The latest Vae Victis magazine has just dropped through the door and the game inside covers the Battle of Cowpens from the American War of Independence.

I only pre-ordered this about 3 weeks ago and paid around £15, which includes the postage from France to the UK.

The quality of the magazine is superb and you get a separate small rule booklet, die cut counters and a small map (double spread). The magazine and rules are in French, so I await the availability of the English rules translation, which normally follows the magazine by around a month.

I don’t really know anything about the system, but note there is a morale track on the map, I like that sort of thing. There are only 13 - 15 units per side and playing time looks to be around 90 - 120 minutes, so I mainly bought it as a short session game for our face to face meetings, plus I have a gap in my AWI game resources.

Judging by the rulebook, there is a fair bit to this, so hopefully a bit of meatiness lays behind what is otherwise a small game.

For those with figures, there are some rather nice AWI scenarios in the magazine covering 1780 - 81, giving the  battles for Camden, Kings Mountain, Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse and Hobkirks Hill.

I will use my translator software via the iPad to study these further.

There is a new replay report over on the RECENT GAMES page (see menu on left).

This covers an American contact with the Italian Coastal Defences as presented in the Anzio scenario package.

It’s a really handy scenario for re-familiarisation or to fit in a short gaming session, though you do also need Volume II for the American order of battle.

Since posting the replay, I have now played it a second time (face-to-face) and it went right down to the wire. At the end of the scenario, the Axis had won, however the Extended Play die roll gave us another turn, just enough time, literally on the last die roll, for the Americans to pull a win!

Firstly, I would just like to thank those who are visiting and supporting this site on a regular basis and for gamers who have contacted me over recent weeks to give a personal thumbs up - thank you, your comments are appreciated.

I continue to be busy with doing wargame ‘work’ for other parties, so as a side distraction, I have just started to put some bits together to get a farm complex onto the table. It will be multi-period, but a prime purpose will be for my napoleonic Epic games.

I did have the official Epic ‘La Haye Sainte’ farmhouse produced by Sarissa Precision. It was a lovely replica, but I felt the foot print was too big for my table, so a smaller ‘representation’ was called for.

This has a MDF base, rescued from an old MDF building kit that was going nowhere fast. The various slots for its construction have been filled and the edges chamfered. The underneath has also been scored with a craft knife, as I was told that this stops warping. I don’t know whether that is true, but I do it ……. just in case! :-)

The two 10mm buildings are (1) Stone Workshop BAT-10B040 and (2) Stable Block BAT-10B041. These are excellent quality resins, produced by Battlescale, which I now believe are only sold via Pendraken. The above are the Pendraken codes.

I have no idea who produced the walls, but I’m pretty sure I bought them as 1/72 pieces, which gives them a good height for our high walled complex and they look okay against the 10mm buildings.

The gate is a home bash item, made from balsa wood and very thin slivers of basswood (I think!).

Overall, I think that is going to turn out a nice piece. There is room inside for a single unit to claim occupation and await to be ejected!

This will be a slow burn project, just adding things such as basing paste and roof paint etc when I have those things already out to work on other stuff.

Epic ACW have just moved onto painting sticks. There has been a bit of a lull on the old painting front, so it is time to jack that back up.

Arriving today in the UK and ordered on Kickstarter last year, the latest in the tactical series from Flying Pig Games gives us plenty of Italy / Sicily action and some new orders-of-battle.

In fact it has two parts, as it was released together with its expansion sister module. ‘For The Empire’, at the same time.

The main game box (Volume 4) has a large game board (30” x 41”) labelled Map 9, which has a goodly amount of farmland on it and elevations. It is loosely based around a valley feature with a small stream at the bottom, winding its way right across the board.

The counter sheets bring us British, Italian and German forces and the rules are marked version 5.75, so are really just a tidy up of 5.65.

The playbook offers 14 scenarios with six of those based in Sicily, the rest in Italy. There are a few new items, such as the dug in panther turret and commandos, which can use the new stealth rule, effectively allowing them to move at half rate without attracting opportunity fire.

Moving across to the expansion - For The Empire, brings in Canadian and New Zealand troops, while for the Germans, fallschimjägers are introduced. The mapboard (map 10) is liberally covered with ruined buildings and the board is involved in the Cassino scenarios.

Again, we get 14 scenarios. 5 are Cassino based involving New Zealand troops and the other 9 are Canadian based scenarios, with one taking place in Sicily and the rest in Italy.

As I went the Kickstarter route, I did also get the bonus Anzio scenario booklet. This has 5 more scenarios, all of which use American forces, which need to be sourced from the Volume II module (North West Europe), plus both maps 9 and 10 are needed if all scenarios are to be played.

Scenario one covers the first stages of moving inland and American forces come across Italian coastal forces, backed up German rear echelon troops. This looks to be an excellent starter scenario for anyone trying to re-familiarise themselves with the system as it is small, has low unit density and no vehicles.

