The Hobby, illness and me (or you!)

Hi folks,

First up, apologies for the title. This isn't meant to be a 'pity party' post, it's just something I've been thinking about over the last few days. I wanted to share it/write it down as much for myself as anyone else who might read it.

Last weekend my left shoulder froze, causing me a lot of pain for several days. I'm right handed, but if you think about how you hold a model while you paint, having limited mobility with my left arm and shoulder as well as severe RSI/Carpal Tunnel style pains in my arm and hand makes the prospect of painting... uncomfortable.

This is a concern for me for a number of reasons. 1 - the lead pile is not getting any smaller, 2 - painting is one of my stress management techniques I use to maintain my mental health, and being in pain and stressed with a frozen shoulder, I need to maintain that... 3 - I always feel like if I stop painting, I might not start again!

So, I set about thinking about what I could do with limited physical ability, which would still count as 'hobby time'. I'm aware that in the grand scheme of things, a frozen shoulder is not up there with life altering serious illness - so please don't think I'm suggesting that the following applies to everyone. Mileage may vary! But it's what I've come up with and stuff I feel I can do given my own current situation!

Things I can do that are not painting:

1.  Tidy up. Not particularly exciting, but there is always stuff to be put away, sorted, refiled, stacked, etc, etc. After the last big game my models are mixed up in several boxes with no rhyme or reason to the order. I also want to re-arrange my books and lead mountain storage area to better use the space and put stuff I need and use closer to hand. Lots could be done to make sure when I can paint, my hobby area is ready and waiting.

2. Build. I've lots of plastic kits I need to build for future units (mainly, oddly enough, Shermans!). This takes time and I'm loath to do this when I could otherwise be painting. I might not have the dexterity to paint, but snipping, trimming and gluing takes far less effort. It also constructively frees up 'future' painting time. I dislike having too many built 'waiting for paint' models around, but in a lot of cases the boxes on un-built minis take up more room than the finished models, so building them and storing them frees up space and helps with 'tidy up' above.

3. Plan/admin. I can use the time to sketch out unit lists to represent what I want to paint, need to build and want to buy. Again, this can be time consuming, but it's useful work that will act as a starting point in the future. This also includes stock taking of what I already have, making spreadsheets if I am able, but writing on paper also helps. This can also include working on scenarios or adding my paints to one of the various paint tracking apps (I recently got a new phone).

4. Research. Linked to number 3 above, planning armies means research. Research might involve time with books, with the Internet or just on my phone while laid up in bed. It might be re-reading stuff I've read of confirming stuff I know. But it's all useful - so long as the results are logged and kept. It's pretty important stuff for me, as I do try to keep my armies as accurate as I can for the Operation I'm modelling.

5.  Take stock. Linked to plan/admin - but more for hobby supplies and other paraphernalia. How am I for glue, paint, brushes, etc. What hobby supplies do I have, might I need. How is it stored? Can I re-arrange things, or repack things.

6. Buy... retail therapy is always good! Having the time means I can search around for the very best deals, link to my planning and research, look at what other people are doing, etc. Still useful hobby time, even if I don't pull the trigger on any actual purchases. Be aware though that buying lots of stuff you can't do anything yet might not be good mentally.

7. Paint? Am I sure I can't paint? Are there any adaptions I can use or try. For example, I think one issue is holding my hand open for long periods of time, so I bought some corks today with the thought that these might give me a better hand hold if I glue the stuff I'm working on to them. Can I adjust my chair or work space? What if I'm only priming rather than doing detail work?

8.  Revisit/revamp. I've a lot of early models I finished I want to go back to and touch up, fix or otherwise change. Is this the time to look at whether I can do any of that work?

9. Planning future projects. Is there anything else I can be looking at? Future terrain needs to be planned, storage options to be thought about, gaming space to be planned (I really want to make progress getting a table in my garage). An excellent time to think things through, plan and research and actually look into practicalities.

10. Play some/more games. Ok, so you might not be able to paint, but you might be able to play. Maybe it's a good time to badger mates into getting more games in!

Anyway, those are some thoughts I've had in the last few days while pondering what will happen if this arm takes months or years to sort itself out, and the impact that might have on my plans. Hopefully it might give others who read it some ideas themselves, or maybe act as a prompt for those people who don't feel like painting but want to do something hobby related.

FoW AAR v4: The Battle for Noyers, Phase II

Hi Folks,

Two weeks ago, I posted about a game I had played using the 4th Edition Flames of War rules (with a few home made bolt-ons) to re-fight a Normandy battle (first post here). The first game had been a bit of a test, and the idea was run something as an introduction to Flames of War for the guys at the club. StiG and Stu were my test subjects, and the game had gone pretty well. So now it was time for the main event - Phase II of the battle and a multi player game for 6 players...

