Spoils of War

Derby Worlds 2014

A short dash up the M1 followed by a lengthy wait in the rain to get in. The Castle Donnington site is nothing like as good as the Derby University Atrium (I have said that before). This time round, with plenty of rain and low clouds, it was darker inside than usual. It may well be my eyesight, which is not good, but I found it very difficult to see what was going on. Being wet didn't help. Needless to say, I didn't stay long. 

I had a few things on my shopping list but perhaps the weather made me less inclined to purchase. I saw but did not buy Chain of Command and Crossfire. Nothing much else took my fancy until I got to the Parabellum stall where I found......

Joy of joys! A bit pricey but given that it is out of production I'm not complaining. Also, I found some useful chaps for a future Waterloo Dutch-Belgian contingent as well as doubling up for an 1812 US army...

Last but not least, some extra troops for my emerging Russian Front armies to play an early war variant of Norm Smith's Tigers at Minsk game.

I have had a poor year for the shows. I usually get to WMMS at Wolverhampton but this year was busy working. I also usually get to Claymore in Edinburgh but by good fortune I was there a week early at the Commonwealth Games. I think Derby will be my last outing this year, there is Birmingham Wargamer in late November but this is over by Stourbridge which is a bit of a hike. Never mind, I have some lovely Wurttemberg cavalry to play with!

Napoleonic hex grid game part 2

And not without some diversionary activity!

Earlier this month I completed my first attempt at turning Neil Thomas' Napoleonic rules into a hex based game using an 8 by 6 hex grid. I have now had a chance to reflect on this at the seaside and have brought home some further thoughts as well as lots of extra sand....

Waterloo on an 8 by 6 hex grid

One of my earlier issues was how do I test out the rules before my Wurttembergers are ready? The answer is to knock up some counters and play on a hex map. I found that the map I drew at the beach bore a close resemblance to the battlefield of Waterloo so that is what I have ended up doing. I have also developed an OB which sees 14 French units battle it out with 13 Anglo-Dutch and Prussian units. More on this shortly.

One solution is to simply use the tiny chaps from the Worthington Games' 100 Days game as illustrated above. This looks good and formations can be shown. Another option is to make my own counters. I have had a go and come up with some nice Austrian and Bavarian types.

Corporal Jones is second from left

The Bavarians are considerably smarter!

These are based on nice images from the Junior General website and these are by Daniel Harper and J Bignell respectively.

Last, but definitely not least, I have pondered the rules and made some changes in the new v2. I have reduced the movement distances for cavalry and have generally made it easier for units to change facing as well as removing quite a few other restrictions. As with the first attempt, the idea is to have a simple game with lots of rock, scissors and paper effects. We will see how these play out but I suspect further work will be needed.

Summer breeze

Blowing through the jasmine in my mind....

I'm outdoors building a fence so have not had much time for deep thought. I could certainly do with a nice summer breeze rather than 100% humidity and passing thunderstorms. However, three things have recently impinged on my consciousness:

Firestorm Cherbourg: I have now read the rules through and confirmed that it is possible to play Caen and Cherbourg as linked campaigns. Hurrah.

Wurttembergers: Well, would you Adam and Eve it. Mention Wurttembergers once or twice and they crop up everywhere! Monsieur le Rosbif and Johnny Frog have a friend with nice Front Rank Wurttembergers. Glorious.

Fields of Battle 1: Great Northern War: I've been following the development of this game. It features eight battles each with its own map. It looks great (sorry I mean fantastic!) and I hope it is not out of my price range. The publisher has just put out an update on progress so this one looks like a runner in the fairly near future.

Gruss Gott Wurttemburg!

Its their way of saying hello!

Or so says a very nice brochure about Wurttemberg which I chanced upon today. I was looking for some amusing anecdotes about the place or perhaps some famous Wurttembergers. If there are any, they are keeping their heads down. Prosperous, industrious and very attractive. A very middle class south German state which is very difficult to take the mick out of. Honest!

Horse Artillery

So why do I have a thing about Wurttembergers. They don't even seem to have any famous food? Well, once upon a time in Airfix Magazine I saw some French Napoleonic infantry painted up as Westphalians with a suggestion that gamers look at the Confederation of the Rhine for inspiration and I thought, that's a good idea. So here I am with some Wurttembergers looking for action (about 40 years on).

Pink's in

They certainly had plenty of that during the Napoleonic Wars:

• 1803-06 3rd Coalition: With the French against Austria, Russia and Britain
• 1806-07 4th Coalition: With the French against Prussia, Russia and Britain
• 1809 5th Coalition: With France against Austria and Britain
• 1812-14 6th Coalition: With France against everyone and then, from 1813, with the good guys against France.

The good thing about these types of armies is that they were so small (12,000 odd for the Wurttemberg contribution to the Confederation of the Rhine) that you can get a real feel for the force within the eight unit limit set for Neil Thomas's Napoleonic armies. My list and my initial view of the paint scheme is here.

Alarums and excursions

"Noisy, frantic or disorganised activity"

Yes, that's me alright, plenty of disorganised action over the past week, unexpected family activity of all sorts. Nevertheless, still surprisingly interesting from a wargaming point of view. Not so much a blog post as a list of stuff that has occurred!

1. PSC Universal Carriers: These little guys have been sitting in the study since Derby last autumn. Spurred on by the completion of the Shermans they are now ready for painting.

2. An actual excursion: To the West Midlands Air Museum. A lovely place with a Vulcan and other bits and pieces including this Mi 24. No opportunity to sit in the pilot's seat this time round but still a cool looking weapon.

3. Wurttembergers: Honest, one minute they were on the shelf next minute I'd paid for them. Whoops. Nice trip to Joto Hobbies in Rugby. These lads will come in very useful in future (oh yes they will).

4. Twilight of the Sun King by Andrew Colby and Steve Thomas: A set of rules from the Pike and Shot Society. Now ordered as a result of some thinking about rules by Steven Simpson on which these are based. Looking forward to getting these over Easter (hopefully).

5. Firestorm Norway: This cheered me up, due out this Thursday on the Flames of War site. I've always thought that Firestorm offers some really interesting gaming possibilities and its nice to know that we have another installment, this time Norway 1940.

6. Song of Drums and Shakos: After reading the interview with Andrea Sfiligoi in the latest edition of WSS I was tempted to put his latest rules, "A Fistful of Kung Fu", on my shopping list. Diverted recently by Board Game Geek I rediscovered this earlier work on Napoleonic skirmish by Andrea's company, Ganesha Games. Now joined by a supplement and a large battles version. Hmmm, this might be a job for the Wurttembergers!

7. Two Buck Games: I have bought their latest War of 1812 Battle Pack along with their AWI Southern Campaign Battle Pack. By my reckoning this is 21 small board games for less than $10. Can't be bad. Something for the holidays!