Work in progress......

Its the Vendee!

The purpose of any hobby or interest must be to transport the individual to another place and or time where they can experience a different world. I think that's why so many films and novels just don't do that for me anymore. I'm too old and have seen to much in too many different places.

However, sometimes something just grabs you by the bits and says, this is really interesting lets go! If I had the time, money and freedom I'd be off to the Vendee tomorrow. Perhaps I should already have been there.

So today, amongst other important domestic activities I have been busy planning a version of "a la Carte" for the Vendee based on the battle of Cholet in 1793. First job has been to knock up some counters. I have some great stuff from Junior General which has not required too much effort.

I have printed out some trial counters but these are a little disappointing so the following are snaps from the screen.

Henri de La Rochejacquelein perhaps?

Evil Republicans (boo)!

Revolting Catholic peasants

And here is a close up of the revolting peasants. I'm really pleased with these. They are based on Daniel Harper's United Irishmen from Junior General and require only some minor colour changes, a new hat and some sacred heart badges. Unfortunately all this lovely detail does not come through on the final counters.

Never mind, I'm sure I'll find a way of getting this onto some counters. More to come this week I hope.

Operation Crossfire

And two questions.....

...and a comment. 

Why have I never bought Crossfire? I've no idea but as it has been reprinted I'd better get a copy.

Why doesn't Crossfire use hexes? I don't know but maybe they didn't have hexes in the olden days (as my children point out) or perhaps, as I might say, we were too stupid to realise that we could use hexes anytime we like!

My comment is that this bloke is a nutter but if you want to know about slinging techniques then he is your man. Top bloke.

Rembarre!

Some thoughts on where to next...

A combination of health and work issues are keeping me very quiet on the hobby front at the moment. Nothing to worry about but but I'm feeling a bit semi-detached at present.

Henri de La Rochejacquelein at the Battle of Cholet

However, yesterday I picked up the latest WSS. It fell a bit flat with me, other may disagree of course, but I didn't get excited until I came across Rob Harper's article on the Battle of Cholet 1793, as illustrated above. For those of you not in the know, this was one of the key battles of the war in the Vendee. This is an extremely interesting war which still causes quite a bit of historiographical discussion in France. It has got rebels, ex-Royalist regular troops, the potential for emigres and British support, foreign fighters (I've heard that one before) and competing and incompetent republican generals. Simply brilliant.

The best bit is that WSS did not include two other articles by Rob including a general introduction and an item on the battle of Thouars. You can get these on the WSS site for knowt. There is also a surprisingly good article on Wikipedia which is well worth a read.

I have kept a series of articles from the old Miniature Wargames covering some of the key battles of the war in the Vendee with a period specific set of rules. Lovely and something to have a go at over the summer, while watching some rugby I hope!

The other interesting thing that I came across this weekend is the first edition of a new periodical called Panzerfauste Quarterly. Panzergrenadier Dwarves anybody? Get it for nothing from Wargames Vault, it is by Hysterical Games. Well worth a look.

Its here!

The Great War

It has been six months almost to the day since the Kickstarter kicked-off and now it has arrived, and with some extra bits.  

The box of course, slightly dinged from the inclusion of the extra sprues outside the box which got pressed into the cardboard during posting. Nice all the same.

Big and nice 13 by 11 hex map board. Green one side (for early war) and brown the other (for the muddy bits). The hex grid runs up to the edge at the sides therefore allowing it to be easily butted up to other maps for epic (Overlord for M44 types) games.

Eight metal generals, one of the extra bits. I'm hard pushed to put them all into their correct nationalities, I think we need a guide!

Mine came with five 18pdrs and five 77mms and their crews. The 18pdr looks good. Plastic is hard (a little brittle perhaps). The gun snaps together nicely but feels very light, as do the gunners. Since these models are for the representation of off board fire (reserve artillery), then they can be appropriately based without any game problems.

German sprue from the starter box. These look good. Nicely molded and not too fragile. Still worried that they might be too brittle. Time will tell. I must admit I fancy painting these guys up and mounting them on pennies (or similar) to give them some weight.

Here is a nice video review of the whole product if you want to see some more.

So far very happy. I've not found the voucher yet, I'll have to drop them a line. All this and the rugby world cup on the way too. Hurrah!

Inspiration

Not that I need any extra....

I seem to have inspiration coming out of my ears lately. Well, that's what I'm saying it is!

