Paper Flags and Pewter Bayonets

Stop the presses!

2012-01-23T20:52:00.002+01:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later – I’m actually done with a project!

Some time ago I started to paint first batch of 6mm Napoleonic French with the intention to run a test game with General De Brigade rules. Object of my interest was one of the smallest scenarios in first scenario book for abovementioned ruleset - Hilaire's assault on Laichling villages during battle of Ekmuhl. At the time it seemed like a relatively quick job - eleven batalions for the French, ten battalions and some cavalry for the Austrian, three batteries of artillery. How long would it take to paint up those figures? I expected to be done in six or seven weeks, at the most.

Well... those six to seven weeks turned out to be closer to five years, but who's counting, right? The important thing is that I am done - all figures are painted and based, bases are flocked, flags are mounted.

Below is the first batch of pictures - eight battalions of French Line infantry, ready for action.

First look at 6mm European buildings from Total Battle Miniatures

2012-01-08T12:59:00.004+01:00

I won't say that it's my New Year resolution, but I do hope to be more active here than I was last year. At the same time I'm a strong believer in putting the bar as low as possible (nice way to avoid disappointments), so my goal at the moment is to double the number of posts per year.

OK, with the solemn declarations out of the way, let's get to the business of the day. Sometime in 2011 a relatively new company, Total Battle Miniatures, came to my attention. Their rapidly expanding product lineup consists of terrain pieces in all main scales, but I was especially interested in their 6mm European buildings. They seemed perfect for my General de Brigade project, so a couple of weeks ago I've grabbed the entire lot and here they are.

The first picture shows the smaller buildings in "of the shelf" state. I haven't done anything with them yet. The second picture shows the larger buildings with first coat of white primer already applied.

Why white primer, you ask? Well, the guys from Total Battle Miniatures were kind enough to include a little tutorial describing their painting method with the buildings they sent to me. Their approach is to first paint the buildings white and then follow up with washes of the subsequent colors. If one is to draw conclusions from the pictures of painted buildings at their site, the end result is very subtle and realistic. Since I liked that look, I decided to skip my usual hatchet job consisting of black basecoat and old-fashioned drybrushing once-over and give their method a shot. Results of this experiment will of course be posted here in due time.

In any case, based on my impression of those very nice miniatures, Total Battle Miniatures is a very welcome addition to the relatively small group of manufacturers of 6mm terrain. The buildings I've got are of the high quality I've previously only seen in products from Timecast Models.

WAB raiding season - game 1

2012-01-01T19:49:00.006+01:00

What better way to start 2012 than with a game. And since I was finally ready with the terrain required for the first scenario of our long planned WAB campaign, it was the logical choice for today's entertainment.
Couple of words about the campaign itself. It's taken from "Age of Arthur" supplement for Warhammer and consists of a series of battles that, depending on results in last engagement, are selected from a batch of fifteen scenarios in the book. The resulting campaign is linear, but varied and the fact that scenarios are connected gives much better "feeling" than one-off games we run until now.

The scenario

Initial scenario in the campaign is an opposed river crossing. A slight twist in deployment is provided by period-typical single combat between champions of the opposing sides. In our case it didn't make much difference (except for the quite enjoyable fact that H. had to witness his champion being butchered by my hero :-), but if finished quickly, it can make things little more difficult for the attacking side.

In any case, by the time preliminary pleasantries were finished, Saxons had their army ready for a push across the river. The bridge allowed only for passage of units with single figure width, so he choose to ignore it. River itself was difficult terrain (movement reduced by 50 percent), except in the middle where a ford was located and provided normal passage.

Setup

Neither H. nor I spent any time on painting... eh, I mean recruiting since our last game, so it was the gathering of usual suspects all over again. H. placed his chief and his merry band of butchers in the middle with clear intention of punching a hole straight through the middle of my line. He was supported by his light cavalry unit from behind. On both sides of the cavalry he deployed his three units of warriors. His archers opposed mine near the bridge.

My deployment was anything but innovative. My milites got their orders to oppose initial Saxon cavalry charge and beat back any incursions by Saxon warbands. My pedes were deployed near the bridge - I intended to get them into position near the river, form shieldwall and hope for the best. Mounted commanipulares were kept in second line as reserve. The only sneakiness in my initial setup was the fact that I placed my light cavalry on the road leading to the bridge. My intention was from the start to deploy them into march column as soon as possible and thereby threat H. with a move across the bridge and against his flank.

The battle

Since my champion won the single combat, I had the advantage of moving first. My infantry moved toward the river, light cavalry deployed into march column and some innefective shooting was done by skirmishers. H. followed his apparent plan and released his cavalry, with infantry moving in support. One of his warbands was placed to counter my light cavalry, which was just fine with me, as long as they weren't participating in the assault across the river.

Single combat… ending with victory for defenders of civilization. :-P

Both armies march toward each other.

In second turn we had the expected clash of Saxon cavalry and my milites. The results were both expected and a little surprising. The expected part was that my infantry held (those extra points for ranks will decide the result as long as casualties among infantry are kept at reasonable level). What surprised both me and H. was that his chief not only failed to cause any casualties, but also broke and drew the other cavalry unit into ignominious flight. Even though he rallied two turns later, he was out of the picture for the rest of the game, while the light cavalry unit unceremoniously left the field of battle altogether.

One can only wonder what his followers among infantry thought of this display of dubious behavior, but all warbands continued with their advance regardless of their leader's cowardly behavior (hey, my blogg, my prerogative for slander of the enemy:-). The foremost warband smashed into my victorious milites, routed them in two turns and managed not only to stop my subsequent cavalry charge, but were winning the melee that followed. Remaining unit of Saxon warriors moved in support and were met by my peasants with shields and crudely fashioned spears. The result of that fight was another surprise - my peasants pretty much bitch-slapped Saxon warriors and stopped them in their tracks.

Saxon warbands try to save the day…

…but get stuck.

By then we reached the end of sixth and final turn of the game and it was all over but the weeping for the Saxons. Their victory condition was to have two or more units (not engaged in combat) on the other side of the river by the end of the game; they had none. Their king was however still breathing, which meant that my success was only of minor nature. In next game, the Saxons will try at it again, but at a different ford.

Musings after the battle

The one thing of interest is that this was our first game with Warhammer 2.0 rules. I can't say that I am very happy with that "newish" second edition.

First of all, the language used in the rulebook is quite infuriating - I don't need a narrative and motivation of the rules in the rulebook itself, just give me the rules in clear and unambiguous manner.

Second, the new edition is incompatible with "Age of Arthur" supplement on at least one count - rules for warbands are formatted differently and we had to double-check with the original version for which rules were applicable to Saxons. No biggie, but a bit confusing.

Also, since H. didn't have time to read the second edition yet, we skipped most of the "novelities", such as giving up ground and disengagements. The only new rule I insisted on applying (for egoistic reasons ) was the fact that marching columns don't have to stop when they are within 8'' from the enemy. To be honest though, I really can't see how this rule can be used effectively when units, especially cavalry units, are in march columns. Even with movement rate of 24'' my light cavalry wouldn't even have cleared the bridge, if I decided to move it.

In any case, it was quite enjoyable game, finished in little over four hours including the setup and after game-cleanup. Nice start of 2012, hopefully I will have more to write about really soon.

Book Review

2011-12-01T20:17:00.003+01:00

Battle Tactics of the American Civil War by Paddy Griffith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ok, first of the bat - if you don't know your American Civil War, THIS IS NOT THE BOOK TO START WITH. Instead, find McPherson's 'Battle Cry For Freedom' or Shelby's superb three volume narrative of the conflict.

This little volume deals with something very specific - it's an attempt to answer the ever raging (trust me, in certain circles, this is not an uderstatement) question wheter American Civil War was the last war of Napoleonic times or first of modern wars? All main aspects of armed combat during ACW are examined and evaluated on their own and a final analysis of the conflict is presented in the last part of the book. It is up to each and every reader to agree or disagree with author's conclusions (chances are they will make your blood rush faster, if you don't), but the entire book is very well thought out and author's ideas cannot be dismissed out of hand.

The thing is though that, regardless of author's apparent knowledge, his ideas don't feel 'fleshed out' - the book is simply too short to be able to convincingly tackle the topic. Those who know the topic of discussion will understand Griffith's logic without any problems, but then they will also already be familiar with the argument he's making. Those who are new to the topic of this book, will propably be left with more questions than answers after reading this book. Also, I can't help but feel that Nosworthy's 'Crucible of Courage', which attempts to achieve exactly same thing as Griffith in this volume, is much better spent time if you're genuinly interested in deeper understanding of American Civil War from more "technical" perspective.

View all my reviews

C4 Open 2011

2011-11-12T16:54:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post with a link to pictures I've taken at this year's C4 Open exhibition. You can find the best of them in a gallery I've created at Facebook, click here to go to it.

Breakout From Fort Donelson

2011-10-27T22:26:00.004+02:00

Last Sunday I had opportunity to run another ACW game with slightly tweaked "They Couldn't Hit an Elephant" ruleset from Too Fat Lardies. This time around I picked another scenario from Caliver Books' excellent scenario set "Heartland". Called "Break-out at Fort Donelson", the scenario deals with general Pillow's breakout attempt from... well, Fort Donelson.

At first glance, the scenario I selected is that it is pretty straightforward affair - a rather superior Objective of Confederates is to smash through a Union line deployed on high ground and open an escape route for the troops in the fort. In other words, a typical slugger match with numerical advantage of rebels counter-balanced by strong defensive position of the lads on the Union side. I also believe that this scenario is quite good for learning a new ruleset – limited number of troops, with one side pretty much stationary and few regiments in brigades that are on the attacking side.

The twist in this one is provided by terrain and weather - both of them were pretty rotten, which translated into drastically reduced visibility. As things turned out, this fact was the deciding factor in our game.

Initial setup
As Union commander, I decided to take maximum advantage of the terrain and deployed my two brigades on the heights that separated rebels from their goal. Feeling generous toward myself, I also allowed myself to place one dummy blind on my exposed right flank in an attempt to disguise my numerical weakness.
H.'s deployment was hampered by scenario deployment instructions - three of his six brigades had to start from behind the field works. Remaining brigades could enter the battlefield from pretty much anywhere on his side of the gaming area.

Union deployment before at the start of the game

The game
To be perfectly honest, I may just as well admit that our game was pretty much over by the time we deployed our blinds. Right at the start, H. made correct observation that the reduced visibility and a fatal flaw in dispositions of my blinds gave him a perfect opportunity to turn left flank. He decided to focus his effort on this one spot and aided by fortunate draw of cards managed to reach his main objective - the road - in four rounds. Once that position was reached, the rest of the game was a formality. His brigades were now in perfect position for a devastating assault on my flank, while I didn’t even had a proper chance to deploy from my blinds.

Union line outmanovered

Actually a bit mentally paralyzed by this sudden turn of events, I scrambled to save something out of the looming disaster. I managed to deploy the brigade on my left flank before H’s. hammer fell, sending at the same time desperate instructions for my other brigade to march double-quick toward my exposed flank. However, even before it had a chance to start moving, the Confederate assault did strike the vulnerable end of my line, with predictable results. One of my regiments was pushed back after a hard fight. Their retreat exposed in turn the flank of the regiment to their right. It was struck almost immediately by another rebel unit, promptly routed before the onslaught and causing further confusion among the Union soldiers of the regiment that was forced out of line in previous round. With two of my eight regiments routed and my line on the verge of being swept away, I decided to accept the fact that I was in hopeless position and called it a day.

Union troops pinned down by diversionary rebel attack

Rebel brigade preparing for assault uphill

They’re running, boys… they’re running!

Confederates reach the ridge, aka “wow, entire picture is in focus, did I finally learn how to use my camera?”

Musings after the game
This time around, I have a mixed bag of things that I feel needs to be adressed. Let's start with the good stuff - when the "They Couldn't Hit an Elephant" works, it works very, very well. I was especially impressed by the nasty little engagement that developed between the two regiments that H. sent to pin the Union brigade to the left of my line and my artillery battery that covered that part of my front. The brief firefight that developed did feel like something taken from Shelby's narrative. The assault that decided the day also had the right feel to it - I especially appreciated the fact that one of highly probable outcomes of direct assaults (in TCHAE they are called 'decisive combat) is possibility of defender breaking and running away before contact is achieved (apparently, bayonet assaults were pretty common in ACW, but melees were quite rare). In other words, the combat model of the ruleset is very nice and has a period-specific "flavor".

As for the bad, well... is anybody surprised when I say 'Coffee Break' card? Outcome of our game was dictated by two factors. First of them was the reduced visibility (caused by the weather and difficult terrain) - H. took full opportunity of it to outflank my position. There is no argument against this from me, in fact I find it a rather realistic effect of the environmental conditions dictated by the scenario. The second factor was however far less entertaining - by pure chance, H. managed to draw his blinds card thrice in the four opening rounds of the game, while I failed to draw mine every single time. This unlucky sequence of events put me at a disadvantage I had no hope to recover from, because of the simple fact that, as far as I understand, voluntary deployment of troops in "They Couldn't Hit an Elephant" is allowed only when ones Blind card is drawn. In other words, during those four opening rounds I was pretty much a sitting duck. If my interpretation of the rules is correct, then an unlucky card draw sequence of the kind that I experienced can upset balance of even most carefully planned game. All sorts of argument can be made in defence of such events, but the fact remains that ‘Coffee Break’ card is a game mechanism that can defeat a player all on its own. When that happens, it can cause a bit of frustration.

To be fair, I have to admit that in regard of my bad luck with ‘Coffee Break’ card, I may have made things worse with my tweaks to the ruleset. In an attempt to alleviate the sometimes dramatic effect of 'Coffee Break' card, I play with two of them in my deck. The irony here is that having two of those cards in a deck consisting otherwise of only the Blinds cards for both sides actually reduces the chance of both Blinds cards being drawn in same turn from 66 percent to 50 percent. So the lesson for the future is to have only one 'Coffee Break' card as long as all troops are under blinds.

GHQ Terrain PART 2 – Basic Hexes

2011-10-13T21:34:00.003+02:00

Let me start by clarifying a couple of things. First of all, stuff I intend to cover here is pretty basic and familiar to anyone who's been wargaming for a while. Second, the way I handle GHQ hexes isn't the only way to do it, nor is it the right way to do it, it's just the way I do it. When I decided to use those hexes, my goal was to get functional and flexible terrain setup, quickly and with minimum fuss. Thus the techniques I use are really very simple. If you think that there are better ways or could give me some advice about how to improve my results, any comments are appreciated.

OK, with that out of the way, let's move on. Basic hexes are just that -basic plain, probably green terrain. 1/2 inch thick tiles are perfect for that type of hexes and you will need a whole bunch of those. I would say that two packs, total of 48 hexes, is pretty good amount for basic setup.
Besides the tiles, you'll need following materials:

Paint - don't bother with the expensive, artistic stuff. Find a DIY shop and grab a good sized jar of acrylic wall paint. It's much cheaper and it's thick, so it protects the hex pretty well.
Sand - in my opinion, texture of expanded polystyrene is pretty unattractive, so I prefer to cover my hexes with sand. I got mine from pet shop, 5 kg of sand intended for the bottom of an aquarium, which is enough to cover thousands of hexes.
Flock - since I wanted to have green, grassy hexes (standard for wargaming terrain), I needed flock and a lot of it. Stay clear from the stuff from Nine Force Gale and Warpainter, their small jars of flock are very nice, but they are insanely overpriced. GHQ provides its own brand of flock, but it's a bit hard to find in Europe, so the simplest solution is to find a model railroad shop and get as large bags of flock as possible from one of the major producers. Faller, Woodland Scenics or Noch will probably work equally well and big bags of flock from one of them is probably the cheapest alternative short of making flock from scratch (and who would want do that).
PVA glue - common white glue, commonly available in DIY shops. Grab a big bottle, you'll need it.
At least one medium sized flat brush - the kind with synthetic bristles, normally used for wall painting.

