No charge!
Absolutel Absol utely y FREE inside: A selection of articles from issues 1-1 1-18, pack packed ed with the ki kind nd of thought-provoking and fun ideas our reader readerss say they lov lovee about Battlegames Battlegames!
Supporting
Editorial
Contents
elieve me, there have been times when I didn’t think I’d make it into double gures with the magazine, let alone be celebrating three years and looking orward to it entering its twenties! But here we are, and it seemed appropriate to commemorate the occasion and to say “thank you” to everyone who has helped and supported Battlegames since its launch in 2006, either by contributing, advertising, buying the magazine, or simply speaking well o it to others, whether they have been a subscriber since day one, or have just picked up (or downloaded) the occasional issue. I extend my sincere gratitude to them all. At the same time, this is also a convenient vehicle or those o you who may be completely new to the magazine to gain an insight into what Battlegames is all about. Tis is perhaps harder to dene, but our subscribers are quick to tell me that they enjoy the very dierent favour o my publication to the other wargaming periodicals. Each o the others has their merits, o course, and refect the approach to the hobby o their Editors and production teams – and it just so happens that I read all o them mysel! So what’s dierent about mine? Firstly,, I’m a writer Firstly wri ter,, so the content o my magazine refects my passion or original, high quality, thought-provoking and entertaining writing. I take great pride in encouraging new writers, as well as giving space to many o the hobby’s ‘established’ ‘es tablished’ names. We have gained a reputation or tackling thorny subjects and not being araid to say precisely what we think about products and services available to the wargamer.. Te Recce section is oten the rst section our wargamer regular readers turn to, and I have included an example here. I’ve also been a graphic designer or nearly 20 years, and I’m red-hot on what what these days is called ‘usability’: in other words, conveying inormation in a clean, uncluttered style that is easy to read, avoiding distracting graphics wherever possible. But most importantly, I’m a wargamer, wargamer, and with every issue I assemble, I have the privilege o choosing rom a wide range o superb articles that have been submitted by ellow enthusiasts just like you, to create the magazine that, as a wargamer, I want to read. I’m just grateul – and relieved! – that so ar, thousands o others have enjoyed my choices. O course, I hope that you will too.
Editorial
2
Te Battlegames Combat Stress Appeal
3
B
Battlegames magazine is a bimonthly publication of Battlegames Ltd, 17 Granville Road, Hove BN3 1TG, East Sussex. Company No. 5616568. All content © Battlegames Battlegames and its contributors. contributors. Strictly Strictly no reproduction without prior written consent. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in articles are those of the individual authors and reviewers concerned. Editor: Henry Hyde, email
[email protected], Editor: tel. 01273 323320. Web www.battlegames.co.uk legames.co.uk Web:: www.batt Design, layout and typesetting by Henry Hyde in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop on Apple Intel iMac. Set in Adobe Warnock Pro Pro and Helvetica Neue. Neue. Photography by Henry Hyde using Fuji S7000 except where Photography by otherwise credited.
Support the charity that cares or veterans sufering rom PSD
Issue 1 – Wargaming: how it all began
4
Don Featherstone, UK
Issue 2 – Game day protocols
8
Bill Protz, US A
Issue 3 – A project too far, far, part I
10
Phil Olley, UK
Issue 4 – Te art of bad generalship
14
Robert Piepenbrink, USA
Issue 5 – able top top teaser: trouble trouble on on reasure reasure Island 16 C. S. Grant, UK
Issue 6 – Te Wars Wars of the Faltenian Faltenian Succession part VI
19
Henry Hyde, UK
Issue 7 – A brush with musketeers
22
Dave Robotham, UK
Issue 8 – Race to the Rhine part 1
25
Barry Hilton, UK
Issue 9 – Quickdraw
30
Andy Sykes, UK
Issue 10 – Kriegsspiel rides again
36
Richard Clarke, UK
Issue 11 – Forward observer
40
Mike Siggins, UK
Issue 12 – Battles for wargamers: ra rautenau utenau 1866
43
Stuart Asquith, UK
Issue 13 – Computer cartography for wargamers
48
yler Provick, Canada
Issue 14 – Figure piracy: scourge of the hobby?
53
Bob Barnetson, Canad a
Issue 15 – o boldly go
57
Roger Smith, UK
Issue 16 – ally ho!
60
im Beresord, UK
Issue 17 – Have you seen my Neil Neil Diamond CD?
67
Diane Sutherland, UK
Issue 18 18 – Recce
70
Products and services re viewed by our team
Te Battlegames shop
81
Te place to order your subscription and much more
Cover: Te Scots Greys charge at Waterloo during a magnifcent 28mm game staged by Loughton Strike Force Force at Salute 2008. Te game won “Best o Show” and maintained the club’s reputation or staging superlative demonstrations.
Copy editing and proong by Henry Hyde and Steve Gill Advertisers, contributors and and businesses businesses wishing wishing to send samples for photography and review should contact the Editor. TRADE PLEASE NOTE: NOTE: Battlegames does NOT ask its reviewers to contact companies direct unless by previous arrangement authorised by the Editor in writing. In all other cases, please send items for review to the address above Subscription enquiries should be addressed to the Editor or you can subscribe online. Current rates (as at September 2009) are £31.50 per annum post-free in the UK; EU Airmail £36.00; Rest of the World Economy Airmail £43.00. http://battlegames.wordpress.com/ wordpress.com/ Blog: http://battlegames. Blog: Podcast: “View from the Veranda” with Neil Shuck can be Podcast:
downloaded from http://www.m http://www.meeplesandminiatures.co. eeplesandminiatures.co.uk/ uk/ PLEASE KEEP US ADVISED OF ANY POSTAL OR EMAIL ADDRESS CHANGES. STAY IN TOUCH!
All event notications for inclusion in our calendar calendar should be sent to Richard Tyndall (Tricks) of the Newark Irregulars at
[email protected] All submissions and articles should should initially be sent to the the Editor. We recommend submission of articles via email . Battlegames Ltd takes no responsibility for unsolicited articles. Please apply or see our website for submission guidelines.
Editorial
Contents
elieve me, there have been times when I didn’t think I’d make it into double gures with the magazine, let alone be celebrating three years and looking orward to it entering its twenties! But here we are, and it seemed appropriate to commemorate the occasion and to say “thank you” to everyone who has helped and supported Battlegames since its launch in 2006, either by contributing, advertising, buying the magazine, or simply speaking well o it to others, whether they have been a subscriber since day one, or have just picked up (or downloaded) the occasional issue. I extend my sincere gratitude to them all. At the same time, this is also a convenient vehicle or those o you who may be completely new to the magazine to gain an insight into what Battlegames is all about. Tis is perhaps harder to dene, but our subscribers are quick to tell me that they enjoy the very dierent favour o my publication to the other wargaming periodicals. Each o the others has their merits, o course, and refect the approach to the hobby o their Editors and production teams – and it just so happens that I read all o them mysel! So what’s dierent about mine? Firstly,, I’m a writer Firstly wri ter,, so the content o my magazine refects my passion or original, high quality, thought-provoking and entertaining writing. I take great pride in encouraging new writers, as well as giving space to many o the hobby’s ‘established’ ‘es tablished’ names. We have gained a reputation or tackling thorny subjects and not being araid to say precisely what we think about products and services available to the wargamer.. Te Recce section is oten the rst section our wargamer regular readers turn to, and I have included an example here. I’ve also been a graphic designer or nearly 20 years, and I’m red-hot on what what these days is called ‘usability’: in other words, conveying inormation in a clean, uncluttered style that is easy to read, avoiding distracting graphics wherever possible. But most importantly, I’m a wargamer, wargamer, and with every issue I assemble, I have the privilege o choosing rom a wide range o superb articles that have been submitted by ellow enthusiasts just like you, to create the magazine that, as a wargamer, I want to read. I’m just grateul – and relieved! – that so ar, thousands o others have enjoyed my choices. O course, I hope that you will too.
Editorial
2
Te Battlegames Combat Stress Appeal
3
B
Battlegames magazine is a bimonthly publication of Battlegames Ltd, 17 Granville Road, Hove BN3 1TG, East Sussex. Company No. 5616568. All content © Battlegames Battlegames and its contributors. contributors. Strictly Strictly no reproduction without prior written consent. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in articles are those of the individual authors and reviewers concerned. Editor: Henry Hyde, email
[email protected], Editor: tel. 01273 323320. Web www.battlegames.co.uk legames.co.uk Web:: www.batt Design, layout and typesetting by Henry Hyde in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop on Apple Intel iMac. Set in Adobe Warnock Pro Pro and Helvetica Neue. Neue. Photography by Henry Hyde using Fuji S7000 except where Photography by otherwise credited.
Support the charity that cares or veterans sufering rom PSD
Issue 1 – Wargaming: how it all began
4
Don Featherstone, UK
Issue 2 – Game day protocols
8
Bill Protz, US A
Issue 3 – A project too far, far, part I
10
Phil Olley, UK
Issue 4 – Te art of bad generalship
14
Robert Piepenbrink, USA
Issue 5 – able top top teaser: trouble trouble on on reasure reasure Island 16 C. S. Grant, UK
Issue 6 – Te Wars Wars of the Faltenian Faltenian Succession part VI
19
Henry Hyde, UK
Issue 7 – A brush with musketeers
22
Dave Robotham, UK
Issue 8 – Race to the Rhine part 1
25
Barry Hilton, UK
Issue 9 – Quickdraw
30
Andy Sykes, UK
Issue 10 – Kriegsspiel rides again
36
Richard Clarke, UK
Issue 11 – Forward observer
40
Mike Siggins, UK
Issue 12 – Battles for wargamers: ra rautenau utenau 1866
43
Stuart Asquith, UK
Issue 13 – Computer cartography for wargamers
48
yler Provick, Canada
Issue 14 – Figure piracy: scourge of the hobby?
53
Bob Barnetson, Canad a
Issue 15 – o boldly go
57
Roger Smith, UK
Issue 16 – ally ho!
60
im Beresord, UK
Issue 17 – Have you seen my Neil Neil Diamond CD?
67
Diane Sutherland, UK
Issue 18 18 – Recce
70
Products and services re viewed by our team
Te Battlegames shop
81
Te place to order your subscription and much more
Cover: Te Scots Greys charge at Waterloo during a magnifcent 28mm game staged by Loughton Strike Force Force at Salute 2008. Te game won “Best o Show” and maintained the club’s reputation or staging superlative demonstrations.
Copy editing and proong by Henry Hyde and Steve Gill Advertisers, contributors and and businesses businesses wishing wishing to send samples for photography and review should contact the Editor. TRADE PLEASE NOTE: NOTE: Battlegames does NOT ask its reviewers to contact companies direct unless by previous arrangement authorised by the Editor in writing. In all other cases, please send items for review to the address above Subscription enquiries should be addressed to the Editor or you can subscribe online. Current rates (as at September 2009) are £31.50 per annum post-free in the UK; EU Airmail £36.00; Rest of the World Economy Airmail £43.00. http://battlegames.wordpress.com/ wordpress.com/ Blog: http://battlegames. Blog: Podcast: “View from the Veranda” with Neil Shuck can be Podcast:
downloaded from http://www.m http://www.meeplesandminiatures.co. eeplesandminiatures.co.uk/ uk/ PLEASE KEEP US ADVISED OF ANY POSTAL OR EMAIL ADDRESS CHANGES. STAY IN TOUCH!
All event notications for inclusion in our calendar calendar should be sent to Richard Tyndall (Tricks) of the Newark Irregulars at
[email protected] All submissions and articles should should initially be sent to the the Editor. We recommend submission of articles via email . Battlegames Ltd takes no responsibility for unsolicited articles. Please apply or see our website for submission guidelines.
Te Battlegames Com Combat bat Stress Appeal If you enjoy this special issue, then please help rebuild veterans’ lives A note from the Editor
Tis special edition is i s completely ree to download, but please spend a couple o minutes reading this message, in support o the work o Combat Stress, the only charity entirely dedicated to helping our ex-services personnel personnel who have been psychologically injured through active service.
he facts Post raumatic raumatic Stress Disorder is a growing problem or our ex-service men and women. Ovr l our yr, r bn 66% 66% inr in numbr numbr o nw Vrn king lp rom Comb Sr . Some can suer the eects almost immediately, but or many, it may be years, even decades later that the horrors o their involvement in a conict can hit home, aecting not only themselves, but o course their amily and riends as well. Psychological casualties orm, perhaps, the majority o overall casualty numbers, but are given the least resources to be treated and remain the least well understood. On average, Veterans contact Combat Stress 14 years ater leaving the Armed Services. Servi ces. Many are in a desperate situation and a large proportion have started to sel-medicate with alcohol and/or drugs. Tere is great concern about the level o uture demand rom those involved in recent operations in Iraq and Aghanistan: the huge growth in the numbers o Veterans is likely to utterly swamp the system and overload the charity’s already modest resources. In addition, the increased use o the erritorial erritorial Army and other reservists means that suerers could easily be sitting next to you in your place o work or standing next to you in a supermarket. Tey are men and women, young and old, who risked everything everything to serve the causes our governments have dictated: to serve us.
Please mention the Battlegames Combat Stress Appeal when doing so. How to donate Donate online at www.jugiving.om/blgm www.jugiving.om/blgm/ /.
Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s It’s also the most efcient way to raise unds: Combat Stress gets your money aster and, i you’re a UK taxpayer, taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Git Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation. You can also send a cheque md pybl o Comb Sr to the ollowing address: T Blgm Comb Sr Appl 17 Granville Road, Hove BN3 1G East Sussex, UK Please do not make cheques for this appeal payable to Battlegames. Every single penny o your donation will go towards helping those who have put themselves in the line o re on our behal. Your support is greatly appreciated. ogether, we can really make a dierence.
So, what can we do?
First o all, we can help the charity immediately by donating. It doesn’t matter i you can only aord a Dollar, a Pound or a Euro – every and any amount helps in the most direct way possible, enabling Combat Stress to provide acilites and highly trained sta to treat Post raumatic raumatic Stress Disorder and related conditions. O course, i you are in a position to donate more, your git will wi ll be hugely appreciated. Secondly,, we can spread the word. It’s amazing Secondly how many people still aren aren’t ’t aware that Combat Stress exists, and i just one ex-service person nds the help they need because o the word-o-mouth publicity you provide, then you may may just have saved saved a lie. And nally, nally, you can o course decide to help raise unds or the cause yoursel. I you think you could help in this this way, then then contact: Jopin Gr Fundriing Dprmn Comb Sr Ex-Srvi Mnl Wlr Soiy yrwi Hou Oklwn Rod Lrd, Surry K22 0BX Blgm
3
Wargaming: how it all began Fond memories of the early days of the modern hobby hand-typed and duplicated journal with separate photographs stuck in each copy. I can recall sitting up in bed reading it until my wife rebelled, then waking at dawn to continue in the early light of argaming, that bloodless day! Such enthusiasm might be hard to but inspiring military imagine now, but both Tony Tony and I became be came preoccupation, has caused increasingly restless as the time came the years to pass so rapidly that often I round for our copies of Wargames Digest ask myself, “what on earth would I have to fall through the letterbox and phones done with my life if I had not discovered rang between us anxiously enquiring wargaming?’” Certainly, Certainly, there would be if there was any news. ne ws. Even today, rea grave shortage of warm and humorous reading those tattered old magazines is memories, an undoubted dearth of good both stimulating and helpful, many of friends and acquaintances, and an existence the ideas and suggestions put forward far less full and colourful than has been by its worldwide handful of wargaming the case. Counting childhood floor games subscribers continue to hold merit. with Britain’s Britain’s 54mm soldiers and not As the hobby got into its stride, other cheating by including those years when, journals began to appear and it is an in uniform, I participated in the greatest interesting reflection that there were wargame of them all, I have been fighting as many purely wargaming magazines battles with model soldiers for more than circulating in those days as exist today. today. three-quarters of my life. Looking back When Jack Scruby ceased producing on it all, undoubtedly the pioneer days Wargames Digest from America, Tony of more than 50 years ago were the most Bath and I coedited coe dited it in this country, while interesting, yet the greatest stimulus Jack put out another journal Tabletop occurred some 25 years before that – and Talk . en came my own Wargamers it is doubtful if today’s today ’s wargamers can Newsletter , beginning in April 1962 and ever achieve anything so exciting and published regularly each month without momentous as those schoolboy discoveries a single omission for 18 years until, in in the local library when first encountering January 1980, when it was being H.G. Wells’ classic book Little published by Tradition of London, Wars, and Robert Rober t Louis Stevenson’s it fell victim to rising costs of Yallobelly Times, later immortalized production and inadequate by Lloyd Osbourne’s Stevenson at support from the people for Play, first published in Scribner’s whom it was written. It is an Magazine in December 1898. indication of changing attitudes ese two great British writers that, in the early days, the majority were a pair of eternal boys who, of wargamers supported these back in the misty realms of magazines by both subscribing nostalgically peaceful days more to them and contributing regular than 100 years ago, pioneered articles – some of them being games of battles with model the truly classical literature of soldiers, controlled by ingenious the hobby (remember “At the rules to which practically every Colonel’s Table”?). But later, set of rules since conceived owes when there came rushing into something. Quickly realising that the hobby enthusiasts lacking the Wells Wel ls had answered most of my ‘traditional’ background, there was miniature battlefield problems, a marked disinclination to spend his book became my Bible: the cash on anything but actual model immense thrill of discovering it soldiers! My own son represented perhaps only matched by that of this group – he never once read later years when I realised there Wargamers rgamers Newsletter a copy of Wa was another sex called girls and nor a single one of my many that they were different to boys. published wargaming books! At the time, I did not realise that At first, the very scarcity of these literary efforts represented, fellow wargamers – only the Te late Jack Scruby of California, veteran American wargamer so far as I am concerned,
by Donald Featherston
W
classical contributions to the art of remaining young despite one’s years! No longer did my armies of Britain’s 54mm soldiers mill around on the floor in semi-purposeless conflict. Now the Battle of Hook’s Farm was fought, first to Wells’ rules and then, for the first time, I began adapting and amending someone else’s rules to suit my own temperament and inclinations. at first adventure was perhaps the greatest stimulus of my wargaming career; since then, there have been others, mainly personality stimuli in the form of other wargamers, early pioneers who, whilst raising the hobby from a childish pastime, gladly gave much of themselves in the form of help, experience and knowledge to their fellow-hobbyist. High on the list was American Jack Scruby, whose home-produced magazine Wargames War games Digest reincarnated thirty years later those same thrills experienced experienced when first discovering the book Little wars. is occurred at the same time as I encountered my very first wargames opponent – Tony Bath (who sadly died in 2000, a great loss to the hobby and to those who knew him). He lent me the first four copies of this wonderful
most fortunate possessed a local opponent – made friends of us all, so that men from many walks of life and of all conceivable types and temperaments gladly gave advice by letter or telephone, loaned books, and made models for the less skilful. When a gathering was planned, every one of the known wargamers broke blood vessels to be present and, at the very first ever Wargames Convention held in my house (luckily, a large Victorian one then) in Southampton in about 1960, I think every known wargamer (except Ed Saunders from Taunton, who was a bit of a loner) attended. Some travelled down from Yorkshire, others from the West Country, the late Charles Grant Snr. came from Kent, and others from London, to compete in a ‘Pairs Wargame Championship’ when Stan Aspinall from Huddersfield and myself defeated Charlie Grant and Bill Mell in the final. It was marked by the presence of one of the real veteran wargamers, who had been fighting tabletop battles before World War Two – evidently they paid off, because Brigadier Peter Young DSO, MC, etc., became a world-famous commando leader and perhaps Britain’s most decorated soldier of the Second World War. I had read of him and here he was, wargaming on my table and eating in my house. Oh, what a glow it all produced! e following year, we branched out and held a small convention at a lo cal hotel. About 20 came, including Ted Suren (later of ‘Willie’ figures); David Chandler; Peter Young; the late Charles Grant and his son (now a Brigadier and contributor to this magazine); plus about four of us in the area. e talks were good and informative, the wargaming stimulating; the social features included a recreation of Wells’ famous Battle of Hook’s Farm, using photographs from his book Little Wars on an overhead projector, while a background narrative was read from the book. From what was learned here originated the first ever National Wargames Championships Conventions, where a silver salver presented by Airfix Productions Ltd was fought for and, I believe, is still the trophy annually contested. In point of fact, that salver was placed in my custody and I suppose legally this is still the case – I wonder who has it now? Anyway, this affair was attended by about a hundred wargamers from all over the country and we took over the Cotswold Hotel in Southampton where visitors stayed and where a dinner was
Don wargaming with Brigadier Peter Young
held at which prizes were given for such stimulating things as those wives who regularly wargamed with their husbands – and a special prize for any wife who had beaten her husband (there was one – I think it was Mary Bath). e London Wargames Club won the trophy and the custom originated of the winners hosting the following year’s Championships. A most stimulating practice that holds nostalgic memories was the way the few existing wargamers travelled up and down Britain to stay with each other for wargaming weekends. Because only a lucky few had so far found local opponents, these visits represented the only real personal contact with others of like interests, often men who had been at it longer, or possessed specific talents so that talking to them usually revolutionised one’s whole approach to the hobby. Visiting – or having a guest – kindled enthusiasm resembling those of supporters of Manchester United. For weeks we corresponded and exchanged maps, plans and details of the forthcoming battle; although we worked on the principle that it was fought under the host’s house rules, often they were amended by mutual consent to suit the conflict we had in mind. is was necessary because it was absolutely essential that that particular wargame should be a success, that it should not flop or fall short of our expectations – and rarely did they! On the appointed day, one set off to drive to some distant place – 500 miles round-trips in a weekend were commonplace! Our army was carefully packed in a protective case, if it was to be a challenge game between his and your forces, although I always found it stimulating to play with the host’s armies, for a change. is was particularly applicable when visiting the late Charles Grant, who had large numbers of troops
and a fine large table in a huge attic at the top of his gracious house in Dover. As I write, I can still sense the excitement, the glow of pleasure at those wonderful weekends, when we wargamed – and argued – with Charles and his son, with Peter Young at his house near the Royal Military College at Camberley, where he headed the History Department. He was noted for his huge table, so large that it was not physically possible to reach the middle, so there was a hatch which opened up in the centre of the table and troops moved thus. I can picture Peter’s round, white-moustached face appearing like a pantomime demon from beneath the table, and one had to watch out for his sharp practice of disturbing formations and replacing them – to his opponent’s invariable disadvantage! Brigadier Young was a benevolent autocrat who liked to win and amid his ploys was the use of frequent drinks to bemuse his opponents; it seemed the rules were made up as the battle progressed, invariably ton his advantage. One occasion remains in my memory, when he umpired a battle in which I fought a pair of Territorial Army lads, who stood to attention whenever addressed by Peter. Unfortunately, my lack of similar deference seemed to fuel the umpire’s venom towards me and my protests were met with a bland: “If you wish to appeal, make it in an official manner.” On each and every occasion, the answer was: “Appeal dismissed! Carry on as before!” It was a large and very impressive wargame, using vast quantities of terrain materials, etc., borrowed from Sandhurst, with a cunning narrative that forced me to employ half my 18th century army rescuing the Captain-General’s mistress from a castle behind enemy lines and escorting her coach to safety! One of the most gifted of the early wargamers was Ed Saunders, whose enthusiasm knew no bounds. So much so that, desiring a wargames room and not having one in his small Taunton house, he burrowed beneath the foundations to dig a subterranean cavern with earthen walls entered by a hole hacked in the house brickwork at ground level! Fighting down there was an indication of what it must have been like to be buried alive! Here I fought on the first sandtable of my acquaintance, that led to me making one for myself, but they take a long time to set up and figures get lost in the sand,
slashing at us with sabres – arousing even so that machine-gunners of long-past more laughter. Unfortunately, it was all battles tend to tun up in the middle too much for Bill, who glared at us before of an Ancient or Napoleonic affair. firmly grasping the table and tipping it up At this time, an amusing incident so that soldiers, houses, trees, roads, rivers occurred when another colourful character, and so on and so forth, cascaded down Bill Gunson, built himself a sandtable. upon peter and I in what we claim must be Home on leave from Kuwait where he the only occasion when wargamers have was in the oil business, Bill rented a house literally been ankle-deep in model soldiers! on the seafront at a little Welsh village I always enjoyed wargaming against near Portmadoc and promptly annexed a the late Peter Gilder, a shrewd general first-floor bedroom as a wargames room. who deployed superbly modelled and Knocking together a sturdy timber table, painted armies on the most breathtaking he and a helper, using a bucket and a terrain. For many years, when he lived in long rope, drew up countless buckets of Norfolk, we had an annual wargaming sand from the beach below and heaped date after I had done a stint of lecturing it onto the table, until ceasing wear ily for athletics coaches at Loughborough lunch in the room below. Midway through and made my devious way home via the meal, the ceiling above began to sag his house. e first of them was a large through the weight of the table and its American Civil War game, using Airfix nine-inch depth of sand. Hastily thrown figures but, as it was before they issued from the window whence it had arrived, their range for that war, Peter had done the sand returned to the beach much more some amazing conversions on hundreds quickly and easily than it had come up! of quite different types. A feature of the What can be classed as one of game was a magnificent terrain piece wargaming’s legends occurred in that about two feet square – a harbour and house, when Bill entertained Peter Gilder surrounding hills. I praised it and, with from Norfolk, Gibb McCall (a crime writer typical generosity, Peter presented it to on the Manchester Daily Mail) and myself me. I still use it and it has featured in from Southampton. Driving about 275 illustrations in some of my books. Always miles to that place, I wa s conscripted into open-handed, Peter gave, or sold to me a tabletop battle within minutes of arrival at ridiculously low prices, a number of and was desperately trying to keep awake his beautifully painted regiments which at about 3 a.m. when it was still going on. remain among my most favoured units. Bemused by fatigue and the complexity of the rules, cravenly I sought my bed by recklessly throwing my entire army into a suicidal flank attack that I hoped would end the game – the crazy rules ensured that I did, and we won! Next day there was an acrimonious rules discussion after breakfast before beginning the huge battle planned, with Bill’s hundreds of Hinton Hunt Napoleonics, plus those of Peter Gilder, who partnered me against Bill and Gibb McCall. After many hours of inconclusive combat, Bill charged our Light Division (some 150 riflemen), snugly firing from behind a stone wall, with about 400 French cavalry – but alas, his Te first ever wargames convention, Southampton 1959 judgement of distance was at fault and he ended up with hordes of Perhaps wargamers still visit each cuirassiers, chasseurs, lancers, dragoons other for enjoyable weekends, but it is and hussars about half an inch from the doubtful their trips mean as much to wall. Subsequently, when he announced them as ours did to us, when there were that they were méléeing our riflemen, Peter so few wargamers in the country that and I howled with derision and pointed we all knew each other! More than just out that they had not reached the target. wargames, these occasions gave us heart is did not deter Bill, who claimed they to soldier on in our own lonely way, in the were leaning over their horses’ heads,
face of difficulties, discouragement and often downright sneering. e drive home was made bearable by minds brimming over with new ideas for improving our armies, our terrain, our rules and the hobby in general; and in bed that night, sleep came slowly despite fatigue, as our overworked minds mulled over tactical mistakes, controversial rule interpretations and plans for the next meeting. It could be that the sole common factor existing between those far-gone days and the present is the time one needs to take up with the hobby, because it truly seems that today’s wargamer only needs sufficient financial resources and he can build up wonderful armies of any scale, period and type. Early wargamers fought their battles with an astonishing variety of figures and armies, few alike in any shape or form, the only basic resemblance being their small scale – and even so, we were often forced to mix figures of different sizes in somewhat grotesque arrays. In the very beginning, it was medieval battles using Tony Bath’s 54mm figures, a scale used by few today, although Ken Brooks, a President of the Wessex Military Society in the late 1970s, carried out thoughtful tactical exercises with exquisitely converted and painted 54mm Napoleonics and British colonials. Of course, Mike Blake, Ian Colwill and the late Steve Curtis brought a completely new dimension to those large-scale figures, converting them astonishingly for their stimulating Individual Skirmish Wargames – even sexy saloon girls emerged from a team of Airfix 1:32 scale footballers! We battled with whatever we could buy, swop or make and one wonders how many of today’s wargamers actually make their own figures. In the beginning, we slaved over hot stoves more often than our wives, only we were dangerously casting otherwise unobtainable figures in molten metal. ere was an immense satisfaction on prising from the mould a pristine silver casting, tempered somewhat on surveying the surrounding of flash that we knew had to be laboriously filed away before the figure could be painted. Most of us made moulds out of Plaster of Paris (this was before the boon of Silastomer) that rapidly degenerated and crumbled so that each successive casting bore an increased halo of surplus metal or flash. Attempts to ‘patch’ the mould seldom worked. e more skilled also made their own original
Germans; very few were cavalry. Soon, I figures to be used as the ‘master figure’ parachutes on their backs, who, with discovered the true beauty of these figures for making the mould. All of us wore our much filing, moulding of Plasticene and – they could be dramatically converted fingers to the bone filing away flash... soldering, emerged as Bavarian standardinto something quite different with My collection included models of bearers for my Franco-Prussian War army! ridiculous ease, using a razor blade and long-gone makers. S.A.E. (Swedish To this day, I wargame in much the building up with Plasticene painted with African Engineers), were the very first same spirit, rarely buying in any quantity nail varnish. It was not long before they all soldiers I ever bought. I purchased the the plentiful and excellent ranges of readybecame either Federals or Confederates! entire stock of the local shop, rescuing made commercial figures now available. en I discovered the address of their them from his cellar because no-one was e heterogeneous armies on my shelves actual maker and made the acquaintance interested in them. ese were 30mm were born through whim and enthusiasm, figures designed by a renowned stimulated by a purely personal Swedish designer, Holger preference of not reproducing Eriksson, and manufactured any particular historical battle first in Ireland, then in Madeira, or campaign except with the and finally in South Africa. correct armies. As I have Fortunately for the hobby, the always found new fascinations range has been rescued by Peter when reading military history, Johnstone of Spencer Smith, this has resulted in having and are available again today. to assemble fresh armies for each new period of interest, ere were beautiful colonials on reflection it usually worked by American Tom Cox, and out that a few hours battling off-beat types by George van in the new period involved Tubergen, alongside masterpieces months of work assembling the by Charlie Stadden, Jack Scruby, armies! To do this, a system was Hinton Hunt, Ted Suren (‘Willie’ evolved revolving around TV range), cheek-by-jowl with more programmes: I painted up an modern offerings by Minifigs, entire Seven Years’ War set-up Don with the late Peter Gilder, fighting their first ever wargame in Peter’s Hinchliffe, Lamming, Dixon, watching World Cup football; house at Scredington, Suffolk, in the mid 1960s. Te piece of terrain so plus a vast host of painted and the Olympic Games resulted in generously given to Don by Peter is in the centre of the picture. converted plastic figures by Airfix in HO/OO scale and in 30mm by the arrival of American, British Spencer Smith (cast nowadays in pe wter). of Ronald Spencer-Smith, at that time a and German airborne divisions, about travelling salesman for Britains Ltd, which ose plastics have a very special place 3,000 figures; and my medieval families caused transactions in his side-line to be in my affections because discovering (a concept something between normal carried out in the greatest secrecy! Needing them probably kept me in the hobby at wargaming and individual skirmishing cavalry, I persuaded him to make a mould a time when my collecting had come to with a detailed narrative scenario) using the S.A.E. Prussian Uhlan, but had a full stop simply because there were no was spawned via a rigid ruling that I to guarantee purchasing 1,000 of them! viable sources of supply, which seems was allowed to paint on Saturday and I sold 500 or so, and converted the rest inconceivable nowadays! Collecting Sunday evenings while watching TV. into lancers of all nations and periods, S.A.E. figures was difficult because their When I write a sheer nostalgic article natives (turbans are easy to make and shipments were so rare and no system like this, one lays oneself open to the all-concealing!), Napoleonic dragoons, prevailed, so that one had to take pot luck charge of living in the past, of hectoring chasseurs, hussars, British cavalry of the with their sole British agent in Brighton. today’s wargamers with the claim that Victorian era, etc. All of them remained in e only other known source was Jack it was better in the Old Days. ese my collection for decades, although a trifle Scruby in California, who only had facilities words are not written in that spirit at battered through the passing of time and to turn out relatively limited numbers all: they revive happy memories that will a freezing winter when the chill wargames of figures, so that delivery times were never return, thrilling and stimulating room caused the plastic to become lengthy, whilst Customs Duty on these days made even more colourful by brittle, resulting in many breakages. imported ‘toys’ added greatly to their cost. nostalgia and the imagination. [e Editor winces in sympathy: I’ve had I did not fancy the flat figures beloved of Today’s wargamers will, over the course many casualties to brittle plastic too .] Tony Bath, Archie Cass and the Bantocks of the years, have their own memories and – all veteran wargamers with enormous dreams, will fondly recall incidents and I do not suppose it applies now, but in numbers of German-made flats, being events as I do. It is hoped that they will earlier days the initial reaction to se eing singularly adept at making moulds and experience something of the stimulation any new figure was, “what will it convert casting their own! So, when I heard of these that motivated past generations of into?” and we searched out models in cheap (they still are, even in metal) 30mm wargamers, because everyone needs back-street shops and transformed them encouragement and help, fostered by figures obtainable from a newsagents in into whatever we needed. It seemed that advice, competition and imitation, so a London suburb, I hastened there and the major part of any conversion was the that they will find their wargaming to be once again bought up a shop’s entire stock headdress: change a helmet and you had immensely enlivened by personal contacts. at less than one old penny each! I found I a completely different soldier! Converting No doubt it is easier now to be a had a mixed collection of American Civil was a compulsive practice and some highly wargamer, and that is no crime – but War types, Seven Years’ War infantry esoteric productions were achieved, such possibly it ain’t so much fun! and some WW2 British, Americans and as the S.A.E. WW2 pilots with bulky
Game day protocols 30 suggestions for more more satisfying satisf ying wargames 7. Send clear clear and concise orders orders to subordinates. 8. Pack your army, rules, dice, measuring devices and other gizmos, if travelling. 9. Study the rules. e didn’t reach a decision AGAIN! Too much 10. Host sets up the table. Ask friends to bring loaner terrain time was lost processing game turns and Max items, if needed. left early. ere were other reasons too. I wish 11. Stop painting and basing miniatures at least a couple of we could have played a few more turns. at’s all we needed days before the game. for a more satisfying game. We We must do better – but how?” 12. Relax, study the rules more and get appropriate sleep the e lamentation above is not uncommon. To To deeply regret night before. lost opportunities of truncated war-games is a first step. e 13. Obtain food and beverages, if applicable. next is to identify all gremlins. Finally we must minimize or 14. Load your vehicle the night before, if travelling with tons send them routing unralliable to the rear. e time we spend of miniatures, etc. researching and raising our tabletop forces is enormous Painting and basing something new in the few days or compared to the much shorter time actually wargaming. hours before the next wargame is well known to many of erefore, it is important to introduce economies and us. is often acts as an incentive, spurring us on. Giddy up! efficiencies so battlegame Paint more! Recently, for day is more productive and the first time, I intentionally enjoyable. stopped painting in the e critical dynamic week preceding the Seven is playing enough turns. Years’ War Association Several things influence Convention this March. this, such as concise rules, My last brushstroke was rules knowledge, skill, the previous Saturday. I planning, playing time, deliberately planned it basing systems, number of that way to more easily miniatures and participants, accomplish most of the readiness, habits, health duties above. For probably and distractions. If these the first time, I was not are imbalanced, playing a hurtling to the finish line at desirable number of turns to the gallop. It helped me do conclusively declare winners a better job as a game host. and losers or determine a I was more relaxed. Perhaps Protocol 29: Artillery Artillery is historically deployed in front of its supporting draw is jeopardized. In order the previous suggestions Swedish 30 Years War troops. Start Turn 1 this way to avoid movement, to maximize precious and will help as you awaken on unlimbering and loading time. Photo: Liz Olley fleeting time, we can call on the day itself. many remedies. Let’s do that SET-U ON GAME DAY now, starting in the fortnight before the big day. e alarm clock sounds. You arise composed because of earlier BEFORE GAME DAY preparation. All you need to do is shower, shower, dress, eat, take t ake care Several duties ought to commence and end in the days or of dear ones and later get to the game table, wherever it is. weeks preceding the day of battle. ese will help make it the You have done many things to save a lot of time that would best it can be. Gratifying satisfactions are also to be derived otherwise be lost just before Turn 1. from such solitary activity. One might imagine being at Yet in spite of earlier fixes, the prospect of new ways to waste headquarters making preparations for the army to march and time still looms. Antidotes are available for these too. ere fight. It’s fun to study maps, organize forces, make plans, issue is probably a time limit to set-up, play, have companionable orders and carefully draw dispositions on a map. e key is banter, reach a decision, repack miniatures and have a postto get certain things done ahead of time so not one minute is game chat. But what if set-up lasts longer than it should? wasted doing them when miniatures and friends are waiting Let’s not let it, shall we? e important thing is to use time for you. To do so maximizes the number of turns possible. To To economically to get to Turn 1 more quickly and have more do otherwise, in some cases, is poor form. fun. What can we do before the game starts? 1. Agree about terrain. 16. Arrive punctually and follow the host’s schedule. 2. Design the scenario and force sizes. 17. Remove or unplug the television. It is a distraction if 3. Agree victory conditions. friends love sports programs. 4. Send detailed maps and a game game schedule to all players. 18. Provide time for ‘Show and Tell’ Tell’ plus charming chitchat. 5. Discuss plans with your companions. 19. Officers’ Call to review and revise plans, dispositions and 6. Draw up your order of of battle battle orders for each force. by Bil Protz
“W
20. Do not unpack miniatures and later place them on the table. Deploy units directly from storage or carrying boxes within their assigned deployment areas in one step, not two. How might suggestions 16-20 be implemented? i mplemented? 12:00 pm Early arrival, conversation conversation plus ‘Show ‘Show and Tell’ Tell’ 12:15 pm Official arrival arriv al time and more companionable conversation 12:30 pm Officers’ Call 12:45 pm Deploy from storage or carrying boxes b oxes directly onto the battlefield 01:00 pm Commence Turn Turn 1 – sooner, sooner, if possible 06:00 pm? Complete turn in progress, pack up and after action review (AAR) I have been a participant in games where set-up lasted nearly two hours. Usually this was because players took their miniatures out of carrying boxes to find and organize them on side tables. Later, these were moved a second time to appear on the battlefield. In other situations the same occurred, but we were further delayed by having to choose a scenario. ereafter terrain was laid out followed by unit placement. Deployment consisted of Side A placing one unit first, followed by a unit of Side B, and so on until everything was on the table. Even in systems predicated on this type of arrangement, this process could be accomplished the week before. Use email to exchange changing information. Sitting and waiting is tolerated better by some than others. ough we must expect sudden and unexpected delays, time is mostly controllable. Why allow wastage? Take steps to be economical. If more than 30-45 minutes is needed to set-up even a game of 2,000 miniatures, fewer turns will unfortunately be played. PLAYING THE GAME
e game is afoot. Players are moving and fighting, turn after turn, driving toward a decisive deci sive finish. Time wastage here here loses tactical opportunities and costs irreplaceable turns. A seventurn game might be reduced to five. However, let us ponder instead the extra advantages, additional turns and greater fun when some of the following suggestions are implemented. 21. Explain to observers that overindulging in banter slows things down. Ask them to play. 22. Resumption of ‘Show and Tell’ more than a little also delays the game. 23. Speeches, soliloquies, rants and interminable arguments harm the game. 24 Obey orders as best you can. 25. It is often unnecessary to move every unit, every turn. 26. Tend Tend to your duties. Play the game. 27. Rules should be concise, using easily ea sily understandable Quick Reference Charts. 28. Movement rates are typically t ypically too short. Try increasing them 25%-50%. 29. Allow artillery to set up a little forward of friends in horse and musket games. 30. Use the fewest number of movement stands possible and label them for identification. Basing miniatures individually may be thought to be a contemporary innovation, but in fact it is only now experiencing a resurgence in popularity, harking back to the innovative days of Brigadier Peter Young and Charles Grant, Sr. of more than 30 years ago. Even they were mentored by writings in some cases more than 100 years old. Gaming with individual miniatures has been around for decades, biding
its time in the quieter wargame rooms of more gamers than might be thought. It is a fun, useful and visually stimulating thing to move, position and care for each little fellow as he tends to his mission. Skirmish games are best suited for individual basing, because numbers of miniatures are few. Conversely, moving hundreds of individual miniatures does have strikingly meritorious and visually nostalgic benefits, but consumes a lot d’être être of this article, we of time. Since saving time is the raison d’ should consider a means to maximize it. e easy solution, as many already know, is to use magnetic systems, placing each individual warrior locked mysteriously onto large underlying movement trays. Consider a brigade formation of 192 miniatures. Moving every one, albeit without casualties, in a seven-turn game means moving 1,344 pieces. Extra time is also needed to place each fellow exactly in formation. However, if we group the same lads on underlying movement trays by twelves, there are only 16 items to move instead. Over seven turns this means moving only 112 items. Lining up movement trays is also much easier and less time-consuming. What benefit will you obtain? Playing more turns. Small, medium and large actions are all fun. Hopefully you get to experience each kind. In BIG games, it will be useful to label units in smaller scales especially if there are a lot of similarly uniformed combatants. For example, all of the 24 battalions and several artillery batteries of my 15mm 1812 Russian VII Corps have labels on their underlying trays identifying the unit, brigade, division and corps. To further help me, labels of the 12 th Division are grass green while those of the 26 th Division are light green. ings are much easier this way and more time efficient in the punctilious command control environment in which these diminutive warriors live. Otherwise, I would become discombobulated wasting time discerning unit identities after several hours of play. In our 25mm-30mm Seven S even Years’ War War multiple brigade actions, small removable pieces of paper or card identifying each unit are temporarily inserted in each battalion, squadron and battery at set-up so friends quickly know who is who. Sometimes players continue using these as games progress. CONLUION
A great wargame experience also depends on our companions. We desire friends rather than toxic competitors, fun-loving buddies instead of people who are mean-spirited, agreeable pards, not argumentative nitpickers and companionable folk instead of anti-social personalities. It is also a bonus if they are contributors to the cause, helpful, polite, patient, honest, communicative, timely, exercise forbearance and will absolutely refuse to commit gross historical irregularities because rules are flawed. e 30 protocols proposed are suggestions, but my hope is that they will enhance your games and bring greater enjoyment. Each idea arose from a passion to manage time better and gain more turns per game. Currently my group is able to play large Seven Years’ War games with 1,5002,000 miniatures bringing these to a conclusion in seven to nine turns on a 6’x20’ table. Game duration is around four to five hours. At the SYWA Convention mentioned earlier, we played 11 turns, fielding 1,800+ miniatures mini atures and reaching a decisive conclusion in four hours with mostly novice players – a first for us. My personal goal is to breach 10 turns every time. Wish me luck, will you?
