Victory Without Quarter - 2

Having rebased the troops, I tried a game using the VWQ rules. It was just a thrown together scenario but the result was very pleasing.

Since then I have gone back over my ECW notes and reworked the battle data into VWQ terms. I can just fit Marston Moor onto my normal table area (48" by 30"). I am painting up the rest of the horse to complete the Marston Moor OOBs. Since this was the biggest battle of the ECW, I should have enough troops to do any battle from the wars (in case you didn't know there were three...). Well, I could do with some Scots and Irish ...

Not much actual gaming (or painting, or much of anything really) has been done over the last two months as family matters interposed but things are now getting back to some semblance of normality.

Salute 2009

Salute this year was at the end of March, rather than late in April.

I wasn't helping on the WD stand (although I did have a go at "Solferino in 30 Minutes"),so I paid the full punter's rate, but I thought it was still worth it. I didn't actually purchase that much, a stream set and a pack of single hexes from Kallistra, some 5mm magnetic tape and that was about it.

Victory Without Quarter - 1

(December 2008) Having been moderately impressed with Basic Impetus, I had a go with Basic Baroque for ECW. It didn't really grab me and the ranges are badly distorted. Started writing my own rules, but then remembered Richard Brooks' “Victory Without Quarter” (including a successful Cheriton scenario)... I had always been put off these before because of the fiddly 6 man units, but then realised that the Cheriton game at COW used Ian Drury's figures at twice these numbers – 12 man units and 1 figure to 100 men. I rebased a unit to see how it worked and really liked the look – much more like the period engravings! As an added bonus – the game should work on Hexon II (1 hex to 250yds). I have now rebased all my 15mm ECW figures, with 2 figures on a 20mm wide base, except for some cavalry on 25mm wide because they don't fit on 20mm.

Wings of War

(December 2008) I have been looking for a simple World War I air game for a long while. Many years ago, I bought "Fight in the Skies". It was a reasonably good game but still too complex for what I wanted. Recently, I had heard a lot about "Wings of War" and it seemed like it was the sort of game I wanted , so eventually, I treated myself to “Wings of War: Famous Aces”. It does indeed look like a nice simple WW1 air game. Hopefully the search is now over. It's a pity the painted models are now so expensive (£10), so I plan to use Junior General card models rescaled to 1/144.

Hold the Line becomes a Few Bloody Noses

Found a game on line called “Hold the Line” by Worthington Games for AWI (and its predecessor "Clash for a Continent"). I was interested because it is played on hexes. It's actually a board game but the conversion to using with miniatures is obvious. Gave it a go but quickly started changing things ... and ended up completely rewriting it as “A Few Bloody Noses”. Played Camden scenario, which worked pretty well.

COW 2008 and after

In the event FMA in Time and Space didn't happen at COW this year, but my "Sunne in Splendour" game and the talk on 1st St Albans were both a great success.

Tried Basic Impetus with Normans and Saxons. Quite good, will have to try this again.

Moved gaming activities into middle bedroom.

Tried Napoleonic FMA skirmish. The game really showed how a couple of good figures (Elite) can dominate the game. Fair enough I suppose. With more formal periods you do need to avoid having too many Green troops and have mostly Average or Veteran.

April 2008

Table cleared away for Simon coming home.

Been doing a lot of tidying up of the additional files for FMA. This included a generic magic system.

Salute is approaching! Got a freebie entry badge (via WD). Shopping list:

• Punic Wars 6mm Baccus, £51-35
• Hexon II half hexes, £14-95

Also bought some Perry plastic ACW infantry, some Border Reivers, some 25mm Napoleonics and some Three Musketeers figures. All for FMA skirmish.

Need to book COW...

• Planned games for COW:
• Sunne in Splendour
• FMA in Time and Space (a variety of FMA skirmish games including Dad's Army)
• Talk on 1st St Albans
  

Painting Punic Wars 6mm. Have completed Romans, now to start on Carthaginians. These are for BBDBA, but I am wondering whether to try Basic Impetus with them as well.

Jan - March 2008

Rebasing 25mm WOTR for “The Sunne in Splendour” rules development. Figures actually look better, I think – less cramped than before. I do like the brown brush penned edges on the Avocado mount board bases.

The book was published in August 2007. Selling well!

“The Sunne in Splendour”, after several iterations is finally giving me the sort of game I want. Now need to look at developing some scenarios.

Tried IABSM but didn't really like it very much. Almost in desperation, went back to my (really) old WW2 rules “Breakout”. With several modifications they became “Breakout V2” and now they seem to be a very enjoyable game!

Bought some British infantry and a Lledo van to be painted up as “Dad's Army” for FMA.

Tried “All the King's Men”. Interesting rule mechanisms. Gave a reasonably good “toy soldiers” game. Would probably play them again.

Perhaps inspired by the success of SiS and Breakout V 2, I dug out Neil Cogswell's rules and tinkered with them. I've now renamed them “The Whites of Their Eyes” since they're mostly my rules now. Still have the Cogswell flavour but a lot of the old “wrinkles” ironed out to give a smoother game. The Prussians have just soundly beaten the Austrians.

Had a go at the D6 variant of “The Sword and the Flame”. A few small mods but it plays well and is quite fun.

COW 2007

(June 2007) Planning to go to COW this year (first time in 7 years!). Going to do High Water Mark (with the Chancellorsville scenario?), Doubloons on the Spanish Main (using Wizkids Pirate ships) and FMA. The last will be a scenario loosely based on Firefly / Serenity.

Downloaded some rather good Firefly deck plans.

Trying to finish painting the Battle of the Little Big Horn figures.

For HWM, Chancellorsville seemed too dependent on the Confederate flank march so I chose Antietam (Sharpsburg) instead.

Tried the FMA scenario. It worked fine and I found myself using the role play bits from Risus. This happened even more so in the game at COW.

BOTLBH figures finished. Bought card for the board. Its quite tricky trying to draw the areas on the board, so may not have time to finish this before COW. Didn't, but didn't need it anyway. Bought some black mount board for the Serenity deck plans but didn't have time to mount them. Didn't need them either.

Games played or run at COW:

• Doubloons on the Spanish Main
• Oh Max!
• The Gentlemen Go By
• Rolling Thunder
• Full Metal Anorak (Firefly scenario)
• NATO Brigade Commander
• Basra
• Stonk
• High Water Mark (Antietam)

A very good weekend (if a little sleepless!). Now to write up the onside and offside reports.

Awaiting publication of “the book”, any time now...

Salute 2007

Salute 2007, bought more Kallistra terrain (!). Some more Essex WOTR figures, some small dice (from EM4) and the new Crusader ancients rule book. Also some Coat d'Arms paints from Black Hat (to replace the stuff the kids ruined).

