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https://twitter.com/horrorhammer1/status/1613227111262654468
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Jan 12, 2023 19:35
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| # ? May 26, 2024 07:29 |
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Truly the wargamer's wargamer
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Jan 13, 2023 02:03
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NTRabbit posted:Truly the wargamer's wargamer Back when 4000 models didn't just mean spending a lot of money in a store. A lot of those would be at least somewhat converted by hand, without most of the tools and materials modern hobbyists have available. It's... impressive.
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Jan 13, 2023 11:40
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Very cool indeed- I do wonder how much of it was him watching farm animals and firing spring loaded cannons against what the BBC thought would be twee to include, though! I’ve been considering delving into the Donald Featherstone, Tony Bath, Gary Gygax, etc. but I don’t know how much that’s just for the sake of it as an exercise in seeing how it was done, versus something resulting in usable output!
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Jan 13, 2023 17:00
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They're pretty cheap books and fun to read so it's not like you'll lose out on anything by taking a look. They're very much what I consider "convention games" in that if you've played any wargame at all you can probably understand how they'll play out, and there's not really a lot of complexity to the rules.
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Jan 13, 2023 18:38
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lilljonas posted:Back when 4000 models didn't just mean spending a lot of money in a store. A lot of those would be at least somewhat converted by hand, without most of the tools and materials modern hobbyists have available. It's... impressive. They were all wood, paper, and metal too, plastic production was too primitive to make even those large scale minis
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Jan 13, 2023 18:42
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Arquinsiel posted:They're pretty cheap books and fun to read so it's not like you'll lose out on anything by taking a look. They're very much what I consider "convention games" in that if you've played any wargame at all you can probably understand how they'll play out, and there's not really a lot of complexity to the rules. Little Wars is even so old that it's public domain and available for free: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3691/3691-h/3691-h.htm It's worth checking out just to look at the terrain, especially the gleeful gentlemen crawling around on lawns. It's also written in a very different style from modern wargames, in that it's almost more of a blog post, describing how they developed their games, stuff they introduced after a while such as hidden deployment etc, and then a lot of the book is actually a battle report to get the reader to understand how it ties together. Funnily enough he even admits that C&C and morale is the hardest thing to simulate in their games, so some things never change. I have never played Little Wars, but reading the rules I agree that it sounds like a super fast and simple convention game. For example, melee is very quick and deadly: "(3) At the end of the move, if there are men of the side that has just moved in contact with any men of the other side, they constitute a melee. All the men in contact, and any other men within six inches of the men in contact, measuring from any point of their persons, weapons, or horses, are supposed to take part in the melee. At the end of the move the two players examine the melee and dispose of the men concerned according to the following rules:— Either the numbers taking part in the melee on each side are equal or unequal. (a) If they are equal, all the men on both sides are killed. (b) If they are unequal, then the inferior force is either isolated or (measuring from the points of contact) not isolated. (i) If it is isolated (see (1) above), then as many men become prisoners as the inferior force is less in numbers than the superior force, and the rest kill each a man and are killed. Thus nine against eleven have two taken prisoners, and each side seven men dead. Four of the eleven remain with two prisoners. One may put this in another way by saying that the two forces kill each other off, man for man, until one force is double the other, which is then taken prisoner. Seven men kill seven men, and then four are left with two. (ii) But if the inferior force is not isolated (see (1) above), then each man of the inferior force kills a man of the superior force and is himself killed." So quick and fast, lots of immediate removals more like in chess rather than buckets of dice rolling. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jan 13, 2023 |
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Jan 13, 2023 21:57
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If you're familiar with Conrad Kinch's articles in Miniature Wargames he's also run games of it at various Irish conventions over the years, using Nerf guns instead of the spring loaded cannons. It's been a few years what with all the everything, but they always drew decent crowds. I can't see myself ever bothering to play that kind of wargame outside of a convention due to the simpicity, but for a convention where the familiarity ranges from "I am six what is going on?" to hardcore grog they do let everyone play and get something out of it.
