Action along the Winnebago River

The Prologue….And it came to pass….

Yesterday evening saw the Portable Ironclads Wargame getting a run out at the club. The main purpose of the action was to try out the square grid but more importantly, to prepare Messrs Fox and Huband for more challenging games ahead. 

The scenario was deliberately simple and with but two ships a side. For the Union, under the command of  Mr Huband, the river monitor USS Ozark and the double ended gunboat the USS Agawam whilst that ‘Will ‘O the Wisp of the bounding main’, Mr Fox took command of the ironclad the CSS Missouri and the CSS Gaines. The action was short and sharp as the pictures will show.

Opening moves - the Union opted to head in two directions whilst the Confederates maintained a line ahead with the CSS Gaines leading the CSS Missouri

The two Rebel ships caught between the USS Ozark (bottom left) and the USS Agawam (top centre). The CSS Gaines was able to deliver a hefty blow against the Union river monitor.

Retribution was swift though, as the CSS Gaines was subjected to a withering fire from the Union ship

In fairly short order, the gallant Confederate ship was subjected to a withering fire, battering her into a sinking wreck

With the Rebel fleet down to the ironclad the CSS Missouri - now with the two Union vessels across her line of retreat - the action came to an end. 

The game was brief but enjoyable although a couple of areas of confusion arose. To begin with the use of squares and positioning of ships within got a little scrambled. When moving orthogonally a ship sits squarely across the two squares - on the centreline if you prefer. When operating diagonally a ship would sit on the central spot formed by the two squares touching at a single corner.  In the heat of the action this got a little muddled but to be honest it made little difference to the overall outcome. 

Squares and dots aside the general consensus was that the rules would benefit immeasurably from a quick reference sheet. Guilty as charged with that omission - it is something that I always intended doing but never quite got around to doing so. I have started work on one and it will be uploaded on the Gridded Naval Wargame facebook group file section.

All in all though, I was pleased at how it went and it was a good work out to exorcise any gremlins before we move up to more challenging and complex actions.

Once again my sincere thanks to Messrs Fox and Huband for their time and carefully considered input.

Cheers chaps!

 

Reaching for the Sky….and Beyond!

WW1, the Battle of Britain and ‘Over the Reich’ - perfect for my ‘cardboard aircraft’ aerial adventures

As part of my ongoing aerial project I wanted to get copies of the rules available from Tumbling Dice as part of their Wings at War range. Normally these include a selection of 1:600th scale aircraft but I only wanted the rules. A quick email to Paul at Tumbling Dice and I am now the proud owner of the trio of rule sets you see above. The incentive to crack on with the flying bases and counters has never been higher!

“Space Battles” was always going to get my attention…..

Another set of rules I have just acquired are set of starship combat rules penned by Rick Priestley. These are designed to be usable with whatever models you like although he does provide his own background for those that would prefer this. A couple of things that caught my eye with these rules is that they are grid based - a square grid no less although a hexed version would be perfectly usable - and use packs of normal playing cards for damage etc - no dice are involved.

I have only just skimmed through these rules but there are some interesting ideas therein - along with enough starship technobabble to appeal to most Sci Fi gamers. Needless to say I am thinking about using the painted Red Alert fleets to give them a spin.

In the meantime though, I need to get organised for the Portable Ironclads Wargame taking place at the club this evening.

Lots to do then!

Flying Bases and Cardboard Aircraft

The base has been been painted using Humbrol Satin 131 Green and Matt 89 for the counter edging and the pole. The base the counter is on has a hole on the underside and is not fixed in place

There is enough room to have two dice frames along the rear edge if required - these are the 7mm versions from Warbases

The view from the rear. The dice frame will be used to indicate the altitude.

Whilst waiting for some paintwork to dry with the ironclads I took the opportunity to revisit the idea I had for flying bases for cardboard counters. The pictures above are very much in the experimental stage but I really think that there is a lot of mileage with this idea!

