Review of the year 2024

My hobby year 2024 began with a new purchase; Bloody Big Battles.

I've been years searching for a set of rules that allows me to make satisfying use of my 6mm Franco-Prussian War armies and it finally looks like these are the ones for me. Mate Chris Pringle does a great job of concisely and unambiguously laying out his rules and this is no exception. 

I've only completed one solo play through of the Battle of Coulmiers so far...

... but I'm keen to do more. I've started rebasing my Irregular Miniatures strips and organising them to do Froeschwiller some time in the coming year. There's even a plan at the back of my mind to maybe do Waterloo eventually!

January also saw the start of a new campaign. Muddy River Blues is designed as a time-limited, play-by-email exploration of counter-guerilla operations in Mississippi during the American Civil War. The main rules in use are Sharp Practice but I did use a modified version of Arc of Fire to resolve one particularly small encounter between patrols in the overgrown bottom-country west of Badfinger...

Ron and Richard are the players in this one and it's been fascinating to watch their forces moving about the map with very limited intelligence about what's actually going on. I suspect both sides would benefit from getting their player character commanders back to base temporarily to pick up news of events. The campaign rather ground to a halt in the latter half of the year as I was busy with other projects (see later) and Richard was working away from his home. I must get back into the saddle on this one.

Spring saw a few games of The Pikeman's Lament. A few Thirty Years War games in 6mm scale were supplemented by another game in our very irregular series of 15mm Samurai actions set around the Siege of Hachigata. This is another project I need to move to a conclusion.

The first big project of the year was Crisis Point 2024. This event was disrupted by first one and then a second game-runner dropping out due to family commitments or illness. In the end we managed with two games and the event was a great success.

I wanted to run a large game of TacWWII but was determined not to get bogged down with a huge game for all attendees. Having Andy and Neil available to run a parallel game of Cold War Commander and effectively splitting my own game into two semi-independent, four-player games meant that the event was manageable and went off very well.

In June I took Harpers Ferry down to A Barnful of Lard in Bristol. 

The terrain is now in storage so that may be the game's last outing for a while. With six sessions at Lardy Days and three or four playtest sessions it's difficult to argue that the ratio of preparation time to play time is reasonable. However, I enjoyed the process of researching and designing the game and building the terrain so any decent cost-benefit analysis needs to take that into account.

In August I arranged a first game of a Cold War adaptation of TacWWII with Richard and Phil. The Battle of Jijiga was an adaptation of a scenario from Battlezones by Mark Bevis.  It was an Ethiopian clash with Somali rebels and featured a number of T-54s and buildings 3D-printed especially for the occasion.

I was pleased with how the rules worked though it's been pointed out that I was probably generous in giving the defending rebels the opportunity to evade incoming ATGWs. In my defence I was more keen on testing the rules mechanisms than in accurately simulating the command and control limitations of WSLF tank crews!

The second half of my 2024 was dominated by preparations for Steel Lard. Quite apart from the administrative burden of recruiting game-runners and then allocating players to their games, I found myself spending so much time getting my Siege of Puebla game designed and built that very little other gaming took place.

The self-imposed design constraints were such that I needed to build 16 square feet of city and four of French siege works. In addition I'd made up my mind to have buildings progressively replaced by ruined versions as the game continued so I ended up with a major construction effort even recycling some buildings from previous games.

On top of that I needed to design and test new night-fighting rules for Sharp Practice and to create player-character commanders whose personal objectives and psychological peculiarities mitigated the risk of a siege warfare scenario bogging down into a static firefight.

In the end, things worked out well but I did feel that Puebla had perhaps taken up too much of my focus. By the end it was beginning to feel like a bit of a chore to keep working on it. 

It's fair to say that since I got past Steel Lard, my hobby time has been spent on a glorious mish-mash of unconnected painting and historical research. Perhaps the epitome of this was an mostly pointless diversion into 15mm Thirty Years War that can only result in some more figures going on eBay.

