Revista Wargames Soldiers 3h5u37

WSS issue 60

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COLOPHON CONTENTS Publisher: Rolof van Hövell tot Westerflier Editor in chief: Jasper Oorthuys Editor: Guy Bowers Copy editors: Duncan B. Campbell and Duncan Hamilton Marketing & media manager: Christianne C. Beall Contributors: Mark Backhouse, Peter Bowles, Neil Burt, Richard Clarke, Nick Eyre, Warren Gleeson, Denis Jackman, Björn Arvid Kappe, Eoghan Kelly, Chris Payne, Olivier Perronny, Craig Woodfield. Illustrations: Georgina Pymont-Harman Design & layout: © MeSa Design, www.mesadesign.nl Print: PublisherPartners, www.publisherpartners.com Editorial office PO Box 4082, 7200 BB Zutphen, The Netherlands Phone: +31-575-776076 (NL), +44-20-88168281 (Europe), +1-740-994-0091 (US) Email: [email protected]. The exclusive distributor for the UK and the Republic of Ireland is Comag Specialist Magazines, Unit 3, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, UB7 7QE, United Kingdom. Phone: +44 01895 433600.

THEME: AIRBORNE OPERATIONS IN WWII

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Airborne warfare

32

Brécourt Manor

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Project Platoon

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Crossing the Merderet

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Operation Oak

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WWII Paratroopers

A short introduction to the theme

The infamous Easy Company assault

Playtesting platoon level games

The battles of La Fière and Cauquigny

The daring operation to rescue Mussolini

An overview of available miniatures

HOBBY

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Dead man’s corner

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Hedges and bocage

66

Palm trees

Creating and painting the cover vignette

A guide to making greenery

Creating tropical trees in six steps

REGULAR DEPARTMENTS

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Hobby news

8

Miniature reviews

14

This gaming life

16

Normandy Firefight

70

Games reviews

News from the world of WS&S

Copyright Karwansaray BV. All rights reserved. Nothing in this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent of the publishers. Any individual providing material for publication must ensure that the correct permissions before submission to us. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, but in a few cases this proves impossible. The editor and publishers apologize for any unwitting cases of copyright transgressions and would like to hear from any copyright holders not acknowledged. Articles and the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the editor and/or publishers. Advertising in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy does not necessarily imply endorsement.

A stack of new miniatures reviewed by our team

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Up Front

Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy is published every two months by Karwansaray BV, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. PO Box 1110, 3000 BC Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

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Boardgame review

80

Book reviews

ISSN: 2211-503X

Rick Priestley ponders cards in wargames

Warwick Kinrade expounds on his new game

A look at 7ombie TV, FOG Napoleonic and more

Richard Clarke considers command, control, and communication.

Gaming the Great Escape with Stalag 17

New books reviewed by the WS&S team

Printed in the European Union

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© Georgina Harman

EDITORIAL Know thy enemy? “Knowledge is the key to success in warfare, of your enemy and of your own strengths and weaknesses. If you truly know both yourself and your enemy, you can choose to fight or to wisely retreat if the odds are not in your favour.” (Sun Tzu) I recently played in a friendly tournament. Without thinking, I took a ‘nice’ Viking army, based upon the one I usually face with my friend James Oram. It’s an army without the more exotic troops such as berserkers or Godi. We’ve had some memorable and fun games as a result. But when it was fielded at a tournament against others with a quite different mindset to my own, the results were predictable - for every battle I won, there was also a loss. This did not bother me as victory was not my ultimate goal, having fun was. I did have three excellent games (win, lose or draw – who cares?) and one not at all enjoyable – entirely predictable and complete annihilation for my Vikings by a mounted Norman army. Would I change my army had I known? I’m not sure. Probably not, but I guess in the future I’ll do a little more scouting and figure out the competition and the players. Something with a little more teeth perhaps... I must give my thanks to Tony Stafford who played me in my first game and again in my last. He kindly offered to swap armies, for fun. His was Norman and mine Viking. The end result was another Norman victory – just with me at the helm. Tony’s a good sport, but there was no challenge with the ‘First Charge rule’ – part of the reason I take ‘nice’ armies in the first place. For me the challenge is in how you use the tactics, not some special rule, to win the battle. Maybe next time we’ll stick to Arthurian gaming... As a side note, I have to thank Mike at Relic miniatures. With the Companions he sent for review came a single Celt miniature with the name ‘GUY’ written on the base...!

THEME:

Guy Bowers ([email protected])

OPERATION OAK

FEATURES

46

20

The first battle of Cremona

24

Gangs of New York

62

The Irregular

64

Small soldiers

A scenario for Hail Caesar

How the MADGamers created a participation game

Peter Bowles reflects on ‘modern’ wargaming

Mark Backhouse also likes the smaller sizes Rescuing Mussolini: the gliders have landed

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NEWS

By Guy Bowers

A shift in our news section After much deliberation, we have decided to reduce the size of our Hobby News section down to a single page, offering you more content elsewhere in the magazine. The choice was an inevitable one: by the time you read this, anything we have as ‘breaking news’ is likely to be a few months old. You want news, not history! This section will now be used to update you with the latest goings-on here at Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, while our website will be used to carry the important news as it

occurs around the hobby. This process has already started with the introduction of our wargames calendar (courtesy of Richard ‘Tricks’ Tyndall of the Newark Irregulars). At the moment, we are also working hard on introducing an up-to-date hobby news sectin on our website which will provide a broad selection of new historical wargaming releases. Stay tuned! Find the latest news at: www.wssmagazine.com

Win a (scale) hotel! The nice gents at Battle Flag have offered us their latest release as a competition prize. Recently released in 28mm, their Trinity Palace Hotel, is a truly magnificent terrain piece for any western game. And you can win it!

• 1st prize – the completed Trinity Palace Hotel, which retails at £140.00 • 2nd prize – £50.00-worth of buildings, of the runnerup’s choice • 3rd prize – kit version of the new Sheriff’s Office and Jail, valued at £22.50

The front of the Trinity Palace Hotel.

A shot of the interior.

All you have to do is answer three questions, and send your answers to us. Here are the questions:

Send your answers to Guy Bowers, editor@wssmagazine. com. The closing date is 31 July 2012. Winners will be drawn at random from the correct entries and announced on the WS&S website in early August.

(1) In which city did Wyatt earn his Buntline? (2) By what name was Doc Holliday’s mistress, Kate Elder, better known? (3) What is your favourite issue or article from the past 60 issues of Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy?

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REVIEWS Macedonian Phalangites The phalangites were the core of the Macedonian infantry that served Alexander and his successors so well. With their long sarissae, they defeated the Persian Empire, fought each other and Republican Rome. Each box contains ten frames with four bodies per sprue, all in different poses, and including six kinds of helmet. This makes for a total of 40 models. Half carry their pike vertically while the others carry theirs at an angle. Each soldier is equipped with a linothorax and shield. The pikes seem a little thick, but this is necessary to ensure that they have some strength. They are far more robust than the ECW plastic pikes for instance. There is a lack of command models, which is not a great issue, since suitable models will surely appear soon. Size-wise the miniatures are on the larger size and go well with the likes of Aventine Miniatures or Wargames Foundry.

tall. mes 3mm rd Ga 3 o l r r o a ’ any: W oot to eye Comp ‘f pike. m e h m t 28 of p o Size: t e ures s to th miniat ncient A ic 91mm l t a s pla lassic or 40 Era: C .00 f .uk 0 2 o £ : mes.c a g Price d r .warlo www

The moulding is good and the models fit together well. The butt spikes are a little large on the models, but this is acceptable. This set offers good value for money and an easy way to bolster the forces of any Macedonian general.

Natal Native Contingent The Natal Native Contingent was raised by the British as an auxiliary force to fight alongside the Redcoats in the invasion of Zululand in 1879. Primarily armed with native weapons, a few had firearms. The NNC has an unfair reputation of being useless, even though they stood their ground against the Zulus in a number of battles. The pack contains thirty-two hard plastic natives and two metal command models. There are four models per plastic frame with a total of eight frames in the box. The poses and weapons are similar to the Zulus, except new heads have been added and some modifications have been made to the bodies. Eight separate heads are provided with a variety of headwear and hats. Construction is straightforward: they glue together well.

for a good fit with most existing ranges. They match the extensive Empress range well. The price is also good, being almost half the price of the equivalent in metal.

tall ames lord G ye’ or 31mm r a W e any: ar ot to Comp m ‘fo ulu W m Z 8 2 o : l g e d 32 n iz n A a S nial, etal o m l o 2 C or Era: .00 f : £ 20 s r u Price iat e .uk ic min es.co m a g plast d r o l r .wa www

The models are well detailed. They aren’t quite up to the standard of the Empress metals, but are good nevertheless. A few minor mould lines need to be removed. The two command figures (from the Boer range) are nice sculpts but not quite the dashing officer seen on the box art. Size wise, they are in the middle of the 28mm range, making

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REVIEWS Napoleonic Russian Infantry 1809-14 Literally hot from the moulds, Perry miniatures kindly send us two test sprues of their new 28mm Napoleonic Russians. WS&S was told that there are a few small tweaks that will need to be done in the samples we received, all of which will be corrected before the Russians go on sale. That being said, we had great difficulty finding anything wrong with the models. They look excellent as is. The box will come with one officer sprue and six infantry frames, making a total of forty models. Nine regimental flags and a uniform guide will be included. The officer frame has four models (an officer, two standard bearers, and a drummer), while the infantry frame has six marching poses. Heads are provided for Grenadier, Carabineer and Jäger units (enough heads are included to make all the models Jäger). Similar in design to their Prussian boxed set, there are few mould lines, excellent casting, and fine detail, as we’ve come to expect from the Perrys. Backpacks and heads are separate, making assembly relatively straightforward: glue them on and you’re ready. This does mean that the poses are all marching, with no reloading or firing poses. There is less choice than

with their earlier sets, but this is a minor gripe. This set is an excellent value for money and a must for those with an interest in Russians during the Napoleonic wars. The figures’ size is in the middle of the 28mm range, making them compatible with most existing plastic and metal collections.

all ures 1mm t Miniat y r r e ’ or 3 e P y : e y n a to Comp ‘foot 28mm res. : e iz S iniatu m eonic l y o t p r a fo Era: N 0 for om : £ 18.0 iniatures.c e ic r P m .perry www

Mexican Line Lancer Continuing their 40mm Mexican American War range, Gringo 40’s has released Mexican cavalry. Halfway between the collectable miniature and the practical wargames figure, 40mm offers something quite unique. Now the Mexicans have eight different Cavalry models. The Mexican Line Lancer comes with a separate head, lance, musket, and sabre. The horse includes two body parts and a tail that fit together well, although a little modelling putty will be required for a tight seal. The casting had no mould lines and very little flash. The historical accuracy on the uniform is excellent. The detailing and features are crisp and the models are more anatomically correct than comparable 28mm miniatures. Cavalry are a little unusual for skirmish gaming and cry out to be used in bigger battles. The only caveat this reviewer can offer is that each cavalry model is for a different branch of cavalry. In other words, unless some conversion work is done, units will have to consist of identical models. The Mexican cavalry released include hussars, lancers, cuirassiers, and mounted rifleman. This is definitely a range for the wargamer who wants something different and impressive.

l.

tal 72mm 0’s 4 is o n g a rin sem ) any: G . Hor 46-48 Comp scale ar (18 W m s m n us ar 40 ica Amer Size: ican H x n e a M ic ex he for t Era: M 12.00 £ : m e o Pric 40s.c .gringo www

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REVIEWS Early War Panzer III The Panzer III was the staple of the Wehrmacht’s armoured forces for the early part of the Second World War. The models provided in this kit are the Ausf F (early war, armed with a 37mm gun), Ausf G (redesigned engine deck and 50mm gun), and Ausf H version. Both the G and H versions are ideal for the desert or Russian campaigns. While production stopped in 1943 (in favour of Stug IIIs), the Panzer III saw action until the end of the war. The hard plastic models come in kit form. There are quite a few pieces but the instructions are straightforward and it is easy to assemble with good plastic glue. Each box comes with enough parts to build five models, making these kits very good value for money. The extra parts from the variants also come in handy. The reviewer had a Panzer IIIF with a missing mantlet from another maker and added the spare one from the kit. The finished model does feel light, so we added some weight (plasticine) internally to give the model extra ‘heft’. Size wise, the model will fit in well with the ranges from other 15mm manufacturers.

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Warpaints and orange on a black undercoat gave good coverage with a single coat, equivalent to the ‘foundation’ range from Citadel. The strong tone shade ink went on smoothly and is most useful, allowing a similar effect to the ‘army painter quick shade’ but without the gloss effect. Overall, this is a good set of paints at a reasonable price. WS&S will do a comprehensive paint review in a future issue, comparing different brands.

The Army Painter brand has recently released a range of acrylic paints, aptly called Warpaints! Each pot holds 18ml of paint in a Vallejo-style ‘squeezy’ bottle. Their range currently includes 28 colours, 5 metallics and three ink shades. The principle behind this range is to provide a single set of colours to meet all your painting needs. The nine paints and one ink from the basic starter set were provided for review. We tried some of the paints on various surfaces, paying particular attention to the lighter colours on a black undercoat. All the colours are strong with good coverage. The paints were even and flowed very well: they weren’t too runny (after a good shake) or too dry. Even the white

. inter al pot my Pa r A dividu e h in ’ T r t e : in y p a an ega P £ 1.75) Comp 2.50 ( the ‘M hes and € r o : f e ) rus Pric 5.00 s 6 b 0 (£ 8 ts plu in € 99.0 a p ll 36 set (a m e) ter.co a guid mypain r a e h .t www

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REVIEWS Meddling Kids Jinkys! The ‘Gang and Dog’ are offered by Hasslefree under their range of non-combatants. Fresh from solving mysteries, the gang consists of Barney (the sporty type), Woolsley (the hippy), Felicity (the cheerleader), Louise (with glasses and her book), and of course Hamlet their faithful Great Dane. These miniatures do bear more than a ing resemblance to another famous group of five young detectives. The models’ poses are very good, if deliberately slightly cartoonish. The casting is good with few mould lines and little flash (although Hamlet had a tiny amount). Each of the models (apart from the dog) comes with their own ‘slotta’ base. The models are full of character and would be suitable as non-combatants in modern games. Hamlet the Great Dane, while too cartoony for a ‘real’ dog, is not emasculated like his cartoon counterpart. All this group needs is a green van (a machine for solving mysteries) in order to head off on an adventure. This will surely involve finding some monster, capturing it and

unmasking it to reveal the true villain. “And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those pesky kids!” Well, that’s another mystery solved gang!

tall 29mm e r e o r ’ f e e ey assl all. ot to any: H 1mm t m ‘fo m Comp 6 o 2 ’ r 3 e s y l e ir G to y Size: ‘foot iduall 9mm 2 s 4 indiv y .3 3 Bo £ , et odern the s Era: M 3 for .6 15 £ k : Price is.co.u .hfmin w w w

Lady Winterly, Travers and Federated Minions and Crooked Dice provides several sets of alternative heads. These would not look out of place in modern games, nor would Lady Winterly as a character. Fans of the original series will no doubt be travelling at ‘Standard by 12’ to pick up their set. While a little specialist, others will find these a very useful set for 7TV or similar games. The ‘federated’ minions are ready to fight any would be ‘liberators’.

Hot from the studios of 7TV are the forces of Lady Winterly and her security minions. These models have more than a ing resemblance to the ‘bad guys’ in a cult 1980’s British Sci-Fi series, ‘probably’. Lady Winterly, complete with evening gown (ideal for running through quarries), is armed with a pistol but comes with a separate hand holding a voodoo doll as an alternative. Travers, her faithful one-eyed lackey comes with a sidearm. The security minions are suitably militaristic, dressed in gas masks, jumpsuits and boots with sidearms. Casting is crisp with few mould lines visible. Detail and posing is also very good. Each model comes with its own ‘slotta’ base. The minions have separate heads,

ames tall ice G D d e 30mm k r o o o r ’ e any: C to ey Comp ‘foot m m 8 2 re ns Size: /Futu 4.50, Minio odern £ M s : . r 3 a e r f E ract set o : Cha r the o Price f 8 k o.u or £ dice.c £ 3.00 okedo r .c www

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REVIEWS Teutonic Knights God wills it! The Teutonic order fought in the Northern or Prussian Crusade for nearly three centuries, from 1230 to their decline in 1521. Their cause was allegedly to bring Christianity to the ‘heathens’, but most of the states they fought were already Christian. The models are hard plastic and include horse and knight frames (one a command frame with flags) with bases. The horse frame consists of two sets of horse bodies in two halves with three head variations. The knight frame has four bodies with a good selection of lances, swords, axes and shields. The helmets are either plain or ornamented with horns or other decorations. There are enough parts to equip all the knights with lances, if so desired. The command sprue has a horn and several pennants including the cross (shown). The style of knights’ helmets (barrel helms) dates these firmly to the 13th century. Casting is good and construction is straightforward with no special challenges. Size-wise, these are middle of the 28mm range and will fit well with other similarly sized figures. While marketed as Teutons, these models would serve as a good source for affordable 13th century knights. Fireforge

will shortly release mounted sergeants who ed the knights and crusaders during the 2nd and 3rd Crusades. Games eforge ir F tall. : y n 46mm . e Compa l a c 8mm s Size: 2 models unted dieval o e m M : 12 a Er for £ 20.00 es.com Price: e g r -gam o f e ir www.f

Macedonian Companions Casting is good and the detail quite exquisite. Construction is easy, the heads and arms all attach to the bodies easily with a little trimming. The posing is also good. When finished, these figures do look impressive. They become even better with paint applied, as the pictures on the Relic site attest. They are available in packs of three or as a unit deal of ten. If your Macedonians are in need of some heavy hitters, then the Relic Companions are just the ticket. They are mediumsized as 28mms go, making them compatible with most existing ranges. The Companions were the elite horsemen of the Macedonian army, famous for their wedge formation. Relic brings us half-barded Companions, suitable for Alexander’s successor states. The models are pewter, making a distinctive light ‘clink’ in the packet. The riders have separate heads (two variants) and come in three poses holding their kontos (thrusting spear, not shown) with both hands. Spears are not provided. The command consists of a leader, standard-bearer, and optional musician with four head variants. The horses themselves have three variants and are nicely posed.

. plume s uding iature l in c in M tall elic 9mm any: R ale. 4 c Comp r s dels o 28mm 10 mo Size: r s o t f n ian ncie and Canad Era: A comm 6.00 e 5 h $ t : r Price ian fo m Canad es.co 5 r .9 u t 19 ia $ in m .relic www

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REVIEWS TaliBan and A.N.A. The metal used is quite strong; the guns are robust even though they are thin and accurately sculpted. Detailing and posing is realistic and very good. These figures look more accurate than some 28mm models the reviewer has seen. If moderns are your cup of tea, then Under Fire Miniatures provide an excellent 20mm range which few will match in accuracy or detail.

With the release of Force on Force, modern gaming has gotten a spurt of new players and miniature ranges. A number of gamers have opted for 20mm as their scale of choice. Under Fire Miniatures has released both Afghan National Army (A.N.A.) and Taliban figures. The Taliban are equipped with Soviet-era weaponry, namely the ubiquitous Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK) and RPG grenade launcher. The A.N.A. are equipped with US weapons (M16A2 and M249 SAW), body armour and helmets. The inclusion of the A.N.A. is a nice touch, as it reflects the Afghan’s own defence forces fighting the Taliban. Currently there are four packs of Taliban and two of A.N.A. The models are well cast; the mould lines are hard to spot.

res iniatu tall ire M F 23mm r r e o d n ’ e U y : e any ot to Comp m ‘fo m 0 2 : Size ry odern infant Era: M for 4 .com s 0 e .3 r 3 : £ iniatu m e Price ir rf .unde www

Napoleonic WürttemBergers The French army of the Napoleonic wars was made up of several foreign contingents that provided for between a third and a half of the army’s total strength. Some were of dubious quality, but others were renowned for their fighting ability. The Württemberg infantry were considered to be some of the best. Their light infantry were particularly good. Württemberg served Napoleon from 1806 to the defeats of 1812 and 1813, when King Frederick deserted the emperor. Front Rank has released 28mm Württemberg infantry. The models include line infantry (in crested helmets), light infantry (in shakos), and grenadier infantry. All have several variants, including marching, firing, and ‘au porte’ poses. Command is included. The sculpting is good – it is both well animated and detailed. Casting is also of a good quality. Württemberg infantry is an ideal addition for the French Napoleonic army collector who wants reliable and disciplined allied troops to accompany their French attack columns.

tall Rank 36mm t r n o o r ’ eye any: F ot to Comp m ‘fo m 8 2 . Size: plume .00 p of o t l. £ 26 e o ic d t n o o m e apol fantry Era: N per in 15 1. £ : Price f 24. unit o a r .com o f ntrank o r .f www

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© Georgie Harman

COLUMN A house of cards

By Rick Priestley

This Gaming Life

Earlier this year, I paid a visit to my friend Dane Stephens at the Evesham Wargames Club, where we’d arranged to play an American Civil War game with some of the other club . It’s always interesting to see how different clubs and gaming groups approach our hobby. There’s always something new, often something surprising, and naturally something to be learned, whether it’s an aspect of club organization, gaming, modelling, or whatever. As we set the game up, I was introduced to my fellow players and their impressive collections. It’s obvious that there are some real ACW aficionados in Evesham, and I had my work cut out keeping up! The Evesham lads made me more than welcome, with a never-ending supply of tea and buns. But the highlight for me was the chance to try out a new set of rules – namely, Sharp Practice with the Terrible Sharp Sword supplement for ACW, from TooFatLardies. Not a new set of rules, as such – but a set I hadn’t played before and which I’d heard many good things about. I have to say that the game was great fun, despite my attempts to sabotage our team’s efforts by constantly rolling ‘out of ammunition’ events. (Random and frequently dispiriting events are triggered by rolling multiple 1s … well, with my legendary dice-rolling, that’s just asking for trouble!)