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Jan 14, 2023 20:52
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While I’ve been staying at a hotel in Austria, I’ve been binging the Fighting Sail series by the joy of wargaming YouTube channel. Fighting Sail and Blood, Balls and Bilge seem like a heck of a lot of game for just a couple of ship miniatures… It has made me wonder if there is an Anglo-Spanish or Anglo-Dutch ruleset to match the 1/2400 ships available from Tumbling Dice? There seem to be a couple, but I wonder if simply using alternative miniatures and the main FS rules might be more straightforward… Hopefully my 10mm ECW figures are waiting for me when I get back... Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Jan 16, 2023 |
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Jan 15, 2023 10:34
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It begins... This the the Pendraken ECW Royalist Army Pack  I'd like some opinions on basing: - I had planned pikes as three ranks on a 40x30mm base, but I wonder if four ranks on a 40x40mm base might look nicer as well as being a bit more accurate? - Cavalry is currently five figures on a 40x40mm base as shown above, but I wonder if bringing them closer together on a 40x30mm might also work better. Any thoughts? EDIT: I've been using my spare time to re-write C. Harrison's Victory Without Quarter rules to be slightly more parseable by those born as a human, rather than grog. After getting most of the way through it, I've realised that despite the protestations of simplicity it's actually quite complex in a way that's not obvious. For example, VWQ has some fairly speific rules about charging which end up with rules falling over each other - Foot cannot charge the front of another Foot unless it's shaken. Units are shaken when they take one casualty. To take a casualty, any groups of three simultaneous 'hit' rolls count as a casualty, and taking one makes your unit shaken. You can rally shaken off, but only if you're more than 8" away from an enemy unit. You can only rally however, if you draw an order card for a unit. Or, you draw an officer card and he is within 6". Except if he's the commander-in-chief in which case it's 12". Unless of course you send a courier which is 3D6". Except if you roll a double then the courier dies. The things I like about it and which would be very easy to superimpose into One Hour Wargames rules: - The use of officer models a-la Springfield's 'CinC' rules. - Sharpe Practise-style card activation - Brigade Commander characteristics which do not change any rules but indicate behaviour I need to play a few games of the vanilla OHW P&S ruleset first, but I am tempted to merge them together. Speaking of playing the game, I've got some of my 10mm Pendraken dollies in progress, contrasting with the 6mm Bacchus - I'm very pleased with this scale, I think I'll stick with it going forward. Anyone want some 3mm Austrians?   Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Jan 18, 2023 |
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Jan 17, 2023 08:42
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The ECW project is going really well - with 8-10 musketeers per base and 15-20 pikemen I can do about one base an hour. I know speedpaints are a bit of a cop-out, but at this scale it's all about the unit and it's working well. I'm still not sure how many ranks to put my pikemen in though: Four ranks:  Or three ranks: 
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Jan 20, 2023 13:21
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Looks good, what did you decide to go with, 40x20 for two ranks and 40x30 for three?
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Jan 20, 2023 13:58
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IMHO the unit with four ranks looks better.
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Jan 20, 2023 14:22
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I went with 40x20mm for the shot, 40x30mm for the pike (in three ranks of five) and (so far) 40x40mm for the horse. liljonas I think you're right, but when the front rank is painted the three ranks doesn't look as thin, and means each Army Pack goes a bit further:   The Army Pack should allow me to represent one of each regiment of Newcastle's Royalist army - Newcastle himself (red), Lamplugh (yellow), Slingsby (orange), Eythin (green), Lambton (dark red). I'm really pleased with how easy and fun these are to paint, SpeedPaint 'reactivation' notwithstanding for those white sashes. However, can someone please advise me the best way to sort the bases out on these? I have a big pot of vallejo mud, but I don't trust myself getting between the figures to spread it once they're all glued down, and a similar quandary for pva/flock/static grass... Speaking of ease, these 10mm are so much nicer to paint - I'm starting to wonder if 3mm might be neither fish nor fowl: too detailed for one-colour-blocking and yet not big enough to enjoy painting. I have availed myself of a pair of Irregular Miniatures 2mm armies to test this point: at £13 each, it's hardly a major investment. Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jan 21, 2023 |
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Jan 21, 2023 08:08
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If it helps, I just slather light brown onto the bases, then dip each stand into a container of flock. Looks ok, matches my GeoHex perfectly. Any more effort than that should look great.
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Jan 21, 2023 08:18
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For 6mm and such, I smudge the paste on the base, push down the minis in them, and then use a brush to even out the gap between the mini’s base and the big base.
