These are the 28 Epic strips (280 figures) that I sent to a commission painter.

I have put them on 55mm wide MDF bases rather than the supplied 60mm, which tightens things up a bit.

Here I have shown them as 7 battalions of two bases, which work well in bigger games when there is a demand on bases, but for relatively small contacts, when say running a campaign game and playing out thos incidental meetings, I will go to three base units. This is what I have been doing with my ACW stuff.

These figures use lighter colours than I would have used and it has been an important lesson for me for my future painting. I think the lighter colours really help bring a brighter aspect to the smaller figures to get some pop and show off their character.

For now, I will keep this as a 7 unit infantry force and just add a gun battery plus two cavalry regiments. that will give me the core of a 'Pocket army'. Ccertainly enough to do '1 Hour Wargaming' style scenarios.

I can mirror that with a Prussian force to get some small games going and then add to them bit by bit as need and opportunitty arises, again, this is what I have done with the ACW stuff.

Anyway, very happy to have had a 'leg-up' with getting this period started. 

I have just been watching a YouTube video of a lovely Napoleonic game in 28mm. I asked how big the table was, thinking perhaps is was just a bit larger than a 6x4. It turns out is is a 12x6, which reinforces my view that for my domestic setting, the Epic scale will do me fine!

Warlord Games announced this week that in June they will be releasing the latest period in the Epic series ...... American War of Independence.

I have been enjoying my own figure rules the last few weeks with the ACW Graysville Campaign, a set that I always intended to diversify into three periods - ACW, Napoleonics and AWI.

So to get the AWI set up to a playtest stage, in time for the Warlord Games release, I thought this rather nice Osprey title (bought from Waterstones UK) would help me dislocate the rules from any innapropriate ACW / napoleonic hangover. 

I already have the 'Live Free or Die' rules and scenario package by the Little Wars TV people, so in the end, that might become a playing option, though it does use a lot of bases, but perhaps that might drive me to cut the Epic strips in half ..... or have 1 Epic base count as two LForD bases.

Battle of Fismes as stated a few posts lower down is an introductory title to a Napoleonic series game.

I have just played through it once and have put a post up over on the blog that discusses the game from the perspective of a newbie player. I.e. does the introductory package do what it is intended to do.

It is too long to repeat here, but here is a link for anyone interested.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-battle-of-fismes-introduction-to.html

Our face to face game last night was Battle Cry by Richard Borg, a hybrid board and figure game, related to the WWII memoir '44 games and from which the various GMT Commands and Colors block systems would follow.

For those that don't know, the battlefield is divided into 3 sectors, centre and flanks. You have a hand of cards, each which typically allows you to activate a number of units in one sector, plus there are event cards etc.

To inflict damage on the enemy, you roll dice that have unit symbols on them and if you can match a symbol to the unit type in the target hex, one figure is removed from play per matching.

This is the sought after 150th Anniversary Edition and very nice it is too. We played the scenario twice, with a different winner each time, so what initially seemed slightly unbalanced against the Confederate side, actually appears a well crafted scenario, though in the second game, the Confederates drew the 'Breastworks' card and that helped them strengthen their centre sector.

As always, it is an entertaining, light and fun game that just simply works. It is ages since we played and we were able just to get straight back into it without any rules faff. 

Having sold off the 20mm (1/72) WWII stuff last year, I have been buying the bits to put some 10 / 12mm (1/144) forces together.

In the first instance I am going for a German mid war starter force - a new ‘Pocket Army’. 

WWII can pass across the painting table at surprising speed compared to other periods and so it makes for a good quick project to fit in between other bigger projects, that you sometimes need a rest from!

Anyway, kampfgruppe Schmidt is ready for action, comprising as follows;

9 x Infantry bases (6 figures per 45mm base)

1 x Mortar base (with 2 mortar teams and an observer)

2 x HMG bases (1 HMG per base)

1 x OBA observer team (radio operator and observer with field glasses)

2 x PaK 40 bases (75mm anti-tank guns and crew)

1 x HQ base (Horch car and two officers)

3 x StuG III vehicles.

1 x Opel truck

The infantry, mortar and HMG and OBA observer team are Victrix hard plastic figures from their German Infantry pack costing £30, but there are still enough figures left to do quite a few more bases … perhaps even another company of infantry if I get a little creative.

All the vehicles are from Anschluss Wargames. They are resin and the StuG’s cost £3.75 each, the Horch car cost £3.50 and the Opel truck £3.25

The Anti-tank guns are metal from Pendraken Miniatures, costing £3.20 for the pair.

So for around £50 a flexible WWII Pocket Army can hit the table, and for say just over £100 plus associated postage two small forces can be had.

I have tried to base these so that they can fit into both rural and urban scenarios, but I am not sure that I have achieved that as much as intended. The problem is that if the base goes too dark, you visually ‘lose’ the figures in them. I had to add some light turf (a sort of dusting) to brighten these, but I think that has left them a bit ‘messy’.

