Wargaming for Grown-ups

Show Qids

2012-01-23T20:03:00.000Z

This weekend I’ve had a chance to get some work done on the participation version of “Call it Qids” for the Society of Ancient’s show stand. The aim is to have it ready to coincide with the distribution of the incentive game to members.

For the show game it has to be portable and robust and hopefully eye-catching. So that means solid bits of wood, polyfilla (spackle) and textured paint. Which meant spending time in the garage with power tools and full sized paint brushes, acting like a proper Grown Up.

It has to be said that despite there not being any frost it was a bit cool in the work area over the weekend, not helped by me knocking the fan heater on the floor whilst measuring up and causing a minor fire in the casing. Admittedly that warmed the garage up but it wasn’t completely safe and the smell of burning plastic led me to put this out fairly pronto.


The final gluing takes place, using all the clamps I can find

I’ve written before about the joys of owning a Black and Decker jigsaw, and it came into play again to make nice, neat, accurate, mitre joints for the corners of the board frame. Alas my measuring skills, much cause of pain to me in my third year wood-working classes, let me down again and I produced a beautifully aligned lozenge shape rather than the desired square. However, a judicious application of Surform and sand paper soon rectified the errors.

Alas I need to report that the jigsaw is starting to play up slightly, with the operating control getting jammed on. This is a bit disconcerting in the same weekend that the news of Paul Daniels, the circular saw and the missing digits became public.

All this left me with the liberal application of Brilliant White gloss to seal the edge of the board and provide a “reference” area away from the game board, and the use of my reliable Antique Pine quick drying Ronseal on the frame to give it a more distinguished air.

Just the centre tower to fill in this picture

The little model of Qids, or Qadesh, is close to completion. This was more of a modelling task that a piece of Grown Up DIY. It is a complete guess based on the wall reliefs, but I’m quite pleased with it now all the turrets and towers are crowded with little Baccus Hittites.

I’m pretty much done with the figures for the game as well. I’ve even put a third figure in the Hittite chariots. I’m using Egyptian chariots for my Hittites not the normal block sided monsters you usually see. Qids’ author, Ian RL argues a pretty convincing case for this approach (for example the second wave chariots only had two crew, and the third man really surprised Ramesses indicating that it wasn’t at all normal). At the weekend I got a nice packet from Pete at Baccus with a goodly number of bullocks and asses to cram onto the baggage bases. These are now cleaned up and sitting on the painting sticks ready to go.

After them I have to do some Combat Resolution tables to stick on the game board and a turn track to do as well. However until I get some bits and pieces from our other sponsor (not due until February) the production will stall.

Although I could start working on the shrine to the gods, of course…..

Carry on Qidding

2012-01-15T11:14:00.000Z

After another successful playtest on Thursday evening I've been getting on with more work on the Society of Ancients' incentive game for 2012, "Call it Qids". Well, not just me. The game designer Ian Russell Lowell has been working hard on the map as well.


Baccus chariots taken with 7mm extension ring

I think we have a final version of the rules, pretty much, although there's lots of extra bits and pieces you can always add to give players options once they're satisfied with the game as originally designed.

Baccus Egyptian infantry

The intention was always to do a version of the game to be played on the Society's stand in 2012, so I've started work on that. Actually all that means for the moment is that I've gone out and bought some plywood as a base board and some edging strip. The game will be played with Mr Peter Berry's excellent 6mm figures from Baccus, although this will entail me rebasing the figures as the game doesn't exactly use DBx basing.

Baccus Sherden bodyguard

In order to make the point that Ramesses was a larger-than-life personality and in deference to the reliefs in the Egyptian temples that show him towering over everybody I want to use a 20mm or 28mm Pharaoh figure. Ideally I want a really nice one, but I don't want to pay over the odds for it either. Actually what I want is the figure on foot either armed with a bow as seen on the reliefs or with a mace as usually shown on the temple pylons. So, if anyone can recommend such a figure I'd be grateful (of course any figure manufacturers who follow this blog and want to send me one for free are welcome to do so).

Finally the game had one of its toughest tests last night. I playtested it with Mrs Trebian. We played it twice, alternating sides. The result was two wins for the Hittites, one marginal (when I played them) and one crushing (when they were led by Mrs T). Both games lasted 30-40 minutes each.

This was a valuable exercise as although Mrs T plays board games she doesn't wargame and she doesn't know anything much about bronze age warfare (except what she picked up from visiting Egypt, living with me and reading about Ancient Egypt. Okay she probably knows lots). What this means is she will try things that wargamers don't think of and asks the obvious questions we all overlook. She may also have hit upon the optimum strategy on her second outing on the board, despite the Sherden bodyguard standing instead of routing for the first time ever. It also confirmed what I've been thinking for a while. The first few moves are pretty slow and fairly one sided so you need to get past those for the game to work as the second half has lots more going on. Still, very pleased with the progress, and optimistic about hitting production target dates for both the giveaway and show game.

If anyone has any questions, just ask away.

Only Qidding

2012-01-08T19:50:00.000Z

The last few days have been dominated by work on the Society of Ancient's incentive game for 2012. After a layoff of too many months for a variety of (mainly personal) reasons we got back to play testing on Thursday evening.

For those of you who missed the announcement this year's game is "Call it Qids", a simple refight of the battle of Qadesh or Kadesh or Qids or however you want to spell it. The design is by Ian Lowell who has written a lot on the battle and Hittites and Egyptians in Slingshot over the years, but I think everyone in our group has put in their two pen'north into the design. I'm project managing the process, which means I get to do the counter design (you can see Ramesses on the left, -he's a stand up counter, unlike all the others in the game, and is about 1" tall when assembled), write up the rules and produce the booklet and chase anyone else who should be doing stuff. Ian is working on the map and writing a brief historical article as well as sourcing some of the graphics we need.

The game plays in about an hour depending on how it goes and seems to us to be a lot of fun. The production is a little simpler than last year's, with its double sided map and the cut out castle. Alas times are hard, so we've had to be careful with what we put in the pack, but you still get an A4 rules booklet, a sheet of counters and an A2 map board. I think we've put a quality game and product together which hopefully everybody will play and enjoy at least once. Here's a mock up of the cover, - all b&w this year, but we may be able to spice it up a bit before final production.

Happy to answer any questions from both members and non-members.

Getting Close

2012-01-04T20:40:00.000Z

I was buying a big zoom lens for my DSLR recently and accidentally keyed the details wrong into Amazon. It came up and showed me a really cheap set of Macro Extension Tubes. Like less than £10. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001CWZE6A.

Now I had a set of these years ago for my old SLR and used them to do figure close ups, but they were always a bit expensive. However at £7.99 + p&p I thought they were worth a look.

Now you have to be careful attaching them, and it's a matter of judgement how many bits you use for each picture plus it disables your autofocus (not a problem for those of us who used SLRs in the 1980s) but I reckon the next photo shows they're worth it:

This is an Irregular Miniatures 6mm scale elephant, standing on an upturned Humbrol enamel tin. I took it with an 18-55mm standard Canon lens on an EOS 350D, using a 14mm extension ring.

You should be impressed. I am.

I have a clever friend

2011-12-31T12:57:00.000Z

I wanted a T-26 with the "washing line" aerial. I tried to do this with a Peter Pig T-26 to turn it into a command tank but it is very fiddly.

A friend of mine (you know, the one who did the Garford Putilov) kindly offered to do the conversion for me.

Here are some photos of Phil's efforts before I ruin it with a classic Trebian paint job:

Count Beli-halfcock

2011-12-23T19:55:00.000Z

I’m ashamed to admit that I couldn’t wait until the army was finished, so I drafted in some ringers from my other armies to make up the numbers and set up my annual Christmas game with Phil.

Belisarius' boys....with a few friends from elsewhere

Phil has a Totilan Gothic army, so as mine are Belisarius’ Italian Army it’s a perfect match up. In theory.


Phil's Goths, pre-deployment. Nioce, aren't they?

Actually they do provide an interesting pair of armies, but what the game showed us was that if you play with an army regularly (Phil had taken his army to Britcon) then you probably have a better idea of what to do with it than if you’ve just thrown it together from some bits and pieces.

A further problem for me was that I hadn’t played Armati for 12 months, I think, and I struggle to remember all of the nuances and I lose my eye for distances on the table.

All of which is way of saying that I got beat fair and square by 5 units to 4, (I had an army break point of 5 and Phil had a bp of 6). Even if we’d played a couple more turns I’d have struggled to get to 6, whilst my broken units would have gone past 7. Ho hum.

The thing with a Byzantine army is you don’t get a lot of units for your points. Apart from your Skirmish Infantry/Psiloi types which you can have by the bucket load the rest of your stuff is armed to the teeth, in armour, with bows. All of this means units cost a lot of points. Of course if you have a cunning strategy that means you get your archery well deployed and turn your opponents into pin cushions it’s points well spent. If you get them all tied up in knots, blocking each other’s way so they get off one (completely ineffective) shot at most then you’re better off having the extra unit.

Still I had a plan. I was going to use my Kataphractoi to disrupt the Gothic line (although they’re not true cataphracts, but they do have bows) and then exploit any gap with my Gothic Heavy Cavalry. What I hadn’t worked out was that the key to breaking Phil’s army was to get round his front line and pile into his ex-slave rubbish infantry he’d hidden at the back. What I did instead was put my Goths too close to the front line so I couldn’t deploy them properly until it was too late. In fact I had to wait until I lost one of my Kataphractoi before I could get them in the game. Add to that the fact that I got some of my heavy horse archers too close to a chunky block of heavy foot and it all looked pretty horrid by the end.

Having said all of that it was quite a tense game and if Phil hadn’t had a stunning run of sixes on his Peter Pig dice once the armies had locked together in hand to hand we’d have gone on for a couple more turns and we may have finished even closer. I was a turn off ploughing my (admittedly exhausted) veteran Kataphractoi into Phil’s dross units and then it would have been really nail biting.

So I need to think a bit more about how to use the army, and I need to paint up some more units. I think, as well, that I’d prefer to play with slightly larger armies. We were using 75 points, and you can go up to 100 on the basic list which I think will give a better game. At least I won’t have to compromise so much on what I chose and it’ll look even more like a Byzantine army when it’s deployed.

Perhaps we can get that in for next week sometime.

Otherwise Merry Christmas to all of you out there.

DB...eh what?

2011-12-20T20:07:00.000Z

So I’ve finally got round to reading DBA v3.0. It’s taken me a couple of goes because I tried to print it out as a booklet at first and the print was really small and I couldn’t read it so I had to print it out again full size.

So much for economising on paper and ink.

Any how, what have the Barkers done to this much loved set of rules? I say the Barkers as this is clearly a collaboration between the two of them and no one else, as only their names sign the introduction. Of course, in line with Phil’s methodology, this has been play-tested “on three continents”, which I assume means that they were in communication with gamers on other continents, not just that they were playing the game on their holidays.