Played a RF2 game on the Hexon II terrain, slightly modified for the hexes. Seemed to work well. The 2/3 scale maps nicely onto the 4” hexes.

By chance discovered that felt “sticks” to the Hexon II flock quite nicely. Using it for woods, crops etc.

October 2006

(October 06)Added “Invincible Armada” and “Full Plastic Body Bag” to the list of small games.

Although HF&G seems a reasonable game, the DBx mechanic is beginning to feel a bit “bland”. DBA itself works fine, as does DBR, but I'm not sure about HF&G for the ACW, particularly as I have it for Napoleonic. Looked at “Minischlacht” but don't know about formations for ACW or representation.

The playing card based turn sequence is getting popular. Wonder if it would work with some other games (e.g. DBA?). Mini-card idea sent to Nugget.

Decided to get some of the Hexon II terrain from Kallistra. Had lots of good reports in Nugget. Hope it will (eventually) give me the “rolling terrain” solution. Hexes I know but I guess I can live with that. Couldn't do Matakishi's method because 9mm cork tiles are no longer available it seems.

Went to SELWG on Saturday. Arrived 1pm, left at 4pm. Bought the Kallistra terrain, had a chat with a few WD guys (not many there), wandered around a bit and that was it. Unexciting.

The Hexon II terrain is really nice. The hexes are not too obvious and figures will stand up on the hills! Well worth the money (phew!).

Tried the terrain out with a DBA game (Byzantine vs. Norman). Looks great. This game I am experimenting with the Playing Card Sequence instead of PIP dice. Seems to work. Couple of mods required: Close combat is resolved on the defender's activation. This means that if the cards fall right, two or more bodies can engage a single defending body. Secondly, a Fatigue Point (DBA variant rule I always use) can be removed if an element does not move. For purposes of defining a body (each body gets a card), a group of elements in contact with each other (including corner to corner, i.e. one has been recoiled) constitutes a body.

Started developing a hex based army level ACW game. Christened it “High Water Mark”.

Spring - Summer 2006

(May 2006) Indeed, wargames have been pretty much on hold while we worked on the book. The good news is that the draft is almost complete. The bad news is that we are WAY over the top on word count!! Progress meeting this weekend (4 June) to discuss what to cut. We are short of images so this will need discussion too.

I have been looking through Nuggets for inspiration. Liked the concept of “Rebels and Redcoats” by Ian Drury for American Revolution. Rebased my AWI armies (R&R requires single figures). Tried Guildford Courthouse scenario. Good, although IMHO the American militia are a bit too strong.

Followed this with Bob Cordery's “Redcoats and Dervishes”. Rebased Pathans to singles. Not quite so good as R&R. British are outnumbered and it is difficult for them to make any progress. They probably need to use the brigade square tactic in the rules to get anywhere. Advantage is that single bases allows me to go back to the veteran “Sword and the Flame” rules (but with Bob Cordery's D6 15mm mods).

Produced a number of ECW scenarios for DBR. Found a useful way of producing maps by taking the OS scale map tiles from Streetmap into PowerPoint and then calculating a table area to suit at the correct ground scale. Brentford, for example, needs a 6 by 4 table because the fighting was so spread out.

Similar process to produce scenarios for Napoleonic battles (Peninsular War and Waterloo campaign). I also did Austerlitz for HF&G but I don't have the figures for the Russian/Austrian army. Maps are from the 'net where possible then same trick as for the ECW maps. Orbats are for “Horse, Foot & Guns”, Army Level Napoleonic or “Quatre Bras” according to the size. Too many Prussian Heavy Cavalry – will rebase some of them as Lights (cheaper than buying more figures!).

“Ludicrous Latitudes” by David Brock(?) seems a fun game. Need a few more small ships, but markers will probably do for the time being.

Card decks for games can be printed onto thin card straight on the printer.

Wargaming Going on Hold...

Lots of things will probably go "on hold" between now and next summer as we start work on "the book". This is Peter Burley, Harvey Watson and me writing a book for Pen & Sword on "The Battles of St. Albans". Contracts have been signed and our first meeting with Rupert Harding is on 9th September at Harvey's.

A Whiff of Grapeshot

(August 2005) Last weekend I went to "Whiff of Grapeshot" at the Firepower museum. Nice little show and it was interesting to see some of the stuff in the museum (e.g. French Napoleonic 12pdr in mint condition complete with caissons and all the gear). Interesting bunch of traders, some I had not seen before.

Spent a bit of money - buying all the bits for a third US infantry battalion for RF. Got 2 2 1/2ton trucks from Frontline, along with a nice little 57mm anti-tank gun made by Under the Bed. AB Figures from a local trader called Bull Models provided the 60mm mortar and the .50cal and from the same guy a cheaper set for the 81mm mortar. Would have got the AB one but they only do it as a pack of 2. The Frontline trucks are good value at only £3-10 each, will borrow the other two from the supply trucks. Thought the tricky bit would be the Dodge trucks, but found the Esci one (with paratrooper figures) for £5-95 on a trade stand called POL Models. Bought two! Effectively got 100 paratrooper figs for £1-40. Paratroopers were not my first choice but beggars...

Anyway, converted 3 of them from kneeling riflemen to bazookas and 3 spare Russian figures as crew for the 57mm. The two sets of paratrooper figs provide enough .30cal mgs to do a paratroop battalion rather than an ordinary leg unit. I can always buy a box or two of US infantry at some point (you can never have too many toys!).

Checking at Plastic Soldier Review, it seems the best WW2 US infantry are either Esci/Italeri or Revell (the Revell set are very good for Battle of the Bulge winter uniform, but don't have any .30 cal mgs).
Esci/Italeri: 3 mortars (60mm?), 2 bazookas, 2 .30cal
Revell: 2 .50cal 2 81mm mortars, 3 bazookas

Must finish the remaining two Chevy trucks for the Barce raid game.

Spring 2005

(March 2005) Apparently this diary hasn't been updated since April 2004!! I am not sure what I've actually done in the last year - not much, mainly because of lack of space I think.

Last Christmas (2004) I ordered the 15mm ECW figures to bring the ECW armies up to the strength required for "Marston Moor on a 6 by 4". Didn't get round to painting them until Easter, when I discovered that I'd forgotten that Parliament horse are 4 figures per base not 3. Oh dear, I need another 3 packs...

