Chaplin Hills – preview

Continuing the attempt to bump up post count for 2018!

This time around, preview of terrain for quickly approaching Chaplin Hills game. Still, troops done, terrain done… and 36 hours before actual start of the game! Must be doing something right.

2017 in retrospective

Time to reach for a platitude – another year has passed, another year is ahead of us and it’s time to look back and forth.

2017 as wargaming year wasn’t very exciting for me. I did take a quick look at the goals I’ve set for myself in corresponding post from a year ago, it was a tad depressing to realize that pretty much none of of them has been achieved. Not that it matters, because I still managed to have a lot of fun.

• Four major ACW games
• Moved over from “They Couldn’t Hit an Elephant” to “Guns at Gettysburg” for ACW period
• Introductory “Dux Britaniarum” raid arranged for L.
• First taste of “Chain of command”
• Painted couple of battalions for Napoleonics in 6mm
• Painted 20+ 20mm Americans for WWII
• In terrain department, one new house and several terrain pieces for 20mm games and a river system for 6mm are now ready for use.
• Couple of terrain experiments with caulk and bamboo fibre

I am also very happy to report that I have refrained almost completely from any new purchases. Couple of 20mm minis and vechicles that I really need for next year, and couple of rulesets in PDF format – that’s it. Why is that good news, you may wonder. Well, with shedloads of stuff lying around and waiting for my attention, getting more of it seems a bit pointless.

Hey, mate! We’ve been standing on this loudspeaker for more that half a year now, waiting for next boat to Britain. Have you planned next cruise yet?!

So what about 2018? If I allow myself grand dreams, then the the priorities for next year look like this:

• First and foremost, get “Dux Britaniarum” rolling again. L. has had his firs outing and it’s about time H. gets back into the game. So with two simultanous campaigns, hopefully we’ll gain some momentum.
• More “Guns at Gettysburg” games. Historical scenarios or ficticious one-offs, I don’t care, as long as I get more games under the belt on regular basis. Move over to Guns at Gettysburg has been a very positive experience so far!
• “Chain of Command” – the main obstacle to tackle in this department is terrain. I spent a lot of last year on preparing and painting terrain. Since it’s my least favorite part of the hobby, procrastination was frequent and extended. This year, I seriously need to bite the bullet and put together these buildings and hedges. Once that’s done, getting the gang together for some games shouldn’t be to difficult. After all, it’s WWII skirmish, what’s not to like there!
• “Chain of Command” redux – I need to paint a lot more minis for this one.

• Vietnam project – let’s face it, this one is on verge of starvation. Between all other projects and “real life”, I’ve been having real difficulty finding time and mustering enegry for this one. Not scrapping it yet though.

Allright, that’s all for now. See you all on the other side!

Photography for wargamers – Part 2 – Equipment

Let’s yet again start with a small clarification. When it comes to photography equimpment, two things become apparent as soon as you start dipping your toe in this particular hobby. First and foremost, if you want something better than the basic stuff for snapshots, the price-tag rises rapidly and steeply. Second, the better equipment really does produce better quality images and gives you more flexibility in regard of what kind of images can be taken… if you take time in finding out how to take advantage of its potential.

That being said, even the most basic of today’s cameras are surprisingly capable, especially if you’re don’t bump too hard into their technical limitations. Under normal lighting conditions (always the most important factor), taking snapshots is, as I already said in previous post, a no-brainer! Personally, I’m neither interested in nor able to spend massive amounts of money on cameras, lenses and periphery equipment and my kit is as basic as it gets.

Before we get any further - as it turns out, this post is quite long and meandering all over the place, but arrives to a pretty basic conclusion. If you’re an experienced photographer or don’t have the patience to read through my rantings, please skip straight to the bottom where you’ll find the only really relevant point I’m hoping to express here.

Cameras in general

If we take a quick look at what’s available on the market, I think the cameras can be split into three groups.

• Mobile phone cameras – pretty much everyone has a mobile phone these days and they’re all equipped with a camera. Quality of those tiny cameras varies widely, but I must say that I am constantly amazed by the capability of one that is built-in in my (by now ancient) Samsung S4 phone.
  
  Out of necessity, mobile phone cameras are technically limited. The lens is small and they lack much of manual control available in ‘proper’ cameras. Also, they usually save images in compressed format, which limits post-processing possibilities.
  
  On the other hand, the automatic controls of mobile phone cameras are these days extremly capable and will usually produce a sharp and vivid image of whatever you’re pointing the camera at. I would advise everyone to spend some time experimenting with their mobile phone camera, you may be very surprised by what can be achieved with it.
  
  Perhaps the most important advantages of mobile phone cameras are of very basic nature. They’re free, you get one when you buy a mobile phone. Also, this is the one camera that you usually have with you! There is a reason for saying that the best camera you’ll ever have is the one that you have with you.
  
  
• Compact cameras – this type of cameras ranges from simple point-and-shoot affairs to some pretty advanced, professional products with very impressive optics and features. Prices vary accordingly. From wargaming perspective, I’d say that a suitable compact camera should have following features:
• As good optics as you can afford - there is no coming around the fact is that the better optics, the sharper and better pictures you’ll get ‘out of the box’. On a flipside of the coin, keep in mind following – ‘wargames’ pictures are most often intended for the net. For practical reasons, image files for the net need to be small, with obvious consequences for image quality. So if you intend to use your compact camera primarily for wargames and shots of minis, it doesn’t make much sense to spend a lot of money on top of the line products!
  
• Shortest focusing distance – try to get a camera with short ‘shortest focusing distance’. Being able to focus on small objects short distance away from the lens is very practical feature for wargamers!
  
• Decent zoom capability – being able to zoom on stuff is always useful, but don’t go overboard. Currently, the craze for maximum zoom capability is the ‘next best thing since sliced bread’, but very high zooms are of limited useability if you can’t stabilize the camera, usually by putting it on a tripode. A zoom of x10 is more than enough under most circumstances.
  
• Ability to take RAW images – RAW is digital equivalent to film negative of old times. Shooting in RAW gives you a lot of possibilities to adjust the image in post-processing and this feature is pretty much a must if you’re intending to get a bit more serious about photography in general.
  
• Small aperture – heads up(!!!), this one is a bit counter-intuitive, because small aperture is represented by large number in ‘f-stop’-variable. But basically, you want a camera where you can make a very small hole in your shutter. Look for maximum number for your f-stops, bigger is better. For now you’ll need to take my word for it – it is important.
  
• High ISO range – being able to push ISO sensitivity of camera sensor reduces exposure times and allows for taking sharp images in crappy lighting conditions. Photographers usually wrinkle their nose at high ISO setting, because it impacts image quality… but once again, if image is intended for Facebook or a blog, sharpness is usually more important factor than some color distortion.
  
• Tiltable LED display – I’ve learned this one the hard way. The representation of the image your camera will take is shown in two ways – through a traditional view-finder (not necesserily included in compacts these days) or a LED display. Most photographers will rave about necessity for a traditional view-finder. Personally I’d say that for wargaming purposes a good quality, large LED display is much more useable. And it should be tiltable, because we often want to place the camera in small, constrained places and at wierd angles. Being able to tilt the display and see what image will show is very useful in these situations.
  
• Small footprint – once again, constrained places and wierd angles. Small cameras are easier to handle.
  
