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.

As I re-familiarise myself with Black Powder, I remembered how tough buildings are to attack and thought I would run through the routine to take another look. 

There are some headlines features for the Built Up Area (BUA), with three being particularly effective; (1) a defender that is hit gets a +2 to their Save roll. (2) if the occupant is forced to take a break test, then it can ignore ‘retire’ results. (3) at the end of each round of hand-to-hand combat, the occupants get an automatic +3 bonus hits against the attacker.

The attacker has a couple of things that they can do to increase the effectiveness of their attack (1) use artillery before an assault goes in and hope to inflict a hit and / or a ‘Disorder’ result on the occupants. (2) make maximum use of supports. Having support to the rear and one to each flank will give the attacker +3 Bonus hits against the defender - surprisingly, cavalry can be used as a support.

In the above scene, a lone Prussian battalion is holding the walled farm. A French brigade of 3 Infantry battalions and a cavalry regiment are putting in an attack. The French unit at the front of the farm gates will be the attacking unit and the three friendly units around it will be adding their support.

I have already allowed the French to make two turns of artillery fire at medium range, but this does not produce an effect.

The attack is described as a charge and as such, as the attackers close to contact, the defenders will be able to get off some ‘closing fire’ musketry. Even though this is limited to just two attack dice, the Prussians are lucky and inflict 2 hits (not Saved) and a Disorder (that is very lucky!).

The attack is executed in the Hand-to-Hand Phase. Helped by the +2 Morale Bonus on the their Save rolls and the +3 Bonus Casualties that the defenders in buildings inflict on attackers, the Prussians score the most hits and the attackers are forced to take a Break Test. They roll badly and the lead battalion is removed from play. This loss causes the other three French units to take Break Tests, but they are fine.

At the end of all of that, the French Brigade have lost a battalion and the Prussian defenders have 3 hits, which makes them shaken.

The French decide in a subsequent turn to attack again. This time equal hits are inflicted (a bit of lucky dice really for the attacker) and so this time both sides must take a Break Test. The French fail and retire, but the Prussians fail catastrophically and are removed from play! 

This leaves us with the dilemma that neither side holds the farm …. which player will be the first to get a unit in there? If the Prussians get there first, the French will have to do all over again!

So that took a 4:1 attack over two turns to get a result, which compared to some of my previous games is quite good ….. but only if the French can be the first to get a battalion into the farm.

Perhaps the farm could have its +3 Bonus casualty value lowered to a +2. I think in Black Powder the general +3 bonus feels a bit more like it is representing a ‘Hougoumont’ style strongpoint, a +2 might feel a bit more of a typical period building complex. 

Reading accounts of Napoleonic battles often refers to a village changing time multiple times over the space of a couple of hours. A building strength of +2 (or even a +1) might get us closer to that sort of thing.

While this was still on the table, I thought I would run it again, but using my own rules.

In the first assault, the French failed their pre-charge Competency test and so only put in a ‘half hearted’ assaulted. Needless to say, they were thrown back.

They wanted to attack again, but under the rules units cannot charge on consecutive turns, so they use turn 2 to re-organise and bring the fresh support up to be the lead unit.

On turn 3 the attack went in. It was another half-hearted attack, but even so, the attackers came off best, forcing the Prussians to abandon the farm and allowing the French lead unit to move in.

Even though I have always thought of Black Powder buildings as being a bit too strong, on this occasions with Black Powder the farm was vacated on turn 2, where-as in my game the farm was not captured until turn 3. Though that is unusual for a Black Powder result and I think going forward, when using Black Powder, I will just drop the melee bonus on buildings from +3 to +2 unless there is good cause to want to treat the building as something of a fortified place.

My 28’s have sat rather lonely on a shelf for a while, but recently, both the Napoleonic and Wars of the Roses collections came out for some table action and the pleasures of just moving them across the table were renewed.

