We will Remember

"Anthem for a Doomed Youth"

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

- Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,

-The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

1st New York Dismounted

After several months of not touching the American Civil War project for a variety of reasons, I finally got round to some of the small additions needed to finish the army.

Firstly, thanks to Trevor, I got some dismounted cavalry figures to build a complimentary force to my mounted cavalry. Now most of the club players used Perry plastics to represent dismounted cavalry, but for me they didn't work. Instead I've lucked into a unit of Foundry figures , also sculpted by the Perries:

An absolute breeze to paint compared to all the fussy details of Napoleonic uniforms!

After Fiasco, I also have a field piece and a Brigadier to paint up. That'll finish the basic force; though inevitably, if I make more use of the models (and that is why Trevor is helping me scratch together the gaps in my force, to build his large collection a proper opponent!) I'll carelessly buy some more models.

By the hundred...

Fiasco 2009

Within thirty seconds of leaving the midst of a bitter November storm, dumping vast quantities of water onto the drearily incomprehensible ring road network of Leeds city centre, I'm stood in a queue behind a substantial gentleman who smells rather on the sweaty side for such a cold day, and is wearing far too many non permeable fabrics.

Ah yes, it's just one of the first tell tale signs that I'm at Fiasco.

The Leeds Wargame Club keeps putting on this show, though every year it seems smaller and less well attended. I their defence this year though, the diabolical weather (the same as the last two years, mind) must have had an influence. A quick runaround showed that a couple of the largest display games had not made it by the opening time (or, by when I left 90 minutes later)

Trader attendance seemed down too, no Irregular Miniatures amongst others I'd usually assume to see. But there was a lot of the local companies who are always about. As a shopping day it was satisfactory, though I'd come with fairly limited requirements. In the end, thanks to some conniving with Trevor from the Leeds clubs I was able to get away with 59 28mm models for £35; mostly Napoleonics, but with just enough American Civil War figures to complete that project.

So, what of the displays.

I say displays, because as is not uncommon at shows, some of the games were clearly not to actually be played, whilst others were off putting by their appearance (once again the society of Ancients/Lance and Longbow societies seem to like ideas over looks - I would contend that shows are not the place for this to work).

Of the ones I did take snaps of I'll begin with Secrets of the Third Reich, a WW2 zombie game on some nice terrain. I've passed comment on the SOTTR rules in the past (not glowing) but Paul who runs the game is a member of Leeds Night Owls and a big supporter of the system. His terrain and models as ever were very nice indeed.

Next up for me, purely visually was an ancient naval game. Simple terrain, well presented, was teamed with very nicely painted models. It gave a good sense of spectacle though who knows if it would have looked as good after a couple of hours...

Next up was a display, quite clearly. I think it was something to do with one of those wargames holiday centres. Nevertheless the sight of this British square being charges by a mass of Sudanese tribesmen was still impressive.

As for the Leeds wargames club themselves, they have been playing a lot of the War of 1812, using a commercial ruleset. They put on a display game, which clearly only used club terrain, slightly spruced up. It looked like exactly that too, a club game. And there is nothing wrong with that, as at least it seemed to be played rather than just stared at.

Sadly for the camera they were badly positioned under the unlit section of low roof, so this isn't even a good photo. The figures were all very nicely done plastics from what I could see.

However, in the absence of a large scale Napoleonics or other game to catch the eye, this years winner for me was a huge 15mm Arab-Israeli game. Covering a good 18 feet by 6, it featured classically well made and sturdy terrain, and some beautifully painted models.

And they were actually playing the game too!

Bravo to them.

Still the show was not as good as in years gone by. No bring and buy, fewer displays, fewer traders. One of the best things going for it in theory is the venue, but I overheard many complaints about the parking (being a sorta local I knew where to park nearby for free on a Sunday, but most everyone else was stuck in the Armouries own extortionate parking), and driving into Leeds is simply not something for the faint hearted to attempt.

I hope they can improve the show in future years, but I wonder if to do that it's time to say farewell to the Royal Armouries and maybe change the date to one less likely to always be swept by rain...

The most fought over house in Spain

One of our regular Thursday night games, but plans to try 'Napoleon' fell at the first hurdle, when we discovered we didn't have the expected extra figures available.

No matter there's always next time. and so instead we knocked up a large skirmish engagement instead, to try several formed bodies of troops at once, and to introduce cavalry and artillery to the game for the first time.

We also scraped together a scenario as we went; French artillery and hidden Voltigeurs were guarding a vital crossroads, whilst their reserves arrived, knowing that British troops were looking to take control of the vital road links. The British troops were similarly arriving piecemeal, but had a valuable mobile asset in terms of the 16th Light Dragoons. Not to mention a mounted Colonel in command.

