Andy came over yesterday and we played some Andreivian Arc of Fire. Details on the Andreivian Tales blog here.
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Monday, March 31, 2025
On the workbench (March)
Following my last post on "Eking out the supplies" here's an update along with some other productions from March.
First up is a second PVC board off-cut recycled as a paved village base with a 20mm Russian para for scale.
An even smaller piece of the board has provided this little vignette of a cockerel on a dung heap next to a brick wall. The wall is from foam-core with the paper layers removed. The bird was, I suspect, from the old Airfix Wagon Train set; I acquired a number of elements from that set as part of a mixed second-hand lot many years ago.
This latter piece can be used on its own or alongside the previous one.
And here they are serving their intended purpose with one of my old Middle Eastern buildings...
And finally for now, here are some Andreivian road signs identifying the villages (and the routes to the airport) in the game coming up in a couple of weeks' time.
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Eking out the supplies
When I was gainfully employed I had access to an on-site print shop that produced a large amount of public information material printed onto expanded PVC board. I managed to blag several quite large "off-cuts" that were otherwise unwanted and they make great bases for wargaming models. Much easier to work with than MDF.
Now that I'm retired I'm having to eke out the remaining supply. I've even gone as far as recycling the base of one model I decided not to retain.
This first piece is just such. I'd built a 20mm scale French maison on a hill for my Menton 1940 games but I was never entirely happy with it and it look up an enormous amount of storage space so it's been demolished and all but the base went into the bin.
This offcut from the original base will form a generic village base onto which I can place some Middle Eastern buildings, again in 20mm scale.
The edge was already chamfered and I've engraved irregular paving slabs with an old ball-point pen. Some traces of old hot glue and areas of crazy- rather than rectangular paving will add a lived-in look to the thing.
And here's one I made earlier to show what I'm aiming for as the final result.
A small, unbased house should look better on this rather that being plonked straight onto the terrain cloth. While I could have permanently based my Middle Eastern houses, based houses take up more of my valuable storage space. These pieces can just be thrown into an old shoe box with the houses.
Construction (such as it was) used the usual terrain gloop (Quick Drying Polyfilla stained with brown acrylic paint) on the irregular edge with the straight edges kept plain so they can butt up against straight road pieces.
Speaking of straight road pieces, a couple of long, straight sections of 5mm MDF that came in the packaging of some Ikea furniture seemed too good to throw away so I painted them grey as tarmacked road sections. To link them to my existing glooped-hardboard roads, I created this jointing piece from more of the left-over PVC board.
Friday, March 14, 2025
Crisis Point 2025 - places still available
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
A Warwick! A Warwick!
Baroness Counterpane and I had a couple of days away in historic Warwick over the weekend. Lots of interesting historical stuff to look at.
I didn't get to visit any of the three regimental museums in the town but Lord Leycester's Hospital is well worth the entry price.
The central courtyard immediately had me thinking of duelling musketeers and cardinal's guards.
In the main building there was a display of muskets, sent up from London so the Brethren (retired soldiers resident in the hospital) could defend themselves from Chartist rioters in the mid nineteenth century.
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Napoleonic Prussian officer backgrounds
It's been a while since we first came up with the idea but I'm still hopeful that Richard P and I can get a chance to play some Sharp Practice set during the 1812 French invasion of Russian Livonia (modern Lithuania and Latvia). The idea is for me to play a small Prussian force in French service.
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Not this small but you know what I mean |
I've said previously that I find the Sharp Practice Officer's Breeding Table a bit too "British" - great for the officers Sharpe encounters in the Peninsula but not quite appropriate for a campaign where all of the characters are Germans or Russians.
After a little digging through the biographies of Prussian officers I've come up with the following suggestions for adding personal backgrounds to our Sharp Practice Prussian officers. First up we roll 2D6 to see where our officer originates:
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Trying out Templars
At Vapnartak I picked up some figures from a new (to me) manufacturer, Templar Wargames. Looking at their website they seem to make quite a range of 28mm figures but it was a small range of 20mm modern types who caught my eye. Note by the way that, contrary to the labels on the packaging, the website is templarwargames.com and not templarwargames.co.uk.
They make a range of modern British troops. These will allow you to tailor your models to your chosen regiment; you can choose to get troops with helmets, berets, Tam-o-Shanters with hackle or Special Forces with a variety of doubtless unofficial headgear.
By way of opposition for the British Templar make Islamist and African irregular types. Whilst chatting to the owner I picked up a couple of packs of these to see how they would blend in with my Andreivian collection.