I’ve known the Barkers for nearly 30 years now (through WD) and whilst I wouldn’t say we’ve grown to love each other I am aware of Phil’s idiosyncrasies and I have some admiration for the way he works and the care he expends over his rules. I’m also aware he is very well read and very opinionated. (Sue on the other hand tends to be quiet but is clearly the much smarter of the two of them). Phil’s never been backwards in putting his opinions in his rule writings, but there are some odd bits even by his standards in these.

He’s obviously not happy with the way some people have been playing with his system, - he wants the boards to be 24” x 24”, but some people use 30” x 30” even though this gives “longer games and more draws”. Bases sizes are fixed, so figure manufacturers responsible for “scale creep” need to sort themselves out, rather than Phil adjust the size of bases to allow for what is becoming more normal. Grudgingly we are allowed to expand the base depth to allow for our over sized figures, which is a relief as the alternative is to chop one of their legs off. In fact there are several instances where the sub text of the writing seems to scream out “Will you just leave my rules alone!!!”.

There’s another odd window into someone’s secret pain in the section on Dice. This reads:

“All dicing uses a single ordinary 1 to 6 dice, which should be used for the whole game to avoid suspicion of malpractice. However, as a concession for the superstitious, a dice that scores 1 in six successive throws may be junked and replaced.”

Suspicion of malpractice???? Keeping track of the number of 1’s rolled? As I said, there’s some secret pain there. Me, personally, I like to have several dice on the table, as sometimes I’m in a green die mood, and some times I’m in a red die mood. I can be impulsive. I hope my regular opponents will be able to forgive me this foible when we play.

A lot of the changes to the text are further explanations rather than new rules, but they don't do anything for Phil's reputation for dogmatism. However they do help you understand where he's coming from.

I'm not really in a place to comment on the rule changes yet. The change in measuring to use Base Widths is to be applauded as making the whole system more internally consistent and I'd be in favour of it a lot more if I hadn't bought myself a special DBA v2.0 ruler last year at Derby. There are big changes in the effects of recoiling units which strike me as a good thing, and also a variation of blade factors if being shot at,

Finally there's more stuff about Built Up Areas. I've never understood these rules and I understand that they are not universally liked elsewhere either. All I would point out is that each turn in the game is approximately 15 minutes, and within that time it is possible to seize a town and install a puppet government.

Yes, in less time than it takes to watch a Simpsons' episode you can have a full political revolution.

The Joy of Set (pieces)

2011-12-17T16:26:00.000Z

Our group has sort of had a misfired Christmas Special game. Partly my fault as I can’t make next week’s session and so I asked for it to be brought forwardto this Thursday.

Phil obliged, although he hadn’t finished all of his planned work for the game, so it was sort of a play test as much of a game.

The game was a multiplayer scenario using the original “AK47 Republic” mechanisms to drive movement, combat and morale. The scenario had a four or five cornered situation with two warlords, a President-for-life, the UN and the press all coming together for the President’s birthday parade which was coinciding with the UN’s attempt to dispose of a thinly disguised WMD.

The UN and the "Dangerous Package". Please ignore the unfinished bases

Now this is a lot of stuff going on and we had to extemporise some of the details as Phil hadn’t been given enough time to write out the full briefings and we were a few rule mechanisms short. In my experience the best way of dealing with this type of game is to use Matrix game techniques (particularly Politics By other Means) which have been used in similar scenarios set in Zambola featuring the infamous President Jog-Jog that have been played at CoW. On the other hand it is a bit of a cheat as you don’t need to think things through properly and rely on the players to fill in the gaps. However the matrix game is not to everyone’s liking and our group has fallen out over them in the past so a more structured game is probably the answer.

The highlight of the evening was Phil producing all of his AK47 kit that’s he’s been working on over the last few years, so you’ll have to excuse me if I post a bit of eye candy. As I’ve indicated before I’ve got a fairly functional approach to my armies. I want armies I want them painted. Therefore I paint them. I adopt a minimalist approach to what I do to ensure I get the most stuff done in the shortest period. Gone are the days when I altered figure poses for the fun of it.

Phil on the other hand just loves producing beautiful stuff that also tells a story. Lots of his kit falls into the “mini diorama” category, with little set pieces or vignettes littering the battlefield. Have a look at his overloaded Hummer and Landrover for example.

Sometimes he’s just showing off, like he does with the airstrike marker. I think I’m doing pretty well if I produce laminated cardboard counters.

We only managed to get in about 3 turns before we packed up, but we’d had a fair amount of action by then (I’d stolen a speed boat for example and caused the heavy lifting crane to have a problem).

Let's just finish off with a picture of Phil's airfield and Presidential convoy:

Return of the Invisible Man

2011-12-14T19:43:00.000Z

After a week or two of blogging silence I’m back at the keyboard for an update. My absence has principally been due to a whole load of Real Life going on allied to a resounding bout of end-of-year war-weariness that has reduced me to binging on episodes of the X-Files in the evening in lieu of doing anything constructive.

Having said that I’ve finished another 3 units for the Byzantines (a couple of light border troops and another unit of armoured horse archers) so time hasn’t been completely wasted. And I’ve downloaded the latest version of DBA v 3.0. For those of you who don’t know it’s available free on the DBA yahoo group, and the amendments are very helpfully highlighted in a range of different colours. Sue L-B is working on a book called “Start Wargaming with DBA” which is promised to be a real treat, - a cornucopia if you will. I may even buy it when it comes out if I can’t blag a free copy from somewhere. There are no army lists yet, but hopefully our little group can get on and do some playtesting in the New Year.

I’ve not always been a fan of PB & his DBx games but you have to admire his openness and his willingness to engage with his wargaming public, if not his inability to write clear English.

Following what was a gruelling slog through the SCW history I discussed in my last book I’ll admit to taking on something a bit less heavy as bedtime reading. I’ve just finished the latest Iain M Banks “Culture” sf novel, “Surface Detail” - obviously I’m way behind the times as the hardback was out last year and this version has taken a while to get to the top of the reading list.

I love IMB’s Culture novels. I used to read a lot of sf, especially space operas, but Banks has rather ruined the genre for me. He is just so damned good. There’s been some mixed reviews of “Surface Detail” but on the whole it is stunning. I’d agree that it probably isn’t as good as the earlier novels, - it is hard to chose between “Consider Phlebas”, “Player of Games” and “Use of Weapons” as my favourite. Or “Inversions” perhaps. Actually it would have to be “Phlebas” as it just blew me away when I first read it, and the final chase sequence in the underground tunnels is brilliant.

Alas I think the Culture universe is un-wargameable, unless you cheat and do one of the low-tech interventions. That differs from “Against a Dark Background” which is one of his non-Culture SF novels which has a terrific background for a modern-type era campaign. I’d recommend you to read that if you haven’t. I’d also recommend the Culture novels, but make sure you read them in sequence.

So in the run up to Christmas I’m left with the obligatory present wrapping and the hope that all that should have been bought has been. I’ve been a little light weight this year what with all the running around after increasingly infirm parents (spent an evening this week filling in an assessment form for care home fees and assembling all the supporting documentation. Goodness knows if I’ve got it right, as it isn’t obvious).

My regular wargaming also seems to be disrupted by office Christmas dinners (yes, we have more than one for all the different groups I am in / responsible for) so I missed last Thursday. This week, however, I’m free so hopefully lots of chances to blow things up in a pre-Christmas AK47 Republic multi-player extravaganza.

Old style rules, of course.

Contemporary History

2011-12-03T17:34:00.000Z

I remarked in an earlier post that I'd been looking for some contemporary accounts of the Spanish Civil War. I managed to pick up what I thought would be a nice matched pair, - "The Civil War in Spain" by Frank Jellinek the Manchester Guardian's foreign correspondent in Barcelona, and "March of a Nation" by Harold Cardoza, the Daily Mail's Special Correspondent.*

I have just succeeded in finishing Jellinek's book, and I have to say it was interesting if a bit of a struggle. It is in many ways one of the most..."worthy" book I have read for a long time. It was written in 1937, so before the war had finished. Whilst Jellinek was not a Communist he is certainly a Marxist historian, and the book is written in the Marxist scientific-history style. All the elements of the lead up to the war and the war itself are shown as part of an inevitable struggle. The Workers, the Bourgeois and the Petty-Bourgeois all follow the lines that Marx indicated they would. Lenin's views on the elements of the class struggle are quoted with admiration.

Of course when the book was written no one knew what Stalin was up to so the USSR is seen as the most modern and progressive state, so the Stalinist attack on the POUM is fully justified in this book.

Was it of any use to me? Well it certainly helps you to understand the frame of mind that people were in at the time. It isn't a memoir looking back, - it is genuine contemporary history with no knowledge of the outcome. It is fairly light weight on the military aspects (except for one thing - see below) as these are merely the backdrop to a class struggle. It is also much, much, stronger on the struggle in Catalonia than it is on anywhere else in Spain. It's handling of the political contemporary background is also informative as it plays up what was in the news at the time, - for example the abdication crisis in Britain.

Where it is good is the coverage of the rising in Barcelona. There's lots of good detail written with a reporter's eye and even if it isn't completely accurate the colour and feeling it portrays is excellent. Alas he is fairly liberal in the use of the word "tank" and seems to feel that Spanish factories were actually turning them out. I suspect he means armoured cars, although he refers to these as well.

It is also, obviously, very pro-Republic. The Popular Army is described at one point as "one of the finest fighting forces in the world". The Moors and the SFL are mere mercenaries, and all military successes are attributed to the Italians, who achieve these despite being cowardly and running away. The Popular Army was "entirely" successful at the Battle of Brunete, unlike the Nationalists who may have captured some important towns but "had not one any major battle" except for the unequal struggle in the Basque country.

So some of it is, in retrospect, quite amusing to read, but it is tremendously hard going, with massive slugs of quotations from speeches and meeting resolutions quoted verbatim (and the stuff about collectivisation is very, very, dull).

I'm glad I read it and some of the detail from the Barcelona accounts will turn up in a game at some point, but would I recommend it to any of my friends? Not if I want to keep them, I suspect. I was going to read Cardoza's book back to back with this one, but frankly I can't face it, so I'm reading an Iain M Banks sf novel instead.

* For my non-British readers the Manchester Guardian (now the Guardian) was and is the broadsheet of the left, although not socialist. The Daily Mail is the paper read by the right thinking middle classes. Its favourite targets are benefit scroungers (especially single parents) and asylum seekers.

Can you tell what it is yet? (8)

2011-11-27T18:07:00.000Z

Some more light infantry to add to the lads. Looking at the army list this is one of those Armate armies where you bury your key troops in a cloud of worthless rabble, armed to the teeth with every type of missile weapon you can imagine.

So these are Isaurian Archers.

Like the Isaurian javelin men before them they suffer a little bit from having very big heads, either that or they're using some seriously volumising hair-care products. The paint job is based upon the pictures in Boss' Montvert publication that I've referred to before, although I've livened up the shield patterns a bit.