But no Blunt! Today he was elsewhere, the points wouldn't allow for me to squeeze him in, as it was we tried a larger points game. And as an aside, it tells me I really need to rejig the points system as it is broken as soon as you use formed units.

Anyway, my cavalry dashed round the flank of the cannon so that any chance to fire was obscured by the house and the woods to its' rear. My infantry, and some of the French began to arrive, and I trusted to the blocking trees again to save me for now. I knew that if I could approach the cannon and accept one round of fire, there would be time to charge it down and capture it.

Of course and aspect of the rules is the timing of commands and then the carrying out of them. When I declared a charge with my cavalry against the gun, it turned out to be fatefully too far away. The Dragoons were left hanging! Naturally the Neils' cannon took full advantage.

BOOM! American gunners deputised for French, at the hands of my old Dogs of War Cannon!

At least he was only loaded with round shot, as we ruled he couldn't have preloaded with case shot. Still he was able to draw a line of fire through two cavalrymen, who alas were cut down. The Dragoons quickly withdrew.

Other French reserves arrived, in line with British support. The cavalry now failed two attempts to charge the white coated Westphalians in the flank, and the leisurely formed line to present us with no opportunity to attack. Elsewhere I began to encircle the advancing French column, which had gained the support of the Voltigeurs, who were hiding in the lee of the hill.

Again the British stumbled to unveil their trap. But similar problems beset the French too at times. A fierce exchange of fire developed, including the cannon, which managed to miss pretty spectacularly. The British did manage to get one charge in, but the effect was limited on a unit of 24 models that could absorb the damage like a sponge.

Both sides were suffering from a lack of commands, the British most tellingly but as the game drew to a close, the Dragoons finally managed to charge the cannon.

After twelve turns the Cavalry had taken the gun, but the large French formations held the ground assuredly, forcing back one attack and holding two others at bay. It was a classic draw.

It highlighted several weaknesses in the rules, particularly in terms of points, but also of troops not having certain automatic options when faced with threats. Still some simple fixes are all that is needed, in most cases, and a rethink of other points should clear it all up.

Overall a good tense game, with over a hundred models in play.

October Pledge report

The latest and final output for this month today. First up are the 16th Queens Light Dragoons:

The 16th was part of Wellington's Peninsula Army 1809 - 14, winning major battle honours at Talavera, Salamanca and Vittoria. In 1815 they fought in the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, in Belgium.

The ensign is highly speculative, but only included because the Front Rank battalion pack includes one. Overall I love the quality of the Fronk Rank miniatures, but the lack of variety in the posing is less pleasing. Still at under £2.40 a piece for metal cavalry, they aren't bad. The chest lace should perhaps only be silver for officers, but the effect is nice so I doubt I'll change it.

They were fairly quick to paint, and so I had time to start another little side project, some more French troops for our skirmish games.

In fact I ended up opting for perhaps my favourite Napoleonic uniform. Imortalised in one of the best illustrations from Blandfords' Uniforms of the Peninsular War book; The Regiment Irlandaise:

Lovely vivid green uniforms. These are all portrayed as voltiguers, including an officer and a bugler. Made from a variety of spare victrix figures, including at least three officer and a drummer torso!

Nevertheless, officially I am behind my purchasing now, which is lamentable!

if the rules were I could only spent a set amount per month it wouldn't be so bad, but buying boxes of plastic soldiers really hammers me for figure counting purposes. That considered I make the numbers as follows:

• Bought: 757
• Painted: 711
• Sold: 354

And the bad news will keep coming I'm sure, as tomorrow is Fiasco, and the likelihood of me visiting a wargames show and not buying some models is pretty slight.

Sigh.

Battlefield Evolution WW2 - Any good?

As promised, my thoughts on these, having now played them; along with a little battle report.


Firstly the basics. Troops operate as squads, vehicles as individuals unless attached directly to a squad (e.g. transport). It's IgoUgo, except that enemy forces within engagement zones (10 inches generally) of your units have the option of a reaction, to interrupt - either with fire or movement.

A unit can take two actions per turn, of which there are four; Fire, Move, Assault or 'Ready'. Ready actions generally combine two actions in to one and allow more complex things to be done, such as vehicles moving and firing at any point in their movement.

We set up a game of 1500 points, which on table was equivalent to a platoon sized action with a healthy amount of support equipment. My American Armoured Infantry faced Steve's Waffen SS (boo hiss!).