The next step will be to stick all the Dawn Patrol counters to the 1” square bases I have with the central hole. The counters are very slightly larger than the Warbases 1” counters so a degree of careful trimming is needed to make sure that the sides are flush.

I am undecided about the final finish for the base as the plain green looks, well, plain and green - perhaps some light texturing may help. All the paint needs a further coat and varnishing but his far I am pretty happy with the concept. As mentioned previously I need to get a ‘sea’ set of flying bases and am now also thinking about a ‘desert’ set.

Dead chuffed with these and they are dead simple to make!

Back in the Ironclad Painting Groove

Turkish ironclads

I managed to get a good couple of hours in the man cave this afternoon, resuming work on the ironclads for the Royal Navy and the Turks, with the emphasis on the latter. As you can see, the white-lined top/upper decks have been fixed to the hulls so the next step will be to tackle the main deck features - essentially everything apart from the masts. 

Of the models you see above the three that feature in the top row on the left will all have barbette deck guns whilst the two in the bottom row on the left have twin turrets.

Size matters - at least relatively speaking! For the record my model of HMS Superb is the same size as the completed ironclads you see above. The new versions of the Turkish ships are the size you see above

Four of the Turkish ships are smaller versions of models I had built previously and that featured in a couple of battles. The original ships measure around 5” long - the same size as my model of HMS Superb. In reality, the Turkish ships should have been around an inch and a half shorter. With the ACW collection I was never really that fussed about relative sizes - some are, most aren’t - but I have made more of an effort with this one and so the Turkish ships will look rather more accurate in respect of size.

The next step will be the deck features and of course, getting the Royal Navy up to a similar stage!

It is good to be back painting and building these again!

 

Thoughts on The Russo Japanese War

Part of the Avalanche Press “Great War at Sea” stable - 1904 - 1905 means of course the Russo Japanese War. 

The familiar GWAS approach - strategic moves on the map and the battles arising are fought on the tactical map.

A while back I acquired an unpunched copy of the Great War at Sea board game covering the Russo Japanese War. The game is lovely to look at - as are the rest in the series - but as yet it has not seen any action and so has sat, somewhat forlornly, on the shelf of shame in the man cave. 

I have a lot of ‘previous’ in respect of the predreadnought era, going back to the days of the old Newham Wargames Club when my French 1:3000th fleet regularly locked horns with the Austrians and Italians of Mr Fox. We used a set of rules called “Devil at the Helm” which gave a good, albeit complicated game. Using them for actions set in 1905 really pushed the system - meaning that the game s-l-o-w-e-d down almost to a crawl. It is safe to say that they were very much of their time!

DBSA - the naval version of DBA - works well for the period and the indefatigable Mr David Manley has, unsurprisingly, produced a set of rules for the Russo Japanese War called White Bear, Red Sun (available from the Wargames Vault under Long Face Games label) that builds upon them. They also include a rather nifty campaign system. 

A really good set of rules - both for the tactical and the strategic side. The PDF also has ship counters, a larger map and area control markers. In my opinion, it is one of Mr Manley’s best!

So between the above two I have the wherewithal to fight actions from the war with the advantage of using a campaign system to generate the battles. The counters from the board game could be readily used with White Bear, Red Sun although I would not be averse to making the models required. These would be easy enough to do but for the one thing I am sadly lacking - time!

In this case I would look to use commercially available models - probably in 1:2400th from Tumbling Dice although I have seen a number of other options that could be viable.

So what happened next?

Well, I was looking through eBay for books about the Russo Japanese War when I came across a rather interesting looking board game.

Available from Nuts Publishing - quite a small box

The contents. The Map is roughly A3 sized with the area divided into zones. The game is all about controlling them

The wooden ‘meeples’ used for the Japanese land forces

A close up of the map and the (two sided) counters. Only ships of cruiser size and above are represented and the flip side of the counter represents a damaged ship.

