I couldn't resist it

That man Epictetus has flagged up the recent spate of Cummings-mania on YouTube. Here's a particularly good one.

I would drive 500 miles

It's only a matter of time before someone covers this:

Go Go Dick and Dom

I should have added, no prizes for guessing who the Dick is.

School project

Half-term week and I helped the girls out with their school project. Make a river. I offered to help with ideas and materials, and guidance on execution. ;-)

First thought was to stick the fake leather onto MDF stripes, build up a some banks, add some texture and vegetation and job done. The fly in the ointment was that I couldn't find MDF that was thin enough in any of the DIY stores. The thinnest was 6mm so the river would sit almost as high as my SYW lads and waist height to the ECW chaps. Then I thought I could get some perspex sheet that would be thin enough as a base. A quick search on Wickes' and B&Q's sites through up 2mm thick, clear acrylic sheet. Bingo! The sheet would go on top of the river.

OK. Good plan. Sheet purchased (not cheap - £21 for 60x120cm) after several tours of Kingston's one-way system trying to find the fabled alternative route to Wickes as the direct route was closed. Traffic already getting back to normal too. Damn. Now what size and shape strips should I make? 120cm is a good length overall for the model, giving enough room to show the different stages of a river. Keeping things simple seemed the best for now. The rivers could twist and turn and meander within say a 10cm range width which would do the job for the school project and be reasonably practical from a wargaming perspective.

Cutting the acrylic sheet was a bit of a challenge and it took me a few goes to get the knack of it, so the two strips aren't a uniform width along their lengths. I then cut each long strip into 4 shorter ones, but for some reason that made sense at the time, one strip was a few centimetres longer which means they won't all fit in the old Ikea boxes. The girls chalked out the shape of their rivers on the back of the fake leather, complete with tributaries, and in one case distributaries, and then cut them out. These were then painted. I prefer brown-based rivers and suggested to the girls that they look at satellite images and decide on colours. They came back with blue-green. and I have to say they look pretty good. We cut the rivers into lengths to match the acrylic sheeting and glued them on using spray glue. It took several hours for them to dry properly but the material held and looked pretty good through the acrylic. There was even the bonus effect of a bubbling in the glue which gave a more fluid look to the 'water'.

Work in Progress

One of the rivers laid out on the garden table before 'texturing' the banks. This one ends in a delta.

The 'delta' river after receiving its coat of sand.

Close up of the delta river

This is the other daughter's river, which ends in an estuary. You can see here that the acrylic sheet really gives depth to the 'water'

Now to the texturing. I suggested the girls use the Baccus base texturing method. So using watered down PVA they sprinkled Chinchilla Dust* onto the edges of the rivers. We found that the diluted PVA sort of slips and leaves some bare patches so the PVA needs to be thicker than when gluing onto MDF bases. You also need to be quick. When dry, and the excess sand shaken off, it was painted with acrylic burnt umber. Later it was dry brushed in 3 successively lighter colours before static grass and foliage was glued to it.

Once all this had dried I set the dining room table up for the photoshoot using the time honoured DVD box and felt cloth method. Then laid out the river sections and dressed the table with various buildings, cattle, trees and wagons.

Full view of the finished 'delta' river.

Close up of the head waters of 'delta' river. You can see two problems here. One is the inconsistent widths of the acrylic strips. Secondly I misaligned some of the river material sections - it's tricky stuff.

Full view of 'estuary' river. This one had more white paint speckles which I think helps. The banks are browner due to the different style taken with the highlighting and less 'grass' being used.

Close up of 'estuary' river headwaters. Again the same misalignment problem. I really like the different channels.

I like this one because the building near the bridge is reflected in the 'water'.

So I'd say the project was a success over all, and I aim to use the acrylic sheet again. I've got about half of it left.

Lessons and ideas for the future. 

