The courier has just delivered this to my door!

This is Volume 9 in the series Great Battles of the American Civil War boardgame by GMT, a series that can be traced back to the late 70's, but it is fair to say has become a complicated system..... or deep and immersive, depending upon your take.

Either way, By Swords & Bayonets sets out to be the module that is friendly to the newcomer as a 'manageable introduction to the core mechanics and rule systems of the series'.

It appears to attempt this in three ways. 1. Smaller Actions on half-sized maps 2. Needing less of the system i.e. no cavalry 3. It includes a new 31-page full colour illustrated body of examples of play - excellent!

Likewise, the rulebook comes in at 41 pages and the scenario book has 30 pages and the latter brings additional specific rules to each scenario, so this is all quite meaty.

For me, I have two things in mind. Firstly I am looking for a really immersive system for the period, one that has some of the aspects that you would find in a figures game such as orders, refused flanks and extended order etc. 

Secondly, the next game in the series is a reprint of the rather large 3 Days at Gettysburg. This has plenty of smaller scenarios, including the opening hours of the Gettysburg battle, which is of particular interest to me and I would like to play that with a more involved system that works hard to get the history right.

I have read somewhere that a 'Simples' style rulebook is being designed for the series and will be released the same time as Gettysburg. I hope so, because I enjoy the 'Simples' type rulebook that I have for the Great Battles of the Ancient World Series. It just gives an alternative so that I can choose the level of complexity that I wantto engage with.

Anyway, the four battles that come with By Swords & Bayonets are;

Big Bethel, Mill Springs, New Bern and 2nd Rappahannock Station.

The game scale is 140 yards per hex, 20 foot height gradations, 1 turn represents an hour and 50 men or 1 cannon i.e. represented by 1 strength point. The counters are regiments.

I will need to give this some dedicated time. The individual rules seem straightforward, it is their volume and the number of exceptions or special cases that brings the complexity.

(Hi Mark) I decided to set up a small situation with the Warlord Games Epic Hannibal figures to give the Ancient Rule Box set by irregular Miniatures a run out. I did play making a lot of detailed notes to show the various interactions of the phases, but it ran in so many directions and was getting complicated to write that I decided a brief overview would be better ….. Phew you say!

The above is not to say there is complication here, there isn’t, but there is nuance aplenty.

For the trial we have 2 x Celt Warband on a hill, with Republican Romans below. There are two units of Hastati in front and two of Principes behind, in the chequered formation that we are familiar with for the period. The rules allow rear support from a unit directly behind, but I thought here, it would best represent the manipular system to allow the diagonal second row to count as support to the first row and also to allow them to step forward in the movement phase, to fill those gaps and create a long phalanx type line, again in keeping with the maniple system. 

I should really also have put some Triarii in the rear to complete the scene, but hey ho, I never thought they might be called upon!

We will count all of these units as ‘battle troops’. They will all be Class ‘C’, so they each run everything off a D8. The Romans will count as Regular and the Celts Irregular. The Romans have a strength of 6 per unit, the Warbands 7 (arbitrary numbers that I gave them).

All units are given ‘at start’ orders. The Celts are ordered to ‘hold the hill’. The Romans are ordered to ‘destroy the Celts’!

The hill will count as rough ground. This not only slows troops, but troops moving over rough ground temporarily lose 1 strength point (or strip depending how you are representing forces and casualties) - they will regain that point in a later movement phase if they don’t move, so it is a sort of cohesion thing.

The units might have to take Panic Tests. To do that they roll their Class dice, in this case D8 for everyone and try to score more than their number of losses to date. If they do they pass, if not they fail - nice and easy.

For combats, a unit generally creates a number of hits. An automatic hit is landed if the number of hits reaches the units class value (all 8 in our scenario). Any remainders or the number of hits if the Auto hit level is not reached is tested against a class dice, so D8 here. The defender has to roll higher than the remainder to prevent the hit getting through.

So 6 hits against any of our units would not give an auto hit, because the units are dealing with 8’s, so that 6 would just be treated like a remainder. Roll higher than 6 with a D8 to prevent the hit being made against your unit.