Here they are from the other side. Bit concerned that the quilting type design down the front is a bit "busy", but otherwise pleased with them.

The Fast Play Myth

2011-11-25T19:54:00.000Z

I used to do pub quizzes. One of the people who used to organise them had a saying that there was no such thing as a hard question, just stuff you don’t know. There is an element of truth in this. If you haven’t ever read anything on the Taiping rebellion or if you don’t watch Coronation Street you’ll suffer in those areas. However being asked “What colour is my jumper?” is pretty much a gimme, unless you’re colour blind.

I sort of feel this way about fast play wargames rules. Well, let’s get some perspective. Pretty much every set of rules ever published is suitable for fast play with vast armies. Very few advertise themselves as “gives turgid play with two units a side”. There are some outliers in this analysis. FoG doesn’t claim to be for vast armies in its pure form (neither does DBA) and Megablitz is not intended for skirmish games.

In my experience there are few rule sets that deliver what they promise from day one, - except perhaps DBA. It’s like the quiz master. There are no fast play rules, just those you know really well and those you don’t. I’ve written on Black Powder quite a bit. They do play quickly, - if you know how they work. If you have to stop to look at the rule book at any point then the game just stops in its tracks. Some rules you think are fast play, then they trip you up. An example of that would be Armati. I play them less frequently than I used to, but I could play them without reference to the playsheet or the rule book, mostly. It was those odd, rarely used, rules that would trip me up if my opponent invoked them. Although I suppose the game did go quickly as my plans unravelled.

I re-read Tony Bath’s Ancient rules recently and I have to say that starting from scratch they looked like a pig to learn, although they probably gave a fast moving game. On the other hand Neil Thomas’ “Ancient and Medieval Wargmaing” had us up and playing in a very short time, with little reference to anything except a few data tables.

Of course fast play isn’t just down to simple mechanisms, - they’ve got to give you a result. Much as I love Armati some of the infantry v infantry melees can go on for ever. So the claim “you don’t need to look at the playsheet” or “no playsheet required” isn’t really a guide. If you’ve got a mechanism that requires one side to roll a double 6 when the other is throwing a double 1 to get a result you’re going to be there a long time. It may be realistic, but it isn’t fast.

Which sort of brings me to this week’s game. We did something from the US/Mexican War of the 1840s, where the USA started to stamp its manifest destiny all over the continent. For rules we were using Arty Conliffe’s “Shako II” Napoleonic rules as basically both armies were still armed with muskets and fought in lines and columns.

I was quite excited by this as I have a lot of time for Arty Conliffe as a game designer. I like Armati, as I’ve said, and Crossfire is a game I’d like to play a lot more. So, Shako II which was both by Arty and featured “fast play” seemed to me to tick most of my boxes.

It was a simple game. Lots of not very good Mexicans marched across the battlefield to take on the small, yet perfectly formed, Yankees. As the Mexicans my colleague and I formed a simple plan, - we had everything in column and just put our heads down and went for them. It nearly succeeded, but we were undone by the rather too simple destruction of our cavalry by some Texas Ranger – Rough Rider types. These put our lancers to flight, despite us having lances (with pennons) and nicer, neater, brightly coloured uniforms.

The infantry columns had mixed success. The Yankees shook out into a firing line and we charged into them. Sometimes we got shot off, sometimes we lost the melee and sometimes we broke the line. Alas the first two outcomes outweighed the latter one by a bit and our army broke and fled. It was satisfying seeing some of the Yankees heading for home and I think they got a much bloodier nose than normally expected.

So what about Shako II and its fast play credentials? It took about 2 ½ hours for my two divisions to march across a four foot deep table and fight themselves to defeat. There was no hesitation, no fancy tactics. There was a bit of fussing about with the cavalry, and a bit of flicking through the rule book, of which we only had one copy, so we weren’t moving as fast as we could.

The rules don’t seem as complicated as old favourites such as Bruce Quarrie’s rules published by Airfix, all those years ago (lent my copy out, never got it back) but are they fast? I’m not convinced. And the rule book layout isn’t good. There’s a lot of text crammed into the pages, - although there are some nice diagrams, which are helpful, and some pictures, which are not – and there’s an odd desire to put grey backgrounds to some of the text boxes. I mean dark grey, thus rendering the text almost indecipherable. I’d obviously need to sit down for an evening or two to get the hang of them, but compared to Armati and Crossfire they're not as clear nor is the layout as visually appealing (and that doesn’t mean put in glossy pictures).

I think we should give them another go, and I’d like to spice up the scenario as I’ve had as much fun as I’m going to get out of just marching in a straight line.

So all in all, I think Shako II proves my original thesis. There’s no such thing as fast play rules. There’s just rule sets you know, and rule sets you don’t.

Can you tell what it is yet? (7)

2011-11-21T19:39:00.000Z

So, the next bunch of Belisarius' brave boys. These are Hunnic Foederati. I have to say that the early Byzantines weren't shy on loading up the different troop types in their army. This is the 7th posting on this project, and I reckon I've got another 5 different types to paint in addition to these. Admittedly that includes 3 different flavours of psiloi with bows (or SI - Bows in Armati speak), but it's stil quite a few.

They're quite nice looking figures. They don't have any of the "flatness" I noted in the Auxilia, and the poses are well done, with some good animation. The figures look quite nicely proportioned as well. They're not heavily carved, so the highlighting and shading is a bit forced in places but I don't think they suffer for all that.

For a painting guide I used the classic Barker "Armies & Enemies of Ancient Rome", and you can see the figures are pretty much taken straight from Ian Heath's immortal drawings. The colour guides are beautifully vague, - natural cloth and coloured caps, so that's what they've got, as you can see.

The only thing I'm not completely sure about with these are the horses. I always struggle to get believable horse colours. I've cracked it for the chestnuts. They are painted Tamiya XF-9 (Hull Red), but the white horses are actually meant to be piebald. I think they're okay, but I don't think I'll do anymore like that for a while.

The Battle of El-Tel

2011-11-18T20:03:00.001Z

Our group was supposed to be doing some Mexican war thing this Thursday, but due to an unfortunate incident the organiser had to drop out. However, following our recent interesting goes at Zulus and Redcoats with Black Powder I volunteered to have a go with BP in the Sudan.

I used the El-Teb scenario in the back of the book as a starting point for the forces and stats, although I cut back on some of the troop types and factors. In particular I reduced the awesome power of the British Hussars, who seem to be armed with phasers and chainsaws.

Very cleverly I forgot my camera, so I was reduced to taking a few snapshots on my Blackberry.

As ever with Black Powder it gave us an amusing evening but it's never quite right. You wonder what books the authors have been reading if they think that cavalry is a war winning weapon against the frightening Fuzzy-Wuzzy. Their effectiveness and the whole set of rules about infantry fighting cavalry need to be looked at if we're going to use them again. I also don't get why Highlanders have better HtH factors than Fuzzies and also better stamina.

The British were on a punitive expedition against a lonely village, fronted by a wadi, and flanked by some hills. The approach march was halting due to some poor command rolls, until the lead brigade blundered and veered off at an angle.

Here you can see that they've successfully exposed their flank to the wadi at the top of the screen, thus tempting the Dervishes to launch a full scale assault. Again, thanks to poor command rolls they decided to stay concealed behind the hills, and encourage further British indiscretions.

Eventually the Dervishes came out of hiding and decided to set-too.

Here you can see them try to launch an attack from the wadi. They moved off, but only got one move segment so didn't make it (we were using centimetres for inches as these are 15mm figures). This timidity on the part of the dervish hordes gave the Brits a chance to recover and form the obligatory Brigade Square.

The square was formed in a hurry, and the infantry just about made it. You can see to the bottom of the picture the Gardner gun and a packed up screw gun that got left outside. The other brigade artillery is still milling around in the middle of the square with the water bowser, out of formation, as the fuzzies slam into the front face. Meanwhile the Northampton Yeomanry square up to the supporting dervish warband.

This was the main confrontation of the evening. The attack on the square took three turns to fight off. The dervishes survived repeated break tests for losing melee, which was only fair as the British had outrageous luck on their saving rolls. The cavalry broke that warband, but the lead regiment was likewise destroyed by some others coming up into support.

Off picture to the top the Highlanders from the other brigade lined the wadi and tried to shoot off three or four dervish warbands. They failed, - the shooting was okay, but the melee didn't go their way as two warbands managed to pool resources in the fight.

So we called it a day. Marginal British victory, but the loss of a cavalry and an infantry regiment was quite a high price to pay.

BP did the job on the evening, but they're clearly a Napoleonic set of rules that's just spread out in either direction. The factors and rules for colonial forces just aren't quite there, although no doubt the colonial supplement whenever it turns up will solve that.

For preference I'd play Science v Pluck, but that's harder work for the umpire and the players so BP fitted the bill this week.

We may return when I remeber my camera.

Can you tell what it is yet? (6)

2011-11-16T21:25:00.000Z

At last some of the classic Trebian troop type, - heavy infantry.

Well, I say “Heavy Infantry” but this is really a poor shower compared to the Legionnaries , Phalangites and Hoplites that grace my largest and most long standing armies.

I mean, even the Carthaginians have some heavies in armour, although admittedly that’s 600 years beforehand.

So here are some “Auxilia Palantina” which is what passes for backbone for this army. Okay, I know you can dismount some of the cataphracts but that would mean buying extra figures and, come on guys, they’re CATAPHRACTS!! Why would I take them off their horses? In Armati terms they’re hard as nails, armed to the teeth and don’t suffer from the obligatory charge move.

Any how, back to my new recruits. The figures are a bit flat and ideally in a unit of this size & type I’d like a variety of poses. If they’re massed infantry shield-wall legionary types then a single pose, standing shoulder to shoulder is a winner, but these don’t really fit that mould. As they’re basically javelin chuckers.

The figures are not only a bit flat, but they’re a bit bland. The lack of heavy detailing/folds in their tunics makes the shading a bit of a challenge although they’re probably more authentic for not having lots of deep cutting in the design style. There’s actually some nice detailing on the figures in the tunic yoke and the decoration near the tunic hem. Alas a layer of undercoat followed by blocking in with a mixed off-white matt vinyl emulsion rather obscured it all. Again, it’s probably an authentic depth but it isn’t doing any favours with the dry brushing.

They’re painted up okay. The shields are quite ambitious for me with the Chi-Rho and inset colours. I’m not sure I’ve pulled it off. They look a little bit too busy in all honesty. I have another unit to paint and I’ll be going for a brighter more geometric design for them, I think.

Still they’ll plug the middle of my battle line, and form a base from which my cavalry can launch devastating attacks on my less civilised opponents.

My last thoughts cover the overall authenticity of using these figures. Our sources in some areas aren’t great and there’s a general feeling that generic Auxilia Palantina of this type hung around in the same style kit for 300 years. That doesn’t convince me, but then how much variation can you get in a loose fitting tunic and a big oval shield?