And here's how I do my basic tiles:

Paint the tile with wall paint.
Cover the hex with sand, wait for couple of seconds so that the sand sticks to the wet paint. Next, pour the excess sand back into its container. Leave for at least couple of hours for the paint to dry.
Since the sand I use is orange-red, I have to paint the tile again to get more suitable base color. If you use more naturally colored sand, you may want to skip this step.
Once the paint is dry (again), I next flock the top of the tile. Pour some PVA glue into a container, add some water (normally I go for 3 parts glue and 2 parts water) and mix it together. Cover the part of the hex that is to be flocked with the glue/water mix and cover it with flock. Wait for couple of seconds and pour excess flock back into its container. Let the glue dry completely.
Paint over the flock with mixture of glue and water again. This will harden the flock and fix it to the surface of the tile. At that stage I also sprinkle the hex with another shade of flock in an irregular pattern to break up the monotony of same color, but it's a question of personal taste and can be skipped. Once again, leave the tiles to try.

Main stages of basic tile “production”

Some final thoughts... If I had to do it all over again, I would have painted sides of the hexes in color that is as close as possible to the color of the flock. Why? Well, for some unexplainable reason GHQ doesn't bother to cut their hexes precisely, with the end result being that the hexes don't align perfectly. This means that once the tiles are set up on the table, there are gaps between them. As can be seen in the pictures I've posted before, those gaps are quite visible when the paint on the sides is of different color than the flock. I believe that this rather unaesthetic visual effect can be reduced if the paint on the sides of the hexes is of same color as the flock.

Also, in case you haven't already figured it out on your own, working with one tile at a time isn't very efficient. I usually work with one pack of tiles at the time, one step at the time.

Preparing for assault on Fort Donelson or using GHQ Terrain – part 1

2011-09-11T13:30:00.003+02:00

Over last couple of months, I've been toying with the idea of writing a couple of posts about GHQ Terrain system. I am not a master terrain maker nor do I claim to be an expert in GHQ Terrain "field", but I've been using it for a couple of years and I do believe that I have gained a bit of insight about advantages and disadvantages of this system, as seen from the point of view of average wargamer. Also, just like with most of things, there seems to be a right way and a wrong way to do stuff with GHQ Terrain. I think that by now I have made most of the common mistakes and figured out few things that could be of benefit for others, so why not share it with people for whom this information could be useful?

My plans about more in depth posts are for the moment hindered by real life obligations, but since I am in process of setting up terrain for an ACW scenario, it occurred to me that I could use that process as a background for an introduction to the topic. So... below is the picture of preliminary terrain setup I intend to use for Grant's assault on Fort Donelson. There is still some work left to do, but for a "first fitting" things don't look too shabby.

Here is a couple of facts in connection with this setup, just to give you a general idea about GHQ Terrain system. It is about 140 cm by 95 cm (sorry guys, metric system is the way to go) and consists of about 250 hexes. mostly of 1/2 inch variety. In case you wonder why so many hexes are needed, the reason is the elevation that runs throughout the board and covers about 2/3 of it. After giving it a bit of a thougt about how to depict that terrain feature, I decided to try two 1/2 inch hexes on top of each other and it seems to work pretty fine. Reason why I’m mentioning it is that there is a couple of approaches to deal with elevations when using GHQ Terrain tiles – each of them has its own set of drawbacks and advantages.

Another thing that can be of interest is the fact that this board is built of five different basic tile types and four of those tile types have several variations. Basic plane hex is one of those tile types, obviously. Road hexes are of two different types - one with road running between straight vertices and one with roads running between diagonal vertices of the hex. Then there are elevation hexes - if I'm not mistaken, there are five possible shapes of those, although in this setup only three are used.

By now two things should be apparent - it is a work intensive system and it demands a bit of effort and dedication before a certain level of versatility is achieved. Furthermore, a bit of an financial inverstment is required even for basic setup. Those things need to be considered carefully before choosing GHQ as the terrain solution for wargames.

Brushes from Rosemary&Co

2011-09-04T17:13:00.003+02:00

Ordering brushes from a webshop in a different country? Isn’t that a bit of an overkill? Well… yes, I guess you could say that. But what if I told you that this webshop sells brushes that have the same quality as those almost mystical Winsor Newton Series 7 wonders, but that they cost only about a third of the price that W&N demands for their tools of magic? And what if I told you that this webshop sells not only the vanilla brushes that we use every day, but also brushes with such strange names as a rigger, side-loader or cat’s tongue? If that’s not enough, then listen to this – when you buy brushes from that place, you not only get your stuff two or three days later, but you also get a handwritten note from the owner of the shop and it says “thank you for your business”. Yeah, I thought that would catch your interest!

OK, joke aside and down to the business. Purpose of this post is quite simple – to spread the word about a small enterprise called Rosemary&Co. From what I understand it’s a small, family-owned company located in England that manufactures and sells hand-made brushes. By now, I have ordered brushes from that company a couple of times and couldn’t have been happier with their products. Brushes from Series 33 are perfect for the stuff I work with (over last couple of years mainly 6mm and 28mm). What’s more important, despite the fact that they are from pure Kolinsky sable, they wear out at far slower pace than DaVinci brushes I used previously and they keep their point pretty much ‘til the bitter end. I’ve also bought a couple of their less orthodox brushes and their quality is just as good (although I still haven’t had the chance to do anything meaningful with them).

Anyway… you can find Rosemary’s webshop here. Take a look at all the goodies she makes and give them a chance. I think you will be very positively suprised by both the price and by what you get for your money.

French FOOT Artillery from Adler

2011-08-14T22:31:00.002+02:00

One of my favorite figure manufacturers is Adler Miniatures. However, I always find it a bit disappointing that there are so few published pictures on their site. So, just to give a lending hand, here is a picture of my next step toward French OOB for my first General De Brigade scenario - French foot artillery 6/8 pound battery, code FBAT1, in their original bare metal condition.

Pictures of painted figures will be posted when I'm done, whenever that may be.

Adler French foot 6/8 pound artillery battery (FBAT1) straight from the plastic bag

Dogfight over Convoy BOSOM

2011-08-07T17:00:00.002+02:00

My Stukas didn't have long to wait until their combat debut - just a couple of hours ago we run a simplified version of scenario "Dogfight over Convoy BOSOM" from scenario book “Over The Channel” with four of my friends. Since we had one completely new player, I decided to remove certain elements of the scenario, most significantly clouds and spotting rules.

"Dogfight over Convoy BOSSOM" is a very neat little scenario for 2 to 4 players. German side runs a pair of Me-110:s and Me-109:s escorting ten Stukas. RAF is represented by a flight of Spitfires and Hurricanes. This scenario is also quite interesting from the tactical perspective - British planes can deploy in a perfect position for a head-on pass against Stukas, while German fighters are hindered from engaging British fighters until they fire. However, after first salvo, British players have some decisive decisions to make - do they make another pass against Stukas or do they act defensively and counter the German escorts?

Our game followed the by now quite familiar script (I’ve actually played this scenario once before in Copenhagen, with remarkably similar results). The critical first fire phase from British players was quite ineffective (only one Stuka damaged). To add insult to injury, one of Hurricanes run out of ammo almost immediately and left the engagement in a hurry. Spitfire flight then turned around to get the Stukas from behind, while Hurricanes continued straight forward, gaining altitude at the same time. Results of those maneuvers were predictable - Spitfires gained perfect position for attack against the Stukas and managed to damage three of them. Unfortunately, they were by now unsupported and exposed to German escorts, which shot down two of Spitfires (the “stunner” of the game consisted of the fact that it took four very potent hits from Messershmidts to down one of the Spits). By round six, three British planes were opposed by four German escorts in advantageous position and we decided that it was time to call it a day.

Situation in the middle of our game – front group of Stukas are out of harm’s way, while Spitfires are hammering the second group of bombers from behind, while being hammered by the escorts.

Conclusion of this game is once again that trying to gain 6 o'clock position against bombers, while ignoring their escorts is a suicidal proposition. Attacking side must instead keep maximum speed and either engage the escorts in a head on contest (unhealthy proposition for the British because of 20mm cannons of Messerschmitts) or try to position themselves in a position for a deflection shot against the bombers several turns later in the game.

Stukas from Tumbling Dice

2011-08-07T16:06:00.002+02:00

Just a short post to keep the blogg alive – just finished a batch of Stukas and they deserve a photo opportunity. Miniatures are from Tumbling Dice, decals are from Dom’s Decals.

Paint scheme is simplified cammo for 1940 period – upper surfaces are painted with Valejo Olive Grey 888 and Bronze Green 897, lower surfaces are painted with Valejo Pale Blue 906. In 1/600 scale differences between two shades of green are almost invisible, so I choose to lighten Olive Grey with a healthy dose of dull yellow (any kind will do, as long as it’s not some sort of bright lemon shade).

Baby STEPS with green stuff

2011-07-06T12:34:00.001+02:00

I’m not saying that Perry brothers or Copplestone need to start looking out for new competition… But I have to say that I am a little proud to announce that I have attempted my miniature conversion and didn’t botch it completely.

Just to flesh out this post, here’s the background story. As those few that follow this blog already know, the WAB army I have been working on for last couple of years (has it been that long already?) has been inspired by Cornwell’s “Winter King”. An army of Arthur based on that source would of course be incomplete without the Wolftails. Those cunning buggers at Gripping Beast are fully aware of that fact and do provide a rather sweet set of 12 miniatures that are perfect for that role. Yours truly has already grabbed, painted, based and fielded that unit.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, in WAB a unit of 12 Roman commanipulares has about as much chance against 24 charging Saxon Dughuts as a snowball has in hell. And it doesn’t help pointing out that they are Derfel’s invincible warriors that can’t loose – I tried that and H. just laughed at me as he exterminated them to the last man… eh, I mean figure.

After seeing Derfel’s boys being swamped by the Saxon horde in their inital engagement I quickly came to conclusion that to reach their full potential, they needed reinforcements. But were from? Any warrior that wished to be included in this elite band had to provide a mandatory wolftail on his helmet and such things were rare, very rare indeed! The only choice other than getting duplicates from Gripping Beast (boring!!!) was to make my own.

Well, without further comments, here’s the end result. The miniature on the right hadn’t completed his initiation ceremony, so he’s still wearing the original helmet.

Not Dead Yet…

2011-05-14T20:55:00.002+02:00

When I look at the date of my latest entry in the blog, I can't help but wonder about how fast time passes these days. Also, I wonder about how often the phrase 'Not dead yet!' has been used on half-abandoned blogs, followed by explanations and excuses. In this case, my long silence was caused by several different factors,but first and foremost - I moved to a new place. The bad thing here is that fixing the new place is taking ten times longer than I expected. The good thing is that I finally have both a nice painting area and plenty of space for a decent gaming table.

Returning to the age of Arthur
This blog is supposed to be about miniature wargaming, so enough about my new flat and let's move over to last Sunday’s event. On that day H. came over with his Saxons and we gave Warhammer Ancient Battles another go. It was our third game, so we were finally starting to get a grip of the ruleset. Nevertheless, I was a bit anxious, because our previous games ended in a rather inglorious whooping of yours truly. Now, I don't mind having my behind being handed over to me every once in a while. In case of H.'s Saxons however, the single reason for my defeats was the monstrous special character of his king, who so far managed to vaporize anybody who dared to stand in his way. Romano-British army list doesn't really offer any direct antidote to that monster, something that I admittedly started to find tad unfair and frustrating.

Same, same, but different
Since we are both still fumbling our way through WAB ruleset, we decided to run yet another set piecebattle with few pieces of terrain for sake of variety.

Our deployments were rather unimaginative. I placed a huge swarm of skirmishers in the rough ground to my right, while the rest of my infantry - two units of milites and one of peasant rabble were placed in the centre. My mounted mounted milites in skirmish order were placed on my right flank, while mounted commanipulares were held in reserve.
H.'s dispositions were pretty much a mirror of mine - his skirmishers, although heavily outnumbered by mine, intended apparently to meet mine in a straightout shootout contest. Three units of Saxon warriors were placed to the left of the skirmisher, while his cavalry concentrated on the Saxon left flank.

H's intention was apparently to repeat the events from our second game - smash with his cavalry through my rightmost milites unit and then take care of my cavalry. With that suspicion in my mind, I choose a purely defensive strategy - infantry would take the charge and hopefully hold. In the meantime, my light troops would try to annoy the crap out of the Saxons with missile fire.

Birds view before battle

Romano-British deployment

Initial deployment of Saxons

When events actually follow the plan
The battle that followed can be described in very few words. H moved his entire army forward, while I awaited the onslaught. My foot skirmishers on right flank exchange missile fire with H's archers and mass of Saxon infantry. The results were inconclusive, the only source of real excitement being caused by an uncontrolled charge of some of his infantry, which my skirmishers avoided by a hair's breath.

Main action was once again initiated by H:s cavalry. His light cavalry unit charged bravely into my rightmost milites as soon as it was in range... and was promptly sent back with a bloody nose. I must admit it caused me no small pleasure, because similar charges in our two previous games started disastrous chains of events that led to catastrophic defeats of poor Romans. Not this time though; it's nice to know that WAB is capable to handle cavalry charges into formed infantry in proper manner. It’s even nicer to know that my army doesn’t always trip over its own legs at slightest push.

First Saxon charge bounces against Roman shieldwall

His initial setback failed however to disturb Saxon king's retinue, who in following round managed to completely mangle mounted milites on my left flank. Poor buggers came a tad too close to Saxons in open formation and were caught while trying to evade the predictable chagre that followed. This success placed Saxons in perfect position for a clash of arms with my mounted commanipulares, a contest which on both previous occasions proved to be catastrophic for my general’s retinue.

Sure enough, the Saxon king charged and to everybody’s suprise failed to make any impression whatsoever on my cavalry. The fact that I cunningly equiped them with heavy armour for this battle did help. To be fair though, H:s hopeless luck with dices helped even more. My retinue also managed to cause enough Saxon casualties to make them flee. This rout would have once again been been a decisive one, but for the fact that in this battle Saxons were as skilled at running away as they were in close combat on previous occasions.

Decisive moment

Inconclusive infantry engagement in the center

Situation at the end of the game

By that time we were both satisfied with the outcome and decided to call it a day. It turned out to be yet another Saxon victory, although this time it was a mariginal one. Personally, I was mostly relieved that my Romano-British army didn't (once again) crumble like a paper mug. H. was probably a tad relieved over and certainly very entertained by happy escape of his king's retinue. Overall, a pretty decent Sunday afternoon.

The Wars of Alexander’s Successors - Volume One: Commanders & Campaigns

2010-10-03T00:11:00.003+02:00

In simple terms, this is the book I've been searching for ever since I read Warry's 'Warfare in Classical World' some twenty years ago. 'The Wars of Alexander's Successors 323-281 - Commanders & Campaigns' contains exactly what the rather lengthy title indicates - a narrative of the events that took place from the moment Alexander the Great drew his last breath to the demise of his last general and subsequent empire-builder, Seleucus.

I dare to say that if one disregards the primary sources, this book is the only available source completely dedicated to the period of Alexander's Successors. If there are any other similar works easily available on the market, I am not aware of them. It is therefore impossible for me to make a comparative judgment regarding the quality of the material. I can however say that the authors do a pretty good job condensing the very complex events of the period into 220 pages of detailed, but accessible material.

Unsurprisingly, the first chapters of the book deal with the traumatic events in Babylon, starting with those dramatic and confusing hours immediately after Alexander's death, which laid the fundament for the following decades of continuous strife and warfare. Chapters that follow deal with the reign and demise of Perdiccas, Lamian War and struggle for Macedonia that followed. Next, struggle between Eumenes and Antigonus is then studied in detail, followed by chapters dedicated to Ptolemy and Seleucus up to the period immediately before the battle of Ipsus. Events leading to Ipsus, the battle itself and its aftermath are handled in great detail. Final chapters of the book focus on Lysimachus, his contest with Demetrius and last years of the Successor period. Some chapters overlap each other chronologically and those jumps in timelines did manage to confuse me on a couple of occasions (death of Cassander is initially mentioned almost by accident, while first mention of Demetrius' change of fortunes comes out of nowhere). Overall however, the authors make great job in creating a comprehensive picture of an extremely complex period, both politically and from military perspective.

