On the workbench

At the moment I have a few games in mind and I'm working on models to improve them. Let's review what's recently finished or soon working in order of when the games will take place...

On 22nd February I plan to re-run the Port Gibson scenario I designed as a spare game for Steel Lard. Hopefully it'll look much better on one of my recently acquired Geek Villain mats. In an effort to make the terrain look a little more North American I've created some lengths of split-rail or snake fencing.

They're made from balsa wood to a design from Mark Bretherton. I'm copying so much of his stuff at the moment!

For the same game I've also carved some spare Kingspan insulation material to go under the terrain mat and make a sunken road. I've not photographed that; I'm sure you can imagine it!

At the start of March I'll be going to Hammerhead to help Simon Miller run The Battle of Moonbroth,  a Gloranthan To The Strongest! scenario. Recently finished is a 12cm square base representing Oakfed, the Praxian wildfire spirit.

The idea was to portray fire burning across the chaparral leaving scorched earth and burned-out undergrowth in its wake. 

The base is one of Simon's wavy-edged laser-cut bases with two layers of foamcore on top. This allows me to mount three switched battery holders in the bottom layer. To them I soldered flickering LEDs from cheap tea lights bought from my local supermarket's discount section.

The LEDs shine out through holes cut into the top layer of foamcore over which I've glued patches of slightly dirtied interfacing material. I'm quite pleased with the effect but I fear it might be overwhelmed by the lighting in the Newark venue.

The bushes are made from twisted wire. The presence of an as-yet-unburned one indicates the front facing of the unit. I look forward to seeing how Simon's rules handle this.

In April I'll be running Action on the Northern Hills at Crisis Point. I've described the scenario previously and it requires a couple of artillery pieces for the Andreivian Armenian rebels. I'll be using WW2 Soviet artillery to stand in for them. I've recently completed this 122mm M1938 howitzer using one of the AB Miniatures crews I picked up at Vapnartak.

The guns need to be dug in for the scenario so I've made a sandbagged emplacement to represent this.

Also for the Northern Hills game I need an Andreivian Government platoon. I decided to upgrade my paratroops, which are based on the venerable and not-particularly-authentic Airfix paras.

The platoon has a small HQ with a commanding officer, a radio operator and a two-man LMG team. The latter was made by replacing the rifle of a prone para with the barrel of a modern British LMG from (I think Italeri). There's also a two-man bazooka team, a three-man medium mortar crew and two eight-man SMG squads. Some of the Airfix figures had badly moulded helmets. Where this was the case I added camo by painting the helmet with matt Modpodge and dipping it into mixed flock. After the Modpodge has dried I apply a second coat to seal in the flock.

This force is going to have excellent firepower but only at close range. It should be an interesting challenge for the Government player. 

Further down the line is the plan for Richard P and I to play some 1812 Sharp Practice. I already had one Russian village house from Charley Foxtrot but decided another would be useful. Unfortunately I asked for the wrong one for Christmas and duplicated the one I already have! 

In an effort to make the new one look different, I swapped the sides around. This was OK until I realised I now had both external doors in the same corner of the house! To fix that I built a lean-to extension out of foamcore clad with coffee stirrers.

The colour scheme of the windows (Vallejo Mahogany Brown and Cream) was taken from a colour photo of a modern Dacha.

Yet again copying The Tactical Painter, I decided to make some gardens to go with the houses. This is the prototype in production.

The base is a piece of PVC board. Mark used balsa wood for his fences but I wanted to produce something stronger. I designed the (currently white) supports in Tinkercad and then 3d printed them. Having super-glued them in place I added cut-up coffee stirrers to make the fence boards. The base is painted in Modpodge onto which I've poured sand. I did this in sections in case doing it in one go cause the base to warp. The next step will to give everything another coat of Modpodge before painting.

Finally for now, we'll soon play the final game of our Siege of Hachigata campaign using The Pikeman's Lament. I want to represent one side of the castle for our Takeda players to assault. A couple of additional wall sections will help with this...

The doors added to the two existing gateway sections gives a length that matches up with the new longer section in front. These two lenghts will let me deploy the existing walls sections nearer to the middle of the table (we established the layout of the front of the castle in a previous game).

