The Best of Enemies....Part 2

The Turkish Battlecruiser Yavuz after one of her numerous refits between the wars. Note the addition of substantial amounts (compared to when she was built that is) of anti-aircraft artillery and the rather fetching splinter camoflague scheme. You may be forgiven for thinking that the Fezian navy would have such a vessel but of course, I couldn't possibly comment....

Following on from my post of yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to expand on what my thought process is in respect of creating the background to a pair of imagi-nations. After looking at the 'periods' that I have an interest in gaming I would suggest that the biggest of these in terms of imagination would be the mechanised period. The historical Turks and Russians did not fight each other during the 1930s and 1940s so any such conflict using historical armies would be purely hypothetical in any event. This is good news for the imagi-nation gamer as the 'what if?' factor is very high for this and I intend to make full use of the potential on offer. To begin with, both sides will of course feature tanks and motorised transport, air support and a beefed up naval side. I have yet to scope what I want to use but suffice it to say that any kit from 1930 to early 1940 will be fair game. I am thinking of using the Zvezda 20mm figures for the infantry component and whatever takes my fancy for the vehicles and artillery etc. There are a lot of easy to assemble kits kicking around that will be pressed into service and whilst the Rusland army will seem more historical looking the Fezians will seem like a real mish mash of equipment. In actuality, the Turkish army of the period featured a wide range of equipment and during the war years featured an air force flying Spitfires with FW 190s alongside, as well as using a mixture of Russian and German armour with Czech transport. The navies will be the most challenging but I already have some ideas as to how I shall tackle this and these will form the basis of a further post in due course.

The middle two periods are probably the most straightforward of the four and luckily I have the historical background of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and the first world war to provide a backdrop. In each case I shall be looking to bolster the naval dimension and have already in my minds eye sketched out how this will develop. At no time will huge fleets be involved but there will be sufficient variety of types to ensure that some challenging actions will be fought. I am undecided about what scale these periods would be best gamed in with 15mm, 20mm and even 28mm all under consideration. Given that the armies will be fairly compact in terms of numbers they should  not present even me with too many problems on the painting front!

The earliest period - the smoothbore era - is really Napoleonic for all intents and purposes and given that the historical Turkish army of the period was long on variety of troops employed and short on quality; there is much potential for bands of irregulars and some useful cavalry types whilst the Russians featured solid infantry and plentiful horsemen. Their artillery was not too shabby either.

At the moment I have no firm plans about the order in which I shall tackle this; nor do I have any timeframe to work to. It will really depend on how the mood takes me and what I want to do first. At the present time the mechanised option appears to be favourite especially as it will give me the opportunity to make some tank kits. I will also be able to give the naval dimension some consideration although as mentioned earlier, this will be form a separate post.

I realise that in the past I have been guilty of 'talking a good game' rather than playing one - by which I mean I have described in detail projects and ideas that seem like a good idea at the time only to wither and perish on the vine as the enthusiasm wanes. I offer no apologies for this as being mercurial in my interests has been a lifelong trait of mine. The significance of this approach though is that I can tackle it using whatever I want or feel like using at the time and so my continual need for something new and shiny and different can be fullt catered for.

The Best of Enemies

One of the periods of military history that I am particularly interested in is the 18th and 19th century - especially where the action involves those old antagonists, the Russians and the Ottoman Turks. History tells us that the Russians remorselessly pushed back the Turks until the final rounds during the first world war and the end of both the Russian and the Ottoman empires. The wars fought between these two adversaries were usually brutal affairs and with little strategic or tactical genius on display except for isolated incidents. Simply put, the Russians were usually able to bring more troops to bear over time - rather they were able to reinforce more readily than the Turks - and whilst the Turks could defend magnificently were usually outmanouevered in the long run. As an attacker/defender type campaign these wars, from what I have read thus far, are idea for the solo gamer as the Turks are usually defending whilst the Russians are usually attacking. When it was the other way round each side tended to adopt the habits of the opposition so the Russians would become stoic and immovable in defence whilst the Turks were unwieldy and unimaginative in the attack.

Now it is no secret that Fezia and Rusland - two of Bob Cordery's inventions from his 'world' of 1891 - are modelled on these two historical worthies - Turkey and Russia respectively.

One of the greatest things about our hobby is the ability to be able to employ the 'what if' factor. We do this all the time - in fact everytime we fight a wargame that is not based on a historical action. Sometimes though, the 'what if' factor may not go far enough - especially if the historical opponents either did not demonstrate any further great strategic or tactical strokes of genius which means that credibility is inevitably stretched when the players routinely do so!

In the case of the historical Russians and Turks in my opinion the wars they routinely fought - aside from being scantily covered in the English-speaking world - have far more potential as a 'what if' but over the line of being a straight wargame or campaign based on the actual history. Essentially history will supply the raw material - two huge empires with a long standing rivalry and territorial ambitions - and the wargamer will supply the appropriate soap opera element.

