Dear Diary - a rolling 4 months of comment
Advanced Squad Leader SK
The playing of small incidents continues and I am noticing my speed picking up.
Here we see the 'Allied Minors' set up at one end of a town ready to meet attacking infantry supported by a self-propelled gun.
The SPG is useful against buildings, attacking as area fire on the '12' column of the Infantry Fire Table... however, a combination of poor shooting and good defender morale meant that the SPG did not deliver the goods this time!
Note the defender's anti-tank rifle is ready to have a crack at the SPG if it enters the town.
The stack at the bottom of the screen contains a medium machine gun, which jammed as it fired at approaching enemy!
The Marengo write-up
As mentioned, the recently released Decision Games’ ‘deluxification’ of the old SPI Napoleon at War has been on my table. I have played three games of the Marengo battle and put some notes up on the blog.
The three games have ended in French victories, so I am yet to crack this battle, but I am struggling to get the Austrians into a winning position so far.
I think I will have a go at Wagram next
Here is a link for anyone interested;
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/05/marengo-june-1800-napoleon-at-war.html
Latest issue of WSS
Issue 140 hits the UK high street today and rather a nice issue it is too, being themed on the Saratoga campaign 1777 (AWI).
There are three AWI scenarios included that relate to the subject, from the pen of Steve Jones.
Reviewed is the Rapid Fire supplement 'Barbarossa Border Battles', which is a nice booklet that I already own from the irresistible Rapid Fire Reloaded collection.
Richard Marsh gives us an additional East Front scenario in the magazine called Pelische 1941. All the scenarios are fairly vehicle heavy, but the author has worked from the perspective of getting these games onto a 6x4 table with his favoured 20mm. All the scenarios in this booklet have been built up around changing the scale of tank numbers from 1:5 to 1:10, but those who use Rapid Fire will know that in practice, none of that matters once the dice start rolling.
Richard Clarke (Too Fat Lardies) says 'Don't be a dick!'. He is referring to the very competitive players who ask questions of a designer that are set around a principle of gaining whatever game advantage they can from the rules and use the 'if the rules don't say I can't, then I can' argument for their cause. He is talking about players who will seek any perceived advantage that they can winkle out of the rules and of course for most of us, we might naturally take a wide berth of such players.
I am amused by the concept as quite frankly I never care whether I win or not, it is purely the game for me. Of course one plays to the order of the victory conditions for the win because you have to for the sake of the game / history, but after that .... really!
Chris Peat has an article about his wargame group (Spalding Wargames Club) being featured on the TV (BBC news) with an angle that membership of the club supports gamers mental health.
There is a bunch of other stuff (Hello Baron's War) and overall, this is another excellent cover to cover read.
Playing Marengo
I have spent the last couple of days looking at the Marengo (1800) battle from the Napoleon at War game quad.
It has an old school charm, while being updated with rather nice graphics.
The rules are very similar to the Blue & Gray quad (ACW) and essentially your turn is just one of moving and then fighting without any other sub-phases going on such as command or supply etc.
There is a bit of scripting driving a couple of areas in the scenario to help impart a little of the historical flow of the battle.
I have been working on a blog post that looks at an AAR of the battle and offers some observations on the system and game, so hopefully that should be ready in a day or two with a few pictures. I will put a link here in due course.
Throwing hours at wargaming ... hoorah!
Having taken on vehicles with ASLSK .... I have just passed the tipping point of rule frustration with armour and wanting throwing the thing on the fire :-)
Happily, I think I am now through to the other side and fairly familiar with the processes. It really just needs more play to bring it all increasingly into the arena of being second nature.
I have been really appreciative of a couple of YouTube channels that go through the learning curve with some care - selfless support by the creators, Thank You.
The starter kit series now has its own sort of annual book called Basic Training and I saw an amusing comment from someone on the irony of a starter kit based around easier rules, itself needing a training manual :-)
The Starter Kit rulebook in kit #1 (Infantry) is pretty easy to absorb, especially for anyone previously exposed to the system. Kit #2 (guns) is okay as it adds a 'to hit' process and the nature of HE fire on infantry.
However it is Kit #3 (armour) that has the steepest learning curve, with armour not really sharing much of the infantry mechanics that you have already learned and having all that Motion, Stopped, Bounding Fire, To Kill stuff, set amongst some fairly tight, concise text blocks that can overwhelm the senses.
