Dear Diary - a rolling 4 months of comment
(Above) Rearguard - 15th June 1815
Earlier this month, I set a goal for July …. to have painted a Regiment (3 Battalions) of Epic Prussians, so that I could do a battle with the recently obtained commission painted French Infantry.
I think I am close ….. very close, tight enough that the painted figures might just be glued to bases but the basing paste and flocks etc not yet done. So it is time to think about a scenario.
Ideally, I need something that allows for the low unit density of just three battalions. A bit of research pointed to the initital advance of the French army during the Waterloo campaign, when Prussian outposts were first being contacted by Napoleon's forces.
So .......
As Napoleon’s French troops crossed the Belgian border, a series of small skirmish actions erupted as small Prussian outposts were pushed back in by the advancing French. The weight of the advance and the seniority of the officers made it clear that this was the main part of the French army and the Prussians decided that the advanced elements of Zeiten’s I Corps should fall back and concentrate at Gilly.
Not far from Gilly, 28th Infantry Regiment was positioned on a rise behind a stream on rearguard duty. They would soon be overwhelmed by the French, it was their task to delay the French, but also to retire as a rearguard and maintain cohesion of the regiment.
The letters 'F' and 'M' on the above map refer to the Prussian Fusilier and Musketeer battalions.
In addition to painting the Prussian infantry, this scenario needs me to also paint up a commander for each side and a pair of guns for the French ….. I am gearing up to more than one painting session a day to try and complete all of this. Frankly it’s a bit daft busting a gut to get this done, when time doesn’t really matter that much, but setting a goal does concentrate the mind and it gets the job done!
Hopefully, this will be August’s first figure game, certainly not a demanding situation and it will be the crafting of the victory conditions that will deliver any game tension. At the moment I am thinking of a sliding scale of Victory Points set against turn numbers as to when Billiand can claim to control the high ground, together with VP’s also generated for casualties and the exit of Prussian units. The Prussians will need to decide at what point to abandon the position and retire ..... if they are lucky enough to get that choice!
An Operation Sealion game
As per previous post, Fight on the Beaches arrived yesterday. Note I have edited the front cover to remove a swastika symbol so that the post can be viewed without breaching the legislation of any part of the world.
The game was printed in 1985 by 3W as an insert to the Wargamer issue 40 magazine and it essentially covers Operation Sealion, the German Invasion of Great Britain in WWII.
It looks to be very playable with just four pages of rules, though they use quite dense text and no illustrations, so if done today, I would imagine that they would be an eight page set.
Receiving a 40 year old game through the post is a reminder of times gone by. The cover price was $10 and today it cost me £10. Other games out at the time and either discussed or advertised in the magazine are Boots and Saddles by GDW, Advanced East Wind Rain rules, A Holy Roman Empire replay, Killer Angels and South Mountain by West End Games.
This arrived as an unpunched game in good condition, but the staples are rusty and there is a mild ‘old mildewy magazine’ type smell that I know will annoy me, so I have kept the map which will be under plexi, cut and clipped the counters (small font so may be harder to read for some) and then the magazine cover, rules and historical support notes have been removed, scanned and printed onto new paper (thank you ink printer that uses big tanks!). Everything but map and counters have been discarded, I will just rely on the scanned and printed documents.
There are random victory objectives. The Germans select a chit from a pool of 5 chits. The number on the chit will determine what the scenario victory conditions are. These range from a 4 turn game, to a 22 turn game and objectives vary from occupation of rural centres to isolation of them by cutting rail lines.
I am hoping that this is a fairly easy way into this ‘what if’ campaign. The subject fascinates me and I can see it making for some good play in its own right or using it as a campaign driver to get some figure games up onto the table. It might make the blog as a turn by turn replay ….. or it could just end up in the bin! I have high hopes, but know nothing of the system, so time will tell.
The map (not a particularly pretty thing) is showing south east England, with the lower half of London presented on the top section of the map. The Germans do their land and then the British are allowed to move their units from their pre game set-up positions to reflect the German poor intel regarding accurate British troop deployment. Hopefully this will be an early one to the table.
