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Arquinsiel posted:Transport For London. With the downturn in travel due to the pandemic they branched out and released Commuter Chaos, a wargame about navigating the post-apocalyptic ruins of London to get to your job in a call centre that nobody ever calls because society has collapsed. I’d back that Kickstarter
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Jul 14, 2021 12:48
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Ensign Expendable posted:I think he's based off of one of the most famous photos of WW2, you can probably find a figure like that in every scale. It would be a fun painting exercise to find a photo or art that gets repeated in mini form and make a display of different scales and brands of one dude Fashionable Jorts posted:It can even suck with people you know well. I've been playing with the same few people for over a decade now, and each one of us has a wildly different idea of what a "reasonable" army is lol There's also the fact that gaming clubs aren't exactly common. Almost every CoC (prolly my favourite game at this point) game I have played has been me providing both sides and pressganging my board-game-liking friends into it. Having some kind of points system really helps with either finding and agreeing with new people, and with providing both sides. My gf paints like, art paintings and has decided to paint some soviets to play against the hungarian army I've long wanted, though. So  (yes i should propose) Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jul 14, 2021 13:06
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My Sash and Saber 7YW Russians finally arrived. Thanks everyone for helping me navigate the blighted landscape of historical miniature websites. First impressions are mixed. 26 mm doesn't seem much larger than 1:72. There are a lot of simplifications (which I assume were necessary to make the casting work). Lots of bayonets came bent, but none are broken. Every figure had a little bit of flash (is it still flash if it's metal?) to clean up, casting seams were generally not bad. Is there anything special I should be aware of when painting metal minis? I normally paint styrene, rarely resin.
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Jul 14, 2021 14:02
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Ensign Expendable posted:My Sash and Saber 7YW Russians finally arrived. Thanks everyone for helping me navigate the blighted landscape of historical miniature websites. Some people like to wash their metal minis with warm soapy water before painting to remove any possible release agent from the surface. I’m of the opinion it’s not really necessary but sometimes do it anyway just to be safe.
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Jul 14, 2021 14:18
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Ilor posted:The Blitzkrieg 1940 supplement for Chain of Command has a rule called "Unreliable Allies" that covers this pretty well, and it's not that they're a no-show, but rather that they might just disappear on you during the middle of the game. I use it for one of my Operation Husky scenarios - the main defending force is an Italian infantry platoon, but one of their supports is a German Pz IV that is classed as an "unreliable ally." Even Bolt Action does something like this to cover low fuel for German tanks in 1945 scenarios. I don't have the exact rule in front of me, but it's something like "every time you move roll a die, on a 6 your Panzer is immobilized."
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Jul 14, 2021 15:28
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Endman posted:I’d back that Kickstarter Edgar Allen Ho posted:My gf paints like, art paintings and has decided to paint some soviets to play against the hungarian army I've long wanted, though. So Ensign Expendable posted:First impressions are mixed. 26 mm doesn't seem much larger than 1:72.
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Jul 14, 2021 16:07
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lilljonas posted:But it's often not the historical situation though. For example, there were like seven StuGs in the entire North Africa campaign, but those StuGs were in the same place. You'd be more likely to win on the lottery than to see one, but if you were at Bir Hacheim, you'd see three at the same time. You could accomplish this with restrictive Army Lists. The generic North Africa Germans list doesn't have any StuGs in it, but the Bir Hacheim list lets you pick up to a platoon. moths posted:I wonder if the Tigers' big, risky investment could be represented with a chance to break down / run out of fuel or ammo before the game - and then just not show up. It would force the German player to risk playing at a deficit if they want to use their invincible super tank. It's just not a good game mechanic. It's basically saying that one or both sides turn up with their points total determined by a dice roll, which means the battle is in many ways decided before it even starts. If you roll well and you get your Tiger platoon on the table it's not going to be any fun for the Allied player, and if you roll poorly and don't get to bring any of your Tigers out you've already lost.
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Jul 14, 2021 18:28
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There's certainly a better way to do it. I like the idea of them being a gamble because it puts the player in an analogous state as the commander - how much do you risk to relying on an unreliable unit? If there's no penalty, everybody will take them. If the penalty is too harsh, nobody will. Maybe you'd pay points for a Tiger but there's a (substantial) chance that an equivalent value of I generally dislike the "roll to run out of gas" type rules - if a vehicle was that low it would certainly have gone dry before the battle.
