Wargaming Projects - 2 of 4 - The Past

A Potted History of my Wargaming Projects - part 2 of 4

Prehistoric; Past; Present; and, Pending

Part 2 - Past Projects: in no particular order, that were either pending or in play but have since been sold or passed on to others.

Among my late friend's Seleucid army that I inherited (see earlier post here), were a few 25mm Garrison Hoplites.

As I have a 'thing' for old-school gaming and figures, this started me off acquiring more figures that could make up a couple of small forces.  But then the big ECW project[1] came along and I realised these were never going to reach the table so they were sold off on eBay - I still feel some pangs of regret over this - these are just two of the half dozen lots I sold off:

Another Ancients project that bit the dust around this time was my 6mm Seleucid army[2] using Heroics and Ros figures.  This was given to a friend who also had a 6mm ancient army so I do still the get odd game with these figures, so no regrets here.  And these photos are from one of those games, with my ex-figures attacking an Indian fortress ...

... and breaking in!

While I'm not fan of the prevalence of skirmish gaming which seems to be pushing classic battle gaming aside, I have always done some skirmish gaming.  One set I was particularly fond of was this set of Samurai rules.

While I started a few Citadel Samurai for this ... 

... I quickly abandoned them for 25mm Dark Ages[3] figures by Citadel and Essex figures, with Huscarls, Thegns and Fyrd replacing Samurai, Chugen and Ashigaru.  These fell victim to the down-sizing of the last move and disappeared into the abyss that is eBay.

My tinkering with 15mm Thirty Years War (TYW) using Freikorps figures never got beyond a handful of units that were eventually sold to another friend and long-time gaming opponent - so like my 6mm Ancients (above) I still get to play with these now and again.

Another fleeting dalliance with Freikorps was with their 15mm Texan War of Independence range.  This didn't get beyond a dozen Mexican infantry, a few Texican skirmishers and some personality figures.

My 15mm Old Glory Seven Years War (SYW) project, Prussians and Austrians, was an altogether more serious affair.  This was an attempt to branch out into a different period at a time when I didn't have the spare time to paint anything myself.  So, I went with a pro-painter and all went well to start with.  

Unfortunately, after receiving one batch of cavalry I asked for a different shade to be used for horses' hooves in future batches and the painter promptly decided he was not going to paint any more for me.  I tried a couple of other painters but they just didn't match well enough to suit me (did I mention I have incipient OCD?) and the collection was consigned to the loft, only to go in the 2022 down-sizing episode.  All in one big lot together with my SYW OSPREYs.

Another project that fell casualty to my fussiness over painting was my long enduring desire to do Pony Wars in 15mm.  I have been around this buoy several times, but the last and most recent was with Blue Moon's 'War Paint' range and Fernando Enterprise's painting service - see below.

This was the best Fernando said they could do with these (sample) figures, so we called it quits and the Pony Wars project was once again still born.  I have tried other painters since but they have taken one look at the Blue Moon castings and declined to try.  

As you will have gathered, I can be quite fussy when it comes to figure matching, and this extends to the sculpts as well as the painting.  This has kiboshed two attempts to get into the Colonial period with 15mm Zulus, first with Naismith which I painted but then the figures went out of production (OOP) which brought that to a halt.

Then with Old Glory, where the bulk orders didn't match the quality of the initial samples ordered from a pro-painter.

The Colonial period seems to have a jinx on me, as another abandoned project, again when the figure line went OOP, was Ral Partha's 25mm Sudan range, albeit very small 25mm by modern standards.  

It's possible that the American Civil War (ACW) is another jinx.  I was much taken with the sculpting of Mike's Models 15mm ACW range.  Having bought several packs I found, as expected, that they painted up beautifully with a minimum of effort - just blocked in colours and a quick black wash (Tamiya Smoke) which picked up the sculpting really well.  Unfortunately, Mike's was taken over shortly after that and this range seems to have been lost for ever.  I can't find any photos of these, so I'll move on to my naval aspirations.

Naval gaming has always appealed because of the simplicity of the 'terrain' required and after toying with some ancient galleys, passed on to friend, I tried some 1/1200 ACW Naval gaming. Riverine warfare unfortunately demands more terrain than gaming on the high seas, and I found the games didn't do it for me.  So, my small flotilla, including fire rafts, all with removable smoke to signify when alight or with steam up, went in the great clear-out of '22.

My next foray onto the ocean wave was inspired by this delightful book by P Dunn.

