A Scary Plan...................has Succeeded

Well everything that was for sale is sold. This included my Prussian and Austrian armies plus their respective lead piles. Also surprisingly, the Hanoverian Brigade sold quickly. With these funds I can replace my present French and Anglo-Portuguese armies with painted 18mm AB miniatures unit for unit. I received my first AB unit from Spain today and the painting has exceeded my expectations, I am chuffed.

After discussion with my friend Iannick in Montreal (he only pleaded a bit), I have decided to keep my Anglo-Portuguese Army and my Brunswick Corps in 28 mm. It is only fair, as Iannick really was my impetus early on to paint 2700 Napoleonics. Oddly enough he was also babbling something about 6mm, but we will keep that under wraps for now!

Well that leaves almost 1000 French to get rid. I have decided now that since I have the money to essentially fund almost a year of commission painting from the initial sell off, the French collection will go at a more controlled rate. The first battalion, the 54e ligne is now up on TMP. This is really the best painted unit in the collection except for maybe the 13e legere. 

Chronic Iohannes: Siege Of Cataractonium, A Dux Campaign comes to an End

Myself and Adam played another game in our Dux Britannarium campaign this past Thursday. It had been almost 2 months since our last game, but surprisingly the rules were quite fresh in both our minds. As usual, there was some confusion about supports in combat but this is really not unusual in this rule set. As much fun as the campaign was, the ruleset is little work, and it is quite difficult at times to get a clear answer to a question.

Not withstanding we had a great campaign which went from March 550AD to October 555AD, the Britons lost provinces and gained them back, the Saxon Warlord Cuthwolf rose to become a king, while Antoninus became a Legatus. Despite this difference in status they came head to head in front of the gates of Cataractonium. As usual Adam has done a great job of documenting the battle and I will refer you to his blog The Fencing Frog for some excellent photo and commentary.

I think it only fitting to present a short summary of the action from the Briton's perspective.

It was a chilly morning in late October, somewhat like this morning in Salem, Massachussetts almost 1500 years later, frost was in the air and a few snow flakes were falling. The wretched inhabitants of Cataractonium had now held out for 7 months against the continued onslaught of Cuthwolf the Red's blood thirsty Saxons. Food was running out and winter was coming. More and more Saxons were arriving to press the siege and bring it to a conclusion before the heavy snows started to fall in the Kingdom of the Old North. By now, Cuthwolf's warband had increased from 34 men to 48 men and included a foul smelling Bard as well as a demonic looking Wicca. Cuthwulf was accompanied by his man mountain champion Wulfric, as well the Nobles Wulfgeat and Eaglmund, both wodenborn.

Suddenly horns were heard from the south, and the far sighted of the besieged Britons could soon see the red cruciate emblazoned standards of their noble lord Antoninus. Was relief at hand, was their misery finally to be lifted? The Legatus had arrived and with him, thanks to the support of his  liege lord King Peredur Longspear, he had 48 hardy Britons in his force. With him was his Champion Cyneric as well as the Nobles Aefric and Morcant, who recently had been ransomed from the Saxons. The Bard Euphonius was detailing the exploits of his Lord in extremely long epic poem, while I, the Priest Iohannes was there of course to chronicle this, one of my Lord's great battles.

Both the Saxons and the Britons faced off: Songs were sang, mead was drank and champions engaged in single combat, unfortunately our Lord's exploits were drowned out by the raucous Saxons and Cuthwolf came out with twice the authority of Antoninus and Cyneric was wounded  (essentially the Saxon Lord started the battle with 4CI and a command range of 12" while The Briton Lord has his CI reduced to 2 with a command range of 6", additionally the Briton champion added only 1d6 to any fight he was involved in. Starting morale was 9 for both sides with both holding 6 Fate Cards at the start of the game).

Antoninus knew that his strength lay in his shield-wall , as well as the blood thirsty nature of his Saxon adversary. He had to appear weak in order to entice the Saxon into attacking but at the same time be able to maneuver in out out of his shield-wall at opportune moments. At the same time he had to be cautious as both he and his champion were unable to fight at their usual ability as well as voice being weakened.  Clearly his forces had not to be separated.

