2016 Scoreboard

The film spin-off skirmish game, Terminator Genisys, was
my last game of the year. It's well designed and was
fun to play. I did just scrape a win even though all 
my surviving Terminators had been reduced to
Crawlers.

Owing to other commitments and distractions my painting and gaming achievements continued to decline during 2016. I completed the armies for only one game - 15mm Portuguese / Dutch / Spanish armies for Irregular Wars. I did, however, create usable if unpainted 10mm Seven Years War armies for Maurice.

I also started 15mm Sci-Fi armies for Gruntz 15mm, collected 15mm Japanese armies for Irregular Wars, collected 10mm Chinese Warlord armies for Red Actions, and bought a first batch of 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures for Bloody Big Battles!

Perhaps that doesn't sound too bad, but my gaming total was very poor. This year I managed only 17 games. These were:

Bloody Big Battles! 3
Irregular Wars 3
C&C Battlecry 3
Might & Reason 2
Gorechosen 2
C&C Napoleonics 1
C&C Great War 1
Terminator Genisys 1
Other 1

The 'other' was a gangster skirmish game devised by a fellow club member, Bernard, and based on a set of cowboy rules possibly called Fistful of Aces. The games in bold are my own.

This is not a great total but all these games were enjoyable and worthwhile, which is the important thing.

Perhaps I should also mention that this is the forty-second post to the blog this year, the highest ever. Some may suspect that blogging is detracting from painting and gaming. Perhaps so. Nonetheless, I have had some very helpful feedback as a result of floating ideas here first so it's not a complete distraction.

My next post will be in the new year and will outline my plans and resolutions for 2017.

Bloody Big Battles of WW2

WW2 at grand-tactical level on Bob Mackenzie's
website. 

I was always intending to have a crack at the 1940 campaign in France using Megablitz, or, more likely, the hex-based Hexblitz variant, using 3mm models. Now there is a new option for WW2 grand tactical/operational rules in beta, Bloody Big World War Two Battles, an extension of Chris Pringle's 19th Century Bloody Big Battles! It will be interesting to see how well a set of 19th Century rules can spawn a WW2 derivative. At this operational level with its inevitable abstractions I see no reason why it shouldn't.

The big advantage of something coming from the BBB stable is that it will be driven by historical scenarios. The provision of OOBs and maps will save months of research that would probably never be adequate anyway. Are historical scenarios obligatory for an operational level game? Well, they're not going to be possible for depicting the 'Cold War gone hot' because it never happened, but in general historical actuality does seem to go hand in hand with grand tactical wargaming.

BBWW2B uses 3" bases and a ground scale of 3" to the kilometre at the regimental level or 6" to the kilometre at battalion level. Bob Mackenzie, who is developing this WW2 variant, uses existing 6mm models on sabots which is not merely decorative but apparently allows for removal of casualties.

Bob Mackenzie's website has some some BBWW2B scenarios including battle reports and photos. Click on What's New to find them. Further details can be found on Chris Pringle's blog and the BBB Yahoo Group.

Bloody Big Battles! - basing figures 3

I have to admit that I didn't like the suggested basing for Skirmisher stands in Bloody Big Battles! and wrote about it here. I suggested the use of Skirmisher markers, thinking that there wasn't enough room on a 1" stand for additional skirmisher figures. Since getting my hands on some actual Baccus 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures, however, I think it is practical - for 6mm figures - to get skirmishers onto an ordinary base by placing the formed troops at the back. And that's not the only way in which my plans have changed.

The left-hand Imperial French infantry base (above) has a Skirmisher characteristic. The other one doesn't. The Baccus strips of formed figures have been clipped so the figures fill the MDF bases from side-to-side. However, I think it will be difficult to texture the MDF when the figure bases are flush with the edge. I've therefore rejected the idea of having five figures in line. Simply adding two strips per base will keep everything simpler (below).

