Ancient Naval Campaign Land Battles

I've been reading through the campaign supplement for Ad Mare Bellum, A Wall of Wood Alone, with a view to running my own solo ancient naval campaign next year. One bit that I'm intrigued by is the land battles aspect, with armies marching from one map area to another along the coastline in support of the naval fleets. There is potential here for some land battles and a simple resolution system is included in the rules, with an option to play out the actions with conventional, condensed rules like DBA. 

Now, this started me thinking about a mash up with Ad Mare Bellum and Strength and Honour, with the former for the naval engagements and the latter for any land battles that might also occur when two opposing land armies end up in the same box. I think this would be a really neat way to tie together two separate projects and make for a more in depth campaigning experience than just a simple bit of dice rolling. I'll give this some more thought...

Hex and Counter Holidays

 

Back in the day I used to be quite an avid hex and counter board wargame player and still have many of the old Avalon Hill bookcase games that I enjoyed in my mis-spent teenage years including Squad Leader, Gettysburg and Panzer Leader, amongst others. However, I have neglected this aspect of the wargaming hobby for a long time, preferring miniatures and more light weight 'beer and pretzels' board wargames such as Tank on Tank, Cry Havoc, Battle Ravens and Wings of War (as relayed on my other occasional blog - Tea and a Wad Wargaming)

I've been thinking about re-booting the hex and counter wargaming side of the hobby recently, so have been gradually acquiring a selection of good condition second hand games, mainly via eBay, to add to the old ones that I have already got. The latest are a series of GMT bookcase games including Blood and Roses, 1805: Sea of Glory, Combat Commander Europe, Iron and Oak and Wing Leader, most of which can be played solo to some degree and all of which tap into my wargaming field of focus.

In 2022, I'm hoping to get back into some proper hex and counter board wargaming if I can find a space that I can set out a game, without having to clear it all away again when the dining room table needs to be used by the kids or the Mrs. The oldest of the offspring is now at university, so his room and desk are free for me to lay out a game and leave it there, so that I can dip in and out when I have the time. I'm also planning to play a couple of games over the holidays, which is about the only time I get to sit down and play a game from start to finish.

It should be fun!

Mourir Pour L'Indochine

 

I have joined yet another Facebook group, this one for a soon to be published set of rules for the First Indochina War, which look really interesting. It's actually two sets of rules in one, the first for platoon level skirmish games and the second for company to battalion level games, or skirmish plus as the author, Shawn Taylor aptly puts it. There's no exact date for these to be out yet but it seems as though most of the work has been done and they aren't far off. Who knows, it may even get added to my land projects for next year, with my 10mm Pendraken figures finally getting to see a lick of paint?

Mourir pour l'Indochine! | Facebook

Project Preview 2022

I'm finalising my project plans for 2022 at the moment and, in a change from my usual approach, I've decided to set them out before the end of the year. The thinking behind this is that I'm pretty clear about what I'll be tackling and have even started on a couple of the projects already, the ones for 2021 having wound down over the last month or so due to work commitments. The theme for next year will be to include both naval and air wargaming in roughly equal measure, having failed to stick to just naval projects in 2021 as originally intended, with one or two small land based projects also included for variety. I'll reveal all when I have tied up the last few loose ends!

MiG Alley Night Mission

I found an hour or so this afternoon to play the night fighter game of MiG Alley that I had planned for last weekend, with two F-82 Twin Mustangs and two B-26 Invaders up against four NKAF La-11 fighters and two 'Bed Check Charlie' nuisance raiders. The victory targets for both sides were the same at two points, so it was going to be a quick and deadly game. The UN entered the F-82's on opposite ends of the south table edge, with the B-26 Invaders heading up the middle for a gap in the mountains, all flying at Level Two. The NKAF brought its nuisance raiders on via the Eastern edge of the table next to the Yalu River at Level One, while the La-11's flew a direct line from China down the centre line of the table at Level Two.

One of the F-82s dived down to Level One and made a radar interception on one of the nuisance raiders, which was blown out of the sky by the honcho crew with a D6 roll of six. The B-26 Invaders dived down to Level One and headed for the ground target, only to be swooped on by the four La-11's, which lined up to cut them off. Unfortunately, the green fighter pilots of the NKAF failed to hit the bombers, which returned fire with their turret mounted machine guns, shooting down two of the enemy fighters as they flew past. The second nuisance raider also came to a sticky end under the guns of the same F-82, with the honcho crew scoring two kills in one mission. 

The game was already well and truly over but, as usual I decided to play on to see if the bombers could knock out the target, which the first one did in spectacular style with a D6 roll of 6 inflicting two hits. The second bomber wasn't so lucky and was shot down by AAA. The game ended with six VP's for the USAF and only one for the NKAF, with the two remaining fighters high tailing it for home before they too were shot down by the lethal Twin Mustang night fighters. It was a good game but also quite short, which is great if you want to squeeze in a game in an hour or less, but not so much fun if you want to play a game that lasts a bit longer. I think I need to use a different ratio for Victory Target generation as a result, so will have to tweak the numbers to half the VP's to give the game some more legs.

