Wargaming Thoughts for 2021

Welcome 2021! Same as 2020?

Back in May of last year, I speculated about a variety of wargaming projects that I might engage in during the coming year. I listed seven possibilities for new things I might explore along with seven new things I was going to do my best to resist and about twenty neglected projects that I hoped to do something about. 

To the surprise of no one who (a) knows me or (b) has observed how COVID lockdowns have affected various people, I got nowhere with any of these seven possibilities, did avoid spending money on the seven others (though I thought a lot about them), and didn't really address any of the neglected projects. After all, why work on hobbies when you can lie about drinking tea and watching old British police procedurals on the telly? I read a good deal of history and historical fiction and daydreamed a good deal about gaming all of the conflicts I was reading about. But that's mostly as far as it got.

So, although I don't have a good track record with or even much expectation of "resolutions" (New Years or any other sort), I've been trying to focus at least a little on 2021 and what I might do.

Wrapping Up Kleiner Feldzug 1757

What I did, in fact, spend a lot of time on in 2020 was running a game of Sam Mustafa's Kleiner Feldzug, his quick-and-dirty map game that comes with Might & Reason, his Seven Years War miniatures rules. It's been entertaining (sometimes) and frustrating (for some players), and I have a feeling that it may be drawing to a close. It has four more turns to run, and we may play out all of those turns, but I don't think that the map game or the miniatures rules have been a big hit. M&R is easier to run via Zoom than some other games I can think of, but it has some shortcomings and is, like a lot of the author's games, a broad brush where many players would like to be able to make somewhat finwer strokes.

Whither Frederick?

The end of this campaign won't end my interest in the Seven Years War, but I need to do a good deal more reading before I launch into something specific. I have a set of rules that I think may hold promise for big battles, and I have Carnage & Glory and Black Powder for small to medium-sized battles, depending on whether I want a more detailed or a more fast-play game.

Carl Rochling: The Battle of Zorndorf

Et Sans Resultat and Other Napoleonics

I have been a fan of this big-battle Napoleonic rules set for some time now, including running it (with my buddy The Attorney) at conventions and at our club. I have a load of 6mm figures I bought to paint up as 1815 armies, and I need to get working on that. I think 6mm is the way I plan to go with ESR.

I have a substantial number of 15mm Napoleonics. I rebased a large number of Austrians in 2019 to play ESR, but a suitable ground scale to play ESR in 15mm requires a LOT of tabletop. I'm debating whether to leave them as they are or rebase them (again) for Carnage & Glory and Black Powder.

On top of which, I know that some of my friends who are dipping their toe into Napoleonic wargaming are looking to build some 28mm armies. I have a number of 28mm figures that I bought thinking I might use them for a super-tactical game, if I could find one I liked. I never have, and I don't currently have the bandwidth to write a set, so I'm thinking of building up some 28mm forces to play Black Powder, which are among the most popular "fast and fun" rules around and which I find the least objectionable.

Antoine-Jean Gros: Bataille d'Aboukir, 25 Juillet 1799

Egypt, Big Time

I've been in love with almost all of the Perry Brothers' 28mm miniatures lines for ages, and last year in a fit of madness I splurged on a huge boxful of their Napoleonic French in Egypt line. 

After the French invaded in 1798, there were battles between their army and the rather splendidly costumed Mameluke rulers of Egypt, but I’m skipping those. Partly because the Mameluke armies were huge and mostly cavalry and I can’t face painting that many horses. 

But mostly because, no offense intended to the Mamelukes, they are really boring and pointless battles. 

Warfare, especially in the 18th and early 19th century, is like playing rock-scissors-paper repeatedly. Infantry, cavalry, artillery: each has its strengths and weaknesses in comparison to the other. At first one arm gets an advantage, then your opponent uses a different arm and gets the advantage. Tactics is knowing which troops to use, and when, and how. The person who does that best, with some added factors, wins.

And with their almost-all-cavalry army, the Mamelukes essentially played rock-scissors-paper by repeatedly playing paper, paper, paper, paper. The French formed their infantry into big boxes, with all the men facing outwards, places for the artillery at the corners, and their cavalry inside the box, ready to charge out, fresh and undamaged, once the enemy got tired. The Mamelukes couldn’t fight their way into the squares, but they didn’t stop trying as long as they had fresh units. To mix metaphors, when all you have is a hammer, they say, everything looks like a nail. But if the “nail” is really a patch of sand, at some point you just get tired of hammering it and achieving nothing.

That and painting all those bloody horses...