That's all for now. I'll try to remember to post finished pics later.

Simple Arc of Fire Air Support Rules

The following air support rules came to me whilst I was out walking the dog the other day. I think they'll be helpful when running the kind of larger Arc of Fire game we tend to play at Crisis Point.

Random Air Support

Each player starts the game with an Air Support card that they can play on any unit that is subject to a random event, before the die roll has been made to determine the nature of the random event. Once the card is played it is used and cannot be played again.

The unit on which the card is played is subject to an air attack and must make a Tac roll. The result of this Tac roll is as follows:

Example: 

Andy, Bruce and Catherine are playing a game using the alternative activation system where each unit rolls a D6 at the start of the turn to determine its Activation Number.

The first card drawn is the Black Joker. This is followed by Black 1. Only Andy has a unit with an Activation Number of 1 so he activates that unit.

Next the Red Joker is drawn.  Because the Black Joker has already been drawn this turn there will be a random event and it will affect the unit whose card comes up next. The next card drawn is Red 3 - all units with an Activation Number of 3 may activate (including, because it’s a red card, wounded figures). All three players have a unit with Activation Number 3 so we quickly dice-off to see which unit is affected. It turns out to be Bruce’s squad of Andreivian Turk militia crossing a stream.

Before the Random Event can be rolled for, Catherine (running an Italian NATO detachment) declares an air attack on the Turks. 

Bruce’s Turks are Tac 7 so he needs to roll a D10 and get 7 or more to succeed with his Tac roll. He rolls a 4 and fails. Each figure in the Andreivian Turk squad must make an immediate Morale Roll. 

Later in the game the NATO headquarters unit is the subject of a random event and Bruce decides to get his own back. He plays his own Air Support card on Catherine's HQ.

The NATO HQ is Tac 5 and with a roll of 10 it seems that either they are very well camouflaged or the local NATO air defences are on high alert. Catherine's second Tac roll is an 8 so it seems it's the latter. The Andreivian Turk aircraft is shot down and the game continues with the NATO HQ taking its turn.

That's it then; an attempt at a set of air support rules that will give us an excuse to get the nice aircraft models onto the table without too much risk of an unlucky die roll completely unbalancing the scenario.

Obviously variations are possible. If one side has overwhelming air superiority, they'll be the only ones with Air Support cards. If a force has plentiful AA-capable elements we might allow them an increased chance of a shoot-down result.

Please let me know what you think. 

Sharp Practice Markers

I've been inspired by Mark Bretherton's blog The Tactical Painter, where he's produced a wonderful set of markers for use in his 20mm scale Chain of Command campaigns. I decided to create something similar for Sharp Practice giving thought to some of the changes that can happen during a game, particularly those things that require us to keep track of past events. 

One example would be "Spitting Feathers". This is a possible "Movement Random Event" that causes units to move more slowly until they can find a source of drinkable water.

I used a rectangular MDF base to create this micro diorama that should remind us to reduce the affected unit's movement when it next activates:

The wine bottle is made from a piece of cocktail stick turned to the right shape with sandpaper using my Dremel as a makeshift lathe. 

On the rear of the base is a written reminder:

Another random event is "Fouled Barrels". A similar base, a spare carbine from the Warlord WSS Cavalry set, and jammed ramrod made from a piece of Peco track-fixing pin from my model railway days, gives me this:

Again there's a brief note of the effect written on the reverse.

Also in the movement random events is one where the unit discovers that the ground in front of it is worse than it thought. I've done three variants on this one for use in differing settings:

Some older markers that I've had for a while are these banks of smoke. They can persist as a result of a firing random event or under some circumstances when breech-loading rifles are in use. These have become increasingly necessary as I've started using Union cavalry with repeating carbines.

These are made on larger bases, sized to cover the frontage of a line infantry Group, made from cardboard textured with my usual gloop. Teddybear stuffing material is glued on and them dirtied with black and dark brown paint.

Finally, not random event-linked but very definitely stolen from Mark are these "Wounded Leader" markers.

The bases are discs of MDF, not actually bases but left-overs from some long-forgotten building project. The bloodied bandages are from strips of pocket tissue soaked in Modpodge. Placed next to a Leader, they will remind us that his Command Initiative has been reduced.
 