However, the total starter kit rulebook at this stage has grown from 12 to 32 pages and you just have to say to yourself 'how hard can it be to crack 32 pages'! Plus along the way, the play throws up a ton of nuance and that nuance to the tactical gamer brings its own joy and helps the perseverance.
I just think you have to go with the rules as you understand them at the time, then at the end of a session, go back to the rules and reinforce those areas causing doubt. I know I have played some base concepts wrongly before starting to straighten it out - but really, it doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things.
For the armour learning, I have been setting up a couple of tanks per side and slogging it out - not tactically challenging, but, repeat, repeat, repeat, does start to embed process and procedure.
There are still blanks, but I have reached the point of 'knowing what I don't know' as opposed to 'not knowing what I don't know' and so concentrating my efforts on brushing up on those areas is helping.
This afternoon, the penny was dropping even furthet. I stopped slogging away head on and split two vehicles to go around either side of a building. Their prey was a Sherman 76L on the other side of the building. By approaching from two aspects, the Sherman was compromised, pulled out of position, its turret swinging to engage the enemy, but missing when it fired, while the enemy, calmly, with one shooting into the rear of the Sherman's turned turret (yes it covers that sort of thing) took the Sherman out!
And so I think I get my well earned tankers first medal :-)
In 1985 when full ASL first came out, with its super thick rulebook, I was managing all of this with the Beyond Valour module (East Front) with apparent ease - my grey cells are finding it all a bit harder this time around :-)
But I am getting there and everything has been spared the threat of fire :-)
In the background, I have just cut and clipped the counters to the Napoleon at War game for the Marengo battle and will be browsing the rules tonight. I do hope this one meets expectations, it looks lovely. More soon.
Silence that gun!
The daily interaction with advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit rules continues.
Today I set up a small scene to further embed the 'To Hit' rules for guns in my memory.
We are on the east front. A German 75mm anti-tank gun is positioned in a building with the gun sights going down a tree-lined road. Two Soviet Assault Guns have already been knocked out, so the Soviets send a well-led platoon of submachine gun troops who have been ordered to work their way up the street and remove the gun threat.
The Germans have a lone fallschirmjäger squad protecting the gun.
The Germans rolled badly at every occasion ..... and didn't last long!
Next I will go over some vehicular rules and then the next action that I will put on the table will be like today's game, but with the clock turned back 30 minutes and a pair of S.U. 85's advance up the road, without infantry support ... unaware of the hidden anti-tank gun!
The sensible thing after that will be to combine both scenarios, but giving the Germans a couple more squads. This would be very similar to how the old basic Squad Leader (pre ASL) merged infantry learning with vehicular learning across three scenarios. The system was known as programmed learning.
Rolling back the years
My latest couple of boardgaming purchases made me notice that my game collection is moving towards what we might think of as legacy designs from the 70's. Certainly there is a lot of 70's influence in there.
It's not so much that everything in the lates 70's was good .... it wasn't, but rather there is such breadth to that back catalogue, that we can go back and pull some gems from it.
I thought it was enough of a 'thing' to do a post over at the Battlefields & Warrior Blog on the sort of game that have been morphing my collection.
If nothing else, it gives a 'to do' list of things that I really must get to the table this year.
Link
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/05/rolling-back-years.html
Practice, practice, practice!
With the soon-to-be reprinted Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kits on the horizon by MMP, I thought I would start to brush up on my ASLSK rulebook knowledge with bits that I already have.
There is quite a learning curve to the series, but I am familiar with it from previous playing, so I have decided that every day for a month, I will do something with the series, whether that be reading through the rules or knocking a few counters around in different situations—whatever! Just to re-immerse myself in the system and by the time the re-prints come out, I will be up and running and they will make it to the table instead of staying on the shelf!
Today I have moved to a very small imagined action in Sicily 1943. Italian forces (grey counters) are putting in an underpowered counter-attack against a platoon of dispersed British glider troops (proxied here by my Allied minors) who are holding buildings at the edge of a village.
In the overall mix are low-quality and high-quality troops, support weapons (MMG, LMG, and light mortar) plus a terrain mix that makes the Italian approach against buildings pretty risky.
Even such a small action touches on plenty of rule areas, and the more interactions I can get, the more second nature things will become.
I felt that by the end of this firefight, I had reconquered the rules on the various defensive fires, but got hung up on smoke and the variations of what happens when Rate of Fire is retained…. So tomorrow will be a rulebook day :-)
Battle for the Centre
A few posts back, I set out a framework for setting up a three table battle for a corps level action. The first of the three games has now been played.
