On To Washington!

 I have put in my first order for the new army, I chose some safe troops which I know will be in the army, legionaries and Moor light cavalry. I have had a quick look at the make up of 3rd Century Romans but have still to read my book rather than just glancing at it, along with some research online, although I usually find the latter to be less good at specifics than a book. My main concern is whether during this period allies were used under their own leaders, I think we are still a way from Foederati joining in large numbers. The Moors were certainly with Thrax on his expedition and units based on heavy, lance armed cavalry had been added to the order of battle, but would the Romans have taken along friendly tribes of which there were many on the opposite banks of the Rhine and Danube? We will see. On the subject of figures good friend Phil Robinson very kindly sent me some A&A miniatures he had in his lead pile, some Romans and a pack of Moorish light cavalry, how good and fortuituous was that? Maybe the gods smiling on me as I had just sent off some spare transfers to a guy in Welsh Wales who needed them.

'Lucky' Jimi and I settled down to Bolt Action for the first game of the year, his mountain troops versus my Russians. Once again I decided to think outside the box, I kept my force Early War and took three squads backed up by the useless Ampulomet anti-tank mortar, a T-34/76 and a T28 (a first for this tank), along with an infantry gun. A young lad, Adair, new to the club asked if he could join and why not, he chose to join Jimi, they had a Panther, a PzII flame tank (my Luchs sitting in for this) and three squads, I think. We put three objectives on the table and whoever held the most at the end would win.

I now bring transports and had two trucks, one I sent up to unload beside a farmyard on my left centre, the other I sent up the right. The Jerries looked to be making an effort to attack all three objectives, I concentrated on the middle and right flank, during the second turn I went to unload my squad from the right flank truck and realised it was empty as I had already laid down the squad which should have been in it! I compounded this mistake by realising with a flame tank to my front I needed to quickly abandon the farm I had so easily grabbed.

T-34/76.

I grab the farm, bad move.

Adair's Panther after Bovington Panther.

As the action heated up I was winning the firefights apart from seemingly being unable to kill off any of Jimi's veterans opposite my right, despite having a full squad and my multi-turreted mechanical monster hit them. My T-34 on the left did manage to hit the Panther but only got a turret jam out of it, the Panther missed several shots. Young Adair was no slouch and decided to ram my T34 rather than shoot his less than accurate gun, I have never seen this done but I survived it and both vehicles ended up nose to nose. Lucky for me Adair seemed happy to keep Jimi's reputation for bad dice alive as he failed time and again to 'light up' my troops while I caught quite a few Jerries in the open as they made for the centre objective.

The monster.

How are we going to get over a hedge?

My troops grab a victory objective.

We called a halt on turn five, I had two objectives and the Germans one, a good win for the Reds.

Last night we finally managed to fight our first Shenandoah Campaign game, a Union division encamped around the town of Woodstock was attacked by a Confederate division, not quite Shiloh but similar. I was going to umpire but Ed offered my one of his brigades to take part, I was set up on the Federal left, there was another brigade to my right and one being held off as a reserve. Fran put his whole division opposite our right flank and it turned out for a time he had three brigades against one, then as he was forced to pull back as my troops began to advance and threaten his right it was two against one. A really good effort, he had the good fortune to have organised his attack before Ed had received his cavalry so managed to gain an advantage on position.

View from the Reb lines.

View from the Union lines.

The Federals were wrong footed and to add insult to injury the Confederate artillery was devastating and cut a swathe through the Union defenders on the hill as they lay down to minimise the effects. With the Rebs noticing my rush to help they peeled off troops to prepare a hot reception, meanwhile the tsunami of gray began to engage Ed's defenders and casualties mounted. First the Federal cavalry ran despite a valiant stand and then two blue regiments were cut to pieces and joined them. Things were looking very bad.

The Rebs turn up.

More of 'em.

The Federal reserves had now arrived and took up a defensive position on the edge of the town just as I was beginning to get within musket range of the enemy. I had tried to help the situation with counter-battery fire on the Rebel guns but my crews were hopeless, the other Federal battery while not as bad was unable to fire on the main Confederate assault columns and instead took potshots at the infantry protecting the Rebel batteries. 

Federal right flank.

