Neil Thomas One Hour Ancients

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!

Apologies for the prolonged absence, real life just seemed too hectic to keep up with blogging. I've actually got a lot of articles in stock, it is just a question of summoning the energy to actually type the words to go with the pictures. Anyway, here's another go for 2015.

We've recently been pretty excited by the various wargames rules produced by Neil Thomas, nice easy games very suitable for a club night and not too hard on the brain cells. His most recent publication is 'One Hour Wargames' which does what it says on the tin, very quick wargames rules covering everything from Ancients to WW2 and 30 canned scenarios to go with them.

Our first try out was with the Ancients set, although I couldn't resist fiddling slightly with the troop types so the Romans get 'Auxilia' instead of Warband as a secondary type. This matchup is Romans vs Carthaginians, and the scenario is a contested river crossing with two fords. Victory goes to the side who captures both crossings.

Mighty Romans, four units of Legionaries, one cavalry and one Auxilia.

Carthaginians, three heavy infantry, one warband and two light infantry.

Roman cavary dash across the first ford in a heroic delaying action.

Everyone else lines up menacingly opposite the other ford.

Romans race to rescue the cavalry, who are having the worst of it 

But too late, the cavalry die leaving a sad pile of casualty markers behind. Units are destroyed when they take 15 hits.

Carthos push across the ford to the south.

And the Romans get stuck in at the other end.

Losses mount

And in the north

But the Romans are finally victorious in the south

While the bloodbath in the north continues

The Romans from the south move to aid their comrades

Arriving just in time

And finally a hard won victory.

This was really good fun. The rules were so simple you could focus on the tactical complications of the scenario. The cumulative damage model led to some nail biting engagements, and the small number of units meant commanders were forced to make real choices about commitment of forces in different sectors. The only real criticism were that the rules are so short for each period, that much is left unexplained (particularly wrt flank/rear attacks) and I ended up drawing guidance from his fuller rule sets as to the possible intention. We've also played the Napoleonic version and I adapted the WW1 set to use for the Spanish Civil War (which sadly I didn't take any photos of).

Something new

We had an interesting foray recently into a period I have played very little, the English Civil War. I have literally played two ECW games before in my entire life. Like the WSS, a period I am vaguely interested in but haven't summoned the energy to do in a serious way.

This was a tryout for the rules Mark has been working on them for a while, and he brought a selection of his beautifully painted 28mm figures along to play with.

Mark and I were the staunch defenders of liberty and parliament, while John and Kayte were the foppish monarchist absolutists. Photos all taken from the Parliamentarian side.

Parliamentary infantry deployed in very modern order with independant wings of shot.

Brave parliamentary cavalry. Hurrah!

Artillery and cuirassiers. Hurrah!

Wicked Royalist infantry deployed in unimaginative clumps.

Our brave chaps advance and get a bit shot up. The Royalist cavalry also take some casualties from artillery fire.

We press on in the centre.

Royalist dragoons open up from behind the hedgerows on our cavalry.

The remains of our cavalry take on Royalist musketeers.

Getting to grips in the centre.

On the right our infantry form a sort of vaguely square-ish formation.

Much to everyones amazement, our cavalry manage to rout the Royalist infantry regiment, even though they have been all but wiped out.

Our cuirassiers get stuck into the Royalist fops.

In the centre another Royalist infantry regiment routs, and it is pretty much game over  at that point.

This was a lot of fun, the game move along at a fair pace and we reached what seemed to be a reasonable conclusion in a sensible manner. We gave Mark some feedback about layout and presentation, but generally the rules seemed very sound and it would be nice to try them out again.

BF Stalinets

More Triples purchases were this brace of BF Stalinets tractors, very useful for pulling guns and suchlike around. These are all-in-one resin models with moulded on bases and at two to a pack are not bad value at all. No assembly required, just a bit of cleaning up, what could be better! Unlike the SU-85s, I managed not to drop these and break any bits off.

