Double hobby challenge update

 I know, I know I missed January. I was busy though, busy posting on the Analogue Hobbies Challenge over here. (I go by the label PeterB, the link should take you to a list of my posts). I have just about managed to keep up with the self inflicted target of posting at least once a week. I have managed to kill at least three brushes and had to buy extra paint on numerous occasions. Yes, February is almost over too, but thanks to it being a leap year, I have an extra day to get this blog posted! 

I have been using the Analogue Challenge to encourage myself to continue with the plan of recreating a second edition style 40K tabletop game. Only in models though probably, more than likely I will use Xenos Rampant rules. I have not been able yet to find a reasonably priced period Ork Dreadnought though, so in true cheapskate style I recreated a copy of the cardboard standee Dread that came with the 2nd edition starter set. I made a base for it out of an old slotta base and added some bits of sprue offcut to make a raised slot for the card to slip in.

The project is not yet done though, I have a period Ork Warlord model to paint and I am looking for some kind of battlewagon proxy. I will probably also paint up a Rhino and some Devastator Space Marines, both of which I already have. They just need a strip and repaint.

The Illustrious Opponent has also announced a Hobby Challenge for the beginning of the year that I couldn't say no to. A version of a Tale of Four Gamers, each of us has an equivalent of £30 each month starting January to buy models for a 20mm WW2 force. Once we have enough, the Illustrious Opponent intends to host a gaming day with scenarios designed to test them. In honour of one of our number having emigrated to Australia, I declared I would try an Australian force. 

They have been fun to paint, mainly because most of the work is done by the Sepia wash they all get. I paint them a base white, the webbing tan and the socks brown and tan. Then the model gets a wash and then extra details are added. 20mm is a new scale to me, large enough that I can manage to paint them without squinting, small enough that I don't get lost in painting loads of detail. (In fact I basically paint them with the level of detail I used to paint 28mm!) 

In other news the local club has been dipping a toe into the new Warhammer the Old World rules. Obviously getting hold of any models for said rules is like finding hens teeth. Luckily regular readers with good memory will recall the Night Goblin army I painted up back in July 22. It's almost like I predicted the rules would come back! I decided to paint up one more unit for them to add that extra character and will be giving the army it's first outing next week. I expect to get a proper drumming of course, newly painted model syndrome will most likely be in effect. (Plus I am a terrible Warhammer commander)

I have also been playing a fair bit of Masters of the Universe at the club. Its nice to actually get the models on the table after all that painting, especially with all that terrain I had to paint. I'm looking forward to Salute in April when I can hopefully get my hands on the Princess of Power herself, She-Ra. With Swift Wind obviously.  Finally, in a similar style I have been painting some models from Crooked Dice. People of my vintage may recognise them...

These were super fun to paint. The sculpts from Crooked Dice are really high quality. It's nice that you can still get good quality metal models.  It isn't all plastic or 3D printed yet.

One Hour Wargames

I'm sure I'm not the only wargamer who has found his available time for dice rolling and painting shrunk a bit for a few years following the arrival children. For this reason I gratefully received a gift for Fathers day of the above title, One-Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas from Pen & Sword books. My wife is one of the few people that listen to my ramblings about the needs of a wargamer and so also knew that I struggle to find something I can play on the limited size of our dining table that unfolds from a three foot square to a staggering three by six foot rectangle.  The two selling points of this book then, play a game in an hour on a three foot square, jumped out at my wife as perfectly suited for me.

From Ancient and Dark Age, right through to the Machine Age and Second World War, this book presents a simple ruleset that is tweaked for each period to enable the player to play a simple wargame for a desired moment in history. Each chapter starts with a brief explanation of how the fighting styles of the period are represented in the rules and how the unit types are simplified into between two and four types. Obviously we are looking at finishing a game in an hour, so this is a very simplified system, the rules for a unit size just stating the size of the frontage, it is up to the player to decide what scale models they use and how many they squeeze into the unit. All units have the same capacity of damage of 15 hits.

After the rules there are 30 different scenarios, some based on real battles. This is the section of the book I will find the most useful, not just for this rule set, but I can imagine they will be extremely transferrable to Warhammer, Kings of War, Rapid Fire, in fact any gaming system.  Nobody wants to repeatedly just play "pitched battle" over an empty battlefield all the time. The author takes great care to mention where his inspiration for each scenario came from, a real encounter or another author. (The Godfathers of wargaming Charles Grant and Donald Featherstone receive a couple of name checks.)

Of final note, my youngest offspring has already begun to have a keen interest in Daddy's wargaming (He has already begun "Thundercoating" and painting his own toy soldiers) so I have started to think about how to introduce gaming to the boys. This book is the perfect tool. The simplicity of the rules are perfect for them, I don't want to be constantly referring to tables and rulebooks (I myself am terrible at remembering rules and always find wargaming easier when a "third player" is on hand with a rulebook.) small minds wander easily as we know.

There is also that one last use for this book. You know sometimes you just want to get your entire collection for a period on a table, just for the shere magnificience of it. Your club want to demonstrate a massive Napoleonic war game with everyone's models on the table and you havent got a week to play it in. This system I am sure will easily scale up for this purpose. This book is going to get well thumbed.

Achtung!

Regular readers of the blog (all six of you.) will know I favour a more Hollywood approach to my wargaming. However, one of my esteemed wargaming friends, the Illustrious Opponent is a fan of the more accurate methods of gaming WW2, Rapid Fire! As I regularly subject him to my crazy homebrew rules, I should also sometimes humour his tastes.

A nifty little set of rules, I don't pretend to be particularly knowledgeable of them, more relying on the method of asking my opponent what I need to roll. (There are lots of tables.) Nonetheless, I do enjoy how they play. The need to "spot" your opponent before opening fire on them across the crowded table is more accurate than my usual experience of gaming like a general who has a super manoeuvrable helicopter and a powerful set of binoculars.

As it was D Day, we played a scenario based on the Battle of Perrier Ridge. I took command of the Germans, my opponent, the British. Having most of my force squeeze onto the table at the point where the road enters the table, somewhat limited my deployment. Having constraints on setup can sometimes help though as you really don't get the chance to think too hard about deployment.

My opponent wanted to make it clear that we weren't being perfectly historically accurate, mainly due to the limitations of his collection. This meant both forces were reduced slightly. As we were playing in an evening of limited time it wasn't a bad thing.

My reinforcements being due to arrive on turn six, all I had to do was hold my own against the dug in British forces until my extra six Stug 3's arrived and then I would surely roll over the opposition.

Of course I rolled terribly for spotting any of the British infantry holed up in the buildings of the town and having my force bottle-necked in the open road approach meant they were pretty much stuck there for the game.

One infantry platoon were convinced a building was occupied bit just couldn't spot anyone, so had to come out of cover and charge the building. Taking heavy casualties from the inevitable machine gun fire, they did manage to set fire to the building with their flamethrower and chase out the inevitable occupants.

My armour suffered drastically as the game went on, nothing but luck kept them alive for the first couple of turns, but eventually being a stationary target in the open road will lead to your downfall.

Turn five and supporting fire from the Allied navy wiped out an entire Platoon of my infantry in one fell swoop, a careful advance through the cover of woods may help against infantry, but some luckily accurate shelling from a battleship can't be defended against. This in turn meant my CO immediately surrendered to the nearest British Officer he could find, putting an end to my German counter attack.