First Play: A World Aflame - Richester Rescue

Four our first tabletop game of 2103 we decided to give A World Aflame it's first real outing.  When I took my first look at these I wasn't too sure how they would work out on the table and so this was a real chance to try them out.  I was also my first chance to get my new 4Ground buildings out.

I developed a scenario which followed on from our last game, Chuffy's Challenge, with Lenin, once again, taking the helm for the Anglian League alliance forces and me reprising my role as the guardians of law and order:

Following the engagement at Chuffnell Regis, Inspector Chisholm has taken his prisoner back to the new Police and BUF headquarters at Richester Castle. After the heavy fighting in and around Richester and their subsequent victory the fascist forces are feeling secure in their new stronghold.

Having allowed his verger, Mr Yeatman, to be captured, the Reverend Farthing is beside himself but is uncertain how to proceed. Fortunately, Dean Lionel Pugh-Critchley of St Ogg’s arrives and takes charge. He insists that Mr Yeatman cannot be left in the hands of the fascists and must be rescued. So contact is once again made with the local Kent Militia and the Cinque Ports T&GWU and a daring plan is hatched...

Not expecting an assault the garrison at Richester Castle had been reduced, with the Territorial unit normally stationed there having been sent out on a routine patrol, the castle was only manned by a small unit of Police and the local BUF.

When one of the sentries heard an ominous clanking sound the Police turned out but a storm rolled in and a torrential downpour began reducing visibility and making things generally unpleasant.

Meanwhile, the League supported by the Kent Militia under Mr Chomondley-Warner and the Cinque Ports T&GWU led by comrade Spanner, were stealthily advancing on the castle.  Well, a stealthily as they could given the union had brought along their latest toy - generously donated by their Soviet brothers - a T26!

With the League moving their forces into their assault positions which could be seen from the castle, at at that crucial moment, the bobbies on sentry duty decided they needed a brew and went inside.  With this stoke of good fortune the League moved into position unseen.  But when they were about to launch their assault they found that Inspector Chilholm had rounded his men up and got them back onto the ramparts!

A firefight broke out but the weight of the League fire, particularly their machine guns, took its toll on the Police and as their numbers shrank their morale cracked.

With this positive start to the assault, one of the T&GWU thought they might not be needed straight away and suggested that they pop off and celebrate the success of the attack at the local boozer (having only been paid the day before).

Despite the loss of the union men, the Kent militia pushed forward into the castle bailey.  There they found that the firefight had alerted the BUF, who had hastily taken up positions.

A brief exchange of fire saw Sergeant Blakey of the BUF catch a bullet and his mens' morale broke and they ran for the castle keep - closely pursued by the Militia.  Further firing from the Militia saw the BUF surrender and Commandant Spode, seeing the day was lost, decided to release Mr Yeatman on condition the League forces withdrew.

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So that was our first game with A World Aflame.  Overall the rules worked reasonably well and the cards certainly helped with the narrative of the game.  However, the rules could certainly have benefitted from some more explanatory examples and felt a little rough around the edges.  It was clear that the morale system meant needing quite a few forces on the table as they could provide quite brittle and once a leader has been lost (which seemed a little too easy) it was a bit of a slippery slope with little chance of recovery.  The rules certainly have some things going for them and we may well give them another go.

4Ground Damaged Detached House

I've just finished putting together the 4Ground damaged detached house.  The construction is similar to the standard detached house but is a little fiddlier in places due to the additional damaged elements (the extra exposed brickwork for example) although not dramatically so.  The set comes with some additional slates, bricks and floorboards which you can use to scatter over the floors.

Overall I think the finished house works really well and I have only one small gripe.  4Ground have their website URL printed on one of the components.  It's the same with the standard house; however, in the standard house you can't see it - this isn't true for the damaged one and it does slightly detract - so I'll be doing some covering up there.

Here's the angle which shows the offending advertising:

And finally alongside the standard house:

4Ground Detached House Build

Having sold my old copy of CDII (largely because I can't remember the last time I used it) I decided to put the money towards getting some of the new 4Ground pre-painted mdf buildings.  I was just going to get one as a trial but in the end I decided to pick up the 28mm Pre-Painted Detached House Set which contains both a complete and a damaged detached house at a discount (and including postage).  The service from 4Ground was excellent and the buildings arrived within 48 hours of me ordering them.

I thought I would assemble the undamaged version first.  It comes with a number of sprues each containing one colour of component.

The parts separate fairly easily from the sprues, or though I would recommend taking some care as some are delicate or tricky to get apart due to the size.  I would suggest only detaching the parts as you need them as the sprues have the part labels not the parts themselves and some are quite similar.

