Into the woods

The plans for an Infamy Infamy game inspired by events from Lindsey Davis's novel The Iron Hand of Mars continue apace. First up I've completed the construction of my German force.

Using a mixture of Wargame Factory and Victrix models we have five units of warriors (one of them oathsworn veterans), one of fanatics, one of rebelling former foederati, and one of slingers.

The former foederati represent a group of Batavians led by their former commander Julius Civilis.

I've gone for a preponderance of blue clothing and shields for these guys and given them rather more helmets than the general run of tribesmen. I see them as holding on to remnants of any former Roman army-supplied clothing and/or equipment.

Most of the German warriors are much less well-equipped. They lack helmets and fight with spears and javelins rather than swords.

At least one group of oathsworn warriors is needed. I've distinguished them by means of a more swords and more helmets. In The Iron Hand of Mars they'll represent the relatives of the prophetess Veleda.

Finally for now I've done a key piece of terrain in the form a sacred tree...

This will be the centrepiece of a sacred grove. The tree is sculpted from Milliput on a skeleton made from copper wire and a wine cork! A severed head from the Victrix Gallic cavalry set adds a nice detail.

I'm going to need more trees for the game so I've got a production line underway.

On the road to St Omer

Last night I braved the wind and rain on the southern edge of a yellow weather warning zone to pay a first visit to The Steel City Irregulars. This is a small gaming community that Dex McHenry and Alex Sotheran  are building at The Outpost in Sheffield.

I took along Calais - The Road to St Omer to have a first test of its new dedicated game mat. This is the game I'll be running at Joy of Six in the summer.  I was keen to try it out in its current form. 

I originally designed the scenario back in 2000 for the Blitzkrieg 1940 scenario book. Research was more challenging back in those early-Internet days and the modern version of the scenario is more realistic as a result. 

The group was down a couple of regular players as a result of illness and family emergencies but I was able to meet Dean and we quickly got down to playing. Dean chose to command 3RTR and I ran the recon battalion of 10th Panzer Division.

After a brief outline of how the TacWWII rules work, we got down to action. Dean quickly had the British tanks moving aggressively toward the enemy.

This is a challenging scenario for the British as their TAC rating of 7 makes it difficult for them to get properly organised for the attack. Dean quickly grasped that he needed to get to close quarters if the heavy machine-gun-armed Light Tanks Mk VI were going to make a significant contribution.

3RTR Squadrons advance past the station

Air support would be available to both sides subject to a roll of 1 or 2 on a d10 at the start of the turn. This makes the RAF and Luftwaffe way more present than they were in reality. I excuse myself on the grounds that people like to see aircraft models over the table. In addition, part of the aim is to showcase the TacWWII rules and I like how they handle aircraft. 

On the second (or third?) game turn both sides received air support with flights of Hurricanes and Bf-109s appearing. 

As both were rated "Good Fighter", it was a straight dice-off to see who got the jump on the other. My roll of 7 was beaten by Dean's 9. Given the choice to engage my fighters or get in first with a strafing attack, he chose the latter.

The Hurricanes destroyed an SdKfz 231 but the Messerschmitts then evened the score by taking out an A Squadron Cruiser tank.

In true historical fashion the battle became a confusing melee of close-range tank-on-armoured car action.  Both sides' morale is rated Good and this helped keep the action going despite frequent morale tests caused by losses.  The firepower of the German armoured car companies was much reduced by losses but their six-model starting strength makes them quite resilient in morale terms.

At one point a flight of Me-110s chanced an attack on the 3RTR's Headquarters Squadron but to no effect.

Throughout the battle the Germans continued to receive reinforcements.  Unlucky card draws formed a traffic jam of truck-mounted infantry on the hill to the southeast.

The cards weren't entirely cruel to 10th Panzer, though. A light Panzer company (with a mix of Panzers II and III) swept into action on the flank of 3RTR's leading squadron and caused losses at the crucial moment.

At the end of turn five (of eight allowed for in the scenario) 3RTR was forced to take a battalion morale test. Having lost a squadron and with two temporarily withdrawing in the face of the enemy, the result was "Halt". The British formation would no longer advance without express orders from superior command. Quite reasonably Dean elected to concede victory to the Germans. We can assume that, like his historical counterpart, he would pull back into the Calais perimeter.

