Rain stopped play

Well, not much gaming this week, we had to postpone our next battle in the ongoing WW1 campaign due to heavy snow (again) in sheffield. We have at least sorted out who has what, who is attacking where and what they are supposed to be trying to achieve. The drawn out planning process all feels quite realistic, particularly having to postpone due to bad weather! In the next game my long suffering Corps and Division commanders are conducting a bite and hold operation, amidst the mud choked crater fields of the Somme in Autumn 1916, game report next week if it isn't postponed again.

I've played a few turns of a PBEM minis game now. Really very interesting, we send out orders in each turn and the umpire sends us a back a report including photos of what we can see from where we are. The hardest thing I've found as a player so far is 'navigating' the units around, particularly as this scenario is set in a rather featureless bit of desert. I've ended up setting course, speed and turning points, rather like a naval comander. First blood to me at any rate, as my plucky chaps have managed to shoot up a Panzer II, but one cockrel does not a dawn make.

Inspired by the fevered email exchanges around the WW1 game, I've dug out some more bags of mouldering French 20mm figs (mainly Ian Russell Lowells old stuff) for reconditioning. Another couple of French divisions is the plan, and I just 'had' to go and buy some more stuff, in this case a box of Airfix French (I can't resist the blokes with sacks of grub or riding bikes) and some more HaT 75s. Unfortunately the shop had run out of French ones so I had to buy the US box, I've got enough French gunners left over and US figs will come in handy as British at some point. The biggest blow was finding I'm short one mortar, I need nine and I've only got eight. I'll scratch build one tonight and then it is prep and undercoating, hope to get the base coat done later this weekend.

Tim Gow mentioned he's tried using my 'Rifle & Kepi' rules for Napoleonics. I've been thinking about what mods are needed for this earlier period, but it is mainly about re-balancing the various arms as Napoleonics was very much rock-paper-scissors, whereas later in the nineteenth century it is more a case of rock-rock-scissors, with the cavalry as scissors....

My early 1980s British Army puttees have arrived, very exciting. My wife rolled her eyes in despair as I paraded around the kitchen in them, she did however ask why they didn't come right up to my knees, so all those years of exposure to uniformology haven't been wasted.

New year and new start.

Gosh, I haven't posted any updates for a while. Well, lets see if 2010 is going to be better.

I can't really remember what I've been doing wargaming wise since last June. Main things would be:

• Attending the Conference of Wargamers in July 2009. Always a very enjoyable weekend and this year was no exception.


• Making some revisions to 'Red Army Brigade Commander', mainly to streamline it a bit and cut down the number of different dice in use for different things.


• Ran a fairly big Megablitz game at the club, Operation Vitality, clearing the Scheldt Estuary. This was mainly an excuse to get Tims shiny new Canadian 4th Armoured Div out, plus my new K18 costal defence gun (in this case, busy defending Bergen-op-Zoom). The usual traffic jam of 20mm tanks as the Allies drove north heading for the Waal.


• I finally managed to run Koeniggratz using Rifle and Kepi, been hoping to do this battle for years. The Austrians lost (so no surprises there).


• Spent a fair bit of time working on various versions of what I've called 'Drumfire', Corps level trench warfare in the First World War. The long suffering members of Sheffield Wargames Society have undergone repeated onslaughts as I've tried to come up with an enjoyable yet realistic yet fast game covering this. Well, maybe this week will go better than last time.


• Played a very enjoyable WSS/SYW rule set by Steve Thomas, 'Twilight of the Sun King', sort of DBAish treatment but it worked very well, thanks to John Armatys for that.


• Did a spot of painting. Refurbished some old Revell and Aifix WW1 French infantry, fleshed out with HaT armour and artillery, plus a card model Schneider CA1 which I was rather pleased with. Did a divisions worth to start with, but aim to work up to a Corps.


• I've had fairly lengthy correspondance with Doug Southwell in the US about using my Panzergruppe/Sinai 67 rules to refight WW1 on the Eastern Front. An interesting project, which hope comes together successfully.


• Tim Gow has continued to refine and tweak his NATO Brigade Commander rules, and we've had some good games of that. He's also treated us to some modern naval warfare games using his 1/6000th scale ships.


