New Year, first post

As I said orginally, this blog will be infrequently updated with my wargaming activities as the mood takes me.

Since we had a houseful of offspring and associated "partners" over the holidays, I had to relinquish the wargames room for additional sleeping space. Honestly the place felt like we were running a bed and breakfast!

Be that as it may, I spent the holidays (in between tackling the extreme weather) updating the Napoleonic Peninsular War scenarios. I have yet to pick one for the "Les Petites Batailles" game at COW this year.

Just before Christmas I was playing the Battle Cry scenario of Fredericksburg. Wondering how close it was to the historical battle, I looked at "Battles and Leaders" and drew up a scenario for "High Water Mark". This had two interesting features on the map. One was the fact that Fredericksburg was really two separate battles, separated by Deep Run and I used this to allow me to compress the battlefield onto a 4ft by 2.5ft (rapidly becoming my standard) table. The map shows a line running across the table that represents Deep Run and is impassable to all troops. It also represents a gap of about 4500 yds (6 hexes).

The other feature was a railway. It looked great on the scenario map, but then I thought, how do I represent it on the Hexon II terrain? Proper model railway track would look perfect. The straights would be OK, but sectional track curves would not match the hexes and you cannot easily bend flexitrack to such a tight radius. Hmmm ...

Then I thought about using strips of mount board, with the sleepers and rails drawn on with pens (you can get pens that write silver that would do the rails nicely). How to stop it sliding about on the flocked hexes? Simple, glue grey felt underneath! I have now produced enough track to do the Fredericksburg scenario with a bit extra and a couple of points as well. The nice thing is that the curves fit the hexes. Looks good too.

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.