Dear Diary - a rolling 4 months of comment
Attacking St. Come du Mont
This is Advanced Squad Leader (starter kit) scenario s41 - called Sink's Encouragement (8th June 1944) - designed by Ken Dunn.
This town sits between Carentan and St. Mere Eglise and elements of 1st Battalion of 506th Para (American) are ordered to attack. Their commander, understanding that his men were tired after 2 days of continuous action, arranged for artillery support.
In full ASL, I recall that the artillery rules have some complexity to them .... benefitting from a flowchart to assist!
While off board artillery has not been covered in the starter kit series, it is given some utility in this scenario by a simple hit / scatter die roll and where the fire lands, that and all adjacent hexes are attacked on the 12 Fire Power column. There are 3 such fires at the start of the game, targeting German positions.
The artillery was pretty effective - especially as the squad with the MMG broke, this team had been covering the central building and had good fields of fire.
Even so, there were enough Germans scattered amongst the remaining buildings to cause the paratroopers to advance cautiously, mainly via the orchard. The paratrooper collective fire cut up the defence leaving importantly placed German squads broken.
However - they had taken too much time to get to this point and the victory conditions of capturing all of the town's buildings within 2 hexes of P6 started to slip from reach ..... and so the paratroopers, confident that much of the towns defenders were in a broken state, advanced on this part of the town.
Of course, it all unravelled ... well it would wouldn't it!
The paratroopers' attempts to use smoke grenades all failed - then the MMG team recovered and finally in a close combat amongst the buildings a German defender saw off an attacker despite being out-numbered 2:1.
A situation of several broken German squads that made the edge of town look like a door waiting to be kicked open, instead came to life and the paratroopers ended up with broken squads everywhere with no hope of securing the building.
Play time - just under the two hours mark.
Complexity - I still had to double check some 'Final Fire' stuff, ELR, smoke placement and what does a squad do when their leader breaks, but outside of that, everything was quite straight forward and these rules are bedding in now ...... well, for infantry anyway :-)
Table surgery!
The table where I stand to play figure games and larger boardgames that have two maps is 40" off the ground, so for a bad back sufferer it helps reduce leaning over into the table and so reduces strains on the back, but this space does have one problem, it is a tight fit in the room that I use.
Along the length of the table, the space to move is narrow and so one tends to move along it in a sideways sort of shuffle and I am now convinced that in addition to periods of standing at this table, that unnatural side-stepping shuffle is contributing to ongoing back and leg pain when playing.
The table was originally giving a 6x4 surface and a couple of years ago I cut the 4 foot depth down from 48" to 43" inches. This helped with the amount of physical space to move in, but did not eradicate the side stepping.
Yesterday after some back related problems when setting up a 28mm Wars of the Roses figure game, the game was packed away and today the saw came out to attack the table depth!
The depth was reduced by a further 4" to 39" (exactly 1 metre). This might not seem much, but the difference is that it is now possible to move along the table length by walking dead ahead rather than 'the shuffle'.
I can still do the 6' and 4' length and indeed, on a (now) 4' x 39" a two map boardgame is a better fit so that whichever side the map is approached from, it is easier to reach its centre - so that must surely be a help.
I am only posting this as it might help others identify an issue that isn't immediately apparent and of course I may be totally wrong and the sideways shuffle may not be a contributor to the back ache.
Anyway, as always .... we shall see!
Face to face game
This is Anzio from White Dog Games and it concerns itself with allied landings on the Italian coastline in January '44.
The game just has 4 pages of rules, with the advantage of brevity and the disadvantage of brevity!
Anzio was a hard slog through the mud and the same (quite rightly) can be said of the game, for the middle part of the play, our game looked like something of a stand-off.
Then the break came and the Germans took Cisterna and pushed beyond it and soon after Aprilia fell.
The level of victory is not so easy to work out in a face to face game as it seems to be set up for the Allied Vs Bot game that you can run, however we gauged it to be a minor German win.
Though overall we ran into stalemate positions quite early, it then becomes the push and shove over a handful of hexes and trying to get positional advantage that occupies the attention, so it keeps both sides busy and even on this small map there are nuances at play that keep the players engaged.
So it is a funny game, it doesn't feel exciting enough to race back to, but it is solid enough to give a very entertaining game. It feels like neither side is winning ...... but that is exactly what Anzio was all about!
Progress on the 10mm fast paint force
A few weeks ago, I opened a discussion about getting some 10mm Napoleonics and doing a test run on speed painting, to get that balance between visual and speed by painting figures that are already glued to their bases.
I have now completed samples for infantry, artillery, cavalry and a command base and put a post up on the Battlefields & Warrior Blog.
Link
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/05/10mm-napoleonic-french-bases.html
Wars of the Roses rules
One of the items that I picked up from the Partizan show was a set of figure rules stocked by the Society of Ancients and at just £15, including cards, I thought that they would provide at least an interesting read.
While looking for reviews, I noticed that there is an entry on BoardGameGeek that covers the creation of a scenario and subsequent game. It is quite detailed, but I think for those interested in the rules, it gives more useful information in one place than anything I might do.
Here is a link to that free download.
