Scenarios for Wargames revisited

 Over the last year or two a group of us at the Dorchester club have been playing a good deal of Black Powder and Hail Ceaser games - many using our now vintage collections. Enough to provide some tactical challenges, and to keep us amused for 2 or 3 hours, often at the premises of Entoyment in Poole. Here we can rent a table and get basic refreshments, and of course add yet more figures and scenery to our stockpiles. 

Up until now we have played encounter battles using competition style table set ups. Fine games they have been. But.  We are getting a little jaded and need to sharpen our tactical nous from time to time and so at Chris's suggestion our latest game was based upon CSG's Teaser 16 - Reinforcements in defence. 

The Prussians were holding a ridgeline somewhere south east of Brussels - probably not far from Ottigny. they had a brigade of infantry supported by 2 batteries and an attached Dragoon regiment. Marching to their support was a British force consisting of a mixed cavalry brigade and an infantry brigade with 2 batteries of RA 6pdrs. Attacking was a small french Corps consisting of a Division of two strong brigades of infantry, and a Cavalry Division comprising Dragoon brigade and a Light Cavalry brigade. Whilst the Infantry had about 3 batteries their was no horse artillery. The rules used were Black Powder 2, because we wanted to see how effective they were in thos smaller battle setting.  I have to say that they provided us with a reasonable result in a game lasting about 6 turns.  The scenario allowed for 12 turns for the French to seize the ridge line. 

The infantry advanced - well one brigade did, the second kept on misunderstanding its orders and so only moving at a snails pace because it was in attack column. The french cavalry was sent on a flank manoeuvre intending to turn the open right flank of the Prussians. Partly their move was obscured by a wood, and they had not seen that the Prussian Dragoons were supporting the flank.  The French charged, countercharged by the Dragoons who were initially pushed back by the superior numbers.  However the French followed up too far and were defeated in the second round. The arrival of British Light Dragoons in the nick of time provided support to the Prussians and the French Dragoons broke - throwing 4 on the reaction table. Aggressive handling of the Allied cavalry saw the French Division driven from the field.  Meanwhile the first french infantry brigade stormed forward and attacked the Prussian line. Only to be shot to a standstill by the Fusiliers supported by a battery of guns. Since the second French Brigade were still in a mess no help was forthcoming.  It was left to provide a rear guard whilst the French reorganised beyond the baseline.  All in all a sharp and enjoyable action - unless you is French of course!  But they will no doubt have their revenge another day. 

Mark's Little Soldiers

 I have rather bought into the concept of Faux Nostalgia since Mr Copplestone first started to talk about his Little Soldiers. In recent years with the emphasis being on ever more realistic figures and complex diorama style games I confess that some of the joy of gaming has gone out of my hobby.  Yes I have still enjoyed games and many have been inspiring (expensive) and thought provoking (expensive and involving the purchase of books) but somehow the playful element has been missing.  I remember knocking bits of scenery up from ripped up sponges dipped in green paint, old cornflake packests and chunks of balsa. 5 minutes later the |Airfix figures were swarming over them. 

So these simple, well proportioned and elegant figures have been a joy to paint, the only delay is in completing the infantry organisations and that will depend on release 2 and the choice of rules. 

I have opted for the Panovians and the Slovskans.  The Berglanders are too obviously germanic for me and the the objective is to field some small nations that fell out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

They have however been swept into my own alternate version of the 1930s that perhaps owes much to the style of the film Grand Hotel Budapest, the Sally Lockheart novels of Philip Pullman, and the wonderful and half remembered BBC Puppet Theatre programme of the 50s and 60s Rubovia. Here the King and Queen dressed in the style of Queen Anne, lived in a Heath Robinson equipped palace and were followed everywhere by the pet dragon "Pongo". 

So Not Panovia is now Rubovia (thanks BC), and Not Slovkia is Raskavia (thanks Philip Pullman) and I can even place them in the world with the help of the The Writer's Map, a useful book edited by Huw Lewis-Jones. 

Painting was intially quite fast. The figures cleaned really easily and were given an undercoat and base coat with a suitable olive green for the Rubovians, and a olive violet drab for the Raskavians. 

The high command, artillery and MGs for the Robovians look like this;

Those for the Raskavians will take a little longer, I am concentrating on one side at a time. 

The Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Camp

 Tuesday last saw a visit to the Signals Museum at Blandford. I have been meaning to go for a long while but as with all things on ones doorstep as one can always go one never quite gets round to it.  

My cousin was eager to come along. His father had served in the Signals - 12th Air Detachment.  Their job was air liaison and they had need of GPO telephone engineers to manage the necessary land lines.  

The museum is interesting, especially for me the early part of the history of signalling in the British Army. One summer when I was about 12 my Great Uncle Son who had been an Engineer signaller in the 1st world war taught me semaphore and morse by flag.  We used to send across the valley from his home in East Haddon to my Grandparents' house in Ravensthorpe.  So the early telegraph systems and the admiralty version.  The wiring carts were interesting that were used to lay cables between telephone systems. Laid at the gallop with an out rider spooling the wire off the drum using a modified lance - well the video alone was worth the price of admission.

It was interesting too to see the development of the radio car, from a 1935 Austin 7 through to the vehicle radios and integrated command networks of today.  The set up of a Dorchester ACV in desert bivouac put things in place, as did the more modern Austin Truck. However after a while radios become black poxes with nobs on, or today sophisticated computers nestled into black rubber boxes to allow rough handling. 

Enough, some pictures

An admiralty pattern shutter telegraph from the Napoleonic wars

A wiring trolley from WW1 used to lay land lines.  These needed to be laid six feet deep so there was much digging.

Trench art; a chess set made from bullets and shell cases.

A 19thC heliograph

An early 20th C harness for a horse or Mule back "portable" radio.

A mock up of a telephone exchange in the trenches.

One of the Centre pieces of the WW2 exhibit, a Dorchester ACV

n Austin 7 Radio car from the 1930s. The first vehicle born radio system in the British Service

Portable Radios for the SOE - and Michelle of the resistance of course. 

Mule or Horse born set from the early 20thC  complete with its harness

 

And parked next to a Jeep a hand pulled radio cart which I think were used at the batttalion net level. One just stabilised using the drop doan stands at either end, and then put up the antennae. 

Slightly dark but this is a WW1 Horse drawn wiring cart that was probly pretty constant from the 1880s. Effectively a limber with the cart behind it  See the comments above. 

And finally round off your visit with a nice cup of NAAFI tea. The cafe was good if with a limited choice of food. And situated about halfway around the Museum at a convenient point, as it were. 

A Grand Day Out

Finally. I went to the first War Games Show since I retired in 2019.  Legionary, run by Exmouth Imperials club. It was held in the livestock centre in Exeter.

|A small show with about a dozen or so games, and about the same number of traders. 

There were a couple of Wars of the Roses fights, Blore Heath and I think Hexham.  The first to some home made rules that had been massaged to take account of the peculiar circumstances of the battle, and the other to Never MInd the Billhooks.  Both look to have been good games and were moving at a fine pace with obvious enjoymnet by the participants.  Noth Devon had put on a Napoleonic Naval game at fleet scale. They were using the TooFatLardies Kiss Me Hardy! rules. The models were from Warlord Black Seas series, but mounted on clear plastic bases. The painting was super.  At the other end of the scale was a group who had set up a game of Epic Waterloo.  The figures were unpainted and the scenery was basic to say the least. But that was the point of the game.  To show that you can have a great game and huge enjoyment without all of the painting and preparation many of us go in for. It was certainly engaging the familes who had come to the show, and reminded me of the games with unpainted Airfix figures that were so much part of my growing up. 

Anyway - a few pictures;

 I rather liked the two small participation skirmish games. Small tables and the scenery were card buildings. Simple and effective. 

A lot of work had gone into the WW1 Game which depicted 2 French Battalions attacking a German trench. 2 Battalions versus 1.  The game's creator was most enthusiastic and was thinking to publish the rules.  His scale was 1 figure to 3 men, and Battalion or Brigade level games.  I could not help but think that such games would be quite stale after a few games.  WW1 is one of those genres where less is more in terms of decision making. At platoon or company level, or at the highest level where one is effectively dealing with logistical matters and artillery.

I did like the 1940 game with the crashed Dornier.  The Walmington on Sea platoon was very much in evidence.

G