The Britons were able to slowly maneuver into two back to back formations, one of the elite and warriors and one of levy. This formation easily formed into a triangle when one of it's flanks was threatened, by breaking off the warriors on the Briton left flank to confront a threatening Saxon mob. The dice gods were on the side of the Britons and Saxon losses rapidly dropped their morale to 0, while the Britons had lost only 8 men. 

Victory to the Britons, the siege was lifted and the Saxons were vanquished from our shores, the campaign was over.

Well it was a great campaign; it was our second, the previous being an ACW using the Longstreet rules, which Adam won.

So we are 1 to 1, what is next I wonder?

Many thanks to Adam, he started the campaign many months ago using borrowed figures but was able to paint and field a complete Saxon force by it's end.

A Scary Plan............maybe Succeeding

Well the Austrians and Prussians are gone. I have been able to use the proceeds to duplicate my French Army unit for unit in painted 18mm AB miniatures as well as get at least a British Division. I am really pleased. All I have to do is wait 3 months!

With this sale I have decided to put up my  Front Rank Austrian and Calpe Prussian Lead Piles.

A Real Calpe Pile!

These are both going at more then 50% off with free shipping.

Up next painted is the 1st Hanoverian Brigade at Waterloo on Ebay.

Well that leaves the French, many of which can be seen here, almost 1000 figures, any offers?

Scary New Plan........Maybe

Over the last 10 years I have painted some 2700 28mm Napoleonics. Generally they are based 6 figures to 40x40mm bases in 4 stand units. Recently have felt that maybe the units should be 6 stands.

What to do........should I rebase?!!!!!!!!

At the same time two more issues have come to the forefront. Storage and terrain size. Even though I have a big gaming space the Napoleonics are consuming a considerable proportion of it and at the same time are seldom used. I also really want to stick to gaming on 4x6 terrains which I now have well sorted and transportable.

I have also found in my recent games of GBCoC and Lasalle, I would like to have a slightly larger armies on the table then I can get with the 40x40mm bases. Increasing the unit size to 6 stands essentially increases the footprint by 50%. That is not going to work on a 4x6' table.

My recent foray in ACW have shown me the advantages of 15-18 mm armies, I have a considerably sized Union army which is in one small box.

While these thoughts have been going through my head, I have been looking at painted 18 mm AB Napoleonic units that are for sale. Essentially well painted 6 stand infantry units are available for around $100. I am not crazy enough to want to start painting 18 mm Napoleonics!

So what to do? I suppose it comes down to whether in my 60th year, I want to paint or game. I like painting and I have enjoyed painting 28 mm figures and I am unlikely to stop, but I do like gaming more. For gaming tactical level Napoleonics there does appear to be an advantage with 18mm over 28mm, especially in respect to transportability and terrain size.

Pros:

• Nice shiny new armies
• Less storage space needed
• Easier to transport
• Tactical Napoleonic gaming with bigger armies on smaller tables
• I do not have a big lead pile, but what I  have I would have to sell, so I could stop looking at it
• No rebasing

Cons:

• The two groups (BTB and Montreal) with whom I game, have 28 mm Napoleonics
• Difficulty in selling my present collection in large lots quickly
• The purchase of 18 mm painted units is contingent on a neutral cash flow
• The work of packing up armies to mail

Plan:

• Sell the Austrian Brigade, I really have little interest in this army, this will tell me how hard it will be to get rid of my Napoleonics. They are on eBay now.
• If this is successful, sell the Prussian Division next. It is going to be hard for me to let go, as this is my favourite army and by far the best painted force I have. But at the same time my main Napoleonic compatriots in Montreal are not that interested in Waterloo.
• I would follow this with the French, as again Iannick in Montreal has a large French army.
• Save my British and Allies for last, and may end up keeping them so I can fight Iannick's French.

So that is all, I suspect it will all come to naught.

USMC Pacific Army List (1942-43) for Chain of Command

I have to admit that I never thought I would be researching the USMC, but over the last several days I have been doing exactly that. My son has played a couple of games of CoC with me recently and expressed interest in gaming the Solomon's campaign in the Pacific. This campaign was not covered in the basic CoC army lists nor has there been a player generated list for this period. There was one list for 1944-45 period but the USMC platoon organisation changed from a Type D to Type E in mid 1943, so this was not really accurate. There is an official list for the Japanese in the Far East in 1941-42 which contains the Type B organisation which will work for the Solomon's campaign. I have to admit it was quite interesting to read about this period and I think it will make for some excellent gaming.

