Another defeat at the hands of a kid...

Yes, a foray into the local GW shop produced the usual results; my beautifully painted, and lovingly crafted eldar, were thrashed by a bunch of troops who still smelt of undercoat. To be fair to him, the one figure he had painted so far was nicely done, and the models were all well made. But that was all. I don't want to sound like some puritannical paint facist; because I'm not - it took me fifteen years to become a competant painter, longer than many GW players have been on Earth - however, it is always the way that the uglier the army, the more assured it is to pound me.

As you can see I got one good photo of my Eldar Fire Prism, the only thing to survive the game, and worth every point I paid for it. That aside being outnumbered 5 vehicles to 1 was the deathknell for me.

Also bad news was the previews of lots of new Eldar models, temptation again. Another reason why I only venture in a GW shop once every few months.

Oops - Part the third

As promised the New Kingdom Egyptians, not too shabby for being knocked out in a week...

I know it's not been long, but I've managed to move to adding some units suitable for WAB to this lot rather than an enemy army I'd actually have to buy. There were some thirty quids worth of Essex Egyptians and Sherden (destined to be royal guards and mercenaries) along with the sprinkling of Phillistines in my box of 15mm biblicals.

A temporary reprise, spoiled by buying a copy of Warhammer ECW on ebay earlier.

Ho hum.

Ooops - part the second

So in short order a DBA army (New Kingdom Egyptian) a camp, and a custom 'built up area' was assembled. Seven days to paint the army (photo's to follow) and camp, with the BUA scheduled to be finished by Friday.

Doesn't end there of course, the same box I found my NKE army in contained about half the figures for a Phillistines army, so I'm wondering how long I can resist picking up the required figures to build an opposing force.

Meanwhile, I find myself contract painting WW2 Russians; and still the Samurai remain unpainted.

Oh dear...

Wet weekends...

Are always enlivened by a game, even if it is necessary to run a solo battle.

As my last game had shown no end of shortcomings in my comprehension of the rules, I thought it worthwhile having another run through of Warhammer Ancients. Two 1500 point armies were assembled; a Republican Roman army with absolutely no surprises to it, and an Etruscan Greek army.

The Etruscans used the Greek list from AoA, but with a couple of allowances for their Italian nature, Cavalry were bought as Italian allies, with shield and light armour. Peltasts similarly were Italian and thus allowed standards, unlike other Greeks (not therefore contributing to the sages points value rules). Lastly I permitted them the luxury of a unit of Ligurian mercenaries, bought as barbarian warriors.



Positions after turn 1; the Etruscans lost the initiative roll for deployment and ended up on the flat plain between a hill and a forest. A pre-game random roll had made the Roman general conservative, so his deployment had been classic Roman and his tactics fairly simple. The Romans were slightly outnumbered.


Turn 2. The Etruscans develop flank attacks whilst allowing their Cretan archers to pepper the Roman velites. The Roman commander on auto pilot advances in a broad arc, except for holding his Triarii back and hastily reversing his small cavalry force. In the early part of the game the Etruscans were able to deliver a punishing level of fire on the roman ranks, they had 4 units with javelins, including their cavalry, and the Cretan archers BS of 4 made then particularly deadly.


The Etsrucan front line, figures are Zvezda 20mm Greeks.

The Roman front line, mostly 20mm Zvezda Romans, but with Hat Velites (Macedonian allies) and a Hat general. All forces are based for DBM/DBA, which is generally fine for WAB, so long as you can mark casualties in some way, I've always used glass beads, but others prefer rings, casualty dice or paper accounting.

Turn 3. The Ligurians run out of the woodland impetuously, the velites are scattered. The phalanxes advance a little.

Turn 4. The Roman cavalry tries to face off the Italians, the Triarii move to face an expected flank attack if the Roman horse can't contain them. A charge by the Princeps results in the Ligurians fleeing the field, never to return. The centre pushed forward.

Turn 5 The Roman centre went in, One rather battered maniple was destroyed straight away, and the phalanx that pursued it smacked into the maniple behind it, to which their general and army standard were attached.


Turn 6. The Phalanxes pummel the roman centre, whilst the Italian peltasts attempt to break the right with aid from skirmishers, sadly the lightest troops already ran. Surprisingly the Roman cavaly outfought their Italian foes, and spent the rest of the game pursuing them.

