Urrgghhh

And then - appropriately, given my preferred periods of 18th Century and Colonials - came the plague.

I'm slowly recovering from a couple weeks of bronchitis. About five of my coworkers also came down with different things the first week, but it wasn't all the same - one had RSV, another Covid, etc. I've been back to work for a week but my voice hasn't improved yet enough to sing; a problem for a children's storyteller. I did manage to wrangle a three-day weekend, but whether I'll accomplish anything with it remains to be seen. I spent the sick week watching - but not imitating - painting videos.

I bought Helion's You Have to Die in Piedmont! when it appeared in ebook form, so I have that to read.

Of course, two days later Helion had a
Bank Holiday sale...

I'm still waiting on an order from the FLGS of the Kill Team starter set and thinking about Kings of War Champions. The latter appeals to me as it is "rank-and-flank" drained to the dregs, with single-base units and no morale rules (so that regiments simply disappear when they lose a combat).

Before going home yesterday I printed out some Color-Your-Own crusader/Rus knights and infantry Paperboys; I am thinking of making singular units with them for basic games. They have a Brettonian feel to them and I will try to reproduce some fictional heraldry, with Staedtler pens.

I am forced to admit that my "closet of shame" has pushed its way out into my bedroom, to the point at which I'm finding it difficult even to play small solo games:

I've just committed myself to run a Charge! demo at Krieg Haus sometime in the next few months, so I really need to either clean this off or at least play something on it already.

Then there's the painting backlog.

Yeah.

Well, hobbies are just that, something to relax with rather than bother you. Have I taken that too much to heart over the years? At least I have a few things to work towards. See you soon, hopefully in less than a month...

Still going slow

I'm posting at a much slower pace these days. Even the "edge" of wargaming is mostly out of my mind, and it's only now I've built up enough to make a post out of. 

Got hold of some daylight bulbs, but only one of them fits my three available lights. Shall have to go back and get smaller ones for the light over my desk.

Picked up these old classics. No idea
what I'll do with 'em, but nice to have.

Messed about with the 40K 10th edition
starter set. The rules aren't actually quite
the same as the Space Marine board game;
the latter are a bit more complex. This one
is simplified enough that the sides are
surprisingly even.

Watched a not-so-good film with some very good actors, Q Planes from 1938 and starring Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier. It's actually a comedy, though this isn't immediately obvious. It's a spy thriller with sci-fi elements and some classic planes - good fodder for VBCW.

Picked up some ancient paperbacks from the local dusty used bookshop:

• The Prince Commands by Andre Norton - a Ruritanian romance with a good combat scene. Again, some fun inspiration for VBCW.
• Ranks of Bronze by David Drake - another classic I'd never read. A Roman legion is sold into slavery to an alien merchant combine. Makes me want to look up his Raj Whitehall and Belisarius series.
• A US Boy Scout manual from 1948. 500+ pages, should be fun.
• A history of the Battle of Leyte Gulf published in 1947. I never did read Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, so I look forward to learning more about the Battle off Samar.
• A first edition Games Workshop Fellowship of the Ring rulebook, complete with card miniatures (!) folded inside the back cover. A throwback to a time of more attractive rulebooks from GW.

Also reading The Bletchley Riddle, a recent children's mystery.

Ordered a Kill Team starter set to supplement my 8th edition 40K collection.

Finally, while at an action-figure store (who I need to send a list of stuff I'm hunting for), I spotted and snagged a set of Enterprise-D blueprints for a mere $20.

So no gaming (other than getting paid every week to lose badly at chess), but plenty to chew on. See you next time.

Second Battle of Not-Yet-Melbourne

In the eleventh week of our 16th-century campaign, the GM is a little frustrated that we're not all paying attention to the strategic moves. This has led to fewer battles. Sunday's was the first at which members of all three factions (Spanish, native, and pirate/non-Spanish-European) were present.

The field of battle - a bit inland, but with plenty of cover.

The rules this time were Tactical Combat rather than Firelock; I'm not sure why, as the latter is specifically designed for the period. They worked well enough, though.

The opposing sides:

These represent about three times their number of actual troops. The Spanish differ by having six horsemen and two guns; the natives had a handful of pirates on hand with a three-pounder of their own. There are about 75 apiece, plus leaders and some war dogs.