The Napoleonics cover French and Austrian forces. Last year they started as a 'from scratch project' and were brought, fairly quickly to eight units per side, where they formed the basis of a ‘Pocket Army’ article for The Wargamers’ Annual 2025, titled ‘Pocket Armies on the Danube’.

The intention always was that this starter force of eight units should be expanded at leisure to around twelve units per side ….. but unfortunately the ‘leisure’ aspect of that sentiment has had the life beaten out of it and here I am, a year later, no further on.

So as a bit of a palette cleanser from the Epic stuff, I am putting a French unit under the brush.

These infantry units each contain 20 miniatures. I used to paint in batches of 20 for that reason, but I am now trialing a move to just doing 10 figures at a time, so I knocked up a tray to take 10 of my painting corks and here we have the first half of the unit. The second half will include the officer, drummer and standard bearer. I am hoping that painting small numbers like this will make the painting habit a little more bearable and more in keeping with that notion of being a leisurely pursuit!

These are Perry Miniatures lastics from their French Infantry 1812 - 15 boxed set. These have been a relatively straight forward build, you just have to glue on a head, backpack and a pair of separate arms and they are done (good), though I am not dreadfully keen on the bayonets being attached for marching troops, especially as my hands keep catching them. All my units so far do have bayonets attached, but I think for this unit, I might nip them off before they get their primer.

I prime with hand-brushed Vallejo poly black and then dry brush with a couple of coats of off-white, to help keep colours bright and to better define the various parts of the figure and equipment.

Anyway, they should make a nice painting project for September and the Napoleonic project can then claim to be moving forwards ...... slowly!

Having given the Epic Prussians a Landwehr Lancer unit earlier in the month, I decided to give the French their first cavalry unit and they too have lancer models, so these went onto the painting sticks. 

They have been done as Chevaux Légers Lanciers, line lancers, not to be confused with the 1st Regiment of Polish lancers of the guard. This is the 1st Line Regiment with scarlet facings, the first of six regiments converted from dragoons in 1811 and rather colourful chaps they are too.

They have white plumes on their helmet except for the elite company sitting on the right flank of the unit, which had red plumes.

They were involved in the 1812 battles with Russia and 1814 actions at Dresden, Leipzig and Hanau.

In 1815 during the Waterloo campaign, they operated on the French right and were used against Bulow’s Prussians as they emerged from the Bois de Paris, who were advancing on Plancenoit (hence our photo).

I have continued with the 80mm x 60mm base, which holds 12 cavalry models set in two ranks. It is easy to image 2 - 3 of these horse bases forming into a cavalry brigade without their footprint taking up too much space on the table.

I think next, the Prussians could do with another base of Jäger, while the French need two bases of skirmishers to keep up. That should at least be a fast hit to help the monthly base count!

I think last month I pushed too hard on the painting front and it has left me a little unenthusiastic for painting this month, so perhaps overall less pressured painting might actually lead to better productivity in the long run.

I have just found some rather nice 28mm resin barricades and thought I would have a go at them for a change of pace. I primed with a rattle can in a sort of iron red and now with acrylic I am trying to put a dark brown base coat down, but that red is proving a real bugger to kill! Even dragging out my artist quality acrylic paint doesn’t have the covering power on a first pass - never mind, we will get there ……. Eventually! :-) 

Through the post today a kind gift from fellow blogger Steve J.

Savannah (the British turn south), of the Osprey Campaign series, covering the capture of Savannah, the capital of Georgia, by British, Hessian and Loyalist troops and the subsequent 1779 campaign when American and French troops attempted its recapture.

Nice maps, complete orders of battle and Graham Turner's wonderful artwork, supprted by helpful descripive text, such as the account of the Battle of Stono Ferry all add into the mix of my latest interests with the American Revolutionary War. Thank You. 

In an effort to get the Black Powder rules properly back under my belt, I threw down a small napoleonic game, just to reinforce some routines and this situation arose.