Under attack.

John Wayne is late.

Woodstock.

I was now feeling confident of overwhelming the hill on which the Confederate guns sat but they now turned their attention on my boys and stopped my skirmish line dead, plan A had suddenly gone out the window. Ed, was being urged by his commanders to withdraw while he could, I would have fought on but perhaps I was just enjoying myself. With a heavy heart and Confederate taunts Billy Yank retreated.

The reserves arrive.

Ed decides to retreat.

My useless attack on the left.

A good game and a solid fight, luck was certainly with the Rebs as the Union artillery basically did nothing to help the defence and having the disadvantage of deploying first it was always going to be a tough time against an aggressive commander like Fran. In the cold light of day however things were seen to have been a lot more even in casualties than we had thought the night before as one Union brigade had basically ceased to exist. Confederate casualties were fairly high but were spread out between the division while four Federal regiments had bore the brunt of all the Yankee casualties. The battle was unusually safe for commanders as no officers were shot during it although several must have holes in hats.

No matter, we had a good time and the Rebs have drawn first blood, our second battle will take place on 9th February, I am not going to make any predictions as I was sure the Yanks could have held Woodstock in this one.

Parthian Shot: Civil Service people at the Land Registry to strike 'indefinately' due to their harsh employers (you and me) who want them back at work, like during the Victorain era but with endless tea breaks ad Hob Nobs. If you have been waiting for a search or a call back on your title plans or summaries you might already have thought they were on strike.

I am Politician material.

 Happy New Year. I had hoped to have a battle report from the campaign in this post but circumstances were not such that I could get the players involved together for the Battle of Woodstock, so hopefully this will be upcoming at a later date.

Why am I now suitable to be a politician you ask, well I already cannot look at myself in the mirror as I am a shadow of my former handsome self but the main reason is that I too am able to do a U-Turn and go back on a promise. No more projects I have shouted over the last few months, maybe one of those miscreants who delve into ones past online utterances could prove it was even longer. I have been brought to such a pass by a Christmas present.

The item in question was a book on the army of Giaus Julius Maximinus Thrax (the Thracian), who led an expedition deep into Germany, far deeper than most historians allowed for prior to the discovery of the Harzhorn battlefield (2008). A Roman victory against the German tribes for which Thrax is the main contender although the exact date and leader cannot be determined for now. I have two Roman armies but have always had a soft spot for the middle period which my troops do not cover, Armorum & Aquila (A&A) Miniatures have ranges which cover the 3rd and 4th Century, I was hooked.

The culprit.

 The illustrations in the book are quite striking, some of the facial expressions are a bit strange and the face looks like it has been trapped in the helmet. The armour detail is exceptional and I doubt you will find this in wargaming figures, these guys as well as looking frightening also looked sharp. As ever the shields draw me in, in nearly every case they are the artists represenatations based on Legion symbols and unless you are good at hand painting you will have to rely on transfers, thankfully Little Big Man Studios do a range which will fit. The book points out that the famous Duro-Europos shield would be useless in combat as it is too thin, part of another decorated shield found in the city is also unsuitable for combat, so again I suspect these were for ceremonial/guard use.

I also have to mention the work of Phil Hendry who ran a blog years ago which detailed his building of a 3rd Century army using A&A figures, the force is simply inspiring and I have never forgot them, I will be using his blog as a starting point for the new army. Phil's troops were based in the East of the empire while I will be concentrating on the Legions of the Rhine and Danube frontiers who more that likely sent vexillations for the expedition into Germany rather than the complete legion. I believe my favourites, Legio XII, were on the Pannonian frontier around this time and if so probably had a presence in the invasion. Further research will follow.

Phil's troops, hope he doesn't mind.

 Will I get these troops on the table, who knows, maybe once in a blue moon but I don't care, well I do, but in the end the research, collecting and painting will keep me sane for the coming year and a bit.

In order to clear the decks I have managed to get another small pike block from out of my lead pimple, this leaves about 20 figures in the tin whose fate will be to remain there forever. I am painting them up as a Papal contingent which includes mercenaries of Ludovico de' Medici. As I am moving on to the Romans these will be the last Italian Wars figures for a long time. While on the subject of the future I am getting an urge to add figures to Cohors I of the Twelfth, I know it should be twice the size of a normal cohort but adding a few more figures will scratch that itch, also I can order them from Aventine when I get the cataphracts for the German invasion, sorted.

