Mail Call!

Monday's Battle Among the Tombs with Richard is in the books.  A fun game, it was, but a story to tell another time.

First, though, a rare mail call.  This year, spending has been way down beside the arrival of a few books, an occasional Slingshot magazine, a few hex-and-counter wargames, and even fewer figures.  To shake things up, a trio of packages arrived on my doorstep this week.  Wargaming packages on the doorstep are always a welcome sight.  These were no exception.

What arrived?  Let's open the packages to see!

Tufts

Since 2014 (I know, I checked!), I have been regularly ordering grass tufts from Tajima1 Miniatures out of the UK.  My last order was in 2024 when I really backed up the truck and loaded up with many boxes of these excellent self-adhesive tufts.

Needing to resupply some of the colored tufts, I began a reorder.  Prices have certainly increased since 2024 but it was the sticker shock of postage to the US that kept me from pushing "Buy."  To add insult to injury, extra import duties would be charged on shipments to the US.  Even before the import duty was accounted for, postage was going to be over USD$30 for a small package!  At that point I closed the browser and went off in search of alternatives. 

After only a little searching, I found several vendors on Amazon who offered something similar at a fraction of the price.  In fact, the eight boxes of tufts shown below, delivered, were about the same price as the shipping charge from Tajima1 alone.  While these are not self-adhesive, they are about the same size as my favored Tajima1 tufts.  We will see how this goes!

1/100 Tanks

Always on the lookout for plastic 15mm Zvezda models, a pack of five PzIVs showed up on ebay a couple of weeks ago.  Luckily, I was able to snag them for a reasonable price.

1812 The Retreat From Moscow

Finally, and the piece de resistance was a small package from England.  In this thin package was the first offering from Paul Brook in his just released Battle Chronicles series.

This small format, 60-page book arrived courtesy of Reject Lee and Ray who helped in putting this title together.  Really a nice-looking effort of a similar size to Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame series.  I must admit that the footprint of this book is preferred to the large wargaming guides that Helion has been publishing.  The Helion guides, while beautiful and comprehensive, seem a bit unwieldy to read and use.  1812 is very comfortable in hand.

A cursory flick through the book reveals a pleasing layout and easy to read text.  The text layout is accompanied by handsome game maps and photos of Ray and Lee's gorgeous 1812 Retreat from Moscow collection.

Quite a nice effort.  Well done, guys, and THANK YOU!  Now, why was my copy not autographed???

Next time, hopefully a battle report from Monday's Battle Among the Tombs.

Mixed Bag

Today's journal entry is a bit of a mixed bag with no clear direction.  Perhaps no direction at all!  

With no game on last week's schedule and visitors in and out throughout, hobby activities focused primarily on administration and preparation in short and irregular bursts.  I take that back, writing the Shiloh battle report in the previous post took a measurable block of time and concentration.  Some tasks saw completion or at least some good progress.  Others were left wanting.  Let's see what got checked off for the week.

Figure Priming.  With cold weather approaching quickly, time to jump start the figures "ready to paint" inventory before the really cold temperatures set in.  This annual fall ritual began this week.  Italian Wars, Franco-Prussian War Prussians, Sumerians, and SYW cavalry have all seen additions to the "ready to paint" pile.  Much more work to do.

Hex Terrain.  A box of wooden hexes arrived to augment both the four-inch and five-inch hex layouts.  The first batch of four-inch hexes have been painted and flocked.  With both scale hex layouts optimized for remote games, no hurry in adding to the already large stockpiles of painted and flocked hexes. Still, something to keep in work rotation. 

Flags.  With expectation that FPW Prussians will be mustering out from the painting desk, time to consider flags.  One flagsheet was created with Prussian flags along with a selection of Spanish WAS flags.  The Spanish flags are all from the talented hand of David at Not By Appointment. 

