.

Shipshape or the Shape of the Ship

2012-01-05T09:17:00.001Z

One of the things I have noticed with my shipbuilding efforts of late is the effect of having a shorter hull with scale sized superstructures and upper works. Basically it makes the ships appear beamier. I have no problem with this as they are hypothetical ships in any event but it has meant that the streamlined hull of the KGV class battleship has been replaced with something more akin to the vast bulk of HMS Nelson. Again, this is no big deal but it will have an impact on some other models I plan to build. In order to utilise as much of the available superstructures etc as possible I will have to reduce the amount I use. Taking the Bismarck as an example I am planning on removing the central section devoted to the float plane and, in effect, will concertina the forward and aft superstructure. It will become clearer when I have done this and posted the pictures of the end result on the blog.

I have also considered the overall dimensions of my planned models and have come up with 6" for modern battleships, 4 1/2" for cruisers and 3" for destroyers. These are obviously not cast in stone but are good enough to work around. I have also given some thought to the number of models I will build and that is a little more problematic. I am reckoning on around 6 capital sized ships per side and a similar number of cruisers. Add to that around a dozen escort types and you can see that the forces will be fairly impressive looking. As ever I always overbuild models simply so that I have the variety for use. Each side will have a carrier and submarines and of course, the air element will feature - both ship borne and land based.

I hope to finish the second Rusland ship this evening (at least the build thereof) and so will then be able to get the brushwork underway. I will be basing the models but at this stage am uncertain as to whether or not I should use painted card or transparent plastic. I will also have to think up names for the ships of both navies but that can wait for the time being and will probably be incorporated in the background story for each side.

Note the refreshing lack of self-imposed and usually unrealistic deadlines being mentioned for this project….;-)

How very liberating!

Fezian and Rusland Tank Support

2012-01-05T06:01:00.000Z

I arrived home today to a box of four rather nice models recently acquired via Ebay. The models are a pair of 1/87th scale Russian T35 tanks and also a pair of T28 tanks - all of which have been earmarked for the 15mm Fezian and Rusland 1930s armies. I will post a proper review later but suffice it to say these models are little beauties! The box describes them as being made by Premo in Russia and Roco in Germany and further describes them as being from a range called 'Military Vehicles of the Red Army'.

At 1/87th they are a little on the large size for 15mm but I shan't let that bother me overmuch - the models are far too good to be hidden away because of the minor scale discrepancy!

The plan is to use these in conjunction with the Art of Tactic vehicles made by Zvezda - principally the T26 and the BT5.

A Painful Choice - But The Logical One!

2012-01-03T13:33:00.003Z

'Were I to invoke logic, however, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few'

I have been very fortunate in respect of Christmas presents this year and no mistake. An unexpected present though, was an Airfix 1/600th scale model of HMS King George V. This I received yesterday with the instruction that should it not be the kit I required I could happily exchange the same (the receipt was provided for this very purpose) with no problem. As a rule I do not like to exchange presents unless I absolutely have to - usually the wrong size or such like - because of someone has gone to the trouble of buying you a gift then the least you should do is to enjoy it as such. However, in this case, and after careful consideration, I reluctantly decided to do the deed and exchange the same for something of far more immediate use.

Don't misunderstand me as I would absolutely love to make a model warship in this scale (Fletcher Pratt anyone?) but such an undertaking assumes the halcyon state of affairs whereby I have nothing else to do in the meantime which of course is usually extremely unlikely!

So I made my way to Model Zone at Holborn at lunchtime and exchanged the larger kit for a 1/1200th Duke of York and another Airfix Sink the Bismarck set (coughing up the cost shortfall) which will be a whole lot more useful in the short term. Gaming with 1/600th scale models is a very attractive idea but is a little off the wall even by my admittedly esoteric standards!

With the acquisition of extra Revell Duke of York kit the second Rusland battleship can now be completed sooner rather than later and the planned extra models using the Bismarck set are just that little bit closer to being realised.

1/600th? One day perhaps….;-)

The Four Pillars of (Wargaming) Wisdom

2012-01-02T18:49:00.002Z

"So then Lawrence, why is Zorba wearing fancy dress?"

A couple of comments I have read (one as a response to one of my posts and the other as the subject of a post on another blog) have given me much food for thought about my gaming and enjoyment of our hobby. The first was courtesy of Tim Gow and featured on his blog megablitzandmore whilst the second was comment around my Happy New Year post from Conrad Kinch - author of the blog joyandforgetfulness.

Tim made mention of how 'Blogging' is now an integral part of the enjoyment of his hobby and I must confess that I had never thought about it in that way. Sometimes the most blindingly obvious things can somehow creep under the radar and of course, Tim is absolutely right - and in my case as well. I have often said to SWMBO that my hobby is in fact a bargain as it is three hobbies for the price of one - reading, modelling and gaming being three pillars the war games whole if you like. The use of a blog is really a fourth aspect to add to the other three and so I would like to thank Tim for reminding me of this most obvious of truths! The blog is for me a valuable tool for collecting opinions, exchanging ideas and, to be honest, showing off the toys as and when I am able to - and long may it continue!

The second part concerns the New Year resolution that Mr Kinch wanted to make for me concerning getting more games in. Alas this is very true and I have been truly abysmal in this regard over the course of last year. I spent a lot of time testing rules and managed to get the odd game in at the club but that is about it. With this in mind then, I have decided that this year I will take part in at least one game a month - be it a solo game or something at the club - I really have no excuse not to and so I will not attempt to offer up any!

Now that the new man cave is up and running I shall be able to get more games in for sure and I have a lot of ideas and plans for this over the next few months.

My humble thanks to both Tim and Conrad for the observations - the points have been duly noted and the appropriate remedial action is in hand!

Rusland Battleships - The building continues but with an aerial twist

2012-01-01T20:49:00.000Z

Supermarine Walrus carried aboard numerous RN ships during WW2 and exported to Rusland in small quantities

Hopefully in the spirit of starting as I mean to go on (which will probably last until February if previous years are anything to go by!) I spent some time today on the second Rusland battleship - the sister ship to the Krasnyi Dekabrya. I have managed to complete the hull and I will be able to finish the superstructure over the next few days. I need to get another Revell Duke of York for some of the bits and pieces which I should be able to do on Tuesday with a visit to Model Zone at Holborn.

The two hulls have been sealed with PVA prior to being painted and my plan is to paint all the ship's boats and the two float planes prior to fixing to the models. I have yet to decide on the colour scheme for the float planes and whilst it seems a little strange to be worried about such a small detail there is of course a very good reason for this.

I fully intend tackling the aerial element of the 1935 Fezian - Rusland war in some fashion so I need to make sure that the aircraft camouflage is consistent. I am not overly familiar with 1930's aircraft other than how they evolved into the more usual WW2 types but I do have a very good reference on the aircraft of the Spanish Civil War which will be a good place to start.

The New Year is here....

2012-01-01T09:01:00.000Z

....and so I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my regular readers and occasional passers-by a very happy, peaceful, prosperous and above all healthy new year!

Many thanks for all your continued support and comments and here's hoping that 2012 will see all of us undertaking many new and exciting gaming related ideas and projects and more importantly (especially in my case!) actually seeing them through to completion!

Rusland Battleship Number 1: Krasnyi Dekabrya

2011-12-31T12:44:00.000Z

Krasnyi Dekabrya - the first of a class of two ships built for the Rusland navy in the Fezian Sea

Pictured above is the partially completed first model of a class of two battleships built for the Rusland navy based in the Fezian Sea. As yet she is incomplete as I shall be painting the superstructure, turrets, floatplane and ships boats whilst they are off the hull - I find it easier to paint this way. the prominent holes in the superstructure are of course where the ship's boats will be located.

Krasnyi Dekabrya - as she is at the moment!

The hull is from a piece of 5mm thick balsa wood and is topped with some ready grooved plastic card which serves very nicely as wooden decking. All the ship fittings originated from a Revell 1/1200th Duke of York battleship and the entire superstructure was built as per the kit instructions and merely had the decking trimmed away. The main turret rings were cut out and two of them placed on top of one another in order to get the super firing effect. I had to chop up the second kit for the additional turret ring and another pair of twin 5.25" DP turrets. I will need to acquire a further Revell DoY kit but this will furnish not only the remaining parts for the sister ship (Krasnyi Yanvarya) of the Krasnyi Dekabrya but also for the modernised battle cruiser: Vlast Narodu.

Krasnyi Dekabrya - viewed from the business end

Once the 'off hull' pieces have been painted (as well as the hull of course) it will merely be a case of gluing them in place on the hull. I have a number of additional hull items to add - the belt armour prominent on a KGV battleship as well as the wet weather board and possibly some capstans used for the anchors.

Paint scheme wise she will be overall light grey with light tan decking - I have yet to think about the float plane though! Her origins can be clearly seen but she is different enough to be, well, different and when the models are built and painted I shall provide a 'back story' as to how the design came about - just to add a little flavour. At the time of writing the technical details and specifications of this ship is a closely guarded state secret but no doubt D'Arcy's All the World's Warships 1936 will hopefully provide some details - certainly the Fezian Party for Unity and Progress (P.U.P) will be hoping so....;-)

The ship measures roughly just under 6" long which is about as large as I want to go for this project given that the models are being built specifically for use on my Hexon terrain tiles. The basic idea of using existing ship components on a reduced size hull in order to create something original seems to work out very nicely and so I shall enjoy the coming weeks as I churn out more models for the two navies.

And yes, I enjoyed making this model enormously!

1935 Rusland Battleships - With Varied Inspiration

2011-12-30T17:48:00.000Z

The French Battleship Jean Bart

I have finally started on the ships for the Fezian and Rusland navies for 1935 and I had forgotten just how much fun chopping plastic kits about could be!

HMS King George 5th

The first two models are the latest battleships to join the Rusland navy (latest as in most modern) and will be supported by some refitted earlier types to form a powerful squadron for use in the Fezian Sea. The ships are currently under construction but they owe a debt of inspiration to the Royal Navy KGV class as well as the Nelson and Rodney with a dash of the French Jean Bart thrown in for good measure.

HMS Nelson off Spithead

Essentially I have taken the entire central superstructure from a Revel Duke of York kit; together with the quad 14" turrets and am mounting them on a smaller hull with both turrets forward a la Nelson/Jean Bart. The rationale behind the design owes its inspiration to the very much earlier Russian Sinope class battleship - mounting three twin 12" barbettes with two of these forward. The reason for this vast amount of forward firepower was to be able to engage targets whilst attempting to force the Bosporus strait. Clearly somebody in the Rusland naval design bureau had done his research!

The Russian Battleship Sinope - note the forward pair of barbettes

As soon as these two are built I will of course post the pictures - even though they probably will not be painted just yet.

Fezia and Rusland - circa.1935

2011-12-29T17:31:00.000Z

Plastic Soldier 15mm Russian Infantry - painted far better than I could manage!

I must confess to having been particularly lethargic over the holiday period and so modelling and gaming has been virtually non-existent. I have managed to carry out some concentrated 'pottering' though the spare hours have not been entirely idle. I have spent some time thinking great thoughts about how to take both Fezia and Rusland forward to the mid 1930s and have more or less worked out what I am going to need and the shape the end result will take. Without further ado then, I will share my 'vision' and how it will be realised.

On Land

I have acquired a box of the 15mm hard plastic 'Plastic Soldier: Russian Infantry in Summer Uniform' set which contains 130 figures and is suitable for both the Rusland and Fezian infantry element. As far as I have been able to tell the Russian uniform would be fine as is and in 15mm is close enough to what a Turkish soldier was wearing at the time to make no difference. Obviously as an 'imagi-nation' it makes little difference but the historical cut seems quite similar although the Turkish army wore some strange looking leggings which replaced the WW1 era puttees. There is a box of Russian heavy weapons due next year which will doubtless furnish HMGs, mortars and possibly some AT weapons; again, this can readily be split between the two forces. Vehicles will come primarily from Zvezda from their 'Art of Tactic' range - especially the T26 and BT5, not to mention the trucks. I shall need to get some artillery (Plastic Soldier are releasing some in due course but the numbers I shall need will be very small and can probably be sourced from Irregular Miniatures if need be). I may also raid Peter Pig for some bits and pieces and the Spanish Civil War range may yield some useful items. I have sourced some Roco T28 and T35 tanks (a pair of each) and so the former will be got to Fezia (the Turks actually had two of these from Russia!) whilst the T35 will be used by Rusland. Fezia will use T26 and Vickers light tanks whilst Rusland will use BT5s and T26s.