With only a single previous run-through of the scenario in a quarter of a century, I was pleased with how this updated version went. 

I decided to remove the "sunken road" as although this is mentioned in passing in historical accounts, it doesn't seem to have played a significant role in the action and would just have served to cramp the British player's freedom of manoeuvre.

I thought the table looked okay but I'll probably lay down more fields at Joy of Six and work on fixing down the railway lines.  I'll probably also move the point at which the lead companies clash further back towards Cocquelles to prevent the whole action occurring at one end of the table.

I have to express my thanks to Dean for being a willing and sporting partner in this exploration of history and to Dex and Alex for setting up the session. I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to pay more attention to their neighbouring game of Chain of Command.

Not another new project?

I tend to have my most creative ideas when out walking the dog over the moors around Sheffield. Recently I got back from such an expedition with the thought, "I could wargame the Lowlives' and Firvulags' attack on Finiah using Dragon Rampant in 28mm scale". 

I'm guessing that sentence will mean very little to most of you. Mild spoilers ahead if that's the case.

The subject in question is the version of Pliocene Europe depicted in Julian May's Saga of the Exiles. This is the setting of a series of four books beginning with 1981's The Many-Coloured Land. 

I read this book and its sequels when I was at university and have revisited them several times since then. The story begins in a twenty-first-century Earth that's part of an interplanetary community where wide-spread "metapsychic" powers make for a prosperous and peaceful, if somewhat anodyne, society.

The only escape for those who don't fit in is a one-way time gate to Earth's Pliocene era (6 million years ago). Unfortunately what these exiles don't know is that Pliocene Europe is under the domination of a dimorphic alien race (the Tanu and the Firvulag), themselves exiled from their home galaxy because of their barbaric battle religion.

The idea that struck me was that, with modern plastic miniatures, I could probably wargame some of the fighting in the book in 28mm scale at a relatively small cost. My thinking was that I'd want to depict the following four types:

The Tanu - tall (2 metres plus) humanoids; I suspect some High Elf miniatures would do the job for these guys.

The Firvulag - stunted, dwarf-like creatures who project monstrous illusory aspects when in battle; pretty much any fantasy model will serve here.

Grey Torcs - human soldiers fighting for the Tanu; described as wearing light bronze armour and kettle helmets and sometimes surcoats in the colours of a Tanu metapsychic guild. The Fireforge medievals should suit.

The Lowlives - free-living humans on the run from the Tanu having an uneasy alliance with the Firvulag. They'll have some through the time gate in a variety of costumes but are increasingly adopting practical buckskin clothing. Like the Firvulag, almost any figure is justifiable though I'd like to have a go at depicting some particular characters.

And there my planning stopped when I realised I couldn't easily source 28mm scale chalicotheres - the distinctive riding animals of the Tanu army. 

And then I went to Hammerhead and discovered the Disain Studio stand selling a 3D printed range of prehistoric animals. I picked up a couple of "chalikos" for a tenner to experiment with.

The additional creature at the back is a cheap Chinese plastic toy I found years ago. It's a macrauchenid, a giraffoid creature from the right period. It was probably restricted to pliocene South America but I won't tell if you don't.

I now need to review the models I own and the ones I can pick up without breaking the bank. I don't want this to turn into a big thing but it might make for an interesting side-project particularly given the half-dozen-a-side scale of Song of Blades and Heroes.

 

Fun running Running from Bull Run at Hammerhead

The old voice was a little husky on Sunday morning after two sessions of Running from Bull Run at the Hammerhead show in Newark.

I arrived at the Newark Showground at about 0850 and quickly transferred the boxes of game material to our folding trolley. Apparently the manufacturers secretly designed the trolley to fit one 33 litre and three 9 litre Really Useful Boxes with precisely the right amount of room for a game-marker-carrying toolbox at one end and three box files on top. I was able to get the entire game from the car in one trip.

Previous experience and careful packing of the components meant that I was able to get the game set up before the doors opened to the public. Apparently this was reasonably impressive as one of the organisers suggested I deserved the prize for quickest set-up by a late-arriving game-runner!