Over Christmas I managed to finish my four new buildings, two barns and two houses, nothing spectacular but decent kits, I might add a bit more weathering to the two houses.

The club starts back on Tuesday and I have a game of Bolt Action to kick off the year. I am also going to go to York this year to browse for bits and pieces, mainly scatter terrain, some paints and maybe the odd piece from the Last Valley, I feel the need for some more trees and maybe some smaller hedges.

Parthian Shot: In the new 2025 D&D rule book if you feel your adventurer has met a situation which is inappropriate you can hold out your palm or make a cross with your arms above your head to halt proceedings. The rest have not to discuss why you have called a halt but simply amend the play and move on without prejudice. I might try that the next time my one and only tank is punctured by a strike from an anti-tank gun.

2024 And All That

 A mixed beginning for me to the year, in November '23 an 'anomaly' was found on my liver while looking at my gallbladder. It was May this year before I finally received an operation to remove a lump on my liver (oh, and also my gallbladder which I did not know about until six months after the op). This and the fact that the builders started to work on the room which used to be the Post Office/shop meant that apart from the odd night I could make the club, my wargaming was minimal for over six months. I also understandably did not want to start anything new.

The op went well and the builders did a superb job, although it did take us several months of calling it downstairs/the shop/the PO/ War Room and a few other things before we settled on The Bunker as the easiest on the tongue. 

With all that time to think about things I came to the decision that there would be no more grand projects and the future would simply be additions to what I already had, if at all. I have some seven forces for WWII, five Dark Ages/Ancient armies, two SYW armies, a very large collection of ACW 15mm and a few skirmish games, trying to get them all on the table at some point is well nigh impossible. For instance I have 122 vehicles for WWII and many have not fired a shot. So my aim for 2025 is to play as many games as I can with as many of the troops as I can.

By July I was back in the saddle and I returned to the club for my weekly fix, the club has expanded with several new members and the range of games played has also expanded, Hail Caesar is the front runner at the moment and I have seen more Dark Age and Ancient armies over the past few months than I have in the last few years. I seemed to lean more towards WWII this year, this was helped by Matt Crump and I starting our second Chain of Command campaign, once again on the Eastern Front, I was lucky that friend Robert Thomson made an effort on his travels to pop in to play another campaign which is ongoing, this time in NW Europe. I also continue to enjoy my trips to Grange to take part in Rob Martin's giant Napoleonic games. Since The Bunker opened I have also managed to host quite a few games here and am grateful to those who have turned up to spend a few hours jousting across the table. I must mention that my own away games at Matt's in Penrith are always a pleasure.

Since eschewing new armies I have managed to add various bits and pieces despite this, I found myself at a loss just before Christmas so opted for some new buildings, I never lose the urge to improve my terrain. I do have to say I missed having something on the tray to do and have decided not to break my own promise above and forego the price of a divorce lawyer and just add units to the Italian Wars next year.

Wanting to get my ACW troops back in action I decided to run a campaign based in the Shenandoah Valley, this is not Jackson's Valley Campaign, just something to keep us all going through the winter months which hopefully will provide some battles with consequences. Just as the curtain comes down on 2024 we have two battles upcoming to kick off 2025.

Despite having to call a halt to my mapping for several months I have still managed to draw for 37 books this year, I do not have the patience to count the maps but 300 would be a decent estimate.

Going forward as I say above, I hope to continue to play more games.

Elephants and Bamboo Bows

 Big news this week, for me anyway, is that I have reached the grand old age of 72, yes I know I don't look it but the inside feels about 82. I received some nice books from my Christmas wish list, I have went all digital this year and put a list on Amazon for people to pick from. So far I think it is working.

My presents, one more to come.