Rusland T28 soon to be in Fezian service

At Sea

The two navies will be largely conversions from currently available 1/1200th plastic kits. Rather the fixtures and fittings will be used on scratch built balsa and plastic card hulls with a maximum size of around 7" in length. This is because I plan to use my Hexon terrain but with larger models covering two hexes. The rule implications of this are quite simple - basically I will assume that the model is only occupying the hex that the bow is in and so all movement and measurement is from there! I already have a number of models in mind including, for starters, a cut down KGV in which the super firing twin turret is removed leaving a ship with two quad turrets - one forward and one aft. The Gneisenau will also come in for some similar treatment; as will the Hood and Bismarck, not to mention the cruisers and Tribal class destroyer from the Airfix set. In effect I will be placing most of a ships superstructure on a smaller hull and then messing around with the detail to create some unique models.

That is the plan and so reaching for my trusty copy of Conway's 1922 to 1946 will be the research of choice for a few days at least!

The Russo-Fezian War of 1935

2011-12-28T19:12:00.001Z

What might have been - the bread and butter of a war game (German 'O' class battle cruiser)

I have mentioned in previous posts that I would like to tackle a couple of forces for both Fezia and Rusland (aka Russia and Turkey) for around about the mid 1930s. Plans are afoot to tackle the land element in 15mm in due course and naturally I have also considered the naval angle. The answer to the naval question has proven to be quite simple although I dare say it may appear to be something like heresy to the hard core model maker.

I plan to construct a couple of fleets based on the fixtures and fittings available from within the Airfix Sink the Bismarck set and whatever Revell models I can acquire. The emphasis is on the 'fixtures and fittings' part of the previous sentence as I will probably design the ships from the hull upwards but will make extensive use of the various turrets, boats, masts, superstructures, funnels, cranes - even catapults and floatplanes.

There are a number of reasons for this:

The ships will be unique and based on generic examples of their type
I can scale the largest types to fit easily on a pair of Hexon tiles - I am looking at a maximum hull size of around 6 to 7" - probably from Balsa or stepped plastic card.
I have other plans for the existing model hulls....;-)
It will be fun to tackle!

As far as the 'historical' North Atlantic 1941 is concerned I shall opt to make use of 1/3000th scale models - simply because I will have no problems in acquiring the models I need - rather than 1/1200th as these will be the models of choice for both Fezia and Rusland.

To Bismarck, or not to Bismarck....That is the question...

2011-12-27T19:08:00.000Z

What could any sane man possibly want with three Ark Royals/Hoods/Bismarcks?

I am somewhat on the horns of a dilemma (again!). I have all the ships I need bar a couple for the Minifigs/BMC pre dreadnought Fezian and Rusland navies - certainly more than enough to be going on with; the extra models are purely to flesh out the selection available - so am in a position to crack on with the painting forthwith. The 1/1200th WW2 collection centred around the Airfix Sink the Bismarck set needs rather more in terms of additional models to be at the same level of readiness but could be pressed into service in a limited way should the need arise.

Definitely one for the mould - as near to a bog standard pre dreadnought configuration as you are likely to get!

The problem I have is one of my my own making in that I really want to have a go at home casting some of the Minifigs ships. This is fine but of course means that I will not be able to paint the key models being used as masters until the moulds have been made and tested. I intend experimenting with this just as soon as I am able although I will need to research the process further first of all.

The WW2 set up currently consists of three copies of the aforementioned Airfix set, a pair of Revell Duke of Yorks and a pair of Gneisenaus. I have a few potential additional acquisitions in mind for this from various sources but of course this will take some time to realise. I would prefer to have the entire collection in place before starting the building and painting (I work far better this way rather than on an 'as you go' basis) so this means that at the present time I am at a little bit of an impasse in respect of which set up to pursue.

A further problem I have with the WW2 kit concerns rules - rather my own rules for the period as thus far they have not even been drafted. I have a shed load of WW2 naval rules that could be used so this really is not a problem as such although I would prefer to do my own thing if possible.

Taking all this into consideration I think that my path will look something like this:

Investigate home casting
Start making up the plastic kits (and painting them)
FINISH THE ACW MODELS!!!! - this should be first really!

Which ever way it pans out I will be in for some fun times and so the dilemma is really more along the lines of an embarrassment of riches - which is a very pleasant situation to be in when all is said and done!

Phew! That has been exhausting but fun!

2011-12-26T20:56:00.004Z

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar "El Cid"

I have had a fantastic Christmas - albeit an exhausting one. The food and drink has been plentiful and the family has been on top form despite the lingering after effects of the various coughs, colds and other seasonal maladies.

Santa has been very generous this year and so I am now the proud owner of another two sets of Airfix 1:1200th scale Sink the Bismarck kits; a copy of Warhammer Historical's Gladiator rules and a number of Blu-rays for the collection including: Das Boot, Ben Hur, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and El Cid - which is one of my all time favourite films and would also be the only reason I would ever produce an 11th century army of any description.

All I need now then is a day or so on my own with a plate of Christmas comestibles and several glasses of seasonal good cheer and I shall be set fair for wargaming nirvana....;-)

The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future....

2011-12-24T14:01:00.000Z

"God bless us, every one!"

A Christmas tradition for me is that every year I make a point of reading 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens again and as a story it never fails to get me fully in the festive spirit. The fact that I am also working in the heart of the city of London where the story is set has added to the experience this year for sure - especially as my office is located more or less on top of where I think Scrooge was located!

As it is that time again I would like to take the opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year. Feel free to choose whichever one suits your particular circumstances best of all!

I will leave the sentiment best expressed by Tiny Tim as my seasonal greeting of choice - courtesy of the Muppets amongst others....

"God bless us, every one!"

Have a great time and hopefully some quality 'toys' as well....;-)

Breaking the Mould

2011-12-22T10:21:00.003Z

Regular readers of this blog will have no doubt seen the various posts concerning the Minifigs/BMC ships I have acquired and of my continuing search for some others to complete the navies of both Fezia and Rusland. Whilst I am happy to trawl through Ebay and visit toy fairs and the like it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps it would be easier to merely drop cast the models I require. This is virgin territory for me - both from a practical and legal perspective - and so I will need to carry out some serious research into the feasibility of such an approach.

I am quite sure that since the ranges are in fact no longer available - either from Minifigs or BMC - the issue of copyright may no longer be a consideration (although I would have to check this). Commercially available mould making kits for home casting are easily obtained from any of a variety of sources and so for the numbers I envisage casting this would not be a major expense - nor would the original models used for such moulds need to be sacrificed. Of the models I own the detail is sufficiently basic that some pretty good copies could be made and now that I have some suitably generic types to play with this suddenly becomes a very attractive proposition.

I have a selection of battleships (including some dreadnoughts), cruisers and destroyers; together with a couple of submarines and a merchant ship that could be 'moulded' and I could even attempt some minor conversions that could then in turn be 'moulded'. There are a number of firms on Ebay and on the net that sell 1/1200th fixtures and fittings - including various calibres of gun turret - so the possibility of dressing up a basic home cast hull into something unique is a compelling temptation.

I also have a further avenue to consider with this as well….;-)

That Warm Fuzzy Feeling....

2011-12-21T20:12:00.000Z

"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts kid!" H.Solo Star Wars Episode 4 - A New Hope

....that only comes when you have won something ridiculously cheap on Ebay! In this case - 99p plus postage!

Pictured above is the latest addition to my Minifigs/BMC ship collection currently earmarked for the Fezian and Rusland navies. She is a BMC die cast model in need of some painting TLC and by way of identification she has B3 stamped on her stern so once again I shall have to take a dip into Conways.

I was really pleased to have acquired this and reckon that all I now need is probably another couple of models and the entire collection is good to go on the paint tray.

She will be the Fezian fleet flagship and, with the startling degree of originality I am famed for, will probably be the 'not-the-Messudiye'.

A Turkey is for life and not just for target practice, ahem, Christmas....;-)

An Unexpected and most Pleasant Surprise

2011-12-19T21:27:00.000Z

It looks like the swampy bayous may be beckoning sooner rather than later....

I spent a very pleasant couple of hours this evening in a city drinking establishment with my old friend SteelonSand (steelonsand) in which we discussed matters many and varied from a gaming and modelling perspective as well as consuming a couple of seasonal beers. I was absolutely delighted and surprised when he presented me with a very good reason to get back on the ACW river 'horse' in the shape of the book you see pictured above - courtesy of an Oxfam Book Shop.

The book as an academic account of the background to the operations carried out by the Union on a combined arms basis. The book tackles the thorny subject of the political angle as well how the various plans evolved and the obstacles that routinely needed to be overcome (occasionally this involved the Confederate forces - usually it was the inter-departmental wrangling!). There are several useful maps and so this provides a very useful backdrop to my existing ACW library and also serves as a welcome reminder about the completion of all my outstanding models!

I would like to extend a very big thank you to SoS for this book and I am quite sure it will help enormously with my planned river based adventures.

Once the models are finished of course....;-)

Busy doing nothing....

2011-12-19T05:47:00.000Z

The title says it all really! It has been a furiously busy few days on the domestic front - primarily centred around Holly, my daughter and her 16th birthday (and what a great day it was although I am still struggling to come to terms with the fact that she is 16 - the years have shot by at an alarming rate!) and the attendant celebrations - plus of course, Christmas. It has left me with little time for anything gaming related other than to fine tune an idea I have been flirting with for some time - more of which later.

You may be forgiven for thinking that it is probably naval related but of course, I couldn't possibly comment....

The Case of the 'Early Turret Battleship'

2011-12-14T06:13:00.000Z

Number 13 Early Turret Battleship - I don't think so....

You may recall my recent post about the ships I shall be using for the navies of both Fezia and Rusland. These are the famed Minifigs ships with a couple of BMC originals thrown into the mix for good measure. The two mysterious pre dreadnought battleships have been tentatively identified as a pair of Swiftsure class (I say tentatively as they missing the very prominent midships cranes the class had - which does throw their parentage somewhat into doubt. My thanks once again to Steve Cady of Castles of Tin for the clarification) but I was at a loss to identify the three models listed as 'No.13 Early Turret Battleship'.

Highflyer Class - Suspect number 1

Arrogant Class - Suspect number 2

I had a good rummage through Conways last night (1860 to 1905) and as far as I am able to tell the models are closest to either an Arrogant or Highflyer class of protected cruiser. the biggest problem they have is that they have a turret fore and aft which neither class has. This may have been a Minifigs design feature (?) as from a side profile they look as though the guns and shields are in fact in the form of a turret. Minifigs had 'form' in getting aspects wrong on their naval models - for example, model number 11 - the Invincible class battle cruiser - has all the turrets along the centre line rather than 'winged'. Again if working exclusively from a side profile then this would be an obvious mistake to make.

For Fezia and Rusland then (actually Fezia) these models will be classed as protected cruisers and are of suitably indeterminate origin to not be an issue.

The past couple of days have seen me feeling less than energetic in respect of anything remotely gaming related due to a rotten cold/throat/chest infection and so pottering about with a copy of Conways has been about as good as it gets.

A Swift, Sure Triumph....

2011-12-12T21:18:00.000Z

A Swiftsure class battleship in what looks like a very fetching Victorian livery

With grateful thanks to Steve Cady (of Castles of Tin fame) the mystery of the two unidentified pre dreadnoughts has been solved. They are the two ships of the Swiftsure class second class battleships Swiftsure class battleship.

The Die Cast BMC models of the two Swiftsure class battleships

I must confess that I have always had a soft spot for these ships - probably because I am a sucker for non standard designs - so I am pleased to have them for use in the Fezian navy. I have slightly modified the overall approach that Fezia has taken towards her navy and so they now tend towards speed and lightness of armour and gunfire.

I am intentionally making the two fleets as different as possible in terms of capability so that the resultant actions will be tactically challenging. Having two equal forces of ships lined up against one another is not hugely exciting in my experience so 'mixing it up' means that the two sides have different things to consider from a gaming perspective - especially the firepower, speed and the protection of the opposing combatants.

Guns and Noses

2011-12-12T05:48:00.001Z

With Christmas two weeks away and my daughter having her 16th birthday this week (lord alone knows where the years have gone!) it was a pretty busy weekend; darting hither and thither on various errands. As a result very little gaming related activity was undertaken other than swinging past Chris Hardman's house yesterday to collect the 'missing' Russian artillery for the Russo Turkish War collection. The Russians now have 9 guns and crews as well as a further 200 infantry and a couple of dozen Cossacks. I made a start on sorting the entire mountain of metal and now have a much clearer idea of what shape the final set up will take - and what will be disposed of in due course as the collection is way in excess of what I would be ever likely to need!

Whilst I was on my visit Chris very kindly showed me a box of the 15mm Plastic WW2 Russian and German infantry he has produced by theplasticsoldiercompany - and very nice they look as well. I was particularly interested in the Russians as I am considering using them as the basis for my 1935-40 Fezian and Rusland armies when I eventually get around to them. The box contains 130 figures and as long as you are not too fussy could be used for either side with a different paint job. A box of support weapons is due out at some point and they also produce some vehicles to go with the figures although are a little later than I would like. Having said that the Zvezda Art of Tactic 15mm models would suit admirably.

