Hammerin’ Iron Revisited

The Peter Pig Hammerin’ Iron cloth. Personally I think it is not ideal but will suffice for my immediate needs. Note the strategically placed Kiwi Fruit holding down the corners whilst Hovis the Hedgehog - our doorstop - looks on impassively.

Actually the title of this post should really read ‘Peter Pig 1/600th scale ACW Revisited’ as I am more concerned with the components rather than the rules of the same name! I mentioned a while ago that my collection of the aforementioned 1/600th models was now safely back at Maison Crook - including ships, terrain and troop blocks - but only yesterday did I take (re)delivery of the Peter Pig playing cloth designed to accompany their rules.

Hammerin’ Iron is party of the RFCM (Rules For the Common Man) stable and so are fun, easy to use and give a great game. They are not super detailed or realistic but have more than sufficient period flavour to make then a very popular set. I have fought a couple of games with these and they are hugely entertaining. I own the latest version of the rules and a copy of the land expansion for the earlier edition. For some reason Peter Pig did not include the land rules in the revised version - I am unsure why but it is in my opinion a great shame as they are also great fun and use the 1/600th scale troop blocks from their range of ships and terrain.

Now here is the thing. My plan for the models is very simple as I shall be focussing on the river battles leading up to the fall of Vicksburg and later. I shall be using a version of the rules that Bob Cordery has written in his latest book - Gridded Naval Wargames. I say version as the redoubtable Mr Fox has tweaked them very slightly to add some extra depth. I have a few ideas around this myself so will probably tweak the tweaks to bring them into line with my own ideas on the subject - primarily around ship classifications.

The cloth that Peter Pig sells to support their rules is hexed and covers a playing area of 7 x 13 hexes. As you can see there is a shoreline along both sides  meaning that the blue of the water represents a river. The hexes themselves are 12cms across the flat hex sides. There is sufficient room onshore to deploy the odd fort or field works but the land is not hexed as such, only where it is contact with the water.

In my opinion this is probably not the best way to have done this as I believe it may have been better to have had just one side representing the shore so that their would be a little more ‘sea room’ so to speak. Having said that it does make for a potentially cramped playing area which probably captures the essence of river fighting better. The purist may be offended by the inland waterways of the US being blue in colour but at least there can be no doubt where the wet stuff is!

Once I have some ships ready to use with this (when the WW2 models are finished) I will iron the cloth to flatten out the creases and can then store it flat.

As I say, it is not perfect but will serve for the immediate future or at least until I can come up with something a little more tailored.

Revisiting Risk: Europe and Hollywood Medieval Gaming

 

The box art - this is not like a 'normal' Risk game, in fact I think it is closer of Axis and Allies in many ways.

 

The rear of the box showing the components.

 

 

The map board - very useful as the basis of some stylised campaigns.

 

 

The figures - and they are very nice indeed!

 

Finally, a game in progress with what looks like Scandinavians and Arab/Turkic types fighting over France....

 

There are many periods of military history that I have an interest in – there are also many periods of military history that I am unlikely to raise armies for. The Medieval era for me very much falls into the latter category. Of course systems like Saga, Lion Rampant, DBA/HOTT and the Portable Wargame mean that smaller armies are required with the obvious advantage of needing less figures and are therefore much quicker to get into action. That is the theory anyway…. 

If I am honest I have a strange relationship with the Medieval period. I cannot say I am well read on the subject as the only things I have studied at any great length have been the Mongol Conquests or the Crusades and even then only intermittently. I have fought a few games in the period but not for some time. I have come to the conclusion that my ‘interest’ in the period is largely what I would call a Hollywood one in that my ideas of warfare in the period have been firmly influenced by the films I have seen. With this somewhat lackadaisical approach to historical accuracy it is fairly safe to assume that any armies I undertake will probably be of the ‘based on’ variety rather than being super accurate.

That is why I was so pleased to have  acquired a couple of copies of Risk: Europe way back in November of last year.

As mentioned in a previous post this version of Risk is unlike any other and in fact is more like an Axis and Allies style of game. The troop types have various strengths and weaknesses – for example you are not able to attack a castle unless you have a siege weapon – and although the armies are made up of the same types of figures (missile troops, hand to hand fighters, cavalry and the aforementioned siege weapon) the game uses different models for each army. The figures are pretty generic and represent eastern and western European forces, Scandinavia and Arabic/Turkic. They are small 20mm scale moulded in a kind of soft plastic. 

