The Other Partisan 2026

 I had a quick trip to The Other Partisan last week. I could only get over for the afternoon as I had a running event in the morning and I was only there for a couple of hours so this will be necessarily brief!

I got there at 1345 and the hall was still very busy, which was a pleasant surprise. The Bring and Buy has moved to a huge tent by the entrance as have a number other stands so the layout was a bit confusing at first.

I had a quick run around various games.

I was very taken with this huge Iwo Jima game, if you look carefully there is a Japanese kamikaze hitting the LCT in the bottom left.

The landing craft storm ashore through heavy shell fire! Great stuff, although as with many demo games I didn't see a huge amount of movement taking place..

There were a few Peter Dennis paper figure games on display, I was particularly taken with this Rorkes Drift one.

The paper figures were really effective, you could only see they were 2D quite close up. At first I thought they were 30mm flats!

Trench assault with Zero Hour. iirc this was at Partisan earlier this year too, but seemed to have a lot of enthusiastic players.

This was a French Revolutionary Wars game with Black Powder (Schanzel 1794? Never heard of it anyway). Lovely hexon terrain although don't have to patience or money to build up hills that big.

The Northamptonshire Battlefields Society had been kicked out of the main hall into the entrance tent. Plenty of width but not much height, so no waving swords around.

Mr Kemp was running his Sword Beach in 10 minutes game using NQM. with a steady stream of punters.

I've been following the playtesting on his blog so it was good to get a decent look at the table in detail.

View from the sea end of things. The battle had pretyy much been wrapped at this point with Ouistreham, Morris and Hillman firmly in British hands.

Trebian was running his WW1 trench assault game, also using a heavily modified version of NQM.

And finally Richard was running one of the Society of Ancients games - Gladiolus, as you might expect, Gladiatorial combat.

I was actually there to help WD Display Team (north) run 633 squadron. This will be its last show outing.

There was a good stream of punters through the day, here an intrepid group of pilots has made all the way to the factory only losing two planes on the way in.

Overall we ran it twenty times during the day, and although the German factory was repeatedly destroyed, casualties were heavy. However, as the Air Vice Marshall in the film observed "You cant kill a squadron". That has been a really successful show game, but now we've got to come up with something new for 2027.

I did have a bit of a shopping list, mainly some more Hexon bits, paint brushes, more magnetic sheet etc which were all readily obtained. I had hoped to pick up some decals but sadly Pendraken weren't there this time so I'll have to order them online.

Hopefully next year I can get there for the full day.

15mm WW1 Austrians pt. 1

 Regular readers may recall I've been trying to reduce the number of scales I have. I've got rid of all my 54mm stuff now (mainly to Tim G) but the big one is shifting much of my 20mm collection. After some years I have finally got shot of most of my 20mm WW2 stuff and replaced it by building up my 15mm collection. Next on the list is WW1, which I have in three scales..... again the aim is to get shot of the 20mm stuff (which is largely 1916+) and replace it with more 15mm. 

A few years ago at COW I picked up this second hand box of Minfigs 15mm Austrians from Nick Huband. I'd originally intended to use them to supplement my early WW1 15mm Eastern Front collection.

There are 48 line infantry, enough for six brigades in OP14 terms (or six battalions for Great War Spearhead/Square Bashing) plus various other bits and pieces including far too much cavalry - 24 line cavalry or three divisions for OP14!

You can still get Minifigs via Caliver Books, so the plan is rebase what there is here and buy some extra stuff to expand areas where I'm short and include some late war bits too, so this will be the first of my late war WW1 15mm stuff. 

The infantry are lovely figures, these are all in advancing pose in caps and Pike Grey uniforms, plus a marching officer with a sword. Later on these became standard field grey. Nick has done them in a very plain and simple style and they look really good. I'm not going to repaint them although I might give them a wash and a drybrush so they fit in with my other stuff.

The main thing is they will all need rebasing onto my standard 30x30 bases, and as they are based onto plasticard, getting them off the original bases is going to be fun.

I also need a lot more of them, so I'll get enough for another Corps and get some figures in different poses so they can be used as Honved. I'll also get some in Stahlhelms to use as stormtroops.

