Solo WaT in Japan

I had only a few full torso WW2 Japanese infantry left on the sprues and since a few weeks ago now I was still on the “What a Tanker” infantry anti-tank theme, I thought I use them to create essentially a suicide AT squad armed with some ‘lunge mines’ supplied. Two of them have those weapons on a long stick, one has his in the hand (I used the pole elsewhere!) and the fourth is using a rifle to keep the tank commander ‘buttoned-up’ making it harder for the target tank to see these infantry threats. So to explain these new Japanese warriors AND, more critically, the use of an old British Matilda tank, AND further, to show off my new Japanese Plasticraft building, I have this Alt-History story: April 1946, U.S. President Truman was not delivered the atomic bomb and so had to defeat the still defiant Japan the old fashion way. Operation Coronet is almost two months old with Tokyo and adjacent areas secured but pockets of resistance needed to be removed. While a relatively small part of this operation, the Australian contribution was tasked toward one of these areas. Sergeant Forlorn’s old Matilda tank had become separated from its infantry support and had entered a small village seemingly untouched by the destruction of war…. Inside the Matty stopped before the village, a conversation rages: “Where are the bloomin’ infantry?!” “lost them back a ways” “Why didn’t you bloody say?!” “you seemed happy looking at the cherry blossoms” “Well, step on it and get past this bloody village!”

The engine of the Matty sputtered and then roared to life (rolling doubled ones for first Move Dice followed by rolling 10 inches for the Second!). Hearing the tank, Ieko sprang from his position behind the house’s corner while yelling “For the Emperor!”, slipped on the wet ground [I only rolling 3(inches) with 2d6] yet reached the tank and aimed his thrust with the mine held in his hand to the side of the green monster.

His aim (double sixes! …my rather erratic and dramatic dice rolling trend continues…) adds 2 more Strike Dice to his attack.

“Its a Kamikaze!” is all the C.O. who was in the open hatch could say before the sharpshooter with the rifle put a bullet into his head. [ I must say my rolling of the dice in this case was perfect for this event to occur] The Matty is now down to three Command Dice but luckily the driver was composed enough [actually I rolled a Drive Dice] and the tank went into reverse and the gunner acquired the shooter but could not do more. Seeing that his chance to finish off the tank was fading as it slowly reversed away from him, Ichiro sprang from his hiding spot positioned behind the straw fence near the sharpshooter and ran up the road. “Bansai!” His sacrifice shook the tank crew further having one further Command Dice lost.

Kenso, in the door of the rice barn, needed to be much closer and so hoped to move into a better position without being spotted but his nerves …and my dice rolling…prevented his feet from moving.

Meanwhile the Matilda slowly moved backward from the village. Kenso finally called to the Emperor for help and I rolled a 1,2,3,4,5,6 combo! Kenso acquired the location for the tank, ran as few have [ I rolled 20 (inches) on 4d6 !] - having converted the Wild (6) into an extra “Drive/Move Die - which had him reach the distant tank and thrust his lunge mine [successful aim roll] but alas, the blast, while killing Kenso, did little to the armour of the Matilda.

The sharpshooter, lowered his rifle (not rolling the dice for him to fire) and mourned the loss of his comrades, as the green beast moved away….

New "combat dice"

Only the most devoted OCD type wargamer might be pressed to:  a) need to buy and create a new dice model for his game and b) make a blog post about it.  Actually I have CDO.  It is exactly like OCD but letters are in the correct *bleeping* order!  -grin-

Anyway, I have had many kind comments about good looking game(s) I put on last weekend.  I did notice, to my eye anyway, the glaring red of the dice we use for combat adjudication on the tabletop.  We use special d6s with three sides having '0's.  Never gave much thought to them but the red quite shows in photos. So.....

The old red dice along with the new blacks

I decided that I must work on that.  Therefore I went to the local hobby store, bought a box of Chessex brand black d6 and proceeded to fill in the 4, 5 and 6 sides with black paint and then some gloss for durability.  Black was chosen to match with the thick black sides of our bases and markers.

black to match

OCD alert: while I would have filled in the pip divots with perhaps putty or such to make the '0' sides smooth, I felt this would compromise the weigh issue of the dice and well be too much effort to do correctly.  so I must live with seeing the old pips.

with the old reds

and now only with the blacks with the upper most die showing a nil effect

From the usual wargamer vantage point however I think they look OK and show well enough if the player will gain any advantage from the dice.

Battle of Souffel game

The game was based on the Age of Eagles scenario for the historical Battle of La Souffel  28 June, 1815 after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo as French General Rapp tried to hold off the advance of the overwhelming Allied advance from the Rhine in central France at the Souffel River.  This was a holding action during his retreat to Strasbourg.
     
As I do not yet have all the Allies ready for Waterloo, but to celebrate the eve of Waterloo 199 last Tuesday (June 17th) I wanted a Waterloo related battle.  While not much is known of this engagement, the AoE scenario was used a basis for at least the ratios of combatants and a rough scenario design.  I didn't really think of the limited crossings however! Oops. What is it with me and river crossings??!

I substituted the Allies with others I have in my collection thus far, so the Austrians were poorer graded Prussians (Austrians not all that enthusiastic) better grade Prussians for the Wurttemburgers which seemed to be at the forefront of many of the Austrian advances in 1814-15 ; and the highly rated Hessians I used my newly painted Hanoverians/KGL/British elements to get them on the table!  I had enough French <grin>

David was kind enough to come over and stay late to give the rules a going over.

The photo above does highlight that due in large part to the restriction of crossings  --- I will just have to get that Genie/pontoon group from the Perrys! -- it did allow the concentration of artillery which we could playtest their rules and comment.  What David and I discussed and came up with is really good IMHO and his almost offhand comment about the MP dice, had the light bulb go off and I quickly linked this to historical OOBs for future scenarios.*

French cavalry come across the "incredibly wide bridge" for a "sniff" and.....

...retire quickly finding the Prussians coming at them.

David does an excellent job at remembering the battle and giving a blow by blow description of the action.  You can find the first installment at: link to narrative

French Chasseurs in forage caps to give a hint at the poorer quality of cavalry the French had at their disposal in the later years.  Converted plastics.

my "British" for Waterloo contingent standing in for Hessians during the battle

*late into that night I studied my order of battle references for Waterloo and a few other battles and found a close correlation between the number of gun models I currently have to the 'new' ratio established.  It is good that not many more guns will be needed!  The new method will really help in keeping the scenario distribution of artillery much more fair and much easier to do than before for our big scale game.

back from London and Paris

"Oui, suffering from jet lag but all is well from your trip. Tres Bien. Yes, I will tell your t'ree readers you will post shortly."

a 'pause' for the blog...

For all three of you who follow my blog, I will have a bit of a break for a month or so as vacation preparations, and events out of town have or will limit any blog entries.

I will note, however, my disappointment at the ill-timed closure of the National Army Museum in Chelsea, London, England as of the end of this month and exactly one week before arrival in London on my vacation! For a military buff as myself that is a major disappointment and much akin to the mournful despair of the devout Roman Catholic priest finding out St Peter's will be closed during his only possible visit to the Vatican!
My wife however is in quiet glee no doubt knowing it is one less boring museum she must endure.....

Anyway, I will hopefully return with a full report on the "Enfilade" convention in Washington State for the end of May.

DougH

Game of Montereau from the other side....

Battle of Montereau by Jean-Charles Langlois

David, one of the able Austrian commanders of our large historical Napoleonic Battle of Montereau (1814), completed a fine write-up of the game from the Austrian perspective.

You can view part 1 at:  link
and part 2 at : link

If you missed my original entry: link

Of Sprues and Men

The local hobby store [Imperial Hobbies, Richmond, BC, Canada) had its annual "Customer Appreciation Sale" with 25% off (being in business for -you guessed it- 25 years) and thus like a kid with a new $10 bill to spend for the candy, I went a bit crazy and picked up more plastics for my Napoleonic project.

Yup, now more snipping, and scraping, and glueing.....

I bought two more Prussian Infantry boxes.  Over doing it for the 1814 battles I had in mind, but Plancenoit (action during the Battle of Waterloo) is now doable!

I also could not resist picking up a box of Victrix French Guard which, along with the sale price, had an old price sticker on it. Woo hoo! My new Young Guard!  All be it with Perry heads rather than bearskins being the lesser guard types. But all in the practical greatcoat....