There is a British tank commander counter in the core module called Lt. Smith. I am advised that this is a nod to me from the designer for some of the support articles that I had written about the system. Thanks Shayne, nice touch.

Taken together, this is a fantastic package and great support for the series, well done Shayne Logan (designer) very clearly a ton of work has gone into this to get such a fine game into our hands.

As a follow on to the last post (Romans) the Carthaginians have now also been temporarily mounted to match the order of battle in the Hail Caesar rulebook for Trebbia.

We are given three ‘divisions’, the third being Mago’s ambush party. We will go through each division as shown in the photo, which we are describing from the rear to the front for each column.

Column 1

Hannibal’s Division;

1 x Libyan heavy infantry

1 x Gallic medium warband

1 x Balearic slingers

1 x Spanish Caetrati light infantry

1 x skirmisher with javelins

1 x Numidian light cavalry

2 x Elephants.

Column 2

Hanno’s Division (Son of Bomilcar)

1 x Libyan heavy infantry

1 x Spanish Scutarii medium infantry

1 x skirmisher with javelin

1 x Liby-Phoenician medium cavalry

1 x Spanish medium cavalry

1 x Elephant

Column 3

Mago’s Division

1 x Libyan Heavy Infantry

1 x Liby-Phoenician medium cavalry

1 x Spanish Caetrati

Some of these units when they get painted and moved from 60mm to 80mm bases, will need some more figures added to them, but as it stands, the total number of figure pieces of the two armies combined are 830 Infantry, 43 Cavalry, 6 Elephants and crew and 6 commanders.

Of note - there are still a load of figures unused at this point in the Hannibal battle pack box, you certainly get a lot of stuff. They will be needed for other battles, but for now, I am limiting myself to the Trebbia order of battle and do not want to be distracted.

Of note - even with just these figures, there is a LOT to paint and so it becomes critical, rather than just a fancy to look for ways to do speed painting, there just needs to be some churn here. Some things like the elephants will always be spectacle pieces and will no doubt demand a bit more time spent on them.

Of note, even though I am following ‘Scotty’s’ inspirational video on basing, I have decided the Liby-Phoeician bases will have 3 ranks and not 4, as visually that is fine and I don’t feel that the units a ‘fully’ phalanx in the Greek / Macedonian sense of the formation.

I have not added the crew to the elephants yet, these will get painted separately and then glued in to the ‘unprimed’ innards of the howdah.

Each side needs an Army Commander base, which can be the next job.

What can happen now that the order of battle has been prepared is that some Trebbia games can start on the table. Primarily for enjoyment, but also to see whether this basing style works with the Hail Caesar rules before I go to permanent basing.

My back, which had improved slightly, continues to scream at me …. though, I have just tried to fix a fence …. Stupid, stupid, stupid! And so gaming is still some way off and I am consoled by admin wargame tasks.

I have cut enough Roman troops from their sprues to represent their order-of-battle as described in the Trebbia scenario from the Hail Caesar rulebook.

But, I have taken a non-Warlord Games approach to this and as recently discussed, have instead adopted the basing style that ‘Scotty’ described in his recent YouTube video - see link at the foot of this post.

So, a few things need to be said about this. Firstly I will be going with 80mm frontages, but here, I have initially mounted the units on 60mm bases. This is because while they are unpainted, I am using a temporary fixative and it will be easier to remove the troops for painting, from plastic bases than from my MDF bases and I only have 60mm bases in plastic (taken from the Perry 28mm boxes).

The Celt warband will need a couple of extra strips worth of troops, plus some singles, once they move to 80mm bases to ensure that the base is pleasingly filled.

The current basing will have a pretty big impact on reducing the needed table size. Most of the scenarios are designed for a 6x4, though some of the biggies, for example Zama, recommend a 10 foot table. Our reduced frontages, even when grown to 80mm, should significantly bring that down.

The only thing I still need to add to the Romans for the Trebbia battle is a Generals base. I have the figure, I just need to do it, my delay is in deciding what to use as a supporting figure on the base.

So what do we have?

Using the terminology from the Epic rule book, we divide the Roman force into three ‘divisions’.

Referring to the photo above, starting at the bottom and working up the column - On the left is the first division. This has 1 x Velites, 1 x Hastati, 1 x Principes and 1 x Triarii, plus a commander.

In the centre is the second division. This has 1 x Roman Cavalry, 1 x Velites, 1 x Hastati, 1 x Principes and 1 x Triarii, plus a commander.

On the right is the third division. This has 1 x Celt waband, 1 x Velites, 1 x Allied Latin Medium Cavalry, 1 x Allied Latin Hastati, 1 x Allied Latin Principes and 1 x Allied Latin Triarii, plus a Commander.

Even unpainted, these look good and the sense of mass is clearly present. 

The Roman force perhaps gives a false impression that these armies are going to look predominantly like 1 base units, quite a bit of the Carthaginian force will be using two base per unit - like the warband presented here.

