This is a long running and continuing journey around a collection of ideas, projects, games, models and a variety of wargaming related themes from my own imagination and from others. As I have been described as having the attention span of a forgetful goldfish you can rest assured the resulting subject matter will be diverse and (usually) entertaining! "He lived in a frenzy of enthusiasm — but nothing lasted for long with him".
Tuesday 30 January 2024
Thoughts on Firing
Monday 29 January 2024
Front Loading for Retirement*
Thursday 25 January 2024
Thoughts on the Revised and Expanded Edition
With apologies for the poor picture quality, the newly commissioned C.S.S. Tennessee steams gallantly towards the Union blockading ships.
As mentioned in my recent post I am planning to fight a small test action this weekend, pitting the newly commissioned C.S.S. Tennessee trying her luck against a Union sloop and a monitor. In many ways this will be similar to Hampton Roads with the exception that the old navy sloop will not be aground! I also mentioned that there are a couple of optional rules I am trying out that, assuming they are successful, will appear in the Portable Ironclads Wargame Revised and Expanded edition later in the year.
The two rules cover the turn sequence and firing and remember, these are optional.
Alternate Movement.
In the original version of the rules players rolled for initiative with the winner having the choice of moving first or second with all their ships. As an option I am allowing players to alternate movement based on the initiative roll. My rationale for this is that I believe it will better reflect the organised chaos of most ACW naval actions as ships jockey for position whilst being mindful of the opposition. If using this method then some means of marking a ship that has moved is required and for this I shall be using sort lengths of white pipe cleaner folded into a ‘V’ shape and placed on the ship’s bow. This represents a bow wave and so as each ships moves it will become clear who has and it is an easy way to keep track. When all the ships are thus adorned the turn is over and these markers are then removed during the first phase of the next game turn.
Move and Fire, Fire and Move.
This option changes the sequence of play in that the firing phase is dispensed with as it now fits in with movement. The plan is for ships to be able to fire at the start of their move or at the end. Ships that opt to do the latter should have a marker representing gun smoke placed by them which then stays in place until the end of the ships next move (these are not removed at the start of the next turn. In effect a ship that fires at the end of a turn will not be able to fire again until the end of the next turn, assuming it wants to. If it does not then the smoke marker is removed and the ship is then free to fire either at the start or the end of the following move.
Both of these rules will force extra decision making on the respective commanders as timing suddenly becomes critical. In truth I was a little wary of these ideas as I figured that it may slow things down a little but but careful ‘marker management’ all will be later and besides, seeing bow waves and gun smoke adds to the visual appeal which is no bad thing.
Wednesday 24 January 2024
‘65….A Bump in the Boonies*
….and the rear of the box featuring an area of ‘bandit country’.
With one eye on the inevitable ‘right-sizing’ in a few years I have been realigning much of my collection so that it is portable and does not take up vast amounts of space. For me this translates into boardgames rather than models - with of course some notable exceptions - so that the eventual move should be as painless as possible. Large armies will no longer feature so the block armies or 2/3mm will be the order of the day. 28mm will be for skirmishes up to ‘Rampant’ level. Note that ships, aircraft, starships or Battlemechs are not included in this!
As part of this process you may recall a while ago I acquired a whole bunch of WW2 tactical games published by Lock and Load. The rules are outstanding but for a variety of reasons they never really caught my imagination. Everyone I know that games the system swears by them but somewhat perversely I suppose, I am not one of them! What had caught my eye though, was a boardgame published by Flying Pig Games called ‘65 - Squad Level Combat In The Jungles Of Vietnam. This was might up my street in terms of the scale of the game and so I attempted to source a copy. It proved to be an almost impossible task to get a copy in the UK and I was on the verge of giving up when a gaming chum pointed out that a set was up for grabs on Ebay.
I duly ‘watched’ the listing and then on the last day entered a bid, then another, then another after that until eventually the auction finished and guess what? I had won it! It was a little higher than I expected but still an absolute bargain.