Also got the Dixon figures (can't remember when - Salute 2004?) for the Battle of the Little Big Horn game. Started painting them but haven't touched them for yonks…
Have decided to try and sell the AK47 armies at the BnB at Salute (April 23rd).
Have been getting more involved with the Battlefields Trust. A couple of weeks ago we did a series of presentations at the National Army Museum - very well received. Now we have the 550th anniversary of the 1st Battle of St. Albans in May. BT study day on the Saturday, re-enactment on the Sunday, a busy weekend.

The idea for ECW is to write a series of scenarios for all the major battles. I now have orbats for most of them, although its surprising how different they can be from different sources. The biggest problem is how to draw the maps. I still cannot find a decent map drawing program. I don't really want to draw them by hand.

As a support to the Battles of St. Albans presentations, I want to use the 25mm WOTR armies to illustrate the action. Chopped up one of the old paste tables to get two boards 36" by 18" for the 2nd battle. Painted them green and will now mark the terrain (road net, Tonman Ditch, river) with black felt pen. Then paint? Was going to do the same for 1st battle but that is a 4 by 4 and it seemed a bit of a waste since it is mostly the town centre.

Rationalising: along with getting rid of the AK47 stuff, I'm going to put the Spanish Netherlands DBR stuff into store (the back eaves).

Rest of 2004

(August 2004) A couple of days off, so took the opportunity to play a small HFG game with 15mm ACW troops. Had tried a HOTT version for ACW but didn’t like it. HFG gave a really interesting and enjoyable game. Two corps sized armies on a 2ft square board, a narrow won victory for the Rebels (4-3). I really liked the different outcomes such as repulsed and routed and the artillery support mechanism. The –3 for a flank attack makes this the killer move.

Tried playing HOTT-AK47. Seemed to work quite well although didn't finish game. Possibly allow tanks (Knights) and armoured cars (Riders) to use distant shooting?

Spring 2004

Mar 2004: The "sliding block puzzle" at home is still in progress, but getting there… No room or time for any games at present.

Played a game at the weekend - 15mm Stargrunt II, IDF vs. NAC, nice win for the IDF. Played it on a 4 by 2 board using a "half scale" ruler. This worked very well. Used the carpet tiles on this board - gave a nice "muddy brown" river.

I have decided that I need to get rid of the 4 by 2.5 board and replace it with 2 3by2s (to make a 4by3). Was going to buy a couple of boards when I realised that we actually have 4 4by2 MDF boards. Problem solved - cut down 2 of them to 3by2!!

(April 2004) Went to the Napoleonic Fair on Sunday, met Richard Clarke and bought IABSM. Also heard Bernard Cornwell speak - very entertaining!

Cut down the boards and set up a 4by3 in the front room. Played a 25mm DBA WOTR game. All Knights dismounted as Blades, Yorkists had an Artillery base, Lancastrians a 3Sp. Lancastrians won by a short head (1 Bw base). Interesting because it seemed natural to deploy the Bows in the first rank with Blades right behind. In DBA Bows can recoil through Blades. This has a direct relevance to the Barnet site research. If Bills / Men at Arms formed up behind the archers then the required frontage is about half what I thought before...

Tried the Humberside version of DBA for AWI. Not sure about it… The Americans are supposed to win Eutaw Springs but I couldn't see how they could under these rules. The -1 for militia is crippling.

Jan - Feb 2004

Jan 2004. Happy New Year! Did a lot of painting & modelling over the Christmas holiday. Made the second Wespe (on the Frontline PZ II body) and painted it. Painted the Britannia LRDG trucks and crew, 15mm SGII Islamics, WW2 Italians and Germans, WOTR men-at-arms. Added plastic tubes to rear of WOTR men-at-arms stands to take flags.

Its my birthday next week and I'd like to get another DBA army, but can't make up my mind which one. Possibles are Later Crusader, Sub-Roman British (King Arthur), Cilician Armenian, Fatimid Egyptian.

Set up a DBA game, Early Crusader vs. Syrian. Syrians won, but it wasn't until I put them away that I realised that they did it with a 1 base handicap!

We have decided that David will move into the middle bedroom and that all my wargame stuff will move into the front bedroom. But no table. This will mean that I will not have a fixed table for games. All the more reason to concentrate on short, simple games like DBA (at least for the time being).

I need to rationalise my terrain systems as part of the "big move", so I am cutting down all my 40cm carpet tiles to 30cm square.

Autumn 2003

October 2003. Followed that with a Megablitz game. A German infantry division is defending a town against an American armored division, supported by an infantry division. After the first day (6 turns) a German armoured division appears on the German right flank...

November 2003. Played the Chancellorsville scenario of Battle Cry. Used 3 by 2 board on the bed (!!). Rebels won 6-3.

Went to Warfare in Reading. Bought the McGill book on Barnet, a secondhand copy of "The Last Battle" by Cornelius Ryan (for £2!) and a platoon of 15mm SGII (Islamics). Had a chat with David Commerford (from the VLB rules discussion group).

Designed a Talavera scenario for Battle Cry Napoleonic. Played it, worked fine.
Had another look at "Quatre Bras" rules in the light of the discussions on the VLB group. Modified it and tried the Quatre Bras scenario. Played well, but still need to understand grand tactical evolutions better. Dug out Georg W. Jeffery's notes on this.

Summer 2003

Easter 2003 - virtually no gaming again this holiday. Spent a lot of time working on the Roman fort for CHJS, so perhaps that was a reason. The fort is mostly done - just the walls left to do and adding detail, grass mat etc. Games need space - and not much available right now. A certain PC has also been getting in the way… Didn't even play Battle Cry! Perhaps I should have done. Decided I needed a 3ft * 2ft board for things like 6mm Napoleonic, so cut down one of the old 4*2's (with blue hexes on) and painted the "rough" side green.

Salute is this Saturday (26th April) and I have a shopping list. Why am I going to buy a lot of 20mm WWII? Maybe because I like them and a bit of nostalgia. The only place we can play Rapid Fire is in the Gable Room (at the church), so I am wondering about "downsizing" to 1/200??

(August 19th) Very little wargaming over the last several weeks (personal reasons). A propos previous entry, I am going to stick with 20mm WWII. Too much stuff already and too much nostalgia to change. I'll just have to live with the space problem. (Thought: reduce moves and ranges in RF??). Slowly getting back into things now. Have played a couple of FMA-B test games - shaping up nicely. Revamping old South American fleets for "Damn Battleships Again".

Following on from the previous entry, I thought I'd try reducing all moves and ranges in Rapid Fire to 2/3. Produced a "Rapid Fire 2/3" playsheet. Tried it out with a scenario using the Russians for the first time - worked a treat! This could also be done by producing a "reduced ruler" - a 12in ruler that is actually only 8" long. Then you don't need to use a special version of the playsheet... I think perhaps Dirtside II and Stargrunt II might benefit from a similar treatment?