The game last for six turns with the Baltic fleet arriving on turns 5 and 6. The victory conditions are quite simple - if the Japanese do not have a ‘meeple’ in the Mukden Box of the Manchuria track the Russians win. The other way of winning is the position of the Control Point (CP) marker. CPs are gained by controlling sea zones so at the end of turn 6 whoever has the most is the winner. The game takes around an hour to play and fits handily on a normal sized tray. There are optional rules regarding minefields, the attack on Port Arthur and some additional ships.

Another game in the same series - “This is SPARTA!”

All in all it is a quick fix but challenging and it is one I shall look forward to trying out. If the previous game in the series is anything to go by (300: Earth and Water, a game covering the Persian invasion of Greece) then it will have been a great investment. For the record it cost £23 plus shipping!

There is a cunning plan with all this - more of which in a (much) later post….

Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame - An(other) Update

Another day at the ACW Naval ‘office’ - with the Rebels having a thin time of it!

After a period of reflection and deliberation I have decided that the format of Developing the Portable Ironclads Wargame is to be changed. Essentially, the Anglo-Turkish War is not going to be in the book but will instead feature as a standalone supplement at a later date.

The book will instead focus on the ACW element - much like the original title - with a historical refight included rather than the Anglo Turkish War of 1880. 

The reason for this change is that including a fictional war felt a little ‘out on a limb’ as far as the context of the book is concerned and would require a lot more work than I originally envisaged - the models are but a small part of the whole - or, if truth be told, have the time for.

On the plus side it does mean that DTPIW should be available on schedule as a result.

It’s not all bad news after all!

More on Red Alert

The (in)complete collection. All the models are there but some of the tokens are missing along with all but one of the terrain tiles. My other unpainted set is fully complete. The hexes are 4” across the flat sides.

The Confederation fleet - from the top we have 6 battleships, 12 cruisers, 12 destroyers, a flagship (with its 3 fighter CAP) and 12 fighters….

….the Commonwealth fleet has the same composition but the ships of each fleet are of a different design

Assorted game paraphernalia

The opposing fighters….

….flagships….

….destroyers….

….cruisers….

….and battleships.

I finally finished the repair work on the models from my painted edition of Red Alert and so wanted to show them, along with the rest of the collection, by way of a review. There is a lot of ‘kit’ in the base game as you can see. I shall be repainting these in due course, only because I want to ensure that the as yet unpainted base game models are in a similar colour scheme. I suspect that I will stick with the red and green colour scheme - only because the these colours are reflected in some of the other game components. 

I did a little digging on BoardGameGeek about the game and made some progress in finding out about the card imbalance in the base game. Essentially there are more right sector command cards than left. Originally this was thought to be a mistake but apparently it was done deliberately as a follow up expansion launching a new alien fleet that would include additional command cards that would address the left hand shortfall. Sadly this has not seen the light of day although it was demonstrated as one of the US gaming events some years ago. Whether or not this expansion will be picked up in due course remains to be seen - it also included a big battle two mat variant - but it would be a shame if it never surfaced.

So what does this all mean for me then? Well, in the short term I have the wherewithal to fight some decent sized space battles using a straightforward and familiar system - straight out of the box. Longer term this can be expanded to include the other set I have - which of course means the repaint will be needed - as well as the expansion sets available from PSC. I have a number of sets of grid and non grid based sets of space combat rules that could be readily used so there is plenty of mileage with the game for sure. 

For the time being I am content to use the painted set as is but I will look to redo it at some point but this will be to offload it. I will get the other set painted first though!

”Red Alert!” - Space Fleet Battles, Command and Colours Style

Been a while since I acquired this so, in a spare hour or so, I finally got around to the restoration job!

It has been a pretty productive day so far, with work on the ironclads and aerial bases (applying the protective sealer prior to undercoating and painting) moving along and also something else that has been lurking in the background of the man cave for sometime.

Red Alert is a Richard Borg designed Command and Colours game that was produced in conjunction with the Plastic Soldier Company. I recall seeing this being demonstrated by Dan Mersey at Salute some years ago - I have a picture on an earlier blog post - and remember thinking “This looks like a LOT of fun!”.

