Cheers and blessings to your brushes,
MP+
Some time ago I finished painting another batch of 8 Foundry Early Imperial Romans, seen here.
With these new recruits to the legions mustered in to a collection that's either Foundry or Victrix, I decided that I had enough figures to try a battle revisiting Philip Garton's Three Ages of Rome (3AR) rules published by Helion.
Wulf Stinkig had rallied the men of the Fritzi tribe and their allies, and after raiding and much annoying behaviour, had drawn out a substantial Roman force. Wulf's force includes two veteran units of massed infantry, two trained mass infantry and one trained unit of skirmishers, a raw unit of mass infantry and a raw unit of javelin armed skirmishers. His co-commander is his brother in law, Grull the Bald (the little axe markers are to remind me which are the veteran units).
All in all, I like 3AR, it's a fairly simple set of mechanics with army lists that cover a large swath of ancient history. It doesn't require throwing buckets of dice, which I like. Most melees are decided with each side throwing one or two d6 to hit, and then throwing saves, with a 4 on 1d6 always being the magic number after modifiers. The rules for command and control are simple, with three basic postures for each wing or command of an army: Hold, Attack, Withdraw. Commanders have radii where they can influence their units, and any commander designated Heroic can add a +1 modifer to a unit in combat on the first round, with some risk of being killed or captured. So no mechanics that couldn't be taught to someone in twenty minutes, and a conclusion within two or three hours, makes these rules suitable for club play.
I'm a sucker for rules and I admire how Helion supports the hobby with a line of rules for various periods, though they are probably eclipsed somewhat by the Osprey blue series of rule books. Philip Garton knows his onions, this is one of three sets of rules for ancients that he's written and published with Helion, which I respect. 3AR would be a good way to introduce folks to ancients gaming, though I suspect that if I wanted to find opponents, I'd be better off putting more time into learning Midgard, which seems to be as well suited to ancients as it is to fantasy. Of course, there are also the TFL Infamy, Infamy! rules for the early imperial period, and my copy just arrived, so stay tuned for more struggles in Germania!
Blessings to your die rolls!
MP+
Hello friends:
I've been terribly neglecful reading your blogs and updating my own. September has flown by in a blur as work resumed. The church is like school, it all kicks off in September and while I'm enjoying my work and the people I serve, this year I'm painfully aware that I no longer have youthful energy reserves to draw on. Perhaps some of that has bled into my hobby time, though I have been working hard on some projects in my spare time. I think often of retirement, it sounds more and more attractive.
I had a long conversation with my son this summer abour his experience with ADHD and how he's managed it successfully as a young adult. He startled me when he looked at me and said "Dad, where do you think I got it from?" I've never been diagnosed, but I now realize that I've had something akin to ADHD all my life. My attention span can be short, I get distracted easily, and while I can be good at what I do (I have a few post graduate diplomas and a CV to prove it), to be successful I have to concentrate hard on one task and when it's done I'm exhausted. Not to bore you with my personal life, but in hobby terms I find that I can overload myself with projects, ping ponging (SQUIRREL!) from one period and scale to another. I've learned some coping skills - put one project in a box and keep it in one place, and don't let my workbench become chaotic. Plan a unit and paint it. Decide on one rules set that I want to learn and play. It doesn't always work, but it helps.
So this September I decided to take a break from my SYW and WW2 naval projects and return to Napoleonics. Because I've enjoyed Sharp Practice, I wanted a small force that I could play with, and because my mate James has a lot of Bavarians and kaiserlicks, I thought that I couldn't go wrong with French. I started with a set of Victrix 28mm French infantry. Not my first time with Victrix, but I won't lie, these fellows are tricky and you have to concentrate on getting the right arms with the right bodies. Had to hunt for instructions online. Not great. Then I decided that I would paint a test batch with white undercoat, which is a change from my normal practice of using black. After all, the base of an official French uniform is white, n'est ce pas?
y.
Hello friends:
There's been more activity in the shipyards and recently two more 1/300 scale ships have sailed to join my collection for gaming with the Torpedoes and Tides rules.
I ordered two of the freighter models from Skytrex from their Cruel Seas line and now have one painted. Nice kits, a resin hull with metal superstructure, funnel, lifeboats, and other bits. I used green painter's tape to mark off the upper white section of the hull and gave it the usual weathering treatment. The funnel marking is of my own design. I haven't given my commercial ships any flags because they are equal opportunity targets.
