25 x 5mm Cardboard Squares

Mad, bad and dangerous to know - the C.S.S. Mississippi under construction.

The C.S.S. Mississippi features twenty gun ports which for my model are each of 5mm square cardboard. There are then five hatches also of 5mm card so that is twenty five 5mm squares in total. It was not difficult to do but care is needed for sure - that and a steady hand with a good set of tweezers! Of all the models I have built this is the most amount of 5mm squares I have used on a single ship. Mercifully the remaining casemate ironclads need rather fewer!

The Build Goes Ever On and On….

C.S.S. Mississippi under construction. 

An artist’s impression of what she may have looked like when completed - note the fearsome looking broadside.

Bit of a smorgasbord in terms of effort this weekend. I tidied up the last of the text for two chapters of the Portable Ironclads Wargame and worked on the pictures supporting one of them. I have the battle report to design and write - looking forward to this for sure - and I am going to pen a ‘final thoughts’ type of piece as there are a few things I would be keen to wrap it up with.

C.S.S/U.S.S. Atlanta - an ironclad ram also armies with a spar torpedo

The building continues apace and perhaps rather unsurprisingly I have changed my mind about some of the final models. There is a surprise addition in the shape of C.S.S. Livingston - possibly one of the oddest looking ships in a period of odd looking ships - and I have temporarily shelved the idea of making the C.S.S. Baltic. In its place I am building the C.S.S. Atlanta - two of them. The ship was captured by the Union after running aground and so served in both navies. The model you see under construction is not that of the Atlanta but it does use the same hull form. This will be the C.S.S. Mississippi - a truly fearsome looking proposition that fortunately for the Union was not completed.

Unfortunately I only have one size of hull template in this shape so it means that the Atlanta will be as long as the Mississippi when in reality she was some sixty feet shorter. Still, using a grid based rule system renders size differential largely a point moot point! My version of the Atlanta will be lower in the casemate than the Mississippi and with sharper angled sides - not to mention with far fewer gun ports - so will look noticeably different.

The only difference for the Union version will be the ensign.

Check out the above from Spithead Miniatures - the C.S.S. Livingston looks pretty odd, about as odd as the C.S.S. New Orleans!

The C.S.S. Livingston is a real oddity to look at and looks like fun to build (and to use in action) so I shall look forward to making her. 

I definitely need to get some serious modelling/painting time in for a final push - and before I get inspired to build anything else!

Getting Even Closer….

One of the recent new additions to the Union fleet - a ‘double ender’gunboat.

Lots more progress with the Portable Ironclads Wargame! I had a substantial photoshoot over the weekend  of examples of play togthere with drafting the accompanying explanatory text. This was a useful exercise as it highlighted a couple of points within the text of the rules that needed a little clarification. Aside from these pictures etc I was able to sign off on the main draft of the rules and so these are now in the hands of the editor in chief of the publishing empire that is Eglinton Books - Bob Cordery himself!

I will be honest, I felt dead chuffed to be sending the rules over and surprisingly even a little sad. The rules have been such a part of my wargaming for nigh on two years or so it felt like saying goodbye to an old friend. However, a line needed to be drawn and so I drew it! Joking aside I fully expect there to be numerous house rules and tweaks arising from playing experience and indeed, it would be very unusual if this were not the case given most wargamers tendency to tinker with rules. In many ways this is the bedrock of the entire Portable Wargame series - being able to tailor the system to suit one’s own specific interpretation of the history being gamed.

I have a further photoshoot planned for the chapter on modelling ships for the period - the text has been written - and then it is on with the battle report that will be included in the book. I have a few ideas for this   but just need to give them some detailed thought. Needless to say I am really looking forward to this! The final piece from me will be the bibliography and again, most of this has been written already and so merely needs a little tidying up.

In the meantime though, I am conscious that the models need to be finished as there are still fourteen left (actually fifteen now as I have decided on another model for the Confederates). Suffice it to say that this last model is a little different….

Getting Closer….

C.S.S. Virginia in action against a Union frigate….I will say no more….

Things have been moving along rather nicely albeit perhaps not in the way I intended! The Portable Ironclad Wargame needs a couple of photoshoots, a battle report and a bibliography and then it is done. The schedule for this is by mid November and I am confident I will be finished by then. 

I have been busy taking pictures to illustrate various parts of the rules - it is far easier for me to do this rather than draughting diagrams - and then describing what is taking place. I have really enjoyed this part of the project but it has come at a cost. I have not made any progress with the remaining models although given that my editor will be away for a week or so fairly soon hopefully I will be able to catch up then!

The picture above is a taster of what is to come - I will not offer any explanations as to what is represented   - and so I hope that the ‘eye candy’ will help to inspire some new ACW fleets among everyone that has taken a look at this so far using either commercially available models, 3D print files or scratch built.

For the record I have now settled on my Christmas present. I want to get a good quality 6ft by 4ft blue cloth with a white hex grid (4 inches across the flat sides) and some Hexon terrain to plonk on it.

I will need to have a word with Santa methinks….

More on Napoleon’s War: The Hundred Days

The second game in the series that includes the Russians and the Austrians along with more French. The rules are an evolution from those in the 100 Days set and fix a couple of contentious issues. Luckily BoardGameGeek has some files that ring the changes!

I took a peek at BoardGameGeek yesterday evening in order to flesh out my knowledge around the Napoleon’s War series published by Worthington Games. It was certainly time well spent!