Vapnartak 2025

Jamie, Andy and I went up to York on our annual Vapnartak pilgrimage on Sunday. As usual it was a chance to catch up with friends and to get some it's-my-birthday-next-week purchases.

My impression is that trade stands increasingly dominate the scene at the racecourse. Demo and participation games being exiled to some pretty cramped spaces upstairs. However, what games there were were pretty good.

The guys from Sally 4th had an excellent Midshipman Hornblower Versus the Pirates game. 

This was played using Pulp Alley; a wonderful game that I really ought to get back on the table some time soon.

Ken Reilly and the Leeds club, as usual, had a massive game; this time an Italian Wars bash.

A group called The Brompton Bankers presented Alloway Creek, an AWI scenario. The terrain was basic but effective with the road and river sections being printed on mousemat material.

John Savage and the Harrogate crew put on a wintry Midgard battle between Romans and Celts. This was surrounded by players and on-lookers all day and I was only able to capture one overhead shot.

In between chatting to several of the Lardy community around the table (great to see Charley W back on his feet after he's been so ill) I was struck by how effective John's terrain is whilst remaining practical. I think a key factor is that all of the terrain pieces are well integrated into the theme. Using and reusing the same winter printed base cloth John adds appropriate terrain pieces that work together to create a seamless whole. Even though the units are on verdant bases, the whole effect is chilly.

East Leeds Military Society put on the Battle of Tabaruzaka, 1877, a Satsuma Rebellion battle using the Black Powder rules. An interesting choice of period.

Another game that caught my eye was Somewhere in the Western Roman Empire, 376AD. This was by a group called Westow Academy and used the Art de la Guerre ancients rules. I get the impression that these rules have become quite popular with the kind of players who previously would have been playing DBM and similar. Not a set I'm familiar but the toys were lovely.

Vapnartak is always a great chance to catch up with wargaming friends from across the North. Andy C is another friend who's been poorly recently and it was great to see him and Simon G from the Elton club near Chester. I'm hopeful of persuading both of them to come to Crisis Point this year.

I always make a point of saying Hi to Annie of Bad Squiddo Games as we share a birthday that's always shortly after Vapnartak. Occasionally we grab a selfie.

And finally, the shopping. With my birthday just around the corner I tend to splurge a bit.

One of the retailers (Gripping Beast?) had a table with some books at sale prices. I picked up these five for just £20. My ACW library is building nicely.

A pack of six Perry Russian peasants armed with assorted captured weapons looked like it might be useful for the Livonia campaign. The Warbases water cart will go with the cart horse I have awaiting painting - great for pretty much any Sharp Practice force.

AB Miniatures provided crews for my 20mm Soviet M1938 howitzer and 57mm AT gun. These are generally expensive by high quality figures. I'm a little disappointed by problems with flash and mould alignment on a few of the castings in the 122mm crew set.

Finally I encountered a new (to me) manufacturer; Templar Wargames. They make 20mm modern figures. At present the range seems to cover British Marines/Paras, Islamic insurgents, and African irregulars. On a suck-it-and-see basis I picked up an Islamist medium mortar team and a pack of African types. I'd meant to pick up guys with AK-47s but by mistake I got a pack of eight with RPG-7s. The figures are quite small in stature but I think I can use at least some of them in Andreivia.

All in all I very much enjoyed the trip to York and thanks are due to Andy for picking up the tab on our usual call into Tadcaster for beer and pizza on the way home. My shout next time!

1812 Rescue Mission

I managed to occupy the kitchen table this morning and play through, solo, the Sharp Practice scenario I designed recently. 

It's June 1812 and the "French" corps commanded by Marshal Macdonald has crossed into the Russian province of Livonia. The corps is made up largely of German and Polish troops who, now freed from restrictions on foraging in friendly villages, hope to fill their empty bellies. 

Leutnant von Hitwunde leads a small force of Prussian infantry to search a village near the army's line of march. He is aware that Captain Früschli, a rather foppish Bavarian officer attached to the General Staff, has ridden on ahead intending to use the church tower as a vantage point. He plans to sketch the countryside over which the army must march.