Deployment; Spanish at bottom behind the watercourse.

This was a setpiece battle; just set up and go at it until one side or both cried uncle.

My artillery position in the center - 3-pounder right, 6-pounder
and a wall gun to left, war dogs and handler behind.

Cautious advance, pot-shotting Indians with arquebus and crossbow.

To the left, natives advancing on Tom, my partner.

Massive melee between Tom and Jim; like in Warhammer,
if you want to kill someone, best to get into close combat!

War dogs are particularly effective, but a fire-and-forget unit.

While both sides took heavy and mostly equal casualties on the left, my guns exchanged counter-battery fire against the pirate gun on the right. Ultimately, my heavier cannon managed to dismount his three-pounder before my right flank foot (out of mind as the Indians facing me were concentrating more on my guns) managed to advance and charge. I had one horseman double-move (24 hexes!) to charge the gun crew, though, and with the help of advancing infantry killed most of the crew.

The horseman can be seen at lower left before
his death ride; the gun is at the crossroads at top.

After nine turns, honors were about even; we'd both taken about two-thirds casualties. Tom's severe loss in CC was balanced by my canister fire, particularly when Jim's advance was enfiladed by my bigger gun. After some nail-biting - the natives had a fair chance of taking the guns by the 12-turn limit after which one force could retreat if it chose - we agreed that both sides would withdraw.

The dead pools:

Elsewhere in the space, Oriskany Jim and a couple others were playing a "colonial space" game set in the 2600s:

While added to our wall art was a lovely, and big, hand-drawn map of Iwo Jima:

I was inspired by the game to finally get around to "assembling" the same rubber scatter terrain:

Messier than I expected!

Thanks for reading; see you next time.

Still a Long Month

Work hasn't been going great. I am getting tired of Florida. Still not much interested in play when I get home, despite the burgeoning collection. Or maybe it's just my table, crowded high with game boxes that are in the way of actually laying out a board and playing something! (One of the reasons I'm tempted to move is to get a second bedroom and turn that into a proper game room.)

Been doing quite a bit of reading, nearly all milhist. Finished Barbara Tuchman's classic The Guns of August, now working on The Scramble for Africa. Both quite good, but the real reason is I'm trying to clear out my bookshelves a bit, by adding to those of the club. Got a campaign game at Das Krieg Haus this morning, so I will bring some in and put on the shelves.

Hobby-wise, built some Paperboys Romans to go with the Britons, and started on the 10th edition 40K beginner set. The "beginner" rules are exactly the same as those in the Space Marine board game, which means the flame troopers can be led by an officer against a larger Tyranid horde.

Very nice "easy-to-build" figures.

Having built up my 8th edition Nurgle and Space Marine collections, I'm also tempted to pick up the current starter for Kill Team, which has some good character figures as well as (a first for GW) MDF terrain. The FLGS also has a 15% discount on GW and Warlord Games stuff.

Historical gaming? Will have to wait for a clear table! But I am still leaning towards the Athena Charge! Just need to dig back into my Wofun collection and get around to building and organizing the ones I bought last fall.

See you hopefully in a couple days with a battle report.

Closet of shame

 ...

It's been a long month.

I did get a couple games in, but never got around to writing up the report. And work on top of the political situation have made me disinclined to write anything. My "hobby time" has mostly been spent reading and watching Youtube videos. I took the entire last week off work for a staycation, and didn't accomplish anything during it.

I also turned 48 yesterday. A little worrisome.

I may never get around to writing up the report (my showing was pretty poor, mostly due to the campaign situation) but here's a couple representative photos:

Spaniards v. Pirates.

Spaniards scrambling to hold off a swarm of angry natives.

That said, I've collected quite a lot for the proverbial closet of shame:

Five pages of Roman-era Britons. Whether I play with them
doesn't really matter, building them was just so very relaxing.

Also visible is the Kickstarted Port Royal starter set. Yet unbuilt.

I also picked up two other box sets at my FLGS - the Warhammer 40K starter and Starfinder RPG "beginner box." I've been thinking of getting the Kill Team starter too, as the minis match my 8th edition collection. The 40K starter rules are extremely simple, the same as those in the Space Marine box. All three wargame boxes have nice card terrain in them that I'm looking forward to building and using. 

