"Take That, You Beast!": Getting Ready to Chase the Graf Spee

Fans of old British war films may remember that line, uttered by Anthony Quayle playing Commodore Harwood in the 1956 film, Battle of the River Plate.  It's a terrific Technicolour film and an intelligent account of a naval battle.  I have a hard time thinking of a better naval film made since, except (possibly) Greyhound.  The film is here if you want to watch it online.

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):

Force H assembled!

The dreaded Beast, the Graf Spee.   Some of the barrels on those turrets look a bit wiggly!

The next step is to paint these guys and try out the rules I've chosen, Naval Thunder.  There's also a naval fleece on order from Geek Villain and some markers from Litko.

More to follow!

Cheers and blessings to your super glue!

MP+

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.

It's taken me a while to master the Zen like detachment necessary to paint multiples of the same figure, but one advantage of the method is that after a while the paintbrush just seems to know where to go.

I currently have over 30 SYW Prussian musketeers on the painting desk, and I'm still hopeful that I can get them all done before the leaves have finished falling.   We'll see.   At any rate, my SYW project remains one of my main lines of hobby effort and continues to be enjoyable.

Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

 

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.    

 One measure of a good game is that victory can go either way.  In Baetis, both sides are evenly matched.  The Romans have an initial advantage in numbers until night falls and their Celtiberian allies slink away, while the Carthaginians have a few superior units like the elusive Numidian cavalry.   While both sides have key positions to defend, maneuver and aggressive play is the only way to win, as James grasped quickly.  I think I have to call him "Hispania" from now on.

I am sure that Baetis would make an interesting miniatures battle if one had the figures, though it might need to be played on two separate tables.   C3i 37 includes counters for   a Beatis scenario in GMT's SPQR game.  However you fight it, it's a tense and interesting battle to play out.

Blessings to your die rolls!

MP+

Mustered Into Service: 28mm Foundry Balearic Slingers

Among a batch of recently completed figures are these eight Balearic slingers, part of a recent first-time purchase from Foundry's Ancients range.   I am very fond of Foundry for many of their other ranges, but these Ancients did not disappoint - solid figures, lots of detail, and very little flash to clean up.

My early Imperial Roman force is currently quiet small, a handful of Auxiliaries and some Auxiliary cavalry, so these figures give my little army a missile and skirmishing capability, very useful against the Germanic hordes and their many javelin throwers.

The skin tones are painted using Foundry's trim-tone system, and the clothing is done using FolkArt craft paints and some Army Painter shaders.

I confess that I have no idea if light troops such as these would have been part of the Roman armies in Germania in the first and second centuries AD, but they were easy to paint and look very business like, so I hope they will get some use on the tabletop as I take another look at Three Ages of Rome (Helion) and maybe try Hail Caesar when I get some more figures panted.

Next up in the Ancients painting queue are some Victrix mounted Roman officers and some more Foundry Germanic barbarians, big fellows with severed heads and shocking manners.

Strength and honour to your paint brushes!

MP+

First Look at Ted Raicer's I, Napoleon Solo Game

Ted Raicer is, to borrow a term from Too Fat Lardies, one of the Big Men of board gaming and is definitely a wargaming Hall of Famer.  His WW1 game, Paths of Glory, has won numerous awards and nominations, and is an early example of the Card Driven Games (CDG) that have come to characterize a lot of GMT Games' output in the last few decades. I Napoleon is Ted's latest design, a CDG game that shows the evolution of Ted's thinking since Paths of Glory.    A solo game, it allows a player to follow in the steps of Napoleon, seeking to rise in glory and power.  

 Like other CDG historical, it has a set of cards for each period or epoch, and each card introduces an event or a personage in Napoleon's career.  To win the game big time, Napoleon has to conquer Europe and to die peacefully with a legitimate heir, though as Ted says in his designer notes, good luck with that.  Any lesser outcome is assessed by the measure of Glory and Politics points that you accrue through the game.

I, Napoleon is a beautifully produced game.  The cards are numerous and lavish, and the display board has a period feel to it.   Here's what the game looks like at the start of the first scenario, which begins as Napoleon is a young officer during the Terror.  Note the bottle of Napoleon brandy that I opened up to get me into the mood.

Almost immediately, a narrow escape from Madame Guillotine.  Fortunately, the game gives Napoleon one re-roll every game turn (a turn is a variable number of card draws equalling one year) to simulate Napoleon's famous luck.   

