Ferrocarril de Veracruz II

Last night Chris came over and we had another go at the Sharp Practice 2 scenario I'm working on for a future Sheffield/Yorkshire Lardy Day.

Chris took on the role of Captain Jean Jandou, the French commander, while Jamie played El Zorro Gordo, the local guerrilla leader.

Since the last time we played the scenario, I've made a few changes, which I won't go through here in detail in case you get to play in a future version.

The table depicted the workers' encampment where the Veracruz-to-Mexico-City railway line is being built.  The liberal guerrillas are planning to burn the camp and steal all the construction tools (the railway workers have already fled) while the French (Turcos and Contra-Guerillas) plan to stop them.

The game began with El Zorro Grande's guerrilla group in the workers' camp and straight away burning one tent and loading the associated tools onto their mule train.

Meanwhile (foreground below) a unit of red-jacketed State militia, loyal to the Liberal cause, were making heavy weather of advancing through the uneven ground of recently cleared undergrowth the threaten the French left...

The also red-clad contra-guerillas arrived to the French right and were soon hotly engaged with the guerrilla skirmishers.  Unfortunately their commander, Lt Steinmetz, found himself barged to the ground as his men pushed forward to engage the hated enemy (below).

The contras took some serious fire but with admirable discipline they kept up controlled volleys whilst Steinmetz dusted himself down.

On their left, Capitaine Jandou and his Turcos arrived, their skirmisher group under Sergeant ben Hammim sniping at the guerrillas from the cover of a railway truck....

Jandou carefully advanced his men and then wheeled them inwards so they could subject the camp to withering cross-fire.

The fire of the two Imperialist formations was too much for the guerrilla skirmishers.  Casualties were mounting when suddenly, with a harsh cry, El Zorro Gordo fell to the ground.  He was mortally wounded!

The guerrillas made for the hills whilst Juan Burro tried his best to get his mule-train away.  With three tents burned and the mules loaded with at least some tools, the Liberals were not far off what they could call a victory.  One more tent and a successful escape would do it!

The arrival of Liberal cavalry hinted at possible victory but casualties were mounting.  Were the horsemen perhaps too late?

As the mule-train departed, the cavalry tried to ignite the nearest tent but this seemed to be beyond them. Perhaps some house proud navvy had just washed this one and re-erected to dry in the sun?  

On the Liberals' right, the State Militia, their old smoothbore muskets wavering before them as they advanced, threatened to outflank the Turcos...

And still that fourth tent wouldn't burn...

As the Contras advanced on the camp, the Turcos wheeled again and poured a fierce volley into the Liberal militia.  They staggered back under the weight of fire.  Both groups were forced to make an involuntary withdrawal, their formation was broken and the last opponents of Liberal Force Morale were lost.  The militia had not even fired their muskets!

The result was a clear victory for Chris and the Imperialists.  The unlucky loss of El Zorro Gordo was crucial.  Without his presence Jamie had no way to rally off accumulated shock and he lost the ability to move swiftly from tent to tent as he had done in the previous play-test.

I'm considering a few more changes to the scenario.  In particular I'd like to give the Imperialist player some more interesting tactical choices.  More on this when I've cogitated on the matter.

Arctic Strike - Grimsby 2018

Last weekend I made the trip to Grimsby Wargames Club's excellent premises to play a weekend of Cold War Commander.  In fact, as I had some stuff I wanted to do in Sheffield in the evenings, I ade the trip there and back three times.  And I only got lost once!

The Cold War Commanders events are, for me, mostly about the craic as our Irish friends would have it.  I far prefer CWC as a smaller game that we playing in these big, multi-player events but the guys are a great bunch and it's always great to catch up with them.

Here are some pics.

Upstairs - after set-up Friday night

Downstairs - after set-up Friday night

Alan Millicheap's Soviet airborne after landing by parachute.
The red dice mark suppressed units!