Rules-wise the year has been dominated by Sharp Practice with seven games, followed by TacWWII with four and The Pikeman's Lament with three. After that there were occasional outings of Bloody Big Battles, Flight Leader, Hordes of the Things, Arc of Fire, and What A Cowboy. The last of these should make its way into joint third place after I've run a game over the Christmas holiday period.

So that was 2024. I'm not displeased with how any of it went but I'd like to avoid getting so bogged down into all-consuming major projects in the coming year... of which more anon.

The Streets of Brownsville

One of my games this Christmas is The Brownsville Raid, 1859. In September of that year the Mexican rancher, cattle rustler, patriot, and later army officer Juan Cortina mounted a nocturnal attack across the Rio Grande to kill his sworn enemies in that place.

Here's my representation of a small portion of Brownsville for What A Cowboy:

I don't intend to stick as closely to historic events as I did with the Harpers Ferry game - this is going to be more of a Hollywood version of the raid.

Our story takes place in southern Texas after the end of the Mexican War. In an atmosphere of anti-Mexican racism, white settlers (the terms anglos or gringos are used interchangeably) have been using questionable legal practices and sometimes outright violence to take over the farms of established Mexican families.

Jerry Thompson in his Cortina: Defending the Mexican Name in Texas gives us the background:

Our scenario takes place the following September when Cortina, backed by perhaps 100 "Cortinistas", mounts a nighttime raid determined on revenge for the slights endured by Mexicans on the lower Rio Grande.

The player-controlled citizens of Brownsville will be people on Cortina's list of enemies or, in the case of the jailer Robert Johnson, on the personal revenge-list of some of the Cortinistas. They are:

Adolphus Glaevecke, a German immigrant,
former medical student, rancher, cattle thief,
and distant cousin by marriage of Cortina.

Robert Shears, the town marshal,
not yet fully recovered from the bullet
Cortina put in his shoulder in July.

George Morris, blacksmith and
town constable, perpetrator of 
"many Mexican murders".

Robert L Johnson, the jailer, who lives
 in a house adjoining the city jail.

And on the side of the attackers we have:

Juan Nepomuceno Cortina himself.

Tomás Cabrera, victim of Shears' pistol-whipping
and now Cortina's right-hand man.

Juan Vela, who loves his brother...

... Alejo Vela, who hates Robert Johnson.

In addition there will be groups of anonymous Cortinistas - I'll be trying out the Henchmen rules for the first time.

This will be my second What A Cowboy game based on events in 1859. Harpers Ferry was very much in line with the historical events in the Federal Armory in October. This time I've gone more "Hollywood", changing the locations of some events and the positions of characters to encourage more fast and furious action. I will, however, be adding a few scenario-specific rules to capture some of the events of the night.

New battlefields - amended

Steel Lard brought home to me the visual difference between, for example, Ken Welsh's French and Indian Wars set-up:

... and my emergency ACW game:

Now obviously my game was thrown together at the last moment but clearly Ken's printed battlemat makes a huge difference to the visual impact. I decided to splash out.

I've gone with Geek Villain's fleece mats. As Jonathan of Wargaming Recon has pointed out in the past, the texture is lovely; they'd make a very comfortable throw for your bed or sofa!

I decided on two 6'x4' mats, "Grass" and "Rocky Grass". These have the advantage of being the same underlying pattern so I can combine them if I ever need a 12'x6' playing area. Alternatively they'll do nicely for the two-tables-side-by-side approach planned for my Attack on the Northern Hills game.

At the moment our kitchen table spends most of the day being used as a workbench for the Baroness' traditional upholstery (an Edwardian sofa won't fit in her workshop) but I did manage to get in a quick photo session with the "Grass" mat.  It shows varied greens with scattered grey rocky areas.

And when I place a few hills on top...

Despite the hill modules having been built, painted and flocked at various times and with various recipes of ground cover, I'm quite pleased with how they blend in.

And here is the "Rocky Grass" mat.

I wanted to see how the mat worked with a hill underneath it. The fort in the pic above is actually on a low rise made from corrugated cardboard and various types of foam. The effect is nice and subtle I think you'll agree.