The 4Ground instruction sheet is reasonably clear, although a couple of the parts are mislabelled which is a little unfortunate (although it's easy enough to work out).

I started by putting together the ground floor.  The walls are made up of an outer and an inner part (so only one side of each has the final finish on it.  The outer sections fit onto small lugs on the sides of the floor and to each other by interlacing the quoin stones.  This provides a decent fit (I would recommend trying a dry fit first to make sure everything goes together before gluing) and they suggest holding it all together with a couple of rubber bands whilst the glue dries.  The inner wall sections slide down inside the outer ones and, once glued together, provide a pretty sturdy structure.

The staircase is a little more fiddly as each step is made up of to pieces and the frame also has to be assembled.  But when it's completed it is nice and rigid.

The stair case then fits into the slots in the ground floor.

Then the interior walls forming the front and back rooms can be glued into place (they are two piece section like the outer walls).

And then the ones forming the hallway.

The building already comes with the marks of having seen some conflict but you can choose to damage it some more (and also provide loop holes in the walls).  The pictures below show the wall as it comes out of the sprue and after the hole has been popped out.

The first floor goes together like the ground floor.  Here's the outer parts of the outer walls in place.

And now with the inner parts in place.

Followed by the dividing walls.

The roof is constructed in two parts to enable figures to be placed in the attic.  It can also be damaged by removing some pre-cut tile sections and glueing some roof timbers in behind.  Here's the inside of the top section.

And beside it the lower section showing the attic floor.  I used some bulldog clips to keep the two part sides of the roof together as they had a habit of coming apart whilst the glue was drying.

With the main structure completed, it's time to assemble the doors.  These come in three parts - the door itself, the cross members and the handles.  A completed one is on the lower left below.

Then there are the exposed brick sections to fill in the holes made earlier and the window frames.

As you can see above you could choose not to have the damaged section loopholed and even after you have removed the centre brickwork (below) you can still pop it back in later if you like (assuming you have remembered where you put the bits (they're rather small).  The same is true for the roof tiles I removed by the way.

Finally you need to assemble the chimney and glue in the stone lintels above the door and window openings, the window cills and the bargeboards under the roof.

So here's the final product:

I'm very pleased with it and it looks a good compromise between looks and practicality.  The upper floors are kept in place with small lugs protruding from the floor below so they won't be knocked off easily and they even include a ladder to get up to the attic.

The house design is nicely generic so it would not look out of place for a wide variety of countries for quite a decent time range too.

I'm now looking forward to putting the damaged one together and I'll report back when that's done.

First Look: A World Aflame

Osprey have launched a series of wargames rules booklets, the first two being Dux Bellorum (Dark Ages) and A World Aflame (1918-39).  Given my interest in all things interwar I decided to pick up a copy of the latter.

The book is produced in the standard Osprey style used for their Men-At-Arms series and the like.  It's in a single column format (but only taking up two thirds of the page width) with black text on a white background with various colour tables, illustrations and photographs to provide interest.  It's 64 pages in length including the three pages of sample cards and the unit sheet at the rear.

Following the contents and introduction, the rules are broken into six main sections after which there are sample unit lists, a scenario, a list of the artwork references and the sample cards.  There's no quick reference sheet included, however.  The rule sections are Pre-Game Considerations, Let the Games Begin, Movement, Firing, Melee and finally Morale.

In the introduction the author clears states that they are "written in what is nowadays often called a retro style, and pay homage to rulesets written by such wargaming legends as Charles Grant and Don Featherstone".  This is quite evident, not only in the writing style but also in the mechanisms - mainly D6 with modifiers - even average dice are utilised.

Units are typically 8-10 figures representing a section; however, the author says there isn't a figure scale, nor for that matter is there a ground scale or time scale for turns - all of which places this firmly at the game end of the spectrum in my view.  Units are graded for initiative (2-5) and morale (2-6); officers are graded from 1 to 3.  The rules then outline the structure for Company, Battalion, Brigade and Army levels, although I assume (as is indicated in the scenario) since it is not explicitly stated as far as I can see that individual figures would be representing more than a single man for the larger scale games.

The rules include ammunition supply, weather, snipers, tank hunters, artillery and the like but the key to game flavour appears to be the chance cards.  These are intended to be produced for the specific theatre and some examples are provided at the back of the booklet.  Essentially these are to represent external factors, random events and to control the dominance of certain troop types or weapons.