More Soviet airborne

M*A*S*H

US 9th High Tech Light Division guard one of the
three airfields in the game

More US 9th (Mark Fry's toys)

A 9th Light Div Stinger near the roadworks

Game in progress - upstairs

NATO off table artillery support.  The turrets a reminders of
the presence of naval gunfire support

Norwegian Home Guard

More Norwegians in defence

And that's it!  I mostly took videos this year and I'm going to try and stitch them together into something that can go on Youtube eventually.

Thanks are due to the Grimsby club for organising, to all the guys for a most friendly weekend, and especially to Richard Phillips for his superb organisation and for producing most of the terrain!

Arboriculture Completed

It's taken a while but I have now finished those sprue-based trees.  So to recap:

Tree skeleton made from glued and melted lengths of sprue.  Stick to bases; I used plastic card glued to artist's mounting board:

Build up the bark with Green Stuff:

Paint dark grey having 'glooped' the base:

Drybrush lighter grey and paint base:

Add foliage by gluing on Woodland Scenics Poly Fiber:

Like this:

The paint with watered down PVA and dip into Woodland Scenics flock:

I then sprayed them with hairspray to keep the flock in place.

I think they'll do.

The Mexicans, a stock taking

At the beginning of March I decided to have a go at building Sharp Practice forces for the Maximilian Adventure in 28mm scale.   So how far have I got by September?  The answer is quite a pleasing distance.

I'm not going to count my Mexican peons as they were figures I painted years ago for possible use in a wild west or pulp skirmish.

So what's new since March?

First up was this formation of contra-guerillas.  They are mostly conversions from Perry plastic zouaves but also a few Artizan "Plains Infantry".

Also from the Perry Zouaves box came three groups of French Tirailleurs Algeriens (or Turcos):

That's two groups of Turco line infantry and one of skirmishers, an NCO and a drummer from the plastics and an officer who's a Foundry metal figure.

On the Republican/Liberal side we get these cavalry also converted from Perry plastics, in this case the American Civil War Cavalry box.

 Moving on to Foundry metals I've put together these two groups of state militia:

Moving back to plastics, so far I've produced one group of regulars from the Perry ACW Infantry box:

There are plenty figures left in the box, so I'll have a few more groups of these eventually.

Finally for now, one of the nice things about Sharp Practice is that it gives you the chance to create odd-ball figures in support roles.  Medics (called Physics in the rules) can assist when officers are wounded.  My 1860s Physic is this doctor...

He's made from parts from the Perry plastic ACW infantry box.  The right arm is that of a drummer.  His improvised white flag and his medical bag are made from Green Stuff.  They don't really show in this pic but I'm quite pleased with his red waistcoat and the brass fittings on the bag.

Most of the figures need their bases flocking.  This'll happen before they see action in public.

More Arboriculture

More progress on the sprue-skeleton trees.

I've looped the bases with my usual filler and paint mix and added a base coat of GW Storm Vermin Fur:

The next step was to dry brush the trunks in successively paler (and more lightly brushed) colours (Vallejo Grey Green and Iraqi Sand).

And then I painted the bases in a couple of shades of brown.  They're still wet here:

More to follow tomorrow.

Sixth Fleet

On Saturday, Richard P, Phil, Mark, Jamie and I played a game of Sixth Fleet in the side room at the Royal Hotel in Dungworth.  The idea was to generate ideas for games at Crisis Point in the Spring of 2019.

We played scenario 13 - The Invasion of Western Europe.  The sides were as follows:

US Allies:
United Kingdom
Spain
Italy
Yugoslavia
Turkey
Israel

No French or Greeks! The terms “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” and “taramasalata-eating surrender monkeys” were heard.

Soviet Allies:
Algeria
Libya
Syria

As we were playing with “moderate” level preparedness there were two US carrier battlegroups. The Nimitz group was at Malta while the Kennedy group was cruising off Minorca.  The Soviets put their free-set-up group (which includes the aircraft carrier Minsk and the cruiser Kirov) off Cyprus whilst the majority of their submarine force was in the central Mediterranean.