Anyways, fast forward to a couple of years ago I went all out for the base game and all the expansions as a long term project idea.  Fast forward again to last year and I spotted on Facebook that someone was selling a painted copy of the base game for a price that was difficult to resist and so I didn’t!

The painted version was not without a few issues. To begin with it is missing a few counters (nothing major, they are of the marker variety main that there are plenty of them) and the ‘terrain’ overlays - planets and similar. Also, around a third of the painted models were in various states of disassembly - mainly off their bases but more significantly, the supporting poles on a fair few have broken off with the central spigot still glued in the locating hole on the underside. Nothing that a couple of hours with a file and a small drill could not fix though - and that is what I did whilst the protective sealer on the ironclads and aerial bases was drying.

The game itself includes 92 plastic ships ranging from battleships down to fighters. These are moulded in green and red for either side - each side has a different design of starship - and have been painted in these colours. The paint job is not bad but is a little ragged around the edges and so in due course I will repaint them - along with the starships from my original set and the various expansions. I actually enjoy painting starships and remember having a lot of fun painting those for Battlefleet Gothic - the sadly defunct GW space battle game.

As befits a Command and Colours game the action takes place on a 13 x 11 hexed star field cloth which will obviously be used for other space type games. The game uses command cards (60 of them) and combat cards (50 of these) and all the usual starship type ‘chrome’ features - cloaking devices, asteroid fields and the ubiquitous “Red Alert” of the title. In the game a “Red Alert” is a combat dice roll result, similar to a ‘Flag’ and represents the usual starship-in-combat-dramas - collateral damage, shields down, warp core breach, engineering issues (all usually accompanied by dramatic music and film quotes!). The usual Combat and Colours use of symbols on a cube for combat is also present. A nice idea is the use of Star Tokens. These can be used or retained for special situations as well as being the cost to use certain tactic cards - they are described as being the fuel for special actions so need to be used to best effect.

The two forces in the game are described as the Confederation and the Commonwealth - there is no detailed background history per se, just a summary of how the two forces came into being and featuring some of their ‘historical’ engagements as scenarios.

So far I have fixed the red fleet - by far the worst affected of the two - meaning that the greens are next. The game, missing parts notwithstanding (all the models are present though), will then be ready to roll. Again, this will be handy to have available straight out of the box.

Next though, will be the undercoating required on the ironclads and aerial bases.

Reaching for the Sky

Thirty flying bases - one being used - and a couple of counters. 

I spent some time today entrenched in the man cave and actually doing something constructive which, given my recent prolonged bout of lethargy, was most welcome!

The task for today was not the one I should have been tackling but hey ho, progress is progress in whatever direction you take it, so instead of the ironclads I settled on making bases for my ‘using-board-game-counters-instead-of- models’ aerial project. It felt marvellous doing something constructive and with not one, but two added bonuses.

The first task was to assemble thirty bases comprising a 1” 3mm thick MDF square with a 3mm hole in the centre, a 2” length of 3mm thick bamboo skewer and a 7mm square dice frame. Easy enough although I needed to run a rat tailed file through the base hole to widen it ever so slightly. This was easy enough to do although it did take longer than I expected. It was at this stage that ‘miracle number 1’ (if you know you know!) occurred.

Extra bits and pieces that will go into the scratch building coffers. The small centre pieces are ideal for gun mounts whilst the ‘sprue’ can be used for gunwales etc - all really handy so nothing is wasted!

A number of the 1” bases still had the central piece in place - these are hugely useful for scratch building so I made sure I very carefully pressed these out and bagged them up. The dice frames needed cutting out and guess what? The ‘sprue’ they are attached to is also really handing for scratch building and given that I had over ordered these, it means that I have a good supply of 2mm high by 1mm thick ‘edging’ - very useful for ship gunwales etc.

The original point of this exercise was to mount the counters from Dawn Patrol (although lovely looking are printed on very thin card) on 3mm thick 1” MDF bases that could in turn be placed on a flying base to add a little visual appeal to a 2D game. Me being me meant that I was never going be satisfied with using this for a single system and so various others have now been added to the mix - including WW2.

