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.

Gaming Weekend - Pt.3 - Coming Up Roses

After the previous post's game was cleared away, we needed something quick to finish off the day's play.  As I had brought my 15mm Wars of the Roses (WotR) armies for Sunday's game I suggested a game of 'Never Mind the Billhooks' (NMtB).  As Martin and Steve had not played it before I offered to umpire and lead them through a game.

The game lasted longer than I thought it would and ended up with us having a rather late night.  While I have noticed before that this game starts quick but slows as the action builds, it wasn't helped by the need to explain the rules as we went, or the beer consumed as the evening wore on.  I'm afraid I haven't sold them on these rules, especially Martin, whose cavalry (two units of knight and one of hobelars) set off with the king to turn the enemy's flank ...

... and encountered a block of bills and bows who were clearly the much-beloved love-children of the Dice Gods.  This was not helped by King Edward's activation card coming up last in the pack on two successive turns!

Anyway, I'll draw a curtain over that game and move on to Sunday's WotR chit game (see Link for a description of a chit game) using DBM.  With the exception of the terrain and the absence of any of the fog effects, except for 'Edwards Luck', this was a repeat of the Barnet game at the above link.  Also, it was not played on a hex grid.

So, the battle started with Warwick moving out from his camp with the reserve to oversee the rest of the army commanded by his brother, John Neville, Marquis of Montagu; John de Vere, Earl of Oxford; and, Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter.

Coming up against them from the town of Barnet was the Yorkist army, led by King Edward IV seconded by his brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester and his trusted lieutenant, William Lord Hastings.

Almost immediately the absence of fog made itself felt as the Lancastrian guns started to take a toll on the advancing Yorkists, but battle was soon joined where the Yorkists hoped to make their better quality tell.

As might be apparent from the dice and rule book (DBM) in the above photo, and other bits in some later photos, I was fully engaged in this game and thus the photos are all game-in-progress shots complete gaming impedimenta.

Included in the next photo are the 'chits' or tiles with the commanders' coats of arms which are picked out by each player in their turn to decide which command they will play for that turn, drawing again for their next turn.

As the battle wore on, Lancastrian numbers continued to outweigh Yorkist quality until Gloucester's command became demoralised and started to flee the field; it can be seen fleeing towards the top of the photo below.

This event triggered 'Edward's Luck'[1], which almost turned the tide of battle - just one more mêlée win would've broken Montagu's command.  But it was not to be and soon the remaining Yorkist commands were overwhelmed.  

All that now remained was to determine the winner.  No-one had compromised their secret identity during the game so no-one identity was correctly guessed by the other players.  The score was therefore very much down to what had happened to the players' characters in the game.  Unsurprisingly, Steve who, before the battle started, had secretly drawn Exeter, won, with 37 victory points (VPs).  Martin, who revealed he was King Edward was left trailing a long way behind on a mere 5 VPs, mainly for managing to survive.  I, as Hastings took the wooden spoon with -1 VP!

As ever, no-one was concerned over winning or losing as these chit games are so much fun players tend to lose sight on winning and just enjoy the ride.

Notes:

[1.]  ‘Edward’s Luck’: in the fog Yorkists ignore friendly commands becoming demoralised and in Edward’s next bound he throws an extra PIP die which can be spent during his bound to control the victorious Lancastrian command, or one adjacent to that command, as if part of his command.  This represents the confusion that occurred when a friendly fire incident between Montagu and Oxford's contingents triggered the collapse of the Lancastrian army as the various factions each thought the other was betraying them.

Do I Mind The Billhooks?

I had missed out on the 'Never Mind the Billhooks' experience when it first came out and the accounts I had read since didn't seem to justify the interest they had aroused.  But, knowing I am very poor at judging rules without playing them I thought, when offered a game, I would seize opportunity to see if playing them would change my mind.

John, my most regular opponent these days, kindly brought over everything required a game, set it up and explained the rules to me.  He even let me take the Yorkist side, as I do have a clear preference in this period (actually Neville rather York).  The two sides were:

LANCASTRIAN                               YORKIST

 

Somerset (CinC, Commander)      Fauconberg (Hero)

2x Bow units                                   2x Bow units

1x Man-at-Arms unit                        2x Bill units

1x Bill unit

 

Devon (Commander)                     Edward IV (CinC, Commander)

1x Bow unit                                     1x Bow unit

1x Bill                                             1x Man-at-Arms unit

1x Pike

 

Northumberland (Dolt)                  Norfolk (Commander)

1x Knight unit                                  1x Knight unit 

                                                      1x Light Horse unit

 

In addition, both sides had one cannon and two skirmish units (one crossbow-armed and one with handguns).

Deployment: being wrapped up getting my head around the rules I forgot to take a photo of the armies as set up so, the first photo shows the table after the manoeuvre phase, which I brought to a close by opening fire with my cannon.

Manoeuvre Phase: the overview below is from the my, Yorkist, side of the table.  During the manoeuvre phase my skirmishers units had moved to the field (rough ground) on my left, matched by the opposing Lancastrian handgunners.  

On the other flank I had advanced my light horse while the enemy crossbowmen had occupied the wood.  I then advanced my cannon and opened fire.

This turned out be a great start inflicting a kill on the enemy bowmen to their front.  

Turn 1: started pretty much the same way with my gun knocking off another bowman; indicated by the strength dice next to the bow unit dropping from 12 to 10 (the green die indicates they have arrows for six shooting actions). 

On my left flank the shooting was less gratifying as my skirmishers advanced and shot at the enemy handgunners without effect, while the enemy skirmishers did kill one of my handgunners.

