Parkfield Miniatures

Just a quick shout out (as the young people say these days) for Parkfield Miniatures of Buckinghamshire. I encountered this firm for the first time at Colours 2009 when I was looking for some 25-30mm size wagons suitable for the SYW period. I found just what I was looking for at half the price of some other wagons I had been looking at across the way.

Needing some rider/driver figures to go with these wagons, I contacted Parkfield by email after the show. Not only did they readily agree to take some appropriate figures out of a couple of their other packs (significantly reducing the cost to me), but these arrived in the post within 48 hours.

Excellent service, and good quality models. The website is -

http://www.parkfieldminiatures.freeservers.com

Blitzkrieg @ Colours 2009

Frankly, I didn't want to do it. Blitzkrieg Commander at Newbury? No way, no day. I thought Colours 2007 would be my last job. But you don't say no to Big Dave (aka Kiwidave). So I had to box up the armoured train again and get in the motor with Steve.

Take plenty of photos, Dave said. I didn't say no.

Three wargamers ready to go. Left to right: Rob, Dave, Steve. Rob is fairly happy in this shot. We don't know the guy behind Rob. He had a bigger table than us, he had more figures than us and the figures were bigger than ours. We ignored him.

Below: Dave's Rhine crossing game. You don't need a big table to do nice terrain.

Rob is happy. He thinks he is winning. He isn't.

Below: Steve and Keith's Poland game. Check out the command stand with a deserter being shot. Nice!

BT-7s demolish armoured train.

Polish CO looks on impotently.

Above: a nice shot taken by someone else.

Above: The second Poland game. The Poles are finding out why the scenario is called 'encirclement'.

Some other games that took my eye:

Nice 25mm ECW just across the way from us.

Above and below. Really classy 15mm 100 years war demo at the Donnington Miniatures stand.
Awesome painting skills.

Interesting game set in WW1.

Above and below: this is the way to demo a refight of a real battle. Really informative and beautifully set up game of Naseby from the Pike and Shot Society.

28mm WW2. Not really my thing but quite striking.

Only two disappointments during the day. The first was wasting £5 on the worst sausage and chips I've ever had. The second was Steve picking arguments about Flames of War with passing gamers. This is just one example. I didn't realise he was that kind of guy.

End of the day. Four happy wargamers. Alright, three happy wargamers. Rob is not happy. Rob has lost his game. I told you I didn't want to do it...

If you want a full set of pics of everything that happened at Colours this year, check out this site.
http://ilovewargameing.21.forumer.com/viewtopic...

Love. I'm out.

The New Wargames Illustrated - a review

When Wargames Illustrated was taken over by Battlefront Miniatures there was a lot of negative reaction, which mainly boiled down to the concern that an independent wargames magazine was about to become the next White Dwarf: that is, just a house magazine for Flames of War. I freely admit I was one of those doubters. Issue 263 is the fourth issue to be published since the takeover, and the first I have actually bought. So how are things going?

Minuses

First, that cover picture. It is, of course, taken from the cover of the latest Flames of War supplement on the Western Desert, and constitutes blatant advertising for the owners. I think this is wrong as a cover concept. Battlefront are entitled to have as many adverts for their products inside the magazine as they think the readership will stand, but the cover should have something more general. Furthermore, the artwork itself is just plain awful. How Boy's Own can you get? I'm the first to admit I'm just an overgrown kid where toy soldiers are concerned, but this is taking the mickey. One is reminded of the worst of the nonsense contained in the Commando comics I used to read in the sixties.

Inside, the articles make a bad start with a ten page piece on the Tobruk campaign lifted directly from the relevant Osprey title. Again, blatant advertising, this time under the camouflage of an article, reminding us that Osprey have a strong connection here (though I'm not sure exactly what it is - can anyone enlighten me?). Furthermore, regardless of the source, simply copying out chunks from a book (any book) and calling it an article is very tacky indeed.

I have seen comments elsewhere that the review section is weak, and I would tend to agree. Only 4 pages devoted to reviews (there were 10 in the latest Battlegames, by contrast). Would this be a reluctance to give too much prominence to products from other companies? Taking a specific example, the review of the Rank and File rules was naturally of interest to me, but it had very little to say. Most fundamentally, the writer had obviously neither played the rules nor talked to anyone who had. The review also makes mistakes, such as saying that 'initiative is only used to determine who goes first in melee'. The writer also fails to place the rules in the context of already established sets in terms of complexity, mechanisms, realism and playability.