As his column, slowed by a waggon to carry off gathered supplies, draws near to the village, von Hitwunde spots a small patrol of Russian dragoons riding toward the village. Given the angle of their approach, they will be invisible to Früschli because of a large tree beside the church tower...

The battlefield - the Prussians enter on the road
bottom right. The Russian Deployment Point is just visible
behind the trees on the right edge of the table.

Turn 1 went just about as poorly as it could for the Prussians. The Russian dragoons' card came up first only to be immediately followed by the Tiffin card. The dragoons were deployed nine inches onto the table with the small woods on their left.

Turn 2 saw card Blue 2 come up first. This represented the Prussian NCO. I decided that the Prussians would send him off with one Group of infantry to wade across the stream and advance on the village in a right hook. As things would turn out, this would be completely ineffective. Having run up to the stream (picking up a point of Shock) they would spend the next six turns rolling appalling movement dice and struggling to cross the stream!

Also on turn 2 the Russians continue to canter towards the door of the church. 

I treated the single Bavarian standing guard as a one-man infantry unit. Activating on a Flag card after Tiffin, he stepped into the open and fired his musket at the approaching cavalry. He was obviously panicked and the ball flew wide.

Turn 3 saw Lt von Hitwunde arrive and lead his men in column along the road towards the bridge.

After an early Tiffin card, I decided the Russians would want to take out the sentry before he managed a lucky shot. I used a Flag to activate them and they charged the still-reloading Bavarian.

Faced by charging impact cavalry and with an unloaded musket, the Bavarian was cut down without inflicting any casualties on the Russians.

Turn 4 saw one Flag card each and then Tiffin. The Russians used theirs to dismount at the church door. This gave me the chance to use some dismounted dragoon figures I built out of left-over parts from the Perry Allied Cavalry box...

... and von Hitwunde's men continued their march along the road.

Turn 5 began with a Random Event that saw the Prussian column, with spring in their step, surge forward onto the bridge...

... with the accompanying waggon now lagging behind.

Needing to catch the Russians before they disappeared into the church, Von Hitwunde decided to act. Spending three Flags to move out of sequence he urged his men forward. Rolling a 6 on a single move die, the front of the column rounded the end of the riverside woods and loosed a volley into the dragoons killing one of them and inflicting three points of Shock.

At this point, finally, the card for Captain Früschli, the Bavarian officer came up. I decided he would attempt to progress his sketch of the countryside. One roll of snake-eyes later, he was two-twentieths of the way through his Task!

On a Flag after Tiffin, the dragoons retreated into the church.

Turn 6 was brief; a Russian Flag and then Tiffin. I decided the Russians could use the Flag to barricade the door as long as they didn't roll snake-eyes. This they avoided, slamming home the bolt with a satisfying clang.

On Turn 7 things began to go wrong for the Russians. Their Leader, serzhant Majevskii's card came up first and he rallied off two points of Shock in preparation for an assault up the staircase to try and kill or capture Früschli. 

Unfortunately, the next thing that happened was a Random Event. As the last activation was the Russians completing the task of locking the door, the rules suggested that this had failed. There must have been rot in the wood where the screws held the bolt in place. With an ominous creak, the door slowly swung open!

After that the Tiffin card came up. The Prussians used a Flag to reload.

Turn 8 began with von Hitwunde's card. He launched the men into a charge but they were unable to reach the door before the Russians finally got it barred. Elsewhere Feldwebel Klopp's men finally got across the stream, far too late to make a contribution to the action.

Turn 9 saw the action reach its climax. The Prussians assaulted the church. I resolved this as a round of Fisticuffs with the Prussians deemed to be assaulting a major obstacle and the Russians to be defending a high/wide one. 

The results were decisive; for the loss of one man, the Prussians inflicted three casualties including knocking out Majevskii and inflicting a second point of Shock. Added to the two additional points of Shock received for "losing by two" this was enough to rout the Russians. The two survivors fell back 15", I assume having broken through the east window of the church.

The game was great fun; I really enjoyed how the narrative pretty much wrote itself. It's good to know that von Hitwunde survived and can take his place in the campaign proper when Richard P and I finally get round to playing it. Perhaps the captured dragoon sergeant will play some role in our first game?