A project too far: part II Concluding our advice on efficient wargames project management by Phi Olley
SOME CLRIICIO ROM HE REVIOU R
When I re-read the first part of this short series, it struck me that some people may deem the approach as too much like hard work. I can hear the cries of “this is supposed to be a hobby” and “all that serious planning doesn’t seem very relaxing”. And I agree – it is a hobby. Yet so many people get frustrated that they aren’t getting to finish armies or projects that I offer these ideas to help make it even more enjoyable and relaxing. If you want w ant to just paint and collect and not plan it, fine. at’ at’ss another way of doing it. However However,, when chatting at shows, and online on the various forums, one of the hot topics is always project building, or how to overcome the guilt of not finishing! As soon as you start feeling guilty about not getting things finished in your hobby, the chances are that that it is being counterproductive, and is no longer a hobby! I should also perhaps clarify the idea behind my monthly painting points. I’m not suggesting you set your target as the same. Nor am I suggesting that there is a required level of painting output below which you are a painting failure and should hold your head in shame! Everyone is different. You know how much time and energy (and money) you want to devote to your hobby. Counting up your Painting Points is simply a way of knowing from experience your level of output , and is therefore a good way to plan what you are likely to be able to do next. It does also act as an incentive and a target. Remember the old saying: “Man with no target, hit nothing!”
e Byzantine heavy infantry units combine two ranks of spearmen and one rank of archers (I know WAB people will say it’s better to go with four ranks because of the rules, but I think it looks too deep as a formation compared with the frontage). So my unit is 18 spearmen (the first two ranks) and nine archers (I may expand this later, but initially this seems a decent size for a WAB infantry unit). e spearmen are on three bases, with the leader, standard and musician in the central base. e archers are three figures to a base, 25mm x 50mm, along the back of the spearmen. I added another officer figure to this rank from the infantry command pack as it’s more economical than having a lot of left-over archers from having to buy two blister packs of eight in order to use nine figures. I find that there are many savings that can be made if you plan these things before rushing off and ordering the wrong figures! e unit took just 8 days to complete. At this point, it is handy to write out an Index card to record the paints used, and proportions of different colours used in any mixing. is is especially important when you are going to be doing similar similar,, matching units later on. A ORD O BIG
Rather than completing the basing on each stand as I go, I only do the basing when I’ve got a full unit done, and sometimes much more (i.e. two or three units, or even the full army) and again I record the paints used for every stage, each highlight, so that I can reproduce this on future units. NEX U… THE IR O HE HEVY CVLRY
e cavalry units are 12 figure ‘combined units’, in two ranks FIR UI of six, with kontarion-armed figures in the front rank and OK, back to the project in hand. Deciding on the first unit archers in the rear rank. does require some discipline. Yet too many people seem to I find that it’s important to get a sort of production line start a project by just doing a favourite unit or a command going in these early stages of a project, so that as one unit is base or vignette, only to find that when it comes to getting the finished and is being based up, the next big core units done, they can’t keep going, and have moved on unit is being prepared for painting. to something else. ere’s nothing wrong with flitting around is means that while waiting for from one period to another, and painting the various stages in the basing to each piece beautifully. After all, dry, the next unit is also getting it’s a hobby, and you should just ready for painting. It keeps do what you like. But for a momentum up and stops real project, requiring the me going stale on painting of more than a a project. So, as I couple of units, it does pay am going though off if you can apply a little the stages of discipline here. basing that first For me, the special units and infantry unit, the vignettes will normally be first cavalry unit done at intervals during the is all prepared, project, as a sort of reward undercoated for doing the sensible thing and ready to see first! serious paint So, in the case of my Byzantine project, I applied! decided to start with a unit of Byzantine Heavy Infantry Here comes the cavalry: I start with because it would be the biggest unit initially, and getting the front rank of spear-armed milites from Crusader it done would ‘break the back’ of the project. cavalry, painting Miniatures. Paint: Paint: Phil. Photo: Liz Olley
THE COMMD GROU the six horses, then the six riders. Once the whole of the front rank is As I mentioned, once I get a couple complete (including the leader of core units done, I like to paint and standard bearer) the rear up a fun vignette or two, and rank of heavy cavalry archers is certainly it’s important for done. I have added some bucklers me to get a commander onto to the mounted archer figures the tabletop as soon as I can (spares from packs of Foundry justify it! I enjoyed doing this Huns!), and used LBM transfers command vignette, which depicts cut down to fit these small the general and the Army Standard bucklers, so the rear rankers Bearer. I wanted to have a match their kontarion section of old Roman road armed front rank. on the base, and therefore I still have some issues needed one of the horses’ with the archers firing to hooves to be flush to the the side. However, I have paving stones. is meant managed to stagger the slicing off the metal base from basing a little. the horse. Oooops! Accident, e Crusader figures and one horse ruined by a were a breeze to paint, nicely break at the ankle. Emergency Phil’s controversial command stands. stands. Oooh, errr – a detailed and easy to get into all repairs were fruitless. Searching general and his Army Army Standard on the same base? the nooks and crannies. e only in my drawers of unpainted figures Whatever next! Photo: Liz Olley thing to watch is the girth of the horses I found a plastic Riders of Rohan which is often too wide for the riders horse which was swiftly drafted in. and some filing of the flanks of the horses is needed to allow ese are baseless, and have a handy ‘plug’ on the bottom of the riders to fit snugly snugly.. one hoof to attach to a hole drilled in the base. e horse is It is when I am part way through this unit that I decide it’s slightly smaller than the larger Crusader model, but I think it time to order the next batch of figures. Again not too many, looks okay. e crucifix at the top of the banner pole was taken but enough to do a couple of units. from a Foundry Conquistador monk, drilled out underneath e other thing I like to keep a close eye on, as I have and slotted onto the pole. intimated above, is when a project gets to the ‘gameable’ WAB aficionados will be up in i n arms that I have broken with stage. In this case, the first stage I want to reach is to assemble basing convention here: surely a vignette stand such as this is a small force of around 1000 points (WAB). To my surprise unuseable in games? Surely the General and Army Standard this will actually be fairly soon. Bearer must be based separately? Whilst I am waiting for the next batch of figures to arrive, Not in this army! I have decided that I want to alter some and, having done the two core units, unit s, it’s time I treated myself of the WAB rules a little to reflect what I want to represent to a couple of vignettes, don’t you think? with this project, and I am happy to sacrifice some WAB So, next up is a small vignette of a dismounted Norman gameability to aid aesthetics. I also think that having the knight with a dead horse. Both figures were lying around standard bearer with the army general is a far more accurate my unpainted cupboard. (Notice how I now admit this is a depiction of ancient warfare, the standard being a very cupboard, not just an unpainted box as I stated earlier!) prominent indicator of the position of the general on the I have roped in some other figures that were hanging battlefield. I think it would be rare for an ancient general to around as ‘generic Dark Age’ infantry (spears/javelins, operate away from the army’s most important banner. In fact, shields/bucklers) and simply re-based them. I can count them normally the reason the banner is the most important one as ematic Byzantine psiloi/ skirmishers. ey will do the in the army is that it indicates the general’s presence. I’ll still job until I replace replace them with more modern style figures (ey apply the rules for both Army General and ASB in the games, are over 25 years old, from the former Citadel Dark Ages but the two will be physically inseparable on the battlefield. range, though I do think they fit rather well, so who knows “THE HY O RGME HELL I VED IH if they will ever be replaced!). e keen-eyed amongst you GOOD IEIO...” may have spotted a couple of the GW Riders of Rohan figures added to these skirmish units to make up the numbers – it’s ...and it can be so difficult to stick to one thing . I’m not talking amazing what can be found lying in the old unpainted boxes here about those projects where going any further would in Warcabinet HQ! mean a significant deterioration in your personal relationships In the same way, picking up a unit or two on a ‘Bring and on the grounds of finances being stretched, but rather those Buy’ or eBay can get you to the point where you can get a game armies where you have just run out of steam and feel you can’t going fairly early in the project. is is particularly important continue. ere does come a point in a project for everyone when you are embarking on something completely new and where you think you could do with painting something else! where you are unfamiliar with the rules. It’s good to get an idea So how do you deal with the first ‘Painting Wall’? First, of what works and what doesn’t and how the rules play play,, so that recognise that everyone has one – and it’s often after a specific you can build up your forces with wi th that knowledge in mind. amount of time on a project or a specific number of figures. It’s no good getting part way through a project to find you For me, the first minor wall comes after 60 painting points of have way too few cavalry, or too many light infantry. Building a project (i.e. about 60 infantry, or 30 cavalry, etc.). en I hit a balanced army will allow you to game more quickly. another after about six weeks of a project!
Phil’s Byzantines with their Italo-Lombard allies defend a pass against Khazars (played by Mongols - a useful nomadic horde to have in the collection). All figures painted by Phil Olley, photo by Liz Olley.
It’s really handy if you know (from experience) when you are likely to encounter the Painting Wall, because then you can prepare to beat it . It’s purely psychological, of course. 10 I O HEL BREK HROUGH H ‘PIIG WLL’
1. Paint units for both sides. Having done figures for one side, it’s handy to be able to switch to the other side for variety. Choosing a project where armies can be allies or enemies helps here, of course. 2. Have a small game if possible to rekindle enthusiasm, no matter how small, even if it’s just a couple of units per side. 3. Do some terrain or make a small building. It can be a good way of taking a break from painting figures but maintaining momentum on a project. Do something which you feel is needed and typical for the theatre of operations that this project is going to portray. For example, when I did my Renaissance Poles, after a couple of units of Cossacks/ Hussars/Pancerni, I painted and based up a Hovels building to suit the period, and added a peasant figure. It made for a nice break, and allowed me to create a set-up on my table to keep the inspiration going. 4. Record your progress. Having a website for this purpose is highly recommended. But if you haven’t got one, there’s still no reason why you can’t take a few photos, and create a written journal when building up your army. You can show this to your wargaming pals, take it to the club, or even just keep it for personal posterity. It all helps keep motivation going. As well as being a useful progress record, such a journal is somewhere you can take notes, make up army lists, put useful pictures, maps, note useful reference works to get hold of, and generally keep all your ideas together for the project. OK, it might sound a bit like a fourth-form history project, but as someone who is
forever forgetting the name of “that book I really ought to get hold of”, or “that website with the really useful battle report and map”, and those wonderful pictures and so on, I know how valuable such a project journal can be. 5. Beware of ‘Painting Sirens’! All over the Web you will find guys who paint beautiful figures. ey paint them to display standard, and for painting competitions. ey sing out to you from the deep recesses of the online wargaming world. ey show you their lovely work, and before you know it, you want to copy something they have done, and lo and behold – your project hits the rocks! It is so easy to be distracted into new periods when you see someone else’s wonderful work. People look at other’s painting and want to copy what others are doing, rather than getting inspiration from it to apply to their own work. When I look at other peoples’ beautifully painted figures, I am inspired, not necessarily to copy them and switch periods, but to improve my own style for what I’m doing. After all, most figure painting is the same process, regardless of what it is you are painting! Preparing a WW2 German unit for painting is the same as preparing a Napoleonic French unit for painting, which is the same as preparing an Imperial Roman unit for painting... And painting a WW2 German Stormtrooper’s face is the same as painting a Napoleonic French Fusilier’s face, which is the same as painting an Imperial Roman Legionary’s face (apart from the nose!!). 6. If the urge to paint something else is overwhelming and unavoidable, just go and prep up another unit for the project you are doing instead. It can also help if you have a prepared figure where you can just decide to paint a face. Or if you have seen a lovely shade of red on a Napoleonic infantryman’s tunic, see if you can create a similar red on an officer’s cloak for your chosen period, rather than switching periods totally.
And even then, if you just fancy a break… take a break. Paint something else. Like most things, painting is a habit, and if you paint regularly you can always improve and practice new techniques. 7. Have a regular painting regime. is really helps because it’s a habit thing. Whenever I am at home (i.e. not away on business), I start painting at 7pm with “e Archers” on in the background, every evening. Whether I then paint for an hour or three doesn’t matter! e association with a radio programme or something like this that happens at the same time every day creates a ‘Pavlov’s dog’ syndrome! 8. Have a permanent painting table or workspace laid out if possible. is is very important, so that you can pick up your brush immediately, rather than spending time getting set up. No matter how small this space, keep your work area clear, and have the next figures you are working on sitting on the painting area ready for you to ‘dress’ them. 9. Rekindle the original vision of the end of the project in your mind. Picture what it is you are creating with this project, and also have any inspiring photos available that got you started on this particular project, e.g. pictures from wargames magazines, or even figure catalogues/adverts, or websites. 10. Start to plan the next stage of the project in more detail – the next two or three units which are needed to make up a nice balanced force? As an example of how to keep the painting going, with this Byzantine project, I decided to do some Normans and Lombards to face up to the Byzantine military machine. Initially, this will be a couple of small units of mounted knights, plus some crossbowmen. ey can be enemies or allies for the Byzantines. So, at the first sign that I was ready for a break, I decided to switch and do an Italo-Lombard unit. For the milites, I trusted some old reference material, namely Ian Heath’s excellent WRG publication Armies of the Dark Ages plus the Osprey on Charlemagne that showed some Lombards of 10th century, as well as the Osprey on the Normans which has a nice plate of an early 11th century Norman knight. My conclusions: most European ‘knights’ (milites) would look very similar, and so using Norman milites with the addition of a few round shields, mixed with the traditional kite shields, seems to fit the bill. I have given this unit throwing spears as opposed to lances which came later (but with which I’ll probably arm some of the Norman allies). My idea is that this project represents the period before the Normans became superheroes (or super-antiheroes, depending on your allegiance!). Given that lances were probably adopted as a result of lessons learned from fighting
the Byzantines in Italy, it seems better to leave the Lombard milites, and most of the Norman milites, w ithout them and to arm them with throwing spears/thrusting spears. And don’t get me started on WAB warhorse rules! As for the commander of the Lombard forces, I could find no pictures of the rebel, Melus of Bari, so resorted to a spare mounted figure from my Saxon command, gave him a kite shield, added the inevitable Benedictine monk (from the Foundry Conquistador range), plus a Norman knight holding the army standard, and hey presto, a nice little vignette. (See my comments above about command bases, Army generals, Army standards, etc.) And so to the crossbowmen. ese are mercenary ‘Sergeants’ with crossbows and light armour under the WAB rules. I wanted to create a relatively small unit (the crossbows being unlikely to be used in any great numbers just yet), with the ability for them to count as light infantr y and even be able to skirmish as well. So, basing them was another compromise between gameability and aesthetics, and I have opted for 40mm square bases with two figures on each. is allows me to introduce some groundwork to the bases (without overdoing it), and I guess I just don’t want single-based figures for this project! Based thus, they can act as normal infantry (the frontage being the same as under normal WAB conventions), and be in skirmish formation with the bases slightly apart. Again, it’s a matter of personal preference and taste. A RMY I MOH!
So there we have it, a gameable army in a month. Yes, just 30 days from the moment of deciding to do the project to having a useful little force together. Okay, it needs to grow, and the next step will be a unit of Varangian guards (can’t resist), plus another Byzantine Heavy cavalry unit. No doubt the megalomaniac in me will want to keep expanding this force, and there is the small matter of an opposing force to do… So further Normans and Italo-Lombard infantry are required. In the meantime, with the Italo-Normans as allies, they make an ample force to take on my nomadic hordes (a mixture of Huns and Mongols) who I use as Khazars. It often amazes me that people (particularly those who are new to the hobby) may be put off ‘getting stuck in’ because they think they will need to have 300 figures per side to enjoy a game. But I’m sure you can see how a small project can be developed from just a glint in the eye to being something useable in a very short space of time, and with only a small number of figures. I wish you the very best of luck.
Te art of bad generalship Making decisions – about decisions! by Robert Piepenbrink
e’ve had a mild controversy going on in recent years about the rules commonly inserted into historical miniatures sets to reduce the efficiency of our miniature generals. Many of us object on principle to such rules, feeling that the whole point of refighting the Monongahelia is to prove that we’re brighter than Braddock, and that when we want stupid generalship we can behave stupidly on our own, thank you. Others point out that commanding stupid subordinates isn’t like commanding smart ones, and that a general with a modern staff is not in the same position as one with two aristocrats and a son-in-law to receive and transmit his orders. Well, I’ve studied military history a long time and spent a LOT of time on staff. And I’d like to get my two bits’ worth in here. First, and I say this every time, be very clear before you begin what it is you’re trying to do. Von Moltke said that you might not be able to make up for bad deployments in the whole course of a campaign. Well, determining your objective is the deployment phase of wargame rules writing. If you are vague or contradictory here, it will show up in the subsequent rules. Now, do you wish to represent the general, or do you wish to represent his staff? It is not the same thing. e best example I can show is the Seven Days’ Battles of 1862 in the American Civil War. If you have a time machine and wish to reverse the outcome of that war, forget Turtledove’s AK-47’s in 1864. Go back to 1862 and give the Confederacy 50 good staff NCOs. Lee and Jackson will not be smarter at Chancellorsville than they were during the Seven Days – but they will have staffs capable of finding guides, producing maps and keeping other headquarters informed, things of which their staffs evidently were not capable a year earlier. Ney at Quatre Bras, on the other hand, has a far larger and more professional staff than Frederick the Great ever fielded. See how much good it did him?
W
“I think the Oberst used to be a doctor – can you read his handwriting?” A scene from the stunning WWI display by Aly Morrison and Dave Andrews at Te Other Partizan 2006 featuring their new Great War Miniatures.
If you wish to represent the general himself, be prepared to write out a rating for every individual who ever held, or could have held, a command position on the battlefields covered by your rules. And don’t laugh: we’ve all seen it done. If you’re describing staffs, throw away that entire chart, and block one out concerned with nationality and command level only. Ney and Davout had different staffs to a degree, yes; but not because Napoleon made them that way. ey were different because they were different marshals. And the difference between the staffs of any two French corps commanders of the Napoleonic wars is inconsequential next to the difference between them and a pre-Napoleonic staff. Whether they claim to be doing one or the other, most rules approach the problem in the same ways: they reduce the number of orders a general can give during a turn, they reduce his ‘command radius’ and they reduce the effect of his presence on the troops. Now, what makes a bad general? Or rather, what are the distinguishing traits of a bad general on the battlefield? Do they actually give fewer orders? Not that I’ve noticed. Are they surrounded by fewer flunkies so they can’t transmit orders as frequently or as far? Again, I wouldn’t say so. Are the troops less inspired by their presence? Well, that sort of depends. If I had to pick a general to inspire men for a desperate fight, John Bell Hood and George Armstrong Custer might both make the short list for the American Civil War, but neither are commonly listed among the war’s great generals. SIGN OF A BAD GENERAL
I would say the following traits distinguish the officers you’d really prefer not to be commanded by: 1. Ambiguous or contradictory orders 2. Bad scouting 3. Micromanagement 4. Tendency to forget units 5. Bad terrain selection Obviously whether these can be represented on a tabletop will depend on the rules used, but I might suggest the following: 1. Ambiguous or contradictory orders : Cast a d6 when a unit receives orders from a bad general. 1-3: carried out as written. 4: movement orders are interpreted as meaning a different terrain feature of the same type. e troops march on a village, say, but not the one intended. If ordered to deploy, the right flank goes where the left should have, or the reverse, moving the unit one unit’s frontage out of position. 5: e unit commander cannot understand his orders and requests clarification. No action taken. 6: Orders to advance are taken as withdrawal orders, and retreat orders trigger an advance. 2. Bad scouting . If defending, the bad general has only a fraction of the normal distance between himself and the enemy at the start of play. If attacking, his deployment is hindered, either by a shallower
“Look out Major Hogan: supplies have been ‘taken care of ’ by the Dons and Colonel bloody Simmerson. A right pile o’ paella that’ll make.” Just one tiny scene from the amazing Spanish village diorama created by Paul Darnell and Bill Gaskin at Te Other Partizan 2006 in Kelham Hall.
deployment zone, or by having to march on and then deploy. In any event, he is not told the fire and movement effect of any terrain feature until his men are in contact with it. Sadistic umpires might wish to consider making the bad general mark his deployment on an inaccurate map before seeing the table. 3. Micromanagement. On a 1-3 the general is reasonably sane. On a 4 he commands one level down, on a 5 two levels and on a 6 three levels, so that the corps commander is giving orders to a battery of artillery or a single cavalry squadron. (ere might be a bias for a particular branch of service here, so Bazaine winds up siting guns – as also a certain earlier French commander who began his career in the artillery – while certain beau sabreurs such as Blücher... Well, you get the idea.) 4. Tendency to forget units. Roll to see whether the bad general will remember he has certain units. e further they are from headquarters, the more likely they are to be forgotten. Also, if they are attached rather than assigned – foreign auxilliaries, say, or an extra battery from the corps reserve – they are more likely to miss the action.Once ‘forgotten’, a unit may not be given orders unless a similar-size unit of the same branch is taken out of play, though it will act to defend itself, and will take part in any general retreat. 5. Poor terrain selection . Probably the easiest of the lot to represent. Once both armies are deployed, the umpire or the opposing player either add or remove a piece of terrain from the bad general’s area.
or it doesn’t show up on the battlefield. But for a commander given an inadequate staff, I would suggest the following: 1. Place the roads on the tabletop after the bad commander has marked his map and given his first orders. Don’t tell him how much trouble a body of water is until one of his units reaches it – perhaps not even until it tries to cross. 2. ere should be a significant possibility of off-board units arriving late, at the wrong point, or perhaps not at all. 3. Off-standard units should have a greater probability of running low on ammunition. In armies of limited artillery, there should be the possibility of NO suitable ball or shell ammunition. Cannister can always be improvised, but perhaps not double-shotted. Now looked at this way, bad generalship and inadequate staffing are not the same. Jackson may never show up at Malvern Heights, but Lee and Longstreet will not abandon generalship to command squadrons or batteries. Ney may forget he is a Marshal of France and lead a cavalry charge – but the superior Napoleonic staff will go right on finding him maps, transmitting orders and ensuring that all his units have ammunition. WORT CAE CENARIO
One does, of course, sometimes find a bad general with an inadequate staff. In this case, suspend all command or staff rules, pick the dumbest player in your group, and consider suspending any ‘no drinking during the game’ rules. Or just skip that one: it’s either going to be ahistorical or not much of a game anyway. After all, if we can’t improve on the 18th Century, why are we doing it again? Good luck and good gaming.
SIGN OF A POOR TAFF
What, on the other hand, are the traits of a bad staff? e commander’s intelligence staff tell him who he’s facing. In the horse and musket period, it wasn’t likely to know the density of a woods, say, but it should know good from bad roads, and have a fair notion of the state of rivers. His operations staff ensure that people are where the general wants them, especially when they’re out of his sight. His logisticians must ensure that his troops are fed, and have the right ammunition. Now for the most part, this has some ‘feedback’ mechanisms, so it doesn’t get too far out of line,
“Are you sure the general wants us to stay here, sir? Tey ain’t howitzers!” Nervous 40mm Confederate infantry on a magnificent ACW display put on by Ian Smith at Te Other Partizan 2005 using a host of converted figures.
Table top teaser Trouble on Treasure Island by rigadie (e’) .. Gran OE
INTODCTON
e rival landing parties will land at their respective bays R or B in period 1. ere is no requirement to provide ships or boats unless you already have them. Each has only a single clue to the location of the treasure. Each group will quickly realize the presence of a rival and take appropriate action. Similarly, the locals or natives (Green) will take exception to the incursion and in an evenhanded way do their best to upset the invaders’ plans.
Christmas is a time for the family. at said, the more enthusiastic wargamer will hope to find a bit of what I believe is now called “quality time” to do some wargaming. Here is a scenario with a lighter touch, in which you could BLE FOCE ODES quite easily, depending on how smooth a talker you are, get Forces other family members involved. e Captain Jack Sparrow and Pirates of the Caribbean option may help! Its origins can Blue has a unit of about 20 figures. ey could be be found in Scenarios for Wargames published in 1981 (yes, buccaneers with a captain and lieutenant, a battalion of it was a long time ago!) as Treasure Hunt . However, before infantry, or whatever is appropriate for the period. you stop reading because Situation you have no interest in pirates, like other scenarios A much-valued treasure it has changed somewhat has been hidden on the over the years and can cover island. Blue force has a wide range of periods. been sent to retrieve it. Indeed, one side might be Mission marines rather than pirates and as you will read later, I To seize the treasure. have a non-pirate option. Coordinating Instructions So this version can be easily be used in almost any period Blue forces land at B on for two similar-sized raiding period 1 in two boats. e Island is sighted – a v iew of the magnificent Redoubt Enterprises pirate parties, even fantasy or sci-fi. ey have their first ship. Ships and boats are not needed in the scenario but if you have them clue to the location of UME flaunt them! Photos by the author. the treasure which is: e original scenario “Seek a second step 50 was written with the intention of having a nonmetres north of the Lone Pine”. e Lone Pine is marked playing umpire to arrange the clues and mechanics as lB on the master map and clearly visible on the table. of the game, and it will certainly help if this is the At this location a die is thrown when a figure has case. Alternatively, the commander of the third force, arrived at the spot, to determine how quickly the clue is referred to later as the Green Force, can fill this rôle. located. A throw of 1 or 2 will mean it is found one period later, 3 or 4 means two periods and 5 or 6 means in three GOND periods. At this point, the Blue player is given clue 2. e e island is only a small one, and occupies most of the process continues until the treasure is found. All that wargame table. Two landing bays are marked R (red) and remains is to get the treasure back to the longboats. B (blue). e island rises with a number of prominent RED FOCE ODES hills, on which the top contours reduce movement. In an Forces approximately central position on the island is a native village, with a fordable stream running south to the broader Red has a unit of about 20 figures, similar to Blue. creek. A number of other features include several woods, a Situation cave, a wrecked ship, marshy area, a lone pine, a dead tree and a boot-shaped lake. Only the umpire or Green Force A much-valued treasure has been hidden on the Commander, if he is the game organizer, may see the map, island. Red force has been sent to retrieve it. so if your players have seen this article, make some changes! Mission GENEAL OTLNE To seize the treasure. Two parties of similar size (rival pirates, pirates and marines, Coordinating Instructions French and British, Greeks and Persians or whatever your choice) are sent to the island to retrieve an appropriate Red force land at R on period 1 in two longboats. treasure. For a pirate scenario, it may simply be buried ey have their first clue to the treasure which is: treasure, but for other forces and periods it may be a “e toe of a wet boot starts the search”. shipwrecked person or a precious item that has been lost. is is the south-east end of a boot-shaped lake marked
as 1R on the master map. Similar dice throwing to that already described for Blue is required to determine how long it takes to find the next clue. e process continues until the treasure is found. All that remains is to get the treasure back to the longboats. GEEN FOCE
when a figure reaches the spot to determine how long it takes to find the next clue. From now on the locations of the clues are the same for both sides. e remaining clues are as follows:
French and British island raiders engage each other. e figures are Willie
Clue three “Seek the next step to the treasure in a cave close to the creek.”
Forces figures by the late Ted Suren, and still available from Spencer Smith. Designed almost 40 years ago, they stand the test of time and have a special 15 natives of the Clue four quality about them. appropriate period, poorly-armed and lacking “Painted on the discipline, are based at the village. inside of the cave is a picture, crudely executed, of a wrecked ship with a cross marked under the prow”. Mission To destroy any intruders on the island. ese are marked at 3 and 4 on the umpire’s map. is last clue is, in fact, the location of the treasure, buried Coordinating Instructions under the wrecked ship’s prow well up on the sandy Green force does not know of the existence of the treasure beach, and once again it will take time to find it. or its significance. All that concerns him is the destruction e game unfolds as both sides move towards of intruders. In period 1, he starts in his village, but it can a clash, perhaps in the area of the cave, while the be assumed that he will know of the intruders via ‘bush natives will undoubtedly do their worst. telegraph’ by period 4 unless, of course, they are already WNNN THE AME visible by line of sight from the village. He can then move as he sees fit. He is not capable of a concerted attack, but Either Red or Blue can win by finding the treasure can harass and pick off the buccaneers by operating in small and getting it back to the boats and off the island with groups. Green forces cannot be reasoned with (but Red and whatever is left of that side’s raiding party. If neither Blue commanders do not know that, and may decide to try). Red nor Blue achieves this, then Green has won. GAME MECHANCS
Set out the table as shown, including the Green force in the village. Only the umpire (or Green Commander i f acting in that capacity) has a marked map. e Red and Blue players only have their first clues and landing areas.
POSTSCT
is light-hearted scenario is only an outline and can easily be developed with the use of maps, more clues or other perils to beset the buccaneers. e umpire/ organizer should feel free to improvise new rules, hazards and minor bonuses to keep up the excitement. Red and Blue forces land on period 1 and make Some of the pictures show British and French 25mm their way to the objective of the first clue, where Willie figures of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. they will find their second clues as follows: ey stand ready in my collection for a more ambitious project, broadly encapsulated in the title of “Island Hopping”. Blue clue 2 At some stage in the future, I intend to use these and others “Step three will be found in the centre of the diamond”. that are being built up, alongside the native inhabitants, to e diamond is, of course, the wood so shaped, and their conduct a fictitious mini-campaign in the West Indies. third clue is in the centre in a small clearing marked 2B Finally, despite the hope that this will provide some on the master map. Once Christmas entertainment, again, a dice is thrown when I have resisted the a figure reaches the spot temptation to elaborate on to determine how long it the Christmas theme in takes to find the next clue. the scenario description. However, feel free to rename Red Clue 2 the island Christmas Island, “A dead tree will lead to the the rival crews from the next step”. e dead tree in good ships Santa Clause and question is on the north-east Wenchy-Las with Captain edge of the wood that lies Rudolph and Captain north of the boot-shaped Michael Mass! Just make lake. It is marked 2R on the sure that you do not end up master map and this is where providing the locals with e local occupants (Green Force) prepare to give their unwelcome visitors they will find their third clue. their Christmas pudding! a warm reception. Foundry figures from the author’s collection. As for blue, a dice is thrown Good hunting.
Battlegames
25
Te Wars of the Faltenian Succession Part VI: creating your fictitious armies by Henry Hyd
his aspect of creating a fictitious war is the one that, I suspect, is most often ‘fudged’ by wargamers. After all, once you’ve gone to all the trouble of drawing up maps, naming all those towns, villages, rivers and mountain ranges, you’ll probably just want to get on with the campaign and having the occasional tabletop game. “What’s the best way to achieve that?” you ask yourself, as you cast your eyes over your existing collection of figures. “I know!” you say, “I’ve already got an army of Prussians and another of Austrians from the Seven Years’ War, so I’ll just pretend that they’re the armies of SchlitzDrumhausen and e Electorate of Nieder-Schimmelsitz.” Now, in all honesty, there can be no major objection to this, and I am aware of many gamers who do just that. A brief visit to the Old School Wargaming Yahoo group will reveal all sorts of folks popping up to announce the latest goings-on in the Grand Duchy of Stollen, or HesseSeewald, or the Duchy of Alzheim (the 18th century seems to dominate the fictitious wars scene). On closer examination of the photos on view, however, one can often
T
discern the unmistakeable bearing of Prussian grenadiers or the French of King Louis or some other historical realm. e logic is impeccable: these folk enjoy their fantastical forays and fictitious fripperies, but most of the time, they’re facing opponents who want to game on firmly historical footings in the Wars of the Austrian Succession or the Seven Years War or whatever. Another aspect to consider, of course, is that modern miniatures are generally scupted with such uncanny accuracy in terms of uniforms and accoutrements that it almost seems sacrilege to paint them in anything but their historical colours. We also shouldn’t overlook the fact that 25/28mm metal miniatures these days aren’t cheap: at an average of £1 for infantry and £2 per cavalry figure, it takes a bold gamer indeed to decide not to paint them as the historical unit they were sculpted to represent. And finally, it would not be unreasonable for someone to question whether it’s worthwhile inventing all those imaginary uniforms when history provides us with a myriad examples of military costume so fantastical as to border on the fictitious anyway – the 18th and 19th centuries in particular can lay claim to some of the most extraordinary outfits that a man was ever expected to fight in.