And this time it was with 1/1000 Houston's Ships, for a fictional 'colonial contest' naval campaign between forces of a Gallic and Teutonic flavour.  And the curse struck yet again, this manufacturer went 'OOP'.

In parallel, and in the background of these naval calamities, was my desire to get into the age of sail, again stimulated by an old rule set.

With a vague idea of what I wanted the games to look like I had been bought lots of kits, mostly Airfix's HMS, but also HMS Shannon and kits some by others e.g. Heller, Pyro, Lindberg, Glencoe, etc.  

The plan was to modify them as described in this old article from the Airfix Magazine.

This not only proved a lot more difficult than I thought but I was also unhappy with the end result as the tumblehome was all wrong.  Buying all I need before experimenting whether something will work, or not, seems a common point of failure for my 'projects'.  Anyway, these kits have also now been sold on.

A more successful project, was my WW2 Convoy collection, inspired by yet another book, this time more a set of mechanics than rules.

For this I used GHQ 1/2400 for escorts and U-boats, 1/3000 merchant ships from Navwar and 1/1200 aircraft by Skytrex.

This was played on hex sheets, and gave a very interesting game, the tension of not knowing where the U-boats were, trying to locate them, and then drop your depth charges to best effect was a real challenge.  Unfortunately, my opponents only ever wanted to play as U-boat commanders as that was a lot less work, and the game fell into disuse.  Why I let this go in the '22 down-sizing, I don't know as it took up little space and would be good to run at the club I now belong to.

Not conventional naval gaming, but a good segue back to world of figures, was my Hornblower phase.  This really just consisted of acquiring and painting some 15mm Minifigs and in the end went nowhere other than out the door.

This acquisition of figures that I just 'liked' also saw me return to Hinchliffe 25mm Napoleonics with some Peninsular Dragoons and Guerrillas, the latter much modified.

My guerillas did at least get on the table ... 

... for "The 95th Rifles in the Peninsula [sic.] War (1813)" scenario from Don Featherstone's book, Skirmish Wargaming.

But that was not enough to see them safely through '22.

And a couple of odds 'n' ends to finish with.

First a WW2 aerial wargame with 1/350 planes by, the long since defunct, Helmet Miniatures.  This used a set of rules called 'MiG Alley' in an article in Wargames Illustrated issue 54 - this is not the same as the commercial set now available with the same name.  I modified the rules for WW2 and centred the game around the Luftwaffe attempting to stop a formation of B-17s defended by USAAF fighters.   

This game worked well, the B-17s were not player driven and just flew across the table and shot at anything that came near.  The players were either Luftwaffe fighter pilots only concerned with stopping the bombers, or USAAF fighter pilots similarly focused on the bombers getting through.  This meant the game was not just a turning contest between fighters as the USAAF often had to break off as another threat to the bombers appeared. 

These also went in the great down-sizing, and I really regret letting them go.

I have plans to re-do this, but that will have to wait for the last episode in this series of posts.

And finally, my 10mm Kallistra Wildling Army (Game of Thrones) for the fantasy rule variant of DBA, 'Hordes of the Things'.  I completed all the interesting units for this: mammoths, giants, some cavalry; and even Varamyr Sixskins on a Polar Bear with three wolves, and a shadowcat (all by Eureka IIRC).  But I never got round to the warbands of warriors and these have joined a friend's collection but have seen little use since.

I'm sure I haven't covered everything but this is more than enough to illustrate how badly my butterfly has led me down so many dead-ends.

Notes:

[1] These will be featured in the 'Present' part of this series of posts.

[2] Why I keep doing Hellenistic armies is an interesting question as I find pike armies rather a staid gaming experience, but clearly there is some deeper need within me for such.

[3] Or, Early Medieval, as we are now supposed to call it - so mundane!

 

Wargaming Projects - 1 of 4 - The Prehistoric

A Potted History of my Wargaming Projects - part 1 of 4

Prehistoric, Past, Present, and Pending

A commenter on a previous post remarked on how many armies I have.  While not as many as some gamers I know, when I thought about it, it came to more than I realised.  So, I decided to list them all for the record and own the shame.

To keep these posts to a manageable size I've broken them done into four categories which will each get their own post, namely: Prehistoric; Past; Present; and, Pending.  

Part 1 - Prehistoric Projects: that date back to the origins of my wargaming (with rules as opposed to just playing with toy soldiers, e.g. my Britain's multi-part 54mm Wars of the Roses and ACW figures - now sold).

