Back in September I said that I was going to experiment with WW2 naval gaming, using the Battle of the River Plate as a test project. Working relatively quickly, I've been able to get my initial order of 1/2400 ships from GHQ painted. Here is "the Beast", the Graf Spee, sailing serenely on a Geek Villain mat.
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Take That You Beast Part Two! River Plate Project Progress
Back in September I said that I was going to experiment with WW2 naval gaming, using the Battle of the River Plate as a test project. Working relatively quickly, I've been able to get my initial order of 1/2400 ships from GHQ painted. Here is "the Beast", the Graf Spee, sailing serenely on a Geek Villain mat.
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Perry Brothers ACW Union Cavalry Muster Into Service
"Around her neck, she wore a yellow ribbon ...and if you asked her, why it was she wore it, she said it was for her lover who was in the cavalry."
I might have been whistling that tune as I finished flocking these troopers the other day. They represent the contents of a Perry Brothers box of plastic 28mm American Civil War cavalry, assembled and painted as Union cavalry. I could have assembled the figures with carbines or pistols in hand, but the look of the sabres is iconic, even though probably not very common in the later war period. At any rate, I'm very happy to muster this new unit into service.
Saturday, November 9, 2024
A Second Look at Mark Herman's Rebel Yell: Chancellorsville
Back in July, I posted here on my first thoughts about Mark Herman's much discussed ACW game, Rebel Fury, published earlier this year by GMT. It's a fairly simple, divisional level game that covers six battles: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, The Wilderness and Spotsylvania. The mechanics are very similar to Dan Fournie's ancients game, Baetis Campaign, published in C3i magazine earlier this year and reviewed here.
Chancellorsville (henceforth referred to as Cville) uses the same map as the solo introductory game, Fredericksburg, which frankly was not a lot of fun. Cville promises more sport for the Union as half the federal forces begin on the south side of the map, at Fredericksburg, under Sedgewick, while the other half enter from the north map edge under Hooker. The Union has the initiative for two turns, as per the game's Turning Movement rules, but after that the Confederates inevitably get to move first because of their superior generals, Lee and Jackson.
Playing solo, I found it posed an interesting challenge for the rebs: how many divisions should I pull out of the entrenchments across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg to send north to try and stop Hooker? In my solo game, the answer was just enough to slow the Union forces on either end of the map. As you can see below, the Union came close to their victory conditions, establishing a road route from south to north that is entirely more than two hexes removed form any Confederate unit, while likewise clearing the rail line south from Fredericksburg from Confederate influence. I got close, but not close enough.
However, if you look at the little red cross "Casualty" markers in the photo below, that is history repeating itself with a vengeance, as both Jackson and Lee became casualties, or at least enough of their HQ staffs to render them hors de combat. Herman has a clever rule whereby one can use a commander's combat rating, called "battle stars", to influence a fight, but there is a good chance that the commander will become a casualty. As the Confederate player, one has to resist the temptation to use the commanders in combat roles. For the Union player, at least in this scenario, Sedgewick and Hooker have less ability to influence a combat outcome, so it's best leaving them in maneuver mode so they can enable their units to cover more ground, and for the Union, maneuver, as I learned, is the key to success.
Judging by this podcast, not everyone is sold on this system, but I like what I've played of it so far, and I would be interested to retry this scenario to see if I could manage a Union victory.Friday, November 8, 2024
Three Victrix Imperial Roman Generals
Saturday, September 21, 2024
"Take That, You Beast!": Getting Ready to Chase the Graf Spee
Faithful readers of this intermittent blog (bless you!) may recall that I've said before that I don't need to take on any new periods, especially as I turn 62 soon and "Time's winged chariot" seems somehow nearer. However, naval games have always intrigued me and after reading a terrific blog account of a WW2 naval battle in the Med, I felt I had to scratch this itch.
River Plate seemed like a good place to start, seeing as it only requires four ships and is an interesting contest between numbers and hitting power. I was considering NavWar in the UK as my source for the models, but they only take postal orders and I've been thoroughly spoiled by online shopping. Besides, I have lived through the era of sending money orders to the UK and (hopefully) receiving the models two months later, so i've paid my dues.
I selected GHQ in the US as my source, and while the white metal models are pricey, the 1:2400 scale seemed small enough to be manageable but large enough to be satisfying on the tabletop. I was very pleased when this package arrived shortly after I placed the order online, with lots of paper goodies stuffed inside the mailer, including an intriguing and old school glossy paper catalogue.
