2012 Plan Update

Back at the beginning of January I posted an outline of my plans for this year.  As we are now into June I thought I would have a look at what, if any, progress I have made against my new year intentions!  Taking things in the order I originally outlined them:

28mm Mahdist War - as you may have seen from my various posts I have completed the first phase (the Suakin Campaign) of this project with the small exception of some rough stone walls - something I hope to start during the long weekend.  I decided to put the next phase (Khartoum) on hold for the moment (although it is still on the possible list for some purchases at SELWG - some bazingers, baggara horse and a few more Nile arabs). Of course one of the big elements I need to work out is how to do the walls and other defences - although an attack from the river is something I can probably do with the terrain I already have...

28mm Indian Mutiny - again I have been slowly progressing this one as can be seen from the various posts; however, I was going to put this on hold for a little while - at least until I went to Salute and picked up some Naval Brigade and more irregular figures.  These are currently sat on my workbench waiting for me to organise them into a pack to send to be painted.  I suspect I will add a few more figures before they go so it may be a little while before they are actually finished.  Plus I am keeping my eye on the Mutineer Miniatures site as there are some upcoming packs which would help me do some particular scenarios I have in mind.

28mm WW3 - with the sole exception of making and painting my BTR this project has come along nicely and the BAOR and Soviets are exactly where I had planned.  Lenin and I have agreed to stop calling this period "Moderns" as it really isn't any more and now refer to it as "Cold War".  I am currently going through the relevant Force on Force supplement for scenario ideas (as some of them as way out of my reach and budget!)

28mm Early War Polish - I have picked up a couple more packs to make up a platoon of these chaps but I would quite like to give them some armour support, well armour-lite anyway, in the shape of a TK tankette - unfortunately Warlord hadn't brought any to Salute so I couldn't get one there.  I am currently working out where in the painting schedule these guys will best fit.

15mm Marlburian - the first batches of Allied and French forces are currently being painted and I picked up the next batches at Salute so these need tidying up and organising (plus a little more research to choose units etc).  I am currently in the throws of trying to choose which rules I will use for them.  The candidates are Beneath the Lily Banners, Ga Pa, Maurice and Lace Wars at the moment.  Having now read them all I can see each has their own advantages and disadvantages and it may be that I actually end up using more than one set to suit the type of game I want.  In any event I need to decide how I am going to base up the figures and am currently thinking that the BLB approach looks best and can be made to work with all four sets.

28mm Montrose - I am currently in the process of rebasing these figures after their long hibernation!  I am basing them individually and going to use movement trays - the same Warbases ones I use for my Tudor Ireland figures - as this gives flexibility and is much easier for storage, particularly for the pikemen.  I hope to have the first batch finished shortly.  Initially I think I will be using the For God, King and Country rules but Bloody Kingdom from AB One is also a possibility.

25mm French Revolution - OK, so for my first "no progress" report.  I'm afraid this project hasn't moved on at all from January.  The main excuse is that I haven't decided on what I'm going to use for the street terrain - I have some suitable houses but I really don't have any tiles or cloths which look right and I haven't spotted a sensibly priced option yet.

28mm RCW/WW1 Eastern Front - once again "no progress" I'm afraid plus there's not really any excuse for this one - other than I have been working on other things!

So that's an update on the projects I listed in January.  In addition to those I have done a little work on some others.  I based up some more of my 15mm Peter Pig WW2 figures and painted some armour to use with the latest version of I Ain't Been Shot Mum (mainly for a game in February).  I have also finished some 28mm British Paras which I am currently working out a scenario for so I can get them to the table.  But other than that things have been pretty quiet - not least due to the seemingly endless re-decorating required in the "new" house (not made any easier by a recurring leak!)

My list of possible new projects has, of course, grown in addition to the three I mentioned in January I have been distracted by a couple more:

• 28mm Modern Afghanistan
• 28mm Maori Wars
• 28mm Carlist Wars
• 28mm Medieval (Otterburn or Agincourt - not decided as yet!)
• 6mm WW2

So that lot should keep me busy!

First Look: Platoon Forward

I took advantage of the recent sale at the TooFatLardies to fill a couple of the small remaining holes in my collection of their products.  My most recent acquisition was Platoon Forward which is described as "A dynamic campaign system for tactical level games".  So what do you get?

Platoon Forward comes as a 56 page PDF which is designed to work with a variety of sets of rules, not just those produced by the Lardies.  It is geared around WW2 platoon level games (but could be adapted to other periods) and is broken into three major sections - Your Platoon (generating characters), Forward into Battles (generating scenarios) and Events (self explanatory?).

