Pirate project

I enjoy painting figures, the more colourful the better, and I don’t necessarily have any immediate plans to use them. Such figures tend to sit in a display case for a few months, hopefully being admired by friends, before either being packed away or sold on. Some figures (e.g. the Asterix range produced by Metal Magic, see below) I have a strong attachment to and I cannot bring myself to part with, even though I can never see myself gaming with them. Others prompt me, often after many years, to investigate possible rules to use them with. A good example would be my AWI/FIW Willie figures, who now get regular usage playing Muskets and Tomahawks (see an earlier blog post).

I have a large collection of Wargames Foundry pirates that were given to me as ‘payment’ for a painting commission I undertook for a friend (a Mycenean/Trojan Wars army if I recall correctly, with an awful lot of bare flesh on display). The pirate figures are full of character and I really enjoyed painting them up. I used the same colour schemes as the figures shown on the Wargames Foundry website and think they came out rather well.

There are still roughly 50 more miniatures in the range that I do not possess, so maybe this can be a new project for 2015 i.e. to have the ‘complete’ collection. I have looked at other manufacturers of pirate figures, especially Black Scorpion which are really nice, but they do not look compatible with those of Wargames Foundry.

I have always known that pirates are very usable in a gaming sense, and I have bought a few sets of rules to get these figures on the table. I have read these rules, and even produced QRS and tokens for them, but something else has always cropped up and they’ve never been played. I am a bit of a ‘Magpie’ gaming-wise; attracted to shiny, new figures, rules and periods so that I start projects and often never see them to completion. I now have time to revisit some of these incomplete projects and see if they are still viable.

Therefore I intend trying out the piratical rules I currently possess: Legends of the High Seas (Tim Kulinski. Games Workshop, 2008), Cutlass! (Gav Thorpe & Adam Clarke. Black Scorpion, 2011), and the recently published On The Seven Seas (Chris Peers. Osprey, 2014). I think I’m looking for a fast paced game that has lots of character, more Hollywood than history, is free of significant book-keeping, and does have some command/leadership elements. I’m only focussing on land (or boarding) actions with 10-25 figures per side. I’m not interested in ship-to-ship naval actions, at least from a pirate view point, because this is best covered by historic Napoleonic Naval rule sets. If anyone reading this post has any suggestions for other rules, or any recommendations, then please add a Comment.

Flames of War?

Last Saturday (15 Nov 2014) I went to the Warfare show in Reading. I try to attend this show every year because it provides an ideal opportunity to stock my lead pile prior to the approaching festive period. This year my shopping requirements were heightened due to the cancellation of the September show, Colours. As usual I met up with my long time gaming friend, Graham, who was playing in the Flames of War (FoW) competition. Graham is a keen competition gamer who has focussed on FoW for a few years now and I have seen him play many times. Clearly FoW are a set of rules he very much enjoys and I find it strange that this set of rules has never truly grabbed my attention. My feelings towards FoW are ambivalent, which is strange because most gamers seem to either love or hate them, with little in between. I hope by writing this post I can perhaps clarify my thoughts and move towards solving the conundrum posed by FoW.

I should state that I have all 3 versions of the rules and many of the supplements, most of which I bought via ‘Bring and Buy’ stalls. I think these purchases were worth buying if only for the eye-candy they contain; many excellent photos of figures and vehicles, short background articles and OOB’s.  I have also been moved to buy and paint 2 matched armies (mid-war DAK and 8^th Army), but they have only been used 3-4 times and spend their life in boxes under my wargames table. Why is this? Why doesn’t FoW appeal to me in the way it clearly does to many others? Or should the question be re-phrased, why was I motivated by FoW to spend money on these armies?