With all that said; 

Our Romans advance to the foot of the hill. Next turn they moved up the hill. Because it is rough ground the movement penalty means the Romans cannot make contact, so no charge this turn. The Hastati though do suffer 1 hit each (temporary) for moving over the rough ground.

The Romans are now close enough for the Warbands to throw some missiles, which they do and the left hand Hastati takes an extra hit.

In the next turn the Romans want to charge to contact, this is automatic unless the enemy is stronger than you are, then you must take a Panic Test - our Romans need to take the test, they are confident, but roll abysmally and fail ….. Oh Dear!

I decide that this is just too much temptation for the Warbands and they will hurl themselves down hill at the Roman Hastati in a charge.

(Note, if the Romans had been able to charge, they would freeze the charge 10mm in front of the enemy and discharge their pilum in pre-contact missile fire once done the charge would make contact).

The Warbands are stronger than the Hastati, so automatically can charge. They make contact and have a few advantages for modifiers, one is charging downhill and another good one being ‘Irregulars charging who have the Initiative’, though this is only applicable in the 1st round (hand to hand combat can go to three rounds over 3 turns).

Inflicting damage is simultaneous, in each fight, both sides attack and the side taking most hits must take a Panic Test. Both Roman units come off worse and they fail their respective Panic Tests, so they rout. They run 120mm.

The Celts test to see whether they can or must pursue. They roll well and get a choice, but pursuit makes sense because in the pursuit, they will contact the second Roman line - the Principes and that will count as a new charge.

This is done and a new round ‘1’ of hand-to-hand is fought as this is a new combat …… and the Romans stand their ground. In the second round of combat, the Celts loose some 1st round benefit of the charge, while the Romans gain for being regulars.

In this round, the left hand Celt unit is routed. It flees back up onto the hill and then manages to rally, but it has 50% losses.

This allows the freed up Roman unit to support its fellow unit against the remaining Celt unit. It freezes movement at 10mm and discharges the pilum (1 hit) and then charges home.

The second Celt unit also routs and flees up the hill with heavy loss.

The original two Hastati units were unable to rally and they have already fled the field. The two Principes units are holding losses and they are just glad not to have been swept away by the Warband, they have no intention of going back up that hill!

And so it all ends. I thought as a story, than went quite well. The Roman attack uphill faltered, the warbands charge but run out of steam and fall back. If one can imagine similar stuff going on along the whole battle line, then I think these rules would quite nicely manage a whole battle.

It took 7 turns to play through this situation. So I think for my next venture, I will do the battle of Trebia, again with my unpainted Epic figures as that will include several unit types including skirmish, phalanx and elephants and then there is that river crossing of course with its freezing waters - some special rules needed there perhaps.

Anyway a good initial impression for this old school set. I have already had a fivers worth :-)   More to come. 

Things are ticking along. I am playing through some Waterloo battles in a boardgame in preparation of doing an anniversary post. The bad back continues to plague, so I am only managing one or two turns a day, but I am sure I will get there in time for the big day.

I have a physio appointment today and a doctors appointment tomorrow, so getting to the bottom of what is behind the rapid decline may not be too far away.

Yesterday, I put out a Warband and a Roman Cohort and just ran through the mechanics of the Ancients ‘rules on cards’ set that I received the other day and everything seemed to go fine …. but not second nature yet.

The one question that I spotted when first reading the rules relates to close combat. After three rounds of combat, if one side has not broken contact, it is assumed that the attack has fizzled out and the unit with the lowest morale class retreats from contact.

That makes sense, but doesn’t address the question of what do you do when both sides are the same morale class. I decided that in that case, the side with the most losses will break contact, which makes absolute sense. But that chucks the same question into the long grass, because what do you do if both sides also suffer the same number of losses!

I think without a designer comment (unlikely after 36 years), this is where we would all make up a rule that sits with our individual consideration of the matter. For now, if that situation crops up, I will just have both sides take a ‘Panic Test’ to resolve the argument. I won’t implement the penalties of failing the test, but rather just use the outcome to see if a side retreats. The attacker will test first. If they retreat, then obviously the other side will not test.

