Plodding through the heat: Keeping on re-basing

It won't be a surprise to anyone in the UK,  but it has been exceptionally hot here in the past few weeks. and that has slowed down pretty much all activities, including hobby activities. There's also been quite a bit of 'real life' stuff competing for attention, so the toy soldiers have taken a back seat. But I have made a little progress, and made a couple of interesting acquisitions.  I believe there has also been some sort of football (soccer, if you prefer ) competition, which I think has taken many people's attention - though very little of mine! But it did spark a little pondering on the nature of games and gaming..

The great re-basing project continues with the vintage Minifigs 7YW/AWI collection.  I've been working on the slightly mysterious French infantry with unusual green facings ( see my earlier post about identifying them ), which I have decided to designate as the Volontaires Étrangers de la Marine.  Although there were lots of green-trimmed musketeers, I had no command figures for the unit - step forward the Garrison figures I recently acquired from Rob Young of The Eastern Garrison (many thanks, Rob!).  I'm no great shakes with the paintbrush, but I was fairly pleased with my efforts painting them - my first attempt at painting a drummer in the the blue-and-red French royal livery coat came out quite well, I thought, bearing in mind the 'three foot rule'.  I'll admit I have no idea whether this unit had drummers in the royal livery, but it was fun to paint it!

   

When simply block-painted in an old-school style, the officers looked rather bright and clean compared to their rank and file, who are a little 'aged' so to speak, so I gave the command group a thin wash of Army Painter Soft Tone to dull them a little - but it has been pointed out to me by the excellent Ross from Battle Game of the Month that the officers would probably have higher-quality (and maybe cleaner!) uniforms than the 'PBI', so maybe my newly-painted command group is quite authentic!  

I also enjoyed painting a version of this unit's  interesting flag, with the standard French 'quartered' banner further sub-divided into green and white, fortunately in a quite simple and easy to re-produce way. Having fixed  them to MDF bases and applied a couple of coats of old-school plain green to the bases, here is the finished unit basking in the sunshine in the garden this afternoon: 

 You may have noticed the horsemen behind the Volontaires in the photo - these are my first re-based unit of cavalry from the collection. They represent the Russian Slobodskiy Hussars  and I very much like their lavender-coloured uniforms! Here they are, taking their place in the sun : 

 

I have a bit of a dilemma with cavalry:  I settled for 50mm x 50mm bases with two figures per base, which fit the suggested base sizes for both Black Powder and Honours of War rules.  But BP has six such bases (12 figures)  for a standard cavalry unit, and HoW  has 4 bases (8 figures).  Given that I am using  4 bases (16 figures) at 40mm x 40mm  for infantry, the standard BP cavalry unit would look a bit too big.  It's also relevant that most of the cavalry I have acquired seem to be in 'units' of 12, so adopting the 4-base HoW format would mean leaving quite a lot of figures unused.  So on consideration, for now I am going to have a cavalry 'unit' of 6 figures on  3 bases, just as shown. I think I might consider them as a 'squadron',  part of a 'regiment' of  2 'squadrons'.  As you can perhaps see in the above pictures, my cavalry and  infantry units have roughly the same frontage, which I am happy with. Admittedly all slightly arbitrary, but to my mind they should  look 'right' on the tabletop. And I have another six figures of these nice hussars, to make another 'squadron'!   

Next up for basing, lots of Russian infantry.. 

There's almost 100 figures here, and I can probably get 5 battalions out of them, so not a bad little force.  The Musketeers (left) have already had their old bases removed, the rest still need to have a paddle in some water to soak off their current stands - which look to be made of balsa, curiously enough. So this will be my job for the next few days..  

I've also done a little light shopping - specifically, I got tempted by Pen and Sword's half-price offer on Henry Hyde's  book Wargaming Campaigns. It arrived at the weekend, and is a substantial tome ( 500 plus  pages! ).  I loved Henry's previous Wargames Compendium when it came out, and I think it was one of the factors influencing  me to move from just reading blogs on wargaming to getting back to actual gaming and starting this blog. So let's hope this one is as good - and provides some inspiration for campaigning.  It will certainly occupy a lot of reading time!  I was interested to see the Acknowledgements page near the front, where Henry lists a whole lot of people who 'helped me to name the vast numbers of places that sprang up as I created the imagi-nations of Dahlia and Chindrastan featured in these pages'.  Many familiar names were on that list, including several I have met (in person or on-line) and a couple who follow this blog. Henry also thanks 'veteran wargamer Arthur Harman', who 'has undertaken the heroic task of creating an index for this monster' .  Indeed, quite a major job,  well done Arthur! 