Set up a refight of Talavera using HF&G. The French won - but only just!!

Spring 2003

Made the first Panzer II to Wespe conversion. Bought a Revell German Artillery set to get the guns. This will also give me a spare trail and limber for the existing horse drawn guns. Found a side view of a Wespe on the 'net and did a scale reduction on the drawing board to get the dimensions for the gun compartment. Used thin card to build the gun compartment. Looks really nice. Need to finish painting it. Will get another Panzer II from Frontline for the other one.

The Aristia campaign season has now finished with a resounding win by the Carinthian forces. The allies sued for peace. The problem with this campaign is that the countries are geographically far apart which means that it takes a lot of map moving to get any battles. Secondly, the armies that I wanted to fight insist on being peaceful!! Because of this I am going to try running a "from the book" DBA campaign of the Norman conquest. Checked out the Fanaticus web site and found a version but I didn't like the map - a simple linked block map. Also it had Ireland as a participant for some unaccountable reason. Designed a new linked areas map as described in the rules. Vikings moved first and advanced to York (no problem with sea crossing). English army moved from Mercia to York in response. Battle of Stamford Bridge! The Saxons won, with the Vikings losing 4 4Bd elements. Very historical.

Half term holiday. David and I went to Essex Miniatures. He bought 6 crossbowmen to paint up as orcs. I bought the Rapid Fire Market Garden supplement, some Coat D'Arms paints, some AWI Hessians, some more WOTR men-at-arms and some sacks and barrels for the Western town. Also some grave stones with which I've made a "Boot Hill".

Worked out a shopping list from Frontline Wargaming. If I get everything on the list its just over £60! Hmm… will have to drop some of it then...

Set up an FMA game using the SF police background. The Cops have to stop the bad guys from escaping off the table. The multi level SF terrain can be a bit fiddly.

I'm currently working up Megablitz orbats from the RF supplement for Market Garden. I can fit the whole thing on two tables 60km by 40km.

Nugget arrived yesterday (Wednesday 26th Feb) with my 2 articles in it. John A. needs more stuff...

Christmas 2002

Another holiday with very little wargaming!

Did play a DBA game (Byzantines vs. Syrians - the Syrians won...) Didn't even play any Battle Cry! David did more gaming than I did - he had his friends over and they spent a whole day playing LOTR. He also spent some of his Christmas money on more LOTR figures as well as getting them for presents. So far he has the new (Two Towers) rule book, Riders of Rohan, Uruk Hai and a mounted Eomer. Karen bought the mounted Arwen (with Frodo). I decided after a long think to buy the Fellowship with some of my money. David and Karen have painted them.

I am constructing a Roman fort from the Usborne book kit for Cunningham Hill Junior School as a "thank you". Painted some 15mm Romans to go with it and started building the fort itself.

Finished painting the War of the Worlds Martians. Now need to try them out! Second batch of Border Reivers being painted now. Found some OO scale signal ladders which saved me buying some for the Reivers ladder party.

Winter 2002

18th Nov 02: I sometimes wonder if this hobby of mine is really wargaming or is it collecting toy soldiers and writing rules? I don't seem to spend much time actually playing games much…. So why am I buying loads of WWII Russians? Terry Wise is slowly selling up all his stuff and I have ordered a bag of 165 Russian Infantry from him.

Over the weekend I continued trying to clear the table so that I can play a game or two(!). Eventually got around to (yeah, I found "a round tuit") finishing the two DBA tented encampments. Made 3 copies of the little round tent from one of the Usborne books (Medieval village, I think). Added to them some piles of baggage and stuff (Peter Pig, possibly) I had previously used as baggage elements for DBR. This little project has only taken well over a year..!?!

Finished painting AK47 dead figures and the first batch of Border Reivers. Some of the reivers were holding their lance across the body. Didn't like this, so cut it off and replaced with a length of unbent paper clip held upright in the figure's right hand. Much better. Of course, they all need basing now...

I plan to use HOTT for the Border Reivers, but possibly also for War of the Worlds. There may be other possibilities, we'll see. Colonial perhaps? Hmm, HOTT will always allow the "slightly fantastical" or "movie style" approach - that might be fun... Zulus with some dinosaurs (behemoths) for a sort of "Lost World" scenario?

I am making a War of the Worlds style Martian army with tripod walkers. Each walker is made from the bowls of two plastic spoons with legs cut from barbecue skewers. Their HOTT stronghold will be a crashed missile pod made from an empty loo roll. Must be the cheapest army ever!

When I get together enough cash, I want to buy the ACW game "Battle Cry". Very good reviews on the 'Net. Short games and some subtlety with the rules system. Bit pricey at £40 but I don't often buy this sort of game.

Got the bag of Russians from Terry Wise. No machine guns, oh well...

Well, saved up the money and bought "Battle Cry". Really nice game and David likes playing it too. Have written a review for the Nugget.

Autumn 2002

29th Sep: Visited Essex Warriors open day. I was a founder member when I lived in Chelmsford. The club still going strong after 25 years. Small, but friendly. Enjoyed watching a DBM version of Kadesh. It was nice to see the game fought to a proper conclusion. Bought a copy of HOTT.

29th September: Finished the last Aristia battle. Quite a dramatic finish - the Carinthian army lost, but only lost 2 elements, 1 Kn and the Kn General! This concludes the campaign season on Aristia, so all armies will now return to winter quarters.

HOTT is a nice DBA style game, but I'm not entirely sure what to do with it yet. Two possibilities are: Border Reivers and War of the Worlds. Pirates? but who do they fight (apart from each other)?

20th October: went to SELWG. Good lot of traders, but the games were not that brilliant. Apparently they will not have the lower hall next year, so they will have to move the Bring & Buy upstairs to the other hall. This will remove about 10 traders. Maybe I won't go next year… Had a chat with Jon T. who said that he definitely plans to include other genres, such as western gunfight and VSF in FMA when it is finally published. We also briefly discussed the "big vehicle / beastie" problem.

Bought some toys:
Russian infantry (2nd hand Airfix, from BB Wargames)
2 T34s (resin kits from Frontline)
2 wild west figures (Kennington figs going cheap, 50p each)
Roman infantry for the Roman fort I'm doing for Cunningham School (Essex)

Tried to get some Wespe SPGs, but no-one seems to do them now that Matchbox has gone. May have to do a conversion job on a couple of PzKpfw IIs from Frontline. Frontline are definitely the cheapest source of 20mm WWII vehicles these days.

I don't know why I am doing this, but I seem to be building more armies for Rapid Fire. Maybe I just like WWII games! Shades of my youth...