A spread from the Editor’s campaign diary showing the birth of Prunkland’s army for gaming with WRG rules. At this stage, distinctions were kept simple.
Well, these are all perfectly reasonable things for of Zwetschkendatcherl in commemoration of the day people to propose, which may well prove that I am, when Captain Hinundzu saved the regimental colour indeed, completely mad to have gone to the lengths that by hiding it in a dung heap. is stuff is absolutely real: I have, so let’s address them, perhaps in reverse order. just look at the fuss being made as the British Army goes First of all, the uniforms. As it happens, I was so inspired through yet another batch of regimental amalgamations by the sight of historical uniforms that I wanted to invent at this very moment. God, as they say, is in the details. my own. Perhaps I should have become a fashion designer Let me just say that there is nothing whatsoever to stop rather than a graphic you creating apparel designer, but the for your armies that thought of creating is not what would the look of an army (or generally be thought multiple armies, as it of as ‘military’. turned out) that would I remember, in result in something particular, American entirely unique gamer Otto Schmidt’s provided tremendous armies serving the motivation. beautiful Princess As it happens, my Trixie, some of own sense of decorum whom were, if I recall meant that what I correctly, dressed in imagined inevitably bright pink with lime resembled historical green facings. Such nations – Prunkland’s regimentals would, if regiments wear a white nothing else, induce coat with coloured a state of shock and, facings, so take your perhaps, disorder, pick, be it France, in the ranks of their Austria, Saxony and enemies! It’s your a number of other army, so whatever smaller states. If I’d floats your boat... chosen dark blue, If your campaign then Prussia would does not reside in be the immediate the realms of history comparison; red, the in any way, and is British; green, and a straightforward Russia is inevitably fantasy or sci-fi brought to mind. So setting, then of course what you are left with you can let rip with are the details: the your tailoring as you combinations of facing see fit. It is interesting colours, lace, piping, to note, however, that buttons, gaiters and all the best-known the heraldry of the works from these Another extract from the Editor’s diary, this time four campaign years and a change of battlefield, each unit’s genres generally handwriting later. Doing illustrations forces you to think about the smaller details. regimental colours. attempt to appear Now, in my ‘realistic’ in some way, experience, wargamers and re-enactors devour this stuff, or at least plausible. e lengths to which Peter Jackson and and we fill our shelves with the kind of reference works that his team went during the making of the Lord of the Rings tell us precisely what the minute differences were between movies in order to create the right ‘look’ were extraordinary: the uniform of regiment A compared to regiment B. My subtle variations in weapons and armoury and shield designs own current project painting British Napoleonic figures according to where the character came from, experiments has reminded me of just how subtle the distinctions can be, with different cloths and natural dyes, the architecture and with umpteen units with identical blue or yellow facings artefacts of each race – given the same time and resources, but the buttons are in ones/twos/threes or the lace has you bet this is precisely what I’d be doing for the Wars of this subtle zigzaggy line running through it or the buttons the Faltenian Succession! ( Deep, gravelly voice: “Coming are brass/silver and ... You get the general idea, I’m sure. soon to a screen near you, the king who bore the pride of When creating the army of a fictitious nation, just a nation, the queen who held the hopes of her people, and bear in mind that your miniature men will be the first the prince torn by the bitter rivalry that divided them...”) to tell you that they’re proud of the fact that their cap In short, then, those of us who invent uniforms do so badge is worn just so, or that the buttons on their gaiters because we love doing it and it can be very satisfying in itself. are silver, not brass, or that they have such-and-such Let’s look now, then, at the cost of assembling a a battle honour on their colours which is paraded on fictitious army. To be sure, if you’re going to build a force the third Tuesday of every October through the village to rival Napoleon’s Grande Armée in 28mm pewter, then
you’d better have a limitless cheque book and a spare decade or two. But this doesn’t have to be the case. When I first embarked on this project, I was inspired by Charles Grant’s Te War Game and the hosts of plastic Spencer Smith miniatures that marched across his wargames table. In those days, you could buy a bag of 80 infantry or 30 cavalry for just a couple of pounds. Sadly, they are no longer made in plastic, but thanks to the work of Peter Johnstone, Spencer Smith is still ver y much in business, though now casting these same figures in metal. At an average of jut 35p for an infantryman and 95p for cavalry, these still represent great value for money for the gamer looking to embark on a fictitious campaign. And the latest news is that Peter even has new ranges arriving that are perfect for the general of fictitious armies. Every toy shop in the high street contains other alternatives of course in the form of boxes of plastic figures, generally in 1:72 scale (20mm) and the range available is phenomenal. e Airfix company many of us recall with fondness from our youth has been beset by financial troubles over the years, but keen collectors can still find boxes of Waterloo Cuirassiers and British Commandos tucked away in the dusty corners of small shops or, more readily, on eBay, though at a premium. ese days, names like HäT, Italeri, Strelets and Zvezda make the market for plastic figures sound ver y exotic indeed. So strong is the demand for these figures that there is an excellent website dedicated entirely to reviewing the latest releases: see www.plasticsoldierreview.com. At just a few pounds a box, these represent great value not only for those of us building fictitious armies, but as a way into the hobby generally, though the drawback is that if you want disciplined-looking battalions all in the same pose, you’ll need to buy a lot of boxes as they typically come with around 40 figures in a variety of positions. But plastic isn’t the only alternative. With 2mm, 6mm, 10mm and 15mm figures in production, many of which are incredible little creations, the per-figure cost can be astonishingly low. I have to confess that, over the years, I have bought the armies of Prunkland and Faltenland in 6mm, 15mm and 30mm. I know, I know... Now, as for the objection to painting your miniatures in alternative colour schemes, well, that’s down to your
own conscience. If you’re seriously troubled by this, or by the thought of what your friends might say if they found out that you’d been (shock! horror!) just making things up, then don’t do it, because it requires a leap of faith that not everybody is comfortable with. During this series I’ve said repeatedly that a fictitious campaign is an act of creation, the building of a world of your own design. For me, that’s the real turn-on, and that creativity extends as far as the buttons on the soldier’s jackets, the design of their saddlecloths and so on, though the level of detail that has interested me has evolved. In fact, the early incarnation of Prunkland’s forces now seems crude to me – which is why, last year, I stripped all the paint off my Spencer Smiths and started again, resulting in the first re-painted unit that you can see at the foot of the page. My advice is to start with modest forces. In the last instalment, we saw how, in theory, Prunkland could call nearly 77,000 men to arms. However, at the beginning of hostilities, Prunkland’s army numbered about 27,500 men, organised into 20 battalions of Musketeers, six battalions of Grenadiers, four battalions of Grenzers, two of Jäger, four batteries of artillery, 11 regiments of cavalry, a large battalion of pioneers and a small unit of medical staff. (Prunkland has always been very advanced in this regard.) Such a force is quite capable of challenging the most experienced of tabletop generals, both tactically and strategically. Should you manage to concentrate all your forces onto a single battlefield, this represents something akin to a Napoleonic corps and very alike the force that Frederick the Great commanded at Mollwitz. On the other hand, it is strong enough for a commander to divide the force into two or three parts, with garrisons, scouts, reconnaissance parties and the like, to either defend or attack a sizeable tract of territor y. e most important thing – as with any wargames project – is that an army of this size is achievable, and you’ll be able to get your campaign started knowing that in most encounters, only a few units, perhaps a brigade or two a side at the most, will be involved, so you can have fun gaming with whatever you’ve got as you build up your miniature armies in the background. Next time, we’ll look at how to introduce bags of personality into your fictitious forces.
From theory to reality: Regiment von Eintopf on the march. Old plastic Spencer Smith 30mm figures painted by the Editor. Balsa house, Last Valley trees.
A brush with musketeers Painting infantry for the Great Northern War by Dave Robotham
ver the last few months I have been looking into the new range of Great Northern War figures produced by Musketeer Miniatures. is is a relatively new line, but is growing steadily. At the moment the range includes basic infantry for the Swedish and the Russians and command groups, as well as grenadiers and pikemen for the Swedish. For this guide, I am going to tackle a Russian and a Swedish infantryman. I will also detail a couple of different techniques and paint combinations to add variety and speed things up.
O
FAE AND HAND
I will always try to paint the skin on a figure first for a variety of reasons. I find that if you paint the miniature from the inside layer out (the skin, then the shirt, then the tunic etc.), you will not be painting over previous layers. In effect, you are minimising the chance that you will get paint on already finished areas of the model. But, for me, the biggest reason is that I enjoy painting flesh on a figure and I find it the most interesting part of most miniatures. Painting the face and hands (and other ‘fleshy’ bits) first really does give life to the figure, and can drive me on to complete the rest of it. Both the Russian and Swedish infantry can be painted with the same style and colours: there is not a huge difference in skin tone between the two nations. But there are literally hundreds of methods of painting skin with an equal number of formulated paints to help you along the way, so you can add variety to your troops with ease. I painted the Russian and Swede in two different styles, both of which start with the same base colour, but build different colours on top of it. COLOU PALLEE 1 – E SWEDE
I started with a watered down basecoat of Pelikan Plaka’s Red Brown. is hobby paint dries totally matt and provides a great base colour for Caucasian skin tones. For the next step, I painted a layer of Games Workshop’s (GW) Bronzed Flesh over the red brown, making sure to leave the base colour in the deep recesses of the face. You don’t want to leave too much of the red brown showing, but areas to try to define with this highlight are the nose and nostrils, as well as the cheekbones and muscles. If you are feeling brave, you might also like to paint under the arches of the eyebrows and recesses under the eyes. In the next picture, you can see the extent to which I have covered the base colour with this layer. To add more definition, I added white to Bronzed Flesh for the second highlight. Areas to focus on here are
the same as before. Make sure you keep the definition of the nose and nostrils, as well the cheekbones and brow. You can see in third picture how subtle my highlight is, but you can increase the contrast by just adding a touch more white to the Bronzed Flesh. At this point you could stop, paint the eyes and lips in, and be done. However a final highlight of pure white will make the face stand out on the tabletop, which is what we are looking for here. Even if it does look a little too harsh in the fourth picture, remember that on the tabletop, those sharp highlights will really work to make the features of the face stand out . Finally, I painted in the eyes and the lower lip. e colour of the lower lip is really up to you. I know many painters prefer a much pinker colour instead of the dark red-brown colour I have used. Highlight the lips with either a single line or, as I have, you can add some more detail by splitting the highlight. e eyes were painted is as a black stripe painted into the eye socket, then a white stripe painted over that, finished off with a dot of black or dark brown centrally on the white strip. To avoid that wide-eyed stare, make sure the black dot totally divides the white of the eyes, touching the top and the bottom of the eye. COLOU PALLEE 2 – E RUAN
e Russian’s skin was painted using the same technique and template as with the Swede, a base coat with layered colours over the top to define the features. (See photos at top of opposite page. ) However, I used a different pallete of colours this time. I started with the same Plaka Red Brown, but this time I used paints from the Foundry and Privateer Press (P3) ranges. After the basecoat of red-brown, I painted a layer of P3 Khardic Flesh followed by a second highlight of P3 Midland Flesh. Like the Foundry colour triads, these two colours were designed to be painted one after the other, and they form a wonderfully hardy looking reddish skin tone. To add that final definition to the face, I applied a final highlight of Foundry’s Flesh 5C although, as with the Swede, this is not really necessary if you want to save some time. MUKE
ere is a very simple and quick way to paint muskets and rifles if you need to get them finished and onto the table in a timely manner. Firstly, I start with a mid-brown colour and paint all the wooden parts of the weapon. Due to the varied manufacturers of muskets from different nations, you can choose almost any brown colour for this basecoat: just make sure it’s not too dark. All the metallic areas were also painted dark silver (such as GW’s Boltgun
Metal), making sure the colour used was not bright or shiny. You can see the shades I used in this first picture. e second, and final, stage is to water down some black ink or black paint and wash that over both the wooden areas and the metallic areas. It will shade and stain the colours at the same time, adding definition and that weathered look. So that is the fast method, but there is also a far more detailed approach you can use to paint up muskets and rifles and other wooden-stocked weapons. Starting off with a dark brown colour, I basecoated the wooden areas of the musket and used the same silver as I did in the first method detailed previously. GW’s Scorched Brown or Foundry’s Bay Brown 42A are fine for this. To build up the colours of the wooden areas of the musket I used the Foundry’s Spear Shaft trio of colours. I painted horizontal stripes along the wooden surfaces using Spear Shaft 13A. As you can see in the picture, make sure the lines are quite wide, leaving only a sliver of the dark colour showing below. Using Spear Shaft 13B I then painted thin lines over the top of the previous layer. is time, try to leave only a sliver of the Spear Shaft 13A showing as you retrace your design with this new colour. At this point, I also used a black ink to wash all the metal areas of the weapon and then used my original silver colour to neaten up the edges. As a final highlight I used Spear Shaft 13C, again retracing my previous lines to build up the definition of the woodgrain. Using brighter silver (such as GW’s Mithril Silver or Chainmail), I also applied some highlights to the bayonet. TE UNO
On the next page, you will see a colour guide for a Russian and a Swedish infantryman’s uniform. I have provided a full run-down of the colours I used. I used Foundry colours for the most part, but fell back on the GW paint range for all the metallics, as well as the Russian soldier’s coat and cuffs. When painting the different uniforms, I used a simple layering technique, starting with a dark basecoat and adding two or three layers of highlights – no blending or washes, just simple layering of paint. You will notice that the Swedish Infantryman has not shaved for a few days. Adding a 5 o’clock shadow is really
not as hard as it might at first seem. To paint stubble, I use Foundry Granite 31C. is is a grey colour, but with a hint of brown to it. You could easily mix the shade of colour by taking a mid-grey (just black mixed with white) and adding a touch of brown. Any brown will do, but don’t add too much, just a dot of colour to tint the grey. I water the paint down until it is incredibly translucent. When you paint the first layer, you should only see a slight change in colour. I then paint maybe six or seven layers, progressively building up the colour. e more layers you add, the more opaque the colour will become as more pigment is layered onto the surface. Using multiple layers, you can make sure the pure granite colour is only along the jawbone and chin and fades out as it rises up the face. e hair on these soldiers can be painted in hundreds of different ways, using a huge variety of colours. I started with a dark base colour and applied a single highlight, painting it on in small lines and dashes following the contours of the sculpted hair. To finish off the bases, I used PVA to glue down some rough sand and then, when that was dry, I used a brown ink to stain the sand. It is far easier to paint sand with a fluid ink than with acrylic paint. en I drybrushed the bases with GW colours starting with Bestial Brown then Snakebite Leather followed up by Bubonic Brown and finally Bleached Bone. en I added several tufts of static grass in various colours. I used different colours for the rims of the bases. On the Swede, I used GW’s Bestial Brown and on the Russian, I used GW’s Scorched Brown, a much darker colour. For protection, I first varnished the model with GW’s Ardcoat spray gloss varnish, and after that had been left to dry for a day, I varnished them again with Testors Dullcote for a wonderfully matt finish. IN ONLUON
ere is a huge variety of different uniform colours you can use for the GNW. Like many armies in the 17th and 18th centuries, uniforms were often brightly coloured and specific to different formations. I suggest you head over to www.musketeerminiatures.com for plenty more ideas and information about the troops and battles of the Great Northern War.
Race for the Rhine part I Building and running a multi-player wargames campaign by arry ilto
ver the last year or so I have found myself regularly attending a twice-weekly gaming session held in a local hobby shop. e common interest across the attendees is Flames of War which, fortuitously, I also enjoy. Although it is very difficult to fault the approach Battlefront have taken, even the best thought-out gaming system will become tedious and predictable if every club night consists of equal points per side annihilation fests. Having run a few scenario-based games and some table actions from my own Russian Front campaign for the members, I suggested a short campaign created specifically for the club might be of interest, and everyone agreed. e trouble was, although I had vague ideas of what it might be and how it could run, I had no concrete plan. Once the lads got tuned in, I really had to get my skates on and produce something as every Monday or ursday someone would say “When is the campaign starting?” So, I embarked on what has been, for me, a very satisfying, productive and enjoyable little project. Why run a campaign? Well, a campaign offers added
O
dimensions not possible in one-off encounters. Decisions to commit reserves, launch all-out attacks or sustain enormous losses simply to win are put much more in context. Choices become more difficult and their consequences carry more weight. Players become attached to ‘pet’ units which then influence the frequent do I /don’t I decisions much more. Rivalry amongst players adds spice particularly when (as in this case) they are all on the same side and vying for glory and plaudits in the campaign press. Although I enjoy almost all wargaming, campaigns are for me the apex of the hobby in terms of overall experience. It’s the difference between watching an exciting movie clip and sitting down to enjoy the whole two hour feature complete with popcorn and a large drink. THE PRINCILES OF WAR
ere’s a phrase which is commonly coined in my line of work ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, any bus will do’. I wanted to know exactly where this little project was going and also needed to know when I’d got there. I first set out some broad working principles around which the detail would evolve. e main building blocks on which I constructed the campaign provided a very clear focus for my subsequent effort.
American armour, well, racing for the Rhine! Photo by Barry Hilton of part of his outstanding collection.
Principle 1: We must have fun! I wanted the campaign to generate genuine enthusiasm and a desire to get on with it from the players. My wish was that the games themselves, although competitive, could be played in a spirit of good sportsmanship and not turn into the traditional ‘who knows the rules best wins’ type of competitive situation. Every game was, in practice, umpired. is helped hugely in the overall smooth running and on more than one occasion my co-umpire John or I were able to pour oil on troubled waters when players got a little ‘tired and emotional’, to use the theatrical idiom.
into other activities. e Sands of Time, my own Russian Front campaign, suffered from several of these symptoms and passed through phases where it limped along in a dormant state for several months before being reinvigorated by new players or a renewed burst of enthusiasm from me. In the end, I completed it after three years and various incarnations of players, scales and scope. A really wonderful experience, but not for the faint-hearted. So, my principles for RftR were based on manageable time period and highly visible rapid progress.
Principle 5: K.I.S.S (Keep it Short & Sweet) Principle 2: ere will be little paperwork after the job is done!
Not everyone has the luxury of being able to game for a whole day and so I needed to ensure that every game could be completed with a clear result in an evening, with no ‘carry over’ activity to other evenings.
My previous campaign experience lasted over three years and produced over 500 pages of notes, battle accounts, and associated anally-retentive data, very characteristic of Principle 6: Ensure at me at my worst. Much all times that no-one as I enjoyed it all, I has the foggiest what is had no wish to repeat happening! this more than semimasochistic experience. I personally enjoy I therefore embarked on any kind of Fog of a serious bit of frontWar mechanisms end work, mostly built immensely. So this around a device I came was perhaps a selfish to know as the ‘Battle inclusion, although the Generator’. is rather excitement it generated A salvage operation in progress on a very chilly-looking piece of Barry’s terrain. is is tedious spadework amongst the players precisely the kind of scenario that can be critical in a modern campaign: commanders did mean that when wholly vindicated can’t afford to ju st trash their armour w illy-nilly. Photo by BH. a map encounter the decision to spend occurred in the time on getting it campaign. I was immediately able to create a credible right. It was very important to the sense of tension opposition force based on the in situ German Division. and combat disorientation to have a significant I will explain more of the Generator later. I also wanted Fog of War impact on every battle. To create this, I a simple way to keep track of performance, losses and used a variety of tools that made force composition, replacements. is did involve some record-keeping, but deployment and reconnaissance vitally important. not a huge volume, relatively speaking. I was, however, DRAFING HE LAN in the end unable to escape from my wargaming ‘Stato’ tendencies and tracked various statistics throughout. Initially, I considered setting it in the Ardennes in late 1944, then switched to a D-Day breakout scenario, Principle 3: Gladiators will fight to the death! but in the end I settled on the final major western e guys at the club are pretty typical wargamers, pleasant front operation of the war: Operation Veritable. I company, but a competitive bunch, and so I wanted to will resist ensnaring myself in the wargamer’s potted make sure there were enough decisions and v ariables to history trap here, and will summarise very briefly. make the campaign more than simply fighting a seri es Having weathered the storm of the Ardennes offensive of encounter battles. is led me to create a tiered level in December 1944, the Allies gathered themselves of victory bonus based on the swiftness of the victory, together for what was to be the final desperate struggle prisoner and equipment capture, loss replacement, asset to subdue the German armed forces in the west. Pushing management, combined operations and achievement from Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and eastern France, of the primary objective – reaching the river first. three army groups (British 21st, American 6th & 12th) launched a coordinated drive to reach the Rhine and Principle 4: We will not refight the Hundred Years War Germany’s industrial heartland. e offensive began in Many wargaming campaigns splutter out and die desperate winter weather, against typically determined before their projected end. e reasons vary from the enemy resistance. By early March 1945, the first uni ts campaign not being very well planned or organised in were looking across the great river. So, my objectiv e the first place, through to over-ambitious size, length, was to recreate some of the action and excitement lack of player commitment and diversion of the players of this decisive campaign in a manageable form.
Flames of War is a ruleset built around company level actions. I did not want players to be buying and painting masses of new miniatures and aimed to get the show on the road as quickly as possible. I therefore offered each player the simple choice of playing with a reinforced armoured or infantry company, with the additional choice of its nationality being American, British or Canadian. e total available points for each force was set at 2,100 as calculated using the Army Lists I prepared for the player’s use. e big twist built into the campaign was that all of the players would be on the same side. Enemy forces were to be controlled by the umpire and were, for all intents and purposes, ‘passive’. e idea was to make the eleven players race each other to be the first Allied unit to reach the river in an operational condition, fighting battles, dealing with situations and making choices along the way. As a further pinch of spice, players were to assume the roles of the umpire-generated German forces in encounter battles when not actually playing with their own force. As the whole idea of winning the campaign was about reaching the river first with the most victory points, there was added incentive to play well as the enemy because. by damaging your friend’s chances and causing him heavy losses. you were actually shortening the odds of winning yourself.
THE UMIRE’S OOLKI
I had to create several ‘tools’, which I collectively labelled ‘the toolkit’. With these, I was able to control all aspects of the campaign mechanics. Some were easy and others stretched my competence a little, but having done it and established the principles, they will be easily replicated or adapted for other periods or situations.
Tool 1: campaign rules First up was a set of campaign rules covering everything from choosing a force through weather, air support, German defensive positions, use of armour recovery vehicles, ambulances, combined ops between two commanders and increasing/decreasing troop efficiency as a result of combat. e campaign rules will appear in full as a later part of this series of articles. e actual battles were fought using the first edition of the Flames of War ruleset with umpire amendments and additions in the following key areas: 1. Battlefield deployment 2. Pre-game reconnaissance 3. On-table reconnaissance 4. Battlefield visibility and line of sight 5. Force composition
e campaign map designed by Barr y using Campaign Cartographer. № Turner Prize winner, but it does the job! Time to dig out your Baedeker guide...
6. Use of smoke 7. Use of armour recovery vehicles 8. Use of field ambulances and corpsmen/medics ese amendments and additions, if not already dealt with, will also be detailed separately in the next issue.
Tool 2: campaign map e next thing I had to create was a campaign map ( see opposite). is took several attempts to get right. I knew I wanted to use hexes and not squares (I had found those limiting during Sands of Time). My biggest problem was the size of the hexes. Scaling them too small would create difficulties in terms of the distance that players needed to travel to reach the river and of course lengthen the campaign. As the club had never experienced a campaign before, I wanted their first experience to be short and sweet. I did not apply definitive ground scale to the hexes, which left me some flexibility in the placing of certain towns and geographical features relative to each other. e area I mapped is on the west bank of the Rhine, in the general operational area of XXX Corps and the Canadian 1st Army during the period from January through February 1945. e Americans are a bit out of their historical zone of operation, but several players owned US Forces and I wanted them to be able to use what they had. I took a few liberties with the terrain and created a small number of fictitious place names, but in general terms I think the topography is recognisable. I used a software package called Campaign Cartographer II to make the map, but did not find it very easy and lost patience, resulting in a much less aesthetically-pleasing effort than I’d hoped for. In practice, however, it was easy for both players and umpires to navigate and served its purpose extremely well. You can see the map here. It was banded into ‘zones of intensity’ which in effect meant that the closer Allied units moved towards the river, the greater the chance of bumping into some opposition. ese zones of intensity were not marked on the players’ maps, only on the Umpire’s master map. e zones were graded from LOW (20%) through MEDIUM (50%) and HIGH (70%) to SUPER INTENSE (90%). e width of each zone was governed by distance from the river and terrain type, which meant they were not totally linear, and consequently difficult to predict from a player’s perspective. Roads were always one zone hotter than the band through which they ran, to represent the likelihood of the enemy blocking the most obvious or quickest routes. Villages, towns and bridges were all treated in the same fashion as roads. Overlaid onto this map were further guidelines that marked the zones of control of ten German divisions. ere were no predetermined German units positioned on the map.
Only if an encounter happened in any given turn would the use of the German divisional dispositions come into play. is was a huge innovation for me. Previously, in Sands of Time, I had to pre-populate an enormous map area representing central Byelorussia with the equivalent of six Russian and one German Corps down to company level asset detail before the campaign began. My new method left me without that chore, but with a system that could generate a battalion-strength force down to platoonlevel detail anywhere on the map within ten minutes.
Tool 3: army lists Army lists ( see examples, left ) were created with the help of Battlefront’s Intelligence Guides, particularly the PDF Late War Intel Briefings which are semiofficial. e recently-released Festung Europa would have been handy, but was alas not available at the time. I did not want to give the players as much latitude in force composition as Battlefront allow in their handbooks. eir lists are primarily constructed to sell an attractive blend of miniatures and make money. is results in some extremely improbable combinations of infantry companies being supported by the cream of available armour and artillery pieces, forces which, I suspect, would not be recognisable to any combat veteran of either side from the ETO [European eatre of Operations] in 1945. My lists were far more prosaic and involved compulsory elements to a far more prescriptive and limiting degree. An infantry company was compelled to take a full complement of rifle platoons and the historical suppor t weapons such as medium mortars, machine guns and small calibre AT guns. Tank companies were forced to include the full complement of platoons at full strength. For the Americans, that meant 17 Shermans minimum. e British and Canadians were allowed to use either Shermans or Cromwells. Forcing the compulsory inclusions severely limited the available ‘free choice’ options, making them far more precious and carefully considered. It also meant the players were competing on an essentially even playing field. I made small alterations to the points costs as Battlefront’s calculation methodology is esoteric, to say the least.
Tool 4: the ‘Battle Generator’ By far the largest time investment went into the Battle Generator. is is a series of connected tables that create the German opposition randomly (but within defined parameters) for each battle. It works on descending levels of detail as shown below: a. Identification of the parent German Division b. Cross-referencing the divisional type (e.g. ‘Parachute’) with the predominant terrain type in the contact hex. is activity dictates the core composition of the force.
c. d. e. f. g.
Establishing the morale and training rating of the force. Establishing the size of the force. Establishing the core compulsory elements of the force. Establishing the variable elements of the force. Establishing whether the force is in prepared positions or not. Basically, I had to make this up from scratch. You will find sample charts from levels b through e next issue, together with a worked example to illustrate the concept.
Tool 5: Battle Generator Summary
wished to replace and was used at the commencement of the new turn. If a victory had been particularly costly, it was possible for players to win a battle but drop down the table because of a negative balance in points for loss replacement. e time ‘between turns’ was actually very busy. e Umpire collated all of the stats from the battles, worked out relative points gains and losses and prepared league tables. e players had to make decisions about whether or not to replace losses, which new elements to include, discuss potential combined ops and plan their next moves.
Tool 7: campaign newsletter
It was a certainty that every turn there would be action. I produced a standard form which recorded the essential data for each battle, allowing it to be set up, played, judged and archived. is was known as the Battle Generator Summary, an example of which can be seen here.
Tool 6: Result table e result table operated in an identical fashion to a soccer league table as seen in the Sunday newspapers. It recorded vital campaign statistics for each unit and ranked the players in descending order of success at the close of each campaign turn. I actually had to produce two versions of the table. One recorded the points and stats for each force at the end of the turn just completed, but before losses had been replaced. e second showed the situation after each commander had made decisions about what equipment he
Although completely unnecessary, this was the aspect of the campaign administration I enjoyed most. I drew my inspiration directly from the splendid work of Steve Ayers who authored Neue Kampagne Zeitung , an extremely witty, informative and well laidout newsletter recording the events of a Seven Years War campaign. My efforts were a tad more lowbrow that those of the erudite Mr Ayers and being a lifelong devotee of British seaside humour and the Carry On series of movies, I christened my rag Up the Front! It did chart the progress of the campaign, but with the reporting accuracy of the lowest quality tabloid and the journalistic talent of a twelve year old pubescent schoolboy, training to be a hack of the worst variety. Coming next issue: playing the campaign.
Carry on campaigning: a few examples of Barry’s entertaining newsletter.
Quickdraw ! Fast and fun Wi ld West shootout rules by ndy ykes wit enry yd
INTRODUCTION ndy Sykes always liked watching and recreating Westerns. His first figures were the cheap and cheerful grip bags of multicoloured plastic, closely followed by the Airfix HO/OO Cowboys and High Chaparral sets (when they cost 17 pence a box!) Later, he exchanged these for 1/32 scale Airfix and Britains figures. e fights were fast, bloody and the only rule was that the best-looking or coolest figure always won. As he got older, they were largely forgotten, as he progressed through ‘proper’ wargaming periods such as Napoleonics, ACW and WWII, using smaller scales, fighting bigger battles and amassing lots of figures, until he was drawn back by the Guernsey Foundry releases, sculpted by Mark Copplestone in the 1990s. ese, along with various rulesets, have been responsible, at his club, for pulling many a budding Napoleon away from rewriting history for a quick game or two as ‘Two-Gun Pete’ or somesuch. Andy’s Western figure collection now grows at every show, with Dixons, Artizan, Mayhem, Old Glory and others. Some of them are always lurking at the edges of his painting bench, interrupting more mainstream units in the painting queue. e Editor, on the other hand, has come to cowboy
A
skirmish gaming rather late in life, as a welcome breather from other ‘big battalion’ periods like the Seven Years War. is epiphany was largely caused by the discovery of Black Scorpion’s wonderful range of 30mm-ish “Tombstone” figures, followed quickly by Eric Hotz’s superb “Whitewash City” PDF buildings that can be downloaded, printed onto card, cut out and glued to create a cheap and effective Wild West town in the blink of an eye, and at very low cost. e photos you see here and on the front cover show just a small part of these product ranges in the Editor’s collection. It would have been perfectly possible to simply write a scenario for one of the popular rulesets, such as Gutshot or Legends of the Old West , but firstly, we didn’t want to assume that you had these in your possession, and secondly, we thought that you’d like to have something to give you a feel for the period before you took the plunge. Andy is responsible for working out the basic rule mechanisms, and the Editor is responsible for mercilessly fiddling with them! You need some figures and scenery, an ordinary pack of playing cards, a tape measure and a collection of the sort of dice you’ve probably got lying in a corner somewhere and thought you’d never use again since you gave up Dungeons and Dragons , unless you’re a skirmish or roleplaying wargamer who uses them regularly, of course. ese are the dice with more or less faces than the standard six-sided cube we all know and love as the d6. So dig out your d4s, d8s, d10s, d12s, d20s and percentage dice. Honestly, it’s worth it: their use makes it possible to represent certain things very quickly and effectively. If you find yourself lacking d8s or d12s, for example, then a quick search of the Internet, or a visit to your local gaming shop or wargames convention, will quickly furnish you with more types of ‘hedra’ than you probably knew existed! e West is ideal for a new period as you don’t need a lot of figures, and you can paint them much as you please, so for those of you who would like to give it a go, we also present a simple scenario that can be played on a mere 4 feet square with a dozen miniatures or so. We hope the rules will give a fun game. ey require a little note-taking, but after a while you shouldn’t need to refer to them too much. It’s a good idea to make out a card for each character playing, so you can keep a tally of wounds, ammunition and so on. At present the rules will cover all you need for cartridge firearms. Muzzle-loaders aren’t represented at the moment, but we might attempt to cover them in a future scenario.
SCALES What You See Is What You Get, so each figure is one man, horse, mule etc, an inch/25mm is roughly six feet, and each Action is of a few seconds duration.
CHARACTERISTICS e sheriff ’s men make use of cover as they hunt down Zachary Beard and the Bandidos. Black Scorpion miniatures painted by the Editor.
Each figure has a set of character traits, each determined by rolling a d20. (e characters in our scenario are pre-determined, as you’ll see.)
Shouldered weapon skill (SH)
A Ride on a trotting horse or wagon is 10” A Ride on a cantering horse or wagon is 15” A Ride on a galloping horse is 20” A team pulling a heavily-laden wagon may not gallop. If a character wants to move towards a known enemy or out of cover, he must first pass a Guts test by rolling less than or equal to his Guts score on a d20. Difficult terrain prevents figures on foot from running, and mounted characters from cantering or galloping. You will need to consider and agree upon what constitutes difficult terrain in each scenario, but obvious candidates will be steep hills, deep watercourses, thick woods, rocky slopes and so on. If fighting inside, you might like to consider rooms with lots of furniture as slow going as well. If you like to include weather, then a typical Wild West dirt street after a thunderstorm would be a good bet too!
e character’s ability to fire a weapon designed to be fired from the shoulder, such as a rifle.
Handgun skill (HG)
e character’s ability to fire a weapon designed to be fired with one hand, such as a sixgun.
Mêlée skill (M)
e character’s ability to attack and defend themselves in a brawl or mêlée.
Guts (G)
e character’s spirit or braver y.
Build (B)
e character’s physique, health and stamina.
Ability (A)
e character’s ability to accomplish any feat.
INITIATIVE Te Deck
FIRING
e order of initiative is decided by a set of standard playing cards. Each character is allocated a pair of cards of the same colour which can readily be identified as theirs (such as the queens of clubs and spades, or the sixes of hearts and diamonds). ese are then all shuffled together and placed face down in a convenient spot close to the wargames table. e two Jokers should also be added to the pack. When a Joker is drawn, the pack is shuffled. is can be said to represent ‘the director’s cut’ and makes the turn of events very unpredictable.
Characters may either fire a single Snapshot or Aimed shot or they can ‘Pour it on’. In all cases, they must be able to see their target.
ACTIONS When one of a character’s allocated cards is drawn, he may make an Action. is may be: Fire: discharge a weapon at an opponent Reload: load a weapon in his possession Move: move any distance up to the maximum permitted* Move & Fire: combine the above Attack: engage an enemy in mêlée Recover: attempt to regain composure Other: another action e.g. dive through a window, mount/ dismount from a horse or wagon, stand up or lie down Do nothing NB It is not possible to fire a weapon effectively and Crawl in the same Action phase. Try it at home and see!
MOVEMENT Each Action, character can Crawl, Walk, Run or Ride. A Crawl is 2”, with the character lying down A Walk is 4” A Run is 8” A Ride on a walking horse or wagon is 5”
Snapshot A single shot delivered instinctively. Use the relevant skill: Shouldered weapon (SH) or Handgun (HG). Add or subtract the following modifiers (cumulative): Firer or target is Walking -2 Firer or target is Running -4 Firer or target is on Walking horse/wagon -4 Firer or target is on Trotting horse/wagon -6 Firer or target is on Cantering horse/wagon -8 Firer or target is on Galloping horse/wagon -10 Firer using off-hand -5 Firing shoulder arm one-handed -5 Target is prone or Crawling and 10” or more distant -5 en apply Range modifiers from the table below. e resulting number is the score or lower needed on a D20 to hit. * If the shotgun still has its stock, use (SH). If it does not have its stock, use (HG). ** At these ranges, other figures within 1” of the target may be hit instead. Re-roll at the normal chance to hit using the optional rule below. If a weapon is in range, a roll of 1 always hits, a roll of 20 always misses and also indicates a misfire. Example: ‘Curly’ Henry is armed with a stocked, sawnoff shotgun; he takes a shot at ‘One-Eared’ Bob. Curly’s SH is 10 and he is Walking, so -2; Bob is Running, so a further -4. We are now at a score of 4. e range is 12”, medium range, so we add +2. e resulting number is 6, so Curly needs a 6 or less on a D20 to hit. Range modifiers
Weapon
Point Blank 0-1”
Short 1-10”
Medium 10-20”
Long 20-50”
Extreme 50-100”
Revolver(HG)
-2
+4
0
-4
-10
Carbine (SH) Rifle (SH) Buffalo rifle (SH) Shotgun (SH) Sawn-off (SH) or (HG)*
-4
0
+5
0
-4
-6
0
+4
+1
-2
-8
-2
0
+2
0
-7
+8
+4
0**
-8**
-3
+10
+2
-3**
n/a
rown weapon (HG)
+2
0
n/a
n/a
n/a
e sheriff and his deputies lock and load and prepare to move out. Time fer the law to take control, boys! Let’s git those varmints and hang ‘em high!
