Memory Lane (2) - WW2 20mm

I recently stumbled upon some photos of 20mm WW2 games I played in the 1990s, so I thought it would make a 'part 2' post for my earlier trip down memory lane. There are shots of 3 games below, using my good old TSS tiles as the basis for the scenery, tiles which have lasted me now for nearly 20 years.

Game 1

Game 1

At the time these 3 games were played I was using Peter Pig's Abteilung rules, which are surprisingly still on sale. I can't imagine they sell many - even when I was using them I got the impression that I was the only wargamer in the country so inclined. But that was in the days before the interweb when it was much harder to get information about what people were doing. I liked Abteilung a lot, although their production values were low and the proof reading left something to be desired. I was waiting for a second edition which never happened, and then along came Blitzkrieg Commander...

Game 1 again - good old Airfix Shermans.

Game 2

Game 2

Game 2

All this lot got sold off for about £1000 (nice!), which paved the way for buying my Polish collection painted. The North West Europe campaign had got a bit stale after pursuing it for around 20 years. To be honest, I've never really missed the stuff, though I had owned some of it for a long time. I certainly couldn't face painting all the infantry for my new period, so the 20mm had to go if I was to afford professional painting for my new project. I did the vehicles myself though.

Game 3 - my old buddy Paul advancing the Germans

Game 3

The trees (home made) and hedges are still going, as are the village bases cut out from model railway scenic material. Some of those home made trees must be 25 years old now, maybe more. The Bellona bridges you can see in game 2 are also still going - see here (about halfway down the post).

Hope this may stir some nostalgia amongst readers. Funnily enough, Paul has recently gathered a couple of 20mm WW2 Eastern Front armies, so once again the Airfix Tigers and Panthers are back in my life!

A Couple Of Thoughts...

...prompted by the new issue of Battlegames magazine.

First Thought

Salute 2012 saw a terrific 'game' put on by a pair called The Essex Gamesters. It was called Corunna 1809, and it won a prize, as it well deserved to. See the photos here. 

But why do I put 'game' in quotation marks? Well, according to Battlegames, this was something called a Diorama Game. I was struck by the phrase as I had never heard it before, but I immediately knew what it meant. Playing a demo game at Colours a couple of years ago I found myself next to such a game. This is where a purpose-built model railway style terrain is set up, then painstakingly festooned with beautifully painted figures, ships, vehicles etc. In addition there may be one or more information boards to erect as well. This will probably take at least a couple of hours. Following which sturdy effort, the 'gamers' collapse with exhaustion into their chairs and stare at their creation for a few more hours, before proceeding with the equally taxing task of packing it up. 

That's right - a Diorama Game is a game where nothing happens. I wasn't at Salute, and didn't see what went on in 'Corunna 1809', but the description by Battlegames strongly implies that this was what was going on in this particular presentation. If I'm wrong in this case, I apologise - but the concept is clearly firmly with us. Now, bottom line, what hobbyists do with their toy soldiers is up to them. And I would agree that such displays can be very inspiring, refreshing one's outlook on the hobby. I can indeed feel a bland conclusion coming on, something along the lines of the usual 'each to his own' cliche. But  I have a nagging feeling in my head that the hobby is actually called war gaming. There's supposed to be a game going on. It's not, after all, called war diorama making. 

I guess this all seems rather mean spirited, not to say inspired by envy. I'll admit mean spirited, but I don't have any envy. I want to wargame. My inspiration is intellectual - animate those toy soldiers by giving them a purpose, by developing a story (or 'scenario' as it is generally called). Then see how things work out when players with different ideas play the story out. See how the story is influenced by the rules, for good or bad. And see how table top events relate to the historical picture.

Dah! I don't know. What do you think?

Second Thought

One of the areas in which Battlegames really scores is the review section. A wide range of sensible and balanced thoughts on a goodly number of new products. In the latest issue, however, one comment did rather set me back on my heels. Neil Shuck was reviewing a supplement to the Saga rules, called Northern Fury. Early in the piece he had this to say,

"Gripping Beast are committed to supporting this new game, and Northern Fury is the first of two supplements that are planned for this year."