Some Confederates from the Evesham lads. The key to the game, though, is the use of cards to activate units and drive some of the game narrative, and this got me thinking a bit about card mechanics in wargames past and present. I must it that I’ve steered away from card mechanics in recent years, but it was not always so. At one time, cards – even ordinary playing cards – were quite commonly used as drivers for wargames rules. More recent rules that rely on cards include Bryan Ansell’s The Rules With No Name for western gunfights (published by Wargames Foundry). In both Sharp Practice and The Rules With No Name, cards are

primarily used as a means of sequencing events, the turn of the card determining which units or which commands act next. I suspect that this method derives ultimately from the Milton Bradley (Hasbro) game Battle Masters (1992). I note that, on the ‘Board Game Geek’ site, the design is credited to Stephen Baker. In fact, Bryan Ansell designed the core game and I developed the mechanics from Bryan’s brief. It was part of the series that Games Workshop co-produced with MB, including Hero Quest and Space Crusade, both of which were designed by Stephen Baker – and fine games they are, too. As far as I know, Battle Masters introduced the idea of representing each unit – or group of units – with a card, and activating the unit or group by means of working through the deck. At least, I think that was the first time the mechanism was used, outside of solo wargames, where card activation has a longer tradition (see Donald Featherstone’s Solo Wargaming from 1972, Ed). By the end of the 1980s, Games Workshop had already produced board and card games in some numbers, and the idea of using cards as integral parts of tabletop wargames was something the design team were keen to try out. We had a card-based medieval combat game in development in about 1990, and a little later we started a post-apocalyptic buggyfighting game – a kind of European Mad Max – which used card mechanics for combat resolution. Both games were developed by Nigel Stillman and neither was destined to reach fruition – just two of those Games Workshop mighthave-beens of which there were many in those days. The second edition of Space Marine (1991) and the fourth edition of Warhammer and Warhammer Magic (1992) were cardbased designs from about the same period that actually did happen. For the most part, these were die-cut cards – the sort you have to pop out from a card sheet – rather than proper pre-cut playing cards. At the time, that wasn’t so unusual, as many games companies used die-cut cards and components – as they still do. But this was in the days before Magic the Gathering, Pokemon and their ilk came along with their quality pre-cut cards and upped players’ expectations somewhat.

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As always with such things, it’s impossible to figure out all the ramifications until something is ‘in market’ and customers are either playing or not playing your game. With cards, it’s worse because it’s so much harder to publish errata or revise a mix once everything is finished. At the design stage, you have a captive audience of fellow games developers and play-testers, and you’ll also be using pre-production cards and components, so it’s never quite the same as the finished product. There’s always a ‘heart in the mouth’ moment when you get your hands on real production material – usually just weeks or even days before the public. It’s not just the design but also the production that can throw a spanner in the works. With die-cut card sheets, the entire sheet is designed to fit inside a box, and the ties that hold all the cards in place have to be sufficiently thick that the whole lot doesn’t just fall apart as it’s packed. You’d think it would be easy, wouldn’t you? Oh no! Wrong size sheets; sheets that fell apart so that you couldn’t pack them; I’ve seen the lot! As a designer, the nightmare situation was to discover that the card mix was wrong – which shouldn’t happen, but occasionally did, either because of a production mistake or sometimes a reprographic error (unlikely these days, as everything is printed from PDF files, but not uncommon with pre-digital reprographics). And, of course, one wrong card meant having to reprint a whole sheet at huge cost of time and money, accompanied by much cursing of games designers, I can tell you! It was issues like these that started to turn us away from card mechanics, as being just too much trouble. The issue really came down to cost. Die-cut card sheets are expensive, and proper pre-cut playing cards with nice rounded edges are just phenomenally expensive in the short runs that are typical of the hobby market. When Wizards of the Coast came along with Magic the Gathering, they were printing hundreds of thousands of card packs. They really got the system worked out to a T with the proper card mixes and rare cards planned into the production runs. With those sorts of numbers, the huge set-up costs didn’t matter so much, and suddenly all those die-cut cards we were producing at GW just looked incredibly primitive. The real killer for us came with expansion into non-English language, when everything had to be replicated in French, German, Italian and Spanish, but the print runs were really too tiny to justify the expense of card print. I having to cut down all the English language text on cards to make sure the German version would fit in the available space, as German tends to work out about ten per cent longer than English! Oh, and printing in multiple languages also introduces the potential for entirely novel and hilarious mistakes, such as printing cards with French on one side and Spanish on the other. Come on, it’s easily done! By the 1996 edition of Warhammer, I think we all knew that there was no room for card-based mechanics in the new multi-language Games Workshop. We were stuck with the Warhammer Magic system, because it was referenced in all the army supplements. Eventually, it had to go, though. The cost of the non-English card reprints was just too much to bear. It was a pity, really, because it was a clever and entertaining idea that would have benefited from a further iteration to clean up

Professionally produced cards for I Ain’t Been Shot Mum. the game play. I suspect that thousands of Italian Warhammer Magic boxes ended up as landfill somewhere, when we finally changed the system in 2000. And that was pretty much that for card mechanics, as far as we were concerned. Of course, as games designers, we were still entranced by the possibilities of card-based systems. However, we quickly learned that, if you couldn’t actually produce and sell card sets, you were on to a loser. Of course, it was always possible to print cards as magazine pages, or even on thin card stock, and let customers either copy the pages or cut out the cards for themselves. What we found here was that almost nobody ever cuts out pages from a book or makes up their own cards. It was a huge turn-off for most players. Partly, this was an ‘effort barrier’, but I think there is also a natural reluctance to ‘spoil’ a book, or even a card sheet, and a nagging fear of making a mistake and ruining a card. With internet access, PDF files and home printers, this has become less of an issue – but, unless you can print onto card, there is still the requirement either to stick paper onto pre-cut card stock or to laminate paper cards to make them easier to handle. All these things tend to work against selling substantial numbers of a game. Of course, selling substantial numbers may not be an issue, if you are an amateur producing games primarily for the fun of it, and just trying not to lose too much money! It’s really interesting to see a game like Sharp Practice and other TooFatLardies rule sets re-establish card mechanics in wargames. Partly, that has to come down to a sound design by enthusiasts who are willing to take the time to hone a system that relies on iteration to get it right. The other big change is in the technology that really does make it practical to print up and laminate cards at home – which is something we would have marvelled at in the days of ‘Blue Peter’ gumand-scissors crafting. I still feel that any wargame that relies on card mechanics presents a barrier to play – some will be put off by the effort and others simply because they don’t much care for the idea – but it’s nowhere near the obstacle it would have been just a decade ago. Overall, I can only see such things becoming easier and more accessible, so it’ll be interesting to see what develops over the next ten years. How about mobile phones as the ultimate wargames tool with able card decks as apps? Perhaps I’ll stick to dice. Oh, no … more 1s! Rick shares his interest in cards and the practicalities of card mechanics. Perhaps in future issues, he can read the cards for us and shed light on the new Bolt Action game?

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Interview By Guy Bowers

An interview with Warwick Kinrade

Normandy Firefight Having heard of the new skirmish game Normandy Firefight, available from North Star, WS&S tracked down the author. Warwick Kinrade was kind enough to answer a few questions. Hi, Warwick. Can you tell us some of the basics behind your ruleset? The game is called Normandy Firefight, and it pretty much does what it says on the tin. These are fast-play rules for infantry-against-infantry skirmishes, set in the close-quarters hedgerow fighting of Normandy during the Second World War. This is only because that’s the scenario I built my terrain and collected my models for, but the rules include equipment for all the major nations. So, if you want to play in the jungles of Burma or the rubble of Berlin, you can. The basic rules are not actually specific to Normandy. They are just generic rules for squad skirmish actions. So, what scale of play is Normandy Firefight designed for? Is it for a few figures (skirmish), or a couple of dozen (platoon), or even more? Very much skirmish. The largest game we’ve played has been five-a-side. It is really designed as a multi-player game, so each player controls his ‘man’. Of course, as you get to know the rules, you can easily control more than one figure, but I enjoy the games best when it’s just you as one man on the ground, and you only have to think about your own actions and survival. It’s a bit more like a gladiatorial combat game that way. A fight to the last man standing. As for scale, the miniatures I originally collected for it are 54mm – for example, from Dragon or Tamiya – because I loved the detail and the superb posing. Having bought a few and painted them, and being a wargamer, I couldn’t just leave them on the shelf. I wanted a game to play with them, so I wrote one! That’s how most of my projects work. They start from personal interest.

I also had an itch to make some really detailed terrain to match the models. That was part of the fun of the project, making a 4’ x 4’ board, with lots of detail, ditches, bushes, wood piles etc. It’s the old railway modeller in me! So, what theoretical time range will it cover? Can I use Normandy Firefight for engagements in the Spanish Civil War, for example, or 1950s Korea? There is no reason why you couldn’t extend the idea of small squad actions to any period. It would work fine in both of these wars, and maybe many others too. Vietnam might be great, with the inclusion of a few booby-traps for the VC. (Hmm, I like that idea a lot. I can already feel a supplement coming on!) The basics of movement, firing stance (that’s important in these rules), singleshot and automatic weapons shooting, hit locations, pinning, and so on, would not change much. They do say that every infantryman’s experience of war is pretty similar, from the First World War to the present day, I guess. “Get down and stay down!” Good advice in these rules, too. So, tell us some more about the Firefight rules. How do they play? The idea was to get as detailed with the rules as the models were, without being ponderous. So you know how many magazines and grenades you are carrying, for example, and how many rounds you have left in a mag. The idea was also to make it tough. The game is a fire-fight at short range, where submachine guns and grenades come into their own. Now, of course, most men still have rifles, but the occasional guy with an SMG has an edge and is to be feared. Also, I wanted details like accurate rates of fire for weapons and

The front cover of Normandy Firefight. realistic grenade ranges, too. To get the grenade ranges, I lobbed cans of beans down the garden; to get the movement rates, I timed myself running and crawling! Pretty physical for games design – usually, it’s sitting behind a computer, typing away and gaining pounds. The game is designed to be played quickly. Each turn is only approximately 2-3 seconds of action, so you might be covering just 20 or 30 seconds of intense-action in a game. I’d say you can play a game in an hour, two at the most, unless you catch a grenade early on, in which case your game will suddenly be cut short! These rules deliberately exclude heavier weapons, like artillery or mortars. A machine gun at this range is likely to be the biggest thing you encounter, and then the whole focus of the game would be taking it out. The action in Saving Private Ryan against the dug-in MG42 position would be a perfect example. I did bend this ban a little to include tanks, but only as the objective in the tank-hunting mission, and because the models looked so good in the photographs. This is small-unit action, so one

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Interview

For supplements, other theatres and other wars would be the way to go with it. One friend asked if I would do Stalingrad next – with its room-to-room fighting, it would be the perfect setting. The terrain could look amazing at 54mm. But you can never really tell, to start with: I’ll have to see how things go, and not get too far ahead of myself. If it goes well, then more will follow, but other projects will be keeping me busy in the meantime. To expand Firefight, a miniatures range would be great. I’m no sculptor, but it might be a good opportunity for a small miniatures company to do some cool stuff. If anyone’s interested, I’d love to hear from them. As it is, this game stands alone as an evening’s entertainment. I’m not trying to create a whole new hobby. I’m just ing on a couple of hours of fun.

A handful of models: all you need for Normandy Firefight.

Sherman tank and its infantry close protection, attacked by a two- or threeman German Panzerfaust-wielding tank-hunter team, would be the game. Even if a tank is included, it can’t use its main gun, because it’s just too close. Still, two MGs are frightening enough. Other scenarios include missions like finding and taking out a sniper or recovering a missing officer from his wrecked vehicle. I started writing the game over ten years ago, with no intention of publishing. I was just creating something I wanted to play. I was partly inspired by computer games like Medal of Honour and Call of

Duty, which were still new back then. But I can’t play those games much – they give me motion sickness! – and computer games just aren’t the same as having toy soldiers. I wanted games like these, but the wargamer’s equivalent – and no throwing up after twenty minutes! Do you have any future plans for Normandy Firefight? What do you have planned for the game and what armies? It’s not really a game about collecting whole armies. You just need a few nice miniatures. Very easy to collect … and easy on the wallet, too!

So, let’s talk about what miniatures we can use in the game. Can I use my existing miniature collection? Are there any basing conventions I should be aware of? Its one-to-one, so each man is based individually, but only if needed. Prone guys generally don’t need a base – they have already fallen over. I use three miniatures for each man: standing, kneeling and prone. It looks good but it’s not absolutely necessary. You can use any miniatures you have. Personally, I use 54mm for the detail, but the game includes conversions for 25/28mm and 20mm gaming. Most Second World War gamers will have some of those models already, so these rules become just another way of using their miniatures collection. If you have already got four or five infantry guys with the right basic equipment (and you will do too!), then you can set up a small board (for 25mm, a 3’ x 3’ will suit just fine) and have a game or two in an evening. You’ll need terrain that is a bit denser than in most standard wargames, because the men need cover to dart between, hide behind and manoeuvre through. Out in the open, a close range fire-fight isn’t going to last very long! Thank you for your time, Warwick. Normandy Firefight sounds very interesting. WS&S will definitely be reviewing it in a future issue.

Infantry take cover in a Normandy field, 20mm scale.

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Scenario By Craig Woodfield

A scenario for Hail Caesar

© Georgie Harman

The First Battle of Cremona, AD 69 When the Roman Emperor Nero died in AD 68, he left no heir, sparking the civil war that became known as the Year of the Four Emperors. For the first time in a century, the Roman world was riven with conflict, as the rich and powerful made a bid for the throne or threw their behind one or other of the contenders.

S

ervius Sulpicius Galba, the governor of Hispania, was the first to seize power, but he made himself so unpopular that he lasted only a few months before being killed by the Praetorian Guard. Two new contenders then stepped forward: the ambitious politician Marcus Salvius Otho, already in Rome and implicated in Galba’s assassination, and the new governor of Germania, Aulus Vitellius. The latter had the of the Rhine legions, arguably Rome’s most battle-hardened troops, which he immediately mobilized in two armies and headed for Rome. Otho attempted to parley but his advances were rejected. He had amongst his military advisors the famous Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, ex-governor of Britain and the man who ended Boudica’s revolt, but he elected to give command of his army to his less experienced brother Titianus.

from several others. The Othonians had an army of around 22,000 close to Cremona by this stage, with another 15,000 in the region. More troops were arriving on an almost daily basis as the Danube garrisons contributed to Otho’s cause. However, Vitellius had the advantage of both numbers and quality at this stage. Otho had to take Nero’s newly raised legion of marines into service and even emptied the gladiatorial schools in his quest for troops. Battle was ed on 14 April as both Vittellius and Otho sought to cement their position as the most powerful man on earth. Re-enacting Cremona I find Hail Caesar to be the perfect system for scenarios, as well as a very enjoyable ‘ancients’ ruleset in its own right. The absence of the usual (and

artificial) constraints of points values and standardized unit sizes allows the scenario designer to simply focus on developing an order of battle, whilst the command and control system adds an enjoyable and slightly unpredictable element to game-play. However, this scenario can be adapted to any rule set with ease. The scenario In developing this scenario, I have gifted Otho with slightly more prescience than he seemed to possess and have assumed that he concentrated all of his available forces. The army of Vitellius must set up first before the walls of Cremona, as shown. Otho’s troops set up next and

The first of Vitellius’s armies entered Italy in late March of AD 69. It attacked the town of Placentia (Piacenza in northern Italy) but was repulsed, and then fought an indecisive battle near the city of Cremona on 5 April. A few days later the rest of Vitellius’ army arrived and made Cremona their base. Vitellius had by far the larger army, probably around 50,000 men including three full legions and strong vexillations

Gladiators in the service of Otho.

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Map of the Cremona battlefield. have the first turn. All orders to Vitellian troops suffer a -2 penalty in the first turn and -1 in the second, to represent their initial lack of readiness. Otho’s 4th division may set up on the other side of

the River Po. This river is fordable, but counts as difficult ground. And there is treachery! A rumour was circulated amongst the Othonians that enemy units were going to defect to

Orders of battle Each General is assumed to have a leadership value of 8.

3rd Division – Alfenus Varus • 2 x Batavian Cavalry • 2 x Light Cavalry

Vitellius 1st Division – Fabius Valens (Army General) • 5 x Legionaries • 1 x Scorpio • 1 x Auxiliary Spearmen • 1 x Archers • 1 x Skirmishers

Otho 1st Division – Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus • 1 x Praetorians • 2 x Legionaries • 1 x Scorpio • 1 x Auxiliary Cavalry • 1 x Auxiliary Spearmen • 1 x Archers • 1 x Skirmishers

2nd Division – Aulus Caecina Alienus • 5 x Legionaries • 1 x Scorpio • 1 x Auxiliary Spearmen • 1 x Archers • 1 x Skirmishers

2nd Division – Licinius Proculus • 3 x Legionaries • 1 x Scorpio • 2 x Auxiliary Spearmen • 1 x Archers • 1 x Skirmishers

Otho’s cause. The Vitellian player may take advantage of this and may choose to shout ‘Treachery!’ at the start of one turn. For that turn only, all Othonian command tests are made at -1.

3rd Division – Annius Gallus • 2 x Naval Legionaries • 1 x Legionaries • 1 x Skirmishers 4th Division – Titus Flavius Sabinus • 1 x Praetorians • 1 x Gladiators • 1 x Skirmishers 5th Division – Otho (Army General) • 1 x Praetorian Cavalry • 1 x Praetorians For the average Hail Caesar game, each unit should be 20-24 men (infantry) or 12-16 men (skirmishers or cavalry). Feel free to adjust numbers to suit your available forces or games system.

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© Craig Woodfield

Scenario

Roman praetorians, bodyguards of the emperor.

Objectives Each side will fight until one side is broken (i.e. more than half of its divisions are broken) or one of the generals is killed. With Vitellius or Otho dead, the road is open for the other to secure his position as emperor (well, at least until Vespasian’s er Marcus Antonius Primus marches his legions south, leading to the Second Battle of Cremona). The historical result The Othonians sought to take the advantage by attacking the Vitellians whilst they were still in camp. A detachment of gladiators ed by prae-

later civil war was renewed when the experienced general Vespasian, in Jerusalem dealing with a major insurrection, was proclaimed emperor by his troops. A second great battle was fought at Cremona, but more of that another day.

torians made a diversionary raid across the River Po whilst the bulk of the army struck at the camp itself. The gladiators were easily repulsed by Batavian cavalry while the praetorians looked on, and after some initial successes, the Othonian forces were steadily beaten back and then routed by the superior army of Vitellius. Otho was not present at the battle and took his own life on the following day. Those of his troops that were not slain were incorporated into Vitellius’ armies. Vitellius was now the undisputed master of Rome, but less than three months

Craig is an expert in everything Roman. The importance of who won the First Battle of Cremona is debatable, as the victor was destined to meet Vespasian’s ers at the Second Battle of Cremona. There’s only one way to determine who’s Emperor … get the Romans out again and let the dice decide!

Unit statistics Unit Legionaries Praetorians Naval Legionaries Auxiliary Spearmen Gladiators Archers Skirmishers Auxiliary Cavalry Batavian Cavalry Praetorian Cavalry Light Cavalry Scorpio

Type HI HI HI MI MI LIA LI MC MC MC LC Art

Clash 7 7 7 6 6 3 3 7 7 7 5 1

Sust. 7 7 6 6 6 3 2 5 5 5 3 1

Short Range 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 3 3 2 2

Long Range 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 2

Morale 4+ 4+ 4+ 5+ 5+ 6+ 0 5+ 5+ 4+ 6+ 5+

Stam. 6 6 6 6 6 4 4 6 6 6 4 3

Special Drilled, Testudo, Pilum Drilled, Testudo, Pilum, Political Pilum Tough Fighters Small Unit Slings, Small Unit , Skirmish Wild Fighters (1), Aquatic Drilled, Political Javelins, Small Unit, Feigned Flight 24” range

Political: Becomes shaken if the Army General is wounded. Automatically breaks if the Army General is killed. Aquatic: Can cross bodies of water without penalty. Roman Generals only add 2 attacks if they a unit in combat. Other Roman Commanders only add a single attack.

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Roman marines formed into legionary units under Otho.

Further Reading I relied heavily on Michael Lane’s The Roman Empire Order of Battle for the Civil Wars 68-70 AD to develop this scenario. This little 86-page booklet was published by the Society of Ancients a few years ago and is hopefully still available. For anybody with a strong interest in this period, the classic is Kenneth Wellesley’s The Year

of the Four Emperors, now in its third edition. It is also well worth going back to original sources and reading Tacitus and Josephus. Pictures are provided courtesy of Simon Miller or by the author. Simon’s armies can be found at: http://bigredbat.blogspot.com/

Legio XIV Gemina fighting under Otho.

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Scenario By Denis Jackman

Battles around the Five Points

Gangs of New York © Georgie Harman

Last year, the MADGamers once again took a participation game on the show circuit. This is a look at how the project was realized from an initial idea, through discussion and planning to playtesting, and finally to presentation at the shows.

I

hope that this article will help those who are thinking about jumping into shows, and I apologize to the old hands for trying to teach them to suck eggs! In this article, I will be talking specifically about the Gangs of New York participation game, inspired by the film of the same name, that MADGamers presented at Colours 2011 in Newbury. Background MADGamers has a long history of putting on participation games. Since 2002 they have been preparing and showing a wide range of games, varying in both genre and scale. Equally, the results have been presented at places as far afield as Sheffield and Antwerp. The scale has varied wildly from 6mm,

to 10mm and 15mm, and up to 28mm. Topics have included Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana, Area 51, Shiloh, the Wild West, Pirates, Allied POWs, and the Second World War. So how do you go about showing a game? First of all, there has to be a conscious decision to host a game at a show. There is a large istrative overhead to the exercise, organizing the entry to the show, gathering resources and materials for the game, and finally getting the team mobilized. This is a big commitment and should not be taken lightly. However, once you complete the work and get to the show, the rewards can be great. You meet a wide variety of people from within the hobby,

Butcher Bill Cutting make new friends, and gain exposure to other clubs, games and s, leading hopefully to future gaming opportunities. Game types There are three types of games that you can generally take to a show – the participation game, the demonstration

The Gangs of New York participation game at Colours 2011

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Scenario

game, and the display game – and there is a very large difference between the three. A display ‘game’ is literally a display. There is no interaction with the game whatsoever. The display is set up at the beginning of the show and the team are present to talk about it and to information. This is a hard format to get right, but I have seen it done very well on a few occasions. Last year at Colours, for example, there was an excellent 28mm display of Isandlwana. A demonstration game is one step up from a display game and, although it has little involvement from the public, the team are fully engaged in running the game through its paces. This normally takes the form of a re-creation, a scenario or a battle, and uses a well defined and well known (at least to the participants!) set of rules. With a demonstration game, a lot of work goes into researching the background to the scenario or battle, and presenting it to viewers. Finally, a participation game requires players to be drawn from the visitors to the show. In general, when deg such a game, we tend to follow a set of guidelines. 1. Time - no game should last longer than 40 minutes: 20-30 minutes is ideal, but 40 minutes is the absolute limit. You need to that the typical visitor wants to view many things and still have time to spend cash on whatever new rules and figures are available, so monopolizing them for one or two hours is simply inconsiderate to other contributors and traders, as well as to the visitors themselves. 2. Simplicity – the game must be able to be played by any level of player within a minute or two of sitting down. The preamble to the game must be short and understandable. Everything the players need should be in front of them: dice, range sticks, figures and counters. 3. Enjoyment – the players really should enjoy the experience. They must feel included and encouraged to take part and play. If people

Bushwhacked with a chamber pot!

become bored and drift away, it will disrupt the play. 4. Winning – everyone should have a chance of winning, right up to the last round of the dice. 5. Stimulating – it should be visually stimulating to encourage people to stop and look, and hopefully to play. Deg the game So how did we get from a blank page to Gangs of New York at Colours? At MADGamers, the process usually begins shortly after the first show of the season. At the designated meeting area (yes, it’s the pub), the club gather to sup and relax and share the war stories of the day. Talk here will generally start with what occurred at the table, show and stands, and move on to the inevitable discussion of what to run next year.

