WSS: Getting Rid of Troublesome Spots

 I have a Zoom wargame set up for Wednesday, of which I am sure you will hear more if you visit around the end of the week. Naturally, since I always fret a bit about running out of time (or broadband), the table is set up already - just have to lose some chairs and shift the table into the centre of the room. I've sorted out the paperwork (such as it is), so I'm all set to get cracking.

Just a little tidying up; a few odds and ends, and a brief return to the niggly-but-not-serious issue of minidice, and the neat deployment thereof. I have a number of friends who consider that things like counters and minidice, not being on the official Featherstone or Peter Young merch list, are best treated by allowing the vacuum cleaner to inhale them. I'm sure they are right; anyway, even if they're not, it gives them a useful opportunity to let off steam in the padded room.

I shall explain this non-serious issue, so that you may understand - this is getting into the First World problem of Creeping Elegance in the wargaming infrastructure department. My WSS armies have minidice (that's 5mm acrylic jobs, in little frames) attached to the unit stands. In my rules, they are useful in a number of ways:

* since the armies, not to mention individual allied units, were often dressed in surprising (or the same) colours, the body colour of the minidice confirms which army (or nation, if that is not the same) this lot belongs to. It varies a bit by scenario, but the main colours in use are red (British), blue (French - slightly anachronistic, but the main significance is that it is not red), sky blue (Bavarian) and white (a general Grand Alliance colour - thus Austrian, Dutch, Hessian...).

* the number displayed on the minidice is important for army organisation and - importantly - activation, since it shows which brigade they belong to. Keeping your brigades organised is a good idea in my games, since if you get brigades intermixed then you may have plugged some gaps with reserves, but they may not be able to do anything at the same time as their friends (etc). Trust me - it is a hassle when it happens.

 

The minidice system - here you see some of the 4th Brigade of the French army - battalions, attached artillery and the brigade commander, all numbered up

That's all fine then. Army commanders are important chaps, of course. A few of them gallop around accompanied by their national flag, which is certainly a clue, but it makes sense (to me, anyway) to have them fitted with a colour-coded minidice too - if the CinC has a brigade all his own (guard, whatever) then that brigade will have a number all to itself, and the CinC will have a minidice with his army colour, bearing the number of his brigade. More usually in my games the Commander does not have such an attachment, but it is still potentially useful to have him colour-coded (these Marshals are very casual about what uniform they turn out in). As a sort of default, I have used 6 as a conventional non-number to indicate that this chap is of this army, but doesn't have a brigade alignment. It isn't right, though, is it? It isn't elegant, for one thing. Apart from the potential inconvenience of one side having 6 actual brigades, anything which requires some explanation isn't right by definition.

Righto. The problem is defined - my early plan was to get a few 5mm acrylic cubes which looked like dice, but didn't have dice spots. What could be simpler? Well, in fact it isn't simple at all. You can buy 5mm dice in many, many colours, you can even buy them with a hole bored through the No.1, to make bracelets and necklaces (I don't mean "you can buy them" of course, I mean "one could buy them"). You can even buy excellent blank dice in all sorts of colours, but nothing smaller than 10mm - in fact hardly anything at all smaller than the ubiquitous 16mm. So you can buy 5mm beads (not cubes) by the truckload, or 5mm dice with holes in, but you can't get unmarked 5mm cubes. I can only assume that this is all based on the assumption that they are a choking hazard for small children, and it is well known that children would never try to ingest a bead or an actual minidice.

Hmmm. I spent longer than you might think trawling the Internet looking for them - eventually I was going to just give up.   

At this point I must thank anyone whom I dragged into consideration of this little problem. I got some thoughtful advice, some very decent suggestions, and I'm grateful - you know who you are.

What I did was take some of the minidice, in appropriate colours and in quantities of one of each, and soaked them in Clean Spirit for about 3 days. Scrub them with the old toothbrush (no, not that one) and wash them and we're ready to go. 