• It's easier to get straight strips when cutting the acrylic in shorter lengths. 
• Clump foliage sticks better after it's been soaked in dilute PVA. 
• I'll make the strips more consistent in length and make sure they fit in the box! I might cut a couple of cm off the end of the river mouths so those sections fit the box. 
• Next time I'll try not using the fake leather as it's tricky to get it into the right position. I don't know if paint will adhere directly to the surface of the acrylic sheet, so I'll experiment with that and other materials underneath the sheeting. 
• Also I'm giving thought to how I create bends in the river.
• I might clip off some of the corners of the strips where they are wildly misaligned so it's not so jarring.
• I'll have a crack at some lake and marsh sections.
• Finally, I'll make sections where the river width is consistent at the end of every strip so it's completely modular - I can vary the width between the ends.

* No chinchillas were harmed during the making of this terrain.

Late edit: the teacher one of my daughters  (but not the other one’s teacher 🤔) responded very positively to the pictures she submitted of her project and asked if she would donate it to the Geography department. Hmm! Tricky one. It’s a bit like being asked to give up a new toy to a children’s home before you’ve played with it. Worthy cause but, like, I want it. This is also one of those odd situations when you have twins. I know that the skill and effort that’s gone into both pieces of work was equally good, yet if only one gets the credit .....

....We never knew as we departed,

...who can ever return

Well the Koskela Detachment didn't make it this time in today's FaceTime game. The conceit was that a reinforced infantry company (11 rifle sections, 2 LMG, 2 HMG and 1 mortar team) was resting up by a small river somewhere in East Karelia in the Summer of 1944. The rapid Soviet advance had broken the Finns' line in several places and an advanced infantry battalion was emerging from the forest when lookouts from both sides spotted each other. The Finnish officer commanding had to get as many of his men and heavy weapons as possible off the western end of the table (about six feet away).

I have no in-game pictures from today just a couple of set-up pics. The whole thing took not much more than an hour, which considering a lot of time was spent clarifying positions and intended movement is pretty quick.

Looking west to east towards where the Neighbours will come from. The Finns will start around the fields and buildings at the top.

Closer look at the deployment area. The Finnish commander placed most of his men in the fields with a couple of sections in the hamlet and himself in the easternmost fields (left). I added a couple of scratch built bridges made from matchsticks at each crossing point.

The soldier's eye view of the way home.

My son commanded the Finns and I took the role of the Neighbours come to move the fence back again. He had 15 turns to extract as many of his men off the eastern edge as possible. Sadly for him the dice gods were with the Soviets who rolled higher on about 10 occasions sometimes by a margin of 7 or 8 to 1 or 2 (we used D8s). Also what hampered him was he couldn't resist the temptation to mortar the opposing mortars, using up valuable command points slowing down his own exfiltration.

In extracting himself and one platoon from the east side of the river, Koskela inadvertently placed his troops in a tight concentration around the village. A temptation for the Soviets who bombarded the village. To no effect! But they had the range now. Meanwhile the right Soviet hand column had troops across the river (at the bottom of the middle picture). Again rather than extract his men, Koskela chose to bombard the Russkies on the west side of the bridge, to some effect. However the foe was soon pressing in and the Finns were ordered to make towards the forest.  This coincided with the Soviet commander getting another high command roll and he used it to call in an airstrike. 7 bases were within an area 5 x 20 cm centred on where the estimated point was. So that meant 7 dice rolls! The Finns got lucky with 5 misses and only 2 pinned bases. Still that would slow them down a little.

As the Finns got men into the forest the Soviets got more and more men across the bridge and they began to fire at the retreating Capitalists. This had some effect - the mortar team copped it first, then other sections were pinned allowing more Soviets to catch up. They now began to close assault the Fascists' Lackeys and took out 3 more sections. I probably need to tweak this bit of the rules as it is relatively easy to get up close with an unpinned enemy. It was then that my son's expectation that the road would give him a move bonus was dashed (not reading the rules properly!). I think perhaps a small tweak is in order - I reasoned that whilst a road (actually forest track in this case) makes easier going and is a clear route, one has to proceed with caution especially in a forest.

Ignore the lads in triangular formation near the stream!

The decision was then taken to keep two separate groups, one in the forest and one in the open countryside for speed. Soon after, more Soviet bases had caught up and were taking potshots at the retreating Capitalists. By the end of turn 15 none of the Finns had made it off the western edge, Koskela and 3 sections were in the forest, two MGs teams were in the western hamlet and a few more rifle teams were in the open country. 8 bases had been lost against the Soviets' losses of about 5. The best that Koskela could now hope for was nightfall - but darkness can be a long time coming in those Summer months. [Incidentally 10 turns would have seen the majority off the board if they'd just legged it].

