No longer a mystery!

 

Some valiant guesses but my map remained enigmatic to say the least. Top of the map is North. The sandy coloured road is the main route from Belgorod to Oboyan. Tomarovka is in the bottom left hand corner. So, despite looking misleadingly mountainous, this is the southern flank of the battle of Kursk and is the latest incarnation of the Steel, Steel, Steel! design.

The German unit with the British 25pdrs is the 57th Infantry Division, part of Army Detachment Kempf. According to the Dupuy Institute data, they had 8 87.6mm Howitzer (e), otherwise known as 25pdrs. I don't know the source of these but possibly Dunkirk rather than N Africa.

I have often wondered what happened to the kit abandoned in 1940. I have read, and seen photos, of Bren carriers in use by the Germans on the Eastern Front. Captured from the British or the Soviets? There is also an interesting German flamethrower unit armed with British MkIV cruiser gun tanks. Everyday is a school day!  

A mystery map?

 

No prizes, but can you see what it is yet? Playtest map, under plexi so a bit blurry. I started this project in 2013 but I aim to finish it in the next couple of months.

Here is a clue, one German division in this battle had an artillery battalion with 8 25pdrs!

More free stuff....

and a catch up on news!

First the news....

The Horse and Musket version of Hold the Line by Sean Chick has been adopted by Hollandspiele and release is now planned. This looks great, check out the link. Worth anyone's $77.

I have been looking for good 20mm vehicles for modern battles, especially Hummers. I have found this interesting 3D print company, Butler's 3D Models, that I had completely overlooked. They do the same vehicles in 6, 15 and 20mm. Here is a sample picture.

A T72, picture is of a 15mm version but the 20mm size is only £8, very nice.

I have a long standing interest in numbers, especially how they relate to warfare. I have recently come across a series of books on Barbarossa written by someone who is obviously completely mad (Nigel Askey). The books are on Lulu and are worth checking out if you like data!  

...and now the free stuff!

Niemenczyn 1794 is a battle fought on 27th April 1794 near Vilnius. It involves the Poles and Russians during the Kościuszko Uprising. A new one on me and worth Googling. The game is by Strategemata, a well known Polish games company an is available free from the website. 54 counters and a nice small map.

Limanowa: Play test version with part of the map

Heroes of the Great War: Limanowa is by a new company, Gladiator Games Ltd. It is on Kickstarter (for good or ill). The background is:

Limanowa – the Galician town where, in the winter of 1914, Austro-Hungarian and Polish troops heroically prevented the further onslaught of the “Russian Steamroller”, saving Cracow from occupation. Limanowa – where the legendary Hungarian cavalryman Ottmár Muhr died a hero’s death heading his glorious hussars while protecting Jabloniec Hill, situated next to the town, with his men until their last breath against the Russian attackers.

There is a free print and play version available now and well worth a look. 

Pavlov's House game board

Pavlov's House is a print and play game from this years BGG PnP competition. It is a brilliant strategic/operational/tactical game from the Battle for Stalingrad to the fighting over a single building. This is from the guy that did the fantastic Castle Itter game. The files are available from the BGG page for the game. The files are also available from this website as well as a brilliant (I really mean brilliant!) overview of the battle (Pavlov's House Companion). 

Aaaaargh!

Its the year end again.....

A quiet time on the blog during February but only because I have been hard at work elsewhere. The year end is a time of special torture for me, and many others. I hope to resurface sometime in late April.

Developments

When I have had a few minutes I have been hard at work on my special project. This is a Firestorm type game on the battle for Ramadi in Iraq over this last Christmas. Pretty much a real time bit of design work. I'm really happy with the way it is shaping up but, as I'm taking a really novel approach, I'm having to do a lot of thinking (don't laugh!).

I was slightly disappointed to find that my local print shop no longer opens on a Saturday so I was unable to print out a play test map in A3. It now looks like this......