AK47 Dictatorship Soviet Trucks

I was packing up my 15mm AK47 dictatorship army after the game the other day, when I noticed that I had a couple of spare slots in the foam storage for some vehicles. I haven't got any trucks for my Mbote Defence Force units to be transported about in, so I had a search for some suitable models on the web. 

I wanted some Soviet lend lease vehicles, as the army is equipped with WW2 era Soviet kit in a Cuban style, but didn't much fancy what was offered from QRF or BPM, so instead opted for these new resin and metal Skytrex GMC trucks, which were more expensive but looked a lot better. 

The other wheeled vehicles for the army are also from the Command Decision range so they should look fine next to each other, with the resin saving all the hassle of having to assemble them. I'll get them painted and based as soon as I can, so that they can deploy for the next AK47 game some time early in 2022.

Ancient Naval Project 2022

I've now gathered together enough 1/2400th scale Tumbling Dice models to fit out a Carthaginian and a Roman fleet for my ancient naval project for next year, together with a merchant convoy and some wreck markers for all the whistles and bells. The aim will be to run a series of games using the campaign system for Ad Mare Bellum but starting off with some simple scenarios to learn the rules, while I paint and base enough models for the fleets. 

The two opposing fleets are made up primarily of fives, with a handful of sixes and sevens for squadron flagships, plus a nine and a ten for the fleet flagships of either side. I also have some trireme aphracts for scouting and convoy escort purposes, so I should be able to cater for most scenario situations, give or take some occasional add ons. I'm really looking forward to this project and hope it will be as much fun as this year's Indonesian Confrontation solo campaign project, which I really enjoyed playing.

NEWSFLASH - Mbote Defence Force repels rebel incursion (MBC)

Tip Top MDF Self Propelled artillery in action

From out correspondent in Mafuso

The Mbote Ministry of Information has released a statement today, with details of an incursion by rebel militia forces into the remote Mbunte province earlier this week. According to a government spokesman the highly mobile rebel militia were supported by heavy tanks, suggesting that foreign mercenaries or trained regular troops were involved in the attack. A large number of technical vehicles were destroyed in the battle, with many having been abandoned by their crews due to mechanical breakdowns.

Mbuntan Marxist Militia Rebels

The Mbote Defence Force successfully repelled the incursion with minimal losses, using a heavy barrage by self propelled artillery to smash the enemy units and force them to retreat. As yet, the identity of the rebel force has yet to be determined but initial intelligence reports have indicated that Mbutan Marxist separatists may have been responsible. The commander of the MDF self propelled artillery unit, Major K'Boomba, has been awarded the Mbote Medal of Victory in recognition of his pivotal role in defeating the rebel attack.

MiG Alley Yalu River Terrain

 

As I couldn't use the kitchen table for my MiG Alley night fighter game at the weekend I used the time instead to make a four foot length of modular terrain for the Yalu river, using some leftover laser cut mdf river sections from ERM. These are no longer available so I'll need to improvise if I need a full six feet at some point, although I have enough for the moment if I rotate the set up by ninety degrees. I can also use what I have got for games involving naval aircraft, as the left hand side of the table is the Yellow Sea, which I can make using larger mdf panels that match the river terrain. It's replacing the old bendy plastic river bits that have seen better days, so they may well get repainted for my desert terrain collection instead?

AK47 Game

I had a very enjoyable game of AK47 last night at the club, with my dictatorship army defending against Andrew's very nicely painted and properly tooled up Popular Front militia army. The political phase went badly for Andrew but I managed to get a unit upgrade and +1 firing bonus, so a good start for Mbote. The game then kicked off but with both sides only having one unit on the table, followed by a bit of a disaster as my lone jeep raiders were routed by the end of turn four. 

I was very lucky to get a hardcore militia technical unit on as reinforcements and it did pretty well holding off the bulk of the flanking enemy units, which rolled onto the table en masse in subsequent turns. I managed to rout one enemy militia unit with AAA fire from one of the technicals, but my unit was eventually knocked about and scarpered shortly afterwards.

Once again, luck was on my side and a unit of regular infantry upgraded to professionals in the political phase took their place. Some jammy dice rolls gave them two consecutive air strikes on another of the enemy militia units, which was forced to bugger off, leaving my infantry in control of one of the objectives at the end of the game. The victory points were added up and it turned out to be a draw, with neither side winning enough points to swing the result.

Andrew had some pretty dismal dice throws throughout the game, with a bad political phase and a succession of doubles causing breakdowns, ammo shortages and other mayhem, while I had uncharacteristically good luck with the dice, which made all the difference. I still didn't get two of my units on by the end of the game but I managed to scrape through by the skin of my teeth. It was really good fun and we're definitely going to have another game at some point to settle the score.