I made some of the same mistakes in my playtest on Saturday. When the Soviets made it across the river on the Finns' left, a Finnish MG opened up wiping out the first section over. Nearby rifle sections couldn't resist the temptation and stopped to join in and slowed the extraction right down - the objective was not to kill Russians but to escape!

The playtest. Bunching up in the open. Suitably punished by airstrikes in two successive turns.

The playtest. Neighbours sneaking around the side.

Feedback afterwards from my son: The game was much more dynamic and faster paced. The simpler rules and fewer bases makes it more appealing to a younger audience. Think it could work really well if you’re both in the same room or both remote from the table as it offers a huge advantage when one commander can see everything and the other can’t. [Me: Yeah, I didn't really get the hang of simply 'automating the Russkies'. I didn't really think that one through].

An idea regarding movement could be a similar system to firing twice in one go. I.e if you roll a high number of commander points and get most or all the force moving, they could gee each other along and move say and extra 50% distance that move but then be enforced stationary the next. Would help with the long retreat the length of the board. [Me: Bear in mind the rules are not scenario specific]. Possibly a small move increase on roads providing a scout was sent ahead to confirm it safe. [Me: agree].

Overall very enjoyable and quick pace means it could be completed quickly.

A thought regarding remote command could be a grid system over a map on a laptop to allow easier visualisation. [Me: as you said earlier, you've spent your last few years mapping things! These things come naturally to geographers.]

It's a good point about making it into a gridded game. I think for remote games, using a grid makes it much easier and having an editable grid even easier. And this applies doubly so for modern warfare where the troops will not be deployed in nice neat lines. The tricky part I guess is creating a hexagonal grid in the usual desktop software, so maybe a square grid for next time. There are a couple of gridded rules to try so maybe Tigers at Minsk to get an airing. In the meantime I'll probably pop up a copy of my one-pager rules.

Thanks for a lively game again to the newly liberated Liverpool Geographer!

Missä luotien laulu vain soi

"where only the bullets' song played" (from Elämää Juoksuhaudoissa - Life In The Trenches)

It's a long weekend here in the UK, so I aim to get a game or two in. First up will be a play test of my home-brewed single page WWII rules. I find I don't have the willpower to learn new rules much these days. The simpler the better seems to be my mindset now. In the interest of getting lead on the table, I dusted off a one-pager I started a few years back but never got around to doing anything with. Now I've got a decent batch of Finns and Soviets finished I can test them out. I made a few tweaks over the last few weeks to hopefully improve them a little.

On Monday I've scheduled a FaceTime game with my son, who has even less to do now he's finished his degree. I have in mind a scenario inspired by an episode Tuntematon Sotilas (Unknown Soldier)* where the Finns' acting commander gets his men to retreat to a safer position before being cut off. I'll be in the role of 'games master' again and I'll run the Soviets in a semi-automated manner. I just need to work out a way of deciding how to 'automate' the Soviets flanking force, i.e. to determine when they find the path leading round the back. I need to get the balance right between creating enough jeopardy to make the Finns get a move on and not making it impossible for them to extricate themselves.

* I really can't recommend this book and film enough. I know I banged on about at length before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Soldier_(novel)

Naseby on the telly

Today at 19:00 on 5Select (Freeview channel 54) there's a documentary on Naseby, part of a series called called Britain's Lost Battlefields.

It clashes with England v Spain from Euro 96 so I'll probably watch it on catch-up here:

https://www.channel5.com/show/britains-lost-battlefields-with-rob-bell/

More on dialect

This post was sparked off by the title of tradgardmastare’s post about finding an antidote to flitting between different projects.

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2020/05/an-antidote-to-extreme-flitting.html?m=1

Flitting was a word that was more common when I was growing up. I’ve rarely heard it since leaving home but that’s probably because I’ve spent the vast  majority of my adult life in the south east of England. I might be staying the bleeding obvious here, so apologies for that, but I will hide behind the defence that it’s best not to assume everyone knows what I’m writing  about.