I have been searching and adding some 1/72 planes for the odd strafing run on my tables as a side project and to date had sorted an FW190 for late war and a Stuka for early and mid, I also bought a ready built Spritfire kit from my grandson for my Normandy+ British. I had just about given up getting a Russian aircraft until mate Robert told me he had visited an Antique warehouse in nearby Ingleton and they had kits for a decent price. I set off and sure enough found a treasure trove of 1/72 painted, die-cast models. I reined in my wallet and settled on a Yak-3 for my Russians and spoiled myself with a lovely Henschel 123 for the Jerries, I just couldn't resist it. This biplane was operational in the ground attack role up to and after Barbarossa, it was so good on the Eastern Front the Luftwaffe asked for the factories to be re-opened to make more, but they had already been dismantled.

Yak-3 and Henschal 123.

I am continuing to dust my vehicle collection and am about half way through, you can see the effect better on plain painted vehicles but I am committed to giving them all a coating. Meanwhile I have recieved a few more buildings, two rural barns from Empires at War (unpainted) and two houses from Charlie Foxtrot, most of my collection of buildings are Colin's so these will fit well on the table. All this in expectation of more WWII gaming in 2025. Very happy with the Empires of War, we have some at the club but I now know they are 15mm and 20mm and not 28mm due to the size of the barns, might have a word with the treasurer.

Club had our big Christmas game this week, this year we went full on medieval, the table was fairly open and each player had a mounted knight, these were let loose to win Honour and Money fighting against other knights they came across or challenged, there were also tents, a stable, church and blacksmith's where bonus' or not could be picked up. My quest was pretty unspectacular as I found nothing in the first tent and after several combats I had to retire to heal my many wounds, I was inches from death. Once healed I came back to find a large, buxom wench holding tankards of beer whom I 'rescued' and escorted off the table earning me some sheckles. On my return I failed miserably to move very far and then found myself at the mercy of Fran and Dan's dismounted men-at-arms and subsequently expelled from the game. No photographs I am afraid, too many kids there, sorry.

The rules were vaguely Hail Caesar and worked very well for the mayhem which raged throughout the evening, everyone enjoyed themselves and we were treated to Julian's excellent mince pies as always. That's it for this year at the club, we have had a very succesful year with the introduction of new games and new members while having to annex another classroom to contain our growing numbers. We have a Curry night booked for 3rd January and then a return to business as usual on the 7th.

Yesterday Ian turned up with his Classical Indian army for a try at War and Conquest, I was commanding my Seleucids which have only seen at most half a dozen battles since I raised them. I knew Ian would have a lot of bamboo longbows and a few elephants and maybe chariots so I was a bit worried about my lack of protection in getting across the table and into hand to hand combat. I decided to go a bit heavy on skirmishers as a shield, Elephant Escorts with javelin, elite Cretan and Skythian archers and a normal unit, backed by two pike blocks, some mercenary hoplites and a light infantry unit of Thorakiti, oh, and an elephant. Ian deployed and had a solid centre of archers, supported by spearmen and a lot of elephants, I noticed many more in his boxes, on his flanks were light and heavy chariots.

Seleucid and his army.

The Indian King.

Deployment.

 I dithered a bit at first but knew I couldn't stand around for long, so sent my whole line forward, my Skythians were cut down but their morale held and they duelled with the light chariots for most of the game. On the other flank my light cavalry charged and cleared the heavy chariots here and eventually managed to turn and hit the Indian left flank. I kept targetting the elephants with my skirmishers before they fell to the torrents of bamboo arrows, I had success with one elephant which routed and expired when the mahout killed it as it approached its own troops, this rout also meant a unit of spearmen also ran for a time.

Damn chariots.

A formidable enemy.

Get stuck in boys.

My hoplites took some severe casualties as they advanced but at last managed to strike their tormentors who simply could not stand up to them in close combat, this was the same story as my pikes also managed to close with the Indian infantry albeit the White Shields took heavy casualties from the archers on their march forward. It could have been worse but my sacrificial skirmishers did their job against all the odds until they were killed to a man.

My hardy Escorts.

 

Take that small fry.

The Seleucid advance.

 As his infantry fled Ian threw in his elephants, the hoplites were caught in the flank and destroyed while the White Shields fought off two elephants, one the Indian Kings mount. The Thorakiti also managed to hold and eventually kill their beast. I now threw my own elephant into the flank of the triumphant Nellie which had routed the hoplites, my larger animal won through. With his last offensive now stopped and routed Ian handed over his sword.

