Triples 2013 - Saturday

Saturday morning spent at Triples doing a bit of shopping.

First up I visited Irregular Miniatures to get some of their 6mm scale renaissance models for me developing Polish army.  Unfortunately they were a bit short of the relevant figures and in scrabbling through their boxes looking for possible substitutes I decided I wasn't happy with the quality of models I was seeing.  I made up my mind to visit Baccus 6mm instead.

First, though, I hunted for and found a copy of 18th Century Principles of War which I want to evaluate for use with my GNW Russian and Turks (and possibly the Poles too).

I then popped over to the Wargames Developments table and spent half an hour playing their new WW1 game "Ten Rounds Rapid".  This was, as usual with WD, great fun. Playing as a battalion commander in the British Expeditionary Force at Mons I just about managed to hold the line with the Germans only gaining a tenuous lodgement in my first line at the end of the action.

The set up - probably the smallest game at Triples.

John Armatys ran the game for my run through.

The Germans draw close to the British first line.

And at one point launch a close assault.

After Ten Rounds Rapid I decided to bite the bullet (musket ball?) and buy the Baccus Polish Army Pack.  I now have to paint three units of Hussars, four of Vallacks and twelve of Pancerni.  Unfortunately the pack was lacking the bag of Generals it should have contained.  I'll have to go back tomorrow and sort this out.

I managed to chat briefly with Carl and meet his wife Maggie.  Also saw Stuart and Andy but missed Pete altogether and only saw Will for a moment whilst I was busy defending plucky Belgium from the Hun!

Triples Weekend

This Saturday I shall be off to the English Institute of Sport for Sheffield Wargames Club's annual convention Triples. I've just realised this is the thirtieth anniversary of my first attendance.

Back in 1983 Triples was held in the Royal Victoria Hotel (just round the corner from where I now work).  I remember taking part in the Runequest tournament playing as a group of foul-mouthed and pretty useless Broo. This time I shall, as usual, make an effort to play in the Wargames Developments game.

The EIS is a perfectly acceptable venue but with so many cons now happening in gymnasiums or their like, I can't help feeling they are losing much of their individual character.

First Poles

Having decided to finally have a go at Renaissance Principles of War (I've had a copy of the first edition knocking around for years) I've started building a 17th century Polish army out of bits and pieces I had lying around.

On the left is a unit of Drabants made from Baccus Russian Strel'tsi whilst on the right are King Jan Sobieski's Janissary guards made from Irregular Miniatures Turkish Janissaries.  As you can see there's a significant difference in size between the two manufacturers.  Baccus's use of the term "6mm" could almost be considered false advertising!

Like the Janissaries, the Drabants are based on an illustration in one of the Men At Arms books on the Polish army.  The flag is from the excellent Alex's Flag website and represents the Sandomierz district.

The Archers...

...an everyday story of Wars of the Roses folk.

These guys are mostly Perry Miniatures plastics, the exception being the sword-wielding vintenar who's an old Citadel miniature.

They are painted as retainers of the duke of Somerset, one of the most important Lancastrian nobles of the Wars of the Roses.  Actually, I say one of the most important Lancastrians but in fact there were several dukes of Somerset; most Lancastrian defeats in the wars saw the death of a duke of Somerset!

These figures show my current style for 28mm figures.  It's taken me thirty years but I've finally managed to reach a level of Zen-like calm that means I'm not trying to make each figure a perfect masterpiece.  At this rate there's the possibility that I might get the whole box of figures finished!

Yuzhnaya Ozereika Skirmish

Today's Saturday Afternoon Wargame was the first Arc of Fire skirmish we've played for quite some time.  Andy and Carl came over and I dusted off an old scenario I'd originally played solo about ten years ago.

Operation sea was a landing by Soviet amphibious forces on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea.  If the Soviet Naval Infantry could meet up with Soviet land forces attacking in a southwesterly direction from the area of Krasnodar they would cut off the whole of Army Group South in the Caucasus.

Our scenario involves a platoon of Soviet naval infantry, supported by a lend-lease M3 Stuart, attempting to capture a Romanian artillery position.

Andy, commanding the Soviets, faced interesting tactical choices.  He could move slowly up the ravine on his left (outline by lichen in the picture below) staying out of sight but risking being ambushed or he could stick to the better going on the right but have to clear at least one small wooded area.

Soviet forces move towards the Romanians' fortified position.

He chose a bit of both with one squad moving up the gully whilst the remainder made a right hook.

First blood - the Soviets' first squad comes under fire from
 the Romanian off-board artillery and loses a man.  

More artillery arrives as the Russians make their way past the first woods.

On the Romanian right the two man observer team was deployed at the end of the gully and, having succeeded in calling down off-table artillery on the Soviets' first squad, then turned their weapons (a pistol and a bolt-action rifle) on the Russians moving up the gully.

By a freak of dice rolling they managed to kill the Russian squad leader.  The naval infantry failed the resulting morale check and pulled back down he gully.

On the Russian right some naval infantry move up to assault the Romanian recce unit in the second woods. Note
that the tank has a white counter indicating that it has been neutralised by fire from the Romanian mountain gun.

Moments later another 100mm round strikes the M3 and knocks it out. 

The final position.

At about five o'clock we ended up with the left flank Soviets stuck in Confused Mode in the gully, the squad on their right routed after a badly failed morale check, the anti-tank rifle team wiped out, the tank knocked-out and the remaining troops unlikely to force a result.  As such we called it a clear win to Carl and his Romanians.

Offices

In a break from mowing the lawn on Sunday I decided to have a go at the box of Peco modern office buildings I won in the raffle at HOTT Berkeley 2011.

The box contains enough parts to build three small, square buildings but it also encourages you to combine them into larger buildings. Certain parts can be modified very easily to allow two or more units to join together.

I decided to do a single unit first to get a feel for how the parts fit together and the result is seen below.

It looks OK even unpainted but I think I'll give it a grey wash to pick out the brickwork.  I'm going to combine the other two units into a longer building.  I'll base them both within a wall as some kind of Andreivian light industrial unit.

That Hovels Church

I've said before that you have to have the Hovels 25mm church to be a proper wargamer.  I've finally got mine painted.

It's fun to paint and nicely scaled such that it will work for 25mm or 20mm.  For me it'll stand in as the church in Bleid for Rommel's Route to Verdun and for the English Church in downtown Tcherbevan.