• I've just started playing an online miniatures game. You give orders out each turn, and get back reports from the GM plus photos of what you can see. Very interesting, quite a different experience.

Umm, that is pretty much all I can recall. Well, hopefully a fuller post next week.

Operation Vitality. Poles and Canadians break through the German defences, then push up to the canal as the Germans fall back blowing the bridges. Finally having conducted a successful opposed river crossing, they press on northwards to cut off Walcheren Island.

Operation Thruster

I ran my 'Operation Thruster' Megablitz scenario at the club a couple of weeks ago. I thought it went OK and tripling the size of the original battlefield gave some scope for manouvre. Both sides had considerable challenges, the Germans in particular were heavily outnumbered, but in the event conducted a masterful mobile defence and managed to burn the British out while only committing half their infantry forces. The British penchant for unsupported frontal attacks didn't help. I was sorely disapointed that the division I'd painted specially for the game never came out of its box, but at least the Elephant did.

At some point I'll upload the scenario to the Megablitz group, but here are a couple of photos.

A trip to Normandy

I ran my Rauray scenario at the club last week. We had a bit of a thin turnout but Jerry Ellsmore and John Armatys turned up, and we managed to play the game. I'd hastily revised RKKA Brigade Commander for the western front, so this was a bit of a tryout to see how it went. In the end it was fairly historical as IInd SS Panzer Corps beat itself to pieces against 70th Brigade (supported by the entire divisional artillery).

The battlefield from the southwest, Rauray is in the centre. KG Weidinger is the foreground, largely pinned down while the 9th SS Armoured KG is in the distance.

9th SS. One battalion has already taken heavy losses driving the British back and this one has fallen into confusion in front of the enemy, despite the Nebelwerfer fire providing support.

KG Weidinger largely stalled having been pinned down by artillery fire for most of the game (barrage markers can still be seen). The attached panzer IVs from 9th SS can be seen in the distance duelling with British shermans.

70th Brigade remains deployed around Rauray, the reserve battalion is completely intact, although one of the frontline battalions has taken heavy losses.

The game went OK, but I was left feeling dissatisfied with some of the mechanisms and dug out some of my other efforts to cover this theatre. I'll probably keep the card activation and hexes, but I need to redo the combat system so it is less attritional and more about fire and movement.

A Walk in the Sun

I ran my Aden counter-insurgency game last week (RM Commandos on a search & destroy mission), this was essentially a tryout for a session at COW this summer. The rules are essentially a reworked version of 'A Platoon Commanders War' by John Armatys and I structured the game like an RPG with all the players on one side and the communists managed by an umpire and mechanisms which bore a distinct resemblance to those used in my WW1 East African game.

As is often the case with this sort of thing, the rules mattered less than the scenario, and although the game went OK, there were a few rough bits to iron out when things flagged a bit and bits where I had to make stuff up as I wasn't sure how to resolve things. Having run it through once, I've got more idea how to make it flow more smoothly (adopting a variable length bound approach from the outset will help a great deal).

I wouldn't describe it as earth-shatteringly innovative, but hopefully it will provide a reasonable simulation of small-unit operations in that most difficult of environments, counter insurgency. In the event the players attained their objective, and the enemy compound vanished in a most satisfying pillar of smoke as Hunter GA9s pounded it into rubble. British casualties were minimal, but necessitated bringing in the Corgi Wessex helicopter for casualty evacuation, its first outing on the tabletop. Tim Gow took a few photos, so if I can prise them off him, I'll put some in here.

Apart from that I've been working on a Megablitz scenario for the 49th Infantry Div attack on Wouw/Roosendaal in October 1944 and I've knocked up a quick game for this week, the 9th SS Panzer Division attack on 70th Inf Bde in Rauray during Operation Epsom (based on the excellent Rapid Fire scenario covering the same battle). I've hastily reworked 'Red Army Brigade Commander' for NWE, so we'll see how that goes.

I've pretty much finished phase 1 of painting my new 20mm stuff, and my shiny new German Infantry Division went into its boxfile yesterday. I've undercoated the next wave now (exclusively vehicles), but I'll focus on painting the odd bits of British stuff I need for the 49th Div game plus a couple of fun things (like an ex-Chris Willey Sturmtiger converted from the Aifix model). The extra German corps assets will take a bit of work as I'll need to do some model conversions and build a Flak Vierling virtually from scatch, so that can wait a bit.