Can you tell what it is yet? (5)

2011-11-12T16:29:00.000Z

Okay, so the secret is out, but having started with this as a title for postings on this army I'm reluctant to change tack.

Here's the latest batch of recruits to Belisarius' adventure. The Armati army list rather grandly lists them as "Hippo-Toxotoi", which translates as Horse Archers.

That could well be Belisarius with the sword!

The haven't come up too bad. The paint job is based on the illustrations in Roy Boss' book on Justinian's wars published by Montvert (now alas out of print and selling at premium prices.

Despite my new close up glasses I had made especially for painting and a 000 paintbrush I'm still struggling with the fine details. The chequer piping on the archer's clothing makes them look a little like they're wearing pyjamas, and that isn't the best ever "Chi-Rho" on the standard. The difficulty isn't my eyesight but a small lack of motor control in my painting hand that derives from some neck and back problems I had a few years ago. It's frustrating to admit it, but I have to recognise that I've now got figures in my collection that I won't surpass in terms of painting quality. I'm also finding that I really shouldn't paint for more than a hour at a time.

Apart from that I think they'll look fine on the table top, and for these figures I've also got a picture of them from behind.

They warrant a reverse shot as I put a lot of work into the shading on the cloaks, so it seems a pity to waste it.

I suspect that we don't pay enough attention to the backs of our figures. After all the fronts get shields or lace frogging and so on, depending on the period. However, unless you are really unlucky as a player you'll actually spend most of your time looking at the backs of your figures as they march remorselessly towards your opponents. I suppose a well painted front may intimidate your enemy, but it may just be a lot of wasted effort from the point of view of personal pleasure during the game.

Next up will be some Auxilia Palantina, followed by some Huns. This army has a lot of variety in it, but there's also a lot of some units to paint. The Hippo Toxotoi in particular are a significant proportion of the army. I'm pretty sure this won't be finished in time for my annual "Attack of the Killer Wind Up Christmas Puddings" game, which is a shame as my regular opponent has an exact contemporary army to take it on. That, likewise, is stuffed full of cavalry so it'll be a whirling frenetic affair when they finally get to grips.

Can you tell what it is yet? (4)

2011-11-07T19:36:00.000Z

The development of the army gathers pace. I succeeded in painting some more light troops over the weekend so the DBA version of the army is looking in good shape. When I complete the couple of cavalry bases on the desk then I'll have done the requisite 12 elements, if I allow myself two bases of Gothic cavalry.

Oh. And I need to two a couple of bases of Spears. So actually not close to finishing at all, really. Any how, here's the latest additions. Call them Psiloi or Skirmish Infantry (SI) or whatever you want depending on your favourite rule set, but they're light troops armed with dual purpose throwing and stabbing javelins.

The books describe these as Isaurians. Again these are Donnington miniatures and they've painted up okay. It's the first time that I've had to do lots of shading for ages to get the effect I want, but I think on this occasion it is giving me brighter colours than using the magic dip method.

So far then we're got:

Moorish light horse
Moorish javelin foot
Gothic cavalry
Cataphracts
Isaurian light foot

Any more guesses? The last posting got precisely zero guesses, so I suspect that readers have lost interest in this game.

The attack of the Shrimpi

2011-11-04T20:13:00.000Z

Thursday night, so the Monday Night Group are back together again. This week we re-entered the world of Black Powder, with 6mm British & Zulus (hence "shrimpi" - see, it's an Impi that is small in size......)

Regular readers will know I have an awkward relationship with BP. It is poorly written, badly laid out, inadequately indexed and much too expensive for what is in it. It also doesn't cover the period it claims to cover in the original book. However, there's a feel to the game that has an appeal, and it has some elements that are ingenious and work quite well.

Any how, previous gripes may have arisen because we've used it for one of the periods (War of Spanish Succession) that isn't properly covered. The Zulu wars, however, are absolutely core subject matter as they warrant a full battle report in the rule book, and specimen troop characteristics.

Phil had acquired some fairly old Heroics & Ros 6mm blocks of Imperial forces & Zulus and without him doing too much on them they were okay to use in a game. We did a sort of re-run of the game in the rulebook (it's my terrain by the way), which features a small detachment of Brits being rescued by a column from a marauding Zulu impi.

I shall let the pictures tell the story

The British column, headed by some Native horse enters the table

A wider shot showing the Sargent's lonely laager, nestling in the crook of the river

The impi in the distance. The Native horse swing to the left to screen the column's flank

Thew Native horse form a firing line on the River. The Lancers have crossed the River, whilst the column hurries to catch up. The Zulus look ominous.

The impi in the middle has been routed by the steady rifle fire of the Naval Brigade. Meanwhile the Lancers have undertaken a death-or-glory charge. The Gating Gun, needless to say, has jammed.

The Lancers have broken the other impi on the British left wing, but the Native skirmish line this side of the river looks a bit vulnerable.

The British have their "Thin Red Line" properly formed at last as the Zulus start their headlong rush in the centre, screened by skirmishers. Cunning.

And that was the last picture I took. The Red line held off the Zulus through some rapid fire and stiff work with the bayonet and were left masters of the field. The Gatling Gun had been unjammed, but it got jammed again using defensive fire as the middle impi crashed in on the laager position. The MG mechanism is quite good. You roll for hits one die at a time, as many times as you want. You can stop when you want, but if you roll a 1 it jams. Hence when the impi charged in response to Phil's question "How many times are you going to fire?" the only answer was:

"Until it jams!"

We had a fun evening and I hope you'll agree it looks like a Zulu wars battle. Hopefully we'll give it another go, but my feeling is that BP is in many ways too much of a blunt weapon. Even with all of their special rules you can bolt on Zulus still only move as fast as a British company in line.

Can you tell what it is yet? (3)

2011-11-01T21:31:00.000Z

The next troops up for consideration aren’t that difficult to paint. They’re mostly armoured so it’s a case of undercoating in black and dry-brushing in silver. I used to do my 25mm fully barded cavalry by using a black wash then polishing off the excess, which was very quick and very effective.

However they seem to have taken a long time to get to the finished state. Well their start was delayed as I decided to remount the riders with a Milliput saddlecloth each as the horse are very skinny and bending the riders’ legs to make them fit made the riders look really odd. The Milliput has been a mixed success, - some of them have worked out really well, others have set with a gap under the saddle – which is annoying.

In the interim the family Trebian has been fully occupied with one thing and another. My father has moved into a care home for a trial period, which has required a lot of too-ing and fro-ing between here and the home and the family home where my mother still lives. How long this arrangement will hold out is anyone’s guess, but I suppose it has gone as stress free as it could have done although there’s still a pile of paperwork to sort out. Then this last weekend we’ve been away moving Miss T into her first flat down where she is about to start her first permanent teaching job. So, lots of carrying boxes up and down stairs and assembling flat pack furniture and so on. Then there’s all the on-line forms to do: - insurance & BT & electricity & TV licence. So, busy but satisfying. We were rushing about so much didn’t even notice that apparently we got an extra hour in bed because of the clocks going back.

Any how one of the local boys reckon these troops will let the “cat” out of the bag as to what the army is, so I’m posting pictures but no description. There is some dispute as to whether the army actually had these as the sources don’t describe the full range of equipment precisely but I reckon they did as they represent best practice at the time and make tactical sense within the army’s overall make up.

This evening I’ll undercoat some more figures in my quest to produce, at least, a DBA army out of the bits I’ve got. I suspect that the next batch will give it way if these figures haven’t done so already.

Count your blessings

2011-10-27T19:18:00.000+01:00

That last post was a bit of a moan, really. On balance whilst everything in it is true I probably shouldn’t complain about my lot. I may be spending more time chasing round after my parents than I’d ideally like, but at least I’ve still got both of them so unlike a wargaming friend who was going through the same decision making process I haven’t had to deal with a bereavement part way through the process.

And what’s more Miss T has sorted out her flat rental so we’ll all be off helping her move in over the weekend. Whilst we’ll miss her (she plays a very aggressive and devious game of “Ankh-Morpork” and introduced us to the wonderful “Big Bang Theory” amongst other things) it’s a very proud moment for any parent when their children finally strike out on their own in their first job & first grown up accommodation.

So, really I mustn’t grumble. Sure there’s lots I want to do, but if I finish it all I’ll only just come up with a load more to do as well, and the only person holding me to a timetable is me, so there’s no reason to stress myself out over it all.

You just have to sort what you do out to fit in with the time available. At the moment I don’t have the time to write new rules or put together clever scenarios. All this means for the moment is that we’ll just have to play DBA or similar on Thursday evening until the current issues are resolved.

That does mean that the painting schedule has slipped, and I regret to say that one of the local group may be getting close to guessing what it is. Still, I’ll keep posting the clues as I paint them and block him from commenting on the blog (only joking!)

Anyway, as I said above, Count Your Blessings.

Slight Distractions

2011-10-24T17:29:00.000+01:00

You may have guessed from my last post that I haven’t had a lot of chances to do much on the wargaming side of things recently. Total wargaming output in the last week would be:

1) One playtest game of “Fugitive!” – a partisan hunting PBI scenario now contained in the latest Peter Pig newsletter.

2) Three Gothic cavalry completed (ie not even painted from scratch, - just highlighted, varnished and based)

3) Miliput saddles put on 7 cavalry figures for the mystery army because the riders don’t fit.

4) 6 pages of an Osprey book read.

Apart from the game which took an evening I should think the rest is barely 3 hours of activity.

I shouldn’t really grumble, - the whole point of the blog was to highlight the sort of things that get in your way when you’re a grown-up trying to pursue a hobby best suited to teenagers and students with lots of time on their hands.

So in theory I have a lot of material to write up, only there’s not much time available for that either. I’m sort of trapped in the grown-up wargaming blogger world of older parents that sits behind and haunts bloggers more popular than me. Bob Cordery over at “Wargames Miscellany” has been chronicling the trials and tribulations of finding bungalows, homes and warden care for a while on and off now. Since the summer he’s at least been retired himself which makes more time available for solving these issues rather than trying to resolve them all in the evening and at weekends when the appropriate services mostly don’t work. For those of you out there who have parents approaching retirement my advice is that it is never to early to start planning things such as Powers of Attorney or sorting out clutter. I’ve just shredded 5 years worth of unfiled utility bills my father had accumulated in a bedside cabinet.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. Sorting out (with the able support of Mrs T & Miss T) interim respite care arrangements for my father and trying to work out if my mother can stay in the family home. When we say “interim” or “respite” what we mean is care until we all accept the inevitability of where we are.

After all we’ve gone out and bought a TV for his room in the care home, and arranged for his favourite chair to be disassembled and moved. Doesn’t sound very interim, does it?

And because I have the job in Finance I’ve been building spreadsheets with savings and pensions going in one end and care home costs we can afford coming out of the other. On top of that there’s the social workers* to deal with that mean taking a half day holiday to sit with my mother whilst she signs a pile of forms.