I was so happy. Oh those wonderful, selfless boys at Gripping Beast. Despite all the odds, they're committed to supporting Saga. Bless their hearts... Come on Neil, they're a commercial company. Saga isn't a charity expedition to the Himalayas in support of disabled people, it's a wargames product. Gripping Beast's 'commitment'  is to making some more money out of this product. That in itself is fair enough. But the style of the comment seems to me to be an example of the disconcerting idea that companies are doing us gamers a favour by selling us their stuff, and we should therefore be suitably grateful. Wargamers in general seem to be happy with an increasingly commercial wargames industry, and this is also fair enough. But at least see things as they are. 

Now, (for example), one could quite rightly say that Pete Jones was 'committed' to supporting Blitzkrieg Commander (he is, BTW, the author). He set up a well designed and well tended website where users could communicate via a forum (one of the best on the web IMHO), where battle reports can be viewed in their multitudes, where he is usually available to rapidly answer rule queries (a definite rarity amongst rule writers), and where he encourages players to become involved in new ideas for rule amendments. And there's a gallery and a free battlegroup creator (providing you bought the rules). OK, you could say this is just promotion for his product, but all this is done on his own, for free and in a spirit of participation and open comment. And all that is for sale is the rules. 

Or look at the boys who produce Warning Order. A great, high quality online magazine produced entirely for the love of it and available to anyone to download for free. It's been going for 32 issues now. Yes, that's commitment. 

Readers of this blog may be aware that I am grimly opposed to supplements simply for being what they are, i.e. a bare faced con to stretch the profitability of a set of rules. But others are welcome to disagree. Neil evidently thought (in an otherwise well written and informative review) that this supplement was a good offering. But I'm afraid that phrase just grated. Another, more appropriate, choice of words was required. Something between sinking to your knees in gratitude and unconditionally reviling the whole concept. Something a bit more detached and neutral, perhaps. But then, perhaps, I'm just over reacting. 

Something with pictures for my next post, I think!

. 

A Scenario For All Ages? (part two)

Thinking it might be interesting to try the same scenario in two very different periods, and having completed a very enjoyable game in the SYW period, it was time to have a go at WW2. Readers of the previous post will recall that this was scenario 37 from the Grant/Asquith book Scenarios For All Ages, entitled 'Night Attack 2'. I kept the terrain the same as for the first game, except for substituting built up areas of a more modern appearance and smaller scale for the second battle, which would be fought out in 15mm between Polish and German forces of 1939. Rules used would be Blitzkrieg Commander. 

The advice from the scenario book is,

'For the modern period, [...] take units as troops or platoons, or for 1/300th scale, companies and squadrons'. 

It was quickly apparent that converting a Horse and Musket 'unit' into a company would be the best approach for a BKC game, cavalry of course becoming tanks. A company would typically be 3 infantry stands or 3 tanks in BKC, with one stand or vehicle representing a platoon. The units from part one therefore became the following:

Poles (defending the ridge)

5 units of foot: becomes 3 infantry companies, 1 support company, 1 anti-tank gun company.

2 units of cavalry: becomes 1 independent 7TP company, 1 independent TKS company.

1 unit of artillery: becomes 1 on-table 75mm artillery battery.

In detail, the Poles therefore were:  CO (CV8)

Infantry Battalion (+) HQ (CV7) (may be dug in for 'hasty defence')

9 infantry units with ATR upgrade

3 mg units

1 mortar unit

2 37mm ATG units with truck tows

1 75mm artillery support unit with horse tow

Independent Tank Company HQ (CV8)

2 7TP (37mm)

1 7TP (mg)

Independent Scout Tank Company HQ (CV8)

2 TKS (mg)

1 TKS (20mm)

Points 1425, Breakpoint 11.