In Your Platoon you will find a series of five tables and accompanying explanations and examples which help you randomly establish the characteristics of the leaders of your platoon:

• Personality
• Motivation and Interest
• Combat Temperament
• Combat Leadership
• Background

These can be used to provide a bit of depth to your leaders, to allocate skills or attributes (if these are supported by the rules) and to help you determine how they would react in particular scenarios when you are playing solo.

Forward into Battle takes you through a series of steps to randomly create a scenario, firstly determining whether you are attacking or defending and then providing 11 types of scenario for each with an accompanying scenario card which gives an outline briefing, the table arrangements, forces and victory conditions.  There is a section which helps you determine the terrain and how to determine your forces (particularly the enemy ones - which is the usual Lardies style will be represented by blinds) and there a several examples too.  This provides an excellent framework to put together solo games or creating a pick up and play game.

Events covers pre-game, in-game, post-game and random events along with tables to help determine character reactions.

The book is intended to be a tool kit from which you can choose as few or as many tools as you wish for your particular need and, as such, is an extremely useful resource, particularly for solo gaming.  It will be of more or less use depending on which rules you use and whether they already cover some of these areas but overall I think it's going to be a useful addition to my wargaming rule shelf.

Broadside 2012

I was just reading Ray Rousell's Don't Throw a One blog and spotted that the Milton Hundred Wargames Club have had some problems with magazine adverts for their Broadside show which is coming up soon in Sittingbourne.

Having gone along to the show last year, I was planning to go again and support them as its nice to have a new addition to the show calendar - especially one which is a bit more accessible than some of the bigger shows.

So, if Sittingbourne isn't too far, why not come along on Sunday, 10th June to the Swallows Leisure Centre, Central Avenue, Sittingbourne, Kent, ME10 4NT?  You can always indulge in a little blogger-spotting as there will be a few of us there!

First Look: Bush Wars

Bush Wars is the sixth supplement for Force on Force and, as you might have guessed from the title, covers conflicts in Africa between 1960 and 2010.  The book runs to 144 pages plus 6 pages of Fog of War cards (9 per page).

After a brief introduction the book has five sections covering various periods of conflict in Africa each with its own overview and set of scenarios.  This is then followed by a large range of sample unit organisations, vehicle information and a brief miniatures guide.  It's finished off with a glossary and acronym guide (essential for Africa), bibliography, artwork references and the Fog of War cards.  The book is in the standard style we have come to expect from Osprey Force on Force, full colour with various illustrations and photos of miniatures.

The conflicts covered are:

• The Congo Crisis, 1960-66
• The Portuguese Colonial Wars
• The Rhodesian Bush War, 1964-1979
• The South African Border War, 1966-89
• Recent conflicts focussing in particular on Operation Barras in Sierra Leone

The organisation section provides units for each of the conflicts.

Overall this looks like an excellent addition to the Force on Force library and I am really looking forward to reading through it properly.

It's currently available from Amazon at a decent discount from the £14.99 RRP:

WW2: British Paras

Here are a few quick shots of the figures I finished basing this morning, some 28mm Wargames Foundry WW2 British Paratroopers:

The photos were taken quite quickly and having looked at them I see I need to think about lighting as the flash seems to reflect a bit off the tufts.

KR Multicase: 50 Figure Tray

When KR Multicase originally sold their cases (back when they were KaiserRushforth) they had 36 compartment tray (F3T) which was 32mm deep and so suitable for 28mm figures on 1 inch bases.  Then they issued a tray with 40 compartments (N3T) of the same depth and recently they have a 50 compartment tray (M3T).  I did a comparison of the 36 vs 40 compartment trays when I first got one of the latter (see here) and now I have a box of the 50 slot trays I thought I post some comparison photos against the 40 slot tray.

Obviously the main difference between the three trays is the slot size:

• 36 slot: 52mm x 32mm
• 40 slot: 50mm x 25mm
• 50 slot: 40mm x 25mm

I wasn't really happy with the 36 slot trays because the slots were too big for all but the largest of figures and as I don't have many of those I wanted one which was a little more of a snug fit and also more space efficient.  I have been happy with the 40 slot trays but even these are often taller than I need even for figures with bayonets.  So with space still a concern I was rather interested when they released the 50 slot.

Here are the 40 slot and 50 slot trays with some 28mm figures from the Perry Sudan range:

If you are counting you will have noticed that I have managed to get additional command figures in the new tray which were stored in a separate tray (a huge relief for my OCD!).

Here are some close up shots of a single row of 5 slots from each:

As you can see even the shorter slots in the new trays give these figures plenty of room - of course the others with bayonets are a tighter fit but only the figures running at high porte have the blades actually sticking into the foam.  Incidentally the figures in the pictures are on 20mm bases.