The reference to noses in the title of this post is due to the fact I have succumbed to a wretched cold and so the said part of my anatomy is rather resembling that of a certain seasonal reindeer that was not allowed to join in any reindeer games....;-)

The throat is worse though and as a contractor if I don't go into work then I don't get paid and so I am feeling particularly downhearted and unseasonable....Bah Humbug etc!

1877 Russian Artillery Breakthrough

2011-12-09T16:37:00.003Z

I had a hunch that the 'missing' Russian artillery was still lurking around simply because knowing Mr. Hardman as I do it would have inconceivable he would not have acquired the appropriate material whilst building up the Russo Turkish War collection. His attention to detail in these matters is legendary and completeness in all things is his usual modus operandi. I was right albeit for the wrong reason though! My theory that he had used the models for something else was incorrect as I received an email from him this morning detailing the fact that a further bag of 'stuff' including the said artillery had somehow missed being added to the already large bag of models I was presented with on Wednesday. It weighs two and half pounds so that is either an awful lot of artillery or a truck load of further reinforcements.

I may have to revise the number of models in the collection somewhat….;-)

Thinking a long way ahead I have pondered on how best to organise this little lot and have settled on using Charge! as the model for the unit compositions - as I have done so for the 1890s set up. Three 'companies' of sixteen rank and file each and a couple of supernumeraries seems a very practical set up for the infantry with 24 figure cavalry regiments and gun batteries of two models and crews. Everything will be based individually which means that I will have the flexibility to use the figures for various rule sets without worrying about rebasing. I will make some movement trays in any event for speed of movement on the table top.

Mention of Charge! may raise a few eyebrows given that the rules of the same name were originally focused on the wars in the latter part of the 18th century. As I recall the authors did point out that they could be extended forwards and backwards in time so tweaking them to include the effects of later shoulder arms and artillery would not be impossible - in fact I am sure I have seen later Victorian era adaptation of Charge! somewhere. One for the future methinks but for the moment my plan is to use the Portable Wargame (Colonial) or possibly Memoir of Battle, depending on how the mood takes me.

The Russo Turkish War of 1877 and an Act of Incredible Generosity....Part 2

2011-12-09T06:09:00.000Z

Storming the Grivitsa Redoubt

Yesterday evening was very much one of sorting out 'stuff'. Aside from the Minifigs ships (which probably took me longer to photograph and write about than actually getting them down from the loft!) I also made a start on sorting out the Russo Turkish War of 1877 figure collection I recently acquired courtesy of Chris Hardman.

Without going into finite detail there is near on 800 foot figures and around 200 mounted with 10 guns and crews! Now that is a collection and a half and no mistake. The only area I need to buy anything for is Russian artillery as mysteriously there are only two guns and crews for them whilst there are eight for the Turks. Everything else is there though and in droves! Luckily Lancashire Games (lancashiregames) carry a small range of models for this period and I have already approached them with a number of questions around the models they produce so this shortfall will be speedily addressed. I had a back up plan for this in any event because the uniforms of Russian gun crews of the period are very similar in cut to that of a well dressed ACW Union artilleryman (except they wore boots) so these could have been press ganged in if needed.

Realistically there is no way on God's green earth I will paint the entire collection but there is more than enough models for me to organise it for my own use in any way I choose. At the moment I am leaning towards a Charge! style organisation of 48 figure infantry regiments (perhaps two or three a side) plus command as this would fit in nicely with my gaming aspirations for the period. I will have plenty of time to decide though as the 'fictional' 1890 collection will come first. In the interim I will acquire the additional models I need though so that I know I will have everything to hand I need for when I do start.

....And yes Tim, it will probably be over several winters....;-)

The Navies of Fezia and Rusland....Part 3

2011-12-08T22:17:00.000Z

BMC on the left and Minifigs on the right

I had the opportunity this evening to go through my collection of Minifigs ships and the three BMC models I recently acquired and made a surprising discovery. I actually own a Minifigs and a BMC model of the same ship! It absolutely confirms what I suspected that the Minifigs models were, ahem, inspired by the BMC versions. The model in question I will leave you to spot but suffice it to say it is a very late pre dreadnought!

Two more BMC battleships - I have yet to identify the ships they represent

I have more than sufficient for the two fleets although I would have preferred a couple more battleships - if needs be I can always scratch build them - and so I will keep a weather eye open on Ebay or even at my local toy and train fair.

These I am not sure about - according to the Minifigs list these are early turret battleships

I have yet to assign the ships to their respective fleets and so I will give this some thought over the weekend after having had a look through Conway's 1860 to 1905 which will come in very useful methinks!

A selection of Armoured Cruisers

Some more Armoured Cruisers

A pair of modern Light Cruisers

I have a number of cruisers and a good selection of torpedo boats/destroyers so these areas will be well represented which is handy as both nations make much use of smaller ships in their operations around the Fezian Sea.

The rest of the collection

I also have a few submarines and a solitary merchantman that will doubtless see service as a Rusland mine layer or an auxiliary of some kind.

I have settled on the traditional Victorian livery for the paint job rather than the wartime grey - simply because it looks a whole better!

The Navies of Fezia and Rusland... Part 2

2011-12-08T13:39:00.003Z

Whereas the Rusland navy is a compact and modern force; ideally suited to operations within its geographical location the same cannot be said of the Fezian equivalent. It is certainly larger than that of Rusland but quantity does not necessarily mean quality. Fezia has a long naval tradition but has found the transition to steam from sail a difficult one. Her heavy industry is very much in its infancy and so most of her fleet units have been sourced from overseas. There is little homogeneity about the fleet and so it is quite usual to have squadrons made up of ships of varying ages and capabilities. This obviously has a cumulative effect on efficiency and it a maintenance and logistical nightmare. As a rule, new ships tend to be very efficient when first acquired but soon deteriorate through overuse and inadequate servicing. With the normally parlous state of the Fezian treasury being a major factor in the maintenance of the fleet the usual practise is to update and refit older ships rather than building new ones unless absolutely essential. This means that at any given point the Fezian navy could be using brand new vessels alongside much older types. This all sounds incredibly chaotic but in reality it works rather better than would be imagined. Invariably Fezia can deploy more ships than her most likely opponents and in a bewildering variety. As a rough rule of thumb the Fezian navy is routinely rotated between the Fezian and the Middle Sea via the all important straits of Istantinople and usually the most modern elements of the fleet are deployed against the most iminent threat.

The ships themselves are very much a mix of the old and the new and without a doubt the most effective part is invariably the cruising forces. These routinely travel the length and breadth of the Fezian empire (at least those parts reachable by sea) and are often used for flag showing or reminding rebellious subjects where the real power lies. The light forces are also effective simply because they are the easiest to maintain and so are more readily available than their larger contemporaries. It is very common to see a Fezian cruiser with an escort of torpedo boats deploying troops for raiding purposes and this is an area they excel in - that of combined operations, principally raiding. Fezians are fond of either very large or very small artillery and so their ships tend to extremes in terms of guns mounted. Battleships tend to very poorly served in respect of quick firing artillery and so most Fezian torpedo boats tend to have more guns than torpedoes in order to successfully engage more torpedo conscious opponents and to offset their own battleships weakness in this area. As a rule Fezian ships are quite large for their type but tend to encourage speed and range over protection.

It can be seen then that the navies of Rusland and Fezia are quite different in terms of ships used and tactical and strategic employment. This makes for a potentially interesting situation where the two protagonists display such varied and opposed capabilities. The scales are finely balanced with neither side having an overall advantage and certainly from the perspective of the Rusland forces the onus is on them to impose their presence on the Fezian Sea. All the Fezian navy needs to do is to ensure its survival and to maximise and maintain the advantage it enjoys in numbers.

The Navies of Fezia and Rusland... Part 1

2011-12-08T12:10:00.003Z

One of the great attractions of running an 'imagi-nation' is being able to create a background to the events played out on the table top in as much or as little detail as required. I personally enjoy this facet very much as it means I can give free rein to my creativity and this am able to breath 'life' into the events depicted. I fully intend to expand on the background I have started upon with the events leading up to the battle of Keder Sirt in due course but for the moment I need to apply something similar to the naval forces in use by both nations. In part this will be dictated by the models I shall be using (that is the famous Minifigs/BMC ships) but the main thrust of what I am considering is how and why the ships in use came about. Let me expand my thinking.

The navy of Rusland facing that of Fezia is a largely self contained force because the geographical location (on the coast of 'not the Black Sea') it enjoys places a number of design implications upon the ships in use. Fezia possesses a number of very good naval bases and has a thriving ship building capacity, albeit of a relatively recent introduction. The geographical conditions under which the fleet usually operates means that, as a rule, the ships do not need to be long ranged (the only way out of the 'not the Black Sea' is via the straits controlled by Fezia) and so as a result of this most Rusland vessels above torpedo boat size tend to be smaller than their Fezian counterparts. As they are usually smaller than the equivalent Fezian type they do not need a massive coal bunker capacity, thus saving space. This also means that the required crews tend to be smaller than the equivalent Fezian type so that accomodation for them can also be reduced. In fact most Rusland crews tend to be quartered offshore in barracks rather than shipboard. Smaller vessels tend to be handier and this is an important factor when being used, as the fleet often is, for inshore work. With the emphasise on inshore work it generally means that Rusland ships tend to be heavily armoured for their type (as protection from close in shore based fire - something the Fezians are very adept at) and mount a significant amount of artillery, generally of lighter calibres as volume of fire tends to be preferred over weight.

An area in which Rusland excels to almost universal acclaim is in the construction and use of light ships, principally torpedo boats. These are of avearge size but are heavy on torpedoes - usually at the expense of guns - and are normally fast. Rusland is also very enthusiastic concening the laying of both defensive and offensive minefields and has converted several merchant ships into minelayers as well constructing a number of purpose built vessels. Most cruisers are also readily converted into minelayers if required.

To sum the Rusland navy up then, it can be seen that for the most part its major fleet units tend to be newer than their Fezian contemporaries; better armoured but slightly underarmed. They are relatively short ranged but within the the confines of their usual area of operations this is by no means a handicap. Their light units are modern and effective and with their torpedo capability form a useful support to the battle line and a serious threat to their enemies. By far the biggest advantage though is that the Rusland navy has both designed and built their ships to suit the environment in which they will be deployed rather than having to compromise due to many different and often conflicting obligations. It is a force not to be underestimated.

Part 2 of this post will look at the problems and the solutions to those problems adopted by the Fezian navy.

The Russo Turkish War of 1877 and an Act of Incredible Generosity

2011-12-08T06:18:00.000Z

1877 Turkish infantry advancing

I am writing this post whilst still recovering from what can only be described as an overwhelming act of generosity. Most wargamers in my experience invariably acquire more in their collections than can be readily translated into armies or navies to use on the table top - the dreaded 'lead mountain' of much humour and banter. Even the most disciplined among us have fallen foul of this magpie-like tendency to acquire more 'kit' than can be realistically made use of at some point and the usual end result is the ignominious offloading of the same at the next available Bring and Buy or sold at a hefty discount to gaming acquaintances or even via Ebay. I have happily acted as both benefactor and beneficiary over the years and fully expect this to continue as my own particular Wargaming Odyssey meanders ever onwards.

Yesterday evening I was in the role of beneficiary (and benefactor to be completely accurate) and I am still staggered by that which I had received. The sheer scale of my unbelievable good fortune has left me, rather unusually, somewhat at a loss for words.

My very good and long term friend and occasional wargaming nemesis, Chris Hardman, has passed over to me his unpainted 15mm collection of Pioneer Miniatures 1877 Russo Turkish War armies he acquired umpteen years ago and that have lain forlornly in his garage ever since. There are figures for both armies and when I say that the weight of the carrier bag full of metal he gave me weighed a shade over nine pounds you will perhaps have an idea of just how much kit we are talking about. I have not even begun to start sorting this lot out and aside from a quick glance in the bag have yet to see what is there other than to know that there is more than sufficient to keep me occupied for some time to come and then some!

This extraordinarily generous gift has given me the opportunity to tackle a 19th century campaign that is a little off the mainstream of the more usual American Civil/Franco Prussian/Colonial set up (not that I have anything against any of those!) and that for me personally is in an area of particular interest. I am two thirds of the way through reading Czar and Sultan by Archibald Forbes and so the timing of this early Christmas present could not be better if I had planned it myself!

It has given me much food for thought and so here is the (revised) plan. I shall build up the armies for 1877 on an historical basis and will tackle the naval side in the same way - possibly using Houstons ships or, more likely, scratch building the models. The respective armies I an tackling for 1890 will double as those of Fezia and Rusland and the Minifigs ships will provide the naval element. I will scope out the details fully over the weekend but as it stands at present the only completely fictional aspect of the whole 1890 imagi-nation will be the navies.

In closing I would like say an enormous thank you to Chris for this act of generosity - I am most certainly in his debt in a big way!