My only real criticism regarding this book is directed against a single issue - the almost complete lack of maps. In this day and age it is almost unforgivable not to provide the graphic material, especially when the authors frequently refer to geographical locations that no longer exist.

From wargaming perspective, this book is a literal treasure trove. Let's face it, this book is nothing else but a descriptions of continuous campaigns during a period of over forty years along with detailed and sometimes very personal descriptions of very capable warlords. Even most choosy campaign builder should be able to find here something to his liking.

First attempt at Adler Austrians

2010-09-12T22:29:00.002+02:00

Well, without any unnecessary introductions, here they are – my first 6mm Austrians. Bases need of course some flocking and they're missing their banner, but I haven't posted anything on the blog for so long, so it's better than nothing.

Can't say I'm particularly pleased with them and am still wondering about how to best outline their belts. But I guess they'll do in a pinch.

What was that about?

2010-06-19T19:40:00.002+02:00

OK, I had my fun with yet another narrative writeup, but what was it all about? Well... after more than a year and a half of painting and preparations, H. and I decided that we had enough painted figures to have a decent 1500 points Warhammer contest. I fielded a Romano-British force consisting of one unit of mounted commanipulares, another rather small force of commanipulares on foot, two units of milites and a largish unit of pedes. The difference was made up by a horde of skirmishers. H. countered with a mounted unit of Gedrihts and three of Duguths, one of them mounted. He also fielded a small force of skirmishers.

The game developed as described in the narrative - inital clash between best cavalry ended in disaster for me, mainly because of superior strength of H.'s leader and my lousy dice rolls. Then our infantry clashed together, with me loosing by a single point and failing morale test for three units (only one of which was actually in combat). Next round saw my cavalry being overrun and my commanipulares on foot being annihilated. The fact that all of three routing units managed to rally was a small consolation and we decided it was a rather overwhelming Saxon victory.

And what did we think about 'Warhammer'? Here's the thing - we are using the original edition. That's right, not 2.0, not even 1.5, but the original, that by now gives a different meaning to 'Ancient' in the title of the rules than was originally intended. I've understood from the comments on the net, that there are some ambivalences in the original ruleset and yes, now I can confirm that. For example, how the heck do leaders fight? And how does one fight against them, especially with thrusting spears? The way we finally decided on handling the leaders was to deal with them separately, before proceeding with the rest of combat, but I don't have a clue if we are doing it 'right'. Another thing - counter-charges by cavalry. Once more, I know that they were added to the ruleset, because I've seen them mentioned on the net. But they are certainly not described in Warhammer 'the original edition'.

Nevertheless, we both had a blast and really enjoyed the game. Even though it was a bit one-sided, I hope to smack those pesky Saxons back to Denmark as soon as I'll get the opportunity. And of course, me and H. are already discussing the next army. :)

Saxons Are Coming!

2010-06-19T19:37:00.003+02:00

It was at the end of last year's autumn that first rumors about yet another huge Saxon host causing all sorts of mayhem and destruction reached the court of our lord, Severius Borus. News like that have become more and more common over last couple of years - ever since the Saxon revolt that took place almost a decade ago, everybody in our domain was worried about growing numbers of the invaders. We knew that sooner or later we would have to fight those barbarians. As more news about burned villages and overrun strongholds reached us from the east, or Lord decided that this time has now come upon us. It was better not to wait for same fate to befall on our domain, but rather to meet the Saxons on a field of battle and smash them before they could cause us great harm.

During the winter, messengers with a call to arms were sent to all corners of our lands. Trusted men were sent to our neighbors, urging them to join us and oppose the Saxons. As winter slowly turned into spring, our lord had huge force at his command. Foremost among all troops were commanipulares of our lord - experienced warriors with many battle scars proving their veteran status. All of them were equipped with best armor and weapons, their horses the best in the realm. Enough men gathered to the call of our lord to form two companies of milites. While not of the same status as commanipulares, they were good soldiers, some of them serving as youths in Roman legions, before those disapeared from Britannia for good. Last but not least, a huge mass of peasants, some with spear and shield, some with bows and arrows or simple slings, obeyed the orders of Borus. Our lord, in his wisdom, trained those who had proper equipment to stand and fight in a shield wall formation. The rest was instructed to act as scouts and cause whatever harm they could to the Saxon foe.

Finally the day of departure came and our splendid army moved out to meet the Saxon threat. News about their destructive deeds reached us with alarming regularity during the winter. Those who survived their encounter with the barbarians told us about a host as numerous in horsemen as it was in warriors on foot. They were lead by a man who was called 'Bear' - apparently a horrifying, huge man who possessed almost unnatural strength and who could drive a spear through three men with a single thrust. We all discarded those stories as something to scare children with, but our lord valued the information about the location of the Saxon host.

Apparently, the Saxons had their spies in our midst, for the news that reached us told us they were moving rapidly in our direction, leaving a track of destruction in their wake. It took us less than six days of march to find the Saxons, or maybe for them to find us.

On the day of the battle our footmen were formed in three battles consisting of milites and pedes. Foot commanipulares acted as a reserve to the rear. Peasant skirmishers were sent to our right flank, where rough going would protect them against Saxon hordes. After making sure that our battle line was formed to his satisfaction, our lord took personal command of mounted commanipulares and rode round the right flank, with intention of smashing Saxon hordes once they were softened by our footmen.

Saxon army

One of Saxon cavalry units

Roman battle line

It was a sound plan, yet somehow everything went horribly wrong. As our heavy cavalry maneuvered to hit the flank of barbarians, it was swiftly met by the best cavalry of the Saxons. While far from being as splendid as our warriors, it was numerous and acted confident, even as it met our best warriors head to head. Bear was leading them and all who could see the clash of horsemen quickly understood that the tales about that man were all true. Using his huge sword almost as a club, he stroke down everyone who dared stand in his path. His men rode into the holes he ripped in our formation and just like that, our warriors panicked and turned around. With Saxon horsemen slashing at their backs, few managed to keep their lives. Fortunately, our lord was one of those who managed to retreat to safety.

Clash of cavalry…

…and the aftermatch

Meanwhile more Saxon cavalry appeared at our other flank, forcing one of our battles to turn to the left and face that threat. Even as our milites scrambled to form a new shieldwall, Saxon infantry smashed into the middle of our battle line. I was there and witnessed as Saxons charged our men and barely made contact before our troops, terrified by the savage onslaught broke ranks and run away. Panic spread like plague and the rest of our men followed the cowards who started the flight!

Initial contact between infantry

The only men who stood their ground were the foot commanipulares. Those valiant med didn't hesitate for a moment and rushed forward in an attempt to stem the Saxon flood. They managed to stop the Saxons for a couple of valuable moments, thereby buying valuable time for our troops to recover from the initial shock. The price was however heartbreaking - commanipulares died to a man, some being slain where they stood, the rest was simply swept away by the Saxon horde.

Last stand of foot commanipulares

By that time it was apparent that our lot lost their heart and could not stand up to the Saxons. Our lord gave signal for a retreat and from then on it was 'every man for himself'. Saxons pursued us half-heartedly, scattering our once mighty host into all directions.

Bear victorious

Twelve days have now passed since the great disaster and remains of our army have gathered at the stronghold of our lord. There are few of us, but we will stand our ground and defend our land to the last. Pray for us, for Saxons are coming...

MOST DANGEROUS ENEMY BY STEPHEN BUNGAY

2010-05-09T22:19:00.002+02:00

Battle of Britain is probably the most covered topic in military aviation literature and there must be literally hundreds of titles covering the topic in English language alone. Throughout the years I have managed to read quite a few of them and I can say that 'The Most Dangerous Enemy' is without a doubt the best of them. First of all, author manages to stay focused and balanced both in his narrative and analysis of events. Both antagonists get same amount of coverage, while critique and prize are dealt out where appropriate, regardless of the side. Furthermore, the book is perfectly balanced in another respect - personal experiences, technological aspects of the conflict and overview of large scale events are dealt with in separate chapters with focus on single well-defined topic. It may sound strange based solely on my description, but this writing technique seems perfectly suited for coverage of Battle of Britain. It allows the reader to keep solid track of the events as they unfolded, understand the high level decisions and at the same time never lets him forget the personal costs and sacrifices required by both sides.

For those that are familiar with this clash between Luftwaffe and RAF some seventy years ago, I'd recommend this book for a different reason - conclusions of Stephen Bungay regarding the Battle, its outcome and consequences may be controversial and challenge traditional opinions, but I dare to say that they deserve some afterthought.
If there is any criticism that this book deserves then it's the fact that, if one is to draw conclusions from the references, the author relied predominantly on English sources. Also, I found it a bit annoying that Stephen Bungay seems to have problems with deciding in how to present foreign pilots in RAF service and their role in the Battle of Britain.

From wargamer's perspective this book is to be considered mainly as a great historical background source for those of us who enjoy aerial wargames. 'The Most Dangerous Enemy' does not contain much information for creation for new scenarios, it is however excellent source for understanding of proper tactics and why they were employed. It is also worth reading for the reason that I suspect I hardly have to point out - learning about real events that our games are based on is after all, or at least should be, part of this hobby.

Duel of the Eagles

2010-04-22T14:09:00.011+02:00

For next installment of our Battle of Britain-saga we selected scenario with very suitable title 'Duel of Eagles'. It was our first pure fighter game, which was a nice change of pace from previous games, where bombers were the primary targets.

The setup

Historical encounter depicted by 'Duel of Eagles' was between elements of Jagtgeschwader 26 and Squadron No.76. Pilots of both formations were very experienced and both were led by an ace - Adolf Galland and "Sailor" Malan. To reflect this fact, both sides in our game had an Ace pilot and a bunch of Veteran pilots each. R.A.F was represented by three sections of Spitfires, while Germans had four sections of Me109:s. Entry point and initial altitude of each section was determined randomly, although random Scenario Special Rule roll allowed the German side to enter one section of Messerschmitts at highest altitude at the beginning of round 2.

Random setups have sometimes tendency to put a certain spin on a game and this was one of those occassions. Malan's section entered the table at very low altitude and it was obvious that his formation would not have much influence on the initial phase of the game. Galland's rote and second Spitfire section entered the table on the opposite sides of the table, at high altitude, but equally out of position. Third section of Spitfires was however definitely in trouble - two sections of 109:s were in their immediate vicinity. Furthermore, unbeknownst to the player controlling British fighters, last section of Messerschmitts would show up on their tails at the beginning of second round.

Separated Spitfire section at the start of the game

The game

It could be said that this game had two very distinct phases. First half was spent on maneuvers where every one of us was trying to select their targets and gain an advantageous position. On one side of the table focus lay on Malan's Spitfire section that started at very low altitude. This formation was a very obvious target for Galland's Messersmitts, which started to the right of Spitfires - both sections tuned into each other, Spitfires climbing, 109:s diving. Both sides opened fire simultaneously, missed and then they were past each other. While Malan's planes continued on same course, still climbing, Galland's rote met the other section of Spitfires that started on same side of the table. This time the Brits were the lucky ones - Galland's wingman was hit and damaged and both Messerschmitts were suddenly fighting for survival.

The picture was very different on the other side of the table. Single section of Spitfires, with enemy fighters both in front and behind them, had no choice but to run toward the middle of the table. Initially the only good news for those British planes was the fact that one of German flights was below them and had to climb before it posed a real threat, while the remaining 109:s didn't really have a good shooting resolution and choose not to open fire.

Between the rock and the hard place

In other words, the game was at first separated in two separate chains of events. Then all airplanes found themselves in the middle of the table and at roughly same altitude. As it turns out, it was a recepy for total chaos - six Spitfires and eight Me109:s were basically on top of each other, every pilot having at least one target in its sights at any given time. For the first time we experienced a true dogfight.

Gathering in the middle

Considering the amount of fire, surprisingly few hits were scored. First victim of the day was one of green Spitfires that turned the wrong way (incorrect plot) and found two Messerschmitts in its path. Short burst of cannon shells demolished the unfortunate Spitifre and it spun down to the ground. Another Spitfire was shot down shortly afterward by a random snapshot from a German fighter. The Brits returned the compliment and hit one of 109:s, setting its engine on fire.

Two vs. one

Engine on fire and long way away from France

With two British fighters shot down, the Germans seemed to gain the upper hand. At this moment, Malan's flight finally found its way to the fight, with immediate and telling effect. A deflection shot from British ace found its target, putting the Messerschmitt into a spin from which it never recovered. Third Spitfire became victim of German fighters at the same time, but two of German fighters also run out of ammunition. Those events changed the picture dramatically - German planes found themselves outnumbered and in a disadvantageous position. Prefering prudence before glorious death for the Fatherland, all German pilots put the superiour diving speed of their planes to use and managed to exit the table without any additional loses.

Time to head for home

Final score of the game - three Spitfires and one Messerschmitt shot down, two Messerschmitts damaged. Another German victory, but this one with much narrower margin than in previous games.

Musings after the game

This game made two things rather apparent. First, a game without bombers is a very different experience - there are no obvious targets and players can take their time, searching advantage of position or simply waiting for a mistake from the opponent. Second, a melee like the one that developed in this game is a very unhealthy proposition for everyone involved. Firing arcs are very generous in CY6 (and we are playing with the optional, narrow arc), so most of the time it is almost impossible to avoid potshots.

From practical point of view, I have to say that it wasn't the most enjoyable CY6 game I had opportunity to play. Chaos that developed made it rather hard to keep track of who was supposed to move when. Additionally, if one is to draw any conclusions from this game, dogfights tend to concentrate all the planes in a very narrow area. This fact creates some purely physical problems, as you can fit only so many bases in a single hex.

At the same time I have to say that 'Duel of Eagles' has a lot of replayability and does seem to be an excellent pick up scenario for multiple players. In our game we had three players on British side and four on the German. Two of them were complete beginners, but managed to be 'self-going' within a couple of rounds.

Black day for R.A.F.

2010-04-09T21:27:00.002+02:00

One week after the slaughter of German bombers on a forlorn night mission, it was time for us to run ‘Dogfight Over Convoy BOSOM’. This scenario is the first in the Battle of Britain scenario book that actually takes place during that battle. Scenario in question depicts one of many raids aimed at the Channel convoys in the initial phase of the campaign. Although the targets of those attacks were obviously British ships, the real goal of Luftwaffe was to lure slender R.A.F. forces into a battle of attrition.

Initial setup

At first sight, ‘Dogfight Over Convoy BOSOM’ does look like another milk run for the British. Not only do they have superior fighter force, they are also allowed to setup very close to their primary targets, a group of nine Ju-87:s, more famous as Stukas. German side has one rote each of Me-109:s and Me-110:s, although it has to be said that German fighters are severely hamstrung by rather restricting setup rules.

The game

With setup rules allowing the British airplanes to start basically on top of the Stukas, this scenario can be characterized as “short and sweet”… which it was, although not in a way that one would expect.

British fighters bounce the Stukas

British fighters (one vic of Spitfires and Hurricanes) approached the bombers out of the sun, ten o’clock high relative to the German formation. With German escorts far behind the bombers (a calculated risk on the part of the Germans), Brits had opportunity for one freebie pass on the bombers before they had to tangle with the escorts. This was a temptation that guys on the British side couldn’t resist - Spitfires went after the group closer to the British entry point, while Hurricanes selected to make a head on pass against the remaining Stukas a bit further back. The reward for the trouble was surprisingly slim – one Junkers received a solid hit to the engine, while another started to burn after a lucky hit from a .303 bullet.

Hurricanes trying to get behind the bombers

Seeing the Brits splitting up forces, German fighters did the same – Me-109:s side slipped to the right to meet the Hurricanes, Me-110:s dove toward the Spitfires, two of which surprisingly choose to disregard the escorts and turned behind the Stukas. Remaining Spitfire left the formation in an attempt to try his luck with 109:s and was immediately shot down in what can only be described as a nonchalant manner by a single burst from German rote leader’s cannons.