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Jan 21, 2023 12:52
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mllaneza posted:If it helps, I just slather light brown onto the bases, then dip each stand into a container of flock. Looks ok, matches my GeoHex perfectly. Any more effort than that should look great. Thank you for confirmation. I ended up putting a little mud around the edge of each base, then brown or green paint on each individual and some flock, and then flooding the unit base with PVA, dropping the miniatures into it, then sprinkling more flock on top. Honestly feels incredibly inefficient but crikey, they really go come along quick:  EDIT: Hadn't thought of using the paste/mud as adhesive but that's probably a better shout in future, thanks!
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Jan 21, 2023 14:43
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Aaaand the foot is done:  I need another few bases of shot to properly even things out so when I get around to ordering the Parliamentary response to this Royalist force, I'll add an extra order of musketeers. Now I have an idea of the kind of infantry basing I want, I think I will order the types separately - Haselrigg's Cuirassier Lobsters, marching Musketeers, advancing Pikemen and so on. However, I have Irregular 2mm Napoleonics already en route so I'm going to sit on my hands a little: they say that a change is as good as a rest, after all.
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Jan 22, 2023 00:10
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As I was faffing around this morning, I realise my brother is coming over tomorrow in so I might be able to get a game in. This is the result: My goal is to put together two armies of 12 units each, which will allow me to field any combination for the OHW Pike and Shot rules, as well as DBA-RRR and VWQ. I know that wooden painted bases is very close to block wargaming or the use of chits, but it will at least allow me to get a game in while painting up my dollies! Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Jan 22, 2023 |
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Jan 22, 2023 10:29
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Painting these dumbass ships has been super satisfying. I wish I hadn't split the set so I could do the Brits.  The starter box was a pretty good deal but Warlord can gently caress off if they think I'm going to pay $50 for one ship. Thank god for 3d printing.
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Jan 22, 2023 17:15
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Springfield Fatts posted:Painting these dumbass ships has been super satisfying. I wish I hadn't split the set so I could do the Brits. So cool! 1/1200?
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Jan 22, 2023 17:43
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Nah, 1:700 Black Seas minis. The frigate base is 30x90mm for some sense of scale.
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Jan 22, 2023 17:49
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Springfield Fatts posted:Painting these dumbass ships has been super satisfying. I wish I hadn't split the set so I could do the Brits.
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Jan 22, 2023 19:10
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The price for some of those ships is wild, it is like near GW levels of eye pop.
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Jan 22, 2023 20:22
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Arquinsiel posted:Get the starter box again and see if the other person also feels the same? Should of specified I split it with a guy I'm playing against, he's just a much slower painter. . . IncredibleIgloo posted:The price for some of those ships is wild, it is like near GW levels of eye pop. Yeah it's still insane but at least the Warlord stuff comes with unit cards and punch out tokens like an X-Wing ship.
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Jan 22, 2023 20:42
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Being slow at painting has no bearing on how much you want to buy more toys.
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Jan 22, 2023 21:13
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Err yeah I think I'll stick to something like Tumbling Dice 1/2400's at £2-3 each in that case! In the spirit of Springfield's OHW Horse and Musket, here is my version of OHW P&S: "An Hour with Pike and Shot" Major changes: - Artillery replaces Swordsmen - Undamaged foot may not be charged on front face by foot (or cavalry unless they roll a 4+). i.e. needs to be softened up first, or flanked. Optional rules: - Option for Heavy guns (may not move but each hit counts double) - Officer rules as per Springfield, without the rules for attaching and the use of 2D3 instead of 1D6 to even out the command pips. - If a unit runs out of ammo (roll a D6 after shooting, on a 1-2 they have run out) they may not shoot for the rest of the game (part of the base rules), but may ignore restriction for charging undamaged foot but only hit on the roll of a 6 in combat.
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Jan 22, 2023 21:32
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Arquinsiel posted:Did you just make up a name for a county? Because if you did then I love how there's no silly name that the UK hasn't thought of and already slapped on a place at some point. The only non existent -sex (as in 'Saxons live there') is Norsex. Wessex, Sussex and Essex are all real.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:01
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Only folks live in the North!
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Jan 23, 2023 00:31
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Call it West Anglia tbh
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Jan 23, 2023 00:34
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What about Southumbria?
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Jan 23, 2023 03:12
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feedmegin posted:The only non existent -sex (as in 'Saxons live there') is Norsex. Wessex, Sussex and Essex are all real. Which logially means there's a Middleumbria, Middle Anglia, etc.
