BPM 1/100th scale 15cm sFH 13 auf GWLrS (f)

 Well, strictly, according to Chamberlain and Doyle it is a 15cm sFH 13 Selbstfahrlafette Lorraine Sdkfz 135/1. In other words, yet another lashed up German self propelled gun on a captured chassis. 

And what a lovely little piece it is. I wanted another German SP 150mm gun, and this one is a lot smaller than a Hummel! This Lorraine chassis conversion mounted a WW1 era 150mm howitzer, and around 100 were built which fairly widely issued including to the Afrika Korps, which is handy. I think they were mainly used in the SP heavy infantry gun platoons of Panzergrenadier regiments. 

This model is a BPM resin 3D print.

It is a three piece model, the hull, a separate gun and the recoil spade, and that is all. Lots of nice rivets and sharp edges and a good crisp print in all respects with no obvious striations. 

Lovely internal detail too, including a ready rack of 150mm rounds on the right hand side. No crew supplied (boo!) but I managed to wedge this Peter Pig DAK gunner into it. I might have got another figure in, but one was quite enough as the vehicle is tiny, which is why the gun compartment is built out over the tracks.

The DAK versions were supplied in two tone camo. Strangely the illustration in Chamberlain and Doyle shows red/brown disruptive but every other picture I've seen of these has them with green disruptive, so I did the distinctive vertical stripe camo in green. Obviously they are good for Europe and Russia too. Otherwise they seem to have been quite plain, with just balkan crosses, so this got one cross either side of the fighting compartment, neatly lined up with one of the panel lines. Some of them seem to have been plastered in crosses however (as captured vehicles perhaps?) but that just seemed an extravagant waste of decals. 

I did the gunner in DAK olive green, which tbh looks like faded Field Grey anyway, and gave the whole thing a like drybrush of pale sand. Unusually for me I also painted the tyres on the road wheels, as on this suspension type it is fairly easy to do. 

Marathon and Carrhae with Dominion of the Spear

 I recently came across a very simple set of solo Ancient rules, recommended both by fellow blogger Shaun Travers and also a poster on TMP. They are 'Dominion of the Spear' by Ork Publishing (Steve Parker) and available on Wargames Vault for around 5 USD. 

In many ways they scratch the same sort of itch as 3x3 Ancients, armies of 4-6 units on a virtual 3x3 grid, but they are aimed at the solo gamer as a simple way of doing battle matchups between a vast, DBA length, set of Army lists. In many ways they are the distilled essence of DBA, it is all about the matchups, and unlike a lot of Ancients rules don't require too much thinking and faffing around with lots of complicated mechanisms or millimetric geometry. When you are solo playing, there is quite enough to think about when playing. 

Anyway, there is nothing like learning by doing. I could just have picked some random encounters, but I vastly prefer a historical context, and having painted all those Persians and Parthians I picked out a couple of battles from Strategos to make sure I got the sides matched up correctly. First up was Marathon.

Each side has 12 points of units, a basic unit costs 2 and if it has extra capabilities (Elite, armoured etc) each costs an extra point. So here were have the Athenians with four armoured spearmen aka Hoplites (2 basic points +1ea for armoured). Against them are Persian archers (2ea), Elite Archers (Immortals, 3 points), Persian cavalry (2) and an armoured spearman (3, Mercenary Hoplites).

Each army lines up three units in the front line (left, centre, right) and puts the rest in reserve, defenders deploy first, then the attackers. The first to reduce the enemy to 1 or 0 units and still has more units than the enemy, wins.

In the first run through, the Persians were the attackers (it is determined by a die roll). Each sector combat is resolved individually, starting on the left sector (ie the attackers right). There is no terrain as these are quite abstract battles just focusing on the high level action. I set each side up in their historical deployment, the Greeks are easy as they are all hoplites, but the Persians put all their archers up front. The Immortals are in the centre with a good reason, which I will come to later.

Combat is resolved left to right, and in the first round, the Persian archers rout one hoplite while the Athenians miss completely. In each sector missile fire is resolved first, then melee. There are various pluses and minus for troop types (all very DBA/Strategos). The basic score to hit is 5+ on a D6, being armoured reduces that to 6, but being elite gives a +1. Melee troops get a a +1 bonus vs archers in melee. So essentially the Persians need 6 to hit (Immortals 5), the Athenians 4, but the Persians fire first.

This outcome is rather unlucky for the Athenians. Any hit routs the enemy unit, and the loser must immediately commit a unit from reserve, in this case the final Athenian hoplite.

Everybody missed in the next round.

But in the last round it all went horribly wrong for Athens. The first two archers hit, the Athenians routed one archer and the Mercenary Hoplites moved into the gap, but reduced to one unit, the Athenians lost.