Each turn the players select a unit and then dice for initiative to see which acts first.  Initiative is a D6 modified by the unit's initiative rating, the officer's grade and whether the unit is Confused or Demoralised.  Officers have a command radius - 15" for unit officers but only 5" for higher command levels.

Movement is variable with a base distance plus the roll of one or more average dice unless you are crawling when you lose the base movement.  This can be done by figure or by unit as long as you specify beforehand (the latter would be my preference I have to say).

Firing is determined by weapon type, with each having a number of dice to roll, three range bands (which vary by weapon) and a target number for a hit at that range.  There is also a small number of modifiers largely to address firer and target states.  If you score a hit then the target becomes as casualty.  Rules are also included for firing at vehicles, grenades, artillery and mortars (including smoke) and for anti-tank combat.  This latter section has some interesting elements to cover the various improvised approaches common in the period - petrol bombs, crowbars, dynamite and so forth - as well as more regular methods.  There are also rules for flamethrowers, gas, mines, aircraft and trains.

Melee is conducted by the attacking unit taking a morale test, then the defending unit and then rolling a modified D6 for the units who actually get into hand to hand.  Each figure who loses (i.e. rolls lower) becomes a casualty.

Morale is a combination of the unit morale, officer grade, an average dice and some modifiers aiming for a target number and the comparing with a table if the unit fails - the table distinguishes between advancing and defending, and first and subsequent failures.

Sample units are provided for the Spanish Civil War, Russian Civil War, Warlord China and the fictional British Civil War.

The included scenario covers three days of fighting in the Battle of Jarama in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War and has 10 figures representing each company.

Overall the rules have some interesting features; however, I am a little concerned they may be rather fiddly (particularly with the variable movement) - of course only a real game will tell.  Production is generally typical of Osprey but the layout could have been better adapted to the short paragraphs of a set of wargames rules and better proof reading could have eliminated the few more obvious errors.  I think more explanations and examples would also have been beneficial but I suspect the page count will have limited the opportunity for including these.

I will report further once I've been able to test them in action.

Wargames Weekend: Chuffy's Challenge

Day two began with a journey into alternative history with another game set in the A Very British Civil War world. This game was a follow on from Ashford Ambush which we played last year.

With the Government and Mosleyite forces cracking down on any democratic protest various groups in Kent have decided to take matters into their own hands. A joint operation between the working class Cinque Ports T&GWU Militia and the, mainly upper and middle class, Kent Militia secured more ammunition through ambushing a convoy transporting weapons and ammunition to the Territorial Army barracks in Ashford.

Having split the spoils the T&GWU have returned to Dover and the Kent Militia headed to Chuffnell Regis to meet with the Anglican League. Unfortunately the fascists have got wind of the meeting and a combined force of Police and BUF are on their way to break up the meeting. The Territorials are also on their way to expunge their shame in losing the weapons and ammunition.

Once again Lenin took charge of the Rebel factions and I took the Fascists. Mr Chomondley-Warner and his Militia arrived on the road from Ashford with their loot from the previous encounter. Meanwhile, Commandant Spode, his contingent of BUF and Inspector Chisholm and his policemen arrived on the road from London.

The BUF worked their way through some barbed wire but were soon spotted by Mr Yeatman and the Anglican League troops from their defences in the grounds of Chuffnell Regis and came under some unexpectedly heavy fire. The Commandant Spode quickly recovered from the surprise and ordered his men to return fire. Meanwhile Inspector Chisholm dismounted from the front of his Black Maria and moved his officers into a covered position along the road and also engaged the League. Seeing his verger receiving heavy fire Reverend Farthing suggested to his men in the Manor House that they might, if it wasn't too much trouble, open fire on the BUF.

With Sergeant Blakey ensuring the BUF remained steady, the Commandant co-ordinated their fire and the combination of that and the police started to take its toll on Mr Yeatman's men.

Eventually the Anglican League were worn down and the police moved in to arrest Mr Yeatman for causing a serious affray. He was asked to accompany them back to the station.

Meanwhile Mr Chomondley-Warner's convoy arrived at Chuffnell Regis with the Territorials close on his heels. Fortunately "Chuffy" Chuffnell was ready to take charge of some of the men and organised them into a defensive position near the front of the manor. The Territorials advanced up the Ashford road led by their Lancia armoured truck. Almost immediately they came under fire from a lewis gun in the main house well directed by Lord Belborough. Without the tactical direction of Lieutenant George the men in the armoured truck decided things were too hot for them and began to fall back. Commandant Spode moved the BUF forward and engaged Chuffy and his men to devastating effect. Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps bought it and having taken some serious casualties with only him and his man Brackett remaining, Chuffy decided to retreat to the manor house.