The game itself contained all the currently available expansions and although the counters were punched out it was unused. I am a little fastidious about boardgames in that I much prefer mounted map boards and chunky counters and so ‘65 delivers this in spades. The counters are 1” squares or larger and the map boards are suitably ‘Nam looking - loads of trees, rice paddies, small villages and so on. One of the expansions features a cityscape - Hue in this case - so going full on “Full Metal Jacket’ could be fun to try out.
The other expansions include the USMC and ANZAC forces as well as some additional cards and, best of all, a solo system. Gameplay and combat is driven by cards and is quite fast paced and with plenty of decisions to be made every turn. In short, it is a great tactical game.
In years gone by I would have thought about how to use figures for ths and indeed, I acquired a whole pile of ESCI US and VC 20mm figures and developed a version of Memoir ‘44 to use with them but, like so many ‘good ideas at the time’ the enthusiasm faded, mainly due to the work involved to get it to the table.
I can feel a re-reading of ‘We Were Soldiers Once….’ Coming on - I might even watch the film again!
*A Bump in the Boonies was the title of a set of Vietnam wargame rules by Cliff Mitchell and published by Gosling Press.
Monday 22 January 2024
Assaulting the Jailers….Game Number 76, Part 1
Friday 19 January 2024
C.S.S. Tennessee - Mobile at Last!
Wednesday 17 January 2024
Assembly finished….Now for the painting
Sealed and ready to paint. The actual ship appeared to have a rather tall and quite slim funnel although this may have been a replacement after she was captured. The flagstaff I found in a spares box and was originally going to be used to fashion gun barrels from. Note the hole drilled for the flagstaff - the funnel is glued directly to the roof of the casemate. The ruler is so you can see how big she is.
After a quick half hour session in the man cave at lunchtime the C.S.S. Tennessee is now ready to be painted. I had some deck detail, cut a suitable length for the funnel and managed to find a piece of previously painted cocktail stick to use for the flagstaff - very much a case of ‘here’s one I prepared earlier!’
The whole thing was coated with a sealer which is now drying prior to undercoating and then the final paint job.
According to most of the pictures and plans I have seen of the actual ship itself there should be a pair of funnels forward and two pairs aft, along with the deck mounted chains leading to the rudder aft and he anchors on the bow. As I have not depicted either of these parts on any of my previous models it seemed fairly pointless starting now despite the actual ship becoming unmanageable due to having the steering chains severed by gunfire during the fateful battle of Mobile Bay. I have instead opted for my default deck detail of hatch covers!
Strictly speaking the hull should also have an angle leading to the waterline which I probably could have done using my Dremel but for the fact that by the time I had thought about this the models was more or less complete - especially the casemate.
Once again then we have a ‘purely representational’ or Hollywood ‘based upon’ style of model - a fact of which I offer no apologies for! ;-)
Tuesday 16 January 2024
Fitting out
More on C.S.S. Tennessee
The new routine in have settled into seems to work quite well in that by spending the half an hour or so on hobby time - the practical side of it, that is - it is quite surprising what one can get done! The case in point is of course the current build of the Confederate ironclad the C.S.S. Tennessee.
Yesterday evening I was able to apply filler to the casemate angles as well as modelling the pilot house. The plan for today is to give the filler a final smooth over with some fine grade sandpaper (more likely an emery board!) and this evening I shall apply the gunports and the stern rudder housing. I shall also be thinking about the final and flagstaff. Assuming all this is completed satisfactorily then tomorrow will see the sealing taking place with a view to starting the painting on Thursday. In any event she will be ready either by or over the weekend.
More pictures will follow in due course.
Sunday 14 January 2024
Building and Boxing
Friday 12 January 2024
More on the Great Game
Thursday 11 January 2024
A Great Game about….The Great Game!