A single copy of the game will net you four armies each of 12 foot, a dozen missile troops and 35 hand to hand fighters with around 4 siege engines – of differing types. Having two sets of the game gives a little extra flexibility.  

Much as I am intrigued by the game in its original form the likelihood of getting sufficient people in the same space-time continuum to actually play it is unlikely. However, as a low cost option for some Medieval mayhem you could do a lot worse. The two sets cost me £20 so there is a lot of figures there and all the other material  - the stylised map of Europe for example - would come in useful for campaign purposes.

 

These are not on the radar for anytime soon so no decisions really need to be as such in respect of painting or basing, even which rules to use with them. In a moment of weakness I may cobble up a couple of DBA/HOTT forces - these would be great to use for a fantasy set up methinks - as a side hustle so to speak.

 

Something to think about then.



 

 

 



 

 





Battle! Practical Wargaming

 

The original version of Charles Grant's classic title devoted to WW2 wargames.

 

 

The edition currently available from Caliver books. There is a lot of additional material in this although the photo quality for the original chapters is quite poor - even in the original 1970 book they were not great!

 

Another of my ‘go to’ wargames books – although not recently which is rather surprising given my WW2 project – is Battle! Practical Wargaming by Charles Grant. If I am honest I would say that I preferred this to his book the Wargame, probably as when I first read it, I was heavily into WW2 courtesy of Airfix and numerous copies of Commando comic books! 

The subject matter is WW2 land warfare using 20mm Airfix infantry and Roco Minitanks (for the most part). The rules were simple and Grant unashamedly used vehicles for what they represented rather than what they actually were. I recall copying his idea for a conversion of a Russian infantryman kneeling firing into a bazooka gunner using some wire and fashioning a radio operator from the smg carrying squatting figure by the hugely technical use of a small square of balsa wood and a another piece of wire. I also remember making the measuring stick for antitank fire with the angle of strike device as well as the various other templates the rules used. It did not stop there either as I also used to make tanks from cigarette and match boxes as well as buildings and ploughed fields from corrugated card. It was all great fun and driven by my modest financial circumstances.

I fought many games with these rules when I was a teenager on the Isle of Sheppey using unpainted plastic figures although the vehicles, at least when they were kits that is,  were painted. For some reason we never bothered with the Airfix polythene vehicles.

In the book Grant covered most of the usual WW2 tabletop features we are familiar with although there was no mention of aircraft. I enjoyed reading his rationale behind his rules and his comments on visibility and the effects of chance in wargames have stayed with me. I flirted with the idea of ‘hexing’ the rules but did not really pursue it to any great extent. I also enjoyed the actions he fought using his rules. 

I would happily use these rules again and I seem to recall that someone had updated them to include more complete vehicle lists and certain missing weapon types. I believe that a modern version also exists. 

When I first considered using 20mm infantry figures from the Axis and Allies board game my initial thought was to use Charles Grant’s rules as they are simple and great fun to use. I suspect he would not have been overly concerned about aesthetics in respect of what equipment was being used by whom as the game was the thing.

 

A great set of rules.

 



 



Greece is the Word....

 

Another gem from the pen of David Howarth of Waterloo: A Near Run Thing fame 9and some other great titles as well!)

 

As part of my research into the Western Balkans pre and post Greek independence I was reminded of the above book in my collection by David Howarth. One of his other works has the dubious accolade of being one of my favourite books – A Near Run Thing, his account of the Battle of Waterloo constructed from the reminiscences of various participants. I picked The Greek Adventure up from a boot sale a couple of years ago and there it has sat on the shelf waiting for me to read it. 

Much like the author’s work on Waterloo this is by no means the most detailed account of the Greek War of Independence but what it lacks in detail it makes up for in respect of being a rattling good read. As a primer attempting to make sense of what was happening it would be hard to beat and it has certainly given me much to think about for my Balkan project.

 

The War of Independence was disorganised, chaotic, anarchic even as initially there was little thought by the local populace beyond removing the Turks and resuming the almost clannish/tribal way of life that had persisted for centuries. The idea of a Greek nation was firmly in the hands of exiles and westernised merchants living abroad and hoping to bring the benefits of the modern post American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary world. These groups (including the inevitable secret society committed to freeing Greece from the Turks found a willing audience in the aspiration of the Philhellenes of a united Greece along the classical model - despite the fact that classical Greece was always a collection of states rather than a unified entity.