  
• DSLR cameras – DSLR stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex and DSLR cameras are the ‘big wigs’ among cameras. They consist of a camera body and wide range of exchangeable lenses, often designed for a specific type of photography. DSLR cameras take (at least in theory) best pictures and offer most flexibility for the photographer. They’re also expensive, bulky as hell and have the steepest learning curve if you want to use them to their full potential.
  
  If you think of picking up a DSLR camera, you actually have two decisions to make. The first consists of the choice of camera house. This is a serious commitment, because camera houses are expensive. More importantly, you bind yourself to a specific brand.
  
  Your decision should be based on two consideration – what producer and how advanced the camera-house is to be. From technical perspective, I’d say that the considerations are the same as for a compact camera. As for the producer, you have couple to choose from – Canon, Nikon, Sony and Pentax are some of the biggest names on the market. All make excellent products. While prices for different types of camera houses (entry level, enthusiast and professional) are pretty much the same regardless of producer, there can be relevant differences in performance of inner electronics, advanced features and layout of the camera interfaces (buttons and software). This last factor can be of particular importance, so try stuff out at your local dealer before you commit.
  
  Choice of lenses is as important aspect as the camera house if you decide to pick up a DSLR for your wargaming photography. When you buy a DLSR camera, you’ll usually get a so called stock lens. Let’s put it straight – stock lenses are usually crap and of lowest available quality when it comes to optics quality. They will do to start with, but sooner or later you will probably want to upgrade to something better and more flexible.
  
  The range of choices when it comes to lenses is mind-boggling, but basically you have two types of lenses for DSLR:
• prime lenses – these lenses have a preset, non-adjustable focal length, measured in mm. Lenses with short focal lenght are used to take images with wide angle or close-ups. Lenses with long focal lenght are used to take images with ‘small’ angle and at longer distances. Advantages of prime lenses are that since they are simpler to construct (less moving parts and less complex optics) they tend to be cheaper and able to produce really good pictures. The drawback is that since you can’t zoom with a prime lens, you need to place your camera in ‘right’ place och change the physical lens between shots.
• zoom lenses – these lenses allow you to zoom on the image subject and are therefore much more practical. There are two types of zooms – normal and tele. Normal zooms can vary between 10-20mm and 50-100mm. This gives you good flexibility at distances between below a meter and maybe 10-15 meters. Telezooms are used for long distance photography, but are also very useful if you want to zoom on couple of 6mm minis from 5-6 meters away.
  

Here’s the thing about lenses – personally I am yet to find optimal choice when it comes to good lens for wargamers. I won’t go into details right now, but there is a couple of very specific and conflicting aspects when it comes to wargaming that make choice of optimal lens a bit of a challenge.

Other equipment

Beside the camera itself, unless we’re talking about mobile phone cameras, I’d consider a good tripode with adjustable mounting head the most useful addition to your photography kit. Tripods come in different sizes. A table tripod like a Joby is very practical for small cameras. Full-size tripode is bulky, but is indispensable if you want to take sharp photos, especially when long exposure times are necessary.

One piece of equipment I’m very divided about are camera flashes. Every camera has one built in. They’re usually crap, for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, photos taken with built in flash are pretty much always washed-out and flat, because the light ‘floods’ the subject. Second, the range of a built in flash is usually very limited. This means that a couple of meters directly in front of the lens is properly illuminated and the rest of the image is significantly darker. There are ways to control first of these undesireable effects, but you can’t do much about the second. Thus, if I can avoid it, I don’t use built in flashes. This limitation is especially important in my opinion in regard of compact cameras.

On the other hand, I am currently seriously considering getting proper flash light for my Canon DSLR. External flash lights for DSLR are extremly powerful and with long range. They have no problem with properly illuminating a medium sized room. The trick is to learn how to control the light they’re making, so you don’t get these washed out images I mentioned above.

My own stuff

Here’s what I use these days:

• Camera in my Samsung S4 mobile phone. Up ‘til now, I’ve mostly used it when I wanted to take a quick snapshot of something close up or didn’t want to fiddle with adjusting the images afterward. However, over last couple of days I’ve done some more in-depth tests with this camera and I must say that I am mightily impressed by its capabilities. I may very well have underestimated its useability up ‘til now!
  
  
• Panasonic Lumix LX-7. I fell in love with this little compact camera as soon as I saw its specifications. At the time, I was under the impression that the most important factor was wide aperture, usually a quite expensive feature in camera optics. This little thing is capable of f1.8 at its shortest focal length (that’s when you take ‘wide’ images) and it blew my mind at the time. These days I’m of the opinion that wide aperture isn’t as important as I have once believed. Nevertheless, I still think this little camera is very useful for wargaming photograpy. It takes sharp images and is capable of focusing at very close ranges. It is however limited by crappy build-in flash, limited zoom (3.5x) and, ironically, limited smallest aperture (f8.0).
  
  
• Canon 1200D DSLR camera. The ‘big gun’ in my arsenal and under right conditions a very capable beast. This model is an ‘entry level’ DSLR camera from Canon, but it’s very good piece of equipment. But it’s not the easiest camera to use and on a bad day I can be quite frustrated by a galore of blurry images it delivers to me after a gaming session. After having it for a couple of years, I am still learning how to use it properly. At times it can be as frustrating as a baby crying its head off for no apparent reason. But, as long as I pay it the time and attention it requires, it is also the most fun camera I’ve ever had.
  
  My DSLR has usually a cheap Tamron telezoom mounted on it. I’m pretty sure that it is one of root causes of these less than perfect pictures I’m sometimes getting out of this rig. It turned out to be less than optimal choice for wargame photography, but it was cheap and it has a wide zoom capability. It has to do for now.
  
  My other lens (beside the stock lens that followed with the camera and which I never use) is a Canon 50mm prime lens. This little puppy is as cheap as it gets and delivers shockingly sharp images. It is also totally unuseable for wargaming purposes. Its minimum focus distance is not short enough to allow for useable closeups and it requires too much distance between the camera and the table for good wide angle shots. I love this little lens to bits as long as we’re talking normal photography (portraits and street), but it’s useless for wargames.

Additional comments

One thing that is perhaps worth mentioning are compact system cameras, which is a hybrid between a compact camera and a proper DSLR camera. They’re usually very capable, advanced products with all the features of a DSLR, but in smaller package and sometimes with single, permanently mounted zoom lens. Since I don’t own one, I have no experience of this type of camera. And so, I skipped over it in my post. However, compact system cameras may very well be optimal choice for a wargamer who wants to have some fun and be able do a bit more with his kit.

Another thing that I would like to touch upon are ‘current trends’ in photography equipment. Some ten years ago, the craze was all about megapixels, the more the better. Of course that’s not the case, but it was an easily defineable ‘good, better, best’ factor when marketing a camera. Number of pixels is basically number of dots that can read light and color in a sensor. The ‘gut feeling’ may suggest that more dots equals sharper images and that’s correct assumption… under some very specific and for wargaming purposes irrelevant circumstances. Where ‘megapixels’ or resolution comes into the picture (no pun intended) is when pictures are printed on paper – large size prints do require high image resolution to look good. And by ‘large print’ I mean poster size pictures! For standard prints a 10 megapixel sensor is more than enough. For web photos on a blog or Facebook you can probably use 3 megapixel camera and not see any difference.