As mentioned, the pandours should never have been left that far forward. They inflict a little shock on the advancing Prussians and their stinky leader, but the Prussians stop, present, and unleash a first volley that kills two pandours and sends the rest reeling back with lots of shock. So a lesson learned.
At this point I stopped taking photos so I'll briefly describe the outcome. The pandours fell back and were out of the fight. The Russian Lvl 3 Big Man was lightly wounded trying to rally them. Meanwhile the Russian line infantry pushed up to the wall, firing at the evading jaegers and killing two of them. Their advance carried two of the three groups in the formation over the wall but the third group was now separated from their comrades by the right angle of the wall, so I ruled that they were broken off from their formation. Leutnant Stinky, having disposed of the pandours, broke off one of his two groups and along with the cannon they made life miserable for the exposed group of Russian musketeers, which lost three men and took a lot of shock.
The depleted Russian hussars thought they might sneak around the barn and catch their nemesis in the rear, but the cards went against them, the hunters became the hunter, and in a second melee the Russians lost two more men without doing any damage. The survivors were out of the fight. The Prussian hussars had nothing between them and the Russian deployment point, so they galloped up, captured the cart of fodder and vodka, and with the Russian morale rapidly collapsing, I called it a day.
Things I learned:
1) I was reminded how good SP is for solo play. As long as I can play a complete turn, I can leave it and come back to it when time permits without forgetting a unit that hasn't moved.
2) I use chits but I really need to make some playing cards, the chit pull is awkward and the way I've painted the MDF chits, they tend to stick together. Also, I allowed myself to put the Tiffin chit back in the cup if it came up too quickly and only apply it the second time.
3) Light infantry and skirmishers are fun to use but the caveats described above apply. They are too vulnerable to be left in the open.
4) Cannon are fun but don't expect too much of them. Rolling ten dice is a pleasant experience, and it will cause some damage, but with two actions to reload and one to lay the gun to get the extra dice, it means that a cannon will at best fire every second turn.
5) Formations, formations, formations. Two, or better yet, three groups of lined infantry in formation, ideally with a subordinate leader to help reduce shock, are terrifying to face if handled properly, and their first fire is a veritable Death Star. However, they are easily disrupted by bad terrain.
6) Don't forget that a Big Man needs to spend a Command Action to activate a group or formation he's with. It's not automatic. It was one of those details I'd forgotten from previous games.
7) A little terrain goes a long way. I think the table I set up had a good mix of terrain to troops.
One final thing, I mentioned that I was using Sharp Practice army lists for the SYW and yes, I have lists for the Russians and Prussians but I'm blessed if I know where they came from. If you'd like them, let me know in the comments and I'll send them to you.
Cheers and blessings to your die rolls! MP+
I have a little ritual when I finish painting a horse and musket era unit. I like to "muster it in" to the army I'm currently working on, and so, having shown you the Prussian grenadiers finished in my previous post, I wanted to stage a little parade with their compatriots from IR3 Anhalt Dessau. Together they will represent the 3/6 Von Kleist Converged Grenadier battalion, which is drawn up for inspection here by Der Alte Fritz.
Some talk of Alexander and some of Hercules
Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these.
But of all the world's brave heroes, there's none that can compare.
With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the Prussian Grenadiers.
Apologies to any British grenadiers out there, but it seems a good song to celebrate finally finishing these lads. They are the second half of an order to Wargames Foundry in the UK last year (currently my go-to range for the Seven Years War), but the poor fellows got tucked away half painted in preparation for our move last November, and I've finally dug them out of a box and pushed them over the finish line.
When I posted pics of this model on my Bluesky social media feed, my friend James called it "the scummiest vessel he'd ever seen", a nice tribute to Stan Rogers and to my intention to paint this Skytrex model as a hardworking little tanker. And yes, this post's title is a little joking reference - IYKYK as the yutes like to say.
Not much more to say about this model, it's from the Skytrex Cruel Seas range, 1/300 scale models that work well with the Torpedoes and Tides rules I like. It's straight out of the box, resin hall with some metal bits, no mods, just some heavy drybrushing and some rust effects to make it look like the tramp steamer she is.
