After a brief rumour that the much loved and teased ABC TV show 'The Boffin The Builder, The Bombardier only had four episodes (and hence was now over for the year), the programme happily continued to both amuse and provide cringe for the viewers here at AWB.
Ep 5 of this series, rapidly becoming much watch TV if only for the purpose of giving fuel for blog updates, remains in WW1 land but moves for the first time away from the 303 rifle. Instead we are given a brief history of the Leach Trench Catapult (also known as the Leach-Gamage Catapult) before being entertained with our three heroes flinging cricket balls across their firing range.
The Leach-Gamage, named after Mister Claude Pemberton Leach, who designed it, and Gamages, the company who made them, was a 1915 solution for the probably of bombing enemy trenches and had a brief in service period before being replaced with the types of trench mortars we are now familiar with. It was a largish Y shaped frame using rubber to fling grenades in the general direction of German and, depending on bomb and age of the rubber, was reported to have a range between 120 to 200 yards.
So, let's first talk about the show. Now it probably should be pointed out that AWB does actually enjoy watching this 10 minutes or so of three guys being man childs (and the phrase that AWB is refusing to use here is 'completely jealous'), however has an issue with the very casual conclusions that are then drawn at the end.
Our boys this week rather neatly summed up the difference between high and low angle fire to give the background of why this weapon was developed, so points to that. It may have been nice to actually mention at what range their target trench was placed as that would have given us kids at home an idea if the 120 to 200 yards claims were actually correct. Now AWB has always been a bit rubbish at judging distances and is also aware how different camera lenses can drastically foreshorten the distance, but at this stage is not fully convinced our heroes were firing at any great range.
This is a pity as to support the claim made on the show that 'it's a weapon' it would have been nice to know at what range they were capable of reaching, and perhaps more importantly, what sort of spread were they actually getting. The did (claim) to hit the target and filmed a nice little explosion to prove it (so nice it was then shown about 6 times... 'completely jealous'... cough...), but without knowing how many shots were fired (we only see about 4 cricket balls plus the final winning golf ball) we have no way of making any real conclusions.
The show also raises the chuckle, again, in their closing statements by making a comment that pretty much destroys their entire argument. It is mentioned as a bit of historical trivia that one unit in France used their catapults to send offensive messages to the Germans in clay pots. Not bombs. That does seem to AWB at least to sum up exactly how useful the troops in the trenches considered the weapon.
So what have we learnt that we can take into our wargaming?
Not a huge amount. The catapult is clearly a semi static weapon. While our TV heroes make the point it could be carried by one person, they forget that so can a 5m ladder, and just because you can carry one, doesn't mean you want to. The weapon doesn't appear to break down and moving it through a trench to a suitable firing position doesn't strike AWB as a fun task. Taking it with you during an assault also would seem to be rather pointless and of little real use.
The range of between 120 and 200 yards also gives a bit of a clue as to how it could or couldn't be useful. No Man's Land varied in depth and while there were many situations where trenches were that close apart, there were also many where they weren't. It must also be remembered that trench systems evolved to having a rather large amount of depth with forward saps and observation posts creeping out from the 'front'. It does seem that the weapon would be most used from forward saps to bomb the only targets also in range, which in many cases would be enemy forward saps. Does seem a lot of effort for little return.
In an advance, any firepower added by a catapult would have been drowned by other weapons and in defence the slow rate of fire and poor range suggests that picking up one's personal rifle may be a better idea for the crew.
Issue, as claimed in Wikipedia so it must be true, was 12 weapons per division. How this broke down or at what level they controlled at is anyone's guess.
AWB things that if squad or skirmish level WW1 is your thing, then painting and basing one of these up would be a great little extra for your games set in 1915 to early 1916 and also understands the weapon is available in 28mm. Once you start to go up in game scale the weapon would rapidly become a completely minor effect to the extent they could be completely ignored except as many figure variation in your basing.
In summary, TBCubed is still harmless largely non historical fun and it is good to see the props budget has moved on from SMLE rifles.
AWB looks forward to ep 6.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Sunday, 28 April 2013
The Joys and Dangers of Historical Memoirs
While musing over the bookshelf of our good friends The Insouciant Wargamer, AWB had a change to flick through briefly a copy of Erich von Falkenhayn's 'General Headquarters 1914-1916 and It's Critical Decisions'. (English language translation)
Now Falkenhayen, as any good player of GMT Games' Paths of Glory will know, was the man behind the 'Place of Execution' attacks on Verdun. What they may then not realise, and AWB is guilty of this, is once he disappears from the game in PoG, he gets sent off to the Transylvania to command the Ninth Army, capture Bucharest and slay vampires (citation needed), before later commanding forces in Turkish Palestine.
However, we digress as we are here to talk about his book. Now, AWB only had a chance to skim a few pages as this was a gaming night and there were figures to move not books to read, but AWB is pretty sure that somewhere in those pages is the chapter where Erich rescues the kittens from a burning building. The few pages AWB managed to read were literally littered with the word 'brilliant' closely followed by the phrase 'German forces'. Yes, well, Herr Falkenhayn, one knows this is your book and you are entitled to write what you like, but you do remember that Verdun was the campaign that managed to get you sacked as Chief of the General Staff?
There were tit bits of interest in the few pages. Falkenhayen claims that the entry of Italy into the war was treated more or less with apathy by the German public which is an interesting insight, however like all memoirs, the reader needs to be careful to separate the analysis of the situation with the grandstanding of the author.
This is not to say that readers should avoid memoirs. AWB was recently reading James Hamilton-Paterson's 'Empire of the Clouds' (the abridged illustrated version with reduced text but bonus pictures). Here Hamilton-Paterson is describing the glory days of English aviation in the 1950s. He opens with the 1952 crash of the DH .110 at the Farnborough Airshow where the aircraft broke up mid air killing both aircraft and 27 spectators. AWB also had a copy of 'Test Pilot' by Neville Duke; the man who flew the Hawker Hunter on that day immediately after the fatal crash, and it was with interest AWB skipped ahead in that book to see what Mr Duke had to say.
To paraphrase, 'There was a horrible crash and then I got up and put the Hunter through it's paces'.
A best two pages from the entire memoir involved the crash and deaths of 29 people and some of that was covered by mentioning the wonderful flying weather. This is not to imply that Neville Duke was in anyway heartless, but reflects that his is a man who has just come through 6 years of hard warfare and was then currently involved in very risky bleeding edge development, and not a 21st Century Boy concerned about his twitter feed. It was the 1950s. You were a professional. You did what was expected. To cancel the rest of the day's flying was completely unthinkable for all involved. Keep Calm and Carry On wasn't an over flogged cliche poster, it was the public mindset.
And that is why we should never knock back a chance to read a memoir; not for what they might claim, but to understand how they were thinking and why they were claiming it.
(Another Wargame Blog will now go off and do some more brave and manly things to reflect just how brave, manly and fault free they are...)
Now Falkenhayen, as any good player of GMT Games' Paths of Glory will know, was the man behind the 'Place of Execution' attacks on Verdun. What they may then not realise, and AWB is guilty of this, is once he disappears from the game in PoG, he gets sent off to the Transylvania to command the Ninth Army, capture Bucharest and slay vampires (citation needed), before later commanding forces in Turkish Palestine.
However, we digress as we are here to talk about his book. Now, AWB only had a chance to skim a few pages as this was a gaming night and there were figures to move not books to read, but AWB is pretty sure that somewhere in those pages is the chapter where Erich rescues the kittens from a burning building. The few pages AWB managed to read were literally littered with the word 'brilliant' closely followed by the phrase 'German forces'. Yes, well, Herr Falkenhayn, one knows this is your book and you are entitled to write what you like, but you do remember that Verdun was the campaign that managed to get you sacked as Chief of the General Staff?
There were tit bits of interest in the few pages. Falkenhayen claims that the entry of Italy into the war was treated more or less with apathy by the German public which is an interesting insight, however like all memoirs, the reader needs to be careful to separate the analysis of the situation with the grandstanding of the author.
This is not to say that readers should avoid memoirs. AWB was recently reading James Hamilton-Paterson's 'Empire of the Clouds' (the abridged illustrated version with reduced text but bonus pictures). Here Hamilton-Paterson is describing the glory days of English aviation in the 1950s. He opens with the 1952 crash of the DH .110 at the Farnborough Airshow where the aircraft broke up mid air killing both aircraft and 27 spectators. AWB also had a copy of 'Test Pilot' by Neville Duke; the man who flew the Hawker Hunter on that day immediately after the fatal crash, and it was with interest AWB skipped ahead in that book to see what Mr Duke had to say.
To paraphrase, 'There was a horrible crash and then I got up and put the Hunter through it's paces'.
A best two pages from the entire memoir involved the crash and deaths of 29 people and some of that was covered by mentioning the wonderful flying weather. This is not to imply that Neville Duke was in anyway heartless, but reflects that his is a man who has just come through 6 years of hard warfare and was then currently involved in very risky bleeding edge development, and not a 21st Century Boy concerned about his twitter feed. It was the 1950s. You were a professional. You did what was expected. To cancel the rest of the day's flying was completely unthinkable for all involved. Keep Calm and Carry On wasn't an over flogged cliche poster, it was the public mindset.
And that is why we should never knock back a chance to read a memoir; not for what they might claim, but to understand how they were thinking and why they were claiming it.
(Another Wargame Blog will now go off and do some more brave and manly things to reflect just how brave, manly and fault free they are...)
Thursday, 25 April 2013
TV - The Boffin The Builder The Bombardier - Post 2 plus Musing on Rifle Tactics
Another Sunday has been and gone on ABC free to air TV and another 15 minutes of historically slanted light entertainment has been viewed by the post Doctor Who masses.
The Boffin The Builder The Bombardier, or TBCubed for want of letter count, added to their World War One collection by 'investigating' The Mad Minute. That makes three out of four viewed programmes dedicated to WW1 and more interestingly, three out of four dedicated directly to some aspect of the .303 SMLE rifle. It this telling us something about the main period of interest for the head writer (who from speed reading the credits, AWB believes to be the 'Boffin' character. Seriously, the ABCs own website has been completely non helpful which does make one wonder where that extra $10million in funding is being wasted), or are we in reality seeing a reflection on the programmes props budget.
"Hey Davo, I've got these couple of 303s and some shoot range access. Wanna make a telly doco??"
Quite.
Anyway, back the programme. The myth of the week was the high rate of fire obtained by the highly trained career soldiers that made up the BEF during the first months of WW1 in France and how they cut down in waves the attacking Germans. The counter argument was that the musketry skills had little to do with it and the unimaginative German tactics had a lot to do with their own failure.
So, our TV heroes, to prove the claim of 15 or more aimed shots per minute set up a wall down range to represent a block of unimaginative Germans, and, stopwatch running, let fly for 60 seconds.
One minute later they had a large target filled with bullet holes and the conclusions were quickly made that the high level of training probably did have a lot to do with it, but only because of the poor German tactics.
Okay... what have we just actually proved? That three semi trained men can operate SMLE at a respectable speed? If you are ever a large plywood wall, then don't even think about going to war?
The problem here was that it is automatically assumed that the poor German tactics is an unquestionable fixed condition. True, actually proving the German tactics were poor is mildly tricky. To AWB's knowledge there are next to no photos of the Mons battles and even then, without context, they probably wouldn't be conclusive. To calculate it would probably require obtaining the (unreliable and incomplete) casualty returns, determine the axis of advance of the units involved, factor in the BEF casualties from German artillery, model using carefully calculated hit percentiles and... well.. take a wild arse guess. Point being is that you still have a whopping great variable and to draw a solid conclusion after shooting up a plywood wall is not history, it is shooting up a plywood wall.
Having solved the problems of the world in the first 5 minutes of their show, they then needed to fill in the rest of the ep and then attempted to match the record which was claimed at 32 some shots a minute. Now here our team not only didn't come close, but also didn't seem to investigate the historical situation. As AWB had it explained to them by an Australian Light Horse reinactor (so your mileage may vary, but remember we are comparing this to three guys who shoot walls), the pre-war 303 round was the round nosed MkVI. About 1916 this started to be replaced by the more powerful and pointed nose MkVII round. Now while AWB may have screwed up the mark numbers, the important thing was that the newer round had different powder and hence a far greater kick. The practical result of this was that the firer now had to hold the weapon a lot more firmly and could not get away with the previous trick of opening and closing the bolt with one's palm so that their finger tip could touch the trigger the moment the action was closed.
(try this at home with your Air 303. Imagine the bolt handle is in the centre of the palm and as you rock your hand forward your fingers are already reaching down towards the trigger in one smooth action. Bang. Repeat. Feel free to make the noises if it assists with the process.)
So, two conclusions. Either AWB was misinformed with an old wives shooting tale or TBCubed are really just three blocks shooting up plywood walls.
So, the conclusion that TBCubed is harmless non historical fun still stands.
Having successfully alienated the TBCubed crew with character assassinations, where does this leave us wargamers and what, if anything, can we learn from this?
AWB believes the prime thing to take away is that not many of us actually have a realistic grounding of what infantry firepower during the period could actually do. Your homework for this post (after you have finished playing with your air 303, air cleaned it and safely air locked it into the air weapons locker to prevent air accidents), is to dig out your current WW1 or 2 rules and find out how a machine gun is defined compared with a rifle. Most rules seem to give the tripod MG more/better firepower factors and range and leave it at that. After all, the ROF is higher, therefore more firepower. Right?
Well... maybe... and that brings us back to the idea that we do not really fully understand just how the weapons worked.
A typical Maxim style MG of the WW1 period comes in with a ROF of 600rpm cyclic. Now if you joined all the belts together and watched the cooling water you could probably keep that up for a long time. In reality most sources seem to list the practical and/or service rate of fire as more like 100-200 rpm. So if we take the middle of 150rpm and compare it to say 10 riflemen firing off 15 aimed shots per minute... Maybe apples to oranges but remember that a machine gun is a crew served weapon and depending on the army and the situation could easily have 10 men keeping it in operation so the comparison is not completely unfair.
We also need to look beyond the pure numbers of total bullets fired. Let us pretend that our team of 10 and our MG both encounter 20 enemy in the open. In this situation the 10 riflemen may prove to be more effective. They have the ability to volley fire and assuming a reasonable level of skill may only need to personally target 2 or 3 men each - easily a couple of seconds work even with bolt action rifles. Our MG in comparison, despite firing 10 rounds per second, would still to pan across the target area and, depending on the situation, may not successfully hit all the enemy before they disperse or take cover. In practical terms, the MG may actually be less 'deadly'.
However, having forced the enemy to cover, it is also probably a safe assumption that the MG would be a lot better at forcing them to stay there. If you can then act on the fact these enemy are pinned, either by moving infantry to flank or blowing them up with artillery, or both, then that is still a result and your work here is done, medals all round.
The commonly held assumption with WW1 is that the MG was the big killer, with scores of men being mown down by them. AWB feels this is at best a gross simplification and at worse just plain wrong. Accurate rifle fire could be very deadly and in fact many WW1 senior officers and trainers stressed the need for high levels of musketry training for effective assault troops, yet rifle units within WW1 gaming systems are often largely ignored. The machine gun by comparison is often a very deadly tabletop stand, where in real life it was probably not so much the killing weapon, as the denying weapon. MG fire could and did deny units the freedom to move. A more honest look at the cause of causalities in the battle will probably show that MGs killed relatively little, but instead pinned units in positions where they were unable to avoid the artillery fire that caused all the damage.
Which means what our TV heroes in TBCubed really need to do is throw away the SMLE rifles and drag out a Vickers and an 18 pounder.
The Boffin The Builder The Bombardier, or TBCubed for want of letter count, added to their World War One collection by 'investigating' The Mad Minute. That makes three out of four viewed programmes dedicated to WW1 and more interestingly, three out of four dedicated directly to some aspect of the .303 SMLE rifle. It this telling us something about the main period of interest for the head writer (who from speed reading the credits, AWB believes to be the 'Boffin' character. Seriously, the ABCs own website has been completely non helpful which does make one wonder where that extra $10million in funding is being wasted), or are we in reality seeing a reflection on the programmes props budget.
"Hey Davo, I've got these couple of 303s and some shoot range access. Wanna make a telly doco??"
Quite.
Anyway, back the programme. The myth of the week was the high rate of fire obtained by the highly trained career soldiers that made up the BEF during the first months of WW1 in France and how they cut down in waves the attacking Germans. The counter argument was that the musketry skills had little to do with it and the unimaginative German tactics had a lot to do with their own failure.
So, our TV heroes, to prove the claim of 15 or more aimed shots per minute set up a wall down range to represent a block of unimaginative Germans, and, stopwatch running, let fly for 60 seconds.
One minute later they had a large target filled with bullet holes and the conclusions were quickly made that the high level of training probably did have a lot to do with it, but only because of the poor German tactics.
Okay... what have we just actually proved? That three semi trained men can operate SMLE at a respectable speed? If you are ever a large plywood wall, then don't even think about going to war?
The problem here was that it is automatically assumed that the poor German tactics is an unquestionable fixed condition. True, actually proving the German tactics were poor is mildly tricky. To AWB's knowledge there are next to no photos of the Mons battles and even then, without context, they probably wouldn't be conclusive. To calculate it would probably require obtaining the (unreliable and incomplete) casualty returns, determine the axis of advance of the units involved, factor in the BEF casualties from German artillery, model using carefully calculated hit percentiles and... well.. take a wild arse guess. Point being is that you still have a whopping great variable and to draw a solid conclusion after shooting up a plywood wall is not history, it is shooting up a plywood wall.
Having solved the problems of the world in the first 5 minutes of their show, they then needed to fill in the rest of the ep and then attempted to match the record which was claimed at 32 some shots a minute. Now here our team not only didn't come close, but also didn't seem to investigate the historical situation. As AWB had it explained to them by an Australian Light Horse reinactor (so your mileage may vary, but remember we are comparing this to three guys who shoot walls), the pre-war 303 round was the round nosed MkVI. About 1916 this started to be replaced by the more powerful and pointed nose MkVII round. Now while AWB may have screwed up the mark numbers, the important thing was that the newer round had different powder and hence a far greater kick. The practical result of this was that the firer now had to hold the weapon a lot more firmly and could not get away with the previous trick of opening and closing the bolt with one's palm so that their finger tip could touch the trigger the moment the action was closed.
(try this at home with your Air 303. Imagine the bolt handle is in the centre of the palm and as you rock your hand forward your fingers are already reaching down towards the trigger in one smooth action. Bang. Repeat. Feel free to make the noises if it assists with the process.)
So, two conclusions. Either AWB was misinformed with an old wives shooting tale or TBCubed are really just three blocks shooting up plywood walls.
So, the conclusion that TBCubed is harmless non historical fun still stands.
Having successfully alienated the TBCubed crew with character assassinations, where does this leave us wargamers and what, if anything, can we learn from this?
AWB believes the prime thing to take away is that not many of us actually have a realistic grounding of what infantry firepower during the period could actually do. Your homework for this post (after you have finished playing with your air 303, air cleaned it and safely air locked it into the air weapons locker to prevent air accidents), is to dig out your current WW1 or 2 rules and find out how a machine gun is defined compared with a rifle. Most rules seem to give the tripod MG more/better firepower factors and range and leave it at that. After all, the ROF is higher, therefore more firepower. Right?
Well... maybe... and that brings us back to the idea that we do not really fully understand just how the weapons worked.
A typical Maxim style MG of the WW1 period comes in with a ROF of 600rpm cyclic. Now if you joined all the belts together and watched the cooling water you could probably keep that up for a long time. In reality most sources seem to list the practical and/or service rate of fire as more like 100-200 rpm. So if we take the middle of 150rpm and compare it to say 10 riflemen firing off 15 aimed shots per minute... Maybe apples to oranges but remember that a machine gun is a crew served weapon and depending on the army and the situation could easily have 10 men keeping it in operation so the comparison is not completely unfair.
We also need to look beyond the pure numbers of total bullets fired. Let us pretend that our team of 10 and our MG both encounter 20 enemy in the open. In this situation the 10 riflemen may prove to be more effective. They have the ability to volley fire and assuming a reasonable level of skill may only need to personally target 2 or 3 men each - easily a couple of seconds work even with bolt action rifles. Our MG in comparison, despite firing 10 rounds per second, would still to pan across the target area and, depending on the situation, may not successfully hit all the enemy before they disperse or take cover. In practical terms, the MG may actually be less 'deadly'.
However, having forced the enemy to cover, it is also probably a safe assumption that the MG would be a lot better at forcing them to stay there. If you can then act on the fact these enemy are pinned, either by moving infantry to flank or blowing them up with artillery, or both, then that is still a result and your work here is done, medals all round.
The commonly held assumption with WW1 is that the MG was the big killer, with scores of men being mown down by them. AWB feels this is at best a gross simplification and at worse just plain wrong. Accurate rifle fire could be very deadly and in fact many WW1 senior officers and trainers stressed the need for high levels of musketry training for effective assault troops, yet rifle units within WW1 gaming systems are often largely ignored. The machine gun by comparison is often a very deadly tabletop stand, where in real life it was probably not so much the killing weapon, as the denying weapon. MG fire could and did deny units the freedom to move. A more honest look at the cause of causalities in the battle will probably show that MGs killed relatively little, but instead pinned units in positions where they were unable to avoid the artillery fire that caused all the damage.
Which means what our TV heroes in TBCubed really need to do is throw away the SMLE rifles and drag out a Vickers and an 18 pounder.
Civilization V (or, 'are you really stupid or just programmed that way?')
AWB has been playing Civ V recently, as you do. Or more correctly 'as you do when you should be doing something else instead of collection Steam Achievements'.
In this game, like most of the other Civ franchise, the AI nations are given vaguely historical personalities. In theory this means they will act towards you in an historical and realist manner. In practise it means they will constantly heckle, insult, belittle and finally, if they think they can get away with it, invade you regardless of how friendly and agreeable you attempt to play your nation. Be passive and they call you a wimp. Active and you become a hideous expansionist who dared to settle near their boarders.
What can one do? Parabellum.
So, AWB is playing and into the end game. Everything is going nicely, the cities are growing and the only real question is will the Science or Culture victories tick over first.
Up turns the Japanese ambassador to exchange friendlies.
"Your nation is puny and weak! It is a wonder you have not been overrun by barbarians!"
(or words to that effect)
"Well excuse me Mister Fancy Pants. If you had been paying attention, WE have spilt the atom and have satellites in orbit. You on the other hand have finally worked out that black goo you find on the ground can be used as a fuel and still think sitting on the back of a horse is a pretty cool idea."
So, we nuked them.
Three times.
This is also the Gods and Kings expansion, which brings (in AWB opinion to the vast improvement of the game) religion back into the game system. True it is another stat to micromanage but if you were not into a little micro management you probably wouldn't be playing Civ.
While this does a lot of new things within the game, the prime thing is allowing construction of Missionary units which roam the map doorknocking on your cities door and asking if you wish to talk about the Word of Great Xhara'clu the Destroyer when you are trying to cook dinner. Normally these units are just annoying, yet at times of war they become flagged as legitimate enemy targets and hence, if you play your cards right, allow you to sometimes be rewarded with the following...
"Your Guided Missile has attacked an enemy Missionary and Destroyed it".
Come on, let's be honest, we have all really really wanted to see that in our lives at one time.
In this game, like most of the other Civ franchise, the AI nations are given vaguely historical personalities. In theory this means they will act towards you in an historical and realist manner. In practise it means they will constantly heckle, insult, belittle and finally, if they think they can get away with it, invade you regardless of how friendly and agreeable you attempt to play your nation. Be passive and they call you a wimp. Active and you become a hideous expansionist who dared to settle near their boarders.
What can one do? Parabellum.
So, AWB is playing and into the end game. Everything is going nicely, the cities are growing and the only real question is will the Science or Culture victories tick over first.
Up turns the Japanese ambassador to exchange friendlies.
"Your nation is puny and weak! It is a wonder you have not been overrun by barbarians!"
(or words to that effect)
"Well excuse me Mister Fancy Pants. If you had been paying attention, WE have spilt the atom and have satellites in orbit. You on the other hand have finally worked out that black goo you find on the ground can be used as a fuel and still think sitting on the back of a horse is a pretty cool idea."
So, we nuked them.
Three times.
This is also the Gods and Kings expansion, which brings (in AWB opinion to the vast improvement of the game) religion back into the game system. True it is another stat to micromanage but if you were not into a little micro management you probably wouldn't be playing Civ.
While this does a lot of new things within the game, the prime thing is allowing construction of Missionary units which roam the map doorknocking on your cities door and asking if you wish to talk about the Word of Great Xhara'clu the Destroyer when you are trying to cook dinner. Normally these units are just annoying, yet at times of war they become flagged as legitimate enemy targets and hence, if you play your cards right, allow you to sometimes be rewarded with the following...
"Your Guided Missile has attacked an enemy Missionary and Destroyed it".
Come on, let's be honest, we have all really really wanted to see that in our lives at one time.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Tank Basing - pt 2
As threatened early, AWB has, through the magic of the Android phone, managed to take some photos of the current basing project.
As you will recall, AWB has been experimenting with basing styles for some 10mm WW1 armour.
In this photo, together with models in various states of unpaint, we can see the brick paper road under the Whippet Medium. This seems to have come up simple, quick and effective although verges can probably do with some flock to give the entire base a little colour.
Other bases are for the MkIV and MkV* and are of course pre undercoat. Post undercoat they all just look like black rectangles so no photos of that stage. What we have is 'green stuff' with an over coat of PVA glued building sand to give texture. Major sins are to be hidden under the actual tank model which is why the centre of the bases is slightly more casual then the edges.
The trench parapit seems to have come out well, although in retrospect the effect may have been better if one had started the trench side on the edge of the base rather then leaving the step gap as has been done here.
All models Pendraken. Bases are 30x40mm.
Not completely finalised on the tank colours. Whippets seemed to have been painted straight green without significant markings, where as some sources seem to indicated the MkIV era tanks were brown. The MkV*, being an 1918 era vehicle should probably be a green, although from photos it is not immediately clear if the colour is a browny green or a greeny brown. The MkIV should probably also should have the white/red/white markings... or not. Black and white photos in the book 'Tank Action in the Great War - B Battalion's Experiences 1917' by Ian Verrinder don't seem to show the white/red/white but do show largish ID numbers (ie B 17) on the sides of the front horns in what seems to be white and a white square between the rear horns on the hull showing the ID number again in rather bold large black lettering.
The inner modeller within AWB also has been considering making the unditching rails out of light plastic card for this tank but will probably leave that idea to the next project.
As you will recall, AWB has been experimenting with basing styles for some 10mm WW1 armour.
In this photo, together with models in various states of unpaint, we can see the brick paper road under the Whippet Medium. This seems to have come up simple, quick and effective although verges can probably do with some flock to give the entire base a little colour.
Other bases are for the MkIV and MkV* and are of course pre undercoat. Post undercoat they all just look like black rectangles so no photos of that stage. What we have is 'green stuff' with an over coat of PVA glued building sand to give texture. Major sins are to be hidden under the actual tank model which is why the centre of the bases is slightly more casual then the edges.
The trench parapit seems to have come out well, although in retrospect the effect may have been better if one had started the trench side on the edge of the base rather then leaving the step gap as has been done here.
All models Pendraken. Bases are 30x40mm.
Not completely finalised on the tank colours. Whippets seemed to have been painted straight green without significant markings, where as some sources seem to indicated the MkIV era tanks were brown. The MkV*, being an 1918 era vehicle should probably be a green, although from photos it is not immediately clear if the colour is a browny green or a greeny brown. The MkIV should probably also should have the white/red/white markings... or not. Black and white photos in the book 'Tank Action in the Great War - B Battalion's Experiences 1917' by Ian Verrinder don't seem to show the white/red/white but do show largish ID numbers (ie B 17) on the sides of the front horns in what seems to be white and a white square between the rear horns on the hull showing the ID number again in rather bold large black lettering.
The inner modeller within AWB also has been considering making the unditching rails out of light plastic card for this tank but will probably leave that idea to the next project.
Sunday, 21 April 2013
TV - The Boffin The Builder The Bombardier
Here in cheery Australia, ABC television have been recently showing a quick little 15min show called 'The Boffin, The Builder, The Bombardier' that was no doubt made up to fill up the remainder of the hour left by the 45minutes of Doctor Who.
This is a curious little show of which AWB has managed to watch three episodes. The format seems obviously inspired by that of Mythbusters but while Adam and Jamie play themselves on that programme, the title three in this Australian grown production seem to be characters. Are they actually who they claim? Stuff if AWB knows and the ABC website is annoyingly vague.
What we get is a friendly little 15 minutes where they put forward some item from military history, dress up a bit in some mock period clothing, and then see if it will work, all with added explosives.
So far in the three episodes observed we have seen the ANZAC periscope rifle, a Chinese multi tube firelance launcher and the water drip rifle used during the evacuation of the Gallipoli campaign. Slight Australian theme as one would expect from an Australian production but AWB is unsure from the rapid reading of the credits just how much support, if any, the programme is getting from places like the Australian War Memorial.
So what are they like?
Well, average to silly. The periscope rifle was probably the best of what AWB has seen so far. They put forward the premise that reports into the weapons effective range seem to vary greatly and so, having built one, set out to range test the weapon to see what results were obtained.
(Spoilers - effective out to 100m, incredibly difficult to aim beyond that and Bruce Willis' character was really dead all along.)
So useful historical information and light TV entertainment. Win.
The other two eps? Not so much.
The drip rifle never really seemed to prove anything or indeed even offer a point to prove in the first place. For those not up on ANZAC folk law, the drip rifle was used during the evacuation to give off random rifle shots in the vague direction of the Turkish lines while the final rearguard did a bunk. Water from one tin slowly dripped until the weight change toppled the carefully balanced box of rocks and pulled the string connected trigger. Bang.
Since this arrangement is known to have worked and can clearly be shown to have worked, the team were left with very little to actually prove. They spent most of the first half of that ep musing on drip rates to gain the magic 32 minutes, without really giving any solid evidence as to why 32 minutes was a magic number. Yes the final rearguard was given 32 minutes (or there abouts, AWB is writing from memory here) to reach the final boats but that does not necessarily automatically translate into a solid need to have the timer work exactly at that time. Indeed if all drip rifles were 'set' to the same time, a sudden ragged volley from up and down the ANZAC line would probably prove more suspicious to the watching Turks then no fire at all.
Then, having proved the timer works, the team gave the final conclusion, without really offering up more then personal opinion, that the drip rifle probably didn't do all that much anyway and it was the other careful deception ploys that had the most effect.
Sure, so, ummm, what have we actually been proving again?
Last ep viewed by AWB was about Chinese multiple fire lance launchers. Think a big box with multiple gunpowder rocker powered spears that no doubt has a much more impressive name that AWB is too lazy to research.
So, our trio of harmless eccentrics, having read (Western) reports that dismissed the weapon, decided to prove it could work. A Noble enough challenge, but very casually executed.
First they build their launcher out of PVC pipe and other modern tools, which is a bit like proving that da Vinci could have flown by visiting Boeing, and then fire said rockets and launcher at a small horde of what one assumes were MDF man sized targets cunningly disguised as Mongals. At no time is any indication or attempt at historical methods and seems at best to have been a logical guess. The weapon was then fired off where the spear tipped rockets flew off in the general direction of the targets (about 50m away, the range was never stated) and largely bounced off the MDF.
Okay, it was not a hugely historically accurate replica, the spear points seemed to be flame cut bits of mild sheet and well, who are we fooling, it was just three guys playing with fireworks.
The conclusion however? Oh this would be a deadly effective weapon.
Well, maybe if you had set out some hard ground rules like maximum range, reload vs closing speed of the enemy and didn't have the sidekick character actually carrying one of the spear points that had literally curled back on itself after bouncing off one of the targets we might, just maybe, take your conclusions a bit more seriously.
Conclusions? Historical bollocks but harmless and good natured fun.
ABC tv - Sundays, after Doctor Who.
This is a curious little show of which AWB has managed to watch three episodes. The format seems obviously inspired by that of Mythbusters but while Adam and Jamie play themselves on that programme, the title three in this Australian grown production seem to be characters. Are they actually who they claim? Stuff if AWB knows and the ABC website is annoyingly vague.
What we get is a friendly little 15 minutes where they put forward some item from military history, dress up a bit in some mock period clothing, and then see if it will work, all with added explosives.
So far in the three episodes observed we have seen the ANZAC periscope rifle, a Chinese multi tube firelance launcher and the water drip rifle used during the evacuation of the Gallipoli campaign. Slight Australian theme as one would expect from an Australian production but AWB is unsure from the rapid reading of the credits just how much support, if any, the programme is getting from places like the Australian War Memorial.
So what are they like?
Well, average to silly. The periscope rifle was probably the best of what AWB has seen so far. They put forward the premise that reports into the weapons effective range seem to vary greatly and so, having built one, set out to range test the weapon to see what results were obtained.
(Spoilers - effective out to 100m, incredibly difficult to aim beyond that and Bruce Willis' character was really dead all along.)
So useful historical information and light TV entertainment. Win.
The other two eps? Not so much.
The drip rifle never really seemed to prove anything or indeed even offer a point to prove in the first place. For those not up on ANZAC folk law, the drip rifle was used during the evacuation to give off random rifle shots in the vague direction of the Turkish lines while the final rearguard did a bunk. Water from one tin slowly dripped until the weight change toppled the carefully balanced box of rocks and pulled the string connected trigger. Bang.
Since this arrangement is known to have worked and can clearly be shown to have worked, the team were left with very little to actually prove. They spent most of the first half of that ep musing on drip rates to gain the magic 32 minutes, without really giving any solid evidence as to why 32 minutes was a magic number. Yes the final rearguard was given 32 minutes (or there abouts, AWB is writing from memory here) to reach the final boats but that does not necessarily automatically translate into a solid need to have the timer work exactly at that time. Indeed if all drip rifles were 'set' to the same time, a sudden ragged volley from up and down the ANZAC line would probably prove more suspicious to the watching Turks then no fire at all.
Then, having proved the timer works, the team gave the final conclusion, without really offering up more then personal opinion, that the drip rifle probably didn't do all that much anyway and it was the other careful deception ploys that had the most effect.
Sure, so, ummm, what have we actually been proving again?
Last ep viewed by AWB was about Chinese multiple fire lance launchers. Think a big box with multiple gunpowder rocker powered spears that no doubt has a much more impressive name that AWB is too lazy to research.
So, our trio of harmless eccentrics, having read (Western) reports that dismissed the weapon, decided to prove it could work. A Noble enough challenge, but very casually executed.
First they build their launcher out of PVC pipe and other modern tools, which is a bit like proving that da Vinci could have flown by visiting Boeing, and then fire said rockets and launcher at a small horde of what one assumes were MDF man sized targets cunningly disguised as Mongals. At no time is any indication or attempt at historical methods and seems at best to have been a logical guess. The weapon was then fired off where the spear tipped rockets flew off in the general direction of the targets (about 50m away, the range was never stated) and largely bounced off the MDF.
Okay, it was not a hugely historically accurate replica, the spear points seemed to be flame cut bits of mild sheet and well, who are we fooling, it was just three guys playing with fireworks.
The conclusion however? Oh this would be a deadly effective weapon.
Well, maybe if you had set out some hard ground rules like maximum range, reload vs closing speed of the enemy and didn't have the sidekick character actually carrying one of the spear points that had literally curled back on itself after bouncing off one of the targets we might, just maybe, take your conclusions a bit more seriously.
Conclusions? Historical bollocks but harmless and good natured fun.
ABC tv - Sundays, after Doctor Who.
Friday, 19 April 2013
Vehicle basing in 10mm
Here at AWB we are not normally in the habit of basing any of our vehicles. This we can probably put down to a few things. First would be the several years solid where the WW2 gaming scale of choice was 15mm and second would be laziness.
However, time and themes more on and the Butchers of the Bellcurve gaming group AWB games with have been recently been moving into a reasonable amount of WW1 gaming in the 10mm scale and so the question has re arisen.
In the good old days there still probably wouldn't have been a problem. As most will recall, back in distant past, figures were based on whatever old bits of rough cut cardboard and thrown on the table. These days of course we have access to laser cut MDF board, which at 3mm think means our foot heroes now tower above the puny landships that are meant to be supporting them.
So in order to regain that vital height advantage it seems that AWB will be forced to base the small but growing collection of MkV* and Whippets. In itself that seems an easy enough task but of course this is the 21st century and wargaming figures are not longer JUST based, they are made into highly detailed mini dioramas.
At this stage of the project we are still at the experimental stage to see what is actually going to both visually work and also not drastically drag out the already glacial painting time. Having found some brick paper (it is paper printed in colour with scale bricks. You make walls out of it, or... leave it half hidden in the painting room for 8 years. Your mileage may vary), one of the tanks is to go on a section of paved road.
The MkV* is hoped to get a section of ground broken by water filled shell craters. At this stage we only have thin lumps of Green Stuff on a base so not as yet ready to claim this one as a success. The MkIV base is currently the most adventurous, with an attempt to construct the sandbagged edge of a trench for the vehicle to loom up over. Again this is being done with Green Stuff, a product AWB does not normally have a lot to do with and may also, in all honesty, be slightly date expired.
Photos later maybe.
However, time and themes more on and the Butchers of the Bellcurve gaming group AWB games with have been recently been moving into a reasonable amount of WW1 gaming in the 10mm scale and so the question has re arisen.
In the good old days there still probably wouldn't have been a problem. As most will recall, back in distant past, figures were based on whatever old bits of rough cut cardboard and thrown on the table. These days of course we have access to laser cut MDF board, which at 3mm think means our foot heroes now tower above the puny landships that are meant to be supporting them.
So in order to regain that vital height advantage it seems that AWB will be forced to base the small but growing collection of MkV* and Whippets. In itself that seems an easy enough task but of course this is the 21st century and wargaming figures are not longer JUST based, they are made into highly detailed mini dioramas.
At this stage of the project we are still at the experimental stage to see what is actually going to both visually work and also not drastically drag out the already glacial painting time. Having found some brick paper (it is paper printed in colour with scale bricks. You make walls out of it, or... leave it half hidden in the painting room for 8 years. Your mileage may vary), one of the tanks is to go on a section of paved road.
The MkV* is hoped to get a section of ground broken by water filled shell craters. At this stage we only have thin lumps of Green Stuff on a base so not as yet ready to claim this one as a success. The MkIV base is currently the most adventurous, with an attempt to construct the sandbagged edge of a trench for the vehicle to loom up over. Again this is being done with Green Stuff, a product AWB does not normally have a lot to do with and may also, in all honesty, be slightly date expired.
Photos later maybe.
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Boston
There was video footage linked to one of the news blogs, not completely sure of the source but from one of the US news services. The clip ran for about 50 seconds.
Shakey cam, largely raw footage. The camera pans from confused runners still moving towards the finish line, back to a man laying in pain on the ground and back again. Near the end of the clip a small family group of runners with a stroller move past the camera.
A stroller.
Shakey cam, largely raw footage. The camera pans from confused runners still moving towards the finish line, back to a man laying in pain on the ground and back again. Near the end of the clip a small family group of runners with a stroller move past the camera.
A stroller.
Monday, 15 April 2013
In attack of poor Crossbows – Musings on the FoG system
In the many prestigious gaming circles
AWB mixes with there is the miniature gaming group known informally
as Butchers of the Bell Curve, a friendly and casual little group
that regularly engages in playing both Fields of Glory and the sister
publication, Fields of Glory Renaissance.
Within this group the topic of units of
crossbow armed, poor quality medium foot have become somewhat of a
running theme after during an otherwise uneventful FoG game during
November last, a six figure unit of this rubbish managed to defeat in
close combat a much more highly fancied unit of Roman types.
Members of the Butchers of the Bell
Curve have fallen into two camps. First, as supported by the owner of
said crossbowmen, is that they are clearly excellence value for money
and all armies should got to the effort of fielding them. The other
faction, as shamelessly supported by AWB among others, is that they
are cheap rubbish and you get what you paid for.
Let us now take this harmless debate
and shamelessly poke it with a stick a few times to make it angry.
First up let us revise the basic
functions of shooting combat under the FoG system. First up is to try
and remove stands, a task that requires getting a minimum of three
hits per shooting phase due to the -2 DRM on the Kill Dice the game
system uses, and second is to try and force Cohesion Tests on your
target using the slightly easier task of inflicting at least 1 hit
per three bases. (Which, for example, would mean two hits if shooting
at a six base sized target).
Anything else is wasted so if you
cannot get hits on your target then you are only annoying him and
slowing the game down.
Crossbows, while no doubt an easy
weapon to train your smelly peasant to operate and quite capable of
punching through armour, were slightly slower to fire then other
missile weapons in this period and hence for most foot targets under
the game system they are at a disadvantage. In game terms this means
hitting on 5s or 6s when trying to go head to head with say an enemy
unit of foot skirmishers. As the system requires Poor rated troops to
re-roll any raw 6s and keep the new result, this means a single D6
will give a hit approximately every 22%.
Not too bad, you might say, but
remember you need at least two hits on your six base large target to
force a test and at least three to have a chance of removing a stand.
So, assuming you are rolling 4 dice (as
that is what AWB have crunched the numbers for and cannot really be
arsed doing them again), it means you will score 3 or more hits (and
maybe kill a stand) about 4% of the time and cause two or more hits
(enough for a Cohesion Test) a slightly more impressive 21% of the
time.
Which all seem wonderful so let us
compare to an Average rated unit under the same conditions.
Now no longer having to re-roll 6s, a
dice will hit 33% of the time and the chances of 3 or more hits
become 11% and two or more 41%. The loose conclusion is that Average
Crossbow are about twice as good just from shooting.
Things get worse when you allow for the
fact that your unit may also receive fire and be forced to take tests
themselves. While Cohesion Tests have many DRMs and are difficult to
fully break down into a simple figure, if you assume an unmodified
roll, a Poor unit will pass 42% of the time compared to 58% for an
Average unit.
So, going head to head between an
Average and Poor unit lined up and shooting at each other with four
dice each, the Poor unit will drop a Cohesion level about 23% of the
time compared to only 9% for the Average unit. Of course once a unit
starts dropping levels they lose dice and gain negative DRM and it
all starts to get rapidly worse.
(AWB also admits that under the system
the firing units may not actually have four dice, but cannot find
their maths text books and had to crunch the numbers the long and
painful way. Just work with us here, okay?)
That is just shooting. What happens
when you get into close combat?
While without going deep into each and
every army list, it is a safe assumption that most crossbow units are
not going to be armoured and not going to be wielding a secondary
(melee) type weapon. Hence the chances of going into a combat round
at a major disadvantage and needing to hit on 6s are quite realistic
and high, which would already be bad enough if Poor troops didn't
have that re-roll requirement. Since the odds of getting a hit with
one dice under this situation works out to approximately 3%, unless
you can fight from a good defensive position (say uphill like the
unit that managed to start this entire discussion back in late 2012),
then you are not going to cause more hits in the combat, you are not
going to force the enemy to take kill tests, you are going to be the
one who is taking the Cohesion tests yourself and unless you manage
to really butcher the bell curve, you are going to die.
Well, so what? The entire unit probably
only cost you 12 or 18 points out of your 800pt army so who is going
to get upset?
Well winning the game under FoG
involves breaking an army and a dead unit counts towards the break
point no matter how cheap and nasty it is. Also a routing unit always
runs the risk of upsetting nearby friends as well as opening a hole
to allow the opponent one more closer to looting your baggage.
Yes a cheap unit does make your army
bigger which is always a good thing, but the original argument
against fielding Poor Crossbowmen is that you get what you pay for.
Always remember they are extremely unlikely to dish out much damage
and have little staying power if even remotely seriously engaged. If
they are making up the numbers and help support your cunning tactical
victory over the enemies foolishly over extended armoured cavalry
then they have earned their worth. If you place them on your critical
flank and they die horribly then more fool you we say.
Still, your army. Your dice. Have fun.
(as a disclaimer, AWB is currently
painting some Peter Pig crossbowmen to take part in a Maximilian
Imperial army which do have the option of being taken as Poor for
2pts a stand. AWB wishes to make it clear that they in one way wish
to appear as hypocrites, just merely as extremely slow painters.)
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Monster Boardgames - Twilight in the East
AWB is mildly surprised to discover that the Wednesday night boardgaming group they are connected with has decided to commit some time and table space to Michael Resch's '1914 - Twilight in the East' by GMT Games.
Slightly old now with a 2007 release, TitE covers fighting against Russia by the German and Austria-Hungarian empires for the first year of World War One at 5 miles per hex and 2-3 days per turn. The vast majority of units are divisions, there are eight counter sheets and five maps. So a reasonably big game then.
Although, having sat down during the week to desperately attempt to relearn the rules, AWB was also reminded that TitE isn't as counter dense as one would originally expect.
Three and a half of the counter sheets are dedicated to information counters - attack markers, step loss counters, entrenchments and the like - and of the 'units', a goodly percentage of these are also used off map. TitE is a game of vast armies grinding into each other and the combat system tracks both step losses - most divisions have around 10 - and division 'Combat Effectiveness' (think 'morale' to use generalised terms) and hence each division has it's own Combat Effectiveness marker used to track this value on off map displays.
What this means is that this vast front is often one of great manoeuvre. Both sides lack the manpower to form a continuous front and due to the supply restrictions, advance is more often then not tied to the major rail lines. Large gaps can and will appear and screening using cavalry is highly recommended.
The turn sequence is a case of A Moves, B Reacts, A Fights, B Fights. Attacks are pre declared during movement with a 'Prepared' attack costing MP and locking units into the combat as well as giving the attacker a handy column shift. 'Normal' attacks do not cost MP but can be reacted away from. The reactive player can also place attack markers during his phase meaning that an overly aggressive active player can find himself counter attacked up and down the line during his own turn.
Net result is that everyone gets hurt and cherry picking the weak spot in the enemy line to attack is not as easy as it first appears.
Our Wednesday group will be trialing/learning the game using the small four turn Masurian Lakes scenario these coming weeks.
Slightly old now with a 2007 release, TitE covers fighting against Russia by the German and Austria-Hungarian empires for the first year of World War One at 5 miles per hex and 2-3 days per turn. The vast majority of units are divisions, there are eight counter sheets and five maps. So a reasonably big game then.
Although, having sat down during the week to desperately attempt to relearn the rules, AWB was also reminded that TitE isn't as counter dense as one would originally expect.
Three and a half of the counter sheets are dedicated to information counters - attack markers, step loss counters, entrenchments and the like - and of the 'units', a goodly percentage of these are also used off map. TitE is a game of vast armies grinding into each other and the combat system tracks both step losses - most divisions have around 10 - and division 'Combat Effectiveness' (think 'morale' to use generalised terms) and hence each division has it's own Combat Effectiveness marker used to track this value on off map displays.
What this means is that this vast front is often one of great manoeuvre. Both sides lack the manpower to form a continuous front and due to the supply restrictions, advance is more often then not tied to the major rail lines. Large gaps can and will appear and screening using cavalry is highly recommended.
The turn sequence is a case of A Moves, B Reacts, A Fights, B Fights. Attacks are pre declared during movement with a 'Prepared' attack costing MP and locking units into the combat as well as giving the attacker a handy column shift. 'Normal' attacks do not cost MP but can be reacted away from. The reactive player can also place attack markers during his phase meaning that an overly aggressive active player can find himself counter attacked up and down the line during his own turn.
Net result is that everyone gets hurt and cherry picking the weak spot in the enemy line to attack is not as easy as it first appears.
Our Wednesday group will be trialing/learning the game using the small four turn Masurian Lakes scenario these coming weeks.
Thursday, 11 April 2013
Painting Projects from the Bottom of the Figure Pile (2) and the Great Northern War
History is a big place and despite one's best intentions, there are often gaps. AWB had for many years a rather large one between the age of Napoleon and the end of the English Civil War that clearly proceeded it.
A lot of this gap managed to be closed by the computer game Empire-Total War. This now slightly old release from the Total War franchise was the first to bring in a Tech Tree and as a result, it was entertaining to watch your musket armed units evolve over the course of the game. True we had some liberties with reality made in order to make the entire game more playable, but all in all good fun.
Which brings us to the current extended interest AWB has with the 1700's era.
First, in reverse order, AWB has recently received a copy of the game Pax Baltica by GMT Games. This is a 'block' style boardgame covering the extent of the Great Northern War from 1700 to 1721. The units, which are square wooden blocks, are for the most part armies and using the standard block gaming mechanism, provide fog of war for their strength and idenitifcation by standing on one edge as they are moved around the area based map of central Europe and Russia.
Not had great amounts of time to discover more about this game (read - actually played it) but it seems to be largely racing around the map snotting each other with buckets of dice in a simple and straight forward game system, which, considering the full campaign runs for some 80 turns, is probably exactly what you want.
So why the Great Northern War?
Well simply answered, because here at AWB we largely knew sod all about it.
Considering this was a confict that ranged from Norway down to the Turkish boarder, involved most of the states of the area we now refer to as Germany and finished with the once powerhouse of Sweden shattered and second tier Russia rising to claim the spoils, it is something that most in the English speaking world seem to have rather casually ignored. AWB now confesses to still know next to nothing about it but at least now owns the boardgame.
Which brings us to miniture gaming and the depths of the AWB unpainted figure pile.
Having been interested as a result of Empire-Total War, some years ago AWB then set out to find some miniture rules for the period and discovered and then purchased GaPo by Thomas Arnfelt (www.arnfelts.com). As described on the cover these are 'Wargames rules for the age of Marlborough, Eugene, and Charles XII - Core Rules for 1700-1739'. Again, mainly due to a lack of suitable figures, AWB have yet to play these rules fully appart from some very small scale minor tests, so the possibility our views may drastically change regarding this system in the future does remain.
At the moment however, AWB is still very interested in these rules and is slowly attempting to paint some 10mm units in order to play them in a reasonable sized game. More on the figures later.
The rules use the battalion of around 600 men as the basic unit and since the 'averaged' sized game is around 400-600 points and a battalion may be costed at 16, you can see you may need to be fielding some large armies. The core system involves making troop quality tests using 2D6 which give four results of success or failure. Achieve Descisive Success when shooting and expect the target to suffer. Roll a Failure when attempting to close for combat and your unit is very unlikely to be going anywhere. Troops are also classed based on what they are trained and expected to do and that effects their actions on many of the sub tables. Assault Infantry for example are trained to close with the enemy and will do so rather willingly, while Line troops will mutter comments about the King giving them these nice muskets for a very good reason and often remain at shooting range.
This class also effects the actions of troops that haven't been given orders during the turn sequence. Sides will have command stands which will attempt to issue order during the turn with various degrees of 1D6 success. Troops that have not been given orders will then start to wander off on their own based on the situation and what class they are.
All in all, despite the fact that AWB has yet to properly play it, these rules do hold great interest and probably the most annoying thing about them would be the lack of sample army lists within the core rules. Extensive notes are provided for converting real world formation types - say a 400 man battalion of musket armed men firing from 3 ranks - into game units, however if your knowledge of exactly how a historical army was organised is lacking, the core rules give rise to a rather confusing sense of 'where do I go from here?'
Fortunately the army list books, of which there are currently two, are very good, with colour (basic) painting guilds, background to the armies and their campaigns plus full lists of the historical commanders and the units themselves.
Which returns us to the figure painting.
Using 10mm Pendraken figures, AWB is attempting to paint and base some 600 men Swedish battalions. GaPo is big on having your units have the correct frontage (unlike one or two other rule sets that AWB find annoying and will discuss in other posts), so the choosen ground scale will be 40mm equals to 50 paces meaning the battalion will be on three 40x20mm bases stolen from the FoG stockpile.
In order to get a bit of visual figure density, unit scale will be one model equals 25 men so the end unit will be some 24 figures of 10mm musket and pike.
At current painting rates you can expect this unit to be finished sometime in 2018 which should then allow AWB to start on the Scotish Jacobite Rebellion army project for this rule set that sounds interesting.
A lot of this gap managed to be closed by the computer game Empire-Total War. This now slightly old release from the Total War franchise was the first to bring in a Tech Tree and as a result, it was entertaining to watch your musket armed units evolve over the course of the game. True we had some liberties with reality made in order to make the entire game more playable, but all in all good fun.
Which brings us to the current extended interest AWB has with the 1700's era.
First, in reverse order, AWB has recently received a copy of the game Pax Baltica by GMT Games. This is a 'block' style boardgame covering the extent of the Great Northern War from 1700 to 1721. The units, which are square wooden blocks, are for the most part armies and using the standard block gaming mechanism, provide fog of war for their strength and idenitifcation by standing on one edge as they are moved around the area based map of central Europe and Russia.
Not had great amounts of time to discover more about this game (read - actually played it) but it seems to be largely racing around the map snotting each other with buckets of dice in a simple and straight forward game system, which, considering the full campaign runs for some 80 turns, is probably exactly what you want.
So why the Great Northern War?
Well simply answered, because here at AWB we largely knew sod all about it.
Considering this was a confict that ranged from Norway down to the Turkish boarder, involved most of the states of the area we now refer to as Germany and finished with the once powerhouse of Sweden shattered and second tier Russia rising to claim the spoils, it is something that most in the English speaking world seem to have rather casually ignored. AWB now confesses to still know next to nothing about it but at least now owns the boardgame.
Which brings us to miniture gaming and the depths of the AWB unpainted figure pile.
Having been interested as a result of Empire-Total War, some years ago AWB then set out to find some miniture rules for the period and discovered and then purchased GaPo by Thomas Arnfelt (www.arnfelts.com). As described on the cover these are 'Wargames rules for the age of Marlborough, Eugene, and Charles XII - Core Rules for 1700-1739'. Again, mainly due to a lack of suitable figures, AWB have yet to play these rules fully appart from some very small scale minor tests, so the possibility our views may drastically change regarding this system in the future does remain.
At the moment however, AWB is still very interested in these rules and is slowly attempting to paint some 10mm units in order to play them in a reasonable sized game. More on the figures later.
The rules use the battalion of around 600 men as the basic unit and since the 'averaged' sized game is around 400-600 points and a battalion may be costed at 16, you can see you may need to be fielding some large armies. The core system involves making troop quality tests using 2D6 which give four results of success or failure. Achieve Descisive Success when shooting and expect the target to suffer. Roll a Failure when attempting to close for combat and your unit is very unlikely to be going anywhere. Troops are also classed based on what they are trained and expected to do and that effects their actions on many of the sub tables. Assault Infantry for example are trained to close with the enemy and will do so rather willingly, while Line troops will mutter comments about the King giving them these nice muskets for a very good reason and often remain at shooting range.
This class also effects the actions of troops that haven't been given orders during the turn sequence. Sides will have command stands which will attempt to issue order during the turn with various degrees of 1D6 success. Troops that have not been given orders will then start to wander off on their own based on the situation and what class they are.
All in all, despite the fact that AWB has yet to properly play it, these rules do hold great interest and probably the most annoying thing about them would be the lack of sample army lists within the core rules. Extensive notes are provided for converting real world formation types - say a 400 man battalion of musket armed men firing from 3 ranks - into game units, however if your knowledge of exactly how a historical army was organised is lacking, the core rules give rise to a rather confusing sense of 'where do I go from here?'
Fortunately the army list books, of which there are currently two, are very good, with colour (basic) painting guilds, background to the armies and their campaigns plus full lists of the historical commanders and the units themselves.
Which returns us to the figure painting.
Using 10mm Pendraken figures, AWB is attempting to paint and base some 600 men Swedish battalions. GaPo is big on having your units have the correct frontage (unlike one or two other rule sets that AWB find annoying and will discuss in other posts), so the choosen ground scale will be 40mm equals to 50 paces meaning the battalion will be on three 40x20mm bases stolen from the FoG stockpile.
In order to get a bit of visual figure density, unit scale will be one model equals 25 men so the end unit will be some 24 figures of 10mm musket and pike.
At current painting rates you can expect this unit to be finished sometime in 2018 which should then allow AWB to start on the Scotish Jacobite Rebellion army project for this rule set that sounds interesting.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Painting Projects from the Bottom of the Figure Pile (1)
In what no doubt made perfect sense at the time, AWB seems to have at one stage purchased some 15mm Nuns from Peter Pig. They are classic pengiun style, have some figures armed with nasty looking sticks and are all rather angry looking.
Why AWB decided to own these is anyone's guess. What AWB is going to do with said figures is alway open to speculation. While they may have been purchased as part of the incedibly slow moving Tomorrow's War 'Fallout' project - in which case they probably should be based up as individual figures - AWB struggles to see a need for a crack squad of Nuns fighting their way across a 15mm Capital Wasteland and hence the current plan is to base them up as a small unit of Fields of Glory horde.
Why AWB decided to own these is anyone's guess. What AWB is going to do with said figures is alway open to speculation. While they may have been purchased as part of the incedibly slow moving Tomorrow's War 'Fallout' project - in which case they probably should be based up as individual figures - AWB struggles to see a need for a crack squad of Nuns fighting their way across a 15mm Capital Wasteland and hence the current plan is to base them up as a small unit of Fields of Glory horde.
Case Yellow
In the curtain boardgaming circle that AWB mix with, we have recently been working our way through Ted Racier's 'Case Yellow' by GMT Games.
Yes, it was published some time ago, and yes, cough, we are only playing it for the first time now, but we plead the case of 'real life' interfering with our gaming hours. If you want to spend eight months of Wednesdays playing Battle for Normandy then something has to give after all.
