Colours 2026 : A Day at the Racecourse

After a bit of a summer hiatus,  the wargame show season seems to be re-starting, and on Saturday I was able to go to Newbury and Reading Wargames Society's  Colours show, which took place at Newbury Racecourse.   I had been to this show once before, and on consulting diaries I see that was in 2019 ( does the phrase 'pre-pandemic' for current generations have the same ring as 'before the war' for our parents and grandparents? ),  so I knew what to expect of the venue. I think it works quite well, the show occupied one of the racecourse main stands, which has decently large public rooms (presumably bars, on race day) on three levels. The ground floor was occupied by trade stands (about 50 of them), the first floor by (about 20) more traders  plus a food and drink / seating area, and the second floor was devoted to a total of 29 demonstration and participation games, plus a bring and buy stall, a DBA competition area and a 'Boardgames Cafe'.   The upper  floor rooms are well-lit, one wall being effectively all windows with views over the racecourse,  and feel quite spacious and airy: it was easy to move around, none of the 'Partizan crush' here!  My plan is always to see the games first, so I climbed a good few flights of stairs to the top floor:  here's a general view of about half the main games room; the crowd at the far end is around the Bring and Buy, of course!  

 

I think I managed to look at most of the games, and photographed a good number of them. I'll admit that taking pictures wasn't entirely straightforward, as that big glass wall means a powerful light source from one direction - so it was hard to get pictures of games near the windows.  But anyway, here's a selection of what I saw. 

First up is a good example of the tricky light conditions, but I was glad to see Mike Smith (left) of Tabletop Battles  with his participation game Battle of Schleswig 1848 using his Grid Wargaming rules; I remember playing his game at Warfare 2024,  and subsequently buying his rules, though alas I have not actually played them since! I have a notion to use them for Thirty Years War style battles, since they are useable for many periods.  Below is Mike's plan of the battle   

Anschluss Games were there, with their A Small Town in Russia demo game showing off their excellent model ranges (12mm scale)  and of course their The War on the Ground rules.    

Something tells me the game might be a disguised version of the movie Kelly's Heroes?  Anyway, a really nice looking setup - small is beautiful, indeed! 
 

Deeprose Games showed a 15mm Peninsular War game  with suitably massed Napoleonics.  I liked the scenery, with  cornfields etc  

 

Next an ancients game - I'm not 100% sure but I think this is probably the host club's Sassanid Persians vs Late Romans game: 

 I always like a big ancients battle, and a few elephants are a bonus! 

Next, a nice-looking Ecorcheurs game Will the Portcullis Fall at the Castle? portraying 1st St Albans, 1455:

Another good-looking  large Ancients game  was presented by TooFatLardies, this being The Battle of Marathon using David C.R. Brown's Vexillarius rules :

  

Guildford Wargames showed yet another ancients game, using a set of rules called Breach and Scutcheon which seems to be currently under development by Form Square Games, and is aimed at 'big battle'  Ancient and Medieval battles. 

 Southbourne Tabletop and Wargamers showed a game using  Club 1813 : another 'coming soon' set, from Alternative Armies. The game was a fun idea, being entitled Napoleon at Netherfield, portraying an imaginary French invasion of the equally imaginary country estate of Mr Bingley in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.   As a big fan of Miss Austen, this certainly made me smile!  

It all seemed to be based on a piece of fiction writing  The Emperor's Dragoon, by 'celebrated Regency novelist Miss Catherine Meadows',  who seems to be the creation of Southbourne member Gary Mitchell - it's all getting a bit 'meta', clearly!   Anyway, a fun idea for a game, and I hope Mr. Bingley was compensated for any battle damage.

Shepway Wargamers can be relied upon to produce a good-looking game, and they brought their An Englishman's Castle  28mm Wars of the Roses game using Never Mind the Billhooks rules, with a Lancastrian Lord under siege by Yorkists in 1483.  I thought that castle model was really nice! 

Another really nice looking table was that of Beaconsfield Wargames Sharpe Practise Peninsular War game - sadly I only got a couple of  pictures of it! But if you look at SteveJ's blog (more about him later) you'll see some more nice pictures. Here are my efforts - should have got more! 

