Two books, two points of view.

So I hope we all had an excellent Xmas; in the run up to the arbitarilly assigned date of significance I found myself reading 'Achtung Scweinehund', by Harry Pearson. An excellent little book.

Harry like so many of us, grew up in an England not so much haunted by the Second world War, as infused with it; and the influence it has had on his later life is a large part of the subject matter of this book. He manages to warmly recollect his childhood with toy soldiers, the hopeless Action Man and the interminable Colditz boardgame; whilst Uncles told him about how many 'Japs' they'd killed in the war. At the same time he does a good job of introducing wargaming as a subject for the uninformed, and of providing a basic history of it's genesis in Europe (particualarly from around 1600 onwards) and the early manufacturers of the figures with whom he is most interested.

Also, and importantly, Harry addresses the emotional issues related to wargaming, and more generally that certain breed of men who seem to enjoy them most. Towards the end of the book he considers the issues of Nerds, and the many breeds of gamer. How some of them seem never to grow up, whilst others drift away from their hobbies as some sort of social expectation makes them believe the time or money invested is not worthwhile. For Harry himself, he is proud to admit he is a Geek, and by the end of the book has reconciled the position.

The distinctions between Pearson's book and another I read earlier in the year, could not be more distinct. Whereas 'Achtung' celebrates a hobby, 'The Elfish Gene' reads like an embarrasing condemnation of one, with the 20/20 vision of hindsight in very tight focus.

As a roleplayer in my youth, I can identify with an awful lot of the experience Mark Barrowcliffe writes about in his book, just as I could with Harry Pearson. However, whilst Mark's book is on face value much funnier, you rapidly come to realise that this is because he is deeply ashamed of his involvement with the hobby. The guy is painfully aware of how uncool he feels his hobby made him, and blames in large part the hobby for making him that way, rather than the tendency of all boys to be like that.

As a result, there is a denialist streak running through 'Elfish', as if the author is very definately saying 'what I did was wrong, and I know now that it was wrong; please forgive me and don't do what I did.' He paints the characters who were involved in gaming as almost uniformly dysfunctional in some way, and potrays his ability to talk to girls as a sign of his superiority over them, and gateway to final freedom from geekdom. Frankly this is kind of annoying, and what is worse is that Mark simply chooses to attack his target, as it would be seen as an easy one to do so with. I can't imagine a similar version being written about Football or Fishing for example.

For all of that, it is a humourous red, but unlike 'Achtung Schweinehund, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. For a nostalgic and ultimately nourishing read, use your Xmas book token on Harry Pearsons work; then lend it to friends or family who don't get why you like toy soldiers. Borrow the elfish Gene from the Library, by all means; but don't attempt to explain yourself to anyone with it!

There's only so much snow a man can take...

Well, the mountains are being the fickle mistress they usually are, in the last two weeks they've given me pleasure and frustration in equal measures; and so far they've cost me a music player, a jacket and a very badly damaged board. The net upshot of all this is that I made time to do some painting yesterday 'for relaxation'. Some may argue all I do is relax out here, but the sort of mental cool-down that painting provides me isn't accesible up here by any other means I know of (beer included!).

Anyway, there's not much to report so far, I managed to undercoat a unit of Union troops in about an hour. The working arrangements for this being even less solubrious than my old operation: sitting on a blanket on the floor of my tiny room, with a small painting board couched in my lap and a box with all my paints and modelling bits beside me.

Still it was a refreshing break to do something so simple. Next up, some colour, and photo's to boot!

A visit to Grimsby

Before heading back over to France I was able to pop in to my old club in Grimsby, home to several bloggers well known, or otherwise, to my readers, and where I spent the first fifteen years of my wargaming time.

Many familiar faces were in which was pleasing, and moreover a selection of games were going on, giving me both plenty to talk about (catching up on as much banter and such as the actual games) and photograph.

The first game was an AK47 Republic, contemporary Africa game, featuring Martin Buck and Dave Tuck's armies on the older club terrain boards, with plastic vivarium trees for jungle and my old cardboard West-African buildings. They've survived pretty well for being made from cereal boxes and plasticard over ten years ago...

