Rebels and Patriots arrives

Taking stock - some samples from my collection
of American War of Independence figures. The
Continentals (left) are Warlord, the British (right)
are Perry. I'm not entirely sure how well they
match up in terms of historical uniform
development but probably as well as the
average Hollywood film!

My copy of Rebels and Patriots arrived last Thursday. It was highly anticipated and I'm genuinely excited!

The biggest innovation is probably variable-length charge moves,  which should add an additional touch of drama. Otherwise they generally follow the usual tried and trusted Rampant game mechanisms. Those chasing more detail should read David Sullivan's excellent review on the I Live With Cats blog.

I've already accumulated a couple of ready-made 28mm armies for it, and my first step was to look at the army lists and check to see if I have enough stuff for a standard-sized game (24 points a side).

The armies in question are American War of Independence British and Continentals.

The AWI British list suggests 3 Line Infantry, 1 Light Infantry and 1 Shock Infantry (e.g. Grenadiers). The Continental Army list suggests 3 Line Infantry, 1 Timid Line Infantry (Riflemen) 1 Skirmishers and 1 Aggressive Light Cavalry. The lists are useful indicators of appropriate troop types but by no means mandatory.

Infantry units are basically 12 figures but for +/- 1 point they can grow to 18 or shrink to 6. If I was designing an army list competitively I’d regard small units as risky and large units as extremely good value, but I’m not in that situation and I welcome this flexibility as it will allow me to optimise use of the figures I happen to have. Indeed, I think this is an extremely cunning design move to accommodate gamers with existing armies.

For the British I have:

3 Line Infantry @ 4
1 Shock Infantry @ 6
1 Light Infantry Small @ 5
1 Light Artillery @ 4

For the Continentals I have:

1 Line Infantry Large @ 5
2 Line Infantry @ 4
1 Line Infantry Small @ 3 (less 1 figure)
2 Skirmishers @ 2

I’m thus short on Continentals and will have to borrow some other figures (or upgrade them to Veterans) until I can get some more recruits. I need to add my usual 2p coin bases to the figures and prepare two or three boxes for storage/transport but otherwise I'm good to go.

I also have some 28mm American Civil War armies on order, but I'll have to wait till they arrive to see what I can make from them.

The 28mm 1798 armies continue to accumulate but won't necessarily be complete until next year.

Buccaneers vs Spanish for The Pikeman's Lament

Sir Henry Morgan

I didn't list 'Buccaneers' amongst my projects for 2019 as it wasn't current, but I have been giving the idea a lot of thought. Musing about potential projects has always been a big part of my engagement with the hobby - a sort of wargame equivalent of window shopping.

My attraction to the Buccaneer era goes back to the pirate imagery of childhood, the publication of The Pikeman’s Lament, the appeal of the Northstar 1672 range, watching the Versailles TV series (about Louis XIV) and some discussion on the Lead Adventure Forum (LAF). It didn't come together straight away but things gradually fell into place.

In developing the idea I am indebted to Jose Maria Cagiga Mata of the Spanish Lead Painting blog  for help with  figures, costume, background information and ideas.

North Star 1672 matchlock musketeers

For the benefit of those not fully up to speed, Buccaneers were English, French and Dutch freebooters licensed by European powers in the second half of the 17thC to attack and loot Spanish ships and cities in the Caribbean.

I like to hang my model armies on the peg of a specific historical reference point so I'm focusing in particular on the career of the Welsh Privateer Henry Morgan (1635 – 1688) whose English forces successfully raided a number of Spanish cities including Panama City in 1671.

Blood and Plunder Spanish

Despite their exotic and piratical nature, Buccaneers were typically military veterans, fought in conventional military units, and by 1660 were more soldiers than sailors in appearance. So this project will feature fairly conventional pike-and-shot forces rather than the more cinematic imagery of the Golden Age of Piracy. The Pirate actions of the early 18thC were essentially naval actions, while the Buccaneers also fought large scale land battles.

Subject to checking compatibility, I'll be using Northstar's 1672 and Firelock Games' Blood and Plunder ranges, English Civil War figures from Bicorne and Renegade, and some Monmouth Rebellion shot from Front Rank.

Bicorne Miniatures ECW firelocks

The Buccaneers will be flintlock-armed. Opposing them will be Spanish Militia with matchlocks and half-pikes bolstered with some Marines from the Armada de Barlovento and artillery. The Buccaneers totally outshot the Spanish Militia so it will be good to even the sides with the help of some Spanish Regulars.