I think I will start by examining what I see as the significant positives about FoW. They are beautifully presented publications that certainly hooked me and prised open my wallet a few times. I suspect there are too many supplements and they are now going into diverse areas (WW1, Vietnam etc.), which is strange considering there are still many WW2 theatres not covered (I am thinking especially of the Pacific war). The rules themselves are clearly written and have simple basic mechanics. This is not to say that the rules are simple because there are numerous unit, weapon, nationality etc. specific rules and modifications that tailor an army’s performance to their historical counterparts. How well this is achieved I will not comment on here because of limited space and time! There is a strong element of luck within the game, but FoW is not a dice-fest and after watching many competitive games I think I can appreciate the skill and knowledge that players display. In fact I think the luck element has a huge positive impact on the competitive wargaming scene. Competitive FoW players seem to have more fun than other competitive gamers; they laugh more, they realise that the dice gods can undermine the best of plans, they accept defeat more gracefully, and pick themselves up to go again. I do find it disturbing how many competitive FoW players can reel off weapon stats and points values from memory and argue about whether taking a PaK40 platoon represents value or not! I’m sure I would drive them crazy, slowing down play by constantly referring back to lists. They don’t even seem to require a QRS to play! The next major positive about FoW is more general: As a whole I think FoW armies are some of the best painted and modelled miniatures that can be seen within the competitive wargaming environment. Walking around the other wargame competitions I am always shocked about how varied the quality of armies are: some are good but a surprising number are poor (partly painted and bashed figures, temporary basing, and even occasionally unpainted figures). FoW gamers seem to take pride in their collections and take any opportunity to add vignettes to boost the character of their force. I also like the more obscure forces (Hungarian, Finnish etc.) frequently fielded by players, and any rules that encourages players to use early war French or Italian armies should be commended. I do think that Battlefront miniatures are over-priced and this has certainly deterred me from jumping into FoW with more enthusiasm. Another aspect of FoW I really appreciate are the different missions available. They shift gamers away from the bland meeting engagement and enable more varied, challenging scenarios to be played out. Even though I’m not a FoW player I do use the different missions with other gaming rules.

With all these positives, what puts me off using FoW? There are some problems with the mechanics. Some players have commented that FoW is merely a WW2 version of 40K. I have never played 40K so cannot say if this is correct (or even if this is a bad thing!) but I do feel there are some basic omissions and problems. There is no overwatch mechanic which strikes me as bizarre and would have been easy to correct with little added complexity for the game system. The bailing/remounting mechanic is understandable from a game perspective but it is funny having tank crews acting like demented jack-in-the-box characters. I have frequently seen players using massed tanks moving bumper-to-bumper like formation dance teams. Tanks seem able to perform amazing feats of driving agility such as turning on a sixpence in narrow lanes, all the while maintaining perfect formation. Having artillery on-table when they should be miles to the rear (scalability has always been a bugbear for rules authors but this is taking it to the extreme). Then scattering your artillery battery across the whole baseline rather than keeping it as a coherent formation. It appears the primary role for air defence units is frontline ground attack close support. I could go on and on, and I’m sure other gamers would refute each and every point I raise, but from my perspective FoW does not simulate WW2 tactics/action well. I have no personal military or combat experience to base this assertion and it is merely a reflection of my reading of accounts and histories. It fact, it can be argued (correctly in my opinion) that no wargame rules come close to accurately simulating combat in any period of history, but I feel FoW is a poorer simulation than other WW2 rules on the market.

To conclude, FoW is not for me. I am glad FoW exists and that so many gamers enjoy playing. It has re-invigorated WW2 gaming and has brought many new gamers in to the fold. It has improved the painting and modelling standards within the competitive gaming community. Long live Flames of War...but can I play another, different game, please? (Now I will put my steel helmet on, go to ground, dig in and await the flak. Let’s hope my opponent has not invested in combat engineers with flamethrowers!).