I'm not entirely sure about the rocky bits when seen close up...

But overall the existing hills blend well into this one too.

I paid £130 for the two battlemats and on the whole I think they represent value for money. I see no reason why they shouldn't last for ages and they potentially free up storage space that's currently being occupied by six 2'x2' chipboard tiles.

Weird artillery

I've recently had a period of building models out of the stash for no other reason than I fancied doing so. It's quite therapeutic to just think, "I don't need this for a game but sod it, I'll just build it".

The latest thing to come out of the stash is a couple of 20mm scale "French" guns that were in Akheton Models blister packs. The inverted commas reflect that fact that while the diminutive crew are in Adrian helmets, the guns themselves aren't a very good match for any particular weapons.

The barrels look like those of the famous 75mm Mle1897 but the carriage has wheels that are way too small.

I might declare them to be an Andreivian modification of the French gun and draft them into one of our post-WW1 games.

Christmas scenario

I'll be running an Andreivia 1918 game this Christmas. Here are some figures that will appear. 

You can learn more on the Andreivian Tales blog here.

Attack on the Northern Hills

This is the first-draft outline of a scenario for Arc of Fire that I'm working on for possible use at Crisis Point 2025. It's a slightly redacted version to keep a little of the detail from potential players.

Background

Russian forces have previously occupied Tcherbevan International Airport and are pushing to capture the bridges over the Krupnehr River with a view to moving into the centre of the capital.  However, their base at the airport continues to come under fire from Andreivian-Armenian artillery in the Northern Hills. Russian units are ordered to attack into the hills and destroy the artillery.

Situation

The game takes place on two tables representing hilly areas separated by the impassible Shavi Kedi (or Black Ridge).  Travel between the two tables is possible only across the Maghali Pass.

Both tables represent areas that are largely under Andreivian Armenian control. There are two villages on the western table; Khndzori Arahet and Hamardzaktun. They are connected by a road that forms a key Armenian line of communications and that then runs through the Maghali Pass. 

The eastern table has an old ruined fort (under Armenian control) at the end of Maghali Pass. From the fort another key road leads down to an Armenian village, Menak. In the east is the village of Melas Gora under Andreivian Government control. A road running northeast from this village is a key Government supply route.

Areas shown as plain green on the map above will be broken up by as many steep hills as we can squeeze on - this isn’t countryside that’s going to be dominated by one or two tanks! Steep hills are impassable to vehicles and cannot be used to deploy artillery. 

Deployment

Andreivian-Armenian forces can deploy anywhere on the map (at least X” from the southern edge and Y” from Melas Gora). One artillery piece must be deployed in the central third of each table. The artillery pieces do not need line of sight to the airport - they are firing based on from reports from spotters and intelligence received from Armenian agents in the city (we know this from a previous matrix game).

Andreivian Government forces deploy within Melas Gora. 

Russian forces enter from the southern edge. They can split as they like between the two tables but note that they need to take out both guns. Optional Russian helicopter deployment if enemy leave rear areas unguarded?

Victory Conditions 

Each faction has a victory target of five points.

The Russians gain victory points as follows:

Action	Victory Points
Destroy both Armenian artillery pieces	3
Each village captured	1
Controlling the line of communications between two uncaptured villages	0.5
<redacted>	2

Note that no VP are awarded for destroying only one of the artillery pieces.

The Armenians gain victory points as follows:

Action	Victory Points
Every X artillery rounds fired at the airport	1
Each village/fort* held at the end of the game	1
Cutting the Government’s line of communications to Melas Gora	1

Note * <redacted>.

Note that an Armenian village or the fort gains only 0.5 VP if the line of communications is cut on one or both sides of it.

The Andreivian Government gains victory points as follows:

Action	Victory Points
Melas Gora is held	3
<redacted>	1
<redacted>	1
Menak or the fort brought under Government control	1

Forces

All forces are to be agreed based on what we have/what people want to play with. But see the following…

Andreivian-Armenian Forces

A selection of militia infantry and assorted vehicles.  