Might be a while before I play anything, though; you can see the mess on my gaming table.

Two other things I brought home from the game a month ago:

Rubber plant, ready to cut into chunks for scatter jungle terrain.

And the Big One...

Mark noted my mood when I spotted this buried in the club's rules library - "Oh my GOD." I never expected to actually find a copy of it. It's Charge! simplified, complete with a miniature QRS on the back cover. I know what I'll be running soon...

Bardia Holds Out - Easily

Our regular game of Tactical Combat today was a vignette of Operation Compass from January 3, 1941, the first action of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force.

The table from the Commonwealth side; ominously open
and overseen from a height.

The Italian western flank.

Eytie defenders setting up.

The hammer - eight Matilda infantry tanks of 7th RTR.

The smaller but plucky Italian armoured corps.

A platoon of 2/7th Australian Battalion, riding in two trucks
and five Bren carriers, supported by a 3" mortar and two portees.

 

The eastern end of the defence, across a wadi. 

We concentrated our forces on the right, where the rows
of barbed wire weren't, but right away had a tank knocked out.

We drove forward, sheltering our infantry behind clouds of dust.

Both sides also had supporting artillery, while the Commonwealth had a preliminary bombardment (which mostly missed) and a Gloster Gladiator (which failed to turn up). We rolled really poorly for much of the game.

A few turns in, we're halfway to the enemy positions, but
are taking casualties, and what are those tokens between us
and the treeline? (Minefields, that's what.) 

Italian cavalry arrives - the defenders don't really need the help.

At this point we had a little luck, by knocking out three of the Italian vehicles and strafing the enemy artillery positions.

This didn't really help much, though.

This is about as far as we got before giving up for the day.

Part of the problem was concentrating our attack, which meant that even missed shots scattered into more of our troops. Part of it was the minefield, which turned out to be empty right in front of the Matildas. Part of it was our opponents' positioning of obstacles, which was professional and intimidating enough to make us try to flank him and run into those mines. And part was our rotten dice luck.                                      

The ruleset is not the culprit; it's an old friend to most of us by now and surprisingly effective at what it tries to do. I still hope to use it to run a VBCW game sometime.

I'm sorry to admit I kinda disengaged from play, letting my partner take over most of the tactics and only occasionally tossing dice or moving an errant unit for him. The relaxed club atmosphere encourages this - another member (having been distracted by car trouble) was fast asleep!

In other news, I put up a diorama of the Battle of Olustee, February 20, 1864, for Black History Month at the library:

Given the current political climate, this may be subversive.

Depicting the rearguard of the 54th Massachusetts at the end of the battle, I intend to add more Confederates and make better smoke. I forgot to borrow some of the pillow stuffing we used for dust in the Bardia game, but maybe I can pick it up this week. See you next time.

Ups and Downs

So, yeah, I didn't make any progress. It started last Sunday night when a pipe burst on the seventh floor of my apartment block. About a quarter of my floor flooded. I rescued a handful of minis boxes sitting on the floor, but spent the next day futilely waiting for an inspection that never came, rather than going to work. Eventually the floor dried and today I got a cleaner in to go over the floor and hopefully stave off any mold.

Spent most of my time reading. Finished a recent biography of Flora MacDonald of 'Forty-Five fame, started on a brief memoir of a US Marine in Vietnam and my first Iain Banks Culture novel, slowly worked my way through Charles Darwin's classic Voyage of the Beagle, and picked up an entire set of Tintin volumes.

That reminds me, I want to 
buy a few of Roly Hermans' paintings.

I did get permission to build a diorama for Black History Month, and have started on a Paperboys depiction of Olustee. Past displays have increased kids' interest in building their own paper models, so with luck I can "spread the love."

Finally, I obtained a copy of the Bolt Action starter set. Took a while, but on the upside it turns out the shop offers a 15% discount on Warlord and Games Workshop kits. That tempted me to pick up an LOTR set, but it'll have to wait. The Bolt Action box is very nice for the cost and even includes a dice bag for its initiative mechanic. The building sprue looks good too. I look forward to assembling this one. With luck, I might be able to get away with doing it at work as well, as I am on the WWII-80th-anniversary committee. The German vehicle in the box is even flat; perfect to go with Paperboys!

So... looking up, I guess. See you next time.