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Dear Historicals thread, This past weekend, someone who I thought was my "friend" introduced me to Chain of Command. Now, for the first time in my life I'm idly browsing for WWII minis and contemplating giving Too Fat Lardies some of my hard-earned money. Is it already too late for me?
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Apr 12, 2016 15:45
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I've dabbled ever so slightly in historicals before - I played 15mm ACW (using Gettysburg Soldiers, which is low-crunch, super easy to learn, and plays very quickly) at Origins a couple of years ago. That prompted my first forays into painting 15mm mans: I've also done a little bit of Union infantry (Iron Brigade) and a couple of artillery pieces as well. But I have almost no terrain for them. But I really liked the way that Chain of Command played, and am intrigued for sure. If I do take the plunge, I think I'll start with some early war Americans and German Afrika Korps, because I played Tallarn Desert Raiders in 40K (thank the gods I finally got out of that hell-trap) and Haqqislam in Infinity, so I have a decent amount of desert-themed terrain.
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Apr 12, 2016 17:52
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Are those minis plastic or metal?
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Apr 12, 2016 18:16
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I think for me one of the things that helped spark my interest in historicals was a simplification of the rules. Rivet-counting grognardia is all well and good if you have the time and energy to devote to it, but in my current state of life (job, house, wife, two small kids). I don't have the time to invest in spending 8 hours playing a game. Simpler rulesets (or ones like CoC that focus on smaller units) mean that I actually get to PLAY a game as opposed to just looking longingly at it and thinking it might be cool. FWIW, the same transition has happened in my RPG tastes - I have eschewed crunchier, more "realistic" games for stuff like Apocalypse World, which delivers story (the part about which I care) at a breakneck pace without dwelling on the mechanics of simulating whatever. Gettysburg Soldiers might be more simplistic than Regimental Fire and Fury, but I can set up and play that poo poo in minutes. More importantly, I can teach one of my friends how to play it in minutes.
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Apr 15, 2016 13:07
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Painting the dudes is the killer part of all the mass combat historicals. I am absolutely enthralled by accounts of the ACW - probably the last major armed conflict where both sides lacked even rudimentary maps and largely stumbled around looking for each other based on vague cavalry dispatches and the "they went that-a-way" of the occasional sympathetic local. In terms of the "fog of war" aspect of wargaming, it offers some hilarious tactical challenges ("What do you mean my troops don't get a bonus for road movement? Oh, it was fresh gravel and they didn't have shoes. Right.") But, man. Painting all those tiny dudes. Even in 15mm, and doing like 10 or 15-to-1 "stands," it's still just an incredibly daunting prospect.
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Apr 19, 2016 21:55
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spectralent posted:TFL games have a tendency to be quite innovative; does Sharp Practise bring anything particular to the board in this respect?
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Apr 23, 2016 14:11
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Nice! I look forward to reading your future AWI AARs!
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Apr 25, 2016 12:57
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Ok maybe I missed it in the last few pagesn but what is Sharp Practice?
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Apr 28, 2016 04:15
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lilljonas posted:E: and the blanket answer to the discussion on vulnerable artillery pieces in WW2 games IMHO is this: why the hell would you put large artillery pieces, which would launch projectiles from several kilometers, on the tabletop?  Yeah, having artillery on the board just smacks of "40K" syndrome. Not having it on the table is actually one of the things I really like about CoC - even a basic infantryman's rifle can hit anything on the table, and artillery is modeled by forward observer teams rather than the guns themselves.
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Apr 28, 2016 14:42
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Hey, Serotonin, you mentioned earlier that you have a bunch of Osprey manuals as  With minis starting to come in, I'm looking for painting/color tips for various WW2 North Africa forces. Willing to help a brother out with a couple of jpgs?
Ilor fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Apr 28, 2016 |
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Apr 28, 2016 18:01
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Scratch my earlier jpg request, I found a fantastic set of WW2 painting guides complete with good pics of the minis and broken out by VMC #s! They're here.
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Apr 29, 2016 13:41
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YF19pilot posted:And again, "X army has Y gimmick" is fine, up until it starts becoming clear that's all the thought the creator put into it.
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Apr 29, 2016 19:05
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That is an artist who does not understand the difference between fighting and fencing.
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Apr 30, 2016 17:54
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My Afrika Korps box just arrived from Warlord Games! 
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May 4, 2016 03:17
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Posted a CoC AAR on the Lardies' forum here: Sidi Regezh While I work on amassing and painting WW2 miniatures, it warms the cold, black, bitter cockles of my soul to use GW miniatures for a game that's actually good. Oh, wait, was that my Death Thread showing?
