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.

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.

Wearing keffiyehs and salwar kameez, they fit nicely with the Elhiem Al-Qaeda models I use as Arab volunteers fighting alongside the Andreivian Turks.

They aren't as nicely proportioned as, say, AB Miniatures; they're a bit dumpy and the hands are rather cartoonish but they fit nicely with Elhiem or the old Dave Allsop-designed Hotspur minis.

The mortar comes as two castings; the mortar tube and the bipod. These are each cast with half of the base and they slot together very neatly to make a good, solid model. I decided to base them all together on a 40mm MDF circle with some sandbags I'd made previously out of left-over Milliput. 

The castings were reasonable; I just had to do a little cleaning where the mould half alignment was not quite perfect.

I also picked up a pack of Africans. I had wanted some guys with AK-47s but in error I grabbed a pack of eight chaps with RPGs. I've since decided one of them would make an excellent Andreivian militia leader. I quite like the idea of a squad- or even platoon-leader who routinely carries an RPG-7.

As you can see, there's nothing particularly African-looking about this chap. In fact I could see him passing very nicely as some kind of southeast Asian.

The pack contained eight figures; four pairs of duplicated poses. Most of them are more obviously African in appearance:

I think I'll paint this chap up as an African volunteer fighting with the Andreivian Turks. I'll probably use one of each pose and put the rest (when painted) on eBay. I don't want to side-track myself into wargaming Angola, Sierra Leone or Somalia; that would defeat the whole point of inventing Andreivia in the first place!

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.

Random Air Support

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:

Example: 

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.

That's it then; an attempt at a set of air support rules that will give us an excuse to get the nice aircraft models onto the table without too much risk of an unlucky die roll completely unbalancing the scenario.

Obviously variations are possible. If one side has overwhelming air superiority, they'll be the only ones with Air Support cards. If a force has plentiful AA-capable elements we might allow them an increased chance of a shoot-down result.

Please let me know what you think. 

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.

 

Arc of Fire unit activation redux

This post, prompted by the solo game I played yesterday, is a revision of a piece I included in the Andreivian Tales blog back in 2017.

Arc of Fire (my go-to set of skirmish rules for small actions from at least the mid-19th century onwards) uses a card activation system. Each unit (typically squad-sized) is activated twice in a turn on the turn of a pair of nominated cards. 

Thus in a WWII game with three units a side we might allocate the two red aces to the first US infantry squad, the two red 2s to the second squad, and the two red 3s to the accompanying Sherman tank. Likewise the German units might be allocated the black Jacks, Queens and Kings respectively. A couple of Jokers are added to our abbreviated game deck and we're good to go.

This works fine for smaller games but we (the former SOTCW and current Crisis Point communities) have tended to use AoF for bigger, multi-player games. 

We therefore activate multiple units on each pair of cards with competitive Tac rolls to see who gets to go first in the event of a clash.

The following alternative method was designed to address the needs of a player who had trouble remembering which unit was which when comparing the units sheet with what's actually on the table. The next card's a red Ace... yes that's one of mine... Oh yes, it's second infantry squad... now which one was that...?

The approach is adapted from Buck Surdu's Combat Patrol. I haven't read these rules but they were described on the Meeples and Miniatures podcast.  

At the start of each turn we roll a D6 for each unit. This gives the unit its Activation Number. A micro-die in a die holder can be placed next to the unit to show this.

The new Activation Deck consists of:

• Red cards numbered 1 to 6
• Black cards numbered 1 to 6
• The Red Joker
• The Black Joker, and possibly
• The "Roll a D6" card.

Because I'm producing my own cards I can include all of the relevant info on them. Wounded figures previously didn't activate on their unit's second card. Now I no longer need to go back through the previously dealt cards to check this. 

Note the reference to "Command Chit" is now out of date - I'll be replacing it with "Units with Activation Number 2".

Similarly the Joker cards themselves remind me which sequence of cards triggers a random event and who is affected by it. Obviously there may be more than one unit with the relevant Activation Number. We dice to see which single unit is affected by the random event.

Finally we have the "Roll a D6" card. 

This triggers the eponymous die roll to select an Activation Number. Units with that Activation Number may get a special activation if designated in the scenario.  Examples from our Andreivia 1918 games included:

• If unit is rated Aggressive, it may activate a third time this turn (including wounded models).
• British Mark IV tank - one vehicle immobilised by engine failure, normal immobilisation rules apply.
• British Mark V Tank - crew must abandon one vehicle for two whole cards due to overheating.
• Early armoured car - get an extra move if on road, bog down if moving cross-country, normal immobilisation rules apply.

I'd been reading the book A New Excalibur about early tank designs. The peculiarities of some of them were clearly in the forefront of my mind at the time. You could use something similar for unreliable early Panthers at Kursk. 

I'm sure there are other characteristics of units that might be applied in this way. Perhaps "If unit is rated Steady, any Broken models may make an immediate attempt to rally"?

I'm tempted to go back to Arc of Fire. Maybe for Crisis Point 2025?

 

Just finished

A couple of items have recently emerged from the workshop with their paint jobs complete. First up is this Hawker Hunter F Mk6.

It's built from the Mistercraft kit, which is a complete dog. It's a reboxing of an early 1990s Polish kit that I mistakenly bought for a bit of relaxing model-building therapy. Unfortunately the parts and the instructions don't match, the decals don't allow you to build all of the variants shown on the box or in the instructions and they were also printed out-of-register.

As a result I decided I'd go for a fictional colour scheme using some decals I had in the spares box.

Our Hunter represents an aircraft of the Andreivian Armenian Republican Air Force in the early 1990s. Note the hand-painted national colours on the rudder.

I drilled a hole in the fuselage and glued in place a rare-earth magnet to allow the Hunter to use one of my home-made flight stands. And five days after I purchased the kit we have another addition to the Andreivian armoury!

Also completed in between sessions on the Hunter was this chap:

He's an old Games Workshop AD&D Hobgoblin. 

He was sculpted by Aly Morrison in the 1980s and he's been half-painted in a drawer since that time. Painted, lacquered and matt-varnished, he'll be going on eBay shortly.

Warrior!

Just finished this evening in another plastic kit but this time one that I can definitely see coming in useful in a war-game. 

I'm not sure where I bought this Trumpeter 1/72nd scale kit of the British Warrior MICV but as you can see I only paid a fiver for it.

This is a really nice kit and I think it's probably worth getting on for twice price that if you want a Warrior to support your British infantry.

It's a fairly easy build with all the parts going together cleanly with very few gaps. The tracks and the outer road wheels are moulded as a single piece - so no messing about with individual track links or rubber band tracks.

The moulding is nice and crisp with excellent detail. The only slight concern I have about using it in games is the potential vulnerability of the wing mirrors.

The black-and-white illustration of the paint scheme and where to put the decals would be better in colour. I got a bit confused and put the rear vehicle number plate in the wrong location. By the way the vehicle comes with two sets of these so if you bought two kits you wouldn't have to scratch around for spares so as to avoid having two vehicles with the same number in your force.

I'm pleased with this model and I look forward to seeing it in support of the NATO intervention force in Andreivia.