In the centre Fauconberg advanced his bows and bills to the forward edge of the ridge; not far enough to bring any of the enemy into range ...

... even though their centre has also advanced.

 

On the right flank, while the cameraman was looking elsewhere, Devon's bill and bow unit advanced (twice) up onto the hill where they were charged by the Yorkist light horse who didn't fancy waiting for them to start shooting.  Once the dust had settled ...

... the light horse had been cut to a quarter strength (2 out of 8) by the billmen behind whom the bowmen had wisely withdrawn.

Turn 2: saw the Lancastrian centre and right advance much closer to the Yorkist position, where they won the long-range archery duel despite only shooting once against two shooting actions by the Yorkist bowmen.  All three Yorkist archer units failed to inflict any losses from a total of six shooting actions!  Clearly Fauconberg had lost the knack of winning these long-range shoot-outs[1].   

At the same time my two Yorkist skirmish units on the left still couldn't land a hit on the single unit opposing them.  Conversely, the Lancastrian handgunners were wreaking havoc on mine - things could not go on for long like this. 

On the Yorkist right flank, to the relief of my light horse, Devon failed to activate (was the last card in the play deck[2]).

Turn 3: saw the Yorkist right, Lancastrian left, flank remaining fairly quiet with Devon moving to catch up with his men and advancing the skirmishers.

Elsewhere, the shooting suddenly took a lethal turn with the Yorkist archers finally getting the range and driving back[3] both Lancastrian bow units in the centre.  

Unfortunately for me, while my two left flank skirmish units finally managed to inflict their first kill on the Lancastrian handgunners the return fire broke my handgunners and the accompanying crossbowmen rattled by this also broke!

The newly-crowned King Edward looked on, distinctly unamused as this spoilt the generally favourable appearance of the battlefield at the end of this turn, not helped by his archers retreating daunted at the end of the turn after falling below half-strength (see below).

Turn 4: Somerset sought to retrieve the Lancastrian fortunes by launching his dismounted men-at-arms, now unsupported by any bowmen and taking losses from Yorkist archery, against the Edward's foot.

This was a bloody contest, with the Lancastrians just edging a win[4] but, with Edward looking on, the Yorkist morale held firm.  

Apart from desultory archery, not much else took place in the centre.

But, on the Yorkist right the Lancastrian crossbow skirmishers were starting to inflict serious losses on Norfolk's knights.

The photo below shows an overview of the battlefield at this point; the victorious Lancastrian skirmishers can be seen in the distance advancing through the field vacated by the routed Yorkist skirmishers.

Turn 5: and Norfolk, unwilling to let his knights just sit and be shot at, sent them in against the Lancastrian foot.  

They won the melee against the billmen, who once again took the hit as their bowmen ducked back behind them.  Unfortunately, for me, the billmen's morale stayed rock solid and my knights had to fall back from the fight. After which Devon advanced his bowmen back to the front rank.

Elsewhere, the Lancastrian's handgunners advanced to harass Edward's foot; their knights were brought forward; and, their men-at-arms lost the second round of melee, falling below half strength.  In reply Edward pivoted his archers to fire their last arrows in reply, to no effect.

The absence of the Lancastrian men-at-arms in the above, is due to their breaking as a result of the morale test required for being below half-strength at the turn end. 

An overview of the field of battle at this stage is shown below.

Turn 6: and Norfolk got to go first and again launched his knights at Devon's foot before they could shoot.

The result was draw, and with the knights blown[5], and the opposing foot still well-supplied with arrows, Norfolk, courtesy of a special event card called a local truce.  this meant neither unit could attack or shoot an enemy unit unless they are shot at or attacked.

In the centre Somerset threw in his billmen, where despite their lower numbers they managed a draw against Fauconberg's foot.

Next, Somerset threw in his knights against the Yorkist men-at-arms, beat them, and drove them back, 'daunted', through the archers behind them putting them into disarray.  The knights followed up into the ('daunted') bowmen and, unsurprisingly broke them.  

This saw Edward, the fourth king of that name, who was attached to the archers fleeing the field with his men.  And, being the commander in chief of the army this caused the Yorkist army to cede the field, handing the win to the Lancastrians.

Post Mortem

This had been an enjoyable game and convinced me there is actually much I like about the rules, and, with the availability of Perry Plastics, I can understand how the game has become so popular.

In the post-game discussion, the only aspect I hadn't liked was the way that the morale system seemed ensure that most battles would be fought almost to the last man.  On questioning whether we had this right, I asked about the exact wording of the morale system and John went through it line by line.  This revealed that we had gone wrong by adding lost morale tokens to the opponent's pool of morale tokens; they should go in a discard pile.  Looking at the respective holdings at the end of the game it was pretty clear that the Lancastrian army should have collapsed earlier in the game.

So, a fun game and both of us able to claim 'a win', what more could one ask for?

 

Notes:

[1.]  The losses on the Lancastrian bow unit (top right in the photo) are from the Yorkist cannon.

[2.]  Commanders activate, and use their orders (1,2 or 3 orders depending on whether they are rated as: 'Dolt', 'Commander' or 'Hero') when drawn from the play-deck.  The last card in play-deck is not played.

[3.]  The exceptionally heavy losses from Yorkist archery (and artillery) caused both Lancastrian bow units to take a morale test which they failed forcing them to retreat 'daunted'. 

[4.]  The Yorkist advantage in numbers after this melee is due to the shooting casualties the Lancastrians took before the combat. 

[5.]  Cavalry may only charge (including counter-charges) twice during a game.