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.

Old Boys Weekend - Game 2 of 3

A Mini Helm's Deep?

This game was designed to fill an afternoon / early evening and leave time to set up the table for large Napoleonic game on the following day.

Scenario

Rather than one of the scenarios from the rule book I opted to put a unit of Rohan Levy (heavy foot) in a fortified position on a hill between two woods (both occupied by a scout unit).

Against them, Isengard would send forth an army, composed of: 3x units of Uruk Hai (heavy foot), 1x unit of Dunlendings (bellicose foot); 4x units of Orcs/Goblins (light foot); 1x unit of Warg-riders (light riders); and, 1x unit of Wargs (lesser warbeasts).

This army, split into two commands, that poured forth through the gap between the mountains and the forest, was so vast it could not all pass at once (hence only six units on the edge of the table in the photo below).

The other units would have to come on by activating to enter the table when the first wave have moved forward and made room for them.  

You will no doubt have spotted that this game is being played on hexagonal tiles[1] which are used for movement.  This increases move distance and ranges as those can only be differentiated in increments of 4".  This also means that unit separation means units cannot end their move in a hex adjacent to a friendly unit[2], although we do allow them to pass through such a hex if they have enough movement to get clear the other side.

Also, in this game many of the units were 'over-strength' having more than their usual compliment of figures, but no more strength points.  The first losses are always these 'surplus' figures and thus a unit's courage test is unaffected until they have lost all the 'surplus' figures and start losing those related to their strength points.

The Rohan foot and scouts, facing this tidal wave of evil were, unfortunately for them (and me, their commander), not over-strength.

And so the onslaught was unleashed.

The five 'evil' units nearest the camera, are all part of Steve's command, Martin, commanding the three furthest units had brought along his bad luck rolling PIP dice in the last game to infect his activation dice, and only managed to get one unit to move.

As might've been glimpsed in the above, the Rohan Scouts on their left flank, seeing the Warg pack dashing off on a right flanker moved into the 'hillfort' to help hold the levy hold on.

And as the pack closed in, the Scouts unleashed a volley of arrows, all of which missed!

But elsewhere, things were not going so well for the force of Isengard, as Martin failed to activate anything, his command staying largely stuck on the start line.

This wasn't all good for me, as Keith, commanding the relieving force of mounted Rohirrim, was not allowed to activate to enter the table until every Isengard unit had been activated (they had to try and activate units if possible).  Consequently, my small force was still on its own, and unsupported, as they received the first attack from the forces of evil - the Warg pack.

Despite being uphill and behind defences, my Scouts, who aren't really up for mixing it hand-to-hand lost the fight two-nil.  Their courage isn't great either so it was with some trepidation I rolled the dice[3] - I needn't have worried.

The Wargs regrouped, and after losing a pack member to the Scouts archery, came back for another bite of man-flesh.

This time the Scouts managed a one-all draw, but then both sides failed their courage tests and retreated 'Battered' (denoted by a yellow token, or tiddlywink).

While the Wargs were now out of the way for a turn or two, the Uruks, and the faster Orcs, were getting pretty close and levy were unsupported.  On top of all this, Martin had still failed to activate some of his units and thus the Rohan cavalry was going to be hard pressed to arrive before it was too late.

The Scouts then showed that failing courage tests was more their 'thing' as they failed to rally, lost another figure, and retreated again, just short of the table edge.  The Levy, determined to prove themselves more stalwart than their erstwhile companions loosed a salvo of arrows at the nearest Orc unit, killing two.

In the background of the above, the other Scout unit can be seen to have moved over to wood to the right, of the picture, to block (slow?) any attempt to turn that flank.

The Orcs then charged in, but were rebuffed by the Levy, but another Orc unit had now reached an undefended part of the fort's defences.

It looked like the end for the Rohan Levy, but then as the garrison was staring death in the face ...

Great horns of the north wildly blowing.  Rohan had come at last!

The arrival of the Éoreds (1x elite riders & 2x heavy riders) was triggered by the last of the Isengard units being activated for the first time.  Keith, in command of the mounted Rohirrim, had no problems activating all three of his units so although rather late, they had all arrived together.

But would they be in time?  It started well as the ravening hordes paused their mad career to indulge in missile fire against the Rohan Levy.  But their courage held (they rolled ten), no doubt boosted by the arrival of the cavalry.

The shower of missiles was followed up by a mass of Orcs swarming over the unmanned defences to take the Levy in the rear.

 Unable to resist the levy retreated across the defences ...

Out of the Frying-pan and into the Fire!

As if the plight of the Levy wasn't bad enough, the Warg pack, rallied after its earlier retreat had sniffed out the last Scout unit in the woods.

The Éoreds, galloping to the rescue were now on the brink of intervening.

But sadly, they were just too late, as first the Levy were overrun and broken ...

... and then the last Scout unit fled the field having been savaged by the Wargs.

The only bright spot in all this misery being the Wargs' courage also failing as a result of their loss fighting the Scouts, and they retreated back into the woods.

Their rescue efforts having come to naught, all the Rohirrim could do was to wreak a terrible revenge.  And as revenge goes, theirs was pretty terrible. The first Riddermark Éored slammed into a unit of Uruks, who promptly scored 11 hits out of their 12 combat dice killing three riders, while only losing one Uruk in return.  But while the riders' courage was undaunted the Uruks fled, battered.

The fleeing Uruks were then charged by Theodred and his Royal Éored ...

... and finally thumped by the second Riddermark Éored.

Despite this, the Uruks remained unbroken, albeit bloodied.  But if they thought that they might weather the storm they were soon dismayed by cries of ...

The Eagles are Coming!

Giant Eagles (greater warbeasts) actually, coming down from the mountains[4].

I will draw the story to a close at this point as it becomes a tale of repeated charges by the Rohirrim ...

... and their allies, the Giant Eagles, and the later arriving Eagles (lesser warbeasts) ...

... followed by a couple of Trolls emerging from the mountains.

In essence, it dragged on into a fight to the last man or dog / Warg - the last member of the pack finally slinking off table, albeit with belly full of man-flesh.

 

There were some interesting bits like the Orcs seeking safety in the hillfort ...

... but really my scenario design had failed in not providing a better end-game and victory conditions.  A shame really, as it was great fun up to the point where Rohan's cavalry started to vent their anger on the enemy to cover up for their failure to arrive in time.

I must do better next time.

Then it was time to clear away and set up the final game for the following day, and that game can be found here.

Notes:

[1] Hexon terrain, by Kallistra, as are the hills and mountains.

[2] Having a whole hex separation between units means units don't have to fit entirely within a hex, if they spillover a bit, it doesn't matter so long as it's clear which hex the unit is in.  This should show up in some of the photos where figures can be seen spilling over outside their hex, but are still well separated from nearby units.

[3] I rolled the Black Dice, being used by the servants of Saruman, by mistake, but rebuffed all calls for a re-roll with the White Dice.

[4] Other non-Rohan reinforcements could be called for a turn after all the Rohan cavalry had activated, but fully absorbed by the demise of my Rohan foot I had missed the first opportunity to do so.