Just off the workbench is this Islamist medium mortar team.
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Port Gibson, May 1863
On Saturday Andy and John came over to play the Port Gibson scenario I designed as a reserve game for last year's Steel Lard.
The scenario covers the initial contact between the pickets of Union and Confederate armies on 1st May 1863. The Union army has just crossed the Mississippi and is about to begin the march that will see it besiege and eventually take Vicksburg. The following text is from a historical marker at the site:
Confederate Gen. Martin E. Green on the afternoon of April 30, 1863, posted his brigade near Magnolia Church, with an outpost here.
Shortly after midnight, Green rode forward to check on his pickets. Reaching this point, the general found Mrs. A.K. Shaifer and the ladies of the house frantically pilling their household effects on a wagon. Green assured the women that there was no need to hurry, since the Yankees couldn't possibly arrive before daybreak. Hardly had Green spoken before there was a crash of musketry -- the pickets had exchanged shots with the Union vanguard, soldiers of the 21st Iowa. The women leaped into the wagon and headed for Port Gibson, while Gen. Green returned to Magnolia Church to alert his troops. The Confederate pickets fell back before the Federal advance.
Our game begins with General Green reassuring Mrs Shaifer just as the first shots ring out.
I briefed John, as the Confederate player, that Green would not step on the toes of the officer commanding the pickets but that he would be available to help if needed. The following scenario rules applied:
- Green could be activated by spending one Flag card,
- If attached to a unit he could rally off 1D6 points of Shock,
- If he rolled a six he would immediately be removed from the game, his staff advising him to withdraw and take command of his brigade,
- He could be voluntarily removed from the game by spending four Command Flags, and
- If wounded or killed he would count as a Level IV Leader for the purposes of the Bad Things Happen roll.
At this point a small patrol of "Union cavalry" appeared in the sunken lane.
They would ride through the defile and head off to the east with their true identity not revealed to the players until after the battle.
John, not having acquired the command flags needed to evacuate General Green, decided to use him to rally off some of the Shock accumulated by Sgt Bush's men in front of the farm. The resulting die roll removed but a single point of shock. Almost immediately after that the Union cavalry inflicted a single kill on Bush's men. The following exchange then occurred:
Umpire: Roll a D6 to see if a Leader is hit.
John: One!
Umpire: OK, one of them is. Roll again; on an odd number it's the General, on an even number it's the sergeant.
John: Five!
Umpire: OK, roll again to see if he's knocked out, lightly wounded or killed.
John: One!
Umpire: OK, he's dead. Roll for a Bad Thing Happening.
John: Six!
Umpire: Hmm, so that's three off your Force Morale bringing it down to... six.
Despite these reverses, John had managed to get the Shaifer family away with their waggon-load of personal belongings and a formation of Confederate infantry under Lt Tim Trump was advancing the threaten the flank of the Union troops in front of the farm.
Trump's men were ideally placed to fire into the flank of Bush's single group of Confederate infantry but yet more unfortunate die rolling by John meant that they didn't spot them through the gloom (I was using my night fighting rules) and instead they wheeled to face the muzzle flashes from the main Union line under Lt Harris Biden.
Again, though, things didn't go John's way. Shot at by Union infantry and those devastating dismounted cavalry, Trump's men broke and ran carrying the Confederate Force Morale down to zero and handing victory to the Union.
In the end it was a pretty one-sided action over in a little over two hours. John's bad luck hamstrung his efforts at delaying the enemy's advance. His consolations were two. He'd avoided the bear trap of firing on the "Union cavalry"; they were actually a party of senior Confederate officers (prefiguring events at Chancellorsville the following day where Stonewall Jackson would be fatally wounded by his own men).
He'd also got Mrs Shaifer away safely with her load of household goods. The Union troops had been tasked with securing any wagons or carts they could. The army, recently landed from boats, was sorely short of transport on land.
I was initially of the impression that the scenario was badly unbalanced because of the Union cavalry's ability to fire twice a turn. On further reflection, though, Andy did handle his force very well, aggressively getting to a range where the carbines were murderously effective and concentrating his force where it mattered. John, a less experienced player, was behind the curve as soon General Green stopped that unfortunate Minié ball without a meaningful contribution to keeping the Rebs in the fight.
I think things might easily have gone very differently. I'll probably give the scenario another run out at some point but with some tweaks to the unit stats and briefings.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, February 9, 2025
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.
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:
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.
Friday, February 7, 2025
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:
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.