LINK
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/288720/blood-red-roses-palm-sunday-battle-1461-from-sling
Partizan wargame show.
A fab day today at Partizan wargame show.
I have put a show report up on the Battlefields & Warrior Blog, just a mix of pictures and comment.
Link
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-partizan-may-2026-wargame-show.html
First go - Battles in the East.
For tonight's face to face game, we had a go at Operation Winterstorm from the recent issue 107 World at War mag (DG), which they call Stalingrad Relief and is part of the Battles in the East series from Decision Games.
I have had the boxed volumes 1 - 4 for a while and they remain unpunched, so tonights game, was a way to ease me in to the system. It is desribed as being an evolution of Army Group South, Panzergruppe Guderian and Cobra ..... which bodes well.
Initially we found it a little more awkward than we expected with its variable supply rules, but this is quite a low counter density battle and so for the first few turns, there were only ever really 2 - 3 points of contact, so we were able to get much more familiar with the game mechanics before the bigger clash started. Having played, I need Post play, I need to re-read the rules before touching anything else, just so that everything falls into place.
I played the Germans and by the start of turn 6, it was clear that my drive to relieve Stalingrad was blunted and that as the Soviet line thickened, counter-attacks would start to push me back.
Mike thought it more of a draw as he didn't feel strong enough to go on a full-pelt counter-offensive. I am left wondering whether I pushed 6th Pz Division hard enough, but I was a little cautious of getting cut off. I will try this again solo over the next week or so and perhaps break one of the box sets open.
The designer notes say that if the Germans have not created a gateway with the Stalingrad garrison by turns 5 - 6, then they will likely lose and by turn 6, this did feel evident. I will loook for some AAR's and see how other players have got on.
A downside is that this doesn't fit out session timewise. It does look like it will be easy to record a game partway through and play the second part at a later date. The art of course is to know when to stop, so that the second part of the game remains viable as a session ..... and that point is not always the halfway mark in turns played.
It still feels a bit more convoluted than I would want or had expected, but being a series game, the re-playability will likely address that.
Full article on most recent dabble
The vehicle rules are starting to stick. Yesterday I ran an exercise of Panzer IV's being ambushed by SU 85's while pushing through a gap in the woods and a few interesting things happened, as they always do.
A reader contacted me yesterday (Hi Mike) to say that they were enjoying the snippets here about the approach to re-learning ASLSK, so I thought it time to do give yesterdays dabble a bit more prominance.
Anyway, if anyone is on am ASLSK path, I have put up a post on the Battlefields & Warriors Blog, covering my most recent tank situation.
LINK
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/05/advanced-squad-leader-practice.html
Tweaks for Marengo
I have played the scenario a fourth time, but made an adjustment to the rules. For the French, their turn 1 movement restrictions are now also imposed on turn 2. For the Austrians, on their first two turns, they have their attack (only) strength doubled. This is not as drastic as it sounds as the Austrians have few attack opportunities on the first few turns and it just helps ensure that DR happens more than AR.
Both tweaks are already present in the scenario, so it is not introducing something too new, rather it is just expanding the designer's thoughts of 50 years ago.
Together, the tweaks serve to ensure that during the morning, the French are encouraged to develop their defences on ‘their’ side of the Fontenone Stream, giving the Austrians a timely jump-off point to assault Marengo, while still ensuring that there is plenty of fight and contest going on before Marengo falls.
My game did give me that, but the French hung on and took heavy casualties. In this system, once one side ‘thins’ the other side has more opportunity to overwhelm, break through or turn flanks and start to cut the enemy retreat and this is what happened here.
In the end the French were desperate for their reinforcements just to hold the line, rather than going on the counter-attack and re-taking Marengo. So we end with a very clear Austrian victory.
The scenario was more fun to play than the previous ones of a ‘contained’ Austrian force, but it would need to be played a few more times to make sure that there is also the chance of a French victory. The tweaks may have given us the right opening and a good contest for Marengo, but if they fail to show the French counter-attack in all of its glory, then we still have a problem.
For the next play, I may remove Austrian double strength attacks for turns 1 & 2 and just stick with the French movement restrictions for turns 1 & 2 and see how that goes. Regardless, four enjoyable games of Marengo in just a couple of weeks without the rulebook being used is its own minor victory.
Advanced Squad Leader SK
The playing of small incidents continues and I am noticing my speed picking up.
Here we see the 'Allied Minors' set up at one end of a town ready to meet attacking infantry supported by a self-propelled gun.
The SPG is useful against buildings, attacking as area fire on the '12' column of the Infantry Fire Table... however, a combination of poor shooting and good defender morale meant that the SPG did not deliver the goods this time!
Note the defender's anti-tank rifle is ready to have a crack at the SPG if it enters the town.
The stack at the bottom of the screen contains a medium machine gun, which jammed as it fired at approaching enemy!
The Marengo write-up
As mentioned, the recently released Decision Games’ ‘deluxification’ of the old SPI Napoleon at War has been on my table. I have played three games of the Marengo battle and put some notes up on the blog.
The three games have ended in French victories, so I am yet to crack this battle, but I am struggling to get the Austrians into a winning position so far.