Update: Here is the final version which has undergone extensive changes since first uploaded on September 16.

Update 2: After review by Rich Clarke from TFL, the crew for a BAR was changed to one man rather then 2. 

You can download a PDF here.

Some Armour

I finally got around to taking some photos of some WWII armour I painted over the summer. They are all 1/72 in plastic except one vehicle which is resin. As campaigns for Chain of Command appear, more vehicles are always required, but my impetus for painting most of these AFV's was this blog post on Wargaming with Silver Whistle. The post describes a slight variation on Chain of Command with essentially all armour forces. I was immediately attracted as I felt it was a great way to tune up on the AFV rules in CoC and to paint some vehicles that I would not usually need. It is well worth looking at this blog just for the terrain which is really the best I have seen. It was a struggle to find some of the vehicles in 1/72 but I did manage.

First up is a couple of Panthers from Armourfast. Two in a box, so quite cheap.

The vehicles are somewhat flimsy and under detailed but they are quite reasonable for wargaming and more importantly they are to scale.

The stowage is added and is from Value Gear an excellent supplier of 1/72 resins extras.

Next up is a couple of Tiger 1's, these are from Italeri and are their new rapid line for wargamers.

They really are quite excellent and easily match PSC in quality.

They also come with decals and I think may work out to be a little cheaper then PSC.

This Humber Mk II Armoured car was a little tough to find in 1/72. 

This is a Hasegawa Model, I usually stay away from Modeler's Models as there are too many pieces but this was OK and came out quite nicely. Again supplied with decals which is a plus.

Another Italeri Model, a Sd.Kfz 234 Puma.

This model was not sold as a fast build, but did have a fast build option. I am really quite impressed with Italeri. They have some very nice models which are well detailed and supplied with nice decals.

Here is a PSC Sd.Kfz 250/1. This is also a real quality kit with 3 models.

There are options to build the /1, 7, 9, 10 and 11 versions. really quite impressive.

Also from PSC is a Marder, another excellent kit.

Options to build a Panzer 38 and either the Sd.Kfz 138 or 139 versions of the Marder. Troops are included.

This little chap was the real challenge. The Silver Whistle had listed a Tetrach Light Tank in the British OB.

I finally found a resin Locust M22 from Planet Models. Nice little model, expensive but I am happy I added it.

Tiny little tank, transported by glider. Here it is next to a PSC Firefly and it is indeed to scale.

Boston Trained Bands Gamesday: The Road to St Lambert

I GMed my first game yesterday at the annual Gamesday for the Boston Trained Bands held at the Hobby Bunker in Malden, MA. I think there was around 16 games, they all looked great. There was one trench wars game that looked amazing, enormous amount of work must of went into the terrain.

As usual, I was unable to resist playing CoC, and as there were 3 different CoC games it was quite easy to find one. Eureka Miniatures US held a demo CoC game and there was another US vs Germans game held by Austin a gamer from New Hampshire. I elected to play the latter game as the participants were all seasoned CoC gamers. Through this game I met 3 other CoC gamers, Al, Tom and Chris all from central Massachusetts. It is really striking how many gaming clubs there are in this area and how many CoC players there are. It is also interesting that unlike myself these were all very seasoned gamers (I suspect 30-40 years of gaming each) and really the constant refrain was CoC is one of the best rulesets they have played. Anyway both these morning games looked great and had the full complement of gamers signing up for each.

The game I was doing was in the afternoon, one player who had pre-registered did not show up but his position was rapidly filled by Nick, a novice to CoC. I also met Greg from Southern New Hampshire another seasoned CoC gamer. With the above mentioned Chris and Austin this made my task very easy. Chris, the most experienced CoC gamer at the table, was paired with Nick. They took the Germans while Austin and Greg took the Canadians.

As previously discussed the scenario I put on was from the Falaise Gap campaign in August 1944. I made some modifications to the OB for a 4 player game with an added Section/Squad to each side as well as 2 senior Leaders per side. I felt this would be a little simpler than playing Big CoC. Otherwise the scenario was unmodified.