Storage Labels. While painted figures continue to fill boxes and new boxes are brought into service, I have been negligent in adding proper labels to these newly recruited storage boxes.  Fixed that this week by printing off a sheet of half dozen labels to give these unmarked boxes an identity and help in finding stuff quickly.  Well, more quickly.

Terrain.  Lastly, I tackled applying stain to the Gallia castle purchased a while back.  While it lacked a gatehouse, Vol (A Miniatures Hobby Room), scratch built a gatehouse for this massive castle.  Amazing what Vol created.  Superb effort!  The castle could use one more wall section.

OK. This week, Shiloh returns to the table in a second remote game.  Stay tuned for reports from the front on that one.

Painting, Hexing, and Gaming

Today's post is a bit of a mish-mash in a seemingly futile attempt to catch-up.

First, off the painting desk today is the first of the Hanoverian horse for the SYW/WAS project in 18mm.  Figures are from Eureka Miniatures and are part of the large tranche of figures purchased back in August.  Many more Hanoverian cavalry are in the pipeline.  These troopers trot out as the Breidenbach Dragoons.

Next up, a little work on terrain.  Having seen Ancients armies out on the table in a series of battles over flat ground, I figured it time to create a few hill hexes to break up the battlefield.  With that, 16 hill hexes and another 20 open hexes make it into the Terrain Pile.  Hexes are five inches on the flat; perfect for 120mm frontage units.

Finally, Peter and I fought the Battle of Lake Trasimene on Thursday, remotely, from his table (on Friday) in Melbourne.  Game utilized his adaptations to One Hour Wargames (OHW) and Peter's large collection of 1/72 figures.  In my mind, his amendments to OHW improve the game immensely.  I commanded the Carthaginians as Hannibal springs a trap on the Roman Army as it marches along the banks of Lake Trasimene.

Lake Trasimene
photo courtesy Gridbased wargaming

Which army was victorious?  I guess we wait until the battle report!

Two More Hanoverian Infantry Rgts

A second pair of Hanoverian infantry regiments debouches from the confines of the painting desk.  Like their comrades before, these 46 figures are Blue Moon infantry led by Eureka mounted colonels.  Regiments are Alt Zastrow (yellow trim) and Knesebeck (white trim).

Work continues slowly on producing more Hanoverians.  Next out of the gates will likely be a half-dozen guns and crew.

Before more figures march out from the painting desk, I have been distracted again.  This time, the distraction consisted of a small terrain building diversion.

Following the long run of First Manassas games, I wanted to maintain the momentum of both rules and period development by bringing another battle or two to the table.  

Having recently included three days at Gettysburg in my May ACW battlefield tours, restaging some of the Gettysburg action seemed reasonable if not warranted.  First sector of the battle to investigate is Hood's attack on the Round Tops on July 2nd.  As I began laying out the hex tiles, I soon discovered that the table required a handful more hill hexes.  While I was at it, I could use some brown tiles as well.  Having gone this far, I may as well finish off the remainder of the four-inch hexes from my Wood Pile.

That I did.

This week, work concentrates on putting together a scenario to refight a part of Longstreet’s Gettysburg action.  Table is set and details are being tuned.  The first game is scheduled for Thursday with the group fresh off victory (or defeat) in some of the recent, remote First Manassas battles.

Battle briefings likely to go out later today.

As a non sequitur, I rediscovered the game photo below from a past gaming high point.  The photo shows my American pilot taking out a pair of StuGs in 1944 Germany.  Great fun!  I wonder if I have any more photos from that game?  I never made it to the point of writing up a battle report.  Well, at least one photo was not lost.

ECW Horse and a Fort

The first week of the New Year begins with a bang!

Not only do I have a few year-end wargaming wrap-ups to pound out, another installation of the Great Wargaming Survey analysis to finish, but I hosted three remote games too.  Add into those activities some time at the painting desk and it has been an busy week.

While finished units are lingering in the photo shoot queue, I managed to get one of these loiterers off the To Do plate.