Like most gamers of a similar vintage, I started with Airfix 1/72 kits and moved on to HO/OO plastic figures, or 1/76 as they're now marketed.  I have no photographic record of any of these as they were all thrown away when I went to Uni' as I felt such childish past-times should be left behind[1].  Imagine my anguish when I discovered the wargaming society at the Freshers' Squash, AND they had Airfix armies as well as metal ones - D;oh!

My first 'proper' metal wargame figures were Hinchliffe 25mm Napoleonic's, my Dad buying me half a dozen to get me started on what became a small King's German Legion force all based for the Airfix rules by Bruce Quarrie and consisting of: 4x Line Battalions, 1x Light Battalion, 1x Horse and 1x Foot Artillery Battery (each having a gun, crew, limber and team); 1x Regiment of Hussars; ½x Regiment of Light Dragoons; and, a few command figures.  All now sold and being shown some love by another.  As these were only finally sold off recently[2], still in their original Humbrol gloss enamel paint-jobs, I have a few photos of these

My next army, started back at Uni in the 70's, was another 25mm Hinchliffe collection, only this time it was Ancients.  WRG Ancients was the big thing in the Wargaming Society.  With thoughts of emulating one of my heroes, I opted to start putting together an Alexandrian Macedonian army, and by this time I was using Humbrol matt enamels.  As it failed to replicate the success of the original it soon morphed into a more generic Hellenistic Successor army.  This one, is however, still going strong so will appear in a later post on Present projects.

Perhaps the inspiration to move on to a Successor army was influenced by my best friend from Uni who had a Seleucid army.  Sadly, he passed away a few years ago but left his army to me, as it was what had brought us together[3]. 

But while I still have, and still use, these figures, they are now the oldest I have, so I thought I would feature them here, in the beginning so to speak.

They have some really nice painted shield designs.

All I did with these figures when I got them was repair any wear and tear and re-base them to match my army.  Also, he had a half-painted general that I finished off and added a shield to the base to have a go at the shield pattern and blend him in with the army.

I did repaint the tents from his camp; they were just painted as plain canvas so, I thought they should be jazzed up a bit.

This army also came in for some recent attention, when I expanded the pike blocks.  The original army (not based to DBA/M) were about a dozen figures too few to make 2-element wide blocks so I bought some painted Hinchliffe Successor pike of eBay and re-touched them to match the existing pike; effectively doubling the number of pikes that could be fielded - covered in an earlier post here.

The other really early project was a collection of 6mm Napoleonic's by Heroics and Ros, nice and cheap and easy to paint in those days when I didn't need to wear glasses.  But, like my Hinchliffe Ancients these are still in use and will be covered under Present Projects.

And finally, back in the day, I did buy and paint some Warhammer Fantasy figures to placate my Tolkien urges, but they have been sold off and I can find no photographic record of them anywhere.

Next in this series will be a litany of abandoned projects, often only with a few figures being painted - the lure of the pretty figure range.  It can be found here.

Notes:

[1] The fact that my parents were moving house at the same time and obviously didn't want too much of my junk cluttering their new home, also played its part in this.

[2] They were let go, because I was let go and needed to move and down-size, but they hadn't seen a table-top for many a year before that.

[3] I'd heard about someone with an impressive army in the same hall of residence so I tracked him down and knocked on his door.  I was somewhat taken aback when a 6' 5¾" giant opened the door, but, right from the start, we just hit it off; he is still sorely missed.

Old Boys Weekend - Game 1 of 3

It's been a while since the four of us (Steve, Martin, Keith and I) got together so it was great to meet up for another weekend's gaming.  To not waste any precious gaming time, apart from the Friday evening which was, as tradition demands, spent down the pub, the first game was already set up and ready to go - see here.

We diced off to determine the order in which each of us got to choose which command we would take in the game: the right or left half of the Seleucid and Ptolemaic armies.  I went second and snapped up the powerful Seleucid right which surprisingly wasn't the first one picked.

So, on to the game - the account of which will focus on the wing where I was busy and thus didn't see much of what was happening elsewhere.

The Battle of Panion 200BC

The Ptolemaics won the toss for initiative at the start and let the Seleucids take the first turn; this meant their movement distances were all halved[1].  The right wing under my command, with a plentiful supply of PIPs, moved forward as far as it could; Steve commanding the left wing was more cautious as the enemy had the edge in troops on that side of the field.

