Wargaming Projects - 3 of 4 - The Present

A Potted History of my Wargaming Projects

Prehistoric; Past; Present; and, Pending

Part 3 - Present Projects: which if not complete (is a project ever complete?) are at least currently being gamed with when I can, for which reason many of these have already been featured on the blog.

This post will be a bit different, as many of my projects which have reached gaming status have already been featured on this blog so many will just have one photo and a link to previous post.

This time I'll go in, more or less, chronological order - fantasy comes last on the basis that it hasn't happened yet.

25mm Ancients (Hinchliffe, with a few Minifigs and Lamming)

I started this army back in 70s and, as discussed under 'pre-historic' projects here, were originally intended as an Alexandrian army but became a generic Successor collection, and the above photo shows all my pike, 250 all told, i.e. just enough for a single syntagma, the smallest tactical unit.

These guys have been used for various versions of 'Ancients' rules by the Wargames Research Group (WRG) and while currently based for the DBx rules series they also get used with 'To the Strongest' (TtS), albeit having to provide the armies for both sides.

The TtS rule-set also encouraged me to make special markers.

The latest use of these troops (here) was for a sort of mash-up of DBM with TtS, i.e. using a grid-based movement system like TtS but DBM for PIP activation and combat.  

Although some further mods will be required to handle recoiling troops (a grid square is too far for a recoil) this is likely to be the way I will continue to use these as the game was quick and fun.

15mm Gladiators (Chariot Miniatures)

A quick filler of a project to make an equally quick game to fill the gaps between bigger games during gaming weekends with friends.  This uses the Ludus Gladiatorius rules and has been featured before on this blog e.g. here.

15mm Normans (Essex Miniatures)

An old project that was originally going to be a First Crusade Army, but not too keen on the Essex Byzantines, I decided to switch it to 1066, but couldn't find an Anglo-Danish and Viking range that I liked.  Luckily my friends have suitable opponents so, while I don't have any opponents for them, they do get used.

15mm Wars of the Roses (Minifigs, Roundway, Peter Pig, et al.)

When DBA first came out, I thought that if you used three armies on each side you would get something like the three Battles that Wars of the Roses armies tended to form up in.  Of course, before I'd finished the armies, many of which I sent off to get painted, DBM came out so I've tended to use those instead, albeit the photo above is from a game using 'The Perfect Captain's' A Crown or Paper - Coat of Steel battle rules. 

These troops get fielded reasonably often, especially in Chit games as described in one of my early posts on Chit Game here.

25mm ECW (Hinchliffe with just the odd Minifig, Warrior or Garrison interloper)

These were mostly Lee Gramson's collection from his now defunct 'Going Back to the English Civil War' blog.  We had corresponded via that blog when he said he wanted to sell the collection as he was moving to Spain, I jumped in the car and drove down to Hythe (IIRC) to pick them up.  My incipient OCD forced me to re-base and re-retouch many of the figures, including: head-swaps; replacing Blu-tack modelled elements with Milliput; adding reins to the horses; replacing swords with steel rod; and, painting new aluminium-foil flags.  The latter was triggered by the kind present of a hand-painted Royal Standard from 'Wellington Man' of the 'Hinton Spieler' blog ...

... which encouraged me to get back into painting flags rather than printing them.

What I was surprised to find during this project, was that I found it much easier to refurbish old figures rather than start from scratch with bare castings, and all this work was done in far less time than I had feared.  I have since added several units to expand the collection further, and Hesilrigge’s Lobsters are the only unit left on my 'To Do' list.  I am pleased to say that these have become one of my favourite collections and get regular use and should be familiar to readers of this blog, like their last post here.

30mm Toy Soldiers (Spencer Smith Miniatures - SSM)

My SSM War of Austrian Succession (WAS) collection, like the ECW collection above, is another of my favourites but unfortunately gets less use than I would like.  I'm also waiting on the new owner of the Spencer Smith moulds to put them back production to complete a few loose ends.

The genesis of this project, inspired by the 'Charge' rule-set, was one of my earliest posts (here) so I won't repeat it here.  Several battle reports are also posted, including a five part series on a refight of the Batte of Mollwitz (here).

