Sunday, May 31, 2009

The things we find on eBay!


I search eBay regularly for WW1 15mm figures. My latest score are these Serbs. I am not sure the manufacture since the only current line is Eureka and these are different. I rebased them on to Litko bases and have no idea when I will ever game with them since I will need a EW AH or LW Bulgarian force as an opponent. They sure look cool!

The little things that can be done.

With my bicycle training hitting its most demanding period and starting a new job I have had very little time for gaming. I did manage to 're-base' my WoW WWI aircraft in the few minutes I could find. It is a really neat way to enhance the gaming with the miniatures but I can not take the credit for it. Harry did something similar for his Check Your Six miniatures.












It is a steel ball hot glued to the stand and a ring magnet glued to the plane. It allows total variance in yaw, pitch and roll of the plane with little effort and it stays in place. It makes a difference when using the miniatures and the plane to plane rule instead of the base for shooting.
Now to just find time to game!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Trench Battle Game - FOW1918











The other day I hosted a game for the DAHWG's (Dulles Area Historical Wargamers) at the Monday night fights. It was a pure infantry attack based in 1917. I used a combination of The Big Push mission in the main FOW rule book and the D-Day mission. I will work it up as a FOW1918 mission and post it on the Yahoo group after a few more play tests.

The British had four infantry platoons, a Stoke mortar section, a rolling barrage and a counter battery barrage. The Germans had two full platoons, one with three squads (no bombers), a HMG section and a Defensive (SOS) barrage.

The Pre Lim bombardment was fairly effective in clearing some wire but did little damage to the one German platoon on the table.

By turn three some of the Tommies were through the wire and into the trench. Will the Hun finally got their SOS barrage only to have it blasted away by the British counter battery. On turn four the German HMGs come on the table as his ambush.
Turn six the Germans finally get their reserves (both platoons) and they rush to cover the objectives.

It came down to a real nail biter at the end of turn 11 beginning of turn 12.

Jan wrote up a more detailed review from his point of view as the British CO at http://knightrecoil.blogspot.com/2009/05/western-front-wwi-tactical-combat.html


I think we may actually have it. The feel is good the game flows. The different weapons and FOG is good.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Turkish duldroms

I have been working on my Middle East project, specifically the Arabs at the moment. With the limited number of figures available I will be using 19th century Mahdist/Ansar figures which has sparked an interest in the Wars in the Sudan and other British colonial affairs. The variety of units makes it a very colorful period and looks to be a lot of fun to paint and play but what it has done is dampened my enthusiasm for my Turks. The Turks generally come in two flavors, regulars or Arab. Both wore the same uniform with the Arabs donning a keffiyeh instead of the kabalak. They did have cavalry and even a Camel Corp but generally it was foot sloggers with some HMGs and Artillery. Nothing really fancy or flashy, not that you have to have that to have good troops but it sure does help motivation when painting. You can add some German support if gaming Palestine 1918 but no one makes any 15mm figures for them. I have looked at some Peter Pig EW British to modify. They really did not have any air support so that is out. There are pictures and documents that discuss Stoss troops but that again is Palestine and there uniform is the same just with a Turkish version of the German M1916 Stahlhelm.



They fought on a number of fronts, so your opponents can be varied but Johnny Turk stays the same. I know I should just buck up and get at them since I only have one infantry platoon, one 10.5 How and some limbers and then they can hit the gaming table but it seems like taking medicine to do so. I have been reading "In the Clouds Above Baghdad" by M.C. Lt Col J. E. Tennant. It discusses the war in Mesopotamia with a focus on the air operations. It gives a variety of possible wargame scenarios but sadly nothing to increase the motivation. Hopefully when I finish some Arabs I will move to the Turks and finish them.