Doomed Spitfire

This unexpected kill was the start of a nightmare for the British side. Leader of Spitfire formation was the next one to pay the ultimate price – after his engine was damaged by accurate fire from Stuka rear-gunners, he was unable to do anything against Zerstörers at his six o’clock.

Last survivor of the Spitfire formation tried to get away, but was unable to shake off the Me-110:s. 20 mm cannon shells found their target in next round and last Spitfire immediately went down in flames.

Demise of the Hurricane formation was equally rapid, but far more memorable. After a completely unsuccessful head-on pass, British fighters choose to repeat the mistake of their comrades flying the Spitfires – they turned to the left with the intention of gaining tail position on the Stukas. The fact that two Me-109:s were rapidly closing on them apparently didn’t bother them… however, the fact that the formation leader managed to turn so tightly that he managed to collide not with one, but two Ju-87:s struck everybody with complete amazement. Miraculously, the first Stuka suffered only scratches on its paint, while the Hurricane suffered minor damage. British pilot wasn’t as lucky in his second ramming attack – his plane blew up. It has however to be noted that his perseverance paid off and he managed to bring his victim down with him.

Amazing performance of the evening

Remaining Hurricanes were bounced by Messerschmitt immediately afterward. Position advantage of German fighters made the dogfight a foregone conclusion and both British fighters were shot down after a short dogfight. One of Me-109:s was damaged in the process, but that was a small price to pay for the complete triumph of Luftwaffe in this fight.

Hurricanes bounced by Messerschmitts

Musings after the battle

The entire game took less time than it took me to write this post – it was all over after only two hours, or six game rounds. This however is unimportant. It is however worth noticing that “Check Your Six” once again proved to be an excellent game ruleset and you will suffer if you ignore Boelke’s Dicta. In this game, both British players choose to ignore the threat of German fighters at their back and suffered the consequences.

Meanwhile in the other room…

Disaster in the dark

2010-03-22T20:08:00.004+01:00

Two weeks ago it was time for another ‘Check Your Six’ scenario from ‘Over The Channel’ scenario book. This time it the turn came to ‘Into the darkness’. Name of the scenario refers to the fact that it is a little different from the rest, as it tries to represent the challenge of night bombing raids in those early years of the war.

Setup

To simulate the difference in night and day missions, a couple of special rules are implemented in this scenario. Visibility is very limited, while German bombers are allowed to fly individually. Additionally any airplane that is can be shot at, needs to perform a check for illumination – if it makes it, it is invisible for the rest of the turn.

The game

Goals of this scenario are very simple for both sides. The objective of six Heinkels was simple – try to stay alive while traversing the board. For three sections of British assailants – one section each of Spitfires, Hurricanes and Blenheims – the task was to find the bombers and bring down as many as possible. Their task was made difficult not only by very limited visibility conditions and special rules, but also by random entry points in regard of both location and altitude.

As things turned out, start of the game ment some good news and some bad news for the German players. Blenheims came in low and out of position – this was very fortunate for the opposition, since those obsolete light bombers hastily converted into night fighters are real hogs in regard of speed and climb rate. But any optimism on the German side was quickly dispersed by the fact that both Hurricanes and Spitfires entered the table with height advantage and behind the Heinkels. We didn’t know it by then, but this simple fact more or less decided the outcome of game.

Blenheims making a debut in this game

The game itself was straight forward and the events need only few sentences to be described. William and I were in control of the bombers and we decided upon different strategies. My previous experience told me that defensive armament of German bombers can be very effective made me decide to keep my planes in formation. William went for speed and additional maneuverability of bombers flying individually. One of us made the right call, the other was disastrously wrong and payed the price.

The hunted…

I have to add though that I don't think any decisions would change the course of the game – both Hurricanes and Spitfires took full advantage of altitude and speed and came into range within a couple of rounds. Since my three Heinkels were from British point of view was flying slightly behind William’s bombers, they were the natural first target and they took the brunt of British onslaught. As soon as the fighters reached optimal firing position, it was all over but the crying for my doomed Heinkels. A single burst of .303 machine guns was all it took to bring down first victim; other two put up a better fight, but nevertheless went down after being repeatedly by British fighters.

…and the hunters

Distraction of three juicy targets or ‘the heroic sacrifice’, as I prefer to call my dismal performance in this game, did have one positive side-effect – it bought William enough time to dive, dive, dive and put some distance between majority of British fighters and his Heinkels.

Heinkels making it to the other edge of the table

Nevertheless, one Spitfire and one Hurricane did manage to score some hits into his bombers, with limited success of knocking out both dorsal gun positions on one of the bombers (two lucky hits, both resulting in same effect). This didn’t stop William from exiting the game area with three more or less intact Heinkels.

Over Albert Canal once again – this time bigger and improved

2010-03-13T00:17:00.008+01:00

Year of 2009 seems to be starting for me under the sign of reruns. First a double take on Belmont and last week I had opportunity to yet again play the Albert Canal scenario with Check Your Six ruleset.

Same Game, Different Approach
A little background info about the second bombing run on the Albert Canal bridge. Great rulesets attract the attention of many wargamers and Check Your Six is no different – William from Dansk Figurspilsforening in Copenhagen became as delighted in CY6 as I did and decided to run the Battle of Britain campaign for the club. But while our objective was the same, our approaches could not be more different. In simple terms, I choose the ‘cheap and simple’ approach – 1/600 airplanes, simple stands, as small gaming area as possible. William went ‘full monty’ – 1/300 airplanes of best possible quality, telescopic stands with custom magnetic mounts, historically correct decals… Quick comparison of the pictures from our games will show the difference in visual impact.

William’s Messerschmitts 109:s…

…Battles…

…and Hurricanes

Once again, over the bridge
On to the game… In some respects, the scenario played out in surprisingly similar manner as my first attempt. Three rotas of Me109 were spread out all over the edge opposite to entry point of the British, but having the altitude advantage, quickly closed the gap. First blood was drawn by the German veteran pilot, who despite having to take a difficult deflection shot, managed to down one of Hurricane formation leaders with a single burst from his 20mm cannons. This caused some consternation on British side. Loss of one of their valuable Skilled fighter pilots this early in the game would have been bad enough. However, this sudden victory allowed victorious German and his wingman to fly over British bombers and then sweep behind the completely defenseless rear formation of Fairey Battles. The best comparison for what followed would be ‘fox in a hen house’. Two of the Battles went down in quick succession, while the remaining survivor was forced to turn home, trailing thick plume of smoke. The fact that wingmen of the downed Hurricane caught up with the Germans and managed to damage airplane of the wingman was small consolation for the British.

No bombers for me this time around.

Meanwhile, a vicious dogfight developed in area around the remaining Battles. One pair of Me109 dove onto the bombers with the intention of obliterating them in a single head on pass. This maneuver was matched by the three Spitfires, shooting wildly in an attempt to discourage the Germans. This tactic was successful – no hits were scored by the Germans, but one of Messerschmitts suffered airframe damage.

Dogfight around the front formation of Battles

Remaining German formation initially stayed out of the fight, maintaining the height advantage until the last moment. Just as the foremost Battle was about to reach the bridge, leader of German formation performed a very deep Split-S, placing himself in perfect position behind the bomber. Cannon shells ripped the Battle apart just seconds before it could drop its bomb. (Yes, it was one of my planes – and since it’s my blogg, I can brag all I want here :-)

Panoramic view of the action

This violent maneuver had however some unfortunate consequences – in a desperate attempt to follow his leader, wingman of victorious German pilot managed by accident to place himself in front of two Spitfires (same guys that already scored hits on one of Me109:s in the other formation). .303 bullets found their target and yet another German Messerschmitt suffered serious damage.

Next couple of rounds put a smile on the faces of British players – all German fighters were by now out of position and unable to do anything to stop last two surviving Battles from flying over the bridge and putting one of the bombs squarely into the target. One of them was hit immediately afterward by a stray bullet from German fighter and started to burn, but the fire quickly subdued (I must say that I love the shooting mechanics of CY6) and both Battles were able to turn, heading for home.

Final episode of our game occurred when one of the Hurricanes tried to pursue my damaged wingman – undeniably reckless decision, as it made it possible for three German fighters to get on its tail. Brave but foolish British pilot became an easy pray for the Veteran Messerschmitt pilot and my rote leader

Surviving Battles heading for home

The game ended on that somber note. British side suffered horrible losses – three bombers and two fighters were downed, while two more Battles were badly shot up. Germans didn’t come out unscathed out of the contest with three of the Me109:s suffering serious damage. Nevertheless, thanks to a single well-aimed bomb, it was yet again a close British victory with final the final score being 22 to 20.

Battle of Belmont – take two

2010-02-28T00:48:00.014+01:00

Last Sunday I had an opportunity to run Belmont again. I made small adjustments to the terrain - addition of one more row of hexagons in front of Confederate camp was the most significant – but otherwise it was exactly the same setup as in previous game.

Terrain setup for second attempt at Belmont

More significant changes were made to OOB:s – I decided to drop rating of all units one step, which meant that almost all regiments became Raw. This is the lowest quality class in TCHAE and as it turned out, this change had significant impact on the game.

Since the first game showed clearly that the Union side had a very tough objective in this scenario, I asked L. to make a repeat appearance as general Grant. Confederate army was this time run by H. and P. taking one brigade each. H. also assumed the role of confederate CinC, general Pillow.

Different players – different battle

Second run of Belmont scenario was quite different from the game between me and L. Initial dispositions of Confederate forces were however rather similar to mine. The only difference of importance was the fact that H. decided to place his larger brigade in the field in front of the camp and retaining P.’s smaller brigade in the camp. It did however signal to L. that this time around the Rebels would probably be more agressive in their defence.

Union brigades deploy for assault

L. remembered the difficulties he run into in his first attempt at Belmont and decided to concentrate his scant forces before assaulting the rebel line confronting him in the field. I have to say that his attack definitely had a proper ACW feel to it. He put two regiments in front, two regiments as supports, allowed time for short artillery shelling that disrupted one of raw Confederate regiments and then smashed his infantry into Confederate position in the field. Southerners did their best to stop that advance and did cause some casualties on the Union regiments, as they closed the distance. In the end however, the forward momentum of both Union brigades was unstoppable. In a matter of two turns, Confederates lost their artillery battery (more on that later), while all of their infantry was routed and running toward their fortified camp.

Crisis in Confederate line

Then something strange happened – despite the complete chaos in the rebel ranks, a single round was all it took for their officers to stop the seemingly unstoppable rout. Somewhat unfortunate draw of cards (if seen from Union perspective) and a very opportune arrival of additional Rebel regiment helped to stabilize the situation even more. Regardless of the intervention of 'Lady Luck', all of us were very surprised by TCHAE allowing such easy recovery from a situation that seemed irrecoverable just two turns before.

By that time our game was nearing its end and it was quite evident that despite L.’s initial success, he would not be able to break the Confederate lines before the appearance of the rest of their reinforcements. H., emboldened by that knowledge and the fact that P.’s brigade finally came up to protect his right flank, decided to make the final effort before we called it a day. He threw his recovered regiments into an all or nothing assault against battered Union regiments, with mixed results. His raw units in the center failed miserably to make an impression on L.’s single regiment of better quality and routed once more. Assault on left flank fared much better and managed to push the blue line back in disarray.

Final clash of the day

End of the game from another perspective…
Just because I like that picture. :-)

All of us knew however that this last action of the day was unnecessary and should be considered more as a rules test than part of the game. The game was decided when initial Confederate rout was stopped on a dime – an event that for a moment made me doubt if I wanted to continue to use TCHAE as the ACW rules set for our group.

Musings after the game – improved and this time far to long

Until our last game, I was rather enthusiastic about TCHAE. Now however, I do feel that TCHAE does deserve some serious criticism.

Remember that Confederate battery that was lost in the initial contact with Grant’s force? What happened there was that the rebel battery was in front, while supporting infantry regiments were behind it. In game terms, the battery took the full brunt of Union assault. Despite my best efforts, we couldn’t find any rules that clearly covered a situation where artillery received infantry charge all on its own. In the end, after looong deliberations, we managed to interpret relevant rules and came to the decision that the battery was overrun and its supports had to retire. However, if I am to be perfectly honest, it was more common sense than the rules that guided us to this conclusion. Later, I posted a query about this issue on TFL Yahoo Group, which usually is great at clearing up this sort of questions. This time around, my question seemed to leave most members stumped. From that fact alone, I draw the conclusion that the part of TCHAE that deals with assaults could use some editing and additional explanations.

My main criticism is however reserved for the way in which TCHAE handles routs and rallies. Sunday’s game was the first time we had the opportunity to “study” TCHAE’s interpretation of this significant part of the game and unfortunately we weren’t very satisfied with what we saw.

Now, let me be perfectly clear here – I am fully aware that opinions of this sort are highly subjective and will differ widely from player to player. For that reason, let me explain how I understand the concept of rout: it is a state where majority or all soldiers of a unit no longer have the will to fight and are mainly concerned with their personal safety. Unit cohesion is dissolved and authority of the officers is reduced or maybe even disappears completely. In simple terms, units in rout run for their lives.

In game mechanics terms, it translates in my opinion into two things – any contact between routed unit and organized enemy reinforces the rout and will in the end lead to complete dissolution of the unit. Furthermore, a rally of a unit in rout state should always be unsure and under some circumstances even improbable.

The way TCHAE handles this very complex situation is very simple, if not simplistic – it is enough to spend one commander’s PIP:s (or more, if commander is beyond default command range) and the routed unit will always stop running. That’s it. If considered from my perspective, such handling of routs/rallies is highly unsatisfactory. The fact that under right circumstances, routed units don’t even have to “run”, but can be stopped in their tracks almost immediately after entering rout state, makes my concerns about the rout/rally rules of TCHAE even more serious. As for any effects of effective enemy fire on a routed unit, there simply are no rules that deal with such situations.

As I mentioned above, those “faults” gave a momentary pause to my until now unchecked enthusiasm regarding TCHAE. Does it mean that I will stop using the rules set? Absolutely not. Last Sunday’s game was in most respects a very pleasant experience. L’s deployment of his forces and his initial assault did remind me of descriptions from books about that conflict. In general terms I’m becoming more and more convinced that TCHAE is a sound rules set with great period feel and complexity suitable for our group. At the same time, I can't deny that the way TCHAE handles routs/rallies did receive substantial flak after the game and will require some serious tinkering to suit our taste.

Of course this is the opinion of just one wargamer, backed up to a degree by comments from a small group of wargamer friends. So please, feel free to agree or disagree. Also, I would greatly appreciate any help or comments in regard of rules questions in this post.

I guess that in the end, this far too long musing is yet another proof of the fact that it is impossible for a ruleset to suit all players and that we can't help ourselves to "improve" on even the best efforts of game designers. After all, what rules set survives its first contact with the players?

2009 Podcast roundup

2010-02-12T20:31:00.001+01:00

Let me start by saying that I am huge fan of podcasts. After 'discovering' them a couple of years ago while searching for new ways to fill my four hours of daily commuting to and from work, I quickly realised that there is a multitude of people who on regular basis produce very high quality productions about almost every possible topic that is of interest to me, including history and gaming.

Meeples and Incoming

Now, please notice that I write 'history and gaming' and not 'historical wargaming'. That's because to my best knowledge, in year 2009 there were really only two podcasts about tabletop wargaming that achieved my rather high demands on quality of content and production, regular release schedule and high focus on historical wargaming. 'Meeples&Miniatures' is one of those podcasts - long-lived production of Neil Shuck that deals with all possible aspects of gaming, but largely dedicated specifically to historical wargaming. In my opinion, if you have time to listen only to a single podcast dedicated to this hobby, then 'Meeples&Miniatures' should be your choice.