Turn 7. The Romans put to rout the left phalanx of the Etruscans and destroyed their Italian allies, but in the centre the attack of the reserve on the Roman maniple, left the Roman general and his standard supported by only a few velites, a personal combat had now begun as the Etruscan general (marked by his soothsayer on the stand behind the unit, but - in rules terms - fighting in the front rank) sought out his oppostie number.

Turn 8. The Roman flank troops rally and the Triarii approach. The Etruscan general is unlucky and dies; all his units break in panic, except for the central phalanx which was able to stand and hack down the Roman leader in turn. Of the Romans though, only the Battle Standard and velites fled, both outrunning the phalanx. At this point it was clear the gig was up for Etruria!

So, an entertaining diversion, and useful to learn some important rule clarifications. Less mistakes against my next real opponent I hope!

Ooops

So the Japanese battalion was swiftly finished, I was getting ready to start the Samurai when I spotted this on a DBA related webpage:

"Scheduled as a substitute for the cancelled Fiasco convention, DBAL is a
DBA 15mm competition using version 2.2 of DBA organized by the Leeds Wargames Club for club members and players around the region. It will be held on Saturday, 17th June 2006 (n.b. the only Saturday in June when England will
not be playing a game in the World Cup) at the New Headingley Club, St Michaels
Lane Headingley, Leeds 6. The event runs from 11am to about 5.30pm.
Cost will be £3 per player. Contact Trevor Bavage on 0113 2759762 or
taj.bavage(at)ntlworld."

Well, that's me suckered in! I had a pile of 15mm ancients lying around awaiting painting, so now a new army (thankfully only 50 odd figures) is on the painting table taking shape. Can I get them ready in time? I reckon so, I've got 4 weeks...

The Battle of Walkensvaard 1382

My first game of WAB in a year or so. I picked out two 2000 point forces from my favourite armies from the Age of Chivalry supplement for my two players to command, whilst I got familiar with the rules again by umpiring. The Forces were respectively a Hundred years war French army with 18 cavalry and 90 or so foot; and a Low Countries army (hereafter referred to as the Flemish) of 14 cavalry and 120 foot.



The French Array in full. Around 2/3rds of the force was either Nobles, knights esquires or men at arms on foot. Discounting the peasants they were outnumbered almost two to one.


The French Brigands, one of the few citizen units they fielded. Figures are a mixture of Essex and Games workshop. Other troops on display are by Foundry, Irregular and Black Tree Design.

The Flemish army, Five cannons and two large pike blocks were the core of a solid, if somewhat static force. It proved to have little in the way of attack, but a dogged defense

The Initial Dispositions. As it turned out, a mix of placed terrain and random movement of it resulted in a wide open plain for the battle. Suiting the French knights perfectly, but also giving the Flemish cannons free range...

By the third turn the Parisian milita had charged and bounced of the particularly stubborn Coutrai crossbowmen. The French knights however were about to deliver a devastating charge that would overrun the artillery on their right and catch the Flemish general, with his handful of knights in the flank and rout them off the table.

The French cannon blew itself up the second time it fired, but this opened the field for the esquires and foot knights to advance. With their lord gone, panic thinned the Flemish ranks, and they had to begin an advance simply to block the enemy cavalry from hitting their vulnerable sides.

The esquires however repeated the sucess of the Knights, and rolled up first a Flemish unit of seargents, and then a unit of Targedragers it hit in the flank. The Flemish realised the gig was up, and with the army reduced to only some crossbowmen and a unit of Pikeman, gave France the field.

Like many games not played in a while, we got a few things wrong (well, I as umpire did), but they probably balanced out, and anyway the two players were quite new to the game anyhow; so it didn't effect their enjoyment. Battle standards were allowed to re-roll all Panic and Break tests, when it should have only been break tests, but the french knights should've also been allowed back into the game after chasing two units off the table.

Always nice to get the 28's out again, next time I'll take some better pictures...

Going east...

Having finished my last long term project of a 20mm DBM Camillan Roman army, the next projects rumble into view; despite the ever present mixture of bits and pieces that exist on most modeller-wargamers' painting table, it was naturally time to start two new projects.