Germans (attacking)

Northern Force (B1 in the scenario)

3 units of foot: becomes 2 infantry companies, 1 support company

2 units of horse: becomes 2 panzer companies

1 unit of artillery: becomes 1 off-table artillery battery 

Southern Force (B2)

4 units of foot: becomes 3 infantry companies, 1 support company

1 unit of horse: becomes 1 panzer company

1 unit of artillery: becomes 1 off-table artillery battery

In detail, this became:  CO (CV9)

Northern Battlegroup

Motorised Infantry Battalion HQ (CV8)

6 infantry units with ATR upgrade (trucks)

2 mg units (trucks)

1 mortar unit (truck)

Panzer Detachment HQ (CV9)

1 PzIV, 1 PzIII, 2 PzII, 2 PzI

Southern Battlegroup

Infantry Battalion HQ (CV8)

9 infantry units with ATR upgrade

3 mg units

1 mortar unit

Panzer Detachment HQ (CV9)

2 PzII, 2 PzI

Off Table Artillery FAO (CV8)

2 105mm artillery batteries
4 assets

Points 2390, Breakpoint 16

The Germans therefore had a bit more than the 50% advantage in points recommended in BKC for an Assault or Deliberate Attack scenario. However, I decided to keep to a fairly strict interpretation of the book scenario to make it an honest test. I also guessed from the first run through that things might not be as straightforward for the attackers as the forces and deployment might suggest. The map below will serve to confirm the limited nature of my artistic talents:

The Game

Once again I was lucky enough to play a daytime game at the weekend (with wargames buddy and all round good egg Paul). Often more relaxing than an evening game, I find.

 So here's the set up. Once again those nasty Germans are attacking.

 A quick close up of the Polish 75mm artillery support unit behind the ridge.

 As dawn breaks, the thunder of an approaching armoured battlegroup greets the Poles.

A scheduled bombardment hits the empty north village, whilst the northern German group starts to penetrate behind the ridge. They soon start to chew up the less concentrated Polish forces attempting to react to their unexpected appearance.

Overview around mid-game. The Poles are re-positioning gradually. In the background the CO has moved to the western village to get the infantry and anti-tank gun on their way. The infantry battalion HQ concentrates on moving troops into the east village, where the German southern battlegroup is closing in. 

 The east village was a registered target for the German artillery (having been the subject of scheduled fire on move 1). Thus German units could approach the outskirts of the village confident that their supporting fire would be accurate. The red dice indicate the reassuring effects of the auto-suppress rule. But with everything set up for a close assault, the final command roll failed!

 Behind the ridge, the German tanks are heavily engaged: tanks from the southern battlegroup have moved round to reinforce their comrades. Meanwhile the motorised infantry try to extend the outflanking manouevre firmly into the Polish rear. The TKS tankettes deploy gallantly and their machine guns put a temporary halt to the German advance. For non-BKC players, those red mini-dice indicate suppressed units.

 Overview as the game was ending. The Germans did finally manage a close assault on the village, but they were flung back after desperate fighting. The slogging match behind the ridge finally ended in the Germans' favour, as it always seemed likely to. After 8 moves the Poles had exceeded their breakpoint, losing 12 units. They therefore had to make a command roll of 7 to continue, but a roll of 9 meant victory for the Germans, who only lost about 7 units.

Last move. After receiving many turns of fire, it takes a close assault to finally eliminate the Polish artillery position. There was no question of the Poles retaining a reserve. The speed and ferocity of the German attack meant the Poles had to throw in everything (including the kitchen sink) to stem the tide. At least that's my excuse.

Points to Ponder
The second edition of BKC improved on an already excellent set of rules, but this game highlighted 2 aspects that can be a little frustrating. Units dug-in or occupying built up areas are really hard to shift. The Poles in the east village could only be hit on a 6, and still had a 5 or 6 save on any hits received. Then it still needed a further 6 to suppress (unless using artillery and the auto-suppress rule). Perhaps a little too much in game terms.
Secondly, close assaults can be a little complex if you aren't fully familiar with the rules. Still, correct tactics of suppressing your opponent then assaulting with superior numbers will usually work, if you can make the command rolls.