The player handout briefing document can be found here. Martin's blog post on the battle, with more pics, can be found here.

Now, I want to highlight that I did add some stuff to the game - but that had I been playing Flames of War version 3, nothing I added would have changed. I would have had to do exactly the same work as I did under v4. There is no hidden deployment or movement in Flames of War aside from the Ambush rules. There is no 'normal' off table artillery, or random events tables. No matter what version of the game I played, even if I was playing Battlegroup or any other rules set I am aware of, I would have had to add many of these things myself.

One major change was the way I deployed the Germans - to fit the history of the battle, they were deployed in a way I viewed would be more appropriate, rather than being clustered together. Otherwise they followed the same morale rules as the book.

What I can tell you about v4 of Flames of War from my experience of running these two game is that the games flow smoothly, the new players (who had never played FoW) picked it up really quickly, it gave outcomes that a lot of the gamers round the table found to be "what you would expect to happen", it was fast (for a 6 player game...), smooth and in more than 12 turns of my second game I had to consult the rule book only once. And that would about how the recce and scout rules interacted.

Now, I'm not saying I got the rules perfectly correct, but I was happy with how everything went. Accepting that no game is perfect, I'm of the opinion that this is a really nice set of rules. It can most definitely be used to play 'traditional' historical games. Hopefully our game on Sunday proved that to some of the guys!

Anyway, on with the show.

The table was 11' by 5' (I think) and a mix of peoples terrain was used. 

The first allied 'phase line' was the capture of point 126 - the small cluster of buildings in the centre of this picture. The second 'phase line' was the railway station, seen on the left. 

The town of Noyers Bocage lay at the far end of the table - the rather ambitious 3rd phase line. 

The whole setup, with the allies starting to arrive in the bottom right. 

We played on a 11' by 5' table, and with contributions from other club members we managed to get a reasonably dense table. I was a bit concerned with the amount of players and the number of units that things would get a bit 'busy' - and I think at times things did look a bit bunched, but the railway line and the forests also contributed to that. Playing width wise would have given more room, but less depth to the German defences, so I'm not sure what the answer to that would have been.

The allies entered on the right of the photo above. With a nice, long, empty table in front of them.

They had a preparatory bombardment of 2 artillery templates to use at the start, which they places and I noted (in secret) the results from. These also left ranged in markers for future artillery calls. Objectives were the first cluster of small buildings (Point126), the railway station and then the town of Noyers.

I had adapted the artillery system from the last game. Now, the random events were triggered by allied units being within 6" of a counter. There were a couple of entries which effected the artillery options, but the actual artillery availability was dealt with separately. Once a green counter had been used, it switched to a black one. The formation Artillery Spotter could pick these up by moving over them. The player controlling him could then 'spend' a token to roll on an artillery table. There were 8 options on this random table, with 5 Allied and 3 German types of bombardment.

The system worked pretty well, but I think I will adapt it some more for the next time!

The allies advance - 4 players had one platoon of infantry and one troop of Shermans (3 x 75mm, 1 x 17 pdr). One player had the 'funnies' - a Flail troop, AVRE troop and Crocodile troop. The last player had the infantry command, with commanders, OP, MG's and Mortars. 

First blood went to StiGs tanks, I believe. I used the same random event system as last time, which resulted in the StuG being spotted early on. Once the green event markers were activated, they turned to black ones which could be collected by the OP and cashed in to roll on the artillery table. 

The German forward line of defence is slowly whittled down and driven back. It took a little while to learn that the way to get rid of dug in infantry is to assault. Shooting just won't do it!

The assault about to go in! These troops had been too far away to assault, but had gotten a 'lost' event which moved them 2d6 in a random direction - which put them within assault range!

The South Staffs clear out the German recce platoon. 

A couple of close assaults later and the area is cleared up to the railway line... spot the Panther behind the train station!

Once things got moving, they moved quite quickly, with the players working together to overcome the tactical puzzle they had been set. The Panther proved to be a huge nuisance, not being destroyed to the end of the game as it kept falling back and slowing everything up. I found out this evening I had the front armour rating wrong, so it shouldn't have been such a big deal. However, the error actually made for a really great story and I thing the Panthers escapades will live on for some time. As will the 'bypassed' PaK40 that the players kept parking vehicles near...

Encountering HMG's, this beat up platoon decides the cornfields are a better place to wait while armour support is brought up. In the background, a StuG and Panther slow the armour down. 

