Year's End

 As usual, more reading, and finally some proper painting!

I spent some of today working on some of the Quar. I now have five Coftyrans basecoated, all except skin.

Highlord Blue coats, Hardened Leather straps, stocks and boots,
Averland Sunset collars and cuffs, Sir Coates Silver metal.

Skin will take a little thought, as it's varied, pastel, and often spotted. I think it should contrast a bit with the uniform, too, so I won't use blue or yellow. But I'm pleased I've got this far!

There's also the machinegunner's hat, and the blanket rolls. I need a spot color for those, and I'm leaning towards red.

Reading-wise, I found an excellent new book on the 1216 French invasion of England. I was surprised to find it's published by Osprey.

It's fairly short (which makes sense for Osprey), but is not typical even of the publisher's more "conventional" histories - it's not a summary, guide or overview, but an in-depth coverage of the years immediately following Magna Carta.

The author has nothing good at all to say about King John, except that he died at just the right moment. His son succeeded him as not a tyrant but an innocent, now not about to be overthrown by a savior but by a foreign usurper. He also had the support of the Pope. The struggle is depicted as one that turned England from a cross-channel empire into an individual country independent of France. This started with the loss of Normandy, although nothing is said of Aquitaine.

The battles are Dover (a typical siege), Lincoln (pitched cityfight, relief of siege), and Sandwich (a naval battle). (Hilariously, Sandwich is now landlocked.) Hanley describes these all in a lively style, along with the key characters. Two of the most interesting are the female chatelaine of Lincoln, and a Robin-Hood-esque character who led a savage rebellion on the south coast, forcing the French invaders to go out of their way to avoid him.

The cross-channel relations of the two sides also made for interesting interplay - many of the lords on both sides had holding in both Normandy and England and had been forced to choose a side when Normandy abruptly became French. The King of Scotland held lands in England and swore fealty for them to the pretender from France. 

There are so many interactions between so many characters that I have only really given a taste. But this is quite a good book, and I'm glad I read it.

Happy New Year. I hope your next is full of hobby. (I still have two boxed games on the way myself!)

Waiting, Watching, Reading, and just a bit of Painting

Mostly waiting on a number of holiday orders I've made. Starting with two more game starter sets. These are the Port Royal "Mordheim"-type game for pirates, which is delayed until February, and the new Bolt Action 3rd Edition starter set which I hope to receive next week. I might try and use it during the planned WWII commemorations at work. I've also ordered Thud!, the Discworld version of Tafl, and a few favorite picture books.

I watched War of the Rohirrim yesterday. (I was alone in the theater, but it was a Thursday night.) Not bad, but there is a bit of an uncanny valley both in the designs (classic anime for characters, photorealistic for the terrain) and the plot (built up from a handful of paragraphs in the appendices. As fanfic, it's pretty good. At least one review has compared the protagonist to Studio Ghibli heroines, which I can agree with. It does interest me in the new version of Games Workshop's LOTR games, but they don't have a small starter set for that. Still tempting, but I don't think I can justify dropping 2-300 bucks on their boxes...

I also watched Ender's Game on Netflix. Not very good; I suspect anyone who hadn't read it wouldn't understand at all what was going on. The plot was drastically compressed; for example, there are only two of the iconic zero-G battles, and only one under Ender's command, so his leadership and genius are basically told, not shown. The simulator battle graphics weren't very clear. Though I liked the method of putting the child fleet commanders together, again the lack of time meant that their exhaustion wasn't emphasized as it was in the book. The ships are also described as drones rather than manned, which takes away some of the punch of the ending. While I've read the book, and its sidequel Ender's Shadow, I've always preferred the original short story, and think it would have made a better movie with its more compact plot and lack of sideplots. What we actually get are bits of the novel sideplots, but too brief to have the impact from the book, let alone clarify what's going on.

Touched up the undercoats of 27 Quar, by brushing White Scar paint over the greyish areas partly missed by the spray paint. Next (at some future point) will be using Contrast paints on them. Still missed bits and pieces here and there (don't you always?), but this project's been delayed long enough I really do need to get cracking on it.

Finally, reading.

A good short history of the Australian
involvement in New Guinea and Bougainville.
Lots of quotes and vignettes from
individual soldiers increases the enjoyment.

My third issue from this late '70s magazine series about
Israel's military. A good mix of prose, period photos, and
Osprey/Squadron Signal-like color plates.

I've never been as familiar as I'd like
with classic Greco-Roman myths,
so I snapped this one up. Very well
written, I can see why it's a classic.

Really enjoyed this one. The potted history
is actually good, the battle maps are useful,
and there is lots of inspiration for gaming.
Makes me want to break out my Mutiny collection.