The first one was accidental, I intended to rummage through my big bag of WW2 leftovers, mostly from my childhood and teens, when it seemed necessary to have one pack of everything, and paint off what units I could. It was onto ebay for the lot of them, maybe get a fiver for every ten or so?

Apparently, there really are a lot of people out there who are too lazy to paint there own figures.

Fine by me; there are a lot of things I can buy when I get £2 per figure for my paint jobs. It's a pay off for the years of practice and time spent trying techniques, that led to ways to knock up attractive figures for a reasonable expenditure of time and effort.

But rummaging to sell stuff, always leads down those dusty corridoor, to half decided plans.

So I ended up with some of my favourite figures back on the painting table, after nearly twenty years. Matchbox Japanese infantry. So it turned out, more than enough to defend a small island in Crossfire, or Rapid Fire. A couple of quick purchases from Frontline, and MMS soon provided a couple of tanks, an infantry gun and an anti tank gun to support them. In a week or two the Japanese will be ready to defend their atoll to the last against my innumerable americans...

But besides them it's another Japanese force that I really want to get stuck in to; hundreds of 20mm Samurai are beckoning. Two Warhammer armies are the plan - a Mix of Zvezda, Caeser, and Milton Bradley figures, timely as well with the Art Of War supplement on oriental armies due any day soon. Compared to Romans or World War two uniforms though, the Samurai are an altogether more daunting proposition. The only consolation being the small size needed to get started. A thousand point Samurai army will only need about 50 figures.

On top of them though there are still 30 28mm American GI's and Wermacht Inantry, on the paint table, along with a 1/48th Pak 40, a White Half Track, a 20mm German Flak wagen, a bunch of other oddments...

I don't think many wargamers have the will to avoid this situation though.

The dirty truth about Warhammer 40K

Recently, I've noticed it has become socially acceptable for wargamers to play Warhammer ancients. Not so many years ago, admitting to playing warhammer in any form was akin to suggesting you liked to decide games by throwing pencils at each others troops. Wargamers are seldom in a position to feel socially superior to any group, but the teenage audience for Games Workshop were generally seen as the lowest of the the low.

To date this transformation of attitudes, driven as it is by a trend towards bigger figures, painted in more cartoony fashions - presented as more realistic on the most doubtful of evidence - has not really cut in to the one aspect of the Games Workshop market I actually play regularly. Warhammer 40,000.

Why is that?

Associations with rather too much cryptofacist regalia, blocky weaponry and badly designed rip offs of variously their own fantasy ranges and certain obvious films were bad enough, but the first edition of 40k, as it became known was largely unworkable; fine for a couple of dozen figures a side, and certainly flexible, but over complicated and lacking any realistic structure for the games people wanted to play. Big 'ole battles. After a few games under the old rules, which saw me thrashed by rulemongerers using all the as yet unrestricted tricks in the book (Orks with photon and warp grenades anyone), I gave it up as a bad thing; stored my figures for a while before selling them off.

I still earned a meagre living selling the things in a shop, but that's by the by.

Many years passed and I lieu of any other local opponents when I moved, I was seduced into trying the game again. Oh my! I don't know what edition they officially were, third perhaps, but finally the rules made sense. All the problems were more or less ironed out (and fourth edition has sorted most of them); forces were balanced, games manageable to play to a conclusion in a reasonable period of time. And even to a point realistic tactically (accepting the huge exagerations implicit in the alien forces).

I got sucked into it all again.

But of course I started this with a question; why isn't there a developing scene of Warhammer Moderns players? Well to a point there are, they have a yahoo group (virtually silent) and a version of the rules (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/kpavlick/ww2/ww2intro.htm). And having tried them out I found that with some simple adjustments WarhammerWW2 works really well. Yet the few versions of modern gaming using the core system of Games Workshops rules, have stuck to using the Ancients core system. Why?

Well; I can only speculate really, myself. But I was once told that GW themselves liked the idea of one day selling historical figures in its' own shops, having games of Alexander versus Darius alongside Dwarves and Orcs. However they got really uncomfortable about the fact thet world war two was the obvious line to take 40k down, Kevin Pavlick developed his version of 40k years ago, and this meant Germans, which equals Nazis.