Today, the craze is about extreme zoom capability. This in itself can be very useful for wargamer, but keep two things in mind. First of all, pushing zoom lenses to the extreme does come at a price and you pay it with reduction of image quality. Also, the more zoom is used, the more sensitive the camera becomes to vibrations. If you think you can zoom your camera to those 30x while holding it in your hand, you’ll in for a surprise when you see the image you’ve taken. So, if you intend to play with extreme zooms, get a tripode and save yourself a lot of frustration.

Final thoughts

Allright, so that’s the ‘rant’ about equipment, Hopefully I had something useful to tell you, but in the end it all boils down to this single piece of advice I can give to anyone thinking about investing in equipment to take ‘better  pictures’ – advanced and expensive kit doesn’t automatically equal better pictures. Cameras are precision tools and just like any other tool, the more advanced it is, the more expertise and dedication it requires to get most out of it. If you’re ‘just’ interested in taking some snapshots and aren’t interested in investing time and effort in learning about photography, then there is really no point in investing in more advanced gear. Buy stuff that fits your needs, aspirations and your level of interest in photography and don’t expect miracles first time you use that shiny new DSLR.

2016 in review and plans for 2017

Last day of a rather dismal wargaming year, if I can say it myself. Highlights of the year:

• Managed to paint basic forces for both US and VC locals in my Vietnam project
• Also for Vietnam project, a shedload of jungle terrain pieces was completed. This may very well the greatest ‘success’ of the year, since it was a horribly tedious task I undertook most unwillingly. Still, I pushed through, good lad there…
• For Dux Britaniarum, I’ve painted the Saxons, so I now have both sides at home.
• I’ve added a couple of units and artillery to my 6mm ACW collection.
• Over last couple of months my interest in 6mm Napolenic project woke up again. As result, I’ve made some progress with Teugen-Hausen OOB and added three infantry batalions and two cavalry regiments.
• Terrain board project proceeds at glacial speed. 21 basic boards are now ready for use. So far, four of them were used for a photo shoot, the rest is still waiting for their premiere apperance.

On the other hand, the simple fact is that I hardly played any games this year. This in itself is worrying, but what bothers me much more is the fact that I didn’t really mind that much. Seems to me that both my personal engagement in the hobby as well as that of my wargaming buddies is slowly winidng down. Over last couple of years our focus seems to be shifting in direction of boardgames such as Command&Colors (both ancient and Napoleonic), Combat Commander and most recently, Wing Leader. Common denominator for all of them (beside the fact that they’re from GMT) is that they’re quick to pick and set up, have simple rules and an average game doesn’t last longer than three hours, often much less.

It will come hardly as a surprise then when I say thatI have pretty much lost the insight into whatever developments and trends may have taken place in the hobby over the course of past year. The only major event that registered on my radar was the change of editor of Miniature Wargames magazine, which signaled a change in course for that magazine for me and prompted me to a binge purchase of PDF issues of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy. Other than that, things have been going on without any major upheavals and disturbances in my personal wargaming bubble – no new projects started, no new rulesets, no major miniature purchases. Seems like not following the news or trends is a bit of a bliss, allowing me to consolidate on stuff I already have going on, rather than jumping from one shiny new thing to another!

Allright, so what about 2017?

• First and foremost, play a bit more. One game per month may be over-ambitious, but that’s the goal for this year.
• Which leads me to the second goal – looking into solo gaming. One sad trend I cannot overlook any longer is the simple fact that gathering together a group of three or four friends in same place at same time seems to be more and more difficult. Often even arranging a one on one game is a bit of a challenge. So solo gaming seems to be the most obvious solution to this problem.
• Regarding painting projects, I hope my current momentum will last a bit longer and allow me to paint figures necessary for Teugen-Hausen scenario. I’m about halfway there, which means about 1000 more 6mm minis that require attention.
• I would also like to expand on my Vietnam collection – helicopters and VC main force units are in the pipeline. Maybe some additional terrain, while I’m at it.
• Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies – this ruleset has peaked my interest and I have already a shedload of 20mm minis for a one of their mini-campaigns. Need to paint some bits and pieces and make couple of meters of boccage as well as a couple of buildings.
• Ancients – strangely enough, I never had a chance to play what I consider my ‘first love’. I have a sizeable Greek hoplite army. They need an opponent, most probably early Achaemenid Persians. Two rulesets need testing – ‘Impetus’ and ‘Spear and Sword’.

OK, that’s it for now, Happy New Wargaming Year to you all. See you on the other side!

Take it on faith… or not

It’s been a long while since I’ve really had my finger on the pulse of the hobby. I hardly ever visit the forums anymore. I have several dozens of Meeples and Miniatures podcasts left to listen to. Most importantly, sometime around beginning of 2014 I’ve decided not to buy any more wargaming magazines until I’ve gone through the very substantial stack of issues already resting on my to read-shelf. So these days my only contemporary source of information about developments in the hobby consists of feeds and news posted in a couple of Facebook wargaming groups I still belong to. It was from one such message that I’ve learned that Henry Hyde, as apparent consequence of change of the owner of this venerable wargaming publication, is leaving the position as editor of Miniature Wargames magazine.

This fact in itself made me quite sad, because Henry Hyde is one of the good guys in the hobby. To my best knowledge, he’s been doing his best promoting ‘hardcore’ historical wargaming for more than a decade. Also, based on his input in podcasts such as ‘A View from The Veranda’, I think he’s a really likeable person who seems to approach this hobby in a manner quite similar to my own. So personally I can’t imagine a more suitable person for the role of the editor of Miniature Wargames. A bit perplexed I went to the site of the magazine in search of explanation of this event. Once there, or more precisely, on magazine’s page at the site of new distributor of its digital version, I found out that Miniature Wargames is nowadays supposed to be some sort of jack of all trades that “looks at all forms of miniature wargaming, including historical, fantasy, Sci-Fi, pulp, steam punk and roleplaying”.

If that’s the future role for Miniature Wargames, I am not at all surprised that Mr. Hyde, being one of foremost champions of historical wargaming of current age, have gotten a pink slip from the new owner. I hope I’m wrong, but it seems to me that one of ‘institutions’ of the hobby is being put to sleep by some execs without a clue about what they’ve acquired. Not the first time it happens (‘Firefly’, anyone?), but it’s still a damn shame!

Anyway… after this probably far too long intro, let me get to the real topic of this post. As already mentioned, I’ve stopped buying wargaming mags couple of years ago? One of the reasons for this decision was the fact that all back issues of hobby magazines I use to read are available online as digital publications. Miniature Wargames, Wargames Illustrated, Soldiers Wargames & Strategy and more, they’re all online, every single issue easily available for your purchase whenever you’d need them or want them.

Well… as it turns out, that’s no longer the case, at least when it comes to Miniature Wargames! While “investigating” possible reasons for Mr. Hyde’s leaving the magazine, I discovered to my shock that only the two latest issues of the Miniature Wargames are currently available for purchase in digital format from magazine’s shop. In rough numbers, some forty issues of one of the most prominent publications in the hobby along with all the issues of Battlegames (magazine created and run by Mr. Hyde before he merged it with Miniature Wargames) have been removed and are no longer available to the public audience. And, just to add insult to injury, the new owner seems to have moved digital distribution of the magazine to Pocketmags, which in my opinion is nothing else but a rental service for magazines and publications.