 

New tweak - the French army commander has his new spot-free minidice. If you look very carefully you will see that the ghost of the "1" is still just visible, but if you notice it then you are being awkward - it's streets better than a very obvious "6" staring up at you, anyway!

Hooptedoodle #503 - Not a Sausage

I was up before 04:00 this morning. I must say I like this quiet time of the day, though I don't see it very often. Today's special occasion was a lunar eclipse, so I got myself wrapped up in sweater, dressing gown, warm socks and baseball cap, put on my fancy LED head-lamp and ventured out into the garden and the lane outside.

It was, and still is, as dark as - well, as night. It is raining fairly heavily, must be overcast (as evidenced by lack of stars) and is (I can confirm) foggy. Not even a glimpse of street lights from Dunbar, 7 miles away by seagull.

It's OK; I am not disappointed. This is another in a long line of events which I never saw - snapshots from a personal history which is notable mostly for its length. I did see the spectacular eclipse of the moon on 9th January 2001, and very fine it was. I had only recently moved out here from the city to the Front of Beyond, and the concept of zero light pollution was still new to me - I've never forgotten that occasion. Apart from that I have recent experience of invisible meteor swarms, and any number of failures to see the Aurora, though we have a north-facing beach within 300 yards of the house which is famous for sightings. 

I once waited up for most of a night, on a clifftop near that same beach, to see the new British (Anglo-French?) aircraft carrier sail past, and I think I saw something large and dark passing in front of the lights of Pittenweem, so I have that down as a possible. Otherwise many years of no-shows. I walked across several farms to see the Red Arrows flying overhead on their way from Norfolk to Edinburgh, and they were cancelled. A long list of expected events - some of them very prestigious and historic - which ultimately served only as an excuse for a cup of coffee in the middle of the night. Like the inauguration of Pope Hilarius I, these things all passed me by.

I don't take it personally, I sort of expect it now - it has become almost reassuring, something I can rely upon, so that's all fine. When I think about it, I went out tonight to see the natural wonder which is non-appearance of the moon, and that is what I got. To celebrate, I was going to include a music video of Dominic Miller's Eclipse, of which I am very fond. However, I decided on this one, the title being probably a more accurate statement of what I actually saw tonight; this is Julie London singing No Moon at All, in 1955, accompanied by Barney Kessel, with Ray Leatherwood on bass and that's it. The song was composed by David Mann, with lyrics by Redd Evans, though the chord progression may well have been influenced by Chopin:

I've had my coffee - may as well get dressed now. I have things to do. Can't hang around here, blethering.

WSS: Foy Accidentally Meets the Modern Age, and Compromises his Prejudice

I've been working on my wargames rules, and had a useful exchange with Count Stryker, who has also been working on his. He provided some useful width to my views, and we worked up to the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" stage which, again, proved to be valuable.

Ian has been looking at AI as a development tool for his published rules, and our discussion got into that area. Interesting. I, of course, have been thinking vaguely about AI but have done nothing about it. I have always preferred to have my friends walk through the minefield before I have a go myself. Whatever, our discussion was interesting and potentially useful, and Ian kindly sent me an example of the sort of thing he has been doing with illustrations. This is one of my own photographs, of one of my own wargame units, uploaded to ChatGPT by Ian and rendered as a line drawing.

 

Bavarian Cuirassier Regt "Costa", circa 1703, from my own collection - if you are keen enough, you may be able to spot vintage castings by Les Higgins, Irregular and SHQ - if you do manage this, my compliments, and it probably isn't anything to worry about

I realise this is kindergarten stuff as AI goes, but I am thunderstruck. I absolutely love this - it is a formal drawing of some of my little friends, produced apparently by magic, and I find it surprisingly touching - no idea why - I just love it. My sincere thanks to Stryker for sharing this with me - I shall take this whole topic more seriously in future.

If you're out there, Neil, please cross AI off my list - there's a good chap.

 

***** Late Edit *****

I decided to have a go myself, to see what I can manage with no experience at all. I uploaded a photo of my French Army Command Group to ChatGPT, and asked for it to be rendered as a traditional watercolour - this is the result, with no further editing... 