Panther eye view... the Panther was StiGs and was a lovely model. 

Allied infantry get ready to attack the next objective. 

The Panther starts to get swamped... but keeps being missed (and bouncing shots... oops)

Elsewhere the allies surge forward. Special mention goes to StiG for his aggressive use of his infantry, which must have assaulted over half the German units on the board, and kept getting smaller and smaller as a result!

Allied armour moves up - the terrain funnelling them and the Panthers presence slowing them down. 

The German counter attack begins - 4 x Panzer IV's (with hidden support) start to advance. The Panther holds the gap...

Some of StiGs lovely Panzer IV's. 

Eventually, a plucky move by one of StiGs Shermans gets a flank shot on the Pather, and it is 'brewed up'. A great cheer went up from all the players at this! In the background StiGs infantry platoon moved over a minefield and assaulted/knocked out a Pak40!

Allied materiel advantage making itself known, while the infantry starts to get thin on the ground. Half of the infantry platoons were at half strength or worse. A/T assets were moving forward to dig and and help protect the gains against the inevitable German counter attack... Note also the breached minefields!

Another shot - there had been a '88' and some HMGs defending this hedge line. 

Looking down the table towards the starting table edge. 

A StuG and Grenadiers in the tree line. This was the high water mark and the point we called the game. 

Reinforcements move past the detritus of war...

Lessons learnt from this game included that fact that the events table worked really well. I changed it up from last time, making a lot of the 'negative' entries have options - basically for a lot of them the triggering player could chose a friendly unit to effect. The feedback from the players was overwhelmingly positive - they enjoyed the impact the events had and actively sought to trigger the events - which in turn helped keep them moving up the table. I think, due to the way the deployment went, some of the players didn't trigger any themselves, but all of them interacted with the results.

I learnt that I need more terrain! Especially for tables this size. I've a few more buildings to do, but the whole town concept needs a lot more work. I need to paint up some more infantry, especially for this size of games. Although historically this was a infantry company and armoured squadron attack! I think one of the lessons from Normandy was the lack of infantry assets, and the players were very aware of this, especially as they started to take losses in their 'first wave' of platoons. They became a resource to carefully husband - while the availability of armour led to tactics which favoured the tanks 'bashing on' - just as my reading of the WW2 material on this battle suggests was the actual attitude of many infantry commanders.

Changes for next time will be to increase the options on the artillery table. As controller of the German forces, I felt it was unfair for me to have direct control of the German artillery. So it was on the same table as the British artillery. This also added a consideration to the allies - risk spending a counter in order to get friendly arty, and you might get enemy arty incoming. Next time I'm going to go to a D12 rather than a D8 and have some options where both allied AND German fires arrive. That should keep things a bit interesting. Otherwise, I am also going to allow unit commanders to pick up the artillery counters - but delay the use of counters picked up this way for a turn.

I really enjoyed umpiring this game. It helped that the guys approached it seriously as the tactical problem it was, and they were planning and talking and interacting. Not to say we didn't all have a laugh, but it was nice that they kept it 'real' and didn't try any silly tactics in order to game the scenario.

There is already talk of following up with a Phase III game some time this year. The defence against the incoming German counter attack and then the assault on the town. I'm up for that!

Terrain Progress!

Hi Folks,

Lots of blog posts this weekend, as a few different things have popped up.

While some lucky people got to go to Salute yesterday and see/buy lots of nice things, I was out in the garden getting covered in PVA and static grass. Yet another battle in my fight to upgrade my battlefields and make all the time and effort spent painting models be reflected in the quality of the gaming table I (plan to) own!

I have, I accept, a long way to go. But even the last few days has shown progress can be made.

Yesterdays efforts started with some work being done to my GF9 'Battlefield in a box' terrain. Specifically my various road sections:

I've added the static grass I use for my standard basing to the dirt tracks (perhaps a little too heavily...) and to the edges of the cobbled sections. I'm thinking of doing a little work to the crater sections to have them match the craters in my minefields. A coat of German Camo Medium brown, a drybrush of beige brown and then a very light drybrush of Buff might do the trick! I'll have a think on it as they are really OK as they are. I'm also thinking of adding the usual tufts and flowers...

I also turned them over and sprayed the undersides with Matt varnish. I've had issues with them sticking together in places and causing damage due to this. I think it was because some of the resin was showing through the paint, so I'm hoping a coat of varnish will sort that out!

I also got my minefields finished - some step by step pictures:

Starting with 2" by 8" MDF 'tablets' from East Riding Miniatures, adding some of the Vallejo 'Brown Earth' Texture with some finger applied craters... Just adding circular swirls with a finger tip helped, but the craters were not very pronounced. 