'Incoming' is the other podcast focused specifically on wargaming. It is yet another production of Neil Shuck, but with completely different concept than ‘Meeples&Miniatures’. The idea of 'Incoming' is simply brilliant - a short video presentation of all miniatures that were released during a week. Short, sweet and to the point. ‘Incoming’ became quickly one of the podcasts that I eagerly await every week. Or I should say 'two' podcasts, since Mr. Shuck now makes two versions of 'Incoming' - one for historical miniatures and one for fantasy/sci-fi.

Gaming section

Unfortunately, Neil Shuck’s productions are the start and the end of my wargaming podcast shortlist for 2009. The rest of the podcasts that in my opinion are relevant to the hobby and which I follow are distinctly split into either gaming or history categories.

‘The Dice Tower’ is my prime choice for news and reviews about all things called board games. Tabletop gaming and historical wargames are hardly ever touched by the host of this excellent show, but hey… if you’re a gamer, then you’ll play anything at least once.

‘The 2 Half-Squads’ is a recent find of mine and definitely an acquired taste – after all, for most people a podcast exclusive focus on good, old Advanced Squad Leader may sound like a strange idea of entertainment. But love it or hate it, ASL is still the ultimate squad level board game and hosts of this podcast sure know a lot about it and like to talk about it. Not that it’s a bad thing, if you’re into this game, they go through a lot of interesting material.

Historical section

I may be wrong, but in my experience, people in historical wargaming hobby are almost always history buffs. This section is for you guys.

‘In Our Time’ is actually a radio program produced by BBC, but thankfully some smart person decided that it would be a good idea to share all the good stuff with the ‘colonies’ and turned it into a podcast. The program covers a lot of historical topics and participants are always scholars of highest caliber.

‘The History of Rome Podcast’ is a baby of one man, Mike Duncan and may initially sound like a silly idea. After all, who has the time or energy to listen some guy babbling about stuff that we all know about anyway? Don’t be fooled though, this podcast is done with heart and soul and you will be quickly engrossed in the story told by Mr. Duncan.

Another one man show podcast that I was initially rather skeptical about but quickly won me over, is ‘Hardcore History’ by Dan Carlin. As title indicates, content of this podcast is not to be taken lightly, although not because of advanced topics or difficult material. Taking in content of Mr. Carlin’s production is easy enough, but the thing is that he makes you really think about stuff he’s talking about. His series about World War II in the east, called ‘Ghosts of Eastern Front’, is truly haunting, while shows about struggle between Carthage and Rome really try to make you understand what warfare during that time was about.

My last selection for this round is ‘Ancient Warfare Podcast’, companion to rather recently started magazine ‘Ancient Warfare’. Each podcast is closely related to, and usually deals with main theme of latest issue of the magazine. There’s a lot of good discussions about different aspects of warfare during that period and let’s be honest, if you’re into ancient warfare, can you ever get enough of the stuff?

That’s it for this time – if you think that podcasts are something you could be interested in, click on the links and check them out.

One final word - I would like to take opportunity here and really thank all of the people I mention above, especially you who publish all this wonderful material all on your own. You guys spend your time, money and a lot of effort for the benefit of complete strangers and I’m very grateful for your work. Keep up the good work!

The legacy of Alexander by A.B. Bosworth

2010-01-23T18:00:00.002+01:00

Considering the vast popularity of both the Greek city states and Macedonian expansion in our hobby, it was a small surprise to me how little is written about the period after death of Alexander the Great. I know of a few publications by Montvert that are almost mystical because of their rarity and even the ubiquitous Osprey Publications hardly covers the period.

It was for that reason that I ordered ‘The Legacy of Alexander – Politics, Warfare and Propaganda under the Successors’ by A.B. Bosworth as soon as I discovered its existence. I bought it in hope that it would give me an overall coverage and detailed information about the military history of the period.

Sadly I must say that those hopes were grievously disappointed. ‘The Legacy of Alexander’ is a strictly academic book and its primary intended audience is clearly the historical academic community which already possesses previous knowledge of not only the primary sources, but also previously published articles and books that analyzed materials that survived to our times. I don’t shrink from plowing through detailed dissections of individual sentences in ancient scripts, but I consider myself an enthusiastic amateur in my studies of history. That is perhaps why I frequently found myself both overwhelmed and loosing interest in Mr. Bosworth’s musings regarding possible translations of ancient Greek or personal motives of ancient authors.

Topics covered by ‘Legacy of Alexander’ were also something of a letdown. Far from being encompassing history of the Successors, it is split in separate chapters that focus on few very significant events of that period. Two chapters are of direct interest to wargamers – first of them deals with Antigonus The One-Eyed Iranian campaign against Eumenes and the other tells the story of Seleucus and his struggle against hegemony of Antigonus. Both of those chapters contain very valuable information for campaign designers and for setups of battles of Paraetacene and Gabiene.

Another chapter deals with the Babylonian Settlement, which took place immediately after Alexander’s death and decided who would be primary actors of initial phases of the unfolding drama. A separate chapter is dedicated to a discussion regarding available Macedonian manpower during the reign of Alexander and that of Successors. Finally, A.B Bosworth discusses legitimacy of Macedonian dynasties that crystallized out of the Successor period and provides extremely detailed analysis regarding validity of texts written by Hieronymus, one of our principal sources for the period.

Chapters regarding Babylonian Settlement and Macedonian manpower resources are fascinating and contain both data that should be of interest to every campaign designer for this period. I also suspect that some of the conclusions of the author will wreak havoc with many army lists.

‘Legacy of Alexander’ was sadly not what I wanted it to be. That being said, it’s still a very valuable book, both for those interested in the period in general and also for wargamers. While it’s not the primer I was looking for, it should be picked up for deeper study of this fascinating period once such primer can be found.

Battle of belmont – take one

2009-12-27T13:58:00.007+01:00

Couple of days ago I took opportunity of Christmas holiday and run Belmont scenario from Partizan Press scenario book that I reviewed some time ago. Results were interesting, although as it seems so often to be the case in games in which I participate, inconclusive. Nevertheless, here’s the after action report.

Pre-game considerations and setup

Since scenario booklets from Partizan are intended for ‘Guns of Gettysburg’, some modifications were required for me to be able to take advantage of special features of TCHAE. I didn’t make any changes to unit strengths, but did modify the characteristics of some leaders: based on scant reports of real battle and later careers of commanding officers, I made Grant both Gifted and Bold, while McLernand became a Political officer (his rather rotten career suggests he was completely useless). On Confederate side, Pillow’s rather unimpressive track record gave me enough reason for turning him into a Cautious officer. All those changes had significant impact on how the game developed and I have to say that I am more and more impressed by these nuances of TCHAE.

On paper, Belmont gives the impression of being a rather difficult game for the Union – they have inferior numbers and very tough victory conditions. Also, I am still experimenting with conversions of the table size and distances to 6mm and had no real grasp of how movement rates would influence tempo of the game. For that reason I decided to double the number of rounds before possible confederate reinforcements came onto the table. This turned out to be a sensible decision – from the events on the table I’m drawing the conclusion that throwing in another four confederate regiments at round 10 will turn this scenario into ‘mission impossible’ for the Union.

The game

This time I took upon myself to lead the Confederates, while L. tried his best to lead the Union forces to victory. Initial deployment was simple – I was allowed to deploy a small brigade of two regiments and only battery on the field in front of my camp. Rest of my units huddled behind the safety of makeshift camp fortifications. L. split his two brigades – one advanced against the rebels in the field and one moved directly toward the camp.

Situation at the start of the game

Walker’s brigade braces for McLernand’s advance

Union advance

Confederate camp

Bird eye view – Walker’s brigade falls back,
Dougherty prepares to charge

Those initial dispositions decided the event. Dougherty’s brigade reached my camp without any difficulties. His two regiments failed however to make any impression upon my regiments in the camp. A brave attack by one of his regiments resulted only in severe casualties and was repulsed with ease.

Dougherty’s failed assault

On the other flank, I realised rather quickly that it would be impossible for me to hold the field and I decided to slowly fall back. This task was eased by the fact that McLernand was pretty much useless in his attempts to coordinate movements of his brigade. Union overall commander tried his best to bring order into Union ranks and managed to bring couple of Union regiments into contact with Confederates. Grant’s efforts finally payed off when a bayonett charge by 31st Illionois succedded in throwing back 13th Arkansas at the extreme left of my line.

Grant leads the attack on Union right flank

However, even that success couldn’t hide the fact that any possibility of Union victory have by now disapeared. McLernand’s brigade was strung out and out of touch with Dougherty, who on his own was far to weak to break into the Confederate camp. To make things worse, Confederate reinforcements would enter onto the field of battle within next couple of rounds. All those facts made L. call it a day and retire his troops back to his exit area.

Situation at the end of the game

Musings after the battle

As I suspected, reaching historical results in this scenario (Grant managed to rout his opponent and burn the camp) is very difficult. Key problem was McLernand’s status as Political officer, which severly limited his usability and forced L. to use Grant to drive Union regiments toward the Confederate lines. However, I also have to say that L.’s decision to split his forces played large roll in indecisive result of the engagement.

Regardless of the end result, we had a lot of fun playing this scenario and having learned our lessons, we will run this game again in near future.

Couple of final words regarding TCHAE – I would recommend for players to take full advantage of the mechanics of the ruleset when adapting scenarios, but also during the game. Cautious and political officers can create a lot of mayhem and it’s a good thing. I’ve already covered McLernand’s impact on our game, but Pillow’s status as ‘cautious’ also created some difficulties – 13th Tennesse was supposed to enter the field on round 4, but unfortunate card sequence (Cautious/Political officer card came up before Pillow’s activation card) delayed their entry until turn 8. This delay was the result of my voluntary interpretation of the rules and did create some problems for me, but it was worth it. I guess what’ I’m trying to say is that TCHAE gives players the opportunity to mix things up a bit and that taking advantage if this feature makes a game that is more fun.

Overeager, overambitious and underprepared

2009-11-15T20:57:00.003+01:00

So… more than a year after the decision to start our ‘Age of Arthur’-project, H. and I decided it was time to run our first trial game. The fact that H. had only three finished units against five of mine didn’t bother us – we wanted to get those miniatures out, give them a workout, roll some dices and have a few laughs.

Perhaps a little more serious problem was the fact that last time I had the opportunity to read the rules was… oh, a year ago or something like that. As for the army lists and pre-game preparation – since number of units was so uneven, neither of us bothered with those small details. That’s what the supplements are for!

It will come hardly as a suprise to most of you that our first game was something of a fiasco. Most of the time was spent on trying to find relevant rules, checking stats and similar ‘fun’ activities. By the time we had to start packing up (game took place at local game shop, after opening hours), we did manage to kill one skirmisher and have a successful Saxon cavalry charge, which ended in a draw. This “high watermark” was rather suitable finale of the game.

It has to be said, despite equal fumbling on both sides, we still somehow managed to have a blast. At the same time I think it will be best if we try to avoid games like that and for that reason I have this checklist to complete before next meeting.

Read the rulebook
Put together an army list
Prepare movement trays
Ensure that both players have their own set of rulesets for the game

On a side note, even the pictures from the game didn’t work out all that great (starting to be annoyed by my point and shoot, it’s time to get a simple DSL kit). Not that it’s stopping me from posting some pictures anyway. :-)

Saxons on the far edge, Romano-British on the near edge

Saxon army – two units of foot Duguth,
Duguth on ponies and some skirmishers

Anglo-British – two units of milites, one of pedes, mounted commitates
and small ‘special unit’ of foot comitates (Dervel’s Wolftails)

Milites brace for impact of Saxon cavalry

Commitates try a sneaky flank manover that led to nowhere

Saxons smash into milites and get stuck

DFF CON 2009

2009-11-11T23:52:00.001+01:00

Over two weeks has passed since DFF CON 2009 and it’s about time for me to post couple of words about the show. Let me start with thanking the guys at Dansk Figurspilsforening for an excellent event. Even though I was one of those that arranged a game, my participation was minimal when compared with all the effort that went into all the background work. My participation in Saturday’s games was unfortunately limited to the game I was hosting. I run a slightly modified version of ‘Check Your Six’ scenario called ‘Jolly Good Show’, which I’ve already wrote about in one of my previous posts. The fun thing about this scenario is its replayability – this time around, British players, with help of proper tactics and a huge dose of luck, managed to down four bombers and damage another two for a loss of a single Hurricane. The amazing thing was that they managed to do all that in a single pass through the German formation.

What’s even more important, the scenario was played by a total of six players, five of which never played CY6 before. After three rounds they were ‘self-going’ and, if I am allowed to draw conclusions from the comments, had a really good time.

Hurricanes passing through
German bomber formation

On Sunday it was my turn to have some fun. First of all, I’ve managed to get my first taste of ‘Fields of Glory’… finally. Couple of the guys at the club are very active with the ruleset and put up a simple 600 points demonstration game with Republican Romans and Phyrric Greeks. Things went according to the plan – Phyrrus’ elephants created mayhem on one of my flanks, cavalry danced around on the other, and in the middle Roman legions gave the Greeks a bloody nose… or at least they were in process of, because we had to finish just as things got interesting (some blokes needed the table :-( ).

Phyrrus elephants trample Spanish mercenaries

Roman legions clash with Greek phalanx

Even though my first game was untimely interrupted, the rules set gave me a very positive impression. It is rather complex and the game itself takes its time, but the game mechanics do look sound and I had fun while playing. This first impression was rather important to me, as I am in the middle of painting a rather large Greek army.

Next on the schedule was a naval action with ‘Fleet Action Imminent’. It was great game - two British battlecruisers exploded and another managed to get shot to pieces… unfortunately, I was on the British side, so I won’t write much more about that event. :-) However, despite bearing witness to a small British disaster, I have to say that ‘FAI’ is growing on me. Simple, quick to learn and yet manages to deliver realistic results – that’s the kind of ruleset that I like to play these days.

All in all, more than 10 hours gaming time over a weekend, it’s been a long time since the last time that happened. Already looking forward to DFF CON 2010.

Couple of snapshots of some of the other DFF CON 2010 games.

Start setup for an I Ain’t Been Shot Yet, Mom’ game.

Demonstration game of ‘From Valmy To Waterloo’…
WITH THE AUTHOR OF THE RULESET! :-)

‘Ambush Alley’ game.

Closeup of same game.

Colonial skirmish game… I think.

Back to Albert Canal

2009-10-25T20:32:00.009+01:00

Call it for artistic drive or pure silliness on the part of the owner of this blog, but for quite long time I had a wish to write an after action report in narrative style, rather than a dry description of the moves, dice rolls and game mechanics. I finally did it in post “Battles over Albert Canal” and I have to say that I’m a little surprised over how hard it was. Still, some people enjoyed my first attempt at “writer’s career”, so I may do it again sometime.

However, for the sake of consistency, I do feel that I need to post a more traditional AAR of that game. So, what did really happened that day? Scenario for the game was taken from "Over The Channel - Battle of Britain" scenario book for Check Your Six. It’s called “Impossible Mission” and considering the real historical events it is based upon, it’s a very appropriate title. Six Fairey Battles escorted by two Vic- formations of Hurricanes attempt to bomb a bridge over Albert Canal. German side has six Me-109:s on patrol and the bridge itself is protected by light anti-aircraft artillery.

In our game, L. controlled German fighters, while F. and W. took control of escorting Hurricanes. I took charge of five apparently doomed Battles (we lost one in pre-game event check). At the start of the game, German fighters were spread over the table in three rote-formations, so British plan was to take advantage of that fact, get to the bridge as quickly as possible and then get out of Dodge.

Naturally, Battles were like the big magnet for Me-109, which started to close on them from three different directions. Hurricanes hastened to meet them and leader of W’s fighter formation managed to score hits on leader of one of German rotes in a head on attack. Unfortunately, the German pilot managed to return the favor – so one fighter on each side was out of the fight. Remaining fighters of those formations tangled with each other for the rest of the game, but none of the sides managed to score any hits.