Must contain two artillery pieces. 

Must have <redacted>.

(I have one M1938 122mm howitzer)

Andreivian Government Forces

Platoon of Government paratroops and assorted vehicles

Russian Forces

Mostly infantry but may have a couple of tanks. Perhaps two reinforced infantry platoons?

If people are happy to learn the artillery rules (they are fun) the Russians and potentially others could have limited off-table fire support.

(I have a platoon of VDV airborne troops and am working on a similar force of Naval Infantry.)

(I have two T-80s)

Aircraft can be unbalancing in skirmish games but I have a few suitable aircraft models (Andreivian Government A-4 and Mil-24, Armenian Hawker Hunter, and Russian MiG-27) that it’d be fun to use. Perhaps appearing as a result of rolls on a tweaked version of the Random Events Table?

A return to Andreivia?

With Steel Lard out of the way, my thoughts have inevitably returned to Crisis Point in the Spring. I'm tempted to have a theme of Return to Andreivia. This would enable me to run a substantial game of Arc of Fire without having to organise a single, huge game that might have to accommodate somewhere north of 18 players!

Freed to consider something other than Puebla in 1863, the creative pixies that inhabit my brain suddenly stopped drinking themselves into oblivion and got back to work. Within a couple of days I had the complete outline of a multi-player scenario depicting the long-anticipate Russian offensive into Andreivia's Northern Hills.

This in turn tempted me to dig though the boxes of partially-complete and unbuilt stuff for the Cold War period in 20mm scale. The result was a headquarters unit for my reinforced-platoon-sized force of Russian paras.

I picked up a set of the old Atlantic 1/72nd scale Jeeps at a bring-and-buy many years ago. They are very crude, made from soft polythene and not particularly realistic as a representation of the GAZ-69 but they'll do.

This first one has the platoon CO and his driver. I added bit of camouflage to the latter's head. The Atlantic figures are small in stature but bulking up his helmet this way (painting with PVA and then dipping in mixed flock before finally sealing with matt Modpodge) helps him blend in with chunkier white metal models.

I have at least one more Atlantic Jeep that I'll probably model either empty or with just a driver for when the platoon HQ is deployed on foot.

Next we have an AGS-17 automatic grenade-launcher. 

Memory has it that I was gifted this team at an SOTCW event many years ago. I suspect it was originally painted by either Richard Baber or Neil MacDougall. It didn't quite fit in with the rest of my collection as all of the weaponry was painted in Panzer grey and the base had some peculiar bottle-green static grass. 

A bit of research suggested that the body of the AGS-17 should be black (with a brown panel on top), the magazine should be green and the tripod could be green or black. Most pictures of the weapon in service show a little silver colour where the paint is worn away around the tip of the barrel. With these changes the model is much improved. I repainted the crew's AK assault rifles too and dry-brushed yellow to tone down the unrealistic grass.

A couple of hours' work in total and my miniature VDV have some enhanced mobility and firepower! They may see action at Christmas as I want to test the new Arc of Fire activation system.

 

Steel Lard 2024 - part two the aftermath

Steel Lard 2024 ended with the Wee Derek Awards. These were presented in memory of our friend Derek Hodge, who passed away this year and who was a stalwart of the Lard community.  Thanks are due to Patriot Games who kindly matched our contribution enabling us to offer two £40 prizes in Derek's memory.

The Wee Derek Award for Game Design was voted for by the players. Second place was a damned close-run thing with Phil Crebbin's Cthulhu-themed What a Cowboy game coming in just ahead of... well... modesty forbids. The winner by a head, though, was John Savage's very pretty Up Country. 

This was the most popular choice of games in advance of the day. Lovely terrain, a skilled game-runner and a new version of the Lardies' most popular rules conspiring to make a hugely popular offering.

We them moved on to the Wee Derek Spirit of Lard Award. This was chosen by acclamation of the game-runners. It was inevitable that it would be difficult to identify a single player who had exemplified the spirit of the day as the game-runners only get to see a portion of what goes on. However, one name came up twice.