The scenario engine requires that the battle in the centre is fought first as it may influence what happens in the flanking actions.
There is a write up over on the Battlefields & Warriors Blog, including a plan of the entire three table battlefield.
LINK
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/04/battle-for-centre-post-ii.html
Another simple, playable game into the collection.
Napoleon at War Quad (Deluxe) by Decision Games, hits UK shores (Second Chance Games).
I have to confess that this is a nostalgia purchase. The quad covers the 4 battles of Marengo, Jena / Auerstadt, Wagram and Leipzig and it appears to be a straight lift from the original SPI system, with errata sorted out.
Hex scale is 437 - 875 yards, playing time 1 - 2 hours, high solitaire and minimal complexity.
As an out of the box experience the game is beautiful and does warrant the deluxe title. Of note is the rulebook (32 pages of which pages 3 - 8 are actual rules). It is NOT on glossy paper, which hugely adds to its appeal, it is sort of old school charm but with a modern presentation. I know modern 'Euro' type rules can look very nicely done, but somehow these feel different ..... more wargamey if that makes any sense.
There is just one page of optional rules, which are very straightforward and rather obvious candidates for me at least to want to include them in play.
The counters are very simple, but attractive and the mounted maps are very attractive, again they have gone for old school simplicity and 'clean' graphics, but with a lovely warmth of colour running through each map. From an out of the box experience, I could not be more delighted.
As for play, I am under no illusion that this is a simple game that scores on ease of play, short playing time and the rules staying in the box and there is a place in both my solo and face-to-face gaming for that.
We are absent of things like Command & Control and keeping formations together. The Sequence of play is simply Combat following Movement. Zones of Control are sticky, so units cannot voluntarily leave an enemy ZOC. Combat is mandatory. Winners of a combat can advance, that includes defenders and there is no stacking. Artillery can bombard from a distance.
The basic engine is so rock solid that if inclined you could easily bring in some house rules.
Having recently bought their Deluxe Blue & Gray and enjoying the play, then I am expecting much the same from this game, some good old school fun wrapped up in a quality presentation. There is a simple joy to just owning it.
Austrian Jäger
New additions, 28mm Austrian Jägers. This is a group of 9 figures, based in 3's. This basing was a last minute decision, as I was going to base in pairs.
The three table campaign that I am presently running has jägers in one of the flank actions, so their arrival to the collection is timely.
I started them on 5th April and have just plodded with them. Before the winter, I had decided that now that both the Wars of the Roses and Napoleonic 1809 collections were large enough to field a game, that I would just add to them at a slower pace.
That plan got a bit derailed with the Winter Painting Challenge, where I had to up my game to meet the painting goals that I had set. It was very useful as it moved the collection on to a better place, but I really don't want to be painting as a forced activity anymore - so getting back to 'plodding' will be re-instated immediately :-)
There are a couple more photographs over on the blog that show the front and backs of all nine figures.
Link
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/04/28mm-austrian-jager.html
The first 10mm roll off the painting desk
A couple of posts back, I mentioned some 10mm from Pendraken arriving and the intention to knock up a small test force to see how basing might work and whether I could pick up painting speed.
I have based and painted the infantry (but already might want to re-base!) and have based up the cavalry, artillery and commander, which I like.
I have put some photos and commentary up on the Battlefields & Warrior Blog if interested.
LINK
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/04/gathering-10mm-forces-how-to-base.html
Fighting the first battle
The first battle from the 'three table battle' was played out yesterday. This is the fight for the centre. I am in the process of doing a write-up for that, so will not add too much here.
What was apparent was that considering the scenario was artificially built by the battle creator, it gave a very good game, with some interesting moments arising.
The photo here shows the Austrian 1st Brigade moving down to assault the fields.
Big 3 table battle - not!
I have been working on a corps sized battle, played over 3 tables or rather the same table three times!
The idea is to create a thrown down set of games that are tied in to each other, but with the scenario generator adding a bit of structure while also mixing things up a bit.
Each corps has 3 divisional sized formations and each of those is allocated to one of the three tables. The tables offer the centre and the two flanks / wings of the engagement.
I am setting this in 1809, between French and Austrian forces.
There is a write up with more detail (scenario generator and diagrams) over on the Battlefields & Warrior Blog.
Link
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-three-table-battle-not-part-i.html