Modified from http://playingtheodds.com.au/crossroads-closing-the-gap-campaign/ Permission to use.

On to some photos:

The Patrol phase as usual produced it's usual gyrations with the sticks, I think I will move to lasers. There was some complaint from the Canadian players about the lack of cover in the on their right flank, but of course that is the scenario design. No reason to make it easy for the attackers. As you can see the Germans were more successful in this stage of the game. The Canadians had all the JOP's on the left side of the road, while the Germans were able to spread their 3 JOP's on both flanks with one well advanced on the road. 

The Canadians were able to place a sniper in the belltower, giving them excellent LOS over the whole terrain. 

The Canadians advanced 2 sections rapidly on their left flank and got into position to cross the road to advance on both their right and on their left. It seemed like a good strategy.

This section is now well more than half way to their objective (to be within 12" of the German table edge), so just 2' to go! 

The Germans place their Panzergrenadiers in stone house, but the Canadians responded by throwing down some smoke. Neither of the players had played British before, this is seems pretty typical in this part of the US. They are my favourite troops to play as I like the tactics of laying down smoke and  advancing.

The Germans kept their troops well hidden until the Canadian path of advance was more obvious. 

By now they have their field Mortar firing, and 2 squads on the table but none really visible to the Canadians aside from some in the stone house to the left in hard cover. 

The Canadians get across the road but take some losses including their JL being wounded. The Germans have now planked down a squad entrenched in the road and start firing at the sniper after his position was identified while they were on overwatch and he took a shot on them. The Canadians have placed their paratroop section (a bit historically incorrect) on the road in the farground with plan to advance rapidly on the German right flank. The previous section in the road has now occupied the the stone building across from the church, but seem unable to get in good position to fire at the entrenched Germans in the road. 

Beware the double 6. By now the Canadians had smoked the centre obscuring all fire from both buildings on the German side. The Canadian paratroopers then hopped the wall and started their advance to the "goal line". Unfortunately the entrenched German team was able to take out the sniper as well as kill the JL leading the team on their right flank, thus stalling their advance on that flank. They had both SL's on the other side of the road which was no help. The German turn comes up and they throw the first double 6 of the game, they are able to deploy their reserve squad and rapidly advance it within close range of the paratroopers and mow them down on their second activation. By now the Canadian assault had lost cohesion, and they decided to retreat. I believe this was the prudent option, especially if this was indeed the first scenario in a campaign.

So all in all I think it went pretty well, I think the only major dispute was whether a sniper could provide LOS for the on table Mortar team. Clearly the rules say so but I think this is probably not very correct as you can see by this discussion on the forum. It was a strange game that only one double 6 was thrown, no CoC dice were generated and thus it lasted just one turn of multiple phases. I believe both sides had the correct strategy to win the game, but the Germans were a little more adept at carrying out. It would have been nice for the Canadians to have had a SL on each flank, and maybe they should not have advanced their paratroopers until they had an CoC dice in hand so they could have interrupted the Germans with their superior close range firepower. I would like to play this game again.

Chronica Iohannes: The Battle of Fyrmæl Slæd

Myself and Adam got in a much delayed Game in our Dark Ages campaign the week before last. The Britons had the Saxons on the run in the campaign so this was going to be one of those final big battles. By now we both have expanded our war bands and decided to both introduce cavalry to our forces.

Adam has the usual excellent action report on his blog the Fencing Frog. The terrain was laid out as a forest with many open smallish meadows. I converted one of my elite units to shock cavalry as per the Dux Raider supplement rules and we decided to allow the Saxons to convert one of their warrior units to light cavalry. The battle was initially fairly even but as it progressed I came less cautious then I am usually (maybe due to working until 3 am the night before) and really pressed my troops in. Well I ended up with my worst result ever losing I think 42 men, one noble captured and one killed giving Adam an astounding 7+ victory.

A siege then ensued and just by the skin of my teeth was I able to challenge the siege in October 555. We have gone through 5 years of history and are enjoying the campaign still. We play our next game in front of the gates of Caterick next Thursday. It should be a good one.

On Other Fronts:

I have really done a lot of painting recently especially with WWII armour and terrain but seem to have transiently lost interesting in photographing things. Hopefully this will soon pass as I have lots of work to exhibit.