Another game on was a 15mm 18th century game. I can't really say much more about the details, it could be historical forces or hypothetical ones, but the game seemed based on a scenario in the BattleGames magazine (which I must admit, I saw for the first time on this visit; it seems like a good read, I may have to see if I can buy some back issues on the net...).

However the centrepiece of the evening was a World War One game being staged downstairs on an eight by ten foot layout in glorious 28mm.

The game featured Paul Robinson (AKA Grimsby Wargamer), Mark Alcock, and others playing over the fantastic terrain created by Mal Taylor (a master of the art).

Look at this spectacular ruined church!

A 'period' photograph...

Mal's attention to detail is remarkable many of the buildings are interchangable on modualar bases that blend in to the table, and can be replaced with trenches too. Mal was always notorious for looking at other peoples work on his terrain board and going "well, it's good, but it's not what I had in mind." A perfectionist doing his best work.

Lastly a survey of the battle itself, two battalions of British and American infantry accompanied by a tank and a rolling barrage assaulted the temporary defenses of a German battalion. The fist assault faltered but the second made rapid progress. The village was stormed late in the evening. Here we see Kapitan Robinsohne surveying his forces....

Overall an nice opportunity to catch up. Until next time folks....

Very last game of the year...

This one was definately it for me. On my last visit to the Night Owls, myself and regular, Ross, had a 1000pt game of 40k. The scenario ended up as kill points with the Dawn of War set up. the forces were my Orks against his Necrons, an army I'd never faced before.

As the rules for the scenario permitted we both picked a HQ and two troops choices to start the battle the rest being in reserve. For me that meant a mob of Boyz and a Mob of Nobz (made a Troops Choice on the grounds of a Warboss being part of the army) with a Bigmek carrying the Kustom forcefield of cheese (5+ cover save to everyone!)

Ross began with his lord and two units of Warriors, Nothing sensational but good stand off and shoot troops.

And stand and shoot they did, from the very back of the table, but as I'd been allowed to deploy first and per the rules I was only 18 inches away from him and moving first could sacrifice shooting to close distance quickly. The one round of shooting my lads endured killed a few Boyz but couldn't stop the Nobz.

To Ross' horror we called a big Waagh and got into close assault on turn two, wiping out one unit and leaving the other locked in combat, one they would ultimately win; but by now my reserves were arriving - en masse.

With Tanks, Killer Kans, Deffcopters and more Boyz led by the Warboss on the way, Ross could sense disaster, he came very close to conceeding on turn two.

He managed to hold the line a little longer and another of his units (IIRC, Immortals) arrived. Sadly just in time to take a hit from the Nobz. Although it was a close fight, the Orks won, and for the second time in the game a terrible morale roll for the Necrons saw them try to flee from the fight, get caught on a poor initiative roll and be wiped out. This time when Ross' hand was offered I shook it, as there was no need to prolong his agony any further.

A somewhat shell-shocked Ross considers what he could possibly have done to avoid a disaster...

And so that was that. I think it is fair to say the scenario gave me the edge in this one unwittingly, the Necron firepower could have easily done for the Orks, but in the event it came down to controlling the close assault phase once again.

I'm putting the Orks to bed now of course, so when I get back to playing games the heady days of their constant victories will be far behind me!

1st New York Cavalry

So, some of the last painting of the season for me. Pretty much the last actually. I must set to packing up the painting kit now.

I managed however to get a fair bit of time, which was needed, in to finishing the first unit for my Federals; the VI Corps cavalry – 1st New York.

It is my experience that the average cavalry figure takes three to four times as long as an infantryman to do properly, and these guys were no exception. The Perry figures are finely detailed, but that of course means more to paint and thus it slows down the making.

Still the cavalry were the obvious choice to do first, I had some good reference to hand to start on them, and they were able to serve as a useful stand-alone unit to test uniform colours on. As it happens two paints I already had were ideal for the basic uniform. Flat Blue (70962) proved perfect for the trousers whilst Dark Prussia Blue (70899) suitable for the coat. Both of course needed highlighting up, but as standard uniform basics I’m pretty happy with them.

I’m also fairly happy with the horses, though they took the bulk of the painting, what with the three to four layers of highlighting applied.