I have promised myself that I will plough on with this until it is finished. It will be a worthwhile job and it has meant that I have learnt much about what is going on in the world. That can't be a bad thing.

I am picking up disturbances in the force which indicate a reviving interest in WW1. This therefore means that I am feeling a need to push on with:

• Tannenberg
• A simple strategic game of the first month of WW1
• The whole of the western front in August and September on a 13 by 9 hex grid

One of the motivating factors being Ring of Steel by Alexander Watson, WW1 from the Central Powers' perspective, which is currently occupying my train journeys.

News

We have some very nice news....

• Tricorne: Compass Games now have Tricorne up for pre-order. This is the latest Richard Borg CnC game which this time looks at the AWI. It has 12 scenarios which can no doubt be expanded. It uses blocks rather than miniatures, although I'm not bothered about this. The only thing that does bother me is the e on the end of what I would spell tricorn. Hey ho.

• Billy Bones Studio: This guy makes paper soldiers. He had some great sets for the ECW including Scots troops and scenery, see the example above. His website is now being reconstructed and, I understand, his sets of paper soldiers will be made available free as he is moving on to other paper soldier projects. Good news as I and others had been concerned that he had just shut up shop.

• Battle for Arnhem: One of my favourite subjects. This is a very small pnp game by Jim Bourke which is available free on BGG. Check it out, its nice!

• Zvezda I-16: I have been wanting one of these for ages. Now here it is. I wonder what I could this for.....

Do you like Dorking?

I don't know I've never Dorked!

Sorry, Muppet Show 1975 or similar. Still makes me laugh.

Well, anywhere South of the Thames may as well be in France as far as I'm concerned so I have never been and wont go until they start speaking French and eating proper food. Having said that, Dorking is a famous fictional battle from the late Victorian age when they were busy frightening themselves with the idea of Russians invading England from airships.

The Battle of Dorking is the key battle in the fictional Prussian invasion of England in 1871. Written by George Chesney in 1871 it was published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine. Subtitled "Reminiscences of a Volunteer" it describes the mobilisation of reserves (4th Surrey Militia) in London to support regular troops in defending against an invasion by the Prussians in 1875. 

The rules cover, not the 1914 edition cover on which it is based!

The Prussians had cunningly destroyed the Royal Navy using new weapons (it sounds as if the fleet was lured by a retreating enemy into a mine barrier) and then made a diversionary landing near Harwich to draw off the forces defending London. Few troops then were available to meet the main invasion force heading North from the South Coast (Worthing). Defeat was inevitable, especially given the moral decay infecting the country:  

"The warnings of the few were drowned in the voice of the multitude. Power was then passing away from the class which had been used to rule, and to face political dangers, and which had brought the nation with honour unsullied through former struggles, into the hands of the lower classes, uneducated, untrained to the use of political rights, and swayed by demagogues;"

Funnily enough, this sounds a lot like today's Daily Mail. Some things never change then! You can read this book for free on Project Gutenberg. Its a great basis for wargames battles. I'd love to fight out the campaign in Essex with the evil Prussians fighting their way through my home territory. 

The reason for going on about this is that a very nice little wargame was produced by Draken Games in 2009. This was a print n play game. It was very good and the rule book had an excellent account of the campaign in proper military history style. An expansion (micro game), Last Stand at Surbiton was also made available for free.

A section of map from the new edition

A new venture, Tiny Battle Publishing, is bringing out an updated and very shiny new edition of the Battle of Dorking. This is great news. The other thing that is great is that Tiny Battle have a number of small games on their roster and they make these available for a small price for download ($11.99 for Dorking for example).  

Tiny Battle is an associate of Flying Pig Games which is the new home of Lock n Load's designer/publisher Mark H Walker. Tiny Battle have also published a new and very small game of Mark's called Sticks and Stones which is a platoon level game of future (...past future?) US/Soviet combat set in 1987. Nice and only $9.99 as a download. Something for my birthday list perhaps.

More free stuff....

Not only free but really good!