A Cost and Time Effective Solution? - Perhaps!

2011-12-07T11:35:00.002Z

It suddenly occurred to me whilst I was busy considering the naval aspects of 1890 for Fezia and Rusland that once again I had overlooked a ready made source of models I could use for the respective navies. I should point out that I would have no problem making the models that I needed based on historical Turkish and Russian types for 1890 and indeed, I have been looking forward to doing so but in the interests of both saving time and reducing the lead mountain (in my case probably more of a small hill!) it makes more sense for me to make use of what is already to hand. The ready made source to which I am referring to is of course, the Minifigs ships I own. Now these are ideal for use in an 'old school' way (they are very basic models from a detail perspective) but I am limited in terms of both the numbers available and the types I have. They are all slightly later ships (probably 1895 plus) as well but for imagi-nation purposes that is not too much of an issue. I will give this some careful consideration as I also have some of the dreadnought types for the range but would be disinclined to have two paint schemes on the go - standard pre dreadnought black, white and buff or wartime overall grey. It will mean that should I 'pre dread' the models in the earlier livery then the dreadnoughts will be largely redundant for the time being
Each side would have a few battleships and cruisers and a selection of torpedo boats which would more than sufficient for the forces envisaged. Using slightly later period ships means that I can use the 1890 to 1920 rules straight off the bat which will again be a big time saver. The models will also fit very nicely on the Hexon tiles. Ideally I would like to get a pair of 'standard' pre dreadnoughts and so will look to see what Ebay has on the go. The building project for the historical Russian and Turkish fleets has not been abandoned as such by any means. I intend tackling the same but for slightly further back - to 1877 in fact. The reasons for this minor deviation from the plan (Plan? What plan? I hear you say) will become obvious in due course - hopefully this evening for me and then to feature on the blog tomorrow for general consumption.
The plot will thicken, as plots tend to do….;-)

"A Date which will live in Infamy" - December 7, 1941

2011-12-07T06:19:00.000Z

70 years ago today Japan launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbour, thereby ensuring that the United States were irrevocably drawn into World War 2.

Pearl Harbor

A big anniversary and a big reminder that sacrifice knows no international boundary.

At Long Last....

2011-12-07T05:57:00.000Z

Mine, all mine....MWAHH, HAA, HAA HAAAA!!!!!

Finally, after an epic journey (as a result of usual my usual inexplicably delayed execution of intent!) my first copy of the Airfix Sink the Bismarck set arrived yesterday morning, courtesy of Ebay.

I cannot begin to tell you just how pleased I am to have this (and the knowledge that, ahem, Santa will be adding to the fun come 25/12!) and the central planning office (i.e. my head!) has been on overdrive ever since! In truth I was hard pressed not to just get out the modelling tray and start on them there and then but luckily sanity prevailed and so I was able to restrain myself and so the box, after a quick examination (and noted that some of the smaller gun turrets have some skewed gun barrels....) the box was consigned to the naval section of my storage where the KGVs and the Gneisenaus awaited them.

The first thing that struck me though, seeing all the sprues of pieces, was how much material there is for that would be of much use in other models....;-)

Archibald Forbes and the War of 1877

2011-12-06T06:03:00.000Z

The man himself - from a caricature in Vanity Fair

I am currently reading, via my ebook reader, Czar and Sultan by Archibald Forbes. It is an account of the Russo Turkish War of 1877 and is a cracking read. Aside from the enthralling story (I will not give anything away as you can download the same for free) it is a subject of much personal interest and with many ideas I shall incorporate into the ongoing saga of Fezia and Rusland. A brief overview of the life of this fascinating gentlemen can be found here Archibald Forbes and he certainly 'got around' in his role as a War Correspondent. During 1877 he covered the war from the Russian side and was present at most of the major actions. The book is available to download at czarsultan and it comes with my most definite recommendation!

Archibald Forbes and a random selection of Eastern European types

Reading this book has made me realise just what a boon having an electronic reader is (mine is the Sony PRS 600) as many books that would be hard to get hold of in paper form can be obtained, with a little digging, via the net. Don't misunderstand me - it will never replace the sheer delight in buying and reading a good book (and as students of military/naval history we all read a lot of books about our chosen interest) but from a convenience perspective and for the ability to be able to access those hard to find titles it is a blessing.

Towards 2012 - Now that the Cataclysm has been averted....

2011-12-05T11:47:00.003Z

I had a very lazy weekend. After a busy few days at work; coupled with some inevitable train dramas it meant that I was in need of some 'r and r' and so this weekend was 'it'. No painting, no modelling, no gaming - just allowing my thoughts to wander and taking care of a few PC related issues. I had a minor problem with my Ebook reader in that rather foolishly I had tidied up the downloaded files on my PC and had not considered the impact on my reader. I charged it up and suddenly had gone from 120 to 5 books! Sorting out the resultant chaos was easy enough but it took a while to do so - mainly because I took the opportunity to tidy up the said download files on my PC. One thing I did do though was to download the manual onto the reader for future reference.

I must confess to being somewhat behind the technological curve in terms of technical ability and so the exercise probably took me longer than it should have done but I was pleased that my back up enabled me to restore the reader to its former glory - and with some extras!
Whilst waiting for the various screen prompts I gave some thought to the 'plan' for next year on the gaming front; as well as reviewing the events of this year. Next year is surprisingly modest in terms of what I plan to tackle. On the ship front I will have the scratch built 1890 Turkish and Russian fleets to do (as soon as the remaining ACW models are completed) followed by the 1/1200th WW2 North Atlantic kit. I have a pair of 1/3000th items to consider - the U-boat convoy game and the Spanish Civil War; both of which I have the models for.

I will get the two 'toy soldier' 15mm 1890 armies finished and then would look to tackle something for Fezia and Rusland on a 1930s basis. Any other 'land' stuff will of course be using my block armies and these can be used as and when the whim takes me. Regular readers of the blog will no doubt remember that I had expressed an interest and intent in gaming Operation Barbarossa in some fashion but I am now unsure that this will take place. The 1930s war between Fezia and Rusland will take precedence and will provide sufficient mechanical interest! Incidentally, the 1930s armies will of course be organised with the Portable War game in mind and naturally with some mini campaign applications thrown in for good measure.

The first task will be to finish the ACW ships and ideally I would like to have this done by the end of the year. It is 'doable' but I need to start 'doing' rather than just thinking about it!

Overall I am fairly satisfied with the way this year has gone in terms of gaming achievements. The 1890 to 1920 naval rules have at last got to the shape I want and the block armies in conjunction with 3d terrain has been a revelation. As a concept for use with other applications; both of historical period or land or sea (or even air) based it has much to commend it. Best of all though is the potential for my new den - a potential I am only just beginning to make use of.

Isn't there a Chinese proverb along the lines of 'May you live in interesting times.'?

I certainly hope so!

1:1200th and WW2 Naval Wargames

2011-12-04T13:28:00.001Z

So close I can almost taste it....

Ok, I know that these models are hugely oversized for most gaming needs - especially if you are using a table top - but the attraction of making up some plastic models in this scale is one that I would not be able to resist; and nor have I!

You may recall my abortive attempt to acquire half a dozen sets of the newly re released Airfix: Sink the Bismarck set of models. Well, I happen to know that Santa has a couple of copies of this for me come on 25/12 and I have also just scored a further set via Ebay. I have also picked up a couple of Revell Duke of Yorks and a pair of Gneisenaus for good measure.

I have been looking at what else is available in this scale from a metals perspective and I was quite surprised to see that there is a reasonable amount of kit available - certainly sufficient for what I want - although most of which will need to come from the US which makes it a little more on the expensive side. The numbers I will need will be fairly low in any event so the proportional cost will not be excessive.

I am hugely tempted to use these models as the basis for the Fezian and Rusland fleets circa 1935 to 1940 to support the land based armies for that period when I eventually get around to them. The only problem is that they are so distinctive looking - the Bismarck looks like, well the Bismarck - that it would be difficult to visualise them as anything else without some fairly fairly radical chopping about. I am happy to undertake that if need be (indeed I have a number of ideas along those lines) but it then becomes a more substantial exercise than merely assembling and painting the models.

I will need to give this some thought in due course but to be honest I am leaning towards a WW2 North Atlantic type set up initially; mainly because this is a long standing interest of mine and I would really enjoy the model making aspect of the exercise. The rules would need some careful thought as for fewer ships my usual fast play approach (or at least the, as I term it, 'bag you're dead!' mechanics) would not be appropriate as the actions will be almost at skirmish level. Strategically it would of course be a different story.

One for the new year then, after many other things have been attended to!

1860 to 1890 Naval Ramming

2011-12-02T06:18:00.000Z

The Italian Ironclad Ram Affondatore - sunk as a result of damage received at the Battle of Lissa in 1866, she was re-floated and repaired and served the Italian navy for another 40 years!

Unsurprisingly the Ram attack has caused me a number of minor headaches in respect of how to undertake it within a war game. I have the bare bones of how it should work and intend incorporating it in the Close Range Attack phase of the rules rather than more commonly within the movement phase. This will save incremental or sequential movement which can slow things up considerably - especially when there is a lot of such attacks under consideration. As a fudge this will also include spar torpedo attacks as essentially in order to attack they have to 'ram' a vessel.

The basic idea I have is that a player declares his Close Range Attack as normal and so the target is now faced with three options. It can respond with its own Close Range Attack (this is primarily when facing off attacking destroyer/torpedo boats in the 1890 to 1920 set but is the same in principle for the earlier period) and so the combat proceeds as normal. It can ignore the attack - typically to ensure that it can fire in the subsequent gunnery phase. Finally, the new choice is to Evade and this is specifically for use against a ram or early spar torpedo based attack.

I have a process worked out for this that needs a little road testing but the gist of it is that attacking ram needs to roll a d6 and score higher than his target's speed to make an attack. The target must also roll a d6 needing to score higher than the attackers speed to evade. If both are successful then the ram attack damage is calculated at half its normal rate to represent a glancing blow against the target. If the attacker passes and the target fails the evasion roll the the attack is at full effect. If both fail then the attack does not happen at all; similarly if the target passes and the attacker fails then that is also a failed attack.

Using this simple technique means that a fast ram is more likely to catch a slow opponent. The evasion roll represents each side lining up to attack or dodge the blow or to minimise the impact where possible. The resolution of the blow itself will be the same as for a conventional Close Range Attack so the mechanics are nicely aligned.

It looks very much like the rules will be easy enough to put together - ship specifications will be far more problematic although the 1860 to 1905 Conways will be absolutely essential for this part!

Delayed trains, the Spanish Civil War and Naval Warfare 1860 to 1890

2011-12-01T06:20:00.000Z

Scratch built ACW Confederate Ironclads - prior to basing and hoping to inspire the builder to finish the remaining 32 models!

After a disastrous train journey home last night due to an unfortunate fatality on the line (I was going to be a little late in any event due to a job interview) I was not able to tackle very much at all by the time I had had my dinner and relaxed after the rigours of the day.

Luckily the train was only half full so I had plenty of space to sit in and room to think. During the extra 90 minutes of my journey I managed to finish the book I have been reading (Heroic Voices of the Spanish Civil War - Memories of the International Brigades) and to get some preliminary thoughts down on paper for the 1860 to 1890 variant of the Portable Naval War Game.

The basic approach and mechanics of the rules will be identical to the 1890 to 1920 version. The number of generic ship types will be increased to incorporate two additional types - gunboats and a category I am calling Improvised Warships. This will cover a very wide range of ship sizes, protection levels and weapons carried and is designed primarily with the ACW in mind. Guns will be split into rifles and smooth bore artillery and I will need to consider firing arcs in far more detail than previously. I have some plans for this that are very simple and made even more so by the use of a hexed playing surface (I knew there was a good reason for buying the Hexon tiles!). I will also need to make provision for the use of the ram attack and again, have partially addressed that as well. I am reasonably confident that the 1890 to 1920 rules can be taken back in time to cover the earlier period but I need to ensure that the flavour of the times is captured so that the resultant game is not just an afterthought (technically I suppose it is but the intention is that it is not if you see what I mean!).

All in all then, the proposed earlier variant of the Portable Naval War Game seems to be a lot less work than I originally envisaged although I dare say that statement will come back to haunt me in due course. The first play test will feature the ACW river collection which will be receiving some urgent attention over the coming weeks - hopefully to finished by the end of the year.

Fezia and Rusland, The Balkan Wars and that Groundhog Day Moment....

2011-11-30T06:04:00.000Z

That Groundhog Day moment - Where did I put that Irregular Miniatures catalogue?

The Rusland, sorry Russian Army of 1890

One day I will learn to make up my mind and stick with it. To be fair I am probably not as bad as I was in my early years but I still have the capacity to occasionally swing wildly between ideas. The sole redeeming feature of this is that the number of hobby related financial disasters has diminished somewhat over the course of time or perhaps I now have a more realistic appraisal of what is viable and what is less so in monetary terms.