Some of the cavalry, Hussars resplendent in their early war uniforms. There are twelve of these and twelve dragoons plus various officers. In reality the cavalry soon adopted more drab uniforms and by mid war were almost entirely operating as infantry. The Austrians went to war with nine cavalry divisions and didnt raise any more. 

I've got plenty of cavalry with this lot and I'll just use normal infantry figures for dismounted cavalry so I don't need any more of these.

There are a couple of delightful shielded machineguns, not really enough for a proper army.

The plan is to buy some more MGs and get some proper Austrian artillery too, although I can use Germans as stand ins for now. Minifigs make Skoda field guns so I'll get some of those and look around for some heavy artillery from a 3D printer for which I'll order some extra Minifigs gunners.

There are also various single officers and this nice higher HQ stand with a super flag bearer. Everyone likes a flag don't they.

I've got a fair number of officer figures but I'll get an extra command pack anyway.

There is a spare rifleman in the box so my supposition is that the flag bearer is made from a cut down rifleman, the poses are virtually identical. I think one flag bearer is sufficient though, I'll use it as an army HQ or similar.

The whole thing comes in this fabulous Monte Cristo cigar box, straight from Havana. When it is rebased sadly it will take up more space and have to go into one of my standard A4 box files.

So, I'll crack on with re-basing the existing figures while I wait for the Minifigs stuff to arrive. If anyone else feels a desperate need for old style 15mm figures, the new Minifigs and Matchlock Miniatures site is here: http://www.miniaturefigurines.co.uk/Home.aspx

A House Divided

 As I seem to be on an ACW phase at  the moment I thought I'd dig out my old copy of this:

The mighty 'A House Divided' by Frank Chadwick and published by GDW. Released in the era of mega games, this was heralded for its simplicity, yet it was very bold in covering the entire American Civil War in monthly (!) turns. It has subsequently been re-released a number of times and there is extensive coverage on Boardgame Geek of course: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/701/a-house-divided-war-between-the-states-1861-65

According the the blurb, the full campaign takes four hours to play and the shorter one year campaigns just ninety minutes. I'll just play the introductory ten turn 1861/62 one for now which ends in June 1862.

Breaking it open again, it doesn't look that simple any more to my 21st century eyes. It is still a glorious thing to behold though.

The map is a joy of point to point movement. and many of the areas have very familiar names (Fredricksberg, Gettysberg etc). The areas are joined by roads, railways and rivers which have varying movement effects for different troop types and each side as the Union naval superiority affects riverine operations. There are also a number of port cities scattered around and the Union (only) can conduct naval invasions under certain circumstances.

The critical areas are the cities with recruitment numbers against them, as the sum total of these controlled determine the maximum army size each side can have. If the rebel total ever exceeds the Union, they win (along with capturing Washington which is an immediate victory), so there is an incentive for the South to conduct forays into the north to deny critical cities.

The blue squares are Union controlled at start and the the grey ones are Confederate. There are some white neutral ones in Kentucky (?) - sorry my US geography is terrible and unhelpfully the state boundaries are marked on the map but not their names.

The map itself in this edition is card mounted and has a strange 'jigsaw' type fixing system for its four sections rather than being hinged.

The counter mix is pleasingly small, a little heap of units of varying. quality (militia, veteran and crack) and types (infantry and cavalry) for each side with no attempt to identify specific real formations. Equally the rule book is nice and slim in a very pleasing large typeface. No telephone book sized rulebook here, and magnifying glasses are not required to read it. 

The rules are pretty simple, in a very Frank Chadwick way, although there are rafts of optional rules to add some more realism. For this play through I just added in the optional supply and command limit rules as I think they are the bare minimum needed. While the rules are short, they are perhaps a bit DBA like and it is easy miss some stuff, and some sections aren't hugely clear particularly the critical rules on how units get upgraded. Naturally there are pages of clarifications on BGG.

The starting setup is pretty simple, the Union has 12 militia units and the CSA has 8, all with preset starting points. The Union troops are in an arc across the north in various cities with a concentration around Washington, while the CSA only has four units to start with in the north, three along the Potomac and one way out west.

