Another Barn Conversion

My previous post was about making a (15-20mm scale) covered structure to go over a bridge I'd constructed even earlier.  However, looking for a small project in between my various trips this year I decided to use the 'barn' for another purpose.

In this case I made a base for it so that the 'barn' could be used as a free-standing structure.  The base includes internal walls and doors at either end.  The objective was to make a ruined substructure that would be revealed when the barn was supposed to be damaged due to shell fire or arson (or inclement weather?) during a game, a suggestion taken from various old-time wargame books.

As you can see, removing the barn would therefore reveal the remains of the ruined barn beneath it, but with enough space and absence of clutter to place troops as necessary.

Construction used the usual mixture of matches, wooden stirring sticks and cardboard.  The sub-structure was designed so that the barn would be held securely in place until it had to be removed.

After putting it together, everything was undercoated in black and then heavily dry-brushed in dark earth, with sand highlights and various coats of thin black wash for shadows and emphasis.

Barn Conversion

Wargaming is a life-long hobby (at least in my case) and there are often things that we've planned to do at some point but have never managed to get around to, until much later.

I am as guilty of that as anyone.  However, the good news is that I have recently managed to complete one of those little projects that was first jotted down some considerable time ago.  In 1987 to be exact.

This is a sketch I made in my wargame journal when I was still at university and we were in the middle of an ACW campaign, partially conducted by mail (the old fashioned kind with envelopes and stamps and things like that).  It was my idea for a covered bridge, or barn bridge as I referred to it.

After making some wooden bridges as recently as 2015, I realised I could use one of them as the basis of my long-planned barn bridge.  Construction (in approximately 20mm scale) comprised a basic internal sheet-polystyrene structure with cardboard roof and walls.  To the walls I glued matches and on the roof I put cut sections of those wooden stirrers you get in coffee shops these days (presumably because the public can't be trusted with teaspoons).

Once the glue was dry, everything was undercoated in black and then liberally dry-brushed in Revell Dark Earth.  Highlights were added with a rapid dry-brushing of Revell Afrikabraun (sand colour).  After that was done I finished off with few coats of thin black wash in selected places to intensify edge contrasts and shadows.

As you can see I made the 'barn' section so that it would fit neatly over the bridge I had made previously, so I now have two bridges for the price of one.  It's only taken me thirty years but some things with a long gestation period are worth waiting for.

ACW Positional Defence (2)

This is the after action report (AAR) from an American Civil War (ACW) wargame we played near the end of 2016 before various business trips, Christmas and so on intervened (hence the long gap since I last posted here).

The aim was to playtest the Principles of War 2nd edition rules (POW2) I'd had on the shelf for about 10 years.  From reading through the rules I liked their apparent simplicity as well as the interesting command and control mechanism, so I wanted to see how they would play out under stress of battle.  I'd also wanted to find an alternative to Neil Thomas' nineteenth century rules we'd tried earlier in the year which we found too simple.

Positional Defence (2).  Confederate attack.

Alert readers will know that this scenario comes from Charles S Grant's excellent book "Scenarios for Wargames", which we have used a few times in recent years. In fact the first AAR I ever posted on this blog was Positional Defence (1), which coincidentally was also an ACW game.  In the intervening years all of our ACW figures have been rebased (as recounted in detail elsewhere on this blog).  As you will see these are the classic 20mm Airfix figures that we've had for nearly forty years, and still going strong.

Union starting positions

The scenario has the "Red Force", in this case the Confederates, attacking a smaller Union force in a defensive position on high ground with a village at the centre. The forces were adapted from the scenario in the book so the Confederates had seven infantry regiments and three guns, with the Union side having four regiments and two guns.  As you can see from the map, the Union forces were spread thinly with one regiment and gun on each hill, one in the village and one regiment out of sight in reserve behind the village.

Confederate attack on left flank develops

The Confederate plan was quite simple: to wear down the defenders with artillery fire whilst the infantry advanced on both flanks across the open ground towards the objectives.  Initial bombardment was on the infantry in the village, which despite being in hard cover, were rapidly forced out of the houses by incessant artillery fire (and rubbish die throwing).  This allowed the rebels to move forward quickly with few casualties.

Confederate attack on Union right

The lack of effective defence in the centre meant that the rebels could bring up their guns and after a short exchange the Union regiment on the right-hand hill started to withdraw.