As for the scenario, once again it produced an excellent game. In the WW2 period it did feel a little weighted towards the Germans, but a single game is only a limited test. Certainly the Germans (Paul) won fairly easily in the end, despite a succession of unlucky command blunders and the refusal of the German dice to produce the required number of 6s!
8 moves were played in about 3.5 hours of gaming.

What's Your Favourite?
I've noticed on a number of blogs recently the preference of the owners to illustrate their battle reports mainly with close up photos of the action, which show off the miniatures nicely but make it hard to get an overview of the game. This is often compounded by the lack of a map, or photo of the overall set-up, to give the reader his or her bearings. As any reader of military history will know, trying to describe a battle without an accompanying map is like... well, ... it's like doing something rather silly. Choose your own metaphor. This blog will continue to champion the cause of giving viewers the whole picture!

A 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon was in use throughout to help things along. Despite the trade name of 'Rusty Goat', this New South Wales wine proved to be an excellent accompaniment to wargaming.


And so farewell 'til next time. 

Dayton Painting Consortium - you've gotta love those guys

My order cancelled post seemed to strike a chord with some readers, so I just wanted to highlight the pleasure of dealing with Richard Masse at the Dayton Painting Consortium, who currently produce and market the RSM range of figures which I use for my SYW games.

Determined to add at least a few new figures to my collection, I ordered half a dozen artillerymen and a quartet of mounted buglers. These were received in a couple of weeks from the US. Nice, clean, elegant figures as usual. And the cost? Artillerymen 57p each at current exchange rates, mounted figures £1.42p. And the postage charged was just $3 (that's £1.90p).

You can buy a painted unit of 36 foot figures, with flags, officers etc, for $108, which is about £68. Less than £2 a figure! Judging by what I have received in the past, the painting quality is what I would call a good solid wargames standard. I think I will be investing soon, what with my aversion to painting.

Why doesn't everyone buy their SYW stuff from these people?

A Scenario For All Ages? (part one)

I know what you're thinking. Here we go, another battle report to add to all the other battle reports you've read (or more likely just skimmed through). The problem with battle reports is that they often have little meaning to anyone outside the players actually involved. One way to avoid this is to give some background to the reports to add interest, or offer an angle that might give the report some relevance to the hobby as a whole. 

Of course, some reports are worth looking through because of the outstanding scenery, wonderful figures, or the grand scale of the action. Or maybe they're played by some wargames personality with a new ruleset to market. Being unable to offer any of these attractions, I find it worthwhile to use my battle reports to point up some aspect of the hobby, to try and make the reader think about how the hobby works, although usually in a small way.

So what's the angle here? Well, the game to be played uses a scenario from the Asquith/Grant scenario book Scenarios For All Ages. One meaning of the title is that the scenarios within can be fought out in a wide range of periods. The scenario that took my fancy recently was number 37, 'Night Attack 2'. 'Suitable for any period', it says in the opening paragraph. So I thought I would give the claim a try, and fight the scenario in the SYW and WW2 periods. This post is about the SYW battle.

The first problem with multi-period play is that the forces used are clearly based around a Horse and Musket setting - they are detailed as units of infantry, cavalry and artillery. The authors realise this and offer some advice on translation to other periods in the introduction. For my SYW battle, however, it would be easy to use the units exactly as specified. The author's choice of a 7' x 5' table as a 'standard' is another minor problem - this is hardly the most common size of gaming table. However, conversion to a 6' x 4' table presented no difficulty.

The scenario itself could more accurately be entitled 'Dawn Attack', as it involves an attacking force that has used a night march to outflank a defending force. The attackers have lost their way a bit overnight and have split into 2 forces, one of which has mistaken a more distant village for the actual target of the manoeuvre. Anyway, the set up is as shown below, identical (as far as I could manage) to the map in the book. You can see I have had some fun with the coloured pens:

The Austrians ('red' force in the scenario) are deployed on the ridge facing south. They have 5 infantry units, an artillery battery and 2 cavalry units. One infantry unit is in each of the 'villages' which anchors each end of their line. The Prussians ('blue') deploy on the east side of the table: their units are as shown. The Prussians must attack and destroy the Austrians; the Austrians must try to re-align and see off the attacking Prussians. 