Summer 2002

9th July 02: Finished the ECW campaign game - the Royalists (the smaller force) won!
August - played "Doubloons on the Spanish Main" with David on the floor of the Upper Room. Quite successful (David liked it) but still needs some work to tighten up the combat systems in particular.

Played a VSF FMA game to test the new (again!) firing system. Worked very well. Did a write up for the GZG test list.

Still trying to find a satisfactory way of representing "ship" terrain for FMA. Tried a 1/2in square grid on a Daler sheet with card walls blu-tacked in place. OK, but not brilliant. 40mm is high enough for the walls, but getting to the FMA counters is a bit fiddly.

Played an LOTR game with David - good game, I won!

Wrote up "The Defence of Bastogne" as an MB scenario and posted it to the Yahoo group files section.

Wrote "Pont de la Croix" from "Operation Warboard" (Bernard & Gavin Lyall) as a Rapid Fire scenario. Used Lior's Map Creator to draw the map. Its very good except that lines are only one type so this makes it difficult to print maps in black and white. [Could make some lines thicker?]

Made some small (2in. square) BUA areas for MB, using balsa for the buildings.

April - June 2002

27th April, Salute. Good show, loads going on. (David went with Bernard, Graham, Iain and Thomas). Helped Bob and Tim run the Megablitz game. Bought the rules, also PBI2, AK47 mortar crew and dead and some extra river sections. Megablitz worked well with lots of people showing interest. Afterwards, I decided to ditch "Bastogne to Berlin" in favour of MB, so I bought a reel of magnetic tape and some steel paper (£7-50). Started rebasing 1/300 scale forces. Have standardised on 2cm * 4cm bases (except for Transport and Leg infantry).

Have decided to model units from Patton's III Army and its opponents. It looks as if I'll be able to create 2 or 3 armoured divisions and at least 2 infantry divisions for each side. Will need to buy some extra models to fill some gaps in the orbats…

June 02: David continues with LOTR. He's made a really nice hill and his painting technique is improving! Clearing up room for Terri's visit. Finished painting the Irregular village pack (people, animals, packages, cart), extra figs for 1460 campaign rules, new Essex dismounted knights, a group of monks and a few extra 15mm pirates.

Bought the 1/300 WW2 stuff to fill out the MB orbats. Painting and basing now.
Set up the next ECW campaign battle (the 14 vs. 8 element one).

Discovered a useful trick on the Internet. My bases are Avocado Green mount board. I bought a brown marker pen and coloured the edges of the bases brown - they look much better now. So much so - I'm doing ALL the bases I have (and that's a lot!).

Spring 2002

Played Rapid Fire with David, good game.

Haven't done much recently. Took David & Graham to Fantizan at Newark - good day out. They now want to go to Salute! Bought two packs of Foundry (!!) Victorian Bystanders. Nice figures and now not that much more expensive than the better 25mm figs on the market (GZG figs are now £1-00 each).

Played a VSF test game using FMA. Reasonably OK. Realised that the game system is very "tweakable". Need to write some notes on this.

Had a frustrating time over Easter. Trying to find a game that I wanted to play! Am I suffering from a surfeit of game systems? Eventually played a game using HAM2 (home grown general purpose Horse & Musket rules derived from Frontier Patrol). Made several changes. Not bad, but then found a game called Napoleonic Easyplay on the 'net by David St. Clair (no longer available?).

New version of "Horse, Foot & Guns" (Phil Barker's horse and musket rules) draft now available, with changes to make Bayonets a better throw against Minie. So now I'm playing a test game in ACW, Battle of Murfreesboro (Stone's River), first day Dec 31st 1862. It all fits on my 4ft * 2ft 6ins table - that's good for a start. Worked quite well - if anything, Bayonets are now too good vs. Minie. I think PB will tweak it a bit more.

David wanted to get some Lord Of The Rings figures, so I split it with him and we bought the whole game (£40) between us. He is very keen and is playing it with Graham and Thomas. Its quite a good set of rules and I like the flexibility of being able to handle anything from a handful of figures to quite large armies. The move sequence is interesting, too. Roll for priority, then high priority moves, opponent moves, high priority shoots, opponent shoots, high priority chooses order for close combats.

Winter 2001

I'm still working on the idea of flank attacks being more devastating than in most rules. Last night (29/11), I set up an AK47 game to try the flank attack mods in that system.

The AK47 game was good and the flank attack mods didn't make a huge difference (there weren't many flank attacks) but I am convinced this is the right way to go.

Then tried an ACW game using RTRY with the flank attack mods. ** An idea for ACW terrain - Clearings rather than woods ("reverse terrain").

Other thoughts about the AK47 game:

• Special effects chits aren't much good.
• Its too crowded on 48" * 30" table - needs 48" * 48" minimum.
• Objectives are very important for a fluid battle.
• Recoilless Rifles should be in a separate vehicle
• Need morale chits and objective chits (with dummies like DSII).
• Need mortar crew and dead figs.

Didn't do much wargaming over the Christmas holiday. The RTRY game worked OK, but I now think that the casualty rates are too high so tried it again with reduced small arms fire effect. Having tried that, I think I'll try it yet again with reduced artillery effect as well.

Autumn 2001

Played a game of "Hammerin' Iron" by Peter Pig. Good fun, but the Cairo class US ironclads are very effective (4*M, 1*H on each broadside!) Confederate rams took too long to engage.

Bought some plastic "grass mat" (supposed to go on the bottom of an aquarium for the fish to hide in) from an aquatics shop. Get the sort with small leaves that stands about 2 1/2 inches high. Very cheap (£2-49 each pack and makes 25 trees). Looks good en masse.

Made a set of markers for Rapid Fire and some stats cards. I still need some damage markers. I'm wondering whether the game would work with converting ins to cms? AT range is up to 48 and even small arms are up to 30. If not, then a small table will need lots of terrain.

Played another game in the Aristia campaign. The Carinthians (Carolingian Franks) won again. The next battle will be the climax of the campaign as the Carinthian forces are challenged by the combined remnants of the Vinland (Viking) and Rikan (Welsh) armies.

Went to SELWG, had a good time. Travelled by train which was fun (to E. Croydon, walk to W. Croydon) Met Bob deAngelis! He'd flown over from Spain just for the show (mad fool!). Bought a couple of steep hills from TSS, 8 dismounted knights from Essex, and from Peter Pig, some wolves (for HOTT Reivers), 2 packs of pirate guns and a pack of Armed Mob (more pirates).

Put together a Tudor village for Karen to take to school.

