Category: Wargaming

I ran GAMER again at Fall In.  Interested readers can search on GAMER or G.A.M.E.R. in my blog to see entries that describe the development process for these rules.   In general, I was happy with the way the rules played.  We had one or two players who couldn’t seem to get the hang of the card-based combat mechanism, but most did.  The games flowed pretty quickly and smoothly.

Cory Ring of Cigar Box Battles sent me one of their wargaming terrain mat products.  These are beautiful terrain mats printed fleece.  Even with the roads printed on them (not all have roads), they are quite flexible.  Many, many people came by to look at the terrain.  One of the things that I like is that, being made of fleece, they drape over hills without annoying wrinkles.

Here is what it looked like after I added all the rest of the terrain bits.  I think the overall effect is quite good.  If I have any complaints, I think that this particular mat may be too woody.  I had to lay out some other felt bits to cover up some of the trees to provide fields of fire for small arms to make the WWII game more interesting.  They have many different designs, including snow, desert, stars, woodland (with roads), and woodland (without roads).  Lately they have begun making mats based on actual historical battles.  I THINK that this mat is one of two for the first day of Gettysburg.

I ran two iterations of GAMER on the same terrain.  One involved British commandos and French partisans trying to rescue a captured British general from a farm house.  The second was a meeting engagement between an American platoon and a German platoon.

The commandos advanced slowly toward the farmhouse.  The partisans took the slow route through the woods, but despite that, they made it into the farmhouse first.  They beelined upstairs and got involved in a swirling melee for three or four turns with the Germans on the second floor.  In the end, the British/French force got a narrow upper hand, and I judged that the general had been rescued.

I still have a number of details to work out, but I’ll get there.  They still aren’t as fast or fun as I had hoped, so I keep tinkering with them.  I am using the activation mechanism from Battles by GASLIGHT and the Look, Sarge family of rules, but I keep hoping to come up with something even better.

I’m having fun with the rules, and most of the people who have tried it ask me when they might be available for sale.  I’m pretty fed up with British magazines giving short shrift to all rules American (without actually playing even one game with the rules) and there being no US magazines in which to get reviews.  The TMP crowd is full of folks who generally don’t do anything themselves except criticize the efforts of other, better men (look up The Man in the Arena speech by Teddy Roosevelt).  I don’t have sock puppets.  The one time I asked members of the GASLIGHT Yahoo group to go to Board Game Geek and write about the rules, good or bad, only one person did so, and he spent a page going into gory detail about how much he disliked the new Compendium.  So, I don’t think I am going to go through the pain of writing these up for commercial publication.  I have written over a dozen sets of rules for publication, but only GASLIGHT has been even remotely successful, despite the fact that I think many of them were quite innovative in their day.  I am really proud of the Look, Sarge family of rules, but they really haven’t gotten any popular or critical note.  I have gotten tired of beating my head against a wall.  Right now, I’m just having fun solving one development problem at a time with no deadlines.  They’re shaping up nicely, but they are a long way from good yet.

As usual, the HAWKs ran a rich selection of both historical and non-historical games at Fall In.  In this post, I will show a number of pictures of our games without any narrative.

Dave turned out to be the HAWKS “iron marshal” at Fall In this year.  He ran FIVE full games at Fall In.  All Saturday he had a table set up at which he ran BOTH at Fate of Battle (Napoleonic Wars) and Bear Yourselves Valiantly (Fantasy, Ancients, and Mediaeval) AT THE SAME TIME.  He was ably assisted by David Schlegel and Geoff Graff for much of the day.

 

While there were many quality terrain setups at Fall In 2014, most were nice, but not unusual.  This setup was exceptional.  It is difficult to get a feel of scale from these photos, but this table was over 20 feet long.  There must have been over fifty vehicles.

Most of the buildings were made of foam core with printed paper over them.  Many had 3D windows and doors made from plastic to provide relief.  There were nice details like fire escapes, lots of period posters and advertisement, many bystanders engaged in daily activities, etc.

I did not have a chance to play in this game, so I have no idea whether it was fun, but is sure looked like a million dollars.

At Fall In this past weekend, I ran across this new product.  At least it was new to me.  This company, Eccentric Miniatures, it making plastic figures on square sprues.  They make bowmen, men at arms, etc.  The price of these figures is reasonable.  This pack of eight bowmen cost $12.

These are the contents of the box of longbowmen.  It is difficult to tell from these pictures, but the detail is good, and the anatomy seems right.  The faces are as good as most plastic figures I’ve seen — meaning not quite as good as lead, but still good enough for my painting ability.

What caught my eye, however, was a rack of sprues of swords, axes, maces, bows, pouches and other accessories that were available for $2 a sprue.  These would be quite handy for adding some variety to other figures.