Right flank falling back, artillery about to be destroyed

Furthermore, despite some spirited firing, the artillery on the right was worn down rapidly and destroyed, leaving the right flank practically open.

Union forces pushed off hill on the right with reserves trying to move up

Meanwhile, on the left, the rebels were using the woods as cover and were moving up rapidly.

Situation on the left

The battery on the left was mainly engaged in long range counter battery fire but was quickly weakened.

Rebels in the woods

The rebels continued to push hard on the left and the incessant bombardment meant that the Union's last remaining battery's strength was reduced to zero.

Not looking good for the Union

The rebels then moved into the contact against the isolated Union regiment on the left whilst the Confederates climbed the hill on the right.

Confederates capture hill on right, attack hill on left

On the left the sole remaining Union regiment was attacked frontally whilst another rebel regiment contacted it in the flank.

Union regiment outnumbered

However, the Union regiment was able to defeat the rebels to the front and then turn its attention to the flanking force.

Rebels run away.  Right, who's next?

Union regiment combats flanking force

Amazingly the flanking rebel regiment was also repulsed.

Ha!  Take that!

Unfortunately this success was only temporary as the rebels in the woods moved up and attacked again.

Persistent Rebels

However, by now it was all over for the Union as the Confederates controlled the right hand hill and the scenario's main objective, the village.

Rebels to the right of me, Confederates on the left... here I am...

So at that point we called it a day.  The Union side was comprehensively beaten and it appeared that very little could be done to stop the Confederates advancing to contact, sweeping the weaker Union forces away.

As with all of CS Grant's ideas, the scenario was pretty good but perhaps the forces could have been slightly better balanced to make more of a fight of it, although that might have been more to do with how we chose forces rather than the scenario itself.

As for the POW2 rules they worked fine and were easy to follow.  Unlike some sets of rules they don't bother with a lot of 'fluff' but get straight to the point in a structured way, even laying out the rules in the same order as the move sequence, which some well known sets of rules don't seem to bother with.

However, there was something slightly 'flat' about them and I certainly felt that the rules did not give the defenders the expected tactical advantages from cover or elevation that would enable them to even slow the enemy, let alone stop them as they advanced inexorably in the open to contact.

That said the POW2 rules certainly performed better than the very simple nineteenth century Neil Thomas rules so I haven't given up on them just yet.

Jägermeister

I've still got the painting bug and am currently working on my 20mm French Napoleonic collection (see earlier posts this year).  Having completed various infantry units and some excellent Italeri dragoons, I thought I should really paint those Esci cuirassiers that have been under the bed since about 1990.  In fact I'd been in two minds about painting them at all because the figures aren't as good as the dragoons by a long chalk and I was thinking maybe I should just get some Italeri carabiniers instead.

Deliberating on all this I was of course distracted along the way and impulse-bought and painted some HäT Industrie Württemberg cavalry (Jägers) in the two weeks it took me to decide what to do.  These were the first HäT figures I'd painted and I found them quite nice with a lot of well defined detail.  The plastic, although a bit flexible, takes the paint very well.

There are only four poses (12 figures altogether) on three identical sprues in the box (and only two types of horse), but one man on each sprue comes with a choice of arms that you have to glue on.  I made one of them a trumpeter in the vivid yellow coat.  I think the troopers look quite good in their black gauntlets, dark green tunics and yellow trim.

Based up for the WRG 1685-1845 rules on 60mm x 40mm bases, with my usual concoction of coarse sand, painted dark earth then dry brushed in a sandy colour and then flocked, I consider that they've turned out very well.  And I think I'm really getting the hang of painting horses now after my initial hesitations. 

Oh, and finally, here are the cuirassiers. I had two ancient packets of them stashed away and was able to make quite a few bases although whether they'll all get an outing at the same time remains to be seen.

So that's it then, apart from six bases of Italeri French hussars to finish and perhaps one or two more Italeri line infantry regiments (possibly to be painted as Saxons or Swiss, just for a change).

However, I'd really like to get some HäT Württemberg infantry now, as well as the HäT French Guard Chasseurs a Pied, but neither seem to be available in the UK at present.  Still, I could always acquire and paint up some carabiniers in the meantime...

A Few More French

As the title of this post suggests here are a few more 20mm(ish) plastic French Napoleonic infantry that I completed last month.

These are the next regiment of Italeri French that I posted about a few months ago.  As I mentioned previously there are enough figures, including command figures, in the two boxes I got to make six regiments of 16 figures each.  These are based for the WRG 1685-1845 rule system.

Reviewing where I am now though I'm not sure I'm going to need many more infantry regiments so I will take a view on what I need and whether I should be using my time more usefully on some of my (many) other projects.

However, next up on the plastic Naploeonic front are some cuirassiers and some very nice Italeri Hussars (in shakos) which I am looking forward to getting finished.  I'm also going to get a better camera as these images are far too blurry and not up to my preferred standard.

Claymore 2016

Well it's that time of the year again, or rather it was, earlier this month.  Yes!  Edinburgh's premier wargames show Claymore 2016 has been upon us, as always on the first Saturday of August, staged brilliantly as usual by the SESWC.

Edinburgh, yesterday

And as usual it was very well attended with all the demonstrations, participation games and vendors you would expect to see.  Over the years trends are visible and this year for example I don't think I saw an eighteenth century or A Very British Civil War game.

What the hell, just invite everyone

However, there did seem to be a couple of Napoleonic Sharp Practice games on as well as various Dark Ages and WW2 games.

Italians defend the train

One game that caught my eye was the Falkirk and District Wargames Club Boxer Rebellion game.  Apparently every colonial nation available (including the Japanese) was on the table.

Pizza Express tests controversial new doughball delivery system

And it was comforting to see the WW2 games.  I think there were three on, including one using Flames of War, another Bolt Action and the last using Rapid Fire, which was nice to see.

Bolt Action, StuG IIIs

The Bolt Action game was Arnhem/Oosterbeek, put on by... actually I'm not sure who.  I didn't see much movement over the day but something must have been been happening.

Not Much Action, Oosterbeek

The Rapid Fire game was a refight of Tobruk over a very large table put on by one of Glasgow's clubs (Tradeston).  I think Glasgow has four clubs now, at least.

Tobruk - greener than I thought it would be

My particular delight, apart from learning that people still use Rapid Fire, was seeing the old Airfix gun emplacement on the beach.  I used to have one of those, but I think that all we've got left now is the hexagonal bunker that we cut holes in to make it into a free-standing pill box.

Any colour you like as long as it's grey

We've been attending Claymore since at least 1980 and now my son has started to come with us as well.  Being of the X-box generation he tends to like the futuristic sorts of things and so he spent over an hour hovering around the Dropzone Commander demonstration, put on by the Glasgow Games Group.

Dropzone Commander in progress

The game is one of those that has lots of supplements and vehicles that you can buy, with new factions coming out all the time.  I have to say that though, if you like that sort of thing, the hardwear is impressive (all at 10mm scale).

There really is a building a bit like this in Edinburgh.  It has a pub in it.

I also liked the futuristic urban terrain, all made by 4Ground.  Apparently they are laser-cut MDF with layers of printed card pre-applied, which means they don't have to be painted (unlike the models).

Strangely familiar.

Obviously each of the factions (I think there are four now) has different styles of vehicles with differing stats.  My son took part in a participation game and said he'd enjoyed it, so perhaps there is hope for migration away from the computer to the tabletop.

Russo-Japanese War naval - Old Glory ships

Other participation games included a Wings of Glory dogfight (I think it was WW1), Custer's Last Stand and a couple of others (Halo & Bloodbowl?), plus two Dark Ages games put on by Gripping Beast, using the new Sword Point and alternatively the SAGA rules.

Sword Point or SAGA, not sure which

The Pancho Villa participation game by Glasgow and District also looked very nice.

Mexican standoff

And here are a few random pictures of other games of interest.  I really need to get a new and better camera.

Ye "Cannae" break the laws of physics [Tyneside; Great Captain]

Iron Brigade ECW game

Finally, even though my shelves are groaning with books and rules, I went and bought the latest (3rd) edition of Chris Peers' Contemptible Little Armies and the Back of Beyond campaign supplement.

I've been thinking about this for a while, particularly as my work has recently taken me to a number of exotic places in Central Asia such as Tashkent, Ashgabad and the bed of the (former) Aral Sea, not to mention the western terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railway at Turkmenbashi (Türkmenbaşy, formerly known as Krasnovodsk) on the Caspian Sea.

This is what happens when you play billiards with a shotgun (never grows old)

All I need to do now is get those Copplestone Siberians and British sailors I bought five years ago painted up plus maybe a few Sikhs, Bolsheviks and archaeologists...