I had assumed that two skirmisher figures would be needed, but one figure makes the point just as well if not better (above). This is obviously a more abstract representation than I had originally planned.

Heavy cavalry will be three-up as expected. Light cavalry might have two.

1" bases provide plenty of room for a gun and four crew. 

Tools of the trade

Thicker than water?

I've always thinned acrylic paint with water,  but proper acrylic thinner is said to improve flow and coverage. So I ordered some Vallejo acrylic medium which is apparently the same stuff used in the paint but without the pigment. The reason for this extra care is the prospect of painting 6mm figures.

Shiny new scalpels and lots of new ways to cut your fingers.

A visit to a homestore chain, The Range, produced a nice set of scalpels and a packet of small-to-medium sized files. I have in the past tended to crimp on dedicated modelling tools but now I pick up whatever looks like it might be useful.

Something to file away for the future.

15mm Samurai for Irregular Wars

Japanese armed peasants join the lead mountain...

I bought some 15mm Two Dragons Samurai years ago to do a DBR army. There weren't enough figures and they've sat in a box ever since. But then I realised that with a few extras they would make an army for Irregular Wars. So I bought the extras and an Ikko-Ikki army to oppose them.

The Two Dragons figures are now sold through the Minifigs website and dispatched by Caliver Books. I'm very pleased to see that after all these years the castings are still excellent quality.

The only thing I'm now lacking is a portable shrine for the Ikko-Ikki which nobody seems to make in 15mm but which should be easy enough to scratch-build.

Reading Warfare - scenery grab and Bloody Big Battles! game

I had a very productive day at Reading Warfare last Saturday. I spent the morning accumulating scatter scenery for my Gruntz 15mm Sci-Fi skirmish project and some 10mm houses suitable for my Chinese Warlord Era Red Actions project. In the afternoon I was privileged to participate in a game of Bloody Big Battles! organised by its author Chris Pringle and his comrades from the Oxford Wargames Society.

Scatter scenery. I regret that I didn't note the names of the suppliers.

I'll write in more detail about my Gruntz scenery plans another time, but this shows the sort of thing I'm collecting or making for my grungy, post-Apocalyptic environment. Scatter scenery will be either low enough to provide cover or high enough to block line of sight.

10mm Far Eastern houses.

The houses come from two sources. The painted ones are Epsilon buildings from Pendraken while the remainder are from the Timecast Vietnam range. The Epsilon buildings are a slightly larger interpretation of 10mm but I think they will work well enough together. I was a bit unsure whether Vietnamese buildings would do for China, but I did a lot of Googling and am satisfied that similar buildings could be found in China.

The fallback position of the Bavarian I Korps at Loigny.

I arrived at Oxford's Bloody Big Battles! table at about 2pm, just as their second game of the Loigny/Poupry 1870 scenario was about to start. I was keen to play with the experts and was delighted to be given command of the I Bavarian Korps on the German right.

I was tempted to take advantage of the towns near the enemy edge of the table, but this forward defence was overwhelmed by the superior French numbers. I then fell back in line with the objective I was defending (Loigny). Hanging on to this was very touch-and-go the whole afternoon, but I just managed to do so. I was a bit rusty on the rules but got a lot of guidance, including tactical advice. After a while I began to make my own decisions, not that these always proved to be a good idea.

I didn't have much chance to take in what was happening on the German left or centre but did witness the final German assault on the left wing which, in the last (tenth) turn of the scenario, regained Poupry. This was very exciting to see and put all three objectives firmly in German hands. The game was over by 5pm, so it had taken four plus people nearly three hours of playing. Once again I felt I had relived history or an alternative history.

I also had a chat with Chris about doing the Urabi Revolt (Tel-el-Kebir) with BBB. I have been thinking about that for quite a long time because of an ancestral connection (British side) but Chris pointed out that it was a bit of a walkover and I realised that it wouldn't make for a very balanced game. I am thus able to cross something off my to-do list!