Although the project is more-or-less planned, I don't currently have the time or space to pursue it, unless or until I have made more progress with the 28mm Reivers.

Border Reiver Project 1: Preparation of castings

Tools for preparing castings: 
Large flat file, scalpels, small files, Games Workshop
snippers, superglue and pin vices (drills).

I decided to report on this project as I go along, partly to put pressure on myself to keep going, and otherwise because my approach might be of interest to others or I might need some feedback on options...

The figures are 28mm Timeline and Foundry metals and there is a total of 13 mounted, 150 foot, 1 gun, 3 cattle, 2 sheep and 2 dogs.

I always make a list of stages. Then I can repeat the process in the same style if I need to do additional figures at a later date. I also mark off progress so I know where I am and to give myself a sense of achievement.

The figures are essentially on one continuous if virtual conveyor belt. I do something to each figure in the army or armies, then repeat. I never paint unit-by-unit.

First step is to prepare the castings.

1. File bottom of bases flat. 
I just run the figures up and down a large domestic flat file. A couple of passes is usually enough.
2. Remove casting tags and any flash.
Very few of the foot figures had any flash or casting lines, but they did have little casting tags which needed to be knocked off or cut. The Timeline horses were more challenging but I think they will look alright once they are painted.
3. Correct leaning figures. 
Some figures seemed to be bent over in relation to the angle of their bases. This was easily corrected by carefully bending them at the ankles.
4. Drill holes for pikes and superglue pikes.
Thankfully the pikemen are all empty handed allowing me to add North Star pikes. Some hands needed drilling with a pin vice. I used to use 2-part epoxy resin for sticking pikes etc, but have been experimenting with superglue. Epoxy resin seems to be quite scarce these days.
5. Assemble gun, cattle, riders and stick riders on horses.
6. Add Green Stuff to 'shorts' and around arm joints on riders.

Greenstuff and rubber-tipped sculpting tools. Some of the Foundry figures are 'Sea Dogs' so I built round the bottom of their open-ended shorts to represent the big baggy (but gathered) trousers worn by the lower orders of landlubber.

I decided the figure on the lower right was OK as it was.

Some of the Timeline riders have separate arms and needed filler to disguise the joints. I then realised that I'd have to rebuild the shoulder detail but I found that it was quite difficult to replicate the fine detail of the original castings. Not my finest hour but they will probably look OK once painted and on the table in a dimly-lit wargames club!

Organising playing aids

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I’m pleased to publish a guest article by Simon Jones, a reader of this blog who has a very systematic scheme for organising playing aids.

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This is the kind of thing I make up for games we play regularly. I just grab the box and go - they are all labelled.

I complete unit info in Excel and can amend and add info to make new unit sheets easily. I laminate these, and QRFs etc. I can then reuse them with water soluble pens.

The bag contains dice, tokens etc. The box has tape measures (cheap in B&Q, but any other brand will do), other gaming bits and pens.

If I can every now and then I find a cheap extra copy of the rules. It helps when people sit in on games.

You can find extra bits like unit cards on the Internet. I laminate and make up this kind of stuff as well. I have started adding movement bases to boxes as well now.

For Poseidon's Warriors I even have the ships included in my rules box.

So I have boxes for:

• Congo
• 7TV first (DVD size box) and second editions
• TMWWBK (Rebels & Patriots will probably share this box)
• The Pikeman’s Lament
• Dragon and Lion Rampant (although I do not play LR)
• One Hour Wargames and The Lamps are Going Out early WW1 Rules
• Poseidon's Warriors
• Just started a box for One Hour Skirmish Games and What a Tanker

You can obviously reuse boxes etc when no longer needed. To be honest the cost is not great. I know I have everything to play easily to hand and portable.

2019 Interests

GAMES
I didn't actually get to play many games last year, so this year I need to be more proactive. Games I'm keen to play are:

• The Men Who Would Be Kings using my Pathans and Egyptians.
• Lion Rampant using my Late Medievals. 
  
• Dragon Rampant.
• Dux Bellorum using my 25mm Vikings and Anglo-Danes. 
  
• Hammerin' Iron.
• L'Art de la Guerre.