I had been a little concerned that I'd be standing around all day with no players (or at least all morning while attendees did their shopping). As it turned out I had two players (Colin and John) in the morning...

... and four (Andy, Alan, Samuel and Martin) in the afternoon.

I think this is probably a benefit of running a game at Hammerhead; a show that makes a feature in its advertising of showcasing participation games. I've not been to an American convention but I suspect the Hammerhead experience is more American-like in that regard.

If I recall correctly, both games were narrow Confederate wins, the second one narrower on points than we all thought during the game. 

The Cub Run bridge comes under artillery fire as 
US congressmen attempt to flee in their Surrey

Confederate zouaves in pursuit of the fleeing Union troops

In terms of the game, a couple of lessons were learned. I thought I'd counted the maximum number of Union figures I could possibly need so I didn't have to bring along the whole collection. As it turned out I must have miscounted and the second game hit the limit and went beyond. I just kept rolling high whenever further groups of fleeing Yankees were needed!

In addition, I decided to try replacing one of the pursuing Confederate Groups with cavalry. I thought they wouldn't be that good in melee but they might provide the opportunity to ride around the Union flank and capture the Cub Run bridge.

Turns out I was wrong and that charging cavalry are more lethal in Sharp Practice than I remembered.

A question that came up, and that I recalled as being unclear in previous discussions, was the speed of cavalry after fisticuffs. I decided to treat them as being at canter pace after the fighting but in retrospect I think that was probably an error. They should probably be treated as a walking pace after the fight in most cases (although one fight was so one-sided in favour of the horsemen that allowing them to continue at the canter or gallop would be reasonable). This would have made them somewhat less dominant as they need to get up to the gallop before they are truly lethal. 

So that's probably me done with Running from Bull Run for a while. Mostly; I'd like to put some effort into other projects but have been asked online for the scenario so I'm going to have to write it up for this year's Lard Magazine!

Goodbye to Harpers Ferry

The baseboard for the Harpers Ferry game has been in storage for a couple of years and is looking distinctly under the weather.

One corner is bashed (it was made from left-over Kingspan insulation so it was never going to be hugely robust) and the 3D printed fences are badly damaged.

This was the most research I've done in building the setting for a game. I really enjoyed the process and feel like if we landed at the foot of the boat ramp in 1859, I'd have no problem directing you to the Paymaster's Office. 

However, the time has come to say goodbye. I'm about to start demolition. Hopefully some of the components can be reused.

The buildings were always separate from the baseboard and they look OK in their dedicated Really Useful Box.  I've got some ideas for how to use them in a future game. Keep an eye out for Chartists at Pontylard!

Calais terrain test

I've been playing with my existing 6mm terrain trying to set out the revised table for Calais: The Road to St Omer.

Obviously there's a mismatch between the 1:300 scale of the models and the 1:4000 ground scale of the TacWWII rules. We instinctively understand the width of the roads and so we see the battlefield as a few hundred metres across rather than 3.6 kilometres. I'm giving serious thought to creating the road net in some other way for this game.

I have some tarmac roads made from cheap floor tiles (thanks Richard P for that tip) but they suffer from the same issue as regards overscale width.

Options, it seems to me, are:

1. Stick with the latex dirt roads,
2. Switch to the floor-tile tarmac roads (with the option of making some new sections that more perfectly fit the historical road layout),
3. Make a whole new tarmac road layout with narrower road sections for a slightly more map-like visual effect,
4. Create a dedicated 48"x28" gaming mat specifically for this scenario by airbrushing onto cloth, or 
5. Create a dedicated 48"x28"gaming mat specifically for this scenario with the canvas-caulk-sand-paint-flock approach.

I have until July to make my mind up and build the solution. Part of me wants to put on the best-looking game I can while the rest says that it's just a one-off event and doesn't justify the effort.

I shall ponder. Suggestions welcome!

Gangs of Rome additions

The latest additions to the Gangs of Rome collection are these:

The litter (lectica in Latin) is a 3D print from IronGateScenery that I picked up at Vapnartak. On sale at less than a fiver it seemed too good to pass up.

The lady (also purchased at Vapnartak) is from Bad Squiddo Miniatures. 