(I've always fancied having some orange trees in my scenery, and I think it's because I never forgot one of Duncan MacFarlane's pictures from a very early issue of Miniature Wargames or Wargames Illustrated : now I may have to go through the archives to check my memory!)

Yet another big battle Ancients game was from Wargames Association of Reading, with their Cunaxa 401 BC game using DBMM rules :  a nice table (shame that bar behind wasn't actually open for them!)  and good-looking figures

I had a good friendly chat with one of the gents on this table; I admitted that I am hoping to use ADLG rules rather than DBMM, and he agreed that ADLG are a good set of rules - it's just that these guys know DBMM really well and can do battles without too much rulebook checking.

Next up, can you guess?  Yes, another big battle Ancients game! (and there are more to come..). This time, father-and-son team The Leggetts with their Romans v. Britains Siege of Maiden Hillfort:    

The modelling of the Maiden ramparts was fantastic, and one of the group told me he'd been up late the night before painting a couple of hundred Ancient Brits - that's dedication!  

Now I should perhaps apologise for this never-ending conveyor belt of Ancient battles, I am just showing you all the games I saw and photographed, in the order I saw them! I didn't really register it at the time, but has Colours been the subject of a takeover by the Society of Ancients? I think we should be told...

The next one is at least a change of scale : this time  2mm figures, Solent Wargames Chivalry and Honour game of Fulford Bridge, 1066.  C & H it seems are another 'coming soon' set, Mark Backhouse's variant  of his  Strength and Honour rules for medieval battles. I'm very much in two minds about 2mm scale - I can see that it's great for really big battles, but the figures are just sooo tiny, I can't get excited about them even en masse! Nice scenery, admittedly.  Hmmm.... 

 

And of course, with all these Ancients games, the Society of Ancients had to be in there somewhere! sure enough,  their game of  Gaugamela (331BC)  used   Impetus 2 rules and featured lots of Macedonian pikemen and Persian chariots, of course: 

And finally, a break from the blokes with pointy sticks, in the form of Oxford Wargames Club's  Bloody Big Battles in the Wilderness 1864   - an ACW version of a BBB game.  I only managed to get one picture, but I did like the table, Wilderness was indeed the word! 

 One reason why I failed to take more pictures was that one of the players at this table (it was a participation game)  was Steve J  who's excellent blog  Wargames With Toy  Soldiers: 1685-1985   is one of my favourites.  Very nice to finally meet him at a show after several near-misses, and we had a really good chat. Great to meet you, Steve! 

Now, just when you thought it was safe to go back to the Mediterranean,  along comes one final  ancients game!   This was from Liverpool Wargames Association, who must be congratulated for coming all that way:   a 15mm  Spartans v. Greek City States (430BC)  battle, played with Field of Glory rules.   

 

Perhaps nothing much remarkable about this set-up, but maybe it's nice to see a few smaller tables which show how a good game can be achieved in a small space with modest figure collections - it doesn't have to be all 'big battle' showpieces.   

 Of course those big showpieces have their place, shows would be less exciting without them - and probably the biggest game of the day was this 28mm ECW battle  from the Pike and Shot Society: very nice, though I saw absoltutely no information displayed about either  the game or the society (of which I am a member). .   

 

Not sure who presented this next one, but a nice Napoleonic Battle of Fuentes de Onorao using Bataille Empire  rules : the chap doing meet and greet on this one was slightly horrified when I admitted I don;t do Napoleonics! Nice looking game, anyway. 

Not to be outdone by the SoA and the P&SS, the Lance and Longbow Society were representing medieval gamers with their  28mm skirmish using My Oath Sire! rules 

 I did very much like that gatehouse - cardboard, I think? 

And that's all folks, at least for games!  Phew. Not a bad selection, especially if you like the Ancients period..  That took me to lunchtime and beyond from a 10:30 arrival. 

 One nice feature if the venue is that you can sit on the terracing outside on the stand, which was pleasantly warm but with shade available too, so that's where I went with my sandwiches. 

