A towering performance

Shortly before watching Liverpool demolish Spurs to become Champions of England for the twentieth time, I finished my own towering accomplishment.

It's made using Firedragon's textured high density foam sheet with details added from card and gateposts from square-section bamboo skewer. The base and curtain wall are from different grades of PVC board, the latter engraved with a ballpoint pen and a craft knife.

In addition to a generic scenic role it doubles as a dice tower.

Most commercially produced dice towers have a simple series of internal baffles and a completely open front face making their function obvious. I wanted something that would pass for a part of the scenery in a wide range of games so, by trial and error I constructed a series of internal chutes that feed the dice out of the front door. So far I haven't had any dice get stuck inside but the roof is removable just in case.

As you can see, this thing is very plain. I may in future add some shuttered windows to the sides or perhaps a removable pitched roof to fit over the hole in the style of a peel tower. In the meantime I don't think this would look too far out of place in Burgundy in 1475, in Livonia in 1812, or in some parts of Glorantha in 1621ST.

I may also add some brass tubing to allow a choice of flag or banner to fly from the ramparts. Of course I'll have to make sure any such banners adhere to the Boss Wednesday Agreement.

Tiger Tiger!

Richard Phillips kindly sent me some Perry's ACW sprues among which were some zouaves. In fact three whole Sharp Practice Groups' worth of zouaves (24 figures with a few left over for NCOs and an officer) . I plan to paint them up as Louisiana Tigers. They can be used for my The Battle of Patriot Run game and to play Mark Backhouse's Three Days With The Tigers mini-campaign from WSS issues 91 and 92. 

It occurs to me that with 26 figures to paint and about 26 weeks to go until Steel Lard, I could do one a week and see how my painting changes. I won't say "improves" because I suspect I'll grow to hate painting striped Zouave trousers and start to simplify the process!

Here's the first one I've done.

It's more or less block painted. The only three-colour work is on the face using my usual mix of Saddle Brown, Medium Flesh, and Dark Flesh (all from Vallejo). I think I also highlighted the folds on the jackets but it's pretty subtle.

There seems to be a huge amount of dispute about the Tigers' uniforms. Blue or brown jackets? Or maybe blue jackets that faded to brown because of poor quality dye? Full Zouave-style lacing or just red trim around the edges of the jackets? Fezzes with or without turbans? With red or blue tassels? And was the whole unit in the  Zouave uniform or just one company?

It might be interesting to try some alternative painting techniques. Stay tuned for future episodes.

More ACW developments

With Crisis Point out of the way and with Andy T seemingly well on top of the planning for our Joy of Six game, I find myself increasingly focussed back onto Sharp Practice in general and the American Civil War in particular.

My plan this year is to put on a game at Steel Lard that doesn't require ridiculous amounts of specially built terrain. I don't want to get hyper-focussed on one project to the exclusion of actually enjoying my gaming and I really can't afford the storage space for a large amount of new terrain. 

The plan, then, is to create a game that uses my existing ACW collection and little or no scenario-specific terrain pieces. That game is provisionally titled Running From Bull Run. It's inspired by this painting:

I want to create a game where most of the players represent Union officers struggling to put together some sort of ordered rear-guard in the chaotic aftermath of defeat in the first pitched battle of the war.

It seems like a good idea to take advantage of the space available at Patriot Games and the fact that I now have two very nice Geek Villain mats to create a long table (12'x4') depicting the Warrenton Turnpike, down which the Union troops are fleeing. I already have enough road sections and a river and bridge that can represent Cub Run and disguise the join between the two mats.

Game rules are in development - I'll certainly need to find a different way of handling morale as any reasonable assessment says the Union Force Morale has already reached zero!

-o0o-

The other consideration for Steel Lard is that I don't want to find myself in the position (again) of having to put on an emergency game because a game-runner's had to drop out at the last minute. Inevitably the players in any such game get a little short-changed.

My plan, then, is that Running From Bull Run can be replaced, using more-or-less exactly the same forces and terrain, by The Battle of Patriot Run.  This would be a fictional, up-to-four-a-side battle still using Sharp Practice but designed for minimal umpiring complexity. The presence of a river (the Patriot Run of the title) dividing the battlefield into two halves would allow the game to run as two parallel, smaller games to keep the action moving.