Axis and Allies: Angels 20 is a lot of fun to play and uses 15mm aircraft mounted on a ball and socket joint to indicate left and right banking and nose up/down for climbing or diving. I was mulling over how best to represent this in my ‘brave-new-cardboard counter-and-MDF-world’ when I realised that simplicity  is the key. Take a look at the pictures below.

Climbing - heading into the bright blue yonder

Diving - heading into a green field beyond

As the MDF mounted counters are not fixed in place - thereby saving on the number of flying bases needed - they can be rotated as required so this is ‘banking left’….

….and this is ‘banking right’. (Apologies for using a WW1 counter for a WW2 rule set - it was all i had to hand!).

I had not thought about the very simple solution to the banking issue but it certainly works well enough and so as a result I now have a further game system I can add to my aerial arsenal.

Feeling pretty darned chuffed with the project and how it has pushed me on into different directions but, the looming spectre of the ironclads is never far behind….

I need to get back to what I need to get back to!

At Last the Circle is Now Complete

Hardback, dust jacket in fairly good condition, binding as sound as the day it was printed, no inscriptions and now - MINE! (it was also relatively inexpensive!)

I was absolutely thrilled and delighted to finally secure the hardback version you see above - it is a book that has inspired and sustained my enjoyment of the hobby since I first clapped eyes on it in Sheerness library around 1971. I could not begin to quantify the lasting impact this book has had on me but suffice it to say that ‘immense’ may partially cover it!

I have a softback version of the book but as it is a facsimile edition the pictures are a little on the dark side - which is not helpful when looking at black and white images. I had coveted a hardback edition for many, many years but the only time I ever saw any copies invariably they were too expensive for my budget. Three figure price tags for this are not uncommon.

Now here is the thing. The likelihood of me painting or even owning similarly organised armies is absolutely zero - lottery win notwithstanding - and I have nothing but admiration for those that do. I have fought both the actions featured in the book - Blasthof Bridge and Sittangbad - using 18th century collections and indeed, even using early WW1 figures for the latter but now would be more likely to do so using the Portable Wargame and my block armies. 

Using the block armies would be viable but, as the good Brigadier and Lieutenant Colonel sternly pointed out:

“You will not, we suppose, be so lost to all feeling, as to represent your units and formations by counters, blocks of wood or cards.” (Page 114)

Block armies and Charge! - I hope in the wargames Valhalla that these two worthies are no doubt residing that they do not look too disapprovingly at the heresy I shall be undertaking!

As a wise man once said: “Back of the net!”

More On Aerial Bases

Dawn Patrol and a copy of the Avalon Hill General featuring Mustangs - also the flying base that will revolutionise my aerial gaming!

I have had a good long look at the various aerial board games and rules that I own and I reckon I am on to something with my basing idea. As it stands the base I put together would be suitable for use with Dawn Patrol and also Mustangs although with a caveat. Mustangs counters are double sided so I would not look to be gluing them to MDF anytime soon. I could get some high quality copies taken and use them instead - certainly this is an option I am thinking about and it would be cheaper than buying two sets of everything -  or, and this is something else I am thinking about, I could have the top base (the sky end if you like) fitted with a rim so that the counter could be dropped in and taken out as required. The counters for Mustangs are of a standard thickness so the sky end base would need to be 2mm thick rather than the 3mm used for the much thinner Dawn Patrol counters.

I plan to add a 7mm dice frame to the ground bases as this will enable me to record height when playing either Mustangs or Axis and Allies: Angels 20. Crucially it also brings into the mix Bag the Hun and Algernon Pulls It Off - both from the Two Fat Lardies stable. All of these use altitude levels of 1 to 6.

The following record aircraft height in feet which is plotted from move to move - the Air Force family including Wings, Spitfire, Aces High including the Blue Max and Dawn Patrol. Using six levels makes life far easier although at the expense of some detail.