As time allows, I will run an exercise with a line of Epic Carthaginian Troops Vs Roman and the same exercise with my 28mm Wars of the Roses. This will not only demonstrate the system in action, but see how the rules cope with two much different game scales and two periods of warfare at opposite ends of the ‘ancients’ spectrum.

I will post that here.

Re the previous post, the Ancients boxed set of rules from Irregular Miniatures (designed by Ian Kay) have just arrived, thank you Postie. I take in a deep breath of nostalgic anticipation as I open the box.

Amidst my high excitement, there is a small immediate disappointment …. The box has been sent by putting a postage label on the actual box and taping it down, which now detracts a little from the pleasure of the box. I would have preferred the whole thing to be put in Jiffy bag and if I order the other sets I will ask for that.

Anyway, everything else is just a simple joy and mostly as I remember it. 

There is an information sheet of A4 paper in the box that is printed to both sides. Interestingly, at the footnote there is a copyright date of 1989, which surprised me, I thought they were earlier. But that is still 36 years ago, so this is an old original set, rather than a newish reprint, so the box is a little tired (it was posh in its day with a sort of leatherette finish) and the type face and the hand drawn formation diagrams speak with an 80’s voice …. I like that, but date wise, it is interesting to see that the rules sit on the cusp of old school and modern in terms of ideas.

This is really exemplified by the two systems (you choose which one) for recording casualties. System 1 - the unit is built from a number of 6mm strips and you remove a strip to show casualties or cohesion loss. This harks back to old school single figure removal from units. System 2 - you make up a base for the unit and on a roster, assign strength. Reductions to strength are made on the roster, which is close to how we would do things today, though perhaps with dice or markers to show losses.

A couple of other things that might have felt modern in the day, measurements are in centimetres rather than inches and morale classes have different die roll strengths, so for example Class C (average warrior) use a D8, raw troops a D6 etc - that still feels a fairly modern mechanic to me.

The box is roughly 100mm x 140mm and 20mm deep. The cards inside are a snug fit and carry the entire system. They are colour coded to match the sequence of play. They have the charts, process and modifiers etc on the front face and associated notes and examples on the back. I seem to remember playing without any problems, so it will be interesting to see if a modern eye that is used to finding errata in games will now find questions … an interesting subject in its own right.

Anyway, back to the sheet of paper. It broadly sets out what the game is about, describes the nature of unit types by their function (i.e. skirmishers), draws a distinction between regulars and irregulars and sets out four morale classes from raw to elite.

They include a points system for non-historical battles and set a scale of 1mm = 1 yard for 6mm figures and 1mm = 2 yards for their 2mm figure range (yes I know, a mix of metric and imperial), but emphasise that other figures scales can be used with relevant changes to ground and weapon range scale. They suggest that the notes on the leaflet need only be read a couple of times and then not reference again for play - everything else is done with the cards.

The colour coded cards follow the sequence of play, so;

RED - Summary of the turn sequence, Initiative and formation examples

(Rear - scouting and dispositions, orders (orders can be changed if a general joins a unit).

BLUE - Rout, Pursuit, Charge and Evade

(Rear - examples)

PASTEL YELLOW - Movement (veering, rough terrain, obstacles and limitations)

(Rear - notes and examples)

GREEN - Missile Fire with modifiers and ranges

(Rear - examples)

PINK - Hand to hand fighting, there are 3 rounds (1 round per turn) to try and get a winner, after 3 rounds, if a winner not established (doubtful I think) the fight has fizzled out and the side with weaker morale side breaks contact.

(Rear - defines rear support and examples)

ORANGE - a diagram of random directions (D12) for Random elephant / scythed chariot movement and stone thrower ranging.