Then I tried it with Athens attacking. In the first round the Athenians manged to rout the Immortals while suffering no losses! The mercenary hoplites filled the gap.

The Persians lost their right flank archers and the cavalry rode up. Having cavalry on the flanks is a good idea as if they are unopposed, they get an attack on the centre with a flank bonus.

In the ensuing bloodbath, everybody died except the right flank Greek hoplites and the centre Persian mercenaries! Normally being reduced to one unit results in defeat, but both armies were equal in strength so one more round.... Having unopposed infantry in the centre zone gives a similar bonus to unopposed cavalry on the flank, however the Athenian right flank got to attack first.... 

And rolled a 6 (hoplites vs hoplites need 6 to hit, excluding other bonuses or penalties), so the Persians were routed and an Athenian victory.

One final go.

The Athenians are attacking again, and as usual the Immortals are in the centre. They get +1 firing and if they manage to also get the centre infantry outflanking bonus they will be on +2. There isn't much point putting the archers in reserve as the first fire is a useful counter to the melee only hoplites.

The Persian archery duly takes down two of the Athenian hoplites, leaving the Immortals in that coveted unopposed centre position....

And although the Greeks manage to take out the Persian left flank archers, forcing them to commit the cavalry, the Immortals wipe out the Athenian left flank with a flank attack and reduced to one unit, the Athenians retire.

OK, time for something different. Having painted all those Parthians, I really wanted to do Carrhae. I'd intended to play the CnC Carrhae scenario, but I could never actually be bothered to get all the toys out!

So instead we have 'mini Carrhae'. Crassus has three armoured infantry (Legionaries) at 3points each, and a unit of 'ferocious' (Gallic) cavalry, also three points.

The Parthians have a tidal wave of horsemen, even though the army list also specifies some spearmen. As far as I can tell at Carrhae, the Parthians were all mounted. So we have four units of horse archers (2 points each) and one unit of elite armoured cavalry (4 points) ie the Cataphracts, their combat debut! Some of the horse archers have already been used as proxy Persians. 

The Persians are attacking so Crassus puts his Legions in the line, supported by the Gallic cavalry. I should maybe have put the cavalry in the line as they get a  bonus against missile cavalry, but I really didn't want to lose them early on. The missile cavalry effectively negate the legionaries armour, so hit on 5+

The matchups here are really quite interesting with various bonus for the different types (missile cavalry vs melee infantry, melee cavalry vs missile cavalry etc). The first round is indecisive, the Horse Archers miss completely and the Legionaries manage to rout one of the horsemen. The reserve archers move up to fill the gap.

The second round is a bloodbath however! More horse archers succumb, but so do two Legionary units. The Parthians commit their Cataphracts, while the Gallic Cavalry ride to the Romans rescue. Crassus waves his sword at the barbarians.

The Cataphracts bounce, those Legionaries must be led by Maximus himself, but the Gauls go down in a hail of arrows. Reduced to one unit, while the Parthians still have two, the Romans lose.

Time for another go. The Romans attack this time, and they commit the Gallic Cavalry early. If they can weather the arrow storm, they will tear the horse archers apart in melee.

The Gauls rout one of the Horse Archers for no loss, otherwise the fighting is indecisive. Parthian reserves move into the gap. Perhaps I should have put the Cataphracts in against the Gauls, but I'm hoping for a successful arrow strike as the Gauls are unarmoured. 

Two more horse archers go down, and no losses to the Romans! The Cataphracts are forced to deploy.

The Gauls are finally exhausted and the reserve Legionaries move up.

Despite some losses, they see off the rest of the Parthian cavalry in a crushing victory. Well done Crassus!

That was really good fun. This rules are very simple, but produce the sorts of effects I am after for a quick game. Probably not much use for f2f play, but ideal in a campaign setting. I'm strongly tempted to try the Pelleponesian Wars again but using this system instead of the 3x3 Portable Wargame. It also strikes me that this would be very easy to convert for galley warfare, with 'ramming' types more like cavalry, and 'boarding types' more like infantry. So, I think the next thing is to rework the army types for the Pelleponesian Wars, make some ship markers, and draft some rough naval rules and fleet compositions for the campaign. So, lots of food for thought, that was well worth 5 dollars! 

I have been to.... New Zealand (and Australia)

 This is actually our fourth attempt to go to New Zealand, two trips were cancelled due to covid and the third when my wife had cancer. So, fourth time lucky. The previous three trips were all road trips but this time we went for a cruise as when we costed up the hotels etc they had become astonishingly expensive and a cruise was actually cheaper. A bonus was it also went to Tasmania and Melbourne, which I've never visited before and were 'on the list' - so cruise it was.