Battlefront have opted for the themed approach to issues of the magazine, an approach I dislike. This is the main reason why I have not bought an issue so far (and why I have never bought an issue of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy). The Western Desert theme was of interest to me on this occasion, but I much prefer to avoid this kind of thing. One has to assume it works as a marketing exercise, but it doesn't work for me. Variety is what I want. And on the subject of marketing exercises, I somehow doubt I will ever see an article on WW2 gaming in the new WI featuring a rule set other than Flames of War.

I think that'll do for the minuses. How about the...

Pluses

In my opinion it was Battlegames which showed up the real weakness of the old WI. The old magazine was all about pretty pictures, and readable content was limited and of poor quality. Most historical wargamers are out of their teens and twenties (a great number are middle aged like me), and tend to be bookish types. They want something to read and to stimulate their minds, a need which Battlegames crucially tapped into. WI seems to have taken the hint. There are 111 pages in the latest issue and it has to be said that the articles are generally well written and provide good reading. The two photo articles on the Bovington show and Historicon are well presented and provide some of the inspiration you would hope to get by being there. On the down side, the article on the ACW battle of Cedar Mountain repeats the old mistake of too much historical summary and too little on wargaming the battle, which after all the comments on this type of error over the decades is inexcusable. But I'm supposed to be on the pluses here, so I should say that overall there is a lot to read in the magazine, covering a good range of periods. This really is the main strength of the magazine, along with the good quality and generally well chosen photos and high production standards. Finally, at £4 the magazine is realistically priced.

On Balance

My minuses section takes up rather more room than the pluses, but actually (on balance) I enjoyed the magazine and would be happy to purchase another issue (theme permitting). There is sufficient general wargames content of sufficiently high standard to counteract the marketing. Perhaps most irritating is that the marketing is often unfairly disguised as supposedly neutral articles and illustrations. Anyway, I'll keep my eye on future issues. (But for goodness sake do something about the cover. Let's have some pictures of wargaming on the cover of a wargames magazine... )

A Little Bit Extra

I realised I had missed a couple of half decent photos of action on the Austrian right flank during my last game, so I thought I would pop them in.

Here the two regiments of Austrian cuirassiers lead the rest of the force across the bridge. They are followed by a regiment of dragoons and two battalions of grenadiers. I had high hopes that such a strong force could anticipate some significant success. However, in the background you can see two regiments of Prussian dragoons already being manouevred into striking distance...

This photo illustrates how the Prussians were able to interfere with Austrian deployment, despite being outnumbered. The left hand cuirassier regiment is already at half strength following its first melee (it is also receiving flanking fire from Prussian guns and infantry out of picture to the left). The Austrian dragoons have become vulnerable to a flank charge whilst trying to deploy on a limited patch of ground. Meanwhile the grenadiers attempt to get clear and advance on the Prussian flank. In the event, encountering artillery and infantry fire as well as being threatened in turn by the very successful Prussian dragoons, they would not get beyond the marshy area around the stream branching off the main river.

I hope these extra images are of interest. The Seven Years War period seems to be inspiring me at the moment: those 6mm and 15mm WW2 collections are having a bit of a rest. Next will be a replay of this game with the roles of myself and Paul reversed. However, my next post will probably be a refight of Donald Featherstone's 'Action in the Plattville Valley' from his book War Games. Having acquired a flexible river system, Bull Creek can be properly represented. Of course, it will have to be re-fought in the Seven Years War period, so make that 'Action in the Plattstadt Valley'. Now, what would be the best German translation for Bull Creek...

A River, a Curtain, and a Threat from the Flank

The River

Being pleased with the look of my Games Workshop gaming mat, I went ahead and bought another one so that battles can take place on my larger 6' x 6' table. As I mentioned in the previous post, the next step was to get some river sections to lay on top. This was something I had been looking at for a while, even before I got the gaming mats. The TSS tiles with river sections look good but you do have to put up with a bit of inflexibility in your layouts: the river always runs through the middle of the square and you can only have straights or 90 degree turns.