15mm 1745 Jacobite (Essex Miniatures plus the odd Freikorps)

This project was started after reading a blog on adapting DBA for the '45 Jacobite Rebellion, and seeing the very nice 15mm Essex highlander sculpts.  It stalled a bit when I found that the rules didn't give a very good game but the project was rejuvenated (and re-based!) by the use of Sam Mustafa's 'Maurice' rules for the '45 on the 'Shrine of Sadness' blog.  

They don't get a lot of use and I think this post is the only time they've featured on the blog. 

6mm Napoleonics (Heroics & Ros, with some Adler artillery)

When these came out in the 70s, they were the ideal answer for students short of cash, space and time to paint.  A group of us all picked an army, and I chose the Prussians (post 1808) and now have three 'brigades' (a Prussian brigade was the equivalent of other nations' divisions) each in its own magnetic storage box like the 'East Prussian Brigade' shown below.

Unfortunately, the problem with everyone doing a different army became apparent when the guy with the French emigrated after Uni leaving lots of allies with no enemies so I also started to put together some French.  I now have four French divisions based on Reille's Corps at Quatre Bras plus Kellerman's entire cavalry corps - at a figure ratio of 1:12 for infantry and 1:15 for cavalry.

Better still new wargaming colleagues have built Austrian, Bavarian and French forces one, even built some sculpted terrain for Waterloo.

The rules for these games have typically been home-grown, based on many others, but recently we've been getting good games using Neil Thomas' 'Napoleonic Wargame Rules' (NTNWR) - the latest being here, and it's likely that, with a few mods, we'll stick with these for a bit.

20mm Vintage Naps (Hinton Hunt, Alberken, DK, etc. - mostly copies I fear)

This project is entirely down to bloggers like 'The Hinton Spieler', 'Hinton Hunt Vintage Wargame Figures' and others who seduced me with the charm (yes, I know it's subjective) of glossy vintage 20mm Napoleonics.

I have a long way to go to get anywhere near completing the planned armies, and the number of unpainted castings in the loft is a bit disconcerting, but at least I've now done enough for a game, the last being here.

28mm Old West Gunfights (Guernsey Foundry)

This project was originally built for use with 'The Rules With No Name' by Bryan Ansell, a free download from Wargames Foundry who now produce these figures.  They have also benefitted from being one of the few projects for which I've actually put together a decent amount of terrain - in this case a scratch-built township.

Nowadays, they tend to be used with the Too Fat Lardies 'What a Cowboy' rules, but have so far only made a single appearance on the blog here.

 

1:2400 Russo-Japanese Naval (Panzerschiffe)

Inspired by a campaign system by David Manley published in both Miniature Wargames (MW) and Wargames Illustrated (WI), this project proved very quick to complete with resin ships from Panzerschiffe.  The entire campaign as played has been posted in four parts: Intro; Part 1; Part 2; and, Part 4.

Wings of War (Commercial 1:1444 WW1) 

Not much to say here, as it's a complete game system produced commercially, requiring no modelling or painting so hardly a 'project'.

20mm WW2 Normandy (FAA, SHQ, MMS, et al)

This project originated with an article entitled 'BOCAGE ‘44' by Andrew Grainger in WI#15 with rules for fighting an Infantry platoon in Normandy.  I was drawn to this by the way troops were more often pinned by fire rather than killed or wounded.  For this I put together an infantry company of three platoons (at about 80% strength) and a troop of tanks (3 Cromwells & 1 Firefly).  I then ran games as a 'Dungeon Master' with players commanding a platoon troop and working together to achieve an objective against a motley collection of Germans.  I as umpire would roll to see if any enemy were present every time players exposed themselves to a new line of sight - the games had a real sense of jeopardy.

But then along came Chain of Command (CoC) and the collection is now used almost exclusively for that.

1/1200 WW2 Fletcher Pratt Naval (Airfix)

Although they haven't been used for some time now, I still consider this project active, but it requires a church hall or similar to play.  These very old rules, that had predicted the demise of the Graf Spee if she met a group of cruisers are very simple but give really convincing results.  At my last club we fought every action of the Bismarck's short career and got an almost identical result to history in every case.  Unfortunately, there's a lack of 1:1200 kits, I had to kit-bash an HMS Prince of Wales to make a Rodney ...