Phillip James de Loutherbourg: The Landing of British Troops at Aboukir, 8 March 1801

So instead of Mamelukes, Project Egypt is going to be recreating the battles between the French and the British. Who, per usual, took until the better part of three years to assemble a force to try and drive the French out of the Middle East. The preliminary French forces I’m building are to represent Friant’s attempt to defeat the British as they landed at Abu Qir Bay. And the British represent the amphibious assault forces of Lt Gen Sir Ralph Abercromby. I’ll start with the landing and, if I actually accomplish that much, will move on to the later battles. Of course, before the lobsterbacks can get ashore, someone needs to secure the landing grounds. There will be sailors and marines and lovely, lovely boats to bring the soldiers ashore from the transports. Then five battalions of infantry with an uncharacteristically (for Brits) varied selection of headgear.

Montmiral: One more in before the year ends

Well, I've done a good bit of gaming over the last few weeks, but not much wargaming. I did enjoy a rare visit with Mr Invisible, in which we played the first couple of turns of GMT's Caucasus Campaign, another from the stable of the accomplished Mark Simonitch. We enjoyed it, as we generally do his games, but after all the catching up we had to do (and solving all the world's problems), we weren't able to finish the game.

Apart from that, my limited effort has gone to preparing for the Montmiral game next month. But I've done sadly little actual preparing. I did pull out my Perry French, and I've gotten some of the infantry and a few officers ready for painting. But I've stalled out there. I've also (of course) picked up a few new books on the campaign, and I've been dipping into those, but only dipping.

Neverthless, I'll add a few snaps of the unpainted chaps, who have now advanced (almost all of them) to base-coated/primered status as I unleashed the wave of black gesso.

There are a couple of mounted officers, whose painting I will intersperse among that of the infantrymen as a reward for getting another batch done. Though probably company or battalion officers, these chaps on the left and right will be acting (for now) as brigade commanders. I don't think les vieux will really deserve a general officer (centre) until I have a fair number of infantry painted, plus some supporting arms.

Infantry officers (left and right) and general officer (centre)

Then there are the tête de colonne, another treat to paint as a reward, consisting of eagle-bearer, dismounted officer, drummer, and sapper.

Tête de colonne in front

There are a series of NCOs (both elite company and centre company) who I will intersperse on the group stands somewhat sparingly, so as to make their presence a little more special. Ideally, I'd like to use 28mm figures for skirmish/small-unit actions, but I've yet to find a set of rules that I think do a good job of depicting horse & musket action at that level (where the units a player commands are, say, platoon-sized groups), but maybe one day I'll find them. If those rules come along, I might pull these NCO figures out and base them as individuals; we'll see.

NCOs: elite companies (front) and centre companies (rear)

Then there are the skirmishing figures. These will get based as pairs, for the moment, as that provides a proper, historical visual cue as to how they fought and allows for dispersing them over a broader front. The simpler marching poses, of both elite and centre company figures, will get based in fours or sixes.

Skirmishers, loading and firing

Project 1777, JJ's Talavera project, and Giving Tuesday

Jonathan Jones has posted on the coming culmination of his three-year effort to reproduce the Napoleonic battle of Talavera, a project that inspired my own Project 1777. The work he's done impresses me tremendously, and the determination he's displayed in keeping the project going is inspiring. I get bogged down in other things and run out of steam from time to time, so it's nice to have an example of stick-to-it-ive-ness like this.

Like Jonathan, I love the history of my period, and I'm enjoying delving into the personalities of the leaders that have formed the larger part of my posts so far. I look forward to learning more about all these gentlemen, and, who knows? Maybe some day it will spur an effort like that of my Jacqueline Reiter, soon to be published biographer of an underappreciated British peer and military figure.

Also like Jonathan, I appreciate the hard work of Nigel Marsh, the author of the Carnage and Glory simulation software that powers both JJ's Peninsular set-tos and my own Pennsylvania battles.

And I appreciate Mr J's linking his project to a worthy charity. In abject emulation, and since it's Giving Tuesday here in the US, here's a link to the Brandywine Battlefield Park Association. The association provides tours of Washington's headquarters at Brandywine, battlefield tours to visitors and school groups, staff rides for military officers and cadets, hosts a summer history camp, and provides on-request leadership seminars drawing on the example of Revolutionary War officers. The Association's website includes history, maps, information on battlefield preservation, and assistance on genealogical research.