As the game progresses, the player will draw a variable number of cards each year, which may or may not re-create famous events in Napoleon's career.  For example, I never drew the cards  for the capture of Toulon, but the young general did just fine, winning glorious campaigns in Egypt and Syria, including the famous visit to the plague wards despite the chance of an early death.

Returning to France in 1800, and with the Brumaire card in play, I had enough Glory and Politics points, with enough friends and allies in influential positions, for Napoleon to become First Consul.

So that was a successful outcome for what is essentially the first scenario of the game.  Had time permitted, I would have broken the plastic seal on a whole whack of First Consul game play cards and continued Napoleon's progress.  

My first reaction to the game is quite positive.   I'm not sure it's a war-game so much as it's a model of an era, with one influential man as a focal point, so perhaps it's best described as a biographical game or a period of history game.    As a model I think it's sufficiently detailed for someone to learn a lot about the Napoleonic period, and the mechanics are simple enough that a non-grognard with an interest in history could easily pick it up.

I hope to file another report soon on the progress of First Consul Bonaparte.   Those who violently dislike the Corsican Ogre (looking at you, Conrad Kinch), feel free not to read that post.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls,

MP+

  

EX THUNDERING DICE 2-24: A Wargames Weekend

It's been ages since I've posted any sort of games reports here, and truth be told, I do very little face to face gaming these days due to a lack of local opponents.   However, my friend James and I managed one of our occasional gaming weekends, which we have christened EX THUNDERING DICE.   I think this was our fourth or fifth over as many years.   Last weekend James made the two hour drive and as the host I could offer the gaming room in the upstairs of the old rectory where I currently live.  It's a lovely space and filled with natural light during the day.

 It was also a chance to give James this piece for his Napoleonics collection, a 28mm Front Rank figure, Archduke Charles, for James' Austrian force.   Seeing as James usually plays Sharp Practice, the Archduke may qualify as the biggest of Big Men.  He certainly has a big hat!  He's painted using the Foundry tritone system.   I don't paint or collect 28mm Napoleonics, but Front Rank's figures may yet tempt me.

James and I started by playing an 18th century game using my 28mm collection of Prussians and Russians.   We had a friend of mine, David, an avid scale modeller who was getting his first test of miniature wargames.   We used Keith Flint's Honours of War rules from Osprey, and chose the introductory scenario, in which four units deploy to protect a river crossing, from five attacking units.   It might make more sense to defend the other side of the river, but that would have made for a tedious game.   Both sides had one regiment of line cavalry, which immediately charged.  David's Prussians were eliminated, while the Prussians barely survived with only one hit remaining, and would sit out much of the fight to recover.

From then on, David had to divide his remaining force of two infantry regiments and one gun section against three Russian infantry regiments.  It was a brave effort, but he was eventually swamped by numbers.  We had enough time remaining to reset the table and try another battle with more troops, just to give David another chance to move some troops and roll some dice.   I think he enjoyed it, and left with a stack of surplus wargaming magazines and a promise to try it again.    

We were not very familiar with the HoW system but we found it fairly easy to pick up.   The challenge with these rules is to keep a reserve and, if possible, pull units back before the accumulate five hits and are then removed from play.    Given that musketry is quite deadly, this is not easy to do, especially in a game like our first scenario which uses a small number of units, in which case it's a quickly resolved knife fight.  It took us a few turns to remember the shooting rule which makes it slightly harder to cause a hit against superior troops (eg grenadiers) but easier to cause a hit against inferior troops such as friekorps.  As James pointed out to me, this rule reflects the varying morale and cohesion of targeted units rather than the shooter's marksmanship.

The game also reminded me that I have more work to do on my SYW collection of Russians and Prussians before I can offer a game with more than two small brigades per side, so I had better get cracking.

In the evening we played a boardgame of a Punic Wars battle in Spain (Baetis Campaign from the most recent issue of C3I magazine, which was a kind concession from James since his taste doesn't run to hex and counter games.  I'll post a review of that game separately.

The next day was mostly taken up with Quar, which is James' latest passion project.  I only managed to get a few photos of the table before we began.   Once we started I was occupied trying to run a very large force, and did poorly.  There are more photos on James' blog here.