 

In many ways Greece was rather like Scotland with its clans or even the North West Frontier with its tribes. The biggest difference though is the naval dimension as both the maritime and island Greeks were (and still are) very good sailors, certainly better than the Turks.

 

Reading Howarth's book has given me much food for thought about what I shall be gaming and how I will be doing it. Certainly the earlier period (by that I mean the period of the War of Independence) has much to commend it in an anarchic sort of way rather than the later 1875 to 1885 when things were a little more settled.

 

Much to ponder methinks!

 



Churchill and Madagascar

 

The set completed at Salute earlier in the year by the addition of the East Africa volume - which features the invasion of Madagascar

 

The dedicated title written by one of the editors of the set above.

 

 

Way back in April at Salute I picked up the final volume of a 'series' of books covering WW2 in the Mediterranean. These books, from the Pen and Sword 'Despatches from the Front' series, are compilations of official reports interspersed with a brief narrative to place the reports into context. As these are official reports the language can be a little stilted at times but they are a goldmine of information for anyone interested in the 'reason why'. I have really enjoyed dipping into these and they have proven to be very useful as well as being full of gaming ideas.

 

The East Africa volume is probably my favourite simply because of the sideshow nature of the campaign and my soft spot for such things. As mentioned this book also touched on the Madagascar operation and so when I saw that one of the editors of the series had written a dedicated book on the operation I immediately acquired a copy - and very good it is as well!

 

I can do no better than quote the Amazon description of John Grehan's excellent title thus:

 

"In the spring of 1942 Britain's far-flung empire was in the greatest peril. North Africa was being overrun by the German Afrika Korps and in south-east Asia the forces of Imperial Japan had captured Singapore and were threatening India. Only the most urgent reinforcement of both war fronts could prevent disaster. But Britain's shipping routes to Egypt and India passed the island of Madagascar. If the Japanese Navy, operating out of Madagascar, could severe Britain's communications with Cairo and Delhi, then the whole of North Africa and the Indian sub-continent would be at the mercy of the Axis Powers. In a desperate race against time, and under conditions of the utmost secrecy, at Churchill's instigation Britain planned to seize Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, before the Japanese could strike. An overwhelming force was assembled and despatched as part of the largest convoy ever to have left Britain's shores. Yet the expedition's commanders were faced with not just military but also political obstacles, because the forces occupying the island were not those her enemy's but those of her former ally - France. The Secret Invasion is the first book to examine in detail this crucial campaign which was Britain's largest amphibious assault since the First World War and the first large-scale combined air, sea and land operation Britain had attempted"

 

So, British and Commonwealth troops fighting the Vichy French to ensure that the Japanese could not take control of the island and threaten the Cape.

 

There is a lot of potential here and it is certainly an interesting, if little known, campaign.

 

 



Charging into a Wargame

 

The two books that have had the most lasting impact on my own wargaming odyssey.

 

Covering the same period, using the same large units and the with same use of the imagi-nation for the forces used therein.

 

I am sure I am not alone in having an enormous amount of affection for the above seminal books on wargaming: Charge! by Messrs. Young and Lawford and the Wargame by Charles Grant. In a moment of whimsy on a particularly irritating train journey I went through a mental exercise of thinking about the wargames books I have read and what has stayed with me the most. Furthermore, from those titles what, if anything, would be relevant to my gaming today.   

Taking the two books together the first thing for me is the difference in style. Charge! reads far better in my opinion than the Wargame but the latter is far more, dare I say it, analytical in content. In that way they complement one another rather well. Both titles use the 18^th century as their period of choice and also make use of large units of individual figures and fictional armies. Indeed Charge! goes even further and actively encourages the formation of fictional armies rather than historical ones. Finally, both titles include actions fought using the author’s rules.

I think it is safe to say that as far as wargaming is concerned these two books more or less single-handedly instigated a whole plethora of ‘imagi-nations’ – helped by the actual historical patchwork quilt of small states across central Europe at the time.

