Gladiators.

For a bit of light relief, Brian, Evan, Chris and I have been running a Gladiator campaign using the Two Hour Wargames set: Red Sand Blue Sky.

Each of us has generated a Gladiator and hope the fight him from the Fringes of the Empire through to the Colosseum in Rome and hopefully win his freedom. Once we have played through this we should have enough knowledge of the rules to run our own Ludos, this is the main objective (it probably came from watching the recent Spartacus TV series too much).

Evan and I have gone for a Retiarius fighter, Brian a Murmillo and Chris a Dimachaerus. For a list of types the wiki page is as good a start as any:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_gladiator_types

Being a proper wargames campaign I made a map and have it on a pin board with flags to show each fighters progress.

Also I’ve been keeping a campaign journal- once it has been completed I’ll post it here too (though you’ll have to wait to see just how bad out humour gets). Evan is currently in the lead with Flobodon (from parts unknown) though Brian with Romulus Roman has won more fights, Chris (Edmund from England) and I (Knut the German) are battling for not being last.

For figures I bought some of the rather nice Crusader Miniatures 2nd hand from LAF to which I added a couple of packs from the Foundry range.

As you can see I’ve gone for a blue as my team colour when with get round to battling pitting our familia against each others.

As a game Red Sand Blue Sky is great fun, quick to set up and quick to play though a match. I made up a pair of boards from mounting card and sand with a quick dry brush of paint. By running 2 games at once the four of us can clear a months of game time in an easy, sociable and enjoyable evening.

A Hoplomachus and a Dimachaerus (Chris) fight for the entertainment of the crowd.

Advantage to Chris at this point I guess.

For the record (and I imagine it will only make sense to my British readers out there) my favourite was Panther, Jet was far too obvious.

Cheers,

Pete.

A Stalingrad AAR.

As promised these are a few pictures from a recent Stalingrad game. Not as many pictures as I would have liked as the camera batteries died not long after play commenced….

In a previous post I showed off my sewer collection whilst testing some rules for their use; given how well that test went I was keen to get them in a full game. The idea of staging an urban game with a parallel sewer network beneath had been one of my gaming objectives since I saw a demo table using the same principles in the very early 2000s (I know I’m not originally but it was a great table and more importantly inspired me- surely the point of any demo?).

I decided on a simple attack and defence scenario, the Germans were attempting to shift a group of stubborn Soviets out of their assigned area. To do so they had a infantry platoon of a HQ and 3 squads, 2 Engineers squads: 1 with a Flamethrower and 1 with demolition charges as well as a STUGIII. The Soviets had 2 squads of infantry, 1 squad of militia, 2 Anti tank rifles and a small but capable Engineer team, additionally they had plenty of Molotov cocktails that they could either cache in buildings or distribute before the start.

If any one wants the briefings or house rules just let me know.

I made the sewer network before I set up the above ground parts. The idea was to give the Soviets options to reinforce through the sewers quickly and relatively safely as well as the opportunity to try and use them to get behind the advancing Germans.

The sewer network- looking at it from the German side of the board.

Then I set up the urban terrain: the black counter represent manhole covers- I did have some better ones but they are AWOL in the shed….

Above ground- again from the German side.

Both parts side by side. The attack came from the left of the picture.

The game went well. Both players (Brian- Soviet and Evan- German) suffered from either extreme of luck throughout the game. We used the random events from the latest version of NUTS! (Two Hour Wargames) and they added a nice dangerous feel that felt right for the game, though Brian may dispute thiss as a booby trap was generated that took out his Anti Tank rifle team as it tried to close on the STUG. However the next turn saw reinforcements arrive in his favour- this came in the form of a very welcome T70, it’s 45mm gun being better (just) than the PTRD 41 that he had just lost.

Soviet defenders man the barricades.

Supported by the STUGIII the Heer advances.

Underneath the Soviets push forwards.

Given the lethality of Machine Guns advancing from building to building is the only way forward.

Using the MG34s to cover his advance up the board Evan made decent progress, his slighht edge in his figures rating also helped. Sadly I had not factored enough time in the evening for the game. Urban games always soak up more men and time than a rural one; adding an extra level just increases this. So we had to finish and pack up before a definitive conclusion- a rematch is planned for a yet to be determined Sunday afternoon..

The sewers were a big hit and some good suggestions came out during the evening. Mainly extend the sewers so they cover the table from edge to edge. This would give the attacker the option to set up initially sub surface. Also using bomb craters to allow ‘down only’ access to the sewers (either in the middle of the street or through a ruin’s cellar) to add extra option to game play.