I must say that this discovery made me quite angry. Naturally, I am seriously annoyed with the new owner of the magazine, who in my opinion have pulled a serious douchebag move on the readers of Miniature Wargames. But, if I am to be perfectly honest, I am mostly annoyed with myself. Over last couple of years I must have visited Miniature Wargames’ webshop some twenty times, thinking about getting a digital subscription. And every single time I didn’t, because “what’s the rush, the stuff is there today and it will be there tomorrow, right?”. So I’d decide that I would create an account next month or maybe at the beginning of next year and leave in belief that things would never change. And now those issues are gone. Hopefully only temporarily, while the new owner works out the usual legal wrinkles with the old one. But… they may also be gone forever, lost in some legal maze regarding publication rights or some other legal BS. Wouldn’t that be a shame?

This entire episode also rekindled all the doubts I’ve always been having regarding purchases of digital publications that are accessible only through online proxies, such as for example Pocketmags. True, as long as things work smoothly, it may seem like a perfect way to buy a magazine. But under certain circumstances, the restrictions of this type of access do seem to raise their ugly head. This particular case seems at least for the moment to be the perfect example of possible complications with access to digital publications through proxies – you buy stuff, but you never really own it. A magazine can be sold off to an owner with a different technical solution for digital material, forcing consumer to adapt or rendering his purchases useless. Or the company that owns the publication can merge or be acquired by another company, which in turn may perhaps even not care about digital distributions. In the worst case scenario, the owner of a magazine can even go bust, with the third party distributor naturally pulling the plug permanently as a consequence.

I don’t know about everyone else, but personally I have always refused to subscribe or ‘purchase’ digital publications that are not made available to me in some tangible form, preferably as PDF files. Yes, I know, a house may burn down to a ground along with everything in it, hard copies can get lost or destroyed, hard drives with PDF files may crash… But the fact remains - as long as I have a useable, tangible copy of a magazine, I can always read it, regardless of the fact that my Internet connection is down, or that I haven’t updated my reader app to latest version or that my tablet is five years old and is no longer able to run some software.

That’s my five cents, for whatever it’s worth.

In a spur of a moment, or DIY dice trays

So… yesterday I had to make a trip to Systrerne Grene, this peculiar shop with all sorts of cute paper bags, boxes, ‘nice smells’ products, frames, decoupage stuff and dozens, if not hundreds of products that women seem to love to use for that ‘personal touch’. It’s the same place where I found those beautiful transparent plexiglas boxes perfect for my 6mm figures (which by the way have since been withdrawn from their product range ).

Anyway… as I walked through the shop, this item caught my eye.

The thing is made out of cheap, lightweight wood and plywood and costs 40SEK, which if I am to be perfectly honest, is a bit steep! I have no idea what the original idea for this thing really is, probably some sort of display box.  But I am pretty sure that any wargamer worth his name will immediately have two words popping up in his head when he sees something like this – dice tray! Needless to say, two of these thingies immediately found themselves in my shopping cart.

Today, I gave the ‘trays’ a closer look and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t entirely happy with them. They’re quite shoddy, with very thin bottom and these stripes look a little bit weird. There was definitely room for improvement and luckily I had all I needed at home.

First, I grabbed some wood stainer left over from another project and darkened the frame. I then left the trays outside (stainer smell is just plain awful!) to dry for several hours.

Next, it was time to do something about that ‘striped’ bottom. Lining of some sort was the apparent solution here and what do you know, I happened to have some leftover dark-green felt that fit the job! As for how to fix it into place, the choice was between white glue and spray glue. I decided to give the second option a try.

Cutting the felt to size was the biggest challenge in this little project. I tried to measure and cut the felt to size, in two attempts the hexagonal shape turned out to be both irregular and too small. I then changed my approach and cut out an oversized piece of cloth. Next I sprayed the glue on it and pressed it into place. I paid extra attention to the edges, pressing the cloth into the ‘angle’ with the backside of hobby knife.

Once the felt fit snuggly in place, I started cutting off the ‘surplus’, one hexagon side at a time. I tried to follow the ‘angle’ of the tray as closely as possible, but the end result wasn’t 100 per cent perfect. With practice I am sure that I would achieve the ‘professional’ look, but life’s too short for perfection.

And so, here they are – two large hexagonal dice trays. Total price, a bit over 80 SEK, time expenditure – maybe an hour. What’s not to like!

McGyver Moment

What do you get if you put together a slow Sunday morning, an empty spice container, a piece of old sleeping mat, hot glue gun and some blue tack? Well, an ergonomic figure holder of course!

Storage quandrum

This one could be of interest for readers from Scandinavia, if you experience the same problem I did.
Allright, so what’s this all about then? Well, here’s the thing. When I moved to my new flat, I knew that I wanted to have a special place where I could display my miniatures. So naturally I bought a display case with glass shelves and doors and it’s been the dedicated camp area for all my figures ever since. Great, right

Well, both yes and no. First of all, I was slightly amazed over how quickly those shelves filled up to their capacity. One shelf is entirely dedicated to my 28mm Anglo-Saxons. Another is filled with my 6mm ACW minis and yet another is hardly coping with the 6mm Napoleonic collection. That leaves four shelves, and those are already partially filled with 28mm gladiators, 15mm ancient Greeks and Vietnam period US infantry.

Shelves providing camp area for my 6mm collections are troubling in their own particular way – the figures are… well, tiny! So while at an arm’s length they do cause the, in my opinion at least, well-deserved uuuuhs and aaaahs from ‘civilians’, at longer ranger they lool depressingly empty.

It was this particular problem that I decided to solve and the solution seemed obvious – I needed some plexiglas boxes. Well… finding the solution on theoretical level may have been simple, but finding suitable product turned out to be quite a challenge! Extensive search on the internet gave me links to several companies making plexiglas display cases and demanding ridiculous amounts of money for their products. Next target-rich environment turned out to be cosmetics shops - women need to store their stuff too and transparent plastic boxes are practical. Prices required by the beauticians were however still too steep for my taste.

My saviour turned out to be a shop chain called Søstrene Grene. Originating from Denmark, but existing in all major towns of Scandinavia, they are a quaint little operation, selling all sorts of things that make girls say ‘oh so cute!’. Surprisingly, they also have a shedload of stuff that has potential making wargamers say ‘oh, that’s interesting!’. Very useful storage boxes with locks, dirt cheap brushes of very good quality and acrylic paints in large tubes are but a few examples of stuff that could catch your fancy. Also, they sell boxes which turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.

Made out of 3mm crystal-clear plexiglas, with inner dimensions of 16x11x4 centimeter, with hinged cover that can be opened 180 degrees and flat bottom (thus stackable), they seem to be created for storage and display of miniatures. Also they are really cheap, 38SEK per unit, which considering the alternatives, is pretty much free of charge!

Pics below show the empty box and one of new ‘homes’ for my French Napoleonic infantry. If you, like me, feel that the shelves containing your miniatures do look a little empty, you should definitely take a trip to Søstrerne Grene and check out those boxes.

2013 in retrospect

Start of another year – perfect time to take a moment, look back and take stock of the year that passed.