A trip to the killing fields.

Last week Tim Gow brought a WW1 variant of 'Hordes of the Things' down to the club. Well, not exactly a variant, just HoTT played with WW1 stuff, so infantry were 'hordes', cavalry were 'riders' etc. It was an entertaining diversion, although unfortunately both HoTT and DBA tend to bring out my wargamery competitive side, and I ended up crushing Tims general in the infamous 'buttocks of doom' as I managed to park my 'flyer' right behind his HQ before attacking it.

Otherwise I've been busy painting phase I of my 20mm WW2 stuff. I've done all the infantry and had good fun refurbishing some of the old vehicles and guns I've got lying around. The vehicles are mainly done now, and I spent particular care on my old Jagdpanzer IV (converted from an Airfix Pz IV) and did it in a rather spiffing ambush scheme. Had some trouble getting a decent shade of Field Grey as a lot of my old Humbrol paint has run out now, but in the end I heavily drybrushed light grey over a black base and then washed it with the horrible thin Tamiya Field Grey and the uniforms came out OK. Just a few details to finish off now (I can't find the divisional insignia for 85th ID, so they might have to be 89th ID instead), then it is on to varnishing and basing.

Hope to be having a trip to Aden this week, and I've been sorting out the toys for that. Got a scenario done and we'll see how the rules go. I've been a bit distracted by researching the Canadian 1st Corps attack towards Bergen-op-Zoom, and I'm torn between doing that as my next Megablitz game or the IInd SS Panzer Corps counter attack in Operation Epsom. As I've not painted my new Panthers yet, I guess we'll be off to Holland first.

Lets go shopping

Not done much wargaming recently, but I did help run the WD Display Team (North) participation game at Triples on 4th/5th April. This was Tim Gows 'Sturmstaffel, covering Luftwaffe heavy fighters taking on hordes of B17s in 1944. The game went down well and we had a steady stream of players, at least ninety over the weekend. I also had the opportunity to do some shopping, mainly picking up some extra 20mm WW2 stuff to flesh out my Megablitz forces, but I also got some Old Glory ultra-modern British troops including a pack of WMIK Landrovers.

I found that I had enough unpainted 20mm Germans to put together another infantry division, plus the bulk of the kit required to turn them into a panzer grenadier division if required, so I mainly needed a few extra vehicles and some Corps assets. There were zillions of cheap plastic tanks on the bring and buy so I ended up getting enough Panzer IVs and Panthers to make up two extra late war panzer regiments for my existing panzer divisions, and also got some extra British kit to fill in some gaps, including a rather nice Churchill AVRE. Pride of place was a plastic kit of a 100mm K-18 gun, manufactured by some obscure east european company.

This week has been spent assembling the old junk I've been accumulating for a few years and rummaging through bags of old figures. I converted an ACW artillery limber into a limber for the divisional artillery, assembled some old Frontline trucks, found an FAA bicycle for the Fusilier bicycle recce company and dug out an old Russian 76.2mm gun for the divisional artillery regiment. At Triples I'd picked up an Airfix Pak 40 kit, so I built the gun, along with a Chinese copy of a Hasegawa 8ton halftrack (with no instructions!) to tow it. In the end I decided it was too big and relegated it to Corps artillery duties and found an old Matchbox Sdkfz 11 instead. The Opel truck I plan on converting into a radio truck for Corps HQ, but I haven't done that yet. I also came across an old Jagdpanzer IV in my bits box, a conversion from an Airfix Pz IV I'd done back in the 1970s and decided to refurbish it, as I can use it with 29th Panzergrenadier Div to replace their Nashorn. So after a week of sticking things together, I've got a fair old amount of kit to undercoat and paint.

Phase II will be to do the Corps assets and extra panzer units, but I'll have to assemble the K-18 and do the Opel Radio truck conversion so that can wait a bit. I've also got to build an AA gun to go on the back of a Frontline Flak lorry. Phase III will be the extra British stuff, as along with the tanks and vehicles, I just 'happened' to pick up some more infantry so I'll do another nine infantry battalions to convert 1st Armoured Div into an infantry division, should I require another infantry division.

So, plenty to be getting on with then, and I haven't even started on the modern Brits yet.