 

Then it was time for shopping - with 70-odd traders present, there was plenty to choose from! Having said that,  I was modest in my purchases, which amounted to the following:

 - Some self-adhesive ferro steel paper from Magnetic Displays, for the great Minifigs re-basing project;

- A 16-man battalion of British  French & Indian War / 7YW line infantry from Parkfield Miniatures - I decided I will need at least a few British for that collection. 

 

- An Army Painter 'Speedpaint' pen, in  Crusader Flesh - for speedy and hopefully neat painting of faces and hands .  

 

- A copy of Sue Laffin-Barker's  Start Ancient Wargaming Using DBA 3.0.  From David Lanchester books. 

 this was a bit of an impulse buy  - but it includes the DBA v3.0 rules and a useful example game, plus Sue's distinctly old-school hints on figure painting (poster paints, hurrah!) and terrain modelling.  plus a massive chapter (70 pages) of army lists with explanatory  notes on the armies.  I was pleased to pick this up, and had read  half-way through it by the time I got home that night - admittedly due to my train being heavily delayed ( was really glad  I bought a book!). Having only used the 1st Edition (1990?)  of DBA so far, nice to have an update.

I mustn't forget the social side of the day; especially since starting this blog, shows are of course fantastic for meeting friends old and new in the hobby, especially bloggers and commenters who would otherwise be just an anonymous person out there somewhere on the web.It's great to meet people, and this show was no exception. I was even buttonholed early on, by John Kersey  whose 1/72 Wargames tables  I have often admired at shows and made a point of discussing. John was there as a punter this time, but I think he'll be doing a game at Partizan ( was it Romans, perhaps? ), which I look forward to seeing.   I was very glad to meet  Guy Barlow from the Virtual Wargames Club - if very briefly as he was on a very tight schedule and was racing around as fast as he could go to see all the games! As already mentioned, great to meet and talk to 'SteveJ',  and I hope to do so again in future - see you at The Other Partizan, Steve?   And last but certainly not least my old friend Tony Toms and his son Oliver - always great to see them  both.   Tony is chair of Milton Hundred wargames club and thus already deep into planning next year's 'Broadside'  show at Gillingham, and don't forget their Re:Play show in October at the Royal Engineers Museum -  fantastic venue for a wargames show!   

 

 Having toured the games, met some people and done some shopping, I thought about perhaps spending a bit longer and trying a participation game,  but it had been an early start and  I wanted to be not too late home, so apologies to Mike Smith and/or the Bloody Big Battles guys, but I'm sure they were not short of players!  I  left about 3pm and caught the train from Newbury Racecourse via Reading back to London - all seemed set fair until we were stopped for well over an hour just outside London  -  a trackside fire had cut off the overhead  power supply and we were stuck behind an all-electric train..This stoppage  affected all services between London and Reading,including services to Heathrow, so it was quite a major incident and made it to national news media,  I was probably lucky to have boarded a train at all, if I had stayed for a bit more gaming I might have ended up sat on Reading station platform for many hours!  As it was we were invited to leave the train at Ealing Broadway and continue by London Underground - fortunately I was stopping in London that night, so that  wasn't too bad. I'm now told that owing to the delay to my journey I will be refunded my fare, at least.  Not much fun sat on a stalled train with little idea how long the situation will go on, but at least I wasn't trying to get to the airport for a flight, and I had Sue Laffin-Barker's DBA book to read! 

So, on the whole a good day, despite  a bit of stress on the journey home!  I'm glad to have visited the show and will try to do so again next year.  I'm afraid my photos are maybe not up to usual standards, I did like the venue but I struggled to take pictures I was happy with given the  lighting conditions. Have a look at SteveJ's blog for his report, with more and better photos (and he took pics of more games too!) 

Not sure where the hobby will be taking me next, though I suspect the vintage Minifigs re-basing will feature as always,, really must do some sort of game, though! I hope you've enjoyed my report on Colours, I had a great  day there,  and if you are within range of it next year, do give it a go! Until the next time, keep well everyone. 