The end for the Indians.

 This was a very interesting game and I think I was lucky in that it was Ian's first game, his army has a formidable weapon with the elephants backed up by scores of archers and the skirmishing chariots if used well can be a frustrating challenge to neutralise. Where the army falls down a bit is that the infantry component have less than average morale although bodyguards and mercenaries are available, so if contact is made they have a struggle to compete against hoplites and pikes. I felt outnumbered as the Seleucids are an expensive army and was forced into going forward and into close combat as fast as I could, something I would not normally do unless the circumstances are right. Ian also managed some superb shooting dice which sadly, for him, did not continue over to his melee rolls. It was great to fight a WAC battle again and against such an interesting army, I do hope we can do so again as Ian has several ancient armies at his disposal.

That was the last battle for 2024, I have put everything else including map projects on hold until after new Year, I do have those buildings to paint up but that's it. I will do a rerun of the year as usual later. January already has around four games scheduled for here in The Bunker so I will be off to a flying start.

A nice gift from David Bickley, 2025 Calendar from GHQ.

Konigsberg 6 and stuff

 Mate Jimi asked about Star Wars Legion but got no replies so I offered a game of X-Wing, what a headache that turned out to be. I had to dig out my squad builder and repopulate it with all the ships I actually had so I could print out a list, two lists actually as Jimi was completely new to the game. I put several hours aside to do this only to find out as I tried to put a Rebel and Imperial force together before heading to the club that I had lost all the V2 dials. It would seem I had thrown them out while moving everything I had into The Bunker, typical me. I jury rigged ships for the game minus the Milenium Falcon as I could not find a dial for it nor a stand, what a mess with only ten minutes to go. Then, after a tip from the missus I found all the dials!

So we settled in at the club with Jimi not having a clue and me not much better after several years of the game sitting in boxes. Jimi took the Rebels and I was the evil Empire, of course I was. The good guys had three X-Wing's and an A-Wing while I 'flew' Tie's, two Interceptors and four Fighters, the game was maybe unbalanced as my ships had no shields and the Rebels had better points values and shields. As we wrestled with the game we made the obligatory whoosh and laser fire noises while playing the theme from the movie on our phones, it was a laugh. Experience won out and two of the Rebels hit the stardust while I lost an Interceptor.

I went away with a renewed interest in the game despite being one of the worst star pilots in the galaxy and a quest to find the missing dial for the Falcon (now sorted thanks to eBay). Jimi went away to buy into the game, much of which is still available online. As time passes it will be harder to do but for now a patient search can reveal treasure.

Club was busy again with Midgard and Hail Caesar with three lovely games, Ancients and Dark Ages neither of which are my cup of Rosy but the guys were having a ball, especially Ed who was umpiring a beautiful looking game which I forgot to photograph of course.

Back to Bolt Action V3 this week, Operation Barbarossa at the club, I was the bad, bad guys while Simon was the bad, good guys. I decided to go all realistic this time, the heaviest tank I had was a Pz III along with a Pz II and a 5 cm anti-tank gun, and for a first I brought two halftracks and a tow truck. Simon was mainly Soviet infantry backed by his KV2 monster.

I was a bit late so we just set up a table with three objectives, a hill, house and a bridge. I ran my halftracks forward for the two flank objectives and of course reached them before the Russians, most of my strength was on the flanks especially the right where the bridge was. In the centre I sat a squad supported by the Pz III with an idea to eventually contest the centre objective in the house, but if not I had the other two. The KV-2 missed with its first shot and was very disappointing during the rest of the game as well, it did manage a hit which could have taken out my AT gun but failed to kill the crew. Meanwhile I was shooting up the Russian infantry with my small veteran squads.

The boys make a rush for the bridge.

The monster arrives.

My 'heavy' turns up.

As casualties mounted and initiative dice were lost it was obvious the Soviets could not win, we shook hands and called it done. Obviously I enjoyed the game although I am still not sure if V3 is much better than V2, I think if you are happy with V2 then keep the £35 for something you really need.