Dex reported that Simon had provided some really insightful feedback after the morning session. He incorporated Simon's suggestions and the afternoon game was much better as a result.

Then Ken was enthusiastic about the unexpected death of Robert Rogers in the second run of the La Chute game. Apparently Simon played a heroic role in this.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I announced that Simon Walker had won the award. 

There were one or two funny looks at this and it soon became apparent that the two anecdotes referred to different Simons! Fortunately the prize was in the form of two £20 vouchers so it was decided that Simon Walker and Simon Beale would leave with one voucher each! 2024 will henceforth be known in Lardy circles as The Year of the Two Simons.

After tidying away the impedimenta, I managed to get home for half an hour and drop off the car. Wife and daughter were attending a Bellowhead gig in the city so Jamie and I were able to get a lift back into town to attend the after-Lard drinks.

Triple Point Brewery proved a successful venue; close to Patriot Games with excellent beer and reasonable food. We stayed for a couple of hours before decamping to the nearby Rutland Arms for a few more. Here we ended up snuggled onto a table in the beer garden with some students. Ken got chatting with them and it turned out that they had both hometown and football club in common.

The end of the Bellowhead gig mean that our ride was waiting so Jamie and I slunk away. I believe further craic was had and I know there was a game of Midgard Heroic Battles at Patriot Games on the Sunday.

The final outstanding issue (except that I need to pay Patriot Games) was to decide on my approach to next year's Steel Lard. 

I've now organised for three years and that's more than any of my predecessors. I've found that in organising the event and putting on a new game each year, I'm tending to get in less actual wargaming over the course of the year. In addition, running the second, emergency game meant that I wasn't able to give either set of players the experience I'd have preferred.

In 2025 I want to concentrate on using the toys I already own and getting in more varied games. I'll therefore be looking for someone else to take on the burden of organising Steel Lard. 

What I will offer to do for whoever takes over, apart form providing advice, is to run a game at Steel Lard.  It would be designed from the start to be scalable in the event of a last minute cancellation. It'd probably be another Sharp Practice game and probably use the large collection of models I created for the Woebetide Islands.

So in conclusion, if you're a Sheffield-area Lardy you may get canvassed as a future organiser. And wherever you're based, I strongly recommend that you get to a Lardy Day and maybe stick around for the AfterLard.

Steel Lard 2024 Report - part one, the games

Another Steel Lard has gone by and I'm pretty satisfied with how it went. We gathered on Saturday morning at Patriot games and set up the games. John Savage was running his very pretty Vietnam War scenario Up Country using the new second edition of Chain of Command.

The second edition isn't available yet but John's been involved in the play-testing. As such, John's game was by far the most popular with punters keen to try out the new rules. The fact that John's games are always gorgeous didn't hurt.

Also in the play-test team and presenting a CoC2 game was Dex McHenry. Dex kindly stepped up to run his game Squarepegged Valentines after another game runner dropped out. The game featured Kiwi-crewed Valentine tanks in the jungle against the Japanese in 1944; well outside their designed environment and after they'd been withdrawn from service elsewhere!

Dex plays all of his games in 15mm scale, which is perfect for Chain of Command as the model scale matches the ground scale of the rules.

Another WWII game was Alex Sotheran's Crossing the Vire. This was also in 15mm scale but using the battalion-level O Group rules. Crossing the Vire was our only all-day game. The Lardy Day audience seems to prefer to get in two different games during the day but I know I've really enjoyed playing an all-day CoC game and Alex's players seem to have had a great time with this game.

Our final twentieth century game was Ian Garbutt's offering using a modified version of What a Tanker! 

Called, after a plaintive radio message from a US tank commander during the battle, It's a Shit Show, the game saw American Shermans blundering into a German defensive position including not one, not two but three King Tigers!

Jamie played in this one in the morning and really enjoyed it. Played with 10mm scale models, the game featured some innovative and successful fog-of-war mechanisms that kept the US commanders on their toes at all times.