I must admit that the content added to this blog over the last twelve months reflects quite accurately what was going on in my wargaming ‘life’ in 2013 – not all that much. My resurgence of interest in modelling hobby meant that a lot of time that previously would have been dedicated to painting figures and making new terrain was diverged to putting together plastic aircraft models and having fun with the airbrush. In a sense, my return to this introvert cousin of tabletop wargaming reflects rather depressing  trend in ‘wargaming’ scene available to me in this dark geographical corner of our hobby – with each passing year, fewer and fewer of my friends remain genuinely interested. Therefore, it’s getting harder and harder to put together a game with more than two participants. This fact is also reflected in both the number and type of games I’ve had opportunity to enjoy in 2013 – with the exception of Shiloh scenario that I put together last month, vast majority of the games were small affairs, skirmishes and tentative ruleset tests.

Highlights of 2013? In individual game terms, definitely the Shiloh Church scenario – as already observed, it doesn’t have very much competition in respect of ‘meatiness’. But I think that the real ‘winner’ of 2013 is ‘Dux Britanniarum’ and the campaign that’s still ongoing between me and H. Had it not been for H.’s prolonged absence from wargaming, enforced on him by circumstances beyond his control, I am pretty sure that reports of our ‘Dux Britanniarum’ games would be the main feature of 2013 on this blog.

Another campaign, based on scenario booklet ‘Raid on St. Michel’ is still fighting to get of the ground. L. is not convinced that ‘Black Powder’ is the best ruleset for games with limited number of regiments, and so the curse of the eternal search for ‘Holy Grail’ may have sunk yet another project before it even got an honest chance. Suck…

Over the course of the year, I’ve also had opportunity to test a couple of currently popular rulesets. The ad hoc test of ‘Impetus’ with H. gave me a taste for more and woke again my hope that I my by now rather substantial Greek hoplite 15mm army will at last have opportunity to prove itself in a game!

My first taste of ‘Black Powder’ didn’t immediately win me over, but I do recognize the appeal its of easy-going and ‘loose’ format.

Another of Warlord Games offerings previously unfamiliar to me – ‘Bolt Action’ – did make a much deeper impact on me. As a result of the test game with that ruleset, I even even dug up my 20mm Yanks and late WWII Germans that  have been stashed away in their boxes ever since my ‘Arc Of Fire’ Normandy project failed to get of the ground all those years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if those minis will have their ‘Bolt Action’-day on my table top in not too distant future.

OK, so what’s the painting tally for 2013? Ah yes… with all these plastic model kits lately claiming majority of the my leisure time, the output on that front can hardly be regarded as impressive. 9 cows, couple of buildings and odd terrain bits and pieces is all I can list in new additions section for 28mm department. My 15mm ancient Greeks received reinforcements in form of second 32 figures unit of Spartans, hurray for them. My 6mm Confederates  took the most substantial part of 2013 year’s painting effort – five or six regiments, shedload of skirmishers and ridiculous amount of artillery pieces, all in all perhaps 200+ new minis.

My most focused effort on a new project of 2013 – fielding adequate forces for ‘Charile Don’t Surf’ from Too Fat Lardies – has so far generated a full U.S. infantry company (67 figures) and an embryo of 7 figures for VC Local Force. Work on that project continues and I hope to be able to put together first scenario in a couple of months.

So what about 2014? Well… at the moment I believe that this year will be spent under a sign of consolidation. Vietnam project remains my main priority. Next in the pipeline? If ‘Bolt Action’ gains my favour, some of those still unpainted 20mm WWII figures may find their way onto my painting table and I would also have to start working on some additional terrain features. Meters and meters of boccage again, oh my… Also, I haven’t forgotten about my Napoleonic project – literally thousands of 6mm minis are waiting for my attention and the French did suffer from complete lack of cavalry in that January clash at Ekmuhl. Last, but not least, I would like to be able to play ‘Dux’ at my convenience, so a ‘quick’ recruitment of suitable Saxon force isn’t entirely out of the question.

Shiloh Church 1862 with “They Couldn’t Hit An Elephant”

All right… let’s start the new year in right tone with a post that is actually about a game? And never mind that it’s been played more than five weeks ago!

The scenario

I continue to work my way through the excellent “Heartland” scenario book from Caliver Books and this time around it was time to re-play initial Confederate assault in Battle at Shiloh, or more specifically the part of that assault that took place in the area around Shiloh Church (on extreme Union right, if I recall correctly).

Initial setup in this scenario isn’t very encouraging for the Union side and to be honest, even before start of the game I doubted that it would be a very exciting game. Basically, the defensive position that Union troops are deployed in is compromised by the fact that its both flanks are wide open and begging for exploitation. In theory at least, the Federals should be able to hang on to the original position, but only until Confederates figure out the situation on the flanks, at which time their superior numbers should allow them to outflank Union boys on both sides, effectively ending the game.

But, as we all know, strange things can happen in wargames…

Originally, I wanted for H. and L. to play against each other with me acting as GM. At the last minute I decided that leading the massive Confederate force could be overwhelming for a single player. Therefore I took upon myself to lead the largely static Union troops and let my friends take control of the Rebels.

OK, I admit freely that my motives weren’t altogether altruistic. I did hope that this change would also lead to increased lack of coordination on Confederate side, thus at least to certain extent reflecting what seemed to have occurred in real battle.

Tweaking and tinkering with the ruleset

We are now arriving to the reason why this AAR is delayed by over a month – I had to post the two previous posts before this one, thus laying the foundation for the significant changes that I have done to ‘They Couldn’t Hit An Elephant’ for this game.

A short re-cap of previous posts is now in order. In them, I presented my reservations against card driven game turn engine in its original form. My objections consist of of two main arguments:

• A card deck of even moderate size (around 10-14 cards), provides far too many combinations to be able to provide expected ‘average’ statistical outcome within number of turns of a normal game (in my personal opinion, a game is usually finished between 20 to 40 rounds). This point of critique is especially directed toward the ‘Tea Break’ card mechanism, which I claim is far to random within the scope of a single game of average length.
• Unequal number of cards in the deck introduces a purely mathematical advantage for the player with larger number of cards. Such advantage is in my opinion, unintended alt. unrecognized by the ruleset design and creates games where one side is unintentionally handicapped by a factor outside the scope of the ruleset.

I took several ‘dramatic’ steps to adjust TCHAE in an attempt to alleviate the issues described above:

1. Instead of cards, I decided to use game markers as activation tools for units, leaders and special events such as ‘Coffee Break’. Game sequence was to be decided by random draw of one marker at a time.
   
   This change has two consequences: the activation sequence is ‘fluid’ throughout a turn, as any marker has equal chance to be drawn at each draw during the turn (opposed to  a card deck, where turn sequence is ‘locked’ after cards have been shuffled). Also, this system is ‘self-levelling’ – if multiple markers for one side are drawn for one side, the chance for drawing the other side’s marker is increased.
   
2. Regardless of number of markers needed for the game, the number of markers for both sides was to be equal in ‘marker pool’ at all times throughout the game. Dummy markers would be added to the marker pool to even out the numbers, if necessary.
   
   In this particular game, this change was especially significant – eleven Confederate markers, five Union markers and four ‘neutral’ markers were needed for all purposes in the game. If I stuck with those numbers, I’m pretty sure that Union side would be hardly able to act at all in this game, making it a very dull game indeed. By adding additional six dummy markers for the Union side, the ‘probability’ issue was neatly removed.
   