Of course you don’t need a fancy set up to try a similar game, sketch maps and printouts would do the job fine, possibly better as they could allow for hidden movement; that would keep both sides guessing. However as I said at the start the visual side was the main reason for doing this set up. I would recommend Mark’s Island of fire for inspiration but the price that is goes for is eye- watering.

Cheers,

Pete.

Down and dirty Sewer fighting.

Or scatological combat spelunking.

Over the years I’ve been buying up the Ainsty produced sewer section, I’m pretty sure I’ve bought them off all three of the companies different owners. A while back I got round to drafting some rule amendments specifically for their use. Evan had come round for game night so we got the blocks out came up with a few different layouts and ran through a couple of different scenarios.

The first one was a Stalingrad affair with plenty of SMGs and each side using lanterns (with gave a pool of light) or torches/ flashlights (a cone of beam) to light their way. The second game was slightly more fantastical as it was a Berlin 45 set up. It was chosen so I could use a handful of my IR equipped figure to test out those rule modifications too.

Sorting out the bits and pieces: I had made sure I had kept a note of the paints I had used to ensure continuity.

Layout one. Each side approached the other from a ladder entrance.

Soviets advance forwards.

The Germans move up too.

The Soviets (me) come off worst in the ensuing exchange of fire.

As the Germans had torches they could turn them off and just shoot into the areas illuminated by the lanterns of the Soviets. A wise tactic which completely halted the Soviets advance.

At this point we quickly reset the layout and moved forward a few years to Berlin 1945.

Layout two. This time I took the Germans and Evan the Soviets.

This time the Soviets had flashlights of their own as well as heavy steel plate body armour.

The Germans had come prepared with state of the art weaponry.

The Germans rushed forward and with the IR sights slotted the Soviets as they appeared.

The second game was rather one sides so only ran for a couple of turns. To be fair as games the 2 scenarios were rather unbalanced though that wasn’t the point of them. Given that they were to test some rule modifications they worked well, though the rules seems to favour which ever side has the technological edge. I did balance that by having the ‘home’ or defending side be the only force who could move quickly through the tunnels, representing local knowledge so it did go some way to balance this.

I never really intended to sewers to be a game within themselves rather than an adjunct to an above ground game, literally adding an extra level to fight across. Future candidates for this will be Stalingrad and Berlin as well as Warsaw. If you haven’ t seen Kanal http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050585/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 you are really missing out on a classic. Also I’m pretty sure I’ll work in some modern counter- terrorist action int to. Pulp games would be option too. I’ll get round to working out some scenarios and getting them played over the summer- given the action will be on two tables I’m pretty sure they’ll be good for multiplayer games too.

Cheers,

Pete.

PS- apologies for the extended gap between this post and the last. A period of ill health has meant I directed what energy I had into my studies.

Afghanistan Skirmish AAR.

Here are a few photos from one of my recent games:

It is another playtest of my Afghan take on NUTS!.

Work is progressing on it slowly- I’m finding it slow going to write something that other people will read and use compared to writing a quick scenario specific game rule for use at home. There are bits that I’ve written that work very well but then there a bits that I think could do with some work too… I’ll keep plugging away at it.

Anyway on with the pics:

The table: this was a head to head game. This is the view from the defending Taliban side.

Brits take cover behind a low wall.

Meanwhile the ANA advance across a field.

A Taliban RPG gunner lies in wait at the edge of the village.

The Brits take their first casualty- at this point the dynamics of the game change from the mission to CASEVAC.

The Brits have walked into a strong defensive position of the Taliban and are struggling to win the firefight.

Meanwhile the ANA get pinned down at the edge of the fields and get overrun by a small group of Taliban.

At this point the game was called. The Coalition although started well become bogged down with a position that it couldn’t successfully outflank, with the need to evac a casualty it would have to call on a significant amount of support to extricate itself from that position.

Will tweak a few rules and have another playtest soon hopefully.

Cheers,

Pete.

The two games of last week.

Last week I managed to get a fair bit of gaming in so I thought I’d post them up.

Firstly Evan and Bill came over to mine for a game set in Chechnya played using my modern take on the Two Hour Wargames system. As it was a small scenario- a Russian truck has got stuck in a bad part of the area so a squad has been sent out to escort them to safety while two small groups of Chechens move in for the kill- we played it twice. However the pictures are from the first game only. Game 1 saw Bill and I take on Evan’s Chechens, while game 2 saw Me take on the role of the Chechens whilst Bill reprised the Russians.

A view of the table from the Chechen entry edge.

Again but from the Russian side- the green radio truck was the objective.

Russians advance to rescue their comrades.

The truck crew hide in the recently fortified abandoned house.