Nov 2001: Went to Warfare at Reading. Finally found the Dodge trucks I've been looking for - made up & painted kits at £4 each. Bought some 25mm Medieval figures (for the extra elements in the 1460 game); a "village pack" from Irregular; 15mm Border Reivers from ERM/LKM and a copy of "Hell in Microcosm". The latter has proved to be very useful and much of it has been rewritten and incorporated into "Bastogne to Berlin". This seems to be a very workable game now, but is no longer really an original piece of work. Plagiarism rules OK!!

Summer 2001 and on

Holiday on Guernsey. Visited the German Occupation Museum. Outside there was a Sherman tank (!!) , an 88mm and a 75mm A/T gun. Took some piccies. Apparently the Sherman tank isn't really one at all. It was "loaned" 12 years ago and the museum are still trying to get rid of it. Its actually a BARV (Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle), which is quite rare, but the distinctive vertical plates around the hole where the turret would normally be have been removed (although you can still see the weld marks) and a post war "super Sherman" Israeli tank turret has been dropped in. Totally anachronistic - there were never any Shermans in the Channel Islands!

Over the August BH weekend I made 32 (!!) squad boxes for 25mm SGII / FMA figures. I think I still need some more boxes for other stuff….

I'm currently trying out "Politics By Other Means" with ACW. I'm not really sure about it...

Played "Raise The Rebel Yell" on same board (2' * 2'6") and with same forces (4 units + 2 artillery) as the PBOM trial, with 4 element units. Worked very well, although I wonder if the game is decisive enough?

Tried "Play Your Cards Right". A neat little game if somewhat lacking in flavour. This is really a 5 min. game.

Played "Panzerfauste" on same board as PYCR. A very enjoyable game with a clear victory for the German section. This one is worth playing again. Produced data cards for each "race" (US and German).

I've now finished the improvements to the pirate ship masts (so they won't fall apart again).

Now playing a game using FWWAATR with my old 1/1200 scale ships. I'm trying out an idea nicked from Hammerin' Iron (ship templates). It worked well

There is a whole issue here in relation to "decisiveness" in wargames. I feel a Nugget article coming on … I've added "more effective flank attacks" to a number of rule sets.

Tried a RWNN wild west game. Fast and furious … too fast and furious. Then had an idea - lifted "Westamunda" off the 'net and hacked it around to improve the style. Added the card sequence mechanism from RWNN - great! Lots of flexibility and shooting is not too lethal. Had to clear away the game before it had finished so's the electrician could fix the lights. Oh well, such is life...

Hmm. You know I think VE could work for a wild west game…

Late Spring 2001

One of those "eureka" moments - cage bird sanded sheets for roads!

I will now build a town with ditch and palisade similar to the motte and bailey.
Started building a ditch and palisade camp (cocktail sticks and air drying clay).
Two ditch and palisade camps completed. Air drying clay is useful but SHRINKS.
Yet another victory for the Carinthians (Caroliginian Franks) in Aristia.

Finally decided to use Colour Party olive green for the water in the river sections + 3 layers of varnish. In the right light you will get the “sky reflection”. Otherwise a little sparkle along the edge. Most rivers I have looked at recently seem to be a sort of muddy green colour.

Painted up some extra Viking figures to make them 4Bd rather than 3Bd. Found enough spare figures to put together a Pre Feudal Scots army and painted them. The saltire cross on the banner is a little late for the 11th century, but poetic license here! - I wanted to make them obviously Scottish. It's the army of Macbeth and Malcolm Canmore.

Played a Wars of the Roses game using DBA 2.0. Was good and I have made notes so that it can be the first battle of a WOTR “piston” campaign.

Bought two piles of boxes, barrels etc. at Walthamstow. Painted them up to use along with the “jousting” tents as camps for the WOTR or Dutch Rebellion.

Started making up the Woodland Scenics trees I bought at Walthamstow. They are very nice, quite realistic and at £10.50 for 14 reasonably cheap (works out at 75p each). They are a lot easier to do than the pipe cleaner trees.

Bought a German 37mm anti-aircraft gun for the Rapid Fire army.

The best LRDG Chevrolet trucks I can find now that Matchbox kits are no longer available are by Britannia Models at £6-50 each...

Made some storage boxes for Rapid Fire forces. Much better and now David knows which box to put each model in. Only problem is I've run out of card...

DBA and Stuff

Played a DBA 2.0 game to try out some of the new orbats and figures (Byzantine 6Kn and 8Bw). The Seljuk Turks beat the Nikephorian Byzantines (slightly ahistorical, but so what) by executing a rather neat flank attack with their 2 Cv elements (modest with it!). Bow elements are fairly deadly against mounted troops (+4) which makes Byzantine armies much better than they used to be.

Next battle will be from Aristia. I have decided that the "Later Franks" from DBA 1.1 will become "Carolingian Franks". They are a bit early in period, but are a better fit with the previous orbat. Since Aristia is ahistorical anyway it doesn't really matter.

I am making several DBA camps. So far I have completed two - a Viking longship moored on a river bank and two nomad tents (for the Seljuks or Syrians). A tented encampment is under construction.

Experimenting with the best way to paint the river sections. Is it possible to achieve the "reflecting the sky" look?

Spent most of the May Bank Holiday weekend building a motte and bailey castle model as a BUA for DBA. This applies the principle of "down one scale" for buildings, so 6mm buildings for 15mm troops. This fits well with the requirements for BUAs in DBA. The model is about 5" by 7". The earthworks were built up from layers of some thin expanded polystyrene sheet that came as packing in David's new wardrobe. Filler was used to cover the sides of the motte and the ditch. A bit of experimentation proved that Colour Party paints work much better when stirred well(!) and I used the green to paint the earthworks. Palisades were added from card, painted natural wood and a black gel pen to add the lines. The buildings themselves gave me a bit of thought, but I eventually made them using layers of 5mm foamcore and thin card from old business cards. The whole effect is very pleasing and looks very nice with sanded sheet roads (you know, the things you put in the bottom of the budgie's cage!). There is room for a defending element in the bailey. Its weird, but the size difference doesn't look that odd.

Salute etc.

I want some ships to try "For What We Are About to Receive" (FWAATR, a naval game by John Armatys). Created some profile ship designs from Tom’s Milpics. Three different sizes for different rates. Will need to mark rating and nationality on them.

Salute - Usual team on the WD stand. This year we had more games than we needed (unlike last year!). Used TTT a couple of times but the mainstay game was Bob’s “Relief of Jakdan Wells” using his SCWaRes rules. Players definitely got into the “spirit” of this game! We also ran “Stalingrad - the Matrix Game” with great success. There were several spectators at one point. A good day was had by all and Bob even signed up a new member. Bought the river system from Marbeth Designs and the new version of DBA. Found out how Bob gets his FIMO models so neat - he uses a pasta making machine!

