Through the post today, bought on e-bay, a set of 6 French Napoleonic casualty figures on 40x40 basing. 

This is a nice little collection, which from memory come from one of the plastic multi-part sets - but I don't know which one.

They have been nicely framed on these bases. It looks like they may have been primed blue, as the white and khaki trousers have not fully killed that colour.

To bring them to a closer match to my own collection I will use a bit of black wash and add some highlights. I might use them as Disorder markers.

There is a lot of terrain building going on in the background at the moment, but nothing is ready yet.

My Warbases parcel showed up on Monday and all the bits have immediately jumped the queue and gone onto the assembly line.

There are a couple of ammunition carts (that Iain Cav showed on his blog last week), each with a metal shire type horse, so the French and Austrian Napoleonics will get one each.

A market square cross in MDF is a mini kit, taking 5 minutes to build and makes for a nice cross that will help the Wars of the Roses tables.

As a punt, I added a Napoleonic 6pdr canon to the list. This is a metal gun on an MDF carriage. It is nicely done, but I specifically wanted it to create a damage marker, which is easier to do with MDF .... it is now duly damaged and awaits the rattle can primer department!

And then there is the biggie .... the Napoleonic Prussian Farmyard. This is a lovely 3 building complex on an 8´´ x 11´´ base, so it has a nice small footprint. It was quite an easy build ....... but at the moment I am adding single tiles to the roof of two of the buildings. It is a long process and should we say the result is certainly 'rustic'! But I like it.

The latest video from the Little Wars TV crew examples a scenario based around a napoleonic action near Talavera in which the scenario is entirely created by AI. They go through the design process (easy) and then play the scenario - a fascinating study in its own right.

However …. I say ‘created’ by AI, but here is the rub, the AI at this stage of progress only ‘creates’ by searching for data that already exists on the internet and mashes it out into whatever it is that we have asked for.

Being less polite, it plunders, blogs, books, works of art, opinion etc without regard for Intellectual Property or other permissions that up until now have at least had tacit recognition, in order to respond to the enquirer.

I decided to run a narrow test. I asked an AI program to build me a scenario for my imaginations campaign in the knowledge that my imaginations setting is unique to me - i.e. the AI would not really have many places to go to draw on material.

In this instance, it clearly visited my blog and drew directly on one of my scenario posts and pretty much reformatted it, but replicated it under the guise of its own creation!

It didn’t produce a map, but then I didn’t have one on the blog post for it to take. So I asked for one. Within seconds it had produced a map. It had placed the various commands in their proper places (left, centre, right), so this data had obviously (and cleverly) been lifted from my text, but when it came to terrain, it placed down a bizarre looking double hedge from one side of the table to the other - unrecognisable to anything that I have played.

The first thing I noticed was the remarkable speed at which this was done, it was lightning fast.

The text reformatting was good and generally accurate to my original, in fact probably a better summary.

But where there is no data to draw from (i.e. the map) and it is left to guess, then its weaknesses really showed up. The AI is not clever (the software is) or creative of itself, what it does is done with remarkable technology, but it lives off the back of others, a concern when the internet abounds with misinformation and other problematic content.

In one of my imagination story lines, Margaret of Anjou (a real person in history) visited one of my imagined towns and was forced to flee to an imagined priory 25 miles away when Yorkist soldiers entered the town to search. 

If a student etc was to ask AI a question for say, essay building, as to the life of Margaret of Anjou, would that essay end up including an incident of this Queen visiting a strange place in 1471 and having to flee to a priory and if that essay itself became data for other enquirers to draw upon, how long would it take for my little local story telling to become a widely told truth!

Anyway, until AI becomes more discerning and is able to actually create new ideas, we should be mindful that whatever is produced is essentially made on the back of another - everything has a price, including free internet! 

This weeks face-to-face session saw a return to the Anzio boardgame. It made sense since we played it just last week and the rules were still in our minds.

The game ran rather like the real campaign, turning into a dogged struggle, but with the advatage being with the Allies.

Early on the British closed Campoleone right down, preventing the German reinforcements arriving at that town and forcing them to detour further east. As a consequence the American found themselves facing the bulk of the newly arriving German troops.

The photo here is taken towards the end of the game - the Germans have counter-attacked from Campoleone and given themselves a bit more breathing space, but this had come at the expense of heavy casualties, especially as several German formations earlier had found themselves cut off and were forced to surrender.