For a long time the idea of fictional armies was very dear to me until, dare I say it, ‘history and accuracy’ took hold. I have no axe to grind in respect of the purely historical gamer - the person that builds historically accurate armies based on a specific campaign (or part thereof) and that plays their games set solely in that era against armies of the appropriate opposition.

 

I often wonder though, if one is missing a trick by following such a course - I am pretty sure I have over the years.

 

One thing that did occur to me though concerning both of the above books was their use of what are nowadays unfashionably large units. Taking as an example one of their suggested infantry regiments/battalions - the exact nomenclature is not really important - of some 48 rank and file and half a dozen officers and supernumaries, drummers, sergeants and standard bearers etc one has sufficient figures to break the unit into smaller units which would fit in well with alternate rules. Taking Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame as an example a standard infantry unit consists of four pieces. I say pieces intentionally as each piece could have a single figures or a base of figures contained therein. This means the 48 figures could furnish units of 12 x 4, 6 x 8, 8 x 6 or 4 x 12. It matters not as long as the four bases for the unit are manned.

 

What is the point I am trying to make? Well, I have been a huge fan of the above rules for as long as I have been wargaming and whilst I can never see myself whole fielding armies using their suggested organisations I can see no problem raising a single infantry regiment in that fashion. The same would apply to the cavalry and artillery organisation. There is something very atmospheric about having separate command figures, musicians and standard bearers etc for the horse and musket period rather than having such worthies assimilated 'into the brown' on an anonymous base of multiples.

 

The days of massed armies in 30mm are passed for many of us - time, expense and the sheer effort involved of churning out a couple of armies of several hundred figures is prohibitive - but I for one am loath to lose sight of the legacy of Messrs. Grant, Lawford and Young.

 

With this in mind I shall be organising the units for the Western Balkans and the North West Frontier as per those laid down by those worthy gentlemen. My sole concession is with the cavalry as 3 troops of 8 figures for a regiment is a little unwieldy for my taste. I suspect that two troops of the arme blanche would be sufficient for my needs. Any additions to a force would be added using the company/troop/section organisation so preserving the Charge/Wargame effect.

 

I have organised the first two armies for the Western Balkans on that basis and at this stage will be amassing the figures accordingly from Spencer Smith.

 

 





Revisiting Across Four Oceans

 

The Across Four Oceans logo



Way back in 2012 I posted about a set of WW2 Naval rules inspired by Axis and Allies: War At Sea available from Boardgamegeek. The set was called Across Four Oceans and there is a link to them in the post mentioned.

 

The rules and fleet lists. There is a tactical and an operational set of rules designed for campaigns.



Whilst is the very warm man cave (sweating profusely I might add!) I came across my folder with the rules contained therein and so thought I would take a further look.

I am very pleased I did.

A number of years ago Mr Fox and myself spent a lot of time (and money!) amassing fleets using the 1/1800th scale models available as part of the Axis and Allies: War at Sea collectible miniatures game. We had some superb games at the club using the huge cloth that I had marked out with 8" offset squares. The rules were simple and involved great handfuls of dice. As a game it was enormous fun but it always felt a little like a Chinese takeaway - satisfying in the short term but leaving you hungry for more shortly after. Our enthusiasm waned and the fleets were disbursed to the four corners of the globe. The models were nice but the scale was a little on the large side for anything other than large playing areas - meaning the dining table was out. You could use the rules with smaller models but this was not an option we ever really thought about - which in itself is surprising as there are plenty of 1/3000th scale fleets at the club.

Across Four Oceans have essentially taken the Axis and Allies system and 'wargamered' it. The rules are far more detailed and are designed for use on a hex grid although there is a hexless variant. Aside from the tactical rules there is also a very nice set f operational rules that can be used for campaigns.

I have the rules and three fleets lists printed off - the Royal Navy, Kriegsmarine and the Italians - but there are a whole host of others as well. These also include aircraft.

I shall spend some time rereading these as, on the face of it, they offer a complete system for WW2 naval gaming including air operations. They also have the additional scale of detail that the Axis and Allies rules lack.

For my part using these rules would make my WW2 project easier to initiate as a lot of the work has already been done. I also think that using the models I have from the Axis and Allies strategic board game on a 4" hexagonal grid (or even gridless) this could work very nicely from a space perspective as the size of the models would not look out of place on a tabletop.

As ever, lots to think about.