Another Round Up

 This week I finished yet another Dr Who book.  This one features the third doctor (Pertwee) and UNIT.  Plenty of skirmish opportunities with futuristic guerillas, Ogrons and Daleks.  The book has a map of the house and grounds where the main fighting takes place.  Well worth seeking out this volume if you want to set up a scenario or two.

Friday 17th May 2019 - Halifax

A visit to the model shop resulted in two purchases:

Hat 8092 - Assyrian Infantry - heavy infantry to bulk out my plastic army.

Imex 509 - Alamo Defenders - the Texican opposition to the Mexican forces.  With a few borrowings from ACW / AWI boxes I can probably make up opposing forces for 'Rebels & Patriots'.


Monday 13th May 2019 - WDW

Games played were:

'Square Bashing' - Germans v French in 1914
'Force on Force' - Modern infantry battle
'DBM' - Sea Peoples v Mycenaen - a long scrap with the Sea Peoples' centre finally breaking.
'Oregan' - two rounds of this boardgame.  In the first game I came second.  In the second game I came last (Oh Well)!


Saturday 11th May 2019 - Horbury Library

'Ronin' - a 7 Samurai type scenario with super powered Ronin and star wars (storm trooper ) bandits.  I left at midday with half my force eliminated or running away.  Apparently the second wave of bandits fared no better.


Saturday 11th May 2019 - Gt.Houghton

5 games of DBA v3 with luck being (mainly) on my side.  Generally my movement dice were poor - a series of 2s - but the troops had good fighting spirit. 

Game 1: Lists 2.5l Black Sea Greeks v 2.5g Italiot Greeks - a 4:5 win
Game 2: Lists 2.44 Commagene v Marian Roman - two very skillful 6:1 sealed victory
               of 1:4
Game 3: Lists 1.6a Early Bedouin v 1.2b Early Egyptian - Ian had the only mounted unit
               on the board (1 x chariot general) - another 1:4 win
Game 4: List 2.19a Early Seleucid v 2.16b Demetrios - my scythed chariot got blasted
               away by artillery early on in the game - a 4:2 loss
Game 5: Lists 2.5e Aitolian Greek v 2.5c Theban Greek - another 1:4 win.  This was Ian's
               attempt to use a  psiloi heavy army.  It was harder to beat than might be
               expected (and we forgot about Ps overlaps).

Thanks to Ian for use of his 25mm figures but it really wasn't his day.


Monday 6th May 2019 - WDW

'To The Strongest' - Carthaginians v Polybian Romans
CoC - Germans v British in Crete
DBM - Chi'ang & Ti v Han Chinese - a long game until the Han centre cracked.


Footnote

I now have far too many naked or half-painted figures lying around my modelling table.  I should rationalise what I have and not expand into new periods.  Then again I am a wargamer.

This and That

Dr Who and the Monster of Peladon - a useful source for a scenario or two.  Firstly miners versus medieval type royal guards.  Secondly miners and remnant guards v Ice Warriors.


Sunday 28th April - Halifax model shop - two purchases:

Don't quite know why I bought these as I could have easily converted some old Airfix Napoleonics.  Oh well!  Destined for a Rebels & Patriots force.  Must buy the Alamo Defenders set some time.

Pretty generic pike and shot troops that will, no doubt, be incorporated into yet another DBA-RRR army.  Have been resisting ECW armies until now but you never know!


Monday 29th April - WDW

AGM tonight but a few games happened:

ECW - Pike & Shotte
Cruel Seas - WW2 naval - Japanese v Americans
"A Terrible Resolve" - WW2 naval - again Japanese v Americans - interesting boardgame-like mechanisms.


Wednesday 1st May

Received my order from Vexillia (Baueda figures):

1 x CRL 0 - Charlemagne command (2 foot & 2 mounted - I need to purchase 1 x CRL 1 - Carolingian Mounted Command which will give me 4 mounted figures including a flag and cornice).
1 x GSC 1 - Basque or Gascon javelinmen
2 x GSC 2 - Basque or Gascon light horse  (wanted 3 x Lh but somebody beat me to it).
1 x VIK 10 - Viking mounted scouts  (these looked interesting on the website).

Service was quick but the p&p seemed excessive.

These figures will bulk out my Dark Ages 'morphs' allowing better representation of Carolingian and Breton armies.

Rebels & Patriots - 2nd & 3rd Games

from "The Civil War in Color" - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2446391/Amazing-Civil-War-photographs-created-colorist-bring-eras-heroes-characters-life-color-time.html

Yesterday (20th April 2109) John, Andrew & Nigel helped me to try to understand this set of rules. 