Another enjoyable session

The Blind Swords series was originally designed by Hermann Luttmann and published by Revolution Games. The product has now been split into a set of series rules and a playbook for each volume, and other designers have come on board, allowing the series to have now reached volume 12.

Vol 12 covers the first day at Gettysburg. Units are regiments and grouped within brigades. A chit draw system activates the brigades, bringing a natural chaos as the order of activation is most uncertain and there are also event chits placed into the chit draw that shake things up a bit.

I wanted this volume particularly for the opening hours of the battle, which is the part of the battle that interests me the most, with Heth probing the Chambersburg Pike and attacking across Willoughby's Run, pressing Buford's dismounted cavalry, who are desperate for support.

I am hoping that this will become the series that I rely upon for my ACW boardgaming.

I have been here before, having owned volumes I - IV, but each game had a single rulebook and the differences brought to each volume to model the batle, to my mind, became a bit difficult to track. By splitting the rules, so that the series part stays standard and any new rules and scenarios are placed into a playbook makes things much better in that regard.

Through the post today, this lovely Wars of the Roses Hail Caesar supplement by Warlord Games and bought from Caliver Books (UK). 

Again, another purchase based on a YouTube review (this one by 7th Son).

As I bring back my 28mm Wars of the Roses to the table, this is full of background info, loads of actual and what-if scenarios and a rather nice looking campaign game. ….. plenty to keep the collection serviced. 

They have the new ‘household’ formation which combines melee troops and bow into a single unit, but it fights as a linear formation, so it can either shoot or fight in melee. I will have to explore that a bit more before using it.

I agree with the concept, but for my own games I treat the bow and bill as two separate units, with one behind the other, bill in front for melee and the rear archers acting as support and when the archers are in front, they can shoot at range.

Plenty to try out .... an excellent buy.

Through the post box today, A Napoleonic ruleset - Soldiers of Napoleon.

This has been out for a while and though I have been interested, the fact of it being card driven, has always made this seem not the game for me ..... however;

I have been watching a few videos, particularly the one by Wargames Illustrated Magazine, where they interview and game with the author and my interest had been tickled enough to put an order in.

Two headline aspects are 1. Your battle, using 2 - 5 brigades on a side, is actually sitting within a larger engagement and things that are happening off table (i.e. to your flanks) may come to influence your game - the cards bring some of this narrative.

2. The cards are used rather like those in the boardgame 'Commands and Colors' - each card has a value for orders that can be given to a brigade for its various battalions to act OR it can be played for its special event (such as - Fierce Cavalry Charge) OR it can be played for its rally value.

So far, those who I have come across in reviews seem only to have good things to say about it all and I think part of that may be because the system offers something different, plus narrative type rules are becoming increasingly popular.

Anyway, we shall see. The company (Gripping Beast) have two download campaigns that could be used with my French / Austrian pairing, one for Wagram and the other for Austerlitz, so they are on the list.

In the meantime the rules do include stats for the Austrians in the War of the 6th Coalition, so I will do a bit of practising in that setting for now - hopefully I will like the rules. there is a bit of reading and a learning curve to go through, but my enthusiasm is high.

I was pleased that in our latest face-to-face game, to get an opportunity to return to a game that I designed in 2011 covering the Anzio landings in 1944.

‘Anzio: The Bloodiest Beachhead’ was put out as a Desk Top Published kit in 2011 and soon after, a wargame company picked it up and started to arrange contacts.

Anyway, for a couple of reasons it didn't go ahead.

Last night's game saw a pleasing return to the game with both sides continually involved, looking for moments of gaining a manoeuvring or positional advantage or having to block off the enemy attempts at doing the same, on a map that is surprisingly nuanced, mainly because the road net is so important as mech units have a good chance of becoming bogged if they attempt to leave the road, due to the severe  rain / mud problems that plagued the campaign.

I had forgotten how aggressive the Combat Table is. It encourages attacks and the consequences reflect the grinding and attritional nature of the campaign.

Anyway, an enjoyable flash-back and I may start hawking this design around again, looking for a publisher.

Just a few turns into the game and British reinforcements start to arrive in the form of Divisional stacks... (read killer stacks)! They are just too powerful for the Germans to deal with, unless the Germans can get behind them to cut off retreats following combat - not easy.

The British reinforcements enter play from the far side of the map, the west of the UK. They can arrive by rail and travel any distance on rail as long as they don't move adjacent to enemy while so travelling.