Big problem that, for a company with a chronic image problem to begin with.

Many parents, I know from selling stuff to them for years are really uncomfortable with some of the content of Warhammer 40,000. I firmly believe that whislt certain elements became more realistic, the 'Teutonic' overtones prevalent in both early Space Marines, and their arch enemies (Orks and oddly enough early Genestealers) were steadily airbrushed out. It's not a route they seem prepared to go down, too many negatives that would impact on their core business. I understand Mr Pavlicks rules are quietly ignored by GW (there's something too about it not being an infringement of copyright in the USA to modify someones rule system if not for profit); but they aren't ready yet to plug a version of them in their magazines, as they do for the latest 'Ancients' supplement. Too risky.

Which to conclude is a shame for there are certain obvious points to having a historical version of 40k; my regular opponent was gently weaned onto historical gaming through Warhammer WW2, after all when he already knew the rules it was just an army that he didn't know. All the concepts are familiar, and the forces remain at least of some interest, thanks to endless war movies and TV shows.

Fact is you can always find a 40k'er, not always a wargamer.

It's nice to make the two the same thing.

It just needs an accessible set of rules and a little support to work...

Crossfire - Game report and thoughts

...A and B company of 'B' battalion, 22nd Infantry were tasked with a reconaisance in force North of the village of Bomal in the Ardennes, the date was September 9th 1944...

For those who don't know, Crossfire is not your average set of wargame rules, in terms of what it tries to achieve, I think it sits somewhere between a tactical simulation and a roleplaying game. It employs several unique game conventions, or should I say abscence of conventions: lack of a fixed game turn, lack of measuring, uncertainty as to composition of one's own force, etc, etc.

So anyway We had a game on Sunday afternoon where two companies of US infantry with limited armoured support faced an unknown quantity of Germans late on in 1944.

The game unfolds over the terrain with no troops deployed on table. The Germans are all hidden and the Americans are yet to advance on.

Notice the density of the terrain, This is a 6 foot by 4 foot layout, and is covered with blocking terrain. In crossfire, everything blocks line of Sight! Whilst an accurate convention for French Bocage, Stalingrad or Burma; I do wonder how well these rules work with the rolling plains of Russia or the trackless deserts of Libya?


Troops have no set moves, the attacker simply advances until the enemy does something to interrupt him, or one of the attackers actions fails in such a way as to pass the initiative over. Me and my subordinate commander decided that we'd deny the right flank entirely, knowing that the enemy was out there in some force. We figured he'd throw most of his forces at the defence of the village, sure fire tank killer terrain. Instead we advanced from the enemy's old bunker positions towards the forest.

Our war correspondent records the US advance, sadly the next thing that happened was that the forward platoon advanced into the forest, never to be seen again! It became clear later on that they'd been ambushed by a machine gun and around two platoons of the enemy, Bayonet and close quarter gunshot wounds confirmed the few survivor's reports of a swarm of elite SS soldiers ravenous as wolves pouncing on them without mercy. At least, if the reports of replacements are to be believed.

The nature of Crossfire is such that whilst the enemy had to appear to fire on us, he took the first opportunity to disappear also. A second cautious advance towards the emplacement on the hill allowed some emericans to lay fire on the enemy, and call in a tank, that made short work of the survivors. By the time the position was occupied the rest of the enemy had melted away.

This set the nature for the next phases of the attack. The Germans tried to redress their lines to deal with the tank; a Marder III - correctly identified by the Americans as a Tiger tank - was repeatedly missed by American Bazooka fire whilst trying to ambush the Sherman. Meanwhile redeployed machine guns and infantry squads used their guns and mortars to decimate another American Platoon. At this point if it hadn't been for the tank support, the US commanders may well have withdrawn.

It has to be said Tanks are of doubtful value in Crossfire; the defender can buy 3 anti tank guns for the cost of one Tank to the attacker, tanks can either move - in a straight line only, change face, or fire in a turn. Not all three! This makes them staggeringly slow to deploy; however when used correctly they can bring a hell of a lot of fire to bear. The Sherman accounted for more than a platton of the German infantry, without any harm coming to it.