I’m not at all happy with the flesh tones, though at a distance they do look OK. Something went wrong when I highlighted over the wash, I think the reverse would make more sense in future.

For the basing I mixed together summer and autumn grass mixes, with a handful of turf, which gave a fairly natural look.

So anyway, that’s them done, though who knows when I’ll get round to any infantry to back them up!

As for the November totals, well the (essentially final) totals for the year now stand at:

Bought: 263

Painted: 432

Sold: 124

So we never made a 2:1 ratio in the end, as buying got kinda out of control. But I did manage more than I bought, which is at least assuring. And selling over a hundred mini's (all to the same regular customer, as it happens) certainly helped fill the bank balance (to the sum of around £150!). Overall I'll have to take that as satisfactory.

Dogs of Win? Surely not!

Challenged as I was to a Warhammer battle by a very young upstart at the NightOwls club, I responded in the only way I know how, by bringing what I thought to be the least competitive army I possibly could to the table.

Why? You may ask. Well some would know for sure. Lose to a kid playing your best and you have no real excuse at all, lose with your worst and you can at least decry the army instead!

Anyhow, the kid had given it a lot of smack talk, and bragged that he would be bringing Azhag the Slaughterer to the table. A full 450 points of warboss on a Wyvern (or Dragon-lite as it might be termed). I must admit to checking his stats beforehand and concluded that my best chance of beating him was in a brace of cannon backed up by strong defensive units and an offensive punch. Sounds conventional enough; My army thus was broadly:

Level 4 Mage as general
Level 2 Mage
Captain on Winged Lion (Pegasus)
Paymaster
Alicanti Fellowship (20 Pikemen, including another legal hero)
Voland Venators (6 heavy Knights, with another legal hero)
4 Ogres with two hand weapons
2 units of 15 Dwarves with light armour and shields
10 Crossbowmen
10 Duellists with throwing knives and shields
10 Bodyguards with Halberds
2 Cannon

On the other hand the kid, came with a army which on paper would be fairly effective; as best I recall being:

Azhag (who also counts as a level 2 mage)
Another level 2 Shaman
A Goblin Level 2 shaman
20 Black Orcs
27 Orcs
30 or so Goblins with bows and 3 Fanatics
3 Trolls
5 Wolf Riders with bows
2 Wolf Chariots
1 Bolt Thrower
Giant

A lot of offensive ability if managed right.

A general overview of terrain and deployments

So what to do. Well the terrain set up suited me, despite the randomised movement of some of the items. I won the toss for edge choice and went for the open side, meaning I could base my defence around the stone walled field, whilst any attack he made would be slowed down crossing the ruins and woods. Here I guess was were his lack of experience played in my favour. We alternated units for deployment, and I stuck to my plan in the centre, trying to hide my increasing amazement at his own deployment.


Even if you don’t know Warhammer you can understand the questionable logic of sticking essentially half your army on a flank behind cover where it’s commander can have no influence on it. The Bolt thrower was placed early, allowing me to avoid what is pound for pound one of the cheapest and best killers of ranked units in the game. Conversely he put the rest of his shooting in a mass block, reducing it to no battlefield use other than as a Fanatic transporter.

Anyway. All this did rather play into my hands, allowing me to not so much refuse a flank, as an entire half of the battlefield. The initial couple of moves went well for me too. Unsurprisingly the troops on his right were of no value, so at the minute I was fighting a smaller effective force, I was able to spell and cannonade the goblins into a rout before the did any harm; taking a panicking chariot with them. The other chariot was lured into a fight it couldn’t win with my knights.

Then Azhag struck.

Bizarrely he targeted a cannon crew, obviously he saw these as a big threat. It was a one sided fight to be honest, as I didn’t get to roll a dice; the crew was wiped out, but that then sparked panic in the army. Whether he intended it or not, his choice of target looked pretty smart now. I didn’t fail many panic tests, but one that did was terrible, the Paymaster and his bodyguard broke. They were also protecting the General, and right at the back, they were off! The rest of the army needed to test now, but thankfully passed, still, Azhag had cost me 500 points or more, and evened things up. Thankfully he pursued off the table; giving me a respite.