... and getting up and down from the floor plays havoc with my knees so, I'm not sure these will get run out again - shame.

 

28mm LotR Breaking of the Fellowship (Games Workshop)

A lovely quick project that allowed me to game with Games Workshop's (GW) delightful Lord of the Rings figure range - I wanted to paint some figures but didn't want to build armies.  I designed a game to just represent the breaking of the Fellowship from when Frodo has fled from Boromir who tried to take the Ring, until he departs, leaving his companions behind, to take on the quest to Mordor by himself or, hopefully, with Samwise.

The use of playing cards for a very simple movement and combat system was stolen from a Three Musketeers participation game I saw at a convention, and the 'hidden movement' system I read about somewhere so long ago I don't recall where.  This was all described here.

28mm LotR Dragon Rampant (Games Workshop)

This project was really just an expansion of the Fellowship project - see above.  I had been picking up cheap GW LotR figures from eBay for a while with view to doing different scenarios when I encountered the Dragon Rampant rule-set.  This fired me up to send off the stored plastic to Fernando Enterprises for painting as I knew I'd never spare the time from my historical projects for this.  The end result, some fun games of Dragon Rampant like that here.

Well, that's all for this instalment of the potted history of my wargaming projects past, present and future, the previous instalment can be found here.

All Coated Up and Ready to Go

The mojo seems to have returned with the good weather, as I have finally finished off the latest, long drawn out, WiP batch, the 121ème régiment d'infanterie with a supporting unit of voltigeur skirmishers, and all overseen by Général de Division Jean-Marie-Pierre-François Lepaige Dorsenne.

So, after going through their paces in the field, a quick trip to the local photographic studio was called for.

Where's the Mojo Gone?

When I started this batch, I thought it would be a quick job as the greatcoats would be so easy to paint.  

But what it's shown me is that the bit that I find both tedious and time-consuming, is not the uniforms, but the backpacks and all their straps.  

I really thought these figures would be complete by now; it's been nearly a month since this post (Link).  OTOH, taking this photo the other day, seems to have stirred me into action and they are now making much better progress.  They're still going to take a bit of time to get completed but I do feel I'm getting there now.

Meanwhile back in the cabin, a.k.a. HizHut, the table has been left untouched since the 'Blitz on Villeroux' Chain of Command game ...

... as I have no games planned until the refight of this game next week.

May the Mojo be with you. 

Great-coated WiP

The latest batch on the work / painting table is a unit's worth of 20mm Hinton Hunt (HH, but most are probably copies) Napoleonic French infantry in greatcoats, all recently emerged from the bleach bath to remove their old paint jobs.

There's enough here for a 24-man unit (battalion) and a 6-figure skirmish unit, and rising above it all (on a cocktail stick up his fundament) is an HH personality figure of Dorsenne.

There's a fair bit of figure bashing happening.  The advancing figures used for the battalion (FN12) are all grenadiers.  This means all the figures in the fusilier companies need their epaulettes, sabre-briquets, and the shoulder-belt it is suspended from, removed.  All the figures are also getting their shakos changed to covered shakos courtesy of some thick coats of white paint.

The biggest job was to create an officer standard bearer from a firing figure, the arms requiring a lot of repositioning.  There's still more work to do on these can be seen below, but this is a WiP.

The rear view shows the backpack's removal (officers wouldn't carry one) and the extension of the sabre briquet into a sword.

This figure still needs the shoulder belt for the 'holster' for the flag pole, an eagle for the standard (to be taken from another figure) and a head swap for one more appropriate for an officer.

The head from eagle bearer will used to replace that on the Newline Design drummer I'm going to use for this unit; this will make him blend in better with the HH figures around him.

The drummer's greatcoat will also get more folds sculpted into it to look more like the HH figures in the rest of the unit.

Then it will be on to painting them, I want to paint the skirmish unit to look like this, for me iconic, illustration ...

... from this book.

For the larger unit (battalion) I shall base them on this illustration except with a grey shako cover to tie them in with the skirmish unit.