Butcher Bill – No Irish!

This process will be continued at the regular club night and on the club forum. We try to use the following guidelines when the discussion starts. 1. Nothing is discounted. Every idea, no matter how ridiculous it may seem, is recorded and stored. One of our hits, Pieces of Dice (a Pirate game), was discarded as unfeasible during a pub discussion, only to develop into a hit game after some research. 2. Recap the ideas from previous years, and outline any games which have been similar to each other, noting which are demonstration games and which are participation games. (Generally, MADGamers do not run any display games … yet!) Building the game So last year, MADGamers sat down (at the pub) to discuss some options, and settled on Gangs of New York. We liked the 2002 Martin Scorsese movie and it seemed to lend itself easily to a skirmish game format. A bit of background research (okay, we watched the movie again, a couple of times) and some reading confirmed our opinion. We decided on a scenario based on the final section of the movie, which was the showdown in the Five Points neighbourhood of Manhattan. After deciding on a game, a schedule of work is drawn up. This will generally cover the following points.

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Scenery Building the scenery takes time and planning. The layout for Gangs of New York had to be reasonably accurate, but not so cluttered that it would stop the game from running.

Ne’er-do-wells make their way along the waterfront.

1. Background material needs to be researched and produced. 2. Figures need to be sourced, acquired and painted. 3. Scenery needs to be planned and built. 4. Rules need to be selected or designed. 5. Playtesting needs to be organized. 6. istration for shows needs to be organized. Background material Some ing material needs to be produced in order to place the game in some kind of context. For Gangs of New York, this was a quick gather to establish the historical context and link the game with the movie.

Figures The sourcing, acquiring and painting of figures for the game is one of the most important aspects of the process. The figures need to be right. We had seen some Perry Miniatures in the ‘American Civil War’ range that fit the bill extremely well. The main reason for the choice was that the figures themselves were clearly inspired by the movie. (The range even included a ‘Bill the Butcher’ model). Once acquired, these models were then ed on to the painting team. At MADGamers, we are blessed with a team of excellent painters, and with Rob Jones and Dale French leading them, the results are always going to be good.

Rules The rules were written from scratch using a number of sources as references. The Lord of the Rings reference will be apparent from the outset (with the method of determining initiative). Once some figures and terrain pieces are done, you can run a series of playtests and game analyses to see how the process is working out. The play tests may take some time, especially when you scratch-build your own rules as we did. My advice would be to run two or three (possibly more, but not too many) test-runs. Make sure all the mechanics are shaken out. Familiarize everyone with the rules and how the game plays. Run the game as you would run it at a show. Practise, practise, practise is the key here. At each run, sit down and evaluate the result against your aims. Are you ticking the right boxes? Will someone enjoy playing this at a show? During the play test process, it will become apparent which team will be able to (or even want to) run the game when it is presented at the show. Finally We have designed the game, painted the figures, and built the scenery. We

A working girl celebrates with a pint of grog!

A fierce mêlée breaks out!

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Scenario

Rioters in front of a scratch-built building.

Bricks or bare hands will do if no weapons are available!

even if sometimes that effort is not acknowledged in the way it should be. All going well, you will have a stream of people who will have enjoyed your game. If it goes really well, you will also have a stream of awards to go with that enjoyment. Here is the final rule sheet for Gangs of New York for your perusal. Gangs of New York has proven to be a good game for a show. Everyone seems to immediately recognize it as they by. It is short, sharp and brutal on the action side. Games rarely go beyond 20-25 minutes. And they’re fun! If you see me or the MADGamers at the shows running the game, do come over and say hello.

The New York gent and lady - well dressed and well-armed.

have prepared the rules, the rangesticks, and the handouts. We have booked ourselves into shows and mentally prepared ourselves for the onslaught. So what happens on the day of the show? Well, in this as in any well prepared wargame, the plan never survives with the enemy (or the public)! If possible, have someone there to answer questions while you run the game. that the game is there for the public, so take the opportunity to interact with them and include them. The overall process for organizing a game at a show is not overly hard or arduous. However, it does require dedication, some work, and sometimes some determination. Above all, it is a team effort,

Let’s start a riot – 1863 style!

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Scenario “Gangs of New York” MADGamers 2011 TURN SEQUENCE 1 Initiative 2 Player A Moves 3 Player B Moves 4 Player A Shoots 5 Player B Shoots 6 Melee

MOVEMENT Walk 6” Run / Charge

1 player from each gang rolls 1 D6 and the highest score wins the Initiative and becomes Player A for this turn. In the event of a draw, roll again

Counters

Yellow Counter - Reload Marker Red Counter - Wound Marker* *Each model has 2 Wounds

12”

SHOOTING/MELEE Weapon Range Shotgun 6” Musket/Rifle 12” Pistol 6” Rock/Brick special * Hand Weapon Melee Unarmed Melee

Strength 5 4 4 3 3 2

Special Rules Cannot Run and Shoot Cannot Move and Shoot, Slow Reload Shoot as charging, Shoot as Charged *Shoot as charging Firearms count as Improvised Weapons

When a player makes a shooting or melee attack, roll a number of D6 equal to the weapon’s strength and consult the table below. If Total score of D6 is 10+ If any double is rolled

Hit causes a Hit and wound Causes a kill (1 kill for every double)

Melee attacks are made simultaneously Shooting into Melee If Shooting into a Melee the Dice score needed to hit is 10+ Randomise casualties from Shooting into Melee Multiple fighters in a single Melee If more than one figure is fighting the same enemy model, instead of rolling individually, take the highest strength weapon and add 1D6 for each extra friendly model involved.

Denis and the MADGamers have certainly proved popular at the shows they’ve attended, bringing their own mixture of mayhem and fun to anyone who wanted to take part. I’m sure they will be planning their next extravaganza around some pints at their ‘designated meeting area’.

Links Here are some useful links to our website and to some manufacturers. MADGamers (http://www.madgamers.co.uk) Perry Miniatures (http://www.perry-miniatures.com/index.php) ‘Gangs of New York’: http://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?products_id=1443 http://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?products_id=1444 http://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?products_id=1445 http://www.perry-miniatures.com/product_info.php?products_id=1446 Brigade Games, Ironclad, Eureka and Foundry Miniatures all have Victorian miniatures which would be useful for the game.

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Men descending from the clouds

© Georgie Harman

AirBorne Warfare In the 1470s, an unknown Italian designer first postulated the idea of a parachute as a method of descending safely from altitude. Shortly after this, Leonardo da Vinci expanded on the idea and presented his own variation.

T

he concept was toyed with over the following centuries up to the 1790s, when André-Jacques Garnerin successfully descended from a balloon using a design that has stayed pretty much the same to this day. “Where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds might not, in many places, do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?” - Benjamin Franklin (1784) By the early twentieth century, several pioneers were experimenting with parachutes as a way to descend safely from the newly-developed aeroplane. Up to the eve of the First World War, there were many huge leaps forward, resulting in backpack-stored ‘chutes, rip cords, and other innovations. This development came to an effective halt with the outbreak of war. An urban myth claimed that the nascent Royal Flying Corps refused to give parachutes to its pilots, as it was felt that this would encourage them to abandon their expensive machines too readily. (The actual reason was far more prosaic – the parachutes were just too heavy for the machines’ limited capacity.) Balloon crews were normally only given them in order to save the expensive radio equipment from damage in the event of the balloon being shot down. After the war, there was a renewed interest in the idea of the airborne soldier who could be dropped behind the static trench lines, thus turning the horrors of the First World War into a thing of the

past. The Italians started the research and were closely followed by the Soviet Union and the United States, with , Britain, and Japan close behind. As the Second World War unfolded, both sides reviewed and developed their tactics for the use of airborne troops. One of the most detailed postwar evaluations that exists was commissioned by the US Army and written by a broad range of former veterans of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, and relied very much on their experiences and assessments of airborne operations in Europe during the Second World War. The German view was that there were three overarching principles governing the success of an airborne operation: 1. Planning and co-operation 2. Execution, techniques and tactics 3. Organization and training Their view was that there were only two initial goals for any airborne-based operation: 1. A strip of land must be captured from the air 2. An ‘airhead’ or ‘air bridgehead’ must be established The first combat use of paratroopers was during the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, when they were used to seize Masnedøfort and the Storstrøm Bridge, as well as essential airfields, both part of the key to an occupation of both countries. Next was the assault on the Netherlands, executed successfully in the attacks on Rotterdam (Fortress

German Fallschirmjäger in harness.

Holland, or Vesting Holland in Dutch) and the Moerdijk Bridges, and unsuccessfully in the attempt to capture the Dutch royal family in The Hague (Den Haag). The German experience was split into two types of assault. The first was to secure an objective, such as the bridges in Holland (1940), the canal at Corinth (1941), or the road junctions in the Ardennes (1944). The second was to conduct a self-contained operation that involved securing the landing zone and then driving the enemy forces back, defeating them in concerted and drawnout combat operations, principally on Crete (1941), but also on Leros (1943). By their own ission, the Germans were undertrained and had seriously underestimated the manpower needed for these operations at the start of the war – and they only learned by experience as the conflict wore on. The key element to a successful air operation, assuming that the three principles listed above are carried out, is to ensure that surprise is achieved – as much surprise as possible – and to employ decep-

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One of the famous Red Devils. tion, for example by dropping dummy paratroops (both sides used this ruse). On Crete, the German forces were faced with a dug-in defence force that was both expecting an assault and also facing the predicament of not having a clear line of retreat. This resulted in heavy casualties for the German forces. A key finding was that morale was not an issue where airborne troops were concerned. Once you had been dropped or the gliders released, there was no turning back, regardless of what was actually happening on – or to – the landing zone. It was also felt that anti-aircraft fire, whilst inflicting significant casualties, would never be good enough to prevent an airborne attack. The only way to achieve this was either to destroy all the planes while still aloft – which was unlikely, as this required total domination of the air – or else to wait and attack the paras at the landing zones, especially if this could be achieved whilst they lacked cover and no coherent command had formed. Failing this, the intent would be to drive the invaders back through force of arms and, hopefully, to deprive the force of re-supply while simultaneously destroying it in attritional combat, as happened to the British airbornes at Arnhem.

the transports being scattered over a huge area. The review also highlighted the failings of the Sicilian operations as a prime example of poor planning and woeful execution. The forces were dropped on some heavy concentrations of Axis defenders and given poor maps of the area. The outcome was predictable. The defenders had adequate time to reinforce the bridge (the obvious target) and extra elements of the elite Hermann Göring Division were brought up from reserve, leading to severe Allied casualties, despite their air superiority. Other operations were dogged, once again, by bad planning, with one air landing operation being shattered by friendly fire as the transports flew over the Allied landing fleets. In Normandy, the Allied air landings again surprised the Germans with their lack of ambition. Troops were dropped to secure bridges and key crossroads that would lead to a link-up within 24 hours of the Normandy landings. The Germans were puzzled as to why the paras weren’t used for a deeper strike that could disrupt their counter attacks further. Instead, the paras served as static defence forces. This was seen as a waste of experienced and highly trained troops. Once again, in Operation Market Garden, poor planning and a refusal to acknowledge intelligence reports led to disaster for British and Polish airborne troops, as they were

dropped onto a very well-defended area with an unrealistic timescale attached to any possible relief. The continual thread that runs through the analysis of Allied operations is that planning was indifferent, at best, and local intelligence was disregarded. 2nd Lt. George Rice: “Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.” Richard Winters: “We’re paratroopers, Lieutenant. We’re supposed to be surrounded.” - Band of Brothers. Following the Second World War, there have been many uses of airborne troops, from the French in Indo-China, through the Pakistan-India clashes, right up to the contemporary conflicts in the Middle East and the recent rescue of an American hostage in Somalia by Special Forces using the HALO (‘high altitude, low opening’) drop. The paratroopers have emerged in the modern age are highly skilled, highly effective combat soldiers. They are trained to act with a huge degree of autonomy, due to the potential for chaos in their initial with the enemy. These elite warriors are always going to be a popular choice amongst wargamers. Be bold, be brave, be resolute! We’re not sure how often Eoghan Kelly has watched the Band of Brothers miniseries, but we decided it’s probably better not to ask.

Their review of Allied operations was similarly interesting. The German view was that their operations were either poorly planned or not ambitious enough in their scope. The American airborne assault on Vichy-held North Africa had an inauspicious start, with US Airborne .30 cal team.

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Brécourt Manor

© Georgie Harman

The famous Easy Company assault

Since the HBO series Band of Brothers aired in 2001, almost everyone knows about the Brécourt Manor assault led by Lieutenant Dick Winters and the men of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment on D-Day. Here’s how you can turn this historical action into a gaming experience. BACKGROUND

Normandy, occupied , on the morning of D-Day. After a chaotic night drop, the 2nd battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, under the command of Col. Strayer, has reached the hamlet of Le Grand Chemin, north of Ste-Mariedu-Mont about six miles south of Utah Beach. While the battalion regroups its scattered units, in a field south of the hamlet a German artillery battery, that had not been located by the allies, begins to shell Utah Beach and the causeway leading inland. Easy Company is ordered to attack the battery and to silence the guns. With no news of his commanding officer (1st Lt. Meehan), First Lieutenant Richard Winters gathers the few men available from his company and leads them towards the fields north of Brécourt Manor.

ded were captured. In this process, Michel de Vallavielle, one of the sons of the owner, who was a former colonel and First World War veteran, was mistakenly shot at, and was evacuated to England. He became mayor of SteMarie-du-Mont after the war and was one of the creators of the Utah Beach museum. Location

The battery position is an L-shaped trench system dug in front of hedgerows and linking the four gun emplacements. The guns are placed in the hedge line to help disguise them from aerial attack. Three guns are pointing towards the

Lt Richard Winters.

north-east and Utah Beach, and the remaining gun points towards the northwest. A machine-gun nest is located in the angle of the L-shaped system. In the rear of the battery, behind the opposite hedgerow, there are German troops with machine-guns. In the middle of the trench system, there is a shelter with the Battery Command Post.

Though Winters originally described them as 88s, the German guns were probably 10.5 cm leFH 18/40s, the mid-war version of this 105mm gun mounted on a PaK40 carriage with lighter wheels. The unit responsible was the Gebirgs-Artillerie Regiment 191 attached to the 91 Luftlande-InfanterieDivision. The 1st and 2nd Battalions were equipped with one battery of 10.5 cm leFH 18/40s and two batteries of 10.5 cm GebH 40s. After the destruction of the guns at Brécourt, a second assault with Sherman tanks was launched to clear the area. The Manor was easily controlled and many German soldiers and their woun-

Layout of the trench system.

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US paratroopers – E Company, 506th PIR, 101st Abn. Div. All the US paratrooper squads are ‘elite’ units, depending on the rules you play with. Because of the tiny number of men available, I chose to group them in small teams according to their role during the fight. Easy/506 HQ squad 1st LT Richard Winters - M1 Garand L Joe Toye - M1 Carbine PVT Gerald Lorraine - M1 Garand PVT Popeye Wynn - M1 Garand

Easy/506 Assault squad 2 SGT Carwood Lipton - M1 Carbine SGT Mike Ranney - M1 Garand PVT John Halls - Thompson Easy/506 MMG Team 1 PVT John Plesha - .30 Cal MMG PVT Walter Hendrix - M1 Carbine Easy/506 MMG Team 2 PVT Joe Liebgott - .30 Cal MMG PVT Cleveland Petty - M1 Carbine The group also had an M1 Bazooka but no ammunition, so it was not used. Winters had originally lost his Garand rifle on the drop, and carried a Kar98 for a while, but had acquired a replacement by this time. He deliberately chose to use a Garand as it meant he didn’t stand out as an officer. Snipers cannot specifically pick out Winters as a target.

Easy Company starts adjacent to the two hedgerows in the vegetable allotment. The artillery crews start by their guns. The ing German infantry enter the map from the direction of Brécourt Manor. If your board is big enough, you should try and incorporate all the hedgerows on the smaller map. If not, the German infantry may enter the board diagonally opposite to the US entry point, or may choose to move along

Easy Company closes on the battery. the hedgerows and re-enter the board below Gun Battery 1 several turns later. Special rules

Because the guns are already firing, the US paratroopers were able to close on the battery position without being spotted. The US player has the initiative during the first turn. Each gun crew has to continue loading and firing their howitzer until they are shot at. The HMG team and the Battery HQ may react freely. The trench system provides good protection from external fire to any model in it. To destroy a gun, a US paratrooper squad has to stay one full turn in the

German Order of Battle

6. Batterie, II. Abteilung, Gebirgs-Artillerie-Regiment 191, 91. Infanterie Div. The German units of the artillery battery are ranked as ‘below standard’ or ‘average’, at best. German Artillery Battery Battery HQ (in the B shelter) Oberleutnant - Lüger Feldwebel – Kar98 2 x Artillerymen – Kar98 Gefreiter – MG42 on tripod Assistant gunner – Kar98 Battery HMG (in the MG nest) Gefreiter – MG42 on tripod Assistant gunner – Kar98 Battery gun crews (one for each gun position) Unteroffizier – MP40 4 x Artillerymen – Kar98

© Offensive Minis

Easy/506 Assault squad 1 2nd LT Buck Compton - Thompson SGT Bill Guarnere - Thompson SGT Don Malarkey - M1 Carbine

Protecting the guns, there was a platoon of German infantry consisting of three squads of grenadiers of average value. They enter the map from the direction of Brécourt Manor. German infantry platoon Three German squads with each: Unteroffizier – MP40 4 x grenadiers – Kar98 1 x LMG team consisting of 2 grenadiers – MG42 + Kar98

A German commander zeroes in his artillery scope.

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‘Easy’ take the first MG post. gun position without being engaged in a hand-to-hand fight. Destroying a gun gives 1 Victory Point to the US player.

US Player optional rule US paratrooper reinforcement – D Company, 506th PIR, 101st Abn. Div. Once the third gun position is secured, the US player can have a reinforcement of two paratrooper squads from Dog Company. Dog/506 Assault squad 1 1st LT Ronald Spears - Thompson SGT - Thompson PVT - M1 Carbine

German 105mm in action. If a US paratrooper squad controls the Battery Command Post shelter (one full turn without close combat), they find a map with German artillery locations in the area. Gathering the information gives 1 Victory Point to the US player. If the German player puts a US squad or team out of action, it gives him 1 Victory Point. Scenario variants

There are several scenario options which can be added. In Winters’ memoirs, he mentions that there was a 20-minute pause after the second gun was taken, while his men brought up more ammo.

cy to negate any reaction of the German side in the first turns. After silencing the HMG and capturing the first gun, you have to establish a base of fire to the attack on the next gun, and another one to suppress the German infantry squads behind the opposite hedgerow. From the test games that we’ve tried, I would say that the capture of the first gun is often obvious but it can be very difficult to reach the second gun, and more so the third one, without decent fire . Otherwise, your squads will be pinned down in the trenches, unable to move. German player

Dog/506 Assault squad 2 SGT - M1 Carbine PVT - Garand PVT - Garand German Player optional rule Fallschirmjäger 6th Regiment squads.

Tactics

Brécourt has become a text-book classic of fire and manoeuvre, establishing a base of fire and then using flanking forces and the enemy’s defences against him. US player

On the morning of the attack, Major Friedrich von der Heydte, who commanded the paratroopers of Fallschirmjäger Regiment 6 in position around Carentan, was in the church tower of Ste-Marie-du-Mont watching the landings on Utah Beach. He later explained that it was he who ordered the battery near Brécourt Manor to open fire upon the beach and the causeway. The German player can replace the German infantry platoon with a Fallschirmjäger consisting of two paratrooper squads of ‘elite’ value.

You must attack with speed and accura-

Once the US paratroopers have reached the trenches, it is very difficult to hurt them. First, you have to slow down the attack in order to give yourself time to counter-attack with the ing infantry squads. There are two routes for this counter-attack: a short one near the first gun position, although it would be very crowded with US paratroopers, and

Two Fallschirmjäger squads, with each: Feldwebel – MP40 Unteroffizier – MP40 5 x Jägers – Kar98 2 x LMG team consisting of 2 Jägers – MG42 + Kar98 The assault on the first gun.

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German reinforcements along the hedgerows. another one across the field, which is a very long and unprotected route. The US forces are tiny, and if you manage to keep them around the first gun position, it will be easier to pin them down and making progress towards other guns more difficult. Other scenarios

Le Holdy Another battery of four guns was at Le Holdy (3. Batterie, I. Abteilung, GebirgsArtillerie-Regiment 191), south-west of Ste-Marie-du-Mont. The German defenders (some 47 men, similar to the numbers at Brécourt) managed to pin down an initial assault of US paratroopers. In the afternoon, Captains Lloyd E. Patch (HQ Company, 1st Battalion, 506th PIR) and Knut H. Raudstein (Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 506th PIR) with more than 80 paratroopers led another assault to control the hamlet of Le Holdy and finally captured the position. The paratroopers proceeded to destroy the guns and, when an order came from Colonel Sink to keep them, only one gun was saved. This lone 105mm was used to shell Carentan for a short while until a shell became stuck in the breach and an enterprising para cleared it with a grenade! The tactic worked, but on the subsequent shot the gun exploded, killing and injuring several paras. The Le Holdy scenario would be similar to Brécourt, except that the Germans have all their infantry prepared and defending the gun positions, ready for the US attack.