3. All markers were in the play from first round. This has two effects: balance is kept the same throughout the game, regardless of losses. Also, chance for ‘Blind’ markers being drawn is equal for both sides regardless of number of deployed units on the table.
   
4. The game started with three(!!!) ‘Coffee Break’ markers in ‘marker pool’. This allows for rather free initial movement (although surprises still occurred).
   
5. One ‘Coffee Break’ card was to be removed once first small arms salvo has been fired. Second ‘Coffee Break’ card was to be removed after first unit rout in the game. This alteration was based purely on ‘gut feeling’ in an attempt to provide increasing friction as the battle progresses.
   

The game

The game developed in expected manner, with Confederate troops approaching the Union position on wide front, successive waves of Rebel troops smashing against the Blue line, initially bouncing back on most occasions. As the loses mounted on both sides and with Federal line being slowly outflanked, I tried to retreat to alternative defensive position, while feeding in the reinforcements into the gaps in my line as they appeared. This tactic proved to be successful, until a series of determined Confederate charges against my left flank brigade resulted in what can only be described as its complete disintegration.

A single picture is, as they say, worth thousand words. Therefore I invite the readers to take a look at the series of pictures below for a more detailed analysis of the game.

Confederates approach the Union position. Original defensive line of the Union troops is marked with blue line, Confederate objectives are marked in red. According to the scenario, two Rebel brigades were deployed on the table at the start of the game, the rest was to enter the battlefield on 5+ roll on a D6 for infantry brigades and roll of 6 on a D6 for artillery batteries. H. and L. managed to roll 5 or higher for all of their infantry brigades in first turn of the game.

As Union dummy blinds are ‘spotted’ and removed from the game, the harsh truth about weakness of Union position is revealed. Already after a couple of turns, the Confederate troops started to overlap Federal line, forcing it to bend in an attempt to cover the flanks. However, fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on point of view) marker draws stopped Confederates from moving decisively and exploiting the situation to their full advantage. In this picture, Buckland’s brigade on Union right flank is adjusting position of one of its regiments in an attempt to meet the threat of being outflanked by rebels of Colonel Pond.

Cleburne’s brigade throws itself against Union centre early in the battle. Raw troops of Hildebrand’s brigade meet this charge with a hailstorm of fire from small arms and artillery, throwing it back in disarray and permanently breaking the rebel regiment leading the attack.

As battle progresses, more Confederate troops come into close contact with the Federals. Here, Russel’s brigade is clashing with Union troops defending strong position at the bank of Shiloh’s Branch, trying to push their way across the stream. This particular attack didn’t succeed, but it pinned Union forces in place and did cause considerable casualties.

Situation in the middle of the game. Union centre thrown into disarray, with one artillery battery taken by the rebels, the other one trying (unsuccessfully, as it would turn out) to retreat toward second Union line. Hildebrand’s brigade on Union right is buckling under mounting weight of Confederate pressure. In Union rear, McDowell’s brigade is trying to establish second defensive position, blocking the road.

At this time, L. and H. went home and I proceeded with the final phase of the game on my own.

Situation on right Union flank at the same time. Confederate attempts at outflanking the Union position continue to be thwarted by bad luck in activation marker draws – that’s the main reason why the blue line is still relatively intact.

‘Agressive’ characteristic of many of Confederate regiments decide the battle on Union left flank. Units with this characteristic move forward on their own if activation marker for their brigade isn’t drawn and the brigade has ‘Assault’ orders. Furthermore they have significant positive modifiers in close combat. In this battle, individual ‘agressive’ regiments from Cleburne’s and Anderson’s brigades smashed repeatedly into Hildebrant’s raw Union regiments, first throwing them back in disarray and then routing them from the field. Brigadier Hildebrand was killed in the course of this rather confused melee.

Right flank of Union line at the end of the game, still in pretty good shape.

Situation at the end of the game, seen from Confederate perspective. With Union left disintegrated and two Rebel brigades ready to enfilade second defensive line of Federal troops, the final outcome is just a question of time.

Overall situation at the end of the game. Notice the large Confederate formation at the rear of rebel lines. Johnson’s brigade, second strongest brigade in Confederate OOB never managed to get into the fight. Something to ponder about for rebel commanders.

Musings after the battle

I don’t think much more needs to be said about the scenario itself – as I suspected beforehand, there can only be one outcome here. Scenario designer does recognize this fact and makes this scenario playable by setting sensible victory conditions for federal side –the game is to be limited to about 15 turns, at which time rebels are to be in control of their objectives. If they’re not, the Union side can claim victory. With the ‘Coffee Break’ card used as end of turn marker, this condition needed to be modified – I choose to give Confederate side 40 ‘Coffee Break’ cards to achieve their objectives. I’ll let the reader figure out the intricacies of this condition.

If you insist on asking who won the game, I’d say that Confederates did, despite failing to reaching the objectives – the Union position was compromised by the time I decided to call it quits (I believe that about 35 ‘Coffee Break’ cards were played by that time). Further resistance would at that time only mean more meaningless slaughter and I am quite sure that a sensible Union commander would recognize that fact and call for a retreat. On the other hand, the ‘real world’ Union CinC on that occasion was no one else  but William T. Sherman, so who knows, maybe he’d fight to the last man regardless of his hopeless situation.

Never mind the battle/game though, what about the massive ‘surgery’ I made to the ruleset? Well… obviously, I’m not objective, but I must say that things flowed rather smoothly from the start and there weren’t too many objections from H. and L. neither (both of them played TCHAE in original format).

Personally, I was mostly concerned that the additional markers would slow down the game, especially at the start of the game, when only few of the markers would actually activate units. Fortunately my worries were completely unfounded. My activation markers were made of numbered poker chips and we just drew them one of them after the other until playable marker was activated. Took no time at all.

If I am to be completely honest, I’d go as far as saying that without the modifications I applied, this scenario would be an unplayable cake-walk for Confederates and a very sad, maybe even frustrating affair for Union players. As it was, both sides had fair chance to act and manoeuvre. Remarkably, if there was any frustration during the game, then it was caused by the fact that a couple of Confederate brigades consistently failed to be activated at crucial moments in the game, causing certain people to voice completely unfounded accusations of me playing with ‘marked’ game markers.

On a more negative note, I have to confess that I am growing slowly disillusioned with TCHAE as a ruleset. One thing that bothers me more and more is its order system, which consists of four order types – hold, advance, engage, manoeuvre. The ‘Hold’ order is the only one intended for defensive purposes and its nature is quite rigid – units under this order are pretty much to fight until they break or die. This makes flexible defence pretty much impossible and renders artillery especially vulnerable to frontal assaults, since it’s not allowed to evade while ‘Holding’. By now I’ve lost artillery batteries on several occasions because of the rigidity of this order. While I’m fully aware that this opinion can be debated, I’m starting to feel that there is something missing in this part of the ruleset and I’m growing a tad weary of having to ‘fix’ yet another issue in TCHAE.

At the same time, I have to be fair and admit that even with its ‘flaws’, it does give a decent ACW game. It’s slow, ponderous and requires a lot of ‘grinding’ before any decisive results can be achieved. Any real victory can only be achieved by decisions on higher level of command, by proper deployment and hammering at right spots with elements of at least brigade size. That’s American Civil War for you, like it or not. Also, there is something to be said about familiarity with a particular ruleset and by now I do know TCHAE inside out.