She's actually meant to be the Palmyrene Queen Zenobia but in my case I think she will probably see service as a Roman priestess. 

I've just finished reading Lindsey Davis's One Virgin Too Many, which sheds light on some of the strange cults in the city. I reckon I should be able to come up with some special rules to cover this incola (the GoR term for a significant non-player character). More on this later!

Hammerhead Handout (revised)

I've produced a draft  of a handout to accompany Running from Bull Run at Hammerhead. Any comments gratefully received before I go to print. Thanks to Sablemage via The Gaming Tavern and Prof Woodward for their feedback so far.

Running to Hammerhead

Running from Bull Run will be making an appearance at Hammerhead on Saturday 28th February. 

Hammerhead (held at the Newark Showground) is a show that specialises in hosting participation games. This will be the first time I've put on a game there since, I think, 2011 when the SOTCW team put on Crossing the Lippe. 

It'll also be the first time I've put on this particular game or anything like it at an event where players need to be recruited from the passing punters. I spoke to John Savage at Vapnartak, who does that sort of thing all the time. John says that the morning session can be quiet, while people are circulating and doing their shopping, but that after that demand picks up. John's participation games are renowned so if he finds recruitment slow...

I'm confident that once players are recruited the game will work well but I'm tempted to make one minor tweak. The legendary "Black Horse Cavalry" already make an appearance in the game with historically "mixed" results...

However, this time they may not be the only Confederate horsemen to show up. I'm tempted to replace one of the infantry units leading the Confederate pursuit with a single Group of cavalry. This should make for some interesting tactical choices in the endgame period. I'll report back on the results.

Having only previously run the game at Lardy Days where players are allocated in advance, I'll need to give some thought to display materials to have around the table. I might try a Keynote presentation on my iPad as well as some printed handouts.

On the workbench...

So current production here at Stately Counterpane Manor is very much in a "random bits" phase.

First up is a pair of 3D printed bison I picked up at the otherwise disappointing Wirral Warboot sale back in September. 

I got them with Glorantha in mind and they'll still do for that setting but they're without the riders I originally thought of adding. Left riderless they'll also potentially do for What A Cowboy.

Next we have some Perry Russian infantry. The front group of eight and accompanying NCO are grenadiers. Behind them are two groups of musketeers with their own NCO.

The plan is still for Richard P and I to play a Livonia 1812 Sharp Practice campaign but his grandfatherly duties are making scheduling games difficult so I thought I'd get myself some opponents for my Prussians. Another group of musketeers and an officer need to be built and painted and when they're done I'll do a photoshoot of the whole force.

Moving down a couple of scales, I continue background planning for July's Joy of Six game where I'll be presenting Calais: Encounter on the St Omer Road on behalf of the Cold War Commanders. This was originally going to be the group's only game any the event but I think it will now be one of two, the other our more conventional Cold War fare.

A couple of evenings ago I updated 3RTR in line with my current understanding of early WWII British camouflage and with some sketched-in markings.

The formation is organised into four squadrons, two with Light Tank Mk VI and two with Cruiser Tank A13. Later the same evening I did a little more reading and came to the conclusion that the two types of tank were in fact mixed within squadrons. The question now is whether I redo the almost invisible squadron markings I painted on the turrets!

Also featuring in the Calais scenario are two German armoured car companies. These contain a mixture of SdKfz 221 and SdKfz 223 (indistinguishable in terms of unit stats and in terms of models as I'm not adding 1/300th scale frame aerials to the latter) as well as SdKfz 231 and 222.  

The 221s and 223s are armed only with rifle-calibre machine-guns whereas the 231s and 222s carry 20mm cannons that have some limited anti-armour capability.

I want to attract people who are interested in giving TacWWII a try so I need to give them some way to tell which units are which. As a couple of my SdKfz 222s already had air recognition flags, I decided to add them to all of the cannon-armed armoured cars.

A scrap of paper pencil-ruled with 2mmx3mm rectangles provided the basis. The red fields and white central circles were painted in with acrylics. The internationally problematic political symbols would then be sketched in with a fine drawing pen.

That's in for now. There are some Calais-related terrain pieces currently in production but I'll post about those in a few days when I talk about some of the design choices I've made in updating the scenario.