Optional Rule If a target is missed at any range, (but not if a 20 was rolled, which indicates a misfire), the firer must re-roll to see if they have accidentally hit any other figure within 1” of the target. Misses must continue to be thrown for until a figure is hit, or there are no more figures at risk.
Aimed shot e character uses an Action card to aim – he does nothing else with that card but aim, and he fires only when his next card turns up. Use the procedure for a Snapshot, except that aiming gives a bonus modifier of +5. If he wishes to aim at a specific location on the target, he loses the +5 modifier, but if he hits, he can choose the hit location without rolling for it.
‘Pour it on’ e character may fire up to 6 shots; it may be rapid fire from a double-action or lever action or ‘fanning’ a single action. Note that the number of shots that the weapon is capable of firing before reloading is necessary may limit this, e.g. a loaded double-barrelled shotgun can only fire twice before it is emptied. Multiple enemies may be targeted as long as they are all within the same range bracket. Use the same procedure as with a Snapshot, however each shot is at -5 penalty. Missed shots against adjacent figures do not incur this penalty. A natural roll of 17-20 is treated as a misfire when pouring it on. d20 score
For damage use
MISFIRE If a misfire is rolled, roll a d10: 1 Weapon fired before shooter was ready, resulting in a dropped weapon, which requires one Action phase to recover. 2-5 Gun jams. Roll a d6 next Action: 1-2 = fixed; 3-4 = still jammed, try again next Action; 5-6 = broken mechanism, your firearm becomes an expensive club! 6-8 Wild shot, re-roll for hit on nearest character (but not the original target). 9 Shot yourself in the leg; roll a d6: 1-3 = left leg, 4-6 = right leg. en roll a d8 for damage as below. 10 Gun blows up. Roll d6: 1-3 = wound in firing arm, 4-6 = wound in firing arm and head. Roll for damage as required on wound table below.
HITS
AND
WO U N D S
A characters Build represents his health and ability to take damage. When a character is hit roll on the table below. If a characters Build points are exceeded he is dead. All hits are cumulative. Any hit causes the character to take a Guts test. A character that loses more than 50% of his starting Build in one location loses the full use of that location: Wounds have the following effects, depending on where the character has been hit: Head: -5 penalty to hit when shooting or mêléeing. Chest: may only move at a walk.
1
2-3
4-5
6-7
8-9
10-11
12-13
14-15
16-20
Head
Chest
Belly
Groin
Left leg
Right leg
Left arm
Right arm
Graze
d20
d12
d10
d10
d8
d8
d6
d6
d4
Belly: cannot move. Groin: -2 penalty to hit when shooting or mêléeing. Leg: can only crawl or move with assistance. Arm: cannot use that arm. Example: continuing our story, let us say that Curly rolled a 5, resulting in a hit on Bob. Curly then rolls a 9, so Bob is hit in the left leg; the damage dice for this location is a d8 which Curly rolls and scores a 7. Bob has a starting Build of 12; the damage of 7 is over 50% of his total, therefore Bob’s leg gives and he crumples. He now has 5 Build points left. If firing at a mounted target, roll to hit as normal, but any missed shots may hit the horse instead. Roll again to hit after a miss on the intended target, and if successful the horse is hit. Any wound will put the mount out of use. Roll against the riding character’s Ability – if this fails, he takes 1d6 damage from the fall.
RELOAD It takes one Action phase to load up to three rounds in a metallic cartridge firearm. Optional rule: any character under fire requires an Ability test to reload, otherwise he fumbles and fails this turn.
GUTS TEST A character must take a Guts test under the following circumstances: He sees an enemy for the first time He wishes to advance towards an enemy; this must be rolled to enter each closer range bracket He wishes to leave cover He is hit His mount is shot To test, roll against the character ’s Guts score. An equal or lower result is successful, and the character may continue.
A higher result is a failure. e character must head for the nearest cover or stay put if already in cover. He will cower until he recovers. A recovery is made with a successful Guts test. If the character rolls a 20, he must move towards his starting table edge, crying like a baby. He may attempt to recover as normal each Action phase, but failure means he continues to run. If he exits the board, he is lost. Example: Bob is now lying in the dirt of Main street with a bleeding leg. He must take his Guts test immediately. Bob’s Guts score is 10; you could say he has average courage. He rolls 11 and fails, so on his next Action card, he must try to crawl to the nearest cover.
ATTACK A character may choose to engage a figure in close combat at Point Blank range of 0-1”. If the figure is not yet in Point Blank range, he will have to make a Guts test to engage. If this test is successful, he may attack an enemy character. To hit, he must roll equal to or less than his Mêlée skill (M) score. His skill is modified by the following factors: Armed with: Club, or gun being used in mêlée +2 Knife +3 Sword +4 Tomahawk +4 Spear/fixed bayonet +5 Attacker is higher than/uphill from the defender +1 Defender is prone/crawling +1 If the attack hits, the defender may attempt to block it by rolling equal to or less than his Mêlée skill. Only weapon modifiers apply. If he is successful, the attack is blocked. If the attack is not blocked, roll on the wound table opposite. A hit character must take a Guts test; if this fails he must move away from the attacker on his next Action card.
Mexican bandidos up to no good near the freight depot! More Black Scorpion miniatures, painted for Battlegames by Jez Griffin of Shakespeare Studios.
Unarmed attacks cause one third the damage inflicted with a weapon, with a minimum of 1 point. If either figure rolls a natural 20, they break the weapon they are currently using! Example: the next Action card to be turned up is that of ‘Ornery’ Bart. He has seen Bob fall and decides to move in to scalp him. Ornery is 5” from Bob and runs at him; he passes his Guts test and closes. Ornery has a Mêlée skill of 12. He adds +1 for Bob being prone and +2 for his knife, so he needs 15 or less to hit. He rolls 14 – success. Bob attempts to block the attack using his clubbed Winchester. His Mêlée skill is 9 and he adds +2 for his weapon, meaning he requires an 11 or under. He rolls 8, blocks Bart’s attack and lets out a huge sigh of relief! A character only attacks on his own Action card. A defender may counter-attack on his next c ard or move away.
OTHER ACTIONS Most Actions are automatic and obvious, such as mounting or dismounting a horse. However, some are more difficult and require a roll equal to or less than the Ability score of that character, such as diving through a window, jumping from a veranda, climbing a wall, trying to climb aboard a moving wagon, jumping a gap between buildings and so on. (In that connection, bear in mind that our little men are not depicting Olympic athletes!) In some cases, failure may require a roll on the Wound table. Likewise some Actions may take longer than one round. e list is endless and such Actions are best dealt with as and when they occur by gentlemanly agreement between the players. If in doubt, take an Ability or Guts test, or both, as seems appropriate.
SCENARIO Te Plot e Clayburne Ranch is the biggest in the county and Mr Clayburne the richest man. Zachary Beard, a notorious leader of a gang of bandidos, no-goods and desperados, with his sidekick ‘Sixgun’ Red, came up with a plan to kidnap Clayburne’s son, Jeremy. Red obtained employment at the Clayburne Ranch and then two days ago, whilst riding the herd with Jeremy, led him into an ambush set by the bandidos of the Beard gang. Jeremy was knocked unconscious and taken
to the gang’s stronghold, a freight warehouse on a railroad siding on the outskirts of Whitewash City. A ransom note was then delivered to Mr Clayburne demanding $10,000 dollars for Jeremy’s safe return. However, the gang’s plan has gone astray. e hideout they have chosen is the occasional home of ‘Ol’ Jenkins, a one-eyed vagrant of doubtful hygiene. Jenkins, who had been in town for a week of celebrating on a chunk of silver he had managed to dig out of the nearby hills, returned to find the gang in residence in the freight yard. He had overheard talk of the kidnapping in the local saloon, and swiftly put two and two together. Reckoning there might be a drink or two coming his way if he told the sheriff of his discovery, he moved off swiftly without being spotted by the gang. Back in town, Jenkins reported his findings to Sheriff ‘Winchester’ Rogers, who was in conference with Mr Clayburne. Quickly gathering all available hands, a posse is formed: Sheriff Rogers, his Deputy Macleod, Mr Clayburne with his foreman Harvey Walsh and four cowhands. Also coming along is ‘Ol’ Jenkins and Mr Danvers, the father of Jeremy’s fiancée. e posse arrives at the freight yard on the edge of town just as dawn breaks...
Setting Silver Canyon, the North American Southwest 1880. It’s hot as Hell and dry as dessicated tumbleweed.
Starting positions and objectives See the table opposite. e objectives are not always obvious! To escape, a bad guy must exit the Southern table edge via Crow’s Nest Heights. It really adds a lot if you have plenty of crates, barrels, piles of lumber, water troughs, bits of scrub and other potential cover as you can see in the overhead shot below (mostly Frontline Wargaming bits). It is also useful to have floor plans of the interior of the buildings – these are
provided as standard with all the Whitewash City buildings. Note: Dynamite has a blast diameter of 5”. Choose a point of aim and roll against the character’s Handgun skill (HG) to see if it hits the intended target. If not, roll a D6: 1 = dynamite fuse cut too short, it explodes in the thrower’s hand; 2 = lands 3” short of intended target; 3 = lands 3” to the left of intended target; 4 = lands 3” to the
right of the target; 5 = lands 3” beyond intended target. 6 = this stick’s a dud! Dynamite causes d20 damage. It may also affect buildings if it lands within 1” of them. (If further away, the effects are dissipated.) Assume that an average wooden wall, door or whatever has 10 damage points, so a halfway decent blast will demolish it. Stone or brick walls have 20 damage points.
Te Bad Guys
SH
HG
MS
G
B
A
Weapons
Cards
Location
Zachary Beard Gang leader
13
14
16
19
15
13
2 Revolvers, 24 rounds
Ace of Clubs & Spades
Morse’s Freight
‘Sixgun’ Red Outlaw
14
18
13
15
14
15
2 Re volvers, 36 rounds
King of Clubs & Spades
Bunk house
Juan Talamera Sadistic bandido
12
16
15
12
13
12
Revolver, 40 rounds & knife
Queen of Clubs & Spades
Blacksmith
Miguel Tostado Bandido
8
15
14
11
10
10
Jack of Clubs & Spades
Morse’s Freight
Escape
‘Loco’ Francisco Bandido
9
15
12
14
12
13
Ten of Clubs & Spades
Blacksmith
Escape and kill somebody
Julio Tirador Bandido
16
11
11
13
15
12
Revolver, 24 rounds Revolver, 18 rounds & 2 sticks of dynamite* Winchester rifle, 30 rounds & Revolver, 12 rounds
Nine of Clubs & Spades
Toolshed
Escape
Eight of Clubs & Spades
Lovers’ Grove (with a local lady of ill repute)
Escape and kill at least as many as Juan
Cards
Location
Objective
Ace of Diamonds & Hearts
South table edge
Kill or capture Beard, then the outlaws
King of Diamonds & Hearts
Asleep in the Jail (unlocked)
Kill or capture as many outlaws as possible
Queen of Diamonds & Hearts
South table edge
Kill Beard and rescue Jeremy
Jack of Diamonds & Hearts
South table edge
Protect Mr Clayburne
Revolver, 30 rounds & machete
Alviro ‘Machete’ Bandido
9
14
16
14
12
14
Te Good Guys
SH
HG
MS
G
B
A
Sheriff ‘Winchester’ Rogers Lawman
16
15
14
19
16
14
Deputy Macleod Lawman
12
13
13
15
13
13
‘MR’ Clayburne Ranch owner
11
12
11
17
13
11
Harvey Walsh Foreman
10
10
14
15
18
14
Jake Powers Cowhand
10
10
11
17
11
14
Revolver, 24 rounds
‘Bullseye’ Dex Cowhand
16
10
12
12
12
12
Winchester Rifle, 27 rounds
‘Slow’ Cartwright Cowhand
8
8
12
16
13
3
2 Revolvers, 18 rounds
Mr Danvers Concerned father
9
11
10
15
12
13
2 Revolvers, 18 rounds
‘Ol’ Jenkins Vagrant
10
4
7
11
13
10
Double Barrel Shotgun, 8 rounds
Jeremy Hostage
11
7
4
7
8
8
Unarmed
Weapons Winchester Rifle, 24 rounds & Revolver, 12 rounds Double Barrel Shotgun, 12 rounds & Revolver, 12 rounds Winchester Rifle, 18 rounds & Revolver, 12 rounds Double Barrel Shotgun, 14 rounds & Revolver, 12 rounds
Ten of Diamonds & Hearts Nine of Diamonds & Hearts Eight of Diamonds & Hearts Seven of Diamonds & Hearts Six of Diamonds & Hearts Five of Diamonds & Hearts
South table edge South table edge South table edge
Objective Escape and kill either of the Clayburnes Escape and get more kills than Juan Escape and get more kills than Red
Do whatever Mr Clayburne or Harvey say Kill more outlaws than anyone else Do whatever Mr Clayburne or Harvey say
South table edge
Rescue Jeremy
Ma Baker’s cabin
Rob the dead
Morse’s Freight
Stay alive!
Kriegsspiel rides again Te revival of the famous von Reisswitz rules Guard artillery, wanted to provide a set of rules that would allow manoeuvres to be conducted on a map, thereby allowing junior officers to command forces, albeit in the form of miniature armies represented by blocks upon the ention the word Kriegsspiel to almost any gamer map, far larger than they would expect to do normally. and it is likely you’ll get some flicker of recognition. is experience would, he hoped, familiarise them with Many of us older types will recall the articles the problems of command and, most importantly, the in Practical uncertainties Wargamer in and friction of the mid 1980s the battlefield. when Bill Leeson Suffice it produced to say that he his original succeeded, in the translation of the face of significant von Reisswitz cynicism, to do Kriegsspiel rules just that. His first – I have met demonstration countless people to Baron von who were inspired Muffling, the Chief by the article of the Prussian and, seemingly General Staff, was universally, the a case in point. photos that went On first setting with them. at up the game, said, it is also true the old general, that most gamers’ like Reisswitz a knowledge begins veteran of the and ends with Napoleonic Wars, those articles was unimpressed, and the general anticipating some vague awareness childish parody that they were of war. As the the genesis of game progressed, our weird, but however, his wonderful, interest grew until hobby. So, with he exclaimed, that in mind, I “is is not a thought that an game, this is introduction to training for war! I Kriegsspiel , and, must recommend more importantly, it to the entire the range of Army”. And he did. wargaming After that, opportunities Kriegsspiel Red and Blue forces approach one another on the Umpire’s map. Action appears inmminent in the they present sets, the rules, vicinity of Seegerhof as opposing cavalry p atrols gain high ground overlooking the valley. was in order. map and blocks, were issues to TH BAKROUND every regiment in the army and exercises were held Fear not, I shall be brief on the historical stuff as I on a weekly basis. Its acceptance level was so high that want this article to be more of a practical guide than a von Moltke insisted that any officer being put up for retrospective viewing. Suffice to say here that Kriegsspiel promotion required a report into how he conducted was developed to be a system of rules that allowed himself during Kriegsspiel games. Indeed, after the Prussian officers to develop their skills in anticipation Prussian victories against Austria in 1866 and France in of their duties in war, without having to rely solely on 1871, foreign armies began to see Kriegsspiel as a key part the mass exercises that would happen only once a year, in those successes, and adopted the system themselves. and in which they would likely play only a minor rôle. e game’s appeal was, essentially, two-fold. It was indeed As a concept, von Reisswitz, an officer of the Prussian excellent training for the officer corps, encouraging broad by Richard Clarke
M
thinking and an appreciation of the ‘bigger picture’, but it was also a very enjoyable exercise, and clubs were formed in both military and civilian circles to enjoy Kriegsspiel. TH AM
e concepts behind Kriegsspiel are not too different from tabletop wargaming. At the heart of the game, you have an umpire who is responsible for devising the scenario and ‘managing’ the game through to its termination. You have two sides – in this case, these are always expressed as “Red” and “Blue” (which, thanks to Kriegsspiel, are terms still in use in military circles today) – both of whom receive a briefing outlining the situation in which they find themselves, along with their forces and their objectives. If they know the area that is being fought over, they may receive a detailed map; if they don’t, then a more basic one is provided. In either case, it is now up to them to devise a plan and write orders for their force. “Write orders?” I hear some of you cry. Yup, write orders. However this really only happens once in the game, but it is a key part of Kriegsspiel and one that can become something of an art form. In reality, a commander in the horse and musket period would be responsible for providing a written set of orders for his subordinates. e instructions need to be precise and clear, and replicating this is the key to getting your subordinates to actually do what you want them to do,rather than what they perceive that you want them to do. e reason for this is that, in a classic Kriegsspiel, the umpire will be playing the rôle of the various subordinates and it is he that moves your troops on the map. In the Prussian Army, games of Kriegsspiel would tend to be played in the officers’ mess. In that situation, the umpire would have the Red player (or team, for these games were often conducted with teams) in one corner, the Blue team in another, and his own map in a third. Once he received the orders from each team, he would adjourn to the map and begin moving the blocks according to those orders. Here, however, we depart from tabletop wargaming, or most versions of it, as the game is not played with any set bounds. Rather the duration of the ‘turns’ is dictated by what is, or is not, happening on the map. Perhaps some examples may help here. Let us assume that Red and Blue are at war. e border between them is the Silde stream, an inconsequential bit of water than forms no practical military barrier. So, Red has a column that has been ordered to cross the border and seize the village of Schönkirch, whereas Blue has been ordered to seize the heights to the south of Sildau to protect their territor y. A nice, simple scenario that sees the two forces on a direct collision course. Red’s column is leaving the village of Hohenzell at 06.00, Blue’s is doing exactly the same from Schönkirch at the same time. Red has ordered his two squadrons of hussars to advance down the main road, sending small patrols ahead to recce the route from the high ground that they will be moving through. Blue has been more direct, presuming that his own territory is safe, and his cavalry have been instructed to make straight for the Sildau heights, with outposts only being sent ahead to take them and report back if they encounter the enemy. In this situation, it is quite clear to the umpire that the two forces will not be encountering each other for a while. In the rules, two minutes of time is the basic unit, but in
this situation, he moves both forces five times that, with 10 minutes passing. is puts the two forces significantly closer together, but as yet, he has nothing to report to the players, who are left to assume that all is proceeding according to plan. Now time is more critical, so he moves the scouts forward to discover at what point they will spot each other. Once they do so, it is assumed that both parties send a messenger back to the main column with news of the enemy’s presence. e umpire calculates how long it will take for these messages to arrive and then he approaches the players to pass on the ne ws. For example, Blue and Red scouts may have spotted each
Action! Red and Blue deploy their infantry and skirmishers. Blue has deployed his 6p is still stuck on the road. Learning to recognise the differently-coloured and shap
other at 06.22. Red sends his messenger back and he reports to the column commander at 06.26. With this structure, the game for the players is punctuated not by artificial turns of a set duration, but by decision-making points. An example of this would be reflected in the following commander’s log. 1. 06.00. Column begins to march out, cavalry scouts are sent ahead as per orders. 2. 06.26. A messenger has arrived from the cavalry scouts. ey have spotted enemy cavalry patrols on the heights to the south of Sildau. I am sending a message ahead to my cavalry to try to push the enemy patrols off the
heights and see if any larger enemy force is further to the north. e main column is to continue its advance. 3. 06.34. Another messenger has arrived. It looks like the enemy are now holding the heights at Sildau with a strong cavalry force, larger than my own two squadrons. is worries me, but I am instructing my squadrons to observe them and stop any enemy movement further south. 4. 06.38. is is bad news! My cavalry appear to have been defeated by the enemy cavalry, I can see them routing back in disorder – fortunately, I can’t see any enemy cavalry in pursuit. I am sending one of my ADCs to take them back to rally to the West of Tiefenzell. My
flank. I’ll put my infantry battalion there in square… And so on. What the Red commander is not aware of is that Blue’s cavalry is simply demonstrating, in order to buy time for the main Blue column to deploy on the heights above Sildau. As can be seen, the game for the commanders is a procession of decision-making opportunities. e umpire will play a multi-rôle game. At times he is carrying out his usual duties with the rules, working out distances travelled or effects of combat, and at others he is writing reports from patrol commanders or rôle-playing the report of the breathless hussar who probably knows less than the commander-in-chief would like him to. As the game progresses, the two forces will probably come into combat, and at this point the players are likely to be brought up to the map to view the battle proper, all of which is controlled using the rules system of combat odds. Here the battle progresses very much in line with any tabletop game. When I first got the rules, I had anticipated something akin to H.G. Wells’ Little Wars or early Featherstone. I was, consequently, surprised to find that whilst they were simple to use, the rules were actually very sophisticated, in that they would often combine several elements into each dice roll. So, for example, one dice roll in close combat will tell you how many men both sides have lost and what their morale status now is, and how they react to victory or defeat. In a nutshell, these rules were clearly written by someone who understood the subtleties of combat. TH BI PIUR
r battery atop the ridge ( the blocks with four white dots on them) whilst Red’s artillery d blocks is one of the finer points of Kriegsspiel along with learning to map-read!
column… wait a minute… it’s now 06.39 and I can see enemy cavalry coming across the ridge opposite. ( At this point, the umpire will escort the player to the map, keeping hidden the location of Blue’s column, but allowing Red’s commander to deploy his forces on the map.) 5. Quick, send the Jägers forward into those woods to the left of the road. Bring the infantry battalion and guns up into line. 6. 06.42. e enemy cavalry seem to have pulled away behind the hill. I could see them making their way off to the South-East, that’s dangerously close to my right
So, that’s the basics of the rules: anything you can do with a set of tabletop rules you can do with Kriegsspiel, but the game is far more of an holistic experience. A tabletop game is, by definition, artificially restricted by the finite space of the table that we play our games on. As such, we almost always need to assume that the approach march has been made, the scouting i s all done, the armies have rather generously waited for each other to deploy into battle order and then, on the blow of some metaphorical whistle, the game begins. Kriegsspiel, conversely, has no such restrictions. Your game begins with a force that has certain objectives. You may have a general idea where the enemy is, but you certainly don’t know for sure. Indeed, you don’t know very much for sure, like what’s on your flanks, or where exactly your battle will be fought! It is critical in Kriegsspiel to give far more consideration to your order of march and your use of troops. I want my artillery to be able to take part in the battle that is to come, but I don’t want them all at the front of my column without enough infantry support. I’d like all that lovely cavalry on the table to charge gloriously, but actually if I do that, what will be happening on my flanks? If the enemy has split his force and is making a march against my flank I sure as Hell want to know about it! Perhaps, rather than deploy all of my force in the battleline, as I would do in a tabletop encounter, it might be a good idea to hold back a reserve force to deal with any unexpected enemy reinforcements; they can always be used to deliver the coup de grâce if things go to plan. Will my own flank column do as I ordered? Perhaps I should send my best subordinate officer to maximise the chance of it happening. I know they should be arriving on my left at around 10.30, but that depends on the enemy not delaying them…All of
these issues become important in Kriegsspiel, where the commander needs to consider the whole picture, rather than what is happening immediately in front of him on the table. G RID OF MINIAURS?
to the tabletop commander during the actual game. In detail, Fred could well receive a report at 10.30 saying that an enemy column is advancing on to his right flank. He’s already said that as he’s allocated a reasonable-sized force – a regiment of cavalry let us say – to that area and he wants them to harass any enemy advance aggressively, this is what they will attempt to do. e next message Fred gets is at 11.00, sent at 10.42. It’s his cavalry commander again, who is reporting that whilst they are not actually attacking the enemy, they have been successful in halting the column and forcing the enemy to deploy his guns. Indeed, it may be that both commanders hear artillery fire from that direction earlier than Fred receives his report. At 11.15 (I’m presuming the tabletop rules have a 15minute scale turn, but you can adapt this to suit the rules you use) Fred receives another report. His cavalry have fallen back before a larger force of enemy cavalry. When the message was written, at 11.02, his own cavalry were only two miles from the table edge. ey had, by then, identified the enemy column as being one of all arms, estimated at two regiments of horse, two battalions of foot and a 12-pounder battery. If Fred is lucky, they have been fortunate enough to capture a messenger trying to get through to Bill with news of the Faltenland column’s imminent arrival.
So why on earth should you keep all of those figures you’ve amassed over the years? Why not flog them on eBay and replace them with a handful of blocks and just play Kriegsspiel? Well, actually I’d never suggest that. I do enjoy a game of Kriegsspiel, but I also enjoy the magical sight of a table groaning with beautifullypainted figures that, frankly, blocks can never completely replace for me. But Kriegsspiel is not just an ‘either/or’ option. e rules can provide some superb additions that can really enhance our tabletop wargaming. ere is, of course, the campaign option. Kriegsspiel provides the gamer with just about every piece of information he needs to conduct a campaign on any map you like. As long as you know the scale of the map you are using, the march rates and column lengths specified will be easily translatable to your own campaign. Reisswitz can tell you how long it will take a company of pioneers to bridge a river depending on what sort of buildings can be found locally. He can tell you how far your column will CONLUSION stretch in road distance, and how long it will take the tail to To my mind, the possibilities catch up the head. It’s all there are endless. Kriegsspiel is a on a plate, as you’d expect. tremendously flexible system Te Umpire resolves the action on the master map. Tis shot gives But that’s not all. Let’s that can be used as was originally a good indication of scale. All photos by Richard Clarke. consider what it can do for your intended, as a game in its own normal tabletop battle that, at right, and what’s more it’s a game present, I’d wager you haven’t considered in your gaming. devised by a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars who knew just Imagine Fred and Bill who are due to meet next week for what the battlefield he was seeking to represent wa s really a game. Any horse and musket period will do, but to keep like. But it can also be used as a fantastic addition to our Henry awake, [Cheeky! Ed.] let’s assume its 18th century. tabletop gaming and campaigning, that removes the artificial Fred will be commanding forces of Prunkland, the Blue parameters of the table and allows us to consider our battles forces, Bill those of Faltenland, Red. We can keep our normal as part of the larger picture that our historical counterparts tabletop set up, and the orders of battle can be supplied as would have recognised. All of this sums up why we, at usual, but lets add something to the scenario. What about TooFatLardies, have worked with Bill Leeson over the past those flanks? Are you going to leave them hanging in the air year to get the rules back into print. In fact, the more I think and rely on your tabletop forces to deal with any surprise about it, the more I’m convinced that this article has the arrivals? Or, more sensibly, are you going to forgo a couple of wrong title. Kriegsspiel doesn’t just “ride again”; this is the squadrons from that regiment of cavalry to patrol off-table. Return of the Magnificent Kriegsspiel. Why not give it a go? If there are any enemy approaching from that direction, EDIOR’S NO do you want them to attempt to delay them, or just report back to the commander on the table as quickly as possible? See the TooFatLardies’ Kriegsspiel ad on p.47 for their You can abstract this stage if you wish. It may be enough contact details. I recently purchased the CD version of to simply accept that there is a flank and you do have patrols the rules and maps which I regret we’ve not had time there. If you don’t have an umpire to hand, you can simply to review in this issue, but we’ll certainly do so in time accept that the patrols will give warning of any approach for issue 11. In short, however, I’m very impressed with from that direction, and maybe even delay the enemy. You the attractively-presented PDF versions of the rules and may, however, prefer to have a larger scale map of the area maps, which are also available in ‘hard copy’. See the off-table and again, if you have the luxury of an umpire, Lardies’ own site at http://www.toofatlardies.co.uk/ he can use the Kriegsspiel rules to actually work out what A quick Google turned up a few Kriegsspiel references, will happen on that flank, all of which will provide reports of which the best were www.kriegsspiel.org.uk/ and and messages, worked out beforehand, that can be handed http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Kriegsspiel/
Forward observer Is the future plastic? by Mike Siggins
28mm plastics
Well, it had to happen. I really hoped it would. 28mm multi-part historical plastics. I thought perhaps a Russian or Chinese company might try it, or a rich American, or even Games Workshop. But the Perrys? Manna rom heaven. Ater the un I have had converting and painting Valiant and amiyas in recent weeks, I just can’t wait to get my hands on these. Te downside? Well, I don’t really do ACW, and I don’t see even these gures making it happen. It is not a period I enjoy, and I don’t think I will change my mind. Te scale too sets them on their own, unless by some quirk their heads or weapons match amiya’s 1/48ths. But the conversion possibilities are many, and I just know I will end up painting some Rebs. I don’t know about your group, but this announcement caused quite a stir. I am very excited about the possibilities or the hobby, and look orward to my rst pack. I will be queuing. DVDs
Personally, I get a lot rom watching someone else make models or paint on video, because sometimes that is the only way to see exactly what is going on. So with that in mind, and a small case o an ever, I bought Marcus Nicholls’ DVD on Realistic Armour Finishing echniques (Compendium Films). Marcus Nicholls is undoubtedly one o the best modellers in the world, and regularly has work in amiya Model Magazine International magazine, which he also edits. He excels at realistic paint nishes and weathering, oten breaking new ground, and he has very ew rivals in this respect. Broadly speaking, this topic is exactly what the DVD covers. We go rom a base sprayed tank, right through masking, washes, lters (glazes), paint chipping (very trendy), rust streaks and general weathering. Colours are explained ully, as are mix consistencies, and application is shown in every case. Overall, it is an
excellent eort. It loses marks only because it needs more close-ups; sometimes it is impossible to see what is being painted and how. Granted, these are tiny details being applied, but that is what we need to know. Mr Nicholls also works very quickly, and I am pleased to see that I am not alone in my regular use o a hairdryer! Having enjoyed the rst DVD, and also seen Richard Windrow’s errain Modelling in the same series, I am going to get Realistic Model Buildings as well. Tis is also by Mr Nicholls, and apparently shows the inamous Marmite masking technique, which cannot be missed. It must be stressed that all o these DVDs concentrate on 1/35th and larger models, but to be honest the techniques pretty much work all the way down to 15mm. I have been trying them out on 1/72nd tanks and they work ne. I wouldn’t want to paint chip a 1/300th tank, but I am sure there are those that have. And i you want to emulate the realistic techniques o Mr Nicholls, these will show you an awul lot more than the magazines. For all round coverage, I would also recommend Mig Jimenez’ F.A.Q. book as a great partner. Te DVDs cost £13 to £15 and each runs around 90 minutes, including extras, which is a good price compared to other specialist hobby DVDs. Highly recommended. New lamps for old
Many o you will know that in a couple o years or so, tungsten light bulbs will be phased out in the UK. We are, as with digital V, thereore obliged to move with the times and seek environmentally sound alternatives. For your average room light, you shouldn’t notice any dierence, but or halogen spots (very common these days) and modelling lights things may be changing more than you imagine. In a nutshell, the advantages are, umm, availability and long lie, typically ten times that o a tungsten bulb. Te downsides are higher prices, big curly elements, and an interesting meltdown evacuation drill i you should happen to break
one – basically, hold your breath and run. Additionally, some people have experienced physical reactions, mainly rashes and headaches. Now I am more than a little green tinged, and I will happily adopt these new devices without much prompting. My neighbours don’t know, but I would have solar panels and a small wind arm on the roo tomorrow i I could aord it. At the same time, I love light. Lots o it. I there is such a thing as borderline SAD, that is me. Stop giggling at the back. As I am very happy with my lighting arrangements or painting (all Anglepoise: 100w daylight, 60w daylight, and halogen spot) I thought it might be wise to start looking at my options. It also might just get me out o the photographic hole that I still nd mysel in. So. Option one is to stock up on tungstens like they are going out o ashion. And o course, they are. Option two was to buy a Daylight™ long lie bulb, rom the local art shop. I plugged this into the 60w Anglepoise and have been using it or three months. Wunderbar! Incredibly bright, white light, no problems, no headaches. More oten than not, I use this light on its own. Te only slight issue is that the bulb sticks way out o the hood, and so makes shading your eyes harder, but not impossible. Encouraged, and slightly obsessed with candlepower to oset this dull winter, I ordered a bigger lamp rom ebulbshop.com who have an amazing range o bulbs and related items. Tis was a 25 watt daylight spectrum, which equates, somehow, to 120 watts in old money. I installed this in the 100w Anglepoise and immediately hit problems… Nothing wrong with the light output, which is intense. oo much, i anything. I suspect a 60w or 80w equivalent would be ne. No, we are talking weight. Tese new bulbs are much heavier than the old glass models. So when you plug them into an Anglepoise, you get droop. Te bulb gradually pulls the arm and head down to table level. Not good. Do I have a worthless and weak lamp, perhaps? I switch lamps. Same
result. When I replaced the original Daylight™ bulb, it looked dim. en minutes later, it had died. So rom a lamp that promises 10,000 hours (over a year, on permanently), I had got three months occasional use. I will persevere, because I like the light quality, but I leave you with these ndings. What with global warming, curly light bulbs, power costs and droopy lamps, the hobby may not be the same in a ew years. Candles, anyone? The way of the warrior
James Clavell has a lot to answer or. And that Kurosawa bloke, come to think o it. In truth, I was bitten airly early on by the samurai bug. While Kagemusha remains overrated, once I had seen Te Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Ran, I was a lietime convert to the old bushido boys. I have almost every book by the ubiquitous Stephen urnbull, the oshiro Miune o samurai writing. I adore my Angus McBride plates, even i they are a bit chubby. I much preer Heian to the more popular Muromachi, so I have maintained my typical exoticism. I play Samurai RPGs when I can. I have samples o every gure range ever made. I even have John Jenkins buildings and torii stored away in cupboards. I have listed all the gures I want rom the Perrys. And I do eat quite a lot o rice and sushi. I am, as they say, all set. And I am not alone. With the WAB samurai supplement due soon, it seems everyone and his dog is doing samurai models and planning armies. Caught up in the pre-publication excitement, my willpower was duly weakened. When the excellent West Wind gures appeared at Warare, I was orced to resist manully, to dream o horse archers, big drums and katanas, and not credit card slips. All to no avail, because my mate Rob had bought some and cruelly let me with hal a dozen gures to paint. You see how easily I am distracted? Tat night I sat there painting away. And painting. And painting. Ater what seemed like several hours, I had completed one gure. Projecting this rate o output to even skirmish orces, I phoned Rob and admitted deeat. I thought highlanders were bad, but the harsh truth is that these are the toughest subjects I have ever had to paint. Really hard work.