(Rear - the diagram explained)

BRIGHT YELLOW - some mechanic notes like how strips can be automatically lost if moving through rough terrain and the PANIC TEST procedure

(Rear - examples)

All told, there is a fair amount of rules ground covered here and I do remember getting a good game, so I am hopeful that that remains the case. What is really helpful is that when you are in a particular phase, that is the card you have in your hand and all of the information is there - you are not rummaging back and forth in a rulebook looking for related items as questions crop up. I guess it is either on the card or you are stuck and guess what ….. we can try and work it out for ourselves rather than the modern way of going straight onto the internet and asking the community / designer for an answer that 90% of the time is ‘there’ (or toss a coin as the paper leaflet helpfully suggests).

Note the author (Ian Kay of Irregular Miniatures) kindly included his phone number and said anyone if really stuck could call him during office hours … the pre-internet solution :-).

One thing that I didn’t remember was that units are given initial orders - only to be changed by the general attaching themselves. At first I though ‘orders’ - oh that’s a bind, but then as I think about that, I quite like it, it will ensure without a ton of rules overhead that the armies of the period are difficult to freely manoeuvre once battle gets going …. None of the fancy foot work that might be more in keeping with a WWII panzer formation!

Well, that is that, this was only meant to be two paragraphs long! I am really pleased with another chance to have these in my hands. I love these sort of rules that everyone back in the day seemed to do. What next?

I am pleased enough to take these for a spin with my (unpainted) Epic Hannibal set and putting them under the strain of play, which is the only way of benchmarking my rose tinted memories with the reality of the ‘then and now’ of rules. The next time that I post on the subject will be post game … so we shall see. 

Irregular Miniatures have been present in my hobby world since day one and I admire them for the years that they widely supported the show circuit and made figure collecting accessible to the masses, thank you Ian and team. 

A few posts ago, I mentioned a need to find some fast play rules to reduce my time standing at the table and so help with constant back ache.

(Right - the front cover to my home brew WWII tactical rules)

This got me thinking to yesteryear. I recall that decades ago, Irregular Miniatures produced some small boxed sets of fast play rules for several periods for their 2mm and 6mm armies. In the box would be say six or seven different coloured cards (like mini index cards).

They were colour coded, because each colour corresponded to a different part of the Sequence of Play and you cycled through the cards as you advanced through that sequence. So for example, the yellow card might be the movement phase. On the front face would be the movement charts and modifiers that you needed, working a bit like a quick reference sheet. On the rear would be the notes and rules needed to interpret the charts or convey design intent.

It was all rather clever and the boxes had something of the cute factor. Even the box lid doubled as an artillery blast zone (If memory is not playing tricks!).

I had both the Napoleonic and Ancients sets. Anyway, I have just checked the Irregular Miniatures website and they still do them, together with two other sets, one for Franco Prussian to WWI and one for Renaissance to Marlburian, each one for under a fiver, plus the base postage.

As an idea, it seems a great format for the gamer who likes to make up their own rules (me), with the limitation in size, keeping the player true to making concise rules and avoiding rule bloat.

I thought I would give it a go and make an effort to do a ruleset for each of the main periods that I game in, taking the current home brew rules that I have and paring them right back to fit the small card format. Hopefully that sort of streamlining will see games play through at a faster pace.

Will it work? I don’t know, but as a mark of respect and gratitude to Irregular Miniatures for the inspiration of taking me down this path and to just indulge in a bit of nostalgia, I have put in an order for their Ancients box set. In a few days time, I shall no doubt be in my twenties again immersed in just some simple good old fashioned wargaming pleasure …… minus the 6mm armies …… for now! :-)

Re the post on 26th May (below), Margaret of Anjou has now been painted and based, giving me a Queen Margaret for my Wars of the Roses ImagiNations games (Piggy Longton).

In some respects, I was a little disappointed that I had to give her a dark, blackish dress, rather than something more imperial looking like Royal Purple, but to keep in accordance with the artwork in Graham Turner’s book, I followed his guidance, even giving the page a white and blue tunic with a green felt hat.

I did texture the base all over with a view to heavy flocking and tufting to match my other WotR bases - then I realised that in the artwork, Margaret is on a road, so a road was painted. Then I though a road should have rut marks from wagons, so they were put in.

Finally the tufting was quite heavy and encroached onto the road, making it a bit more ‘path like’, which I think I prefer anyway, so the final look is not quite as envisaged, but appealing to my eye.