Cruises have pluses and minuses - you can get to go to some otherwise very inaccessible places, but you have little control over your itinerary apart from what you can cram into the various port stops. As ever, I'll try and cover stuff vaguely gaming relating.

First stop was Auckland. We had a few days here to sort out heads out after three days travelling to get there (Wednesday morning to Friday evening, albeit including a 13 hour time difference). There was a big summer music, flood and drink festival near our hotel, which was great fun.

It was also the Chinese New Year, which was also great fun.

There is only really one thing to do in Auckland though isn't there? We just had to go to Hobbiton.

And it was just fabulous. An awful lot of stuff packed into a tiny area  - the hobbit holes were rebuilt and extended after the site was cleared after filming.

It was just exquisite.

Real honey in these jars, although some of it dated from the original film....

'The Shire' I can see why Peter jackson picked this location.

Bag End.

Bilbos pipe and Gandalfs letter.

A real highlight was the inside of a hobbit hole.

My attractive assistant models the master bedroom.

I might have spent a bit of time rummaging around for 'the one ring' in the study.

And a well stocked larder.

And kitchen.

The Green Dragon! We had a pint here, but sadly Aragorn wasn't lurking in the corner.

Copious supplies of beer.

The mill. iirc Gandalf drove his wagon over the bridge here.

There were a few warry things in Auckland too, like these old Victorian muzzle loaders. I was surprised to see the iron work was done in New Zealand. 

Many of the settlements featured signal masts, like this one in the middle of Auckland.

And here is another 'Flagstaff Hill' in Russell up in the north of New Zealand, the scene of heavy fighting during the Maori Wars. The peace treaty was signed just across the bay from here.

View from the top. It was a hot and steep climb. I can't imagine fighting over this when it was just bush. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed across the bay, and the anniversary of the treaty celebrations were due to take place the following week when we were there. 

Napier on South Island had loads of fabulous Art Deco buildings, and they have a big 1920s festival each year. You can do trips in vintage 1920s and 30s cars and there were quite a few vintage cars around the town, 1920s clothes shops etc. 

And further south..... the Misty Mountains. The Southern Alps were a really long drive from the coast, but having come all this way it would have been daft to miss them.

This mountain valley was used to film the area around Helms Deep, Edoras and the Plains of Rohan. Helms Deep was tucked away just to left of that bend in the river. The photos don't really do it justice, as the mountains are spectacular.

This rather unpromising mound (it is much bigger when you walk up it) is the rocky outcrop the Edoras set was built on. Most of the Riders of Rohan were recruited locally and the majority of the riders were women.

The Lord of the Rings bus even managed to park facing the mountain matching its logo.

We go to muck around with Swords, 'Narsil' et al.

And flags! It was very, very windy in the valley, which is good for flags.

Further south we went to see the seals on the Otago peninsular. They are very unafraid of humans, but are a  bit bitey, so you don't want to get too close.

We did get to ride in these cool eight wheel ATVs though. 

And the head of the peninsular was studded with these old gun emplacements. In case the Japanese invaded.

We rounded off New Zealand sailing the jaw dropping scenery of Milford Sound (and Doubtful and Dusky Sounds, one of the benefits of being on a small cruise ship).

We were incredibly luck with the weather as it was blazing sunshine. The rainfall here is normally measured in metres per year.

A few days later we got to Tasmania. Hobart with Mount Wellington towering above it.

And here is the top of Mount Wellington. It was a bit over 4000 feet, but like 'Edoras' incredibly windy. 

There were quite a few square riggers down in the harbour. Hanging around after the Hobart to Auckland race.

And a few miles from Hobart, was Richmond, the original settlement of Tasmania, which turned out to have  a fabulous model village! I do like a model village. This one showed Hobart and Richmond in the early days of colonial settlement. 

The harbour.

Me for scale.

Outlaws ambush a stagecoach out in the bush. The figures are 1/16th scale and hand made from clay. 

Richmond high street.

Macquarie Street in Hobart. These buildings are still there.

But the real top treat in Tasmania was Dewey the Wombat.

Another square rigger. This time moored in Eden on the southeast coast of Australia. A few days after this photo, the Chinese Navy decided to conduct live fire exercise off the coast here.

We rounded off with a few days in Sydney. This time, among other things, we did the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk which had spectacular views of the coastline. There was a heavy swell from a previous storm so most of the beaches were very restricted for swimming, but we found a delightful cove where it was OK and managed a dip in the Pacific.

That was a great break and I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings things, the model village in Richmond was a bonus.