The only way that I can see to help counter this during the first couple of turns is to move all of the German Luftwaffe to the western air zone, hopefully survive the dogfights so that German planes allocated to Ground Attack can be used to interdict those rail routes and thus hold back the reinforcements, giving the Germans a fighting chance between the beaches and Canterbury.

This unfortunately gives us big air battles over the west of the country and potentially no air action over the front line - very questionable. Plus once those reinforcing divisions can arrive, they will do so all at once and just overwhelm the Germans.

The Germans did manage to capture Folkestone for its port and Ashford, but a quick counter-attack by one of the arriving British divisions re-took Ashford and the strength of that Division meant that any German attack on it would be futile.

I was going to restart over and try again... but lost the will! I just couldn't find enough pleasure to soldier on!

I am just partway through the invasion turn and the Germans have identified their 5 landing beaches and the drop zones for 7th Fallschirmjäger (near Folkestone) and 22nd glider (near Ashford).

I had considered a more randomised setting up of the German force, but in the end decided to follow the narrative from the Sealion book by Richard Cox, which is based on the original plan.

These proposed hexes are kept secret from the British at this stage. Next the British get a chance to change some positions (a reflection of poor German intel on British troop dispositions), then the paratroopers and gliders check for scatter, then 15 randomly drawn (representing landing chaos) German units will hit the beaches.

It will take a while for the Germans to get their divisions together, which they need to do for effective stacking, but they also need to get going. Capturing a port is essential ...... Folkstone looks the best bet!

Anyway, the game is underway and I will update progress over the next days in a full post.

I don’t often get surprised by an Osprey Publishing release, as I keep an eye on their 3 month advanced schedules, but I walked into Waterstones (UK Book Store) and fell upon this.

Part of the blurb on the back says ‘It is one of the least documented conflicts of the period, but remains significant, not only as the final decisive action in the bloody Wars of the Roses, but also due to the nature of the soldiers present on the battlefield. This book explores the role these various factions played and how that contributed to the final victory’.

As always, it looks an easy read with nice illustration and maps. Occuring just a couple of years after the Battle of Bosworth, this is a  good addition to the Wars of the Roses project and as it just happens, this afternoon, I glued up the next base worth of archers for the Lancastrians as part of the ‘winter prepping’.

Operation Sealion was the proposed German invasion of England, intended for September 1940. It didn’t go ahead, but as a subject, it leaves us with a great ‘what if’ to explore.

In 1974 The Daily Telegraph newspaper in association with the Department of War Studies at Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, ran a large wargame covering Operation Sealion.

At the table were 6 players, each a significant figure from various branches of the armed forces and so this was no ordinary wargame, but one in which each of the participants had unique insight into the realities of what could and could not be done within this semi-fictitious setting. It would involve the real battle plans and military capability of both sides, but in the game, the invasion actually went ahead. Apparently at the end of the game, those present felt that the outcomes from the game were in fact the most probable.

In 1975 Richard Cox gave us his novel, ‘Operation Sealion’. It drew upon the conduct of that wargame as a narrative framework, giving us an imagined account that starts just a few hours before the invasion, seen through the eyes of both military and civilian experiences.

The first two thirds of the book gives us the story of the invasion and the response of Britain and her allies. The final third of the book provides a number of informative chapters by various authors, giving insight into the various realities of politics, resources, organisation, preparation and the central characters of the time that success or failure of Sealion might hang on.

I will avoid mentioning how the campaign concluded, allowing for the dear reader who may well want to find that out for themselves in the book. I have recently bought an out of print boardgame that covers the subject and I shall bring that to the table and conduct my own ‘Sealion’ to see where that ends up, no doubt the book will enhance the enjoyment and understanding of the game.

Cox opens with dawn, 23rd September 1940 as the first 8000 Fallachirmjägers, 600 Junkers and 52 Transports pass over the Kentish coast at Hythe. Barges and motor boats head for beaches between Folkstone and Seaford, loaded with infantry divisions with the prime aim of capturing most of southern England within 10 days. Their recent victories of France, Holland and Belgium made these young soldiers confident, competent and enthusiastic. 

‘A huge flotilla of German barges stretch across the whole sweep of Dymchurch Bay and planes overhead in their hundreds head towards Hythe and Saltwood’.

‘There were 300 Home Guard in Hythe and not all had rifles yet’.