Using some Milliput to build up the craters once the resin was dry. Wetting your fingers helps get it nice and smooth. I applied a sausage of Milliput in the area I wanted, making it into a donut. Then wet my finger and pressed it outwards to slope the edges. I then made the crater hole with my finger, and smoothed it outwards again. 

Adding some fine sand to the top of the craters, to give texture. I used PVA for this. I then painted them German Cam Med Brown (Vallejo 826), drybrushed Beige Brown (875) and then a very very light drybrush of Buff '976). Followed by the usual PVA and static grass + tufts. 

My 4 'breached' minefield markers, shown here being carefully negotiated by a Polish Sherman V. Rather than removing cleared minefields, I'll replace them with one of these markers. The 'white tape' is some thick thread painted ivory. The idea had been to have the ground a little more beaten up from the Flail passing - I may revisit these. Attacking the static grass with a modelling tool may suffice. 

Another view of the 'breached' minefields together. Note that the basing for the minefields matches that of the tank! I'll have a look at what signage might be appropriate for a cleared lane, just to make make it clear what these represent. 

And the 4 separated out. 

8 unmarked minefields. I may try to do signs for these, but then I might just mix in the others with the signs. The craters were just to add some variety - they are probably more shell craters than mine craters. I discussed it on some of the chats with the guys and I'm really uncomfortable about modelling victims. Dead cows were mentioned... but in the end I left them a bit 'plain'. 

'Clean' Minefields but with signage. I've 6 of these. 

So a total of 18 Minefield markers in one form or another. Oddly, with the completion of these I have actually totally finished a planned army. My German Grenadiers needed some minefields to go with their MG bunkers!

Then, I did a little more work on my ruined houses. Mainly getting the roof colours to match, painting doors and doing other small bits of detailing. I've marked the bottom of the various ruin sections and houses with the building number and the level of the building the ruin marker is for.

Repainted roof, added some more rubble detail. Painted doors. The other side of the building looks undamaged, and is actually a shop front. I added some colour to the shop fittings and front doors as well. 

Repainted the undamaged side of house, and roof. I've another building like this so wanted to make them different. Painted doors and window details. 

Repainting the roof also meant that some of the rubble bits were a different shade, so I gave them a quick running over in order to have it all match. 

Repainted the roof (it was red) and added the detail to the two rubble piles outside this building. I also added the cork rubble to the damaged walls and internal rubble sections. Gluing small patches of the cork rubble to visible floors helps the rubble piles merge in a bit. 

I gave the roof here another coat after looking at this picture. The 'cuts' in the MDF really soak in paint! Painting the roofs also make some of the assembly pegs less visible. 

Other side of the same building, showing damage to the interior and the larger rubble pile. All this damage is removable. The internal sections can be moved into the undamaged rooms in the house for ease of transport. The rubble piles also fit into the 1st floor. 

View from above. Close inspection makes the rubble look a bit out of place, I think. But the impression that the piles make on the table works really really well. I think it's important to match the colours to the building as well. 

Closer shot - you can see the painted doors here - I didn't do much more other than paint the roof. There is a question over painting the cork rubble - but I am just going to leave it. I think it looks OK at tabletop distances the colour that it is. I could try to paint it the same brick red as the building, but I think it would look too stark. 

Lastly, I finished off the Telegraph poles.

I added a 25mm base to the bottom of these, and milliputted around the give weight and make the surface a little smoother. I've another 9 of these to build. Transport for these is a issue as they are fragile. I'm thinking of using the same technique as my vehicles and magnetising the bases to stand upright, but they are taller than most of the boxes I have. The transport of the buildings offers the same issue!

I also started work on my fields. These are fairly iconic for the Normandy fighting, I think. I totally appreciate that my based tanks are going to look weird sitting on top of this stuff, but that's just one of the issues with any sort of basing. I've got a LOT of this stuff to do....

These were cut from an Ikea door mat. The backing material was a rather stark white - 'Matt Varnish', one of our Paint and Chat contributors, suggested using an ink on it. As it turns out the Vallejo 'dipping formula' Sepia Shade works really well! I also found that applying liberally to the backing and the bottom of the 'crops' looks good. I trimmed up the edges with my trusty 'basing scissors' to tidy them up. I also took Matt's advice and give the top of the sides and the top surface a liberal dry brushing with 'Buff' paint. 

