Thoughts on Wind and Water

As well as being a magazine cover this image was also used on the box lid of the Battleline version of Wooden Ships and Iron Men. 

I have been feeling fairly lethargic over the last couple of weeks and despite having a gazillion things to do I have really struggled to get motivated. I suppose this is off the back of my prolonged chesty/throaty thing and is sure to pass soon. It usually does!

Anyway, whilst in this meandering state, I decided to browse through the recently rediscovered CD of the Avalon Hill/Victory Games Naval Games and, for no particular reason, settled on the folder of articles about Wooden Ships and Iron Men. 

I was certainly glad I did!

The Avalon Hill board game Wooden Ships and Iron Men is a simplified version of the original Ship ‘O’ the Line miniatures rules (one of my favourite rule sets for the period) and uses hexes rather than squares. The original miniatures rules were some eight years in the making and started life as a very detailed set of ship to ship rules, not the fleet level version of later.

Contained within the folder of articles there is a whole lot great material ranging from scenarios, mini campaigns, tactical discussions, additional and alternative rules and much more besides. The Russo-Swedish War and the Russo-Turkish War both feature with plenty of varied actions to be fought. There is also some really interesting background to the game design and its evolution from a miniatures set to the award winning Avalon Hill board game version penned by the designer himself, S Craig Taylor Jr.

Pirates feature, along with a series of scenarios based on the actions featured in the Richard Bolitho stories  written by Alexander Kent, the pen name of Douglas Reeman.

All in all then, there is plenty to get one’s teeth into for the period - which leads me quite nicely into the next bit!

Age of Sail thoughts

I own Wooden Ships and Iron Men (the Avalon Hill version), Flying Colours, Seas of Glory (more of a strategic game based on the 1805 campaign ending at Trafalgar) and also Micro-Fleet Napoleonic Naval so am well served in respect of board game options. Would I use models? The short answer is yes, I would and indeed, having built ships with a full sailing rail for the ACW project I am sure I could make a good fist of it. The only downside is time and in all seriousness I could not see myself undertaking what would be a significant building program anytime before 2027. The board game options will have to suffice, at least for the foreseeable anyway.

Of course there is always the range of 1:4800th scale models available from Tumbling Dice….

I think I need a lie down…. ;-)

A Disc that Slipped (the mind, that is!)

A Disc that had slipped from my mind….

No, I haven’t injured myself - I am instead referring to a CD I purchased way back in 2010! The CD is a compilation of PDFs of the components from the Avalon Hill and Victory Games Naval Titles. Also included are all the appropriate articles from the Avalon Hill General magazine associated with a particular title.

There are scanned copies of the rules, counter sheets, map boards, record logs/plot maps as well the aforementioned AG General articles.

At the time I purchased this solely for the Jutland content but upon rediscovering the CD I realised that there is a whole lot more good stuff to plough through. To give you a flavour the list of games covered is as follows:

Attack Sub

Submarine

Bismarck (1962 and 1978 versions)

Trireme

Carrier (Victory Games)

Flat Top

Midway (1964 and 1991 versions)

Peloponnesian War (Victory Games)

Tokyo Express (Victory Games)

Pacific War (Victory Games)

War at Sea/Victory in the Pacific

Wooden Ships and Iron Men

I own a few of these - Submarine, Bismarck (1978), Flat Top, Midway (1991) and Wooden Ships and Iron Men. Jutland I no longer have although I do have the Avalanche Press Great War at Sea version.

The big advantage of this is having the magazine articles in one place and already I have seen a whole pile of stuff that will be useful - not just scenarios and additional rules but designer insights etc. For example, a couple of articles in the Wooden Ships and Iron Men folder were penned by the designer S Craig Taylor Jr. I shall look forward to reading them and the series of scenarios covering the Russo Turkish war during the Napoleonic era.

I have a similar CD that covers the Avalon Hill version of Air Force and Dauntless - I already have the Avalon Hill Generals devoted to Mustangs and Guadalcanal.

That will be my reading material sorted for a while methinks - in between painting ironclads that is!

WW1 Naval - Micro Fleet style

A boardgame without a board - a tactical game with more weight than Avalon Hill’s Jutland 

The components - play sheets, move/damage record charts and counters. The rules are in the cover and are 21 single sided pages long.

Well this is a blast from the past and no mistake! My good friend Mr Fox was having a tidy up of, I believe, his Area 51 1/2, when he came across his copy of the above, along with the Jutland Fleet packs. Having no further use for the same and knowing my interest in the period and old gaming systems, he very kindly passed them on to yours truly.

Published in 1976 by Tabletop Games, the game was part of a series which included Napoleonics, ancients, Colonials, Sci Fi, WW2 naval, Napoleonic naval and I believe Medievals. Contained inside the cover were the rules, playing aids and record pads along with counters to represent the units. There were additional army packs available and for the Napoleonic naval version the fleet packs for Trafalgar. As I recall the WW2 naval version covered the Denmark Straits and the River Plate with an expansion covering Matapan. 