With the historical template these two empires provide the wargamer has a large blank canvas upon which they can impose their own ideas. Making use of this but with an 'imagi-nation' twist opens the door to a whole world of potential that the historical counterparts may have never demonstrated.

Fezia and Rusland are such a case as taking the best bits of their respective historical counterparts and jazzing up the end result (my first though would be to expand the naval side) and you have a veritable smorgasbord of wargaming potential.

Now here is a game plan of sorts - at least it is an idea that I would liek to explore further. I reckon that Fezia and Rusland will provide yours truly with the following ideas:

• 1810 - 1830: the smoothbore era
• 1880 - 1895: the rifle era
• 1905 - 1915: the machine gun era
• 1925 - 1945: the mechanised era

I need to scope this a little furthe but reckon that this is a good groundwork to begin with.

We shall see.

Aerial Progress and things to look forward to

The Roumanian IAR 80 - they gave the USAF P38s a torrid time at low altitude on more than one occasion

Work on the 109 Es continues - the masking tape for the green splinter camoflague is now in place but the paint is not as yet - and I have finally decided on the scheme I want to use. Using the film the Battle of Britain  as inspiration I shall paint up two Schwarms of four aircraft, one with yellow spinners and one with red. I had a bit of a brainwave in connection with the shield devices often seen on German fighters of the period to designate the Geschwader. I am thinking of using 15mm medieval shield decals and so will investigate what I can find that may be suitable. As you have probably guesssed, the German fighters I am painting will not be modelled on any specific formations but will be generic. I shall also be going for the generic option with the RAF fighters as well.

The best news though is that the new set (due in February) will contain some very interesting types including, so the rumours are running, the following:

• P38
• P39
• P51 D
• Spitfire Vb
• Ki 43
• Ju 87
• Il 2
• D 520
• Corsair
• IAR 80

This is all really encouraging and should serve to expand the possibilities for the set - especially for use with land based actions as the ground attack types will be greatly appreciated by any WW2 Gamers.

No sign of a Me 262 though, nor a Me 163 but then I suppose you can't have everything....;-)

Paints, plots and plans

The Arab conquest of Sind - the diversified nature of the army can be readily seen but the troops could just as easily be Ancients Persians

It has been a very busy few days on the domestic front with much going on that has had to take priority over gaming and model making. I have managed to fit in a few small tasks though which have served to keep me relatively sane.

To begin with, I managed to touch in the light blue on the four 109 Es I currently have on the table and so I hope to have the masking tape on tomorrow for the green splintered upperworks. The most difficult part of the paint job will be the frames on the cockpits or more specifically, the glass itself. The models come with the glass painted mid grey - Mr. Fox has repainted his in a light blue shade - but I am undecided at the moment. I am leaning towards a lighter grey but will experiment and see what looks best.

Operation Seeadler is moving along nicely with both Admirals making plans and hoping to catch each other out in the grey wastes of the North Atlantic. There has been much frenzied plotting and urgent queries directed at the umpire for consideration (and sometimes dismissal out of hand!). Obviously I am unable to go into details (naval operations are currently hightly classified) but I can reveal that something is about happen, probably, well maybe anyway.

I have also had a mess around with some unit labels for the ancient block armies for use with the Ancient Portable Wargame. Whilst doing this it suddenly occurred to me that many of the advantages of the horse and musket and modern period block armies I have assembled  - the variety of forces that can be represented being the main one - could equally be applied to the pre gunpowder era. At first glance using blocks for some 3,500 years of history may seem to be a  step too far but in actuality there is no reason why not. I take the view that a close order spearman would functionally work in the same way regardless of being a Greek Hoplite, a Byzantine Skutatoi or a Yari wielding Ashigaru. As ever, the background to the game being played will serve to provide the mental imagery that conventional model soldiers would ordinarily provide - at least that is how I look at it!

One thing the whole Ancient Portable Wargame Block Army extravanganza has served to prompt though is the prospect of gaming two particular periods I have never tried but would dearly like to - the Arab Conquests and the early Ottoman Turkish wars - up to the fall of Rhodes.

Much to ponder then methinks or rather, once more unto the breach, dear friends....;-)

Ancients - Portable Wargame Block Style

The Battle of Manzikert, 1071 - the catastrophic Byzantine defeat

Regular readers of Bob Cordery's blog  - Wargaming Miscellany will have no doubt seen that the newest addition to the Big Battle Portable Wargame stable is now at the second draft stage and covers the Ancient period. This is very much unknown territory for Bob as he has never been an ancient wargamer (other than describing himself as such!) but I am of the opinion that this is certainly an advantage when drafting a set of rules as there is probably less to unlearn!