I am very pleased. Nice little 20mm men.

Righto - this is now getting silly, but I thought I'd try one more before bedtime - here's the same photo, rendered in Baroque style (or what AI thinks is Baroque style). This is all Stryker's fault. 

I'll think about Blenheim Palace Tapestry style tomorrow...

********************* 

WSS: Time for a Rules Update - Cutting the Umbilical Cord

This weekend I have a note in my diary to get busy, consolidating a sheaf of odd notes and scribblings into the next coherent release of my CJ-Lite rules. Coherence is in the eye of the beholder, maybe a hopeful direction rather than a recognisable state.

It's maybe worth setting out a summary history of where CJ-Lite came from, and where it has been since. Such a summary would be useful to me, if no-one else, so please bear with me for a paragraph or two, and then I'll say some things about recent changes, and evolution of the presentation and style. 

Very quickly, then. I bought an existing collection of 20mm WSS soldiers in 2019, and set about organising, repainting and augmenting what I now had. I had a look at the commercial rules which were available, and fairly quickly decided to go my own way. The Covid period found me working away in self-imposed exile, painting and grinding away at a new rule set. Lockdown allowed very little in the way of playtesting, and by the time things got back to normal I found I had produced the most awful set of wargame rules I had ever played; just dreadful. Tedious.

Disappointing.

Because I was now heavily committed to this new period, the search for Plan B was pretty frantic. I fell back on a familiar strategy - bought in a game which already existed, which ticked as many boxes as possible. I bought Richard Borg's Tricorne, which was the AWI cousin of his Commands & Colors series. The game obviously needed a little customising to fit the European theatre  of 70 years earlier, but I got busy and was much happier with the way this developed. This was the beginning of Corporal John. I was very pleased with the new game, it actually worked - it was even fun to play.

Since then I have produced a development which worked for multi-player games and even remote games by Zoom. This was (jokingly) branded as CJ-Lite, the most crass name I could come up with. [The spirit of The Emperor's Toenails is alive and well]. 

The new release is Version 1.03. Over the last few years, CJ-Lite has dropped the Command and Combat cards of the parent game, ditched the fancy (and unobtainable) custom dice, acquired a new activation system. In addition to various improvements in function, I have now made a conscious decision that the game has less and less to do with Tricorne or C&C - it uses tweaked versions of the movement and combat systems, but much of it is new.

I have decided that it is no longer necessary to hang on to terminology which is identifiably part of the Borg games. Very early, I reasoned that, since effective musket range in 1700 was about 80 paces and my hexes are 200 paces across, musketry just becomes one of the unpleasant things you can do to an enemy who is next to you, and thus musket fire and melee were jointly subsumed into a generic Close Combat activity, most of which, for infantry, would in fact be short range musketry. 

Next up was the resounding Retire & Reform option for cavalry under attack - this was so obviously straight from C&C Napoleonics that I have changed it to the simpler Evade - most people can imagine what that means, and it is generally less flatulent. A new change in Ver 1.03 is that the Tricorne-specific Rally Check is now just called a Morale Check in my game. Thunderous in its unpretentiousness. I thank you.

This may seem a bit over-thorough, but I hope and expect that it will help avoid confusion. Anyone who plays CJ-Lite who is aware that it has blood lines from C&C may find it easier to remember which rule set they are playing if it doesn't look or sound like its ancestor to any unnecessary extent.

Ver 1.03 also makes some small changes to terrain effects, amends the rules for artillery firing over friendly troops, corrects some ambiguities and grammatical irritants.

I still have to hand-polish the QRS sheet to remove a few bugs and incorporate new changes - I'll work on that today. I have to update a draft leaflet which explains how to use CJ-Lite in ECW games [I'll keep the title the same - it has been suggested that CJ could be an abbreviation for Cromwell's Jockstrap, but I shall ignore this].