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May 5, 2016 17:32
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spectralent posted:The one thing that made me  That gives the Brits 6 free Support pretty much from the jump (That's an A9 or A10 and a Boys Rifle Team right off the cuff. Or a 37mm Bofors AT gun and a pre-game barrage. Or a Matilda II, which substantially out-armors anything the Germans have.We haven't played a lot with tanks yet, but unsupported by infantry I think they're going to be more fragile that you might think. You're depending on rolling an awful lot of 3s to use them effectively. But we'll see. I am treating this whole experience as a play-test. And at this point, the Afrika Korps has to survive long enough to seize the initiative. They got pretty chewed up in the first mission.
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May 6, 2016 01:34
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was five tanks. I guess you'll get a shitload of list support, but still, jeez.
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Ah, OK, that's good to know! Yeah, the stage of the war was one of the things that did concern me. By late war, everybody and their brother can get panzerfausts or PIAT teams for cheap, but early on you're usually looking at list 4 for any kind of decent AT weapon. Early war tanks generally suck enough that an AT rifle at least has a shot, but by mid-war things get really dicey because the tanks are much better.
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May 6, 2016 14:24
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tomdidiot posted:It pains my soul to see inaccurate miniatures being used.
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May 10, 2016 18:43
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Speaking of primary sources... After my paternal grandfather passed, my grandmother would occasionally mention something about "some old Civil War books" that grandpa wanted me to have. Always followed by, "oh, but I forgot to bring them. I'll try to remember next time." OK, cool, whatever. She didn't ascribe much importance to them, so I never followed up. This poo poo went on for like a decade, with her bringing it up every once in a while. Finally at a family Thanksgiving two years ago, she hands me a non-descript shoe-box that contains this:  A better look at the spine:  Yes, that is in fact an original printing of both volumes of John C. S. Abbot's "History of the Civil War in America." Volume I was penned in late 1862 and published in 1863 - while the war was still going on. Jesus, grandma, you didn't tell me that grandpa left me godsdamned TREASURE!!!
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May 11, 2016 05:16
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Arquinsiel posted:This is my way of subtly recruiting And I fell for it. Dammit! 
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May 12, 2016 15:25
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BeigeJacket posted:I love BP but it took me a few games to realise that some units might not get to do anything the whole game.
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May 13, 2016 20:58
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Sure, but there's no reason the same kind of mechanics couldn't be scaled appropriately.
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May 13, 2016 21:04
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the idea for the lower Union command values is that all of the Union's commanders with any ability or talent are busy fighting the Confederacy rather than chilling out in Maine.
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May 16, 2016 15:45
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I am absolutely enamored with Chain of Command, but the Command Dice mechanic (especially when applied to armored platoons) will mean you'll rarely be able to activate all of your tanks in a single phase. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but for people used to 1-unit = 1-activation per turn like 40K, a system like Bolt Action will probably be a more familiar mechanic.
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May 20, 2016 13:34
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The trap is playing the Russkies to begin with. 
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May 20, 2016 14:11
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feedmegin posted:Lol if you think American armies promoted officers purely on merit, especially in 1861. 'You're some random dude from buttfuck Ohio and you recruited these guys and bought their uniforms, I guess you run the regiment now'.
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May 21, 2016 18:54
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Cross-posting from the Oath thread: These are the first WW2 minis I've ever painted. I already have another US squad, 2 Bazooka teams, a German Tank Hunter team, and an SdKfz 222 in various stages of progress on my table. A plague upon every last one of you fuckers for being so helpful and supportive in helping me find another tabletop miniatures obsession. I hate you guys.
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May 22, 2016 04:19
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Yeah, but look how well that turned out for McClellan.
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May 22, 2016 14:17
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Blitzkrieg Miniatures makes a resin JU-87 in 28mm scale. I think there's one for sale on eBay right now, actually. It's a nice multi-part kit with clear plastic canopy. 1/48 planes are a little big, but depending on the scale creep associated with your 28mm figs (I'm looking at you, Crusader Miniatures), they look fine on the table.
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Jun 11, 2016 15:33
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JcDent posted:Well, people bitch that BA has rifle ranges that don't reach the end of the street, so it might be better at 20mm In other news, I played a closely-fought wargame today; my opponent was my 5-year-old son. It all started the other day when I was painting some minis. My son came down into my man-cave to see what I was up to. He knows he's not allowed to touch without asking first, and I let him play with a couple of GIs that were stripped and awaiting priming, and he poked around at a couple of my old Necron vehicles. He looked at the table (still set up from my last Chain of Command game). He was all, "Daddy, can we play a game with your army men?" On a whim deeming it time to broach "The Subject," my immediate response was, "No, not until you're a little older - but we can play a game with your army men." This met with enthusiastic agreement. A short while later, we had a "game" set up on the floor of the playroom, where there's a carpet that has grid squares. We each had three squads of five men each, and I explained that when it was your turn you could either move or shoot, and the objective was to capture the flag in the middle of the field. We each had a couple of "special materials" as he called them - he had a guy with a machine gun, a tank, and a humvee "army transport." I had a fixed emplacement (the turret from the other tank, which is broken), a couple of guys withu flame-throwers, and a giant ant. He's five, whatever, I went with it. He was the green army men, I was the tan army men. Well, my giant ant was black. Well, rolling dice and moving guys all over the floor and taking cover in sandbags and whatever, it came down to his last three guys versus my last three guys duking it out in melee on top of the objective. We both killed two opponents with our next roll, so it was one-on-one for the whole shebang. We threw our single die each and when the rolling stopped:  I don't think I've ever been so stoked to lose a game by the slimmest of margins. He had a blast as well, and is now harassing me pretty regularly to play "capture the flag." He's currently up on me, two games to one. According to him, this makes him "president of the army." Solid. I'm hoping it sticks, and that I've introduced another little wargamer to a life-long love of games.