Another German rote closed on the bombers from the opposite side, initially bypassing F’s Hurricanes. F. managed his planes in skillful manner and managed to place them in tailing position behind the Messerschmitts. L. disregarded the danger and pressed on his attack on the Battles. His effort was rewarded and one of Battles went down immediately, after a critical hit was scored by the leader of the German flight. His joy was however rather short-lived, since in subsequent turn his leader was shot down by the Hurricanes and wingman’s airplane suffered engine damage from a well-aimed burst from a Lewis machine-gun of leading Battle. He tried to escape, but was finished off by F’s Hurricanes in subsequent turn. Unfortunately, two of victorious British fighters expended their ammunition and were forced to head for home.

As the Battles got close to the bridge, last German rote caught up with them. Leader of this flight was the best pilot in the air that day and it showed – his opening salvo resulted in one Battle immediately shot down (once again, critical hits from the 20mm cannons), while a subsequent burst scored damaging hits on another Battle. Fortunately, he didn’t manage to do more damage before passing behind the British bombers and encountering remaining Hurricanes. Three surviving bombers reached the bridge and unaffected by ineffective AA fire, dropped their bomb load on the bridge. One of those was a direct hit, severely damaging the target.

Then “the freak event” of the day occurred – L. attempted to extract his fighters from the chaotic fighter furball behind the bombers (four planes in a single hex) and attempted an Immelman with two of his Me-109. Since both planes made same maneuver, they ended up yet another time in same hex and this time they collided with each other. Both planes managed to stay in the air, but with bombers reaching their target and only a single German plan in fighting condition we decided to call it a day.

End result was a brilliant British victory – bridge severly damaged, 2 German fighters shot down, while three other were damaged. Price for that victory was paid by two downed Battles. Point total for the scenario was 24 points for RAF and 8 points for Luftwaffe. Campaign total after the game is 54 points for RAF against 27 for Luftwaffe.

Historical background for this scenario can be found here.

Finally, a couple of words regariding the "Check Your Six" ruleset - to put it bluntly, it is without a doubt my current absolute favorite ruleset in all categories. It is easy to learn, very intuitive and immensly fun to play. However, there is an apparent upper limit of number of airplanes that a single player can handle. Two planes per player is perfect, six is an absolute maximium in my opinion. Also, once multiple airplanes get into same area, things can get rather complicated and tempo of the game slows down significantly. To counter possible confusion, I will in the future use color coding directly on the airplane bases for several aspects of the game.

DFFCon 2009 at Tøjhusmuseet will take place next weekend

2009-10-15T22:39:00.002+02:00

Just a short notice about a historical wargames convention DFFCon 2009, that will take place on 24-25 October. This rather unique event for Scandinavia is arranged by Dansk Figurspilsforening at Tøjhusmuseet (Weapon Museum). Detailed information about the convention can be found here. Yours truly will be arranging a “Check Your Six” participation game on Saturday.

Wargamer's haven in Copenhagen

2009-10-15T22:01:00.004+02:00

Considering the fact that this is probably the most significant wargaming event in recent years for me, I must say that this post is long overdue. OK, “most significant” may sound over-dramatic, but how else would you describe the fact that there is a very active historical wargaming club in the city where you are practically every day?

So what am I babbling about? Dansk Figurspilsforening in Copenhagen of course. The ironic thing is that I’ve known about their homepage for years, I even used some of their gorgeous flags for some of my ACW units, but the idea to visit the club never entered my head. Fortunately I came into contact with one of the members on TMP and the rest is history.

The club has activities every Wednesday from 1800 to late evening and the range of periods and rulesets that are used is quite mind-boggling. Larger games are also played on weekends, but those are one-offs events. There are two large tables available for games and complete sets of modular terrain available for the gaming pleasure of the members. In short, if you ever visit Copenhagen and are keen on a game, Dansk Figurspilsforening is the place to visit.

Adler ACW range review redux - part 5

2009-08-30T14:59:00.005+02:00

What do they say... oh, yes, road to hell is paved with good intentions. I was hoping that after first week of my vacation I would be done both with my first Spartan unit for Fields of Glory and perhaps even with that beautiful Wolftail Band for my WAB Arthurians. As it is, I still have quite a lot of work left on my Spartans and Wolftails... well, let's not talk about them at this moment.

So, I am forced to re-run some old material - here's next part of my review of Adler ACW range. While I'm fully aware that it's a silly criterion, for review purpose I'm dividing Adler's miniatures into Union and Confederate miniatures based on the headwear type on their heads. Thus minis with kepis can be found in part one and minis with hats are reviewed below.

Of course I'm not using this principle when painting Confederate units. Right or wrong, I like my Confederates to have more irregular look than their Union counterparts. For that reason in I mix freely all minis available from Adler.

Adler Miniatures ACW range - strips ACW3A/XACW4
Strips with number 3 are basically same as 1 and 2, except for the fact that miniatures wear hats instead of kepis. Strip 3A has four miniatures with firing stance. Strips XACW3 and XACW4 can be used to achieve more animated units.

ACW3A - Hat, firing, blanket roll.

XACW4 - infantry, hat, loading.

Confederate regiment ready to fire.

Yes, they still look silly when in column formation.

Battles over Albert Canal

2009-08-25T17:38:00.020+02:00

With red arrows piercing the blue lines at several locations, the picture shown on the operational map looked rather depressing. If anybody was still doubting it, one look at that map was enough to tell him that the “Phoney War” was over and Jerry was on the move.

Quiet murmur of plane crews discussing the events of the last couple of days quickly died out as Captain Richards, wing operations officer walked into the tent. He walked to the map, turned around and hesitated for a moment as he observed the men in front of him. “They look so tired.” – he thought and immediately felt his own exhaustion. He then cleared his throat and started today’s briefing.

“Gentlemen, as you are well aware, the situation at the front is not developing to our satisfaction. Despite best effort of our ground forces, Jerry managed to cross the Meuse and is pushing into Belgium as we speak. HQ would like to do something about it and has ordered RAF to take out the bridges at Albert Canal.

Your squadron will participate with six airplanes. You will be escorted by two sections of Hurricanes. Expect heavy opposition – there is substantial Luftwaffe presence over the Canal and intelligence reports indicate heavy ack-ack defenses in the target area.

We will be lifting of at…”

Flying Officer Henry Stevens anxiously scanned the skies, searching for the dark specks signaling presence of enemy fighters. So far they managed to avoid the attention of the yellow-nosed bastards, but he knew that it was unlikely that their luck would hold all the way through the mission.

He looked to the sides for yet another check of the formation. He could clearly see the pilots of two Battles in his section, their heads turning from side to side as they looked for the enemy. He couldn’t find the Hurricanes, but he knew that they were there – two Victor formations, behind and above his flight. “At least Jerry won’t be having free lunch today.” – he thought.

Initial setup.

He looked forward again and there it was – a silvery blue band of water cutting through the mostly green landscape. He followed the dark grey line of the road and found the spot where it intersected with the Canal. Their target was barely visible from this distance, but the hazy contour of the bridge was enough for him to feel the pang of excitement mixed with fear.

He pushed the radio button and said: “Target in sight. Form on formation leader. Change altitude to 400 feet.”

He put his plane into a shallow dive, felt the Battle accelerate and watched his wingmen disappear behind him. The plan was to approach the target in single file formation at very low altitude. Hopefully, the speed gained by the dive and low level of the flight would counter the anti-air artillery defending the bridge.

“This is Red One. Enemy fighters at two o’clock high! Engaging!”

Head-on pass of Red One.

Stevens had hardly time to find the two… no, four dots rapidly moving in his direction before the radio crackled again - “This is Blue One. Bandits at ten o’clock high. Breaking formation to engage!”. Stevens snapped his head to the left, but had at first difficulty finding the enemy fighters spotted by the Hurricane pilot. When he finally saw the German planes, they were no longer small specks in the sky, he now could see their wings.

He quickly checked his instruments and then looked for the target - he could now see the trees at the banks of the channel – before looking to the right again, just in time to see the tracers sprouting from two fighter formations approaching each other on collision course. Was it fire coming from one of the planes?

Rapid staccato of strained voices now came out of the radio.
-“Blue One. I’m hit! Returning to base!”
-”Blue Two. Blue One, you got him, bastard is smoking! Engaging the rest of bandits!”
-“Red One. Bombers, enemy planes on your left. Repeat, enemy closing on your left!”

German fighters approaching Battles, Hurricanes in pursuit.

That last sentence made Stevens snap his head to the left. It wasn’t difficult to find the enemy, those two Me109:s seemed to be right on top of him. Just a split second later he saw glowing fireballs spitting out of their wings, flying straight at him.

-“Green Two, I’m damaged. Can’t control he….” – the voice cut off before finishing the sentence. Green Two, that was his number two wingman, Henley. Stevens involuntarily tightened his grip on the stick as he heard the strangely high-pitched voice of his rear gunner shouting “Oh, my God!” on the intercom.

Death of Green 2.

It was with grim satisfaction that Stevens watched the effect of the fire comming from the Hurricanes that pursued the German fighters. Tracers seemed to embrace the leading Messerschmitt and large chunks separated from its airframe as it closed the distance with the Battles. For a second, Stevens was mesmerized by the sight of the stricken enemy fighter visibly stagger in its path, then pitching over into a shallow dive and heading for the ground. Next, rattle of his rear gunner’s machine gun pierced through the monotonous sound of the engine, snapping him out of his fixation on the seemingly mortally wounded Me109.

The bridge was now just a couple of kilometers away and he made last routine check of the instruments. Suddenly multiple fingers of tracers reached out toward him – yes, for once the intel was correct, a lot of ack-ack down there and they all seemed to focus on his plane. He pushed the grim thoughts out of his head and concentrated on the quickly approaching bridge. He heard his gunner shouting intelligibly with excitement on the radio. Then a Me-109 passed his Battle just couple of hundred yards away, its engine engulfed in flames. It disappeared below him, as suddenly as it appeared. Later he found out that Jenkins actually managed to damage the enemy airplane with his puny Vickers machine-gun and Hurricanes swiftly finished it off.

Bridge was straight ahead now. Just a couple seconds more….

Green One bombing the bridge.

“Releasing bombs!” – Nick Doyle, his bombardier confirmed what Stevens already knew, as he felt the Battle jerk up once it was released of its bomb cargo. Then he heard Doyle shouting “Direct hit!”. Sense of satisfaction replaced for the moment the dread that Stevens felt ever since the Messerschmitts were spotted.

That feeling lasted just for a second– Stevens kept his low altitude and banked the Battle to the right. As he banked the plane, he could see the horrifying spectacle above the bridge. Somehow he managed to get several hundreds of yards in front of his squadron – remaining Battles reached the bridge only now. Just before they reached the target, a pair of yellow-nosed 109 reached them and raked the bombers. Stevens’ face twisted in helpless fury as he saw the bullets tearing into two of the Battles, literally ripping one of them into pieces. The other one started to smoke, but stayed on course. Two surviving Battles released the bombs just a moment later, both missing the target with couple of yards.

What followed next stunned both Stevens and apparently everybody else. Two Hurricanes appeared behind the Me-109:s that annihilated the Battle just a second before and for a moment Stevens could hardly distinguish friend from foe. Then both German planes took advantage of their speed and rose up in the air, performing textbook Immelmans. Stevens observed them arching up in the sky, coming closer and closer together… and finally colliding with each other! The Messerschmitts seemed to bounce of each other, creating a cloud of debris at the point of impact, but amazingly both planes stayed in the air.

Bombing run of remaining Battles.

This rather unexpected event seemed to take the spirit out of the Germans. Anti-air fire slackened for a moment, crews of the guns probably being afraid to hit their own fighters. Surviving British airplanes took this opportunity to extricate themselves from the area. Stevens continued to wearily observe the German planes for a long while. As it turned out, he didn’t have to. Remaining 109:s seemed more interested in nursing their damaged comrades back to the base, rather than following the bombers that already did all the damage they could manage.

Stevens felt empty inside. “We did what you asked us, now make it count.” – he thought as he threw last glance at the black columns of smoke marking the graves of his comrades - “Make it count!”.

Review of "Heartland - the battles of Kentucky and the Tennessee" scenario book

2009-07-25T14:24:00.008+02:00

Some time ago, Partizan Press released their ruleset for American Civil War, called “Guns at Gettysburg”. Shortly thereafter came the first scenario book for the system, called “Heartland – The Battles for Kentucky and Tennessee”. Since I am something of a compulsive collector in regard of scenario books, I couldn’t resist the temptation and ordered it almost immediately after it became available.

As it is implied by the title, focus of this book is put on the struggle for control of Kentucky and Tennessee during the early stages of the war. Engagements in the book take place between November 7th 1861 to October 8th. Each scenario consists of a short description of general situation before the battle, scenario objectives, detailed orders of battle on regimental level (including number of figures per regiment and classification of the leaders/units according to “Guns of Gettysburg”), a map and several paragraphs describing the events during the real battle and its aftermatch.

Following scenarios are included:

Belmont (7th November 1861) - small scenario with six infantry regiments and a single artillery battery on the Union side and ten infantry regiments and single battery on the Confederate side. Some fortifications are required for the terrain setup.

This one strikes me as perfect beginner scenario for two players that are just starting with the period or a ruleset. I plan to use it in my next game with ‘They Couldn’t Hit an Elephant’.

Logan’s Cross Roads (19th January 1862) – medium size scenario. Union side includes ten regiments of infantry and four small batteries. They are opposed by equal number of Confederate regiments and artillery, but the Rebels also have three small regiments of cavalry.

Breakout at Fort Donelson (15th February 1862) - medium size scenario, where a green force of eight infantry regiments supported by three batteries tries to stop a frontal assault by twelve Confederate infantry regiments, supported by two batteries. To add to the misery of the Union side, Forrest is also present on the field with some cavalry.

This one looks to me like a foregone conclusion, but I’m the sucker for last stands and will be setting it up as soon as I make some field fortifications for the fort.

Assault on Fort Donelson (15th February 1862) – small, but interesting scenario where eight Union regiments supported by skirmishers and two batteries try to breach the fort. They are opposed by nine Confederate regiments and two batteries.

Interesting scenario, but one which will put some demands on my terrain supplies. Lot of field fortifications is needed to play this one.

Shiloh Church (6th April 1862) – large scenario, in which twelve Union regiments take the brunt of initial Confederate assault during first day of Shiloh. Confederates field whooping twenty infantry regiments and six batteries.

Fortunately the terrain isn’t very complicated. If you have enough miniatures, this one could be a great weekend game.

Hornet’s Nest (6th April 1862) – second scenario based on Shiloh and largest scenario in the book. Twelve Union regiments supported by three batteries stand up to twenty-one Confederate regiments supported by whooping ten batteries of artillery.

Richmond (30th August 1862) – medium sized scenario with eight infantry regiments, two batteries and two cavalry regiments on Union side and twelve Confederate infantry regiments, two batteries and two cavalry regiments.

This one seems really easy to set up for a quick afternoon game.

Munfordville (14th September 1862) – small scenario where three Union regiments aided by some skirmishers, token force of cavalry and a single battery try to hold strong fortified position. On the opposing side are six infantry regiments, two cavalry regiments and two batteries of artillery.

Another scenario requiring a lot of fortification terrain pieces, including a blockhouse.

Iuka (19th September 1862) – medium size scenario and first scenario in the book with characteristics of a meeting engagement. Union force consisting of thirteen infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment and two artillery batteries are on a collision course with Rebel force consisting of nine regiments and two batteries.

Hilly terrain and lots of woods should make this scenario very interesting and re-playable.

Battery Robinett (4th October 1862) – medium size scenario dealing with one of main events during battle of Corinth. Union is on the defense here with eight infantry regiments supporting six entrenched batteries of artillery. Confederates field equal number of infantry regiments and are supported by two batteries.

Another scenario where one side is entrenched, making special demands on terrain setup.

Hatchie Bridge (5th October 1862) – a meeting engagement scenario dealing with the aftermath of the clash at Corinth. Ten Union infantry regiments, supported by a cavalry regiment and three batteries duke it out with six infantry regiments, some skirmishers, cavalry and six batteries on the rebel side.

Setup for this scenario is quite original and I think it may have a lot of replayability.