I also want to edit the Corporal John appendices that cover the solo campaign system, and the little siege game which features in that system, to make them fit with CJ-Lite, and I need to have a look at another leaflet which explains how to use CJ-Lite to handle the tactical bits of my Leaguer siege game (not much to change there - some simplifications, some smaller unit sizes, some changes to the Morale and Retreat rules - how do you run away when you are the garrison...?).

That's all OK, I think. The trick will be to get it done before I forget what it all meant. 

 

Guest Contributor Issue - More Fortresses from Jean-Marc

 I posted some photos taken by Jean-Marc back in April, which prompted some enthusiastic responses.

At that time he suggested sending some more photos, this time of a Helm's Deep terrain in 10mm. I'm pleased to say that he is once more as good as his word, so I set out what he has sent me.

Firstly, here are some pictures of 6mm Romans - I understand the camp is Irregular, the figures by Heroics & Ros:

 

Next we have the promised 10mm Helm's Deep model - first of all, J-M's explanation:

I have sent some pics of the Helm's Deep 10mm model (pics with the model in its many parts, and others where it's ready for battle). 

(1) This 10mm model was made by Ken D in California around 2005 - at the time we discussed how to use Warmaster rules in LOTR world. The model was made  in styrofoam with machines used for aircraft repairs. The styrofoam is the blue one rather thick, but not too thick. Ken has done fabulous work here. My kids, enthusiastically, painted the Keep later.

AFAIK only 3 models were made (IIRC there was a prototype made before these 3).  So it is a rare one, don't you think? It's  great work.

(2) The board: you'll notice that Helm fortress is on the small side of the tabletop. This is not a very good choice, and I'll have to fix this later , when I'll go back to 10mm LOTR Warmaster games.

I choose this option for the following reasons : 

(a) I did not see how I could model the mountains behind the Keep on a table 2.40 meters long...

and

(b) Tolkien wrote in the first versions that the battle was fought on the ridge where the 3 roads arrive, so .. I supposed the small side could be a reasonable answer for (1) making the terrain, (2) giving the Rohan player the choice to fight there with a small chance against overwhelming forces (In LOTR, if you read carefully, the ridge is used to slow down Saruman's army advance).

(3) Figures. I could not resist, sorry :-)  I like 10mm scale figs.  Copplestone figures are very nice, I have also converted some figures from other ranges (you would like to see the troops for the Pelennor too). The best detailed flags, Rohan flags on dark green fields, are also Ken D's great work. 

Hope you'll like to see the model and  figures. 

And before you ask, no I did not make a model of a part of Minas Tirith for the battle of the Pelennor (making the whole  town, would be, well, something special and probably not a good idea for a battle), but my plans are ready!

Amicalement, 

Jean-Marc

The Model out of the box:

The Terrain:

The Fortress:

Figures:

 

I hope you will join me in complimenting J-M on his work and thanking him for sending the photos. This is an unfamilar world for me, but impressive 

Hooptedoodle #502 - The Bigliest Attack Since WW2

I've gradually developed an alternative lifestyle in which I avoid listening to the news, and subjecting myself to Official Lies about the world in which we have to live. There are still a few handy escape hatches - I've always been a big football fan, for example.

Well, not so fast. Having just about survived the dodgiest World Cup in history, I find the escape hatches are getting a little blurred. That nice Mr Infantino's Great New Idea to open up control of football competitions to the highest-bidding influencer seems to have hit the buffers for the moment, thank goodness, but there was a spectacular windfall lined up for the Kushner family (who must know at least as much about football as they do about international diplomacy and crypto), so I expect the US Supreme Court to be involved in an appeal any minute now.

On balance, I think I should play it safe and avoid sports news too. My life is getting quieter, that's for sure - I found I suddenly had a lot of spare time after the World Cup ended. I have a couple of bottles of Schloss Schadenfreude stored away, waiting for some exciting new changes - I even put a bottle of decent Prosecco in the fridge recently, in hopes that the Orange Lard Barrel may self-destruct in the near future, but I guess I won't hear about it now. Not to worry - it seems likely that the OLB will insist on taking us all down with him. Keep me posted, if you will - if I don't hear anything in 6 months I'll just drink it anyway.