Thanks for reading. Happy holidays, and I'll see you next time! (Hopefully with greater progress.)

The action of ... somewhere, somewhen

Had an excellent annual naval bash with the good old beer'n'pretzels game, Limeys and Slimeys. Unfortunately ... I forgot to take my notes with me when I left. And by the time I remembered, I couldn't even turn around, because whilst we were playing, an accident and attendant police and police tape had blocked the entrance I normally take into and out of the complex where the club is.

So this report will be as incoherent as usual. At least I got plenty of pictures.

The field of battle. One player wears an appropriate shirt for the occasion.

The smallish British flagship Ajax, leading the van towards...

Two Spanish relative heavies (22 guns each).

Our British line jogs to port, intending to get to the side
of the Spanish squadron and fight just half of them
with all of our own. The center ship is a 26-gun frigate.

The Spaniards forge ahead at 12" a turn...

And start angling to take the flagship under fire.

Ajax starts taking hits.

It is at this point that our Commodore reveals the rest of his cunning plan: Cut the Spanish line. 

But the Spanish go next (turn order is random each turn)
and grapple at the bows. Despite a gallant fight, Ajax
is swept and taken by boarding.

Despite this, the following ships - partner Francisco with the big frigate and me with another sloop and a bomb vessel (present for no apparent reason, as there is nothing for it to bom) follow their commander's instructions and continue the "break-in."

Frigate nearly out of view to the left, with my sloop about to turn.
The frigate is about to blast its broadside down the length of the
Spaniard for her temerity.

A bit of a mess as our frigate cuts the Spanish line,
which includes our own flagship which we're trying
to sink by hull hits to prevent them carrying it off.

But what's this on the horizon?

A very short horizon, as I never saw them coming after
my bomb vessel.

I am beleaguered and bracketed!

But, much to their chagrin as they really wanted to board and take me as a prize, instead they rolled eight hull hits for damage and sank me outright! (You get double damage for crossing the T, and at 3" range, you hit on 2+.) So ... no bomb vessel, but surprisingly a little cathartic.

Above, a typical ship card. My HMS Cleopatra has 12 broadside guns, two chasers, ten hull points, eight rigging points, and 36 crew, including four officers and eight Marines. The latter two have double value in boarding actions, while Marines may fire muskets at enemy crew when in close range. While I only had six guns to the broadside, most of my (long-range, 5+ to hit) broadsides got three or four hits - until the very last one which returned the balance by getting zero.

The rest of the Arab squadron enters the board.
Fortuitously, the loss of the bomb ship has
opened up a target for my aft chasers.

Closeup on a Dhow/Xebec/Whatever.

Still exchanging broadsides. There were no alliances
of convenience - the enemy of our enemy is still our enemy.

Because the British have cut the Spanish in two,
the forward Spanish inadvertently slam into the
oncoming Arabs, whose smaller but much nimbler
vessels are cutting up the already hurt starboard vessel.

At the other end of the table, the British 26 and smaller
Spaniard are slugging away at each other.

Another good shot of the Arabs. The full rigged ships
have resin hulls, these are wood with sheet metal under
the decks to magnetize the crew to them. Everything has
removable flags to change allegiance according to scenario.

Spaniards entangled.

The smallest Spaniard about to ram a dhow.
Ships must move, and must spend the first half
of their movement going straight ahead,
so even at half move (3") she'll be entangled.

Meanwhile the sluggers hammer away.

While on the far broadside, the frigate indiscriminately
batters both opposing sides.

A closeup of my Cleopatra as she tries to get into
position to support the frigate, unfortunately turning
slightly into the wind in the process and being badly slowed.

Despite the crew figures left aboard, this Spaniard
is basically crewless and gunless.

Several of the Arabs were towing extra fighters who
sadly never got into action.

Unsuccessfully trying to get some of the spoils.

Last turn: I finally cross the Spanish T while the other remaining Spaniard is bracketed. The "dagoes" have had the worst of the battle. 

The Brits have also lost two ships, while the Arabs, concentrating on the Spaniards, failed to get much loot. But as usual, all players (including two newbie guests) had a glorious time. Limeys and Slimeys is one of those games we can all play without thinking, moving ships around and tossing dice while at the same time just having conversation, eating pizza, drinking beer and all around just enjoying ourselves. We made a couple converts into the bargain. This is what gaming should be about.

Pete Panzeri's Bulge game has been postponed, so my next visit to Das Krig Haus will probably be in the New Year. See you then.