Over at Andreivian Tales...

You can now read the account of the British attack on a ruined fort held by the renegade Turkish officer Iskender Bey at Andreivian Tales.

Return to Andreivia and Arc of Fire

I've managed to persuade a few of my regular drinking buddies to try wargaming for the first time. The plan at present is to have a go at a simple game in a couple of weekends' time. I don't expect to convert any of them to the hobby but it would be nice if they had a frame of reference for our "What are you doing this weekend?" conversations.

I gave them a choice of four games including 4th century Romans vs Picts, 15th century Burgundians and Swiss, and a rerun of my Port Gibson ACW game. In the end, though, they chose an early twentieth century adventure; in fact a return to Andreivia with a scenario I wrote to run about 12 months ago but that fell though the cracks for some reason.

The game will involve a rogue Turkish officer who has gained control of some experimental poison gas shells. Certainly British and possibly Andreivian forces will be attempting to take the gas shells off his hands. Arc of Fire will be the rules in use.

I don't need to build any additional units or terrain for the game but I have today improved the paint-job on this Raventhorpe white metal Laffly armoured car...

Don't go blowing the image up to look at the detail. It's not a great job but pin-washing and dry brushing have lifted it a little.

One reason for including Arc of Fire among the options was that it's a set of rules I can run with my eyes closed. I could consider dropping unit modes and random events from the rules for this game for simplicity. However, to me they are such important factors in making the game a fun narrative experience. 

In fact I'm adding another complication for this one. Certain units, such as the British Mark V tank, have special rules. For the Mark V the rule is:

Poorly Designed:

If subject to red-then-black, make a Tac roll. If failed, the crew immediately abandon the vehicle leaving the hatches open to ventilate out hot air and fumes. Note that they may leave the tank moving and walk alongside it. They may not return to the vehicle for the remainder of this game turn.

The reference to "red-then-black" reflects a new approach I'm trying here. The Mark V tank will normally activate like any other unit. However, if its card comes up immediately after the Red Joker is drawn and the Black Joker has previously been drawn this turn (i.e. the combination of cards that does not trigger a Random Event) the Poorly Designed special rule takes effect.

The idea is to have a trigger that doesn't come up often and that can be used to demonstrate the peculiarities of this particular unit. The Mark V's engine-cooling radiator was inside the fighting compartment and this was a known problem!

That's the rules position, then. I'll post something about the game itself on the Andreivian Tales blog shortly.

Huns versus Late Romans

I recently picked up a copy of Basic Impetus 2.0 and thought I'd give it a try with some of my 6mm scale ancient miniatures.

A few years ago I tried version 1 of these rules (they're from Italian publisher Dadi e Piombo) and really enjoyed them. Only the arrival of To The Strongest prevented me using them more often.

This time I set up a straightforward Romans vs Huns action.

The Roman army, furthest from the camera above, was centred on two units of legionaries backed up by attached archers. These were flanked to their right by a unit of auxilia palatina (light infantry with "point blank weapons"; presumably darts), comitatenses (more light infantry), and some lanciarii skirmishers. On the other flank was the Roman cavalry equites, equites Illyricani, and Alan mercenary horse archers. It was only later that I realised I'd missed out a unit of sling-armed skirmishers who should have been there.

The Huns had one unit of mounted nobles, seven of bow-armed light cavalry and one of bow-armed skirmishers on foot. As you can see they deployed with a small centre and widely-spread wings.

The advantage of playing this solo was that I could take a couple of days with breaks to check on rules I wasn't sure about and even to query things on the Facebook Group for the rules. This taught me a few things:

• Javelin-armed light infantry have a 45 degree shooting arc,
• Troops that try to evade but fail to do so aren't disordered, and
• Troops that do evade don't end their evade move facing away from the enemy.

I'd guessed the first of these but the other two surprised me.

Early Hun shooting against the legionaries 
was surprisingly effective

By the end of turn 2 both legionary units had taken permanent losses

But one Hun unit would be lost as it failed to evade
a legionary charge

On the Huns' right there was an exchange of shooting with the Roman cavalry. The Romans got the better of this and another Hun cavalry unit was lost.