DBA2.0 has some interesting changes. Camps are now a reasonable size and BUAs are included. Several small changes to the army lists (presumably as a result of more accurate historical research?). Worked out a list of camps to make. Biggest change is actually the renumbering to correspond to the DBM army list books. Applying the changes to the armies I have has resulted in some minor rebasing and a few extra figures are needed.....

As it happened, I needed to go to Castlepoint on the Wednesday.... how handy, Essex Miniatures are only 4 miles away in Canvey Island! Had a nice time browsing their displays, a vast range of miniatures and the staff are very friendly. Bought 8 25mm archers for the WOTR armies, some extra troops to allow Seljuk Turks to morph into Syrians, a war wagon for the Pechenegs and 2 Bedouin style tents. Browsing around Canvey Island (an uninspiring little place) I found a shop that was selling the “Weapons & Warriors” pirate game by Pressman for £5-99. Two brigs for six quid plus half a dozen palm trees, 20 25mm pirates and sundry other bits and pieces can’t be bad. Improvement work will be needed on these.

When I got home I discovered that the last figures I bought for WOTR were also Essex, so that was rather nice. Started painting these figures and two of the river sections.

Spring 2001

Playing “A House Divided” at the moment. Makes a change to do a board game. This one has nice simple rules.

Finished western town - balustrades and painting. Tried using Milliput to repair the T Rex model. Showed David “Naval Blockade” for him to take to school. Need to try latest version of FMA (new firing system) and “Bastogne to Berlin”.

30th March - Finished SCWaRes game. Drew a King of Hearts and the Pathans ran away! Movement is quite slow but keeps the action on a small playing area. Seems to work best with relatively small forces.

31st March - Experimented with new Bastogne to Berlin rules including supply markers. Worked quite well with an armoured brigade attack in depth taking around 4 game hours (4 turns) to resolve. Made some minor mods but systems seems to work nicely. Availability of supply markers is critical (you can’t attack without them) - must be scenario dependant. Need to work them up into a publishable article now.

Early April - set up Salamanca game, using "Volley, Bayonet & Glory". Looks good, Rules seem to work very well.

Easter - laminated TTT sheets. Played a few games to be ready for Salute next week. Must remember it takes 2 hits to lose a Gunnery Point. One or two close results! Salamanca game continued, getting quite interesting. Worked out shopping list for Salute. Spent quite a bit of time sorting out what games I actually have and what needs doing with them - a sort of consolidation exercise. I have about 35 different games!

Jan 2001

Well Christmas and New Year have come and gone. A holiday notable for the fact that I did not play any wargames! On the other hand, I did manage to clear a lot of modelling and painting work that had begun to get in the way (see above). Jobs completed:

Finished painting Wild West figures (still need varnishing, but a minor chore)
Finished hover tanks
Made rest of fences, walls and gates for Western towns
Finished V&B bases(!)
Mounted the map for “A House Divided”
Made a prototype Activation Deck for Shootist+

Bought some smaller seed trays to use as SF buildings (only 40p each!). They need spraying and storing with the rest of the SF buildings.

Well, actually, I did play a wargame - for about half an hour with David, trying out the Activation Deck. Then had to pack it all away. Some of the Western town buildings still need a bit of painting. David really liked the “Constellation” town layout. Using the plywood surface works well and a “figure’s eye view” down Main Street looked brilliant! David said that we needed some cattle for the cattle pens and a dog(?). It certainly needs more “clutter”, but this must be offset against the set up time required. Alison said I should have a stage coach - pointed out that a trip to Stockwood Park (there's a wild west stagecoach in the Mossman Collection there) would supply some photos of a real one to work from....

It occurred to me while making the rest of the V&B bases that they will also work for 6mm ACW.

Thinking about it, “Rules With No Name” seem to be a lot better than Shootist. The fast draw mechanism is quite good and fun to play and I like the hit location system.

Birthday time. Went to Seven Kings to the Navwar shop. Bought the 6mm Napoleonics I needed to complete the Peninsular War armies for V&B. Also bought some 1/3000 ships for “Terribly Tsmall Tsushima”. Painted these. Offered to take TTT to Salute.... Also went to Welwyn Garden City and bought some green card (300 gsm) for the Salamanca terrain, and some mount board to make figure boxes. Bought some 1/8th in. square balsa to finish the balustrades on the western buildings.

Oct - Dec 2000

1st October. Played a Voyages Extraordinaire game with David and Karen. Science Fiction, rioters vs. police. Quite a big game (~12 police and 30+ rioters), but worked pretty well. The rioters didn’t have any objective so milled about a bit aimlessly. If we do this one again then the rioters should either have to cross the table from one side to the other or collect “loot” counters (this was David’s idea).

Made some more cavalry and skirmisher elements for Hammerin’ Iron.

4th November. To Bifrost (the SFSFW show) with David. A good day out but the show was disappointing. Not very many games and what there was were, I thought, uninspired. The most impressive was a W40K game with lots of nice terrain (some good ideas) but FAR too many figures on the table. If I go to this show again, I’ll have to run a game. Bought some more Victorian figures (British Army), some cacti, a cheap copy of GorkaMorka rules, 8 DSII tanks (for the hover army) and a few SG figures.

The GorkaMorka rules include a good idea for producing hills. I’ll have to try it. The first pipecleaner trees are nearly done. They look quite good!

4th December. Still painting.... but quite a few of the wild west figures are nearly finished as well as the British Army figures. I will use the latter for a VE scenario - hunting aliens on Hampstead Heath! Another scenario will be dinosaur hunting - David’s quite keen on this one! VE seems to lend itself to this sort of scenario based game. I’ll be glad when the painting is done and I’ll have room to run some games.

September 2000

1st September: Tried “With MacDuff to the Frontier” (colonial rules free on the web, appear to be no longer available). Imperial troops are far too effective!! They have a 7/12 chance of killing a Zulu in CC, while the Zulu only has a 2/12 chance of killing him! Frontier Patrol II (home grown set of colonial rules, based on Featherstone) seems much better & more believable. Will drop MacDuff to work on FPII, maybe nick some ideas though.

Need to play SCWaRes sometime - needs squared terrain. Must get some FIMO to make some ships like Bob’s!

Added new combat system to “Bastogne to Berlin”. Works, but boy, is it fast! Also new combat system for Fire & Cold Steel (FCS) (very simple and small Napoleonic rules). Need to test this (ho, hum, here we go again).