Having said that I don't want to get involved in building loads of new stuff, I do have some unpainted figures and want a variety of troop types either retreating down the turnpike or in line of battle astride Patriot Run.

After a little research I decided to paint some Perry plastics as the 13th New York Infantry, a unit that at Bull Run was in grey uniforms with pale blue trim and dark blue kepis.

Next to the drummer stands a white metal officer kindly provided by Richard Phillips. Obviously they're all yet to be properly based. Some more of these guys and some RP-provided zouaves are also on the list of things to paint.

-o0o-

The final ACW project that I need to work on right now is the Muddy River play-by-email campaign. It got delayed while Richard was working away from home and I need to spend a few hours detailed study to remind myself where we're up to in the story. I do want to get the campaign completed so I can properly report here on how things transpired. Keep an eye out for developments!

Crisis Point 2025 - Sunday report

On Sunday morning we gathered once more at the Village Hall to start some new games. 

Andy and Neil went with Maurice again (I should perhaps point out that the rules are named after Maurice de Saxe, the German general of the War of the Austrian Succession and not the BeeGee of the same name), this time with a larger game depicting a second attempt by the Honourable Black Sea Company to establish a presence in Andreivia.

Again the British were unsuccessful in their efforts. Good! That means I don't have to make any adjustments to the previously published "History of Andreivia" timeline.

Great news was that Mark was able to join us after the previous day's hospital visit. He quickly set up his Force on Force game, recruited Matt and Stuart as players, and got started.

Somewhere in the Southern Hills

The British are coming!

I do like the burned-out car

An Andreivian T-55

Finally I persuaded Ron and Jamie to play in my Port Gibson Arc of Fire game.

This was the fourth run-through of the scenario after two player-run games at Steel Lard and a performance starring John and Andy back in February. 

In the February game the rapid firepower of the dismounted Union cavalry's breech-loading carbines dominated the affair and some lucky dice rolling by John (General Green was killed early in the action)  gave the boys in blue a comprehensive victory.

This time the Union troops were late deploying; Confederate skirmishers under Sgt George W Reagan made a dash for the sunken road in the centre of the battlefield before the Tiffin card ended the first turn with no Union units on the table.

On the second turn Jamie's luck appeared to have turned slightly and he managed to deploy Lt William J Gore's dismounted cavalry in a skirmish formation in front of Lt Harris Biden's infantry.

Almost immediately a random event would see Gore's cavalrymen low on ammunition and only able to file at close range. This was the first of a series unfortunate events as far as the Union side was concerned.

The main Confederate units deployed at the Shaifer farm whence the family were preparing to flee with their belongings.

Sgt Reagan's skirmishers having deployed in the sunken lane it was obvious to Jamie that he would lose a firefight so he launched Biden's line infantry into a charge.

The first round of the resulting fisticuffs saw Biden killed and the result a tie. This called for an immediate second round. Again kills were equal and this time Reagan was knocked unconscious. The third round saw the Confederate reduced to a single survivor and the Union men reduced to three! Both formations were effectively destroyed.

Meanwhile Gore's Union cavalry men were, thanks to poor movement dice rolling and the effect of Shock, unable to get out of the arc of fire of the main Confederate line or to catch up with the small group of Rebs under Sgt Jeb Bush who were escorting the Shaifers off table.

In the end it was a complete Rebel victory. Ron managed to avoid getting two Confederate generals killed. All in all it was a far cry from the previous run out of the scenario.

Oh and if you're wondering how an ACW action fitted with the theme of the weekend, I pointed out at the start of the game that many of the Confederate troops at Port Gibson were recent immigrants from Andreivia!

Given the challenges involved, I was pleased with how Crisis Point went. Having said that, it's apparent that the event can no longer be what it was originally. The loss of the Royal Hotel and the Padley Farm B&B mean that we'll no longer have people staying in the village and socialising on Friday and Saturday evenings. 

At the moment I don't plan to organised a weekend-long Crisis Point next year but the venue remains a possibility for when I want to put on larger games. Maybe when Chain of Command 2nd Ed comes out I'll be inspired to put on something substantial.

