Wargame Blast from the Past

At Projects & Procrastination blog, a new campaign is about to start. What really caught my eye was the fact that he is using a map from the old wargame book, Sham Battle. Long before this blog was started, I played a game using the rules and map in this book. It was also the only wargame I took pictures of.

The capital of Redina; Redton. It was to fall to the Bluvian Army.

The battlefield after the war. The dead still lay where they fell. These are the only pictures I have  (that I know of) of all my wargames before this blog.

Battlescale Ancients Battle

   With my new terrain, now I can start thinking of what armies to use. Right now the plan is just to get games in without becoming bogged down in a project that  can take weeks before a game is played.

   I started thinking of a quick set of rules to use with ancients or Medieval figures. Using Battlelore or Command & Colors for ideas, units are  light, medium or heavy.  Light infantry are either archers or infantry without body armor or shields. Medium infantry is armed with either a shield or body armor, but not both. Heavy infantry is armed with both shield and body armor.

I didn't take any pictures of this game until half way through. Using my unit classification, the Britons were made up of mainly medium infantry; the Romans, heavy. Therefore, I put two hills that the Britons should reach to offset the difference. As I was setting up, I used mainly based figures; two bases equalled a unit. It was simple enough that when a unit lost a figure, to replace the base with a solitary figure. 

A closeup of a Roman light infantry unit that has lost one man. Thank goodness I hadn't taken all the figures off their bases!

The heavy Roman infantry takes one hill.

The Romans start pushing back the Britons right flank.

The Britons launch  a counterattack.

They recapture one hill.

The Romans send three units to retake the hill.

The Romans attack all along the front and finally break the Britons line.

 

Repainted Battlescale Terrain

  With my recent use of Battlescale terrain, I was disappointed with the paint job on them. The paint stayed glossy, even after it dried. The paint also didn't cover well, soI decided to put a second coat on. I also decided to darken the green.  So with what little time for gaming I had this weekend, it was devoted to painting the terrain. As I  have been using One Hour Wargames scenarios, I  decided to paint some river pieces to use with them.

The newly repainted terrain with a river running through it. I put gloss lacquer on the water, although  you can't tell.

The hills have also been repainted. The hills surely stand out better than I was hoping.

Testing different scale figures on them . Here are some 15mm Minifigs  units . 

Two five stand infantry units, and a three stand Hussar unit.

20mm plastics.

30mm semi flats. 

Blitz Game: Esci Prussians vs Austrians

     One Esci set I especially liked was the Napoleonic Prussians/Austrians. However, they never got much use by me.  I had planned to use them as two small warring states, but never got around to it.

     With my new attempt at gaming, I decided they would finally get to fight it out. They would fight Scenario #1 from One Hour Wargames on my 6x6 Battlescale battlefield. For rules I used a variation of  Command & Colors.  Instead of the usual 3-2-1 fire of the infantry, the range would be two hexes, with the 3-2 fire for the infantry. For artillery, I used the range from The Stronghold Rebuilt "See the Elephant" rules`  of 3-2-2-1 range.  For dicing a 6 was a hit, a 5 caused the unit to retreat. The armies were picked by using OHW army selection charts. The Prussians drew 3 infantry, 2 light infantry and 1 artillery. The Austrians drew 4 infantry, 1 light infantry and 1 artillery.

The Austrians at top, draws first blood on one of the Prussian jager units.

The Prussians push the Austrians back all along the front.

On the Prussian right a jager unit moves forward, trying  to cut an Austrian unit off.

The Austrian artillery drives the right Prussian jagers back two hexes and loses one man to the Austrian fire.

The Prussian jagers in the center and artillery eliminates the Austrian jagers. The Prussian jagers on the right drives one Austrian unit back two spaces.

The left Prussian jagers push forward to split the Austrian center. The right Jagers cuts off the Austrian leftmost unit.

The Prussian artillery drives back the Austrian unit next to the jagers. The jagers
 take that spot and then kills another Austrian infantryman. One the right the jagers kills two Austrians, while the Prussian infantry kills one Austrian and rolls a retreat roll; however, the two hexes to it's rear is blocked. Although C&C rules calls for the soldier to die, the Prussians take him prisoner. On the left two Austrians are surrounded by six Prussians. 

The two Austrians surrenders.

The situation on the Prussian right. The Austrian on the right is about to surrender.

A Prussian leading prisoners to the rear.

The end of the game. The Austrians' center has collapsed. It is a Prussian victory.