Jamie also played in Phil Crebbin's Keep the Last Bullet for Yourself. This was a What a Cowboy variant in an H P Lovecraft-inspired setting. Sorry, only one picture of this one but it was popular with the players.

Ken Welsh provided another episode in his series of French and Indian War Sharp Practice games. War on the Run saw Rogers' Rangers clashing with French-allied native Americans along the La Chute river. Contrary to historical precedent one of the British players managed to get Robert Rogers killed in action.

Ken's games are always very pretty but unfortunately I only managed to get any pictures during the inter-game pause when there were no miniatures on the table. Still nice though!

Finally there were my two offerings. Two because we had a game runner drop out through illness in the last few hours before the day. I dusted off a planned reserve scenario using my American Civil War figures and the Sharp Practice rules. Fortunately Matt Slade and Ian Hemmingway were scheduled to play in the morning and afternoon sessions respectively and were able to take on most of the umpiring responsibility.

It wasn't the prettiest game but it did feature an interesting plot twist. The single group of "Union Cavalry" that appeared part way through eventually turned out to be a party of senior Confederate officers. In fact this was something of a disguised scenario. Although it was based on and advertised as Port Gibson, Mississippi on 1st May 1863, in fact much of the situation was derived from Chancellorsville the following day and a thousand miles to the Northeast. 

In the morning session, Matt's Union troops managed to wound one of the "cavalry",  an action that I subsequently revealed was leading to the death-from-wounds of General Thomas J "Stonewall" Jackson. 

In reality Jackson was shot by Confederate infantry and succumbed a couple of weeks later. In our second game he survived unscathed.

Finally there was my own Siege of Puebla 1863 game using the Sharp Practice rules.

I was mostly too busy to document what went on but I did get this pic of players Mark, Daniel, Terry and Stewart...

I designed the game such that a scenario that could potentially be quite static was made more mobile by means of the night fighting rules (see my previous posts) and giving the player-leaders interesting character traits and objectives. These seemed to work quite well in both run-throughs.

Another innovation in this game was that the achievements of the players in the morning session would influence the set-up in the afternoon.

The morning French players managed to detonate their mine under the walls of the penitentiary...

... and to capture half of the building and the nearby public gardens. In the afternoon game the French attackers were allowed to position deployment points in both of these blocks.

In addition, any buildings destroyed by French shelling in the morning remained in that state during the afternoon. This gave us a realistic progressive destruction of the city as fighting continued.

In the morning game I had two complete SP novices so I had to be more involved with Puebla and leave Matt Slade to run the Port Gibson game. This meant that I got a decent idea of the progress of the scenario. Despite heavy losses the Mexicans managed to hold on to all but two front line blocks.

The morning session was a great illustration of how Sharp Practice excels as a narrative game. Mark was suffficiently enthused after his first ever game that he's put Sharp Practice on his shopping list.

In the afternoon Michael, Grayde, Barry and Andrew took over. They would play the same characters with the same personal objectives and force levels (as if the morning hadn't happened) but with the damaged buildings and deployment zones based on the morning session.  The morning French players' progress allowed their afternoon successors to start with deployment points in the public gardens and one half of the penitentiary.

The afternoon game flowed better because there was a higher proportion of experienced Sharp Practice players. This led to my spending more time spread between the two games.

The French managed to capture the penitentiary after several fierce bouts of fisticuffs. 

Character development worked particularly well with Lâcharde, the Legendary Hero of France, being knocked unconscious and, who knows, maybe losing his reputation. Captain Balourd of the Turcos rose to the challenge and seems to have overcome his crisis of confidence. Meanwhile Victor Vectra of the Puebla militia managed to recover his father's Toledo-steel sword from a ruined house on the enemy siege lines.

In the end, though, the superior quality of the French soldiers told and by the time we reached a suitable stopping point the Mexicans were down to a single point of Force Morale; Vive la France!

Part two will follow shortly with a report on the Wee Derek Awards and the evening's merry making.