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Jul 14, 2021 18:59
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You ordered a Tiger battalion, you get a Tiger battalion* * actual count of Tigers in the battalion may vary
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Jul 14, 2021 19:01
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The big problem here is that an evaluation or points system that looks exclusively at how well a tank/plane/whatever performs once it is in combat doesn't present the whole picture - how reliable a vehicle or weapon is, how expensive it was to produce, etc. This tends to unrealistically favor German stuff in WWII games. Once that King Tiger is in a small unit action, it's a lethal beast. In reality, it might well have broken down on the way to the fight, run out of gas, or been shot up by rocket firing Typhoons; if the game doesn't account for this you get an unrealistic view of how good the King Tiger was. This could be solved by having two listed points values. I.e., "Game Points/Historical Points." For example, that King Tiger is (say) 100 points "in the game," but 200 points "historically." A T-34 is (say) 40 points "in the game" and 25 points "historically." Let players pick which they want to use - if they want to play a game as a game alone, they can, if they want a more historical situation that's fine too.
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Jul 14, 2021 19:16
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You could also have them listed at something like 400 points for a guaranteed Tiger, 150 points for a 50% chance at a tiger, and 100 points for a 25% chance it shows up. This would convey the the thing's defining features into your game, which is that it was an unreliable waste of resources that sometimes sometimes paid off. Ensign Expendable posted:You ordered a Tiger battalion, you get a Tiger battalion* Ordering a Tiger battalion and getting a handful of Panzer IV that the Allied veterans will tell their grandchildren were Tigers is extremely on-brand.
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Jul 14, 2021 19:29
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Cessna posted:The big problem here is that an evaluation or points system that looks exclusively at how well a tank/plane/whatever performs once it is in combat doesn't present the whole picture - how reliable a vehicle or weapon is, how expensive it was to produce, etc. I would unironically play a game that forces players to play out an attrition campaign for half an hour before putting models on the board.
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Jul 14, 2021 19:35
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Fashionable Jorts posted:I would unironically play a game that forces players to play out an attrition campaign for half an hour before putting models on the board. 
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Jul 14, 2021 19:42
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Cessna posted:The big problem here is that an evaluation or points system that looks exclusively at how well a tank/plane/whatever performs once it is in combat doesn't present the whole picture - how reliable a vehicle or weapon is, how expensive it was to produce, etc. For all it’s flaws, I really like that ASL depicts the Panther with a rule that says if you try to put it in motion from a stopped state, you have to roll not to wreck the transmission and immobilize it. It makes Panthers troublesome and unreliable even on the tactical, point-balanced battlefield where you’re already assuming it didn’t wreck itself getting to the front.
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Jul 14, 2021 21:37
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moths posted:You could also have them listed at something like 400 points for a guaranteed Tiger, 150 points for a 50% chance at a tiger, and 100 points for a 25% chance it shows up. The idea of buying "tanks" as a points purchase and that means any number of things show up is a good one. You're probably getting StuGs or Pz IVs, but maybe you'll get a king tiger or a hetzer.
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Jul 14, 2021 23:14
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I don't think simulating logistics, attrition, availability and such with random dice rolls at the start of the game is much fun. If I paint a Panther up, put it in my list, and bring it to the game, only to have it not show up because the 16 year old driver busted the gearbox 50 kilometers behind the front, that is going to be a feelbad moment. These games depict what happens in the battle itself, the wider situation is simply out of scope. In that extremely limited context it is fine for the German big cats to be powerful, just make them cost the appropriate amount of points. A game or video game that simulates a campaign or operation on a divisional or army level which encapsulates all that stuff would be rad as hell though. Yeah, German wondertanks are powerful in the fight itself, but have fun managing the logistical headache of four different tank gun calibers, no spare parts, and teenagers wrecking temperamental gearboxes.
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Jul 15, 2021 00:25
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There's nothing fun about not getting to use your toys, but the Tiger's temperamentally is as much part of it as its armor thickness or other attributes. I mean, half of these games include rules for fictions like the Sherman's self-immolation or a Soviet comissars' morale-boosting fratricide. It's downright suspicious when an unreliable resource-pit like the Tiger or the Me262 shows up in-game and performs incongruously flawless. There's messaging there, intentionally or not, and I consider that a valid concern.
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Jul 15, 2021 01:04
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moths posted:There's nothing fun about not getting to use your toys, but the Tiger's temperamentally is as much part of it as its armor thickness or other attributes. I mean, I’m definitely here for late-war Panthers having an armour value determined by random die roll the first time they’re hit to represent poor German metallurgy. But I’m a huge nerd.
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Jul 15, 2021 01:43
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moths posted:There's nothing fun about not getting to use your toys, but the Tiger's temperamentally is as much part of it as its armor thickness or other attributes. Wait, did Shermans not brew up and did Commissars not kill people ever?