Private Shaub reloads before entering the trench.

Audouville ‘ghost Battery’

There was a third 105mm battery believed to have been sited at Audouville. Some mystery surrounds the exact location, as the five US paras of F Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment who came across the battery by chance, weren’t sure of their exact location! The five were Benjamin C. Shaub, Joe Pistone, Floyd Baker (Medic), Sgt. Mike (the Cat) Milenczenko and William Carberry. While Shaub walked towards the guns spraying them with his M1 Garand, the others opened up with suppressing fire. Shaub entered the trench system, reloaded and walked along the trench killing any Germans who crossed his path. For his actions, he was awarded a Silver Star. This scenario could be refought with the Brécourt scenario, but with half the figures. The US get five paratroopers and the Germans two active guns and a single section in reserve. Shaub killed all the Germans with only two Garand clips, so the guns were probably undermanned. There were some dead paras in front of the position, suggesting a previous failed assault which probably had weakened the position. Brécourt wasn’t the only battery gun assault on D-Day, but it has become arguably the most famous. This scenario has endless playability. Can you do as well as Lt. Winters, taking the first three battery positions with ‘only’ one dead and one wounded?

Olivier Perronny is a true gaming genius and is one of the few people who can boast a T34 Tank Company in 28mm scale, a man truly after our own hearts! Olivier will return with some interesting thirteenth century articles in the near future. Unless otherwise mentioned all photos by the author.

The US Paratrooper miniatures used are from Artizan Designs, Bolt Action and Offensive Miniatures. The 105mm German guns and crews are from Bolt Action. Further reading: Vanguard of the Crusade: The US 101st Airborne Division by Mark Bando. Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters by Dick Winters. Call of Duty: My Life Before, During, and After the Band of Brothers by Lynn ‘Buck’ Compton. Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends by William Guarnere. Easy Company Soldier: The Legendary Battles of a Sergeant by Don Malarkey. Débarquement à Utah Beach by Georges Bernage. D-Day with the Screaming Eagles by George Koskimaki. Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose. Band of Brothers (HBO Mini-series)

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Project Platoon For the past six months, the Karwansaray staff and friends have been busy collecting and painting our platoons. Now has come the time to try them out with several different rulesets. So how did we feel about the current crop of platoon level games? Read on to find out more...

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he rule sets we tried were Disposable Heroes (with Point Blank), I ain’t been shot mum, Rate of fire, Rules of Engagement and Victory Decision. We wanted to include others in this comprehensive review (including the new Bolt Action game), but space and time prohibited

their inclusion. In all our games, we were looking at how fun the games were to play and how accurate they felt. The spirit of our gaming is best summed up by our play tester Rossco – “I’m not here to win, I’m here to enjoy my evening.”

Mark Backhouse’s ‘Panzer platoon on a budget’. Bolt Action plastics and tanks from a toy store!

Disposable Heroes (with Point Blank) Disposable Heroes, by Iron Ivan games, was tried first. It uses alternative squad activation; initiative is rolled and then each player takes it in turn to activate a squad and complete its actions. Actions consist of moving or shooting, so a model may move three times, shoot three times, or do some combination of the two. Point values are used to generate equal sides for an engagement. Ten-sided dice (D10s) are used throughout, following a standard to hit and to wound structure. The to hit modifier is reduced by cover. So typically, troops who normally have a 50% chance of hitting will have a 10% to 20% chance of hitting targets in cover. At extreme range (double normal range), a flat 1 is needed to hit. However, only one shot of this type is possible per turn. The game we played was pretty lethal. Luck was an important factor: this is a game where rolling 1’s is a good thing! If hit by enemy fire, troops were generally taken out of action immediately, as

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Paul Burkin’s excellent 82nd Airborne from Artizan Designs. your average rifle has an 80% chance of causing a casualty under normal circumstances. While we had a little trouble flicking back and forth through the rulebook, we picked it up easily enough after a good read and a few games. As shooting was so lethal, our games tended to ‘bog down’ into sniping matches. Use plenty of cover if you’re playing. Objectives are essential if you want to keep the game moving and fair for both sides. However, the rules do state this. Tank combat worked out as a reverse of the infantry battles, with our tanks trading shots for several turns, long after the other fighting had ended. Point Blank (reviewed last issue) is designed for squad actions, rather than platoon level games. It plays in a similar fashion to Disposable Heroes, and can be upgraded easily. This is no surprise as it is derived from this game, with individual figures activating instead of whole squads. It is less lethal than its forerunner, which is a consideration.

them. Additional cards may be added to simulate different effects such as special moves or fuel shortages plus the ‘Tea Break’ card which represents the end of the turn. All the cards are then shuffled, with the ‘Tea Break’ card added to the lower half of the deck. One card is drawn at a time, activating the designated unit. When the ‘Tea Break’ card comes up, the turn ends. As some cards lie below the ‘tea break’ card, not every unit will be activated every turn. ‘Big men’ may attempt to remove ‘shock’ from a unit (see later) or activate a unit prematurely before its card comes up. If a unit’s card comes up and it’s been activated by a ‘Big man’ previously, it does not get to act twice. When activated, units have three actions (less if they have taken casualties). These can be used to move (each action generates a D6” movement), or to shoot (which generates a D6 points worth of

shooting). Shooting uses a clever fire table on the back of the book, comparing the total firepower rolled against factors such as range and cover. This can generate casualties (these come in the form of losses to the unit or ‘shock’ which is deducted from the shooting value of the unit). Units can also be pinned (preventing them from moving that turn) or suppressed (which effectively stops all action for the turn). Of course, this will only affect units which have yet to be activated. If a unit takes shock equal to or exceeding its remaining number of troops, it then “loses its bottle” and must retreat. The tank rules are simple and effective. A number of D6 are rolled to cause hits and a number of dice are rolled to represent the armour of the tank. If the number of armour ‘saves’ exceeds the hits, the tank takes no damage. If the hits exceed the saves, the tank is damaged or destroyed, depending on

I ain’t been shot mum While designed as a company level game, we tried I ain’t been shot mum or IABSM as a platoon level game. We did this by simply treating each 8-man section as a card and treating the ‘big man’ as a platoon commander. For these purposes, the rules from the TooFatLardies worked fine. In IABSM, each unit and ‘big man’ commander has a card to represent

The first sections of Jasper Oorthuys’ platoon - good painting on a deadline. Figures from Wargames Foundry and Bolt Action.

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ever, these had been tried earlier and were found to be a bit awkward. Counters play an essential part in the game, as you need to keep track of each unit’s orders. This led to a multitude of tokens on the table, too many for some of our play testers’ tastes. Overall, the game felt accurate, though turns often seemed to be a bit too long (to be fair, this may have been due to our unfamiliarity with the rules). Tank rules aside, Rate of Fire was probably the best balanced game when it came to shooting.

Christy Beall was our newbie player. Minis by Artizan Designs and vehicles from Bolt Action. the number of excess hits. Our Sherman 76s luckily survived the Tiger long enough to finish it with a decisive shot. IABSM does not have a points system, unlike any of the other games we tried. The principle is to have fun with your game instead of winning at all costs, so the forces on the table are left to the common sense of the players. This will obviously only suit friendly play, not competition. Despite the initial oddity of the card system, the players adapted to it very quickly. Even the German player didn’t mind too much when his prize Tiger’s card was not drawn, causing it to sit around for one turn doing nothing. The cards do add a large random element to play that some players will baulk at, so while fun, IABSM won’t be for everyone.

The morale system is good and quite brutal, but as units have a chance to rally before their next turn, it means that even if a unit becomes suppressed, it can often recover before there is another chance to shoot. Since units can be on ‘on hold’ and gain the ability to fire first, there’s a natural tendency to ‘bog down and blaze away’. However, we found this to be a problem in other rulesets as well. On the whole, shooting worked well in Rate of Fire. The play testers thought it was more balanced than other systems (not too deadly, not too weak). The morale rules were good, if a little tough. We didn’t try the tank rules (which are found in a separate supplement). How-

Rate of Fire We also tried Rate of Fire from Crusader Games. The play testers noted that the mechanisms were very similar to the Warhammer series of rules in style, with the exception of the turn sequence. Units are issued orders and move simultaneously. Initiative then determines which side fires first, with units ‘on hold’ firing before moving units. The shooting is simple, with a D6 roll to hit (modified by cover) followed by a roll to wound (again modified by cover). A unit’s orders also affect how easy it is to hit: dashing madly forward, for example, makes you an easier target.

Bolt Action plastic Tommy from the author’s collection.

Rules of Engagement Produced by Great Escape Games, this is a solid IGO-UGO game, in which each player takes turns moving and fighting with their entire force. Having just played a number of games without the traditional alternative turn (or IGO-UGO) sequence, our play testers found this less fluid - even though this was the normal style of play for most of their usual gaming (i.e. Warhammerstyle games). This game also measures distances in centimetres, in contrast to the inches used in many systems. The game, which uses the humble D6, has a vaguely similar feel to Necromunda. It has the standard sequence: roll to hit followed by roll ‘to wound,’ but with an experience ‘save’. This save was reduced by powerful weapons but increased by cover. This meant players felt more able to take risks and ‘chance it’, running across open terrain and otherwise putting their units into danger. This did make Rules of Engagement one of the most fluid games, as it is very hard to put the opposition down, except in close combat (more on that in a bit). ittedly, getting the balance right here is tricky - you don’t want your guys to be immortal, but you don’t want them dropping like flies either. Close combat was an interesting contrast, quite the reverse of shooting and also quite lethal. Since units can move up to 30cm and then an additional 10cm into close combat, this made charging a popular option. Unless the enemy had thought ahead and chosen to hold their shooting for opportunity fire, the attacking units typically went straight in. In close combat, each side

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range modifiers are given. The suppression feature was very good and quite effective: every attack on a unit causes a suppression ‘hit’ and every kill another, with some guns causing additional suppression on top of this (though not cumulative). Each suppression ‘hit’ prevents a model in the unit from firing, although the owning player chooses which models don’t fire. If a unit suffers suppression over the number of models remaining, it tests for morale and must withdraw if it fails. A unit can remove suppression ‘hits,’ but this requires the use of one of its actions.

British commandos advance through a French village with a Centaur for . simply compares a D6 rolled for each combatant (with modifiers). The highest dice roll wins and the loser becomes a casualty. We found luck played a significant factor here, so unless you are Royal Marine Commando, close combat is a risky venture. A simple points system is used to generate a force, with restrictions on . This is a game where your typical platoon will have a single tank as a ‘divisional choice.’ This means armour should be a relatively rare sight on the table.

nism, however, also makes the game a bit more predictable and consequently more lethal. Each unit get three actions per activation, which can potentially be fire, fire and fire again (for good measure)! With the possibility of three shots per rifle per activation, the lead can really flying and units in the open simply don’t last. The basics of the system are simple. For shooting, a D6 roll of 4+ is a hit with a 6+ as a critical (which causes 2 hits), modified by cover. A save of 6+ is given, which again is increased with cover. No

Overall, Rules of Engagement offers a traditional approach to WW2 platoon gaming in regards to turn sequences. It was certainly the least lethal game for shooting. Victory Decision Victory Decision, written by Agis Neugebauer has its roots in the Battlefield Evolution game. The turn sequence is clever – both sides nominate a unit and then roll to determine which gets to act first, adding the Leadership characteristic of the unit to the roll. That makes it possible for one player to win several Initiative Segments after another, reflecting the better training of some units. While interesting, it did become a little cumbersome having to roll initiative for every unit, so our play testers tended to activate squads alternately once initiative was determined. Disabling that mecha-

In one of our games, two German halftracks were toasted by a precision artillery strike called by the Brit HQ team sitting on a hill across the table, followed by a good shot by a Cromwell Centaur. As this was the second turn, most of the German units were still in their vehicles, causing virtually the whole force to be destroyed immediately (lesson learnt: Victory Decision punishes rash players hard!). This would have led to a very quick game, so the Brits offered the Germans a Panther tank to continue the play test - which then proceeded to obliterate everything it could see – including the poor British tank! Curiously enough, the tank chose not to face off with the British HQ team (with its remaining airstrike), which it spent the battle hiding from! (I really didn’t need to, it was already very easy to dominate the battle - CB). The game is certainly generous when it comes to army acquisition, you can effectively have a battery of guns or section of tanks (if you can afford them) to your lone platoon. This is nice, as you can play with all your ‘toys’ on the table. But, as we found out above, this can lead to a very unbalanced game without careful thought and compromise by both players.

A close up showing one of Paul’s Artizan Designs paratroopers.

Our overall impression was that Victory Decision was a fast game. The system was quick and definitely the most deadly, with only one dice roll to both hit and wound and units getting a near respectable ‘save’ in cover. The suppression system was interesting but generally compounded the trouble a section was already in. Winning the initiative and

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The German Panther wreaking havoc in Victory Decision.

getting your shots in first became the key to victory. Conclusion While there were some similarities, each game we tested stood out with its own merits and flaws. The various forms of activation sequence did lead to different styles of play, something that deserves a more detailed look in a separate article. Where possible, we took into the ‘luck’ factor, which can sometimes skew play test results. All the games had some form of hidden setup rules, although IABSM stood out in our play testers’ minds for its use of ‘blinds’ to represent unspotted units. Regarding historical accuracy, there is a whole debate to be had about how closely a game needs to simulate or represent the period it is about. While we tend to prefer a fun, playable system that takes a few liberties over one that tries to perfectly recreate the period, there are times when the rules simply diverge too much from what they are trying to recreate. Regarding this point, the unrestricted ability to move and shoot and the

unlimited range of fire we encountered in some games is worthy of critique. Platoon tactics in WWII involved ‘fire and manoeuvre’, were one unit would use their fire to pin down the enemy while a second team would manoeuvre into position. If there are no penalties for movement and firing, there is a tendency to end up with a 40K style game, where everyone marches forward while blazing away at the enemy. Likewise, range is an important factor. Bullets follow parabolic arcs; they just don’t go 24” and then drop to the ground. They also don’t have infinite range and accuracy. For a reasonable game, the rules must take these facts into . At longer ranges you’d expect fire to be more of a nuisance than a serious danger, particularly if a unit is in cover. We did think that most of the rulesets handled cover well and the mechanisms for suppression were also varied and interesting. So is there a perfect set of WW2 rules out there today? No, and there is never likely to be one either! However, there are games to suit a variety of tastes, gaming styles, and attention spans. Hopefully our brief guide will give players a sense of which will work best for them.

An avid WWII fan, Guy found this assignment very easy. All he had to do was write down what the other players thought and gather it into an article. Simples!

Project Platoon consisted of Jasper Oorthuys, Christy Beall, Paul Burkin, Mark Backhouse, and myself (Guy Bowers). WS&S wishes to thank Peter Bowles and Rossco Watkins for their help and opinions on the games tested. We would also like to thank Keith Stine at Iron Ivan Games, Agis Neugebauer of AD Publishing, Nick Eyre at North Star and Paul Sawyer at Warlord Games for assisting us with Project Platoon. You can read more about Project Platoon on our blog: www.wssmagazine.com

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The battles of La Fière and Cauquigny

Crossing the Merderet As part of their defence against a potential invasion, the Germans deliberately flooded various lowlying areas in ‘Fortress Europe’, to deny access to the enemy. One section was the Merderet River on Normandy’s Cotentin peninsula. Unfortunately, Allied planning had assumed this to be flat ground and not a treacherous swamp. US paras move along the bocage.

After the initial chaos of the landing, the 82nd Airborne under Brigadier General James ‘Jumping Jim’ Gavin advanced towards La Fière, the vital crossing-point across the Merderet. Having cleared out a small garrison of Germans from La Fière, Company A of the 505th Para-

Taking the farm-house US: Three squads of infantry (with machine gun and rifle sections), a command squad and a bazooka team. German: Two squads of infantry (with machine gun and rifle sections), including command. US forces are ‘elite’. German forces are ‘average’.

chute Infantry Regiment, commanded by John Dolan, fortified their position.

single bridge at La Fière and a 900-yard causeway, barely wide enough for two vehicles.

Taking La Fière farm-house

The initial capture of La Fière farmhouse can be recreated by pitching a platoon of US Airborne (from A Company, 505th PIR) against a small garrison of German soldiers.

Some paras who had landed on the other side of the Merderet briefly held Cauquigny, knocking out an old French H39 tank before crossing back to La Fière.

Between the farm-house at La Fière and the German-held village of Cauquigny, on the other side of the Merderet, lay a

At around 5.30pm, the Germans crossed the causeway and tried to retake La Fière in force using tanks. The Battle of La Fière

© Offensive Miniatures

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n 6 June 1944, landings by the 82nd and 101st Airborne were scattered over a large area, including the flooded plains of the Merderet. Those who parachuted into these marshes often drowned trying to free themselves from their harness and kit. Gliders, too, were lost, including a valuable 57mm anti-tank gun that the paras tried to save without success. It would be sorely missed in the coming battle.

Para firing the Thompson sub-machine gun, an excellent close-quarters weapon.

The map of La Fière shows the layout of the table. The marshes were deeply flooded and imable, as was the river. The remains of supply parachutes and unfortunate paras could be seen in the floodwater. The Germans enter from the causeway and take the first turn. The hedges and bushes along the causeway offer little in the form of protection. Only German units which are not moving can claim soft cover. US briefing The US forces have had a little time to prepare their defence. Units in the farmhouse count as being in hard cover, while other units are dug in with soft

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German briefing The German objective is simple: clear the bank of enemy forces. As the game begins, the Germans may call on a preliminary bombardment of three 81mm mortars firing for two turns. All German units should be considered ‘average’. Their approach is not stealthy. No German units may be hidden.

The La Fière estate and surroundings.

Defenders of La Fière John ‘Red Dog’ Dolan, Company A commander.

cover. A roadblock covers the bridge, and the road is mined with anti-tank mines. The mines are automatically spotted. American units can start the game hidden, until they open fire.

Objectives and historical outcome The game is won by the US if they beat back the German attack. Should they fail, the Germans win. Historically, this was a close-run thing. The 57mm anti-tank gun did sterling work, as did the bazookas, but these were eventually knocked out, bar one team, which destroyed the remaining tank after salvaging rounds from the bodies of another team. Without the tanks to them, the German infantry pulled back.

1st Platoon, A Company, 505th PIR Three squads consisting of a machine gun team and a rifle team. One command section. Dug in around the farm-house and to the south. 3rd Platoon, A Company, 505th PIR Three squads consisting of a machine gun team and a rifle team. One command section. Dug in to the north of the farm-house, along the river line. Three bazooka teams with limited ammunition – enough for three shots each. Two dug in by the bridge, and one to the south of the bridge.

“We stay. This is a good place to die” – Dolan.

An assistant for the M1919A4 Browning machine gun.

1 x 57mm gun with a good supply of AP (armour-piercing) ammunition. No HE (high explosive rounds). Sited on the main road at the corner overlooking the causeway and bridge. All US forces should be considered ‘elite’. The paras have an improvised explosive charge per squad should the bazookas and gun fail. Paras dig in and await the Germans.

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German attack of La Fière The Germans from the 1057th Grenadier Regiment have three platoons of infantry, each consisting of three squads. Each squad has a machine gun section and a rifle section. Each platoon is led by a platoon commander. US troops cross the bridge at La Fière. Accompanying the grenadiers are three tanks from the 100th Panzer Ersatz Abteilung. This unit was a training battalion using captured French tanks. The tanks consisted of: 1 x Panzer III 1 x Renault R35 1 x Hotchkiss H39

Crossing the Merderet

Having beaten back the German attacks, the Americans consolidated their position. No further German attacks came. Preliminary scouting of a railway bridge to the north proved fruitless, as did other attempts to outflank the Merderet bridge and find another crossingpoint. General Gavin decided to cross at La Fière and take Cauquigny by force,

The Germans launched a second attack early on 7 June with another R35 and H39. This time, the tanks stayed out of bazooka range and the crew of the 57mm panicked. This left the paras with only one bazooka and their gammon bombs. However, two of the gun crew returned and re-manned their weapon, helping to finish off the tanks.

in order to allow a break-out of the landing areas and complete the conquest of the Contentin peninsula. This was to be achieved by three companies of the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR) of the 82nd Airborne in force, ed by tanks, which had newly arrived from the landings at Utah. The attack started on 9 June at 10am.

US forces crossing the Merderet Consisting of: Elements of G Company, 525th GIR Three squads consisting of a BAR team and a rifle team. One command section led by Captain John Saul. Elements of E Company, 525th GIR Three squads consisting of a BAR team and a rifle team. One command section.

The actions at La Fière are said to have inspired the final scene in the film Saving Private Ryan, except that the shiny Tigers should, of course, be replaced with French ersatz tanks and the ruined French town with a farm-house! Nor were there any SS in the area this early. “Rae, you’ve got to go and keep going!” General Gavin.

Elements of F Company, 525th GIR Three squads consisting of a BAR team and a rifle team. One command section. In reserve: Elements of 507th PIR Three squads consisting of an M1919A4 machine gun team and a rifle team. One command section led by Captain Robert D. Rae. Three Sherman M4 75mm tanks from the 746th Tank Battalion. Two bazooka teams with limited ammunition – enough for three shots each. All US forces should be considered ‘elite’. The paras have an anti-tank charge per squad.

A recon section es the burning remains of an R35.

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German defenders of Cauquigny One company command section with radio. Two platoons of infantry, consisting of three squads each. Each squad consists of a machine gun section and a rifle section. Each platoon is led by a platoon commander. Each section has a single Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon. One platoon is deployed in the village, while the other is dug in to the south of the village. Two Panzerschreck anti-tank sections, limited to three shots. All German units should be considered ‘average’. Glider troops assault a German-held house.

The map of Cauquigny is effectively the same as La Fière, but viewed upside down! Use the La Fière map as suggested, except that there is no bridge (it’s the end of the causeway), and no river (which is shallow marsh). The hamlet at Cauquigny consisted of four buildings, including a church. The battle of Cauquigny This is literally the battle of La Fière in reverse, with a large US force attacking a dug-in German force. General Gavin has issued the order that Cauquigny must be taken at all costs.