Peter’s Hill (8th October 1862) – a true meeting engagement, with both sides more or less blundering into each other in an attempt to occupy high ground position. Eight regiments, two cavalry regiments and three batteries are fielded by the Union. Confederates have seven infantry regiments, two cavalry regiments and two batteries at their disposal.

This scenario definitely caught my interest because of relatively uncomplicated terrain setup and variable entry times for most of the units. I think there is a lot of potential for total chaos in this one and that’s my favorite type of scenarios.

Chaplin’s Hill (8th October 1862) – here we have a straightforward ‘bash and mangle’ affair with twelve Union regiments and two artillery batteries confronting fifteen Rebel regiments and four artillery batteries.

In contrast to two previous scenarios, this is a classic set-piece assault on formed infantry line. However, terrain layout produces some interesting problems for both sides.

Invasion - a theoretical scenario with chess-like qualities. Both sides command equal forces of six infantry regiments, two cavalry regimens, and two batteries of artillery and have to achieve similar objectives. Terrain is a mirror image of itself along a diagonal line. This one seems to be a perfect choice for a tournament scenario, if such were ever played within ACW setting.

In addition to the scenarios, Partizan Press took the opportunity to include couple of pages of extra rules for ‘Guns of Gettysburg’. This fact alone should make this scenario book a must buy for players that use that ruleset. At the same time I must add that “Heartland” can be used without any problems with any regimental ACW ruleset, since figure ratios are provided in the book. Additionally, conversion table for Johnny Reb 2 should make it particularly easy to use “Heartland” for players that still play this classic ruleset.

What about scenarios then? I hope that my short synopsis gives a pretty clear view of the content – most scenarios have OOB’s hoovering around eight infantry units per side, which means that they are playable during an afternoon. Also, there is a lot of variety in the character of the scenarios and I do believe that everyone will be able to find at least a couple of scenarios that will catch their interest. At the same time I need to point out that five of the scenarios require fortifications of one sort or another, so you better have those walls and abatis pieces ready.

Two minor negative remarks: as far as I could see, there are no instruction in regard of the table size. While I assume that the scenarios are to be played on a 4’ by 3’ table, it would be nice if it was clearly stated somewhere in the text. Also, there are some typesetting errors in several of the OOB tables – misaligned rows that can cause a little consternation.

Regardless of that, I think that “Heartland” is an excellent scenario book and can recommend it to anyone interested in the period. Considering moderate size of most of the scenarios, I also think that it is a rather good starting point for people that are just beginning to assemble their ACW armies.

Guadalcanal by Richard B. Frank

2009-07-07T20:47:00.002+02:00

The other day I’ve finished “Guadalcanal” by Richard B. Frank. I won’t go into the details of the book – Guadalcanal should be familiar to most wargamers, at least in broad strokes. I would however like to recommend this book to anybody with interest in the Pacific theatre of World War II and especially to people that wargame this period.

There are several reasons for my unreserved praise of this book. First of all, it gives a very detailed account of all aspects of the campaign – land combat, struggle in the air and clashes at sea. Second, it is based on primary sources of both sides and gives equal space to American and Japanese side. Furthermore, Frank narrative is very rich in detail, but remains very accessible.

From wargamer’s perspective, this book is a dream – there is a lot of material for scenarios of all possible kinds – control of Guadalcanal was contested at land, sea and in the air and ferocity of that struggle was equally intense regardless of the location. What’s even more important, Frank provides both the maps and orders of battle for both major clashes and minor incidents. And as a final cherry on the top, he also gives us excellent descriptions for all commanders involved in the campaign.

Lesson learned

2009-06-23T20:19:00.002+02:00

Well... yet another change of layout - this time good, plain black. No it's not a reflection of my mood, but forced necessity. Earlier today I took a quick pick at the blogg and imagine my suprise - most of it was plastered with adds for Photobucket, encouraging me to create proffessional account. The explanation for this phenomenon was quite simple - custom template I've used has all of its graphic elements posted on Photobucket and owner apparently reached his bandwidth limit.

The lesson is learned - I'm sticking to a plain design with no frills. Sure, the page looks slightly boring without all the fancy gradients, but at least I am in control now. And I have to admit that I like the way pictures pop out with that black background.

Adler ACW range review redux - part 4

2009-06-21T10:51:00.003+02:00

This is the final, at least for the moment, part of my review for figures suitable for the Union troops.

Regimental command strip

Regimental command strip ACW20A consist of one officer, one drummer and two flag bearers. As can be seen in pictures above, I always add one such strip to all of my units.

This strip and its sibling with figures in hats are perhaps the only source of problems in the entire range. Reason for those problems is quite obvious - flag poles are quite easy to break off, and I did receive strips with poles that were weakened by the transport or where poles were already broken off. There is really not much one can do about it, the metal used for figures is quite soft and any prolongated parts will have tendency to break off. My advice is simply to order twice as many command strips as you need and select those with strongest poles. Extra cost is negligable and you will save yourself a lot of grief.

ACW20A - Command group in kepis

Union artillery

ACW artillery in Adler range is limited to smoothbores and Parrot guns. Crews are also limited to two variants, one in hats and the other in kepis. For Union artillery I use strip ACW19A, but I guess you could mix both variants for the sake of variety.

ACW19A - Artillery crew in kepis

Union battery ready to open fire

Final comment on Union infantry

It is perhaps needless to say that strips with numbers 1 and 2 make up the bulk of my Union regiments. I would however like to recommend to everyone to at least order some samples of figures in Collector series - even at this scale they will add a lot of variation to your units.

Other that that, Mr. M, how was the ruleset?

2009-06-17T23:54:00.009+02:00

Following Sunday's event, it would perhaps be a good time to write couple of additional words about “They Couldn’t Hit an Elephant”. My first impressions were confirmed – it is very playable and relatively simple ruleset. Before our game, I’ve prepared a set of two Quick Reference Sheets and a page listing possible actions for each of the players. Quick walkthrough of basic principles took about half an hour. Then we started to play and after a couple of turns, things flowed rather smoothly.

Our game also confirmed the fact that as in any other ruleset from TFL, cards and luck can sometimes make or break you. The infamous sudden death card, called ‘Coffee’ in TCHAE, didn’t bother us so much for the simple reason that I’ve inserted two of those in the deck. However, cards limiting actions of generals of certain type (‘Cautious’ and ‘Political’) can, with a bit of bad luck, still ruin the day for individual players. In Sunday’s game, player handling the Union brigade in the middle that was completely neutralized by ‘Cautious’/’Political’ card being turned over and over again just before his turn. Word of advice – be very careful with use of a single general with this attribute in your OOB, unless you dislike the player that will assume this command.

As always, some mistakes were made. The most important one in our game was the fact that I’ve forgot about the rule prohibiting use of multiple pips for movement, once a unit reached certain distance from the enemy. This seemingly small mistake made it much easier for units to get into close combat. On the bright side, my mistake may not have been a bad thing, since gave us experience with the rules that handle melees. As it turns out, bayonet charges are very unpredictable in “TCHAE” and should not be attempted by those faint of heart. At the same time, certain critique can once again be raised against the layout of the ruleset. My mistake could have been easily avoided if the ruleset made clear connection between movement rates, infantry fire ranges and the above mentioned restriction.

So what did my friends think of “They Couldn’t Hit an Elephant”? It will come hardly as a surprise that P, who was forced to suffer wrath of Confederate artillery without being able to do much about it, wasn’t very happy about it. T’s opinion was a little more of a surprise – he found randomness of TCHAE somewhat annoying and missed the detail and period flavor of “Long Road North” (my previous choice of rules for this period). L-A, Ha.and He. were much more positive – they liked the confusion created by the card draw and appreciated uncomplicated game mechanics used in TCHAE.

In other words, THAE didn't receive standing ovations, but neither did I hear any petitions for ritual burning of the pages. Personally, I have to say that this ruleset grows on me. There is certain elegance in those hidden relations between different mechanics of the game, although I wish they were clearly stated in the text. Also, what I saw on the table reminded me in many respects of the accounts by Shelby and Sears - confusion, units that moved erratically, heroics of the officers that changed the tide of battle... So with some tweaking, THAE has the potential of being a lot of fun.

Terrain

Union blinds on the move

Closing with the enemy

On to the top

Meanwhile, on the other hill

Mr. Elephant meets my friends

2009-06-17T22:01:00.009+02:00

Introduction of “They Couldn’t Hit an Elephant” finally arrived last Sunday. Two Confederate brigades were to stop four Union brigades in their attempt to push their way across the gaming area. Wanting to make things slightly more interesting, I’ve added couple of twists to the scenario. Unknown to Union CinC during his planning phase, one of brigades under his command got lost during the advance to the battlefield. There is a very prosaic reason for this decision; one of Union players had to cancel and I needed to jump in instead. However, I wanted to ensure that my “familiarity” with the setup wouldn’t spoil the fun and decided to play as passive role in the game as possible.

Confederate side was served their own surprise – initially there would be only one brigade on the table. Arrival time of the second brigade was unknown to players on the Rebel side. Furthermore, I planned to give fair warning to the Union brigade commander on the flank that would be hit by Confederate reinforcements.

On the paper it actually did sound like a pretty good scenario – I imagined that Union troops would hit outnumbered Confederates in force, only to be distressed by sudden appearance of additional enemy troops on their flank. As everybody knows, things seldom turn out as planned, especially when you use TFL rules.

Stage 1
Union commander decided to enter the field on broad front – three brigades in line, with the fourth in support (my ‘no show’ command). Initial orders were to take holding positions along southern edge of the field, anchoring one flank on a nearby height.

At the same time Confederates attempted to show strength, moving the blind with “real” brigade into central position, while making best possible impression with dummy blinds.

Stage 2
Having assumed the intended holding position, two of Union brigades were either spotted or unmasked the blinds voluntarily. Confederate blind on the right was exposed and removed. Long range artillery duel started, causing some casualties and some consternation among one of Union regiments, but otherwise causing little damage. At the same time Union commander on the right flank received reports about substantial Confederate reinforcements moving rapidly toward his position.

Stage 3
Union brigades on the left and in the center receive orders to advance on Confederate position. Rightmost brigade moves rapidly and infantry on both sides start to exchange fire. Brigade in the center never moves out of its position. Confederate artillery fire starts to take effect, demoralizing one of the blue-clad regiments.

New arrivals show up on the field – lost Union brigade shows up, but far away from the expected entry point. At the same time, Confederate reinforcements show up on Union right flank. However, two of the rebel regimental commanders misunderstood their orders and got separated from the rest of the brigade. This causes some confusion and puts severe strain on newly arrived Confederate brigade commander.

Stage 4
Union assault on the left flank advances to contact with Confederate units on the high ground that dominates left portion of the field. Rebels are thrown back and appears to rout, but a courageous colonel manages to stem the flight and rallies the troops. Union right prepares for inevitable assault of Confederate reinforcements. Union center fails to support their comrades on the left, but the attached battery knocks out one of rebel guns.

Stage 5
What seems to be the final push on the Union left smashes into the battered Southern line. Amazingly, the line holds and same soldiers that were on brink of collapse just couple of minutes ago manage to throw back the blue onslaught in disarray. As so many times before, inexperienced troops can be very eager, but can also turn out to be very brittle tool.

Indecisive assault on the right flank ends in stalemate, while Union brigade in the center finally starts to show signs of activity. Unfortunately, it’s too little and too late, as both sides decide they had enough for the day.

Devil lies in the detail

2009-06-02T22:35:00.003+02:00

Sometimes even a small detail can enchance the game experience - custom made quick reference sheets for each player, measurement tools specific to the ruleset, perhaps nice labels. In my case it's the movement trays - because of the lack of space and cost, I mostly use 6mm miniatures for games that are really intended for 15mm or 28mm. The end result is that bases are small and fiddly, which in turn results in lot of mishaps when they are moved on the table. Obvious answer to my problems was of course making a bunch of moving trays, but I couldn't decide on what material to use - thick cartoon, metal sheets, plastic...

In the end I've decided on using plastic. Bases themselves were cut out of 1mm thick plastic sheet, which is easy to cut with common kitchen scissors. Plastic sheet this thin is quite woobly, so I stiffened it with 1.5mm square profile rods from Evergreen - just front and the sides. Since bases for both my ACW and Napoleonic miniatures are 1.5cm wide, I've made a bunch of bases for various number of miniature bases. One important thing to remember is to add 3mm to each base width to compensate for width or the rods. In fact, I've added 5mm, as my miniature bases aren't very precisely cut. Better to have few milimeter gaps, than an unusable base. I've also decided to add 5mm to the shorter side - this will give me space to add labels with unit names and maybe some basic data. Self-adheseve label paper will be perfect for this purpose.

OK, so it's nothing revolutionary, but I'm quite pleased with the end result and somewhat suprised over how little time it took. I've made about 30 bases in about 2 hours. A quick spray paint job and I'm done.

They Couldn't Hit An Elephant - first impression

2009-06-01T21:21:00.010+02:00

Three days weekend and quickly approaching date of introduction of the ruleset to my group gave me enough motivation for a quick test of “They Couldn’t Hit an Elephant”, Two Fat Lardies’ ruleset for American Civil War. Since my intention was to familiarize myself with the ruleset mechanics, I've decided to keep it simple, charge up a hill and see what happens.

For no particular reason I choose the Confederates to be on the defensive – two brigades, each consisting of four regiments and attached artillery battery were to receive an attack by three similar Union brigades. Terrain was created ad hoc from available terrain (made of GHQ TerrainMaker hexagonal tiles).

Thoughts after first reading
“They Couldn’t Hit an Elephant” is written in a style that is similar to that of other rulesets from Too Fat Lardies – clear and logical at first glance, but with some ambivalences and omissions that can confuse players rather quickly in their first games.

Like all TFL games, TCHAE is card-driven – basic cards activate either a brigade or division commander (depending on unit scale in the game). Upon activation, units that are part of leader’s command may move, fire, change formations or attempt to improve their current morale state. Amount of possible activities is limited by number of command pips, decided by a roll of an average dice.

Period flavor is defined by additional cards, which influence leaders of different character. For example a random cautious leader may be restricted to firing, but no movement, while inspirational leaders can get an opportunity to rapidly rally a unit or lead it into a sudden assault.

Last, but not least, there is the ‘Coffee’ card. When it is turned, it automatically triggers end of turn sequence of activities, after which the turn ends, deck is reshuffled and new turn begins. 'Coffee' card introduces fair amount of friction and uncertainty into the game, as players never know who will be able to act in current turn. It is also one of the usual TFL game mechanics that create most controversy among the players – it is either beloved or despised.

As is common for most rulesets, both units and commanders may be of varying quality and character. Unit morale state during the game is covered by four states – normal state allows the units to obey all orders, units that are ‘fightin’’ are locked in combat and won’t advance, while ‘defeated’ units are on the brink of breaking and will try to extract from combat. Finally, units that break, enter rout state and will run away until they find cover or are rallied.

Both ranged and close combat causes single figure casualties and may influence unit morale. Effectivness of firepower is low, most of the time there is either no effect or a single figure is lost by a regiment. Loss of two figures is a rare occasion.

All main game mechanics – movement, firing, close combat and command&control - are quite simple, but cover all the bases. At first glance I couldn't spot any bottlenecks in regard of game speed (very few dice modifiers) and there is just enough period flavor without the 'chrome' overloading the ruleset. So far so good… now on to my game.

Hold the high ground

In my imaginary engagement, Confederates were to stop Union troops from exiting along the roads that run to the edge of terrain behind the Confederate position. I didn’t give much thought to the most correct setup of the defensive position, my main goal was to create a situation where a clash between two forces would give me an idea about game mechanics. With this in mind I’ve placed Confederate forces in blocking positions near the roads. Initial rounds saw Union troops advancing under Blinds, one of typical TFL game mechanics, which allow both rapid movement and a degree of fog of war.

Confederate right flank...

...and the left

Union brigade on my left was quickly spotted by commander of the Confederate brigade on nearby high ground, forcing them to deploy while still in marching column. Confederate artillery opened fire on Union artillery battery while it was still limbered and drew first blood.