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Jul 15, 2021 01:45
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Comissars killing people happened on-par with other officers and NCOs executing "cowards." A lot of Soviet myths come from debriefed nazis echoing propaganda and our own cold war propaganda. The Soviet penal units were particularly horrible, but so were everyone else's. A lot of what happened there has been applied to the rest of the red army. So that's where your "one man gets the rifle, one man gets the ammo" and trigger happy comissar tales originated. Wet stowage of ammo largely fixed the Sherman's issue. They didn't burn any more or less than any other tank after that.
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Jul 15, 2021 02:11
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It's also worth remembering that Commissars were, for the most part, withdrawn from front-line service around the time of (roughly) Stalingrad. After that they served as a sort of unit morale officer. Their main job was to deliver political speeches when the troops were in the rear, and they'd also do things like helping make sure everyone got their mail, etc. The whole image of Soviet Commissars shooting their own troops to motivate them is extremely overstated. Keep in mind that by the later stages of the war the Wehrmacht was more likely to be doing that sort of thing anyway. For example, units called Feldjagers were set up to conduct drum-head trials and shoot or hang anyone suspected of malingering on the spot, and by all accounts they were quite enthusiastic about performing their duties. There were also, post 1943, Nationalsozialistische Fuhrungsoffiziere (NSFO, "National Socialist Leadership Officers") who were tasked with politically indoctrinating the German army.
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Jul 15, 2021 02:27
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It is kinda hosed up how many wildly believed myths of WW2 are out there that are blatant nazi propaganda.
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Jul 15, 2021 02:49
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moths posted:Comissars killing people happened on-par with other officers and NCOs executing "cowards." A lot of Soviet myths come from debriefed nazis echoing propaganda and our own cold war propaganda. So it happened, right, why is it that you called them "fictions" then? Is the issue that the Russians/Sherman users get a negative thing when the Germans don't?
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Jul 15, 2021 03:16
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moths posted:Comissars killing people happened on-par with other officers and NCOs executing "cowards." A lot of Soviet myths come from debriefed nazis echoing propaganda and our own cold war propaganda. The Panzer IV had ammo stuffed into every crevice, stored vertically in unarmoured bins. A penetration of the fighting compartment was pretty much a guaranteed ammunition fire. This was never resolved, but for some reason only the Sherman gets a special rule. Jobbo_Fett posted:So it happened, right, why is it that you called them "fictions" then? Russians/Shermans get a negative thing while the Germans who had the exact same negative thing in greater measure do not.
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Jul 15, 2021 03:33
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Ensign Expendable posted:The Panzer IV had ammo stuffed into every crevice, stored vertically in unarmoured bins. A penetration of the fighting compartment was pretty much a guaranteed ammunition fire. This was never resolved, but for some reason only the Sherman gets a special rule. Right, that poo poo's dumb if the Germans dont get something negative
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Jul 15, 2021 03:37
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Jobbo_Fett posted:So it happened, right, why is it that you called them "fictions" then? The fiction is that it happened enough to be enshrined in rules and represented in every engagement. It'd be like a rule where an Enfield has a chance to blow up and take off a hand. That may have happened to somebody in history, but rolling for it every time conveys the false idea that the Enfield is a dangerous and unreliable weapon. Most of our post-war knowledge of the Soviets (and a lot of what we "knew" about the nazis) came from debriefing nazis, who were parroting propaganda that they're been fed by the party. A lot of that persists today, like the fabricated story about Poles charging tanks on horseback. The party wanted its soldiers to believe the Soviet hordes had no regard for human life, and fed their people the myth about bolshevik hordes attacking in human waves. That tale made it back to us after the war through captured Germans, and still shows up in wargames.
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Jul 15, 2021 04:43
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moths posted:The fiction is that it happened enough to be enshrined in rules and represented in every engagement. It wasn't accidental either. Once the USSR became the enemy of The West, all of this propaganda was convieniently there and ready to use.
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Jul 15, 2021 04:57
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Fashionable Jorts posted:It is kinda hosed up how many wildly believed myths of WW2 are out there that are blatant nazi propaganda. "The Polish cavalry charged Nazi tanks with lances" is another example of pure Nazi propaganda often accepted as fact.