To flit simply means to move. And tradgardmastare was using it in a way derived from this meaning although it seems to have the connotation of making small, even ‘trivial’* movements from one thing to another. You can almost hear the alliteration with ‘flutter’ as in butterfly wings fluttering as it flits from flower to flower. It also triggers thoughts of flying, alliteration apparently involved again. You often hear or see ‘flit’ being used in this way. But you rarely see it (or I rarely see or hear it) in the wider sense of ‘to move’. Like a lot of dialect words, it seems to have fallen by the wayside.

* Incidentally I don’t think the said esteemed blogger’s movement from one hobby project to another is trivial. No more so than any of us sitting down to mega painting sessions churning out units in a singleminded drive to ‘complete a project’. And neither do I think he needs an antidote for it.

Now when I was a kid (and note I don’t use the classic ‘Northern’ phrase of ‘when I were a lad’, simply because that wasn’t how people from that part of northern Lincolnshire spoke) I intuitively understood that ‘flit’ was not standard English.  I never heard a teacher or any authority figure use the term. What I didn’t understand was that flit had a wider meaning of ‘move’**. You see in my world (working class, council estate) I associated ‘flit’ with the phrase “they’ve done a flit. They owed the council weeks and weeks of rent”. Often these flits seemed to be done by “moonlight” to add to the sense of adventure around the miscreants being tutted about. So in my mind it was associated with one very narrow sense of moving. I assumed it was ‘slang’ and ‘common’ in the pejorative sense.

Now many years later Rouva Nundanket and I took to watching Scandi Noir dramas on BBC4, her occasionally remembering the odd phrase and enjoying the grey interiors (only joking, I like them too) and me so I can indulge my biased view that everything is done better in those countries. In one detective series I thought I heard the word ‘flit’ and saw the associated text which contained ‘move’ or ‘moved’ and a quick check (yes that does mean move). Subsequent checks revealed that something like ‘at flytte’ or variants of it means the same thing in all Scandinavian languages. So a word with a common Norse root and a proper word, albeit one that, in the way of many English words which have synonyms, has come to have a specific narrower usage.

Latest edition of my ECW Rules?

I guess the word ‘flit’ was/is also widespread across the rest of the old Danelaw and parts of Scotland. I’d be interested to hear if this is the case and if it’s still in usage. And are there any uses that don’t have negative connotations?


** though not in an emotional sense: ‘that song really flitted me’ is not a phrase I’ve ever come across.
*** I also wonder if the word is linked with the words to flee and flight - when they are fleeing are our little routers engaging in a variant of ‘flitting’ (moonlit or otherwise)?

Late edit: Interesting feedback. So 'flit' in the sense of moving house is not just northern English but more widespread. I'd be interested if anyone in the west of the country, Wales or in Scotland or even farther afield, was familiar with the term, and if it was used in any other way.

Historical Accents

Just have to share this link with my loyal readers. I'm sure you'll both find it interesting. A friend sent me this earlier. It's a BBC programme from 13 years ago about hundreds of recordings of British (and other) POWs made by the Germans in WWI. To be clear, we're not talking about the 'Great and the Good' (although a couple of such exalted types are played) but the ordinary folk of this island.

The project was led by an Austrian academic with a genuine interest in the subject, and a sound recordist who had the aspiration of creating a museum of sound. The state funded the project, and whilst it wasn't explicitly stated, I assume it meant the army. I know from other programmes and reading that the Germans were meticulous, and very clever in the way they interrogated prisoners, over a long period, and mined the resulting records for all manner of useful intelligence. I couldn't help thinking of the two Vulgarian spies in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang trying to mimic Britisher eccents*.

This introduced me to the very methodical and intelligent way British troops were interrogated. WWI is not one of my periods but when Dr Duffy covers something, I just have to read it.

It's no longer on BBC iPlayer (though the link below still has some blurb on it) so you'll have to make do with YouTube. The presenter has a great talent for mimicking accents, and I was astonished to discover she is an Aberdonian. She makes some interesting comments about landscape/environment and accent. Her remark about the tight upper lip of the Aberdonian being possibly a result of bitingly cold North Sea winds, rings true. My dad who worked down** Grimsby dock had a similar mannerism.