Endless undercuts, armour, ribbon and orals all the way to the horizon. My zen powers are ading. I am thinking… Stug IIIs. Tey’re easy. And un. I’ll do one o those instead. Productivity drive
Tere is one stand that always catches my eye at shows. It shouldn’t, because I am sworn o o 28mm WWII, but Bolt Action always have something new and tempting. Tis might be because between Paul Hicks, Richard Ansell and the team they have churned out over 700 masters to date. Tis year they have tempted me with Italians (resisted, just), SS (minor purchase), more Italian Paras (sale Mr Humphreys!) and now, my beloved Fallschirmjaeger. Te latter are excellent, among the best that Paul has done. With a camera crew in the works, I can see that I will be spending more time and money here. Games
I am still playing a lot o games. Well, a lot or me. We continue with our interest in AK47 and while I would make some minor changes to ease it towards ‘Te Perect Game’, it is still providing some excellent, tense battles, and some memorable situations. Inevitably, happy with the general eel, we are looking to variants in other periods. Tese are likely to be 1940 (Blitzkrieg and Desert) and or me, a tempting excursion into Mexican Revolutions. I will check out options or ancients and medievals, probably writing the latter mysel. Another game earning its keep is Wings of War , a 1/144th scale WWI air game that I have mentioned beore. Tis may look like a boardgame, as it comes in a box, but this is very much a miniatures game. Tat said, it has ound avour with both groups. Te games are simple, quick and un, reminiscent o Sopwith or anyone who remembers that game rom the 1970s, and the more recent Aerodrome, by the talented Stan Kubiak. We are all painting Skytrex 1/144th planes to give us plenty o variety. Well worth a look. I have also started to play Pig Wars. Now, there is a deceptive set o rules. Overpriced, under-produced and rankly not a model o clarity. But… we played them, they work, and they have a certain something. I was swayed by a chat with a an at Partizan who was convinced that the rules could handle
any skirmish rom Sumer to Sci-, and probably beyond. I am not sure about that, but they certainly are a exible set and do manage to convey a good eel or the Dark Age period, so they might work or, say, samurai or medievals. Finally, rounding out a very active period, is Astounding ales. I have written a ull review elsewhere, but suce to say that this pulp game has been a great success. And to think I used to only play Napoleonics. Colour matching
I am not that great at converting colours rom real lie to paint. wo products have suraced recently that are going to make lie a lot easier. Color Match 1.0 is a web-based tool that lets you do all sorts o clever stu (see http://colors.silicon-dragons. com/). And it is ree. Want to nd out the equivalent to Scab Red in other ranges? Or, give me the Vallejo equivalent o amiya NAO Brown. No problem. Want to work out a three band colour recipe? Again, easy. You can even type in a hex number and it will show you the matching colours rom all the paint ranges. Tis means I can take a photo, or nd one on the web, and get an average hex (Web colour, such as CC0000 or Battlegames’ deep red) value using the colour dropper in Photoshop. I then put the number into Color Match and it gives me a match. And the match is good enough. Excellent! I am not yet saying the package is perect, because obviously it does not have all the paints in the world (it cost enough to get the many existing swatches in and analysed) and it does occasionally come up with odd answers – oten suggesting silver or other metallics or light greys, presumably because o their tonal similarity. But it has the big paint names included, and designer Joe Kutz is open to suggestions on improvements. As I don’t always have access to the web, I am hoping that Color Match emerges as a standalone ofine product, and that in time it includes more and more paint ranges – especially W&N oils. Would I pay or it? Yes. It is that good. In a similar vein, but rather less aordable, is the Matchstik . I came across this in an interior design magazine. It is a small device that you can hold up against a surace and it
will read the colour, in about 10,000 graduations, again reporting back as a number. Te shop oering the service made them available on loan, so that one might check that one’s curtains matched one’s cushions! I had other ideas. It is made by X-Rite in the States, and marketed in Europe by Sikkens. Oddly, I have not been able to nd the device or sale, or even a price, but I get the distinct impression that this is not a ew quid. But as omorrow’s World always promised, a cheaper one will be along soon. Although, come to think o it, I am still waiting or my hover boots. And another year is done
Usually I try to restrict mysel to ten avourite products or the year end round up. Not going to happen this year. No sir. Be lucky to get under 20. Here they are, in alphabetical order: Anglian Miniatures’ Spanish Civil War and buildings. Artizan’s Trilling ales, Arthurians and Wild West. Asmodee’s Hell Dorado gures. Black Hat’s early Samurai, hoping they expand the range. Black Scorpion’s Old West , but not the Apaches… Bolt Action’s Italians, SS and Fallschirmjäger. Caesar’s 20mm Biblicals. Dragon’s 1/72nd Armour, made and unmade. eBob’s 28mm Rebellion range, especially the horses. Graven Images’ 40mm Feudals. HLBSCo’s 40mm multipart SWA teams. Italeri’s 20mm Napoleonics and 1/72nd Armour. Kingmaker Miniatures’ Hussites Little Big Man transers – everything, really. Oshiro’s buildings – very promising start. Perry Miniatures’ 28mm & 40mm Napoleonics, HYW, Civilians etc. Rackham’s A-43 mechs, but not much else. Sash & Sabre’s 40mm Napoleonics and Landsknechts. Silicon Dragon’s Colour Match 1.0. amiya’s 1/48th range. Te Assault Group’s 30mm Napoleonic Austrians. om Meier, generally. rident Design’s 40mm AWI range. Valiant’s 1/72nd Classic Germans. WestWind’s Samurai. •
•
• •
•
•
• •
•
• •
•
• •
•
•
•
•
• • •
• • • •
Zvezda’s 20mm Egyptians, Vikings etc. But while there is no doubt a Golden Age in terms o product quality, choice and availability, and to an extent relative cost, we are still looking at some worrying signs, even without unwelcome re-enactors. I think it is now clear that the show circuit is contracting, as many o us thought it must. Compared to the peak o a ew years ago, several events have disappeared – interesting that while shows lapse or very good reasons (Walthamstow, Colchester, Stockton etc), they don’t always resurace. It will, or instance, be very interesting to see i SELWG makes it back. I sincerely hope it does, as it let a big hole in my calendar, and many traders I have spoken to were chasing the business lost. Prices are clearly rising, much in keeping with other drains on our wallets, which I hope means that more traders are making a decent return, with more and more able to go it ull time. While we punters would preer the bargains o years past, I eel it is still an aordable hobby or now. Whether it is an accessible hobby is a dierent matter. With some 28mm gures at £2 to £3, and rule sets regularly topping £15 or £20, I eel there will be a crunch point that pushes many newcomers and existing hobbyists towards skirmish games. Fortunately, 20mm plastics are looking up all the time, and still provide great value or money, but are slightly spoilt by some companies allowing scale creep. Quality across the hobby is improving by the month, and we haven’t even started to eel the impact o 3d prototyping. But we still have ranges not being nished… I am still waiting or a guilty manuacturer to drop me a line and explain why. In return I can explain why some buyers won’t jump and buy until they have seen commitment rom the sculptor. Meanwhile, I am putting it down to having both sculpting talent and the buttery gene. Tat said, I remain about as positive about the hobby as I have been since the Seventies. I could, quite happily, sit or all my ree time painting, modelling, making terrain and reading rules. I played more games in 2007 than in the previous decade. Apart rom a airly solid commitment to 40mm Feudals and my 20mm •
Egyptians, I am still itting around, but even that is not troubling me as it once did. Te hobby is rich, varied and ullling, and I am really enjoying it. Lead neutral
At least three people (quite a chunk o my readership) have asked me i I maintained my pledge to sell or paint more gures than I bought in 2007. I did, just, but only by selling a load o Foundry spares over Christmas! Te net outow was about 30 gures, which I aim to improve upon substantially this year. O course, i you counted plastics, I am in the hole to the tune o 300 or more… I certainly don’t eel too badly about that. Trident/Vanguard
I met Sean Judd a ew years ago at Euro Militaire. He was showing his new range o 40mm knights and Robin Hood characters, and I liked them a lot. I bought some, I vowed to paint them with lots o neat heraldry. As you do. Ater that, things went a bit topsy turvy or me. Four years later, digging around in a box, I ound the knights. Odd. Very odd. In that very week I had taken delivery o some 40mm eudals rom Graven Images, sculpted by Jim Bowen. My next project, ‘1250’, was underway. Unlike me, Sean has not been quiet. He has expanded the knights to include a decent range o archers, crossbowmen and men at arms. Tere are more models coming. He has also done a considerable number o AWI sculpts, again in 40mm. When I put in an order or the knights, some o the AWIs came along with them. And I have to say I was bowled over. I immediately painted Paul Revere, who comes mounted on a superb horse – this is up there with the Drabant sculpts as the best I have seen in this scale. Te characterul inantry are also excellent, and I recommend you have a good look i considering this period. All the gures mentioned are available rom Doug Carroccio at the Miniatures Service Centre, whose mail order service is exemplary. With the dollar squirming, they can be had or a song. Sean is looking or options or a UK distributor, and is promising some very tempting ranges in the uture including woodland Indians. I would like some more knights please Sean, more weapons, and some smelly peasants.
Battles for wargamers Trautenau 1866 by Suat Aquih, illusad by e Eior
A-P W 1866. A S W W, b A P 39- G C, b b 1815. A b P’ ‘ ’ x, S, D 1864 A P . T G B, B, Wüb, H, H Sx, A. T G P B I P, A V z. A 14 J, 1866. A 4 27 J, I C P 2 A G I B S B G M. T - b , , . T j Pz , R A, b R Eb, - S . L – bb P – (.. ) , , . W Pz 8, . T C’ b 10 - b A , -b b A. T q b P . T P Pz A 1 B . A P q, A Jäger q . A z -- , b A . A 11.30 P, b z b Pz, b A . O b , b
T
- , , . A 1, , - C S J , A 1 B b P b : Gb (G H); Jb Kb ( J’ C H); Hb (H H). B 3, P I C ; P Hb A Rz, b , b b 12 , A. P , P b . P b - b 40 , A b P . T - A 4 B 1 B Jb, 2 B P Hb. T A , b , b P – b b b – , , 14 b . T P -q , b – 1 F B E P 43 I R – , A, . A 5 b, A 3 B 4 B, . T , b 3 B, -b , 43 859 . T P b x , b Pz , b 3, 24 . T A ; X C F M Gbz . T A , b . T , b , , b q b A . T b A P . I , P 15 249
, 41 967 86 , 56 1,282 . T A 196 5,500 . Wargaming Trautenau
Tain W I b S W W 6 , I , , , q- - . T G M b b B A S P, b . T b R A . S , , b b - . W , x b I . A 6 b D M b . T b q, 12” x 12” ( 30 q). O b , I q, . T - - , . S , q, (q ) , I . T b b z b, q , j , b R A, b b . (N b - . S B, Cz Rb.) T b . T b b : ; b ; b b (, , I , I ). I x, , b . I b ; / . T b, b . F, P , b . Coniaion T P D , b
, . T 600 – b 30”. I ‘b ’ 300 , 250 , x 600 , 500 457 . T P b FG W 1870-1871; b , zz- b b- 1,500 . T b b . T P -, b A , j , b . T A zz- P , b 850 450 , b b . T A -q . T - A - b , Jäger x . T , , , 1859 1870-1871 1866. I b ; P 4, 6 12 b, 4 b. T A ‘ ’ 4 8 b, 4 b b, . T , , b . O b A , P .
Figu cal M 1866 I M’ 6 I b . T - x . I b A P . M b , .. 12 , b 36 . Jäger x b, b , b Jäger . T 12 , b q , . S I M , b, b I , , b b -b. A P 1866 , b, , b 1,000 . A b b,
An illustation by the Eito an Ann Pescott epicting the moment in the evening when men o the Austian 3rd Bigae, consisting o both Ukanian an Venetian toops, fnally manage to westle back contol o the chapel om the 43rd East Pus sian Regiment in fece han-to-han fghting, but at high cost.
24 . A Jäger b, (b) b, b. T ’ , 560 . T A 1866 P, b, Jäger b, b , q b. A, b j 1,000 . T ’ x b, . b b b . P . C b, . H b b . I ; , , b . T -- 85:1 100:1. T b . F, , , 36 b 12 j b .
T b, b - / ( Charge!).
Figu A x 6 I M, - 15 25, b F-G W 1870-1871, 1866 A . [W , , b 28 H – www.wargames.helion.co.uk . Ed.] I 25 , W 1815 (’ ) bx A 1859 L (!) A U 1866. I F P FG W , , 42 ‘ ’ I M I bb 1866 . A £1.25 £2.75 ( ) . W bb …
T 40 ‘S S’ b A M b b S S b, b x b. H, H G W , . Orders of Battle
Puian Foc (I Cop) (29,000 : 24 b, 21 q, 96 ) G C: G I B Right Flank Column Advanced Guard of the Corps Vanguard 1 D R (2 Sq) 1 R G (2 B) 1 4 A B D P Main Body of the Advanced Guard 1 B R (3 C)
1 R I (1B) 41 R I (1B) 5 4 A B 1 H A B 1 D R (2 Sq) 8 U R (3½ Sq) 1 P B (1 C) Reserve Infantry of the Corps 43 I R (2 B) 3 R G (2½ B) 4 12 A B 8 U R (½ Sq) Right Flank Detachment (from the Advanced Guard) 1 D R (1 Sq) 41 R I (2 B) 1 R B (1 C) 2 , 5 4 A B Left Flank Column Main Body of the Army Corps 3 B I 44 R I (3 B)
4 R G (3 B) 4 B I 45 R I (3 B) 5 R G (3 B) 1 R H 3rd Field Division of 1st Field Artillery Regiment 3 4 A B 4 4 A B 3 6 A B 2 12 A B Reserve Cavalry of the Corps (following the left flank column) 1st Cavalry Brigade 3 R C 12 R U 3 H A B Reserve Artillery of the Corps Horse Artillery Division 2 H A B 4 H A B F F A D 1 6 A B Second Field Division 2 6 A B 4 6 A B 2 4 A B 6 4 A B 1 B P (3 C)
uian Foc (X Cop) (30,000 : 28 b, 5 q, 72 ) G C: F M Gbz 9 U R R 1st Brigade 12 Jäger B 10 I R (3 B) 24 I R (3 B) L F A B 2nd Brigade 16 Jäger B 2 I R (1 B) 23 I R (1 B) L F A B 3rd Brigade 28 Jäger B 3 I R (1 B) 1 I R (1 B) L F A B 4th Brigade 13 I R (3 B) 58 I R (3 B) L F A B Rules
I 1866 . T b q b b ; , , q ! I b Rz’ 1824 Kriegsspiel b 6 .
I B W USA 1866. J b b 1870: Grand actical Rules for the Franco Prussian War (2001) 1859: Grand actical Rules for the Second Italian War of Independence (2006), S S W 1864, b . A, M W’ b j , b , , b . N , b x . Sources
T C W S N, -G W E . T S b Te Foreign Correspondent , q x -- . T UK b £6 I ’ b. F R W, 37 Y A, H, Mx HA2 9RL. (O , I R .) I’ b , b I -, I q x . [S Wb b b www.trutnov.cz/1866/ . I’ Cz ( E) b G . D Cz ? Ed .] S b : Te Campaign of 1866 in Germany C b D M H P S T N M P L 2005 Notes on the Campaign Between Prussia and Austria in 1866 M M C W V Hb (1897) H & C L 2001 Te Campaign of 1866 in Bohemia L C N M DSO (1912) Pz P 2007 Te Prussian Campaign of 1866: A actical Retrospect C T M 1870 H & C L 2006 Te Seven Weeks War 1866 C A S Pz P 1991 Te Austro-Prussian War: Austria’s War with Prussia and Italy in 1866 G W Cb U P 1996 Te Armies of 1866: A Guide to the Uniforms and Armies of the Seven Weeks War N J S (1989 & 1994) Pb P Te Campaigns of 1866: A Guide to the Campaigns and Orders of Battle of the Seven Weeks War N J S (1995) Pb P (B , b .)
Computer cartography for wargamers A simple introduction to producing maps using free software by Tyler Povick
a picture is worth a thousand words, a map is worth a thousand more. In its most basic orm, a map is simply the visual representation o spatial data: how ar the coast is rom the mountains. At the same time, a map can be a beautiul work o art, worthy o raming. For the wargamer, maps serve many practical purposes. Tey are used to designate deployment or scenarios or tell the story o a battle in a battle report. Ambitious wargamers even use maps to run complex map-based campaigns. With well-documented historical periods, it is possible to nd maps that can be used by the wargamer. Like most o the hobby, however, it alls to the wargamer to make it themselves i the appropriate map isn’t available. While pencil and paper, pen and ink are still staples in the creation o maps (see those produced by the Editor in previous issues), computers are becoming a popular choice or the creation o maps. A computer allows a wargamer to quickly colour a large area with a single click. It is much easier than dragging out the pencils, crayons or watercolours. Tis article will ocus on the use o a specic graphics program that is ree and can run on almost any computer whether it is running Windows, Linux or Mac. Specic steps will be provided, so that even someone new to computing can ollow along. It is assumed that the reader is already amiliar with map-making without a computer and will have some idea o the type o map they want to make.
I
cartography program end up looking the same. A graphics program, while not designed specically or map-making, is designed to make all types and styles o graphics. Tese programs are tools, like a pencil, which can be used to create anything the user wants to create. Another advantage to generic graphics programs is their price. While it is possible to spend a great deal o money on a graphics program, there are many ree applications that are very powerul. Inkscape is one o them. Tough ree, it works on most Operating Systems, is easy to use, and is a perect tool or the wargamer who wants to quickly create a map or their webpage or club campaign. Tere are other ree graphics applications, but it is the act that Inkscape uses vectors in order to create its graphics that makes it special to the amateur cartographer. Vectors are mathematical expressions o geometric shapes. Tere is a lot to vectors and their colleagues, rasters, but it isn’t necessary to take up space explaining them here. It is sufcient to say that vector images are easier to create and edit than more common raster images, making it more suited or mapping. [Tink o vectors as flled drawings, like cartoons or animations, and rasters or ‘bitmaps’ as photographs, consisting o millions o tiny dots or pi xels. Ed.] Inkscape can be downloaded or ree rom www. inkscape.org , so go right ahead and do so as your rst step! [Editor’s note: Mac users will need to be using at least Mac OSX 10.4 (iger) and ensure that they have the X11 platorm installed, which is one o the Developers’ ools supplied on your installation disc.] Creating an new im age
Te rst thing to do ater installing Inkscape is to open the program and take a moment to look over your new toy. Experienced computer users can probably skip this section, but it’s important or those that aren’t as amiliar with computers. At the very top is the Menu Bar where most o the tools are accessible. Click on a menu, such as File, and you will see a list o options called a dropdown list. Items with a black triangle to their right can be clicked on or moused-over (moving the cursor over something without clicking on it) to reveal an additional dropdown list.
Introduction to Inkscape
Te rst step in creating a map on the computer is nding the right program to use. Tere are proessional cartography programs, amateur cartography programs made by wargamers or wargamers, and generic graphics programs available. Both the proessional and amateur cartography programs cost money, with the amateur programs being much more aordable. Personally, I nd that all the maps made by one popular amateur
What the image looks like within Inkscape.
Below the Menu Bar are two toolbars that contain icons representing requently used tools. It is possible to customize these toolbars, but or the purposes o this article it is best to leave them alone. Te top toolbar is the Command Bar which perorms commands such as Grouping and Ungrouping Objects, Undoing mistakes or Editing Objects. Te ool Control Bar is used the change the properties o the specic tool you are using. It will change depending on which tool is chosen rom the ool Box. Along the let side o the screen is another toolbar called the ool Box. It contains tools specically used or creating and manipulating vector objects. Any icons in a toolbar can be moused-over in order to bring up a tooltip (a short explanation o the specic tool). Te Workspace is the large white space with the rectangular box in the middle. On the top and let o the Workspace are two rulers that can be helpul or keeping things to scale. Te multi-coloured bar below the Workspace is the palette, where you can quickly choose colours. Clicking on a colour selects it as the ll colour; holding Shit while clicking a colour selects it as the stroke colour. Te currently selected ll and stroke colours can be seen in the top-right corner above the Workspace. At the very bottom o the screen is the status bar. It shows important inormation about the tool you are using or the object you are manipulating. Te let o the status bar shows the ll and stroke colours o the object currently selected. Te middle suggests keys that can be pressed to change how the tool behaves. For example: with many tools holding Ctrl while using the tool will constrain any action to just the horizontal or vertical. Inkscape uses the let-click or the majority o actions. Double-clicking, i called or, is always with the let mouse button. Multiple objects can be selecting by holding Shit and clicking each one in turn, or by clicking and holding the mouse button while moving the mouse over the objects to be selected. A box will appear with one corner located where you rst clicked with the opposite corner ollowing the mouse. When Inkscape is rst opened, it automatically creates a new image based on the program’s deaults. Tese deaults can be modied in the Document Properties editor located in the File menu. Tey can be edited at any time. Te page size will not constrain the size o the image on the screen; it is only a reerence or printing. Begin by playing around a bit and clicking on some o the buttons or menus that you see. Don’t worry, there’s nothing there that will cause your computer to explode! Now that you’ve thoroughly messed-up the Workspace it is time to get rid o it and create a new, resh Workspace. Click on either File/New/Deault or the Create New Document command in the Command Bar. I you decide that what you’ve created is worth saving, click File/Save As or the Save Document command. Save As saves the image as a new le. Save or Save Document will save the image as a new le i it hasn’t already been saved, otherwise it will overwrite the existing saved le. Pay attention to the dierence, as sometimes it’s important to Save As in order to keep the original le intact. When saving les a window will appear asking you what you want to save the le as, what you want to name the le, and where you want to save it. I the older shown in the Save
in older prompt is not the older you want to save the le in, click on the plus sign next to Browse. Tis will expand the window and show more options. Te let box is a selection o requently used olders. Double-click on one o these olders to move to it. Te middle box shows you the contents o the older you are currently looking at. Te right box will show a preview o the currently selected le i one is available. Below that is a dropdown list where you can choose the le type. Best leave it as “Inkscape SVG”; other le types may change the way the image works. For example, saving the le as a JPG will automatically convert the image into a raster image, which negates the advantage o using vectors.
Te Save dialogue is neither Windows- nor Mac-standard and may be conusing to some users, so take your time!
Loading les works in exactly the same way, either through File/Open or the Open Existing Document command. Te dierence is that you are opening an existing le instead o saving one. Opened les will open in a separate window so that you can still access the le you are currently working on. Objects can be copied between two open les. I you want to open a le as part o the image you are currently working on, choose File/Import to do so. Tat’s the basics o Inkscape without getting into object creation and manipulation. Starting a map
Now comes the un part: creating the map. Troughout the article I will describe dierent techniques or creating objects used in a single map. Readers can ollow along to create their own map while learning the application. Tere are three types o maps commonly used by wargamers: campaign maps, scenario maps and battlereport maps. Te last two are airly similar, battle-report maps having additional inormation such as troop movements and status. I will create a map that can be used as the basis or a scenario or battle-report map, which will allow me to create basic shapes without having to do too much work deciding where to place mountain ranges, towns, etc. It can be helpul to begin with a sketch, especially i re-creating a battle, but it isn’t necessary. The battlefield
Te rst step is to dene the battleeld. Click on the blue square in the oolbox to select the Square/Rectangle tool. Draw a large square; this will be the border and background o the map. It doesn’t really matter how big it is, as we can scale and zoom later, although as
everything will be inside this square, make it airly big. I you haven’t made it big enough, there are tiny squares in the top-let and bottom-right corners o the box, called handles. Grabbing one o these handles will allow you to resize the box. In the ool Control Bar there is an option to change the width and height. You can enter numbers there to precisely control the size o the box. In this case, we’ll speciy the size o the box to make it the dimensions we want. We’ll use pixels as our unit o measurement in Inkscape. Tere are usually 72 pixels to the inch when viewing on your computer screen. o change what unit o measurement is used, open File/Document Properties and set Deault Units to px or pixels. We’ll use a scale o 1” on the tabletop = 20px. Our 6’ x 4’ table thereore becomes 1440px wide and 960px high. Tis scale is arbitrary; the image can be enlarged or shrunk as needed.
Te basic battlefeld, beore anything is added.
Now you have a rectangle which, depending on whether you played with the Palette or not, may be any combination o Stroke and Fill colours. o change the colours, click the Edit Object’s Style command in the Command Bar. A new window will open allowing you to edit the Fill and Stroke o an object. For Fill, there are a number o options: Solid, Linear Gradient, Radial Gradient, Pattern and No Fill. We’ll choose Solid Fill or now. Most wargamers have green tables, so we’ll use that colour or our battleeld. Tere are our ways to choose colours, each with their own quirks. We will use HSL which stands or Hue, Saturation, and Lightness. It’s a quick and easy way to choose colours. At the bottom is an RGBA number which is a code or the specic colour. Below that is the Master Opacity slider which will change the opacity o the ll and stroke colours, allowing objects below to show through. I chose 95c665, a mid-green, or my colour; you can copy that into the RGBA eld or choose your own. Te stroke or border or our battleground should be black. On the Stroke Paint tab select Solid Stroke and black as the colour; slide the L slider all the way to the let. We want the Stroke Style to be airly thick , so let’s set the Width to 5px.
A grid is a standard map item, and will make placing terrain on the wargames table easier.
Enter to nalize it. Copy this line by using the Select tool to select the line – a dashed box will surround it – then clicking Edit/Copy ollowed by Edit/Paste. Tis will create two vertical lines. o align these lines with the battleeld, select one line and set the X to 480. Select another line and set X to 960. Select both lines, either by clicking and dragging a box around them, or by holding shit and clicking on each in turn. Set Y to 0 and the H to 960. Repeat the process, but this time or a single horizontal line 1440px wide located at 0X, 480Y. Select all three lines and click Path/Combine. Tis merges all three lines into one object. Select the grid and the battleeld, click on Align and distribute objects in the Command oolbar. In the Align window, select Center on Vertical Axis and Center on Horizontal Axis. Tis will position the grid directly above the battleeld. Later we can modiy the line width and style. We can make it dashed, dotted or slightly translucent. A basic hill
A basic hill is our rst complex shape. Again we will use the Bezier tool; this time we will use it to draw curved lines. Drawing curves with the Bezier tool is more complicated than drawing straight lines. o curve a line you must adjust
A ew layers and a gradient makes the shape recognizably a hill.
Adding a grid
A grid will help when determining where a unit or terrain item should be placed on the map. Click on Draw Bezier Curves in the oolbox and draw a straight, vertical line at least 960px long. Te length is shown in the status bar; holding Ctrl while drawing will keep the line vertical. Click once to start the line, click again to end it, and press
the handles o the nodes you are drawing. Nodes are the points that Inkscape uses to create shapes. Te box we created had a node at each corner; the lines, a node at each end. Te line between the nodes is a segment. Clicking and dragging when creating a node will drag the handle and curve the line. It’s a little tricky at rst, so take a little time to
practice. You can add, delete and edit nodes to get the shape you want using the Edit Paths tool. I you need more nodes you can add more by either selecting the entire shape and click on Insert Node in the ool Control Bar to add a new node splitting each segment, or by selecting a segment by clicking on it, or shit-clicking on the two nodes bordering it, and clicking Insert Node. Clicking and dragging a segment will aect its curve, allowing you to shape the object. In the ool Control Bar there are other controls that you can modiy to change the shape. You can make the node a corner or smooth point, make the segment straight or curved, etc.
together so they don’t move in relation to each other. Ater grouping you can use the Select tool to move, scale, rotate or skew the shape as needed. For example, i the shape is too small, select the shape and click on one o the doublearrows in the corner. Drag this handle while holding Ctrl to scale the object evenly. Click in the center to change the handles rom scale to rotate. Use the handles to rotate the object. I you want a two-tiered hill, ollow the same steps but make the second tier smaller and slightly lighter in colour. Group the two hills to keep them together. Making a forest
From let to right: the basic shape drawn with straight lines, the same shape with the lines curved, and fnally, the shape with extra nodes removed.
A quick way to rough in basic shapes is to just use straight lines to draw the shape. Once it’s drawn, select all the nodes and click the Make Smooth button to round them all. Delete and move nodes, curve segments and rene the shape. Tere’s also a Draw Freehand Lines tool, which can be used with node editing and the Path/Simpliy command to rene the shape. o show that this is a hill we should show the slope. Create a copy o the hill and click Path/Dynamic Inset. Make sure you are using the Edit Paths tool to see the white diamond handle which controls the inset. Drag this inward to shrink the shape. Tis is dierent rom scaling the shape, as the edge will keep a consistent distance rom the original location. Once you’ve started insetting the shape, you can select both hills and align them like we did the grid over the battleground. It is easier to judge how ar the inner shape should be inset when the two shapes are aligned. Now we can edit the colours. o make the hill stand out rom the battleground, we want to make the hill the same colour but slightly lighter than the surace. We can either eyeball the colour, or copy the RGBA value rom the battleground object and paste it into the smaller hill shape. Moving L slider to the right will lighten the colour without changing hue or saturation. o copy and paste use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-C or copy and Ctrl-V or paste. For the larger hill shape, I created a gradient to give the illusion o light hitting the slope. Click on the Create Gradient tool in the oolbox and select the larger hill. Click and drag to start the gradient. It won’t look like much right away. Still using the Create Gradient tool, select one o the stops o the gradient and edit its colour. Use the same colour as the battleground, but make one stop lighter than the hill, the other stop darker than the battleground. Te stops o the gradient are like nodes on a shape. Tey have a colour value which the computer automatically blends together to create the gradient. Te nal step is to group the smaller and larger hills
Making the orest starts in much the same way as making the hill, except we’re not creating an inset, just the outline o the orest. Make a dark, orest-green ll, then size and place the orest where you want. o create trees we’ll use a new tool, the Star/Polygon tool. Click and drag to draw a star. Don’t worry too much about the size or number o points. Tese can be edited just like ever ything else. Use the ool Control Bar to change the number o corners to ve or six. Tere are a couple o handles within the star, one on the inner corners and one on the outer corners. Clicking and dragging these will change the shape o the star. For now, drag the inner handle out until the rays o the star are small and stubby. Hold Shit and drag the handles to make the star rounded. Finally, hold Alt and drag the handles to make the star randomized. We want to create an irregular tree canopy shape. Use the Create Gradient tool to create a radial gradient within the star, light in the middle, darker on the outside, but with the darkest parts lighter than the orest oor we created earlier. Tis is our tree. o make the tree more interesting, we can copy the tree several times, scale the copied trees down I didn’t bother flling out the back and arrange them inside the o the orest since I knew it would tree to make it look bushy. be outside the map later. Use the rotate eature or play with the randomness o the star to make them all dierent. Group them all together so they can be moved as one. Now, duplicate that tree two or three times and make each one slightly larger or smaller. Make copies o those trees to ll the area dened by the orest. Tis eect can be enhanced by varying the shades o the components that make up the trees and varying the shades o the trees themselves. Group the whole orest together. I you have difculty selecting objects because a larger object below it keeps getting moved, hold Shit while dragging to tell Inkscape that you’re making a selection, not moving an object. The road
o make a road use the Bezier tool again and draw a selection o paths or lines orming the borders o the road. In order to create the illusion o the road ading o into the grass we will not close the object. Tis will allow us to have the stroke broken where the road ades away. Draw the borders o the road as individual objects. Select all the paths making up the road and group them. Make a copy
o the group, click the Edit Nodes tool and click Path/Combine to make all the paths in the group part o one object. Make the ll colour a nice brown road colour. Unortunately, it’s lling the wrong sections o the road because the object is not closed. Find the open points o the object and close them by selecting the two end nodes and clicking Join Selected Endpoints with Segment. Once the object is closed, the ll will jump to the inside. Combine the rst road we created, but don’t add a ll. Center the two roads over each other with the unlled road on top. You may have to adjust the position o the roads as they may not be perectly centered. Using Edit Object’s Style, remove the stroke or the lled road. You can also make a gradient or where the road ades out.
is overlapping the border, then the border itsel, and click Object/Clip/Set. Tis should clip the outside o the objects, leaving a nice, neat map. You may want to pull the gri dlines orward. Select the grid and use Raise Selection to op to put it above everything else. Now’s a good time to play with the opacity and style o the grid and adjust it so that it’s visible but not disruptive. I like a dotted, slightly translucent grid. Finally, I added a compass rose that I’d previously created. I now have the basis or a map that can be used or a scenario or battle report. I can grab the hill and save it as a separate SVG le, then import it into another map. In this way I can create an object or every piece o terrain in my collection to quickly throw a scenario or battle report map together. Saving
Once the map is nished it should be saved as a SVG le. Tis is the le Inkscape uses and will keep the map exactly as you let it. Not all applications can read SVG les, so it may be necessary to make a copy in a JPG or PNG ormat. Use the Save As or Export unction to create the copy. Now the image can be uploaded to a website or sent in an email, and anyone with a web browser installed on their computer will be able to view it.
Cleaning up
Conclusion
All the items that overlap the border are clipped with the ‘Object/Clip/Set’ command to give a nice, clean edge. Tis is much easier than trying to build them to match the edge earlier.
Te nal step is to clean up the map, to make sure no objects reach outside the border o the table and add some nal details. First, let’s clip o any objects overlapping the border o the table. Copy the battleground and remove the ll. Align the new border over the battleeld. Select any item that
B A T T L E G A M E S
Map-making with Inkscape allows the easy creation o campaign maps, scenario maps, maps or hidden deployment and movement, and or battle reports. Te simplicity and price o the program leaves more time and money or the wargamer to buy and painting miniatures, since that, and not map-making, is the ocus o the hobby. Wargamers, by nature, are visual animals, and any wargamer that maintains a website can stand to have a bit more visual interest on their site. Experiment and have un. Hopeully you will end up with some great maps that will enhance your wargaming experience without taking away too much o your wargaming time. Te skills learnt making maps could also be applied to the art o designing waterslide transers and ags. Te scalability o vector images makes them very powerul. Adding a ree tool like GIMP (www.gimp.org) that can handle rasters will allow even more complex maps.
C L A S S I F I E D
A D S
20p per word, minimum 15 words including address/contact details. For boxed ad including photo and/or logo, add £10 per image/logo, maximum 2 images. To ft our standard three-column ormat., approx 57.5mm wide. Payment with order. Bookings or a series o 6 issues qualiy or a 10% discount. Private ads now accepted, subject to approval. Layout o ads is at Editor’s discretion.
Ken Trotman Ltd . New & antiquarian books on military history and weaponry. Limited Edition publishers. All your military book requirements: new books, limited editions, rare and second hand. Send or a ree catalogue or visit our web site. P.O.Box 505, Huntingdon PE29 2XW www.kentrotman.com
An ageing man, Don Featherstone is surrounded by a host o military memorabilia and research papers, collected over a period o more than 50 years, which he will be pleased to give to interested collectors. Please contact him or detailed lists. Write to Don Featherstone, 28 Glebe Court, Highfeld Lane, Southampton SO17 1RH, Hampshire, United Kingdom.
Professional design and copywriting services rom the Editor o this very magazine! Call Henry on 01273 323320 or email
[email protected] .
Second City historical, Sci Fi/ Fantasy wargames items new & used, online shop www.secondcity.org.uk or SSAE or catalogue, 32 Rosebery Avenue Eastbourne BN22 9QB. Play by mail. THE GLORY OF KINGS – La Gloire du Roi – is now playable by email or post! Order online at our website: agema.org.uk . Also eatures Ancient and Napoleonic games, PC games, wargame rules and painted wargame fgures! Wars o the Roses game under development – visit the site and have your say! agema.org.uk .
Figure piracy: scourge of the hobby? Copyright infringement and its impact on historical miniatures by Bob Baretson
Editor’s note: amount quoted are in Canadian Dollars. As at 21st August 2008 the exchange rate was £1 = $1.978 CDN. ew miniature-related discussions generate more heat than the piracy o intellectual property (IP). Discussion typically centres on the recasting and sale o existing gures. A related issue is the development o original gures that inringe upon a copyright (e.g. sculpting and selling unlicensed Scooby-Doo miniatures). As a historical gamer dabbling in sci-, I was surprised by the breadth o unlicensed miniatures available and uncertain about whether to buy. Te discussion o IP piracy online tends towards the polemical – refecting the vested interests o some posters and the strong moral dimension o the issue – and was thus rather unhelpul. In grappling with this issue, I’ve spoken to miniaturists who have intentionally and unintentionally purchased recasts. I’ve also spoken with manuacturers o historical miniatures as well as recasters and copyright inringers. Everyone spoke on the condition o anonymity.
F
an army and thus the manuacturer has lost sales. And sometimes an individual recasts a purchased model or use in a conversion or enhancement project. Tere is a long tradition o such use in military modelling, particularly when commercial kits are unavailable or incorrect. Again, there is a loss to the manuacturer, although the volume o lost sales is signicantly lower. A nal subcategory o recasting is instances o recasting copies o out-o-production (OOP) miniatures. Tis appears most commonly when licensed toys (suitable or wargaming) go OOP. Tis creates a notional loss to the copyright holder, with this loss being actualized only i the OOP item subsequently comes back into production. How hard is it to recast?
Recast models are typically said to be less detailed than the original, including the absence o ne detail and having dull edges. Tey may also contain air holes or bubbles or have two mould lines (although this latter characteristic may also be present on some legitimate gures). Recasts may also be smaller than the originals and may be made rom dierent materials (e.g. plastic originals recast in metal) or exhibit dierent properties such as being more brittle. In order to get a sense o the practicalities o recasting, I contacted a gaming riend who is an Recasting miniatures Recasting miniatures experienced caster o his without permission is the own sculpts. He has not, most commonly discussed to my knowledge, ever orm o IP piracy. ypically, recast. For the purpose o a gamer purchases gures this article, I asked him to on eBay or Bartertown and, recast a 25mm Kingmaker upon receipt, discovers Miniatures gure I own as they are o low quality well as some plastic and and suspects recasts. metal starships produced In this transaction, the by the Amarillo Design An original Kingmaker Miniatures 25mm gure (top) and its recast below. original manuacturer has Bureau. Mould making Diferences are subtle, but evident. Photos by BB. Battlegames does not been denied a sale and took about six hours, condone recasting. Tese have been made for investigative purposes only. the purchaser has been with the space ships derauded. Tere is almost universal condemnation o this and 25mm gures generating excellent moulds. practice. A variant o this story is a purchaser knowingly Using the starship moulds and liquid plastic, high buying recast miniatures to reduce the cost o an army. quality drop casts o the starships were produced. Te A slightly dierent angle is a miniaturist who purchases photos o the Federation ship show some small deects a miniature and then recasts some or all o the miniature. (e.g. a blemish on the top o the saucer section) but Sometimes, the recasts are used to increase the size o also that ne surace detail can be reproduced.
Te starships were also quite eectively cast in metal. Te metal is harder on the moulds and more labour intensive to cast and clean up. Te metal Klingon cast (with some minor ling) is indistinguishable rom the original, perhaps refecting the mediocre quality o the commercial product. Te 25mm gure was cast in metal. I chose the Kingmaker gure because I wanted to see how crisp reproductions o exquisitely detailed gures would be. Te rst mould turned out okay, but the gures drop cast rom it were smaller than the originals and there was some loss o detail – typical signs o recasting. A second mould was made with a super-sized pour chamber. Tis results in a better fow o metal during drop casting. Te result is almost indistinguishable rom the original. Tere are a ew instances where the details are not quite as crisp on the cast and a couple o areas where wax let over rom the mould making caused some fash. But the gures is the same size, has the same level o detail and there are no double mould lines that I can nd. Te biggest give-away that it is a recast is the poor quality o the gure’s integral base, resulting rom nipping o excess metal rom the pour chamber. Is recasting profitable?