I am not going to use the Perry Plastics for my Fezian and Rusland armies. There, I've said it. I will use them for that which they were intended - i.e. a long term 28mm plastic ACW project - in due course but for a variety of reasons I shall have to abandon my original plan.

The alternative is so blindingly obvious I am still wondering how on earth I managed to completely overlook it. I am going to use the Irregular Miniatures 15mm Balkan War Turkish and Bulgarian armies I have. If you recall I acquired these more of less when they were first released (see the following: Irregular Miniatures Balkan war) TWO YEARS AGO (oh the shame!) but never really did anything with them - other than to discover that the Bulgarian infantryman was in fact wearing the earlier uniform (earlier than 1912 that is) and so was not really suitable. It could have been mixed with figures correctly attired except for the fact that Irregular did make them and so they were consigned to the cupboard and were going to be ignominiously disposed of. However, by dint of some casual research I was able to discover that the Russian army of 1890 was dressed more or less identically to the offending Bulgarian and so I thought - why not? This means then the the Bulgarian Balkan Wars army will in fact be painted as Russian (in 15mm the uniform differences are easily addressed with some painting - the woollen leggings used by many Bulgarians can easily be painted as black boots). In effect then, I will have a pair of historical armies being used as 'imagi-nations.

There are a number of reasons why this is a no-brainer.

To finish the 15mm armies will cost less than £20 - the projected Perry based set up is nearer £200
All of my terrain is better suited to 15mm than 28mm
I can paint the figures in a very simple 'old toy soldier' with a clear conscience
The Irregular Miniatures Balkan Wars range is very extensive and so I can get everything I need from one place and easily.

The figures will be organised as per the Charge! based set up I had planned for the 28mms and they will based individually. I have a number of reasons for this but rules versatility is the most compelling.

Besides, I have two unopened tins of the old Humbrol Autheticolour Rifle Green and it would be a shame not to use them!

The Portable Naval War Game - Done and Dusted (for now)

2011-11-29T11:05:00.002Z

I have finally finished the Portable Naval War Game Rules. I have tweaked them to within an inch of their life and aside from any grammatical howlers or minor correction/clarification I do not envisage any other changes being needed. The core system will need a couple of additions in due course - the 1860 to 1890 period, 1920 to 1945 (with air operations) and, of immediate need, a campaign map move system. To begin with I shall look at a mini operational level campaign (more accurately scenario) which will simply use plotted map moves at the standard table speeds with the action being transferred to the table when in visual range. Overall the tactical rules should be seen very much as a work in progress and as soon as I have worked out how to upload them for anybody that wishes to use them I will do so. The rules make use of generic ship types but I have included a section describing how the specifications can be tailored for specific types if required - and yes, I have done that for my own model fleets! As a long time naval gamer rivet counting habits die hard….;-)
I should point out that unless one is using 1/6000th scale models or Great War at Sea counters the game is hardly 'Portable'. However, I hope that the concepts contained therein are true to the spirit of the original idea, even if they do require a reasonable amount of space to use!
The rules will now be put to one side as my focus shifts back to the ACW river fleets. Repairs and painting will be taking centre stage with the last 32 models requiring completion. As mentioned previously, I will also look to play a couple of ACW games using the blocks in conjunction with the scenarios from Battle Cry which will be an interesting experience. Or I may even use the models from Battle Cry on a 3d terrain, just to see how it looks.

Turkish Armed Forces 1925 to 1945 Part 1....Turkish Armour

2011-11-29T06:15:00.000Z

Czech built Praga TH

I had a little trawl across the net and found a few things out about the Turkish armed forces from the 1920s to the end of WW2, mainly concerned with the vehicles used by the army. The first tanks used by the Turks was the famous Renault FT17 during the late 1920s. They later made use of the French R35 in 1940 but between times gained numbers of Vickers Light Tank Vlb and the Russian T26. The Russian also supplied some BT2, T27, T28 (only two of these) and some armoured cars - BA3s and BA6s.

The T26s were taken out of service in 1942 and were replaced in 1943 with 56 German 50mm L60 armed Panzer lll at Hitler's request. They then received some Panzer lV as well - the idea being that Hitler was trying to convince Turkey that attacking the Russians would be a good idea.

From a transport perspective I assume that an assortment of lorries from various sources would be used but also the Turks made much use of a rather interesting Czech built vehicle - the CKD Praga TH. Turkey also made use of the Praga TH6 and 7 (in fact they acquired the entire production run of these two vehicles - just over a 100 of them) and the Praga T9 (also used by the Germans).

Czech built Praga TH6/7 - a poor photo but you can make out a rather fetching camouflage scheme

Czech built Praga TH7/8 - again, a poor photo but you can (just about) make out a rather fetching camouflage scheme

Czech built Praga T9 - the last of the group (and the largest)

I have absolutely no idea if anybody makes these in any scale at all so they would be a challenge and no mistake. Having said that, finding a suitable tracked chassis and adding a truck body should be fairly easy to undertake should I need to.

Not for a while though....;-)

Fezia and Rusland - 50 years on from 1890

2011-11-28T11:42:00.002Z

One of the big advantages of an 'imagi-nation' is of course that you can do pretty much anything with it. As these two worthies, Fezia and Rusland, are modelled on Turkey and Russia I have spent a little time looking at the military history of each and seeing where my 'imagi-nation' would take me. I have already pencilled in the 18th century as a (very) long term idea but have also been looking at the 1930 to WW2 era. Of course Turkey was neutral during WW2 and Russia had her hands full against the Germans but what about the situation around the Black Sea in WW1? Now that is an interesting area of operations and has graced my table top on many occasions, at least from the naval perspective that is.

As a moment of whimsy though, what about using 1930s/40s kit around the Black Sea but with the military situation akin to that of WW1? Unsurprisingly I came to this from the naval perspective first of all. I have a number of ideas in mind for trying this (and certainly I would be able to game the land side using the blocks if need be) using a real mish mash of ships. The Fezian navy would be far stronger than its historical counterpart and, in true Fezian tradition will have some examples of state of the art ships operating alongside some real antiques.
The land side would of course feature vehicles and so making use of some early war tanks would be fine and will give me a chance to knock up some vehicles for a change. Again, it would be a low intensity set up designed around the Portable War Game concept.

This is very much an idea for the future and as such is not yet even on the back burner but it is something I would like to tackle at some point. The Russian army of the period is pretty well covered in terms of information and models etc but I have yet to find out anything about the Turkish army so some trawling of the net will be called for as a starting point.

Thinking Deep Thoughts....

2011-11-28T06:14:00.000Z

An aid to clarity of thought....

I have spent most of the weekend involved in a variety of domestic tasks of the kind usually associated with the festive season i.e. Christmas shopping and decorations.Of the latter the one thing that struck me was how quiet the shops appeared to be, given that is less than four weeks to Christmas - a sad reflection on the current economic woes that most people are experiencing perhaps? Either that or it is a wait until the last minute or caning the internet for presents - either way Basildon seemed eerily subdued over the weekend (no bad thing many may say!).

Due to the fact that Christmas falls on a Sunday this year and because we also have a number of prior engagements over the coming weekends, SWMBO decided that this weekend the decorations would go up and so out came the tinsel, tree, baubles galore and all the associated festive paraphernalia so that the house now looks like a diluted version of Santa's grotto. I am a sucker for anything Christmas related and so always enjoy doing this and our opinion is that if you are going to bother with decorations at all then you may as well have them up for a reasonable amount of time in order to enjoy the experience and to get into the spirit of things. Besides, it is good fun - especially the annual Christmas game of 'finding the blown bulb from a 40ft length of tree lights'!

I popped into the local Toy and Train fair on Sunday although did not buy anything. There was plenty of military kit on display that would have any 54mm wargamer (especially anybody contemplating a Funny Little Wars set up) reaching for his wallet. There were lots of firing artillery pieces of the WW1 style 18 and WW2 25 pounder variety - as well as some very nice coastal style guns. Prices varied but £3 to £8 seemed to be the average range. There was also a lot of odd Britains figures around as well including a very impressive looking unit of Bengal Lancers that had me both wincing and staring in rapt (mainly at the price but they did look really striking) awe at them.

I also spent a lot of time tackling the fleet lists for the rules and this has given me much food for thought. I think I have allowed myself to fall back into the trap of over egging the pudding. The Royal Navy for example has a list of ships that is now covering three sides of A4. This is an impressive piece of work (if I say so myself) but I was struck by the number of ships that come up with identical factors. This has made me wonder if perhaps I should have stuck to a more generic approach rather than to 'drill down' into such levels of detail. Certainly this approach is probably at odds with the spirit of the Portable War Game.

I am more than happy with the rules as they are but am less convinced about the level of detail I am going to with the ship specifications and so will need to give this some additional consideration.

If anything, if I decide to go down the generic route it will mean that the rules will be complete far sooner than originally planned so that will probably be no bad thing.

Almost Home and Dry....

2011-11-25T06:15:00.001Z

SMS Lutzow opens fire at Jutland

I have spent the past couple of days trawling through ship specifications for the latest version of the Portable Naval War Game and can safely say it has actually been quite a therapeutic experience. I have various fleet lists so it has been merely a case to setting up new column headings and translating some of the data into the new format. The occasional foray into either Conways or Janes completes the process where any clarification is needed. As usual I have started with the Royal Navy and followed this with the Germans - mainly because their fleets were the largest.

It did throw up a single anomaly though that I have had to address with the rules; that and a minor clarification.

Basically guns are rated as heavy, medium and light and these have maximum ranges of 6, 4 and 3 hexes respectively (remember my models are 1/3000th and the rules are designed for use on a hex grid surface). I wanted the maximum range (6) reserved for dreadnought type ships so the pre dreadnoughts should only be able to reach to around two thirds of this i.e. 4 hexes. Rating these earlier guns as heavy was okay as far as the shell weight was concerned but the range was wrong (although there were exceptions historically as the Goeben experienced in the Black Sea). What I have decided therefore is to allow for guns to be rated by weight and range. For the most part the system in use is fine and so guns rated at whatever weight will have the corresponding range but for the exceptions will now have a split rating e.g 1 H/M means a ship has 1 heavy (H) gun dice with a maximum range of medium (M) or 4 hexes.

The clarification refers to the Close Range Attack procedure. I had forgotten to allow for the effects or torpedoes from ships other than destroyers. What I have settled on is to allow any ship other than a destroyer when launching a Close Range Attack and then successfully hitting the target to roll a single d6 for torpedo based damage. It is not hugely effective although more so against older ships.

I will be making the rules available to anybody that is interested but I want to complete the ship specifications first of all and also to run another couple of games. I am not expecting this to be much longer and so all should be done and dusted in the next couple of weeks or so.

The Portable Naval Wargame (Again)....Final Thoughts

2011-11-23T16:49:00.003Z

With the fickleness of indecision for which I am legendary I have decided that I will complete the ship specifications to go the rules after all. This is not as painful as it sounds since I already have pretty much most of the world's navies tabled in one form or another and so 'tweaking' them to the new format would not be a massive undertaking. I really want to have the entire 'offering' on one plate so to speak, as much for my own benefit as anything else as it means that I will not have to draft up new ship specifications for any other ships I might acquire in the future (and before you ask, yes I do have a couple of long term ideas on the go!). It also means that when I pass them on to anybody that is interested they will have everything they need to get straight into the action. In the short term then, it means I shall have to concentrate on beating this task into submission over the course of the next few days.

The earlier version - covering 1860 to 1890 - will have to wait for a while as I want to get the ACW ships finished first.

For a variety of domestic reasons my planned foray into the ACW this weekend will have to be postponed for a week but on the plus side I can get to go to the Toy and Train Fair at my daughter's school on Sunday so the weekend will hopefully feature some satisfying retail therapy.

The last time I went to this event (it is held every six weeks or so) I was able to acquire some BMC die cast warships - upon which the famed Minifigs ships were, ahem, based - so I am hopeful that I may be able to repeat this.

The Portable Naval War Game (Again)....Part 5

2011-11-23T13:03:00.000Z

The much tidied draft is now ready for further testing and so I can now draw a line under this part of the project. I have a tendency to draft rules as a play sheet firstly and so this tends to get very congested as 'tweaks' arise through testing and rethinks. The next step will be to draw up the specifications of a selection of ships from my collection for use in further testing and so I shall be once again making use of my Conways and Janes (never a hardship it must be said!) for the details required.

In the fullness of time I hope to make the end result available for use outside of my cosy loft - I want to get some more game time under my belt first though.

Based on the first play test I am quietly confident though that this time I might just have cracked it - however, past experience has taught me not to count any chickens before they are hatched!

The Portable Naval Wargame (Again)....Part 4

2011-11-22T21:19:00.000Z

Of Torpedoes, Destroyers and the concept of the Naval Melee....