There's also a lot about how accents and dialects have changed (and stayed the same in some cases), and there's a clip where members one close modern family in the Macclesfield*** area have three different ways of saying 'here'.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007gltc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywg03b574oQ&feature=youtu.be

* I also cannot help thinking that the reason the upper class (and royal) Briton used pronounce short As as Es, was because so many of them had German families. Oddly the programme also showed how in some parts of the south, rural folk pronounced 'S' as a Zed (not just in 'Zomerset') and F as V ('I'm a varmer'). Pretty German no?

** 'down dock' seemed more usual than 'on the docks' if I remember correctly.

*** In Cheshire, but only 15 miles to the south of Manchester.

Newbury - In Deo Veritas Playtest battle report

The playtest was carried out this afternoon. It probably took about 3 hours and a conclusion was reached in about 6 turns. With greater familiarity that could probably come down to 2 hours. Not bad.

Starting positions. In the foreground about to contest Wash Common: Essex on the left and Rupert on the right.

I managed to do the bulk of each turn using the QRS on my phone. I tried scanning them but my printer ink is low, but it was perfectly readable on the phone screen (iPhone 10). In fact it was better than the scan. The parts that needed the rule book were the Wing Fatigue test and the Army General Will test. With greater familiarity I could manage these with the QRS on the phone. Doubtless mistakes were made - I say that in the passive voice as if it wasn't me making the mistakes.

Late edit: Stupidly I didn't think to check any on-line resources. I found today that Helion publish the QRS and order tokens on-line. Download, print, problem solved. I'm still getting to grips with the 21st century.

Vavasour guarding the road from Newbury in the floodplain of the Kennet.

Opposing him is Robartes' force. Robartes adopted a slightly more aggressive stance than Vavasour and took first blood routing the Royalists' foot brigade. In their turn one of Robartes' horse brigades suffered hits from Vavasour's commanded shot and artillery and eventually routed. Eventually, buoyed up by a unit from Byron's command this wing ended the game fairly balanced.

It was quick to come to grips despite the opposing sides being 2 feet or more apart. As I mentioned before, movement allowances are long: 18 inches for horse in a normal move. 27 inches in march column! Shooting by contrast has short ranges: 3 inches for muskets and 12 for field artillery (e.g. 4 pounders - I forget which of the bewildering contemporary terms is the right one, maybe 'saker'). Horse attacking pike (and shot) armed foot is on no better than evens to win - there's a risk of taking hits on the way in and an equal number of melee dice are used, and if you take hits from shooting the horse can be on fewer dice. So you have to attack a flank or make sure the foot are shot up before charging.

Skippon on Round Hill, Mainwaring in the rear on the right, part of Essex's wing to the rear left.

The rule writer claims that you have to carefully nurture your troops and he's not wrong. Once a unit starts to take unsaved hits things can fall apart quickly. Having steady friendly units to either flank and a general on hand really helps steady units. Once units start routing the Wing that they are part of has to take a Fatigue Test - failure means limits on what that Wing can do - and the army has to take a test of its will to continue. In my game the Royalists quickly suffered losses on Rupert's wing and these soon escalated into two units routing. Initially they passed the Fatigue Test against the odds and the subsequent Army General Will test.

Disaster for Rupert

Leading up to that first Fatigue Test Essex had handled his wing better than Rupert. Being on the defensive he was able to keep his horse and foot co-ordinated and inflict shooting hits on the Cavaliers before melee, then once the Cavaliers were forced back Essex was able to gang two onto one to destroy another unit. An impetuous pursuit was launched by two the Parliamentarian brigades but they made no contact with any enemy. This left them isolated and out of command on the Royalist side of the board but there were no enemy units able to take advantage.

Hey for Old Robin!

Mainwaring advanced from Skinners Green to occupy the enclosures.

Meanwhile in the north

More routs followed in that wing and the next Fatigue Test was failed. Another General Will test was passed and the Parliamentarians suffered their one and only rout - a horse brigade on Robartes' wing. Soon after Rupert's Wing failed another Fatigue Test with their status falling to Exhausted, and the Army failed its General Will and Charles was forced to order a retreat. Once that happens (and bear in mind the will of both armies can fail in the same turn) the game is wrapped up with a check to see if a pursuit happens and in what degree it happens. Having steady horse brigades is a definite bonus at this point and fortunately Rupert had just managed to rally one brigade and Charles had stepped in to rally another at the opportune moment. This meant that the Roundheads were not able to mount a pursuit.