Crisis Point 2025 - Saturday Report

The past weekend saw a gathering of wargamers at Dungworth Village Hall near Sheffield for the latest Crisis Point weekend. It turned out to be a classic example of the wargames community pulling together to produce a really enjoyable experience despite the fog of war doing its best to mess things up for us.

At 10:30 on Friday evening we were expecting to have two 20mm scale games set during the 1990s Civil War in Andreivia. I would be running my Arc of Fire scenario Attack in the Northern Hills and Mark Kniveton would be giving us A Hilltop Village, another Andreivian scenario using the Force on Force rules.

By 10:31 Mark had got in touch to report that his grown-up son had been injured in a hit-and-run incident in Barnsley and was in hospital. Obviously Mark would not be able to be with us on Saturday and we were suddenly down a game!

Fortunately a quick exchange of texts with Andy Taylor and Neil McCusker recruited these two fine gentlemen to dust off an idea that had been parked since the the great Covid-Crisis-Point-Cancellation of 2020. They would run a game set in 1760s Andreivia using the Maurice card-driven rules. This was of course a tremendous load off my mind as the event organiser!

I'd been able to set up my game on Friday afternoon so Saturday morning just needed a quick briefing to the players as they arrived followed by re-allocation of players to games to fit the new situation while Andy and Neil set up their game on the table-tennis table I'd originally earmarked for Mark.

My game used two tables. The western one had two Andreivian-Armenian-controlled villages connected by a road zig-zagging up the valley. 

Hamadzaktun (foreground) and Khndzori Arahet (rear), both held by the Armenians

The eastern table represented another valley with one village occupied by the Armenians and another (Melas Gora) under Andreivian Government control.

Menak (left) under Andreivian-Armenian control and
Andreivian Government-held Melas Gora (right) 

The valleys were connected by the Maghali Pass.

This was a terrain piece I threw together out of polystyrene packaging material in the week or so before Crisis Point. I have no plans to keep it as I can't see myself using it again but I wonder if there's some owner-of-a-wargames-venue in, say, Staffordshire who might find a use for it?

With six players of varying levels of familiarity with the rules, I was too busy to do much in the way of documenting events but here are a few pics:

Russian airborne troops supported by a T-80
advance on Hamadzaktun

An Armenian T-55 advances to engage the
Russians

Armenian militia in Khndzori Arahet

Russian grenade launcher team deploys to
cover the advance

An Armenian militia mortar team

An Armenian sharpshooter team deploys into some rough ground

That T-55 again

The battle for Menak between Armenian militia
and Russian Naval Infantry was fierce.

Melas Gora was well defended by Andreivian
Government paratroops

A Russian MiG-27 on a ground-attack
mission. The camouflage is good innit?

By the end of the game the Russians
hadn't managed to destroy either of
the Armenian artillery pieces bombarding 
the International Airport

We had planned that the game could continue into Sunday if we needed it to but in the event we were happy that the Russian attacks had made as much progress as they were going to without significant reinforcement.

The Andreivian Government had three victory points as a result of holding Melas Gora but their hopes that ATV News would get pictures of Russian atrocities were scuppered when the reporters' car was peppered with Russian bullets early in the game. The Russians gained a single victory point for taking Hamadzaktun and might have got another for Menak in another hour or two but they didn't get close to taking out the Armenian artillery. The Armenian guns had continued to fire throughout the game and as a result the Armenian players reached their target of five victory points. I'm therefore calling it a victory for the Andreivian-Armenians.

Elsewhere Andy and Neil had set up their Maurice game. Unfortunately I only got a couple of photos on Saturday.

Forces of the British Honourable Black Sea Company 
advance by columns

Saturday saw the Ottoman Turks and their Andreivian allies defeat the British after a long battle that seemed to provide plenty of entertainment to the players.

With both games finished on Saturday afternoon I had the unusual opportunity of tidying away my toys completely. In previous years I've still been packing away after six pm on the Sunday! We didn't have anyone stopping over in the village so I could have a relaxing evening albeit one spent making sure I could set up another game for Sunday.

Another Andreivian Tale

Andy came over yesterday and we played some Andreivian Arc of Fire. Details on the Andreivian Tales blog here.

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.

Bases from left-over MDF pieces, signs from cardboard and bits of paperclip! They should help the players remember which houses on the table correspond to which village on their scenario maps.