I have used many different sets of naval rules that handle the subject of torpedoes in a variety of ways - from estimating the course change of the target to putting matches on the table and moving them. The one thing that has struck me though is that in virtually every case they are treated as a weapon of mass destruction rather than of mass distraction. Torpedoes are powerful weapons to be sure and there are plenty of historical examples of ships being sunk by a single hit but the problem with them, aside from the reliability aspect, is actually hitting the target. Consider this, the German fleet at Jutland according to their own sources fired off 107 torpedoes. Of this it was reckoned that 2 hit the target. Now clearly it would make for a dull game if we mirrored that unenviable strike rate BUT, the potential of such a weapon had a massive psychological impact historically so just how do we best factor it in?

Imagine, just for a moment this scenario. You are the commander of a destroyer and the signal has just gone up to attack the enemy battle line in the distance. Thus far all you had to do was to maintain station on your own battle line whilst the big ships traded salvo after salvo but now it is your turn to 'face the elephant'. As one the division of destroyers of which you are one swings its helm hard over and accelerates to attack speed. the engine revs increase as the ship buffets and noses into anything approaching a wave and the halyards sing and signal flags crack in the streaming wind. The range comes down and the target battle line gets larger by the minute. Then, like a sparkle of firecrackers the twinkle of the secondary guns followed by a succession of shell splashes mean that they know you are coming. It must seem like every enemy gun is trained on you and tour own artillery fires back - more in hope than expectation as all the while the volume of fire increases; the soaking of near misses drenching everybody topside. You hope and pray that the enemy is unable to adjust the range quickly enough until at last the range for torpedoes is reached and so they are fired - no salvos, just individual tubes. With the helm hard over the ship heels alarmingly as the turn away to safety and away from those terrible guns starts. You were lucky this time but others of the division were less fortunate and flames and smoke bear mute testimony to the enemy fire.

Dramatic and overwritten as usual I know but you can see the point I am making. Large ships cannot safely ignore a torpedo attack and just the threat should be sufficient to disrupt the enemy gunfire at least.

Here is how it will work.

All ships have a Close Attack value equal to the number of Light gun dice the ship has. Destroyers add their torpedo rating (1, 2 or 3 depending on the size and quantity carried) to this figure so, for example, a battleship may have 2 light gun dice for a rating of 2 whilst a destroyer may have 1 light gun dice plus a rating of 2 for torpedoes making 3 in all. The destroyer declares a Close Range attack (at a range of 1 or 2) and nominates the target. At this point the target ship has two options. It can either engage the attacking destroyer using its own Close Attack rating (and thereby forfeiting any fire for the turn) or it can ignore the threat. In order to score a hit each player must roll equal to or less than their Close Range attack rating with a single d6. If a hit is scored the damage from the attack is based on rolling the number of d6 equal to the Close Range rating of the ship on the normal damage resolution table. All hits from a Close Range attacking destroyer are treated as hull hits. Potentially then, a destroyer could sink a dreadnought outright with the right combination of dice rolls. The destroyer though, if hit, will sustain heavy damage if it is damaged at all.

The target ship has the option to ignore the destroyer, thereby ensuring it can fire in the gunnery segment (I should mention that all Close Range attack resolution is completed before normal gunnery) but the penalty for this is the Close Range attacking destroyer goes straight to damage resolution - in effect a free hit - so this alone should force the player under threat to consider their options very carefully.

Again this probably looks more complex on paper than it is in operation and of course, it will need testing further.

I hope this short series of posts has given a little insight into what I am trying to achieve and also why I am trying to achieve it.

Maintaining the Initiative or the Enthusiasm

2011-11-22T08:50:00.001Z

In order to stoke the fires of my ACW project 'final hurdle' with the ships I have decided to run a block based ACW land action at the weekend. This will be a first for me as I have not run an ACW game in any shape of form (other than via Battle Cry) at home. I could just as easily use Battle Cry rather than the blocks but that kind of defeats the object of having them somewhat. I may use a Battle Cry scenario though as it will be interesting to see how they work out using blocks rather than figures togther with the Portable War Game system rather than the game rules.

Alternatively I may just set up a hypothetical action and have done with it! I have a few days to consider what I want to do in any event - and it will give me the opportunity and impetus to finish typing up the revised play sheet incorporating strength points and exhaustion levels.

With this in mind I have decided that I want to get into the habit of ensuring that I play at least one game week if possible. This will be in addition to a monthly visit to the club (something I have been somewhat negligent of lately!). It is a lofty (no pun intended!) ideal to be sure but one I should aspire to in order to maximise the use of the new den. Having the use of fast play game rules is a must then as I want to make the most efficient use of my time 'upstairs'!

The Portable Naval Wargame (Again)....Part 3

2011-11-22T06:13:00.000Z

Of Hit Points and Armour

This is another tricky subject to right in a set of naval war game rules. For me the latter has been far easier to address and so I have gone for armour/protection levels equal to heavy, medium or light. What does this actually mean in a game context? Heavy is reserved for those ships with extensive armour protection and of a meaningful degree of thickness appropriate to the type. Invariably this will mean battleships. I have not considered the location of the said protection simply because there is no need to as gunnery does not look at hit location as such. Medium protection is generally lighter than the heavy type - either because the actual thickness of the armour is lesser or is not as extensive in its coverage. This could also be used for older examples of a given ship type - I am thinking of such things as older, first generation pre dreadnoughts for example. Light protection is taken as having little or no armour and so during the WW1 era would tend to be light cruisers or destroyer types. I am toying with the idea of having gunfire at range 6 (the maximum range for my purposes) treat all armour as light regardless of what the ship is armoured as. The rationale for this is to allow for the effects of plunging fire whereby shells at the end of their trajectory and range tend to hit the target from above and at a steep angle and usually down through the deck into a ship's vitals. Even for dreadnoughts with armoured decks this was a major problem simply because deck armour was always inadequate as the effect of this type of attack had never been seriously considered. I will experiment with this and decide later how to apply this - from a rules perspective it is simple to include.

Hit points for ships have given me more sleepless nights than any other aspect of naval rules writing I can think of! It is such a subjective topic although you would not think so when you see the tables of ship specifications in any one of a number of sets of rules. I have experimented with many different approaches to this subject but at the end have come down to assigning an arbitrary figure to a given ship type and then taking it from there. As a benchmark a typical dreadnought battleship will have around 10 hit points. This can be moved up or down as required for older or later examples or for those that differ in some way from the dreaded 'norm'. An example might be to allow for the famous German build quality for their dreadnoughts or for the vastly superior protection offered on the war built dreadnoughts. Everything else can be scaled back from that level - and in this I have made a couple of what seem to be inconsistent decisions. My smaller ships tend to have proportionally more hit points than would seem logical - for example I want my destroyers to have between 2 and 4 hit points. The reason for this is purely 'gamey' in concept. In most naval games I have taken part in (and this includes those of my own design!) the lot of a destroyer commander is usually a short and exciting one and invariably ends with most of the types being sunk very easily and quickly. Of the 139 destroyers and torpedo boats at Jutland some 13 were sunk or under 10% of those engaged.

Of course destroyers are vulnerable ships when faced with batteries of 5.9 and 6" weapons determined to ruin their day but just because they are does not mean that all they should be is target practice. I want these ships to have some meaning in a game context and so survivability is an important factor. If a destroyer commander is foolish enough to attempt to out shoot a bigger and invariably better armed opponent then he is asking for everything he gets but the canny player - using his ships in a tactically sound fashion - has the ability to fully utilise the strengths of the ships under his command. Essentially I shall be doing away with the 'one hit wonder' approach for this class of ship in the interests of both playability and historical accuracy.

The final part of this series of posts will look at the concept of the Close Range attack or how I did away with torpedoes and lived to tell the tale....

The Portable Naval War Game (Again)....Part 2

2011-11-21T15:40:00.002Z

Gunnery
The thorny subject of naval gunnery in a war game has probably had more ink spilled over it than any other subject I can think of from a rules perspective. Over the years I have tried a number of different methods but for the sheer fun factor rolling numbers of d6 as a game mechanic is hard to beat so I am not about to upset that hallowed tradition. My last version of the rules used a d6 per two barrels firing which was not bad but I wanted to streamline this and so have opted instead for using a d6 per 4 barrels instead. This means that a typical pre dreadnought will be firing 1d6 for its main guns and a typical dreadnought will be firing 2d6. It makes for faster resolution but maintains the all important fun factor - the ritual cursing of d6 rolls that go against the thrower is again, a time honoured war games ritual, not lightly cast aside.
A d6 gun dice can take two hits before being removed (effectively a hit is two barrels worth of damage, or, if you prefer, a knocked out turret) - the first hit (all will be revealed in due course) - and the first such hit means that the dice suffers a -1 firing modifier. This is easily represented by the simple expedient of using a different coloured d6 for the damaged gun(s). It also is a handy method for representing odd numbers of guns e.g. the Goeben had 10 x 11" guns so this translates into two normal gun dice and one special dice, firing with a -1 modifier.
I have rated guns as being either heavy (range 6), medium (range 4) or light (range 3). Heavy guns are typically anything 11" or larger; medium is anything larger than 6" up to 10" and light are 6" and smaller. Within those bands modifiers to the damage dice could be applied where needed for guns that vary in their impact from their notional category - a good example would be the RN 15" gun gaining a bonus due to its sheer destructive power e.g. the gun would be rated as heavy (obviously) but with a plus 1 damage modifier. Again, this will be optional and will require some research from the gamer as I have neither time nor the inclination to factor every single permutation of gun calibre/weight/shell size/range/age in use with the world's navies over the years under consideration! Seriously though, I will have some gunnery tables included and slotting types in will be easy enough to do - in any event I will do this for my own collection. For my own purposes (and initially using 1/3000th models) I am looking at using a maximum range of around 6 grid areas - so that on my playing surface it means there is some sea room outside of gun range. I have used the familiar short, medium and long range brackets for determining hits with a 6 being required at long range (range 6), 5 or 6 at medium (range 4 and 5) and 4, 5 or 6 at close range (range 1, 2 or 3). A simple table exists to find the modifier used when making a damage roll after having obtained a hit and this compares the weight of the gun against the weight of the target ships armour. The basic principle for gunnery I have employed will be the same for the earlier period although obviously with some appropriate tweaks - smoothbores vs. rifles for one!
The base score to convert a hit into damage relies on a d6 roll and 1, 2 and 3 are misses; a 4 is a hull hit, a 5 is a gun hit and a 6 is two hits - either a pair of hull or gun hits or one of each. The choice lies with the target ship. Depending on the gun/armour combination of the firing/target ship the dice roll for damage can go up or down e.g. a heavy gun hitting light armour gains a +2 to the damage dice meaning that as long as the firing ship does not roll a 1 damage will be inflicted.
In summary then, gunnery is designed to be simple and uses a d6 based system for hits and damage rolls in order to adjudicate results. Armour penetration effects are acknowledged by the damage modifier found by cross referencing the weight of the gun versus the level of the target's protection. Damage is either hull or gun related and this is determined by the damage effect roll. The closer you get, the easier to hit.
The next part of this series of posts will cover damage and allocation of hit points and armour ratings.

A Question of Conscience

2011-11-21T13:07:00.000Z

The Magnificent 7 - Pook's Turtle style

I really want to 'crack on' with the ships for Fezia and Rusland but a small voice in the back of my mind is getting louder and louder and so I shall bow to the inevitable and tackle the outstanding completion of the ACW ships that I have first of all. There are 32 models to paint (a dozen of which have been started) plus a couple of cat related repairs to undertake so I really must press on with these. It was just over a year ago I started making the models and given the fact that the block armies have worked out as well as they have means I have no excuse for not completing them.

I am going to cheat slightly in that I plan to print off onto sticky labels the covers for the various paddle boxes in order to save painting and it is a technique I want to experiment with for a variety of other ideas I have.

So once again the swampy bayous beckon....;-)

The Portable Naval War Game (Again)....Part 1

2011-11-21T10:54:00.002Z

Movement.

In my previous rule sets I spent a lot of time worrying about quite minor differences in speeds between ships. One of the problems with using a grid is that you limited in how you model speeds unless you use one grid area for one knot. This of course in impractical (unless using a football pitch to game on) and so compromises are required. The period under consideration has ships of widely different speeds in use (usually due to age) and so translating these into a reasonable number of movement points is quite a challenge. Experience has shown me that in order to keep the action within reasonable bounds - by that I mean within the confines of my 13 x 9 Hexon playing area - the movement speeds need to be quite small. With this in mind I am looking at a maximum speed of 4 grid areas. Depending on when the action being fought is set this speed of 4 could represent anything from 20 to 40 knots or between 5 to 10 knots per grid area. This needs some clarification.