I was looking for a quick, fun game, and this game met both requirements. The game itself lasted about 20 minutes.

Old Airfix and Battlescale Terrain

        It seems harder to get any gaming in recently. I have been looking around for some new ideas that might make it possible to get more gaming done. Among the blogs I follow is Numbers, Wargames and Arsing About . I used his Simplicity in Hexes wargame campaign earlier this year and enjoyed the game. He uses a 6x6 hex board for this game, which uses Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargame scenarios for the games.  Using these rules would allow me to use my new Battlescale hex terrain pieces.

    I've also have found myself wanting to use some of my older figures, even if it was for one game. With the Battlescale hexes set up, I decided to use my Airfix Romans and Ancient Britons with No Brain Wargame rules. As the game area was smaller, any figure retreating only retreated one hex instead of two. In the center of the board I put two hill pieces as objectives to be captured. The hills had no effect on the rules, they were simply target  points.  The game was a quick, enjoyable game as I hoped for. Now I am thinking of trying different rules using the 6x6 and Neil Thomas' scenarios.

The two armies deployed.

The Romans capture both hills.

The last two photos of the battle didn't come out. In the end the Romans captured the hills and the Britons strength  fell to under 50%; at this point I called the battle.  I'm happy with the results, and look forward to trying some more games with the Battlescale pieces and old toy soldiers.

New Books and New Basing Ideas

   I'm not much for Facebook; however, I do follow quite a few wargame pages, including "The Portable Wargame" page.  Looking at the games played, I finally broke down and ordered the rest of Bob Cordery's  Portable Wargames series (I had the original volume).   Unfortunately they were ordered right as the country started reopening, and UPS was swamped with packages. Based on tracking, my books sat in the local terminal for two weeks, then made it on trucks 4 times, only to be returned to the terminal 3 times! I did finally receive them, although the package looked like it had been through a war, the books were undamaged.

    One thing about each volume is that he introduces new ideas, such as making campaign maps and random terrain placement.  Right away in "The Portable Napoleonic Wargame", for an example of his Brigade Rules, his scenario uses the American War of 1812 for the example of play. As the War of 1812 s one of my favorites, and recently having bought two packs of 2nd generation Minifigs US infantry in felt shakos and coatees, I am now thinking of basing a Brigade of Americans and British.

   In my last post, I mentioned the based Airfix Romans. They were mounted on thin plastic bases, using white glue. When debasing them, it was easy to bend the base, instead of the figure, making separation easy, without damaging the paint job of the figure. This made me think of basing my metal figures with white glue, instead of super glue. Then rebasing figures would be easier; separating metal figures from plastic bases that used super glue is extremely difficult. I did a quick base of Peter Laing ECW in plastic. I am happy with the result and will try basing single figures the same way and see if they would work, too.

The new 2nd generation Minifigs War of 1812 Americans. I got a total of 48 figures.

The newest addition to the wargame library.

The sample base of Peter Laing ECW mounted on a plastic base. No, the hex is not what they are glued to. I put them onto the hex to see how much ground the base covered. If I proceed with basing the ECW figures, perhaps the units will be on larger bases with more figures.

No Brain Roman Wargame

  When I started wargaming some 20 years ago, it gave me an excuse to dig out the thousands of plastic Airfix and Esci figures that I collected over the years. Among the Airfix figures were some Romans. I managed to find a couple more boxes, and started to base them for games. Eventually my interest switched to15mm metals, and the Romans were consigned to storage drawers.

    The other day while looking for some other figures,  I came across the Romans and on a whim, decided to use them for a game. As they were glued to the stands using white glue, they were debased quite easily.  For rules, I decided just to use No Brain Wargame rules. There would be no modifiers for the armor of shields. The goal was to use some nice figures that hadn't seen the light of day in many a year.

One of the Airfix Roman units based.

The unit from the front.

The Romans advanced in checkerboard formation. While in most No Brain Wargames,  I don't put much effort in any kind of maneuvering, in this game the Romans would try to keep some kind of unit cohesion.

The barbarians hit the Romans hard.

Instead of a blow by blow account of the battle, I will just show the pictures taken during it. It was a back in forth battle, where it seemed the battle could have gone either way. I became quite engrossed in it, and the battle lasted longer than expected. 

In the end the Romans retreated off the field. When I based the Romans 20 years ago, I also based  Airfix Celts to battle the Romans. I am now thinking of taking them off their bases to do battle with the Romans.