Mustering out today is a nine-figure regiment of ECW horse regiment from TAG.  Good sculpts and a joy to paint but the swords seem a wee bit spindly and fragile.  We will see how they hold up under the rigors of battlefield conditions.  I may be reaching near the bottom of The Lead Pile for TAG ECW figures picked up in a large lot many years ago.  Hooray for that!

After a nearly two-month delay, a HUGE box plopped onto my doorstep this week.  Inside was a very well packaged walled desert town for 28mm figures.  This piece is massive with a footprint of about two feet square.  Beautiful work.  I am shocked it made it through the post intact.  Roofs are removable and many of the gates open.

My plan is to push this piece into service for North Africa, Middle East, Spain, and perhaps even the Northwest Frontier. What about the American Old Southwest sans dome?  Why not?  I may simply use it as a backdrop too.  Perhaps I need a new project to more frequently employ this grand feature?

On the painting desk is another WotR Battle (Somerset) of 52 figures and several War of Austrian Succession infantry regiments.  Oh, I have battle reports to write too.

Impetvs and the Joy of Hex

Having enjoyed the series of Samurai Battles scenarios using Basic Impetvs on a grid and 15mm figures, I wanted to expand this combination to include my many 28mm collections based for Impetvs.  Given that the hexes used in the 15mm Samurai games were four inches and too small for my 120mm 28mm BMU frontages, I needed a new plan.  That plan was to build hex tiles that were five inches.  Well, I finally got around to making that plan a reality this weekend.

Hex tile piles ready for deployment.

130 wooden hexes were painted, textured, and topped off with a clear matte sealer to create a 13 x 10 hex grid.  Large enough for a reasonably sized battle but not too large to prevent the remote webcam from covering the entire battlefield.  This layout can also be utilized for Commands & Colors if I so choose.     

130 hex tile grid laid out on table.

To kill two birds with one stone (showing the hex tiles in action and parading the Sumerians), I demonstrate the results with the Sumerian collection.  My hunch was correct on collection size.  Sufficient forces have mustered out to field two almost identical Sumerian armies.  Looks like I could use more massed archers.  The armies are a mix of Newline Designs and Wargames Foundry.  Now I need to put in place modifications for my variant on BI2.0 for Sumerian battles.

These armies and new hex tiles will get their Baptism of Fire in a Thursday F2F match.  If this proves a success then all of my Impetvs-based collections may see action on a grid.

Filling In Holes

The theme of today's post is about filling in holes.

First up, Hittites; Hittite bowmen, skirmishers to be exact.

With Ian intent on reigniting work on his Late Bronze Age rules, I offered up my troops and table for remote playtesting.  One problem I faced is that Ian's rules require a number of skirmisher units wielding either bow, javelin, or melee weapon.  Having patterned my Hittite Army primarily from Impetvs (or TtS!) lists, I did not field many skirmishers.  To correct for this under-representation, I pressed several units into the painting queue.

To that goal, first off the workbench are four, four-figure stands of Hittite bowmen.  Figures are 28mm Newline Designs.  A similar number of javelinmen will likely be next in this project augmentation.

The second hole to plug is a shortage of four-inch flocked hexes.

40 more hexes

With the recent battery of AWI games on hexes, thoughts of larger hex-based games have been turning over in my head.  Larger games require more hexes.  To address this shortfall, I finished 40 more four-inch, flocked hexes.  These hexes ought to be sufficient to increase the hex grid by two rows in both axes.

The third hole I am entertaining thoughts of filling is replacing a roster system of tracking casualties and unit attributes with an on-table marker approach.  Not really a hole but a redirection.  With Richard's WotR rules in playtest, he uses a roster system to track casualties, morale, armor, and other attributes.