Spanish Windmills

Intrigued by my first game with the simple (simplistic?) Neil Thomas Napoleonic Wargaming Rules (NTNWR) I had another game, this time, with John (my usual CoC opponent) and using my vintage 20mil Naps.

John took the French.

And I took the Spanish.

In NTNWR terms the two sides were:

French in Iberian Peninsula 1808-1814
1 General 2 Line Infantry, Close Order, Musket, Average 1 Veteran Infantry, Close order, Musket, Elite* 1 Veteran Infantry, Close order, Musket, Elite** 1 Voltigeurs, Light Infantry, Musket, Average 1 Lancer, Average 1 Hussars, Light Cavalry, Carbine, Average 1 Artillery	(1).  Artillery hits on a roll of 4-6. *Light Infantry regiment **Imperial Guard with attached general

Spanish 1792 - 1815
1 General 2 Militia Infantry, Close Order, Musket, Levy 2 Regular Infantry, Close order, Musket, Average 1 Light Infantry, Musket, Levy 2 Peasant Militia, Light Infantry, Carbine, Levy 2 Horse, Heavy Cavalry, Levy 1 Artillery	(1). Infantry may not adopt Attack Column Formation.   (2).  Spanish Horse: Roll 1d6 per base when fighting cavalry Roll 2D6 per base when fighting infantry Defend as Lancers (n.m.e. cav +1D6 / base)

These are different to the lists in NTNWR as, one, I didn't have the right troop types, and two, the Spanish are so penalised that I added a couple of guerrilla units to help even up the odds.  The stats for the latter were those for Peasant Militia taken straight from the Portuguese list.

Also in this game I was trying out a few house rules, but the only two that actually came up in the game were:

Artillery Fire: at long range infantry in line benefit from a 6+ saving roll.  I felt that round-shot against line should not be as lethal as against columns and squares.

Morale tests: if failed, the Unit loses a hit for every pip the d6 roll (with modifiers) was short of the pass score e.g. if the pass score is 4+ and you roll a 2, you lose 2 hits.  In previous games the loss of whole base for every morale failure had very quickly reduced units to ineffectiveness.

The two armies do their IPB and try to stare each other out prior to deployment.

We took it in turn to deploy two units each until the both 'armies' were fully deployed.

As I suspect is usual for these games, the need to prevent your opponent exiting units off your table-edge, meant we were both pretty spaced out across the width of the table.

John won the die roll to determine who went first and let me start the game.  On my left the Burgos regiment advanced towards Windmill Hill while further out El Rojo's band was moving to occupy the nearby wood.  In the centre, wanting to reposition the Princesa regiment I formed them into March Column (they aren't allowed to form Attack Column and Line formation is very clumsy) and then moved my Light Infantry ('Vountarios') forward to occupy the small wood.

At the same time El Húsar's men moved towards the church and my dragoons set out to go right flanking.

Slightly taken aback by a hit scored by my artillery on the 44th Ligne, John only advanced his line fairly cautiously, his hussars staying on the high ground while his Voltigeurs made a dash for the church.

His artillery proved to be out of range of most of my units, so he turned his battery towards the church where the Spanish were being more aggressive.  

In my next turn, El Rojo's band entered the small wood by Windmill Hill, which was to be their home for most of the battle.

And, El Húsar's band occupied the churchyard and unleashed a volley into the face of the advancing Voltigeurs.  

As I typed the above, I realised this was an error as they can only move half distance and fire and, looking at another photo (see below), they must've made a full move.  In the background another mistake in progress can be seen as I pressed forward with my dragoons against John's hussars, although this was a tactical error and not a rule transgression.

The French continued to play it cautiously, and as Suchet with the Imperial Guard Fusilier Chasseurs held back out of range ...

... the Voltigeurs dropped back out of carbine range from the guerrillas in the churchyard, and the hussars, not wanting to come off the hill to fight my dragoons fell back on using their carbines, but again without effect ...

... the red hit marker on the dragoons, visible in the above photo, was from his artillery.

On the other flank the 3e Légère commenced a long-running firefight with the Burgos regiment, while his lancers dared the guerrillas to leave the safety of the wood.

With the action now hotting up the number of photos taken dropped right off, and the narrative will no doubt skip a turn or two here and there.