Next, I will base up the Carthaginian force. Once done, I fully intend to game with them, though at any one time one of the units will be on the painting sticks ……. of course any painting of the Trebbia project will be at the expense of the figures from the ACW project, that likewise going across the painting table.

If I waited for everything to be fully painted before gaming, it would just take forever! 

LINK to Scotty’s basing video

https://youtu.be/JTA9yWCD5R0?si=wlP9quB1lglWO2As

With a grim bad back playing me up, all gaming is off at the moment, but sitting at the table doing a bit of crafting is do-able spread over a few days ….. so time to get some bits done that have been winking at me for ages.

Rail model N Gauge is a good match for 10mm wargames and isn’t a million miles from 12mm, so time to put my rail kit scenics together.

Firstly is the track. This is manufactured by Kato and makes for a good wargame item as track and raised bed are already built as one. I have just over 6’ of this in 8 pieces.

At first, I tried putting down an ink wash to pick out the timbers and textured embankments, but the plastic didn’t like it. So these have been acrylic primed, then coloured with a 50 / 50 thinned brown paint. Straight away I swiped the top of the rail with a cotton bud to clear off the wet paint and reveal the top of the metal rail.

Dabs of thinned PVA glue on the shoulders with Woodland Scenics ‘fine turf’ sprinkled on has just enough to get rid of the plastic look, while staying quite gentle to the eye and it will blend with the game mat.

The station building is a sort of resin / plaster from TimeCast. It has air bubble marks in it, which would normally detract and need filling, but here, I thought it gave a certain embattled look for its WWII settings,

The platform is a two part plastic kit from the Kestrel N Gauge range.

My first wagon has been added to the track. This is a self build Pico kit. I have filled it with stone chippings and painted them black, so that it looks to be carrying coal.

I have another longer wagon on the way to me via e-bay and between the two of them, this will be enough to ‘dress’ the rail line with visuals and line of sight obstacles.

I also have a rather nice pre-painted resin engine shed, not shown here, which from memory may be a Bachmann model.

Anyway, it will all be packed away for now, though I do have some scenarios specifically in mind which will use this station and track. 

Bad back - be gone!

I have only just noticed that the Gettysburg Epic Battle Box from Warlord Games, comes with some MDF snake fencing.

I generally feel the buildings that come with Epic packages are too large for my tastes. They are scaled to 15mm, which is ‘in scale’, with the Epic, but I prefer to drop a scale down for terrain, so I have been buying 10mm buildings or N Scale stuff for model railways (which is around 9mm).

However, the snake fencing to my eye looks fine, or rather 10mm snake fencing looks far too small, so this may as well get used. 

This MDF set is jointed so that a fixed zig-zag of rail fencing is replicated, but it produces a very severe zig-zag, with each section at 90˚ to the next one, which to my eye makes the fencing look too wide for the battlefield, so I have significantly relaxed the angle that underpins the fence line. 

No doubt in real life, my fence would be too unstable to support itself, however, for the wargames table and to line roads, it looks fine, especially as my own units are quite small at just 110mm frontages.

To build each terrain piece, I cut the rounded ends off some wooden tongue suppressors (like big lolly sticks) and used the suppressors to base the fencing. Each is roughly six inches long and there is enough MDF fencing to do eight such lengths. I will need more, but this is a good start.

I decided to heavily flock and tuft the bases, which won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it is hoped that the principle of any and all texture added to the table at this scale, visually enhances things.

So for now, my ACW terrain set is pretty much complete, certainly for the battles that will just involve 6 - 8 units per side.

Continuing the Bagradas story from yesterday.

Though with heavy casualties, the Romans have withstood the initial Carthaginian assault.

The elephants have broken off the attack and retired. The main line of Phalanx and Celts had to open up to allow the beasts to pass through.

The Romans used this lull to re-organise their army. The battered Hastati fell back and the fresh Principes moved up into the front line position. They refused their flanks as a defence against the likelihood of the Carthaginian cavalry pressing the flanks / rear. I very much like the way that this system is allowing proper tactics and army management.

In the Photograph, you can see that the Carthaginian main line has moved forward, ready to engage the Romans. In their rear are the remnants of the elephant corps (for want of a better expression!). The cavalry on the Carthaginian left are well ordered and positioned, ready to support the attack, but on their right, the cavalry and light infantry under Hasdrubal have become a little awkwardly placed - they need to sort themselves out!

The double hex long counters in the Carthaginian line are the North African Phalanx units, the single hex green units are the Celt warriors. The Phalanx blocks are hard hitters, getting a combat bonus for size and generally their Troop Quality factor equals or betters those of the Roman line - though they can be a little awkward to manoeuvre.

And so here we are, at what is essentially Phase II of the battle. The Romans are more than halfway to their breaking point, but the fresh Principes will not be an easy walkover for the Carthaginians - I am in the middle of this and the outcome is not certain, or at least the Roman side still feel like there is a fight to be had - good!