The Russians spread out as they close on their objective- passing between two wrecks.

However the Chechens have moved up to blocking positions.

The first attempt for theRussians to leave the safety of the ruins met with disastrous results.

Long story short- a PKM is a powerful asset in any fire fight.

However some good shooting from Bill’s Russians even things up a little.

However Evan responded by moving up with grenades…

With predictable results. The first game was a clear win for the Chechens.

The second game was a little more balanced- both side took heavy casualties but couldn’t finish each other.

Secondly I went up to chez Evan on Sunday for a WW2 skirmish using NUTS!- this time a troop of three British Shermans has been isolated in a forward position and have to hold out until the infantry can move forward to support them, meanwhile German tank hunter teams close in. I played the Germans whilst Evan took on the Brits. It was also a chance for us to try out the rather nice large hills he has been making.

The table Evan had set up- the Shermans set up in the walled farm and their reinforcements entered on the far edge.

The set up positions of the Shermans- trying to cover as much ground as possible- there were a few dismounted crew men covering the blind spots.

A German tank hunter team moves forward.

A STUGIII moves forwards to duel with the Sherman Firefly- unsurprisingly it came off worse. Due to the random deployment of the Germans I went with what I had rather than trying to reposition and expose a flank.

On the positive side my Panzerschreck team found its target and brewed up a Sherman.

Whilst redeploying to meet the threat of the PanzerSchreck the Firefly looses its commander to a well placed K98 bullet.

Then the same Firefly had its tracks shot out by a PanzerFaust. We called the game there as the Britis infantry were advancing on to the table. My attacking infantry had taken heavy losses but had KO’d on Sherman, immobilized a second and killed 2 other crewmen. A close thought game that swung back and forth.

Given real life stuff… blah blah… you know the story… I’m massively behind on posting up my battle reports so I’ll drip feed them out based on whim so watch this space.

Cheers,

Pete.

Modern Rules Playtest

Sorry I’m a day late- those who know me would not be surprised that my virtual time keeping is as bad as my real world efforts.

Right, as to where I am with the rules (they really need a decent name so answers on a postcard [or comment] please), the rule amendments are all done and playtested, and I’m working through a campaign, Evan is running a 2010 onwards British platoon for me and hopefully Brian will start a similar one, though this time with Germans later this week.

The games have been platoon sized (where I’ve pitched the game) and I’m trying to get the balance right when it comes to what the PEFs turn into. I want the game to be easy for the Western/ Coalition/ NATO player until something goes wrong then the really challenge starts. That said I’m tempted to add more variation to the reinforcements table already. Another thing I’ve been experimenting with is large numbers of PEFs, the game below featured 16 (to be fair the table was 6 by 4 and I rolled for activation in groups of 4 and that worked fine. However given that the EAL was only 2 the majority turned out to be false alarms… It remains to be seen how this works when the EAL is significantly higher.

‘Right enough waffle Pete’ I’m hearing your say ‘on to the pics’… The basic set up was to have Evan’s platoon set up in the middle of the board and defend the large compound for the required number of turns, 12 in this case. PEFs surrounded him and then didn’t really do much, I was hoping for some viscous assaults from multiple sides to really test his deployment of forces but the dice didn’t choose that path. The activation dice didn’t give the insurgents a chance for 4 turns on the trot at one stage.

The randomly generated table with the defended building in the middle.

Tooled up Brits prepare for what could be their Rorke’s Drift.

Taliban appear and move up.

A brief firefight ensues.

Given the fire power that a modern platoon can bring to bear they were often one sided.

Evan got lucky with the dice and received a squad of ANA as reinforcements.

Some civilians wander through a field at the edge of the board.

The ANA adopt a roof top fire position and get the Taliban in a cross fire. Just after this the game ended at the conclusion of turn 12.

Apologies that there are so few photos, running the game took a fair bit of time. It was a fairly quite engagement really, though it gave Evan a gentle introduction into the mechanisms. Hopefully tomorrows game will provide more excitement.

Cheers,

Pete.

Update, mid July- a smorgasboard of Airwar gamers, Airshows, the RSI and Afghanistan.

Been a while since I’ve posted anything and as such I’ve got a bit behind on things. As such this will be a bit of a whistle stop tour of what I’ve been up to.

Firstly I have played a trio of air war games:

A rather nice little skirmish set in the period of the fall of Singapore. The games was played with Bill’s newly acquired models.

We enjoyed the game so much we had a second go of it using the same models the following week.

The following week I put on a Korean Airwar game, with 8 MIG15s trying to shoot down 3 B29s with a small fighter escort.

In a previous blog post I showcased my Decima Mas force. I couldn’t wait to get them on to the table so I came up with a quick scenario set in the final months of the war in Italy. Evan and I played the game a couple of weeks ago using NUTS! as usual.

Evan’s Shermans approach the RSI held village.

I try to reinforce with two freesh squads of Decima Mas troops. It was to be in vain as Evan’s textbook tactics gave him a convincing win.

I also managed to fit in a family day out to the Waddington Airshow. It was a great day out- the first Airshow I’d been long to since I was a child. Lots to see there- more than you can really manage in a day. Great to see the flying displays, the Battle of Britain Memorial flight was a stirring as ever, especially with a Dambusters anniversary flypast too. The Vulcan was there displaying, as majestic and powerful as I remember from at least two decades ago, the other military fast jets were a favourite of mine. For some reason the aerobatic displays left me a little unimpressed, although the technical skills on display were very impressive.

The Battle of Britain Memorial flight.

The mighty Vulcan.

A Vietnam era Huey on ground display.

There seemed to be less aircraft on ground display than the last show I went to and the USAF were completely absent. I guess the reason lies with operational commitments and the changing nature of airforce inventories since 1992… There were also far more ‘family friendly’ activities at Waddington than at prior shows.

Moving back to gaming; playtesting has begun in earnest for the modern rule modifications I am working on.

An Afghanistan game in progress.

It’s a case of watch this space as I may need some extra playtesters soon….

So there you go, a quick overview of my hobby activities over the last month or so. If anyone wants and more pictures of anything I’ve featured please shout out as I’ve plenty more pictures, especially of the airshow including some very short videos I took on my ancient camera. I’ll have to look into stitching them together to make a mini film I suppose.

Cheers,

Pete.

Nighttime Skirmish in the FYR. A Game AAR.

A couple of Tuesdays ago Evan and I sat down to play another 2HW skirmish game. As part of my continuing testing of the modern modifications I came up with a suitable scenario. I took my inspiration from an old copy of SOTCW’s Journal and wrote a quick game set in the Yugoslavian Civil War. Rather than a game about Tanks in turned out to be a game with tanks in….

A few months after the Croat people declared independence from Yugoslavia, the Yugoslavian Army, JNA, surrounded the town of Vukovar. The siege last a bit over two months and saw some very heavy fighting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vukovar

The general background to the game was as follows: The Serb offensive had been halting in the day’s fighting, leaving three tanks stuck in on man’s land, one is a ‘runner’ so both sides send out a small force to investigate after darkness falls; the JNA had 3 small squads and a tank crew to drive back the ‘runner’, the Croats had a mixed bag of right wing paramilitaries and militia trying to stop them.

The table was out usual 6 foot by 4 foot, three tanks were put roughly in the middle of the board, a T55, a T34/85 and an M36 Jackson (not technically a tank but hey…). I took 3 white counters from my game bits box and put a little sticker under one of them. These were then mixed up and one placed under each tank. The idea was when one of our figures reached at tank we could examine the counter to see if that tank was the runner with out letting the other player know (the quality if one’s Poker face notwithstanding). As usual rules were a hybrid of CR3.0, NUTS! 2nd ed. and my own modifications.

The table, looking from the JNA side to the Croat edge.

The three objectives for the game- only one of which is a ‘runner’.

My mixed bag Croat forces advance in the centre, Evan and I had the same idea a squad to each tank and one held back in reserve.

Croats moving on the left flank.

One of the JNA squads.

Another JNA squad and the tank crew.

My Croats hold at the garage while another squads pushed on ahead.

One of Evan’s squads reaches the T34/85 and checks its status.

My paramilitary team reaches the crest just in front of the T55. Just able to make out figures in the gloom the fire on the JNA. The red markers indicated killed and Out of Fight figures.

On my right flank I try to move on the T34/85 but suffer as a result.

The Croat militia stop at the way to cover the line of approach to the M36.

Evan’s squad moves up to try to get to the M36, unable to close due to my fire a ‘Mexican Stand off’ ensues.

The Croat squad trying to get to the T34/85 suffers several casualties from JNA AKs and grenades.

With my paramilitaries controlling the T55 Evan decided to split his tank crew into two pairs and send them one pair to each tank on the flanks.

Having finished off the inital squad, the JNA move onto the lower quality militia.

With my opponents attention else where I move my team down from covering the T55 (it wasn’t a runner anyway) and finish off one team of JNA and a pair of Tank crew.

Hearing the gunfire Evan doubles back with the JNA and opens up on my exposed Croats.

The result was predictable really.

Knowing that the T55 wasn’t a ‘runner’ and guessing (correctly) that the T34/85 wasn’t either I moved my m,ilitia squad over to the M36, with an MG42 they had the most powerful weapon on the table.

Evan wasn’t keen on my doing this so moved across to the ridge to try and stop me.

Which he did, the two surviving figures retired back to the relative safety of the ruin.

However my losses were avenged by the surviving paramilitary NCO.

The backwards and forwards nature of the combat in the midle of the board had split my forces allowing Evan’s better trained troops to reach the functional M36 and crew it. Here the game was finished as I had lost all of my Anti Tank capabilities.

The table at the end of a hard fought game.

Both Evan and I thoroughly enjoyed the game, the action swung back and forth all evening, with neither side prepared to hold back, in fact we both commented that we took far higher casualties (about 60-75% of each of our initial forces) that would ever be tolerated in real life or even in a wargame that forms part of an ongoing campaign. Playing at night added an extra level to the game, short range firefights were the order of the day and the long range dominance of light machine guns was completely negated.

Cheers,

Pete.

Testing, Testing- some games in Development.

Most of my gaming energies recently have been devoted to finishing up the modern stats for the 2 Hour Wargame system; at the moment my work if about 90% done, but like the aphorism the last 10% is taking most of the effort…

To prove this my last playtest was a bit of a bust- due to a poor scenario. The one in question was written by me several years ago and had provided a very enjoyable game of ‘Arc of Fire’, how ever just swapping it over to 2HW didn’t work.

Set in the classic World War Three year of 1984 it saw a platoon of West German infantry defend a village against a platoon of Soviet infantry, a platoon of armoured cars and a tank (in this case a PT76), who opened the hostilities with a small mortar barrage.

I think what made the game not play the same is the difference in ground scales between the two systems. Arc of Fire has a stated ground scale of 1″ = 10m, to put that into perspective a grenade can be thrown 2″. The 2HW system doesn’t have a published ground scale but a grenade can be thrown a full 6″… As a result the man portable Anti Tank weapons in a 2HW sized table are much more effective, the BRDM2s didn’t stand a chance. Still it was a learning experience and it provided a good example of how not to do scenarios, that said I do think the scenario idea is still a good one so I will revisit it soon.

Anyway here a few pictures for your edification.

Germans in defence.

The attacking Soviets.

Infantry move up to deal with the defenders.

General shot of the table.

Now on to more successful endeavours: I mentioned in my previous post that we’d be having a Falklands Air War game, Bill turned up with his aircraft and I drafted some missile rules to go with them. As stated last time these are for the heavily modified rule set mainly developed by Evan, I tried to keep the rules simple but give a little flavour for the period, I’d like to think I achieved that as everyone seemed to be having fun as we got through several little air skirmishes in the evening.

A pair of Sea Harriers.

A brace of Mirages.

Dogfight in the South Atlantic, Sea Harriers engage Skyhawks.

Bill’s aircraft were very nicely painted- the bought them off a forum several years back he said.

As the missile rules worked so well, I’ll be painting up my Vietnam aircraft soon to get a few games out of them, though I’ve the odd idea to look at the Cenepa War of 1995….

Evan’s latest addition to the air combat system is to bring in rules to ‘jump’ out of the sun on to unsuspecting aircraft, we had another test of these this Tuesday gone. B26 Marauders, escorted by P40s were jumped by a mixed attacking group of Bf109s and Me110s. Much fast paced action was played out of the table top with successive flights of aircraft trying to get the advantage over the other.

I think we’ve got the rules pretty much nailed down now, so we can expand on the different theatres we cover, Evan was last seen ordering flights of B17s so hopefully we’ll have some daylight raids over the Reich soon… however I think next weeeks game will be back to 20mm.

Cheers,

Pete.

Latest painted items.

Here are some pics of the latest items that I’ve finished working on.

First up a selection of late war German vehicles (The Kubel isn’t mine it is for Bill/Westy of UFM’s collection).

Now that I’ve got 6 Tigers painted I can do a NWE game that I’ve always wanted to do: every German tank is represented by a Tiger until properly identified by the allies. This represents the number of times Tigers were reported when they weren’t there and the tendency to over estimate the power of armour by the infantryman. This idea is replicated in the NUTS! 2HW ruleset.

A selection of ‘Cops and Robbers’ by Elhiem, they’ll find themselves in a variety of modern games.

Some old Dark Future bikes.

Some more Dark Future infantry for my collection. All Dark Future items are commanding high prioces on ebay at the moment.

2 Lions, 2 Tigers and 2 Oxen by Irregular miniatures.

The last three items will hopefully feature in a forthcoming 2HW ‘After the Horsemen’ game… watch this space.

Cheers,

Pete.