I read my good friend's latest blog entry (link: Kevin's blog) about his foray into constructing plastics and was amused at some of the same problems I encounter.  But I also noticed some differences.
Perhaps it is my Virgo-ness coming through (Virgos are apparently eminently practical and pragmatic*) but I took a somewhat methodical approach to clipping out each pose separately and placing them into empty blister trays (never throw those away!) and then going on to the next. I also placed all the arms into container trays along with the sprue tab with the code number so I could find them quickly.  Thus the whole procedure should have been quick. However....

...well, Victrix being Victrix with all the arms separate and to a large extent interchangable, one can start really individualizing each figure.  The box has both marching and standing firing/loading poses and so must be separated.  As I have but 10 figures to a stand/unit (I actually planned it this way to take advantage of the configuration of the boxes of plastics) it came out to 6 units or the entire box of 60 figures - if one is OK with putting only 2 various command figures for each unit.

The photo shows the cut up sprues (note the uniformity!), the separated poses in old blister packs and the arms separated into each tray.  Anality in its splendor!

Thus, the whole glueing procedure is quite time consuming.  Fun - in a wargamer demented way - but consuming.  With lots of swearing.  But that just might be me.

As I write this evening, I have still have the packs to glue so they are not yet done. 


[* my wife scoffs at this suggestion as NO wargamer can be so described <grin>]

Hesse-Kessel gun color of the SYW

So I am paddling through the Net, looking for neat things of wargaming or military history and I come across this well researched blog on ordinance of the Seven Years War.  http://crogges7ywarmies.blogspot.ca/



and the entry about the Hessian artillery is interesting if not aggravating. 
LINK







                                                                         
Why aggravating?  Well, if to be historically accurate, I will need to not only repaint my cannon (a difficult proposal as they are glued to terrained bases), but I must paint them in white and red!  The colour scheme seems very gaudy to these 21st century eyes.
With much else to paint, do I go back and spend some time on this?  Hmm.

White and red?!
Yes, yes, the ducal colours and all that. But really.  Tough colours to paint at the best of times......

War of 1812 - a rant

Obviously I enjoy wargaming the War of 1812.  I like the period and the novelty of it.  I did not, repeat not, start this blog as a response to the anniversary of this conflict.  I was trying, one night and with perhaps too stiff a drink, to communicate with a friend through a blog comment (long story) but was frustrated by my un-registration.  So while trying to sign-up it said "want to blog? it's easy" or some such.  Having done a lot of my wargaming vicariously through other's blogs I decided to start my own.  Of course without any such plan or concept of what to say or convey.  I had an 1812 set up on the table top so started with that.

So really it was just a coincidence. 

But what really has me going is the news story that the Canadian government is going to spend 28 million dollars (currently the Cdn$ is near par with the US$) Yes 28 million! for "cultural activities" surrounding the 200 anniversary of the war.
#$*$@!! What the heck will all that money get us??  A couple of demos by a half-dozen fat reenactors looking confused on a field, randomly firing off a musket into the air and calling it a battle?!  Perhaps a small pamphlet , printed in the millions for the mere hundreds who might actually care to have one, the rest into land-fills at the cost of hundreds of thousands?  Flashy huge posters for the politicians to stand in front and give speeches of how it is to be Canadian, blah blah, and reading from a script written by the assistant who copied it from Wikipedia...
It will not give us value for money of course, and only if the government would just hand out copies of Pierre Burton's two-part set who wrote some very well writtenchapters on the very topic to those who care, we could save a ton of tax payers money.  Of course the government might turn around and spend the savings on the overblown celebrations of the importance of the beaver for our nationhood (no, I will not even contemplate what nonsense the assistant of the assistant deputy minister's sub-committee could come up with for that!) (they probably will google it and come up with porn...but I digress as usual)

For me I will wargame it a little, read some of the efforts of the few to defend their homes, give them a quiet thanks, and enjoy the hobby.  See, that did not cost the taxpayers a dime.

rant over
sorry for the inconvenience
DougH

first of the musings

Well, I have finally joined the masses and created a blog. However this one may be only for me; to perhaps explain to myself this hobby of mine.  My obsession. To many people I know, they would little suspect.  "He never mentioned anything about toy soldiers, hours of painting and such."  People who know me from work would undoubtedly say,"He seemed so normal" like those living next door to the ax murderer interviewed on the TV news.
Perhaps it is an manifestation of my mid-life crisis turning 50 and all.  May be it is me joining the social media craze a little late and using an old medium?
"Whatever", as the kids tend to say.  Nevertheless here I go...