Mini Jutland 2

John and I decided to try out our revised One Hour WW1 naval rules with another outing to Jutland. The main differences were a rationalisation of the various conditions for halving hits, and more of a Fletcher Pratt/GQ style incremental damage model. So every five hits reduced firepower and speed (indicated by the yellow and red hit markers). We ran this game using Johns WW1 ships on a 3'x3' cloth. The ship ratios are extreme, each model represents around six real ships (I think!).

The German fleet enters.

And the Grand Fleet in the distance, battlecruisers already out front.

Early exchanges of long range fire damage the German BC.

More pounding.

The British BCs take some hits.

German BCs try to flee.

But it doesn't work out too well. Scratch some BCs.

Soon followed by the British ones. Clearly something wrong with our ships today.

The opposing lines of Battleships start to sort themselves out.

And line up for some hard pounding.

The Battleships blaze away while various lighter ships fuss around.

Damage slowly mounts.

Things aren't going to well for the Germans (all those red markers) but the RN has taken lots of damage too.

Ooops, the edge of the world seems to have intervened.

And suddenly it all gets very messy.

Kaboom. Although the Grand Fleet has also taken a real hammering.

This was really quite a satisfactory outing, the rules mechanisms seem to work well enough within the One Hour Wargames framework, and although a few things inevitably creak a bit in such a simple set of rules, they produce an enjoyable game. I don't think the authors of GQ3 are going to be quaking in their boots, but hey, we just did Jutland in less than an hour. We'll be taking this to COW in July, so people can judge for themselves.
 

River Sambre

Another outing for Command and Colours, this time a trip to sunny France, or Gaul as it was called in those days. Julius Caesar has got in a spot of bother near the River Sambre when hordes of angry Gauls attacked the isolated 10th Legion as the rest of his army hurried up. Tims 28mm toys, myself and Mark took the Romans, Jophn and Kayte the Gauls.

Roman light infantry survey the Gallic hordes.

The Roman right wing in some disarray.

JC himself with the 10th Legion stands next to the mighty ballista.

The Roman left, cavalry in evidence.

Gauls lurk among the trees and hills on the far side.

An initial exchange of missile fire results in some Roman losses.

The Gauls try and cross the river as more Legionaris move up.

The Roman centre and right form up into a huge long line.

As do the left.

The Gallic cavalry are repulsed on the left.

The Romans follow up on the left and a huge battle erupts.

The Romans gain the upper hand despite one unit being pushed back.

The Roman line rolls forwards on another 'line command' card and JC personally leads the 10th to victory. Four hits in a single attack is hard to argue with.

Once more history is repeated, although the game was somewhat closer than it first appeared. Both sides were faced with the difficulties of attacking across a river, but the Romans were rewarded for spending several turns forming up into one huge line which maximised the number of elements engaged when they played their second 'line command' card.

Reclaimed Romans

A sad feature of getting older is the increased prevalence of your contemporaries dying, and in the case of wargaming, this also means their collections being passed on by the bereaved families. In some ways it is quite comforting to think your 'stuff' living on and continuing to be used by people who appreciate it.

In this vein I recently acquired some figures from the estate of the late Robert Plumb, in this particular case, some Roman auxiliaries. Just the thing to beef up my Imperial Roman forces.

Both units of auxiliaries, one of infantry, one of archers.

Western Roman Auxiliary Archers, quite large plastic figures, and I've no idea of the manufacturer.

Being plastic these figures needed a fair bit of  tlc on the extremities, so I undercoated the bows and arrows in PVA before repainting them. Otherwise they just got an inkwash and another coat of varnish.

They fit in OK with my HaT Eastern Auxiliary Archers, they are a bit bigger but not noticeably so.

The rear rank are the Auxiliary figures I got from Bobs collection, I made up the other two bases from figures from the HaT Imperial Roman command set.

The figures had originally been painted as Greek light infantry, so needed completely repainting. I did them in a standard Imperial Auxilia scheme, shield designs from Mr Barkers book.

Compared to the HaT figures these fellows are quite large, but don't look too bad if they stand behind.

I wanted four bases to make up a unit for Neil Thomas's Ancients Rules, so I stretched out to a final base of command figures.

I was pleased with how the figures came out and they are worthy additions to the might of Rome. I hope Bob would be pleased to see them striding out on the tabletop once more as well.