The Game

My good friend Steve came around to play out the scenario and give me some feedback on my rules, which we would be using to play out the game. Looking at the set up, the Prussians seemed to have it made, and we wondered if the scenario was really properly balanced. We should have had more faith in Mssrs. Asquith and Grant!

The left of the Austrian line is held by Loudon's 'Grenadiers' defending the east village.

Brigades from each side move alternately in my rules. Here the left hand Prussian infantry brigade has got off to a good start with a double move. Steve begins to wheel his infantry brigade off the ridge in reply.

The Prussians make steady progress. The left flank Austrian cavalry haven't yet got the message about the approaching threat, having failed a command roll.

View from the Prussian lines as the infantry approach the village.

Following some preparatory artillery fire, Prussian grenadiers launch a desperate assault.

By a miracle of unequal dice rolling, the Prussian grenadiers succeed and take the east village. This overview shows the Prussians pushing the Austrians back along the ridge. In the foreground the cavalry have clashed, with one unit on each side lost.

Last move fever grips both sides as the game comes to an end. Units move forward into close range for some climactic volley combat and the cavalry charge each other. Looking good for the Prussians (I thought foolishly), but it was not to be.

Prussian disaster. Four units are broken and destroyed ('Done For' as my rules put it) and the Prussian force as a whole has lost 7 out of 12 units. Goodnight Vienna! The Austrians lost 2 units out of 8.

Just to rub salt into the wounds, Steve had managed to keep one infantry unit in reserve in the western village throughout the game.

And in conclusion...

...avoid final move fever. If you want to win, of course. But final move fever can be rather fun, throwing caution to the wind with everything hanging on the roll of the dice. I had only lost 3 out of 12 units until the last move, and could probably have managed a draw at least. But never mind. It was interesting to see that the scenario was in fact very well balanced - that village placed north of the ridge hampers the attacking player's deployment, and having to fight along the table prevents the attackers bringing all their units to bear at once.

Steve was good enough to compliment my rules and we didn't have any real snags. A few minor clarifications have been made, so if you want to check out the most up to date version of the rules, v.5 is here. And while I'm at it have a playsheet as well (the playsheet is just one page - ignore the blank page 2). Don't pay any attention to the previews of both items - the preview function doesn't seem to cope with my tables! The downloads seem to be fine.

Hope to have a report of the same scenario set in WW2 in a week or two.

Peace. I'm out.

My Seven Years War Rules - download the latest version.

Following some recent games my rules have, of course, evolved again. However, I think for the moment they have reached a point where I am reasonably satisfied with them, so I thought I would give readers another chance to download the latest iteration.

The only thing I would mention is that the 'Hit Tables' are meant to take into account morale as well as pure firing factors, so that there is no morale section in the rules anymore. Reaction to fire is automatic.

Anyway, find them here. Hope they may be of some use.

Polish Armoured Train - BKC2 Rules

This post is dedicated to 'Johnboy' from the Specialist Military Publishing forum (the 'BKC forum' as far as I'm concerned). He had acquired the FoW/Battlefront Miniatures Polish armoured train and was looking for rules to use it in Blitzkrieg Commander games. I had some ideas for him as I have been using such a train in my 1939 games for a while now, although I had bought the Peter Pig Russian Civil War train a while back and painted it up for 1939. Anyway, prompted by johnboy's post I have improved my armoured train rules and thought I would offer them up here.

My own armoured train. Available from Peter Pig in resin and metal. Loco plus tender £12, artillery cars  £6 each. Strictly speaking a Russian Civil War model, but a good quality model which represents a bargain at £24 the lot. No assault car though. In the end I considered that an advantage as the whole model is still 16" in length.