Sunday 7 January 2024
Back in the Ship Building Groove
Back in the ship building groove indeed - and a cracker to start off with! Note the hull shape. This has rather more sweeping lines leading to her stern than my usual and rather blunt standard type.
A tentative restart but a welcome one for sure! I had a few hours in the man cave this afternoon - initially to sort some boxes out but that took me a lot less time than envisaged so I parked myself by the modelling table and got busy.
The first thing I noticed was that one of the hulls I had been working on would not be quite right for the model I had in mind so I set that to one side - I have an alternate idea for it so all was not lost - and so instead set to scratching an itch that has been itching for sometime now. I am referring of course to the Confederate ironclad the C.S.S. Tennessee of Mobile Bay fame.
To be honest I was not looking forward to this as she has a rather unusual casemate with angled corners and with the pilot house built in rather than parked on the roof so to speak. I had all manner of problems making octagonal casemates previously as my usual building technique works best with right angles! I ended up using filler for the angled corners but don’t tell anybody….
The two previous octagonal casemate ironclads - C.S.S. Virginia II in the middle and for the life of me I cannot remember off the top of my head the name of the other!
Anyway, the picture you see at the top of this post is where I am at thus far. Once I have added the front and rear of the casemate I shall use a smaller piece of balsa wood to fill in the pilot house with filler applied in the angles. Although it can dent easily the balsa wood insert will be protected by the two raised casemate sides as well as lashings of sealer, paint and varnish so should be ok.
Depending on how it works out I may well build another copy of this ship except with a Union flag - I did the same for the Atlanta and both versions still need to have their spar torpedo apparatus added.
I have to say that it felt really good being back in the gluing, filing, painting and varnishing business!
Friday 5 January 2024
The Personal Portable Wargame
Thursday 4 January 2024
The Portable Ironclads Wargame - Revised and Expanded Edition….Part 1
Monday 1 January 2024
New Year’s Eve and New Year Ideas
Old school rules in hardback from John Curry’s History of Wargaming project, the latest naval title from the prolific Angus Konstam and a study of the redcoats of Queen Victoria from Ian Knight
HAPPY NEW YEAR ONE AND ALL!
It has been a busy old Christmas break and at last 2024 is upon us. Christmas was very kind to me in terms of the ‘haul’ - aside from the books you see above there were also a number of choice comestibles including not one but two litre bottles of Bombay Sapphire gin - as yet unopened I might add!
I also picked up a copy of a book from a local indoor market - £7.99 down from £24.99 so even the memsahib was impressed!
The Old West Skirmish rules were the original Western gunfight rules and I remember fighting many a close fought and desperate action with them. I even remember converting various 54mm figures to use with them. Great fun for sure and larger scales definitely work well for skirmish games in my opinion.
The Convoy is real ‘Cruel Sea’ territory and a thrilling account of how ASW was painfully perfected with frontline experience. A sobering account of the full cost of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Warriors in Scarlet covered the experiences of the Victorian soldier whilst red coated and in building and defending the empire. Ian Knight needs little introduction and so this will be a book to savour - with nary a project coming out of it!
I can resist anything except temptation…..
On a brief run into the local village market I happened to pick a copy of the book you see above for the princely sum of £7.99 instead of the RRP of £24.99. Chock full of information and colour plates this has given me a definite dilemma in respect of my Battle of Britain Angels 20 project. I have sufficient models to be able to cater for ths although would need to add the Italians. Something to think about for the new year then.
End of the Year Stuff
It has been a challenging year for sure and so I am looking at 2024 with a certain degree of trepidation but for all that, a degree of optimism - probably misplaced but hope springs eternal and all that! My main focus for the year will be the Revised and Expanded Portable Ironclads Wargame and all the bits that go with it - models and scenery mainly. I hope to get a few other bits done but we shall see how things plan out.
In the meantime though, I hope that 2024 proves to be a good one and that all your projects roll on and into fruition at some point.
We can but hope!