It is really funny. Aside from completing the PW series of rules initially I was thinking to myself what could such a set of rules possibly have to offer when DBA covers a similar scale of action perfectly well? Having gamed  the period on and off over the years, initially with WRG 6th edition and more latterly with the aforementioned DBA and HOTTs, I looked at the first draft with mild surprise and, to be honest, a few misgivings. Surely the PW system would not be able to cope with the myriad troop combinations so beloved of most ancient armies? This was my initial reaction BUT, after having read the rules through and Bob's Battle of Pook's Hill and then the second draft it suddenly dawned on me exactly why such an approach would be successful. For me, the biggest strength of the PW system is not only its simplicity but also the fact that the rules can withstand any amount of tinkering. It is a rare thing for me to use the 19th century or modern sets without a tweak or three and so a pre-gunpowder set would be no different. The over-arching thing for me with the the PW series of rules is the all important 'feel'. If the game feels like that which we have read in the various campaign histories then the rules have done their job - regardless of how simple or difficult they are in execution.

I have often thought that many ancient rules pay far too much attention to differences between troops that are notionally similar and when you come down to hand strokes then these differences become even less - unless such a difference is extreme - few would argue that a cohort of well trained Roman legionaries would make short work of a mob of unarmed rioting townsmen, all things being equal. The trick is to make sure that such things are NOT equal. Using the troop headings Bob has suggested covers a multitude of types (you will have to take a look at the rules to see what I am talking about) and so dropping actual armies into these should be easy enough - with the old 'adding or dropping a strength point to vary the effect' ploy fine tuning the force composition.

In terms of using the rules I already have some plans afoot. Originally I was planning to fight all of my ancient period games using the huge collection of Command and Colours Ancients blocks I own. I still intend using these (as an aside the same applies to the Napoleonic sets I also own) but will now also be preparing sets of block armies for the period. I recently acquired a book entitled 'The Road to Manzikert' which describes Byzantine and Islamic warfare from 500AD up to the battle of Manzikert 1071. Contained therein are a number of very good battle maps together with a very nice table of unit symbols used. Most of these would be familiar to students of the horse and musket period but there are a number of period specific types as well including archers (both foot and mounted), varying weights of infantry and cavalry, siege engines, javalinmen and even elephants!

Many of the unit types I already have drawn up so producing the few additional ones will not be a major undertaking. I even have a good supply of spare blocks that can be used as well so cobbling together the required forces will not be a problem.

This is not a new project as I fully intended tackling some ancient blocks this year in any event but now that the rules are evolving I now have the inspiration to crack on with armies.

See Emil(E) play....

BF 109 E "Emil" - the scourge of the skies during the Blitzkrieg 

For the first time about last August I actually got down with a paint brush today - and one that did not involve walls or woodwork! The object of this exercise is a flight of four Bf 109 E fighters for Axis and Allies: Angels 20. The scheme I am painting them is similar to the above but probably without the yellow and with a red spinner. The paint scheme is typical for the early part of the Battle of Britain but mottling was added as the battle progressed and also yellow was added as an aid to aerial recognition - also from the ground as well. I should also point out that the red spinner featured on the German fighters in the film "The Battle of Britain".

To tell the truth I am really enjoying this exercise and so the 1/4800th scale ships will have to follow after this 1/100th scale aircraft itch has been well and truly scratched - 12 more single seaters and 4 Bf 110C still to do!

An Unexpected Journey....

Letter opener indeed! (You will need to see the film to appreciate that comment!)

To my eternal shame and embarrassment I have never read The Hobbit. I must have read Lord of the Rings dozens of times but have never read the 'prequel'. This is something I will urgently need to address especially as I had the very great pleasure of seeing the film on Saturday - in 3D and with the high speed frame tweak thrown in for good measure. Was I inspired? Of course I was! Am I going to do anything about it? Probably not as I have enough trouble painting anything organic as it is although the idea of a Dwarf troop would be hard to resist....;-)

It was great fun and fast paced and I cannot wait to see part 2 and 3 in due course.

Meanwhile, in a book shop far, far away....

May the force be with you.....

I finally went and did it. Making use of a Waterstone's gift card received fom my son for Christmas, I acquired two starter sets of Star Wars: X Wing - the starfighter combat game with some onscenely good painted minitures contained thereein. Definitely an 'Ooooh, Shiny!' moment but a very self contained one because absolutely no work will be needed from me other than sorting out the components. Mr Fox is already building up his own Imperial Empire so it would be churlish of me not to follow suit.

On a more serious note, I have completed all the revised data cards for Angels 20 and so all that will remain will be sorting through the special abilities - a task I shall sit down with the aforementioned Mr Fox to discuss in further detail.