The Flames of War river sections (from their 'Battlefield in a Box' range) came out on top for quality and price. I compared JR Miniatures, Terrain Mat and Miniature World Maker products, but they all lost out on one or both of these counts. I know I could have tried to make my own, but first I don't really want to take the time, and second I was not convinced the finished article would be worth it. The FoW rivers can be seen in the pictures below. You get seven 1' sections in a heavy, flexible rubber material which ensures the sections will always lie flat. The water is a blue colour. Now, you don't often see a blue river (they are usually a very dark green or brown in my experience), but the blue is a muted one, really a sort of blue-grey. The colour is also shaded and has a satin gloss finish which I like. The banks are nicely textured in a dark brown, and have been deliberately left like this so that buyers can add their own flock (if they want) to match their own layout. This is a good decision by the producers. The product comes beautifully packaged, ensuring you will receive the sections flat and undamaged. And of course you also get two nice bridges, both painted as well and of good quality. The FoW website gives an excellent idea what the sections and bridges look like.

This product is best bought (in the UK at least) from the Games of War website (yep, Games not Flames), where you get it for £45, post and packing free. And they use UPS delivery, not the Post Office. The only problem I have is the original one of flexibility: you get seven straights, but no curves. This is a rather strange decision by FoW, but if you look at the shape of the individual sections on the FoW website ( as I did) you can see that cutting one of the pieces into two produces two curved sections which work very well. Be careful if you do this that the river along the line of your cut is of the right width to match up with the ends of the normal sections - the river does vary a bit in width. Overall, definitely recommended.

The Curtain

Funny how ideas can sometimes take a while to inspire you. In this case, nearly forty years! The idea of using a curtain across the middle of the games table to conceal deployment was presented by Donald Featherstone in his books War Games and Battles With Model Soldiers, both of which I read in the early seventies. I think the problem was that the idea was mentioned only briefly and with little practical detail on how you might rig your curtain up. Well, for some reason, reflecting on the problem of concealed deployment recently, the idea came back to me and I decided to give it a go. I raised the issue on the Old School Wargaming Yahoo group and found some doubters, but also some people who had used the idea a lot and liked it. I also got an idea for a simple and cheap set up from one of the responding posts.

So, £3.95 got me a bundle of 10 bamboo poles, of 2.1 metre length. Taking 6 and chopping a bit off each, I was able to make two tripods, using stout elastic bands to secure the poles together towards one end. It turned out the base needed to be stabilised by drilling a hole in the bottom of each pole and threading a loop of string through, which forms a triangle when the tripod is deployed. Then another pole can be slung between the two tripods to hold your curtain, in my case a table cloth which I simply draped over. Hey Presto.

I found a length of pole in B&Q which I couldn't resist as it was perfect for the cross piece, but a length of the bamboo would work just as well. I suppose it took an hour or so to fiddle around constructing the whole thing and getting the height right and the tripods reasonably stable. Naturally, I was impatient to try out the idea in a game.

A Threat to the Flank.

This is one of the scenarios from the Grant/Asquith book Scenarios for All Ages. The idea is that two main forces face each other across a river, the section between them being fordable. To the flank is another crossing point via a bridge, and the attackers (M) have sent a flanking force (F) to use this route. The defenders (D) respond by detaching their own flanking force (R) in reaction. The set-up is shown in the map below, taken from the book.

Being determined to try out my new curtain, I set up the table as near as possible to the map, then placed the curtain along the line of the river. Players could deploy as they wished but no closer than 12" to the curtain. In addition, no attacking units were allowed within 12" of the north end of the bridge, and no defending units within 30" of the south end of the bridge. When the curtain was carefully raised and the tripods taken away, the deployment was as below:

Unfortunately the length of the fordable part of the river is not precisly specified in the scenario. The fordable length I chose was between the two poplar trees which you can see on the river banks. This turned out to be too narrow and the attacking Austrians could not bring their superior forces to bear. Re-visiting the book, I can see that the description allows for the fordable length to be rather longer than I went for. Anyway, the result was that on this part of the battle field, a series of restricted frontal assaults went in, all more or less doomed to failure as they were blasted by a solid line of defenders. You will also note that Prussian deployment had been canny: the left flank of the main force was well protected, but the flanking units were also sufficiently close by to assist the main force if needed, which is what happened.

The photos above show the initial attack going in. There was a brief flicker of hope for the Austrians (myself) when one of the Prussian infantry units dropped out of the line, but the gap could not be exploited before it was closed up again.

Fighting on the other flank was confused and indecisive. I only took this one poor quality picture, I'm afraid - the camera ended up focused on the tree in the foreground! At least you get an idea of what one of the FoW bridges looks like.