Also in the order came another magazine, this one printed in 1994 and oddly that has rusted staples, but no smell. It has a glossier, higher quality paper that we are used to seeing in later magazines and that could be the reason.
A game has been set up!
I have been working on an article for a publication, the research is done and the idea is fully formed, the introduction and scene setting has been written, it just needs to be played through to make sure it all works and of course to get some photographs.
And so to the table it goes ..... but to help with the leaning forwards etc, I have gone for a 2´x 4´ format, making for easier management. The format just so happens to fit very nicely with the linear nature of the incident.
It was enough to set it all up, so I left it and then returned to it later in the day and just played the first turn - a hugely enjoyable thing to do. The action is planned as a 7 turn game, so I envisage doing just one or two turns a day to cycle through it. Regardless, it is just very nice to roll some dice.
I would like to say more and even share a photo or two, but in fairness to the journal I am obliged to remain vague.
I was browsing the web site of Second Chance Games yesterday. They have a page that deals with price reductions or some such and I was taken by two old games that would never have crossed my radar (again!) had it not been for browsing through their lists.
Anyway, they are ordered, so fingers crossed they arrive at some point today and I will give each one a quick mention here. One is a 1985 game, the other 1996. I know that I have owned both previously but I can't remember a thing about them, but it was a time when I was a fairly prolific buyer and then selling to fund the next purchase, so amongst all of that churn, I doubt many of the games that I came across actually got their deserved attention ....... or perhaps these two games did get attention and I moved them on for a reason! Oh Dear! We shall see.
Still no games
As the bad back saga continues, there is still no gaming, a very obvious absence from my usual two games per week rate, the driest spell for a loooong time! Other activity rumbles on to varying degrees.
I received the missing cards yesterday for the Napoleonic rules, which I felt was good service, so more on that in the future.
Staying with the theme of Napoleonics, the Epic Prussian regiment are moving along nicely, with a tight daily painting discipline keeping up the pace - the motto 'something every day' ultimately works to that end.
I am not sure that I will hit the monthly goal of 9 infantry bases, especially as I started on the 5th and there have been 2 mini heat waves along the way, we shall see.
I have painted an Epic Prussian regiment before and I must have got some of those figures wrong because I now know that the third battalion (the fusiliers) use the same figures as the musketeers, but last time I’m pretty sure that I mistakenly used the jäger in line troops. This largely falls from the less than adequate description of what is on the sprue by Warlord Games.
Anyway, all sorted now. The third battalion have black straps (as opposed to white) and I find these harder to do against the blue uniform, or perhaps they are just less satisfying because they don’t stand out. I doubt it will matter at three feet.
The article that I am working on for a publication has now hit the half way point and is fully formed in my mind … thank goodness. I have had a life time of deadlines and organised time management and I seem to increasingly resent that sort of thing these days, it is probably the cause of the love / hate relationship that I have with painting figures - task, task, task ... oooh looks lovely, nice to game with. Maybe I just need a game :-)
A bit of AI fun
I came across some talking about using the nauknauk AI app to animate their figures. I put this together in under 5 minutes. I doubt I will do much with this type of material, but I can see it having some presentation uses.
I just uploaded a photo of some Warlord Games Epic ACW and then instructed the AI to make the soldiers march forwards.
The below video is just 5 seconds long.
LINK
https://youtu.be/uSZUNSeReMI?si=aMW-w8zbFQgWTXuf
oh no! Another one :-)
Link
https://youtube.com/shorts/fI4h2EK9ooQ?si=BmYbJABK5i2Oc4Oy
If any of this interests you, have a look at Nik’s Blog and be amazed!
Link
Missing napoleonic cards
I had a bit of a disappointment with the Napoleonic rules as while having a look at the system, I noticed that a couple of cards were missing. I have e-mailed the company, so hopefully that will quickly be resolved, but overall, I do like what I see of the system.
The Revell rattle can NATO OLIVE, turned out not to be a useful colour for Soviet tanks. It is more of a Browny-grey colour, but never-the-less it will still make a useful basecoat for an application of Vallejo’s Russian Green, it’s just a shame it was not a one shot silver bullet for quick cycling of the armour.