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Jan 23, 2023 04:12
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My grandparents lived in East Grinstead I created a fictional "west" equivalent for the setting of a bunch of stories when I was a kid, and it was only 30+ years later I was driving through Sussex and found that it was not imaginary at all. The towns are 20+ miles apart and completely unrelated save for the East/West moniker.
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Jan 23, 2023 09:51
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Arquinsiel posted:You forgot the funniest -sex of all: Middlesex. The little known saxon kingdom of Frank Klepacki's No Mercia
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Jan 23, 2023 11:38
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When someone says something is a 'Battalion level' game, does that mean that the smallest atomic unit in that game is a battalion, or that each side has a battalion? On that note, hs anyone played Absolute Emperor? It seems like the same vein as OHW but tracks disruption and disorder and C-in-C natively - but I can't quite wrap my head around the game scale - ostensibly each army is a corps, each group is a division, each unit is a brigade - and you 'form square' or 'form line' with the entire brigade. I'm no Napoleonic scholar (I just pretend to be one at weekends), but isn't that fairly ahistorical? (much like the cover-and-run tactics in WW2 being typically done on a platoon basis rather than by section) I guess it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to 'zoom in' one level and consider each army a division, each group a brigade, each unit a battalion - which would seem to make more sense given the tactical options? I've heard of people using 1:20 or 1:50 real-to-model scale, but not really about how one can scale bases to represent different levels of abstraction. Four infantry blocks to a base would allow me to use that base to represent a brigade (as per DBN, 1:12 scale), or a battalion (as per OHW/AE effectively 1:4 scale), or a company (as per Lasalle, GdA/GdB/Shako - effectively 1:1 scale) Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Jan 23, 2023 |
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Jan 23, 2023 11:51
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Southern Heel posted:When someone says something is a 'Battalion level' game, does that mean that the smallest atomic unit in that game is a battalion, or that each side has a battalion? Yes. But in my experienxe more that a battalion level game sees roughly two (or more) battalions meeting up, not several brigades or something. It's not so cut and dry, I mean it's obvious that CoC is a platoon level game, but is Lasalle a brigade level game, since you maybe only field two brigades or so in a small game? Or is it a division level game, as you can have enough brigades to represent a small division? I'd say no, as you're not necessarily expected to field entire divisions, even though you might very well field 2-3 brigades. And in a game of big CoC you can have two companies meet, but it still feels like a platoon level game, as the mechanics are built on a granular level where the platoon's operation is the main thing. So I mean it's not a perfect nomenclature that works for all games, but it gives you a hint of whether you move individual guys or if you move around bases representing hundred or even thousands of troops. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Jan 23, 2023 |
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Jan 23, 2023 13:15
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Southern Heel posted:When someone says something is a 'Battalion level' game, does that mean that the smallest atomic unit in that game is a battalion, or that each side has a battalion? Typically it means that each side has (roughly) a battalion. O Group's smallest atomic unit in the game is a Platoon but overall you've got a Battalion+extras.
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Jan 23, 2023 14:55
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Southern Heel posted:(much like the cover-and-run tactics in WW2 being typically done on a platoon basis rather than by section)
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Jan 23, 2023 18:36
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There are instances of squares formed by brigade, fuckers must have been enormous
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Jan 23, 2023 20:46
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| # ? May 26, 2024 07:29 |
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And part of that has to do with doctrine, i.e. how a particular organization trains/operates. It's one of the things I really like about CoC, as it highlights the differences between how various combatants' armies were organized and trained. For Germans, Americans, and Brits, fire-and-maneuver were trained at the team level, with one team (usually an LMG team) laying down a base of fire while another (usually the rifle team) maneuvered to contact. For the Soviets' infantry doctrine, the smallest unit of fire-and-maneuver was the squad, so what was done on the squad level by other armies was done on the platoon level by the Soviets. As such, Soviet squads don't inherently break up into teams because that's not how they trained. You can break them up into teams if you need to, but it requires command resources to do so because you are doing something other than what you trained for. RE: Brigade scale games: Generally yes, you're talking about each side having a brigade. But sometimes you get some weird stuff in there. For instance, Pickett's Charge (by Reisswitz Press) is ostensibly a division scale game, where each side will have some number of brigades. The brigade is the main unit for command-and-control, but the actual fighting and rolling of dice for shooting/melee is the regiment. And if you want to big it up, it has rules for going from division up to corps level. So while I would call it a division-scale game, you could make an argument that the most important organizational level in the game is the brigade.
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Jan 23, 2023 21:37
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