I took the opportunity to advance my lines, and luckily rallied my other panicking unit. Looking at what was left I thought I could defeat him in detail, and hopefully Azhag would have not army left to command. The Ogres charged the Black Orcs, but despite killing several, lost out on resolution and were run down, the Dwarfs behind them bore the brunt next, whilst the wolf riders charged the Pike. It was looking bleak now as Azhag returned.

The Dwarfs broke, but the Wolf riders broke too, and the Orcs pursued to a point where their flank was wide open to my knights. This time an unforced error from Azhag saw him try to charge my Captain on his winged lion, who was easily out of range. Azhag wasted another turn.
The Knights wiped out one Orc unit, and the Pike hammered the other, The Dwarfs on my left contained the giant, who then along with the trolls went into a panic at the retreating Orcs. The Knights and Duellists attacked Azhag, and finally killed him, leaving only the Wyvern left.

It was the end!

I have to conclude that I was in some respects gifted the opportunity to win. The plan of my opponent revolved only around Azhag and his novelty troops, which he squandered through poor deployment and unsupported attacks. Azhag himself was a terrible threat, but one I was able to contain with about a third of my force leaving the other two thirds to deal with a poorly coordinated enemy.

I was chuffed with the win, and can only hope the kid learned a couple of tactical lessons!

Stop Press - Plastics again!

"At Warlord Games we’ve always said that we will would tackle new periods that have a strong flavour for gamers all around the world. In all sorts of surveys and polls that we have seen the English Civil Wars and the Thirty Years War have been right up there on people’s wish list, and that’s certainly the case with us too!"

So, another period appears in 28mm plastic, with Warlord Games announcing three sets of English Civil War figures - Royalists, Parliament and Scots. I'll not be tempted to scale up on these, as my 15mm ECW armies are virtually finished and have plenty of opponents. Still these look mighty nice, and could fill in for Thirty Years wars or in my case another unit of Dogs of war pikemen.

Truly Plastics are coming of age now, I doubt there'll be many periods not covered in some way in a few years time.

Very pleasing.

Double victory!

I grabbed a couple of 500 point Combat Patrol games against Chris the other week, a last hurrah at one of the Leeds Clubs before going away. My Orks were in no mood to mess in both games, proving that in this size engagement they rule the roost.



The first battle versus the Tau, could’ve been won by Chris with a less enthusiastic advance at the start, he should’ve used range to defeat me. In the second game I was worried by a mass of Tyranids; Chris was worried by the Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field, and so killed him in short order. I however went straight for his command Warriors, and after dealing with them the rest of the army crumbled.

I don’t want to brag, but generally I have been on a roll with this army, and games in general of late. So this was the icing on the cake.

CD covers may be the right size for a smoke screen, but it is just WRONG! OK?!

Elsewhere in the club, there was a large 10mm WW2 game going on, using the Blitzkrieg Commander rules.

And a Fields of Glory game in 15mm. These look like a reasonable descendant of DBM, at least the units look like actual formations of men. Still I’ve yet to try them myself, and cautions about reviews of them being messy to read and play, keep me from really trying them.

Opening moves

Well the first activity on this project has begun.

The first point was obviously to decide which side to plump for. Of course, there is always the possibility I'll end up doing both, but one has to start somewhere.

The Confederates are of course where all the romance is, where the uniforms are most interesting and varied, and are also the underdogs in many respects. However, they were quite obviously pro-slavery, something I find rather nasty in such a recent 'civilised' era. So I went with my long standing principles and opted for the Union, even though, as history buffs will attest, many of them were keen to stress how little the war had to do with slavery at all! Yes, it was an issue for Lincoln, but McClellan, sometime general in chief of the Union armies, for example, thought it irrelevant.

Anyway, that out the way, I wanted to field some historical units. Based on some early reading of one of the Osprey Campaign series, I selected a sixth Corps command, IIRC the Division of General Franklin to begin with. Bear in mind I don't have my notes to hand as I write this! Beneath this is Bartlett's Brigade, which will be my starting point; with four regiments of infantry.

Based on the contents of the boxes of figures I had, and the chosen rules of my local club(s), I opted for a regiment being 18 figures strong. That way I can field all four with no additional outlay. The contents of the boxes make for two units marching and two firing.