Union blinds enter the battlefield

Union brigade prematurely spotted

Union brigade on my right took its time and approached more cautiously, taking care of changing its Blind formation to ‘deployed’ before they were spotted by the Southerners. However, at the time they were spotted, woods on both sides of their advance route delayed their movement and made deployment of their artillery very difficult.

Last Union brigade swung through the open terrain in the middle and upon being spotted stacked its regiments in a single column. My intention was to throw those units against Confederate position on the hill and see what the result would be.

Overall situation in the middle of the game

Confederate view from the high ground

As the Union brigades moved into small arms range, both sides started to trade volleys and the ruleset started to show its strength. Units that suffer casualties need to take so called status check – first failure will cause the unit to assume ‘Fightin’’ status, which prohibits them from advancing any further. This very simple mechanics portray very well the character of ACW battles which often degenerated into two infantry lines pouring fire into each other until one side had enough. This is exactly what happened to the Confederate regiment in the woods on the right flank of Rebel line. Under pressure of a Union regiment and a battery of light artillery, they became first ‘Fightin’’ and then ‘Defeated’. Finally they were forced to move back into the woods.

The assault column in the middle came under intensive artillery fire from the hill in front of them. Advance of the regiment in front of the very Napoleonic formation stalled, as it became ‘Fightin’’. Second regiment bypassed them, as they recovered, but that was all their commander could do with his allotment of pips.

On Union right flank, things became very precarious for the blue-clad troopers. Difficult terrain hindered that brigade from deploying into effective formation. Furthermore, some rather silly decisions on the part of the player (yes, that would be me) caused one of the regiments to advance much too far without adequate support. The result was devastating – two Confederate regiments and an artillery battery opened fire and in a blink of the eye shattered their reckless opponent. The routed Union regiment…

Union right in peril

Dazed and confused
…at this point the ruleset stopped making any sense to me. You see, routed units perform mandatory flight movement as soon as the appropriate brigade card comes up. But for two rounds, the command card that would allow the broken regiment to run away didn’t come up. I refused to believe that this is how TCHAE was supposed to handle such situations, but the ruleset refused to give me an indication of how I was to proceed. Nevertheless, I came to the conclusion that I must have misunderstood some vital rule section. As it was 1.45AM, I've decided to call it a night, without achieving the goal of a close combat.

Afterthoughts
Even though this first test run was something of a failure, it confirmed my first impression of TCHAE as very quick ruleset with adequate feel of the period. After a couple of rounds I had pretty good understanding of the flow of the game, so the learning curve is low and even beginners should be able to grasp the basic concepts with relative ease.

At the same time, TCHAE also showed its weaknesses, which are quite typical for TFL rulesets. Some very fundamental concepts are either omitted or explained in convoluted manner that leaves them open for different interpretations. One of those omissions caused my confusion in test game above – as it turns out, status check for a unit that takes casualties is being done after ALL firing of ACTIVE enemy units is done. I on the other hand got the impression that status should be checked on every occasion a unit suffered casualties. My interpretation completely change the game - the unfortunate Union regiment that was shot to pieces made six test, but only two were required. Furthermore, some additional afterthought could have been given to placement of certain rules. For example, at the end of definition for 'Defeated' status there is a rather ingenious paragraph that effectively prohibits situation in which my Union regiment found itself in after being shattered. But as the situation was created as a result of firefight, I've primarily looked for the answers under sections dealing with combat and status checks.

Fortunately there is a very active Yahoo group that supports TFL games. After posting my questions there, I’ve had everything explained to me promptly and in very friendly manner. Next weekend I will run same scenario again and keep you updated about the outcome.

Adler ACW range review redux - part 3

2009-05-23T00:41:00.006+02:00

Adler Miniatures ACW range - strips ACW1C/ACW2C

Those two strips supply those weary, dust-covered troopers on the march. As previously, two basic variants are available. I feel however that minis from strip XACW1A work very well together with those figures.

ACW1C - Kepi, marching, backpack

ACW2C - Kepi, marching, blanket roll

I usually add one strip of XACW1A to the mix, for additional animation

Union regiment consisting of miniatures above

Same unit in marching column

Adler ACW range review redux - part 2

2009-05-20T20:30:00.008+02:00

Since the first part of the transfer went relatively smoothly, here is next section of the review of basic miniature strips with kepis.

Adler Miniatures ACW Range - Strips ACW1B/ACW2B

Miniatures on those strips have same basic advancing pose. Difference between variants 1 and 2 is as with the other two basic variants in this range - figures are equiped with backpacks or blanket rolls. In units that consist of those strips I usually add a couple of minis from strips XACW5 and XACW1B.

ACW1B - Kepi, advancing, backpack

One of first units I've painted for this project

In column formation

ACW2B - Kepi, advancing, blanket roll

Another union regiment, this one with a mix of both variants
and a couple of minis from strip XACW1B sprinkled among them

Another view

Adler ACW range review redux - part 1

2009-05-19T21:54:00.011+02:00

So let's face it - the homepage that I tried to build couple of years ago was a flopp. Not enough time and lack of enthusiasm made the updates quite rare and after a while I've abandoned it completely. However, during the time when I managed to keep my interest alive, I've published two articles that I believe actually contribute to the hobby. The two pages I'm thinking about are my reviews of Adler Miniatures' 6mm ACW range. I actually know for a fact that some people had use of them when deciding wheter to buy Adler miniatures. And since I'm toying with the idea of removing my old "Miniatures Corner", I've decided to move those two pages over to the blogg.

The thing is though that I hate how pictures are handled in Blogger and find it very difficult to post here anything with large amount of images. So I will split my reviews into smaller pieces, which hopefully will be more managable in Blogger's horrible text editor.

Part one deals with miniatures with kepis and in firing positions.

Adler Miniatures ACW Range - Strips ACW1A/ACW2A and XACW3

As far as I understand, firing poses are the least popular with wargamers. I have to agree that marching/advancing units look better on a wargaming table. At the same time I like the firing pose, and used it for a couple of my regiments. In combination with strip XACW3 you can create a very "warlike" unit with those minis.

ACW1A - Kepi, firing, backpack

ACW2A - Kepi, firing, blanket roll

XACW3 - Infantry, kepi, loading

Union regiment in action

The drawback of the firing pose. Units look a bit silly when in column formation.

Etruscan collection in Glyptoteket

2009-05-17T13:42:00.009+02:00

Couple of weeks ago I had a great pleasure of visiting Glyptoteket Art Museum in Copenhagen (thank you, Ewa). For those unfamiliar with what Glyptoteket is, it was created by the son of Danish brewer Carl Jacobsen, who thought that his workers should have access to fine art. Glyptoteket is an art museum, so it may seem strange that I am posting about my visit on this forum. The thing is though that Glyptoteket has a huge Etruscan collection and quite a few objects related to Etruscan military.

So without any further comments, below are some pictures that some of you could find of interest.

When I grow up, I will be a gladiator

2009-05-17T13:17:00.007+02:00

I guess a gladiator project is one of those projects that are on every historical wargamer’s “to do”-list. In my case it’s been on slow-burner for a long time, because I had some trouble finding a rules et that would catch my interest. I wanted something fairly detailed, with clear definition of different gladiator types and most importantly, a system that wouldn’t be based on ‘highest dice roll wins’.

Trusty TMP gave me strong impression that an American ruleset called ‘ Morituti Te Salutant’ was exactly what I was looking for. Problem is that ordering from the States is not something I decide to do very lightly – delivery costs and customs fees often rise the costs to unacceptable levels. However, couple of months ago I’ve found out that ‘Morituri Te Salutant’ were now available from English company Black Hat Miniatures. Even better, they sold it in PDF format, which these days is my favorite way to purchase rules sets.

Black Hat Miniatures was a company that was previously unfamiliar to me, but my first impression of it is very positive – purchase of the rules set was smooth and without any hiccups. First impression of the rules set was even better –combat system is quite detailed and seems to give a lot of room for the players to apply some tactical thinking. Campaign rules put the individual bouts in a larger context and the idea of putting the players in the role of gladiator school owner is simply brilliant.

Having solved the problem with the rules set, I now had to decide on which miniatures to get. Foundry’s line is of course most impressive, but as always, their insane price and delivery costs made me hesitate. Also, there are no mounted gladiators in their range. Yes, I know that they were quite rare, but I wanted at least one or two of them anyway. Black Tree Design has a couple of gladiators, but for some reason I didn’t like the looks of them. There are several other companies that have some gladiators in their product range, but for one reason or another I couldn’t bring myself to ‘pull the trigger’.

Then, couple of weeks ago I found out completely by coincidence that Crusader Miniatures have a small, but surprisingly complete range of figures. This “discovery” was promptly followed by a quick order of about 20 miniatures, which arrived to me about a week later. Picture below shows my gladiator school in raw state. As can be seen, some cleaning up will be necessary, but I’m very pleased with the miniatures and look forward to painting them.

Now, about that gladiator arena…

A peasant shieldwall

2009-05-03T14:58:00.006+02:00

There really isn’t much space for variation in WAB list for Romano-Bristish. Basic unit is either formed from plain milites or even plainer pedes. Still, pedes are good, sturdy peasants that hopefully will stand long enough in their shieldwall for the more flashy commanipulares to hack their way through whoever is on the opposite side. Also, they are cheap and that’s never a bad thing.

For my pedes I stuck with the miniatures from Gripping Beast. Unit in pictures below consists of a unit pack that is being sold at slightly reduced price. To be honest, I’m pretty sure, I will stuck with Gripping Beast for most of this project – I like the sculpts and the range covers all my needs.

The look I was going for was that of poor peasants, so no flashy garments or elaborate shield designs. Plain, drab colors and mostly handpainted shields, although I did try to get some more variation with shield decals from Little Big Men Studio. Unfortunately, all of the decals that I've got from them, were to small by at least 5 milimeters for the huge shields these minis are equiped with.

Britannia is still a part of the empire.

2009-03-19T21:05:00.010+01:00

After a brief interlude over the French skies, let's now return to my WAB project. Or rather, let's go back to the start of it. As I mentioned before, a buddy of mine and I - under the inspiration of Cornwell's 'Warlord' trilogy - decided to start collecting armies from 'Age of Arthur'. My friend choose the Saxons, while I (once again succumbing to my strange love to anything called 'imperial'), choose to defend the civilization and set my heart on a Romano-British army.

As a starting point for my army I selected a milites unit from Gripping Beast's extensive selection of miniatures from this period. I must say that I am very happy with my choice - figures are very nicely sculpted, don't require a lot of cleaning up and are a joy to paint.

I had some difficulty in deciding about how I would paint my milites. In the end I've reasoned that it would be highly improbable that any regular units would be available on the Isles during that period and painted each figure differently. I tried however to give the unit a 'Byzantine' look. Also, I've limited my mix of shield transfers to just a couple of schemes. All in all I am quite pleased with my first foray into 28mm 'scale'.

Pictures from Military Museum in Warszawa

2009-02-14T15:50:00.024+01:00

One of the my fondest childhood memories are the countless visits to the Military Museum in Warszawa. I've spent hours and hours at that place. So it is hardly suprising that when I (for the first time in over 20 years) visited the city where was born and grew up, I also took the time to visit the Museum again.

After all those years, it feels smaller and they made some changes that I didn't like very much, but it's still a fantastic place. Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Hurricanes over France

2009-02-14T14:55:00.012+01:00

Last Sunday I’ve set up a ‘Check Your Six’ game for a couple of my friends. I used scenario ‘Jolly Good Show’ from 'Over The Channel' scenario book. Scenario setup is quite interesting. A large formation of Do-17:s escorted by Me-110:s is bounced by five Hurricanes. Germans get points for every undamaged bomber that exit the edge of the map, while British need to do avoid being blown out of the sky by 110:s and do as much damage as possible. Couple of special rules gives the initiative to the British, but the numerical superiority of the Germans (if used effectively) can make life very difficult for the Hurricanes.

In our game there was never really much doubt about who would win. Tony handled the British planes on that day. He noticed very strange initial placement of German escorts and decided to go for the jugular. He chose very aggressive approach, starting with a concentrated head-on pass through one of German bomber formations. The effect was immediate – one of Dorniers span out of formation and crashed in the fields below.

German reaction was both predictable… and incorrect – both Lars and Paul choose to turn aggressively toward the Hurricanes, without any real chance of catching them. Seeing the escorts’ futile pursuit, Tony realized that he had time for another pass, this time from behind. He split his formation into two smaller groups, two planes turning gently behind the bombers to the right, while the rest pursued the formation to the left. His speed advantage made it possible for him to outmaneuver Me-110:s and eventually leave them behind.

What ensued can only be described as a bunch of foxes finding a way into the hen house. None of the Hurricanes had much of a problem finding a target and German bomber formations were repeatedly hosed by British Brownings. Second Dornier went down with fatal engine damage at the start of that second pass through the bomber formation. A third bomber span out of control, but then leveled out and was last seen trailing smoke and flying away in the wrong direction. It failed to return home. Three more bombers suffered significant damage, dropped their bombs and dove in an effort to escape the fighters.

Damage caused by the Hurricanes would probably be much greater, but one fighter after another begun to run out of ammunition. It also became painfully obvious to Tony that even though his fire scored repeated hits on the bombers, most of the time his machineguns caused only limited damage.

The only event that can be described as a success for the Luftwaffe on that disastrous day happened at the end of our game. A stray bullet from one of the Dorniers hit a Hurricane in the engine. Not wanting to take any chances and with three fighters already out of ammunition, Tony chose to dive out of contact with the damaged plane and the Hurricane of his flight leader. By doing that he also finished our game.

‘Jolly good show’ ended in an undisputed British victory. Three Dorniers were destroyed, while another three suffered significant damage and aborted their mission. Six bombers continued on to their target, which gave the score of 30 points for RAF and 19 for Luftwaffe.

A change of heart

2009-01-16T20:45:00.002+01:00

I guess the circle is closed now - I've started with a blog, transfered to a normal webpage, moved back to the blogg with the intention of maintaining one blog per ruleset... and realised that it would be too much work. So now I've changed the name of the blogg, so I can cover all of my wargaming activities here.

Why Warhammer Ancient Battles?

2009-01-02T20:21:00.002+01:00

My WAB project was started more or less by coincidence or rather for several, quite different reasons. First of all, I’ve been drooling over those gorgeous transfer decals from Little Big Men Studios for quite some time. I really wanted to have a reason to use them for something.

Then, some time last year, a friend of mine expressed interest in kicking off new project, preferably in the ancient or dark age period. He’s an old Wahammer and Epic player, so Warhammer Historical was a natural choice of rules for him.

By coincidence I was at that time finishing ‘Winter King’ by Bernard Cornwell. I can’t praise this book enough – marvelous story of King Arthur in historical setting, colorful heroes and villains and great battle descriptions. A wargamer needs much less for inspiration to start a new painting project. Before I knew, Hakan and I were placing our first order for miniatures from Gripping Beast. I’ve selected Romano-British as my army, while Hakan went for the Saxons.

That’s been about six months ago. Since then the project has progressed slowly, but steadily and I now have two infantry units ready for battle, while much needed reinforcements in form of heavy cavalry unit is progressing very nicely. In coming days I intend to post couple of pictures of those miniatures.

Blogg, homepage and blogg again

2009-01-02T15:33:00.000+01:00

Tempted by multitude of bloggs about tabletop wargaming hobby, sometime in 2005 I've decided to start my own blogg in connection with the start of my ACW project. After a while I've decided that despite the convenience, bloggs were somewhat limited medium and I've launched a 'real' website, called Minondas Corner. It's been great fun and the site is still there, but unfortunately real life intervened in form of new job, which significantly limited my leisure time. As a result, Minondas' Corner hasn't been updated for a very long time.

However, the wish to write an occasional article and show off some painted miniatures is still there. So it's time to go back to Blogger, although this time I intend to take baby steps. This time I intend to concentrate on one rule system per blogg. As the name indicates, main focus of this blogg will be on Warhammer Ancient Battles.