Here is the final attack going in, on the seventh and last move. You will notice how depleted the units now are. In front of the dragoons (waiting to exploit a breakthrough that never came) light troops have been pushed forward to fill the gap in the attacking line. Of course, this attack was a failure like all the rest and the Austrians gave it up and retreated. The game was played with the Rank and File rules, which I continue to like. One or two reservations have surfaced, but with so few games played I will keep these to myself until I build more experience with the rules.

I have to say I was pleased with the look of the table. As I have said, I continue to have nothing but praise for the TSS system which has served me well for many years. But it's nice to ring the changes once in a while. And the curtain idea was great fun to use; simple but effective.

Comments encouraged, as usual. Happy summer!

The Call of the New

Two new things this week: a new set of rules for my SYW gaming and a new terrain mat.

First, the rules. These were the new set from Crusader Publishing; Rank and File: Horse and Musket Rules 1740-1900. The Crusader Publishing website (http://www.crusaderpublishing.com) allows you to get a good idea of the nature of the rules before buying, which is a thoroughly sensible idea and should be more widely adopted. I recall that the availability of a stripped down set of the Blitzkrieg Commander rules in PDF form (called Blitzkrieg Commander Lite) was instrumental in getting me to buy the full Blitzkrieg Commander ruleset a few years ago.

Rank and File seemed to be my kind of thing: designed to be genuinely simple and fast play, and contained in a manageably sized and well produced rulebook. The price of £16.50 including p&p seemed reasonable. They arrived within a week and so far I have read them through a few times and played one short solo game. They seem to do exactly what it says on the tin.

The rulebook is produced to a very high standard, being a 67 page full colour production on glossy paper with card covers. There is very little black and white here, and plenty of eye candy. This is perhaps one of the few criticisms I would offer: the high quality photos might have been better employed as illustrations of how the rules work rather than being mostly just nice to look at. However, explanation of the rules is thorough and generally straightforward, and includes some diagrams to clarify certain points as well as a 3 turn extended example which provides a solid idea of how gameplay proceeds. The rules fit my theory of a truly simple set: you can get a good sense of how they work in a single read through.

You won't find any strikingly new concepts here, but the rules are obviously designed to produce fast and eventful games. Instrumental in this are the generous moves, the fairly quick and deadly morale system and the generally simple mechanisms. There is no order system in the core rules and command and control is basic, which is fine by me. There are a fair number of optional rules which you can add in for more 'realism': at a first look I am quite happy with the core rules and am not particularly tempted by the extras.

The introduction states that the rules were 'designed so that a fairly large game can be set up and played to a conclusion within an evening'. Of course, what you consider a 'fairly large game' might vary, but I am aiming to raise forces of maybe 200 infantry, 50 cavalry and 4 to 6 guns per side, organised in units of around 8 to 10 cavalry and 20 infantry each. I think these rules will allow me to get a game with these forces played in around 3 hours quite easily. I would say these rules are definitely simpler than Minden Rose, and much simpler than Die Kriegskunst. They are perhaps a little more complex than the rules I have been developing myself which can be found on this blog, but I have no hesitation in saying they are much better, and my own little project will probably now cease development.

The fairly lengthy historical period covered is coped with by providing period specific tweaks for three time divisions: 1740-1792, 1792-1848, and 1848-1900. These tweaks (or 'period specific rules') are undemanding but sensible and take up only a page each.

What you won't find in these rules are army lists or detailed set up rules for terrain and scenarios. For myself, I can easily do without both. If you know your period, or are prepared to do a little research and reading (and surely the latter is part and parcel of wargaming), who needs army lists? And only a complete newcomer to wargaming will be phased by the absence of instructions on how to set up a battle. So, you provide your own armies, organised how you think they should be organised, and you devise your own scenarios. Suits me, and it saves many pages of extra rules.

I should finally say that the rules aim to accommodate all figure scales and basing conventions, and a variety of levels of play: that unit of six bases might have 4 28mm infantry figures per base and represent a battalion, or a larger number of smaller figures on it and represent a brigade (or vice versa, if you see what I mean). However, for 28mm figures the basing conventions and units sizes used in the examples and photos are almost identical to those of Minden Rose and Die Kriegskunst.

In summary, these may well turn out to be my new rules of choice for SYW. I recommend you look into them. And if you have any questions, there's an active Yahoo group called Crusaderminis where the author (Mark Sims) is available.

* * *

My second new thing is the purchase of a Citadel (i.e. Games Workshop) gaming mat. Easily available, and a snip at £14.70 for a 6'x4' mat, but the reasons I decided to buy it go back a fair way.