PROJECTS
I've learnt not to over-face myself with too long a to-do list, so while I have a lot of unfinished and potential projects, I'm only going to list (1) major projects which are (2) currently underway and (3) which I seriously intend to progress during the year:

 Timeline Miniatures Border Reivers from Hoka
Hey Wargaming (not my painting!).

• 28mm Border Reivers for The Pikeman's Lament. This is my main painting project for 2019. As soon as they have a basic coat of paint I intend to start using them and will then finish painting them over time.

• 28mm 1798 Irish Rebellion for Rebels and Patriots. I'll continue gradually to collect these. If I complete my Border Reiver project, acquisition might speed up.

• 28mm American War of Indepenence for Rebels and Patriots. I recently bought an ideal collection of well-painted Perry plastic British and am now looking out for a matching force of Continentals. This project will either be realised suddenly or not at all.

• 15mm armies for L'Art de La Guerre. I'm currently reorganising, rebasing and supplementing some of my old 15mm Ancient and Mediaeval armies in order to create paired opponents for ADLG. My areas of interest are the Late Roman period, the Dark Ages and Europe 1250-1300. Rebasing figures and buying painted ones doesn't involve too much time or effort.

So there you have it: a modest range of rules systems (mostly closely related) and a firm committment to working on only one major painting project.

2018 Scoreboard

In a year l did little, I at least did something, and while the middle of the year was a near total wargaming blank, the year opened and closed on a note of wargaming interest, activity and optimism. There were a lot of little achievements (noted on my Workbench page) but here I'll just revisit the headline interests I outlined back in January together with the usual tally of games played and a note on the readership of this little blog.

The Men Who Would Be Kings

I didn't get into the Boshin War but I did accumulate Pathans and Egyptians and reinforced my Zulu War armies.

Rommel

Rommel has been put on ice indefinitely owing to lack of local enthusiasm. Life is too short to flog dead horses.

Chain of Command

I remain interested in Chain of Command but never got round to it and probably won't pursue it in the near future unless another local gamer emerges to champion it.

Thirty Ýears War

This came a little closer with the publication of Twilight of Divine Right, and I've been giving it some thought.

Games played

This has been the year of Rampant/Dan Mersey games which accounted for no less than 7 of the 10 games played:

Dragon Rampant 2
Dux Bellorum 1
Lion Rampant 1
The Men Who Would Be Kings 2
Pikeman’s Lament 1

The other games were:

Art de la Guerre 1
Command & Colours Great War 1
Corvus 1

Blogging

Lastly, this blog's audience has maintained an overall upward trend despite the five month gap in publication.

That's enough looking back. I'm now looking forward to outlining my 2019 interests which I'll do in my first post in the New Year.

Sabots for Dux Bellorum

Some of my 25mm Late Dark Age Vikings on a sabot base.

I was originally planning to do some 10mm armies for Dux Bellorum, but when my friend Ian recently bought a load of 28mm plastic Early Dark Age figures and said he was going to base them individually on 2p coins but also group them on sabots for playing Dux Bellorum, I decided to get some sabots myself so I could use my 25mm Late Dark Age armies.

Long, long ago my Vikings were based for WRG Ancients but more recently I rebased them individually for Lion Rampant.

To be honest I didn't use to like the idea of sabots and I'm still not keen on movement trays, but I now appreciate their utility and might also start using them in Rampant games too. I don't personally find moving lots of individually-based 28mm figures a burden, but some people like to speed things up.

The sabots were supplied by the nice people at Products for Wargamers.

Dux Bellorum: The River Battle Scenario

The Dux Bellorum Shooting query featured in my last two posts absorbed our attention but didn't actually stop our game because the only shooting was from a hill and all targets were completely in arc...

We were playing the River Battle scenario which has a river running across the table and a ford towards its centre. The object of the game is to be nearest to the ford at the end of the game or to rout the enemy before that. Unfortunately, no game length is specified but as this game was essentially a rules refresher we decided to just start playing.

I chose Late Romans while Ian had Early Saxons. The armies comprised:

Saxons

1 Mounted Companions
1 Noble Riders
1 Noble Warriors
5 Ordinary Warriors
2 Foot Skirmishers (Bow)

Romans

1 Mounted Companions
1 Noble Riders
1 Cataphracts
2 Noble Shieldwall
2 Bow

As expected, Ian ended up as the Aggressor while I was the Repeller. It's not a good idea for Shieldwall units to to attack into rough ground so I formed a plan to block rather than occupy the ford, at least initially.