For the past several years, the HAWKs have been putting together painted armies, running games for kids at Historicon, and giving the painted armies away to the kids (ten and under).  The first year we gave away AWI armies.  In other years we’ve given away Seven Years War, Napoleonic, and Civil War armies.  This year we will actually run two games and give away two sets of armies.  The first is 40mm ACW, and we are getting a lot of help on that project from generous volunteers.  The second is 20mm WWII (US vs. Germans).  In November the HAWKs are going to have their first painting day, so in preparation, I glued the US forces to popsicle sticks and sprayed them khaki.  The picture above shows most, but not all, of the US figures.

Usually a year or two ahead of rule development I start painting figures and building terrain so that when we start to work on the rules, we have something with which to play test.

The vehicle in the foreground is a 10mm science fiction vehicle for scale.  I recycled some packing material.  One held a replacement GFE outlet, and the other held a bottle of some sort of goopy stuff I got from my wife.  After painting them, I made some of the windows and doors in PowerPoint and printed them on label paper to stick on the buildings.

Rob Dean has been running Not Quite Seven Years War games in 54mm with home-cast figures for years.  A little over a year ago, Chris Palmer got the idea of doing it in 10mm with some variant of the Look, Sarge, No Charts rules.  As I had the day off today, I finished several units.

In a previous post I described how the country of Bergdorfreuthenheim has 21 infantry regiments and that the facing colors rotate in a seven-color sequence.  I completed 8 regiments of line infantry (for a goal of 9, since I had completed one some months ago).  I also complete a grenadier regiment.

Before I paint any more infantry, I think I’ll paint a few regiments of light cavalry.  I’ll add that to my purchase list for Fall In next month.

I have often said that much of the Warhammer 40K stuff looks more Victorian Science Fiction than “hard core” science fiction.  I have a few Warhammer vehicles that I have added some smokestacks and other bits to make into vehicles for GASLIGHT.  I have a hard time investing $50 for a single, unpainted model, but I found this one at the flea marker during our recent gaming day (Barrage).

I enjoyed putting together the kit and sprayed it black in its major assemblies.  I painted it separately and then assembled it.  I think it turned out nicely.  I’m not sure when it will make it on the table, but I’m anxious to see how it fares in its first combat.

 

A couple of weeks ago, we sent the files for BYV off to the publisher, On Military Matters.  Last weekend we reviewed two test specimens.  I tweaked the .pdf files as a result of reviewing these proofs and sent them back to On Military Matters.  These should be hitting the streets very soon.

In previous posts I’ve written about events at which the HAWKs have support Senior Leader Professional Development events and gaming days at Sam Fuson’s War Horse Farm.  One of the unit’s members is heading off to the career course, and as a going away event he requested that we run a Look, Sarge, No Charts:  World War Two game.  How could we turn down such a flattering request?  Since we were running these games in September 2014, it was apropos that we chose two battles that took place in September.

We elected to reprise our large Lvov scenario.  In this scenario, in September 1939, the Russians and Germans are converging on the Polish city of Lvov.  The Poles, however, may not rest on the defense.  While fighting in two directions to keep the Russians and Germans from linking up, they must also advance to seize German heavy artillery that are shelling Lvov from some high ground.

On the flank shown in the picture (above), Polish horse cavalry and tankettes fought against heavy German armor, halftracks, and infantry to hold a line along a stream.  After some fierce fighting, the tankettes and armored cars were overwhelmed, and the Germans broke through.  They were heading toward the key village of Zboiska when the game ended.

On the other flank, the Russian tanks finally broke through another Polish infantry battalion; however, the Poles along another creek and those shown on the hill in the picture (above) managed to strip off most of the Russian infantry support.  When the game ended, the Russian tanks were pushing toward Zboiska as well, despite a pummeling by Polish anti-tank rifles.

When the game ended, the Poles were on the slopes above Lvov destroying the German artillery, and the Russians and Germans were in no position to take Zboiska without a protracted fight.  We declared the game a Polish victory.

The second game of the day was a WWI game with Duncan’s modification of LSNC: WWII (with elements of A Union So Tested rolled in).  The scenario involved the beginnings of the battles around the Marne in September 1914.  This is a period of history in which I have little knowledge, but I’ve really enjoyed Duncan’s early WWI games.  In this scenario, the French were advancing to seize high ground on the far end of the table, while the Germans had to keep the French as far away from the high ground as possible.

Despite terrible casualties, the game was a marginal French victory.  The French had an isolated regiment on the high ground and another regiment in position to advance to the high ground (against substantial resistance).  On the French right (show above early in the game before the carnage), however, the French economy-of-force regiment was nearly wiped out and holding onto the village shown in the picture) by the skin of their teeth.

All-in-all, it was a good gaming day!