The Austrian battalion recently had a musketry exchange with a French battalion and the latter came off quite badly, withdrawing to save itself the almost certain prospect of further harm.

Into this gap, a French assault column that had been moving up to support, suddenly appeared and the way ahead was now clear. The Austrian unit was carrying 2 casualties and a disorder marker and the French commander wanted to deal with them before they recovered, so he ordered the French assault column to immediately assault.

The resulting Command die roll only gave the assaulters one move. They needed two and their charge just fell slightly short of the Austrian unit.

In the next turn, within the rules of ‘proximity’, the French battalion, still in column, were able to order themselves to charge to contact. They did so, but first they had to take closing fire from the Austrians, which inflicted a casualty and a disorder marker.

The attack went in, but the now disordered French had lost their advantage. They had become disordered, which negated their charge bonus and their delay in attacking now meant that a second Austrian battalion has been able to get close enough the support the defenders.

Oh Dear! said the French commander.

That Austrian support made all the difference to the outcome, the attack failed and the French battalion had to take a Break Test ….. they rolled a 4!

A bad fail, which saw them being removed from the table.

Had they rolled better on the command dice for their initial attempt at charging, allowing them to contact the Austrians in the previous turn, before Austrian support showed up, they would have got a draw result instead and the resulting pause would have given enough time for their own French support to move up behind them and then all bets would be off! It would just be the luck of the dice.

It is these sort of narrative moments that BP with its order system and chaos, seems to pull off quite easily.

Time now to sit down with the rules and do a more thorough reading to pick up those things that I have undoubtedly missed.

The Tri-Pack I package mentioned below, covering four Battles of the American Revolution by GMT, went to the table last night for a face-to-face game.

Saratoga was my first exposure to this system a looong time ago and here, in this re-printed collection, it gets a new scenario that just covers the fighting around Freeman Farm. It is four turns long, so seemed the perfect re-introduction to the system for both of us.

By the end of play, we had this rather straight forward system under our belts and had an enjoyable couple of hours of gaming.

The only thing that didn't tickle our fancy was the 'Tactics Matrix' - during each close combat, each player secretly selects a tactic such as Skirmish, Withdraw, Echelon attack etc., from a list of 8 possibles, though only 4 are available to all battles, others need additional elements such as a leader and an open flank.

Anyway, having chosen, you compare tactics and you end up with a die roll modifier or a withdrawal. Neither of us saw any advantage to the rule; it held the element of Rock, Scissors, Paper and took time to consider the tactic and then calculate, and for what seems like not enough difference to matter compared to the input, Getting a possible DRM for a combat that in any case is using a D10, which itself is arguably a swingy device, is something I can let go by.

So we abandoned the rule and played quite happily without it, as indeed I always have in the past. Of interest is that Tri-Pack II comes with a 'solo bot' card to help choose the tactics and there is a lot of randomness in that, so I feel justified in abandoning the mechanic.

In our game, it looked like the British were going to overwhelm the American forces and were poised to capture the important American held objective, when on the 3rd turn a goodly number of American reinforcements arrive just in the nick of time to rebuff the British assaults ..... but there was not enough time to see the Americans counter-attack and take objectives that they needed.

So this small action looks like each time it is played, neither side is likely to win big and that the matter might settle on casualty victory points alone. The winning of course didn't matter, it was an enjoyable couple of hours pushing counters and the scenario has set us up for bigger things. Look forward to more.

After my recent moans about a game dragging on for longer than my sore back wanted! I have taken four different rule books to the table to see whether any suit me better.

I think it is important that the scenario should not be too ambitious to keep the game shorter, but sitting on top of that, rules need to be not only streamlined, but designed to make a smaller game with fewer units interesting, primarily by being a little dynamic in nature and disrupting predictable play.

The testing resulted in a very lengthy article which is best hosted over on the Battlefields and Warriors blog rather than here. 

Link

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/08/comparing-some-black-powder-period-rules.html