The Weekly Sitrep....Number 13

A few things to report this week starting with the big news that my planned book has passed the first hurdle with the publisher. Essentially the proposal was accepted and will now be presented by the commissioning editor to 'El Grand Fromage' so to speak, for final approval. In the meantime I need to get some good block based pictures taken to support this final push so no prizes for guessing what I shall be up to later!

Plenty of inspiration in this one and needless to say I have a couple of ideas!

Last week of course the release of the latest title in the Daniel Mersey 'Rampant' series of wargame rules for large scale skirmish games - Rebels and Patriots, penned primarily by Michael Leck and covering the wars in America from the French and Indian up to the Civil War. I for one was eagerly awaiting this and alongside the others in the series and Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame are by far and away my favourite rule sets of the moment.

The weekend saw the first of the boot sales in our area (it was an indoor version) and despite being tempted by a couple of things I managed to emerge from the hall with my wallet intact. This was just as well and my beloved then suggested a quick trawl of the local high street charity shops - I never need asking twice when she does - and picked up the title below.

South Pacific, torpedo boats and a future US President to boot - something for the Cruel Seas collection and I am sure this will useful when I eventually get the game....

I should be getting a draft PDF of the flags I shall be using for the command blocks at some point this week which I am really pleased about as it means that I can really press on with some gaming ideas I have.

It should be an interesting week.

Cruel Seas in the Pacific and the Doldrums

I was aware of the whole ‘JFK and PT 109 saga’ but not the fine detail as my interest in the naval war in the Pacific has previously been limited to playing Flat Top by Battleline and Avalon Hill.

My wait for my review copy of Cruel Seas by Warlord Games continues but I know they are on the case. In any event I have been rather busy over the last couple of weeks or so with work and also getting the proposal organised for my book so I would not have been able to do much with it even if it had arrived. I have amassed a small selection of books on the subject of WW2 Coastal type warfare and the book above is my latest acquisition, courtesy of a local charity shop.

Despite having a long standing interest in coastal warfare during WW2 it is not something I have gamed very much and my knowledge on the subject is rather limited. The books I have acquired so far cover a mainly European focus - the North Sea and the English Channel - by I would be keen to explore both the Mediterranean (that would be my preferred choice) or even the Far East.

Three books became four with the Domagalski title. I also have a copy of Conway’s 1922 to 1946 and a number of titles on my Kindle - including Schnellboote.

The following titles I have on my Kindle in addition to the aforementioned Schnellboote.

Night Action - MTB Flotilla at War by Peter Dickens

The Battle of the Narrow Seas by Peter Scott

Dog Boats at War by Leonard Reynolds

Gunboat Command by Antony Hichens

I will try and get hard copies of the above if I am able to although it is not a priority at present.

There have been some quite exquisite paint jobs in evidence for the models in a couple of dedicated Facebook groups and I am really keen to tackle this once my review copy arrives. Needless to say I already have a few ideas about how to expand the scope of the game but will wait and see how viable it is once I have my copy.

(Sighs deeply at the passing of yet another day without a delivery....)

You Win Some, Zulus Some....

OK so the lyrics were adapted for the film and the singalong never happened but what the hell, this never fails to inspire me!

"Men of Harlech stop your dreaming

Can't you see their spear points gleaming

See their warrior's pennants streaming

To this battle field

Men of Harlech stand ye steady

It cannot be ever said ye

For the battle were not ready

Stand and never yield

Form the hills rebounding

Let this war cry sounding

Summon all at Cambria's call

The mighty force surrounding

Men of Harlech onto glory

This shall ever be your story

Keep these fighting words before ye

Cambria (Welshmen never) will not yield"

I suspect that here are few, if any readers of this blog that are not aware of the 140th anniversary of the opening of the Zulu War of 1879, immortalised on screen by the film Zulu (and you could add Zulu Dawn if you wish).

The film Zulu is quite unique for me because this particular film, alongside the Battle of Britain were the only classic war films of the era that I saw on the big screen. I should qualify this by saying that I saw Zulu about five years after it came as a Saturday matinee performance - not when I was four years old! It is a great film to see on the big screen and even now, after having watched it umpteen other times on a variety of televisions, PCs and tablets, I can still recall how it made me feel listening to the beating of shields, that hair-raising Zulu war cry - "Usuthu!" and of course "Men of Harlech!" Stirring stuff indeed.

Fast forward to the last few years and my interest in the conflict from a wargames perspective has been, well to be frank, quite lazy really. I have owned a number of books on the subject and have even gotten as far as investing in some figures for it but like so many of my best intentions the enthusiasm waned and so off they went. I had a small set up in 15mm Essex as well as some Newline figures which were very nice indeed. Further back I even dabbled in a 42mm set up from Irregular Miniatures but again, my short attention span once again consigned the collection to Ebay.  If I am honest my interest in the war kind of hits a roadblock at the end of the first invasion which is a shame as there is much else to look at. I believe this is the reason for my apparent lethargy - I cannot seem to get past Isandlwana or more likely, Rorke's Drift.