Although the Horch car is based, that was really just to create a HQ scene and for this project, for now at least, I am generally not going to base the vehicles. The advantage of basing would be the raising of the vehicle so that they look right next to the based infantry, but I think un-based vehicles sit better on a variety of terrains - we shall see!

The infantry bases each represent a rifle section, so the nine base gives a company of three platoons, a fairly perfect size for my own rules, rather small for ‘O’ Group and also on the small side for Rapid Fire Reloaded scenario books that I have, though the ‘head count’ on the bases might make for a better visual for Rapid Fire games. 

In any case, it is just a starter force and it will be easy to introduce other bases and broaden the versatility.

My intention now is to do a mirror force for the mid-war Soviets. I will look to add a 7th figure to the infantry bases to represent bigger platoons and see what that looks like and probably run one of the platoons with three sections of sub-machine gunners.

After which … ‘Attack on the Rail Station’ and others beckon! 

Progress can then slow down a bit, perhaps a platoon of Hanomag half tracks for the Germans and a truck platoon for the Soviets, before turning to either a British / commonwealth or American force for another ‘Pocket Army’ .... or Napoleonics or ACW or ECW or Punic Wars .... Oh Dear! :-)

I am not a huge fan / consumer of historical fiction, but while in the local garden centre the other day (Dobbies in the UK), I saw these two Scarrow titles.

They were on a 2 for £6 deal and since each has a list price of £9.99, I thought ‘why not’! I see these sort of things as good stand-by for hospital visits etc.

I was a bit hesitant to buy at first because the prose felt a bit stilted, but from somewhere at the back of my mind, I recall that language corrupts at a given rate of 1% every 19 years - something that apparently helps specialists track the movements of ancient populations. Anyway, if true, It would stand to reason that the text should certainly not feel modern and I trust that Scarrow understands his subject a thousand times more than I do, so that is that!

Could this all possibly lead to some Britannia based wargames! 

I also picked up ‘The Return’ by Harry Sidebottom, this one relates to 145 BC - Calabria, Ancient Rome. I thought a 'contrast and compare' of the prose by two different authors would be interesting to me.

I will read the Britannia book first ….. because I like that cover the best, yes, that’s how shallow I am :-)

Recent additions to the boardgame collection - two games from Operational Support Group (OSG) run by Kevin Zucker, who is also the designer. Napoleon Against Russia and the Battle of Fismes.

Zucker was the designer of the old SPI Napoleon’s Last Battles boardgame, that sold zillions and surely must have a place in the heart of many a 70’s gamer. From that game he developed the system further and began a series of games that have become known as the Library of Napoleonic Battles - a common ruleset applied to a host of napoleonic battles.

I have recently been playing the old ‘Napoleon’s Last Battles’ and wanted to dip my toe into the Library series. 

They do a ‘starter’ game for £25 which covers Fismes (a 'what if' game that itself comes from the Napoleon Retreats - 1814 module), though some charts etc need downloading to support play. Of the 8 downloaded documents, all are display charts except one, the Study Folder. This is a 20 page document, a sort of play book that details scenarios and gives a historical background. I decided to send this particular document off to a print on demand service, so that it would look like the booklet that comes with the official parent module. It cost an extra £10 including postage, a bit of an indulgence, but the sort of nice thing that just elevates a game. 

I also had a scout around and tried to judge which of the volumes might be closer to going out of print. Anyway, my pin landed on Napoleon Against Russia and so here were are.

The two main features of the system seem to be that the Library series not only offers the battle itself, but has scenarios that cover (usually the previous day) the approach to battle. The maps at around 500 metres per hex give you enough room for that manoeuvre and so of course, by the time you reach contact, you might have a very different looking (say) Borodino.

The other feature which seems to be liked and disliked in equal measure is the Combat Table, which is low casualty based, instead favouring pushes / retreats. The way to destroy the enemy is to surround them, so that units cannot retreat and are removed from play instead. The realism of that can be argued either way, but at the higher level of play it seems to work and you end up with good narrative such as units being pushed out of villages or brushed aside at strategically important bridges etc, plus the Library CRT compared to the NLB CRT includes a result called shock, which can lead to losses.

Either way, the system puts an emphasis on manoeuvre.

There is a load of support material in the Russian box and the presentation of the Study Book just leaves you feeling that a lot of knowledge and passion has gone into the game.

These are small counters and small hexes, which is necessary to have enough ‘cells’ on the map for all of that manoeuvring and the maps themselves are quite beautiful. If you like just looking into old maps, discovering obscure village names, following campaign narratives in books and understanding why some geographic features are so important, then these maps are for you.

Anyway, as always, it all takes its place in the playing queue, but I suspect this will have an outing that is sooner rather than later.