The model is metal, so as well as being initially primed with rattle can primer, it has upon completion, been gloss varnished and then matt varnished.

Anyway, the Lancastrians now have a queen to lead them into battle. I suspect she will be visiting Piggy Longton in the not too distant future. Lord Darcy will be pleased ..... and worried, as he will be responsible for her safety! 

In the meantime, here she is, being escorted by Lord Stanley’s men, who have Lancastrian sympathies ........ at the moment!

The latest scenario booklet in the Rapid Fire Reloaded series arrived in the post this morning. I delayed my purchase of this because the desert is not really my thing …. But the completist collector in me caved in!

I read a Rapid Fire article by one of the authors in this months Miniature Wargame magazine and on the horizon they see Russian Front 1941, Ardennes and D-Day, so I have much to look forward to.

The A5 format books are just lovely. Full colour, well illustrated and just a joy to own. The Rapid Fire rules are in their 31st year, which is wonderful ….. though many of us will remember year one and just wonder how that time has passed so quickly!

One of the nice thing about these booklets is that they recognise the utility of the 6x4 table (the Crete book stepped outside of that slightly) and so these are very ‘home player’ friendly. Also the authors favour the 20mm - 1/72 scale and so anyone gaming with a smaller scale (me) can take advantage of an even smaller table.

The ‘Reloaded’ rules are the latest version of the rule system and they take a more streamlined approach to play. Their 'Reloaded' ruleset is very cheap and sits in just 16 pages of rules and that includes a comprehensive scenario, with orders of battle spread over several pages.

As with other scenario books, there are four fully fleshed out scenarios here, these being;

Himeimat - Delaying Rommel Aug 1942

Alma Halfa - The Turning Point Aug 1942

Lightfoot - Desert D-Day Oct 1942

Bir el Abd, Ariete’s Last Stand Nov 1942

There is a good selection of vehicles being used and so gamers may end up proxying some vehicles …. or it might be worth just selecting a single scenario and collecting an order-of-battle to exactly match.

When I said desert was not my thing ……. Who knows! :-)

I bought this lovely model of Margaret of Anjou a couple of years ago from Athena Miniatures. To install with my Wars of the Roses collection.

I mounted it to a base and undercoated white soon after buying, but it has languished since in the ‘to do’ pile. Anyway, the mood is right for getting this into the painting queue as I fancy painting a bit of 28mm for a change,

So a little research on suitable dress colours brought me to a site that had discovered a close resemblance of the model to a scene painted by Graham Turner, who does a lot of work for the Osprey Publishing.

Anyway, by good fortune, I have a copy of that lovely book ‘The Wars of the Roses, the Medieval Art of Graham Turner’, by Osprey Publishing and it is just a wonderful thing to own, it is full of his artwork, together with a goodly amount of history and period setting.

So, here they are together, the model and some painting inspiration - there is no excuse now! Her majesty awaits.

If you click on the image you will get a closer view of the model.

My latest purchase from Anschluss came in the post today. I tend to buy from them in small groups like this and it is amazing how quickly the vehicle pool can build.

The two important buys were to get the three Soviet trucks, so that I can motorise one platoon (or a company in a higher level game) and the two SU 152’s, simply because I like them! (Though I like them - they don’t seem to last very long in my games, as every German gun tube available seems to have them in their gaze).

While ordering, I added one Hetzer to complement  the one I already have and two Marder II’s, which are universally useful and particularly nice models here.

They are all in 3D resin, so very light and nicely detailed. You can click on the image to get a better idea of that.

The trucks will get done first to increase the functionality of my just completed Soviet Pocket Army.

I do have other, previously bought Soviet vehicles that are also in the painting queue, which include 9 x T-34 (mix of 76mm and 85mm versions), JSII’s and SU 76’s - the latter by Victrix Games. At the level that I game that should be enough ….. until I push to early war! 

I have put a One Pound coin in the box as an indicator of scale (12mm or 1/144).

There is so much goodness, how does it all get painted in this life-time :-)