 I really enjoyed the afternoon and must make the effort to play BBB more. I will probably send off for some sample Baccus 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures, decide how I am actually going to base them and then put in a full order.

Flight and other bases for Gruntz 15mm

I usually base figures on a combination of steel and MDF, the former for storage and transportation in magnetic-lined boxes and the latter for thickness so that players are encouraged to handle the bases rather than the figures.

With individual figures and models it is inevitable that players will pick them up by the figure/model rather than by the  base, but this isn't too much of a problem with the Sci-Fi figures as they are generally quite robust and don't have fragile bits like bayonets and flag poles. Accordingly, there isn't much point in doing thick bases so I'm just putting the infantry on coins and the vehicles directly onto steel.

Following the use of the coins I decided to use round bases for the mecha and grav vehicles, and rectangular bases omly for tracked and wheeled vehicles. In all cases these will be of minimum size and unobtrusive.

The grav bikes, drones, VTOLs and grav AFVs presented the most novel challenge as they are not like anything I've had to cope with before. Grav vehicles need to be off the ground but no more than necessary.

Bloody Big Battles! - Gettysburg game blow by blow

This is the blow-by-blow account in photos of the BBB! Gettysburg game which I first reported on here. It was difficult to recall all the detail even directly after the game, and harder still at this remove in time. But if you study the photos you should be able to follow the main flow of the battle.

Unfortunately, it's a little difficult to tell the two sides apart in the photos. It may be clearer if you click on the photos to enlarge them and look for the ID markers which are predominantly grey or blue. The large numbers are turn indicators for the benefit of the camera.

The battle was fought on a blown-up version of the map. The map squares are only 8" square, but the figure bases are only 20mm square (instead of 25mm) so the table and the units are more-or-less in proportion.

Deployment. Union troops are deployed around Gettysburg or moving north-west towards Gettysburg up the Baltimore Pike. Two Confederate units are shown in the north-east moving south to turn the Union left flank and threaten the Union supply line.

Union troops (nearest) form line. As the Union commander I am feeling relatively secure, but that's mainly because I hadn't actually read the scenario in detail...

Gruntz 15mm: The first two factions

I've now collected two factions for my near-future forces for Gruntz 15mm.

The first is a hi-tech interventionist force  ('The Coallition'). They are almost all GZG and will be sand-coloured like the Gulf War allies. Some assets such as the power-armoured squad will be finished in blue-grey or some other neutral colour so they can fight for any faction if that's the way I want to use them.

The Sand faction: Grav IFVs, Grav MBT, Grav Command vehicle, Gruntz squads including squad leaders, SAWs and LAWs, Grav bikes. All models are GZG.

Grav drones, Sand commander, Spider droids, Power-Armour squad. All models are GZG except for the Power-Armour squad which is Brigade Miniatures.

The Gruntz are GZG's UNSC Light Infantry. Command vehicles provide command and control benefits additional to the powers of the Commanders. I'd like to organise the grav drones and probably the grav bikes and spider droids as if they were Gruntz squads rather than having to track them as individual units. This was discussed on the Gruntz Forum but requires further research with regard to costing etc.

The second is a mostly mid-tech force ('RussFed') and will be finished in green.  They are mainly ArmiesArmy Insurgents and represent a near-future version of the Russian forces which have been operating in the Eastern Ukraine. While technically not as advanced they will be rated as more experienced.

Tracked IFVs, tracked MBT, tracked Command vehicle, HMG, Commander, Gruntz including Squad leaders, LAWS, and SAWs, VTOL gunship, and Mecha. The last two are GZG. The rest are all ArmiesArmy.

Constructing the Mecha so that it stood in an animated stance was quite fun. The AA vehicles are part resin which makes them substantially lighter than the GZG ones. They also required less cleaning up. Almost everything was assembled with superglue apart from the arms of the Brigade Models figures which required epoxy resin.

The GZG and ArmiesArmy infantry are a good scale match for each other.