Thoughts on Firy and Fury rules

The American Civil War (ACW) is one of the main conflicts gamed by wargamers worldwide. Unsurprisingly there are a plethora of rules available and I seem to have bought many of them; some good, some bad. I am currently involved in a mini-campaign using Longstreet by Sam Mustafa (Honour, 2013) and I will cover these rules, and my thoughts on them, when I write the next AAR in the campaign series. I used to enjoy playing ACW using the 2^nd edition of Johnny Reb (John Hill, 1988), but strangely my interest in these rules dropped when the 3^rd edition (1996) was released, even though I cannot recall ever using the new edition! The ‘go to’ set of ACW rules for me has always been Fire and Fury (Richard Hasenauer, 1990). I feel they provide a fast flowing game using easy to understand rules. The players can play the whole game using the 2-sided A4 QRS and rarely need to refer to the main rule book, whose production qualities remain high even after so many years. Some gamers have felt the need for a bit more depth in terms of weapon variation etc., and have criticised the brigade unit structure, preferring a lower level, regimental structure game. With this in mind another rule set, ‘Regimental Fire and Fury’ has been published (Richard Hasenauer, 2010). Although I brought this new version of the rules, I have never played them because I don’t feel the basic game requires the changes or additions made.

Fire and Fury, although excellent, does have a few problems. Recreating historical battles using defined OOB’s are well covered in two supplements: Great Eastern Battles (1996) and Great Western Battles (1992). The main rulebook does explain how to convert a historic OOB into the game format and this is great if you wish to refight a given battle, but ‘pick-up’ games pose a problem because the rules do not cover randomised army generation, terrain placement or victory conditions.

By searching online I have found a number of Random Unit Generation mechanics that all seem to work well, but I found one site that gave 20 roughly balanced OOB’s for the Union and Confederate armies that were of the right size for my games. This was ideal, but unfortunately I have lost the link so I cannot give the credit due to the author. I have printed these OOB’s out on business cards, and now I simply roll a pair of D20 dice to determine the composition of each army. A D6 is then rolled for each brigade and divisional commander, and any score of ‘6’ makes him ‘exceptional’ in quality.

To generate terrain I utilise the campaign cards for ‘Swamp Fox’ produced for the ‘John Bull/Patriots’ rules written by the excellent Perfect Captain group (perfectcaptain.50megs.com). These can be downloaded for free and printed out, and they allow me to randomly select many typical North American battlefields. So far, I have never drawn the same card twice, so have never fought on the same terrain twice. The basic terrain set up follows that shown on the card with a few changes (e.g. adding a bridge on unfordable rivers, or adding a railway track). The battlefield then has some snake rail fences added to enhance the overall feel.

The biggest challenge remains the game end and victory conditions. To determine the game end I am trialling a ‘countdown’ mechanism frequently employed in rules published by the RFCM (Rules For the Common Man) group. At the end of each Confederate turn a D6 is rolled and the score subtracted from a starting value (I’m currently using a value of 21). When the score reaches ‘0’, the game ends. Using this method the game length is uncertain, but will average 6 turns. I am finding this a bit too short so I may increase the start value to 30 or more. This is because combats tend to take a few turns to resolve with charges and counter-charges occurring to control objectives and terrain features. Units get ground down rather than routing and disintegrating. The approach of a defined game end does pressurise players to press their plans forward more vigorously and prolonged firefights are far less common. At the end of the game, players tot up their victory points as shown in the table below:

+1	Each enemy infantry/cavalry stand destroyed
+5	Each enemy artillery stand destroyed
+5	Each enemy commander killed/wounded
+5	Each friendly brigade that is still ‘fresh’
-5	Each friendly brigade that is now ‘spent’
-5	Each friendly artillery stand that is now ‘wrecked’
+5	Each friendly brigade located in the original enemy deployment zone
+10	Each objective marker taken and held at game end
+5	Each friendly cavalry brigade that has left via the enemy table edge

I have yet to correlate the difference in score with a descriptor of the scale of victory because I have played too few games using the system. Also the victory points for objectives may change.

If any readers of this have any comments or suggestions about my ideas, then I would gratefully appreciate input.