A sharp Olfa knife, a metal file, tweezers (mine were barely adequate) and super glue were all employed to assemble the models. Each ship took about an hour, including breaks to keep an eye on whatever Toronto Blue Jays baseball game was on. I present HMS Exeter, which soaked up fearful damage during the battle.
Leander class light cruiser, representing Ajax (Harwood's flagship) and the NZ crewed Achilles (which stars as itself in the 1956 film):
Friday, August 30, 2024
Some SYW Front Rank Russians
Another short post to show off some projects completed over this summer.
My Seven Years project uses 6 infantry figures on a 2x2" base to give the nice packed ranks that I associate with the period. As part of breathing new life into units painted long ago, and now being rebased, I needed some more figures to flesh out my Russian units. I remain deeply thankful that Gripping Beast picked up the Front Rank range, which I started collecting some three decades ago, but in small numbers as I was on a graduate student budget at the time. Now I can afford to pick up more of these castings to bring the units up to the new standard.
These are painted in the famous red gaiters of the Apsheronsky Regiment, which was apparently awarded them as an honour after Kunersdorf where they "fought up to their knees in blood". The story is undoubtedly exaggerated but it's a nice piece of visual chrome for the tabletop.
Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!
MP+
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Battle of the Brothers: The Baetis Campaign by C3i
Getting a lot of gameplay since it arrived earlier this summer is a boardgame designed by Dan Fournie and the centrepiece of the Nr 37 edition of C3i magazine from RBM Studios. There is some debate about whether magazine games are really that great, but I've never been disappointed by the quality of the games published by C3i.
Dan Fournie has a number of ancients games to his credit, and this design focuses on a decisive battle of the Punic Wars in Spain, when Rome's Scipio brothers faced off against the Hasdrubal brothers of Carthage. What I know about the Punic Wars is fairly limited, so I enjoyed the lengthy article that came with the magazine. Essentially Upper Baetis was a double battle, as both sides, four armies under four brothers, were unable to concentrate their forces. Historically the battle was a Roman defeat, but in this game anything can happen.
This photo below shows the game as it is set up. On the left, the Romans under Publius Scipio in light brown face the army of Hasdrubal Gisgo in light green, while on the right, the Romans of Gnaeus Scipio in red and their Iberian allies face the Carthaginians of Hasdrubal Barca in blue. The Romans have two camps to defend, and the Carthaginians have two towns to defend. Victory points are awarded for towns/camps captured and sacked, and for units and commanders eliminated. The battle is fought over two and a half days, each day divided into two turns. Before the game begins, the Carthaginian player can determine how much silver to spend on bribes to try and persuade Rome's Celtiberian allies - spending a little with a reduced c chance of defections gives Carthage a VP, spend a lot with an increased chance of defections gives Rome a VP. Whatever the strategy, some of the Celtiberian units will disappear on each night turn, so the Roman player has to use these units before he loses them.
The game system is surprisingly fluid and elegant, very reminiscent to the one that Mark Herman uses for the GMT game, Rebel Yell. In both systems, players take turns moving units and can move them as often as they want until one player passes, at which point the other player gets a variable number of moves before the movement phase ends and they go to combat. Units cease moving when the enter the Zone of Control of an enemy unit and are locked in combat. The combat phase has a similar process, so a smart and lucky player can put pressure on a flank or an isolated unit, advance, and continue the pressure and even roll up the enemy. It took me a bit to figure out the nuances of this system, but once I did I really admired it.
In this photo below, the round markers indicate the Commander's Intent. Each commander has a 4 hex radius within which his units can maneuver and attack. Each marker is placed at the beginning of each movement phase. Once the movement phase is complete, the Intent markers are replaced with a marker indicating where the commander commits himself in battle, giving units a bonus in combat but with the chance that the commander might be killed in an adverse result, as the Scipio brothers were in the actual battle.
I've played Baetis several times solo, with both sides winning, sometimes Rome prevails on one side of the map and Carthage on the other. When my friend James came over and gamely agreed to try it (hex and counter games are not really his thing), he took to the system quite quickly and won a decisive Roman victory.
In this last photo, a Roman victory is unfolding. James has sacked one of my towns and Barca is dead, replaced by a middling subordinate.