I am looking forward to putting off my Falaise Gap CoC game in a couple of weeks at the annual Boston Trained Bands game day. I was involved in CoC game yesterday at the Hobby Bunker, which was somewhat personally challenging in respect to my knowledge of the rules. After some review on the TFL forum, I am hoping to be well placed to GM the game.

CoC: Closing the Falaise Gap, The Road to St Lambert

I had my first game of CoC in quite some time yesterday. This was a test for a game I am presenting at the Hobby Bunker/Boston Trained Band Games Day on August 29th. Mike kindly travelled down from NH to help me test the scenario.

I used the first scenario from an excellent privately published campaign booklet Crossroads: Closing the Gap. I recommend this campaign without reservation. Click on the link and you will see a full description of the campaign.

In this scenario the Canadians have 8 supports and the Germans 4. The choices are quite limited by the campaign. Mike elected to be the attacker, he chose a 3" mortar, a 2" mortar. I am not sure what his other 2 points were. As the defender I picked a sniper and entrenchments for 1 team. The Germans started with a morale of 8 and the Canadians a morale of 9. The Canadian base line is to the left and the Germans to the right. The red circles are where the Canadian JOP's ended and the blue are where the Germans ended up. The objective was for the Canadians to get within 12 " of the German edge.

The terrain was fairly open with plenty of hedges, walls and buildings. The hedges and walls were all soft cover and medium obstacles. The building were all hard cover. 

So here we have the game underway. I placed my first squad behind the hedge and then advanced them into the open. A little chancy, but the hedges blocked LOS until you were within 2" of them and the Canadian JOP on my left flank was well back with two intervening hedges.

The Canadian section however were able to advance fairly quickly. Each unit is still out of LOS, which is slightly different then described in the rule book but correct according to the campaign. I think this will work well for a participation game. I also had placed my sniper in the building to the top left of the photo. This was quite successful initially but I forgot he was there after a while to my subsequent detriment.  The Canadians continued their advance to the leading hedge and started to shoot at the squad in the open. I took shock but in my next phase a double 6 came up and I had a CoC dice so  I was able to subsequently ambush this section with an LMG team as well as fire with the squad. 23 d6 made short work of this Canadian section and I was then able to advance this squad to my right flank and start to make their way down the road. The LMG team was kept on the table and drew back behind the building to cover my centre and right flank as now there was no real threat to my left.

A second Canadian section is skulking behind the building while the 3rd section was in the church. Mike was able to use the buildings to his advantage. You can not see them but to the right is the German squad that just took out the Canadian section in the road covering the intersection. This covered this approach quite well.

I was able to protect my right flank with a squad in entrenchments, they were kept on overwatch. The Canadians certainly stayed away from that edge, but subsequently made their way through the gap in the 2 buildings. I also popped my remaining rifle team to their rear to act a back up to this squad.

We can see this action here. By now the Canadians have got all their supports out and are bombarding the centre with both heavy mortars and smoke. They were essentially able to immobilize the squad in the road causing them to be pinned and lose LOS. This allowed the Canadian section in the church to advance to my front with their third section while the second section who had been in the road made their way around the building and started to fire. This well entrenched German squad was now taking fire from two Canadian sections and were starting to take attrition despite being in hard cover. A double 6 came up for the Canadians, they were able to fire yet again without retort and then sent in one of their sections to assault the German squad and despite having a slight advantage in d6, the Germans lost all 5 remaining men with their JL and while the Canadians lost 4 as well as their JL. The Canadians were down to a Morale of 5 while the Germans were still at 6.

My troops in the centre and in reserve were still pinned by the barrage, I was able to end it but on the next turn Mike again got double 6's and was able to quickly restart the barrage and again hit right on target without an aiming shot.. My SL, the sniper, a full squad as well as an LMG team were all again caught in the barrage with just one German rifle team free.  The attrition started to pile up with the continued barrage so we decided to call it quits with a marginal Canadian victory being declared. I had no CoC Dice pips and it was going to a grind.

I must say it was quite an enjoyable game, and I think if I had not forgot about my sniper, I could of probably taken out the Canadian FO and won. I think it will be a good participation game and am looking forward to it. Mike suggested that I not have the 3" Mortar as an option of support but I will have to think about this.