In the ACW the fastest ship speed I could find was around the 20 knots level. If I used a 'scale' of one grid area equals 10 knots then this would give a speed of 2 with everything slower at a 1. This would be fine if ships could only travel at 10 or 20 knots but clearly this is too large to be useful. So by telescoping the speed into our 4 grid area desired maximum we suddenly have one grid area representing 5 knots which means that ships with speeds of 5, 10, 15 or 20 knots can be far better represented, relatively speaking.

Moving on to WW1 with speeds being much higher the same basic idea can be applied. Lets take 32 knots as being an average maximum speed (I know some ships could go faster but bear with me!) for the 14 - 18 period. This means most destroyers and modern light cruisers will have a speed of 4 or 3 for the older types; most dreadnoughts will be around 3 and pre dreadnoughts around 2. This is far more usable although only goes part way to solving the issue. Barry Carter in his book on WW1 and WW2 naval war games came up with a novel system for covering incremental speeds (speeds that do not divide exactly into the number of grid areas being used) involving the use of 'short' and 'long' moves. In a nutshell certain ships could move at one speed on a short move and slightly faster on a long one. This works very well and so I am going to incorporate a stripped down version of this in the current set. It adds little in terms of complexity but does add to the game overall (and satisfies the knot counters amongst us!). The way this will work will be to assign a knot value to a grid area - in the example above this is 8 knots. A ship that travels at, say 21 knots (a typical dreadnought of the period) will move 2 grid areas on a short move and 3 on a long move. This is calculated by taking out the complete multiples of 8 knot (2 x 8 = 16) and taking the remaining speed - in this case 5 knots - and if this is over half of the incremental speed of 8 knots (which it is) then it is rounded up to an extra move on the long turn.

This is probably easier to apply than to describe so I apologies of it appears overly complex! The rules will feature a speed table in order to avoid any complex calculations. The key thing with this approach is setting the speed benchmark at the correct level in order to ensure that relative speed differences are maintained between types whilst ensuring that sufficient ship movement exists to make the game playable. Essentially an ACW river battle was a much slower affair than Jutland so you cannot apply the same speed approach to each type of action if using a grid. I should point out as well that the use of this incremental speed approach will be an optional rule and not compulsory. It is primarily designed for scenario construction purposes or refights etc.

Turning is simply handled. Everything from an armoured cruiser upwards can turn one corner a turn and anything smaller can turn two.

The second part of this series of posts will cover the thorny subject of gunnery - and I have once again gone for the simple is better approach. There are lots of d6 involved but only half as many as previously!

A Couple of Welcome Additions

2011-11-20T22:37:00.000Z

It has been a very busy weekend for a number of reasons, mostly associated with the usual domestic round. I was able to make a fleeting visit to the Works in Basildon. I was very glad I did as I picked up a couple of very welcome additions to the library. These are both hardback editions and cost a mere £3.99 each which is a positive steal and no mistake!

The first - A Tidy Little War by William Wright covered the British invasion of Egypt in 1882 and includes the bombardment of Alexandria and the battle of Tel El Kebir together with all the associated background covering the invasion etc. The campaign was not nearly as 'tidy' as the title might suggest and certainly the Egyptian gunners earned universal praise during the bombardment of Alexandria. Of course, given my interest in anything remotely exotic and Middle Eastern this is a campaign I will study with relish - especially from the Egyptian perspective!

The second is no less than the memoirs of Lord Jellicoe of Scapa - he of Jutland fame and 'the only man could lose the war in an afternoon'. These were first published in 1919 and are called, appropriately, The Grand Fleet 1914 to 1916 during which time the Grand Fleet was under his command. I have a number of gaps in my WW1 naval library but this is one that I am really pleased to have acquired. I have a hankering to tackle the Jutland campaign using models at some point in my war games career and who knows? If my rules work out OK and if I get the fleets then it would make a great project to undertake.

So Far, So Good - Relatively Speaking

2011-11-20T21:25:00.000Z

This afternoon saw the first play test of my new Portable Naval War Game which not only featured my slightly larger playing area (see yesterday's post for details) but also, unsurprisingly, the Black Sea Russians and the Turks. The test was in effect a revisit to the previous naval game I tried - the Turks used the Goeben and the Breslau whilst the Russians had one of their Black Sea dreadnoughts - Impertricia Maria and the protected cruiser the Parmiat Mercurija. I played the game for six turns and at the end of the action both of the capital ships had sustained a number of hits - the Turk had lost a turret and had suffered some hull damage as had the Russian - but the escorting cruisers were undamaged. The result was inconclusive but, for a number of reasons, it actually felt historically viable.

I have made a real effort with this set to pare back the mechanisms as far as I am able to in order to align them as far as possible with the mechanics of the Portable War Game concept. I think that I have gone a long way towards fulfilling that ideal but have also managed to ensure that the all important ship differences are not swept up into generic and soulless types.

Unusually for me the draft of these rules is very much a work in progress - I normally have a copy ready to go (and generally bombard people with it - the acres of rain forest I have caused to be trashed over the years is probably biblical in its proportions!) - but in accord with my new and laid back persona I will finish it when I think I have 'nailed' it. The main reason I need to do this is because I have a number of major additions to incorporate - principally covering the period 1860 to 1890 - which will mean that the core system will work from around 1860 to 1945. Impossible? Perhaps, may be even probably BUT, and to quote Star Trek, "It had the virtue of never having been tried" - maybe or maybe not but a theory has to be disproved before being abandoned entirely!

I will explain my rationales etc as I get them crystalised but for the moment suffice it to say as far as the rules are concerned the numbers of d6 are reduced - for gunnery it is one per four barrels firing instead of two - and the old 'to hit and then a damage roll' is in. Guns are heavy, medium or light; as is armour but with an additional unarmoured category. Torpedoes are included in a close range attack factor which gives destroyers especially a big boost when attacking larger ships. Damage is either hull or gun based (or both if the hit is severe enough) and ships have a varying number of damage points available based on a relative interpretation of their perceived protection level.

Early indications are very encouraging and so I plan to run some other tests over the course of the next week or so. I have a good feeling about these rules - more so than with any other version I have designed - due in part to having ditched an awful lot of detail based chrome in the interests of simplicity.

We shall see....

A Matter of Size

2011-11-19T21:16:00.000Z

The new playing area - I use a cloth under the tiles as it stops them sliding around at inconvenient moments!

You may recall a short while ago I acquired a secondhand drop leaf dining table which, when fully deployed, measured roughly 60 by 30 inches. The size is sufficient for a Hexon playing area of 13 by 8 - which is roughly the size of a Portable Wargame battlefield and a half (i.e. 12 by 8). Obviously this is not carved in stone but as a benchmark to work from it is certainly as good as any. My original plan for the use of my Hexon was to set up a 13 by 9 playing area - the same size as the board used in Battle Cry and Memoir 44.

The 13 x 8 set up is absolutely fine for use with land actions but is a little narrow when used for naval battles. This was not a major problem but it did give me pause for thought.

You know how it is - something niggles for no discernible reason (I was happy with the original size after all) - and eventually you just have to do something about it!

So I did.

I visited a local timber yard and acquired an MDF off cut (medium density fibreboard for those unfamiliar with the term MDF) sized at 60 by 36 inches and it has made a world of difference - well, an extra row of tiles difference in any event. I can at last set up my Hexon to the size that I wanted to originally i.e. 13 x 9. This will give me greater area for deployment for land actions and for the essential sea room for my naval battles. It also means I could easily translate Battle Cry and Memoir 44 scenarios onto the tabletop should I wish to at some point.

Now there is an idea....;-)

Going Backwards to go Forwards....

2011-11-18T09:51:00.002Z

As written, the soon to be tested Portable Naval War game (version 127!) was designed to cover the period from roughly 1890 to, ultimately, 1945. The initial set covered the period until the end of the Great War so air operations are missing. As an aside I will extend the set to include the aerial dimension at some point but it will not be for a while. A problem that I had not considered though has arisen with the current version and that is in connection with how to represent earlier vessels - or as I like to think of them, 'pre-pre-dreadnoughts'.

With the historical Turkish navy still using 1860s vintage broadside and central battery ironclads in 1890 it means that I have a number of issues to consider. To begin with, firing arcs. Happily, using a hexed grid alleviates this problem to a huge degree as it is easy to map arcs of fire with little difficulty. There is also the question of rifled versus smoothbore artillery (you could also include breach versus muzzle loading weapons if you have a mind to). That is easy enough to handle and I am using a system I first saw in Donald Featherstone's book Naval Wargames - basically you have two sets of ranges divided into close, medium and long with smoothbores tailing off over distance. There is also the subject of spar torpedoes and ramming - both of which I have some ideas for but will need to clarify this before committing to paper. The fleets of both Fezia and Rusland will feature some of these older vessels (Fezia more so!) and so the additions to the rules are pretty much essential.

I am actually quite pleased that these add ons should be fairly simple to implement and of course it does mean that the potential of the set can go back even further in time and so the ACW would be a serious possibility. I will have to consider adding a couple of additional ship types to the mix - this will include merchantmen and converted civilian ships - those fitted with varying degrees of guns and armour.

It does look like though the ACW river campaign is not ready to be consigned to the back of cupboard just yet and seems determined to make a fight of it for my attention!

Fezia and Rusland at Sea.... Part 2 - Fezia

2011-11-18T05:58:00.000Z

Mesudiye as built - refitted and rebuilt she served in the Balkan war of 1812 and was sunk in WW1

Mesudiye after her extensive rebuild - hard to believe it was the same ship!

The Turkish navy that I am modelling that of Fezia on was of a reasonable size compared to the Black Sea Russian fleet. The two problems it faced though were that the ships were old and that the navy as a whole was woefully inefficient in terms of training and maintenance. The Ottoman treasury was perennially empty and so vessels quite often virtually rotted away due to lack of routine care and attention. It was almost as though the naval mindset had been so fixed with the relative longevity of the old wooden Men of War that the new and far more complex steam vessels were accorded the same level of apathy!

Aside form this neglect though, the Turks used an impressive number of ships - it was just that they always seemed to be a generation behind the rest of the world. The Turks had been caught up in the ironclad building frenzy of the 1860s as much as any nation and her navy was impressive looking by the mid 1870s in terms of sheer weight of numbers. In fact, the Turkish navy had offered to support Austria in 1866 against the Prussians - one wonders what the ghosts of Prince Eugen and Don John of Austria would have made of that! Interestingly, the usual Turkish financial woes meant that a number of navies often had the odd ship in their order of battle that had been ordered by the Ottomans but that was unable to be paid for or impacted by political implications - HMS Belleisle and her sister ship HMS Orion (actually Turkish designed) and also HMS Superb; all acquired by the RN due to the situation with Russia in 1877/78. HMS Superb was the sister ship to the Mesudiye and at the time of their construction (in the mid 1870s) they were considered to be amongst the most powerful warships afloat.

HMS Belleisle under the RN flag - the central battery of this ram can clearly be seen

The bulk of the Turkish battle line consisted of broadside and central battery ironclads of various sizes and vintage (and often rebuilt and modernised to a greater or lesser extent) and so the Fezian fleet will follow suit. This will make for an interesting match up against the more modern Rusland ships although they of course will be generally be fewer in number.

Alongside this veritable floating naval museum the Turks also employed some of the small torpedo boats described in part one and so the resultant fleet will have an even greater selection (or even disparity!) of the old and the new when I build it.

Of course there are implications for the Portable Naval wargame rules with all this as whilst they are designed to cover pre dreadnought type ships much of what will be in use will in effect be 'pre' pre dreadnought and so I will need to factor this in in some fashion.

As ever though, this will be enormous fun to undertake and I am looking forward to doing just that.

Fezia and Rusland at Sea.... Part 1 - Rusland

2011-11-17T06:25:00.000Z

Novgorod at sea and appearing unusually well behaved!

Without a doubt one of the attractions of the two protagonists I have chosen for my 'imagi-nations' is the inevitable naval dimension. Using both Russia and Turkey as the models for the two fleets - perhaps with some selected additions from elsewhere - will provide much in the way of inspiration for models for use in the naval wargames I shall be undertaking alongside the land campaigns. Actually, the naval dimension will be essential given the geography of the region as the only way the two sides can get to each (unless considerations of border violation are ignored!) is via the sea so I need to make some provision for this facet.

The models will be scratch built to my usual maximum hull size of 3 1/2" for the largest vessels and with everything else scaled back from that. Balsa wood, plastic card and tube and the contents of the spares box will provide more than sufficinet raw material for the purpose and so I do not envisage any major dramas in the construction process. For the most part the ships are relatively 'clean' looking and in any event, the models are representations rather than true scale versions.

The ships themselves are a fascinating mix of the very old, the old and the new. Broadside and central battery ironclads, barbette and turret ships being used alongside conceptually modern looking torpedo boats all feature with the majority of the former being in Turkish employ whilst the technologically more advanced vessels serve with Russia. As far as I can tell the Turkish navy appeared to have a greater selection of ships available but that they tended to be older. This then, will be the model for the fleets of both Fezia and Rusland and so the resultant actions will see battles between the more numerous old and the fewer new.