In moments when I forget to concentrate on nothingness, I wonder what can possibly be wrong with these people? Ignorant nihilists who worry about who has the biggest wedge - I obviously missed something along the way.

Never mind. All the best, chaps.

Hooptedoodle #501 - pipistrellus pipistrellus

Here in South East Scotland we have not had such extreme heat problems as elsewhere in the UK, the drought conditions have been helped by the occasional downpour, and the fact that in a sparsely-populated county like ours there is little chance at present of the imposition of a hosepipe ban. The World Cup required me to watch (or listen to) live matches at strange times like 1am, usually in pretty warm conditions up in the attic, so I beebled about in a state of constant jet-lag for a while.

Nature took the opportunity to muscle in as well; Brian the Roof Man was here about 2 weeks ago to fix some broken slates, and repair some cracks in the harling (that's probably pebbledash to you?), and he was chased off the premises by clouds of wasps. Stephen the Wasp Man arrived a day later and exterminated 5 separate nests from our roof. Sadly, he had to come back because he'd missed one, so chalk up 6. Five had been a record, but it didn't last long.

 

We assured Brian the Roof Man that we weren't much bothered by wasps - he reported back fairly quickly that we were mistaken. This is a library photo - the idea comes across well, I think

Never experienced wasps in such numbers. Stephen tells some good tales of his work, complete with the necessary tingle of Gothic awfulness. Apparently wasp behaviour has changed a bit in Scotland in recent years; changes in the climate mean that we now get some species which used to be unknown here. One of the significant incomers is a small (but persistent) German strain, which is quite happy to build a nest right next to an existing live nest, a practice which was generally verboten previously.

Since the heat has diminished a bit, waking and eating times have settled down and we are disposing of relatively few walking wounded in the wasp department, so the evenings are much more acceptable now. I've even got back to trying to do some reading, and a little music practice.

Anyway, I was reading in bed last night (Richard Feynman - laugh if you will); at about midnight the Miles Davis album I was listening to (Milestones) ended and I was puzzled to hear a rustling noise. Maybe it was from the curtains - I wasn't sure - maybe I had imagined it, or it was just the timber roof cooling down. I carried on reading for about another 10 minutes and then a bat flew across the room and settled on the wall above the door. I wasn't terrified (of course), but past instances of this sort of thing have usually banished sleep until further notice. You have to try to avoid thinking in terms of having a room that you can't use any more...

What to do? I reasoned that if I turned out the room light and opened the Velux roof light then a sensible bat would just fly out without thinking twice. So that's what I did. It worked, but there were a couple of panic breaks when the thing started to fly round and round in the limited space - they are very fast, extremely ugly, totally silent. They will not bump into you (or they shouldn't), but these circuits of the room bring on moments of mindless terror. Oh yes, and they bump repeatedly into mirrors, glazed pictures, the TV screen - just saying.  

 

pipistrellus pipistrellus - again, this is not my photo - I didn't have the resources or the detachment to get a photo of my own; this shows a specimen flying about in a more suitable environment, apparently in daylight, and a long way from me

I got the window open (in near-darkness) and Batty sat on the frame for a moment - I nudged him with my wasp-basher and he flew outside - window was closed without further incident. Pulse returned to normal levels some time afterwards. I have no idea how it got in - maybe it flew in somewhere else and made its way to the top of the house; maybe it came in when the window was open on a hot day and has been sleeping there ever since. I don't like this last idea much, especially since that means there will be messy evidence somewhere. 

As far as I can see this morning everything seems clean and tidy, and satisfactorily bat-proof, so I have to assume it visited only briefly. I'm sure it was more scared than I was, in which case it was pretty scared. Thinking about it, we have had a number of bat episodes over the years, but I think the last time we had one in that particular attic room must have been around 2001. I was a lot braver and faster in those days, but I do remember it surprisingly clearly.