Another wet day, I've had my usual weekend morning stroll and have had to dry off and warm up!

Having a day in doors is not a bad thing when you have some new stuff to play with. Here are a couple of free games to interest you.

Tigers at Minsk: A game by Norm Smith. This is a kit that allows you to play a scenario (KG Sivers) from his hex based miniatures game using a map and counters. This originated as a square based map game called Into Battle (2013). Here is a picture of me playing the original KG Sivers scenario following quite a severe injury to the thumb during the preparation of the counters. 

The new map is hex based...

You can find the rules, map, counters and an AAR at Norm's blog. It is well worthwhile exploring this little game.

Phalanx: Phil Sabin has recently used a simplified version of his hex based game Phalanx at this years International Ancient Warfare Conference in Wales. Here is a review of the event from the editor of Ancient Warfare Magazine.

The original game was published by the SoA but a version was also published in Wargames Illustrated. I love this game as it allows you to play 36 ancient battles with some very small generic armies. In this version there are two hoplite armies which use very simple rules to allow you to fight some basic battles. Once you have mastered this you can move on to the full version of Phalanx (then Legion, then Strategos II and then Lost Battles!). You can pick up the kit from the Lost Battles Yahoo Group.

One Hour Wargames again!

A break from the never ending year end!

I have never known a year end like this before. I'm sure it will come to an end shortly and I can get back to normal but I think my immediate priority will be getting some sleep and cutting the grass!

In preparation for my return to normality I have spent some time aimlessly surfing and I have found some new reviews of One Hour Wargames from a couple of big hitters (that's a compliment of course!).

Battlefields and Warriors Blog: Norm Smith has done a very detailed review of the rules with couple of AARs. A very fair and thorough review with some nice graphics.

Marco Arnaudo: I regularly watch Marco's reviews which are largely of boardgames. He is an insightful and entertaining reviewer and I have a lot of time for him. This week he has posted a review of One Hour Wargames. It would be nice to see him putting it through its paces but his review is entertaining enough as it is.

On a slightly different subject, I was very taken by Marco's review of Unconditional Surrender, a full scale WW2 strategy game (play the full war or individual campaigns). It has a great and very simple combat model which I am thinking about for use elsewhere.

What is really interesting is that there is a print and play campaign for Unconditional Surrender featuring Case Blue. You can get this for free from BGG, nice!

Well that was very therapeutic and hopefully I can get back into regular designing and blogging mode shortly.

Try this........

Nice new solitaire game about the Reconquista

I've mentioned Dave Kershaw's work before. He has now produced a really neat, but quite fulfilling, little solitaire game for the BGG 2014 solitaire pnp competition. Well worth a try!

Alarums and excursions

"Noisy, frantic or disorganised activity"

Yes, that's me alright, plenty of disorganised action over the past week, unexpected family activity of all sorts. Nevertheless, still surprisingly interesting from a wargaming point of view. Not so much a blog post as a list of stuff that has occurred!

1. PSC Universal Carriers: These little guys have been sitting in the study since Derby last autumn. Spurred on by the completion of the Shermans they are now ready for painting.

2. An actual excursion: To the West Midlands Air Museum. A lovely place with a Vulcan and other bits and pieces including this Mi 24. No opportunity to sit in the pilot's seat this time round but still a cool looking weapon.

3. Wurttembergers: Honest, one minute they were on the shelf next minute I'd paid for them. Whoops. Nice trip to Joto Hobbies in Rugby. These lads will come in very useful in future (oh yes they will).

4. Twilight of the Sun King by Andrew Colby and Steve Thomas: A set of rules from the Pike and Shot Society. Now ordered as a result of some thinking about rules by Steven Simpson on which these are based. Looking forward to getting these over Easter (hopefully).

5. Firestorm Norway: This cheered me up, due out this Thursday on the Flames of War site. I've always thought that Firestorm offers some really interesting gaming possibilities and its nice to know that we have another installment, this time Norway 1940.