At least now my stash of WWII armour (German, Soviet, British and American) is all primed.
We come out of the heatwave today, it should be about 6˚ cooler here. Over the weekend I had a two uncomfortable painting sessions with the Epic Prussians and even the wet palette dried out with the muggy heat!
Napoleonic & Renaissance card based rules
A couple of weeks ago I posted about an old set of Ancients rules that I (re)bought from Irregular Miniatures that basically held the entire system on half a dozen A6 sized cards that each dealt with one section from the sequence of play i.e. one card covering all the Movement Phase rules.
I was quite taken by them and ordered the Napoleonic and Renaissance sets on the back of that and they arrived today.
I like that they share a familiarity with each other, but that they are different enough to reflect period specifics.
The Napoleonic set talks about ‘moving a couple of corps to victory in 2 - 3 hours’, so they play at a higher organisation level than usually suits me. The brigade is the unit of manoeuvre, but its separate battalions are still represented on the table, it’s just that it fights as a brigade. Each brigade has a number of men in it (say 3500) and a Cohesion points Number (say 4).
As a unit fights, the chart gives combat results as a specific number of casualties (say 200) and this figure is used to reduce the brigades overall strength. Additionally any tests are run against the brigade’s Cohesion number (which will worsen with increasing casualties). If Cohesion drops to zero, the unit will become disordered and have various penalties, including retreating from the table on further failed tests.
There are elements here that remind me of some of my own rules - having individual units fighting as a ‘brigade’ reminds me of my Wars of the Roses rules in which the ‘wing’, ‘forward’, ‘rearward’ ‘mainward’ etc would absorb the casualties in one place from all the various individual component contingents of bow, bill and skirmishers receiving losses.
Cohesion works much like my Horse & Musket rules that allow for units to deteriorate as casualties are absorbed, to the point that they start to fall back and eventually excuse themselves from the field - so obviously there are things here that I like and that interest me here.
The Pike & Shotte rules work differently as individual units accrue Fatigue Points to represent casualties and the friction of action and during play, tests are taken against a unit’s fatigue. As fatigue gets worse, units will increasingly tend to leave the field (rout), again this is similar to my Horse & Musket rules, so there are some common design sentiments there.
I was interested to see that the rules also cover late medieval, so an outing with the Wars of the Roses troops with these rules seems a likely prospect.
I had to wait a bit for these, because the Napoleonic set were being re-printed. They have been reproduced exactly as per 1989 set (the year I first bought them), with typewriter font etc, but without the box, a self seal bag serving the same function.
Anyway, two more blasts of nostalgia that I shall have some fun delving into and will put some examples of play up here when that happens.
Prepping 12mm vehicles
I have been collecting the Anschluss resin vehicles for a while, with three German StuG IIIg's already painted when I did the Starter German Pocket Army.
While we have the summer weather, it is the time to get prepping done that needs a rattle can and then these can be put to one side and brush painted at anytime - so here we have the German collection so far.
I tend to game right down at the lower tactical level, so don't need a lot of vehicles, just 2 or 3 Panthers, that sort of thing.
There is a bit of a mix here including the Hetzer and a couple of armoured cars.
The parts (turret and body) are attached to coffee stirers using those gell type dots that stay rubbery and tacky. They give a good hold, but are not too difficult to remove.
They were sprayed with Revell Ochre Brown, which is a pretty good base for the colours that will follow.
Next the Soviet's can go on sticks and given a coating of Revell Nato Olive, which I have not used before, so let's hope ...... no surprises!
All of this will set me well on the way to expanding the WWII Pocket Armies later in the year.
July’s Prussian Regiment
Plan ‘A’ is / was that by the end of the month, I will have a painted Prussian Regiment (like a brigade in most other nationalities orders-of-battle) and that it looks like this image ….. with 3 bases per battalion.
Two battalions of musketeers and one of Füsiliers.
In the early stages of building up a ‘Pocket Army’, I generally allow the armies to have just 2 bases per unit, just to get enough formations on the table to have an early game and then the extra base can be added as the painting production allows.