© Offensive Miniatures

US briefing The US forces have the unenviable task of crossing the Merderet and clearing Cauquigny of enemy troops. They may call on a preliminary bombardment of

A German tripod-mounted MG42 readies for action.

two turns-worth of three 155mm howitzers, firing as the game begins. Glider infantry regiments have a bit more firepower as well, as they were armed with the M1918 Browning automatic rifle (BAR). No smoke is available. No stealthy approach is possible. No US units may be hidden. The causeway offers little cover, and moving units may not claim any. German briefing The Germans have had some time to prepare. Units in the village count as being in hard cover, while other units are dug in with soft cover. The company HQ commander may call on up to three turns-worth of three 81mm mortars, firing during the game. The road has been mined with anti-tank mines (automatically spotted) and has a barricade. Hold at all costs! Historical outcome The assault on Cauquigny was a success, but it came at great cost. Saul’s G Company managed to establish a bridgehead to the south of the village, but it was the tanks and the 507th PIR who secured the hamlet itself. The lack of smoke and sufficient firepower to suppress the defenders, plus the narrowness of the causeway, meant that the airborne took severe casualties with 60 dead and 500 out of action.

Cauquigny was, for the 82nd Airborne, one of the most costly engagements they had ever undertaken, with more men killed or wounded than in any other single engagement. The author has visited the sites of La Fière and Cauquigny, and has seen, at first hand, how narrow that 900-yard causeway really is and how little cover it offers.

Further reading: No Better Place to Die: The Battle for La Fière Bridge by Robert M. Murphy. Preliminary Operations around the La Fière Bridgehead, Merderet River, Normandy by S.L.A. Marshall. See also the following web sites: www.thedropzone.org/europe/ normandy/dolan.html www.normandy-1944.com/ LaFiere02.html US paratroopers from Artizan, Germans and tanks from Bolt Action. Our thanks to Warlord Games for providing the R35 and R39.

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The daring mission to rescue Mussolini

© Georgie Harman

Operation Oak By the summer of 1943, Italy was on the brink of surrendering, after a series of military defeats in North Africa and Sicily. The Grand Fascist Council met on 25 July and voted to depose Mussolini, who was subsequently arrested by the newlyformed Italian government. While much of the cult of ‘Il Duce’ had been undermined by his association with the failure of the Italian armed forces and the impact of massive food shortages, Hitler still felt that he might have a part to play in establishing a new regime in German-controlled northern Italy.

M

ussolini was held in secret in the ski resort of Gran Sasso, where he was guarded by a body of Italian soldiers and policemen loyal to the newly-appointed General Badoglio. On 12 September, the Germans launched a daring raid on the resort to snatch Mussolini and take him to safety. Ten gliders carrying a company of Fallschirmjäger led the assault, ed by a small number of SS Fallschirmjäger led by the infamous Otto Skorzeny. Although the defenders had received a tip-off about a possible attack, the gliders landed successfully in broad daylight and the Italians were taken unawares. No shots were fired and no resistance was met. Mussolini was captured alive and flown back to Austria. Otto Skorzeny, who had brought a film crew and a reporter with him, revelled in the glory of his achievement and was awarded the Knight’s Cross (he already held the Iron Cross) for his role in the mission. German propaganda hailed the mission as a glorious success. But things might have gone quite differently. For a complete rundown on the historical events there are several good books,

including the excellent Rescuing Mussolini in the Osprey Raid series (RAID 9). Operation Oak: the game While the historical Operation Oak lacked a ‘proper’ battle, it presents an excellent opportunity for a ‘What if?’ wargame. The Germans were undoubtedly fortunate that the glider landings succeeded and the Italians offered no resistance. The German attackers also made a series of blunders that went unpunished. The following scenario provides for an interesting refight that could be played out under most Second World War rule sets with an infantry focus. The scenario can be played on a 1:1 basis with around 200 figures, but I would suggest a ratio of 1:2, especially if larger scale figures are used. The players and their forces The scenario is designed for four or more players. The first German player should take on the role of Fallschirmjäger commander, Oberleutnant Georg Freiherr von Berlepsch. Additional German players may represent the other Fallschirmjäger Leutnants commanding each of the platoons in the glider force. They have three platoons of Fallschirmjäger totalling about 90 men. These

Il Duce.

should be considered well-trained, with excellent morale, and should be equipped with standard small arms and weapons, with a high percentage of FG 42s. The second German player should take on the role of SS–Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny. He commands about ten SS Fallschirmjäger equipped with SMGs and rifles. Their training seems to have been considerably worse than the regular army (Heer) Fallschirmjäger troops, and they should probably be classed as ‘poor’. By contrast, their morale was excellent. Skorzeny also has a reporter and a film cameraman; both are unarmed, with poor morale. All the German troops are loaded into ten gliders. Each glider can hold ten troops. One Italian player should take on the role of Tenente Alberto Faiola, commander of the carabinieri detachment. This comprised around 80-90 men armed with rifles and carbines, as well as two LMGs and 4 SMGs. These soldiers should be divided up roughly into two platoons. Their training should be classed as regular. The other Italian player can take the role of Inspector General Giuseppe Gueli, in charge of the

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Select a location where you want the glider to land. Put a token down to represent it and spin a pencil on a flat surface to see the direction in which it should deviate. Roll 2D6 and multiply this by a standard infantry-move distance to see where the glider lands. If the glider lands off the table, roll to see what the landing is like (see ‘Glider landing table’). Assuming it is a good landing, the Fallschirmjäger in the glider can enter the table from the edge where the glider went off after a one-turn delay. (If your chosen rule set has its own glider-landing rules that you are happy with, then by all means use them instead.)

Italian soldiers guard the entrance to the hotel at Gran Sasso.

police contingent guarding Mussolini. The police contingent was 30-strong, probably armed with carbines, and also had a number of guard dogs. The police training should be considered poor. Additional Italian players might take on the role of Tenente Osvaldo Antichi, the carabinieri second-in-command, and any additional carabinieri NCOs. The morale of the Italian troops is variable and is randomly decided the first time they are ordered to carry out an aggressive action (see the ‘Italian enthusiasm’ rules below). The terrain In the centre of the table should be the hotel where Mussolini was being kept. This was quite a large building, about five floors tall. The lower floor windows were boarded up and there were only a few entrances at ground level giving access to the rest of the building. There were also several machine gun nests and sandbagged emplacements around the outside. About 100m away from the hotel, there was a cable-car station (you should make it about five infantry moves away from the hotel, depending on the standard move in your rule set). Between the two buildings, there was a road with a fence along one side of it. The rest of the landscape should be steep mountainside, broken up by clumps of rocks and the odd tree. This should provide some cover for sol-

diers advancing over the areas of dead ground. A large number of photographs and film were made of the raid, which can provide inspiration if you want to do a scratch-build, but most large, impressive buildings can be used as a proxy for the hotel. The deployment One of the three Italian platoons should be deployed at the cable car station and its vicinity. A second platoon should be positioned inside the hotel itself, while the third should be positioned on guard around the outside of the hotel. Mussolini is locked in an apartment on the third floor. The Italian soldiers should be organized roughly into squads of around ten men. Gueli starts the game in bed, enjoying his afternoon siesta in the hotel. He will take 1D6 turns before he can be dressed, armed and active. The other Italian officers can be positioned anywhere with their men. Once all of the Italians are deployed, the Germans can start landing their gliders. In the first turn, they should attempt to land the first wave of three gliders. In each subsequent turn, another glider can attempt to arrive. Historically, the gliders landed over a ten-minute period.

Glider landing table (roll 2D6) 2 – Crash landing. All of the Fallschirmjäger in the glider are removed as casualties. 3-4 – Dangerous landing. Roll 1D6 for each Fallschirmjäger on board. A roll of 1 indicates a casualty. The troops on board who survive take two turns to recover before they can be activated. 5-7 – Bumpy landing. The troops on board take one turn to recover before they can be activated. 8-12 – Fine landing. The troops on board deploy quickly and are active from turn one. Any gliders with characters on board may re-roll their first landing result if they roll a 2, but must reallocate the 2 result to another glider instead. The SS troops were poorly trained for glider assaults. They had eaten and drunk heavily before take-off and many of them suffered from airsickness. Regardless of the dice roll, they will always take one extra turn to recover from the landing, during which they cannot do anything. If you are playing a particularly light-hearted game, then an alternative glider-landing method might be simulated by throwing paper aeroplanes at the table from about 8’ away. Any gliders that fall off the table are deemed to have overshot the landing zone and will take an additional turn before the Fallschirmjäger arrive from the closest point to where the glider landed. If any paper aeroplanes miss by more than 6’, they are deemed to have landed too far

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© Offensive Minis

© Max Messina

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15mm Fallschirmjäger exit their glider after a successful landing.

away to be of use. As the SS troops were alleged to have had a few drinks first, you might like to penalize their player with a weighty alcoholic penalty before throwing their glider – but please drink responsibly! Any clearly terrible throws that knock over trees or smash straight into the hotel count as a crash landing! Quick modelling tip! I did not have ten glider models in 28mm (or any other scale, for that matter!) so I had to make do with quick and cheap proxies. I found side-on and top-down pictures of a glider, which I scanned and printed out (roughly to scale) ten times onto plain paper, and stuck them down onto a sheet of foam board. I then cut them all out and made a thin slot for the wings to go through, like the old-style balsa or polystyrene gliders that you sometimes get in kids’ party bags (and that always break, because I throw them too hard!). The result was ten gliders made in a hourand-a-half. They wouldn’t win a modelling prize, but they look a lot finer than simply placing a counter onto the table! The game The Germans should take the first turn, although if their landing has been poor this might result in some of the Fallschirmjäger recovering. A Storch plane arrives to pick up Mussolini at the beginning of Turn 10. The German player places it 4D6” away from the hotel on any area of flat terrain.

Italian enthusiasm Part of the fun of the game is not knowing what the reaction of the Italian soldiers will be. In the actual encounter, the Italians did not even open fire, although a few days earlier the Italians in Rome had offered resistance to the Germans, so an aggressive defence should by no means be ruled out. When an Italian player wishes to motivate an Italian squad into an aggressive action – such as advancing towards the Germans, opening fire, or engaging in mêlée – they must roll 1D6 to determine their aggression. 1-2 – “Kameraden!” The squad waves and beckons to the German troops, clearly pleased at their arrival. They will not carry out any aggressive acts against the Germans for the rest of the game. 3-5 – “What now, sir?” The squad is unsure about what to do. It can stay put or move away from the Germans, but cannot carry out an aggressive act. They can roll again next turn. 6 – “Fire! Fire! Fire!” The squad is keen to take revenge on the Germans and can act aggressively for the rest of the game. Each die roll should be modified, as follows: -1 to the roll, if a friendly squad within 12” has a “Kameraden” result. -1 to the roll, if Otto Skorzeny is within 6” of the squad and has his film crew with him. (The Italian troops are likely to pose for the cameras!) +1 to the roll, if a friendly squad within

12” has a “Fire! Fire! Fire!” result. +1 to the roll, if the squad has been shot at by the Germans. Tenente Alberto Faiola, Tenente Osvaldo Antichi and Inspector General Giuseppe Gueli all have the ability to modify the die roll by +1 or -1 for any squads within 6”, depending on whether they want them to open fire or not. Finding an entrance Historically, the Germans seem to have struggled to find an entrance to the hotel that actually led anywhere. Several of the entrances were possibly guarded by chained dogs belonging to the police unit. Consequently, each time the Germans attempt to enter the hotel at ground level through an entrance, roll 1D6. On a roll of 4+, they may enter as normal. On a roll of 1-3, they cannot open the door, either because it is guarded by a savage dog, or because it has been locked and barricaded or opens up into a store cupboard that does not lead anywhere. Mussolini Mussolini will stay in his room until someone comes to rescue him. He can be escorted at half-speed by his Italian captors if required (perhaps in an attempt to escape by the cable car). If Italian soldiers wish to kill Mussolini, they may only do so if their enthusiasm is “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Historically, Mussolini attempted to avoid this and tried to persuade his captors to put down their weapons. If the Italians wish to try and kill him, they must re-roll their motivation once again. This might well result

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in them befriending the Germans, even if they have already acted aggressively towards them in previous turns. If Mussolini is killed, then the game ends. The take-off There was a nervous moment during Mussolini’s escape by plane. The plane was overloaded with Skorzeny on board and had only just started to get off the ground when they reached the end of a steep precipice. If the plane takes off under peaceful conditions, this risk is negligible. However, if the plane is under fire, there is a good chance of a dramatic crash! Roll 1D6. On a roll of 1-5, the plane takes off as normal. On a roll of 6, the plane does not get the altitude required and plummets off the end of the precipice, killing everyone on board. Finito, Benito! Winning and losing The game continues until Mussolini either escapes by plane or is killed, or the Fallschirmjäger attack stalls and they are forced to cancel the operation. This should happen if they suffer more than 50 percent casualties. Victory conditions (which should only be shared with the individual players concerned) are as follows:

Mussolini is killed rather than escaping. Tenente Osvaldo Antichi scores 10 points if Mussolini is not captured by the Germans. He scores a +5 bonus if his platoon suffers less than 10 per cent casualties. Inspector General Giuseppe Gueli scores 10 points for surviving the engagement alive, regardless of the outcome to Mussolini. Other Italian players score 5 points for staying alive, and get a +1 bonus for every turn they spend stationary with the film crew and Mussolini, while not under fire. Tweaking the scenario for balance Some of these suggestions present plausible ‘What if?’ scenarios, and might be adopted to give the players more of a challenge: The Germans hoped to use an additional platoon of Fallschirmjäger but could not get all of the gliders they required. An additional two gliders were part of the plan, so this would allow another 20 German reinforcements, if the Germans are struggling to win. Some of the Italian soldiers were veterans of the fighting in Rome a few days earlier. Add +1 to the Italian enthusiasm rolls for all the squads in one of the

carabinieri platoons. Skorzeny was so enthusiastic that he allegedly ran from his glider without his sub-machine gun. Count him as unarmed for the entire game! The troops in the hotel acted in a surprisingly lackadaisical fashion, given their warning that an attack on Gran Sasso was imminent. To balance things, place them on a higher level of alert. Italian troops may be posted on the roof of the hotel, giving them a very good field of fire, and Gueli starts the game active, rather than in bed! Not Mussolini? If you are keen to play another Fallschirmjäger landing involving the seizure of an important personality, then ‘Operation Rösselsprung’ – the attempt to grab Tito from his headquarters in May 1944 – might provide an entertaining and challenging alternative. The level of resistance from the defenders should be considerably more determined, however. The raid was botched, and the battalion involved was nearly destroyed. We’ve been assured by people ‘in the know’ that Mark does not throw anything other than paper airplanes when he’s been drinking. The Fallschirmjäger figures are by Bolt Action. The Italians and Skorzeny are by Offensive Miniatures.

Skorzeny scores 10 points for recapturing Mussolini and personally escaping with him. He gets a +5 bonus if his reporter and film crew escape with him to broadcast the events. Von Berlepsch scores 10 points for rescuing Mussolini and personally escaping with him. He gets a +5 bonus if his brave paratroopers suffer less than 20 per cent casualties. Other German officers score 10 points if Mussolini is rescued alive. They get a +1 bonus for every turn they spend stationary with Mussolini, as the film crew take pictures of the event. To get this bonus, they must not be under fire. Tenente Alberto Faiola scores 15 points if Mussolini is not captured by the Germans and is still under his control at the end of the game. He scores 2 points if

Success! Skorzeny escorts the deposed Italian dictator to freedom.

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Death from above!

AirBorne miniatures Whether you’re storming Normandy, rescuing Mussolini, dropping over Arnhem or defending Berlin, you’ll need the elite forces of the Airborne Corps to complete the mission. In this section, we take a look at some of the figures available for your army.

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aratroopers were used with varying degrees of success as airborne shock troops and as an elite force on the ground. In that last role, they were often squandered, as using elite troops in common infantry roles was generally a waste of training and manpower. Here, we primarily look at the models available in 28mm, although we have included a section on 15mm. This review examines the airborne forces of the major powers. There are also ranges including Italians and other nationalities that are not discussed here. Polish troops can easily be adapted from British paratroopers, for example.

Range: Good Historical Accuracy: Good Size: 28mm ‘foot to eye’ or 32mm tall Price: Reasonable – £5.00 for four miniatures (metal), £11.00 for a 10-man squad, £12.00 for gun + crew

Bolt Action

Bolt Action have a large range of airborne troops, including German Fallschirmjäger, US ‘Screaming Eagles’, British ‘Red Devils’, and Italian ‘Folgore’ paratroops. Each has a good selection of weapons and kit,

Artizan Designs

Artizan have a good range of late-war paras for the British, Americans and Germans. The figures are on the more heroic side of 28mm and full of character. The British range alone consists of sixteen

Artizan US Airborne. packs, with weapons, howitzers and anti-tank guns. Technically, the Artizan figures are ideal for Arnhem and the the Ardennes. The Americans wear M1943 jump-suits with buckle boots (issued as cold-weather wear) rather than jump boots, but only the real specialist would spot such a minor detail. (Thanks, Mark!) Overall, Artizan offer a nice range of figures which are easy to paint.

have their helmets strapped up – US paras would loosen their helmet straps after landing. The Fallschirmjäger (suitable for late-war) are slightly chunkier than the rest of the range, but are still as well-detailed as the others. The British paras are excellent.

Range: Very Good Historical Accuracy: Good Size: 28mm ‘foot to eye’ or 31mm tall Price: Reasonable – £3.50 for two miniatures (metal), £13.00 for a 12-man squad, £12.00 for an 8-man section, £27.50 for a boxed set of 2023 miniatures

Crusader Miniatures

Crusader offers a small range of paratroopers that include machine gun and mortar . There are nine packs of early-war Fallschirmjäger and eight packs of (late-war) British paratroopers. Although the German miniatures are designed for early-war, they could be mixed in with later models. Bolt Action Fallschirmjäger and US Airborne. including anti-tank guns. Individual models can be purchased separately from the Warlord Games web site. Both the British and US ranges have jeeps, and the Brits even have their own light tank, the Tetrarch. The US paratroopers are dressed for D-Day in M1942 jump-suits. Two tiny flaws in these otherwise excellent models are the size of the medical pouches on their helmets and the fact that they

Crusader early-war Fallschirmjäger.

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The figures are a tad smaller than those in other ranges, and are a little stout with big weapons and equipment. That said, they are a very nice range and mixable with their early-war counterparts at Foundry. Range: Fair Historical Accuracy: Fair Size: 28mm ‘foot to eye’ or 31mm tall Price: Reasonable – £5.40 for four miniatures, £12.00 for gun + crew, £30.00 for a boxed set of 24 miniatures

Offensive Miniatures

Offensive offer a growing range of ‘Elite’ units, focusing currently on Fallschirmjäger and US Airborne. They have recently added weapons, including a Nebelwerfer, a Kubelwagen,

Wargames Foundry

Foundry offer a range of miniatures originally sculpted by the Perry brothers. These consist of two small ranges of early-war Fallschirmjäger and British paratroopers. Both have stood the test of time well and contain some interesting items, such as drop canisters and casualties for the Germans. The figures are slightly smaller than current standards but are fully compatible with mid-sized ranges. Their British paras, in particular, are excellent, perhaps only equalled by some of the Bolt Action range. Range: Reasonable Historical Accuracy: Good Size: 27mm ‘foot to eye’ or 31mm tall Price: Poor – £12.00 for eight miniatures

Compatibility As can be seen in the comparison shot below, the ranges are all broadly compatible. Artizan and Black Tree tend to be the more ‘heroic scale’, while Offensive are leaner. Foundry (not shown) tend to be the smallest. Even so, painted and on the tabletop, such minor differences are not really noticeable.

Offensive Miniatures Fallschirmjäger and US Paras. and a Pak 40 for the Fallschirmjäger. The models tend to be slightly thinner and taller than some of the other ranges. Accuracy is good with realisticallysized weapons and a mixture of helmet straps, both on and off, for the US paras! Range: Good Historical Accuracy: Good Size: 28mm ‘foot to eye’ or 31mm tall Price: £15.00 for ten or eleven miniatures, £6-12 for various weapon-team/ vehicle sets

Battlefront 15mm US paras. Battlefront / Flames of War

Battlefront produce an excellent and extensive ‘Flames of War’ range at 15mm scale that includes airborne forces for the Germans, British, Americans and Italians. The models themselves are a little exaggerated, although – to be fair – this is useful so they can be easily identified at a distance. The figures also tend to be slightly larger than those of other 15mm manufacturers, although their vehicles are good matches with other ranges. Range: Good Historical Accuracy: Reasonable Size: 15mm Price: Reasonable – £14.00 for a platoon of 40 figures, £32.00 for a boxed set of 96 figures

Compatibility As can be seen in comparison shot below, even though there are differences in the styles of sculpting, most miniatures in this scale are broadly compatible. Some have more exaggerated features (which are arguably easier to paint) while others are more accurate. Although the Plastic Soldier Company do not (yet?) offer any airborne soldiers, we have included one for size.

Offensive, Artizan, Black Tree and Bolt Action.

15mm Miniatures

Here is a brief round-up of 15mm ranges. We’ve planned a more comprehensive report on the various new WW2 ranges in 15mm for a future issue.

15mm Battlefront, Forged in Battle, Peter Pig and Plastic Soldier.

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Theme By Troop of Shewe

D-Day plus 2

Dead Man’s Corner Dead Man’s Corner is 3km north of Carentan, on the N13 Paris-to-Cherbourg road, at the intersection with the D913 to Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. The macabre name comes from an incident on 7 June 1944 when an American M5 Stuart from 70th Tank Battalion was destroyed. It remained there, along with the remains of one of its crewmen, for several days. The paratroopers at first referred to “the corner with the dead guy in the tank”, but soon shortened it to “Dead Man’s Corner”, by which name it is still known today.