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Jun 11, 2016 23:22
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Yeah, unless you have a well-established group that is willing to share the load, you're pretty much always going to end up doing both sides.
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Jun 11, 2016 23:28
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Colonial Air Force posted:My absolute favorite Russian tank model ever Grass tank = best tank
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Jun 14, 2016 05:06
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DiHK posted:Does CoC ever get played in 1/35? I've got some tamiya models/troopers sitting around; my original plan was to build a diorama but dual purposing my gerrys would be pretty cool too. And the biggest benefit of the two-man scout team rules that I've seen is as a cheap way to threaten an enemy Jumping-Off Point and/or force an enemy counter-deployment. In that regard, it's super-useful.
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Jul 11, 2016 21:07
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I felt much the same way when I started my very first 28mm WW2 troops.
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Jul 15, 2016 20:36
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OK, historigoons, I have reached that point: I've painted and weathered my 28mm WW2 vehicles to my satisfaction. But as of this moment, I have not applied any markings to them (iron crosses, stars, numbers, squadron markings, etc). I don't have any appropriate water-slide transfers, so I'm considering making stencils and/or free-handing it. How bad of an idea is this? Does anyone have experience with this? If so, what did you use to make your stencils? Or should I just go out, get some transfers, and be done with it?
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Jul 15, 2016 22:59
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Yeah, I left off weathering the areas where I was going to do the markings so I could go back in later.
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Jul 16, 2016 00:45
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And the finished product (cross-posted from the Oath Thread)    I ended up making a small template out of Scotch Tape (I printed out the design, laid the transparent tape over it, then cut out the design with a #11 X-Acto). It wasn't perfect, but it let me get the Balkenkreuz roughed in, and I was then able to touch up by hand the bits that needed it. I'm not sure, but I think I might need to take photos with less light, or maybe more diffuse light. A lot of the rust effects don't really show up in the pictures.
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Jul 16, 2016 05:25
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Most of the determination of what does or does not count as crew comes from the field manuals of the various armies in question. So if the time period you're modeling has 2-man crews, great. If it has 3-man crews, equally great. The rules themselves will work just as well either way, and the only difference will be in the "cost" of the unit (and usually an extra rifleman either way isn't enough to make a difference in Force Rating). I've played a lot of tabletop wargames over the years, but was just introduced to CoC a few months ago; Every time I think about it, I am continually blown away by how cool CoC is. The way it operates is magic. It's easy to grasp and fast to play. The rules are simple, but the player is constantly presented with interesting and consequential tactical decisions, which I love. I also love that wiping your opponent out to the last man is both a) not really your objective, and b) generally really loving difficult to do. The resulting battles just feel more interesting and plausible as a result.
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Jul 25, 2016 04:46
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FWIW, there's a huge discussion going on in the CoC forums right now about the merits of the "Ronson" tag as it applies to various tanks. Apparently it had much to do with the dry s wet storage ammo bins, and I know I've seen entries in the Consolidated Arsenal lists where only Shermans with dry storage get the Ronson tag. Also, the rules for Commissars aren't listed in the main rules because their roles varied pretty strongly by the stage of the war. Depending on the local conditions, they ran the gamut from functional assistants/adjutants to effective morale officers to ruthless executioners to tireless propagandists. It has been suggested that the best use for them is as bonuses to the rolls for the "mens' opinion of the senior leader" in the "At the Sharp End" campaign supplement, perhaps as well as a further penalty if your commander gets summoned before his CO as a "carpet parade." Like most of the CoC rules, the period in which the game is taking place is what will determine how most stuff should work (a fact which the historical grognard in me greatly appreciates.
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Aug 12, 2016 20:34
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:38 |
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Yvonmukluk posted:Well tell them if the Sherman gets it, the Panther should too, because it had giant loving ammo ranks in the (paper thin) sides and gasoline tended to pool on the engine deck.
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Aug 12, 2016 23:26
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