Prototype stat and attribute scheme

The rostering system works well especially when the GM handles all of the tracking and computations.  For my own use, I prefer keeping my focus on the gaming table to reduce paper shuffling and back-and-forth glances from table to roster.  Still early versioning but I think I may have a workable prototype solution for my own needs.  The attribute labels on the right-hand side of each melee line could be decreased in size.  Richard is willing to give this system a try. We will see if this scheme works in practice.  Hopefully a test in the near future is possible.

The final hole to fill is a gaping hole in the basement ensuite bedroom.

Yes, quite an unpleasant discovery on Monday afternoon.  Last used by house guests at the end of July, Nancy went into the room and came out stating that "we have a big problem."  Well, often times, the "big problem" is not that big but this time, indeed, it was.  When I went in to inspect, the ceiling was bulging down, heavy with water.  The bed underneath the ceiling was damp but not soaked.  Pushing the bed into the center of the room and cutting away a section of the damage in search of the source of the leak revealed the culprit; an adhesive failure at an elbow joint.  Calls to a plumber and insurance got the leak fixed and damage mitigation pushed into motion on Tuesday.  This reconstruction work will likely disrupt gaming activities for awhile.  With another house guest planned for end of month, a lot of luck is needed to see the suite serviceable in time.

Given the maintenance issue described above, yesterday marked only the second Tuesday remote game with my UK friends missed since I began gaming with them last November.  Too bad too as I was scheduled to take to the air in a new Fokker triplane.  Maybe next time?

WoFun Alamo’de

The Alamo lined with defenders

Kevin enjoys terrain projects.  The latest project tackled is a reproduction of the Alamo in about 1/100.  The modeled detail of the mission complex is impressive.  This custom fortification was built to accommodate WoFun's 18mm flat, plexiglass figures.  Having built the defenses up over time, the famous structure was put down onto the gaming table for a trial game over the weekend.

Santa Anna's Army arrayed for the assault

Mexican Army arrayed for battle

Although I was not present at the game, Kevin sent along some photos of the initial dispositions of the battle.  The Alamo, itself, is a splendid structure.  With defenders guarding every nook and cranny of the mission and the colorful Mexican Army surrounding the complex, the project comes to life.

The plexiglass figures come pre-painted and look amazing en masse.  At a reasonable cost, armies can be fielded almost instantly.  Played upon a grid, rules used for the battle are a version of Commands & Colors.  With a bit of luck, I may get to give the battle a try in two weeks' time in a one-on-one game during our socially distancing times.

What do you think of Kevin's mission complex and WoFun's pre-painted flats?  Both look terrific to me.  Arrayed for battle, this collection offers a magnificent sight. 

SYW Prussian Artillery and Earthworks

Although not off the production line in time to see action at Zorndorf, two Prussian howitzers and a 12 lb battery roll out from the painting desk.  These two howitzers will definitely see action when Kunersdorf takes to the gaming table.  Figures are Eureka Miniatures.  Nice figures and about time I got around to painting them.

As for the Battle of Kunersdorf, good progress was made over the weekend.  The terrain was laid out including the construction of the earthworks present all along the ridge where the Russians deployed historically.  With the defensive works at Kunersdorf in mind, I placed a test order from Battlescale in early November for a number of 10mm earthworks. 

Defenses on the Mühlberg

After the order arrived, I set to work painting and flocking the pieces.  The initial order contained 27 pieces of earthworks.  Making them battle-ready was not too big of an effort.  Great pieces that should work for earthworks and redoubts for 10mm to 18mm figures.  What I found, though, was that 27 pieces of earthworks would not cover the entirety of the ridge.  Given that shortfall, a second order to Battlescale was sent off.  I am awaiting the arrival of the second order.

The earthworks are nicely cast with good detail.  The earthworks are backed by post and plank with earth piled up against one side.  With post and planks painted and the tailings flocked, the result is quite convincing.   

Earthworks detail

Even if Kunersdorf was to be presented before the additional earthworks arrive, most of the critical Russian positions would be protected.