 

At the other end of the price range, a charity shop find I couldn't walk away from this week - Alan Clark's Barbarossa, a chunky paperback for all of £1 !  Possibly influenced by listening recently to Al Murray and James Holland's  We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast, which devoted a series of episodes to the decisions, planning and preparations behind Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941. This one may go on the backlog pile at first, but I'm sure it will make an interesting read eventually..

Alan Clark was an 'interesting' character of course, I can't say I was an admirer of his politics or his personal conduct - but the relevant question is 'was he a good historian, and a good writer'? The latter will become obvious, the former - well, he may have been superseded by later authors with more access to Russian archives. for instance, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. 

 Finally just a bit of whimsy really: here's a picture of the scene at Pizza Express restaurant on the South Bank, Central London last Wednesday evening - at the time England's footballers were playing against Argentina for a place in the World Cup Final. It was all rather lovely, quiet and peaceful. We'd been to the nearby National Film Theatre, to see a rather charming film - Night Train (dir. Jerzy Kawalerowicz,  Poland, 1959) well worth a look if you enjoy a good railway-based movie.      

 

The fact that I was at Pizza Express should tell you how much I know or care about football - precisely nowt -  but it was interesting to see the reactions to the result and to England Manager Thomas Tuchel's  tactical decisions.  It made me think;  if Monty and Eisenhower on 6th  June 1944 had said 'OK everyone, we got the  landing done successfully, we've got the beach-head established, now we'll sit on the defensive and let the Panzers come at us', how would that have gone?  ( shades of what actually happened at Anzio? ).  But I also thought, if we were wargamers playing the Normandy Campaign  as a game of some sort, we might very well do exactly that, because the victory conditions would doubtless specify that simply establishing  a beach-head and not being thrown back into the sea would give the allies a marginal victory - and Herr (sorry!)  Tuchel only needed a marginal victory..  As players, though, we would have thought that was pretty 'game-y' and not really in the spirit of things.  So I concluded I had little sympathy for Thomas T, and that maybe England need a 'Monty' for manager? Discuss...  😀

With that, I'm sure I've entertained you all for long enough, so I'll sign off. The heatwave does seem to be easing off a bit, and I've got some more free time in the next few days, so hopefully I can get those Russians sorted out, and report my progress in a future post. Until then, keep well everyone, 

 

p.s. a quick 'plug' -  my old friend 'Liverpool Dave' has had a bit of a rush of blood to the writing fingers and revived his long-moribund personal blog Serener Skies  Recent posts include reminiscences of cartoon strips in the Daily Mirror,  Liverpool Corporation buses,  the dream of a remote lochside idyll versus the reality of modern tourism, and the late Kevin Keegan's triumphant FA Cup Final in 1974 (the latter may have been the last soccer match I watched with any real interest!). Not a wargaming blog, but Dave can certainly write, and wargaming does get a mention - he poses the question of whether  there a correlation between interest in military history and interest in public transport? I think a few readers of this blog may be able to answer that one, while looking at Dave's nice pic of a Leyland Atlantean..    

1776 and All That..

It can't have escaped your notice that there have been some events in commemoration of the United States' Declaration of Independence from Britain 250 years ago.  In the spirit of such self-evident truths as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (and now it seems, cheating at soccer), I thought it might be fun to mark the anniversary with some sort of gaming. I remembered what I think was the first board wargame I ever bought - Avalon Hill's 1776, and  I am glad to say I still have my copy, which I'm almost certain will have been acquired by the teenage me in, of course,  1976.  

Here is the suitably lightly  scuffed box,   

 and the contents - a little yellowing of paper here and there, but not bad condition for 50 years old, large stretches of which were spent in various lofts. 

 

The mapboard is rather splendid, measuring 16 by 44 inches, rather nicely depicting the wooded and mountainous terrain in a sort of 'relief map' style, at a scale of 1 hex = 18.6 miles.  

The rulebook contains rules for three levels of game; a very simple Basic Game with a single, simple scenario;  an Advanced Game (plus optional rules) which  allows the playing of four larger campaign scenarios (such as the invasion of Canada, or the Saratoga campaign);  and the Campaign Simulation Game which 'provides the framework for re-creating the entire Revolutionary War starting in January, 1776' - I suspect this latter would involve a fairly large commitment of time to play to completion.  