Still, I think that the time to give ‘Guns at Gettysburg’ and ‘Black Powder’ a shot is slowly approaching….

E-book sale at Pen&Sword

Just a quick heads up regarding ongoing sale of e-books at Pen&Sword – they run a ‘buy one, get one for free’-campaign. Considering the fact that their e-books cost £5 per volume, personally I think it’s a pretty sweet deal. Wide range of topics, from classical warfare to current conflicts; take a look, maybe you’ll find something interesting.

This little thing called probability

This is the second part of posts dedicated to somewhat different analysis of card deck driven game engine used in many games from Too Fat Lardies. On this occasion I will look into another ‘heresy’ in world of Lardies – game balance and fairness or, as it turns out to be, probabilities.

Before I start however, I feel that a couple of words need to be said about the comment that Thomas was kind enough to write in response to my previous post. In it he makes a very interesting observation, which finally explained to me why Mr. Clarke often says that a player has about 50 percent chance to activate half his units when the card driven turn sequence game mechanism is in use. Every time I heard or read that statement, I always asked myself: “How does he arrive to that conclusion?”. Thomas has finally clarified the issue for me – every card can come either before or after “Tea break” card and with only two possible outcomes for each card, chances for each card to be in front or behind “Tea break” card are fifty percent.

There is but one problem with this assumption and unfortunately it is a rather serious one. It is correct only the under condition that the ‘'’Tea Break’ card is located in the middle of the card deck. As already shown in previous post, that is highly improbable, as chances for ‘Tea Break’ card to land in a specific position is always 1/n where n is total number of cards in the deck.

Thomas’ suggestion to use two ‘Tea Break’ cards is also worth closer examination. What difference does the second ‘Tea Break’ card really make? Well, let’s start with examining the function of a single ‘Tea Break’ card – when a deck is shuffled it will land in one of n positions, where n is total number of cards. So if we have total of 10 cards, it has 10 possible ‘slots’. If we now add another ‘Tea Break’ card, we increase number of cards in the deck to 11. So the first ‘Tea Break’ card now has 11 possible ‘slots and after it’s been ‘placed’, the second ‘Tea Break’ card can be located in one of the remaining ‘slots’, which in our example have now been reduced to 10. Combination of these two gives us 11 * 10 possible ‘permutations’. Since repetitions don’t interest us, we need to divide 110 by 2 to get total number of ‘combinations’ (after all ‘Tea Break 1’ in second position and ‘Tea Break 2’ in seventh is exactly equivalent to the ‘’Tea Break 2’ in second and ‘Tea Break 1’ in seventh position).

So by adding a second ‘Tea Break’ card, we are actually increasing the ‘unpredictability’ of end of the turn by increasing the number of possible combinations of ‘Tea Break’ within the deck from 12 to 55.

Balance? We don’t need no stinkin’ balance!

In the days when I frequented TMP, two arguments used to flare up on that site’s forums with surprising regularity. The first one was ‘Is our hobby a game or a simulation?’. The second was ‘Balance – do we need it or not?’. My personal conclusion was that many Lardies are of opinion that games played with TFL’s rulesets can be regarded as a historical simulation and not expecting balance in a game is a crucial issue if one is to achieve the ‘simulation’ goal. Thus the unpredictability and at times tangible ‘unfairness’ of the card deck driven turn engine should not only be tolerated, but actually appreciated as a model reflecting reality closer than for example the venerable IGOUGO.

I tend to agree with that opinion; after all, if one plays a scenario set on Eastern Front in 1941, one expects for the generic German company to be more efficient than its Soviet counterpart (I know, I know, it was far from certain, but in general Germans did kick some ass in 1941). So how does the card deck driven turn sequence engine manage to re-create such situations? Well… quite frequently by giving the presumably superior side more cards than the other. The reasoning behind this apparent ‘imbalance’ is simple – the side with units that are judged to be more efficient, better led, with superior training/morale or simply dressed in camouflaged uniforms should be allowed to do more. The choice to give the superior side more cards seems at first glance simple, clean and logical game mechanism. And yet, it is a mechanism with, in my opinion at least, an embedded fatal flaw. You see, it is one thing to say that one side should have greater chance to activate units for this or that reason. It is a completely different thing to say that that side is to have more opportunities to actually participate in the game.

Right… by now you’re thinking: “The poor lad has lost his mind, what is he rambling about?!”. I assure you though that I am completely sane and I do have a point. Let me use a quick practical example to visualize my point: two players play above mentioned game on Eastern front using IABSM ruleset. The Soviet player has three platoons and two leaders – one card for each of them means five cards in the deck. German player has three platoons infantry, an attached MG platoon, three leaders, an additional card for bonus actions for machine guns and an artillery spotter – that’s nine cards.

The player on the Soviet side has obviously a hard task in front of him, but the disparity in forces could be regarded as ‘historically correct’. It needs however to be observed that in a deck consisting of five cards for one side and nine cards for the other, there is also a mathematical disparity which creates a ‘double penalty’ for Soviet player – not only does he have inferior forces at his disposal, he will also have much lower chance to actually do anything with them.

Back to maths

I will not bore you with mathematical formulas this time around. Instead let’s look at another practical situation. Consider a deck consisting of 14 cards of two types – blue and red. For the sake of convenience we place ‘Tea Break’ card in the middle of the deck and will always draw seven cards before the end of the turn. Since we know the position of ‘Tea Break’ cards, it can be disregarded it in the calculations. The table below shows chances for drawing certain number of blue cards, depending on total number of blue cards in the deck.

In my opinion, there are several things worth interest in this table, but one issue is especially interesting – it doesn’t take much ‘imbalance’ in the deck to create a scenario where the side with inferior number of cards in the deck is pretty much guaranteed to lose; not because of the inferior number of cards (or ‘units’), but simply based on mathematical probabilities.

In our game with nine German and five Soviet cards we find the probabilities for the Soviet player in the middle column. He has just above 50 percent chance to activate either two or three units, which means four or five German cards being activated in same turn. If he loses one unit and reduces number of his cards to four, the probability to activate three units in a turn falls down to about one in four, while chances to draw four cards become very miniscule indeed.

Fair or not fair?

Based on a 10+ years of usage of different rulesets having card driven turn sequence at their core, I’ve always been regarding them as ‘unpredictable’. After spending some time on proper mathematical analysis of that mechanism, I can’t help but regard it as definitely unbalanced. Drawing this conclusion doesn’t however have to automatically mean that it’s also unfair or unplayable. Or it doesn’t mean that until two final questions are answered.

The first question is this – has the game designer accounted for this phenomenon in his game design? If the answer is yes, then there isn’t much room for further discussion – any disadvantages that the player with lower number of cards will suffer have been accounted for (or at least should have been) and such player needs to be regarded as accepting the challenges that follow out of inherent imbalance. If the answer to the question is no, then the ruleset is in my personal opinion seriously flawed.

The second question is perhaps of much more importance; are the players aware of the imbalance embedded in the card driven game turn sequence and if so, do they accept it as part of the game? I dare to say that answer to that question isn’t as clear-cut as one would like to think. Based on observations of my rather limited wargaming community, I think that there is a peculiar unwillingness to look ‘under the hood’ of rulesets and an almost child-like belief that ‘if it’s published, it must be right’.