The advent of the block armies gave me an opportunity to fight a couple of games set in the war of 1879 and these were enormous fun to do. From the gaming perspective I find the war an interesting one to fight because the two sides are so different. Simply put one side needs to close to be effective whilst the other needs to keep their distance to do so. This makes for an interesting tactical game.

Game Number 43

Game Number 21

The two block games I fought set in the Zulu War

Should I tackle this period using figures then it would be using the range available from Spencer Smith and I would opt to paint them in an old toy soldier style. There are some quite exquisite figures around for the war but I prefer the simpler style of older figures - they suit my painting technique far better. For the time being though, I shall be using the block armies as I have done so in the past.

I am looking at the Portable Wargame as the rules to use with the block armies and The Men Who Would Be Kings for the figure game in due course.

I suspect I am probably not the only one that is watching either of the films if they have not done so already - my viewing of Zulu will be for the commute to and from work.

This will be a pleasure.

WW2 Blocks, Hexes and Squares

A WW2 game fought using an early version of the rules that would eventually appear as the Portable Wargame. Germans attacking US troops during 1944.

Part of my block army collection includes units for fighting actions set during WW2. In the games folder there is a number of games I fought ranging from the pine forests of the Eastern Front via France and Belgium during 1944 and the Greek Islands in 1943. They were all good fun to fight and I used a combination of both a hexagonal and a square grid.

The only hexagonal playing surfaces I now own are the laminated and geomorphic maps that originally came with the Axis and Allies WW2 collectable miniatures game and these have seen much service with the block armies. Unfortunately, as far as I know, they never produced a desert map  which is a shame. There is of course the old standby of the Memoir '44 map boards but these are a little on the small side for the blocks - as are the Heroscape tiles I still have unless I use a single block units.

Bob Cordery has, through the medium of his Portable Wargame series of books, outlined the advantages and disadvantages of squared, hexed and offset squared grids which was very useful. For my own part I am leaning more and more towards using a square grid for those games where I need to use one. The biggest hurdle in using a square grid has always been the old chestnut of allowing for diagonal movement and firing. There are ways to allay this and I have previously mentioned the system adopted in the Napoleonic naval rules 'Ship 'O the Line' originally published in the early 1970s (and the forerunner of the excellent Avalon Hill board game Wooden Ships and Iron Men - ironically using a hex grid rather than the square version of the original rules) which adjusts diagonal distances to match as closely as possible to the orthogonal versions.

Within the Portable Wargame I simply allow a unit to make a single diagonal move during its movement as the rates are quite low so the distortion is minimal. This has the effect of really opening up the board especially if you also extend the same to direct fire. Essentially you can work with 8 possible directions of movement or firing rather than the 6 of a hex. I would also argue that it is easier making terrain to fit in a square rather than a hex!

Using a square for naval games has the advantage of being able to reference natural compass headings and again, with 8 directions available rather than 6. As movement is an important consideration for naval gamers again you can see the practical advantage of using squares.

Taking the above into consideration I have decided that my games will primarily be fought on a square grid. Using the diagonal option from the naval rules mentioned as a guide means that a square grid is far more open and, dare I say it, natural in respect of facings etc.

The original 'brown' vehicle labels I designed using MS Paint. The set includes tanks, self propelled artillery (open topped) and anti tank vehicles, armoured cars, half tracks and trucks. I produced these in three colours with light grey and olive green joining the brown types above. I also toyed with the idea of producing a set with a sand coloured background for use in the desert but never got around to it.

When I decided to include WW2 in the great block project I was really torn as to how best to represent vehicles. Tanks, SP Guns, Armoured Cars, Trucks, Half Tracks and all the permutations associated with them really gave me some problems as I was unsure whether to draw representational types or to go down the military map symbol route. After much thought I decided to go down the military symbol route and opted to use combinations of blocks to represent specific types. For example, an armoured infantry unit would consist of three infantry blocks and an armour block. You can see what I mean looking at the game above.

The Weekly Sitrep....Number 12

Apologies for the delay with  this post - I had started drafting it Monday (my usual time) - but a couple of work issues intervened.

The latest version of the classic Risk. The figures are vaguely Napoleonic and consist of a firing infantryman and what looks like a light dragoon type cavalryman.

Work on the book has been pretty solid this week with a number of keys points highlighted and some important conversations had. All is well. With luck and a following wind I should be submitting the proposal in the next week or so for the commissioning editor to do his thing and then we shall see what we shall see!

This really is a peach of a book

The arrival of Bob Cordery's latest Portable Wargame title covering the Napoleonic Wars and my reading (and rereading of the same) has been an extended pleasure this week and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It has given me much food for thought for a number of reasons and so it will be as no surprise to learn that I hope to fighting a small action with the block armies over the next week or so to 'get my hand' in so to speak.