These militia units are crucial as each side can recruit 1D6 worth per turn (up to the maximum army size) but the counter pool is limited to these 20 counters plus one militia cavalry unit each. To free up militia counters you need to get them upgraded to veteran units by winning battles or (as I interpret it) you can also upgrade one unit for free per month.  Each April the Union gets another four militia units added to its pool as it drafts its immense manpower reserves, so by 1865 its manpower pool is going to be vast and deep. In this ten turn scenario the Union will get one draft of four more militia in April 1862.

The other four CSA militia are in the south, three of them are holding ports (Charlestone etc) but Wilmington is still unguarded. These are all 2 production cities so the CSA needs to defend them against Union naval invasions, but I can see significant forces being tied up for the whole war defending the coast. There is one unit available inland as a mobile reserve, but really it needs out head out west. As we know, the real war was won and lost along the Mississippi, whatever heroics Bobby Lee got up to in Virginia.

So, rather like chess or go, simple to learn, hard to master. On the first turn both sides can make two 'marches' (ie activate one stack) instead of rolling on the command table. Union to go first. My head promptly exploded at all the choices I could make.

Washington seemed well defended so instead I moved a couple of big (well, two unit) stacks down towards the Mississippi, partly looking at those nice neutral places in what I'm going to call Kentucky. We will see how that goes. The CSA moved its central reserve unit up towards Kentucky as well. Normally you roll 1D6 on the command table (optional rule) which allows you to activate from 2-4 stacks in 1861. The results improve as the war progresses. In the basic game it is like DBA, 1D6 activations per side with a minimum of 2.

The other CSA move was to attack the Union unit at Harpers Ferry! The rules have provision to reinforce from adjacent sectors, so I figured it was a low cost way to win a battle and upgrade the CSA units in the area.

You can just see the attack at Harpers Ferry west of Washington, the unit at Manassas (SW of Washington) can reinforce on the second round of combat.

Battles are a bit like Victory in the Pacific. Units line up and shoot at each other needing to roll equal to or less than their combat value (with a few simple modifiers). Both sides fight until one side is destroyed or one decides to retreat. The first couple of rounds went the Confederate way and two Union units are reduced (they take two hits each). Of course I hadn't calculated on the Union sending reinforcements from Washington, and each round more bluebellies turned up until the Confederates were heavily outnumbered.  

Lee managed to rout one of the Union troops but both Confederates were now reduced...

And finally both rebel units were destroyed. Well that was a catastrophe! It did however put two rebel and one union militia unit into the reinforcement pool to be re-recruited. The Union also got to promote one of its units to Veteran as they'd won a battle.

The battle ended with Richmond looking rather vulnerable. The various roads and rivers preclude an early Union descent on the Confederate capital though. This is always one of the hardest things in ACW games, both sides capitals being just a few miles apart....

After that initial clash both sides focussed on defending Washington and Richmond in the east. I made heavy use of the rule which allows both sides to promote one unit for free per turn and recruited the militia cavalry units too so gradually both sides increased in size and quality. After the crapshoot of Harpers Ferry I didn't fight any more battles and focussed mainly on manouvre. There was some tussling in Kentucky over various resource cities but I must have made a mistake with the Confederates somewhere as suddenly the Union was piling down the Mississippi and took Memphis!

By this time I'd been going a couple of hours and frankly lost the will to live as I found the decisions every turn overwhelming and I didn't really know what I was doing, which didn't make the experience very enjoyable. Interestingly Captain Kobold had much the same experience a few years ago https://hordesofthethings.blogspot.com/2022/11/a-house-divided.html but stuck with it for rather more hours than I did. I cant see on what planet you'd get through ten turns in 90 minutes, let along all five years in four hours. There don't seem to be any useful strategy guides and I probably need to play it with someone who does actually know what they are doing.  I dimly recall it taking ages to play back in the 80s too, but I had a sharper mind and more energy then. It may be something I get back out and try again, but I need to be in a more enthusiastic frame of mind I think.