Today I was back on the Eastern Front but in the dying weeks as the Konigsberg garrison tried to break out. By now both sides had lost figures, the Soviets slightly less than the Germans but enough to cut down some of their firepower. I had some nice support points and again took the T-34/85, two MMG's and a mortar, I was looking to bring a lot of lead to the party. Matt had recruited a Volksturm squad and a Pz IV along with an MMG for support.

Making use of my new snow mat.

I had a hard time building up my firing line as my command dice were basically useless, Matt managed to hide in the one building on his side of the table and bring on his tank, my one squad started to take hits despite their entrenchments. I managed to get several double turns but still struggled to get troops on the table. Once I did manage it was only one squad and my tank, I was still outgunned. Things seemed to pick up as I shot up the MMG in the upper storey of the house, but again my squads were slowly being shot up while my tank could not hit a barn door. The Pz IV managed several times to hit the T-34 and killed the gunner but never enough to cause serious damage, I eventually had to pull the tank back hoping the replacement gunner could eventually manage to hit something, unlike his dear departed mate.

Useless tank, I think the gunner was dead from the start.

A similarly unimpressive panzer.

Those sandbags will save us Comrades!

I now managed to get all my troops on and although I dealt death out to one squad in particular I was losing the dice battle as my squads were whittled down. I was also unlucky in that when I had to take a morale check they were particularly bad and my morale plunged, Matt on the other hand rolled low scores and only lost one morale point. I was torn between withdrawing my remaining two squads into cover and leaving things to the two MMG's and my tank but being down to four dice and suffering heavy casualties I simply withdrew.

Oh no they didn't!

Soviet thin brown line.

Punished but not enough.

We have not played a back and fro game in Phase B and have just played the different maps, this means the Germans are not able to make the victory points needed to win. Maybe we should have gone on but we have now been playing quite regularly despite health problems for a year so I think we will be happy to play one final game. The campaign is a good one but it needs work, many of the maps are simply far too open to provide any incentive to manouvre and they turn into a firefight and who throws best wins. I would also say that the support points are skewed, the German garrison, cut off from supplies gets more support points than the Russians encircling them with decent lines of communication. The Victory Points table begins at 10, the Germans have to get this down to Zero, a very difficult task with the campaign in its present form. Anyway, we have one more game which will now have to wait until after the hullaballo dies down in January, we both have little faith the Russian defenders can win this, cut to ribbons as they are and with only a few fruit trees to hide behind.

A thought jumped into my head about weathering powders, I have always thougth some of my later German three colour camo looked a bit too bright, even after drybrushing and weathering, so I bit the bullet and ordered up some Light Dust by Ammo. I had looked online and a lot of these pigments need 'anchored' with white spirit or some such, I didn't want that hassle and saw one example where the pigment was simply brushed on, that's for me Tommy I thought. The product arrived and I set too, I was more than pleased and there is enough dust in the bottle to last more than two lifetimes, and if it comes off in play then I just brush on more, the effect was even better on the panzer grey of my early war stuff, they now look like they are rushing along French roads in the summer of '40. Brushing the rest of my collection will take a while so that is my project for December.

With and without dust.

Ditto.

I have just finished Ben MacIntyre's new book on the Iranian Embassy Siege and the emergence of the SAS into the nation's and the world's consciousness. As the siege wears on the tension in the book rises as you know what's coming, what you don't know is the why and how it happened, I certainly learned a lot. Highly recommended. As there is still a bit to go before Christmas I have a void before, I might, get the books and graphic novels I have asked for, so until then I opted for a book on the German invasion of Poland in '39. It is something I know almost nothing about except that Polish cavalry did not charge panzers and rumours that the Poles put up a good fight and the Germans were not as brilliant as they made out, we will see. One thing I have always been curious about is that if we went to war for the Poles why didn't we declare war on the Soviets who also invaded the country?

I think that is it for now, my War and Conquest game was delayed until next Friday, next week at the club is the AGM and the Christmas Game and hopefully the Cumbrian Chef's mince pies. Maybe I will get a game over the Holiday period and maybe I will just sit and chill.

One last parting shot in this mad world, the army has a Climate Change and Sustainability Officer and they are looking at, wait for it, electric vehicles. Considering getting to the other end of the country in one involves an amount of planning second only to D-Day, where do you find them on a battlefield?