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The completed vignette.

had been asked by Guy to do some work for a WS&S cover and was eagerly awaiting my assignment. When the initial brief came in, it was a vignette based on the action at Dead Man’s Corner. As with all commissions, I scurried off to do some research. I discovered that, during the initial days after the invasion, this junction was a focal point for both sides involved in the fighting around Carentan and the Utah beachhead. The Stuart was lost on D-Day plus one, while ing Dog Company of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne. It seems likely that the loss was due to a hand-held anti-tank weapon such as the Panzerfaust, most probably from the 1058th Regiment, 91st Luftlande-Infanterie-Division defending the fields and hedgerows. The intersection remained in German hands until, on D-Day plus two, elements from Colonel Ewell’s 3rd Battalion, 501st regiment, 101st Airborne clashed with the withdrawing Fallschirmjäger units from FJ Regiment 6.

Airborne theme, so I thought I’d use some of Offensive Miniatures’ excellent 28mm American paratroopers to depict the action on 8 June. I first noticed this range a while ago and really like the variety of poses, particularly one figure of a paratrooper examining a German helmet. After perusing the range, the vignette fell into place. The Stuart would be the backdrop with elements of the 101st Airborne cautiously approaching the intersection: the lieutenant examines a hastily abandoned Fallschirmjäger sniper position, whilst the patrol leaders signal caution to their advancing platoon.

The planning All vignettes should tell a story. A lone Stuart would probably stretch the

The figures The figures were an easy choice. I reviewed the range and Dave at Offensive

was good enough to pick out the ones I needed. I aimed to select figures with enough animation for the story to be read in the vignette. With the poses preselected, very little work was required on them. The bases were ground off with a Dremel and the legs drilled and pinned. This would assist with the handling whilst painting, and also for finally fixing in place. I also filed the M35 hel-

The approach To describe all the techniques and processes I used is beyond the scope of this article, as I combined both simple and advanced techniques. As most gamers don’t game with display pieces, I have attempted to describe the process rather than the individual techniques; that should enable anyone to achieve decent results.

The lieutenant examining the abandoned FJ helmet.

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builder’s sand sprinkled over the road section with coarser grades of sand and ballast over the ditch area. As this was a fairly simple vignette, this would be all that was needed. The colour was then built up, starting from a dark chocolate base coat followed by progressive lightening and dry-brushing with light ochre and flesh. I never use a prescriptive palette for anything, but always mix wet and see how it goes. I used mainly craft paints and emulsion mixes left over from previous terrain work.

Offensive Miniatures patrol leader.

met into a facsimile of a Fallschirmjäger M38 to fit the scene. Painting I normally use a low-contrast technique, based on a white undercoat. I start with the desired focus colour, slightly darken it, then apply it as the base. For the uniform, this is Vallejo (VJ) 988 Khaki plus 893 US Dark Green, darkened with 985 Hull Red. This is followed by the actual focus colour (VJ 988), which is then lightened progressively in gradual layers (988 + 955 Flat Flesh). With the highlights complete, the original base colour is darkened and applied in the folds. Layering is according to taste, time and patience. Generally for gaming, I apply four up, two down, then lining and highlight. I try and do all of the focus colour in one sitting, as my palettes are mixed wet, and from experience you can rarely achieve the same mix twice. For the flesh, I use the Andrea paint set in the main, with the second base swapped out for Vallejo Red Leather (VJ 818), instead. I’m not a fan of eyes on 28mm figures, especially with headgear. Having said that, there are some talented brushmen out there. For me, I find that a thin line of VJ 822 German Camo Black/Brown will suffice. The rest of the equipment was painted in the same fashion, with the same layering, and most of the webbing based

US Airborne rifleman. Note the pins which will attach the miniature to the base.

After rechecking the positioning of the Stuart, I created the abandoned sniper position. Most of the equipment came from the handy sprues available with the Warlord Games hard plastics. The

on VJ 988. With all the composite parts painted, the colours need to be brought together. For this I use a thinned VJ 822 in all the folds and undercuts, such as around the belts and webbing, rigging patches and flesh. Any final detailing is added, and a final highlight of thinned white for the flesh and 819 Iraqi Sand for the uniform and webbing. To seal and varnish, my preferred approach is to coat the figures with brush-on Humbrol Gloss Varnish, followed by Testors Dullcote Lacquer, either by brush or airbrush. But be warned! If the figures are not sealed, the lacquer can actually remove the unprotected paint. The base At first, I had envisaged a full-blown vignette, incorporating the corner of the distinctive building, but time and good sense intervened. After assembling all the components, I realized that I could fit the vignette within the confines of a CD. I used a hot wire to cut a circle of dense polystyrene with the same diameter as a CD, and carved out the shallow ditch. This was glued and the first stage of groundwork added. I use a ‘homebrew’ mixture consisting of tiling grout, PVA glue, fine sand, and emulsion for some colour. Once dry, the base was covered with PVA and fine

The base, cut from dense polystyrene.

Zeltbahn shelter-half was made out of the neck foil from a champagne bottle, kept from New Year. (My girlfriend still frowns at me when I’m more interested in the capsule than the label!) With all the basic colours in place, out came the PVA, and another special mix of long and short static grass was pressed on in clumps. A dark wash of the original base colour was used to darken the edges of the grass and the Zeltbahn, and then the grass was given a coat of Testors Dullcote to fix and reduce the shine. Once dry, the grass was drybrushed with a light stone colour, just to reduce the sheen.

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The tracks with additional track link added.

The cast turret was used as a template and I fashioned a new one from sheet plasti-card. This gave me the opportunity to model some rudimentary internals, so I added the radio receiver, the turret cage, and the breach. I retained the 37mm mantlet and barrel, and fabricated some gros.

The sniper position in detail. The Stuart After examining the only two known photographs of the tank, I was convinced that the anti-tank round had penetrated the driver’s side, causing the Stuart to burn but not explode, so that there appeared to be little structural damage. The driver clearly did not make it out, but all other hatches were open, suggesting that (hopefully) the rest of the crew escaped. Whilst my remit wasn’t to reproduce an accurate scale model, I decided I would try and recreate the scene faithfully.

The hull was slightly easier to modify. The open hatch was drilled out and a new one was made, along with the rear stowage box and assorted handles.

The scratch-built turret with added detail.

The vehicle was then washed with detergent to remove any additives and left to dry.

The only decent 1/56 scale model of the M5 is made by Company B. The kit is sound enough, but the solid resin hull and turret presented me with problems. On some vehicles, you can get away with drilling out the hatches, but this unfortunately wasn’t possible, so my only option was a complete rebuild.

I primarily use an airbrush, but, as this is an acquired taste, I will try to provide an overview of more traditional techniques to achieve the same effects.

The hull with new hatch.

The basic hull and rebuilt turret.

The track sections come as single pieces. As I didn’t like the sit of the drive wheel, I chose to raise its position by adding an additional section of track.

The rear of the hull with scratch-built rear stowage box.

Before any painting is started, you need to have an idea of how the vehicle should look, as this will dictate the techniques used. I usually start by establishing the scene and context: in this case, the vehicle had seen limited combat prior to being knocked out, so the model should reflect as much. Whilst heavy chipping, rust streaks and worn paintwork is always popular, only in a few cases can it be justified. On examining the photos, it appears that, despite its relatively short combat experience, the Stuart was covered in a heavy coat of dust, so the main weathering focused on faded armour with dust and dirt thrown up from the dry Normandy roads.

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This is not highlighting the edges, as is traditional, but instead accentuating the centres. Again, this can be achieved by dry-brushing with a flat brush, using a progressively lightened base coat. In this case, I lightened with Tamiya Flat Flesh (XF15). The trick is to build up the lightness in several es, rather than applying one heavy coat. This is an artificial effect, in that it’s purely aesthetic (as so many techniques are). Essentially, you are applying light and shade to the model’s features.

The side of the vehicle showing the weathering and dirt.

Some resins can cause the paint to flake and peel, so I always use specific Plastic Primer (Halfords), followed by Matt Black (Halfords) and then brush-applied Humbrol Matt Black enamel, to ensure a sound base coat. At this stage, it is a good idea to review the model for any imperfections, and to correct and recoat as required. As can be seen from the photographs, I kept the track sections separate; this is to assist the application of ‘scale’ mud in behind the running gear. The mud mix can be bought commercially (Tamiya do a good selection). However, I applied another ‘homebrew’ mixture consisting of PVA, tile grout and fine sand (I’m sure there is a recurring theme here) using an old brush, but only enough to provide a key for the later weathering. I coloured this mix light brown, but it’s not crucial at this early stage and could even be applied after the base coat, if you prefer.

you are trying to achieve is a darkened shade or tint around all the vehicle s and in the shadows, preserving the base colour in the centres and on the larger areas of the model. My airbrush effect can be achieved with a thinned wash, either black or dark brown, using a flat brush (enamel or acrylic). With the post-shading complete, the model should look fairly dark but will have some depth. To lighten the model, you need to highlight the flat surfaces.

With the basic paint work complete, the decals should be applied and sealed before adding any weathering, primarily to protect them, but also so that they are weathered alongside the vehicle and do not end up appearing too stark. I used both Archer dry decals onto a matt surface and traditional waterslide decals onto a glossed or satin surface, with the assistance of Micro Sol for a snug fit. It is essential to seal the decals before anything else. For this, I always use Humbrol Gloss. It only remains to paint the tracks, tyres and tools, and don’t forget to drybrush your earlier mud application. I applied various filters, washes and oil spotting: all worthy of mention in a ‘How To’ article, but not really

I airbrushed using Tamiya paints, but for brush work I recommend you use similar VJ colours. My base coat is a slightly darkened Tamiya J.A. Green (XF13). If you are clever, you can leave some of the black undercoat in the undercuts and shadows. With a solid base coat and some shadow created from the black undercoat, you can enhance the shading. This is normally achieved with pre-shading, but without an airbrush post-shading is easier. This is not fine detailing: what

The turret, showing the highlighting.

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(acrylic floor polish) to reduce the surface tension. The technique here is to apply it with a broad flat brush, allow it to settle, then remove the excess with a clean, dampened flat brush. By doing this repeatedly in several light applications, you can build up the dust effect to taste and control the effect. Without loose pigment, the model can then be varnished in exactly the same way as described for the figures. Whilst this hasn’t been a comprehensive ‘How To’, hopefully I have provided some basics for you to build on, experimenting with techniques that are slightly different from the usual gaming fare.

Another view showing top and side. Note the transfers.

necessary for gaming models. Similar effects can be achieved with an initial light wash of Games Workshop (GW) Devlan Mud. This should be heavier on the track-work and hull. Try diluting it slightly with water and wiping off any excess with either a dry brush, or a cotton-wool bud or tissue. This will give the vehicle a grubby effect. Next up is the dust. I used ground

chalks, gouache and commercial pigments (it really doesn’t matter which range you choose). Chalks and pigments are easy to overdo, and I’m still learning. They are a bit of a fad for gaming: not really necessary and certainly not durable enough. I would suggest a simpler approach, using a light wash with GW Graveyard Earth, diluted with water and a drop of Johnsons Klear

Neil Burt, a.k.a. Troop of Shewe, is known for his skills at converting and painting wargaming models to a standard that would make most expert model makers green with envy. With luck, we at WS&S will see more of his work in the near future.

For more examples of my work, or for commissioning, you can find all the details on my blog, together with links to my galleries, which show the depth and breadth of my work: http://troopofshewe.blogspot. co.uk/ My thanks to Dave at Offensive Miniatures: http://www.offensiveminiatures. com And Bob at the Wargames Command Post: http://www.thew.co.uk/ And finally, an excellent resource for the 101st Airborne is author Mark Brando’s web site: http://www.101airborneww2. com/ All photographs courtesy of Troop of Shewe.

A close-up of the finished article with figures in place.

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Modelling By Mark Backhouse

A quick guide to making hedges

Hedges and Bocage For our Brécourt Manor participation game at The Other Partizan MMXI, I volunteered to make some of the bocage. This was going to be quite a challenge because I estimated that we would need at least 15 feet of the stuff! I was also keen to make my hedges stand out as they were to represent the maga-

Wars of the Roses knights with hedgerows.

zine at a show with a reputation for superbly presented games.

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t the club on a week-night, we normally just used commercially available hedges, which were fine for playing a quick game, but really did not look right as representations of the infamous Normandy hedgerows. The earth banks of these hedgerows could be up to ten feet high and were made up of entangled roots, rocks and earth. They proved to be a key feature of the fighting after D-Day in the Normandy region and were a formidable obstacle for the Allies to fight their way through. In addition, hedgerows would come in handy as scenery for any wargaming period, as they were a

key feature of the landscape since the beginning of arable farming. I decided that I would make most of my hedgerows in straight sections, 150mm in length and 50mm wide, and make specific corner and cross sections to fit the scenario. I cut the bases out of plasterboard off-cuts that a builder friend of mine had procured from work. I could have used hardboard or thin plywood, but this just happened to be the material I had in abundance at the time, and it was easy to cut to the desired shape with a Stanley knife. On each section, I started making the earth banks by sticking strips of packaging polystyrene, about 20mm high, that I had been saving in my bits box. I used PVA to do this and then placed a heavy book on top of them until they dried.

Once the sections had thoroughly dried, I began to make them look less regular by pulling chunks off the polystyrene using my fingers. This is a rather messy job so make sure you have put plenty of newspaper down and have a dustpan and brush handy! Try to keep a band about 10-15mm wide along the top of the polystyrene and remove any tell-tale right angles from the edges. After this, the shower insulation board base got a good coating of PVA glue and a liberal covering of sharp sand and some fishpond gravel. This also had to be left to dry completely. At this point, I needed some twigs for the trunks of the trees that I would add into my hedgerows. I earned some extra brownie points with my wife by taking the kids off for a walk in the local coun-

The basic block is shaped and undercoated.

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The blocks are covered in sand and painted, and the twigs are added.

try park, and brought back a bagful of small branches and twigs. I was looking for twigs that would stand roughly 150250mm tall, with several branches thick enough so that they would not snap on with a clumsy hand! When I returned a few hours later, the sand was dry and I painted the earth banks with dark brown acrylic paint. Once dried, these were then drybrushed using lighter shades of brown and, eventually, cream. (Obviously, it is a good idea to ensure that this colour blends in with the colour of the terrain board and figure basing.) I then pushed some of the twigs into the polystyrene

and used a bit of PVA to hold them in place. The number of twigs I used varied from section to section and some sections went entirely without. At this stage, my hedgerow sections looked decidedly bare and needed some greenery. For the main hedge I used light green foliage clusters from Woodland Scenics. These were torn into irregular shapes and attached to the tops of the earth banks using a glue gun. For the trees, I used light green clump foliage and a few small chunks from the clusters. I originally tried using PVA glue to attach them, but the glue gun gave a quicker bond for the large

chunks and bits in the trees and was a lot less messy. A worthwhile investment! I recommend using some sort of tray during the foliage-making process, since plenty is loose and will fall off. This way it can be quickly recycled (as well as saving you from more hoovering). To cover the banks of the hedgerows I used a medium green underbrush scatter and lighter green clump foliage. I used my standard green static grass on some sections and left some parts of the earth banks clear of any vegetation. All of this was light enough to stick down with standard PVA glue.

Static grass and forest clumps are added to the hedge.

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The same hedgerow, except that old scrap has been added.

To finish off some of the sections, I used MiniNatur flowers and painted some of the gravel stones grey to break up the banks. The flowers were a bit of an expensive luxury, but helped add a bit of colour. If you look at real bushes and trees, the leaves higher up often seem to be a lighter colour. I used some strawcoloured scatter sprinkled lightly on the tops of some of the sections of hedge to attempt to create this effect and to break up the monotony of the light green. In the Brécourt Manor scenario, we also needed a section of hedgerow with an old rusting car in it and a pile of old scrap. To make this, I used an old Lledo ‘Days Gone’ car that I glued straight onto the polystyrene banks. This was

painted brown and dry-brushed with terracotta and orange colours, followed by a final creamy colour. More clump foliage was liberally applied to it, in order to make it look as if it had been there for a while. For the bits of scrap metal, I used some corrugated card from a coffee-cup holder and some bits of plastic sprue. These were given the same paint job as the car to make them look sufficiently rusty. These extras helped to break up the hedgerow and will hopefully earn the approval of observers and players alike. So there you have it! Although the hedgerows took several stages to make, the process is fairly quick, and the end result looks great without costing an

arm and a leg. As long as you don’t go too far with the expensive flowers and extras, they work out at about a pound per 150mm section. Hedges and bocage: an ideal piece of inexpensive scenery for your gaming table, whether you’re playing ancients, Dark Age, the black powder era or the twentieth century. Mark finds his new bocage useful for several games, including hedgerow fighting in 1944 Normandy and Warsof-the-Roses England. Now as long as he leaves the rusty car inside the box when King Richard takes to the field, everything should look fine … My kingdom for a Model T?

The finished bocage section, complete with rusting car!

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© Georgie Harman

COLUMN Current or recent conflicts: to play or not to play

By Peter Bowles

Wargaming modern warfare?

I’ve been wargaming on and off now for about 20 years. I ventured into modern wargaming in 2009 when a friend at my local club told me about the Ambush Alley rules, so we tried out a game with borrowed figures and I was hooked. But one question kept coming up. Is ‘modern warfare’ gaming an acceptable pastime?

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efore we start, I want to share some of my background with you. I am ex-armed forces with service in the RN (about 11 years), and I also worked for the UN in the 1991 Gulf War conflict and in other war-torn countries, including Somalia in the 1990s. I have been under fire and I’ve returned it.

Taliban insurgents, the ‘bad guys’ from a western perspective. It was at Salute 2010, when I went and bought a number of Empress Miniatures ‘insurgents’ to take on my mate’s western forces, that I had my first negative response from a few gamers. When I got my shiny new toys out of the bag, their reaction was, “Ooh, modern. I wouldn’t play that!” When I asked why, their reply was illuminating. “Well, it’s not right, is it? Fighting with toy soldiers in conflicts that are still sending the boys home in body bags.” As I strolled around the show and talked to more people, I discovered that some gamers did not like to play modern conflicts of the last 20 years for various reasons, such as “The conflicts I play are still having an effect on our troops today”, or “I would belittle the efforts of our boys in the field by playing wargames of the conflicts they’re in, so it seems

disrespectful.” This is just a sample of the comments that I heard at Salute and at other shows that I have visited since then. With these comments ringing in my ears, I went away and thought about all that I had heard. Should I really be playing these conflicts? It was then that I started questioning my beliefs. While talking to one of my friends, he said to me, “Well, you are ex-armed forces. How do you feel about the things you saw?” Most of the military friends (serving and ex-serving) that I spoke to were not bothered either way, as long as the people playing had some respect for what they had done and what they had suffered in the conflicts. As long as the people playing the game understand and respect the real cost of human lives lost on both sides, then I personally have no problems with grown men pushing toy soldiers around. This got me thinking some more. Have the critics I talked to ever been in a war zone? I posted on several forums asking the question: is it right to play modern wargames that simulate conflicts still affecting troops today? The answers I got were quite telling, and the reason for this was that the biggest negative vote for playing modern wargames was from civilians who have never seen a war zone, except on TV. ittedly, I did have some negative from armed forces gamers, but that was only a small percentage of the batch, less than 5 per cent. Some of the serving soldiers explained that they actually used the wargames to recreate the action they had been in, and to play it out to see if there could be a better, or different, outcome from the one that actually happened. It also gave them the opportunity to have a bird’s-eye view, so that they could see the ground and understand why certain decisions and orders were given at different command levels. Wargames have been used in this way for centuries, allowing

A US team with shotgun and SMAW.

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Taliban armed with rifles, AKs and RPGs. leaders to practise their command skills. At the same time, many servicemen are interested in operations that they were not part of. There is a keen interest in getting personal s from servicemen who were there, or seeing official reports and photographs of the conflict, as this gives them a feel for what happened at ground level. Of course, there are men still affected today by many older conflicts, such as the Second World War, the Vietnam War, and the Falklands War. If you need proof of this, just watch documentaries where the men talk about their experiences.

US Sniper team in position. So, is it wrong for us to play these conflicts as well? My belief is that, whatever era you pick, be it ancient, medieval, Napoleonic, ACW or more modern conflicts, you are dealing with common issues: people died fighting for a cause, a belief, a person, a country, or a way of living that they all believed was worth fighting for. This has not changed today. We send our soldiers, sailors and airmen into hostile environments, so that our belief in humanitarianism, democracy or peace may be spread to the wilder places of this world. Having said that, I am not an unthinking patriot who believes everything that the government and the media tells me. I know that, for whatever reason our politicians tell us they are sending troops into a country, there may be another, less altruistic reason why they are going in, such as the promise of oil or other resources. But, whatever the political reasons for sending troops in, the fact remains that our soldiers are in a hostile environment to carry out their orders and to do their job. We should them as best we can.

leading world superpowers. The people we are fighting have their own beliefs and way of life. They are just as brave and courageous. While they lack the modern technologies and command-and-control systems that western democracies have, they make up for it with guile, guts, and unconventional or asymmetric warfare. That’s why improvised explosive devices, car bombs and suicide bombers are frequently used, as it isn’t possible to match western firepower in a straight ‘conventional’ fight; just look at both of the Gulf Wars. I have chosen to look at the more positive side of wargaming modern conflicts. This is because – although, when I asked these questions on the forums, I was trying to be open-minded – most of the positive responses were from serving and ex-serving of armed forces that had been in a war zone. I thought I would give them the voice that they deserve. I have also served in quite a few war zones and have seen the horrors of war ‘up close and personal’. Equally, I have served with people who are still affected by the trauma today and, if they are not bothered by us playing with toy soldiers, then why should people who have not even seen a war zone be offended by it? Ultimately, wargaming is about personal choice. I am certainly not trying to say that you should all go out and play modern wargames. But if you do, I would ask that you give the subject of your gaming the proper respect. Let’s stay away from foreign imperialist ‘infidels’ versus fanatical religious ‘ragheads’, because the truth is far more complex, far deeper, and far more interesting than that. And, if the military personnel who are involved in these modern-day conflicts play the wargames and enjoy them, why shouldn’t the rest of us?

A US fire team consisting of M4s, M249 SAWs and M203. Peter Bowles’ article started as a small piece of another work, but as this subject deserves a larger platform, WS&S asked Pete to expand it and make a separate article. Pete enjoys his gaming, whether historical, fantasy or modern. He also has a knack for rolling 1s when playing Disposable Heroes, which is generally bad for the opposition!