Coming off the painting corks today are the first 2 bases worth (4 musketeer strips) ..... so the above goals are looking a little doubtful and as we are about to enter a heatwave that makes painting harder as the acrylic dries on the brush - it may well end up that by the end of the month that I only have 6 bases done, rather than the 9 that I would prefer to have. Either way, there should be some kind of game, a low level action, but a game never-the-less.
The bad back thing is taking further hold, so there is no gaming going on at the moment and painting has been cut to to 20 - 30 minutes per session, so even though from memory, the Epic Prussians seemed easier to paint last time I did them, they feel like they are taking longer with more sessions per painting group now needed.
I have based up some cannon for both sides, but whether these will see any paint in time for a game is uncertain.
Rocky Outcrops
The planets align!
I have been looking at doing a ‘Little Round Top’ scenario with the Epic ACW figures. I have a small boardgame (not the one shown here) to give a bit of inspiration.
While shopping at a HobbyCraft store (UK), I came across these ‘Boulder Outcropping’ by All Game Terrain, which can be placed on top of one of my standard hills to give a good craggy ‘Round Top’ look. They should scale well with the Epic.
The diagram shows that you can dab a bit of glue here and there to put in some flock, but I think you would have to be really careful not to over-do it. i will likely leave them as they are.
They might be useful in other settings to show a bit of rough ground.
Result of draw for freebie Napoleonic game
Hi Andrew, your name was drawn, can you please send me postal details please via the contact page (bottom of left menu) and I will get the game sent off to you. Once posted I will advise re track number etc.
To those who threw their name in the hat, thanks for taking part and also to everyone who visits - thank you.
I have two distractions this month. One is the writing of an article for a publication. The other, as mentioned yesterday is the painting of Napoleonic Prussians.
Recently, I discussed the ‘Ancients rules in a box’ from Irregular Miniatures. I was so intrigued with them that I ordered the Napoleonic set, so it may be the case that by the end of the month, if I have enough Epic Prussians painted, I can put on a small demonstration of those rules.
So far, I have snipped off the sprue, musketeers, fusiliers, one artillery piece and one commander.
I really would like to start out by creating 3 base units, rather than 2 base units, so we shall see what the brushes can do!
July is the Prussian project!
I am a few days late to the ‘July’ party painting theme, but having just reached a natural resting point with the Epic ACW, I wanted to spend a month picking up something else that might lead to a viable game by the end of the month and also stop the paint brushes becoming too idle.
There are a few fancies, but as I have some French Napoleonic Infantry all based up and ready to go, the sensible choice would be to give them an opponent. I have Epic British and Prussian, but fancy the latter. I have painted them before and they do look quite smart when done, despite a fairly drab uniform.
Anyway, I have taken three Musketeer sprues from the Prussian Battle Box and just given them their soapy wash. We will just have to see how we get on with them.
If I could find a fast paint method, I would be elated, but I did once do a fast paint job on some ACW units and forever saw their shortcomings whenever I gamed with them!
Does anyone in the UK want a freebie boardgame?
Fancy a dabble at board wargaming?
I have a players copy (punched and played) of Napoleon’s Last Battles to give away - free game, free postage - UK only, sorry.
This boardgame is the 2016 version by Decision Games.
It includes the classic original rules from the 70’s, with the additional variant rules that the fan base have introduced over the years. The player can choose just to use the original rules or to bolt on any of the variant suggestions.
It includes the four battles of the Waterloo campaign, which can be played individually (Quatre Bras, Ligny, Wavre, La Belle Alliance - Waterloo), plus the maps can be combined to do the whole 3 day campaign.
If interested, please use the ‘CONTACT’ tab at the bottom of the menu on the left and indicate your interest. I don’t need an address etc just yet.
I will keep this open until 6 PM on Sunday evening to give a chance for the usual visitors to catch this and then I will do names in a hat … or rather, Mrs. Wargamer will …. I think she might be pleased that something is actually going out of the house! :-)
I will post with the Royal Mail 48 tracked service, hence being limited to a UK address. As always, thanks to all who regularly pop by to check these ramblings out.