In the end, of course, it’s ‘to each his own’. Personally, I am freely admitting that I don’t like what I found ‘behind the curtain’. I have therefore done some significant changes to the TCHAE before our latest game. What those changes are and how they afflicted the outcome of that game will be the topic of the final part of this trilogy about card driven turn sequence game engine.

Call of the Kickstarter sirens

Normally I am very sceptical to Kickstarter ventures, but I must admit that every once and again there is an announcement of a new venture that manages to bypass even my jadedness. And it must be said, West Wind’s Productions offering to produce a whole shedload of 15/18mm armies for “ancients” if financial backing is provided beforehand is very hard resis; after all, “ancients” has always been my “first love” and those test minis look soooo sweet!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/832150598/war-and-empire-the-miniatures-game-of-ancient-warf

Tinkering with General de Brigade

Sorry guys, unfortunately this is not another after-action report, but a rather lengthy rant about the ruleset itself and why, in my humble opinion, it is not The Holy Grail of Napoleonic period rulesets.

The good…

In many respects, General de Brigade is an excellent ruleset, especially if you like a strong whiff of traditional approach to game mechanics. There really isn’t anything surprising or revolutionary in it, as the turn sequence clearly indicates – initiative roll decides who is the ‘phasing’ player (i.e. has precedence in certain phases of the turn), followed by compulsory movement (routes, pursuits and such), attempts to change brigade orders, charge declarations/moves, normal movement, firing, melee and finally morale checks where necessary. Once done, rewind and repeat until a conclusion is reached.

Traditional thinking expresses itself in other ways. Both firing and melees are accomplished with 2D6 dice rolls subsequently being adjusted by a bunch of modifiers. Final outcomes are looked up on tables providing the casualty numbers alternatively results of the melee. While there is nothing innovative in this approach, I do like it (well, to a degree, see below) mainly because it allows for an approximate estimation of casualty rates. This in turn allows the player to actually plan his assault and defence and allocate forces necessary for accomplishment of a specific task.

Charges are a bit fiddly, but on the other hand I am yet to encounter a ruleset that handles this aspect of the battle in a smooth way. On the positive side, anyone familiar with Napoleonic period will understand why charge procedure works the way it does in GdeB.

GdeB’s handling of skirmishers needs to get an honorary mention. Rules governing this troop class are very simple and yet, they manage to reflect perfectly role of skirmishers during that period. What’s perhaps even more important, those simple rules also manage to reflect differences in skirmish doctrine of different nationalities in a way that actually has real impact on the ‘battlefield’.

the bad…

In my opinion, most rulesets can be described as either ‘historical’ or ‘gamey’. I’m sure other wargamers have different definitions for those words. For me, a ‘historical’ ruleset can be recognized by its more or less uncompromised adherence to history, even if it influences the game experience in negative way. ‘Harpoon’ is a perfect example of such a ruleset. A ‘gamey’ ruleset focuses on the other hand foremost on the game experience. History component in such rulesets is used to provide the flavour, but isn’t much of a speed-bump when creator’s ‘artistic freedom’ needs to flex its muscles (dare I use ‘Flames of War’ as an example for that type of ruleset?).

General de Brigade is a strange mix of those two styles. In some respects (order system, command&control, restrictions of brigade system, charge mechanism) it is obvious that author tried very hard to transfer the reality of Napoleonic period battlefield onto the tabletop. But at the same time, other aspects of the ruleset are surprisingly ‘gamey’.

The most evident example of ‘gamey’ approach is without a doubt the ‘Dispersal Point’. In it's entirety, this game mechanism is a fair bit more complex, but it essentially means that units that have suffered 50%+ casualties are to be automatically removed from the battlefield. Let’s disregard the historical implications of that rule, although it is quite amusing to wonder over how Napoleon would react if one of his marshals told him ‘Sir, this or that battalion has now lost half its strength, so it will be leaving the battle line now, if you don’t mind.’. My main objection to this approach to unit breaking due to excessive casualties is directed against its deterministic character and how it influences the players during the ‘battle’. If I know that a unit will literally disappear when it reaches a predetermined ratio of casualties, I will play in a way that will achieve that goal. That’s where ‘gamey’ factor enters the picture in my opinion. Real commanders didn’t think in such way, simply because there is no nicely predetermined “breakage point” on a real battlefield.

Same gamey approach can also be found in rules for melee, where number of casualties is predetermined by number and unit type of participants. A player can therefore calculate in advance exactly how big his casualties will be in any melee. Considering the chaotic nature of melee, that is a very generous approach to this aspect of the game.

My problem with both of those mechanisms is, as already indicated, caused by the blanket of certainty they provide to the players. I will therefore try to ‘muddle the water’ a bit in coming games with couple of house rules. In regard of melee casualty rates, I’m toying with the idea of opposing die rolls that will modify those neatly predetermined numbers. For example, the ruleset says that in a basic infantry melee the winning side inflicts 1 casualty per 6 figures, while losers inflict 1 casualty per 12 figures. An opposed die roll with D4 could then be applied to casualty rates of both sides, thus providing a spread of -3 to 3 random modifier to the butcher’s bill. Elite troops could roll with D6 dice, giving them additional punch in shock combat.

Dealing with ‘dispersion point’ is a bit more difficult and I still haven’t come up with a house rule that I like. To be fair, it has to be said that individual battalions are quite resilient in GdeB and automatic removal of units with 50%+ casualties certainly does speed up the game. But as I mentioned before, the deterministic character of this rule really bothers me and I will have to do something about it.

and the ‘meeh’

If there is a single section of the ruleset that I really don’t like, then it’s the rules that govern the risk to general officers. Basically, they are toothless. Possibility of something bad happening to a commanding officer is triggered by a result of double sixes in any dice roll used for resolution of fire or melee. Thus, statistically, a chance for a bad thing happening is 1 in 36, a very low probability indeed. Another roll with two D6 is then required to determine nature of the event. What I don’t understand is why, considering the already low probability of ‘bad things’ happening to officers, about 30% of results on effect table has no effect whatsoever!

Another issue that I have with this mechanism is in its inability to deal with high risk decision of placing commanding officers in front of the troops. Leading from the front has always been regarded as noble and brave… and for a very good and rather obvious reason! Not so in ‘General de Brigade’ though. Letting brigade commanders to lead troops charging into a melee is in my opinion a no-brainer, simply because additional bonus in charge morale checks heavily outweighs possibility of them ‘buying the farm’ due to a random double six. Just to illustrate the inadequacy of this method, I’d like to remind the reader of a situation in my game where a French battalion suffered 10 out of 26 figures in casualties during a single melee. That’s  more than one soldier in three. Needless to say, the brigade commander who led them from the front didn’t even get a scratch during that engagement.

Final thoughts

Let me be clear on one point - don’t let my critique give you the impression that General de Brigade is a bad ruleset. My opinion is in fact quite opposite – it is apparent that a lot of thought was dedicated to it being able to realistically recreate a Napoleonic battle at battalion/brigade level. However, there are in my opinion certain aspects in this ruleset that are  ‘compromised’ for the sake of the gameplay. Some may live with it, others will feel the need to ‘correct’ this or that aspect of the game. After all, that’s the beauty and the curse of our hobby – no ruleset survives the first contact with a gamer.

C4 Open 2011

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.

DFFCon 2009 at Tøjhusmuseet will take place next weekend

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.

Lesson learned

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.