Clearly figures with spears and the like are often going to need the larger slots of the 40 compartment tray but for everything else the extra 10 slots per tray are a huge improvement.

First Look: Maurice

Since four possible choices for rules for my Marlburian project clearly weren't enough, I decided to pick up a copy of Maurice too.

The main rulebook is softback and 112 pages long.  It is split into two main sections, the Basic Game and the Advanced Game.   The first section covers the introduction, game set up, an overview of play, movement, volley & bombardment (firing), combat and some housekeeping.  The second section covers Epic (campaign) Points, Notables (personalities), optional advanced rules, historical scenarios, the Succession Wars campaign system and the Quick Reference Sheets.  The book is US letter size, generally in two columns and full colour.  The rules are clearly explained with examples, diagrams and interspersed with pictures of figures etc.

The rules are intended to cover a century of warare - 1690 to 1790.  This is quite a range and there were a significant changes in tactics over that time.  In addition, the unit and ground scales are flexible.  So these are clearly intended to lean more towards the game end rather than the simulation end of the spectrum.

Units are artillery, regular or irregular infantry and cavalry.  They are intended to be represented by four bases although other than for formation representation I am not sure this is critical as there is no figure or base removal.  Distances are all stated in "Base Widths" and so can be used irrespective of the actual basing of the figures.

The system relies heavily on cards, is IGO-UGO but with the chance to interrupt actions if you have the appropriate card.  The cards themselves are available separately (in a rather nice box), you can download the ones for the Basic Game from the website (but not for the Advanced Game).  A card based system for random terrain generation is included based around a fairly standard table set up and there is a points based system to create pick up and play games.

Each player has an initial hand of cards, which is usually larger for the player designated as the attacker.  These Action Cards are either Interrupt Cards (which can be played in the opponent's turn), Event Cards (which may be played to cause the card text to come into effect) or Modifier Cards (which can be used to improve the various Actions).  All the cards have a Span number on them as well and can be played for this rather than their other role (more of than later).

A game is played in alternating rounds with the attacker going first.  The active player can decide whether there will be a volley phase in the round (where infantry will fire) although the passive player can reverse this decision if they have the appropriate card.  The active player then has a choice to Pass, play an Event or play an Action.  Passing allows you to draw three cards into your hand (up to a normal maximum total hand size of 10) but do nothing else.  Playing an Event allows you to play an Event Card and have the text occur but does not allow you to draw any cards.  Playing an Action allows you to activate a group of units to march, charge, rally or, if they are artillery, bombard.  The more aggressive the action the less cards you get the draw into your hand.

The groups of units you can activate are quite limited, they must be of the same type, in the same formation and in the terrain that has the same impact on movement.  In order to activate a group you need to play cards the sum of whose Span numbers is equivalent to or greater than the distance between the C in C and the nearest unit of the group.  In addition you can play Modifier Cards which are relevant to the action they are performing.

Movement is dependent on unit type, formation and terrain and formation changes are neatly handled with both having the appropriate limitations for the period.  Oblique movement is available as an advanced rule to be included for games later in the periods covered.

Firing consists of a roll to hit which must then be converted to a Disruption.  Units can usually take 4 Disruptions before they evaporate.  The rally action can be used to remove Disruptions.  Melee is an opposed dice roll added to a modified combat value for the unit quality (Elite, Trained, Conscript etc.).

A game will run until the card deck has been run through a couple of times (a reshuffle card is added after the first time through, which allows the discard deck to be shuffled back into the draw pile and then removed after it appears) or when an Army's morale breaks.  If the card deck is exhausted then night is deemed to have fallen and control of a pre-determined objective determines victory.

The advanced rules provide for Epic Points which are useable in a campaign context; Notables who are attached to individual units and can provide them with benefits or, indeed handicaps (this is the age of nepotism!); reinforcements, engineering, pikes, additional artillery rules and an outline of how to play with two players per side (using two card decks, I note).

Guidance for scenario designers is also included along with three historical scenarios - the Battles of Fontenoy in 1745, Kolin in 1757 and Brandywine in 1777.  The Succession Wars section then provides a simply framework for playing campaigns and there are a few FAQs and the five page QRS to finish off (although it should be noted that the QRS is bound in and there isn't a separate one provided - a pdf is available to download though).

Overall, I am impressed by the presentation (although it ought to be good considering the price!), the card based approach looks very interesting but I am slightly worried that it may end up being a little too abstract - only actually playing will tell that though.  It will certainly be interesting to compare these to the other rules I have for the period.

The Mutiny: Light Company Sepoys

A few last additions to my Mutiny collection - this time some sepoy from the light company.  Once again the figures are from Mutineer Miniatures: