All quiet on the painting front

I haven't painted a thing since I finished the Crimean Highlanders. Instead I have been working on a couple of scratch built 4.7inch guns for the Russo-Japanese armies and reorganising all of the armies from their shabby cardboard boxes in to new plastic trays, while waiting for the arrival of some Russo-Japanese field guns (and given the past record of this supplier that may be four or five weeks away).

What is interesting about the reorganising is the realisation of just how many figures I have. By far the largest collection is the American Civil War, but a very close second is the Austro-Prussian collection, of which I have Austrian, Prussian and Italian armies. These armies haven't seen the light of day since October 2012, so opening the boxes was like being reacquainted with old friends.

I also dug out images from those games and have included them here.

This first batch, from 2008, was from an Austro-Italian game set in Venetia.

An Austrian brigade advancing

Italian Cavalry, light cavalry on the right, heavy on the left and lancers to the rear 

Italian troops occupy a village

An Italian battery supported by a battalion of Bersagleri

Italian infantry and cavalry pass through the village

This next batch, from 2012, with the Austrians facing thre Prussians, are from a game set in Bohemia.

The Austrian advance

Austrian hussars clash with Prussian cuirassiers and uhlans

An Austrian heavy cavalry brigade advances

Austrian infantry pass a farm

The Austrians attack

The Prussians counter attack

Crimean Army

Well the last batch of figures for the British army in the Crimea has been painted. This includes the Highland Brigade (the 42nd, 79th and 93rd Regiments), two guns and their crew, and the divisional command base - the Duke of Cambridge and a highland colonel.

I wouldn't say they were my best painting, I struggled with the socks and the checked effect on the bonnets, but based up and formed in lines they look mighty impressive. 

Sir Colin Cambell leads the Black Watch forward

The Highland Brigade in column of battalions (front to back the 42nd, the 93rd and the 79th)

The Duke of Cambridge and his ADC

The Artillery

Together with the Brigade of Guards, the Highland Brigade make up the First Division from the Battle of the Alma. 

The Crimean army will go on hold for a month or two while I build up some more Russo-Japanese artillery. I need another twelve Japanese guns (some of which will need to be scratch built) and another four Russian. I also want to add some cavalry, mounted and dismounted, to both of those armies.

Reminiscing - Wargames Holíday Centre 1986

In 1986, on my first visit to the UK and Europe, I spent a week at Peter Gilder's Wargames Holiday Centre. Just the other day I was cleaning up some old photos and I found the shots I had taken during that week 29 years ago. All of the pictures were seriously under exposed, but I scanned them and did a bit of PhotoShop work to try an clean them up. They brought back a whole batch of memories about that week and inspired this post.

Memories are a little hazy now, but I remember arriving in Scarborough on the afternoon of the Sunday and meeting up with the other attendees at dinner. I can recall most of the people there. There was one older chap, called Bob, a young chap from Bradford, three blokes from London and two others. After dinner Peter Gilder met us and we all drove in the Centre's minibus to the holiday centre, where for the  first time I saw the setup that I had seen many times in the Miniature Wargames magazine.

The games room was in a long rectangular building with two tables 27 feet long by 6 feet wide, and separated by a gap of 3 feet. Against one wall was another table, 3 feet wide, that could be used as troop assembly area, or for off table manoeuvring. After getting to know our host and the gaming facilities we were given the keys to the minibus and went back to the hotel in Scarborough. That minibus  became our self-drive transport for the week.

There were four games played. The first was a Napoleonic, followed by (not necessarily in order) Pony Wars and the Italian Wars. The last two days were a refight of Austerlitz, played across two tables and involving some 5,000 figures.

The Italian Wars game

The Pony Wars Game

The Napoleonic Games (the final three images are the Austerlitz game)

Crimean Project Advances

No time for photographs at the moment. I am too busy painting.

 

My order for Crimean War British arrived from Great War Miniatures on September 22 and I have been working on them intensely ever since.

 

I had ordered three battalions (the whole of the Highland Brigade), together with two guns and two mounted figures - Sir Colin Campbell and a highland colonel.

 

I have finished the mounted officers and the artillery and have done about two thirds of the infantry – the 42nd Black Watch and the 93rd Argyle and Sutherland Regiments. They are starting to look great, but those cursed cross-hatched socks have been driving me insane! I have never been much good at fine straight lines so they are a struggle for me – some are better than others I hope that when they are all based up, my average (or less than average in some cases) work will be concealed by the landscaping on the base.

 

This purchase completes the 1^st Division, that comprises the Guards Brigade, the Highland Brigade and two batteries.

 

We have a long weekend away next week so I don’t know if I will get any time to get any photos done before then, but I shall try.

 

I am also working on tidying up some Foundry Franco-Prussian French that someone else had half painted. These are being worked on in the moments when the cross-hatching drives me to distraction.

WWI in East Africa

In 2012 we travelled to Kenya and Tanzania. When we were driving from Arusha to the Serengetti I remembered the story of how the guns of the cruiser Koenigsberg were taken from the ship and distributed to various German units in German East Africa. My imagination soon began to run away and I as we drove along I gathered ideas for wargames terrain in the rich farmlands.

Some snapshots of the terrain in Tanzania between Arusha and the Ngorongoro, perhaps 60kms west of the battlefield near Taveta in 1916 and near where the Wintgens-Naumann raid passed in 1917.

On my return home I purchased Edward Paice's book "Tip and Run" and developed the idea more, but it only remained conceptual. When a friend of mine gave me a batch of painted Sikh infantry for my birthday, my interest was further piqued, but still iIdid not progress the idea - mainly because the Russo-Japanese project (followed by the Early WWI project) got in the way and the Sikhs remained in their box. But now in mid-September, while I wait for my next order from Northstar - three weeks and counting - and with everything cleared from the painting tray (well almost cleared), I decided to base up those Sikhs. Here is the result. 

This, combined with the fun we had with our recent 1914 and 1918 games, has got me keen. I can see a few command figures, a gun and an HMG team coming soon...

Wargames Rules

I have always written my own wargames rules. This started way back in the early days of my obsession and was forged by necessity. You see my first set of wargames rules was "Charge! or How to Play Wargames" by Brigadier Young and Colonel Lawford and the problem was that those rules were for the Seven Years War, but my interest was in American Civil War, so adaption was the necessity.

I did use some commercial rules back in the early 1980s - mainly the WRG Horse and Musket rules - so that I would have some opponents in club games. But ever since my involvement in club gaming diminished in the mid-1980s, self-written rules have been the norm.

Like all sets of rules mine are pieced from many sources and ideas, but nearly always they can trace their roots back to the days of Featherstone, Grant, Young or Gilder. My rules concepts have pretty much settled now and involve a couple of key modules that can be modified to suit the period. I have used a version of the activation table that has a faint similarity to the original Fire and Fury, I have used a hit and save method for all types of combat - both firing and close combat - and a very simple army morale.

Anyone who has ever gamed with me will probably tell you that my ideas change like the weather, which is probably true, because I am rarely satisfied with the way things work out. But then again my rules are not for publication.

I make my living in the aviation publishing sector and have realised that certain key elements in this medium can be applied to wargames rules. In aviation we use two publications to fly airplanes. One is the operating manual, that contains all of the normal procedures together with descriptions of all the aircraft systems. The other is the Quick Reference Handbook (QRH) that contains all the non-normal procedures. Pilots rarely use the operations manual in flight but nearly always use the QRH because it contains everything they need to know for general operations in one place as a series of checklists.

So I have applied this QRH concept to my rules. For most periods of play I operate eight standard checklists The checklists are:

• Initiative
• Leaders
• Activation
• Movement
• Firing
• Close Combat
• Leader Casualties 
• Army Morale.

By following the logic of the checklists, the player is led easily through the game turn, providing all of the basic information required. These two examples from the Crimean War QRH are the checklists for activation and firing.

I have found that with a few minor tweaks the rules can easily be adapted for almost any period of play between the English Civil War the Franco-Prussian War. With even greater adaption they can be used for 20th Century gaming, and we have successfully used then for WWI and Russo-Japanese War.

Tarawera Weekend - Day 5 Sunday 7 September

This the last day of our magnificent event for another year. As tradition would have it this day's game would be a naval game. This time it would be ironclads from 1866 - Austro-Hungarian against Italian.

With breakfast consumed and gear packed for the return home we set up for play.

On the Austrain side there were 11 ships, seven ironclads, one wooden ship of the line, two frigates and a gunboat, while the Italians had eight ironclads and two wooden frigates. 

For the next three hours these ships swirled around two small rocky outcrops in the Adriatic blasting and ramming each other at short range.

In the end the honours were even. Each side lost two ironclads and one wooden ship. Both sides were deemed to have withdrawn to lick their wounds.

Then it was time to pack the table away, pack the last things into the cars and have lunch.  Then our great week of gaming was all over - what took ten months to prepare for was over in what seemed like no time at all. 

At around 14:30 we hit the road, arriving home a little after 18:00.