Russia had some interesting designs in use specifically for the Black Sea of which the famous circular warships were but one example. Rusland will undoubtedly acquire some of these - simply because they would be hard to resist making!

Deck view of the Novgorod

A brief introduction to these very unusual looking vessels can be found here:

Novgorod

The Russians also built the Ekaterina ll class of four battleships maounting 6 x 12" in three barbettes in an unusual triangular layout - two of the barbettes were forward with one aft so, in theory, the ship could fire 4 x 12" guns directly forward. Due to the guns being being sited very low this would usually result in a lot of deck related blast damage!

Top and side elevation of the battleship Sinop - of the Ekaterina ll class

An interesting design though - and one that will certainly feature in the Rusland navy.

The torpedo boats in use by either side were quite small and as a rule were around the 80 to 100 tons mark with a speed of around 20 knots. They were armed with a couple of 1" guns and a pair of 14 or 15" torpedoes. This was early on in the evolution of the ship type that would eventually become the destroyer.

Part 2 will follow later and will feature the warships of Turkey circa 1891.

A Proud Parent

2011-11-16T12:30:00.002Z

Yesterday evening was my soon-to-be 16 year old daughter's 'Learning Review' at her school. This is a one to one with the head of the year in order to review her effort and predicted attainment when she sits her exams in May and June of next year. The predicted exam grades are then used on her college application form for her intended further education. Holly, my daughter, is a very bright girl (no bias there then!) and so parents evenings at the school are always a pleasure for SWMBO and I and last night was absolutely no exception.
Each of her subjects has a series of categories that are marked for both effort and predicted attainment at exam level based on that effort. The categories include such things as homework being on time, classroom involvement, quality and quantity of work, presentation etc. For every category and in every subject Holly scored an A for effort (the one miss was a B) which is quite simply, a staggering achievement and one that both SWMBO and I are hugely proud of. Her predicted grades at exam level are all in the B - A - A star range which is equally impressive and this means she is comfortably on track for the required results for her chosen college based A Levels. Coupled with an truly glowing report in respect of her social skills and all round classroom contribution and enthusiasm (she was also made a prefect earlier in the year) meant that it was a very happy and parentally fulfilled household last night.
It makes it all worthwhile….;-)

Going with the Flow....

2011-11-15T22:49:00.000Z

Realistically I am not going to get several ongoing projects finished whilst this current 19th century fix is an itch requiring repeated scratching. Ordinarily I would feel guilty about this - the weight of self inflicted expectation being an onerous burden - but strangely I feel quite liberated by having made such a decision. The ACW ships and many of the planned WW2 naval adventures will happen at some point but not just yet. The strangest thing about all this is that I feel very much as though for the first time in a long while I have a definite sense of wargaming purpose. Fezia, Rusland, Forbodia, Epiria and a few others beside will have more than sufficient interest for me for a long time to come and through the medium of my block armies I will be able to engage in a whole variety of table top actions - from small scale raids and punitive expeditions up to large scale battles - with sufficient diversity to ensure that I will have more than enough to keep me occupied for some time to come.

I will be writing (probably badly!) about the adventures and misadventures of the various protagonists along the way and fully intend to include, naturally, the naval dimension as well.

From a model perspective the plan is to use the Perry plastics (and others) for the armies and scratch builds for the ships and this will of necessity be a long term effort given my usual modelling and painting speed. I am not fussed by this and therein lies the core of my new(er) philosophy. I am going to relax and enjoy my hobby and let the tide take me wherever it rolls - no more self imposed or inflicted angst or agonising over rules or models or any of the associated minutiae!

It is supposed to be fun after all....;-)

Balkan Wars 1891 Imagi-World Style

2011-11-15T12:59:00.000Z

Now here is the thing. After having fought Keder Sirt twice I am now itching to extend and expand the conflict using a combination of the famous blocks, Hexon, the 'tweaked' Portable Wargame Colonial rules, my own new Portable Naval rules and a large smattering of Bob Cordery's 1891 Imagi-World.

What am I to do?

Very simple really, and in the time honoured tradition of striking whilst the iron is hot I am going to fight a small mini-campaign based on the actual Balkan War of 1912 but set in 1891 and Bob C's world. The Balkrunian League will be attempting to destroy the last vestiges of Fezian power on the continent and so Forbodia and Epiria will be taking centre stage against the still formidable Fezian Empire. Rusland, despite her recent reverse at the hands of Amir Abdul Abulbul will be involved; albeit primarily from a naval perspective.

Even as I write this, King Boris 111 of Forbodia is planning plans and scheming schemes....;-)

Resisting Everything Except Temptation....

2011-11-15T06:15:00.000Z

I had planned to spend yesterday evening finishing the play sheet I am drafting for use with the Portable Wargame Colonial rules that incorporates the roster system and a couple of minor language changes to reflect this. It is roughly half completed and would have taken no more than a couple of hours work.

It is still unfinished.

The reason for this 'delay' (which is sadly very typical of my somewhat undisciplined approach to projects) is that I spent the time drafting (and completing) a set of naval rules that mirror the mechanics of the Portable Wargame far more closely than any of my numerous previous versions.

"Oh no, not again!" Would probably be the universal comment; especially as after everyone of my previous sets I have stated with all due solemnity that this particular set is 'it'! I should learn to take notice of what I write; I really should! I have consoled myself with the knowledge that everything that has gone before have been steps on the path to Nirvana and that eventually I will get it right and so never have to suffer the pain of continual rebirth.

I am testing these over the next few days with the outcome as ever reported on the blog. I have chosen to be brutal with this set and so as they stand I am using generic ship and weapon types, simple d6 based combat mechanics, a simple roster for damage recording and something rather novel for torpedo combat.

In the Portable Wargame melee is handled by units having a Close Combat value or power. Obviously this is for combat up close and personal (i.e. in an adjacent hex). It suddenly occurred to me that this approach could also be extended to naval combat - mainly to cater for destroyer torpedo attacks. I have assumed that destroyers are the only vessels designed to use the torpedo offensively and in order to do so they would have to make, in effect a torpedo 'run' or attack on their target. Taking this a step further the target ship, seeing it was under such an attack would be hugely concerned with avoiding such attention - usually to the detriment of its own gunnery. Taking this idea to its conclusion I have given destroyers the highest Close Range attack value and dreadnoughts and their ilk the lowest.

What of secondary guns designed just to counteract this very thing? Ships that had these weapons still do so and they can be used under normal circumstances just like any other weapon. However, I believe that when a destroyer or destroyers become a more immediate threat to a target ship then they would be forced, if able, to take far more notice of the smaller ships than by merely firing at them.

I have always felt that the threat of a torpedo attack had more effect than the actual potential damage (although this can be real enough) and that also destroyers seemed to be little more than very weak but fast ships. I hope this approach will go some way towards redressing the balance somewhat.

We shall see - Nirvana here we come? Who knows - but you have to try in order to find out!

A Sudden Flash of Realisation....

2011-11-14T14:32:00.004Z

One of the great things in my life at the moment is having my 'den' fully set up as I want and thereby having the ability to be able to set up and have a game away from the usual domestic hurly-burly. Being able to have a game, leave it set up if unfinished or even if it is finished and merely needs packing away is such a libertaing experience as I no longer have to have an eye on the clock. As I pondered the game of yesterday (Keder Sirt part 2 if you like) it suddenly struck me that I had managed to fight two wargames within the space of a week at an expenditure of (in total) five hours of 'loft time' (i.e. the time in my loft fighting the battles). The use of the blocks and grid based rule systems has certainly helped in this regards - together with some really nifty rule sets.

This is heady stuff and it has served to remind me of a couple of things I need to tackle with some urgency.

Firstly, my gaming table is ever so slightly too small and so I shall be acquiring a piece of 5ft by 3ft 10mm plywood this weekend in order to overlay the exisiting 5ft by 30". I really need to have the extra 6" (Oooooooh….Matron!!!) so that I can set up my Hexon on a 12 hex x 9 basis. This in turn means that my idea for a plot map for operational games will now be extended to 36 x 36 hexes or 12 'tables' worth. The 12 x 9 table top size fits better with the Hexon tiles as the standard tile size is 3 hexes by 2 or 18 such tiles deployed in three columns of 6 tiles each.

Secondly, I need to get the rest of the blocks labelled as soon as possible - I have the Khaki set to do and then the ID numbers need to be added. The result of this will be the ability to game whatever horse and musket, or 20th century campaign want to at a stroke!

Thirdly, the Portable Naval Wargame - with rule mechanics virtually identical to the land version - needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. I have a couple of home grown sets that are very good and usuable but they are not in the same league as the elegant simplicity of the land based versions. In the interests of consistency I need to translate this into a naval set - and this will mean looking at the whole subject from a fresh perspective, unfettered by largely redundant detail.

Finally, and this will be a priority. I need to acquire the final pieces of terrain for my Hexon set up. Luckily SWMBO has been making Xmas prezzie type noises so I hope to take suitable advantage of this!

Portable Wargame Rules - OK!

2011-11-14T06:08:00.000Z

Indeed they certainly are! I used Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame rules for my recent game involving Fezia and Rusland and they worked extremely well although it was only after the game I realised that I had used version one rather than the later set. With this in mind I decided this weekend I would refight the Battle of Keder Sirt using Bob's Colonial version of his original 19th century set.

I was really pleased I did.

The resultant game seemed to be far more decisive, helped in part by the longer move distances and increase in weapon ranges. I still made use of the roster system which seems to offer some tangible 'meat' to the game - units last longer - and suits my own ideas from a campaign perspective far better. For me though, by far the most important feature of these rules is the simple fact that they can be 'dressed up' or 'dressed down' in terms of complexity with relative ease - in fact the roster system I used, combined with exhaustion levels (borrowed from Volley and Bayonet) appeared to slot into the system almost seamlessly.

The battle lasted 6 turns compared to the original 8 and all of the Rusland units managed to get into the fray. The attack in the centre very nearly pushed the Fezians off the ridge whilst the flanking attack had both of the Rusland cavalry units taking on the sole Fezian mounted unit. The Rusland flanking infantry were also able to get to grips with the Bashi Bazouks in the woods and at the end of the game these two Fezian units (the cavalry and the Bashi Bazouks) were clinging on for dear life with each being engaged by two Rusland units. It was only the fact that the Rusland forces hit their exhaustion level due to heavy casualties sustained in the centre - the number of strength points lost from the army total being 14 from 35 - that enabled the Fezians to secure a very narrow victory. It was extremely tense right up to the final turn.

Taking all the above into consideration I still have a few further rule tweaks in mind but the simple fact of the matter is I don't really need to as the rules are excellent as they stand. My changes will include the use of the aforementioned roster and exhaustion level system and I will also reduce a couple of the weapon ranges a tad. The hit results will be also be changed simply because of the implications of using the roster - I will also replace the 'survive, but fall back one hex (grid area)' effect with a 'take a hit or fall back one hex (grid area) as I like having to give the unit owner the choice (to a degree) of how they apply any damage received.

I am also going to be making use of standard units sizes with dice modifiers for the size of the formation - something that is employed in Command and Colours Napoleonics. Using Battle Cry/Memoir 44 as a model I have come up the following:

Regular Infantry strength 4/2
Cavalry and Irregular Infantry strength 3/2
Artillery and Weapons units e.g artillery and mgs strength 2/1
Commanders strength 1.

Larger than usual versions of the above would have an extra strength point which would give them a +1 dice modifier during combat. Similarly, when they are reduced to a certain size a -1 dice modifier would come into effect - this is the figure after the slash above. Obviously unit strengths would come into play rather more in a scenario or campaign setting.

In summary then I can say that the rules Bob has devised are really good to use 'straight off the bat' for a fast play game with the right amount of the all important period 'feel' but for my own purposes I have added a few tweaks to align them more with my own rules ideas. It is without a doubt a positive reflection on the elegant simplicity and soundness of the original design that I am able to do this with little adverse effect.

It is far harder to write a 'simple' set of rules that work (Lord alone knows I have tried!) than a more complex set and in this Bob has succeeded admirably. The rules and variants etc can all be found here -

Portable Wargame

Take a look and enjoy!

Narodowe Święto Niepodległości) - Polish Independence Day

2011-11-11T21:55:00.000Z

The Polish National Flag

I am currently working for a Swiss Bank that has offices in Krakow, Poland. As part of my daily duties I am required to have telephone conference call with our Polish colleagues (not for any "Idle Polish Chit-Chat" though!) and when we had our call yesterday they happily told me that today is Polish Independence Day and it is a national holiday.

A brief account of the significance and history of this day can be found here - Polish Independence Day

So to any Polish readers dropping by I will say only this - Szczęśliwy Dzień Niepodległości!