 Fortunately the Basic Game is very basic indeed, covering only the Northern half of the map and depicting the situation in mid 1776 during the British build-up. Units are restricted to British Regulars and Continental Army, they have only Combat Strength Points ( 1 CSP = approx 500 men ) and movement allowances.  CSPs are interchangeable ( so a 10 CSP unit can be split into 2 x 5CSP, etc )  and combat is decided between opposing units occupying the same hex, by calculating the attacker:defender CSP ratio and rolling a single D6 against a simple Combat Results Table - just like many contemporary SPI games I can remember.  The Brits win by occupying enough of the main cities (each has a 'Control Points' value) with no Continentals disputing them, and the Americans win by preventing the British from doing so, after seven (monthly) turns from June to December 1776.   There are only about 4 pages of rules and the turn sequence is Player 1 move then combat, Player 2 move then combat, simple as that! So let's give it a go..

Here's the initial setup : 

Fairly obviously, red counters are British units, and blue are American.  Something of a 'central position' for the Americans, with a fairly large force of 17 SP at Morristown, New Jersey, and an overall total of 32 SP.  The British have a total of 36 SP, with 20SP of those in New York and 10 SP at St. Johns.  It looks fairly even, but there are large British reinforcements coming.. 

Turn One represents June 1776 and the Brits go first - they advance with 18 SP from New York towards West Point ( which is occupied by 6 SP of Continentals), being careful not to allow  the Morristown force to get behind them and attack New York. Meanwhile in the North, 11 SP of British advance  from Canada along the shores of Lake Champlain, heading for Fort Ticonderoga ( held by just 3 SP of Americans  ). 

Turn 1 : British  New York army threatens West Point 

 

..while a large force from Canada descends on Ticonderoga 

The Yankee response is to split the large Morristown force, sending 7 SP to reinforce Philadelphia ( which is worth a substantial 15 victory points ) and 10 SP to strengthen their force at West Point to a total of 16 SP. (this split may have been a mistake.).  No fighting yet, but the Americans could not reinforce Ticonderoga, which looks vulnerable. .  

On Turn Two ( July 1776), the British get a substantial reinforcement of 19 SP landed  at New York - pretty much doubling their strength in that area!  The British forces coming down from Canada  attack Ticonderoga with with 12 to 3, so 4:1 odds, rolling only a '2' but that gets a '1/2DE' result - half (rounded up) of the defender's units are lost, so 2 out of 3 US SPs are lost.  One solitary SP of Americans face 12 times their numbers..   Meanwhile in New York,  the British reinforcements go straight into action, allowing a total of 30 SP of Redcoats to attack the 10 SP of Americans at West Point. 3:1 odds, and rolled a six!  That is a 'DE' result, and all  10 SPs of Yankees flee the field. That is a major blow for the Continental army - more than a third of their total forces lost in one move! 

Turn 2: Scary Redcoats at West Point threaten Morristown..

 

In their turn, the USA raises 6 SP at Albany, to add to the 1 SP already there and these are supplemented by the survivors (1 SP) from Ticonderoga beating a hasty retreat. After the disaster at West Point, the Americans at Morristown (8SP) retreat to Philadelphia, making a fairly formidable 15 SP available there. But they are still quite badly outnumbered by 40+ SP of Redcoats around New York. 

Turn Three -  August 1776 - piles the pressure on, as the British get another 21 SPs of Redcoats which can land at any port. They choose New Bedford, Massachussetts  and immediately march no less than 19 SP to attack the small American force (2 SP) at Boston, an important objective. With more odds of  5:1 or more, they roll a '3' which only gives '1/2 DE', so not a total wipeout but leaves 1 SP of plucky Continentals facing 19 times their number of redcoats!  The British are also able to send 2 SP to secure Newport, Rhode Island (worth some victory points ).

Having large forces at both West Point and Ticonderoga, the British now turn to deal with Albany.  From Ticonderoga, 10 SP advance but can't quite reach Albany owing to a couple of river crossings slowing them down; but 24 SP from West Point can easily get their, and attack the American 8 SP at 3:1 odds - the dice are with the British, a '5' gives 'DE' and the entire  American force is scattered! This is another disaster for the Yankees, they have only 17 SP remaining ( 15 at Philadelphia and a puny 1 each at Ft. Stanwix and Boston ) against the British with well over 60 SP.  In their turn, they recruit 4 SP around Albany, who promptly retire up the Mohawk valley to Stanwix. 