Other great historic charities include

• Campaign 1776: Saving Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefields
• The Museum of the American Revolution
• The National Parks Conservation Association
• Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area

and of course

• Colonial Williamsburg, the institution that first got me interested in American colonial history, and where I had my first history-facing job. :-)

catching up: early Autumn 2016

While I haven't posted recently, I've not been neglecting my wargaming entirely. :-)

Black Powder AWI at Army of Central Maryland

I recently ran a Revolutionary War game at the local club using the Black Powder ruleset; I'll soon have a post about that and some related games I'm planning.


A few weeks before that, I also ran a Rev War Black Powder game at a friend's house, mostly as a trial and to gain familiarity with the rules.

Black Powder AWI at Peter's

Before that, I've played a good deal of Advanced Squad Leader (three games in a month, which is kind of a record for me),

ASL with Gorkowski

ASL with Fortenberry

ASL with Frum

 played Red Poppies: Ypres Campaign with the designer,

Gorkowski explains my cruel but inevitable defeat.

 played Star Wars: Armada with my best friend while his teenaged son refereed (with lots of heavy sighs at our adult ineptitude),

Star Wars:Armada with Peter

played a British Grenadier scenario of Frayser's Farm,

Burgoyne's British let loose a volley.

and refought the battle of Vendôme with Bruce Weigle's excellent 1871 rules at the author's house.

Another of Bruce's incredible battlefields.

I also took a day off work last week and had a full weekend at Fall In. I played four different games: two Carnage & Glory games set in the Polish Commonwealth (17th century),

My Russian nobles about to kick Polish husaria ass!

one medieval game with Bob Bryant's new small-battle Clans and Companies rules, and a final Carnage & Glory game set in the American Revolution. I had several other games on my list to try to get into, but none of them panned out, alas. I also did a bit of shopping for an upcoming project.

I'll try to arrange for a few posts to summarize these exploits and get a few more photos up. Needless to say, I've also been continuing to read and learn about the 1777 Philadelphia campaign and to enlarge my Rev War research library.

I've also expanded my board wargame library a bit and taken up two new sports, curling and German longsword fencing. So, it's not like I've been sitting on my duff. :-)

Inter Ludus: Games Between Games

While I and the 1777 elves are gearing up for the Philadelphia campaign, I've been enjoying other game-type activity.

DUKWs at Veronnet (Worcestershire Regt.)

Last weekend I had the pleasure of finally sitting down to a game of ASL (two, as it turned out) with a chap Victory Comics in Falls Church, a location new to me that features a large space (including a good many gaming tables), a huge comics selection, and a nice range of boardgames. We played a scenario from a new module that's being playtested for Bounding Fire Productions, a Historical Advanced Squad Leader (HASL) treatment of Operation Neptune. No, not the D-Day landings, but the 43rd Wessex Division's opposed crossing of the Seine River in August 1944. This scenario features an infantry company attempting to cross the Seine in boats with covering fire from tanks and machine-guns. You'll have to wait for the module for details, but suffice to say this scenario will be a nail-biter with some toys to please all types.
I've been corresponding with for many years. We played at

Liberty or Death (GMT Games)

Tonight I'm hoping to inveigle one of my chums into trying out GMT Games' new American Revolution game Liberty or Death. It's an application of the highly popular COIN (counterinsurgency) game system (devised by designer Volko Ruhnke) to the political-military conflict between Britain and her American colonies. Like most COIN designs, it's a four-player game that can be played solitaire or with fewer than four players either by players controlling two aligned (but competing) factions or by the use of well designed paper-based artificial intelligence players. The third and fourth positions in this conflict are allotted to the Native American nations (as allies of the British) and to France (as an ally of the Americans), both of which have their own agendas and their own victory conditions different to those of their allies. Combine a successful basic system, designer knowledgeable in his topic and skillful at adapting the system to purpose, and gorgeous artwork, and you've got what I anticipate to be an excellent game. I've been reading progress reports on this title for some time, and I'm quite chuffed to be able to finally put it on the table.

1866 (Mediaeval Miscellanea)

And this weekend I'll have the pleasure of helping to playtest a scenario for the highly enjoyable 1866 rules from Bruce Weigle. This will be his full-bore treatment of the crucial battle of Königgrätz (aka Sadowa) from the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. I recently got hold of a copy of Avalanche Games' Battles of 1866: Frontier Battles, which includes several engagements from this war but not the conclusive engagement itself (they keep promising to release it as an add-on, but it seems that time has passed that idea by). But I've played one or two battles from this curious war before using Bruce's rules, and I'm looking forward to the mammoth encounter. The 1866 rulebook has Koniggratz among its scenarios, but done as two different engagements. This will be a huge game covering the entire battle.