Eventually the Hunnic cavalry managed to wear down the Roman General's unit to the point where it was worth sending in the nobles to try and finish them off. This didn't go well and the nobles were forced to pull out with a single remaining hit and I threw in another unit of horse archers to protect them.

The battle was in the balance when these fresh Huns finished off the Roman General's unit.

The end came, however, when the other legionary unit charged the weakened Huns in front of them. The latter evaded successfully but I'd failed to spot that this opened the way for the legionaries to hit the corner of the Hunnic nobles, triggering a melée that routed them and gave the Romans victory.

I'm reminded of why I enjoyed Basic Impetus back in the day. It's less anodyne than DBA and more capable of supporting interesting scenarios than To The Strongest. This second edition will certainly have a place among my ancient wargaming options.

Xmas Games 2025 part two

Having completed Saturday's Gangs of Rome game I had to try and get my brain around a second set of rules in four days! Fortunately What A Cowboy is a game I've run several times previously so I had a head start in understanding author John Savage's modern adaptation, What A Cartel.

The new version (published in the 2026 Lard Magazine) adds altered rules for ammunition tracking and automatic weapons and covers vehicles and anti-tank weaponry. As such it was a fairly easy job to convert to a sci-fi adaptation that I'm calling What A Traveller.

I designed the scenario based on the old Traveller RPG taking elements from:

• Mongoose Traveller (second edition),
• Reft Sector, and  
• Double Adventure 5: The Chamax Plague / Horde.

I really enjoyed writing the background to the scenario as if I were designing a Traveller adventure. I've no plans to go back to running RPGs but this has, for a while at least, scratched any itch that was there.

The scenario took place in the planet-side starport on Zuflücht, a somewhat isolated world on the edge of the Islands Clusters.

Andy S ran the crew of the Serendip Belt-registered free trader Vital Spark who were infiltrating the starport's bonded storage facility to try and steal some valuable crates of Darrian brandy. They deployed from their recently-landed ship's boat, the Parra Handy.

Matt C and Gus W represented the Imperial Navy who had put together a small tactical team to retrieve vital intelligence data from a cargo module also in the bonded storage facility. They entered the table from behind the radar tower.

Arthur W was responsible for the small staff of the starport and the local civilians who turned up to help them. Starport administrator Mitla Farina and security guard Stanlie Molotoff deployed around the security building.

I umpired the game and at a suitable point unleashed the acid-secreting Chamax aliens onto the scene!

The scenario began at night (requiring an additional Spotting Dice beyond 12" for characters without image intensifying goggles) but I gave Arthur the option of turning on floodlights when the alarm was raised if he had a character in the security building. This he immediately did.

Matt really enjoyed the Advanced Combat Rifle's underslung grenade launcher...

An ACR grenade explodes against the
liquid helium condenser

Stanlie Molotoff patrols the bonded storage area

The Navy are here (in plain clothes as they don't
want their mission to be associated with the Imperium)

Aulogia Illahunty and Bay Falango of the Vital Spark

 

Retired Marine special forces operative
Skor Sethkowsky was the highest-level
character in the game

Laguar von Tenno of the Navy
confronts Stanlie Molotoff

Matt has now discovered the joys of the smoke grenade!

Free trader crew scatter as Irgi, the Navy's political analyst,
drives through the smoke! 

When I deemed the time was right I started deploying the Chamax, acid-secreting aliens that had hitched a ride in cargo module 2 and that now emerged to eat whatever flesh they could find. 

One of the Chamax - actually a "Phug" from Peter Pig

As more and more Chamax emerged, grudging co-operation between the players became the order of the night. Whilst fighting to survive, the Free Trader crew managed to explore one of the cargo modules (but unfortunately not the one they wanted) while the Imperial Navy helped to evacuate the wounded.

At the end of the day neither of the infiltrating groups had managed to achieve their objective but we had a good time playing the game. What A Cartel looks worth further exploration. I just have a few questions:

• Do grenades really have a six inch blast diameter?
• How long does smoke last?
• When a character gets into or out of a vehicle, how do you transition between using the character's Action Dice pool and the vehicle's?

More reading and perhaps a message to Mr Savage will follow.