6. Song of Drums and Shakos: After reading the interview with Andrea Sfiligoi in the latest edition of WSS I was tempted to put his latest rules, "A Fistful of Kung Fu", on my shopping list. Diverted recently by Board Game Geek I rediscovered this earlier work on Napoleonic skirmish by Andrea's company, Ganesha Games. Now joined by a supplement and a large battles version. Hmmm, this might be a job for the Wurttembergers!

7. Two Buck Games: I have bought their latest War of 1812 Battle Pack along with their AWI Southern Campaign Battle Pack. By my reckoning this is 21 small board games for less than $10. Can't be bad. Something for the holidays!

Today's list....

of interesting stuff!

Pressing on with the Tannenberg game idea is great but there but I have had to make a list of other stuff that I will return to at a later date (on the glorious day that victory is achieved at Tannenberg).

Websites:

A couple of new developments:

• Norm Smith has a new website constructed without the aid of a laptop with promises of interesting stuff to come.
• Worthington Games is now Worthington Publishing with not only a new website but new lines of games. My favourite is a new block game on the Great Patriotic War: Holdfast Russia 1941-42.

Section of map from rule book example

Games:

• Heroes of Normandie: Not yet published but, I believe, due March this year. By French firm Devil Pig, this looks very cartoonish but I think may be a winner with my kids. One for Father's Day!

• Pocket Battles Confederacy vs Union: Z-Man Games latest pocket battles game coming this spring. I have Celts vs Romans almost permanently out so very much looking forward to this ($14.99).
• Struggle for New France: By Bill Molyneaux. Now available from Wargame Downloads as a print n play for $6.50. Great little card assisted game. Something for Easter if I crack.

• 1812 Battle Pack: Two Buck Games have this on the way from Bill Molyneaux. 12 small games from the war of 1812. $5.00 print n play also from Wargames Downloads shortly.

Miniatures rules:

• So far I have resisted Bolt Action but may now give into Chain of Command, especially now there is a campaign system to support the rules. £6.00, nice.

Paper figures:

• I'm a sucker for paper figures from Junior General. These 18th century numbers by Daniel Harper (The Boyne) and C J Fiorito (Marlborough) are just great.

C J's Bavarians, just brilliant

One gives freely, yet grows all the richer

Annual BGG and Consim World support drives

At this time of year I sit down and figure out how much money I haven't got and then I divide it up and give it away. Oh yes, I have a low threshold for the annual exercises by my favored charities (Oxfam and British Red Cross amongst them). Given the Syria problem I may well be revisiting these charities soon. On a happier note I also fall for the annual supporter drives for my favourite websites: Board Game Geek and Consim World.  

The BGG supporter drive is very worthwhile and this year I believe secured some 10,000+ donations. Apart from a warm feeling for having supported such a worthwhile cause (at least in wargame terms) you get some Geekgold (I'm not sure what you can actually spend it on) and a supporter badge on your BGG avatar. As I use BGG almost on a daily basis, a small donation every year is a great investment.

I also use Consim News on a daily basis and this year have made a donation to keep it going. I'm very pleased to say that Consim World does reward its donors most substantially. This year donors received a number of free games with Gold supporters finding the following in their e-mail:

The Battle of AP Bac by High Flying Dice Games

Anzio by Saxon Games

Braddock's Defeat by White Dog Games

Fairfax's Revenge from TCS Games

To Hell with Spain, an Infantry Attacks module from Avalanche Press

These are all print and play games and they all look pretty good. I'm a sucker for the TCS series of ECW games so Fairfax is a great addition as is Ap Bac. Good all round for supporters and for the contributing games publishers. 

At the end of the day, you have to take a balanced approach to things. I support certain charities because I believe it helps others in times of crisis. I support my board game resources because I think that society, at least the wargaming bit, would be poorer without them. I don't equate one with the other and so far can manage to do both. If I couldn't the choice would be easy, I have too many games anyway.