During my visits to shows over recent years I have noticed one thing in particular: for my money, a lighter coloured green as a basic terrain colour made better looking games. In particular the lighter shades of tile or mat showed off the figures better. Those games with a more drab green base colour looked rather, well, drab. My own TSS tiles have served me very well over nearly twenty years, and I would recommend them to anyone. But I began to wish they were flocked in a brighter shade of green.

So my search for possible alternatives began. I certainly wasn't going to model a new set of terrain tiles for myself! The idea of spraying the TSS tiles a lighter shade was kicked around, but I have a bad feeling commercial spray paints would react with the expanded foam, and I had no great hopes of making a decent job of the spraying even if I could find the right colour. So it came down to some sort of terrain mat. I looked around a number of local fabric shops seeking a nice bit of green cloth that would do the job but the right shade eluded me. The Terrain Mat people seemed to produce mats that had a reputation for being easily damaged, and the colour was a bit too olive. Mat-O-War were a favourite for a while but they are widely reported to be rather stiff. This would mean I would need to find a new set of matching hills to put on top of them: more expense. Ditto the mats from The Terrain Guy in the US. These had a mottled appearance on the website which I didn't really want and I would have to buy the matching hills.

The GW mats were a genuine, flexible cloth, so I could create hills by placing my current TSS hill contours under the mat. This is a technique I have been reading about since Donald Featherstone mentioned it in his 1962 book Wargames: yet I have never used it till now. I had also seen the mats in use at the WMMS show this year, and they were widely reported to be durable and well made. The final sell on the GW mat actually came via the Rank and File rules. Most of the photos in the rulebook use the GW mat, which is a nice green colour significantly brighter than my present tiles.

The results you see below. The mats are indeed well made, and the packing creases are easily ironed out. They lay well and don't seem to slip much. The hills I created are not really obvious in the shots: the Prussian infantry on the left are on one hill, and the Prussian guns on the right are on the other. The photos were actually taken during my solo run through of the Rank and File rules. The table was only quickly set up and will probably look even better when properly 'dressed' in a bit more detail. Generally, I am pleased with the new look. The only problem now is that I have to get some new rivers if I want to use them with the mat: my current rivers are produced by using TSS river tiles. The Flames of War river sections on sale for £45 seem a good option, but funds are lacking at the moment!

One thing I will have to look into is why my photos make the green on my terrain look less green than it really is. My TSS tiles often look a khaki shade in the photos, and the new mat looks a lot less green than it really is. If anyone knows why this may be, I would be interested to know. For the moment, I will search out a high wattage daylight simulation bulb for the light in the dining room where my games take place. Perhaps that will help.

As usual, comments encouraged. Go on, surprise yourself! Wishing you good wargaming until the next instalment.

P.S. Some excellent photos are now available of an ACW game using both the Rank and File rules and a table laid out with GW game mats in the same way as shown above. See the Crusader Publishing website at crusaderpublishing.com then look up Battle Reports.

Austrians in Rout

I have recently ordered a set of the new Rank and File rules from Crusader Publishing. However, they are not here yet so last night's game was played with Minden Rose. Not a bad thing: I haven't had a go with these rules for a while and they produced an excellent battle. Just for once I decided to have a straight encounter punch-up, rather than work out a clever scenario. Below are a few pictures: I won't go into too much detail, but the Austrians (me) were soundly beaten. Cavalry on both flanks fell back then routed, and at the end of the game the infantry in the centre also routed decisively under a hail of Prussian fire.
Tipple of the night was a very pleasant Rioja.

Light infantry occupy the town, which they will hold throughout the game.

Infantry faces off in the centre. The Prussians put everything in a single line, which seemed to work. This was the age of linear warfare after all!

Another view of the centre. No, those aren't Bavarians: a trick of the light in the camera has somehow turned the white Austrian coats to pale blue! Hungarian columns in background.

Destination disaster: the Austrian left flank cavalry are under pressure.

Meanhile the light infantry continue to hold out: mainly because the
Prussians decided not to charge in.

Prussian grenadiers in the centre brace themselves for an Austrian volley.

Run away! In the final move Prussian firepower triumphs. Austrian infantry routs and the Prussians pursue. The C-in-C (centre, with black counter indicating he is inferior) is powerless to stop the rot

And on the right flank the remaining Austrian cavalry are being ushered back over their baseline. The Austrian officer (inferior again!) seems to hang his head in shame, whilst the Prussian officer urges his men on

Light infantry still there in the last move!