As Repeller I was able to place two additional pieces of terrain. I chose hills and placed these either side of the river overlooking the ford, so I would get use of one of them regardless of which table edge Ian chose. Sneaky or what?

The armies deployed. The 28mm plastic figures are Ian's and only recently acquired. They were undercoated in two contrasting colours so they could be used in the game. I like these figures!

 The armies advance towards the river.

The Romans Bow gain the hill as planned but the Shieldwall troops didn't quite reach the river. At first I thought this was a failure but it turned out to my advantage.

The barbarian Companions characteristically but rashly attack across the ford.

3:1 is not good odds and Ian's Companions are severely mauled and withdraw. Had I been more up to speed in playing the rules I should have interrupted this retreat and finished them off.

More fodder for the Roman meat-grinder. (The cavalry have not yet been properly fixed in their bases and were prone to falling over - they are not casualties).

 

They keep coming...

...but there are less and less of them...

Thanks to my Bow, local superiority on my side of the crossing and good dice, Ian's units were getting chewed up one by one and he conceded the game.

Ian could simply have occupied the ford without attacking thus fulfilling the victory condition. I would then have been forced to attack at a disadvantage, but I would gradually have chipped away at the occupying unit with my Bow. Whether that would have worked would have depended on the game length so that really needs to be set.

Anyway, apart from our one big, seemingly resolved, rules query, the game flowed smoothly and we were pleased to be playing it again.

Dux Bellorum: Stumped by a rules query 2

My plea for help in my last post didn't elicit any responses so I'll move onto the next stage...

My playing companion, Ian, has argued that the problem is a simple contradiction. On the surface this does appear to be the case. He has suggested we adopt one option or the other, that is that to be eligible as a target (1) a unit's nearest edge must be wholly within Line of Sight (LoS) as implied by the bullet point,  or (2) a unit need be only partially within LoS as implied by the diagram.

I have tested both these options, but neither of them seem to work.

(1) Target wholly within

In this example A cannot shoot at B because B's nearest base edges is not completely within A's LoS. This would be ridiculous!

(2) Target partially within

At first this seems more realistic. A shooting unit would not have to see all of a target unit in order to shoot at some of it. But what happens when the target is obscured by other units or terrain? Is there a point at which a gap is so small that shooting becomes negligible and shouldn't be allowed?

A are shooters. B is the target. C and D are intervening units. B is within A's LoS but it's not exactly a clean shot.

Basically, neither of these interpretations seem to work.

Postscript

Billchuck (on Lead Adventure Forum) had  problems replying here but sent me a private message in which he said:

'...keep in mind that often there will be two “closest edges”. I would play it as “if all of one of the nearest base edges is entirely visible"...'

In the diagram from the book, the unit on the left would be a valid target because you can see all of the left side of the unit. The unit on the right would be valid because you can see all of the right side of the unit.

This approach would solve the problem. A target can be partially within sight but you have to be able to see the whole of at least one of the nearest sides.

I had more-or-less assumed that the diagram was probably right because the author would have spotted any inaccuracy in something so visual.

I had also assumed that the bullet point had some sensible and necessary intention behind it, and that it was probably introduced to avoid the 'shooting through gaps' problem illustrated by my second diagram.

I was thus very reluctant to accept the idea of simply jumping one way or the other without resolving the apparent contradiction. I was not able to resolve the issue myself, but this is a very elegant solution and I am eternally grateful.

Postscript 2

On further reflection I'm not entirely sure that seeing the whole of one of the nearest edges is a complete solution...

If you look at my second diagram but imagine that B is shuffled along so that its right-hand edge is opposite the gap between C and D, A can then see the whole of one of B's side edges and it becomes a valid target.

I think the time has come to consider a house rule.

I am thinking about adding: you must also be able to draw uninterrupted straight lines between the front corners of the shooting unit and two corners of the target unit. (Obviously the two lines shouldn't cross and there should be a clear field between them.)

Nothing is going to be a 100% fix.

Postscript 3

Billchuck has suggested:

Or just “the entire front of the shooting unit must be able to see some part of the target unit.”

Interestingly this shifts the test from the target to the shooters.

Postscript 4

I've finally arrived at:

“A target is valid if at least part of it is in range, one of its (nearest) base edges is entirely visible, and the whole front of the shooting unit can see some part of the target unit.”

Beyond that one might be forced to just use common sense! It seems to work for most people.