'

Fort Fisher at Shedquarters

 I was very honoured to be invited to a games day at Grahams mythical 'Shedquarters' in Northamptonshire.

The shed itself! Although today we were playing a lawn game.

Tim was running the game and as I've done this sorts of thing before, I was helping out. We've actually done Fort Fisher before, the Union naval assault on the fort in 1865. some wikipedia background here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fort_Fisher

The fort itself was built on a long headland (seen above) and commanded the approaches to Charlestone.

The Union 'secret weapon' was this captured CSA blockade runner, packed with 300 tons of gunpowder and to be employed rather like HMS Campbeltown at St Nazaire. I was in charge of this as a player-umpire.

The extensive fortifications were largely earthworks with various gun batteries dotted along them. This is at the river end.

The central portion of the fortifications. Chris K and Richard ran the Confederate defenders.

The mighty Union fleet. Chris A was the Admiral and Kevin the land commander with a reinforced infantry division available (four Regiments and a detachment of sharpshooters) plus three other subordinate commanders.

The fleet disposed of three ironclads, two battleships, four transport ships and a bomb ketch.

I was particularly taken with this monitor and 'Gene Kelly' dancing on the foredeck.

We had to come up with a cunning plan to assault and capture the fort, the complication being that the army was responsible for the land bit and the navy for the water bit. Each transport ship could carry a regiment, but only had enough boats to transport half a regiment at a time. After some negotiation we decided to attack the fort at the river entrance, after the naval bombardment had disrupted the defences and the bomb ship had blown a hole in it.

The fleet set off along the coast, Ironclads in the lead, battleships behind and transports out to sea. This turned out to be an error as the ironclads proved somewhat unreliable and kept drifting off course. At least we'd left enough sea room to avoid accidentally beaching any of the wayward ships.

Meanwhile, the bomb ship had beached itself at the river mouth and I lit the fuse and rowed hurriedly away. The CSA sent a scout to investigate.

Meanwhile the fleet was busily shelling the defences as they sailed along, mainly destroying the embankment to the east but not hitting many of the defending batteries.

The bomb ship eventually detonated, but was of course too far away to do significant damage to the battery, although it did damage the earthworks.

Meanwhile I was busy rowing away pursed by a shark.

But eventually made it to the safety of an ironclad which I gratefully boarded.

Where I discovered to my surprise that apparently the Army had decided on a different plan and were starting to debark right in the centre of the defences. The Army claimed to have told the Navy about this. but neither myself nor Chris were any the wiser.

The transports started to unload offshore, so it would take a few turns to row ashore. Unloading right in front of the strongest defences which hadn't even been shelled by the navy didn't strike me as very wise.

View from the far end. The beach visible in the foreground had been attacked in the First Battle of Fort Fisher, so was now heavily mined by the Confederates. The damaged section of embankment was the orange coloured section nearest the camera.

The first boats made it to the beach under heavy close range cannon fire. The real tragedy for the Union was that by this point the Confederate artillery only had a couple of turns fire left, if they had just waited a bit longer, the CSA gunners would have been defenceless.

Tim supervises proceedings. The prone position is required to fire the matchstick firing cannon. After weeks of drought Graham provide us with headless matches to mitigate the fire risk, but they had very interesting ballistic characteristics!

The Union infantry did get ashore in some numbers but rather than waiting for successive waves just advanced piecemeal against the defences with predictable results. They did make an attempt to get through the damaged section of embankment late in the game, but it was all too little too late and after a while it was fairly obvious the attack had failed.

In real life (and the previous two games) the Union blew there way through an undefended bit of the defences and then rolled up the fortifications from a flank, but the command confusion was just too great in this instance. As Clausewitz said, everything in war is simple, but the simple things become very difficult. Never has there been a better demonstration that you don't need complex C2 rules,  just lots of players.

That was loads of fun and everyone had a good go at firing matchsticks all over the garden. As we'd finished a bit early, Graham organised another game (Asculum with Neil Thomas Ancients) but sadly the jet lag had caught up with me and I headed for home instead as it was a fair way to Sheffield and I didn't feel great.

Many thanks to Graham for hosting and to Tim for running the game. I'm looking forward to a return visit.