The Gates of Moscow set was a standalone game that included the Russians and Austrians (in green and white plastic respectively) and the game featured the following battles: Marengo, Austerlitz, Aspern-Essling and Borodino. The rules were the same as for the 100 Days although a couple of things had been changed in the light of playing experience. There are a few useful files on BoardGameGeek that ‘ring the changes’ which is handy and yes, I have downloaded them!

Worthington also released two Battle Packs that each featured four scenarios and map boards but no figures. Battle Pack Number 1 featured the following battles: Alexandria, Jena, Auserstadt and Busaco. Battle Pack Number 2 was focused on the War of 1812 and so included the following four battles: Queenston Heights, Chippewa, Bladensburg and New Orleans.

Mark Cordone pointed out that the figures are in fact the same as those included in the US version of Risk which are sadly not available in the UK.

The core system is fun in a Portable Wargame/Command and Colours way and it captures the flavour of combat in the period rather nicely. The use of action points which can be adjusted on a random basis each turn by a dice roll regulates movement and combat with a little more freedom than the card driven Command and Colours system. At least one does not have the situation of having a handful of command cards for the wrong sector! Personally I am happy with either system though.

The only downside I can see is that the game has been sold as a battle refight system in that the map boards are solely designed for the featured battle. There are no terrain tiles to customise the playing area or to do ones own thing although that would certainly not stop most gamers I know (myself included!)!

The map hexes are 40mm across the flat sides and it would not be beyond the capabilities of most gamers to produce terrain etc that could be used to supplement the maps.

In Conclusion

For me there is certainly some mileage in this system in terms of what it could be used for. A good example would be to use Command and Colours scenarios with the Napoleon’s War rules and troop types as the former are readily available on the net to download from a variety or sources.

I like them as a stripped back alternative to Command and Colours.

Back to Waterloo

Worthington’s Games take on the Waterloo campaign of 1815

The rear of the bo which should give you a flavour of what is to come

The 1815 Waterloo campaign is one of my perennial favourites with a fondness for it going back to the days of Airfix armies, Bruce Quarrie’s Airfix Magazine Guide and THAT film. There is something about it that never ceases to inspire me although in many ways elements of it have always remained tantalisingly out of reach - primarily I suppose because despite all of the ink that has been spilt over the years about the campaign and the battle we only have a series of educated guesses as to what happened and when. I have dabbled with using figures and played numerous board games on the subject over the years and even attempted a version using Waddington’s Campaign as the basis. I also nearly took part in a 54mm Little Wars inspired refight so it is safe to say my interest in Waterloo is well established.

I noticed the above game advertised on one of the Facebook Marketplace groups and so I immediately made a beeline for it. 

The game uses a system that is very much Command and Colours light in that there are similarities to Richard Borg’s design but without the use of command cards. Instead of blocks there are three armies made of up of generic looking figures presenting infantry, cavalry and artillery made from hard plastic and scaled at between 15mm and 20mm. The armies are red, blue and grey and I am pretty certain that a follow up volume included the Russians in Green and Austrians in white. I also believe that there was a standalone expansion book that covered the war in 1812 against the USA. I will check BoardGameGeek later for confirmation. The game contains map boards for Wavre, Ligny, Quatre Bras and Waterloo itself. There are also some counters for use to differentiate troop types - skirmishers, heavy cavalry, horse artillery, that sort of thing - as well as for the three main commanders. The rules are very straightforward and games are expected to take between an hour or two.

The scenario cards - note the reinforcements for Quatre Bras and Waterloo….

The figures

The rules, play sheet and the counters.

The use of generic troop types means that the figures (120 in all) would be eminently suitable for a Portable Wargame style set up and when used in conjunction with any of the commercially available plastic figures for the period a pretty nifty set could be raised. I am not about to do that anytime soon but it is handy to have the wherewithal if required. In the meantime though, I will be able to easily get my Napoleonic Waterloo period gaming fix in a simple but effective way.

Certainly this is one I am pleased to have in the collection and I will look to try and tack down the expansions etc in due course.

Another 2 Down….14 To Go!

The pair of ‘double enders’ - for identification purposes I have placed the flags in different places!

A better view showing the overall configuration of the type. I have seen images where the funnel was located further forward meaning that the design was not entirely symmetrical - I think I prefer this version although the location of the masts will be a giveaway as to which way they are travelling!

Aside from getting to SELWG yesterday I was also able to finish another pair of models for the ACW project. These are the famous ‘double ender’ gunboats that have enjoyed a somewhat chequered history as part of this project!  If you recall I had to order the appropriate hull shape from Warbases as the original models used my standard template - for the non nautical types this was pointed at one end and rounded at the other! - which did not look right. The original pair of models will now be completed as something else.

In common with many ships of the period the pictorial evidence is often contradictory. This makes life easier for me as it means I can quite simply go with whatever ‘look’ works best and so once again the pair of models above are ‘based upon’ rather than museum quality offerings.

The most famous of this type of ship was the U.S.S. Sassacus. 

I enjoyed building these two and so without pausing for breath it is on with the next batch - another pair of gunboats, this time converted civilian types for the Confederate Navy.

I am also more or less at the final stages for the published version of the rules. I need to get some pictures organised and then the stage will be set for the battle report that will feature. I have something in mind for this but need to finalise the details first and then find the time to fight it!