Scenario G: Widow Creek Bridge - The Confederates manned the breastworks with a single unit of Veteran troops.  Their colleagues had to march up the road to help them.  Meanwhile the entire Union force set off through and around a wooded area.  Progress was not swift.  When the game ended (turn 10) the Confederates had been driven from the breastworks but the Union had not actually captured them. 

(a)  I struggled to understand the scenario set-up table until Andrew found the zones diagram.
(b)  How much damage can a gun take?
(c)  Couldn't find a basic set-up sequence.

Scenario E: Patrol to McClure's Field - both sides have to scout out 4 key sites (2 of which are in enemy-held territory).  In this game morale (and disorder) took a large part.  By game end 3 units had routed off the field.  Totalling up Honour Points gave a technical win to the Confederates (a double 6 had given 1 HP to the Grays).  However......the Union had 3 units in good condition and the Confederates only 1. 

(a)  Easier to set up this scenario.
(b)  Game seemed to be run by the dice and not the players (loads of activation failures).
(c)  Had the Grays got to 75% losses it would have been a clear Union victory.
(d)  The Blues managed to get two double-6 reinforcements onto the table.

No doubt I was making many mistakes and a re-read is required.  The players thought that there was a simple system underlying the game which, maybe, had become over complicated.  I would like to see the following:

(a)  A basic set-up sequence
(b)  An official QRS
(c)  A set of scenario maps (worth a thousand words!)
(d)  Scenario requirements at the start  (I re-rolled after finding out that I needed some rafts for B).
(e)  A more thorough Index

Perhaps downloads from the website?

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"Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock" by Terrance Dicks - Target 1978.  Featuring the 3rd Doctor & Leela.  Solving a Victorian mystery by fighting an alien scout.  An interesting yarn but of no value for a skirmish game.

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Round-Up

Saturday 20th April - WDW

Pike & Shotte
Libertie (a 3-stage boardgame of political intrigue during the French Revolution)

Monday 15th April - WDW

Pike & Shotte - ECW
DBM - Northern Dynasties Chinese v Later Carthaginian- Andy's badly trained elephants caused havoc in my centre but I put two of the enemy commands into difficulty.  A well-earned draw.
Chain of Command (WW2)

Monday 8th April - WDW

Imperial Skies - Austrians v Russians - an unusual game using the Aeronef rules successor.
5 Minute Kursk (WW2)
To the Strongest - Carthaginians v Romans
DBM - Sub-Roman British v Patrician Roman - a win for the Romans

A Bit of a Round Up

I thought it about time to do a round-up of things I have found on the net...................


(1)  After a break of several months Rod is back this year with seven contributions to the Jacobite cause:

British Infantry Sappers
British Siege Artillery
Cope's Supply Train
Dismounted Jacobite Cavalry
Dutch Coehorn Mortars
Lady Anne Macintosh
Siege Gun Emplacements

https://rodwargaming.wordpress.com


 (2)  Some Errata for two popular rule sets:

Chain of Command - Errata & FAs
http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CoC-Errata-FAQ-1.pdf

Sharp Practice - Errata & Questions Answered
http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/SP2-FAQ.pdf


(3)  First published in the eighties it has now been revised.  Some of the text can be viewed on this site:

Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars Paperback by Duncan Head (Author) - £24.99 paperback
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Armies-Macedonian-Punic-Wars-Duncan/dp/1326256564

(4)  A Mission for Pikeman's Lament
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/duxrampant/viewtopic.php?p=4253#p4253










(5)  "The Mill" Edition 2 - produced by Peter Pig

https://www.peterpig.co.uk/ - scroll down a bit to "New Things"

After the demise of Wargamer's Journal I was happy to see this new endeavour.

(6)  If you are looking for alternative wars for "Rebels & Patriots" you could start with this list on Wikipedia.  Plenty of scope for experimentation.

List of wars - 1800–1899

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_1800%E2%80%931899

(7)  Chinese War Wagons

Looking at the latest videos by Tony Aguilar I found two 'un-boxings' of 3d printed items from Rod Felderman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pz2AVt5L20 - War Cart (hand pushed)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq-zsE8DiVY  - Asian War Wagon

I have emailed Rod to find out prices, etc and will post the results when available.

Rebels & Patriots - first try-out

 

 Although Ian and I normally play DBA v3 we also wander off into other periods.  Yesterday we set up an ACW battle using 'Rebels & Patriots'.  I have played a number of 'Lion Rampant' type games so have some familiarity with the general scheme of things.

Using a 4' by 3' table and what figures I was able to provide we tried Scenario A: First Clash at Lament Ridge. Our armies had the same composition - 3 x Line Infantry, 1 x Medium Gun and a small Cavalry unit.  Standard forces are 24 pts so to give variety we only charged  3 pts for the cavalry units - the extra points could be used elsewhere.  Classifications were kept simple so no Confederate Poor Shots or Aggressive.