In my turn, apart from several bouts of shooting, the dragoons charged the hussars, and despite the penalties Spanish cavalry suffer under the rules, and the Hussars' uphill advantage, pulled off a draw which means the defender, in this case the French hussars, has to retreat. 

Unfortunately, the hussars bounced straight back in the following turn, charging my dragoons and still with the slope in their favour.

Both units can be seen to be depleting quite rapidly.  This was because we forgot there are only 2 figures on a base and were removing double the correct number of casualties at this point.  Anyway, this time the dragoons lost and had to retreat.

Elsewhere the various firefights rumbled on, on Windmill Hill, and ... 

... at the churchyard, where the Voltigeurs could fire in perfect safety thanks to the superior range of their muskets.

Several turns now passed with the Spanish desperately trying to attrit the French by fire as they manoeuvred.  One of these manoeuvres saw the Guard Fusilier Chasseurs backing away.  

Alas, the cries of 'La Garde Recule' proved premature as they were simply repositioning in order to advance on the gap between the large wood and the church.  Meanwhile, as the hussars, having finally eliminated the Spanish dragoons, advanced around my right flank behind the church.

If the guerrillas moved back to harass the hussars the Voltigeurs would be able to get into the churchyard and engage them on equal terms (both would benefit from saving rolls for cover).

In the centre the French were approaching ever closer, but had now shaken out into line to reduce artillery casualties and prepare for the inevitable firefights ...

... and the first round of the Windmill Hill firefight was drawing to a conclusion. 

The threat of the lancers, still sat on the hill, kept El Rojo's guerrillas pinned in the wood, which seemed like a good trade-off to me.

But eventually the Windmill Hill firefight had to end, and with my Burgos regiment destroyed the Princesa regiment stepped up to take their place, ...

... supported on their right flank by the Coraceros (cuirassiers) who eagerly moved up eyeing the 44e Ligne who had been badly shot up by my artillery.

Then a series of very good shooting dice rolls saw the 46e Ligne greatly reduced, not helped by calamitous morale roll that removed even more figures.

In his turn, John's general, Suchet, joined his lancers and moved them across to support his infantry, surely too late for that?  He also continued pushing the hussars along the ridge to my rear and the Imperial Guard through the gap between the small wood and church.

My Coraceros then charged his infantry but bounced off!

And in the following turn John's lancers got in some early practise for Waterloo, hitting them in the flank.  

With my cuirassiers eliminated, I lost the plot for a bit, didn't see the obvious and failed to take any precautions.  John didn't miss the opportunity and his lancers ploughed on into the Almeria regiment in another flank charge.  Oops!

Surprisingly there were still some left after the dust settled.

But while that was taking place, the Guard had reached my reserve, the Guadalajara regiment, and, urged on by Cambronne, charged straight in.  

OMG!  My guys actually won, and pushed the Guard back.

This put the Guard in an awkward spot where the Guadalajara regiment could shoot them up together with my artillery battery that had pivoted around to face them in my previous turn - a rare piece of foresight on my part.

With lancers busy running over much of my army, El Rojo's guerrillas left the woods to massacre the few survivors of the 44e Ligne.

The lancers responded by turning back and forcing the Princesa to form square to avoid yet another flank charge.  The following photo shows my next move with the remnants of the Almeria regiment trying to catch the lancers between two fires.  This was promptly seen off by the French artillery who managed to eliminate them completely.

So, everything now turned on whether the Guadalajara regiment and the Spanish artillery could stop the Guard from breaking through and exiting off my baseline.  They failed, only just - one more hit and would've done it.  But nothing now stood between the Guard and Madrid.

I was left with nothing but light infantry, guerrillas and my artillery, but given where the lancers were now, the latter were clearly not long for this World.

So, the Spanish admitted defeat and we shook hands after what was an enjoyable game.  The rules might be simple so keep it light and fun.

Post Mortem

The old-fashioned fight to the finish with few troops left on the table at the end is perhaps something that can be addressed as it feels a bit OTT.  Other than that, the real issue we had was how units retreat from a combat leaving the victor standing, often exposed to other enemy units.  Perhaps a pursuit option?  Who knows, that's all for another day.