The BUF then moved to assault the manor house from the side but on their way across the lawn they found that Lord Belborough had redeployed the lewis gun and they came under heavy fire. Sergeant Blakey caught a round and having taken significant losses the BUF decided to fall back.

With the remaining Anglican League redirecting their fire onto the police, Inspector Chisholm decided discretion was the better part of valour and began to withdraw his men with their prisoner.  And so Chuffnell Regis (and the munitions) were saved.

The Kent Militia

Having already fielded my Kent Militia I felt they desperately needed a standard to rally to so prior to buying the official Musketeer standard bearers, I converted one of my Militia riflemen whose rifle barrel had broken.  Here he is with the rest of the command group:

The Anglican League Arrives

I have now expanded my VBCW collection further with a completely new faction - the Anglican League. Here is the Musketeer Miniatures command pack:

The General

Another addition is "General Clearwell" from the Artizan Designs Thrilling Tales range:

The Long Arms of the Law

I have just added a few Artizan armed police to my Musketeer force for VBCW:

More Inter War Armour from Copplestone

Copplestone Castings have just released the latest model in their 28mm Inter War range of armoured vehicles. This time it's a Lanchester 6x4 MkII armoured car:

Musketeer VBCW Standard Bearers

In the end I did pick up the newly released pack of three VBCW standard bearers from Musketeer at Salute. So I thought I would post a couple of pictures including the, previously unrevealed, third figure:

As always they are nice sculpts but the hands do need drilling to accept the standards.

Wargames Weekend: Ashford Ambush

Our first game on Monday was another excursion into the alternative history world which is A Very British Civil War.  This time I decided to try the Too Fat Lardies' WW1 rules Through the Mud & the Blood with the additional rules from the Triumphant Standards supplement.  It was also a chance for me to get my new militia figures to the table along with my Musketeer BEF.

With the Government and Mosleyite forces cracking down on any democratic protest various groups in Kent have decided to take matters into their own hands.

The working class Cinque Ports T&GWU Militia has formed an uneasy alliance with the, mainly upper and middle class, Kent Militia to strike back against the oppressive forces of fascism.  Their first objective is to secure more ammunition for their motley collection of weapons.  To this end they intend to ambush a convoy transporting weapons and ammunition to the Territorial Army barracks in Ashford.

With Lenin, appropriately I think, commanding the Kent and Union militias, I took command of the Territorials and their convoy.  The militia had set up a roadblock and put themselves in some excellent ambush positions.  Unfortunately, someone in the first militia unit was a little over eager and some poor fire discipline led to shots just as the convoy came onto the table!

Fortunately for the militia Captain Darling, in the lead armoured truck, decided that this was likely to be a chance incident rather than a major ambush and decided to drive on whilst returning fire.  He soon discovered his mistake as not only did the Union Lewis gun open up but also the first Kent militia unit under the command of "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps.

The armoured truck carried on until it came under more fire from the second Kent militia unit directed by Mr Chomondley-Warner accompanied by the energetic Oliver Mellors.  Casualties in the truck were high and when the roadblock was spotted the remaining men decided discretion was the better part of valour and ran for it.

Meanwhile Sergeant Jones had deployed his unit behind the hedgerow facing the first Union militia but without a light machine gun was not faring well.  Fortunately the Union militia were having an ideological debate with the Commissar who was accompanying them and so fire from them lessened.

Despite coming under fire itself the convoy had carried on after the armoured truck believing, quite incorrectly, it was the right thing to do.

With the truck having moved past them Barmy's chaps turned their attention to Sergeant Jones and his unit also decided to retire.  Fortunately for the Territorials, Lt. George then arrived with their third contingent and deployed his men and their Lewis gun behind a stone wall on the other side of the road.

Having disposed of the armoured truck, and possibly to keep Mellors busy lest he get up to any mischief, Mr Chomondley-Warner ordered him to advance and capture the ammunition trucks.  Having taken the first truck easily he then came under fire from Lt. George's men, who had by this time been joined by Capt. Darling, and so he returned fire.

The fire now coming in from three separate directions was taking its toll on the remaining Territorials and despite the best efforts of the officers this last group was forced to withdraw.  Although it did give the last truck sufficient time to back away out of trouble.

Overall, the rules gave a fun game and coped with the larger than normal number of figures on the table; however, the smaller Territorial units did suffer badly due to the impact of shock on their lower numbers.  In future I think I would ensure most units were around 10 men if possible.