Some initial questions were: Who goes first?  How do we set up terrain?  When do we declare our troop types?  Rather than spend ages reading the book we used DBA v3 conventions and only declared up/down grades when needed. 

I had the Union side but did not set up well.  My good shooters were on the extreme left (not where you expect to find the NRA ancestors).  The dastardly rebels came on slowly probing my defences.  After 10 rounds of fighting the Confederates held the central ridge - honour was 2:5.

So how did the battle mechanics go?  We learned that a (rebel) cavalry charge can disintegrate under fire.  An amazing number of double sixes were thrown (and a few double ones). The thought also occurred that maybe reducing the number of dice thrown according to losses (rather than 'sudden death' from 12 to 6) might speed up matters!

The game took about 2 hours as we had to spend time looking up things in the book.  No doubt with greater familiarity it would go much quicker.  Had we stuck to the rebel scenario classifications the battle would have been quite a different affair.

Altogether we decided that it would be worth playing again after I had read the rules more thoroughly.

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With about an hour left we played two games of DBA v3:

(1)  Later Hebrew (1.34a) v Early Neo-Babylonians - a 'close run thing' with me loosing 3:4
(2)  Bulgars (3.14c) v Early Byzantines (3.65) - I achieved a break-through then threw a one for movement, followed by a 2, then another one.  My fighting dice also deserted me - another amazing run of ones.  A 4:1 defeat.

So a complete wash out for me - the reverse of our last meeting.  Such is life (or war)!

Books & Halifax

Two books by Donald Featherstone fell onto my mat this week:

 This book covers the campaigns versus the Abyssinians, Ashantis, Basutos, Boers (Transvaal & South African wars), Kaffirs, Matabele, Mashonas & Zulus.

No North West Frontier here as the book concentrates on purely Indian wars - Sind, Gwalior. First & Second Sikh plus the Indian Mutiny.

Looks like plenty of inspiration for colonial outings (probably using 'paper soldiers' in the latter case).

After trying out DB Colonial (a variant of DBN) at Ian's place we thought the rules had promise but needed closer inspection.


Sunday 31st March 2109

After loosing an hour's sleep I dragged myself off to the Halifax model shop and managed to pick up 3 boxes:

 Pretty certain I already have some of these but with an imminent attempt at 'Rebels & Patriots' coming up these may get painted sooner rather than later (and then again....).

Very useful additions to my colonial 'stocks' (3 per box).  I have been using American wagon train  items until now.

Back from Chilcon (Sheffield)

Went off this morning to find the 'Chilcon' site.

Pros:  (a)  food and drink more innovative than most shows.
                 Was surprised about the drinks stall!
          (b)  a proper 'bring and buy'

Cons:  (1)  tricky to find (I came along the A6135 into what I thought was the
                  'town centre'. The school is up the hill, beyond Chapeltown,
                  going towards Ecclesfield.)
           (2)  limited parking (I was in the last group to find any spaces at approx 10.30 hrs)
           (3)  food was outside (good job it was dry) and no seating available.

Would I go again?  No - too expensive (£5 entry) and not enough interesting traders.
Anyway here's my, limited, loot:

I already have the Taiping book (my main interest) so this is a really just a supplement.

War & Empire is a manufacturer that is new to me.       https://www.forgedinbattle.com/
The last time I fielded a Thracian army I was short of 4x Irr Ax(S) and 2 x Irr Ax(O) Elements.  I also lacked a proper foot general for my hill tribe allies.  Looking at the figures in the pack I decided to go for WE-TH06 Thracian Light Infantry rather than WE-TH05 Thracian Peltast.  Having got home I checked the website so now I plan to purchase the other option.

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Finished another book:

 Dr Who and the Web of Fear by Terrance Dicks

Another Target Book - c.1976 - with Patrick Troughton in the lead.  Ably assisted by Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Victoria (Deborah Watling - who died in 2017).

There are a number of set-piece skirmishes between UNIT and the Yeti which could easily translate to the table top. Some additional fire power may be required for UNIT to provide balance though.

The semi-derelict London Underground system makes for an interesting backdrop to the action.

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Recent Web Discoveries:

(a)  Rebels & Patriots - YouTube battle report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG6y1HnE0Zs&fbclid=IwAR1cUmS6NBd3OKlA9kFWsT4FidB6G8wsav_9VdjllvtZZncvborCFOz46ok

(b)  R&P Multi-Player - YouTube report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOACTULNJNc&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3otQnxyz3p7DV091iN7QrvSg2kaEWhhRQ6VJgZkYyjRKglpQZPl8Hoe1A


(c)  TA & Co - DBA 3 - New Battle Reports

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbRAe5rGG3lYIHXFgkrC3wQ

(d)  Kit Kat Katapult

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZxnJ9VXlhg