Despite early success, the German flank began to wither under the concentrated US fire, American mortars and machine guns played merry hell with the next, rather exposed positions they found.

The Germans were forced to withdraw under pressure, and fell to relying on Volksturm hiding in the village to try desparately to stop the tank and a sweep by A company, accounting for one squad they too were put under steady fire, from now more cautious troops.

Incidentally, there are no morale rules that I recall using, whether they exist is beyond me, certainly troops are rated with different qualities, but common sense moves them more often than not. The main problem is troops becoming pinned and suppressed under fire. Troops tend to get wiped out rather than running away.

By the end of the game the Marder had been forced to withdraw under threat from Bazooka teams, The Sherman tank, and gutsy infantry armed with grenades and rifles. Each side had lost more than two platoons to enemy fire, which left he American troops pretty much spent, We were happy to hunker down and consider it a draw of sorts.

As to the rules, they have many strengths, but really only for representing certain types of warfare. They are excellent for those situations where the defender is holed up in determined defence and the attacker has only the most basic idea where they are. For more mobile games their application seems limited. More than a couple of vehicle either side simply would not be practical. Moreover it is impossible for the attacker to go on the defensive in the same manner as normally applied to the nominative defender. In short whilst the attacker has a realistic lack of idea about the enemies movements the defender has a godlike power both to see the every move of the enemy, whilst being able to conduct all his deployment and moves in secret. If this seems unfair, then these are rules you will not get along with; but they work in the right situation, with small enough forces.

Hi,

So, Ive been wargaming for a long time. No, a really long time. In my defence I started very young; back when librairies actually had books on this sort of thing I came across a copy of a Terry Wise book on wargaming and started using a dice to decide which of my 1/35th scale airfix and corner shop soldiers would get blasted out of my back yard trenches next. That sufficed for a while, until a charles grant book fell into my possession with simpler rules. I had something basic to work with, and transferred to 1/72nd scale matchbox and airfix soldiers. Pretty soon a selection of plastic kits that were often beyond the abilities of my eight year old fingers started to follow, along with model railway scenery looted from my dad and brother and a board on the floor of the spare bedroom. As a child opponents were initially easy to find, until most kids either discovered football, girls or beer; after that, in late 1970's Britain, there was no particular hideaways for devotees of toy soldiery. According to the books I had, you needed to be a veteren of at least one world war, and own a tweed jacket to play with model soldiers.

Incidentally, to my childhood shame, my parents bought just such a tweed jacket for me, our holidays abroad saw us parade around like Anglican missionaries.

Anyway, this devotee made it through the early eighties on solo gaming and it has to be said a fair amount of secrecy about my odd little hobby, arcade games and pop music were a lot cooler things to be able to talk about at school; I kept my head down, studied very occaisinally, and filled a draw and several creakily built shelves with gradually more competantly assembled tanks.

Eventually, when my parents judged it slightly unhealthy that I wasn't inclined to get out much I was allowed to go to an odd little place called a wargaming club; a friend of my dad would go every so often and so I was encouraged to give it a try. From then on it was assured that what may well have been grown out of, when I discovered beer, became an enduring obsession, when I first saw 15mm figures, by the hundred, painted and arrayed on bases together advancing across carefully made terrain on massive tables!

Also a like minded group of similar teenaged gamers made for all the social life my folks wanted me to have; I wasn't going to complain either!

Over the years since then I've lasped at times; eventually beer and girls got in the way of little men for a few years, there was a questionable period of fantasy gaming and roleplaying (no regrets but I doubt I'll go back to it now). Latterly I had to move away from the wonderful club of my younger days - work can do that to a man (curse it, curse it all to hell!) - and ended up resorting to popular store brands to get any sort of games at all for a while. But once life settled down, the buying of miniatures and the planning of everything from skirmishes to great campaigns began again. The lead and plastic never seem to go away.

The last count showed 5000 of the blighters painted on my shelves.

So here we are in the digital age; so what better than a blog to record victories and defeats, battles planned and fought; painting projects, hints and tips? Well, it seems all the rage anyway, and I'm not short of idea's I hope. I don't know if this will be terribly helpful to anyone, but, in the world of wargaming, maybe it'll at least become an interesting read...