When we’ve got this done we’ll then have to sell my Father’s car, as it is unlikely he’ll drive again and as an asset it’s just deteriorating on the drive way. All of this involves a 50 mile, 90 minute round trip on country lanes just as the nights are getting dark after a full day in the office.

Having read that back it all sounds like a tremendous whinge, and I will now reflect on how lucky I am to have both of my parents alive and in their late 80s, and both still compos mentis, thankfully, and able to make decision.

What has thrown me particularly is that I was expecting to be very busy helping Miss T move to the South Coast to take up her new job and move into her new flat. Now what I was expecting to be a major commitment of weekend time is being squeezed into odd corners.

Where will it all end? I can’t say, but on the evidence of it so far it isn’t going to end up with a finished army in time for my annual SoA championship game with Phil.

*In fairness I’ve had to deal with two social workers over this. One was good and the other was excellent. This may have come as a shock to my parents who read the Daily Mail.

Off Topic

2011-10-23T20:53:00.000+01:00

This isn't a wargaming blog, but stick with it if you want to improve your street cred.

As some of you may know Master T is a music journalist. He sometimes gives me stuff and tells me I'll probably like it. Sometimes he really gets it right. One of his best tips ever was a band called Tellison, - an indie 5 piece guitar band that writes catchy tunes with clever lyrics. 5 young people who are good at what they do and love it too. There's none of that "X factor" rubbish, - these guys should be really big if there was any justice in the world.

I downloaded the latest album "The Wages of Fear" when it was released and have played it to death in the car. This Thursday Tellison played in a local venue, so I convinced a number of people at work to join me for the evening to see if they cut it live.

The venue was the Underground bar in the Roadmender Centre in Northampton. It has a ceiling barely 8 foot high and packed tight it'd be bad news if 250 people turned up. I haven't been in such a venue since I was a student 30 years ago.

I loved it. The beer was rubbish, it was too hot. I was the oldest guy in the room by a long shot, and I didn't care. The band were terrific, playing tunes they wrote themselves on instruments they play themselves. They deserve to be big, - download the album and help them out.

So check them out. I particularly enjoyed the video for Say Silence (Heaven & Earth) which you can see on You Tube, which features the guys apparently blowing up Dungeness Power Station, but the one for Edith on the website is fun too.

Paint from the Past

2011-10-17T20:47:00.000+01:00

Just painting some more cavalry like the last batch, and I decided one of them looked a bit regal so I did his saddle cloth in purple.

Which isn't anything remarkable except as I was putting the lid back on the pot I realised this must be the oldest pot of paint I've got.

And it's not just a little old. It is really old.

It's a pot of Matt 5042 Violet Purple. I think I bought it from a shop called Joto in Rugby, which is just across the road from the School (you know the Webb-Ellis-Tom-Brown-Harry-Flashman-A-Bit-of Buggery-Never-Did-Me-Any-Harm school). If I did that means it was probably bought around about 1982 or even earlier.

Strangely enough there's no history of Humbrol acrylic paint pots posted on the internet anywhere, so I can't date it that accurately. I know it was bought to paint some fantasy stuff, and I haven't really done that much since leaving University. It is still half full. There isn't much call for purple on historical figures.

The miracle is that even if I'm a bit out on the timings it's well over 10 years old. Why does it keep going on when other pots seem to dry out overnight?

Answers on a postcard, as ever. Plus any info on the history of humbrol paint pots gratefully received.

Can you tell what it is yet? (2)

2011-10-15T18:18:00.000+01:00

Here's the next set of figures in the mystery army (for the start of this excitement and the original clues as to what's going on see: Can you tell.... ).

There's only one element of them instead of the usual two needed for an Armati heavy cavalry unit as I've cut back on the numbers with the aim of finishing a DBA army on the way to the complete Armati set up. And they seem to have taken and age to paint.

The delay in their production has been two fold. Firstly serious bouts of Real Life have piled in on me, - my parents are getting on and we have reached a can't-really-live-at-home-don't-want-to-move stage, so there's hospitals and social workers involved. Plus there's lots of exciting stuff going on at work. And Miss T has found a flat near her new job (which is miles away) so she is preparing to move out.

The other reason is the change in painting style. These are done with a white undercoat and highlighting and a mix of magic dip varnish, inks and clear varnish to finish them off.

I'm not convinced my eyes are up to this (more Real Life - had to go to the opticians for an eye test today. I now get free tests and a discount on my lenses on account of medical history and the fact I can't see across a matchbox, let alone a room). Plus it is more fiddly to do as there's more layers to be done than compared to the Trebian method. On the other hand I can't argue that the colours are brighter than normal.

So, here we have some Gothic cavalry to go with the Moors. They're a nice active pose, although they are a bit big for the standard 40mm x 30mm bases, and overhang both front and back. They're a bit of an awkward pose to paint as well, once they're glued on the horse but I'm pleased with them.

So, any more guesses?

Polemos SPQR Again

2011-10-14T20:35:00.000+01:00

The game we tried with Polemos SPQR last week was like many first games with new rules. Quite halting with flicking backwards and forwards to find out what should be going on. So entirely consistent with Black Powder and rules that I’ve written myself sometimes (it is so embarrassing when one of your players finds something you’ve written that contradicts what you’ve just said in a game).

We were sufficiently intrigued by Polemos SPQR to want a further look at it, hopefully with less flicking through the rule book, so I sat down with President Steele on Wednesday evening to give it another go. Between us (well mostly Phil) we’re familiar with a good number of ancient rules sets, - FoG, Armati, DBM, DBMM, DBA, AMW, Impetus, Conquerors & Kings and I think Piquet. That gives us a fairly wide frame of reference for thinking about how it works as a game, which allied to our deep knowledge of the period means we’re perfect to opine on the game system.

We used the Roman and German armies we tried last week (see “SPeaQeRs Corner”) with me taking the Romans and Phil the Germans. The armies have 20 bases a piece and are standard from the Polemos rule book except I don’t have any bolt throwers so I substituted some more archers.

I spiced up the battlefield by putting out a few small woods and consequently I deployed my auxilia as unformed rather than formed troops. This is a nice feature of the rules that enables you to use auxilia either as cheap legionaries or civilized irregulars.

I don’t know what came over me really, but I put auxilia in the woods on the two wings, deployed the archers on the left wing of my legions and held my cavalry back in reserve. Phil put his tribal groups in three central blocks, his skirmishers in the wood on his right and his cavalry on his left.

Being a Roman means that you get a number of advantages if you have the tempo against a tribal opponent. It makes it harder for him to move his units and you have the initiative in combat which often works in your favour. I like the real benefits in having the initiative and going first. This contrasts with my normal favoured set of rules, Armarti, where winning the initiative usually means making your opponent go first.


First move. We're using markers to indicate what units are doing

I got the “tempo” first and moved off mostly along the whole line. My use of too many points to buy the tempo meant I couldn’t move everything. Phil responded with a staggered advance as it’s a bit awkward to get everyone moving if you are an unformed army moving second as it costs you more tempo points. Phil also started his experimental idea of shifting his cavalry into the wooded area “to see what would happen”.

I won’t do a blow-by-blow account of the game, as in spite of my best efforts to take notes and photograph every turn I just got swept up in the game and forgot. Plus, as I’ve said before, I find that type of battle report quite irritating.

Polemos is an odd beast. It is definitely very big picture stuff all along the line, with simple, bold concepts. The move sequence and the tempo bidding rather means you are micro managing a macro picture which feels a bit odd. By this I mean you give a lot of thought to what you are going to do with your tempo points but all foot units moves at the same speed (same for cavalry), for example.

A few turns in. You get the picture.

In the game Phil managed to get to grips with the light troops holding up my left flank even though their shooting and skirmishing had been effective though brief. On my centre right I took the revolutionary step of charging tribal units* with my legions. As a tactic this paid dividends in the end, but it was a protracted slog that ebbed and flowed before the tribal group was finally broken.

The moment just before all my archers ran away

Having disposed of my archers it looked like the German heavy foot was through, so I threw in one of my cavalry units to hold them up, which had mixed effect. i.e. It did hold them up, but they did suffer quite badly. On my right the tangled engagement between auxilia and German cavalry was in the balance, as the auxilia on the left put in a flank charge on a tribal group and caused some serious damage. When we finished the game I was just trying to position my last reserve cavalry group to stage a desperate charge to stop my centre being flanked.

In the balance...who has the advantage?

The second game gives me an opportunity for further reflection. We may not be playing it right still, and I have a number of questions that require me to go back to the rule book when I have more time to think. The game does play differently to the mainstream games such as FoG, DBx and Armati. I had less of a problem with this than Phil who is more deeply steeped in the genre than I am. He remarked on a number of occasions that the rules don’t work in line with how things are usually done. He particularly didn’t like the way a flank attack caused a sideways recoil resulting in a unit being destroyed. The rules indicate that this is intentional and it made sense to me at the time, but I also understand Phil's point that it just isn't done.

So do I want to revise my previous view? Not really. If you want something different and you are interested in Romans & their enemies then give these a go. The turns pass quite quickly, but to my mind “fast play” really comes from familiarity with rules a lot of the time. The battles look like ancient battles, and the units lumber around how they probably would have done. There’s little opportunity for “cheesy” or “gamey” moves, whether intentionally allowed by the rules or by accident due to poorly thought out systems. The system is broad brush and it is best to go with it. As for whether they are a set of rules purpose designed for 6mm, well, they work fine with 15mm and I can’t see why they shouldn’t with my 20mm plastics as well.

I think I’d have to say that we are unlikely to play them a lot more as a group. As I indicated above we do play a few different sets of ancient rules already, so the appetite to learn another set is probably limited. I think that is a shame but we have other projects on the go (including finishing the SNTK/SCW re-write, producing the SCW operational system and whatever goes with the “mystery army”), so fitting them in the schedule will be a challenge.

Finally, however, I hope they find an audience as they are obviously a set of rules and a subject the writer (and Pete Berry) care about and new ideas need to be aired from time to time. A lot of the conventions in modern rule sets were revolutionary once. Go on, club together with your mates and buy a copy or two.

*NB Polemos doesn’t do “warband”

SPeaQeRs Corner

2011-10-10T20:18:00.002+01:00

The thing about being an internationally famous blogger with a massive following is that not only does everybody hang on your every word but you also have people give you loads of free stuff.

Or so I’ve heard. Until that happens I’ll just have to put up with Pete Berry of Baccus letting me have the odd thing to look at. At Derby he handed me a copy of “Polemos SPQR” the recently published version of Polemos written to cover wars fought between classical period Romans and their various enemies and of course themselves with a request that I review it for him. I expect he wanted me to put something in Slingshot, which I will do, but the blog allows for almost instant gratification.