Assembly was next, and being plastic figures this is easy enough, but slow. Removing mould lines and gluing on Kepi's. I personally decided that the perry figures looked weird with the kepi simply sat on the figures as moulded, it sat too high on the head; the solution was to cut the top of every head off, and trim the edges to get it to sit flush. Doing this over 60 times slowed the process even more but aesthetically it looks much improved. The handful of other parts to add were a breeze, especially the firing poses, which are perfectly created.

The conversion potential of the models is, to be honest, limited, and there are the obvious compromises of them being generic, many ardent historians believe the Union troops never rolled blankets over their shoulders for example. Still I did start to tinker a little, such as the standard bearer here; having a sword hilt added and his head reposed.


One of the units under Bartlett was the 16th New York, who were notable for wearing straw boater hats instead of Kepis. I chose this brigade on the strength of the variety that might add to the models (though as it turned out the formations saw plenty of service too). I got a little manufacturing process together and turned out 16 little hats, the officers keep their regulation attire.



The tops have been filled by the way. Having since found a photo of men of the 16th online, I now find that the hats they wore had a much wider rim though! So not at all like the 'Buster Keaton' styled boaters I opted for. Am I enough of a perfectionist to redo the rims; I fear I may be.
Still a long weekends effort saw the four units assembled and bagged up ready for painting; the next task for them is to get a window of opportunity in the next week to spray undercoat them all.

However in the meantime the Corps Cavalry is already started. Undercoated with Humbrol acrylic (good for this as it doesn't bub off, no good for anything else as the coverage is dismal), and a start made on the horses. I find cavalry tiresome to paint, so I'm glad this is the only unit I need of them.

So anyway, I'm off to a good start.

Boardgame all-dayer

The recent theme of board games was strong again in the club for me and this last Sunday I also took along my Pirates cards, occupying as they do a middle ground between a conventional wargame and a boardgame. We rattled through a couple of games in under a hour each, fairly standard fare, but it introduced two guys to the system, and as is so often the case, caused a number of people to wander up and declare they had a pile of these in a box under the bed somewhere at home.

Of course I failed to win either game, in the first two-hander I was sunk in close action whilst trying to make off with the enemy's ships. In the second game three of us fought over the islands.

Again, the author wisely hides himself behind the lens

On reflection, this is possibly the weakest way to play the game, as it conveniently divides up the basic layout to 'one home island and one wild island' each. The treasure placement means most of the time the island nearest a player will have their best treasures and the opponents worst treasures. Players will ferry their treasure home unassailed, and the game will turn on the luck of who had the best hand of second-choice treasures dealt to them.

In this game fast ships will always win, and indeed the ability of one player to nick a couple of bits of treasure off my island won it; although knowing I was going to lose, I made merry hell with a massive five-sailed ship, blasting everything out the water foolish enough to get in my way.
Next time I think we'll go for a 'fleet action' and start with the treasure on our vessels instead.

After this we played Condottiere, essentially a card game with a board for recording the results of hands. The idea is each player represents an Italian prince and uses his hand to try and gain control of territories. It's a game of bluff in essence, and I did appallingly at it, not coming close to winning either time. We squeezed in a game of Dominion next, before moving on to Battlelore.

Battlelore is essentially a hex based wargame, with simple unit representation and a command and control system based on the use of cards to activate units in one or more of the three sectors of the battlefield.

It's the sort of game that will certainly appeal to people who like the idea of wargaming, but not the investment in time involved in painting figures, making terrain and so forth. I found it a little simplistic, but competent enough, and the little figures (approximately 18mm scale, or 'true' 20mm - 1/87th) are nicely made and begging for a paint job. The rules covered both historical and fantasy games, and provided figures for both - Humans, Goblins and Dwarves; which I could only approve of, though if you are not well versed on your medieval history already, you are only likely to recognise one battle.

As it was we 'proved' that the English couldn't win Agincourt; twice!, before 'refighting' a thirteenth century battle from of succession in Brittany. The historicity of the result will remain in doubt, though clearly in the Agincourt scenario, the designers had opted for game balance over reenactment.

All in all another entertaining waste of a day!