The Stalinets clank across the dining table.

Diminutive little vehicles which look quite businesslike.

The panel lines etc show up very nicely.

Plenty of space in the back.

These couldn't have been easier to do, as usual finished in Vallejo 894 over a black base then a heavy drybrush of 894 lightened with ochre and a final drybrush of mud around the running gear and a final highlight of very pale tan. I did the windows as glazed because they stand out a bit more on the tabletop, even though many photos only show the two front panes as glass.

Foy

Well having whinged earlier about never getting a chance to wear my WW2 gear I managed do get along to a WW2 game run at the Gunman Eversley site near Reading in March. This covered the fighting around Foy during the Battle of the Bulge, but this time the other Foy on the Meuse where 2nd Panzer Division rode to its doom, not the Band of Brothers one.

The German players for this organised themselves into platoons centered around particular uniform variations, the dearth of games meant we had weeks to sort out who was wearing what. I ended up with the Assault Pioneers, which took the real kit challenge of lugging as much stuff as possible to extremes.

The well dressed Assault Pioneer, note the pioneer backpack stuffed with not only all the personal kit, but also numerous heavy explody things. The assault shovel strapped to the side of the pack is a particularly unwieldy item.

A better view of the shovel, the shovel head clips to your belt and the haft to the pack, which makes it really hard to take off... I seem to have been promoted to Obergfreiter for this, well I've been doing it long enough.

Along with all the engineer kit, our zug of 12 had two MG42s and a 50mm mortar to carry. The ammo box is full of mortar bombs.

Not to be outdone, the US brought this extremely heavy .30 cal 'light' machinegun.

The SS contingent had a hand cart, clearly a typical late 1944 panzer division.

The 'panzer division' in action.

Plucky Brits from the Rifle Brigade mingle with various Germans and Americans at the briefing.

Pioneers are briefed by the CO.

Our illustrious leader, Oberfeldwebel Steiner.

Hanging around eating.

More hanging around eating.

Sadly helmets off reveals the age of many of the participants!

Luftwaffe Field Div.

Mine clearance. There were lots of mines to clear all over the site. I managed not to blow myself up this time.

Period-ised photo.

Fallschirmjagers.

Hanging around in b/w

Pioneers patrolling.

Pioneers hanging around.

Lurking with an MP44.

Just to show it wasn't all Germans! US Infantry.

A platoon of US troops.

Another jolly weekend trudging around the woods, notable partly for the huge quantity of beer we got through on Friday night and also for the discovery that years of applying dubbin have rendered my low boots into virtual wellingtons of waterproof-ness. Unfortunately when you've filled them with swamp water from misjudging water depths, this keeps the water inside... 

BF SU-85s

Along with the IS-IIs I picked up a couple of Battlefront SU-85s at Triples, also needed for a scenario I had in mind. These were fairly eye wateringly expensive in comparison to the PSC offerings,  but hunting around the stands at Triples I managed to find a couple for less than nine pounds apiece (!). I carefully checked the blisters before parting with my hard earned cash to make sure they actually had gun barrels and pairs of tracks rather than to sets of left hand ones or whatever and eventually found some which looked complete.

They went together as well as BF models normally do, although the general crudeness of the castings was very evident compared to the PSC offerings. In trying to get the metal tracks to stick to the resin hull, one of the hulls flew from my grasp and was retrieved from the floor minus most of its mudguards, which was a little annoying. Oh well, battle damage I guess..

They don't look to bad once assembled and painted. As ever, advancing across the dining table.

They look quite imposing from the front.

This is the damaged one, shows up the detail on the tracks very well though.

Side/rear view.

As I said above, the finished vehicles are OK. At some point I'll get some SU-76s,  but I'll wait for the PSC ones rather than struggling with more badly cast and overpriced BF models. I tried the new track painting technique on these as well as the IS-IIs and I think it looks OK so I shall presevere with it on some new projects.