In their first turn, the Ptolemaic left (Keith) decided that boldness was the best option and advanced his whole command.  This boldness perhaps went too far when he also decided not to delay the clash with my superior cavalry but charged right in (action nearest the camera).

I thought he was committing suicide, especially as my cavalry were all uphill of his, but the results were disappointing (to me), with one draw and the other unit only being forced to recoil.

On the other flanks things were going much slower ...

... as the Seleucid left (Steve) was hanging back and the Ptolemaic right (Martin) was suffering from a lack of PIPs, which was going to become one of the enduring themes of this game.

The next turn saw my wing advance in the centre and the cavalry (and cataphracts!) charge in, and this time they destroyed both of the opposing units (posed as running away for the photo below). 

This, was how I had imagined it would be in my dreams.

In reality, it was primarily driven by my rather good dice rolling and Keith's poor combat throws, which were going to be the other theme running through the game.

While the Ptolemaic right seethed with frustration over a paucity of PIPs ...

... the battle on their left got into full swing with pretty much all units being engaged, apart from the excess Seleucid cavalry now seeking to turn the Ptolemaic left flank.

After further moves the armies on the Seleucid left still had not come to blows.

By contrast, Antiochus III had led his battalion of the phalanx to burst all the way through the opposing pike[2], but was still a long way from breaking anything.  

The next bit of excitement on my wing was the destruction of a Ptolemaic mixed spear and elephant unit.  This meant, thanks to my rule changes[3], that before being removed elephant would rampage through all in its path, starting with the light infantry directly behind it.

But light infantry are meant to elephant killers, and so it proved, with the rampage being stopped almost before it had begun.

With the demise of this spear and elephant unit, and the defeat of the remaining cavalry on that wing, the flank of the main Ptolemaic phalanx was left fully exposed.

Meanwhile, across the river the battle had so far been limited to light units fighting for possession of the rough and difficult going on the opposite flank to the river.

The writing on the wall was pretty clear at this point, and so it proved with the combat between the light troops on the Seleucid left / Ptolemaic remaining indecisive while the Ptolemaic phalanx shorn of flank protection was hit from all sides and promptly collapsed.

All-in-all, a pretty good match to the account on which this battle was based.  

Post Mortem

While the set-up and rules threw up a few issues, it was fast and furious, and fun.  All was finished, and the troops returned to their shelves[4] before lunch.

The rules worked pretty well, but recoiling a whole box breaks up an army's line by too much and too quickly, so will have to be addressed in future games.  Also, the changes to overlaps, reducing their occurrence[5], made pikes combat almost impossible to break without a flank attack to help you out.  I shall have to do some reading to find some historical cases of where this wasn't the case and if so, amend the rules to allow for what is probably an unlikely occurrence.

The set-up favoured the Seleucids, but that was historical and deliberate although the dice Gods clearly decided to back a winner and my combat dice were consistently better than Keith's.  

On the other side of the battle, I had not given enough thought to how the Ptolemaic force was deployed, and Martin was hampered by a command that needed a lot of PIPs to get moving.  Again, the dice amplified my errors, as Martin's PIP die always seemed to roll low.

Nonetheless it was enjoyable and quick, which was just what I was hoping for, allowing us to get on with setting up and playing the next game, a Lord of the Rings game using Dragon Rampant.  

But that will have to wait for the next post here.

Notes:

[1] Using 6" grids, each equating to 100 paces, means troops move much further than they do in DBM and not limiting the movement of the side that goes first could see the side that goes second pinned from the start against their baseline by the enemy's mounted troops.  This rule means that troops should, except foot facing mounted, be able to meet up about half-way, PIPs permitting.

[2] Recoiling a whole grid square just doesn't feel right when it disrupts the phalanx as much as this.  This is not helped by DBM ruling that pike will always pursue.  I think I need to amend this for future games.

[3] I ruled that elephants will flee a full move, plus 1 box, back towards their baseline attacking all units they pass through, unless they are destroyed.  The owning player rolls a D6 for each box of movement to determine the direction:

1 = it moves diagonally in a direction chosen by the opposing player.

2-5 = it moves straight ahead.

6 = it moves diagonally in a direction chosen by the owning player.

[4] Ikea Billy Oxberg bookcases with glass doors.

[5] Overlap cannot be provided by a unit in combat or in an enemy zone of control (ZOC).