Reading up on it, I'm guessing that the Austrian may have a chance to overcome their deficiencies of tactics and technology (better-ranged weapons, but slower-firing ones) as the battle kicks off with the Austrians outnumbering the Prussians. They had better take advantage of the opening, however, as the arrival of the Prussian Second Army under Crown Prince Friedrich (son in law of Britain's Queen Victoria and father of the future "Kaiser Bill", Wilhelm II) will seal the Austrian's fate, as it will complete their encirclement and push the odds strongly in the Prussians' favour. We shall see!

So, clearly I need an update!

I did finish my Medieval Germans, and they helped me win my first (and probably last) HMGS tournament title. I'll post photos of the finished army and its prize in my next entry.

I'll also post the Campanian army that I took to the Two David's Pyrrhic Wars campaign/tournament. Truer to my usual pattern, that crashed out near the bottom of the group.

Since March I've been involved mostly in boardgaming, and that either Eurogames or online ASL games via VASL. I'm currently in three playtest matches and fighting three published scenarios with one playtest and one published scenario recently completed. Hopefully I and a couple of friends will be starting one of the historical campaigns soon...

I did have the pleasure of helping Bruce Weigle playtest another convention scenario for his upcoming 1871 fast-play grand tactical rules for 19th century European battles. They speed up the game considerably, but they take a bit of getting used to, as they change the nature of the game more than a little.

Melissa and I have started sweeping the dust and cobwebs out of our collective chess memories. In our first game I mistook one of her rooks for a bishop and she forgot that pawns take diagonally. I think next time through we'll do better with the rules and be able to start working on strategy. In the meantime we keep our brains fit with Lost Cities and Fjords.

end of year wrap-up and recent gaming

Crusaders fighting Muslims (Bibliothèque Boulogne-s-Mer)

So, I didn't ever get a chance to write up either the PBP of the Charlemagne scenario or the subsequent playing of most of the Crusade scenario of EOMA. The end of 2013 came very quickly and a rush of (non-gaming) endeavours washed away my time for blogging before the year departed.

We did have a grand time with the Crusades scenario; we had all but one of the positions filled (no Poland for us). Well, most of us had a grand time. My friend Amir, who was playing France was hit by two "Leader Dies Heirless" events in quick succession, with an "Epidemic" thrown in for good measure. Germany (Eric) confronted some serious unrest throughout his empire but managed not only to hold most of it together but to begin growing slightly eastward (the joys of not having a Polish threat from the east). The Norman Sicilians were not able to expand into Byzantine territory very far, but they did start chipping away at the HRE a bit. As King of England, I was able to settle the British Isles down a bit and started a reverse conquest of Scandinavia. I also picked up Flanders when it rebelled in one of the LDE events. We recorded the game so we could play the final third of it (maybe), but even with the handicaps, Germany was well ahead at the point we stopped.

Mr Invisible and I finally managed to get our first game of Labyrinth in. Well, almost. We played through about two-thirds or three-quarters of a one deck game when I had to admit that the illness that had been twingeing all day (what turned out to be a stomach flu) was going to make it impossible for me to finish. :-\ It was unfortunate, as I had managed to bring at least one additional country to the Caliphate, but the West had managed to counteract this by conquering Afghanistan and bringing it into good governance.

In recent Euro gaming, I've traded a couple of games of (original) Carcassonne with my long-distance friend Kirstin. I played a new acquisition, Carcassonne: New World with three friends. I've also played Ticket to Ride (Marklin edition) with my chums the Grrlz. Both were fun. TTR:M I've played a number of times. the new version of Carc is funky; it is set on the eastern seaboard of the British colonies in the Americas, and as players build westward, pieces that are left on uncompleted roads or towns are recycled and returned to the players' hands. So you have to complete items fairly quickly or they will be overcome by events.

In miniatures, I got to play a quick game of DBA with my new DBA chum Jeff. He took my Sassanid Persians and tried to fight my Tamils with them. The Persians, despite that I love them, are a bit of a handicap to start with, having as they do an elephant and two hordes (a pip sump, as it were). And he had awful dice to go with them. And I got to defend, so I laid out a good deal of bad going that my raiders and psiloi were able to maneuver through. And I got good pips to maneuver my big block of elephants with. The combination meant that I hammered him unmercifully, 5-0 I think. We then joined a Cover Your 6 game of USN F-8s versus PAVN MIGs where both sides lost one aircraft down and one or two more damaged.