For the WW1 naval edition the base game features ship counters for the Goeben incident, the Falklands, Dogger Bank and the battlecruiser actions from Jutland. The two expansion packs add the remaining ships to the Jutland order of battle. the rules were very much of their time - chart and factor heavy with written moves.

I remember playing many games with this system, including Jutland, with an old friend of mine using his lounge floor. It was great fun but limited as to the variety of ships available - British and German only. I never knew who designed this but I had many a cracking action with it. Would I use it again? Possibly for nostalgic reasons but as an inveterate rules tinkerer I would probably look to, ahem, borrow some of the ideas and put my own spin on it.

I would be really keen to reverse engineer the ship specs just to see how the designer got to where they got to.

My thanks to Mr Fox for passing this on to me - as ever much appreciated!

BTW, if any readers have any of the other editions of this series they no longer need then please let me know - especially the other two naval titles, WW2 and Napoleonic.

A Tale of Two Assault Cannons

Two types of Assault Cannon to inflict the Emperor’s vengeance upon his enemies. The unmounted version looks more business like in my opinion.

Whilst the latest paint on the ironclads is drying I took the opportunity to take a look at the Terminator Assault Cannons I had recently acquired for use with my copy of Space Hulk. As you can see there are a number of differences between the two types. The model I converted uses a simpler looking AC whilst the newer version has rather more detail. I have opted to use the latter for a number of reasons. To begin with, the weapon looks better balanced with several millimetres of the weapon effectively behind the marine. It is also a couple of millimetres shorter so will not stick out quite as far as the first version. Finally, the weapon has a better muzzle finish - the ring that the barrels are mounted in is missing from the first version - and so looks more business-like.

The same conversion technique will be used to fashion the three models I need and I am hoping that I shall be able to re-convert the original model to the new standard. 

I also plan to convert some sergeants and a captain figure so as to round the selection off. 

Painting Progress

The ships of the Sublime Porte. The main hull sections are at the top - as you can see they are painted black. The two white sections you see are undercoated as they are a visible part of the main deck and so will be painted as such.

The Royal Navy. You can see the red layer that will be on the waterline. The black hulls need masking tape before I tackle the white ‘boot strapping’.

 I had some good news this morning in that Warbases are now on the case with my small order - I was expecting to wait another couple of weeks or so - meaning that I shall be able to get to the Royal Navy sooner rather than later. To this end I decided to increase the pace with the Turkish ships so these will be definitely finished first. The pictures illustrate the state of play so far with the lower hulls.

My plan now is to paint the Turkish ships main decks over the weekend so they will then be ready for the deck features and masts etc. 

The pieces I am waiting on from Warbases impact five of the Royal Navy models - numbers 2 until five along the bottom row from the left and also number eight. For the first four ships (2 to 5) I am waiting on the main deck whilst number eight has some bespoke pieces needed. 

For the Turks I have a number of masts already assembled but I need to see if they are of the correct dimensions first - I will tackle this once the lower hulls and main decks are as complete as they can be first of all though.

Mr Huband will no doubt be delighted at the progress being made with the Turks, Mr Fox less o with the RN!

The Plan Taking Shape

A rather attractive poster that Mr Fox found online. He kindly sent me a digital version of this and guess what I found on it?

The Turkish ironclad Messudieh - sister ship to HMS Superb, both of which will be featuring in the Anglo-Turkish War of 1880

Work on 24 of the 16 models I am building for the Anglo-Turkish War of 1880 continues, albeit at a rather leisurely pace. The Turkish lower hulls are complete whilst the RN are awaiting the white boot strapping - this is not difficult but it is fiddly and time consuming and one really needs to be at the top their game when doing it. I am not quite there yet as the chesty/throaty thing lingers on although not as bad as last week. In any event, I am waiting on Warbases for some bits and pieces for the RN models - well, five of them - so the Turks will probably be finished first.

The battle report that will feature in Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame now has a pair of commanders for the opposing sides. Messrs Fox and Huband will be commanding the Royal Navy and that of the Sublime Porte respectively - for which I am hugely grateful as it means I can concentrate on making sure everything runs smoothly and that the all important after action report is as accurate as possible. I am more confident of the latter than the former though!

The battle will consist of both sides having around 8 ships each and so this will the largest game undertaken using the rules. It will also be fought on a square grid rather than hexagonal.

Each commander will be able to choose eight ships for their respective fleets with the umpire being able to swap out one or two of them, to add a little variety to the set up. I am thinking of running a smaller game beforehand just so Messrs Fox and Huband can get a handle on the rules - in my experience there is no substitute for actually moving the models about rather than relying solely on the written word so to speak.

Anyways, the ships available to either side are as follows:

Royal Navy

HMS Monarch

HMS Devastation

HMS Superb

HMS Hercules

HMS Agincourt

HMS Minotaur

HMS Audacious

HMS Invincible

HMS Swiftsure

HMS Triumph

HMS Belleisle

HMS Orion

Of the ships above the first two are turret ships whilst the final pair are coastal defence rams. HMS Superb, HMS Belleisle and HMS Orion were originally intended for Turkey but were purchased as a result of the potential war with Russia arising from the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78. 