Turn 3 (August 1776) : Redcoats everywhere!  

 Turn Four (September) saw the British victors of Albany sending no less than 20 SP to attack Fort Stanwix, and detaching 10 SP to West Point, to be joined by  8 SP coming from New York. A further 15 SP marched from Boston across Massachussetts, reaching Hartford, Connecticut - that left 4 SP to deal with the last Yankees at Boston - which they duly did, wiping them out.  At Stanwix, the British has 4:1 odds and rolled a mediocre '3' , but that still gave '1/2DE', killing 3 SP of Americans (and leaving the survivors outnumbered by 10 to 1 !).  The Americans  gained reinforcements of  4 SP at Philadelphia, making a respectable 19 SP there, and the remaining 2SP from Ft. Stanwix began a cross-country retreat across the New York  back country, reaching Owego - the British probably won't bother to pursue. 

Turn 4 ( Sept 1776) : all over bar some shouting in Philadelphia..

And at that point, I'm calling it, a solid British  victory. The Americans hold only Philadelphia, with only a few  more reinforcements coming ( including 1 lone SP at Albany - that won't last long!), and the British can just keep them bottled up there, even if they don't actually attack. With all the other objective cities and forts held, the British will have an overwhelming victory point score (96 to 15!).  Looks like the American dream was squelched at the very start... 

Interesting - although the armies were fairly evenly matched at the start, the British had 40 SPs more coming in July and August, more than doubling their force! The Americans had only 18 SPs of reinforcements, in small packets from July to November, so they were at a real disadvantage after the first three turns.  I wonder if it was a mistake for the Americans to divide their large Morristown force early on to reinforce Philadelphia - perhaps they should have combined with their troops at West Point and attacked the British army which had marched out of New York. This would have given the USA  23 SP vs. the British 18  SP - which would only be a 1:1 attack ratio, so still quite risky and at best would kill half the British force, with quite a high chance of losing half (or even all) of  their own army.  Or perhaps just combining and standing on the defensive at West Point - with 20+ SP there, the Brits would have struggled to mount  a 2:1 attack,  even with their reinforcements, which could have made any assault quite costly.  As it was, once the big British reinforcements arrived, it was quite easy for them to build up 3:1 or 4:1 attack forces, and I'll admit the dice went their way - if they had rolled a '1' at West Point, 15 SP of  Redcoats would have evaporated as well as the 10 SP of Continentals! 

Anyway, quite a good fun game, thankfully simple for my heatwave-frazzled brains (we are forecast  34C / 93F  today!). and I am interested to read the Advanced Rules and give them a go soon - I do like the map, I have to say, and it cries out for using as a basis for a figures-gaming  campaign!

What with the heat and some fairly onerous 'real life' stuff, I'll admit there has been a shortage of both time and inclination for hobby activity, but I can report the next step in the great re-basing project: Russians! Here are some vintage Minifigs Russian 7YW musketeers  and Hussars going for a nice paddle in cool water ( lucky them!) to loosen up their old bases: 

    

I have also been enjoying catching up with other blogs, and will admit that my decision to dig out a very old game was partly inspired by the prolific Martin Rapier of  The Games We Play blog, who has clearly lost his senses in the heat and is grappling with the veteran SPI complexathon that is Air War  :  I had that one myself, and from reading Martin's valiant attempts I wonder if I ever even scratched the surface of it back in the day!  

Also great to see Postie's Rejects Richard's (My Wargaming Habit) excellent 1796  Battle of Caldiero report, supplemented by Ray and Big Lee's accounts of the same game from opposing sides, and Jon at Palouse Wargaming Journal with his Samurai 'Battle of the Tombs'  (featuring Postie's Rejects again!) games, even though I can;t keep up with the Japanese names and unit types, so it is to some extent 'all Japanese to me'!  Still, well worth a read.  And finally not to forget Alan 'Kingdom of Wittenburg' with his glorious-looking 18th Century armies fighting the 'Battle of Vierstrasse'  ( loosely based on Quatre Bras?)  - quite an inspiration for what I'd like to achieve with my old Minifigs collection!

More on the Minifigs next time, I hope (if we haven't all melted)  with basing and painting progress, and I have gleaned some more interesting snippets of  information about them.  Until then, keep cool, everyone.