‘Beaches at Dungeness, cuckmerehaven and Newhave were being assaulted and in the first three days 110,167 men came ashore’

‘It had been predicted that it would take eight days for the Germans to gain Kent and Surrey’.

‘Several of the Junker 52’s were shot down. One crashed on the little golf course by the Imperial Hotel, setting off half a dozen teller Mines’.

“Latest reports show they have taken Dymchurch, Camber and Pevensey, Sir”.

Peter Fleming, brother of the famous Ian Fleming (Bond Writer) worked in intelligence and he was responsible for creating the ‘Stay Behind Parties’, small groups of citizens that would sabotage supply lines and the rear echelon. These groups had a life expectancy of around two weeks.

‘The South Westerly wind had risen to Force 4 and the waves had reached almost the maximum that the Rhine barges could cope with’.

RAF report … September 23rd …. 237 of our Aircraft are out of action from a total strength of 1048 operation aircraft, plus another 192 in store.

Australian and New Zealander formations that had been recently rescued from the Dunkirk beaches were on hand to put in prompt counter-attacks.

The German second echelon totalled 500 guns, 900 tanks, 3,500 vehicles, 7000 horses and 24,000 men. They needed a port and so the capture of Folkstone became a critical German objective.

Within a few days, enough territory had been taken to fly in the Reichsprotektor, an SS officer who represented Hitler on British soil and was tasked with running security. His first proclamation concerning an incident local to his headquarters -   “Unless information leading to the arrest of the saboteurs is received by the authorities, the hostages from the village will be shot”.

I shall leave it there. 

Richard Cox was a pilot and reserve paratrooper major and for some years was a war correspondent. His book was first published in 1975 and the most recent edition was published in 2024 by Silvertail Books. I picked my copy up on the Kindle for a holiday read.

Note, if you do a computer search on ‘Paddy Griffith Operation Sealion’, you will be given an Amazon page that shows a book about the actual Sealion wargame played at Sandhurst.

I will come back to this once I have played the boardgame.

For this week's face-to-face game, we decided to have a go at what is essentially the introductory scenario in the 'By Swords & Bayonets' package from GMT.

This is the latest volume from the Great Battles of the American Civil War series, which is a fairly complicated system, but this release is specifically intended with its smaller battles and supporting documentation to help the gamer get through the learning curve.

As I was playing it, I thought that much was very similar to the Men of Iron system and the Great Battles of History (covering the Ancient world), which I am quite familiar with, but here there seems to be an additional level of chrome and we found ourselves checking and double-checking everything.

However, the game did 'what it said on the tin' in terms of being an introductory package and even though we only managed to play two full turns, some of the processes were becoming more familiar and we enjoyed it enough to want to come back for more and I think the bottom line is that this just needs some playing hours thrown at it.

In the near future, 3 Days at Gettysburg from the same series is going to be re-released and looking at this detailed system, I can only imagine that the opening hours of the battle that involved Buford's cavalry is going to be a really interesting, detailed and nuanced action to get involved with ..... and that, I have to say, is much better than playing a bland or superficial look at the same action.

In our action the Confederates moved down below the creek to defend the lower ground and got promptly mauled by the Union troops.                                                                                                                                                                     

The system uses chit pull to determine which side can activate a formation next, producing a dynamic flow of play, in which your brigades might activate twice in a row. Each unit has a cohesion number and various tests are made against that value, in a sort of 'morale test' sort of way.

For a 'simple' battle there was a good bit going on in this scenario. The Union have mostly green troops, that must test before charge to contact. The Confederates have got entrenchments and both sides score Victory Points for their occupation, which very much encourages the Union to keep attacking. 

As the Confederates got pushed back onto the creek, they became crowded and their units suffered failed disorder checks as units retreated and crashed through other friendly units in their efforts to back upon the bridge.

Looking at the scenario, it seems nicely balanced and I suspect that had our game concluded naturally, it would have been pushing into the territory of a draw. The next time this goes onto the table, I think it would be worthwhile for the Confederates to just give ground very slowly in the hope that their own force stays intact and that the Union run out of time to occupy enough entrenchment hexes, to get enough victory points for it to matter!

Anyway, I have come home, quite keen to get my copy out and to get it punched .... also I have heard that a streamlined and simplified version of the rules is being prepared. These will likely be cut down in the way that the 'Simple' Great Battles of History fast play rules have been - but I like those and so I look forward to the same being done for this system.