So what does all this mean then?

Well, the biggest advantage is that I can use some very nice full colour counters for my aerial games that will at least look like they are flying if nothing else. It will save me a lot of time painting models and the practical advantages of storage etc are obvious. The downside is that I am limited as to what I can use although I note that Topside Miniatures in the US produce a range of WW2 aircraft counters that include bombers - neither Dawn Patrol or Mustangs do (with the exception of some two seater WW1 types for the former). I am sure the internet will provide some additional inspiration.

In the meantime then, all I need to do is to get some bases assembled and painted and I can then take to the air for some aerial action.

It’s all about that base, ‘bout that base…..

The components - two 1” 3mm think MDF squares and a 2” length of bamboo skewer

The side view - bear in the mind that the counter is not fixed in place as yet as this is just a proof of concept exercise

Another view

Following on from the Dawn Patrol acquisition and the perplexing problem of the very thin aircraft counters, I spent some time messing about with my MDF ‘mountain’ (I like to be different - most gamers have lead or plastic mountains….) and came up with the following. It was very simple to do - I simply took two 1” square bases and drilled a hole in both, into which a 2” piece of bamboo skewer was placed. 

The counters will be glued to the top of the base but these will not be permanently fixed to the flight stand as I will only need a couple of dozen or so of them. All the counters will be mounted though.

I will paint the edge of the counter and its base, along with the skewer in a sky blue whilst the ground base can be painted green and textured.

Somewhere over the Western Front….

Now I know this is not a model but using such a base certainly adds to the visual appeal - one could really go to town with varying heights etc but for me this is just fine. I could also do something similar for Mustangs although these is a minor problem in that the counters are double sided. In that case perhaps fixing a ‘lip’ around the top base into which the counter is placed may be a viable option. 

In either case an order to Warbases will be needed!

Close In Counters of the First, Second and Third Kind

The first sheet of Allied aircraft….

….and the second sheet and yes, it is a duplicate of the first - there should only be a single sheet of each type!….

The third sheet featuring the Germans. Note the assorted AA weaponry (“Archie” for those in the know)

A closer look at the counters - quite happy with these, especially when they are mounted on some MDF!

Following on from my post of yesterday I have spent some more time reading through Dawn Patrol and examining the components. These are of high quality although the counters, whilst looking nice, are a little on the flimsy side. There is a good variety of types represented - certainly more than adequate for my purposes - and to be frank, I am now sold on the idea of using these rather than models.

To begin with I will certainly mount the counters - I have a supply of 1” square 3mm thick MDF bases which can be used - and indeed, I have an idea about fashioning flying bases in some fashion in order to raise the counters off the map. I need to think about his further but I can certainly experiment in the meantime.

The rules are rather good in a 1982 kind of way - meaning tables aplenty but all are quite clear. I was intrigued by the notion of using squares for an aerial game but the well written rulebook, complete with plenty of examples of how to fly a cardboard bi/tri/monoplane certainly explains away any concerns I may have had. I need to take the charts and tables apart and cut out the manoeuvre/tailing cards - somewhat surprisingly the role playing part of the game is detailed on the cards rather than being in the main body of the rules - before I can use the game so there will be an element of setting up before it is table ready. 

Not the usual depiction of the Western front during the Great War - I would have preferred to see trench lines etc but no matter.

The only thing I am a little undecided on is the map. It is nice enough but in my mind’s eye I envisaged something more akin to No man’s land with some countryside around the edges. I shall get this laminated and yes, unsurprisingly I have plans beyond WW1 aerial for this.

In closing

We are never too old to learn and so looking at aerial games using squares has certainly given me much to think about. The Dawn Patrol system in respect of flying could, with some work it must be said, be adapted for use with WW2 types. The key adjustment would be speed etc as for WW1 one square equals ten miles per hour which is all well and good for the period but would be a touch problematic for the much higher speeds of WW2. Something to think about anyway - like I need another project but hey, ho, that’s how I go!