One thing I did find - I have been using some purchased resin rubble piles for the larger sections at the sides of my buildings, but had some milliput spare the other night. I clipped off some of the building sprues and found this made and excellent base to build on with the milliput. So if your thinking of doing your own ruins, that might be a cheaper way of building up the height you need:

A clipping from the 4Ground sprue, with milliput applied. It doesn't look much now, but once I detail up the surface with more sprue and cork rubble, it will fit right in!

This week will be final prep for the game next Sunday. Phase II of the Battle of Noyers! I've mainly admin to do, sorting out of forces for transport, printing unit details, etc. I'm trying to do handouts in the v4 style, which show all the unit stats, dice rolls, etc.

I'll try to get some more fields sorted, as these will help clutter up the map space. I'll also see what buildings I am taking and what work needs done to them. This will, currently, mainly be roof painting I think.

Thanks for all the positive feedback guys, hints and tips are always appreciated!

AAR: German Grenadiers vs British Armour

Hi folks,

A couple of weeks ago now I got along to my new regular gaming group 'The old Guard Wargames Club'. We're currently meeting on a regular basis at various venues around Darlington and Catterick, with the last club meet in Scruton (near Darlington).

I had arranged a game of Flames of War with 'Stig' and we both brought along 1500pt forces.

A table was set up, using my current scenery collection (still looking a bit sparse) and we played 'hasty attack' with me as the attacker. Some pics:

Ruined village - most of these buildings need some work... I've been inspired by Lee's attempts recently.

Railway Signals box at the level crossing - the railway track had just arrived.

Full set up with armies deployed.

British infantry and light tanks over on my left - a pinning force and something to make sure I had units on the other side of the board come turn 4 (if I didn't then I lost).

Shermans and infantry ready to advance. The 25 Pounders didn't do much all game, and I totally forgot about the various British special artillery rules.

My right flank advance - soon to be reinforced by tanks from the centre.

Stigs infantry guns holding the centre. These are a real nuisance for the Shermans - perfectly capable of taking them out from the front.

My objective, guarded by a Mortar spotter team and some HMG squads...

Stigs deployment in the town. a Sniper and Mortar OP resided in the large building with no roof. These are cheaper buildings that the others, and have no levels. I'm tempted to make them burnt out/ruined.

The horde advances!

Shermans get to the railway line and go hull down while they fail to shoot up the Infantry guns ahead. Infantry on the left gets pinned by sniper fire.

German Mortars do a number on these infantry, while the Stuarts climb the railway embankment and start shooting up buildings.

Turn 2 for the allies sees more forward movement. The hedges and railway track on the right forming a real impediment.

Infantry whittled down by German mortar fire. They would eventually make it into the town and clear out some OP teams at Bayonet and Grenade point.

British Infantry make it into the town...

Shermans surge forward - sitting back and shooting was doing nothing!

Just before Stigs panzers arrived, you can see how close my tanks are to the objective. I think if we had realised about the 4" of an objective wins rule we would both have played differently. Stig did managed to take out 3 tanks, but spread over 2 troops and with command attachments.

The mission involves the attacker setting two objectives in the defender (Stigs) half of the table. The defender then deploys, the attacker removes one objective and deploys (roughly - the order of the last bit may be wrong. We followed the book on the night). I deployed strongly in the centre and my left, making it look like I was going to push on the objective in the town. However, I removed that objective and double moved most of my central armour out to the right flank.

Stig decided to keep most of his anti-tank assets (Pak40's, Stugs and Panzer IV's) in reserve, and started the game with only his infantry guns on the table. He then failed reserve rolls for 3 turns, meaning there wasn't a whole lot he could do to my tanks. His mortars and snipers kept my infantry pinned down and inflicted a lot of casualties on me, but I kept pushing up the right flank - struggling to get my tanks through 2 hedges and over the railway line. Eventually I got my tanks over, in order to threaten the objective. Stig eventually managed to get his Panzer IV's on and took out a couple of tanks, while moving his infantry into cover of the woods. Neither of us realised that 'control' of an objective was being within 4" of it - and my Shermans were within 4" while his units were further away. Stig tried to stormtrooper his infantry back, but failed the roll. He then tried to stormtrooper his tanks forward, but failed the roll. At the start of my turn, despite my advance looking very tenuous, I had won.

Great game, we both learnt a lot and will keep reading the rules.... nice to see so much allied armour on the table - we had discussed it before hand so Stig knew what I was bringing.

The other table at the club had a game of (I think) 'Too the Strongest' - which looked like a simple and fun game.

Nice looking 28mm figures - my first thought on seeing them was 'wow, those are big 15's...'

Anyway, another games day down and looking forward to the next one. Plus, next weekend is the Stockton show!