Anyway, so what do we get in the box?
Pretty much a chance to invade German, crush France and force the English to flee across the Channel like the tea drinking swine that they are. Hexes are 7miles, units are mostly Corps and Divsions, stacking is approximately one corps per hex and turns, which include several chit driven sub phases for each side, are a couple of days long. You are given four scenarios to play with, the first being the straight historical, the fourth being a mini map tuturoial game where you attempt to crush Holland and the middle two are 'What If?' variations where the Anglo/French player actually gets allowed something to do. More of that later.
What I do rather like about the game is the engine used. Units are given a combat factor, movement - further divided into 'leg' and 'motorised' - nothing new so far - and a Tactical Rating. This TR factor is possibly the most important and is used within the combat results and for calculating ZOCs.
In this system most units project ZOCs provided they are phyiscally large enough and there are not major terrain features involved. If a motorised unit - in most cases here, the Panzer Division - has a higher TR then an enemy unit, then that ZOC is ignore and the Panzer race off towards the coast.
While no doubt frustrating to be on the receiving end of these breakthroughs, the system neatly captures the realatively static non motorised divisions and corps of this period physically lacked the control and weapons to react in time against aggressively handled motorised units.
The second main thing the TR is used for is in the combat results. Combat is 1D6 with no DRM. Calculate raw odds, column shift back and forward for terrain, air support and tanks and roll the one dice. Where the TR comes in is a sort of tie breaker on many of the results, where if the attacker has a higher TR, the result is shifted up to one better then was actually rolled. The practical effect, and this is something that we here at AWB have always moaned about in other combat systems, is that it means that operationally the attacker has the advantage because he controls the tempo of the combat. Effectively the more skilled units are beginning their attacks, realising things are slightly harder then they expected, and then cancelling the attack before they get drawn into a casuality intensive meat grinder.
Well, AWB likes the system anyway.
So, the rest of the game as a whole? Is that fun?
Ummm... sort of.
The game does play smoothly enough. Each turn is broken into several action phases that are controlled by chit draws. For the Allies in the historical scenerios at least this means either 'Move' or 'Combat' chits which do pretty much what they say on the cover, while the German side, to represent the fact their command staff in this period had a MUCH faster decision cycle, are given a 'wild card' type chit they can, within guildlines, play as either Move or Combat as they choose. Hence the turns have a nice bit of randomness that helps with solo play. Since stacking is generally one Corps per hex there isn't a huge amount of thinking required during movement and it all flows along rather quickly.
However, are we having fun yet? Well as the German player it is rather tricky. Getting Holland to surrender on a decent time frame is slightly tricker then it looks meaning units you would much rather wash down against the Belgium sand castle can be delayed. The random chit draw means your leg units - which the vast majority of the German forces still actually consists of (and rather average some of them are as well thank you very much), may struggle to be brought to bear leaving you to risk your powerful by fragile Panzer divisions for most of the attacking. Making a gap is tricky as is successfully exploiting it to reach the Channel. All and all a rather challenging series of choices to make.
For the German. For the Allied player your milage may vary. In the 'What If?' scens many of the restrictions are lifted, but for the pure historical Scen 1 a lot of the moves are scripted. Not much is allowed to move on turn 1, and that which can is forced to march into Belgium and then stay there for most of turn 2 while watching their flank disappear. Then on turn 3 you get the option to call in the evacuation and try and grab as many VP as you can for getting units out of the ports.
So a chance to do something clever? Not really. After the evacuation and the pause for the Panzer refit you are allowed complete freedom to attempt to defend Paris but by that stage most of your better units are dead and you get the satisfaction of lining up waiting for the German player to punch you again.
We at AWB have not as yet played Scen 2 or 3, which we expect may be a lot more fun for the Allies, but our French victim in our current Scen 1 game has, and witih a lot of justification, expressed a minor lack of satisfaction in his gaming experience so far. Having said that, the challenge for the German player is definately there and with the chit system and largely scripted Allied moves, Scen 1 would most likely play very well solo.
In summary, very good clean game engine, usual high standard GMT build quality, historically sound but probably lacking a bit in replayability.
Yes, it was published some time ago, and yes, cough, we are only playing it for the first time now, but we plead the case of 'real life' interfering with our gaming hours. If you want to spend eight months of Wednesdays playing Battle for Normandy then something has to give after all.
Anyway, so what do we get in the box?
Pretty much a chance to invade German, crush France and force the English to flee across the Channel like the tea drinking swine that they are. Hexes are 7miles, units are mostly Corps and Divsions, stacking is approximately one corps per hex and turns, which include several chit driven sub phases for each side, are a couple of days long. You are given four scenarios to play with, the first being the straight historical, the fourth being a mini map tuturoial game where you attempt to crush Holland and the middle two are 'What If?' variations where the Anglo/French player actually gets allowed something to do. More of that later.
What I do rather like about the game is the engine used. Units are given a combat factor, movement - further divided into 'leg' and 'motorised' - nothing new so far - and a Tactical Rating. This TR factor is possibly the most important and is used within the combat results and for calculating ZOCs.
In this system most units project ZOCs provided they are phyiscally large enough and there are not major terrain features involved. If a motorised unit - in most cases here, the Panzer Division - has a higher TR then an enemy unit, then that ZOC is ignore and the Panzer race off towards the coast.
While no doubt frustrating to be on the receiving end of these breakthroughs, the system neatly captures the realatively static non motorised divisions and corps of this period physically lacked the control and weapons to react in time against aggressively handled motorised units.
The second main thing the TR is used for is in the combat results. Combat is 1D6 with no DRM. Calculate raw odds, column shift back and forward for terrain, air support and tanks and roll the one dice. Where the TR comes in is a sort of tie breaker on many of the results, where if the attacker has a higher TR, the result is shifted up to one better then was actually rolled. The practical effect, and this is something that we here at AWB have always moaned about in other combat systems, is that it means that operationally the attacker has the advantage because he controls the tempo of the combat. Effectively the more skilled units are beginning their attacks, realising things are slightly harder then they expected, and then cancelling the attack before they get drawn into a casuality intensive meat grinder.
Well, AWB likes the system anyway.
So, the rest of the game as a whole? Is that fun?
Ummm... sort of.
The game does play smoothly enough. Each turn is broken into several action phases that are controlled by chit draws. For the Allies in the historical scenerios at least this means either 'Move' or 'Combat' chits which do pretty much what they say on the cover, while the German side, to represent the fact their command staff in this period had a MUCH faster decision cycle, are given a 'wild card' type chit they can, within guildlines, play as either Move or Combat as they choose. Hence the turns have a nice bit of randomness that helps with solo play. Since stacking is generally one Corps per hex there isn't a huge amount of thinking required during movement and it all flows along rather quickly.
However, are we having fun yet? Well as the German player it is rather tricky. Getting Holland to surrender on a decent time frame is slightly tricker then it looks meaning units you would much rather wash down against the Belgium sand castle can be delayed. The random chit draw means your leg units - which the vast majority of the German forces still actually consists of (and rather average some of them are as well thank you very much), may struggle to be brought to bear leaving you to risk your powerful by fragile Panzer divisions for most of the attacking. Making a gap is tricky as is successfully exploiting it to reach the Channel. All and all a rather challenging series of choices to make.
For the German. For the Allied player your milage may vary. In the 'What If?' scens many of the restrictions are lifted, but for the pure historical Scen 1 a lot of the moves are scripted. Not much is allowed to move on turn 1, and that which can is forced to march into Belgium and then stay there for most of turn 2 while watching their flank disappear. Then on turn 3 you get the option to call in the evacuation and try and grab as many VP as you can for getting units out of the ports.
So a chance to do something clever? Not really. After the evacuation and the pause for the Panzer refit you are allowed complete freedom to attempt to defend Paris but by that stage most of your better units are dead and you get the satisfaction of lining up waiting for the German player to punch you again.
We at AWB have not as yet played Scen 2 or 3, which we expect may be a lot more fun for the Allies, but our French victim in our current Scen 1 game has, and witih a lot of justification, expressed a minor lack of satisfaction in his gaming experience so far. Having said that, the challenge for the German player is definately there and with the chit system and largely scripted Allied moves, Scen 1 would most likely play very well solo.
In summary, very good clean game engine, usual high standard GMT build quality, historically sound but probably lacking a bit in replayability.
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