Steve took first turn at my decision, a nice element of the game is that players elect in secret at the start of the game whether they are on aggressive, defensive or reconnaissance (called Probe)orders. Both sides could pick the same, which is nice, the result of this choice gives each player different orders and victory conditions. I'd elected to probe Steve defenses; though it seemed Steve decided attack was the best form of defense.

Mortar fire caused early casualties for both of us; apparently on this occasion our artillery was very accurate, but based on the system established for it, it is hard to see how it wouldn't be. With 20mm models it wouldn't be so bad, but for a cluttered 28mm scaled setup it was hard to miss with artillery. The firer nominates his target point, and if he has no line of sight, the opponent nominates a direction of deviation and rolls a D10. That is the number of inches off target the shot lands, but then the firer rolls a D10 too to move the shot back on target.

On average it moved the target point by one and a half inches in our game, and with a blast area of three inches, seldom did less than hit half a target unit.

Armour was very similar to a lot of other games in some respects, but was handled generally well enough, and I've no complaints about it. Tanks are properly effective at this scale, but my Bazooka teams were entirely luckless on their firing rolls and Steve's Panzer IV was only worried when my Sherman 76 paid it some attention.


Morale as such, is handled in a simple fashion, a unit with its commander alive can always act normally. But as commanders have no special immunity to getting killed, unlike say, any game of Warhammer you've ever played, this is unlikely to stay as the situation long. A unit of half strength or more can always elect a new leader, once under half strength, and leaderless a unit can only react to enemy activity, and does not take actions in its own turn.

Routing doesn't happen, but it reflects troops becoming pinned, but with the option to defend themselves or withdraw when their immediate situation becomes threatened well enough.

On table the Americans were boxed in and suffered a pasting, one point that bothered me was the definition of certain weapons. Machine guns only fired three shots, far too few in my opinion at this scale, compared to how effective artillery was. Cost them more and make them at least twice as effective I think! Meanwhile a German 37mm gun was credited with a HE round; doubtful.

So in general, they are pretty good, if needing a little common sense applying here and there. The rulebook seemed clear and simple and well priced at £15; it contained reasonably complete army lists for at least four major combatants in the late war period - Germany, Russia, America and Britain, and was extensively illustrated.

Well worth a look, and I think I'll try a few more games for sure.

An Officer and no Gentlemen

A mixed bag of painting this week. Starting with the first command figure for my British. General Cameron, one of Wellesley's first brigade commanders in the Peninsular.
A Front Rank officer miniature, crisp sculpting and a breeze to paint. I went for the classic white horse, and was pleased with the result; as well as that of his scarlet coat and his hair. Little touches that make the model look nice.

Other than him I've finished another batch of WW2 for eBay. This time a late war Russian Battalion with added Divisional artillery support; i.e. one 76.2mm Zis 3 gun.

Most of the figures are Italieri's rather static, but easy to paint Russians, one advantage of their most recent models is the very resilient plastic they use, almost as stiff as metal! However as a result the releasing agent to get the models out of the molds is particularly nasty. Paint will not adhere to them! You must either wash the models in hot soapy water or spray undercoat them; preferably both.

I undercoated white, which worked well with thin coats of the main clothing shades, and the usual black wash varnish to finish.

The gun is also Italieri and is a fantastic model. Excellently detailed and with some really lively crew models, along with the more usual loading poses. The officer shouting and pointing is lively, and the ammo carrying figure (converted below to lugging a maxim machine gun) is perfectly done. Whilst it may not take paint well, this material accepts superglue well enough.

I tried a wintery theme on the bases, though not wanting to go for all out snow. Having lived in the Alps I know what snow looks like and most wargame snow bases do not look like snow! I opted instead for a simple hard morning frost, to imply the a bitterly cold Polish or German dawn.
Or in other words, give the bases a normal treatment, and then dry brush them white. Remembering to give the same attention to large metal equipment, which will tend to attract frost too. If you are really showing off a dry brush of a gloss or pearlescent varnish would add to the effect.

Anyhow, back to finishing my first Cavalry Brigade for the Napoleonics...

Blunts' Hill

Or 'Hamburger Hill' as Neil termed it. High atop a ridge stood the Casa del Santa Rodriguez. Both sides needed to secure the high ground to outflank the enemy in the upcoming battle. Blunt found himself against a highly professional cadre for French Light Infantry, but lumbered himself with the 'Scum of the Earth' mere line infantry. Would he be able to act in time with a handful of Chosen men to stop the French?


The intention of the scenario was to throw another curve ball into the simple condition of seizing the house to win the game, the size of the hill meant that both sides used counters to represent the movement of their units until such a time as units crested the hill and could see one another. This way we could not be sure what the opponent had or where. As it was my riflemen won the race to the top of the hill and spotted the enemy commander first, as it turned out leading elite Leger up the hill behind him.