Currently on the stocks are some early war British tanks and stuff. These may or may not be entirely related to the KISS My Arras project. My slight hesitation in allocating them to this game is that my original intention was to use 6mm toys, the following are, of course, 15mm!

My painted up Zvezda dingo, bigger than real life

A&A Miniatures Matilda II repainted

Nice new A10 from Zvezda with A&A Miniatures
Crusader cunningly disguised as an A10

I am experiencing some excitement at the prospect of receiving the PSC Great War game shortly. It may even arrive next week. This, plus my recent re-reading of Volley Fire has caused me to take another look at Square Bashing (first edition). Just look at these great photos from the RFCM Yahoo Group....

These were posted by cycleman572004 and show his use of some great orginal Airfix Germans and some Hat French. The inspiration here is that he has used single 1/72 figures in place of 15mm bases. Lots cheaper and allowing a smaller battlefield size. I'll be giving this some more thought. Check out his other photos because they are fantastic.

I'm hoping not to make any more random Zvezda purchases, excluding the U-2 and Blenheim that happened to just pop into my rucksack the other day, so I can get round to sorting out the rest of the Firestorm Neuve Chapelle.

Volley Fire

Nice rules....

Following a comment on my last post I thought it would be nice to provide a bit more information about these rules by Nick Bouette.

I got these a very long time ago from Irregular Miniatures. A quick check on their website indicates they are no longer available, at least from them.

These rules use a six by six square grid, any size really depending on the scale of the troops used. Bob Cordery has provided a good description of the mechanics in an earlier post on his blog so no need to go into detail here.

When I got these rules I was very interested in using them to game the 1918 German offensive against the British. I felt these rules would be very effective at showing the use of barbed wire, trenches and redoubts and also that they would easily cope with tanks as well as stormtroops (diagonal moves for these guys). Happily I have boxes (and boxes) of Hat and Revell troops for the period and a load of tanks, all in 1/72. I like to think that this project is not delayed, it is maturing!

There is a very interesting sidebar to these rules. The use of a lead unit in each square to act as attacker and defender and the use of terms such as "spent" for units taking damage, indicate a lineage going back to Avalon Hill's Turning Point: Stalingrad. 

Any excuse to use a picture of a great map like this!

Free stuff

I have mentioned Clayton J Callahan before on this blog. This guy is a character: soldier, Federal Agent and science fiction writer as well as wargamer. I admire his enthusiasm and highly recommend you get a copy of his Battlefields: From Broadswords to Bullets. A unique and simple introductory set of figure rules for plastic men from ancient times to the far future. Get them here for free (for the rest of this month) and share the simple joy of playing toy soldiers as God and nature intended!

Favourite Rules

Just the five?

I was reading David Crook's Wargaming Odyssey earlier today in which he has come up with his top five favourite sets of rules. I wondered whether I would be able to arrive at a similar list. Tough choices. However, you need to set appropriate criteria. In my case, as I rarely play anything straight out of the box, my favourite rules are those which I have plundered most for ideas. These are, basically, the ones I have carried around with the the longest and which are therefore the most widely traveled.

1. Battle: Charles Grant

I have carried this around since I bought it in Scotland about 45 years ago. This drove my early "proper" gaming. The original Meccano Magazine articles are available (officially of course) on the web.

2. Warring Empires: Chris Pringle

This set me off on the 19C gaming kick. Highly innovative rules which led on, unfortunately, to Principles of War by people that missed the point of the original set. Nice to see Chris return to 19C in Bloody Big Battles. However, these are still available from Irregular for a fiver!

3. AK47: RFCM

That's Mr Pig to you and me. No picture here because the cover of the first edition is pretty naff. Great rules and ones which I much prefer to the later second edition. probably the only set of figure gaming rules I'm happy to use without some sort of grid. Also, a top choice as the basis for a future WW2 set.

4. Volley Fire: Nick Bouette

An unusual basic set of rules using card activation and a small 6 by 6 grid.

As you can tell, these are getting a bit knackered. I get these out very now and again for inspiration.

5. If I had got Blucher this would be number five but I haven't so it is probably PBI second edition by RFCM: You never know, this might arrive for Father's Day (hint). Otherwise, its the second PBI which I still think is probably one of the best small unit WW2 games going. Playing it reminds me of reading 18 Platoon by Sidney Jary.

That leaves a lot out including Bruce Rea-Taylor's OMG game, Rapid Fire, Clive Lane's hex grid rules (still in the garage) and many others.

In case you were wondering, I'm still working on the Neuve Chapelle game which is coming on quite nicely, hence limited recent blogging.