This version of Polemos is written by David Headings, who is a co-author of the ECW version, so this is his first solo flight. My experience of Polemos prior to now was limited to the first edition of the ECW rules which I have to admit didn’t go well but that may have been due to the circumstances, - first game, lots of people, one rule book, umpire not knowing what was going on. So I’ve never really gone back to them as an idea in spite of the fact that they are basically Pete Berry’s biggest rules idea since “File Leader”, and I am a fan of “File Leader”.

So I took the book and read it through. In a way it is difficult to know what Baccus think they’re trying to do here. They’ve published a set of rules into a period that is already crowded and in which the established model is to produce rules that cover every war post stone age and pre gunpowder. These cover a restricted period, - probably 300 years at most, and don't cover all the ranges they make. They don't even cover the Punic Wars. No one does that sort of thing anymore, if they ever really did. However this is probably another way of Baccus setting itself slightly apart from the mainstream as its unique selling point. Plus you might actually get a set of rules with some period flavour. After all Baccus publish separate rules for the Great Northern War and the War of Spanish Succession. Best of luck to them all I say.

The rules are cussedly set against conventional rules in other ways. There's no points system, no army lists. The idea seems to be that armies are generated randomly within set parameters. The rules are mostly clear, with good examples, and mostly free of legalese. They also avoid the bloke-iness of Black Powder that wastes space and achieves very little.

So we set up last Friday and tried a game of Romans v Germans. First up everyone had a good time and agreed that the game looked like an ancient battle and certainly had a coherent ebb and flow with thankfully little obsession over small details that bedevil other rule sets. We had a few head scratching moments whilst I flicked backwards and forwards through our only rulebook looking for answers that may not be there. After all we're used to FoG and Armati where you get a lot of rules covering everything and the answer is in there somewhere.

Polemous as a system is different and does play in a different way to most other sets. Some bits of other systems are probably buried in there, but they are mostly original. A complete wargames newcomer with no preconceptions would probably not struggle where we did. Existing fans of Polemos will probably have no issues at all. If you're not familiar with the system then there's a few things to draw to your attention:

Tempo: Control of who goes first ("controls the Tempo") is key to the game. Players have a number of control or Tempo points each turn. These are used to issue commands and also to determine who goes first. Players make bids to control the turn and these bids reduce their pool of points to make units do things. However, once a unit or group of units is given orders it does what it has been ordered to do until you give it orders to stop. This gets round the DBA PIP issue where units just stop in the middle of the battlefield completely at random when you roll a one. There's an elegance to the sytem that is quite appealing. The way Tempo points have to be spent force units into certain unit formations and groups and limits their course of action whilst not hamstringing them completely. Ingenious.

Charges: Charging is treated as a type of ranged combat, - ie it is dealt with in the same phase as shooting - as it affects the target from a distance before you get to hand to hand combat.

Base Sizes: Movement is determined in terms of Base Width (BW) & Base Depth (BD) so as long as your stuff is based up consistently it'll work with these. We used 15mm figues on 40mm wide bases and it worked fine.

The rules are sometimes imprecise when describing how things work differently with units, bases and groups (two of these are the same thing, and one is not) so they'll never be used for competitions in their current format but that doesn't bother me.

Last point is on the layout and style. The examples in the rules are very clear, with straight forward diagrams and explanations. They have the obligatory colour photo section, but at least they show figures being used in the game and aren't gratuitous eye candy. They are clearly set out with a good contents list and clear headings so you can find stuff dfairly easily. They retail for £15, which is about par for the course for this size and style of rules.

In all honestly I would not have bought these rules myself, so I'm grateful for the chance to give them a run through. We're intending to have another go on Wednesady, so I'm clealrly favourably impressed. They're definately an interesting alternative to a lot of what is out there, and I'd suggest if you want something a bit different you give these a go.

Spanish Holiday

2011-10-09T17:09:00.000+01:00


A picture of the cover, just not the one I own

A while ago I wrote that I had acquired a number of more contemporary books on the Spanish Civil War. One of these was a translation of Andre Malraux's novel "L'espoir", which was published in 1938. In Anglo-Saxon cultures it is much less well known than Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls", which was published two years later which to my mind is our loss, both as a culture and as wargamers.

I became aware of Malraux through French Literature A Level as I had to study "La Condition Humaine", his novel about the Chinese Revolution. The difference between the two novels is that Malraux was actually in Spain at the time of the events described.

My translation dates from 1938 and is called "Day's of Hope", so like the novel itself dates from before the end of the war. There is another translation called "Man's Hope", which you may find as a pair with a translation of "La Condition Humaine" called "Man's Estate". The translation I have was obviously done very quickly as it was published almost contemporarily with the French original so some of the phrasing is a bit clunky as it follows the French sentence construction in places.

I may have written elsewhere that I'm not a fan of Hemingway and his novel is of limited use to the wargamer or anyone interested in what actually happened in the war (ie what was it actually like for the people who took part). Neither of those is true of Malraux.

The novel mostly tracks the experiences of a group of airmen in an international volunteer unit (presumably based upon the unit formed by Malraux), but it weaves in the experiences of those in the militias and also of a young Communist who rises from the ranks to become a colonel and brigade commander. Various other colourful characters appear along the way, - anarchist "leaders" and traditional officers who end up fighting for the Republic.

The book starts with phone reports of Franco's rising, covers the failed attempt to stage the coup in Barcelona and ends up with the Battle of Guadalajara. As such it ends on an uplifting note with the prospect that the Republic might win.

There's lots of little details in the book you might not get elsewhere, - from the way the militias look to the way they and other units fight. There's a lot about conducting bombing raids which will be of interest to those of you who are interested in those sorts of things. Overall, whilst fiction, the book has an air of verisimilitude.

One word of warning, - the book is very "gallic". Characters sit around and discuss philosophy and the human condition a lot and that may not be to everyone's tastes, and I suppose you could easily skip those passages. Internal monologues agonise over the choices of the central players as the go on with their lives or stumble inevitably to their deaths. It is very much of its time.

However I would recommend it to anyone not familiar with Malraux and wants to read about what are in many way personal reminiscences written by someone who could write and clearly cares about the fight against fascism. Find some time in your schedule to read it, - there are plenty of copies for next to nothing on Abebooks or Amazon.

DBAnd I think I’ve lost count

2011-10-07T19:33:00.000+01:00

Boy’s night in as Mrs T & Miss T are off to find the latter a flat for when she starts her new job. In the old days we’d probably have got the beer in and had a high old time. Nowadays for those of us who live in villages no one drinks & drives so it was coffee and tea instead of beer and pretzels.

Firstly, however, I had to dash off to sort out some domestics for my parents. My father is in hospital (again) because of repeated falls and we’re trying to work with two teams of social workers as well as doctors to work out what is to be done. That did mean that instead of the gourmet meal I was going to cook for myself I ended up dashing into the local chippy for fish, chips & mushy peas (it must be said the mushy peas were a great disappointment being more runny than mushy).

However the time saved on cooking meant that I had just enough time to clear the dining room table and get the soldier boxes in so there was enough space and figures to play two games simultaneously.

Whilst waiting for the players I sorted out a couple of Wars of the Roses armies as one of our group wanted to see how that would work. Will turned up first so we set to with those. We struggled at first as they’re very similar armies and also despite DBA v2.2 being one of the most successful and commonly used sets of rules ever neither of us is a master of them. Now this was the first of four or five games I played in the evening and in all of the excitement I kind of lost track myself, so I can’t remember if I won or lost it. I think I lost it in very unlucky circumstances. Well you can usually say that about DBA, although as one of the group pointed out, for a game that is so completely based on luck isn’t it funny how the same players win repeatedly.

We were using the army list from the Fanaticus website, home of all things DBAish, which prevents you using loads of knights but overdoses on long bows. We also got the PIP cost for moving artillery wrong. That subsequently became a battle winning weapon.

As that game stuttered along our other two players turned up and had a go with those Arab armies I talked about last time I discussed DBA games. On this occasion the Arabs I used won as opposed to suffering the crushing defeat I went down to, thus proving that it is all about luck. Except when I played I lost to someone I’ve never beaten at DBA, so perhaps they know what they’re doing. As their game ran on Will & I turned to some Romans v Germans. The tightly drilled stomp of hobnailed sandals against the wild battle charge of the semi-naked is always a thrill. Will took the Romans, because he usually does, leaving me with the Germans.

Now I won this game comfortably, in no little consequence of doing a couple of 6 v 1 combat dice rolls. However, I will claim this as a triumph of my intended tactics. Warbands need to be deployed deep to stand a chance against those Legionary blades and to go for the “quick kill”. But that makes the army brittle if they lose the combat as they lose two elements if the front one breaks.

However, the quick kill strategy is the only one if you want to win, but that means you end up deploying fairly narrowly exposing your flanks. My strategy was therefore to engage in the middle asap whilst using what non-warband troops I had to fight slightly forward on the flanks and delay the inevitable encirclement until I’d broken the legions. That meant I didn’t mind losing my cavalry & psiloi if I could get myself stuck into the cohorts.

As a plan it worked out fairly well, topped off by some dynamic die rolling. I was quite pleased with this as Will, whilst not being a DBA regular, is a Roman specialist.

Of course he put it all down to luck, so this being DBA we had enough time to turn the armies round and have another go (meanwhile our two friends are still floundering around in the desert).

So for the rematch I guessed that my opponent would try similar tactics. I therefore sat back deep with my line of legionaries and used my cavalry and psiloi to force the flanks and create an envelopment before moving up and engaging the warbands with overlaps all round. This worked a treat. Will remarked that he’d never seen anyone just not move a DBA army during a game, but I think he missed what I was trying to do, so again I “lucked out” on a win.

There may be another game or two in there, but I remember finishing off with a Wars of the Roses game using the original army list from DBA v1 against Phil. We sort of both went for the Blore Heath/Bosworth option with some mounted knights that in the end became my downfall.

I’d done quite well dragging Phil’s right wing out of position by some wide flanking knights who got me a kill or two as well. My artillery misfired badly, but I managed to get out at Phil’s left flank as well before committing suicide by charging my general and his knightly bodyguard into some longbows. I’d misread the factor table (should have charged the billmen “blades”) and also the results (bows quick kill knights in the first round). Silly me.

So we finished up before midnight, just, having had a few run throughs with a variety of armies. I still don’t find DBA intuitive to play and I obviously need to pay more attention to the detail of the rules. Or at least try to understand Mr Barker’s thinking on ancient warfare.

Can you tell what it is yet?

2011-10-05T18:55:00.000+01:00

So, here's the first visual clue as to the new army. I've just finished these little fellows.

As you can see they're moors/numidians. Not much of a clue as they are pretty ubiquitous in the ancient period.

So, a second clue. The army is post 0AD.

The second batch of troops is cleaned up and sitting on the desk waiting for the glue to set. It's another (different) batch of cavalry. So far the Donnington figures are shaping up okay, but there's a lot more flash than the Peter Pig figures I'm used to, especially on the horses.