An outcome pretty much in line with history. Not bad!

So what do I think of In Deo Veritas? The basic game mechanics fairly trip along nicely. Combat seems pretty brutal and you really have to marshall your forces properly to avoid a rapid deterioration. I probably made errors and inadvertently omitted parts so I'll have to have some more trials. Which I'll happily do. This set has potential!

Reply to Tony S: Bloody hell, Blogger is playing up! I replied to your comment, clicked publish then it disappeared. Repeated it and same happened, so I'm trying this method.

Thanks. Good enough en masse, slapdash close up is the house style.

Each 'Wing Commander' ( yes that's what the rules call them, tally ho what) has a card associated with him. It could be a specially designed thing with his likeness and maybe characteristics if you're using those options, or simply an ordinary playing card. All the 'personality cards' from both sides are placed in a deck, shuffled and whichever card is drawn out that wing gets to move.

I used small, flimsy cards from a pack out of a Christmas Cracker. Red court cards for Roundheads and black for Cavaliers. Robartes, for example, had the Jack of Diamonds placed under his base to remind me he was a 'red Jack'. When the Jack of Hearts was drawn it was Robartes' turn to move.

First Battle of Newbury - Set-up

It took a LOT of time to set-up but here are a couple of shots of the set-up for the Newbury I playlets of In Deo Veritas.

Looking south the north, Roundheads to the left (west) and Royalists to the right (east). The troops aren't in their final deployment positions yet. I'll probably set them in lines first. The colour tags represent the different 'Wings' or Battles in more common English parlance of the time. Under each of the Battle Commanders is a playing card, e.g. Jack of Diamonds for Robartes, Jack of Clubs  for Vavasour. The corresponding cards will be shuffled and drawn to determine the order of movement - drawing the Jack of Spades would mean it's Vavasour's turn to move.

A more 'aerial' view. The River Kennet near the top (north) running diagonally to the top right. Skinners Green is centre left. Round Hill is just south east of Skinners Green and Wash Common at the southern end where all the roads peter out.

I will have a quick re-read of the section on Newbury I in Hey for Old Robin to see what it says about the enclosures. I'm not confident I've got them right. And then a quick read through of the IDV rules again and I'll be ready to start.

I was tempted to game outdoors this weekend. Friday seemed too hot and I wanted to get the set-up done Saturday night for Newbury on Sunday so I couldn't do it outside. I've used my daughter's old gymnastics padded mat (8 x 4 feet) and put the cloth over the top of that, so the board is deeper than my usual 3 feet. The 8 feet represents something like 3.5km or c.2 miles

Orders of battle

I've used my normal unit frontages of 120mm as opposed to the IDV standard of 75mm, but scaled up the number of men a 'brigade' represents accordingly. As a result I have fewer brigades than you might expect if you used the IDV standard unit frontage. Groundscale remains unchanged.

Royalist: King Charles I

Right Wing - Vavasour:

1 brigade Horse

1 brigade Foot

1 detachment of Foot

Centre - Byron:

2 brigades Horse

2 detachments of Horse

3 brigades Foot

Left Wing - Rupert:

4 brigades Horse

1 Brigade Foot

Parliamentarian: Earl of Essex

Right Wing - Essex:

3 brigades Horse

3 brigades Foot

2 companies dragoon

Centre - Skippon:

1 brigade Foot

Reserve - Mainwaring:

2 brigades Foot

2 detachments of Foot

Left Wing - Robartes:

2 brigades Horse

1 brigade Foot

1 detachment of Foot

Schlacht bei der Brücke über die Unruhige Wasser

We held the second FaceTime game this afternoon. Start time was 15:30 and we ended at 18:30 with a short tea-break in the middle. Thirteen turns were played when we had to call a halt due my son's impending quiz evening with his mother's family spread across 6 houses! The game had virtually reached a conclusion anyway.