[ UPDATE: I published this post on Wednesday 9th,  now here we are on Friday 11th  afternoon and it has not appeared on anyone else's Blogs List, so many people won't have seen it. Not sure what is going on with Blogger, tbh - the same effect seems to apply to other folk's blogs. Let's hope this gets sorted out soon, meanwhile apologies for slow service, and well done to those who came and found this post anyway! ] 

Assorted Artillerymen, and a call to the Colours

Not a large amount  of hobby activity to report recently, sadly - some 'real life' stuff  took up last week, for a start. This week I have made a start on sorting and re-basing sone more vintage Minifigs Seven Years War figures - specifically looking at a box of artillery men and guns. I acquired no less than 115 gunners and 14 guns, though it's not guaranteed that the guns actually match the gunners!  

I've got a selection of the gunners soaking in water to remove their rather varied bases - some plain cardboard, some heavily textured, even some aluminium! (the latter may need to go in the freezer to break the glue bonds). 

 

This first batch includes 24  figures with blue coats and mid-blue breeches and waistcoats, which have Minifigs code numbers PSW22 to PSW25: Prussian Horse Artillery. 

They puzzled me for a while,  as modern sources like the Kronoskaf website suggest white breeches and waistcoats for Prussian artillery. But I also looked in my vintage copy (published 1974) of Christopher Duffy's The Army of Frederick The Great, and in his appendix list of regiments, under Artillerie there appears a single line :  Plain blue coat, light blue waistcoat and breeches.  So I think I know which reference their original 1970s/1980s owner was using!  I should add that there are no less than six gun models with Prussian-style blue carriages, clearly intended to be crewed by these chaps. So my Prussian forces are not short of artillery..      

 

The second batch includes a couple more groups of figures,  the first with blue coats and red breeches, which I strongly suspect represent French artillerymen. They are attached to aluminium bases and flocked, so as yet I have not been able to see the code numbers on the bases - these may be revealed after a spell in the freezer and a clean up! 

And finally, another batch with blue coats, red facings and buff-coloured breeches: 

I wondered if these are AWI figures, representing either British or American gunners - and then I noticed the relevant Osprey book has a picture of an AWI Hessian gunner which looks a good match.  But I'll take any useful suggestions... 

from Osprey MAA543: Hessen-Hanau Canoneer

And that's about it for now on the great re-basing project. I will admit it has rather taken over all hobby activity, I really need to vary things aa bit, maybe even put on an actual game!  Perhaps I will be suitably inspired by attending the Newbury and Reading Wargames Society's Colours  wargame show, tomorrow at Newbury Racecourse.  There looks to be an interesting selection of games and an impressive list of traders, and having once before ( 2018? )  I know the venue is good. I have tentative arrangments to meet a couple of friends and will be on the lookout for Steve J in his (hopefully distinctive)  yellow hoodie!    If you know me and are at the show, I'd be happy to say hello and have a chat, and of course I'll take my camera and hope to show a few pictures of whatever games take my fancy, in my next post here. Until then, keep well everyone. 

Oh, those Russians!

After last time's coastal wanderings, it's been more of an 'at home'  week and I've managed a bit of hobby time. As I had hoped, I did managed to complete the re-basing of the Russian contingent from my 'pre-loved' collection of vintage 25mm Minifigs Seven Years War figures. So let's see what we have: 

We'll start with the Line Infantry.  I have two battalions, each of 16 figures on 4 bases (40x40mm). Russian line infantry units all had essentially the same uniform, and there's nothing in the painting to indicate particular units, so I can choose which regiments I will represent.   Thanks to Kronoskaf  I was able to choose suitable units, and for  these I looked for regiments that had been at Gros-Jagersdorf in 1757 -pretty much the first major engagement for Russia in the Seven Years War. So I've decided these will be presenting as Butyrskiy Infantry  (front) and 2nd Moskovskiy Infantry. 

According to Kronoskaf,  Butyrskiy regiment was founded in 1642 and was the joint-oldest regiment. At the Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf, it was part of the vanguard and belonged to Schilling Brigade. When the Russian army deployed, it was placed in the first line of the left wing. 

As for 2nd Moskovskiy Infantry, it was formed 1708/1709 and  at Gross-Jägersdorf, it was part of Lopuchin's 2nd Division and belonged to Sybin's Brigade. When the Russian army deployed, it was placed in the first line of the centre. 

The only visible difference is the in the regimental standards, but don't look too hard at them.. These were done using cheap acrylic paint  marker pens and I am no artist(!) but they serve their purpose OK.