When casting with liquid plastic, the caster expected a 90% success rate or the Federation starship and thought the mould would be good or about 100 casts. Te Klingon ship was more dicult, due to the shape o the original, and he thought a 75% success rate with a maximum o 50 casts would be possible. With this in mind, we could have produced approximately 37 Klingon ships and 90 Federation ones using $70 o materials and 27 hours o time. Originals sell or approximately $9 each. I we discounted each to $5, our net prot would have been $565 (roughly $20/hour, not including time spent selling). With the 25mm metal gures, the manuacturer sells six gures or £10 (roughly $20). Te need or six moulds, the shorter lie span o these moulds when using metal, and the time involved in mould making and casting suggest that on a price o $3.00 each, we could generate a $1.00 prot per gure. We weren’t able to generate an hourly wage rate based on our limited experience, but we expect it would be somewhat less than what we could make selling recast space ships. What our experiment suggests is that one-man shops doing recasts are unlikely to turn a signicant prot, but the prots are not insignicant either. An experienced
caster prepared to work hard at it can produce airly high quality results, particularly with vehicles. Tis is consistent with what manuacturers say. Te recasters I spoke to were not, however, primarily motivated by prot. Rather, many sought to make OOP minis available while earning a ew dollars on the side. Recasting may also be more nancially viable when gaming systems require signicant number o identical gures to ll rank-and-le orces. Tis may be refected in the greater reported incidence o gure recasting or popular sci- and antasy systems. Te doomsday scenario (i.e. mass countereiting in the developing world) has so ar not materialized. Original ADB casting o Federation warship
Impact on manufactures
Recasting deprives manuacturers o sales. Tis assertion is oten extended by noting that lower sales reduce the incentive or new gure production and can cause manuacturers to shut up shop. An alternative argument is that the lower quality o recasts may turn an unwitting purchaser o recasts o a manuacturer, Metal recast thus reducing sales. Te direct nancial impact o recasting on manuacturers largely turns on the volume o recasts made, whether or use at home or or sale in the marketplace. It is not possible to get an accurate count o recasts (or, indeed, even legitimate castings). Although most reports o Resin recast recasting appear to be o sci- and antasy gures, AB Figures alleged the sale o countereit 15mm Napoleonics in 2004. Figures Armour and Artillery (FAA) USA revealed a similar concern with this same seller shortly thereater. Large lots o recasts purchased on eBay and Bartertown have also been reported, although both sites have policies against such sales and complaints procedures. While ew manuacturers were orthcoming about the nancial consequences o recasting, one was airly direct with a clear explanation o the narrow nancial margins o the business. Based on the numbers provided, even a small amount o recasting would signicantly lengthen the time it takes or a new line to recoup its cost and, assuming his numbers were representative o the industry, recasting does appear to act as a disincentive or introducing o new lines. Conversations with miniature manuacturers suggest that the level o recasting in historical gures is small, refecting the overall low demand or historical miniatures (versus, say, DVDs) and the poorer quality o typical recasts. Although not conclusive, this evidence, combined with the paucity o examples o recasting
that I was able to identiy, suggests that recasting is something o a bogeyman in historical gaming. Certainly it happens, but it does not appear to be widespread. The legalities
Original ADB
Many gamers assert (oten casting o Klingon warship vocierously) that recasting is thet and that recasts are oten sold in a raudulent manner. In Commonwealth countries, recasting is typically viewed as a type o copyright or trademark inringement. Te rights are collectively reerred to as ‘Intellectual Property’, or ‘IP’ or short. Te most common remedy awarded by courts in the Commonwealth would be damages in the orm o lost prots. An injunction to prohibit urther recasting Metal recast is also possible, as are civil search warrants (‘Mareva’ injunctions) and orders or the sale o seized goods with prots paid to the plainti. All o these remedies require the copyright owner to hire counsel and pursue the issue, although a stern cease-anddesist letter may discourage some recasters. Some IP lawyers trawl through fea markets, a list o clients’ trademarks in hand, looking or something to enorce – their clients are happy to oot the bill. Tey view this as Resin recast much less boring than drating endless documents. Te same occurs on the internet. Te most eective aspect o these lawsuits is indirect – the person breaching the law may not be worth suing, but the businesses surrounding him (his distributors, customers and the bank) are likely to stop doing business with him rather than deend a lawsuit or risk that he’ll be made insolvent. Depending upon the nature o the inringement and the laws o the country, regulatory and criminal prosecution is also possible. I was unable to document any cases o actual prosecution, although more than 90% o cases led never reach the court judgment stage. Tere are, however, reported cases involving boardgames, computer sotware, movies and even yo-yos. I again suspect this has to do with the low volume o recasting that occurs and the (perceived) low degree o harm this does when compared
with, say, countereit aeroplane parts or prescription drugs. Nevertheless, some manuacturers may aggressively deend their intellectual property to avoid a precedentsetting case, as later judges may regard their ailure to deend their copyright as an admission that no rights exist. Copyright infringement
An interesting wrinkle on the IP debate are instances where someone has designed an original but unlicensed gure based upon a popular (and copyrighted) book, comic, movie or television show. For example, a manuacturer might produce mercenaries or kid-detectives that closely resemble the characters in television shows. Although some o these gures may be dierent enough rom the originals to avoid the claim o copyright inringement, many are not. Te allure o these gures is, o course, that they are close or exact replicas o the copyrighted material! Some larger manuacturers produce such gure lines, oten being careul to avoid direct inringement. More commonly, gamers looking or unlicensed gures that replicate copyrighted materials oten turn to the so-called ‘garage kits’ produced by small operations. Commonly, garage kits gures ‘ll in’ where licensed products necessary or gaming are hard to acquire or unsuitable (or example, are o extremely low quality). In other cases, these kits are available where no licensed gures are made. Copyright inringement appears to mostly aect large media corporations. Tis refects a combination o actors. Tey hold the largest pool o IP. Teir IP is also the most likely to be in demand and thus protable to recast, although again, or what it is worth, ew copyright inringers seem prot motivated. Finally, licensing costs o their IP may discourage production o gaming appropriate miniatures (which is a very small market). Who does copyright actually protect?
Te evidence (such as it is) appears to support the general
notion that recasting has the potential to detrimentally aect historical miniature producers. Most concerning is the disincentive recasting can create to introducing new lines. Even producers o copyright-inringing material that I spoke with agreed with this position. Tere is much greater debate about original sculpts that violate a copyright o a popular book, television or movie ranchise. Many gamers and manuacturers assert that this is no dierent than recasting, in that it deprives the copyright holder o control over their product and, assuming they produce miniatures, potential revenue. Tere are, however, many gamers who disagree. While some ‘justiy’ copyright inringement with reerence only to their own desire or gures not being produced by the copyright holder, others present more nuanced arguments. One o the more interesting propositions is that a copyright is simply that, a property right that must (by and large) be privately enorced by the copyright holder to have meaning. I expect this perspective comes as little comort to small producers who quite readily acknowledge that they cannot aord to enorce their rights. While this diculty or small producers should certainly be o concern to all historical gamers (whose needs are largely met by these small producers), it raises the interesting question o whom copyright laws protect. Tat is to say, who has the means to enorce their rights? Te short answer is that the laws oer disproportionate protection to large producers and copyright holders. Tis isn’t particularly surprising, given that economic power is oten reinorced by legislative and judicial policy (e.g. in employment relationships). It does, however, raise signicant issues o equity. While large producers and copyright holders are the most likely targets o copyright inringement, they are also the least likely to be undamentally aected by it. Conversely, small producers are unlikely targets but are much more vulnerable to the negative eects o inringement and are largely unable to enorce their rights. I’m not convinced this justies copyright inringement. Nevertheless, it suggests that equating illegality with immorality (as many do when speaking on this topic) is to ignore that the law is a social construct that dierentially advantages copyright holders on the basis o their nancial means. In eect, the law has been dragooned into deending the property rights o the wealthy. When copyright is justied as a means o protecting the interests o small manuacturers, perhaps this dynamic ought to give us pause or thought. Copyright infringement as a market response
A second line o argument addressing whether copyright inringement is really that bad again swirls around popular book, comic, movie and television ranchises, mostly o a non-historical character. In short, proponents argue that licensed producers intentionally limit gure production and availability to heighten price. Tis is certainly within the licensees’ rights. Nevertheless, this choice, when combined with aggressive promotional activities and the licensees’ monopoly, virtually guarantees a shortage and raises prices beyond what they might be in a reer market. Tis, in turn, creates the market or recasts. In eect, this argument goes, copyright holders and their licensees are the authors o their own misortune.
Again, I’m not sure this justies copyright inringement. It does, however, point out that the way in which a copyright holder uses their copyright can aect the behaviour o gamers. Manuacturers seeking to maximize prots by inducing an articial shortage are more vulnerable to copyright inringement than, say, manuacturers seeking to maximize prots without manipulating the supply-side o the market. More plainly, gures with reasonable price and availability are less likely to induce recasting or the production o substitutes. What do I think?
Having considered this at length and being pragmatic at heart, I nd mysel o two minds (ah, sweet hypocrisy!). I think purchasing recasts o available products is bad or the hobby because o the negative impact it can have on manuacturers. As I’m mostly a historical gamer, the gure makers I deal with are particularly vulnerable to the eects o recasting. Consequently, I choose to support them so they stay in business. I’m also prepared to buy the rather expensive licensed miniatures or the sci- lines I’m interested in. Te copyright holders have recognized the gamer market and I’m inclined to support them or this. For example, the prices I’ve recently paid or some Star Trek ships are high (particularly given the mediocre quality), so my investment will just be smaller. In short, the high cost involved (perhaps refecting the licensing costs) limits sci- to a ringe period or me. As a market signal to the producer, this isn’t as clear as the case would be i I had an alternative source. Tis does not, however, give me access to OOP miniatures. Yet there are some large gaps in the existing lines. In particular, no one is producing licensed small ghters or the Star Wars universe. Larger, licensed versions are available, but the quality o them is very poor and the way they are sold makes it dicult to get adequate numbers, even looking to eBay. Garage casters make look-alike ships and they ended up getting my business. Having made the purchase, I’m not sure how I eel about that. I think a air question to ask is, how would I eel i someone took something I created and reproduced it without my permission? I expect I’d be upset. Doing that is, at the least, discourteous. Yet, i I sat on my rights, by not enorcing my copyright or ailing (or decades) to meet the demand or what I had created, who should my anger be most directed at? Editor’s note
I want to thank Bob or his well-balanced and reasoned contribution to the debate on this controversial issue. For the record – and as someone who has, in act, suered at the hands o copyright thieves and plagiarists in the past – let me make my own views clear. No-one can copyright, or example, the idea o a French Napoleonic carabinier; but they can claim copyright o their specic sculpting and casting o one; that is the ruit o their labour, and i someone else wants it, they can pay or it, or sculpt their own. I someone plagiarized your written work, how would you eel? Or used your photographs in a magazine without asking or paying you? What’s the dierence between writing, sculpting or designing in this respect? None, and thereore I would not condone it under any circumstances.
To boldly go... Into the lion’s den by Roger Smith
ometimes it’s good to sit back, take as break and remind onesel o what it is you are trying to achieve. Easy or me, at the moment, as I’m on board a large cruise liner in the middle o the Mediterranean en route rom unis to Naples or a long-awaited visit to Pompeii lying, as it does, ominously in the shadow o Mt. Vesuvius. I nd mysel in that wonderul place where history and myth meet, where the edges o act and antasy blur. Tough at times it’s hard to recognize it or what it is, the search or meaningul recreation is my passion and the realization o that goal is the grail. And the more I learn, and the more I delve into the previously untapped pool (or me) that is historical wargaming, the more I come to realize that historical and antasy gaming are just dierent aces o the same animal. Both rely on diligently researching the background o the chosen subject, both require the knowledge and employment o a given set o rules and both require the use o suitable scenic playing areas to represent their elds o battle. Te rules or both
S
historical and antasy wargames tend to be remarkably similar, and anyone with a reasonable knowledge o any one ruleset can quickly pick up and play another. Te models, too, are oten universally recognizable and will easily make the transition across the ‘gul’ that apparently divides our hobby and, as or scenery, well I’m sure even the most obstinate o us will admit that, at least, is universal. Here, however, the similarities cease. Whilst historical wargamers enjoy the aable cameraderie shared by a close-knit and serious community, they also suer rom the lack o benets brought by the huge commercial market riding on the back o the massively successul antasy genre o games and game-related products. It is to the success o such ventures that we owe the act that highly talented artists, whether they be writers, painters or sculptors, are gathered under our banner. For without the means to tempt the best to work within this industry, we would be all the poorer or it. I am sure most would agree that, certainly over the past twenty years, the best gures available or detail and pose, have all come rom the work o antasy sculpting. Tis, I am delighted to say,
Te Golden Daemon cabinets. Not much interest there, then.
is spilling over into historical gaming as many artists, such as the Perry twins, are gradually producing more and more historical models ater leaving the antasy sphere altogether. Te dierence in scale between these two actions is immense. Henry has been kindly helping me to explore the world o historical gaming and gain an understanding o the wealth o knowledge and enthusiasm that is contained therein and it has been – and will continue to be – not just an eye opener, but a pleasant and rewarding one. But in the wake o recent shows such as Firepower at Woolwich and Salute in London’s Docklands, I thought I would oer him the chance to see the other side o the coin – Games Workshop’s annual Games Day, held at the massive National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. I have attended this event every year or the past 12 years and have seen the event grow rom 5,000 visitors (when still held at the National Indoor Arena) to this year’s staggering 10,000 through the doors. When talking to the guys rom Games Workshop US (yes, a daughter company) who had brought along a game o exan proportions, I was amazed to learn that the Birmingham event draws more people than all ve US Games Days added together! At this juncture, I should inorm the reader that the Games Day event solely promotes the GW range o products and related services, like subsidiary publishing businesses, and licensed products, or example the new generation o computer games currently available or under development. Yes, one single company is able to attract a staggering 10,000 gamers through its doors. And the gure rises every year. For the past three years, my gaming club, Clayton Warlords, have taken participation games to the event, two (or the rst time) this year: one or Warhammer and one or Warhammer 40,000. Henry was invited to ‘help’ run one o the games although, i truth be told, he was being given a ree pass to enter the exhibition early with his
amed digital camera where, armed with his not inconsiderable stature and charismatic charm, he would have opportunity to see and photograph many o the boards and displays beore they were totally obscured by the madding crowds, soon to ow like lava (not unlike the aorementioned Vesuvius) over the oors and stands o the three enormous halls housing the event. I do not believe he was disappointed with the wealth o material on hand, nor the enthusiasm o the volunteer gamers who stoically manned the boards and ran the games. Indeed, to say he was impressed would be an understatement, since (and I have this on good authority) he was close to speechless during the drive home – which, as I am sure you will all be aware, is almost unheard o! Tis was also the rst major Games Workshop event to be held since the introduction o the new Warhammer 40,000 rules. Te revised set has greatly enhanced the ow o the game and does much to compensate or some o the accidental imbalances caused by the successive reworking o some Codices during the natural development o army lists, which unortunately oten ends up playing to the strengths o some armies in particular whilst handicapping others – never, I believe, deliberate or crippling, but irritating nonetheless. Such successive small scale changes tend to require some minor reworking o the rules to adjust the gameplay and it’s always nice to see this achieved in a sensitive and practical manner. However, or all the improvements I welcome with open arms, one brings its own inherent drawbacks. I reer, specically, to the ‘real line o sight’ now employed. Te rules say that, in case o doubt as to whether you can see a target or not, one should get down to table level and physically check to see i the target is in sight or not. Brilliant, but not i the board is built on many levels, with scenery liberally dispersed throughout which, to make matters worse, normally also varies in height and size considerably. Great un i you have a generous nature and are willing to compromise – requently! Games Day also saw the (advance) launch o the new Space Marine Codex (although only 1000 copies were available or sale) and a ew o the new line o Space Marine models, especially the plastic drop
Fernando Prieto was awarded the coveted Golden Daemon Slayer Sword or this fgure. Photo © Games Workshop. Tanks, om!
pod which, at a cost o £18, makes it a viable proposition or those wishing to sport inltration-style orces. On a negative note, however, the replacement Space Marine Codex carries the same price tag, which represents a 50% increase in cover price over the previous cost o £12. Let’s hope this is not a general trend but just an attempt to cash-in on the act that the Space Marine range is the single largest selling line in the Games Workshop catalogue. Still, cynicism aside, let’s return to what the company does best – promotion o the hobby. For those who have never attended the show, and I think that’s a pity, I should like to explain that it is basically divided into ve distinct areas; retail, participation games, modelling, game development and the amed Golden Daemon painting competition. Te latter is always incredibly competitive and draws a large number o entrants rom all over Europe: getting to actually see the entries, however, is another matter. We, the ardent showgoers, don’t always agree with the judges when it comes to the winners but, whatever else we may think, it does emphasize the act that the wargaming hobby (or many) is not just about kicking your opponent’s arse with a bucketload o cannon and a ew hundred archers! No, there are other elements to the
hobby besides the playing o games. What this particular show demonstrates more than anything else, is just how many people are willing to give up their precious time and energy to support the hobby. For the rst time this year, hal the participation/demonstration games were designed, constructed and run by volunteers rom among the numerous independent gaming clubs around the country. Tere is a rising trend o non-Games Workshop involvement in their national, showcase exhibition and it’s producing a ar greater degree o diversity in the types o games being represented. Tis is probably partly due to the act that all volunteers and clubs have to be registered members o the Gaming Club Network (GCN), an organization created to promote all variations o tabletop wargaming. Additionally it serves to monitor and regulate its members, ensuring equality o opportunity and the vetting o personnel, improving saety by ensuring that ofcers o clubs are CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checked. With this peace o mind, clubs can actively encourage younger gamers, as well as veterans, to participate in the hobby outside o the in-store sessions provided by Games Workshop. It should also be stressed, and I cannot do so enough, that the GCN, although supported by GW, is an entirely independent organization, itsel relying on volunteers to maintain day to day administrative and promotional ofces. It is, I believe, largely due to this increased input rom outside the GW hierarchy that the variety and quality o tables seen at Games Day continues to soar. Tis has meant that whilst the Games Workshop store built games tend, almost solely, to be based around the three core games ( Warhammer , Warhammer 40,000 and Lord o the Rings), the GCN clubs oten produce tables supporting more specialist games such as Battlefeet Gothic, Mordheim, Blood Bowl , Inquisitor , Warmaster and Warhammer Historical . It also sees some creative re-invention o some o the systems, such as a beautiul WWI-styled trench warare game using adapted Warhammer 40,000 rules! I wanted to play, but I had work to do. Warhammer Historical also hosted a magnicent Cornish pirate game on a wonderul scatter scenery
table that looked or all the world like a scratch-built custom board. Complete with wharves and jetties, villages, trees and roads, it made a wonderully realistic ‘British’ setting that would have elt at home in many an 18th Century skirmish game. But I digress. Te point o all this is the gradual shit o emphasis during the day away rom the initial ‘eeding renzy’ at the retail stands towards the outer halls. Tose new to the event might have been orgiven or thinking that they were going to be in or a quiet day – how wrong can you be? Te trickle o punters that started to lter through to the arena rapidly rose to a raging torrent, with the larger (and visually most impressive) games attracting crowds o enthusiastic gamers keen to get in on the action, beore overowing to the many smaller tables that covered the area between. Tough less imposing to the casual eye, the smaller games oten contained much ner modelling and detailing and presented scenarios that were simpler to grasp and play, an ideal choice or those wanting to nish an entire game beore moving on, rather than simply playing a minor role in a game which was meant to play out over the course o the whole day. Te games that we took with us worked on the basis o a simple scenarios and short playing time, though they worked very dierently in overall structure. Te Warhammer game, “Squig Hunt”, involved giving gamers a couple o teams o goblins
Rick Priestley deep in conversation with Phil Mackie as Grant Tomas masterminds his attack at the Warmaster Medieval table. Te game is Wakefeld 1460, with spectacular c astle, using 10mm fgures.
apiece with which to capture the aorementioned squigs, the teams remaining in play until being ‘eaten’ by their quarry. (Imagine a 1970s Space Hopper with a bad attitude, insatiable appetite and huge teeth: that’s a squig!) Once a player’s goblins met with their inevitable demise, another gamer would step in and new teams would be placed on the board. Similarly, dead squigs were re-spawned and entered play rom a cave on one o the board edges. A running tally was kept on a blackboard at the head o the table and, despite all the odds against them, the goblins won out the day having ‘captured’ a total o 390 squigs! One incidental benecial outcome rom
Tousands o hours o work well spent: Orc raid on a dwarven stronghold by the GW in-house team.
running this game was the unexpected conclusion that the basic Warhammer rules will still work reasonably well or small skirmishes, without having to resort to more complicated specially adapted versions. In our other game, 40K Imperial troopers were pitted against their corrupted cousins in a bleak, trenchdeended outpost. Te odds were deliberately stacked against them, being outnumbered, out-gunned and outclassed. Amazingly, out o the six games played (averaging just under an hour apiece) the beleaguered loyalist orces managed to achieve the objective o this little adventure by storming the walls (metaphorically speaking) and killing the heavily guarded psyker (a sort o space-age warlock o moderate power), on no less than three occasions! Te moral o both these stories is simple: however hard you try to rig the outcome, some muppet (sorry, tactically enlightened genius) will always materialize to upset your careully-laid plans. At the end o the exhausting day, the overpowering impression let was just how broad the interest was throughout the show. It wasn’t just a massive spending spree – though I imagine the turnover on the day was satisyingly huge – there was just as much interest shown in the orthcoming products, online gaming (a development that I’m sure we’ll see or historical in the near uture) and other hobby aspects such as modelling, painting and gaming. Ater all, ten thousand people can’t all be wrong, can they?
Tally ho! One wargamer’s journey into the blue by Tim Beresford
aving cleared the runway and retracted its undercarriage, a P51 can be carving through sky and hammering over my roo in less than a minute. One is about to do so as I write and will no doubt be chased away by the nger our o Spitres I saw heading out a ew minutes previously. I’ve lived most o my lie within earshot o the harmonious beat o the Rolls Royce Merlin engine emanating rom the Imperial War Museum at Duxord where many airworthy examples o WWII ghters are restored, pampered and enjoyed. Living so close, I’m lucky enough to witness an almost daily parade o historic warbirds, at least during the summer months. Recently, the noise that brought me rushing outside rom my home studio turned out to belong to an earlier era – our colourul Fokker Dr1 riplanes that I’d not seen beore nor since. While the graceul Spitre tugs the heart strings every time, those gaudy, brash P51-Ds and their American brethren, the slick igercat and the stoic looking Bearcat, remain avourites.
H
Early inspirations
My ather, ex-Fleet Air Arm, was only too happy to encourage my early interest in planes and would oten guide my six-year-old hands, wielding pencil and paintbrush, to recreate the action straight rom the pages o my well-thumbed Biggles books. He also made me a collection o WWI biplanes rom tiny kits that came in my breakast cereal – they were exquisitely painted whilst I slept. Imagine waking up to those gems!
Tis is where it all started. I must have read every Biggles book cover to cover 20 times by the time I was ten. Capt W. E. Johns, the author, ew or the Royal Flying Corps during WWI.
I suspect that like many Battlegames readers, I operated a production line assembly o dozens o plastic aeroplane kits. However, it wasn’t until my early teens that my wargaming activities rst switched rom live re exercises to a more intellectual practice which involved dice and a rule book. I’d been using matchstick-launching cannon to ell my unpainted plastic gures, hidden amongst the debris o a ruined Lego citadel. O course, model planes had to eature in all o these games, but were usually only targets or my Long Range Desert Group or a clutch o Paratroopers. I was never really a tankie and beore I immersed mysel urther into WWII gaming, I’d moved schools and been introduced to the delights o 25mm metal horse and musket gures. For the next 25 years or so, my air combat gaming remained a series o brie and unsuccessul irtations. Prompted by my French language teacher (an ex-Desert Rat) reading the class extracts rom Dr Alred Price’s brilliant Battle o Britain history Te Hardest Day, I bought SPI’s Spitfre game that promised so much. Within hours o ripping the box open, I realised that it would ail to deliver very much in the way o excitement and so it sat, unloved, in my cupboard or years, to be joined by the overly complex Avalon Hill ofering Knights o the Air . Tis in turn was ollowed by Richthoen’s War some years later. Te latter proved to be un or a short period o time beore we tired o its predictability. It is easy to see where they all ailed or me; none delivered the excitement o pressing that inviting red gun button to obliterate an opponent, briey caught in the ring sight, in quite the same way the arcade games did. Tere was no split second timing and no sense o speed in their measured, cardboard gameplay. I concluded that models were much better suited to replicating the slower, more ormulaic patterns o warare that characterised the horse and musket era than two ghter aircrat closing at 700 miles per hour. Whatever issues I aced with my terra frma games, depicting relative altitude was not one o them. In the early 90s, Skytrex released their Red Eagle 1/144 metal WWI kits and I was tortured by a dozen whilst I huddled in my student attic room. I made ancy telescopic ight stands rom radio aerials to bravely hold my hardwon metal creations alot. Paragon provided the rules and I provided the bin into which they ew. I thereore sadly came to the conclusion that air combat with miniatures was not worth bothering with. Te Red Eagles were subsequently demobbed – some were accidently let on a train and some were sold, but I didn’t miss them. I suppose this article could have ended here, had it not been or that endless parade o real Spitres, the books, the lms and that nagging interest which remained conned to an artistic expression. I ound mysel in the ortunate position o unding my college days by selling drawings o the ghters at Duxord. I’d work in sometimes reezing cold hangers or up to ten hours a day, producing intricate pen and ink renderings. My brie walks around the hangers to restart my circulation were made more rewarding by my security pass that ensured I’d oten be stopped by older Americans asking
advance my collection to 1944/5, I’m going to experiment polishing the bare metal o the P51s rather than relying on paint. At the time o writing in late 2008, the Raiden range is relatively small but, in the ullness o time, I’m certain it will grow into a comprehensive selection. Temptation leads me astray
A partly stripped-down Harvard at Imperial War Museum Duxord. Pen and ink drawing by the author.
me about the museum and its acilities. I like to think they were all ex-78th Fighter Group aces returning to see Duxord again. I spent so much time there drawing that my prescription was reduced as my eyes grew stronger. Starting afresh
Fast orward to Salute 2006 and, probably as a result o having watched the Battle o Britain lm or the umpteenth time, I rashly bought a ew 1/300 Spitres with no real idea o what I’d do with them once they were painted. I just liked them. rue to orm, once I’d cleaned and primed this impulsive purchase, they remained stranded in my ‘must do’ box. Shy o daylight, these little planes were never to eel the gentle caress o my paint brush, but they had piqued my interest again. Many months ater Salute , I came across a company new to me – Raiden Miniatures. Following a brie urry o emails between mysel and Mark, the Chie Mechanical Engineer, a ew days later I was the proud owner o one o their newly released Me1009Es which, quite simply, snarled ‘paint me now’ in a particular Daimler Benz kind o way. I you’ve not heard the real thing, the in-line Benz engine has a denite rasping note like an old motorbike. Further orders to Raiden ollowed, providing me with the means to indulge mysel in my avourite Battle o Britain period but still with no clear idea o where I might be heading. I’d postponed the delicate question o playability – these aircrat might turn out be a pure painting project like the pirates and the Sudan gures that had previously littered my workbench. I make no bones about the act that I love these Raiden models and, at the time o purchase, was completely hooked. It’s not just that the castings are beautiully clean but, as I relayed to their designer, his renditions are so good I imagine they contain a tiny Merlin coughing into lie or an equally minute Daimler Benz 601 grizzling its malign intent. At 1/285 scale, they are slightly larger than the 1/300 ranges (think 25mm verses 28mm or heroic 1/300 i you preer) but all the better or it, avoiding the pinched proportions that some o the slightly smaller models seem to have. I like the smoothness o line – the designers have resisted the temptation to clutter the models with too much detail that can look overscale on such a small airrame. Tese castings ooze the slipperiness, the aversion to drag that the real thing displays, particularly when airborne. Sometimes ghters were waxed and polished to a state o perection in an efort to glean that extra ounce o speed that could be a matter o survival. I I ever decide to
As usual, part way into this project, I allowed mysel to get diverted, in this instance back in time to 1917. Te readypainted Wings o War (WoW ) 1/144 models and rules were released and, unsurprisingly, caught my attention, especially since they were almost ready to y – I chose to add pilots cut down rom N-gauge plastic railway gures to occupy the ghostly empty cockpits. Riversco make suitable white metal pilots, although I elt they look too big-headed to suit the ne plastic models. Te WoW game held my interest whilst I deliberated over even continuing the WWII collection which was aimlessly dithering around and without ocus. Te initial games were great un, but beore too long, I’d worked out some thoroughly unhistorical but very efective tactics and, perhaps with this aw exposed, WoW inevitably joined my rejects pile, being just too simplistic to really satisy. I you like the WoW models but want more types, the metal kits rom Skytrex under the Red Eagle banner, which I had wrestled with as a student, and those rom Riversco, are perectly suited to building up your collection. o be honest, it’s unlikely that Wings o War will bring out plastic versions o the venerable BE2c or a Fokker Eindecker any time soon i ever. You may also be able to nd the out-o-production Mamoli metal kits on eBay rom time to time, or the semi-assembled, ready-painted plastic oferings rom F-oys. I’ve chosen not to mix and match metal with plastic, as I can’t help eeling that the metal models look so, err… leaden, encumbered as they are with their overthick wings that lack an aerooil prole when compared to the delicately proportioned plastic oferings. For the truly insane, SRAM make a range o 1/144 resin kits which are really more suited to sae and prolonged lie in a display case than the dangers o the wargames table, but i you must have scale delity and are up to the challenge, they are another option, but not one I personally wanted to pursue. Similarly, or small WWII engagements, there are ready-painted 1/144 models available. Nexus, who brought us WoW , are promising a range o ready to play 1/196 ghters (near enough 1/200).
Dogght! Wings o War miniatures rom the Editor’s collection. Tis is the game that gets Battlegames HQ reverberating to the sounds o “Dakkadakka-dakka-dakka!” rom time to time. Yes, it’s sad, I know... Photo HH.
Had I c hosen the right scale?
I had one major 1/600 scale blip while dallying around with my biplanes. I spent a good long while in ront o the umbling Dice stand at one show, considering a change to 1/600 scale, which has a huge gaming advantage over larger models: the sky is a big space and ast, WWII pistonengined ghters eat a lot o it very quickly. Similarly, larger bomber ormations take up plenty o space and i you are really interested this type o game, then the diminutive scale may be the way to go unless you are blessed with a large playing area and very long arms. As is inevitable with such small models, there is a certain loss o scale delity in terms o wing thickness etc, although the models remain characterul and instantly recognisable. I was sorely tempted by the apparent ease o using 1/600 and, i you are in any doubt regarding scale, then perhaps it may be best to start with them. Tese models are relatively cheap and readily available. I you take to air gaming but nd them too small, you’ve lost little and can change up a scale or use diferent scales or diferent types o game. Acquiring a schwarm o ghters in a new scale is unlikely to be the equivalent commitment to replicating a Napoleonic division in a diferent scale! However, scale appearance was important to me, and I was ully committed to 1/285, but i space is no issue then 1/72 and even 1/48 scale models can be used; the oor or even the garden can be the playing surace. 1/72 scale plastic kits are justiably popular or WWI games and i you wish to go down this route, there are plenty o types available at reasonable prices, along with vast ranges o decals. Revell have started to re-release their range o WWI kits and although not the most detailed, they are quite rugged models, more suited to gaming than the more recent hi-delity models ofered by Roden and Eduard. And yes, you’ve guessed it: I got diverted yet again, acquiring sixty 1/72 kits (box art is so alluring). I did, however, nally see sense and sold the lot without losing a penny. Painting and decorating
Painting the Raiden models with acrylics was very enjoyable, especially as I opted or solid, at colour as opposed to a multi-layered, shaded method. I would never consider using the shading techniques I usually employ on wargames gures on a 1/72 plastic kit o an aircrat and thereore even at 1/285 scale, I chose to use simple at colour, believing this to be the best style to preserve that clean, slippery and desirable aesthetic I mentioned earlier. Te Vallejo and Humbrol acrylic ranges provided suitable colours, but i these don’t meet your own expectations, Hannants, amongst others, sell specialist aviation colours. You may nd these turn out a little dark i used straight rom the bottle on very small models. Adding a little white or yellow depending on the hue will make the diference. Tere are dozens o books and plenty o online sources or colour scheme details. I spent an inordinate amount o time researching these, being ascinated by the various permutations. As with many military uniorms, once you begin to research the variants which break the rules, you start to wonder what the rules were in the rst place. I’ve listed below those colours I used, and these serve as a very simple guide to a complex subject, so I recommend some investigation unless you are happy with very generic colour schemes. For example, I chose a unit
that used the day ghter scheme on many, but not all, o their Me110s; in reality these Zerstörer aircrat were usually painted using the green bomber colour scheme. Te He111 ying in the Battle o Britain lm seem to have been painted in the more contrasting day ghter colour scheme which, although not accurate, does look great. You may nd my suggestions or the bombers are not very contrasting tones; I think they look about right but you may disagree – eel ree to adapt as you wish. RAF
Camoufage green Vallejo 893 US Dark Green
Camoufage brown Humbrol 29 (acrylic) Dark Earth
Undersides Humbrol 90 (acrylic) Beige Green LUFTWAFFE
Day fghter, green scheme (a grey scheme was also used later in the Battle o Britain but I’ve not yet tried this option) Dark camoufage Vallejo 888 Olive Grey
Light camoufage Vallejo 971 Green Grey
Undersides Vallejo 906 Light Blue Day bomber scheme Dark camoufage Vallejo 897 Bronze Green
Light camoufage Vallejo 888 Olive Grey
Undersides Vallejo 906 Light Blue
As somebody who wished there had been cameras around during the Napoleonic wars, being able to consult photographic evidence initially seemed such a blessing, but ultimately became a source o rustration. Oten all but the exact plane I wanted to see were shown in a squadron line-up or, having painted something, I’d nd an image countering my original deduction. Deciphering the colours o orthochromatic photographs is a black (and white) art with no denitive solution. Ultimately, my ideas were still conjectural in some instances but, by ignoring my inner pedant, I ound I could get enough o a colour scheme right or my small models to look good. Even so, I’ve worked hard to resist that p erectionist streak which kept holding up any progress, an urge which, perhaps surprisingly, I don’t have when painting
Napoleonics. I have requently had to remind mysel o the small scales I’m working with and the limit ations this brings. I the models looked believable, that had to be good enough: ater all, my ECW and Napoleonic gures are, by necessity, painted using this compromising approach. One o the things I particularly began to enjoy as I ploughed on with the painting and research was the camaraderie born o a niche within what is already a niche hobby. Tose who make the products are usually open to discuss suggestions or new models and ranges in a way that is completely unheard o with the mainstream wargames gure manuacturers. It’s an exciting time as all sorts o new items are coming onto the market. New and better models than those that existed even ve years ago are now available and more and more decals to decorate them are also emerging .