Battlefront artillery car. Photos from the Fort Buyaki blog

Battlefront assault car

Battlefront loco with tender. The complete armoured train apparently works out to  25" in length!
A magnificent model, but the cost is about £80. Hard to locate this piece of kit on the FoW site for some reason.

The main problem is that the armoured train fits in better with FoW than BKC. FoW is set at company level and a model train can represent just that - one actual train. In BKC the default playing scale is set at a vehicle or infantry base representing a platoon of vehicles or infantry. But that model train can't represent a 'platoon' of 3 actual trains. So these rules represent my compromise to get a workable set of rules in place. If anyone has other ideas, or criticisms of my approach, I'm all ears.

Anyway, here are my rules as they stand at the moment. Remember they are for the Peter Pig train so the tender stands in for the assault car:

Armoured Train

Type, armour. The train consists of 2 Artillery Cars and 1 locomotive/tender with command compartment. Speed 20cm. The train forms a single formation with the HQ (CV8) in the tender. The HQ is never targeted. Train may dismount 2 infantry units (measure infantry deployment from command cupola). Number of units for breakpoint calculations is 5 – locomotive/tender counts as 1, each artillery car counts as 1, plus the 2 infantry units. Total cost 400 points (HQ+tender costs 60+40, artillery cars 110 each, infantry units 40 each).

Artillery cars: Each car has 1 x 75mm gun and 1 x 100mm gun which fire under the overall rules for artillery support units.

Direct Fire: 75mm guns - one attack per gun (1/40 AT, 1/80 AP). 100mm guns – 2 attacks per gun (2/40 AT, 2/100 AP). They may fire within a 270º arc. Each gun gets the +1 within 20cm against unarmoured targets as co-axial mgs were carried.

Indirect Fire: Fire whole train as one 75mm artillery support unit and one 100mm artillery support unit, standard stats.

Side mgs were also fitted so 1 mg (3/60) may fire from the side of each artillery car. Each car has an AA mg in a top turret. These have no separate attacks but contribute to the standard 2 attacks for the HQ against aircraft. Close Assault 4

4 hits per car, save 6. A KO’d car will only be considered derailed if wholly or partly KO’d by indirect fire or aircraft bombs. Derailed cars may be detached but block the line. A car KO’d only by direct fire or only suppressed may move with the rest of the train. (These rules partly simulate possible damage to the tracks as well as the actual cars).

Locomotive/Tender: Count tender and loco as one unit. One mg may fire from each side (3/60).  Standard 2/30 for AA fire only. Measure all fire from command cupola. Two infantry units are carried. Close Assault 4. 4 hits, save 6. HQ may dismount. Train will be unable to move if loco is KO’d, in which case the train HQ must dismount. May move if suppressed, but infantry cannot dismount.

Notes.

I have assumed that gamers will want to fire each gun modelled on an artillery car separately in a gaming situation. The other approach might be to take each artillery car as a single 'tank' and give it combined stats of 3/40 AT and 3/100 AP. Another alternative would be give a 5 or 6 save against hits. Some trains had artillery cars with armour as thick as 25mm, though around 12mm seems to have been more common for the train as a whole. I have also read that armour-piercing rounds could sometimes pass through the cars without causing much damage, the room within the cars being of benefit in these circumstances. So perhaps a higher save is justified. 

As johnboy and I have found, these rules don't make the armoured train the all-conquering behemoth represented  on the FoW website, and also in the articles in Wargames Illustrated 281 (which nevertheless gives an excellent account of the real action at Mokra which remains the most famous armoured train action). I think my rating is more realistic, but others may disagree. The model can actually be a bit of a white elephant, and is probably best used firing from behind the lines (though on table of course) as a couple of artillery support units. Push it forward into combat with tanks and it will get KO'd quite quickly. But if there are no tanks around and anti-tank guns aren't too numerous, the high firepower can be very effective against infantry and softer vehicles.

Anyway, like I say, that's my take on it. I welcome comments from the more informed or those with better brains for developing rules.