I haven't worked out how to capture photos whilst FaceTiming yet so the only pics are before the game and at the break. I didn't get any shots after the game as I was packing away whilst having a chat with my son and clean forgot.

The rules used were Polemos Marechal de l'Empire which we played without the Tempo Bidding and with only 1D6 worth of temp points per turn. The order of movement, once the Prussians were deployed, was British first, then Prussians.

Here is the briefing I sent him shortly before the game.

It is 1812 the Kingdom of Prussia is allied with the Emperor Napoleon and a corps of the army is preparing to march with the Emperor to Russia. The perfidious English have unexpectedly landed a force in the mouth of the Eble, seized Schweinburg and have marched upon Stillesund to secure a base on the Baltic. This daring plan would isolate Denmark from Germany and force the Danes into renouncing their alliance with Napoleon.  The scheme has been cooked up by the devious baronet Sir Edmund Blackadder who has the ear of the Prince Regent. The English high command at Horse Guards and the Admiralty has bowed to the Regent’s will and denuded reinforcements bound for Wellington in Spain. The plan was attractive to the Prince also because it opens the door to the reconquest of Hannover, the original seat of the royal family. The plan might also lead to other German states  including possibly Prussia falling away from the Napoleonic sphere and dealing the Corsican Ogre a devastating blow. The Prince Regent will be the darling of Europe.

The English force under Lord Flasheart consists of several brigades of infantry with brigades of light and heavy cavalry in support. After initially prospering the plan began to  fall behind schedule due to the incompetence of the English general and his staff. They are camped near the town of Bad Bach a short march from Stillesund but Stillesund is well defended and the English desperately lack supplies to conduct a siege. They are known to have sent out a strong force of cavalry to forage for supplies to the west of Bad Bach.

The Prussians hesitated at first not sure what course to follow. If the English are successful the Prussian will have an opportunity to throw off the hated French yoke. If they fail and you do nothing, Napoleon will march in with his Grand Armée once more, and this time finish off Prussia as a state. As the English plan begins to fall apart the Prussians are persuaded to act as Napoleon would wish and march to attack the English. The Emperor may allocate some more territory to Prussia at the expense of its neighbours - maybe even Hannover.

You are Graf Daun-Daun-Tieffer-und-Daun, a count from an old noble family. You have a corps of the Prussian army and have been ordered to destroy the English and aim to do so by seizing the bridge over the Unruhige Wasser at Bad Bach and cut them off from their supplies.  Isolated they will have no alternative but to sue for peace. Your scouts tell you that around the villages in front of the river they have infantry and artillery.

The map given with the briefing:

The Prussian player (my son) was told that he could see 5 infantry brigades and their locations, the 4 artillery bases and three heavy cavalry brigades. The Prussians have 12 brigades (4 large Prussian brigades) of infantry, 8 batteries, two brigades of hussars, two of Uhlans, one of dragoons and one of cuirassiers.

A couple of shots pre-game:

Prussian array on the right. This isn't the actual deployment. The Prussian player decided on how they were deployed.  He opted for 4 combined arms divisions, two the the Southwest of Polzeimon and two Southwest of Alt-Garfunkel.

Wider view of the battlefield. East to the top. The dark diagonal line is the Unruhige Wasser, the pale lines are the roads.

View after 5 turns. Tea break time! The column on the road at the bottom is the British light cavalry which accompanied the supply train. They came on after 4 turns - determined by a D6 roll at the start of the game. One British infantry brigade had been routed off the table by this stage. A crushing Prussian victory looked on the cards.

The centre of the battlefield around Polzeimon. The Prussians at the bottom are two different divisions. One which had routed all the way from the Prussian left wing. Before they could recover they were attacked again by two infantry brigades and routed off table. The division to the left assaulted the village of Polzeimon, were repulsed, tried again and were hit by more British brigades and were driven from the field. What did for the Prussians here was being too crowded in - when brigades at the front were repulsed they had to burst through the troops behind leaving them shaken too. 