No flags, I want this ship to be a target for E boats or RN torpedo boats.
Thanks for looking and blessings to your brushes!
MP+
Hello friends:
I'll start with a disclaimer that what follows attempts to be an objective review of new WW2 rules, though the rules are also written by a dear friend of mine, so take what follows with however many grains of salt you require.
If you ever explored Wargames Vault (WV), you know that there is a vast universe of resources there - rules, scenario books, STL files, paper models, anything that can be sold and delivered via download. I suppose that most things offered on WV are like those self-published e-books that people sell through websites like Amazon. And I suppose that many wargamers have the itch to write their own rules because aren't we are all sometimes dissatisfied with aspects of published rules for our favourite periods and we feel that our ideas are truer to how we imagine, say, a hoplite battle unfolding. I've never tried to write and sell my own rules, but I know people who have and I respect them.
I've read that a few people get rich selling their own e-books online, but I don't think anyone's gotten rich off WV. However, it is a niche market and a source of revenue for some. 4P Press is one of the most prolific WV publishers that I'm aware of, and the genius behind it is Patricia Phillips, who describes herself as "an autistic history fanatic". I know her well enough to say that this self-description is only partially tongue in cheek. Patricia's knowledge and interests are vast and her pen (well, keyboard) is seldom still. 4P's rule offerings on WV are many - WW1 flying, early 20th century race car driving, ironclad naval combat - and she also has a goodly number of STL files done with the help of her talented friend Chris Ferree. Patricia would be the first to say that 4P is a labor of love and not a business, but I don't think she minds whatever sales come her way.
When Patricia offered me the chance to look at Push; A Game of Ground Combat 1930-45, her new WW2 rules (though as the title says they do work for the interwar period as well), I was curious and thought it was a chance to break out my neglected collection of 15mm toys. The rules offer an interesting take on morale (called Stance) which is as important as firepower. As the introduction states, "The philosophy behind Push is that combat comes down to two things: the side that pushes forward and the other side's efforts to push back". This philosophy is behind the fire mechanics, of which I'll say a bit shortly.
Push is a company level game, so an infantry company will have three stands of infantry, an HQ stand, and maybe support weapons. Troops have the usual ratings (Elite, Veteran, Trained, Poor) but these only matter for morale tests. The most important thing about your troops in battle is their Stance (or combat effectiveness), which ranges from Pressing (gung-ho), to Steady, to Cautious, to Pinned, to Broken. A stand that is Steady has a better chance of working under fire, moves faster, and shoots better than a stand that is Cautious or Pinned.
I'll try to explain these and other concepts as I walk through a little game that I set up to test drive the rules.
Here two Canadian companies are attacking a village at a crossroads. Each company has an attached 2 inch mortar section, and one has an attached HMG section. The Canadians get a divisional (medium) artillery barrage once at the start of the game. The German company has a light mortar and an MG42 section in support.
Combat in Push is an expression of what the rules call Pressure (attack) against Resistance (defence). If the Pressure dice exceeds the Resistance score, then the target decreases its stance. For Indirect Fire (artillery and such), as well as Reaction (basically Opportunity Fire) only the attacker gets to throw Pressure dice and see if the score for each dice is greater than the target's Resistance (determined by it's stance) modified by cover. In this case, the medium artillery get 4 Pressure dice against each stand or base within a 4" barrage area. The German defenders in the initial barrage are all Steady so their resistance is a four, increased by +1 if dug in or +2 if in hard cover (the ruined village buildings).
The barrage does some damage. Now on to the first turn and the first phase is the Command phase, when you can call in offboard artillery and, more importantly, use your Gumption tokens. Gumption is an interesting and important idea in Push. Each side gets one token per company (maybe more depending on circumstances). A Gumption token allows you to do various things, like automatically rally a stand and improve it's stance, combine the fire of two stands, and motivate one stand to do something heroic (the game calls this stance Pressing or Carrying the Push). More about that below.
The next phase is Movement which is done on an IGOUGO basis, one side moving all their units, and then the other moving. Units that move in LOS of an enemy unit can be fired on at the time of moving (same principle as described above, Pressure dice vs Resistance rating). My Canadians advance and take some fire, one stand going Cautious (red token). Units that use Reaction Fire can move in their turn, but can't participate in Combat unless it's a close assault so, if you want to shoot and you're on the defence, you have to decide, do I use Reaction Fire or wait until the Combat phase when all the enemy's moves are complete?
