Broadside and Ram Club Game Photos

A very enjoyable game of Broadside and Ram at the club tonight. It was a pretty close game until the last few turns, when the Royal Navy managed to cripple or shatter enough of the French fleet to gain an upper hand. Good fun!

2mm ECW Woodland Terrain

 

I'm starting to look at terrain for the 2mm ECW project and cane across these resin woodland sections from Battlescale Miniatures. They are just what I'm looking for, even if I can probably scratch build something similar using bobble bath mats or scenic foam. Very nifty!

https://battlescale.com/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGgWoZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHW_4-eN0bVCeEeBdaQw3NSwqmqPHwzyKBTfK7DqLy1n0u9nhv5Vv9WcNKA_aem_a-MMZxBPG3ynTtNB7PeKxw

Royalist Cornish Regiments

I've been working out the orbat of the Royalist army for the One Hour Wargame solo project today. The core of the army is the five regiments of foot raised in 1642 including Sir Nicolas Slanning's, Colonel John Trevanion's, Colonel William Godolphin's, Sir Beville Grenville's and Lord Mohun's regiments of pike and shot. 

These varied in size, so I will use a mix of three and four pike and shot blocks on each regimental base. In fact, Grenville's regiment was twice the size of sone others, so I may well model that with four of the larger pike and shot stands, rather than three. I will also include a least one base of the less reliable and rather grumpy Cornish Trained Bands, who were under equipped and less enthusiastic than the regiments raised by the landed gentry.

I've have included two regiments of cavalry to represent Sir John Berkeley's and Sir Thomas Digby's horse, although both commanded foot units at various times as well. There is a further mounted unit of dragoons under Sir John Digby which will act as skirmishers. The artillery is only one base in strength, as the Cornish army was quite weak in this respect. 

This lot adds up to about twelve bases from which up to six can be selected or randomly chosen for each game, the default number in the One Hour Wargames rules. I'm also going to use the Horse and Musket variant of the rules, at least to start with, so that I can include skirmishing dragoons and the artillery, both of which are not featured in the Pike and Shot set up for some inexplicable reason.

Lest We Forget

I have no idea what family relation I have with this nan but there is on, as all of my father's family come from a small area of Suffolk. He was younger than both of my sons when he was killed in action in October 1915. Rest in Peace.

2mm ECW Royalist Cornish Army

I didn't fancy painting today so instead I based up the rest of the Royalist army for the One Hour Wargame solo project. These represent the five Cornish regiments of the 1642-43 campaign, as well as the Cornish Trained Bands, Cavalry and Dragoons. I've added a second artillery base, which will probably be used for the Parliamentarian army, as the Royalists were very short on guns. I may well add another pile and shot regiment but otherwise I think this is more than enough for the moment.

Broadside and Ram Club Game

I have a game of Broadside and Ram at the club next week. Luckily, I have a tried and tested scenario waiting in the wings for this, with everything ready to go, having prepared the sheets and fleet lists for a game back in April that didn't happen for various reasons. All I now need to do is brush up on the rules and get the bits and bobs packed up for the club. Jolly good stuff!

2mm ECW Bluecoat Regiment

Here's the first test base of pike and shot infantry for the One Hour Wargame project. It took me a while to figure out the way to paint these tiny pike blocks but I think the regiment turned out looking okay. Next thing to do is painting a cavalry regiment and a battery of field guns, then I'll have a think about basing up the rest of the Royalist army.

Tinkering in 2mm English Civil War

I was a bit bored yesterday so dug out the 2mm Irregular Miniatures ECW units that I based a few months ago as a test job for One Hour Wargames. I gave them a white dry brush then started blocking in some colours. I quite enjoyed doing this, despite not getting very far, so I'm going to crack on this weekend and try to get them closer to being finished. I also have some ideas for something similar but using the Antonine Miniatures figure blocks for medieval or fantasy armies, once again with the OHW rules. 

Lacquered Coffins

I think I've found the holy grail of air wargaming rules for club games, in the shape of Lacquered Coffins, a set of simple air combat rules designed for hex less games in 1/600th scale. This alone ticks two of my boxes but, in addition, the system uses square bases, fixed height flight stands with two dice and a simple but comprehensive set of flight manoeuvres. It also includes extensive aircraft data tables and is suitable for use with historical scenarios, something that is definitely up my street. I've had a copy for ages but never really considered these rules for club games, which is a bit of an oversight on my part. I need to give it a try out a home but, if it's quick and easy to play, I'll work toward a club gane at some point next year. 

Get the Goeben! RN Battlecruisers

The latest addition to the workbench is a trio of Royal Navy warships for a "What If?" scenario set in August 1914. Here we have the battlecruisers HMS Indomitable and. HMS Inflexible, accompanied by the light cruiser HMS Dublin. I thought it would be a nifty idea to paint these up alongside SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau, so that I can actually play a game at some point, rather than have to wait until the Russians have been sorted out. I'll get these ready at the weekend.

Turkish Black Sea Fleet Basing

A refreshing nautical breeze is wafting across the workbench today, with the WW1 Ottoman fleet now based and ready for undercoating. I've added a single UB-III submarine to represent the UB-II flotilla that operated in the Black Sea, even though submarines don't really appear in most rules involving surface action, aside from convoy games or one off tactical scenarios. I'll crack on with the painting as soon as I get some free time, which may not be for awhile.