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Jul 15, 2021 14:03
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Jobbo_Fett posted:So it happened, right, why is it that you called them "fictions" then? Commissars shooting people happened almost never, as they were political officers whose job was mainly to boost morale. They tended, being humans not mindless asiatic horde drones, to boost morale by other means. Most died fighting the nazis. Meanwhile cities like Kölln and Berlin were littered with the lynched and rotting corpses of old men and children who deserted Hollywood rules are alright. It's fun to model and paint artillery pieces so fine, put them on the table if that's the game you're going for. But the mindless hordes and blocking battalions vs PRUSSIAN BLUT UND EISERN UND KRUPPSTAHL is not good, because it's a thing that still affects people to this day. e: like I lost most of my family in the Shoah and my gf lost a shitload more both it and to fighting in the Red Army. Call it dumb baby millenial softness but there is a reason I like and she wants to get into CoC: the Red Army is a competent fighting force. Imagine seeing the army you lost family in get special rules like "you get a free suicide squad of conscripts to represent your dumbass family, and they won't fight unless their officer shoots one of them" while the nazis get "all your dudes and tanks are double plus good, +5 points cost tho" Bad game rules are far from the worst thing to happen to someone, but a lot of us have already grown up with the generational trauma, and rather don't want to engage with it in the thing we do for fun. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Jul 15, 2021 |
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Jul 15, 2021 17:21
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Meanwhile cities like Kölln and Berlin were littered with the lynched and rotting corpses of old men and children who deserted Like how littered? Hundreds? Thousands? I can't find anything on this.
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Jul 15, 2021 18:47
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There’s also a conflation between NKVD formations and commissars assigned to Red Army units. NKVD units were often employed in “blocking” positions behind the frontline to prevent unauthorized retreats and catch deserters, however the typical way they handled these cases was simply returning soldiers to their units or arresting them and transferring them to a penal unit in more severe cases. Commissars embedded in Red Army units in the first year or so of the war were more concerned with watching the officers and backseat driving than picking on individual soldiers. After Stalingrad commissars became more like morale officers, as said earlier. They’d make sure the troops were getting enough food, instruct new recruits, help illiterate soldiers write letters, and generally be the first one into action when fighting. The casualty rates amongst commissars was very high because they were expected to lead by example. A more balanced and realistic rule for early-war commissars, IMO, would be something like allowing Soviets to reroll results if they would retreat but also a small chance the commissar might change an order by your commanding officer into something different. 1943 commissars on should probably just be a morale bonus to attached troops.
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Jul 15, 2021 18:47
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Like how littered? Hundreds? Thousands? Link, Link, also try Steven R. Welch, '"Harsh but Just"? German Military Justice in the Second World War: A Comparative Study of the Court Martialling of German and US Deserters', German History, vol. 17 (1999), no. 3, pp. 369-399. (Yes, I wrote a paper on this for school and copy.pasted.) tl;dr - The commonly accepted figure is 15,000 tried and executed for desertion. Given the state of Nazi record keeping and conditions of 1945, it may well have been a much higher number.
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Jul 15, 2021 19:01
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Cessna posted:Link, Thanks! Do you know if there's any books published on this or if its just articles?
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Jul 15, 2021 19:02
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Like how littered? Hundreds? Thousands? At least 15,000 German soldiers were executed for desertion alone, and up to 50,000 were killed for often minor acts of insubordination. An unknown number were summarily executed, often in the moment, by their officers or comrades when they refused to follow commands. But sure, the Soviets get the bang morale reroll. Efb; There's a book cited in the linked article.
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Jul 15, 2021 19:03
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Thanks! I don't know of a monograph offhand. For a good book on the disastrously awful condition of the German military in 1945 I'll suggest Hitler's Volkssturm: The Nazi Militia and the Fall of Germany, 1944-1945 by Yelton. ($40 on Amazon)
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Jul 15, 2021 19:05
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Cessna posted:I don't know of a monograph offhand. moths posted:At least 15,000 German soldiers were executed for desertion alone, and up to 50,000 were killed for often minor acts of insubordination. An unknown number were summarily executed, often in the moment, by their officers or comrades when they refused to follow commands. Thanks, will make sure to add it to my reading list. Edit: Also, just to be clear, I'm not doubting the overblown issue regarding Commissars, and regarding the Sherman and the commonly debunked source of Deathtraps, nor how dumb it is for a game to punish all sides aside from the Germans. Double edit: Found this to be interesting, but can't delve too deeply into it thanks to it being Russian and it not being easily accessible in english - SMERSH Activities Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jul 15, 2021 |
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Jul 15, 2021 19:07
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Kind of a long shot, but does anyone have a lead on STL files for 6mm Napoleonic cavalry? I picked up Henry Turner's Europe Asunder Kickstarter and it's GREAT, but only foot sloggers.
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Jul 15, 2021 20:01
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I am not a 3d printer guy, but isn't an .stl something you can convert the scale in easily? I.e., "print this 28mm model at 0.214?"
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Jul 15, 2021 20:40
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Technically yes, but realistically no. You can absolutely just shrink down a model meant for 28mm or 1/35 or whatever. It's probably going to have structural issues since it's a lot thinner, the detail's going to be gone, and the proportions will look weird. 6mm figures are pretty blobby and cartoony because you can read them at that size from tabletop level, not just because it's hard to sculpt detail that small.
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Jul 15, 2021 20:56
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Makes sense, thanks.
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Jul 15, 2021 21:03
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