artwork. For example, some preer inks overprinting, while others avoid it. Precision Decals use the ALPS printers or production (as does Dom’s decals) which will print opaque white, but there are colours that they just can’t match. Te design and research o these tiny details chewed up even more o my time and I only realised they still weren’t perect once new books and photographs were inspected some weeks ater I’d applied them to my models! I you do create your own decals, resist the urge to cram every millimetre o space on your sheet with artwork, as it makes or a much harder task cutting each marking out to use. Unlike the screen-printed examples ound in plastic kits, you will need to cut your markings out individually as they are on one continuous piece o clear lm. High minimum production runs render screen-printing out o reach or one-of commissions, as ar as I could discover. You can buy decal paper Decals or your home Te whole inkjet or laser aspect o decals printer, but be was one I’d not aware decals rom envisaged getting this source won’t as absorbed in always be opaque, as I reluctantly rendering them o became. As very limited use in this project application, and progressed, I o course there became more is no such thing interested in as white ink or getting it right, these printers. rather than just Applying these being generic tiny graphics with my colour required some schemes. dexterity, Dom’s Decals tweezers, and a in the UK, I-94 lot o patience. A Enterprises and limitless supply Biggles and Algy rom the ctitious 266 Camel Squadron take on the DrI triplanes o Jasta 19 during a Scale Specialities o small brushes game o Algernon Pulls it Of . Wings o War ready painted models. Adding the micro-pilots proved to in the USA all to tempt them be something o a nightmare! Te Camels have had part o the markings o the actory-nished WoW deserve a special into position is Barker Camel overpainted to leave a single white stripe – a plausible but ctional marking. Individual mention or the also required i, aircrat letters were added using an old sheet o Letraset. Te riplanes are partly repainted and enormous amount like me, you lose decorated with the individual markings rom the Jasta 19 sheet produced by Dom’s Decals. o research your temper and and efort they hurl whatever put in to bring their products to market. is in your hand across the room in sheer rustration when I ound that no one manuacturer yet covers the Battle o the 1mm square decal you thought was saely positioned Britain period in totality and each range has its strengths. on a tail n is, in act, a tiny new tattoo on your orearm. I ended up deciding to use Dom’s or my Me109s, I-94 or I used a pair o very ne pointed scissors, designed or my British ghters and Scale Specialities or my German y shermen, to cut the decals rom the sheet. With those bombers. Incidentally, I used Dom’s excellent 1/144 WWI made on ALPS printers, you need to cut very close to the range or my WoW repaints and I was very excited to graphic, removing as much o the clear carrier lm as you see the sheets I’d suggested make it into production. dare. oo much lm can cause creases or liting when tting Sometimes, though, you just can’t get what you want and wrapping the decal to a surace. It’s worth ollowing the and so I resorted to custom-made decals, although these makers’ advice or application, particularly regarding the use are not cheap compared to the price o an of-the-shel o setting solutions that are designed to melt the artwork sheet. Tere were no decals suitable or a complete Me110C into the contours o your model. Te two most common colour scheme and I wanted them so badly I designed a are called Micro Set and Micro Sol – I used the ormer i set which were printed by a UK-based company, Precision aced with compound curves such as a tapering uselage, Decals. I was also impressed by Brunel models in Australia but eared the decal melting power o the latter. However, and would happily use either company in the uture. Each used correctly and with care, they can work wonders. manuacturer has their own preerred methodology to My models were varnished with gloss or protection, ensure the best results rom their particular printer, so but I avoided spirit-based varnish as this will simply melt it’s best to ollow their advice to the letter when creating or lit some types o decal which have been so careully
and oten painstakingly tweaked and coerced into position. Generally, its saer to stick with acrylic varnishes. I nally nished my camouaged models with a matt acrylic varnish, Daler Rowney being my preerred brand.
disappointed: at last, I could sweep over broad Churchillian sunlit uplands, unencumbered by the mathematics that plagues so many rules covering technology-based warare. I gave in at this point having nally got my hands on a set o rules I liked the eel o. Dusting of the Richthoen’s Rules War game board and counters, my early games o Bag the Hun were played out in a curious quasi WWI/WWII Feeling justiably proud o the small orce I’d assembled, I was tempted one last time to see i I could nd a mix. Tis phoney cardboard cut-out war served to ruleset I really liked and, ater all, this is Battlegames galvanise the rule choice and developments. Somehow, you’re reading, not iny Scale Aeroplane Modeller … I contrived to imagine the silhouette depicting a Fokker As with most periods, I ound there was a plethora o triplane on a at counter was really an Me109, the deadly rules, with many, but not all, using hex-based movement. I oe o the equally imaginatively-conjured Hurricanes liked this, as I thought it would accelerate gameplay and I elt (SE5s) and Spitres (Camels). I nally longed or the that speed remained an all-important essence o air combat. SPI Spitfre game, i only or its counters and hex sheet I couldn’t hope to mimic the split-second decision making o which would have been perect or this trial stage. the ghter pilot or the arcade game in my table top action, Te Lardy approach to the period very much brings but anything that pilot quality and was contrary to altitude advantage the sense o pace to the ore. Te had to be avoided. sequencing is I looked at one card activated, very popular set o so there’s plenty rules which uses o chaos and plotted moves, i.e. snatching o the players write opportunity which down the exact has a resonance path they intend with what oten their models to seems to have trace, but I ound been conused this paperwork warare. A the complete bucketload o dice antithesis o is used or ring air ghting and and, whilst not more suited to, to everybody’s say, a ghting sail taste, I nd this game as a rule quite un, having mechanism than not encountered I couldn’t buy suitable decals rom anywhere or these Me110Cs o 9/ZG26, so I drew up the artwork. to dogghting. it beore. Te Precision Decals printed the sheet to a high quality, though I later ound more images o 9/ZG26 and During the open structure o discovered there should really be individual aircrat letters on each wing. Luckily, I had a ew suitable Battle o Britain, the Lardy rules letter ‘A’s on a Sc ale Specialities sheet and added these to the Stafelkapitan’s machine only. I chose control was by allows the gamer ZG26 as they used the contrasting day ghter colour scheme with mottled uselages and white tactical telephone and to get in and markings applied in temporary washable paint – an attractive combination. radio, not pencil unpick and adapt and paper, and where they want so I discarded those types o games rom my potential list. without upsetting the game balance – such tinkering Finally, or want o knowing better, being very happy being actively encouraged by the authors. I have with the Napoleonic rules rom ooFatLardies and liking adapted here and there, being unable to leave any their general ethos (Lardy Rich would probably deny that published set o rules alone, bringing certain qualities they have anything as ormal as an ethos), I plumped or I wanted into the mix whilst dulling or removing one Bag the Hun (BH), their WWII air combat ofering. It was or two aspects I ound slowed the game play. an added bonus that the rules were principally designed For example, I decided not use the optional ‘staying in specically or the Battle o Britain, with variants available ormation test’ in the interests o speed. I also tinkered with or other eras such as Algernon Pulls it O ( Algy) covering pilot qualities and the implications o genuine novice pilots the 1914-18 air war and another or the Korean air war. I losing control. I eased the permutations possible, although have to admit that by the time I’d struggled with paint chips, I wanted to keep the historically correct efects o these endless photographs, decals and decal artwork, I really just less well trained aircrew being thrown into the thick o wanted an easy way out, and the idea o ight-testing hal the action beore they were really ready. Ultimately, ewer a dozen or so possible sets just wasn’t going to happen. options and modiers to remember and less consulting I wasn’t sure what to expect o these rules, given my the rule book resulted in more rapid game play. previously less than successul choices, but i the Lardies Contrary to my ‘speed is best’ modications, I added have a talent, it seems to be in creating something resh more altitude bands to compound the advantages o rom periods which have previously, at least in my mind, ceiling enjoyed by some types, noticeably the Spitre posed many challenges or the designer. I wasn’t to be and Me109, over other less capable machines.
Accessories
designed to t clear small plastic sleeves ensuring longevity. A ight case supplied by Figures in Comort provided a perect storage solution to the completed collection.
O course I could have oregone the models entirely and with relative ease made up some more suitable WWII card counters, but though practical, it wouldn’t have quite Roger red leader been the same, so there were one or two accessories to purchase or make beore my models could take to the air. At last I was ready to play… At this point, I have to admit Firstly ight stands, the air gaming equivalent o that I’ve only really scratched the surace o the possibilities basing. Opinion seemed divided into two distinct camps. o BH and Algy, although there is every indication I’ve Te rst avoured a complex telescopic stand showing made the right choices. Having played about a dozen height, oten incorporating a swivelling mechanism at games o each, I can report that the ormer plays out rather the top to enable to the model to be held whilst banking like the action rom the 1968 Battle o Britain lm and or even inverted. Tis type, being the more complex, is the latter, well, that takes me back to the pages o those more expensive and generally places the models at about Biggles books which is where this all began. Our games eye level. During the Red Eagle experience o student have typically lasted about orty minutes to an hour each days, I ound this type o stand too visually intrusive, and always given believable results. We oten nd the even i they do show relative height quite efectively, so I RAF ghters dive or home, bringing the game to a close, decided to use an alternative concept; simple, clear plastic having expended their meagre ammunition allowance. ‘ying bases’ sold by Games Workshop. A tiny but highA learning ex perience powered rare earth magnet was added to each stand and each model to hold them a ew inches above the playing I’m not claiming any world record, but rom initial surace. Tere is reduced ability to show height variation inspiration to realisation, this project has been hanging using this type o stand, but on balance I preerred them. around me or the best part o 35 years. My two combined A luxury development o this type places plastic collections o aeroplanes remain on the modest side numbered dials around the central pin to denote altitude. o 70, but I suspect at some point I’ll add to them. Litko in the USA sells this type and I’d probably use them O course my learning curve has gone beyond the i I’d not been given a big bag o the Games Workshop connes o this single project which was, in reality, one o six variety, or which I devised a very simple modication. I worked on simultaneously. Five have now been brought to Using a 45˚ mitre block and a ne tooth razor saw I successul, i perhaps temporary, conclusions and the sixth cut the top o each stand of beore supergluing on the remains what I suspect will be a lielong labour o love. magnet. My ghter models all now y at interesting Tere were many times I elt like giving up, not least dynamic angles, banking, diving or climbing and during the hours spent on the computer designing each can be changed by simply rotating the model in decals and game cards, both o which elt a little too relation to the 45˚ angle o the top o the stand. much like my day job to be truly relaxing, but I do take Again, or simplicity and being budget conscious, I enormous pleasure in just looking at the jewel-like models added micro dice to denote altitude and ID. Tese are held I now possess. Perseverance has its own rewards. on the base o the stand with a tiny discreet blob o Blu-ac. Black dice denote the six low levels and white dice the higher o the 12 levels in my game, replicating the graphic display o an articial horizon instrument. All rereshingly low-tech and a system that I ound quite ast to use – don’t trust me on this, you may disagree. As BH eatures hex-based movement, I opted or the ready-made ‘European Fields’ mats available rom Eric Hotz which are quite superb and easily stored. I have ound a 6’ x 4’ mat printed with 2 inch hexes on one side and 1.5 inch hexes on the other adequate or my edgling games, though I’d love to double this area one day to allow a really big stream o bombers into the action. Te nal mountain I chose to climb was in designing the cards required by BH to sequence play. I could have downloaded these rom the Lardy site, “Blue section you take the starboard, Red section ollow me, we’ll take the port. ally Ho!” but instead I went the hard way about I experimented with adding the crew-served machine guns to these Heinkels o KG53 – they looked it. Te Battle o Britain lm was one o nice but were ragile, so I reluctantly abandoned the idea. Te He111s are great big Raiden c reations, my inspirations or the entire collection decorated with the Scale Specialities decals that were lovely to work with. and so too or the cards. Tese were
I you do take up the challenge and try air combat, I urge you to begin with just our or a maximum o eight ghters or each side. Paint and play with them beore seriously adding to your lead (or plastic) pile. Depending on the rules chosen, you really can play tense one against one dogghts or enjoy more challenging games as your collection grows. Tere’s only one thing let to be written. Predictable perhaps, but still totally necessary: “chocks away”! Suitable products •
•
•
•
•
•
•
“Yellow nosed b******ds coming down now, break right and climb!”
•
Classic Battle of Britain action. Tese mottled Me109s are painted in a conjectural scheme based loosely on a machine from I/JG26.
Painting small scale WWII planes can make or a very welcome diversion i you’re already immersed in a large project which requires endless repetitive painting o complex uniorm details. Equally, unless you insist that your models y over a miniature contoured terrain complete with elds, roads, settlements and woods (some air gamers enjoy this added spectacle), then you avoid the need to acquire the terrain paraphernalia associated with land-based games. With hindsight, I’ve realised that you only ne ed a small number o models to get your rst games under your belt, which can be so important in crystallising your commitment to a period. One o the nice things about air gaming is that you can dabble without committing months or even years o painting time, unless you want to. I, o course, missed this all too important acet and worked on my entire collection en masse, completing each phase beore moving on to the next. I’d have been better completing our ghters or each side initially, thus giving me something to play with while I struggled with the remainder. I also learnt the olly o taking on too much, even with a smallish project like this. What initially seems quite manageable at the outset will, I suspect at some point, hit some sort o brick wall which threatens to sap the initial enthusiasm. In my case, this meant sourcing the decals and especially in completing the Me110s. Unortunately, I have no real advice as to how to avoid the diversions which suddenly appear to be so tempting whilst working through an existing project, other than helpully suggesting you perhaps just ‘look the other way’! Te 1/72 WWI plastic kits were a blind alley or me, but the WoW models less so, as they opened up another era and are a nice addition to my armoury without requiring too much extra work.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Raiden – 1/285 white metal models. www.raidenminiatures.co.uk Tumbling Dice – 1/600 white metal models. www.tumblingdiceuk.com Skytrex Red Eagle– 1/144 white metal models. www.skytrex.com Reviresco – 1/144 white metal models. www.tin-soldier.com Hannants – SRAM 1/144 resin kits, plastic kits, paint and decals. www.hannants.co.uk Dom’s Decals – Decals and the cheapest supplier I know or WoW models. www.domsdecals.com I-94 Enterprises – Decals. www.i-94enterprises.com Scale Specialities – Decals. www.ss-sms.com Precision Decals – Custom made decals. www.precisionlabels.co.uk Brunel Models – Custom made decals. www.brunelmodels.com TooFatLardies – Bag the Hun and Algy rules. www.tooatlardies.co.uk eM-4 – Dice. www.em4miniatures.com Games Workshop – Flight stands. www.games-workshop.com Litko – Flight stands. www.litkoaero.com Eric Hotz – Hex mats. www.hotzmats.com Kallistra – Plastic hex terrain system. www.kallistra.co.uk Figures in Comort – storage cases. www.fguresincomort.co.uk
Bibliography
During the course o this project a small library o books served to keep me inspired even during my darkest hour. Te Hardest Day – Dr Alred Price (i you just obtain one book this is the one to get) Battle o Britain Day September 15 – Dr Alred Price Te Battle o Britain – Richard Hough and Denis Richards Te Battle o Britain – Michael J F Bowyer Zerstörer – John J Vasco & Peter D Cornwell Histoire & Collections Me109 Vol 1 provided many inspiring colour proles and comes highly recommended. Osprey Aircrat o the Aces series – various titles covering the WWI and WWII periods. www.ospreypublishing.com For inormation about Biggles: www.biggles.ino •
• • • • •
•
•
All photos by the author except where noted.
Have you seen my Neil Diamond CD? Te continuing tales of a wargames widow by Diane Suthrland
suppose I should have noticed that the CD case was light when I picked it up. I also should have realised that something was aoot when he asked me to pick up an AOL installation CD and i I’d noticed whether esco had any CDs or their Internet service at the tills. Ten there was the strange obsession with tropical sh. We don’t have a sh tank, so why is he buying plastic plants? “Just a little Vietnam project,” he assured me. “Not Ia Drang by any chance?” I replied, noting that he’d been watching We Were Soldiers Once and Young or the umpteenth time. “So, have you seen my Neil Diamond CD?” I growled. Nothing gets between me and Neil Diamond, certainly not Mel Gibson. “I don’t think I’ve stuck anything to it yet,” he replied cautiously.
I
A selection o plastic aquatic plants and plant mats. Most are sold on a large sprue but can be pulled o making the construction o the terrain much easier. None o the plant mats in this picture cost more than £7 each or 100 plants.
try places that sell imitation fowers and plants: i you’re lucky, you’ll nd 100 reestanding plants on a large square sprue or under £10. In act, on eBay, you should be able to nd a mat o plants or around £3 - £7, plus the postage o course. Just search or “plant mat” and all will be revealed. Firstly, you need to do some knie work . Score the silvered surace o the CD to help the glue and the basing material to key to it. It’s advisable to score the playing surace o the CD or two main reasons – the label side is less likely to slide about and you’ll be less tempted to try to cram the CD back into the player at some point and spot weld the plastic plants to the innards. Not advisable, and certainly not a malunction that is covered by the warranty.
Te evil deed is averted as the wargame widow delivers a pre-emptive strike to preserve essential a ssets or the ongoing campaign. Objective Neil is successully held by the orces o liberation. b
I must admit, the idea is an old one, a great way o getting rid o those unwanted CDs out o the Sunday papers and the prousion o Internet disks than drop through the letterbox. Add tropical sh plants, a hot glue gun and that’s all you need to make a jungle environment or your south east Asia wargames. Games Workshop have a nice collection o jungle plants in a large blister set (£24.95), but it contains only three dierent types o plant, so you need to spread your wings and think laterally. EBay is a good place to look; exercise caution, as some o the plastic oliage is truly revolting, ar too bright and garish and you shouldn’t need to go to the trouble o painting anything except the base. Large pet stores are avoured hunting grounds (also handy or nely shredded hamster bedding and kapok). Don’t orget to
Our venerable hot glue gun, along with a pair o scissors (to snip the plant mat sprues), a crat knie to score the CDs and a plundered selection o ISP installation CDs.
Beore we go any urther, a ew brie words o warning on using hot glue guns. Our glue gun is an old one; you have to push the glue stick into the gun and it takes a little while to heat up. Once it is up to temperature, the hot glue will literally pour out o the nozzle i you push the stick too hard. It is not a precision instrument and,
what’s more, hot glue is not a riend to human skin. Whilst peeling o white wood glue rom your ngers can be a pleasurable experience, doing the same with welded-on hot glue is most certainly not. Neither are the accompanying blisters that attractive or desirable. Be war ned, it’s a twohanded job wielding the glue gun, so prepare yoursel beorehand. Also, be aware o the act that the hot glue will continue to seep out even i you are not pushing the glue stick, so don’t be tempted to use it on a French polished tabletop. More modern glue guns are slightly more oolproo, with proper triggers and such, and even have their own stands, but don’t trust a glue gun not to deposit scalding sticky fuid precisely where you don’t want it. ry to plan your jungle bases i you can. I you have been ortunate enough to nd a variety o dierent plant styles, colours and sizes, you can vary the look o each o the CD clumps. Many o the plants will also come with bases. Do not discard them as they are your riends. rim them down by all means and use the small plugs rom the plant mats. Te reasons or this are three-old: rstly, even hot glue will struggle to secure a small point or trunk and you will need to hold the plant upright until the glue has cooled and hardened, which is clearly very tedious; secondly, the more plants you secure with bases, the easier the storage o the terrain pieces – you can simply unplug the plants rom the CD base; and nally, being able to remove the plants rom the CD ater you have glued their base into place makes painting the CD a whole lot easier and ar less ddly. When planning your CD terrain, less is oten more. Tat is, unless you want solid thickets o plants that you don’t intend to hide gures in. Scattering a handul o plants over the base will mean you can deploy gures amongst them. Te central hole o the CD is an issue. We tend to use Games Workshop plastic multi-part jungle trees.
Construct them using polystyrene cement (the type you use to put together plastic kits). I you can only get hold o the grey jungle trees, just spray the trunk sections with a mid-brown, then give them an ink wash or a delicate drybrush and a green spray or the oliage and green ink or a yellow drybrush. Te alternative is to cut a small square o card and stick this over the centre hole o the CD or use any plants you might have ound with large bases.
Some CDs with a selection o plastic plants fxed in place with a hot glue gun. You can see the square o card over the central hole and the sprues o the plant mats. Scoring the CDs is just a minor precaution to help give the glue and the paint a key.
Now we have our plants in place, we can now turn our attention to the CD base itsel. We tend to use the same basing mixture as we use or the terrain boards and the gure bases. At a distance, this means you can’t actually see the base at all; it simply blends into the overall colour o the terrain boards. We get our base brown mixed at a DIY superstore by the litre. o get the right mix, we give the paint a really good stir, then ll around a third o a jam jar with the paint. Add to this some dry play sand (you can buy a medium sized bag rom most DIY stores – don’t be tempted by builders’ sand, it’s got too much clay in it and makes the mixture too cloggy). Keep adding the sand, handul by handul, until you’ve got a porridge-like consistency. What you want is
Games Workshop’s original jungle plants, now out o production, but still in wide circulation in the second-hand market. Tese are the g reen and brown ones; they have simply been wa shed in soapy water (a hangover chore rom painting sot plastic fgures and not strictly necessary), then washed with slightly watered-down Renaissance inks. You could also wash with watereddown dark green paint or simply drybrush. It’s much easier to do this with the plant parts still on the sprues.
Although these are out o production now, there are literally thousands o them available on eBay or at Bring and Buy stands at wargame shows. I you have the choice, go or the coloured plastic ones. Te trunk parts come in brown and the oliage in green. All you have to do is to wash them in soapy water, let them dry and then liberally slosh brown and green ink over them whilst they are still on their sprue.
Four fnished jungle terrain pieces. Te paint and sand mix has been added, then drybrushed and some static grass stuck in place with white wood glue. You can get considerable variation with just a handul o dierent plant types and dierent ‘planting’ schemes.
a mixture that can be painted on without being too thin or too thick. We use airly large, fat brushes to apply the mixture to the CD base. It will usually need a couple o applications; paint once and you’ll cover most o the base the rst time, then leave at least overnight as it does take some time to dry. Ten give it another coat to cover the bare patches. Make sure you also cover the edges o the CD; this will help it blend in with the terrain boards.
Seed pods with a plastic plant mat plant stuck to the top to make palm trees. Te natural shape o the seed pod wa s ideal or the trunk. Tese add a bit o extra colour to the Indian village eatured in issue 14 o Battlegames.
Bamboo plants. Tese are based dierently, just on a square o 2mm MDF. We bought a ‘chain’ o bamboo rom a home décor store which provided us with 150 individual bamboo shoots. Tree or our have been hot glued to the centre o the MDF.
Once dry and beore putting the plants back into place on their bases, give the brown paint and sand mix a liberal drybrush with white (we use Daler Rowney Cryla). Optionally (and particularly i you’ve still got some bald patches on the CD), apply some white wood glue and x some static grass to the CD base. We use shades rom Realistic errain, but the Army Painter static grass is very good as are the ranges rom several o the railway modelling companies.
You’ll also be surprised just how dierent your wargame table will look with these dotted around. Tere are other things you can do with the plastic plants. We have stuck three or our to twigs mounted on old pennies to make exotic looking trees. We also ound some seed pods which we dried and then hot glued a single plastic plant to the top to make credible palms. For SF and Pulp gamers, why not try some o the more outlandish plastic aquatic plants and dried fowers? Fake orchids make terriying-looking carnivorous plants! b
For insurance, I’ve bought mysel an iPod. Tat way, i the unthinkable happens, Neil and his timeless music will never be lost. I wonder just how long it will be beore the wargamer comes up with some cunning scheme to utilise an iPod? Perhaps an interactive diorama o wartime Pathé News eatures being screened in a cinema? Why not – yesterday’s technology always seems to become tomorrow’s must-have terrain item! Resources
For plastic aquatic plants www.shandns.co.uk; www.aquatics-online.co.uk For plant mats www.petzoo.co.uk; www.buaquatics.com; www.sweetknowleaquatics.co.uk
The UK’s longest-running independent wargames podcast wig and plant mat trees. Each o the plastic plants has literally been pushed onto the ‘branches’ o the twigs. Each twig has between three and
M
In-depth reviews o miniature wargaming rules M
fve o the plastic plants inserted into it. For stability, the twig has been hot
Reviews o fgures and strategy boardgames
glued to an old coin.
Interviews, discussion and much, much more...
Tere you have it. Cost is very low. A couple o plant mats, some glue, a little paint and sand and some ree CDs. Even i you put ve plants on each CD, the cost per terrain base won’t be more than about 25p.
M
Available direct rom
www.meeplesandminiatures.co.uk or subscribe via iTunes
Recce Products and services scrutinised by our team Battlegames strives to give air, unbiased and truthul reviews o all products and services. Our reviewers have been asked to express their honest, measured opinions, which are not necessarily those o the Editor. Tis magazine will never submit to intimidation o any kind, howsoever disguised, and though we do not publish critical reviews lightly, we reserve the right to do so where we believe constructive criticism is justifed.
the direct side-by-side comparison o details, it would not be dicult to read several titles and nd a much deeper and more satisying coverage o all the inormation covered here. Ultimately, I think this title ails to gives anything but the most rudimentary coverage o its subject – whether it is the tanks involved or the confict they ought in. In short, unless you are looking or the very broadest o overviews, with little interest in delving deeper into the subject matter, then I suggest that you may want to look to other publications or your inormation. Neil Shuck
spoilsports o the Partizan Press have explained how each side’s horse dressed identically and the oot marched bareooted to battle wearing nothing but binliners and bobblehats. Te Les Higgins range certainly ollows the traditional pattern, eaturing musketeers in morions using musket-rests and a plethora o broad-brimmed hats, but there is little adornment or plumage and a relative plainness in the costume, and an authenticity o pose, which was rather ahead o its time. One could assemble an attractive army with these gures, plausible but with a nod to nostalgia. Prices are still to be conrmed at the time o going to press. Steve Gill
Panther vs. Sherman – the Battle of the Bulge 1944 Osprey Duel 13 by Steven J. Zaloga, £12.99 One o the recent titles in the Les Higgins Miniatures Osprey ‘Duel’ series, Panther vs. Sherman compares the Sherman 20mm English Civil War, contact
[email protected] M4A3 with the Panther Aus G Italeri amid the backdrop o the German In Battlegames 13, John Preece British Light Cavalry 1815 1944 Ardennes Winter Oensive. welcomed the reappearance o the 20mm plastic, £4.19 Te book is 80 pages long, and classic 1970s Les Higgins Marlburian contains the usual Osprey mix o range, and rom the same stable As the excellent box art quickly historical photos, artwork and cutaway we now have the English Civil tells you, these are not the Hussars diagrams. Te ormat looks at the War gures available again. that many o us started our hobby design, development and technical Back in the early 70s, as the lie painting, but the ot-neglected specications o the vehicles, the new craze o wargaming swept the Light Dragoons. Rather less oppish training and perormance o the tank Remove, these were the rst metal than their colleagues, but in my crews, and then goes onto give an gures I ever owned, bought secondmind just as smart and at least overview o the confict itsel. All hand rom a ellow schoolboy, who as eective on the battleeld. this cumulates in a description o a had announced portentously that Tese gures are made in the newer skirmish between elements o the US he was going to concentrate on semi-hard plastic that has ound 3rd Armoured Division and the 2nd SS Napoleonics (in those days only avour with we collectors and painters. th Panzer Division at Freyneux on 24 opticians used the word “ocus”). It takes paint well, is much more December 1944 resilient, and yet Having read remains sae and through this, I nd bendy enough or mysel somewhat the kid’s market. perplexed as to Sculpts are what the target excellent as we audience o have come to this publication expect, with actually is detailed carbines Les higgins 20mm ECW. Original photo © http://plasticpelisse.blogspot.com/ envisaged to and belts. Te be. It seems to horses are also be an amalgamation o several o Delighted with my new very good, but perhaps a shade Osprey’s other publications, and acquisition, I was not to know that, small, even or light cavalry. As the whilst it serves to give a somewhat in terms o design and sculpting date indicates these are pitched at brie introduction into each o its quality, things would rarely get as Waterloo, and so wear the shako. subjects, it only seems to scratch the good in the decades to ollow. Tis would, I believe, allow usage in surace when compared to the more In those innocent days, we happily the late Peninsular battles as well. detailed titles available in either the elded dashing cavaliers in plumed Poses are o the charging, sword New Vanguard or Campaign ranges. hats and grim helmeted roundheads, waving variety and comprise teen Whilst it is true that other titles but now we know better, and as troopers and two ocers. Tere in the Osprey range may not provide the years have passed the expert are three trooper poses, with ve
o each, which could be better but mixed up in the unit look okay. It is dicult to say anything new about these releases. I it comes rom Italeri, Revell, Caesar or Zvezda there is a high percentage chance o incredible work. No change here. Mike Siggins From Rocks to Rockets by William Gilkerson, Osprey Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84603-497-8, £8.99 Tis is a unny little book and a strange thing to attempt to review. Osprey have or some while now been trying to broaden the range o types o titles they produce, and this is a re-print, originally published way back in 1963 (beore I was born). In only 64 pages, the author illustrates the advancement in military technology rom the Stone Age to the nuclear age! You are now thinking, “how on earth is this possible?” Well, the author simply tells the story through the media o stick gure cartoons, most o which are quite witty and some very clever too. I passed the book onto my ten year-old, who laughed quite a bit and asked a ew questions beore nishing the whole thing in about 30 minutes. Recommended. Richard Baber Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Robotic Air Warfare 1917-2007 New Vanguard 144, ISBN 978-184603-243-1 £9.99 Tere are a number o things one expects rom all Osprey publications and these include an attractive layout, well appointed images and photographs (when appropriate), and structured text that takes the reader though the subject area. In this instance we get all o this. Steven J Zaloga has written quite a number o Osprey books and this one is perhaps one o his most specialised and unusual subjects. Te spread o the topic over 90 years o history is, perhaps, most surprising. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have received quite a bit o attention in recent years due to conficts in Iraq and Aghanistan. However, Zaloga has traced back the history o robotic aircrat to the First World War when attempts were made to make pilotless torpedoes, with mixed success. Te book as described by
Zaloga is an examination o “..the dawn o robotic air warare” and he also states that “...in spite o their advances, robotic aircrat are still in their inancy”. Te 48 pages are ull o acts, acronyms, diagrams, photos and reerences that allow the reader an insight into this ascinating subject. It is a specialised area and so perhaps will not be one o their greatest sellers within the wargaming raternity, but or a starting point in research projects it is a good buy. For anyone who has an aviation or modern warare interest this would sit well in their library and or those who want to incorporate the use o UAVs into their wargames, it will provide some useul guidance. Whilst it naturally concentrates a lot on USA eorts (and their present day coalition allies), there are also discussions on European, Israeli and Soviets attempts into generating eective UAVs. I this subject foats your boat then this is a good buy or you, but remember it is a starting point or urther research. Major Dave Fielder, RM British Forts in the Age of Arthur by Angus Konstam, Osprey Fortress 80, ISBN: 9781846033629, £11.99 I know Angus Konstam or his excellent writing on maritime and piratical matters, so was surprised to see his name on such a specialised subject as post-Roman British ortications. Delving into this book on one o my avourite subjects, I was a bit disappointed with the content. Other Fortress titles I’ve read go into more detail on the subject matter; this is dicult to tackle or postRoman British orts given the available evidence, but reading cover to cover, I elt this book really lacked analysis, and in other places over-stated the available archaeological record. Starting with a broad discussion o orm and unction, the author does a good job o distinguishing the dierent types o ortication in a succinct manner, but never really discusses the very important non-military unctions these orts ullled. Te walls themselves are only part o the overall picture. Te geographical spread o ortications raised my eyebrows, using Hadrian’s Wall as a northern cut-o, but I have picked up some useul snippets o
inormation to go and research urther about other sites (or example, my local hillort – Cissbury – is noted as having been reortied by the British, which I can’t recall reading beore, but sadly there’s no urther inormation beyond a name check in this book). South Cadbury hillort is the main site discussed here. It would have been nice to see more space given over to a lesser-known and perhaps more typical ortication o the period (South Cadbury is pretty unique and I don’t believe that much that has ever been written about this site can be applied to many other post-Roman British ortications). Te book concludes with a basic overview o tactics and strategy o the period, the atermath o the period (which nicely ties up the end o British power), and a reasonably helpul gazetteer o sites to visit. More positively, the book is a reasonable introduction or a newcomer to the subject – although I’d recommend the aged but still helpul Arthur’s Britain by Leslie Alcock or an equally detailed account o ortications and warare with most other aspects o lie in this period also thrown in or a similar price. Te colour plates are nicely handled, although I still wait or the day when a hillort is presented without the extremely tentative South Cadbury gateway on show; but at the very least, the plates do give a nice eel or how these ortications might have looked. Overall, this book isn’t as recommended as I’d have liked it to have been. For me, it’s very much a missed opportunity, possibly because the subject matter is ar too openended or the present Fortress series. Dan Mersey The Victorian Policeman by Simon Dell, Shire Classics Shire Publications are a comorting presence that seem almost timeless, so it seems appropriate that this title alls into the Shire Classics series. Although only a slim, 40 page A5 paperback, it is crammed with detail covering the evolution o the Victorian police rom the medieval parish constables and watchmen, via the Bow Street Runners, to Peel’s Metropolitan reorms and ultimately the detectives o the 1880s, with ngerprinting, the beginnings o orensic science, and books o photographic criminal records.
Te text is airly small, almost uncomortably so or older eyes, to t so much detail between the covers, but the book is prousely illustrated, and pictures adorn almost every page. Most are atmospheric, grainy, black and white photographs, but there are a number o line drawings and engravings. Te narrative fows smoothly and the details help to fesh out quite a substantial subject. Chapters cover not only the Bow Street Runners and the Peelers, but also buildings, some o which are still visible today, and a brie bibliography suggests sources or urther research. Te book is rounded o by a list o museums that may be o interest. Overall, a very handy book or anyone with an interest in the subject, which might appear slightly esoteric, but given the current interest in Victorian sciencection and pulp games it may provide a ew useul small details or gamers or gure makers. Gary Hughs
sprues, each labelled as Praetorian. Odd. Perhaps the production process makes this economical. Released at the same time we have Boadicea (another spelling will be along in a moment) in her chariot. Tis is o course pretty much an essential centrepiece or your British army, especially i, like me, you were brought up on local stories and have the London Bridge statue etched in your mind. Te model is up to the task. Te queen has thoughtully brought along a severed head (ast becoming Warlord’s analogue to the GW Skull) and is joined by a tubby little bodyguard holding alot a Roman standard. Te ood at court must be very good. Tese gures are okay rather than inspirational, and also suer rom the common sculptor’s inability to render emale aces. Te chariot and ponies, conversely, are nicely done. As with most command models, it deserves a decent paint job. Tis one will set you back £15, which has just made me cringe. A little bit. Photo ©
Roman Praetorian Guard and Boudicea Triumphant Warlord Games Te latest release in the Warlord ancients range is the long promised Praetorian guard, surely a unit as desired, indeed required, as the Black Watch or Rush’s Lancers. Checking my handy Warlord Price Chart we nd Legionaries at 57p. Te Praetorians are twenty gures or £15, which is 75p per gure. It does not take a genius to work out that metal gures are available or very little more, but then these are yer genuine elite troops, guv. Te basic body dollies are much the same as the earlier legionary sets and repeat the three, slightly stilted, poses which provide neither a uniorm unit nor one where all gures look unique. Tere are some shield transers (waterslide) which are strangely dull. Te key new components are the signature oval shields, and ortunately we are provided with one per gure. At this point I have to say I guessed incorrectly last issue. Rather than simply providing the old legionary sprues and adding shields and command on a separate sprue, the latter are integrated into what are apparently completely new
Warlord Games
Warlord continue to make models o a high standard, balanced by increasingly high prices – especially or command, equipment and elite gures. Not yet GW level, I’ll grant you, but I think we can detect a wannabe. As usual, the choice is yours and i you are committed to Warlord’s range then these new gures will be a no-brainer, but in this case I recommend a look at some rival gures beore you buy. Mike Siggins Saga of the Samurai: Rise of the Takeda Solum and Rue, published by Brookhurst Press Given that we oten discuss how big the wargaming hobby is, without a convincing answer, we can be
sure that the wider military hobby is considerably larger. It certainly manages to support a number o specialist book publishers. O these, we know Osprey’s longevity and success well enough and it has been interesting to see various competitors emerging with innovative, cheaper and oten better works – most notably typied by H&C in Paris. Te books under review are the latest in this very welcome development, this time rom Brookhurst Press. Saga of the Samurai ocuses on the akeda amily rom the Kai province. Te main period covered is the Sengoku Jidai (1467-1615) and the dates will quickly tell you that we are dealing with the story o a dynasty. Te Saga currently comprises our volumes, with a th in preparation. Judging by the dates so ar covered, there could be seven or eight volumes planned. Te ormat o each book is similar: a history covering a section o the amily history (the rst volume goes back to 1130, via the Gempei Wars), some excellent line illustrations and photographs, colour diagrams and maps, and the highlight or Osprey ans – ten or so colour plates. Each volume is approximately eighty pages. You will now have some idea o the scale o this project. Combined into a single binding, the Saga would deliver around 500 pages o ascinating inormation. Tis is an epic read, and as it ollows the ortunes o a specic amily we discover unusual acts and an appealing new angle. Tis also makes or an engaging narrative, which is certainly much better than the usual isolated sequence o battles, sieges, and randomly emphasised episodes. It is a clever device, and I ound it portrayed an enlightening slice o Japanese history, emphasising the akeda’s power base, amilial struggles and a background to understand the honour and tradition o the samurai. I have to say that occasionally I ound a statement that diered rom my previous readings, or example the use and meaning o the horo, but it will be interesting to check into this using other sources. Generally, the books are well written, original, gripping, and orm an excellent reerence work. Importantly, they are very atmospheric and more than once I put the book down and imagined a
series o battles inspired by the stories. opping all that are the graphics. Te incidental illustrations are superb, and rival the best in the business. I particularly like the line drawings. Te colour plates are also some o the best I have seen, and with at least ten there is no skimping. Overall, or anyone interested in the period the Saga is essential reading. Dave Tomas usually stocks these books at shows, or you can source them rom online retailers, or even on order rom your local bookshop. Mike Siggins Napoleonic Wargaming by Charles Grant, Partizan Press £25, ISBN 978-1-85818-585-9 A welcome reprint o this wargames classic o 1974, with additional material by the author’s son, C S Grant. Always a popular title, but never quite attaining the status o Te War Game. Why? Many o the illustrations eatured the collection o Peter Gilder, very attractive in their own right, but disconnected rom the text. Not long ater publication, Napoleonic players began to descend into a ascinating but exhausting immersion in data and national characteristics and, as the baby few out with the bathwater, perhaps this book came to seem charmingly naïve. Perhaps we simply baulked at producing the 54-man battalions. On re-reading the original, one is struck by the amiliarity o many o the discussions and the realisation dawns that in many cases this was the rst time in print that many o the issues were covered. Arguably, one o the great talents o Charles Grant was to write so entertainingly and conversationally about the painstaking transposition o historical tactics into wargaming mechanics, material which might have engendered tedium in the hands o a lesser author. Tere is no better primer or this absorbing but demanding period. Te additional material by C S Grant includes a Napoleonic replay o Te Action (rom Te War Game), generously illustrated with relevant colour photos and very helpul in understanding how the original rules worked in practice. Tere then ollows a tantalising glimpse into
how the original developed into the versions still in use today, including the shocking revelation that the bouncestick and other artillery devices are no longer in use; this will come as a disappointment to our esteemed Editor, who dangles such appendages with gusto, but a merciul relie to the ventrally-challenged among us, cursed by an unreliable sense o balance and a persistent inability to decide whether the colonel’s horse’s rear end is actually in the rame. C S Grant explains convincingly how, with several dierent versions in use, it would not have been practical to detail his current rules, but one cannot help thinking that these would make an attractive subject
or a uture publication. In a year o what looks to be signicant activity in the publication o Napoleonic rules, it has been rereshing to revisit the roots o the genre. Reconstructing a viable set rom this book requires some work but I ound the process stimulating and rewarding. Te great git o the Grant legacy is a sight and touch o the holy grail – rules which give both a plausible simulation and an enjoyable game – and there is a spirit, at times elusive but always entrancing, which resonates to this day. Steve Gill
A Footsoldier for Patton by Michael C. Bilder with James G. Bilder, Casemate Publishing, ISBN 978-1-932033-91-5, hb, 294 pages Tis is a personal account o Michael Bilder’s service during WWII rom his induction into the US Army’s 5th Inantry Division in 1941 to the war’s end. Te author was a regular soldier, living day-to-day with the horror and humour o war. Tis book is a very good read. Te author covers the training his unit received beore going overseas and their time stationed in Iceland and later in the UK in air detail, and this is interesting in itsel. Te division began to arrive in France in July 1944 and were sent straight into the ghting in the Normandy Bocage. Bilder describes his lie in the ront line with an easy style, covering day-to-day operations and small unit actions, all o which will prove enlightening to anyone gaming US orces in NW Europe. Te division was part o Patton’s Tird Army and took part in the drive across France. Tis is described in nice detail with several accounts o patrols and company-sized actions. Te battles or the ortress town o Metz are also covered in air detail, which was very interesting; this is the only period in the whole book where Patton receives any criticism rom the author. In act, the author goes to great pains to highlight Patton’s skill at command; he also requently is less than complimentary about Montgomery, using all the cliché remarks – too slow, not aggressive enough, etc. Hindsight is a wonderul thing, and I very much doubt i a corporal in a US inantry division had any real idea about what was actually going on outside his own oxhole during the campaign. Ater Metz, there was a change in Allied strategy and Patton was orced to sit still whilst Montgomery tried Market Garden in Holland, which o course was a disaster! What then ollowed was the wet, cold autumn and the ghting on the German border, until mid-December, when against all odds, the Germans mounted their last major counter-oensive o the war in the west – the Ardennes.