The Combat phase combines shooting and hand to hand assaults. If a moving unit contacts an enemy stand, then assault is immediate. Otherwise, all shooting that has not happened as Reaction Fire happens now. Here's an interesting thing about how Push imagines combat - it's often simultaneous. Both units fire or melee at the same time. Both roll their Pressure Dice vs the enemy's Resistance rating and vice versa. Whichever side rolls more dice that equal or exceeds the other's Resistance rating than the other successfully pushes the other's Stance down one or more levels.
Here's an example. A Canadian stand and the German MG unit engage in combat. The MG gets 4 pressure dice, the Canadians three because they moved half or less of their movement of 6" in the open. The Canadians' Resistance is a 4 because their Stance is Steady and they are in the open. The German's Resistance is 5: Steady Stance and +1 for being dug in. The Germans roll only one dice (4) that equals or exceeds the Canadian stance, and the Canadians only roll one dice (a 5) that equals or exceeds the German stance. The result is a tie and neither side goes down a Stance level. Push's idea of fire combat may seem counterintuitive, as in most systems A fires at B (eg, Prep Fire in Squad Leader) and sees if it can damage B. With Push, I imagine simultaneous exchanges of fire so in this case, the Canucks went to ground when the MG opened up and returned fire with rifles and Brens, lots of shooting, no result. It might have gone badly for the Canucks in the open but they were lucky.
One of the things I like about Push is that there is no casualty removal. Everything depends on Stance and if a unit goes to Broken, it just runs away or surrenders.
Fast forward to the last few turns I had to play and a good example of the Gumption mechanic. As my attackers get closer, I decide to use a Gumption token to give raise one stand to Pressing. Only a Gumption token can do this and it can only be given to a Steady stand. It gives the stand an extra pressure dice and increases its resistance to five. Perhaps the lieutenant gave an inspiring speech or these joes just have their blood up.
In Push there is a subset of the Movement Phase called the Initiative Phase. This allows one stand the benefit of surprise or extreme heroism. It can't be targetted by Reaction fire and if it engages in Combat (fire or assault) it gets its licks in first and the defender does not roll its Pressure dice in response. A player can spend a Gumption token to give +1 to an intiative roll if the HQ of the stand that might benefit from the initiative is touching another stand of the company and within 6". In this case, I used my second Gumption token to give the Canadians a +1 on the Initiative Roll. Canucks win the roll, and so my Pressing stand gets the Initiative. It runs around the corner of the stone wall and is in among the German foxholes with grenades and bayonets. It gets an extra Pressure dice, so four dice, gets lucky rolls, and shellacks the Germans with three hits, driving them from Steady to Broken. Kamerad!
So that was enough to give me a taste of the rules and I will definitely try them again. One thing I haven't mentioned or yet explored is that there are also rules in Push for armour and air support, minefields, and some suggestions for solo play. Push also comes with enough data on troops and equipment for enough nationalities to satisfy hardcore gamers. One of Patricia's super powers is research and copious data set compilation.
Push is a first edition, so there are a few details that were unclear to me, but I got prompt answers when I asked the author. Patricia is on Bluesky (4ppress.bsky.social) and is planning a website for questions, FAQs, and discussions on her rules. Push offers some interesting ideas for WW2 gaming, and is currently available on WV for the princely sum of $7.70USD, which is a small amount to support an indie publisher. Do have a look.
Hello friends:
In my last post, "Convoy Chaos", I had some photos of some shamefully underpainted German vessels and even black primed targets (I mean, merchant ships). Since then I've been working on getting them finished for their next encounter.
Here is the 3D printed Raumboote or R Boat. The German term literally means "clearance boat" and they were wooden hulled, fast vessels that could serve a number of roles: minesweeping, air-sea rescue, and convoy escort. Over 400 were produced and served in all theatres. Later versions were upgunned and some had torpedo tubes added.
This beast is a Skytrex resin and metal model M Class minelayer. In German they were called Minensuchboot and I gather that, like the R Boats, they were versatile ships that could play a variety of roles.