I have a wealth of boardgames that I've acquired recently that I'd love to get on the table but haven't had time to play yet. Still waiting to get The Hunters on the table, and some other GMT titles (1914 Offense a l'Outrance, Next War: Korea), MMP titles (Karelia 44, Baltic Gap, Rock of the Marne), and second-hand acquisitions (Republic of Rome, Blue & Gray Quad, Tokyo Express). Not sure how this will all happen, but I'll manage it somehow. Oh, and a new (to me) Euro: Brass, designed by the excellent Martin Wallace. It will give me a chance to polish up my Lancashire accent. :-)

And, to finish off, I've started up playing ASL again. I've been introducing some of my droogs to Starter Kit (we played ), and I've found a PBEM match (ASL28 Ambush!) to play via VASL.

boardgaming recents

While I prep more sets of photos, just a brief mention of a few boardgames I've enjoyed in the past couple of weeks.

I was on (an all too short) vacation last week with friends. We brought plenty of games to entertain us, but we ended up playing only two: MacRobber (now known as Highland Clans) and Alhambra. My friends enjoy Alhambra particularly as they have been to the real one; I just enjoy it for the geometry.

Alhambra consists of accumulating money of different colours (good for all you DOD budget geeks!) and using it to "buy" garden tiles (of yet different colours), hoping to have the most of as many kinds as possible at the end of three scoring rounds (the last being the end of the game). You also get points for linking up the walls that surround these tiles, but the walls constrain how you can place the tiles. You have a reserve space (the planning board, as it were) for tiles that don't fit in your planned garden yet, but you only score the tiles that are fully played. I pulled off several swaps to and from my reserve space during the game. This was neat, as I had never done it before, and it allowed me to fine-tune my garden-building. But it also took up valuable time I could have been building new gardens, so I think it hurt me in the end. Mel, of course, ended up winning.

We also had a go at MacRobber, which has been reissued as Highland Clans, a game I bought sheerly on the strength of its notional theme (building up Highland clan estates and raiding other clans) and have played several times but not regularly. I had misplaced the English translation of the rules, so we had the English cheat sheet and the (original) German rules only. Luckily, Melissa is fluent in German (mostly), so we had no troubles playing. Each turn, each clan gets some resources, which it has to allocate to building (herds, monasteries, castles), recruiting (warriors, pipers, monks), or what the modern military would call information operations (having a bard weaken your opponent's clan). Then you can raid, trying to steal or destroy other clan's cattle or buildings. Each player gets a go, then you score (# of cattle and bonus for most, most monks, total castles and pipers minus how rich in kine someone else is). Then you go again, until you run out of resources or one player wins a sudden-death victory. In a surprising twist, Mel won this handily.

I played this again with the guys this Wednesday. Mel not being present, and me having played the game recently, I managed to thrash my friends mercilessly. (The spirituous liquors I had plied them with helped.) We wondered, as I have before, why one would build castles, as they are both the most complicated to score and seem to give almost no return on investment. I've checked the BGG forums, but no discussion of this. Not much discussion at all, as this seems to be not a popular game; odd, as I quite enjoy it.

Another game I enjoy, though I have a little trouble keeping some of the rules straight, is Jungle Speed. The guys and I had several rounds of this, which I seem to recall Bryan and I won. Again, Hendrick's Gin was my friend in this, as it's a game of speed in pattern recognition. Players flip over cards, looking for a match between their card and another that is already face up. A couple of odd cards upset the applecart by both looking similar to other special cards and having very specific and different rules. Once you spark a match, if you grab the "totem" (a small dumbbell, originally made of wood but now of rubber for decreasing injuries :-), the opponent whose card matches yours takes all your discards and adds them to his unplayed pile (disposing of which is the objective of the game. But if you knock over the totem or grab it when you're not supposed to, you get *everyone* else's discards to add into your stack.

Well, enough boardgaming for now. I have a couple of DBA games slated with Jeff this Sunday, and my friend Mr Invisible is talking about getting together for a boardgame (perhaps Labyrinth, finally, or perhaps PQ-17. Maybe sometime this month I will be able to get some painting in, but between making up shutdown hours, holiday stuff, and a pleasant distraction that's entered my life, I think painting may have to wait until the new year.

The government shutdown and thus my enforced holiday couldn't have come at a better time. Not one, not two, but three big boxes from GMT sitting waiting to be opened: Cuba Libre, A Distant Plain, and the first expansion module (reprint) for Commands and Colors.

Plus all the existing unplayed titles in my library, and any number of DBA armies that need to be finished (or even started).