Bilder was part o Tird Army’s drive to relieve Bastogne, beore then crossing the Rhine and taking part in the encirclement o the Ruhr. Troughout the book, the author talks candidly about his looting and the shooting o prisoners (by others in his unit). Bilder ended his war in Austria where he explains the rotation points system, how he avoided staying in the army and managed to get home to be married. An enjoyable book, with much to recommend it to anyone interested in the war in NW Europe and the US inantry in particular on a personal level. Richard Baber Arrowstorm: the World of the Archer in the Hundred Years War by Richard Wadge, Te History Press Ltd, ISBN 978-1862273887, 256pp When I rst heard the title Arrowstorm I must coness to having elt some trepidation, wondering i I was in or a book along the lines o “Longbows were the ultimate super weapon o their day”! I was delighted, thereore, to nd Richard Wadge’s work to be a balanced, considered and wellresearched examination o the world o the archer in the Hundred Years War. Wadge takes 1300-1550 as his timerame, and investigates the entire social, economic and logistical structure behind the archer on the battleeld. By looking in detail into a series o related topics, he is able to draw a coherent picture o the archer’s world, rmly bedded within the wider context o their times. In the rst part o the book, Wadge begins with the question “How were armies raised?” and then, starting with the roots in the Fyrd system, the increasing codication o military service through the various Assizes o Arms o the 13th Century, Edward I’s development o Commissions o Array, and the rise o the practice o military indentures, he ollows the development in recruitment practices through the whole period o his study. By his taking this one thread and ollowing it rom start to nish, he builds a book o chapters which stand in their own right, and makes the book easy to dip in and out o. It is this approach, with the book more as a series o standalone,
but related essays, which I ound particularly appealing. Wadge is widely read, and quotes reely rom various sources, rom the extant records o the time to current academic research, but is always honest and meticulous in his accreditation. Te depth o colour which he is able to bring to what could otherwise be a rather dry work is admirable, and helped keep the book an engaging read. Inormation on pay rates is given context by inormation on purchasing power, campaign booty is evaluated by what kind o house the returning archer might buy. Part one, “How and why men became military archers”, covers the men themselves, their recruitment, campaign conditions, eed and upkeep, discipline and desertion, pay and retirement prospects. Part two, “Te supply and manuacture o bows & arrows” covers the materiel and the huge domestic industry which evolved to support the men in the eld armies and garrisons, equipment requirements, production, and the bowyers’ part in the international arms trade. Arrowstorm oers the wargamer a great deal o inspiration or any Hundred Years War project. Names, and small company strength breakdowns or skirmish games, troop strengths and annual recruitment gures or campaigns, logistical minutiae and international shipping gures or grand strategic grognards, there is something in this book or anyone interested in wargaming the high middle ages. Dan owse Military History Commander: Europe at War Gold Slitherine Sotware or the PC Tis is a very good game with a very long title. It covers World War II in Europe, in the widest sense. In play, it is what I would call old school: very clean, simple graphics; logical controls; and easy to get into but dicult to master. Tere is depth, but it is not swamped with detail. It also has plenty o staying power – there are literally hours o gaming value here. I think it is well known that Slitherine Sotware is tied into the hobby in various ways, not least through the link ups with Osprey and Field of Glory. Someone high up in the Slitherine hierarchy is a wargamer, and it shows. So, what do we get? Essentially,
this is an epic hex and counter style boardgame – Tird Reich, World in Flames , War in Europe, Axis & Allies, or instance – converted to the PC and so made playable in hours rather than weeks. It is the sort o thing that we hoped or back in the eighties when it became clear what computers might be able to do, and it seems we are still perecting it or, I assume, a willing market. You may be pleased to know it is the sort o game where you can take as long as you like over your turn, rather than having to move the mouse around like a whirling Dervish. Te scope is impressive. Counters represent entire armies, navies and air orces. We are allowed access to strategic decisions, declarations o war, technology development and production queues. Mmmm. In short, you are the leader o a country. Te game covers the entire war, though there are scenarios should you wish to indulge. Te map covers all o Europe, North Arica and even the North Atlantic – yes, you will need to run/sink convoys and Lend Lease plays a role. o the East we have a decent chunk o Russia, and we all know what happens there. So, I choose Germany in 1939. I reuse to read the manual, or play the tutorial, because I went to a good school and I have done this sort o thing beore. wenty minutes later, ater an encirclement that surely would register ‘Genius’ on the Rommelometer, I had taken Warsaw and the Poles surrendered. Meanwhile I was building up new mechanised divisions and, o course, viele Panzers. I despatched my U-Boats into the Atlantic to stem the tide o convoys supplying all and sundry, but kept the Kriegsmarine in port. Strategic movement shited my armies across to the Western Front. I declared war on Belgium and piled across the border. All went well, apart rom having very little space to manoeuvre, so I spread out a bit into Holland. Still, my Stukas seemed to be enjoying themselves. Suddenly, I was under attack by the French air orce. Blimey, alliances! It got a bit more dicult rom that point onwards. An hour later I saved the game, pondering Operation Sealion and those wretched Spitres lurking across the Channel. Excellent stu. Really good. Obviously, this is a quick overview and there is much more depth to
be discovered. For instance, each counter can be clicked to show all sorts o interesting statistics. You can research technologies that will help you in combat. Allies join you and your enemies. Choosing your production priorities is a game in itsel. It is all quite broad brush, but highly enjoyable or that. I have to say I was a little disappointed not to nd much in the way o Osprey artwork within the game, as this is billed as a major eature. It may be there, but I can’t nd it! Perhaps it reers to the cute little icons, which are very good indeed, which can easily replace the dull counters. For those worried about boardgame inection, you can also turn the hexes o. In short, this is a real gamer’s game. Enjoyable, not too taxing, and very quick to learn. It is, as they used to say, highly intuitive and great un. I recommend MHC:EAWG , even i I won’t type it all in again. Mike Siggins Warfare in the Age of Napoleon by od Kershner, On Military Matters $22, Caliver Books £17.50 Tis neat but modest 32 page sotcover has glided across the Atlantic and in under the radar with little anare and hype, but is the work o an established rules writer, author o the popular Warfare In Te Age of Reason and Pig Wars. It is not a modied Age of Reason, however, not least in the 1:30 unit sizes, with a French battalion portrayed by our bases each o six gures in three ranks, while the British have the same in two ranks and the Austrians and later Prussians three by three. As is commonly the case nowadays, the author is at pains to emphasise that no rigid basing system is to be imposed, so existing collections in a variety o scales and sizes can be deployed. No ground scale is advised, but musket long range is 6”, which gives some indication. Movement is alternate, with the players dicing or initiative in a amiliar manner, but with the interesting variant that the winner moves cavalry and horse artillery rst, ollowed by the loser, beore they both turn to the inantry and oot artillery in the same pattern. Tere are no photos o games in
action but a generous sprinkling o diagrams and examples o play, plus a pull-out quick play guide. wo scenarios are provided – La Haye Sainte and Quatre Bras. Te army lists have a similar 1815 bias, eaturing the French, British and Prussians; national characteristics are o some signicance, but without dominating. Without the opportunity to playtest, one is let with the impression o a coherent and well-balanced set o rules, with some interesting ideas and mechanisms, and a middling level o complexity. A quietly competent set likely to be overshadowed by fashier product emerging this year. Steve Gill Maori Fortifications by Ian Knight and Adam Hook, Osprey Publishing, 2009 ISBN 978 1 84603 370 4 During my rst visit to New Zealand a couple o years ago, I had an excellent red wine rom a vineyard called Bridge Pa. Back then, I had no idea what a pa was, but later ound out that it was some kind o Maori ortied camp. Now we have a book rom Ian Knight, who is to Victorian military history what South Island is to sauvignon blanc, that explains in detail what a pa was, how it was constructed and the role it played in the New Zealand Wars o the 1840s-60s. Whilst the author is a popular authority in this general eld, Osprey deserve congratulations or publishing a book on a subject that is ar rom mainstream. Te pa began as a ortied village, oten on a hilltop, which was protected by a number o ditches and palisades with ‘ghting stages’ on towers placed at regular intervals around the perimeter. Te arrivals o rearms led to a revision o pa construction – men waving spears on a ghting stage were easy targets. Rife pits were added outside the stockade to slow down attackers, whilst ring steps and trenches were prepared inside. Te purpose o the pa became purely military, built not to protect a village but as a show o deance and an invitation to draw the enemy into battle at a time and place o the deenders’ choosing. Te British did work out how to deal with pas, but only at the end o a long and bloody road. Te local puriri wood was strong enough to withstand lighter cannonballs and
so it was dicult to ‘soten up’ a pa beore men could assault a breach, a problem not solved until towards the end o the wars when heavier artillery became available. roops making a rontal attack would oten founder in the wide ditches or nd themselves isolated in the network o palisades i they managed to break through the outer ramparts. Victory, i achieved, was oten pyrrhic as a pa always had an escape route through which the Maori could slip away to build another pa somewhere else. Te Maori were eventually overcome by superior numbers and weapons combined with the type o containment and scorched earth strategy that would be deployed on a ar greater scale in the Boer Republics 40-odd years later. Te book is well illustrated with diagrams, photos and contemporary watercolours (which are particular interesting and atmospheric). Anyone wishing to model a pa will nd all the inormation they need together with inspirational artwork by Adam Hook. My standard measure o an Osprey’s success is whether I want to give the period a go by the time I’ve nished; I was barely halway through beore I started looking to see who makes suitable gures (Eureka Miniatures, incidentally). I I have one criticism, it is the lack o any Maori pronunciation guide. But then I have ound that seeing how many dierent ways you can pronounce “itokawaru” and “ Ruapekepeka” is a un game to play, particularly on public transport. Highly recommended. Giles Allison Wellington’s Campaigns in India by Major R G Burton, published by Lancer Publications Tere is an abundance o books and accounts that trace Wellington’s career through the peninsular War to the battleeld o Waterloo, but it is disappointing that his ormative years, particularly in India, have received relatively scant coverage. Yet it was there, between 1797 and 1805, more time in act than he spent in the Peninsula, that the then Honourable Arthur Wellesley orged his career and his reputation as ‘the sepoy general’. Wellington’s Campaigns in India provides a signicant contribution to our understanding o those campaigns and Wellington’s part in them. Burton
was, at the time o writing, a major in the 94th (Russell’s) Inantry, also known as the Scotch Brigade, and became a noted military historian. Tis detailed account was rst published over one hundred years ater the events it recounts, or ocial use only, by the Division o the Chie o Sta o the Intelligence Branch o the Army in 1908. It is now brought ully into the public domain by Lancer Publications in a beautiully produced book. Tis is a must or anybody with an interest either in these campaigns or in Wellington’s ormative years. Te book provides an extremely useul chronology o Wellington’s time in India. It gives details o the battles, the orders o battle, inormation on the Indian orces, many inormative ootnotes and nine extremely interesting and varied appendices. It refects on Wellington’s ailed night attack beore the all o Seringapatam, which might have halted his career were it not that he was the brother o the Governor General, and his resolve as a result never to attack at night without previous reconnaissance. It also covers his successes including, o course, Assaye. Wellington’s recorded concerns about the licentious soldiery and their plunder are a oretaste o his views on his soldiers in the Peninsula. Unortunately, the book is reproduced without maps and the reader will benet rom having one to hand, perhaps rom Jac Weller’s Wellington in India. Produced in hardback with 175 pages, Wellington’s Campaigns in India is very good value at £11.99. It has an appeal that goes beyond a narrow interest in the campaigns in India and is highly recommended. Charles Grant Empire: Total War Te Creative Assembly or the PC Almost all o you who have chosen the PC as your gaming platorm will be amiliar with the otal War series. It started almost a decade ago and has improved inexorably with each iteration. Even i you thought the original game weak, random and largely unplayable (like me!), it is possible that the later versions may well have drawn you in. My downall was the Medieval II edition and many, many hours were spent ghting battles and building
and re-building my empires. Even so, because I needed to regain my riends, I eventually orced mysel to delete the game. Now, my resistance has ailed again. Tere are men in tricornes on my screen. Tey are ring artillery. Tey are acing cavalry charges. Tey are even orming square. I am lost. Mumble, mumble. Empire: otal War moves us on to the 18th century, surely a strong avourite among readers o this magazine. But who should buy? Stay your hand i you are a man or whom exact uniorm colour, cockades and tactics are important, but i you like the un, loose, pseudo history o otal War , its campaigns, economy, and its rolling, chaotic battles, then brace that credit card. We
rightully expect an upgrade when we buy a new series game; this is a massive improvement and I could spend the rest o the review listing all the changes. I won’t. But suce to say everything is better and, importantly, everything works pretty well. One might raise an eyebrow at Te Rake that one can send o to extract the enemy’s secrets, or the rather powerul academic spies. But one gets used to them, and they add to the period favour. I will talk about the campaign detail briefy, because now it seems that everything has more detail, that the economy is more credible, and there are zoomable graphical vignettes all over. Lovely. Tere are decent sieges, the diplomacy seems to be more solid and believable, and the AI is now much
tougher. Finally, there is now research. But most o us, I assume, enjoy the 3D battles. Tey are what drew me in originally. Tese have taken on a new aspect – wholesale carnage! My rst battle was bloody. I thought it was an anomaly and put it down to inexperience. Te second one was ar worse, and the remnants o my army took an awully long time to rebuild. Perhaps, as in history, your armies need to be bigger because there are many new and dierent ways to die… I am reliably told there are even Congreve rockets in there somewhere, but standard artillery seems quite deadly enough, thank you. I ound mysel learning new tactics, not all historical, and trying very hard to keep my brave and expensive troops alive. ime has not yet permitted me to investigate yet another new eature: 3D naval battles. Tese look amazing, but as you might imagine, require a lot o processing power. Te game generally is a little sluggish on my machine, which is about three years behind the cutting edge, so I will have to see i the naval module ells it! Tis is a superb release, and a truly impressive upgrade on the previous incarnations o otal War. Unless you have problems with real time play or dodgy historicity, you must get this game. Tere is a common rerain amongst writers, and it is that needing to write this review was the only thing pulling me away rom the game! Empire: otal War is a modern classic and is what PC gaming should be all about. Mike Siggins Soldat II Skirmish rules 1900-1955 by im Goodlett, SMPress, £16.99 I can’t help but admire the scholarship that has been poured into this 144page tome designed to cover squad level inantry combat. Although these rules appear complex, many aspects (armour, o-table support weapons and demolition to name but three o the many) won’t eature in every scenario you play and may be introduced as you become amiliar with the core rules. I ound basic inantry combat a relatively easy, ree-fowing game to pick up having a logical sequence o play which has our rounds or ‘impulses’ beore two concluding segments complete each turn. Each ‘impulse’ represents just a
ew seconds o real time and orces you to choose your tactics accordingly. Rules are recommended or play on a 12’ x 6’ table (representing just 250 x 500 yards o real estate) using 20mm gures, although scenarios are included or 6’ x 4’ and smaller playing areas which most gamers should be able to manage at home. 30 – 100 gures per side are recommended. Smaller sized models can be used, although I would be wary o going below 15mm because the precise line o sight rules might become tricky to implement using very small gures. A periscope and/or a laser alignment tool are recommended by the author or the advanced sighting rules, which add greatly to the gaming experience. Figures can be physically hidden within the model landscape, rather than relying on blinds or concealment, the implication being that the more true-to-scale your terrain, the more satisying this aspect will be. Real time is allocated to spotting and players are required to rerain rom walking around the table during the game. An umpire is recommended or ambush games where the gures aren’t initially placed on the table. Te ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ tabletop environment is a dening concept in the system, which you will either love (or the ‘being there’ quality it brings to the game), or not! 54 pages cover the rules and a urther 20 pages national, company level, organisations and tactics. Extensive AFV data tables and ten WW2 scenarios complete the package. A single page makes mention o playing campaignbased games without oering any rules or this and I certainly eel there’s potential or the author to expand this aspect in the uture. Te quality o this black and white production is reasonably good and more than adequate or wargames rules, although this is not a lavish or glossy book. Tere a ew minor layout errors which could be corrected in the next reprint and I would like to see a key directly adjacent to all the tables which use symbols. My overall eeling is o a very solid, well considered, precisely written product that is well worth a look, particularly given the reported rise in popularity at conventions States-side. Te £17 price tag is very reasonable – everything you need to
play is covered by this one volume. im Beresord Commonwealth Skirmish Scenarios: WW2 ETO 1940 – 1945 by Andy urlington, SMPress, £14.99 Although ostensibly published as a supplement to the Soldat II system, the author quite readily acknowledges that the 14 scenarios presented here may be used or any WW2 skirmish rules. A conversion table is provided to cover many, but not all other sets. A brie overview begins this 90 page book which is nicely designed to allow pages to be photocopied or each side without betraying any inormation about their opponent’s orces that shouldn’t be revealed beore the game. Umpire’s notes, a detailed OOB and a deployment map or each side are included. Te scenarios are varied but principally cover the ghting in France during the summer o 1944. Four others are included or actions set in 1940, ’41, ’42 and ’45. Black and white images o varying quality add a sense o history to the publication. Games typically eature one or two platoons per player plus supporting armour where appropriate. All are designed or a 10’ x 6’ table using 20mm gures but may, o course, be adjusted accordingly or other sizes o models. Te black and white production is more than adequate and at just over £1.00 per scenario, represents good value or your money. im Beresord Warsaw 1944: Poland’s Bid for Freedom by Robert Forczyk, illustrated by Peter Dennis, Osprey Campaign 205 Tis book oers a narrative o the Warsaw Uprising o August to October o 1944, plus a look at the political plan behind the AK (Armia Krajowa) oensive, an Order o Battle or both the Polish and German sides and thumbnail biographies o some o the key commanders. Crucially, the (nearly) day by day narrative o the ghting is backed up by numerous maps o the areas being described, so readers can easily ollow the events and see the early successes o the AK expanding their area o control, ollowed by the axes o the German counter-attacks and their building by building (or so it seems at
times) reduction o the AK control. Tese maps are helpully backed up by photographs and several dramatic illustrations to show the architecture o the city itsel so wargamers can scratch-build the appropriate key positions rather than just opt or o-the-peg buildings placed in the right positions on the games table. It also emphasises the importance o the vertical nature o the ghting as in the illustration o “Te Deence o Piwna Street” – anyone interested in a two week campaign or one street? What the book also gets over is the scale o the ghting – the size o the AK orces involved numbering 40,000+ in Warsaw, the resources that the Wehrmacht put in suppressing the uprising including the specialised equipment brought to bear on the AK positions, such as Karl mortars, Goliath demolition ROVs, and Brummbars. It also shows the ingenuity o the AK orces, with weapons like the Polish-produced sten-like SMGs, but also in actions such as the capture o the PAS Building telephone exchange. Te book doesn’t shy away rom the atrocities that took place in the 60-odd days o the Rising; the 30,000 civilians killed in the Wola massacre are remembered by a double page illustration showing some o them being rounded up by Dirlewanger (who commanded the unit responsible) and some o his men. Te total number o civilian deaths resulting rom the Rising is claimed at being over 200,000. It is also mentioned that the AK usually summarily shot any SS prisoners. actics such as the German use o Polish human shields will certainly challenge anyone wanting to game the Rising in its entirety. However, there are plenty o actions that could be brought to the tabletop – both Polish and German attacks. It is even possible to have a Polish armoured orce using captured tanks and hal-tracks against German deenders. As ar as painting an AK orce is concerned, the illustrations, and photographs o Polish equipment provide the inormation a gamer would need to eld a orce on the table. In conclusion, a thought-provoking book that will give wargamers many scenario ideas, as well as providing a good solid historical analysis o the events. Toroughly recommended. Martin Penneck
Perry Miniatures 28mm Napoleonic French Hussars Te online world has just discovered that the next range o 28mm Napoleonic plastics that will emerge rom the Perry stables [groan!] will be an exquisite set o French hussars. During a recent visit to Nottingham or the weekend o the Partizan show, I was given the chance to see the original 3-up sculpts o these magnicent gures that are bound to prove a hit with wargamers and modellers alike, not just because o the superlative quality o the sculpting, but also because o the myriad possibilities that they oer. Te photos show the pre-production castings and the exciting thing as ar as I am concerned is the inclusion o a variety o headgear that will allow you to create gures or pretty much any French hussar regiment in ull or campaign dress rom 1790 to 1815. Te head types included in the box(es) will include mirlitons, ‘belltop’ shakos (covered and ull dess), kolpacks and the shako rouleau. Bodies are split at the waist to allow the choice o either ull dress breeches or campaign overalls. Te chap sporting that magnicent mirliton could, o course, even be adapted or the earlier Seven Years War confict and modellers with a bit o imagination and some skill could even change the gure’s allegiance entirely and send him into the open recruiting arms o a Frederican Prussian sergeant major. Te horses are all equipped with a sheepskin with the classic dogtoothed edge but again, anyone suciently dabhanded at conversions could do some sanding, scraping and Green Stu sculpting to substitute the shabraque o their choice. Due to hit the shops early next year, Alan Perry inorms me that they may come in two dierent sets, depending on the technical conundrum o sprue capacity. With their Wars o the Roses plastics due out rst, we wait with bated breath! Henry Hyde
Seafire vs A6M Zero, Pacific Theatre by Donald Nijboer, Osprey Publishing Duel 16, ISBN 978-1-84603-433-6, £12.99 Te Osprey Duel series is a relatively recent addition to their catalogue but one that evokes memories o happy childhood days assembling Airx ‘Dogght Doubles’ – two adversaries packaged together. Similarly Duel presents two opposing war machines, assessing and directly contrasting the merits and tactics o each design. In this instance, a pair o archetypal ghters o WW2, the Spitre, albeit in its naval conguration – the Seare – and the Zero-sen. Perhaps an o-beat combo, but one that suggests an enlightening read. Te text plots the development o each aircrat, dening the particular model variations and the training o their pilots beore bringing them together in an analysis o their relative combat capabilities. Teir entwined story is concluded by a strategic and tactical overview o their deployment. It was whilst operating in a close deence role o the British Pacic Fleet, stationed o the Japanese mainland and under threat rom kamikaze attacks, that the low-level advantages o the Seare over the Zero were best realised. Such a scenario could make an exciting participation game combining the spectacle o an impressive battleship (King George V) or aircrat carrier model deended by the legendary Spitre (in disguise) against a deadly oe. Te wonderully evocative artist’s impression, a ghostly image o a successul Seare sortie, has already served as the catalyst or such a project! Tree-view colour proles o each aircrat are also included and provide useul, i basic, guides or your model painting. However, in many respects the book ails to really live up to expectations or Osprey’s claim: “step onto the battleeld and immerse yoursel in the experience o real historic combat”. In this respect, the subject matter only really crackles and bursts into
lie in the last ew pages describing the nal air ghting o WW2, over okyo Bay, though to be air to the publisher, there was relatively little combat recorded between these two aircrat to draw on as source material. Although the content is interesting, i not terribly comprehensive and potentially useul to the wargamer, I’ve come to expect better value than this slim volume ultimately delivers. Tis is especially true when considered alongside the companion series, Aircraft of the Aces, that remains signicantly more engaging and rewarding. In spite o the shortcomings mentioned, I’ve ound inspiration or my own gaming within these pages, so I suggest that this particular book and the Duel series in general are worth a look. im Beresord Prussian Infantry 1808-1840 Vol 1 Line & Guard 1808-1814 ISBN 978-1-85818-583-5 Vol 2 Jager, Reserve, Freikorps & New Regiments 1813-1840 ISBN 978-1-85818-584-2 by Dr Stephen Summerfeld, Partizan Press, £29.50 per volume In the world o Napoleonic uniorms, there is no subject more complex than the rapidly-mobilised Prussian inantry o the Befreiungskrieg , with regimental name-changing to rival the French Young Guard and uniorms evolving rom season to season. Tis is not the rst time the subject has been covered in English but the rst occasion in my experience that no ences have been reused; at some point, previous authors will have thrown in the towel and reerred mysteriously to uniorm variations (or the reserve regiments in particular) there was insucient space to list. A bullet has been bravely bitten here and the painstaking academic research o the text combines with an abundance o illustrations in a happy marriage o science and art. Not surprisingly, the illustrations draw heavily on the work o Knötel and Bauer especially, with the added blessing o urther material by Bob Marrion in a characteristically evocative style. At £59 or the pair, this would be no trivial investment; i one could aord only one o the two, then perhaps volume 2 could be the most
useul, covering as it does the more fuid activities o the ‘second eleven’. Tere also remains the perennial question o how ar one can go in representing units o an army so precisely selected as to represent an exact snapshot o a particular campaigning season; most o us will be content to eld a variety o model battalions characteristic o the later Prussian army, usable rom Saxony in 1813 to Belgium two years later. It is nonetheless upliting to be able to greet publications o such impressive quality, in such an attractive ormat, and reassuring to know that the inormation is now readily accessible. Steve Gill
The First Carlist War 1833-1840: a Military History and uniform Guide by Conrad Cairns, Perry Miniatures Publications, 104pp, £15. ISBN: 978-0956184207 Tose o you who requent Partizan will have seen the Perry twins exhibiting their lovely range o Carlist War gures in games that look suspiciously Napoleonic, but you would also be orgiven or thinking “¿Qué es eso?” Just as that little smattering o Spanish may have sent you scampering or the dictionary, this intriguing Spanish civil war rom the mid-19th century may have had you Googling and scratching your head, only to nd that precious little reerence material exists out there or the gamer seeking not only to understand the confict, but also to paint up those pretty miniatures.
Well, stop searching, because this little gem o a book is packed with everything you are ever likely to need to know about the Carlist Wars, including an historical overview, an examination o the course o the war in dierent parts o Spain, details o the orces involved including excellent uniorm reerence illustrations and paintings by Michael Perry, fags, descriptions o key battles together with the orders o battle and useul ‘3D’ maps, and rounded o with some lovely eye candy o those Perry Miniatures we came in with. Te causes o the war were somewhat complex, but who can resist the temptations o a confict where a substantial British Auxiliary Legion in Spanish pay (including red coated inantry, lancers, artillery and Royal Marines) ought alongside the French Foreign Legion (with its own squadrons o Polish Lancers), a Portuguese division and the Cristino Spanish orces? Opposite them were Carlists wearing their distinctive berets, and with some o the snazziest troops you are ever likely to encounter, with wonderully evocative names like the Guipuzcoans, the Cabrera Guides, La Mancha Guerillas and Merino’s Lancers. Engaging, inormative, and stued ull o the material that every wargamer craves, this is a no-brainer or anyone interested in having a go at this underrated period. Highly recommended. Henry Hyde Sepoy Generals – Wellington to Roberts by G W Forrest, C.I.E, Lancer Publications ISBN: 978-098153780-1 Having thoroughly enjoyed the historical ction o Bernard Cornwell and Simon Scarrow, both o whom gave a possible insight into Wellington’s period o lie and campaigns in India, I was glad to be given the opportunity to review a more detailed and hopeully accurate account o those individuals who came to be known as Sepoy Generals. Tis edition was published in 2008 but Sepoy Generals was in act rst published in 1901. Tis standardsized hardback book, re-published by an Casemate, has large, well-spaced print, and is physically easy to read. It includes portrait pictures o the individuals it describes (apart rom
Wellington who only rates a picture o his bust), but no campaign or battle maps. Te author, being the exdirector o records or the Government o India, had access to ancient les in the archives at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta [sic], les, I might surmise, that may be now either lost or dicult to nd by contemporary writers. Ater a useul and interesting preace which sets the individuals in place and gives urther reerences the author used to describe them, the book lays out a series o biographical military essays on each o the Generals. Tese are: Te Duke o Wellington; Sir Charles Napier; Sir Herbert B Edwardes; Sir Tomas Munro; Sir David Bard; General John Jacob; Sir
Donald Stewart; Sir William Lockhart; and Field-Marshal Lord Roberts. Each chapter is well-populated with ootnotes urther detailing reerences illustrating the text and includes inormation rom throughout each general’s career, both in- and outside India. Te English style, as one would expect, is rather jingoistic, dated and, as such, more fowery than one is used to (especially in contemporary quotes), but I ound it pleasant, well written and, most important in a work o reerence, generally a good read, only hindered occasionally by lists o names o those individuals accompanying the particular general. Part o the author’s stated intention was to also record the gallantry and
courage o the native inantry as well as that o the British soldier. o that end, the book is mainly lled with short descriptions o military actions bringing out the decisive character o the generals and showing their development throughout their careers, but also illustrating the courage o the period and the rise o the British Empire. Did the book ll out my ctional brie on Wellington? Yes it did. It also did the same or the other generals. I thoroughly enjoyed it and with its ormat, it can be picked up, allowing you to read through a particular general, put down and restarted later. Recommended. om Hutchinson
E V E N T S J U LY/ A U G US T 2 0 0 9 The Editor is grateful to Richard Tyndall (Tricks) of the Newark Irregulars for compiling this calendar on our behalf. If you are an event organ- iser and wish to ensure that your show is listed here, please contact Richard at
[email protected]. UK AND IRELAND 4th July
Closing Date for SOA Leeds Doubles Entries Gauntlet
Broughton
4th – 5th July
Battlegroup South
Bovington
4th – 5th July
Middlesborough Gamers Club Open Day
Middlesborough
5th July
Schiltron 15mm DBM
Glasgow
11th – 12th July
Warboot by the Sea
Morecombe
18th July
SOA Leeds Doubles 2nd Rnd
Leeds
18th – 19th July
Attack
Devizes
18th – 19th July
15mm DBM Pairs Doubles 3 rd Rnd
Devizes
18th – 19th July
Festival of History
Kelmarsh Hall
25th– 26thJuly
To the Redoubt
Eastbourne
25th– 26thJuly
Toy Soldier
Preston
25th– 26thJuly
Stoke Challenge
Stoke on Trent
26th July
Claymore
Edinburgh
1st August
Strongbow’s Shield
Dublin
1st August
Britcon
Manchester
13th – 16th August
Present Arms
Romford
15th August
Closing Date for Northern DBM Doubles 4 th Rnd Military Odyssey
20th August Detling
29th – 31st August
EUROPE Avangardowe Potyczki FOW
Warsaw, Poland
4th – 5th July
Scandinavia in Flames FOW
Stockholm, Sweden
4th – 5th July
IWF European Individual Championships
Rome, Italy
9th – 12th July
KoMiCon
Koblenz, Germany
21st – 23rd August
NORTH AMERICA Skirmish
Plano, TX
11th July
Historicon
Lancaster, PA
16th – 19th July
Texas DBA Open Tournament
Austin, TX
26th July
Spearhead
Hazelwood, MO
8th August
Gencon
Indianapolis, IN
13th – 16th August
Heat of Battle
New Orleans, LA
21st – 23rd August
REST OF THE WORLD Sylvania Heights, Australia 16th August Southern Battle Gamers Winter Historical Competition For further details and updates please see the Newark Irregulars site at www.newarkirregulars.org.uk
Please support our advertisers
THE BATTLEGAMES SHOP
“Every now and again, there is a book which every gamer ne eds to own. Tis is one of them.” R Neil Smith, Wargames Illustrated 259
Details of order
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION (6 ISSUES) UK £31.50 nc. p&p EU £36.00 nc. p&p; R h W Ecnmy Am: £43.00 nc. p&p
No.
Item
Price
Total
2-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION (12 ISSUES) INCLUDES FREE GARCIA HERNANDEZ PRINT (A4 SIZE) UK £63.00 nc. p&p EU £72.00 nc. p&p; R h W Ecnmy Am: £86.00 nc. p&p
BACK ISSUES Issues 1 and 2 have now completely sold out. UK back issues £5.25 incl. p&p. EU back issues £6.25 incl. p&p. Rest of the World back issues £7.50 incl. p&p.
Total for order
RANDOM BUNDLE BARGAIN (3 ISSUES)
Please complete in BLOCK CAPITALS.
A random selection of three previous issues (excludes current issue) UK £12.00 nc. p&p; EU £14.50 nc. p&p; R h W: £18.50 nc. p&p
Nm
£
A
TABLE TOP TEASERS VOLUME 1 UK £11.00 nc. p&p EU £12.50 nc. p&p; R h W Ecnmy Am: £14.00 nc. p&p
BATTLEGAMES BINDERS Black leather and embossed gold efect Wirex binders, to hold 12 issues. UK £10.50 ncung p&p EU £12.50 ncung p&p R h W £14.00 ncung p&p Please allow up to 28 days or delivery. Please note that current prices will always apply at the time of ordering individual products or subscribing. Check our w ebsite shop for up-todate information. Send orders by post to: Subcpn, Bgm L, 17 Gnv R, Hv BN3 1TG, E Sux, UK. Yu cn pc yu cuy nn www.bgm.c.uk c +44 (0)1273 323320
Pc/ZIP Tphn m
Cuny
Important! Please provide either phone or email
Typ c ( please 3. We can only accept Maestro from UK residents. )
C N.
/
S/v m * Iu numb*
Expy
/
C Scuy C (last 3 digits on the back)
£
FOR YOUR SECURIY, PLEASE DO NOT SIGN HIS FORM. A PHOTOCOPY OR WRITTEN VERSION IS FINE – DON’T DAMAGE YOUR BATTLEGAMES !
Please debit the total amount o rom my card account detailed above. I understand that my card will not be debited until goo ds are dispatched. D Pcn: Battlegames Ltd complies with the Data Protection Act. Te inormation you give us will only be use d or a single ‘Customer Not Present’ transaction and the delivery o your goods.
I your order is a git or someone else, please provide their details and a message to them and we’ll send the items direct or you.
We accept cheques drawn on a UK bank made payable to: Bgm L. If you are enclosing a cheque, please 3 here
Please mention Battlegames when contacting advertisers
Battlegames
45