Battlezones for TacWWII

So here's another post on converting scenarios to play with the TacWWII rules. This time I'm adapting one from Battlezones - Scenarios for Ultra-Modern Period by the late Bruce Rea-Taylor. I lent my copy to someone years ago but fortunately I was able to find a pdf copy on line.

This scenario book was designed for the Challenger II rules, which operate at one-model-equals-one-vehicle level, so the forces will be a little small for TacWWII. We may need to scale them up in some cases.

I'm going to have a go at converting the first scenario in the book, Tel Al Fal - The Road To Jerusalem, 6th June 1967. This Six Day War action has Israeli forces encountering a Jordanian tank battalion on the Ramallah-Jerusalem road.

First up we need to consider the map. The Challenger ground scale is half that of TacWWII (1cm = 20m rather than 1cm = 40m) so we need to halve dimensions; Bruce's 8'x6' table becomes a 4'x3' for TacWWII.

Each contour is supposed to be half a vehicle high but we have no single contour hills here so normal hills or ridge lines will work. I've suggested with brown lines where I think ridge-lines could go if you don't have suitably shaped hills.

The woods are keyed as "Open orchard/olive grove" and a look at Google Maps shows that although the area is now far more built-up, the olive trees are quite widely spaced. They'll be Open Woods in Tac. The fields are lined with low stone walls.

The Israeli forces consist of a tank battalion with some attached paratroops. The full order of battle is given but we need to remember that one model here represents one real-world tank. So long as the number of vehicles per platoon isn't too divergent between the opposing sides we should be OK to just say, "One platoon equals one TacWWII element".

In this case, the Battalion HQ could be an M3 or a Sherman. I'd be inclined to go with the latter given its superior survivability in battle.

The organisation of the para company is given separately:

We can ignore the company HQ; it's deemed to be included in our overall company strength. I would include a Jeep platoon with RCLs even though it represents only two real-world vehicles. It adds interest to the game and won't make a huge difference to scenario balance. The rest of the formation can be converted over on a one-platoon-equals-one-element basis. This gives us overall:

82nd Tank Battalion

• Bn HQ                  1x Sherman Mk50
• A Coy                   3x Sherman Mk50
• B Coy                   3x Sherman Mk50
• C Coy                   3x Sherman M1 
• Para Coy               3x SMG platoon, 1x 81mm mortar, 4x M3, 1x Jeep+RCL  

Rules for SMG-armed infantry are given in version 1.6 of TacWWII. Basically, treat them as High Firepower infantry at 5cm range and Low Firepower infantry at longer ranges. Each SMG platoon will be treated as having bazooka.

The Jordanian force is similar in size:

This is an interesting case in that the battalion HQ is technically too small even to register as an element in TacWWII terms. If I was building this unit for Cold War Commander I'd have an HQ base with a Saracen and a quad AAMG model. 

If we are to represent the battalion HQ on the table we could just give them a Saracen model. This would be vulnerable and would add nothing to the formation's firepower. However, TacWWII doesn't actually require the presence of a battalion HQ element - there are no command radii or suchlike to measure from a headquarters model. As such I'm inclined to just ignore the single Saracen. 

The Jordanian infantry company looks like this:

Again we can fold this HQ into the overall strength of its company. Light mortars and LMGS are assumed to be reflected in the firepower rating of the rifle platoons. The two sustained-fire machineguns are a challenge. You know what? I'm going to fold them into the rifle platoons too, rating them as high firepower. That just leaves to two Landrovers and the two AA machine-guns. With no aircraft in the scenario I'll ignore the guns and represent the Landies as a single model just like we did with the Israeli Jeeps.

So the Jordanian force is:

2nd Battalion, 60th Armoured Brigade

• A Coy                   4x M47
• B Coy                   4x M47
• Inf Coy                 3x Rifle platoon, 3x Saracen, 1x 3" mortar, 1x Truck, 1x LR+RCL

Overall, then, we have a nice little scenario that will play comfortably on a smallish table and should provide for a leisurely evening's solo or face-to-face gaming.