Over the past few years I have squirrelled away a number of plastic figures from various versions of the classic board game Risk. I currently have two sets of the figures from the Medieval version (roughly 18 to 20mm), fours sets of generic 18th century figures (two each of the 'thick' and 'thin' versions), a set of the Napoleonic versions with the infamous kneeling infantryman and a couple of sets of the Lord of the Rings set - these are all around the 10/12mm size. All are very useful and I am sure I will get around to doing something with them at some point. I always make a point of looking out for these at boot sales as they can normally be picked up for pennies.

More Risk - this time the infamous 'infantryman kneeling at the ready'

For inspiration as to what can be done with these figures then the blog of that renowned fashionista, bon vivant, wit and raconteur, aka Kaptain Kobold produced a couple of armies for the Great Northern War, complete with a number of conversions. He has used these very effectively in their own right as well as part of an ongoing campaign being fought using Sam Mustafa's Maurice rules. I have posted about his adventures with these figures previously and I am inspired every time I see them!

The generic late 18th century figures available in an earlier version of the board game Risk. Note the differences between the two infantry types.

For my own part the 18th century figures (the link shows the differences between the two types) have a number of possibilities which is why I am always looking out for extra sets and indeed, many of the variants of Risk contain much usable material.

In other news my naval adventures are a little on the quiet side at present - my review copy of Cruel Seas is still yet to arrive - although I am hoping that will be changing soon. I have a cunning plan in this respect, a plan that will save me LOTS of time and resources.

More to follow in due course.

The Block On Effect

So much for me scaling back the blog posts due to readying my book proposal! Well at least this post is relevant to the book and so scrapes in under the wire as being worthy of mention....

A welcome bag of blocks - three quarter size. Note the Jutland ship block - I have both fleets ready in this fashion - and also the small quarter size block destined for use as a command, unit identifier and facing piece.

Now that the Christmas and New Year festivities are over I took the opportunity to tidy the man cave in readiness for the spring campaign season. The focus gaming wise will be very much Portable Wargame based so I took a close look at what I have completed and what will need attending to - both for the block armies and terrain. Whilst doing this I came across a bag of blocks that I had not done anything with other than having a quarter section lopped off. These quarter sections are what I shall be using as command blocks with the national flag and unit identification number. This in turn will help to tie in the game narratives to the action and indeed, is essential for helping to tell which way the unit is facing.

A closer look at the sizes and the Jutland based block

Back in the day I had made use of the three quarter sized sized blocks to stick the printed Avalon Hill Jutland counters I have (since replaced with the real thing). I had flirted with making some ship labels for naval gaming sing the blocks but never really pursued the idea with any great conviction. The upshot of this is that I found a carrier bag full of three quarter sized blocks - some 150 or so - that I had forgotten about.

Now here is the thing. I need to make a further set of blocks with black and white as the main colour - for use as Austrians primarily - which would mean getting these blocks cut into a 30mm and a 15mm size. Aside from getting to the chap that cut the originals for me this would presents little difficulty. The only thing is I am now seriously thinking about a naval block system and so will need a quantity of the three quarter blocks. I have plenty of time to think about this though and for sure I will need to park the idea for a while.

My proposal for the book is virtually finished - I merely need to check a couple of points of detail - and so that will be winging its way to the commissioning editor in about a week or so. I will then need to wait whilst he does his thing and then, all being well, we should be good to go come early March. Then all I have to do is write it....

The Portable Napoleonic Wargame and the American Civil War

Here at last and available in multiple formats as per Bob Cordery's excellent blog

I arrived home from work last night to a most welcome surprise, albeit with one of those 'heart in the mouth' moments! My copy of Bob Cordery's latest book in the Portable Wargame series: The Portable Napoleonic Wargame.

Never a good thing to see but fortunately all was well.

I say heart in the mouth because, as you can see, the postal system was less than gentle with the package but mercifully the book was well protected and therefore in pristine condition.

Bob is going from strength to strength with his writing and this really is a peach of a book. It is very much in the vein of a tool kit for gaming the Napoleonic Wars in a variety of formats. I can do better than quote the back cover and say:

"This book has ten chapters, four sets of rules, three exemplar battle reports, four appendices, a bibliography, and over one hundred and forty illustrations."

I would urge anyone with an interest in the wars of Napoleon to buy this and even if that is not your thing then the chapter beginning on page 140 will certainly be of interest. Bob has listed all the wars up until 1865 that the rules could be used as a basis for and in fact, for my own purposes the Kurz and Allison 30mm Spencer Smith ACW project would be an ideal candidate. I would go as far as saying that any hardcore ACW gamers would find this book to be really useful.

In closing the only thing I would like add - apart from thanking Bob for publishing the book - is that I am REALLY looking forward to his planned Portable Colonial Wargame although this will be some time away methinks!