On that same note of fighting for a cause, a country, or a belief, let’s look at the other side of the coin: the people we are fighting. There is a tendency in a lot of modern wargames to demonize the ‘baddie’ terrorists as mindless fanatics waving Kalashnikovs. While I’m sure that there is an element of truth in this stereotype, it’s probably not very reflective of the resistance in Afghanistan, for example, which has sustained some 33 years of guerrilla war, spanning two generations, against the two

All models are 20mm and painted by Paul Burkin. The Taliban are Brittania Models and the US are from Elheim.

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Inspiration By Mark Backhouse

The benefits of wargaming in 6mm

Small Soldiers © Mark Backhouse

People who read my articles must sometimes get the impression that I am a dyed-in-thewool 28mm man. Far from it! While I certainly have a number of 28mm armies, I also have half-a-dozen 20mm armies, and a similar number of 15mm ones. More recently, I have gone back to 6mm, a scale I had gamed with regularly in my teenage years, mainly due to cost, but had neglected in more recent times. The rediscovery of 6mm has suddenly started me thinking about all kinds of campaigns that,

Mark’s Macedonian Companions engage Indian elephants.

in larger scales, had been long abandoned.

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the Classical period in 28mm or even 15mm, you would be looking at an initial outlay of several hundred pounds at an absolute minimum. In the end, I was swayed into selecting 6mm. I bought two starter armies for £20 (with a few pennies left over) from Rapier Miniatures. Irregular and Baccus also offer a wide range of starter armies, varying in size and cost, but all for the price of a single unit of larger-scale figures. From a storage perspective, I have

© Mark Backhouse

© Mark Backhouse

he campaigns of Alexander the Great, with bristling pike phalanxes, wedges of companion cavalry and hordes of scythed chariots, have always appealed visually. I had walked past the outstanding 10mm Pendraken stand too many times, but – seeing their 1:1 ratio phalanx – I realized that, using smaller scale figures, this might truly be a possibility to depict, while still looking fantastic. From a cost perspective, to depict two armies from

always hated pike armies. Much of my English Civil War collection permanently suffers from broken pikes, despite having been stored on top of all the other box files. In 6mm, this is hardly a problem and several armies can be stored in the same size of box that I would normally store a skirmish-sized army in. Space is now one of my biggest issues, and it is a relief to my wife that I have not started on yet another 28mm fleet of ships, cluster of towns or group of hillforts … (delete as appropriate!) One of the principal advantages of

The battle-lines of Macedonia and India meet.

Macedonians charge Indian archers.

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© Mark Backhouse

Inspiration

Elephants – the might of India! To be fair, elephants are impressive in any scale. 6mm is the visual impact of the large number of figures that can be deployed. I am mounting my 6mm Macedonians, Persians and Indians on 60mm x 30mm bases, with around 20 figures per base. In 28mm, the same base would normally hold only three or four figures. Now, several hundred figures can be deployed in the same area that previously held only a few dozen larger figures. Ultimately, this allows battles to be fought with several hundred figures representing a unit or battalion, rather than a paltry 20-30. Another nice benefit is the way that the figures can be based in historical formations and vignettes. The pike blocks have a row of skirmishers out in front, the companions can be formed into a wedge, and the light horse can be arranged into circles, wheeling like swarms of angry bees. While, with the larger figures, there is the beauty of highlighting, applying washes and depicting fine detail, painting smaller figures is equally rewarding. A base of twenty infantrymen in 6mm takes about an hour to paint, which is about the same time it takes to paint two wargames-quality 28mm figures, or one figure nicely. I find that, with a small investment of time each evening, I can paint several hundred figures in a few weeks. In 28mm, most of my projects have taken months to produce anywhere near enough figures to game with, whereas, in 6mm, a whole new wing to the army can be painted in time to shock my opponent at next week’s game! Many people claim that they struggle to paint 6mm figures, but I find the

task relatively easy. Most important is the basing. I based all of the figures first and spread a layer of sharp sand before undercoating with black spray paint. Then, the bases were painted a coffee colour and dry-brushed in a lighter sand colour. ittedly, this created a few niggles when painting the massed pike bases (with over 40 figures, all squeezed together). The principal colours were filled in next. Where possible, I left a thin area of black line remaining to create contrast and shade. A choice highlight can be effective on billowing cloaks to create depth, but on most areas this is not required. The aim is to create a mass effect rather than individual masterpieces. Finally, the bases were completed with a mixture of static grass, clump foliage and grass tufts. With the newer generation of 6mm figures from most of the leading manufacturers – some nearly 8mm, now! – detail is clear, crisp and easily defined. There is no debate as to what the troops are meant to represent. When it comes to gaming, 6mm lends itself to a very different kind of experience. It allows you to imagine that you are the general of a large army, as opposed to several hundred men. It also leads to tactical situations that, at larger scales, rarely occur in a club-night game. Flanks are suddenly created, even on a fairly small 6’ x 4’ table. In 15mm or 28mm games, players seem to ignore flanks, largely because they can be anchored on the table edge as if it represents the edge of the world. Gaps in the line that measure only 12” suddenly look massive! Large reserves of troops become vitally important and

battles start to resemble their historical counterparts more closely. The ground scale at smaller scales also becomes more plausible, and a battlefield feels like several miles across, rather than a few hundred metres. In of rules, I originally intended to play Command and Colours with my 6mm figures, but I ended up being rather distracted by Hail Caesar. The command rules effectively capture the top-down approach I wanted to depict in my ‘classical’ games, and the distances between command figures and divisions lead to isolated commands holding their ground and lacking impetus, while well-led and motivated commands attack with vigour! To compensate for the smaller frontages of units, I have simply halved all of the ranges and movements. So, next time you walk past the smaller scales without giving them a second glance, widen your horizons and consider gaming in a macro-scale that Alexander, Napoleon and Patton would be proud of! Quantity has a quality all of its own … not to mention storage advantages, ease of painting, and dramatic visual impact! The miniatures shown are all from Rapier 6mm. Having finished his Macedonian and Indian armies, Mark next intends to collect a Persian force in 6mm. This will be truly vast and really menacing, compared with his Macedonians. How they fare on the table, however, will be a different matter!

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Modelling .. By Bjorn Arvid Kappe

Tropical trees in six easy steps!

How to create palm trees After browsing the internet for hours looking for a scenery retailer who stocked affordable palm tree kits, I ended up finding them all quite expensive. So I decided to save a few Euros and have a go at creating my own. The process was fairly easy and fun.

• Basing materials (sand, static grass and/or clump foliage) • Fir tree twigs • Paints • Pin vice or similar small drill Palm trees are ideal for pirate games.

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here are thousands of known palm tree species and some of them can be found on almost every continent. The photographs accompanying this article illustrate the creation of a coconut palm. If you want to create other forms of palm tree, then all you need to change are the leaves. The trees are made from fir tree twigs, so you could experiment with different species of conifers, because they all have different sorts of ‘scales’ on their branches, which could resemble other species of palm trees. You will need the following items to create these trees: • Scissors or craft-knife • Glue (I used superglue) • Cardboard, wood, plastic, or other material to create a base for the tree • Fake bamboo leaves, green paper, or other fake leaves to create the palm leaves

Step 1 Collect or cut some twigs from a conifer. These will be your tree trunks. Cut the twigs into various lengths. Their diameter should be at least 0.5cm because we will be drilling holes into their ends. If you cut the twigs fresh from a tree, let them dry for a few days (to do this, place them on an old newspaper, because the sap will run out of the twigs and may cause some damage). Drill several holes – 6 to 8 will suffice – about 0.5cm from the top. Make sure that the ‘scales’ of the twig run upwards, and not downwards. Create a base for the tree to be glued to, or create a larger base where multiple trees can be glued in a clump. Make sure that the base is wide and heavy enough. When we get to Step 6, with all the leaves added, the trees tend to topple.

Step 2 Glue the twig to the base. When the twig is secured to the base, add sand or any other basing material you prefer. Let the model rest for an hour or two, so that the glue can harden. Step 3 The next step is applying a base coat to your tree and base. You could leave the trunk and sand unpainted; after all, they already have the ‘natural’ look. I painted the trunk and base black with a watered-down acrylic paint. Step 4 After letting the trunk and its base dry out for an hour or so, you can start painting the trunk. I dry-brushed the trunk in two shades of brown, before dry-brushing a third, light coat of a lighter contrasting colour to serve as a yellow-whitish highlight. Paint the base in the colours you prefer.

Ensure the ‘scales’ are pointing upwards.

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Modelling

Step 5 When you’re sure the paint is dry on both the tree trunk and the base, it’s time to finish the base. You can add static grass, clump foliage, and rocks. Be warned: if you do the leaves first, it might be a bit harder to reach the spots on the base where you want to add texture, especially if you have made a cluster base.

The twig glued to a base, which is covered in sand. The leaf, shaped (left) and cut, ready for gluing to the trunk. Step 6 Last, but not least, add the leaves to the trunk. I have used fake linen bamboo leaves, reinforced with a plastic stem. They already had the elongated teardrop shape that I wanted, and the rigid plastic stem ensured that the leaves would not hang down the length of the tree. I made several cuts on either side of the leaf to simulate the pinnate (feather-like) shape of a palm leaf. You could also create a palmate (fanshaped) leaf if you prefer.

The finished tree with a modern 28mm soldier for scale.

some Ilichen to the top to resemble the flowers and seeds of a palm tree. And there you have it – the ideal scenery for any tropical game.

Be careful not to cut too far, otherwise you will end up with a very small leaf! Once the leaf has been cut, make sure to leave a small taper which can be glued into one of the holes drilled in Step 1. If you are using paper or any other form of fake leaves, then it is the same procedure. (First, you have to cut the leaves out of the paper yourself, of course!) Repeat this step until all the holes are filled with a leaf, and Voila, one finished palm tree! You can give the trees a more realistic look by adding small balls of putty to simulate coconuts, or by adding

Arvid is a keen Dutch wargamer who is fortunate enough to live along ‘Hell’s Highway’. Naturally, he wanted to game it in its entirety and started collecting vehicles for an army in 28mm. Some three dozen vehicles later … it’ll make an excellent demo game for Crisis one year. All photographs by the author.

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game review By Eoghan Kelly

The Walking Dead meets Endemol ...?

7omBietv 7ombietv, the sequel to 7tv, is a stand-alone set of rules that includes a slimmed-down set of 7tv rules. As with the original rules, it is based in the world of cult TV programmes with each side looking to improve their ratings with the viewers. However, in this world, the B-list cast look to battle it out against hordes of the undead.

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he system allocates a stat line to the different characters: the Star (in 7ombietv, there is only one – the Natural Born Leader), Co-Stars and Extras – at least half of your force must be Extras. As in the pulp zombie films, do not expect many of the Co-Stars to survive! Zombies get Co-Stars and Extras, but no Star (for obvious reasons). The stats allow characters to move, fight, and carry out other tasks, such as jumping or climbing. Each character has abilities and also an option to spend additional points to gain advantages or enhancements to their stats or abilities. Characters also have Special Effects abilities, which allow them to do ‘that little bit extra’ that elevates them from the rank and file to B-movie star status.

The sample cast gives you a good starting unit to try the system out. It includes the essential ‘screamer’ character – a must for any schlock horror film or TV programme. A set of cards gives the players the ‘episode’ that they are playing – for example, the set up and the scavenger cards they can use to find equipment and weapons (as with all zombie-related programmes, some are lethal and hilarious – it is possible to be armed with a lawnmower!) Each side also has cards that can affect themselves as well as their opponents. As with any such system, you will inevitably end up with a great card for someone else! The 7ombietv rules do suggest that some items,

characters and episodes from the main rule book be dropped for playability. (I can entirely understand this – zombies would be very poor against your average automaton!) There is a template to make your own isolated log cabin, counters to make the various items, and tokens to denote status. It is a rule set that is determined to make sure you lack for nothing in order to maximise your enjoyment of the system. At the end of the book, there is a good index of miniature manufacturers with suggested figures you can use for this type of game. These rules allow for a fast-paced game that can have a real cliff-hanger of an outcome. If you have played 7tv already, then you will pick these rules up in an instant. If you haven’t, you will still pick them up very quickly, but will not experience the mild shock of discovering how weak your Co-Stars are compared to the original rule book – which is a good thing and fits the genre perfectly! I like the 7tv format. If zombie games are your ‘thing’, then this is a fun, musthave supplement.

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game review By Eoghan Kelly

Slitherine’s black powder rules

Field of Glory Napoleonic

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was handed this ruleset by a friend, who itted that he “didn’t understand all the tables”. So, it was with some degree of nervousness that I opened them to have a read. This is a smart set of rules. They are well presented and make a clear attempt not to cover too much, but what they do cover is done well. The rule book is lavishly illustrated and well referenced, with a very good glossary and index. There is also a very good section on the design philosophy. It struck me as strange that all the illustrations are referenced in a list at the end of the book, but at least one of them is incorrectly referenced – surprising, given the high level of detail this book contains. The system expects players to field army-corps-sized armies, and to fight the battles of the Napoleonic period (1805–1815). The basic unit is the demi-brigade or regiment. Infantry units represent between 1200 and 3000 men, while cavalry units represent between 500 and 1200. The rules allow for basing of 6–28mm, which allows for most miniature figure scales to be represented. Unlike a lot of rulesets these days, there is also an attempt to draw a direct link between the figures and what they are attempting to represent on the tabletop. Also, there will be two supplements published later this year: Triumph of Nations in June, and Emperors and Eagles in September. These will allow all the minor and major powers to be fielded across the entire period from the Revolutionary Wars to the final fall of Napoleon in 1815 (I hope I didn’t spoil an ending there!).

detail on terrain, set-up, and the points system, and some useful tips on dealing with unusual situations, as well as a sample turn in full. The game system uses MUs (movement units) for all measurements, and this varies depending on the scale of the figures being used. There are three basic troop types: artillery, cavalry, and infantry. Each is characterized by one of three levels of quality (or élan) and one of four levels of training. This gives a huge combination of possible troop types. As the game progresses, units also suffer a loss to their cohesion, which reflects casualties and fatigue as fighting progresses. What I thought was very good was the running tab on the side of each page, telling you where you are in the rules and helping you to see the sequence of what you are reading. What I liked less was the fact that some parts were not in a logical place: for example, basing – traditionally something at the start of a set of rules – was mainly dealt with at either end of the book, and not all in one place. And the tables? Well, I found them very clear and straightforward! They are principally to do with the army lists and how to select your forces. I really like the variety that this format allows you to select. What you will have to be aware of is that this is a set of rules for big armies – so, if you intend to use

them for 28mm gaming, you should either have a large collection already, or you are in for some industrial-strength painting over the coming months! If you look at the sample lists that are given, a Prussian Corps of 1813 will need a minimum of 160 infantry, 42 cavalry and four guns. However, this is the bare minimum, and your corps could be as big as 320 infantry, 60 cavalry and seven guns, which could be supplemented by another 192 optional infantry and 54 cavalry! In of army lists, this tome comes handily equipped with eight, all from the post-1810 period. Some of the supplied lists will give you a taste of what sort of armies you can field. And this is where players could be in for a rude shock because, in these rules, there is a clear attempt to accurately reflect the structure of the army corps as they would have been fielded during these momentous times. The upshot of this is that you cannot have your handy set of Old Guard Grenadiers wandering about at the back of your attack of line infantry – if you want guards, you will have to field an entire Guard Army Corps! Now, where are those Grenadiers à Cheval de la Garde Impériale …? To sum up, I think this is a set of rules to be highly recommended. As for my friend? I’m not sure that he wasn’t talking about a different set of rules!

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The book starts with the usual introduction, followed by the basics of the rules. It then goes on to cover the formation of battle groups, command and control, movement, combat, deterioration of morale in a battle group, and how to assess victory and defeat. There is also a series of appendices that give you more

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game review By Eoghan Kelly

Polemos for budding Caesars?

S.P.Q.R. This is the first of the Polemos system rules for the ancient period. It continues the Polemos tradition of focusing on a relatively short period of history, in order to prevent some of the more anachronistic events that broader sets of rules can permit. S.P.Q.R. encomes the period between 100 BC and AD 200, from the end of the Roman Republic to the high point of the Empire.

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he Polemos system is a well-established and tested system with a straightforward mechanism, at the core of which are Tempo points. Players get points based on the size of their army, and use these points to bid for initiative, spending the remaining points to move their units. Once a unit is under orders, it becomes harder to change those orders. I feel that this accurately reflects the nature of ordering several thousand men forward and then trying to stop them! Officers influence how Tempo points are used and how armies behave – for example, a rash officer will use all of his Tempo points each turn. Armies are not based on points but rather on a random army generator, which can be awkward if you don’t quite have the right number of units. The armies are deployed and may have the opportunity to ‘out-scout’ the opposition (based on light units in each army) in order to get the chance to force the opposition to disclose information about the composition of their army. The rules include twelve lists for the army generator.

(the Romans) or unformed (most others). This variety will allow players to field pretty much any of the armies that fought in this period. The rules are written for 6mm figures, but will work for any scale as long as the simple basing rules are kept in proportion. Most units are mounted on bases twice as wide as they are deep, but there are some exceptions, mainly to safeguard the spears/pikes of your figures! The combat system is split into two sections: ranged and hand-to-hand. The missile combat will break up and disrupt units, but battles will be won or lost in the close-combat phase. This is where the initial sweep of the wild, unformed tribal warriors can beat the Romans, but this advantage ebbs away as the battle grinds on.

The morale system is clever and shows how a unit’s – or even a whole army’s – morale gets drained by combat, until one side or the other breaks. These rules are well-written and are very comprehensive, with plenty of examples and explanations. However, by trying to pre-empt most situations, the rules can feel a little over-long. This does mean you have a rule set that you can pick up and read, and be playing an hour later. Pretty much everything from terrain-generation to hillforts is included. By using 6mm as the base scale, you get a good feel for the potentiallyepic scale of this period, and the small figures allow big battles to be fought out almost in their entirety. There are two engagements listed at the end of the rules, as well as plenty of designer’s notes and reference materials. My principal criticism of these rules is the production quality. I feel that wargamers are expecting better production quality these days. The book comes with plenty of images, but some of the colour photos are not well done (poorly lit and, in at least one case, out-of-focus). However, this is a purely cosmetic complaint. The rules themselves are both comprehensive and, more importantly, very playable. I look forward to more releases from Polemos covering other classical periods.

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Troop types cover most of the expected varieties. These are: Auxilia, Archers, Artillery, Cataphracts, Cavalry, Chariots, Elephants, Legionaries, Light Horse, Pike, Scythed Chariots, Skirmishers, Slingers, Stratiotas (Greek heavy infantry – no, I didn’t know, either!) and Tribal Infantry. Troops are also either formed

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game review By Warren Gleeson

Greek myths, not a lot of magic, but there’s monsters!

TriBes of Legend

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his book based on Greek myth isn’t your traditional set of fantasy rules. It contains, within its gorgeously presented, glossy colour pages, three separate wargames, which are oddly incompatible with each other. Over a third of the book is concerned with modelling and painting the extensive range of Foundry Fantasy miniature figures designed for the ‘period’ (naturally!), along with snippets of Greek legend, some of which (it must be said) feels a little like padding. Tribes of Legend Game This is a simple set of skirmish rules for 40 to 60 figures, and includes five simple army lists for Greek city states, hill tribes, centaurs, Amazons, and satyrs. Each side has only three core troop options for units, and no heroes. There aren’t any lists for skeletons or harpies, and no options for employing the larger mythical beasts. Shame. The different forces presented seem to be balanced against each other, offering some different tactical choices for each army. Players take alternate turns moving units. A set of cards called the ‘Hand of the Gods’ can influence this sequence. Each player has three random cards that are usable only once, so they don’t tend to dominate the game, while adding a degree of uncertainty. Units are either ‘formed’ or ‘loose’, which affects the way they move and fight. Movement is fairly simple, with all units following the unit leader. Unit manoeuvres are handled simply by moving the leader figure and forming the unit around him. All distances for firing and charging are measured from the unit leader, as is the line-of-sight.

reduces the number of successful attack scores by one. Each successful attack inflicts a casualty on the defending unit. A simple ‘Test of Courage’ is rolled for the defending unit. If it fails, the unit is removed. If it succeeds, a return round of combat is fought. There isn’t any impact on friendly forces by units fleeing or being removed. The game ends as soon as one side loses half their force, or when a scenario objective is achieved. Ancient Heroes Game This is a much smaller skirmish game, and owes as much to the films of Ray Harryhausen as to Greek legend. It lends itself very well to being a multiplayer game, with each different player controlling a band of five characters chosen from humans, centaurs, satyrs, harpies and minotaurs, each of which has different skills and abilities. A single scenario is presented, a temple being the objective. The rest of the table is populated with a varied selection of terrain features, including vineyards, caves, springs and streams, which may contain non-player events and characters. These have a significant impact upon the game, as they affect the different character types in different ways. For example, centaurs and satyrs are ‘drunken’, so they are drawn to vineyards. Combat is handled using a standard deck of cards and is fairly quick to resolve. The game is over once one player

has retained control of the temple for three turns. Trials of a Demigod Game This is a simple solo game based upon the Labours of Hercules. The objective of the game is to complete ten of the legendary tasks given to Hercules. Each task brings additional rewards which aid the player later in the game. The game involves a fair amount of dice-rolling to overcome the various challenges, either through use of guile or strength, whilst trying to avoid dying from wounds before completing the tasks. While interesting, the game felt like a long game of solitaire. Verdict Pros: All of the games are at the lighter end of the rules spectrum, with hard and fast game-play. Of the five games I’ve played, each has been completed within an hour. However, they provide an opportunity to play an alternative type of fantasy game that doesn’t go down the traditional Tolkienesque route. Cons: The rules aren’t designed for tournament play and involve rolling lots of dice. Only ‘Tribes of Legend’ and ‘Ancient Heroes’ have some long-term playability. Also, the initial armies are very limited. Hopefully, additional lists will be available to incorporate some other monsters and offer further differentiation between the human forces.

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For combat, each model attacking needs to achieve their ‘attack score’ on a D6. The defenders then roll a number of dice equal to half their unit-strength, seeking to roll their ‘defence score’ or higher. Each successful defence-roll

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© Georgie Harman

COLUMN By Richard Clarke

Up Front In many areas, wargames rules are remarkably similar in their structure

and the mechanisms they use. The real difference, the distinguishing factor that dictates whether we like a game or not, is the vital but often underemphasized issue of command, control and communications. It is here that the hearts and minds of most wargamers are won or lost. There are, we are told, only so many ways to skin a cat. The same may, in honesty, be said for what are generally viewed as the core components of game design: movement, shooting, mêlée and morale. Indeed, this frequently leads to claims being made that there is nothing new under the wargaming sun.

cover the basic principles of move-shoot-mêlée in a manner which – while now dated (although Don’s less so) – is not unrecognizable to modern gamers. However, when it comes to C3, only the most rudimentary instructions apply in both, specifically determining the placement of the officer with an advancing unit. Beyond that, gamers were free to do as they wished, with no limitations on their abilities.