You may also note that I've changed my painting and basing style for this army. Theses figures are black undercoat with white drybrush and only minimalist magic dip varnish. The figures are then finished with a clear quick drying varnish. I'm not sure this is the final technique and the next figures may have a white undercoat with some black infill.

The bases are 2mm mdf done in my normal green then painted with PVA and flock aplied (Javis Scatter No 19 "rough pasture"). A bit of a retro style but a bit easier to work with than the normal pollyfilla approach.

Not Board

2011-10-04T21:06:00.000+01:00

I prefer, when I can, to play table top figure games. Never been a fan of board wargames (although I used to subscribe ot S&T as a teenager) but I do like family games and I have a soft spot for Munchkins and I quite like Fluxx. I like board/card games with challenging but simple rules partly because I end up having to teach the rest of the family the game and if my older brother is involved that inevitably means I get accused of cheating if I forget to tell him about a very obscure rule buried at the bottom of page 27. I don’t know, both 50+ going on 14 the pair of us.

Any how for my birthday I obtained a copy of Martin Wallace’s new Discworld board game “Ankh-Morpork”. The Collectors edition. I saw this game in development at CoW so have been waiting for it with heavy anticipation. I like Terry Pratchett’s novels and I like Martin’s game designs so it looked like it would tick the boxes as long as it wasn’t too “German” in design.

The proof is obviously in the playing, so Mrs T, young Miss T & I sat down for a game of it on Sunday evening. Fortunately it is a 4 player game so we can all play when Master T is back at Christmas. So I think this blog is sort of a review of the game.

Firstly it is true to say we all enjoyed playing it and played to a conclusion in about an hour (as stated on the box). It was a close game. I won it, but both of the other two players were a turn away from victory as well. So we’ll be playing it again, hopefully sometime soon.

The recommendation is therefore BUY THIS GAME NOW BEFORE IT SELLS OUT.

You want more details? Okay, lets start with what you actually get in the box. The art work is done by Peter Dennis who is a well known wargame type illustrator and pays attention to what he should draw rather than what he wants to draw. Consequently most if not all of the art work looks like you imagine the Discworld people and places to look like. The board is a map of Ankh-Morpork which looks lovely but doesn’t overwhelm the game. The playing cards, of which there are c200 are all different and all feature a Discworld person or place. Yes they are ALL different, and all of your Ankh-Morpork favourites look to be in there from Captain Carrot to Gaspode and the Agony Aunts. And of course Rincewind. The playing pieces are wooden and chunky in the normal Treefrog style which makes it easy to see what is going on. The rules are well laid out and readable and every player gets a quick reference card showing what the symbols on the cards mean.

The idea of the game is that the Patrician has disappeared and various people are vying for control of the city, each in their own different way. There are 7 character cards most of which have slightly different victory conditions. As there are only a maximum of 4 players in the game you can’t know for certain what victory conditions players are going for. I was the Partician (see, he hadn’t really gone away) when I won, but other characters include Commander Vimes, Chrysophase the troll and Lords Rust and Selachii.

Play in the game is by playing cards. Each card allows you to do different things, - such as deploy a minion, kill someone, take money, build a building – or may have unique text. The actions/text tie into the cards. So Rincewind enables you to move a minion away from an area where there is Trouble. Sgt Detritus removes Trouble markers. Some cards let you play extra cards as well or do other things (I like the History Monks who allow you to recycle things that have already happened). The various assassins remove minions. At the end of your go you fill up your hand and play passes to an opponent. This goes on until someone is able to claim they have won.

It all sounds very simple and reading it back a lot less exciting than the game actually is. The cleverness is in the balance of the cards and the way they interact.

What Martin has pulled off is really very clever. It is a game about Discworld but you don’t need to be a fan to enjoy the game (Mrs T has a passing interest and has read the books but would not class herself as a fan). It is a good game in its own right, the mechanisms chosen bring forward the flavour of the books. It is clearly not a cash in gimmick game to be played once and discarded.

I loved it and will be looking forward to playing it again.

Rare Treasures

2011-10-03T19:06:00.001+01:00

At Derby I had a chance to chat to some old friends and also to peruse the various stands. I find these days that I spend as much time looking at books (if not more) than looking at figures and terrain.

I always enjoy Dave Lanchester’s stand as his selection is usually very good and he is as keen on price as anyone. He has a “very rare” box which I normally skip as it always reminds me to redo my insurance. On this occasion I clocked a number of WRG “Armies & Enemies…” books in there which are hitting the £50-£60 bracket. I only wish I’d bought all of them now, instead of just those I was interested in at the time.

And then there’s the obligatory Funcken books selling for lots of dosh as well.

I noted before when writing about my attempts to track down SCW books that there are often odd books that are the only book on the subject and so command a high price. I think that the problem with the WRG books and so on is that those who own them have them for a reason and aren’t going to get rid of them on a whim. Essentially you are only going to off load the books when you lose interest in wargaming or when you die. So, those of you who want a copy of Duncan Head’s book on the Macedonian and Punic Wars are just sitting around waiting for someone to die, more or less.

I suppose other hobbies must have similar issues, but we’re not talking here about antique books. Roy Boss’s book on Justinian for Monvert (available on line for anything between £30 - £160 depending on condition) was only published in 1993. Duncan Head’s book referenced above was written in 1982 although I recall buying a brand new copy of that much more recently than that. The Funcken’s are earlier than that and some may be 50 years old I guess.

I am reminded of how people outside that hobby don’t understand what is and is not of value from re-watching “Callan” recently. There are a few episodes that resolve around really rare figures – in one of them Callan makes a copy in order to befriend a target. In another episode a potential girl friend tries to read up on Napoleon’s Army and the chosen book (yes, I stopped the DVD to check it as she hides it under a cushion) is the Funcken book on the First Empire, in the original French. I remember thinking that of the items supposedly of value in the programme that was probably up there with them now.

It is said that the specialist second hand booksellers do house clearances and that weary widows will off load the book collection for £50 just to be rid of it (although I guess that a fair number of toy soldiers may end up in land fill, so perhaps that’s a better fate). I have resolved to add some papers to my will suggesting to my children that it’ll pay dividends to them to sell my books off via Amazon and e-bay. There’s probably enough there to pay for a car.

A Wargaming Mosaic

2011-10-02T11:29:00.000+01:00

As the on-line gamers say, I've been "AFK" (Away From Keyboard) for a while what with one thing and another so here is a bits and pieces catch up.(hence a "mosaic").

I'm currently at the Derby show waiting for members of a small crowd to come and play "The Elephant in the Room". We played it several times yesterday and having dropped the elephant "quick kill" rule the elephant won more times than it lost. So far this moening difficult to get anyone to commit.

This is the end of a busy fortnight. The week before last we (Mrs T & I) were in Tunisia, doing a week long tour of the sites, - mostly Roman, a bit of arab stuff and of course some of the locations for Star Wars (Phantom Menace). We then came back to do some domestic bits and pieces before heading off for a mini tour of the Peak District ending up at Derby on the Saturday. Yes, I took TEITR for a tour of the Peak District.

So I have a lot of things to do and my painting is way behind a schedule and we really need to get on with the SOA incentive game for next year.

Updates may be few and far between over the next week or so.

Except I may post some pictures of the mosaics in Tunisia, as they're really good.

DBAction at last

2011-09-17T11:17:00.000+01:00

Thursday night saw our local DBA evening. It didn't go as smoothly as it could have done, but fun none the less.

Firstly, and most importantly in a way, I succeeded in taking my copy of DBA v1 with me, rather than the v2.2 I'd printed out and left behind on the coffee table. Our host for the evening hadn't printed a copy and when he went to do so found his PC in one of those Microsoft "loading 16 updates" things that locked it up. No worries as our third player then turned up but he'd left his copy on his desk at work.

Next, I set up a terrain board in accordance with a straight reading of the DBA v1 rules. Apparently when they say put a terrain piece in each quarter they mean in the corners where it won't get in the way. So our first game (me v Ian, Normans v Saxons) degenerated into a slogging match across a medium difficulty river.

Normans at the bottom, Saxons at the top. Obviously.

You can just make out my new 2'x2' DBA board under the terrain pieces. It's two bits of wardrobe back, joined by gaffer tape to make a folding game board (like Monopoly). You can also see my two newly made DBA hills and my usual rivers & roads sections.

This game descended into a stand off along the river line, but I managed to kill a couple of elements as Ian tried to force his way over the bridge. I then turned his left flank with some knights under William the Bastard and seized his camp. Game over.

Phil arrived part way through this game (and made the observation about overloaded terrain boards). He also brought along his Sub Roman Arthurian, and some deserty-type armies (Auxumites? Pre-Moslem Arabs??? I get lost in all the DBx army minutiae). He also brought a terrain board, but no rules. So we sent Ian off to check if he could at last print out (yes!), made some tea & coffee and had some early birthday cake for me.

I next took on Chris with those desert things. I got the army with lots of camels, not the one with warband and an elephant. Ian was now fighting the Arthurians, again with the Saxons.

Me in the foreground. Chris in darkness

I quickly demonstrated that I had no idea how to use this army. My only success was, again, sacking the camp with my General and light horse. Alas having done this thanks to a stunning 1 on the PiP dice two goes in a row Chris was able to pin me in place which meant commanding the rest of the army and harrying Chris' rear became difficult. Chris succeeded in doing a very professional number on my centre. They'll be eating camel meat for months.

In the other game Ian won really quickly through the superior tactics of rolling 6's when your opponent rolls 1's repeatedly. So they reset that game and Phil got his revenge.

Ian's left flank about to be turned

So in the end everyone won a game, and only Chris didn't lose. It's a pleasant way to pass the evening and we'll probably do it again. After all I put together DBA armies from all of my other 15mm ancient collections and never got to use them.

DBArmy choice

2011-09-13T08:57:00.000+01:00

There is a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch in which Peter Cook plays a wealthy man who wants to learn to play the piano for his wife’s birthday. The joke is that he wants to play the most complicated piece imaginable (a Beethoven piano sonata, I think) and that he wants to be able to do it the following day. He is unable to understand why this isn’t possible.

My wargaming armies are a bit like this. I chose armies because they interest me, not because they are easy to handle or are winners. And I normally want to use them the next day (or rather as soon as they’re painted). They don’t tend to be that exotic (well, mostly) as I find what I want to game with through general reading not through trawling army lists looking for something sexy.

So when looking at beginner’s guides to DBA I have a problem. Everyone assumes you are yet to pick an army and so recommend you chose one of a range of simple ones to be getting on with. Me, I want to play Beethoven. Besides, I’ve got my Anglo-Danish Saxon “loser” army already painted up and sitting in the box, alongside my “in with a chance but awkward to handle” Normans. I’m not going to go out and buy a Sea Peoples army just out of the blue. (Although to be perfectly fair this article is a really good summary of the different reasons for choosing an army, and most of mine are in there).