AAR; Greek Hoplites (Athens) v Thracian (Impetus)

Both armies in this game were supplied by Ian and comprised 500 points using 15mm figures. Unfortunately I forgot my camera and my mobile was out of juice, so I have no photos of the game but have included a photo of my own Greeks instead (Ian’s are far better painted!). Again the rules to be used were Impetus (Lorenzo Sartori; Dadi&Piombo, 2008). My opponent, Ian, commanded the Thracians whilst I took on the Athenians. The two armies would like different terrain set ups; the Thracians would want a cluttered centre and open flanks, whereas the Greeks would prefer an open centre and blocked flanks. I threw to be the defender, so I could place the terrain and secured my right flank with a river, kept the centre open (a couple of gentle hills) and put some rough terrain on the left flank. Ian modified the terrain by moving a wood into my central deployment zone.

I deployed my two hoplite based commands in the centre, with my right flank anchored on the river. My left flank command had my peltasts and 2 cavalry units. Ian deployed his cavalry-heavy command on his left flank, against the river and opposite my hoplites, whilst his 2 peltast commands faced my centre and left flank. Ian’s deployment did surprise me because I expected his cavalry to be positioned on the other, open flank where it could manoeuvre more freely. Both sides had 2 fair generals and 1 expert general.

In the opening moves I rapidly advanced my forces to enable my hoplites to gain the gentle hills to their front. At this point I could have halted and let the Thracians attack me. All the Thracians were javelin armed and remaining stationary would have let them whittle me down, so instead I decided to push forwards and force the issue, thereby retaining the initiative. On my left flank my peltasts were only slightly outnumbered but they did have cavalry support. My cavalry (and general) charged, destroyed some skirmishers and broke a unit of Thracian peltasts, whilst the other peltast units of both sides gradually wore each other down. Ian’s opposing command was close to breaking and his camp was vulnerable to my cavalry breakthrough. Elsewhere on the battlefield, various skirmish units had been lost on both sides, and my hoplites had forced the Thracian cavalry to evade back and was about to engage with the central Thracian peltast command. Some casualties had been taken from incoming javelins and a hoplite unit was destroyed when it managed to engage some Thracian medium cavalry (an ominous sign of things to come!). Time had passed and although one of Ian’s commands was shaky, both armies still seemed to be strong. This game looked to be heading for a solid, timed-out draw. We still had time for one final turn. Ian’s light cavalry moved forward to unleash a hail of javelins again, but this time a hoplite unit broke and others took significant casualties. Ian then launched his medium cavalry who took out another couple of hoplite units. My right hand command suddenly was broken, and due to the few other units lost from the other commands, my whole army dropped below its break point. A shock Thracian win!

This result came right out of the blue! In less than 10 minutes I had moved from a nailed-on honourable draw to defeat: Why? The Thracian victory was down to their cavalry; the combination of javelin armed light cavalry slowly nibbling away at my troops and evading from contact, working with surprisingly strong medium cavalry who packed a heavy punch when launched at the right time. I don’t think my decision to advance beyond the hill line was incorrect, the small advantage the hills offered was not worth the loss of tactical initiative that would have resulted from a static tactic. I was pleased with the attack by my left flank and if it had broken the opposing Thracians a turn or two earlier then I think I could have won the day.

Regarding luck: Ian improved his generals twice (one going to ‘Genius’ level) whereas one of mine dropped a level. Recently Ian seems to be throwing good scores and, for example, in this game he fired with a unit rolling six D6 requiring scores of ‘6’ to hit and he threw five ‘6’s (what are the odds of that?)! My dice rolling continues to be bad and early in the game I had to use two ‘Fate’ bonuses to re-roll bad scores. I have therefore decided to ‘retire’ the yellow set of dice I normally use and replace them with others who have been waiting their chance to shine.

This game was my fourth successive loss! The next match will involve a couple of new rule sets for quick games: Jugular (gladiatorial combat) and DBAv3 (using a range of armies based around 1066).