In fact, whatever your chosen period, there are only so many ways that you can use dice to calculate the effects of one unit shooting at another. As a generality, you roll the dice and you calculate the result. Okay, there are variations on this theme. Whether you’re rolling a couple of percentage dice or buckets of D6, if the rules are worth their salt, no matter what method is used to get to the result, the actual outcome will be somewhere within a range of possibilites – possibilities that are plausible from an historical perspective and in tune with the playability balance of the rules as a whole. Where wargames rules do vary, and vary immensely, is in their interpretation of the whole issue of command, control and communications – C3, in military jargon. Indeed, over the past 50 years, this has been the one area where the real shifts in game design have occurred, and ultimately this is increasingly the distinguishing factor that dictates which gamers like which rulesets. In reality, military commanders across history have faced very similar, if not identical, issues with regards to C3. Firstly, they are always acting with imperfect information, whether it concerns the enemy or their own forces. Secondly, they are reliant on their subordinates to implement their plan, generally with little or no further input from them. Thirdly, they are reliant on an imperfect channel of communication through which they need to transmit their orders. Finally, they are always at risk from the fickle hand of fate, intervening to upset their best-laid plans. What Clausewitz calls ‘friction’ may strike at any stage to change the dynamics of the battle, possibly far beyond what one could ever anticipate. To see the changes in the way C3 is represented, we need only look at wargames rules from the 1960s, when this was an area barely considered by designers. Terry Wise and Don Featherstone’s books, Introduction to Battlegames and Wargames, both provided several rulesets, all of which

At this end of the C3 spectrum, we have a gamer who is effectively the omnipresent embodiment of the entire officer corps. One minute, he’s the Duke of Wellington, and the next, he is a subaltern rallying the lowliest unit before leading them on with clockwork precision in precise and predictable 6”-moves, before his opponent takes up the baton and does the same. His command, control and communication are perfect, his knowledge of both the enemy’s location and his capabilities is precise. It has been a remarkably resilient model when it comes to wargaming popularity, but its relationship with reality is, at best, questionable, and increasingly games have been looking for something more. There has, without doubt, been a huge shift away from this approach over the years, with the introduction of a whole raft of mechanisms that have inched, sometimes at a glacial pace, towards the point where C3 has become of central importance to rule systems. From orders, both written and spoken, to rules for the effectiveness of staff systems, rolling dice to ascertain what command PIPs are available for use, command radii for our generals, activation checks, carddriven systems to either vary the order of activation or limit which units can be activated..., all are present in the hobby. What we should consider is how these mechanisms represent the realities of command, as very often, layers of complexity can be added with little positive effect. One gamer I chatted to at the Overlord show in Abingdon this March had only recently returned to the hobby after some time away. He had read my remarks regarding bland games in my last column, and commented that, during his absence, the hobby seemed to have become increasingly commercialized, with many rulesets being written specifically in order to promote ranges of figures. This, he suggested, was leading to rules being designed (rather like politicians) to have maximum commercial appeal, and as a result they

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Random events? Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!

shied away from anything that was potentially challenging, so that the emphasis was on the wargame rather than on the wargame. Interestingly, despite the suggestion that the ‘war’ and ‘game’ camps are relatively new, in reality it has ever been thus in the modern hobby. On the one hand, Don Featherstone is often quoted in his belief that “The object of the exercise is enjoyment and relaxation coupled with a mild intellectual stimulation ... it is a game we are playing which can, for obvious reasons, bear only the most superficial resemblance to anything that takes place on a real-life battlefield”. Yet, it seems that Charles Grant (the doyen of the Old School fraternity) has been unjustly overlooked when he stated that “there can be no doubt that events on the table should be a true and complete reflection of what occurred in reality”. Indeed, Grant’s Battle, serialized in Meccano Magazine in the late 1960s, included a whole chapter with a set of particularly comprehensive (if somewhat literally applied) rules for communication that, for their time, were ground-breaking in their recognition of C3. How C3 is modelled in wargames varies hugely, from a bolted-on afterthought to a central pillar of the rules. I was intrigued by Rick’s column in WS&S 58, where he talked about turn sequences, specifically IGO-UGO and the alternatives. To my mind, the whole IGO-UGO debate is less about turn sequence and more about C3. In real war, one does not get an active/ive dynamic of the type created by a pure IGO-UGO system. No commander ever seizes the initiative so comprehensively that he can control the entire battlefield while his opponent sits back and does nothing. It’s rather like a game of chess where I get to move all of my pieces and then you get to move all of yours – not just daft but somewhat boring. My own preference is to dispense with the predictability of IGO-UGO and replace it with a game engine that deals more effectively with the ebb and flow of initiative across the battlefield, so that neither player dominates events for large blocks of time. To date, I haven’t found a better way of doing this than with cards, where individual units and commanders are activated when their card is dealt, thereby creating an ever-changing turn sequence. It is certainly true that abandoning IGO-UGO for a system with less control means that you can no longer plan with the absolute certainty of how your subordinates will perform. But, far from being a drawback, this actually replicates the real environment in which a commander operates. He may well order platoon A to seize village X, but he cannot be certain exactly how long this will take. Indeed, were he to order platoon B to move to position Y in order to put down fire to A’s advance, then the C3 problems are compounded. Does this stop the gamer forming a coherent plan? Not at all. It may mean that A has to wait briefly while B gets into position, but this is not anarchy or chaos. This is replicating

‘friction’, fog of war, the unquantifiable external factors, call them what you will, that make war an art and not a precise science. Far from being too abstract, cards have been used in games for over a thousand years, so they are as much a part of games as dice are. Indeed, many of the most popular games (Monopoly, anyone?) combine both. Increasingly, wargames – and very popular wargames, at that – are using cards not simply as added enhancements, such as ‘bonus decks’ or ‘random events’ (a sort of wargaming Community Chest), but as central elements of their design. One only has to consider the popularity of games like The Sword and the Flame and Command & Colors, which straddle both the ‘figure’ and ‘board’ worlds of wargaming, and note that Sam Mustafa’s soon-to-arrive Maurice has cards at its core, to see how these are no longer on the periphery of wargame design. If we are really attempting to model C3 within a game, we should consider those issues that we looked at earlier. Does the wargamer have absolute knowledge of his opponent’s force from the outset of the battle? Do the rules allow him to know precisely how far his units can move unimpeded in x number of turns? Can he issue an order to a subordinate and know precisely when and how efficiently it will be carried out? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, then he undoubtedly knows more than his historical counterpart. Knowledge of the enemy’s force falls within the remit of the pithy issue of hidden movement and concealment, but that is something that will have to wait for another day. As for removing absolute certainty and replacing it with what a real commander has, namely a decent idea of what is achievable and nothing more, I believe this means that C3 will increasingly be at the very heart of any set of rules, rather than being a simple bolt-on section designed to occasionally frustrate. How game designers achieve this will, of course, vary, depending upon the degree of control that they feel is appropriate or desirable to achieve an approximation of real command, or – if my cynical friend is right, God forbid! – that they feel will be popular and therefore commercially successful. My own hope is that, by pushing the boundaries, we can present gamers with an experience that is both fun and, at the same time, an accurate reflection of the problems of command. In this issue, Rich finally confesses his love of cards in his games, to simulate the limitations of Command, Control and Communication. Frankly, it’s a relief now that his secret is out and he no longer has to live trying to hide his guilt. It’s a fair cop, governor: he’ll do the time!

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BOARDGAMES REVIEWS Gaming the great escape?

By Chris Payne

STALAG 17 Stalag 17 was released by the Spanish company Gen-X at the 2011 Essen boardgames show last October. The aim of the game is for allied prisoners of war to escape from a German camp. The winner is the first player to get three prisoners home. This is done by matching cards (your resources) to dice (the requirements), and thus the game has elements of both good card management and luck. The contents of the Stalag 17 box. The translation from the original Spanish is a bit weak in parts and it clearly hasn’t been given the ‘once over’ by a native English speaker. That said, despite the occasional strange turn of phrase, the rules are clear enough, with examples given. I clarified a rule regarding the starting player of each turn with the designer, not because it was unclear, but because it seemed a bit strange at first. The turn is split into two elements: 1) Dice rolling (and drawing two cards for each player) 2) Card play The starting player rolls the dice to determine the cards needed for a successful escape. For example, the dice may indicate ‘food’, ‘uniform’, ‘documents’ and a ‘runaway’ value of 6. These are the cards that I need to have in my escape pile to successfully escape. However, they only apply to the current turn. In the next round, another dice roll will be made and the requirements will change. Each player then draws two cards before having a choice of further card actions. There are five escape commodities: food, uniforms, documents, equipment, and maps. They appear equally on the dice and within the deck, although cards for the same commodity can have different ‘surveillance values’ ranging from 0 to 3. There are a few double item cards, which will only count for one of the icons shown, and the ‘barracks’ card

5) Discard five different cards 6) Take the top card of the discard pile and one card from the main deck 7) Attempt to escape A successful escape triggers a roll call. The escaped player takes surveillance points on the basis of the cards left in his hand. Other players take points on the basis of any ‘barracks’ cards in their escape pile, plus points for cards in their hand. Surveillance values vary and some cards have a value of 0. Other players get to reduce the number of surveillance points that they take by three for each unescaped prisoner. A negative number offers the chance to give surveillance points back, if you have any. Surveillance points in your hand act as a modifier to the runaway escape number needed, increasing it. The surveillance aspect explains why you want to throw cards away, and why there are limits on your ability to do so. Get caught with lots of stuff that you haven’t buried away in your escape pile and you will suffer the surveillance points, as you are clearly marked as dangerous men. All cards (both in hand and in the escape pile) are given back after a successful escape, though, so in reality, you are not better placed than anybody else. Within the basic game there are only two ways to get rid of surveillance points: either have a negative number after roll call, or go through the deck without a successful escape when each player returns five cards (the guards have become lax). The

The various dice used in Stalag 17. can count as any item. Each player, on his / her turn, has a choice of seven actions: 1) Draw two cards 2) Play a card into his/her escape pile and take a card 3) Discard a card 4) Discard three cards of the same type

A selection of cards from Stalag 17.

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designer has published additional rules on his website for the ‘Informant’, which enables surveillance tokens to be discarded, while the escape attempt fails. The more prisoners escape, the more escape dice are rolled, meaning that it is harder to escape later on, because there will be more equipment requirements or the runaway number will become higher. So, is it a box of hot Spanish air? Certainly, the box is rather big for the contents. But, like computer software and other expensive items, it needs to compete for shelf-space and grab attention. Unfortunately, small boxes don’t do that. A couple of grip-top bags would have been nice to hold the counters and cards inside the box, especially since the pieces rattle around in the extra space. The iconography on the cards is clear. However, a readyreference card with some pictorial reminders of the seven card options would have been nice, both to speed up learning and make it a bit more accessible as a pick-up-and-play game. The game undoubtedly has two luck elements. The first one is the escape dice rolled each turn: they will either match what equipment you have or they won’t. The second one is the card draw: the double equipment, informant and barracks cards are powerful, although the latter two are doubleedged swords as there are hefty penalties (4 surveillance points) for getting caught with them in the most useful place (either in your hand or the escape pile). The luck element is essential, though, for there to be uncertainty and decisionmaking in a game of this length. The mechanics seem to work with the theme. They represent the hoarding of escape materials while waiting for the right time and opportunity to escape. This is combined with a mechanism to reflect increased watchfulness on those who have succeeded before (in the form of surveillance tokens) and a better positioning (starting player) for those who are least successful. The roll call – which is such a feature of the movies – makes an appearance in a sensible way.

The back of the Stalag 17 cards. We recommend card protectors. to lots of use, and they punch reasonably cleanly from the counter sheet, although (as always with thick counters) care should be taken to avoid tearing as they are punched. The cards are a little flimsy for the amount of use they will get – aside from being shuffled fairly frequently, players will also keep checking what cards they have placed face down. For this reason, buying some deck protectors is probably recommended, depending upon your gaming group. As this is a game at the ‘beer and pretzels’ level, it’s worth considering the environment in which you will play – I don’t think the cards would cope well with a spilled drink or grubby fingers! A note on component quality: some early issues of the game were shipped with ‘muddy’ dice and/or miscut cards. If yours is one of them, the designer would like you to please him – his email appears in the rulebook. I’ve received the new dice and they are much cleaner and nicer. This game will suit players who can relate to the atmosphere and flavour of the game, and but will therefore lament the absence of a motorbike card! Other players will dislike the strong element of luck, and the lack of strategy that results. In short, this is a military-themed game suitable as a starting or closing game in a club environment.

STALAG 17 X Games Publisher: Gen 2-5 Players players (depends upon 30-60 minutes play) and speed of e: €29.95 Suggested pric

Aside from the ‘Informant’ rules, the designer has also put rules online for ‘Dealing with the Guardian’ (I assume they mean the camp commandant or warden), exchanges between players, and t jailbreaks, all of which expand the game considerably and, in my opinion, make it better value.

TS COMPONEN ith 84 cards w ck de e Gam 5 Object dice e with 6 faces 1 Runaway di e tokens 40 Surveillanc r each ns (3 tokens fo ke 15 Prisoner to country) h ish and Englis Rules in Span

The quality of the components is generally good (more on this below), as it ought to be given their quantity versus the price. The rules are printed in dark brown on paper of a pale brownish yellow. They are clear and readable, but I’m not entirely sure what graphic effect the designer was aiming for. The tokens are on solid cardstock that should stand up

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BOOK REVIEWS De Ruyter Dutch iral

Barbary Coast pirates. The book does not just give details of military campaigns, but examines how areas like North Africa fit into a greater European context. There is also a large section on De Ruyter’s time working with the Danes in their struggle against Sweden in the Baltic. As a historical work, I recommend this book highly. For a wargamer though, what does it offer? It doesn’t give lists of fleets, ship data or the details of battles and campaigns that we need to re-fight the naval actions of De Ruyter. What it does offer is an excellent general picture of the Dutch and De Ruyter during the 17th Century, with lots of inspiration for naval games and campaigns beyond just the Anglo-Dutch Wars. (We would like to point out that the same company that publishes WS&S has produced this book. While we have asked an independent reviewer to examine it, in the interest of fairness, we still want readers to be aware of the affiliation. –Ed.)

This book is a magnificent work. It is in hardback with a colour dust jacket containing 280 full-colour pages with period paintings (including lots of ships), drawings, and maps throughout. The book is a first from this publisher on significant European characters through history, and De Ruyter is a great choice for a first subject. He was a prominent Dutch iral of the 17th Century. This was a period when, because of their sea power, the Dutch were one of the most important nations in the world. The book is written in an easy and accessible style, very engrossing even if you don’t have an interest in the 17th Century. Too often English language histories focus only on events that affect those that speak English. For example, if you search for De Ruyter on the Internet, his Wikipedia page focuses on the three AngloDutch Wars in which he played an important role. The wonderful thing about this book is that it covers all of De Ruyter’s life and career equally. There is a large section on De Ruyter’s experiences in the Mediterranean, fighting the

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The Hunt for Pancho Villa The RAID series from Osprey have proven a godsend for wargamers. They provide a detailed and interesting look at specific events and campaigns and usually give enough information to convert these into tabletop scenarios. The Hunt for Pancho Villa is no exception. The book outlines Pancho Villa’s career and involvement in the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20 and the American interventions, including the occupation of Veracruz in 1914. The main part of the book looks at Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico on March 9th, 1916. The reasons for the battle are touched on and its course described in some detail, ed by excellent maps, photographs and artwork of the raid itself. A good is given of the forces on both sides. All of this screams out to be recreated on the tabletop. Pershing’s punitive expedition with nearly five thousand soldiers is covered in the rest of the book, and includes numerous short s of skirmishes and raids. Some engagements are covered in greater detail; among them is the unusual battle of Carrizal in 1916, where US Troops engaged the Carrancistas, a pro-Mexican government faction (who,

incidentally, were Pancho Villa’s enemies). Both Villa’s raid on Columbus and Pershing’s raid to capture him in Mexico were effectively unsuccessful and costly for everyone involved. This book looks frankly at the successes and failures of both sides. Villa’s raid was largely a disaster, given the casualties his force suffered. The American attempts to capture him in retaliation proved mostly fruitless. Villa remained at large, even though two of his lieutenants were caught and killed. ed by excellent Osprey artwork and by contemporary photographs, this book is a must-have for all Pancho Villa fans, as it brings the raid and expedition vividly to life.

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By Nick Eyre, Eoghan Kelly, Guy Bowers and Mark Backhouse

Dakota Dawn Dakota Dawn tells the bloody story of the beginnings of the Sioux uprising of 1862, which occurred at the height of the American Civil war. Let down by the US government and with mounting pressure from settlers encroaching on their lands, a faction of Sioux decided to expel the newcomers from their territory. The result was one of the largest massacres of settlers ever and a retaliation that would haunt both sides for decades. The book contains numerous useful maps and harrowing s of the massacre of white settlers, along with the Sioux’s battles against the local US garrisons. It is told in an impartial way and comments on the real struggle some native Dakota Sioux had choosing between their people and the kinder settlers they saw as friends. Almost everything is told via eyewitness s and reports from the time. These are cleverly threaded together by the author into one common narrative. Each chapter is prefaced by a simple paragraph that helpfully summarizes the chapter’s contents. The battles of Fort Ridgely and New Ulm are covered in

detail, along with numerous skirmishes. The book only covers the first week of the uprising, by which time the rebel Dakota had achieved their objective, driving the settlers from their lands. However, the fighting would continue from August to December – with battles at Birch Coulee and Wood Lake – although these are outside the scope of the book and only get brief mention in the final chapter. There is good detail provided throughout the book, making it useful for recreating several scenarios and battles on the tabletop. Fans of the wild west or those looking for a different take on Civil War battles (Union versus Sioux) will find this a fascinating and unique read.

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Battles for the Mediterranean 1940 - 1944 This supplement, though theoretically generic enough for any rules system, has been written with the Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier system in mind. There are ten scenarios, spread across the Mediterranean theatre of operation. Each one is presented in a standard format. It gives you a background to the scenario, a mission for each player, and the usual order of battle, terrain, deployment and any scenario-specific rules that are needed to conduct the refight. The ten scenarios include one in Crete, three in the western desert, two in Tunisia, and four in Italy. The sides represented in the scenarios are diverse, with the obvious combatants (Germans, British and Americans) and the slightly less frequently played (Italians – who manage to be on both sides in different scenarios). There are also quite unusual choices such as the Vichy & Free French. Each scenario is well laid out and illustrated with photos that match the scenario in question. A colour map that gives players a good overview of their chosen ground is provided. I found some of the actions a little too heavy on armour. In particular, the Biazzo Ridge scenario looks like a real challenge to the US forces given the arsenal the Germans have available. However, the US forces are much better trained (though I’m not sure being elite infantry will save you from

a Tiger I!) I particularly liked the personal touch in Operation Battleaxe, where the author refers to his own father’s role in the action! What I find a bit strange is that some of the scenario maps have a com indicator on them and others do not. As a gamer that likes to play with orders for troops (and thus likes to know what direction I am ordering my troops to go), I found this variation somewhat puzzling. This lack of consistency is also reflected in the historical section of the scenarios. Some provide the full story including the result, while others stop at the point of the action commencing. I think I would have preferred to have the background first and then a separate section at the end that describes the actual historical results of the battle. This would help players avoid the pitfalls that come with knowing the actual course and outcome of the action. That being said, this is a handy supplement. It is especially good if you already game this theatre of operations. Even if you don’t, there are some scenarios here that might tempt you into trying .

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BOOK REVIEWS

Wargaming on a Budget - Gaming constrained By money or space investment in time and materials when many high-quality, affordable options are now available on the wargames market. There was an overriding feeling that many of the methods for saving a few pennies had probably emerged from a time period when a shortage of available figures or terrain had forced people into making their own. While this book does contain sections on sculpting and moulding your own figures, Dickie freely its that it is probably a lot easier to just buy your models from the bring and buy at a show! There is a nod of acknowledgement to the internet and the huge number of resources that can be found online for free. However, I was surprised by the lack of commentary on the recent plastic revolution and the affordability of high-quality figures at a fraction of metal prices. Many of the methods for making tables, storage, and terrain are illustrated with simple but clear black and white line drawings. The 16-page section of colour photographs in the centre of the book shows a number of cheaply produced terrain ideas. I was slightly disappointed with the content of the photographs in this section because the terrain looked so markedly inferior in quality to the games seen in magazines and shows recently. Cheap should not automatically mean nasty! A number of excellent terrain making books are available (such as the Touching History series) that suggest methods for affordable and beautiful terrain.

This book is presented by a gamer with the experience of a grizzled veteran but delivered with a schoolboy’s boundless enthusiasm. It is a holistic approach to penny pinching and scrimping on a shoestring budget. Its coverage is broad, from managing your finances to careful selection and construction of appropriate figures, terrain and boards. I was pleased to find a section on scratch-building ships and planes. While careful use of my hobby budget is always a factor in my gaming choices, the problem of space is an even larger issue for me. Wargaming on a Budget also attempts to provide storage solutions and options for games on smaller tables. This chapter grabbed me the most and includes some interesting ideas for gaming night attacks, street fighting, hunting scenarios, and trench raids. There are also discussions and ideas for several themes of campaigns including a Reagan-era ‘Star Wars’ game and solo and quest style games. The volume is well written in a tongue-in-cheek style. The attempt to cover everything in one book has the feel of a 1970’s self-sufficiency manual. As I read, I wondered whether or not some of the methods suggested were really worth the

Small criticisms aside, there is a lot to commend in Wargaming on a Budget. The gusto of delivery reminded me of the Featherstone tomes that introduced me to wargaming in my youth. Retiring after 25 years at the helm of Miniature Wargames, Dickie’s ion for gaming is clearly still burning bright. Gamers of all experience levels will pick up a few tips and good ideas to save some pennies in this book. I am certainly now thinking of new gaming scenarios that may well get an airing in this magazine at some point!

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