The game began with Syrian and Israeli aircraft clashing in the skies over Lebanon. Soviet naval infantry from the amphibious assault ship Vilkov moved into Beirut.  At about the same time the Soviet submarine Bytosh landed Naval Spetsnaz at Homs in Libya.

Soviet aircraft attacked Istanbul and sank the Turkish destroyers Adatepe and Anitepe.  HMS Amazon was sunk in Limassol harbour and shortly afterwards the British nuclear submarine HMS Torbay was also lost.

American anti-submarine operations were successful in sinking the Soviet submarine Shuya in the Atlantic.

In the afternoon, Soviet aircraft transmitted the Balkans to sink the US task force at Maddalena as well as the US destroyer Comte de Grasse.

The Americans did get some revenge, though, damaging several Soviet subs.

Fierce fighting in the eastern Mediterranean saw both Israeli and Syrian naval assets significantly diminished.

Night on the first day saw further very effective attacks of US shipping by the massive Crimean air fleets.  In response the Nimitz air wing bombed Algiers damaging several aircraft on the ground.

Day Two saw American paratroopers land at Oran in Algeria.  In addition, American forces moved to garrison Malta to ward off Soviet threats to the island nation.

Israel launched an attack on Lebanon landing paratroopers in and around Beirut to oppose the Soviet invasion.

The Soviets now launched a massive attack of Istanbul with two regiments of airborne troops.

NATO submarine forces attacked their Soviet opposite numbers with little effect.  Soviet and Syrian naval forces attacked Haifa sinking several Israeli missile boats.

In the afternoon the US career groups began anti-submarine operations sinking the Tyumen and the Drabov in the central Med.

The night of day two continuing ASW operations.  The US and Turkish navies managed to sink the Perm, Ivdel, and Lipitsy.  In addition, aircraft from USS Kennedy sank almost the entire Libyan navy, although a single Libyan missile did manage to penetrate the American defences and sink the destroyer USS Cushing.

Soviet forces sank the Turkish sub Atilay and several missile boats.

On day three the Americans landed airborne troops at Homs and Tobruq in Libya whilst the Soviets reinforced their forces in Istanbul.

So what does all this mean for our games at Crisis Point in spring 2019?

Anyone wanting to do land combat can choose from:

US forces against Algerians around Oran
US troops against Libyans at Tobruq
US forces against Libyans and Soviet Spetsnaz at Homs
Israelis against Soviet Naval Infantry in Beirut with various local factions and the Lebanese army involved potentially on either side
Soviet and Turkish forces fighting for control of Istanbul.

Air warfare fans could have great fun with the clashes between the Israeli air force and its Syrian and Soviet counterparts.  There’s also plenty of scope for fighting between US Navy F-14s and just about anyone!

The question, then, is who’s inspired to put on a game based on this?

A little experimental arboriculture

I've made trees before now using the twisted-wire-skeleton method demonstrated by Mel the Terrain Tutor but I'm out of suitable wire at the moment so I thought I'd try an alternative method.

Years (nay decades) ago I remember one of the Blue Peter presenters (probably John Noakes; it always turns out to have been John Noakes) making intricate models of winter trees by manipulating and welding together rods of semi-molten glass.  It occurred to me that I could do something similar.

After half an hour with some plastic sprue, liquid polystyrene cement and a candle I had:

I've cemented each tree skeleton to a piece of thick plasticard and then glued the plasticard to a larger cardboard base.

After they'd had a chance to set, I started applying Green Stuff bark to the trunk of one of them:

Not a very clear picture but I think it will look OK when it's painted.  I've only bothered with texturing the lower parts.  The upper branches will be covered by foliage.

The next stage will be to paint and then attach the foliage.  Of which more later.