I think I will have a go at Wagram next
Here is a link for anyone interested;
https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/05/marengo-june-1800-napoleon-at-war.html
Latest issue of WSS
Issue 140 hits the UK high street today and rather a nice issue it is too, being themed on the Saratoga campaign 1777 (AWI).
There are three AWI scenarios included that relate to the subject, from the pen of Steve Jones.
Reviewed is the Rapid Fire supplement 'Barbarossa Border Battles', which is a nice booklet that I already own from the irresistible Rapid Fire Reloaded collection.
Richard Marsh gives us an additional East Front scenario in the magazine called Pelische 1941. All the scenarios are fairly vehicle heavy, but the author has worked from the perspective of getting these games onto a 6x4 table with his favoured 20mm. All the scenarios in this booklet have been built up around changing the scale of tank numbers from 1:5 to 1:10, but those who use Rapid Fire will know that in practice, none of that matters once the dice start rolling.
Richard Clarke (Too Fat Lardies) says 'Don't be a dick!'. He is referring to the very competitive players who ask questions of a designer that are set around a principle of gaining whatever game advantage they can from the rules and use the 'if the rules don't say I can't, then I can' argument for their cause. He is talking about players who will seek any perceived advantage that they can winkle out of the rules and of course for most of us, we might naturally take a wide berth of such players.
I am amused by the concept as quite frankly I never care whether I win or not, it is purely the game for me. Of course one plays to the order of the victory conditions for the win because you have to for the sake of the game / history, but after that .... really!
Chris Peat has an article about his wargame group (Spalding Wargames Club) being featured on the TV (BBC news) with an angle that membership of the club supports gamers mental health.
There is a bunch of other stuff (Hello Baron's War) and overall, this is another excellent cover to cover read.
Playing Marengo
I have spent the last couple of days looking at the Marengo (1800) battle from the Napoleon at War game quad.
It has an old school charm, while being updated with rather nice graphics.
The rules are very similar to the Blue & Gray quad (ACW) and essentially your turn is just one of moving and then fighting without any other sub-phases going on such as command or supply etc.
There is a bit of scripting driving a couple of areas in the scenario to help impart a little of the historical flow of the battle.
I have been working on a blog post that looks at an AAR of the battle and offers some observations on the system and game, so hopefully that should be ready in a day or two with a few pictures. I will put a link here in due course.
Throwing hours at wargaming ... hoorah!
Having taken on vehicles with ASLSK .... I have just passed the tipping point of rule frustration with armour and wanting throwing the thing on the fire :-)
Happily, I think I am now through to the other side and fairly familiar with the processes. It really just needs more play to bring it all increasingly into the arena of being second nature.
I have been really appreciative of a couple of YouTube channels that go through the learning curve with some care - selfless support by the creators, Thank You.
The starter kit series now has its own sort of annual book called Basic Training and I saw an amusing comment from someone on the irony of a starter kit based around easier rules, itself needing a training manual :-)
The Starter Kit rulebook in kit #1 (Infantry) is pretty easy to absorb, especially for anyone previously exposed to the system. Kit #2 (guns) is okay as it adds a 'to hit' process and the nature of HE fire on infantry.
However it is Kit #3 (armour) that has the steepest learning curve, with armour not really sharing much of the infantry mechanics that you have already learned and having all that Motion, Stopped, Bounding Fire, To Kill stuff, set amongst some fairly tight, concise text blocks that can overwhelm the senses.
However, the total starter kit rulebook at this stage has grown from 12 to 32 pages and you just have to say to yourself 'how hard can it be to crack 32 pages'! Plus along the way, the play throws up a ton of nuance and that nuance to the tactical gamer brings its own joy and helps the perseverance.
I just think you have to go with the rules as you understand them at the time, then at the end of a session, go back to the rules and reinforce those areas causing doubt. I know I have played some base concepts wrongly before starting to straighten it out - but really, it doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things.
For the armour learning, I have been setting up a couple of tanks per side and slogging it out - not tactically challenging, but, repeat, repeat, repeat, does start to embed process and procedure.
There are still blanks, but I have reached the point of 'knowing what I don't know' as opposed to 'not knowing what I don't know' and so concentrating my efforts on brushing up on those areas is helping.
This afternoon, the penny was dropping even furthet. I stopped slogging away head on and split two vehicles to go around either side of a building. Their prey was a Sherman 76L on the other side of the building. By approaching from two aspects, the Sherman was compromised, pulled out of position, its turret swinging to engage the enemy, but missing when it fired, while the enemy, calmly, with one shooting into the rear of the Sherman's turned turret (yes it covers that sort of thing) took the Sherman out!
And so I think I get my well earned tankers first medal :-)
In 1985 when full ASL first came out, with its super thick rulebook, I was managing all of this with the Beyond Valour module (East Front) with apparent ease - my grey cells are finding it all a bit harder this time around :-)
But I am getting there and everything has been spared the threat of fire :-)
In the background, I have just cut and clipped the counters to the Napoleon at War game for the Marengo battle and will be browsing the rules tonight. I do hope this one meets expectations, it looks lovely. More soon.