Bombers Over Germany

After the lacklustre MiG Alley game yesterday I realised it's probably not the set of rules I'm looking for for a club multiplayer game. It's too confusing in terms of energy management for an enjoyable game, with more time spent clarifying the finer points of the rules than actually having fun. To put it simply, it's fine for solo games at home but not as an evening's entertainment.

Instead, I'm looking again at Bombers Over Germany, a free set of rules based on a simple system from the Junior General website. It's themed around the daylight bomber campaign in 1943-45 but could be adapted for other things, including B-29 missions over North Korea, for example. I discovered this set of rules a couple of years ago and thought it would be ideal for a big club game but didn't do anything further than an initial feasibility study. It's now looking like a very attractive alternative to Wings at War and a potential project for next year. 

http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.com/2020/08/bombers-over-germany.html

MiG Alley Multiplayer Club Game

A frustrating and disappointing game of MiG Alley at the club tonight, made less enjoyable by some confusion over the rules due to my failure to explain them properly. I've been playing this game for years but not for a long time, so I was a bit rusty and this showed in the way the game played out. It was the longest game I've played as well, for some reason, so we only got to finish one game and didn't use the ground attack rules at all. I'm a bit fed up it didn't go as well as I wanted and will be sticking to Bag the Hun and other rules for club games from now on I reckon. Bugger.

Farting About with Finnish Fighters

Against my better judgement, I started base coating the Tumbling Dice 1/600th scale Curtiss P-36 / Hawk 75 fighters for the Continuation War Bag the Hun scenario project. I thought it would be a shame not to get at least some of the Finnish aircraft painted, particularly as most of the scenarios only involve Llv32, which was equipped with this particular fighter. I've given them a base coat of Vallejo Russian Green which is pretty much spot on for the fuselage colour used up to 1943, before any black camouflage pattern was applied over the upper surfaces. I'll carry on tinkering with these over the next couple of weeks, while I get on with kit bashing the WW1 stuff.

1916 Knights of the Sky Kit Bash

A slight change of plan for the 1/72nd scale WW1 aircraft kit building, as a Be2c is no longer required for the game. Instead, I'll be making an old Aeroclub kit of a Bristol Scout and an equally ancient Revell Morane Saulnier N, a kit I've built before in No1 Squadron RFC colours, but this time as a French machine. I'm going to get started on both of these next weekend, when I should have a bit of time, but will get everything ready this week.

MiG Alley Extras Finished

The decals were a right pain in the back side but I've finished the F-86A Sabres and F-51 Mustangs for MiG Alley at last. The decals were fiddly and I've realised that the wing roundels are at the wrong angle, but I can fix that another time. I still have more things to add to the MiG Alley line up but, for the moment at least, I'm moving on to other wargaming projects. 

Energy Management Explained

There's often a bit of head scratching over energy management in Wings at War, so here's a simple reminder of how it works. The key thing to remember is it is primarily at the end of a sequence of moves, when action point expenditure equals starting energy, that any energy problems are resolved (apart from stalls, which can occur during a turn as well as at the end)

1. Action Points = Energy at the start of a turn.

2. Don't change your Energy dice during a turn but do keep a separate track of Energy loss / gain (using tokens or counters is a good idea)

3. Aircraft are allowed to exceed their Energy rating during a turn, but....

4. If energy falls below 1 during a turn = STALL (the turn ends after this has been resolved using the stall diagram)*

5. Otherwise, the turn ends when all Action Points have been spent.

6. If Energy at this end point is less than 1 = STALL 

7. If Action Point/s spent for the final manoeuvre in a turn cause Action Point expenditure to be greater than starting energy = SPIN.

8. If Energy at this end point is greater than Energy Rating = AIRCRAFT BREAKS UP.

9. If Energy is equal to or less than starting energy (but obviously greater than 0) = Action Points available for next turn. 

10. Flip the dice to the new Energy level on the model's base at this point.

*Try to avoid making manoeuvres with a random energy modifier (D) as this can cause a significant loss of energy during a turn and is unpredictable. 

Almost There

The MiG Alley extras are almost finished, with the painting sorted and the decals ready to be applied tomorrow. The black and white invasion stripes are far from perfect but, at arms length, don't look too bad. I'm happy with the end result but want to wrap these up ready for the game on Tuesday at the club.

WW1 Turkish Black Sea Fleet

I'm taking a break from painting tiddly planes this month, with something a bit different from the 'to do' list, in the shape of a 1/2400th scale WW1 Turkish fleet. I glued this all together earlier but still need to add a couple of additional models and then base the whole lot before I can start painting. I'm going to get started as soon as I've finished the extra models for MiG Alley, hopefully after the weekend. I'll probably use Victory at Sea: Age of Dreadnoughts with these, unless something else pops up that's suitable for small actions rather than fleet sized battles.

AK47 Facebook Group Competition

I've set up a new competition for this month over on the AK-47 Facebook group, if you fancy having a go:

It's competition time...this month it's 'make a flag / standard / totem / 'waggle it about and follow me!' base. 

The rules are simple:

A 30mm x 30mm base - round or square (smaller bases are allowed if 10mm or 6mm figures are your thing.)

Three figures (at least one of which must be from a Peter Pig range, unless you are not using 15mm figures of course)

At least one figure must be converted in some way (head swap, green stuff etc)

At least one flag bearer (can be the equivalent of a flag...use your imagination!)

Deadline: 1st December