Turkey

Mesudiye

Osmaniye

Mahmudiye

Assar-i Tevfik

Assar-i Sevket

Necm-i Sevket

Luft-u Celil

Hifz-ur Rahman

Avnillah

Muin-i Zafer

Feth-i Bulend

Mukaddeme-i Hayir

Mesudiye is the sister ship of HMS Superb and was eventually sunk during the Great War. The two ships were the largest broadside battery ironclads built and whilst both were equipped with a full sailing rig neither were ‘sailed’ as such. Apparently HMS Superb was so unmanageable under sail that she never had a sailing manual produced for her! I noticed that the Turkish navy reduced the sailing rig on their ironclads pretty quickly - I have no information as to why but suspect that perhaps manpower may have been a factor. 

There is an interesting mix of types in both fleets and so the resulting action should be a lot of fun in an anarchic kind of way. As ever, victory will go to whoever makes the best use of what they have to hand, along with the occasional smile from Dame Fortune. 

Once again, my thanks to Neil Fox and Nick Huband - I only hope they know what they have let themselves in for!

Defying Gravity - Leviathans Style

Gotta love the idea of a flying battleship! The base game contains 8 PRE-PAINTED models - 2 battleships, 2 cruisers and 4 destroyers split equally between Great Britain and France. These are made from plastic and are scaled at 1:1200th - the same as those from Brigade Models from their Aeronef/Imperial Skies range

I have a long history with Victorian Science Fiction aerial wargames. Initially this was down to the Aeronef rules produced by Wessex Games years ago - a set I have fond memories an, along with Aussie Paul of The Man Cave fame,  even collaborated on a mini campaign supplement called Aeronef over the Aegean. I scratch built fleets of Balkan dirigibles for the Turks, Greeks and Bulgarians, and in short, had a lot of fun with the genre.

Since then I have sort of looked at genre a few times - mainly with a view to scratch building the models again - but never really got anything off the ground so to speak. I am going to look at Robin Fitton’s Imperial Skies (available from Brigade Models I believe) and even revisit Castles in the Sky for additional inspiration but something has appeared at Maison Crook that the genre did probably not expect….

Leviathans is a miniatures based game of flying warships set around 1910 - firmly in the Dystopian Wars/Steampunk ‘era’. I remember seeing mention of the game prior to its launch around 2011 and being pretty ‘meh’ about the whole idea. I have a vague recollection that the models were going to be released moulded in transparent plastic which I was underwhelmed by - not sure why but at the time it did not appeal for some reason - and also the range of ‘official’ models seemed quite limited. 

Nowadays I tend to be a little less precious about ‘official’ models - how very avant-garde of me - so when a copy of the released game popped up for sale on one of the Facebook groups I belong to I thought I would take a look - just for old times sake and all that.

I looked into the current situation of Leviathans and was surprised to see that a further edition had been fully funded on kickstarter and added in the Germans and Russians as well as extending the original game to include the Great War. The new base game features French and German Leviathans with the inevitable extra fleet packs adding additional models. A quick messenger exchange with the game’s producers - Catalyst Game Labs - confirmed that the new version is essentially the original game rebadged and expanded and critically, all the original material is still relevant and usable. That clinched it!

Now I should perhaps explain my thought process at this point. Obtaining a copy of a game like this - self contained, with pre-painted models and ready to use straight out of the box - is at the present time probably the best way for me to get into something new. Although this is not strictly a new project per se, it is something that has been on the radar and I do have ‘form’ with it. Is that a justification? Perhaps - but it what passes for rational decision making in my universe it was a no-brainer!

The Game Itself

When this large box of goodies arrived the first thing I realised was that aside from the eight ships in the base game there were also the British and French expansion packs - a further eight models! I queried this with the seller and he said he had forgotten about them. He did not want any extra money as a result which was a generous gesture indeed although I had managed to score one of each set off eBay in anticipation - which now means that I will have twenty four models in all!

There are two double-sided map boards - these are 16 by 17 hexes (the hexes are 33mm across the flat sides). The above are the ‘land’ sides….

….and this is the ‘sea’ side

Some of the models on their bases along with the data cards and damage cards

More of the game components

The paperwork - the Lieutenant’s Manual is the quick start version whilst the Commanders’s is the full rules set. The Gazetteer is a 90 page background guide to the world of 1910 and the technology involved. The world is very much historically aligned although a few changes are present!

A poster featuring the main types involved in this version of the game.

All of the models - the lighter grey types are French, the darker are British

The models from the base game.

The models are rather nice but do feel a little fragile. The paint jobs are acceptable although even reluctant old painter me has felt the urge to ‘pimp’ them up a little - time however, is still my greatest adversary!

All in all then, this is a welcome addition to the collection that crucially does not need much in the way of getting it table ready. The new version should be available later spring so will increase the available models somewhat. I would have liked to have scratch built them but sadly time would not permit so having an ‘over ready’ option for the genre is really handy.

The map boards could also serve for 1:600th scale aircraft games so all in all the game has many benefits - even if I used the models elsewhere. 

In closing the only thing I would say is that I am not a fan of the bases used!