Now some Grenadiers : again I have two battalions.  

 

I decided to have them both from the same regiment -  3rd Grenadiers - because when formed in 1756 they included Grenadiers from Butyrskiy  and  2nd Moskovskiy, so that seemed right. At the Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf  it was part of Andreas Manteuffel's Brigade belonging to Browne's 3rd Division. When the Russian army deployed, it was kept in reserve behind the right wing. 

And then some light infantry, Pandours.  Again two units, but these are based as skirmishers with two figures per base and thus eight figures per unit.  

 I fairly arbitrarily chose 1st Pandour (founded 1752). Kronoskaf has no information about their colours ( doesn't matter, I've got no standard bearers!) nor their specific service in the war,

Put that lot together and you might call it a 'brigade', with 6 battalions evenly spread between line, grenadiers and pandours: 

 

Now we need some cavalry: luckily we have just the thing. First up, the Slobodskiy Hussars in their rather elegant Lilac uniforms:

 I'm calling this a regiment, of two squadrons (each 6 figures). The officer's sabre is perhaps a little too curved, and needs straightening out(!) 

We also have some Cossacks - again a two-squadron regiment 

Identifying Cossacks (most of whom were essentially irregular troops) isn't an easy one, and as usual my only real source is Kronoskaf  ( I wonder what sources the first owner of these was using - possibly 40 or even 50 years ago? ).  But I  notice that pretty much the  only cossacks identified  there as being 'regular' troops with a uniform are the Slobodian Cossacks,  and most conveniently the Slobodian brigade also fought at Gros-Jagersdorf, so I am going to plump for them. It seems that a light blue coat and trousers were worn by the Sumskoy regiment  within the Slobodian brigade - therefore I'm calling these guys the Sumskoys  ( if anyone has better information, it's welcome..).  With Hussars and Cossacks,  I have an impromptu 'Light Brigade' - hmm, that's a good name - for my Russian contingent, Let's assume the Cossacks are a temporary detachment from their own Slobodian brigade. 

 They look like a capable bunch, I'm sure the infantry will be glad of their support.  Sadly I have no Russian  artillery, which is a shame given their splendid red uniforms of the period,  and so for the moment that means the full Russian 'army' looks like this: 

 

I make that 80 infantry figures and 24 cavalry, not a bad little force - as Norm would say, a 'Pocket army', which should fit well on a wargame table. Now I just need to sort out some of my Prussians to oppose them,  and we might give them a game! 

That's enough for now, I hope this has been an interesting little diversion, as it has for me. It's quite pleasing to have been able to put together a distinct contingent from the quite large mass of metal that I acquired last year, and I think the re-basing is working well as a way of unifying them and giving them a common 'look'.   Now I need to do that same with the Hessians, for example!  Gradually we make progress..  Until next time, keep well, everyone. 

 

(originally posted 23/08/26: re-publishing 24/08/26 as blogger did not update) 

Fnurban #42 Defending England : from Radar masts to Martello Towers

Amid the continuing heatwave, last week we had a day and a bit enjoying the sea breezes on the Suffolk coast.  Normally we might well have headed for Dunwich,  but the huge wildfire burning there made us think again, and we went for the Bawdsey/Felixstowe area. It's a nice stretch of coast and a bit less busy than places  like Aldeburgh and Southwold further North,  and it has the bonus of some military history,  too!    

Firstly,  there is the Bawdsey Radar Museum :  commemorating the fact that on  24th September 1937, RAF Bawdsey became the first fully operational Radar station in the world.  The previous year, the inventor of radar Robert Watson-Watt and his research team had taken over nearby  Bawdsey Manor estate as their base, and built the first set of transmitting and receiving masts there - the former being no less than 360 feet high! The station was the first of the 'Chain Home' installations built around the British coastline, which played such a vital role in the defence of the UK in the 1939-45 war, most  famously in the Battle of Britain in 1940. 