First Black Powder Game

Been a few weeks since I've posted; the usual doldrums plus non-gaming-related reading (though Lord Darcy does bring up some interesting imagiNation possibilities!). The chess club at work is going well; with a few staff joining in we usually have around 15 participants. I'm pretty hopeless at chess, and we have some really good players in the group both young and old. I prefer to teach the newer ones

Played a short-notice round of Black Powder at Das Krieg Haus. I've read Black Powder several times and am fairly familiar with the rules (7th Son's Youtube channel is an excellent teacher) but this was the first time I've gotten to play it, as the club generally prefers General de Brigade and, lately, member Mark Ritchie's Firelock.

Marko, one of our youngest and newest members, brought some 3mm French, Austrian and Prussian minis for an 1814 (6th Coalition) game. His intent was to have a loose campaign (well, operation), but instead we put together a fairly random table for a demo game without real objectives.

The board, with felt features and some very nice buildings.

Some infantry and artillery minis.

I was a little surprised to find that each base would represent a battalion or battery, as BP has much to do with formations. In practice, though, we found it easy to denote and remind each other what formations we were using. The guns had two bases per battery (see above pic) - one deployed, one limbered. Each player had about four brigades to work with, and there were some named generals, including Napoleon, on the field. We were not careful about command ranges, except with Napoleon's free reroll - he was way over on the right, so any command rerolls on the left would take a penalty!

My side of the board - in hindsight dangerously exposed, particularly my guns which I've put on the road for speed. The Prussian infantry is poised to cross the river at the village, upper left. My intent is to effectively refuse this flank while all our cavalry...

... rush over to the upper right and roll up the Austrian left flank.

This plan crumbled in the first turn, as a) the Allies got first turn and b) the Prussians rolled low enough on their activations to get multiple moves. Even at one-third scale to the moves (meaning 4" for infantry and guns, 6" for cavalry), I was already in trouble as the enemy was now close to my (still-limbered) guns.

On our first turn the French cavalry did get multiple moves of their own, and my partner Jim started nibbling at Marko's Austrians.

His at upper right are attacking Marko's cavalry,
mine are at center hoping to support next turn.

Closeup, after eliminating a unit.

I rolled boxcars to advance my guns - a Blunder! Used a reroll and this time I got snake eyes - three moves. Unfortunately, I had chosen to move as far as I could, rather than declaring, say, two moves and deploy for the third.

The head of my artillery column, up against
a brigade of sharpshooting Jager.

One battery (the second in column) managed to deploy
and fire on the Prussians just offscreen to left - to no avail.

Above: Turn Two, engaged with Jager, who accurately inflicted disorder on most of those infantry columns. My leading gun battery inadvertently charged a Jager unit - and beat it! Shades of Ramsay at Fuentes De Onoro. Unfortunately that was my only success.

Closeup of the result, with colored puffs to denote casualties.
My units have nearly all failed to make contact.

While on my left, the Prussians are heading for my back line.

Meanwhile, a bloody mess on the French right:

As can be seen by the puffball casualty markers.

Jim and Marko were trading a LOT of punches, leaving me and Mark on the left to discuss future games. Mark has run 50 games this year (!) and aspires to more in the next. We discussed using his rules to perhaps run a VBCW game. I lean towards using his 15mms, since he has plenty of interwar and WWI minis and terrain while my 28s and the club's modern 25-28 terrain are limited. There would be quite a bit of proxying, but it should still work if we can build something that looks like pastoral English countryside.

Allied Turn Three: the Prussians are way too close, I have gotta get outta here:

But the dice desert me and I can't get that far away.

End game after three turns: Basically the same as Waterloo
with directions reversed, though the Austrians are somewhat
worse off than Wellington.

Two major mistakes - putting my guns out on a limb and (related) underestimating how fast units can move in Black Powder. It can be a swingy game if you're not careful. My guns never got into action and ended up being targets, when I was going to use them to hold off the Prussians. To be fair, the game only lasted three turns, but still. Jim's half on the right was doing somewhat better, but I was not helping at all and he would have gotten pincered in another turn or two by the Prussians.

I have let Bony down. Like Grouchy if he got to the field but still effed up.

Not too bad an intro to the rules, even if it wasn't really traditional. 3mm does let you pack in lots of troops, at least. Well done to Marko, who GMed his first game for us and was confident at it.

Jim and I started in cataloging the club's book collection. He is planning a website for the club to get us more visibility. I also took with me a couple small boardgames about the Arab-Israeli wars and a 3d-printed Skyhawk which I hope to paint in Israeli colors:

Next weekend are two games I look forward to - the annual Limeys and Slimeys Regatta, and Pete Panzeri's 80th-anniversary Battle of the Bulge operational game. See you then.