Of course I can always put together DBA armies from my existing armies, so it isn't like I haven't got troops to experiment with.

Harold & His Huscarls, about to put his "Fyrd" into it.

William the Bastard & his Papal Banner.

DBAven’t got a clue

2011-09-12T19:28:00.000+01:00

I don’t think I’d ever claim to be a tactical genius. I win some of my games, lose some of them and umpire the majority. I struggle with the difference between historical or game driven tactics. I also have a view that tactical finesse on the battlefield, historically, is more apparent by its absence than its ubiquity.

Particularly in the pre-modern era, where controlling large bodies of troops over any form of distance is quite hard, my view is that Generals try to get as much stuff in one place as possible and then throw it at their enemies mostly all at once.

I’m quite good at that type of tactics. It basically is quite simple, but the great Generals normally have one extra Great Idea that will make the difference in the battle. This might be:

Attacking a weak point in the line (Alexander)
Offset deployment (That Theban bloke)
Tempting your opponent into a pocket (Hannibal)
Sit back and wait for the key moment to throw in reserves. If you’ve got any (various).

I can normally count on having about one good idea an evening. If I’m lucky I’ll have it early on.

Once you get on the table top this sort of approach can pay dividends. Phil Barker is keen to stress that historical tactics win battles under the rules he has written. I found when I was younger that deploying heavily offset was quite disconcerting to an opponent and I used it as a tactic almost to death.

The other type of tactics is that which derives from the way that rules work and require you to understand the rules rather than the historical prototype warfare which they are attempting to model. If the designer has got this completely right then the two are the same. If not then it becomes a case of exploiting the rules, or at least understanding them really thoroughly. At which point I sort of start to unravel a bit as I’ve never really cared enough about any set of rules to study them that much (except perhaps the original AK47 Republic and that’s because they were so all over the place but I loved them any way as there was a really good game hidden away in there).

This musing is brought about by my attempt to refresh my DBA knowledge after many years of not even knowing where my, now out of date, rule book was. The on-line information is excellent with explanations of how it all works and so on. It is amusing that the guides on how to play run to over 70 pages for a set of rules that covers barely 2 sides of A4 even allowing for Barker-ese.

(Although in fairness the rules for chess cover one side of A4 probably, and the literature is enormous)

So…Blades are best unless they’re in bad going fighting troops that aren’t blades unless they’re on horses (that’s the opponent not the blades) or something like that. And being caught in the flank is bad. And being uphill is good if you’re anyone except artillery. But most of all, roll lots of sixes.

I can do that.

DBAmateur

2011-09-11T12:48:00.000+01:00

DBA has to be the most popular set of rules ever. The armies are easy to assemble and you can play two or three games in an evening to a clear result.

I have to confess that actually I've probably only ever played 2 or 3 games of DBA in my life, which I guess might make me a bit of a wargaming oddity. I have two DBA armies - Normans & "Anglo-Danish" - which I assembled after a trip to Hastings. I think that honestly speaking they've done more service in a matrix game of Dorylaeum than they ever did as DBA armies.

Anyhow my friend Phil has been waxing lyrical about his beautiful new DBA army (well, it does look nice, - take a look at it here: Phil's Brilliant DBA Arthurian Army) so I thought it might be nice to become more closely acquainted with the game. Especially as you can download v2.2 from the Barkers' website for free (sans Army Lists, admittedly, but you can get enough data from the Fanaticus website to put armies together). So this Thursday we're going to have a DBA evening.

The v2+ of the rules has a few changes compared to the v1 copy I've got and have previously played so I'll need to read up on them at some point this week and sort out the terrain rules as well.

I note that I'll need a camp and that they have to be a certain size and so on (smaller than an 80mm x 80mm total area for 15mm but big enough to hold an element. I've knocked up a pait of basic camps stuck on old credit cards which are approximately 9cm x 5cm so I hope they'll do. I think the photo more than does justice to them, and I feel that if I used if at a competition I'd be roundly mocked. My aim is to be able to use them for Normans, Saxons, Romans, Parthians, Ancient Germans, Yorkists & Lancastrians so simplicity is the answer. I've not put any camp followers in as the only spare figures I've got lying around are some WW2 British XIVth Army and some dervishes.


DBA camp. Stockade from matchsticks, campfire is a Peter Pig PITS marker

I've never understood Phil Barker's obsession with camps. I know from many ancient battle accounts that both sides often have a camp close by, and they form a place to rally in the event of a disaster and the sacking of them is an event of note but how significant should they be?

In DBA loss of your camp counts as 2 elements lost in a game where if you lose 4 it's game over. This has always seemed to me to be a bit off. After all, if you've completely stuffed your opponent's field army do you really mind that much if a few light horse got in amongst your baggage? I've never been good at covering things like camps, - my view has always been that the aim of a field army is to destroy the opponent's field army. Once you've done that you control the field and you can pretty much do what you want.

Loose Ends & New Beginnings

2011-09-06T18:03:00.000+01:00

Whilst I wait for the arrival of my new, surprise, army (which I suspect Mrs T may have intercepted and be holding back as a birthday present) I’ve been working of some loose ends from some older armies. Currently I’m painting up three Peter Pig tchankas. I love the look of these on the table top, but honestly I hate painting them. They don’t fit well into my painting system as they have too many nooks and crannies. I can’t work out the best way to do them, so I’ve got them stuck to sticks at the moment and I’m just trying to do the best I can with them.

After them I’ve got a few 25pdrs and jeep tows to go with my XIVth Army, and there’s always my 16th century Irish (which I named checked this time last year as needing completion) and also some Crusaders and Turks that I won at an SoA games day a few years ago. Those last two are 28mm, so they really don’t fit with my current painting system.

I’ve been filling the painting gap in other ways. I know I should be typing up some rules or working up some new scenarios but I’m a little bit unfocussed on this point at the moment. I’m looking at co-ordinating the SoA’s incentive game for 2012 but despite getting an early go ahead the project has stalled for a couple of reasons. So I’ve been making some extra roads instead and may also do some extra river/stream sections. My original sets were made from hardboard retrieved from broken up furniture and these still serve very well. They have a slight tendency to warp so my new bits are being made from plywood. This in turn gives them a slightly different colour as the plywood is quite bit lighter, but I think they’ll be okay to use together.

For figure painting I’m thinking I’ll use a different method for the new army. I normally undercoat in black as it is more forgiving as a background colour if you miss a bit when painting. The main problem with this is that it does make colours a bit dull, especially when I then varnish with the Ronseal woodstain. I’ve been wondering about moving to a grey undercoat, using vehicle paint primer in a spray can as a compromise. I used to use it years ago when I got several cans cheap in a sale, and I’ve also done the same with white. On the other hand I saw on another site (Madaxeman, I think) the idea of undercoating in black, then drybrushing in white before painting. This might be the best compromise if I water the paint down enough, - otherwise using my normal thickness I’ll end up with even more shapeless blobs than usual.

My other new beginning is a new Peter Pig army. I was recently given a PP gift voucher to the tune of £100, - pretty much as soon as I placed my recent order for the mystery army. What to spend it on? A few ideas spring to mind:

Extra SCW units (which could be):
•   Carlists,
•   Civil Guard
•   Cavalry
•   Italians

ECW Additions (for example)
•   Montrose Army
•   NMA Regiments

Africa (oh, yes, have loads of this already)
•   Humvees & US Marines

WW2
•   Early War Brits

Problems with these ideas? Firstly as Mr Pig is currently remoulding stuff in the SCW range now is a bad time to buy. Plus most of these boost my Nationalist forces and both sides are pretty much balanced at the moment, so I’d need to buy some more Republicans.

As for the ECW, - I sort of despise the adulation for Montrose and his hairy highland super troops. On the other hand I have several packets of highland command that I bought by mistake. The NMA gives me the same problem as I have with the SCW, - it boosts one side when I don’t need to.

Africa, - well AK47 Republic was one of my favourite rule sets and I badgered Martin to make Humvees so I sort of owe it to him to buy them, although we rarely if ever play the game these days.

So, early war Brits for PBI then…except the packs aren’t that numerous so a lot of repeated poses. And that’s only half the cash. Hmm.

Of course, I can put this off until I’ve finished my next project, so that’ll be in the New Year, probably. So perhaps I’ll have developed a new obsession by then.

What a problem to have!

That chess thing again

2011-08-31T17:53:00.000+01:00

I had a conversation with a non-wargamer at the weekend. She was aware of wargaming through a mutual acquaintance but didn’t really understand it. She opened the conversation with the normal “What’s it all about” “what do you actually do” that you so often get in these situations. I went into the standard type of explanation expecting to get to the dice rolling bit and have the “so it’s all luck” conversation.

But it didn’t turn out like that.

In fact the next remark was “Isn’t that a bit boring compared to chess”? The key part of this thesis was that if you always refight historical battle then they’ll always turn out the same way, whereas every game of chess is different.

I have to say that nonplussed me a bit. Apparently the reason is that every time you play chess it has so many combinations and playing different people makes it different too. I was instantly reminded of one of the best jokes from the Edinburgh fringe this year:

“I was playing chess with my friend and he said, 'Let's make this interesting'. So we stopped playing chess.”

I retorted that with a wargame you change the opponents you play as well and that results and so on varied. I think at that point the discussion sort of petered out as drinks and food came round.

There is a point, to a certain extent, that in a refight by slavishly sticking to historical deployments may force games to run in a certain way. A few years ago I ran refights of The Trebia on the Society of Ancient stand (sometimes up to a dozen times a day, - hence the soubriquet “Trebian”) and after a lot of games you could tell which way the game might go. I was using 8 units a side (compared with 16 in a chess game) but the combat system was a bit more variable so it wasn’t completely repetitive. I always used historical deployments and painted the starting positions on the board to ensure that certain bits of the game ran identically in each playing.

Phil Sabin’s view is that one of a great commander’s most important skills is deployment. This means that in his set of rules for classical ancient battles (either “Strategos” or “Lost Battles”) the opening turns involve the opposing sides deploying. That’s one of the limiting factors in chess. I so much want to see someone do an offset deployment.

Any way, on a different note I’ve decided to indulge myself. Rather than research an army and a war in massive detail and labour over rules and so on I’ve decided just to buy an army for the sheer fun of painting it and owning it.

It’s one I’ve wanted since fresher year at university when I first came across the commander in one of my earliest lectures (Dr Moore, if I recall correctly). I have no intention of buying its opponents or any other bits and pieces. I know what rules I’ll use (if I ever play with it), and for the first time pretty much ever I’m going to buy it straight off an army list (not very WD at all) because all I want to do is paint it and own it. I don’t want to discover that the troop types I want to buy aren’t in the army after all. I just want them, with their cool sounding names. I’ve even decided to change my basing and painting style for this one as well.

No clues as to what it is, - except it is in 15mm and it’s from a manufacturer I’ve never used before. Guesses are welcome.