2nd September: Bought some FIMO.... Thought about the squared terrain, decided that NW Frontier should be mainly a SCWaRes game but the Zulu War might be better as FPII. So I need squared terrain for NW Frontier. Got a piece of 2mm MDF 3ft * 2ft. Will cut this into 4 pieces 12” * 18” and draw 2” squares on them. If I decide to do Zulu War using SCWaRes as well then I can paint the other side of these sections green. Incidentally, Bob’s mountains will look good for the NW frontier. Rebased Pathans and Indian troops for SCWaRes. Will probably rebase all colonial figures anyway and add rules to FPII to work with multiple figure bases (using AGPs).
I am rebasing all colonial figures to multiple bases.

17th September: David and I went to Colours. It's years since I went to this show and now I know why. The Hexagon is a titchy little venue with hardly any games (I think the competition stuff is in another hall somewhere). Travelled by train which was fun (and cheap!). The “Off the Wall” shelf games were unimpressive. Bought horses and driver for buckboard, pirates and some Mexican Bandidos from Dixons, nice figures. Also ACW civilians from Redoubt, rather nice again. Had a chat with Jon and Tim. I don’t think I’ll go to this one again. Warfare is much better - and cheaper too. Looked at buying river sections but decided I could make ‘em for a lot less. Modified the buckboard model to fit the Dixon driver. Started painting the new figures and also some Naismith Zulus (3 * 18 figure units). Looks like painting is the job in hand right now...

Checking through my list of rules, I have nothing for ACW in 6mm. I will put these figs in the back eaves. For now anyway.

Well, actually... they will do nicely for Hammerin’ Iron land actions, but I need more cavalry and skirmisher elements...

August 2000

Modified “Bastogne to Berlin” (my 6mm WW2 rules) to use combat system from “Operation Uranus” by Martin Rapier. Need to try it.

Continued making 25mm Wild West town. This is the 3rd “incarnation” of these models. The 1st was 54mm MANY years ago, the 2nd was in 20mm for Airfix figures. The 20mm version was far too fiddly, so I'm doing it again in 25mm with Dixon et al. figures. I’m very pleased with the ruin and the railroad depot looks nice too (adobe walls from foamcore - different). Roofs and fences still needed.

Roofs all done now. Started making fences.

Done about 30 V&B bases, need another 20 or so.

“Bastogne to Berlin” - tried “Operation Uranus” combat system - too bloody. Have thought up another “one brain cell” combat system which I’ll need to try. Result based on a 2D6 roll.

24th August: Finished playing the “Civil War in Essex” campaign game. The Royalists won and captured Braintree. Good game, I like playing DBR. Updated campaign on computer and printed the other contact on Day 3. This should be interesting as the Royalist army only has 8 elements having been defeated previously, but the Roundheads have 14!

28th August: Resurrected “Kepi and Rifle”. This was because I want a simple system for playing ACW campaign games. Added a fatigue rule and some bits from DBR. 1 base = 1 brigade. Feels good. Need to play a full game.

Summer 2000

27th May: David and I went to Bill Leeson’s & played Kriegsspiel.

11th June: Tried “Simple Rules for Wargames” (a home grown set). OK, but perhaps lacking in flavour? A little short, but that’s probably cos I only had 10 bases a side. added rule that 1/3 losses ends the game. Don’t think leaders are appropriate to a straightforward battle (rather than pirates).

7-9 July: Several games at the Conference of Wargamers (COW). “Here They Come!” using VE worked well, fast and furious. Further rules mods for optional “group move”. Bob Cordery’s SCWARES was also good. Will be interesting to hear what others thought of the Stupid Simple Rules system. Peter Pig’s new pirates game looks promising, but I’m not sure about the smaller ships. Matrix games seemed to dominate... My “Steel Bonnets” matrix game was OK, but suffered from a lack of time to complete it and some dreadfully uninspired dice rolling (they kept getting 1s!). I really think a D10 would be better than a D6.

Good ideas from COW:
dolls house carpet for terrain boards;
buildings from FIMO modelling clay;
native huts from dolls house baskets.

Feb-Mar 2000

6th Feb: Tried “Afterglow” with David. Fast and deadly!
6th March: Tried “Voyages Extraordinaires”, solo. Haven’t got any VSF figures, so tried it with “X Files” characters. Mulder, Scully and 4 rednecks vs. half a dozen Little Grey Aliens. Very interesting! Fudged a bit, but good fun, fast and made me think about who to activate. In the end, the aliens managed to get Scully transported to their ship at a cost of 3 dead and 1 wounded. Fairly deadly due to total lack of terrain(?). Seems to have applicability to a variety of periods, not just VSF. Much better than “Afterglow” so will scrap that. Rules are easily modified for things like cover and range attenuation. Quite liked it.

Early 2000

This is the first part of the old Wargaming Diary from 2000:

Quatre Bras is a set of rules I modified from an original set by Stuart Asquith published in a wargaming magazine. I doubled the scale to use 40mm wide bases instead of 20mm for AWI. ~20 elements a side on 24” * 24”. Worked well.

Napoleonic, Tiny scale using Fire and Cold Steel (modified Quatre Bras version). It worked at last!

Aristia is my (very long running) ancients campaign game using DBA. DBA using
my GCS campaign system. Short and sweet.

FMA (Full Metal Anaorak, the skirmish game from GZG, as yet unpublished) with David. Good game. Alex Stewart’s vehicle movement system worked well.

Stupid Simple Rules (by Chris Engle), 6 element / side (an element was 2 bases). ACW game. Used cm. instead of ins on 24” * 24” board. Hmm. Never attack a position frontally across open terrain without prepping with artillery first! Attack got slaughtered. Terrain too open for ACW? Need to try this with other periods.

AK47, standard game with my 2 standard armies (Religious Movement and Colonial Power). Good fun game. Inconclusive result. Some minor updates to playsheet. I like the game end mechanism.

“Operation Brevity” ( a free set of wargames rules, seem to be no longer available) playtest. Didn’t like combat system and turn sequence. Simplified turn sequence and modified combat system. Retained the idea of “fire at all targets” - don’t know why it works, but it does.... Doesn’t seem to need morale rules. A 3 to 1 attack usually succeeds.

Think I’ve finally solved the Volley & Bayonet strength point problem for 6mm Napoleonic. Each (20mm square) base = 1 strength point. Where a brigade has more than 4 strength points, the additional SPs are represented by AGPs (and are removed first). Morale is a fixed value for a brigade and so does not need to be represented on table.

Why this Blog?

I have been keeping a wargaming diary for some years. Up until now, it has just been a word processor document on my computer(s). Recently several wargaming friends in WD have set up blogs, and it finally dawned on me that I have actually been blogging my wargaming life - just not publishing it!

So here it is, for all the world to see.

Initial posts will thus be historical in nature as I play catch up by publishing on-line what 'till now has just been a private diary...