I have huge respect for the way James dives in a project and single-mindedly pursues it.    The Quar, a race of sentient and warlike anteaters, have clearly seized his imagination.    It's World War One but in a transposed setting, I suppose in the same way that Flintloque transposed Napoleon's into a fantasy setting.   I confess that I don't quite get it, as the troops look like WW1 French and English troops only with pot bellies and snouts, and I'm not sure why one wouldn't just play WW1 straight up.  On the other hand, I like the whimsy of it, which steers clear of the grotesque aspects that make Turnip28 rather repulsive to me.    We used the Osprey SF rules, Xenos Rampant, which seemed to work well enough. 

I had what I thought was a decent plan, but a bad run of dice over several straight turns, which made me a little grumpy, for which I do heartily repent, as grumpiness in a gaming partner is never attractive and can be a deal breaker over time.  

After dinner we reconvened and broke out my ACW collection, which includes some old Minifigs that I first painted while watching CNN's coverage of the first Gulf War, so that shows my age, I guess.  We decided to revisit Sam Mustafa's Longstreet rules, which James and I played a lot of about a decade ago when we lived closer to one another.     We each took five infantry units (3 Eager Recruits and 2 Seasoned Veterans) and a battery.  James threw his two Texan regiments against a wood defended by one of my regiments, and quickly shot them out of it.   We discovered that in these rules, defending in covering terrain messes up your shooting for little gain in return.

The main action was in the wheat field, which changed hands repeatedly.  I had an edge here, as my battery was within canister range for much of the fight, and, as they say, dealt terrible execution.  It took us a few turns to remember that in Longstreet, firing zones are straight ahead, without the customary 45 degree arcs to either side.  At the end of the fight, I had pushed the rebs back across the wheatfield, and my fighting Irish in reserve had contained the Texans that had won the fight in the woods.  A close victory to the Union.

It had been a while since we'd played Longstreet, and I think we were both favourably impressed.   Our memories of the card playing was that it could seem gamey, in that one can have the perfect attack teed up only to be foiled when the other guy plays one of the rare but annoying interrupt cards.   However, cards are usually better employed for different reasons, such as ordering a move through difficult terrain, or trying to preserve units from multiple shooting hits against them.    It's always a choice, and the choices do a good job of simulating a commander's limited bandwidth in a horse and musket battle.   While we had both instinctively put commander figures on the table, they had little to do, as the command and control rules all live within the card play.  Perhaps we missed some rules about command radii affecting card play?  All in all, Longstreet is a fun and playable system for a brigade sized battle that can be resolved in a  few hours.

We finished the second day with a viewing of the old Kubrick film, Paths of Glory, which James had never seen but which came up as we were playing our Quar game.  James was a little surprised that the second half of the film was a courtroom drama, but it's a masterpiece of the antiwar genre, and brilliantly shot in black and white.   The tracking shot of Kirk Douglas as Col. Dax walking through the trench and among his men prior to the attack is one of the memorable scenes in cinema.

We said goodbye after breakfast and hope to meet again over the gaming table sometime this winter.   Good to see a dear old friend and to get some games in.    I shall spend the next months looking harder for a gaming opponent in or near Collingwood.  Maybe David will want to try again?

Blessings to your die rolls.

MP+

Plastic Model Diversions

 Hello friends:

Popping up to post some photos of what I've been up to lately, not wargaming really but as I've noted here before, I enjoy hacking away on plastic model kits from time to time just for the therapeutic value of the process and having something to look at when all is done.

I've nearly finished this 1/48 scale Mk 1 Hurricane by Italieri.  

I've been using the Vallejo RAF Battle of Britain paint said, which is intended for the airbrush but I've been using a brush.   A recall reading that someone once interviewed an RAF airman about how they painted aircraft and he basically said they used "whatever we had in the shed".   I suspect a lot of warplanes then were a little rougher in appearance than they look in the model airplane magazines.

A few more fiddly bits to finish and then I can put the prop on and call her done.  I may find something to dull down the finish on the decals.

And as one kit is winding down, another is just getting started.  Oddly, I was inspired to build this by my wife Joy, who was born in Collingwood, Ontario, where we live now.   Collingwood was a shipbuilding town, and a number of corvettes were built along the Great Lakes.  Snowberry was built at Lauzon near Quebec City and was originally intended for the Royal Navy, but was transferred to Canadian service.

I've read various comments about this kit, which contains hundreds of fiddly little bits, and I suspect it will be a challenge, so I'll work away at it from time to time, post progress photos here occasionally, and hopefully it will finish up on the mantleplace at the rectory - in Collingwood!

 Cheers and blessings to your sprue clipping!

MP