He made a dash for the house, whilst the troops behind him withdrew from deadly rifle fire. Unbeknown to him though , British light troops were just arriving at the rear of the house!

Fortunately, in doing so, other French Leger spotted them and were able to drive them off with musketry. In their stead a platoon of the line moved to the crest of the hill. Unfazed, the French charged and forced them to withdraw too. But they rallied and unleashed a massed volley up the hill, which whilst not very accurate, did enough in volume to force their withdrawal too.

Under the cover of this Blunt advanced on the house, unaware the French commander was already there. The Frenchman leaped from a first floor window, sword in hand; and landed in a heap in front of Blunt. Blunt struck him a devastating blow, but some how the Frenchman rose to his feet, and so a long duel began, both drawing further blood.

Elsewhere a steady exchange of fire continued as both sides tried to reach the top of the hill in force.

The Leger succeeded, getting a handful of men into the building whilst the British dithered below it. However many of their number had been diverted by a pair of riflemen giving enfilading fire from a nearby copse. Suddenly melees were breaking out left and right.

But as time ran out the French commander finally buckled and withdrew, wounded too many times. Blunt looked at the prize of the house, he could feel its warm hard walls, but he had no comfort in the thought of support. His Chosen men were being outnumbered and driven off, whilst the Line infantry stood impassive halfway up the hill.

What a great game, back and forth, with plenty of uncertainty and lots of tactics. In the end we agreed it a draw. As to the rules, well they are on the last revision now, and really I only need to add a clarification appendix and some more notes to the points system and they will be published via the blog.

It was a good night for games in the club overall, with Necromunda, Blood Bowl, Warmachine and others being played. Of note to the camera though were two items, firstly some beautiful models for a game called Infinity, using the nice new near future buildings:

And a game of Battlefield Evolution; by Mongoose Publishing. Ultra modern at a platoon/company scale, played around some classic Warhammer card buildings belonging to Mark. By eck, they still look the business!

Expect more on Battlefield Evolution next week, when my WW2 Americans get a trot out with them...

Chalkidian Hoplites

The Ongoing saga of my Wargames Factory Numidians transforming into Greeks. There was no need to convert these models as such, it was simply a case of using a lot more of the helmeted heads and providing new, larger spears. I do my Hoplite spears about eight or nine feet long in scale, not like those who seem to think they already carried a pike of 12 or more feet in length.

The Musician was built by simply cutting the bow out of a spare left arm and making a set of Greek flutes - two bits of plastic rod, joined at an angle. Historically they were often shown using a mouth strap to position the instrument, but for the sake of simplicity I've ignored that.

The shield design of a red bird is identified with Chalkis, in the Thracian colonies, and so suited the theme of my Spartan Army of Brasidas. I allows them to stand as allies or foes to my army.

24 figures built and painted in about four days. For an effective cost of about 60p each.

Nice.

Some day lad, all this will be yours...

What, the curtains?

Ah, Python. 40 years old, and still some good gags. I bring this up as it relates to a King showing his rather dim son the terrain he will one day be master of, as this article kinda does too. Ahem.

Anyway, rummaging about in the club terrain boxes can at times be a disheartening experience. Amongst the innumerable 40k 'Gothic Ruins and ugly foam hills there is a lack of variety or well made pieces that would stand up to the general abuse of cramped storage boxes and regular usage.

Still, there was no point moaning about it and doing nothing. I used to make all my own terrain, barring the odd nice, bought piece. A quick word and a quick rummage in the bottom of the boxes and I had a bagful of sad looking remnants to work with.

The fields rescue a dozen or so sections of hedgerow (the sort railway shops sell for £1 each and GW sell for around twice the price) by fixing them to a cheap base of hardboard coated in wall filler.

I played around with the surfaces on the two and though the latter looks nicer, its' ploughed effect is not so likely to withstand careless use, still by fixing the terrain to a sturdy wooden footprint, it should survive storage and make for an attractive centre piece to a battlefield.

I also rooted into a supply of plastic palm trees which had regularly been appearing in Flames of War games stood around on large white plastic bases. What an eyesore! Nothing more filler some tester pot paint, a drybrush of acrylic and some scatter cant fix!

Not having to buy the terrain itself meant I just dipped into my pocket for a couple of quid for the hardboard. Though attempting to cut this stuff with just a craft knife is setting yourself up to pay in a different way, a small saw would have helped no end!

In general the quality of scenery at our club is improving, as is the storage (better sized and tougher boxes which stop overloading); and I'm pleased to note I'm not the only member contributing quality scenery, a pile of attractive near future buildings having recently appeared.