At Bawdsey, the 'transmitter block' building remains and has been made into a small museum - we had visited before, but since 2018 it has been completely refurbished and updated, to tell the story of the invention of radar, how it works, and the history of the Bawdsey site, which continued to be part of the air defence system until the 1990s,  and still has a radio mast belonging to HM Coastguard - albeit a mere 100 feet tall.  We paid a visit to the museum, which was interesting if not large - worth an hour or so of your time, I'd say, if you're in the area. I took a few (not brilliant, sorry!) pictures: 

  Here  is the transmitter block - heavily protected by sloping earthworks/concrete, the entrance passageway is between the earthworks and the building and feels a bit like walking along a WW1 trench, and the steel  main doors were apparently gas-proof.  The HM coastguard radio mast is only 1/3 of the height of the original radar masts, but gives you an idea - the 1937 masts were pretty much in the same place, with the transmitter block housing generators to power the radar transmitters.

 

Not a very good (sorry!) picture of the main display room; it did do a good job of telling the story of Radar and the history of the site, and there was inevitably an 'interactive' feature which allowed you to test your potential as a 1940s radar operator,  turning dials to work out the range and bearing of a 'blip' on a screen (essentially an oscilloscope trace )  - it turns out that most operators were women, as they were more proficient.   

You may already know that Watson-Watt was originally asked to look into the possibility of 'death ray' weapons to actually shoot down enemy aircraft, but suggested that it would be more practical to use radio transmissions to detect targets by bouncing the waves off them.  What I learned was that he and his colleagues actually went as far as to calculate the energy that a 'death ray' would require, and concluded that this would be greater than the total electrical energy that could be generated in the whole of Britain at the time! 

 Rather a prescient quote from H,G. Wells as far back as 1902 featured in the displays - along with the inevitable 'The Bomber Will Always Get Through' of Italian General Giulio Douhet. 

And one most historic  piece of 'kit' - this is a Cavity Magnetron,  the device which allowed radar sets to shrink from filling a room to being able to be carried on ships and aircraft. It's been described as 'the most important invention to come out of the second world war' and was important enough to be offered to the US by Britain in the Tizard Mission in 1940.  

 

We also spent some time at neighbouring Felixstowe (see below)  which gave us a distant view of Bawdsey Hall, where Watson-Watt had set up his research facility.

 Finally a picture from the museum guide booklet : a postwar view of the radar station, with the transmitter masts in a line at the back, and receiving masts nearer.  

 As it says in the caption, multiple aerial cables were strung between the transmitter towers, and engineers had to swing out between them (at 300 feet!)  to do maintenance - it must have been terrifying! 

After an immersion in the defence of Britain from Hitler in 1940,  we took a walk along the coast path from Bawdsey to nearby Shingle Street,  which featured an important feature of the defence of Britain from Napoleon in 1805.  Within a stretch of a couple of miles, we passed a total of four Martello Towers.   I'm sure readers of this blog will know the story of these - inspired by a Genoese fortificd tower on Corsica, the Torra di Mortella  which put up a stout defence against British attack in 1794, a chain of 103 of them was built between Aldeburgh, Suffolk and Seaford, Sussex between 1804 and 1812, when Britain was threatened with a French invasion.  Wikipedia says that  of the 103 built, 

Fifteen towers were demolished to enable the re-use of their masonry. The sea washed thirty away and the military destroyed four in experiments to test the effectiveness of the new rifled artillery. During the Second World War, some Martello towers returned to military service as observation platforms and firing platforms for anti-aircraft artillery. 

They were given code numbers ( on the south coast ) and letters (on the east coast), and a list of them is available on-line, so we could identify the towers we saw.   Hence I can tell you that these were as follows: 

(above and below)  Tower 'W' at East Lane, Bawdsey - handy for a free car park by the sea wall from which we started walking. 

 then a few hundred yards North,  we have Tower 'Y'  ( it seems there was yet another one, 'X', in between but long-demolished )  which turns out to be rather special : 

 

This one has been extensively refurbished as a luxury home:  It underwent transformation by architect Stuart Piercy of Piercy & Company in collaboration with Duncan Jackson of Billings Jackson Design in 2010 into a three-bedroom home, winning the RIBA Award that year in the process.  And it has recently been  sold  ( advertised on The Modern House, naturally ), with the asking price listed at £1.25m,   Here's a  picture of the interior  'borrowed'  from the estate agent's pages: 

 I was fascinated by that brick column and vaulting, and it turns out that this is original and is of course there to support  the roof, which needed to bear the weight of artillery pieces installed on top. Given that  the walls are about 3m thick too, you can see what a feat of engineering these things were.  I wonder if the new owner is 'in to' military history? 

Moving right along, again only a few hundred yards to the North we have  Tower 'Z' which may be my favourite,  I'm calling it the Smiley Martello 🙂 

 Not sure if this is occupied, though there is a modern exterior staircase for access. The structure on top looked like a 1940s pill box, so I am assuming this one was one of those re-purposed during WW2.  

 We ended our walk at Shingle Street, a small village with a polyglot collection of homes ( I suspect mostly holiday/second homes) built right on the shingle, a very pleasant place lacking only a pub or teashop!  And here we found  Tower 'AA' ,  which is another conversion to residential use, albeit probably not quite as recent or as snazzy as Tower Y.  I suspect that what with the thick (and curved)  walls and the massive interior brick column, any rooms inside the brick structure are quite small (and hard to furnish!), which means that the roof area provides the main living area, with a sun terrace and  wonderful views, of course. 

 

So within about 40 minutes walk we had ticked four towers - sadly I forgot to take a photo (which would have been easily done) showing all four in a line along the coast.  Still, a pleasant seaside walk (we sat on the beach for a few minutes near Shingle Street, and a saw a seal swim by) , with a nice bit of military history included.

That however is not quite the end of the story - we also dropped in at Felixstowe, where there are two more Martello towers..  Here is Tower  U ,  at Felixstowe Ferry :

and here is Tower T,  guarding Felixstowe's golf course

 

Phew!  Now assuming there are about 50 surviving Martello towers,  the Bawdsey/Felixstowe area is richly endowed with them, having six within a handful of miles (actually seven, there's another one we missed!).  It's interesting that at the time they were built, Felixstowe itself was still quite a small settlement, not the important port that it has since become. But as Wikipedia says,   The Felixstowe area as a whole provided a linchpin in England's defence, as proved in 1667 when Dutch soldiers landed near the Fludyers area and tried (unsuccessfully) in the Battle of Landguard Fort to capture Landguard Fort due to its strategic location.
Which reminds me that a visit to Landguard Fort should be on the list.. 

 I should add that there was a link between the Radar and the Martello Towers - my partner's father was an electrical engineer who worked on  naval radio and radar during the war and continued servicing radar on ships for the rest of his career. The naval/maritime  connection probably means he wasn't at Bawdsey, since that was an RAF establishment, but it was nice to learn a bit about radar, which became his career (sadly like so many of the wartime generation, he never talked about his experiences, so we know very little).  And  the Martellos? Well, we have a picture of him, probably taken in the late 1940s or early 1950s, in front of - you guessed it, a Martello tower.    

 

I do like this picture - everyone has some of these, don't they, with family members dressed rather formally while 'relaxing' at the seaside!  The past is a foreign country, indeed - or maybe it was just  a chilly Spring or Autumn day?    He did quite a lot of work at Felixstowe later, as it was a big port, and we did rather hope it might be one of the Felixstowe towers -  but from what we saw none of them matched the photo. So, we have only forty-odd more Martello towers to go and see, in our quest to work out where this picture was taken!   It's a very long shot, but does anyone reading this have a suggestion as to where it might be?   Note the line of beach huts and the groynes on the beach - it must be at a seaside resort rather than a piece of 'unspoiled' coastline.   Any suggestions welcome! 

In other hobby news, I've been plugging away at re-basing vintage Minifigs 25mm 7YW figures.Currently working on Russians, and eventually I should have six units of infantry (Line, Grenadiers and Pandours), and four cavalry (Hussars and Cossack lancers). I am hoping there are some guns and gunners lurking in the box of artillery from this collection, which might complete a nice 'pocket army', inspired by Norm Smith's examples on his Battlefields and Warriors blog. 

 

 

 

If all goes well, for my next post I'll be able to show the whole Russian force and its constituent units. I'd better get cracking with the PVA glue, MDF bases, green paint and making some flags! With another heatwave coming, I will probably be mostly indoors, so no excuses..  Until then , keep well everyone. 

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.