By game's end, 13 turns in, the Prussians were down 16 bases (counting generals as one each) to the 13 British (including some of the supply train. The Prussian left wing cavalry saw off the British lights and were chewing up the supply column but the British heavies were returning to the fray after being routed. In the centre/right, the Prussians had lost their numerical advantage and had not got close to the bridge. A narrow tactical victory for the British, but, as my son pointed out, they were in a parlous state from a supply point of view. A capitulation in which the British were allowed to march back to re-embark at Schweinburg would have been likely.

Congestion and chaos on the centre right

An enjoyable game. The rules came back to us pretty well despite not having played them for years. The first few turns were a bit slow but once divisions began to disappear, and we had refreshed our memory, the turns speeded up. Marechal de l'Empire still gives a good game.

Comments this evening from my son:

"Very difficult attacking infantry in a town but I think that’s probably accurate. (Dice rolls didn’t help).

I’d say heavy Calvary vs light Calvary having +2 was harsh but maybe makes sense (I’m not as good with the specifics). 

Attacking the flank should maybe have a bonus. Not necessarily because they can’t turn to face but the vast majority of the brigade.... can’t see so there’s the element of surprise. 

However I thought the combat worked really well, surprisingly well matched considering how much I outnumbered you by. I always enjoy when extra bases come on after a few rounds. The scenario was strong and very believable. I think the system of rolling for messengers/tempo but scrapping the bidding worked well and sped it up.

Certainly the workings of a good fictional scenario there. Maybe there should be a goal for the prussians to take a certain strategic point/ the supply chain but if the brits hold out for a certain number of rounds then they win by virtue of reinforcements arriving to support.

Worked very well as a remote game actually yeah. Nice wide field to split it into chunks that I could visualise. I had a pad and paper so I could write down where the forces were and who was moving etc so I could keep track better than the first game we did."

Couple more pics from Friday's action:

The British supply train light cavalry escort arrives

British foot west of the bridge eye the advancing Prussian hordes.

Baggage train WIP

In preparation for the next FaceTime game on Friday, I've made a start on the baggage train plus some other bits and pieces.

45 head of cattle, 4 sets of six oxen. Never mind the bullocks, the horses need painting. Mixture of Baccus, Irregular and H&R (I think).

The horses at the front haven't been painted yet. And the chinchilla dust needs to be shaken off when the PVA is dry. Then it needs to be sealed and touched up with 3 levels of highlighting, before having a dab of flock. Probably need something to go in the ox carts. Old blutak suitably shaped and painted should do the trick (see carts near the front).

Progress was also made on the siege bits and pieces. The guns, mortars and crew were painted several years ago but I made some new bases from matchsticks standing in for decking. I experimented before hand with paper stuck to MDF and scored with a sharp knife. It looked OK but I preferred the version with matches.

These won't be in the game on Friday. Pontoons and bridge sections in shot to be fixed to the horse drawn carts above.

I need to do something more with the bases that the crew came on to make them blend in more. Should probably have trimmed them down more first. Must think things through in future.

Finish this lot off and there's just 30 sappers to base. That will mean two more jobs from the to-do list finished. I'm happy with that.

Edit: finished baggage train.

Have attempted to make some mottis for my 10mm models. Motti is a Finnish  word for a stack of chopped wood totalling about 1 cubic metre. The word is found in the term Motti Tactics used by Finns in the Winter War. Although there are other theories on the origin of the term, I like the stacked wood one.

https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=185845

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273550370_Motti_Tactics_in_Finnish_Military_Historiography_since_World_War_II

BBC4 - history of Vienna

Looks worth watching, especially anyone with an interest in the Kaiserlicks.

If I’ve got it right, the Habsburgs managed to build up a massive empire through marriage with little in the way of conquest after the Middle Ages.

Progress on the Lead Pile...but it grows

Finally the Soviets and Finns started at Easter have been completed following a quick forage for twigs.

The evil occupiers/liberators of Eastern Karelia

The liberators/evil occupiers of Eastern Karelia. You can clearly see the differences in size of the different makes here.

The whole lot. Enough for a decent game.

I still have quite a lot to do on the list which I posted a while ago. Since the original posting the list has grown and despite ticking off a number of items I have more work outstanding than I had two weeks ago. The biggest task is number 7, but I can't see anything being done on that for a good while yet as I want to get more games in first. After all gaming is what it's all for. 

1. Finish ECW 'clubmen'.Complete
2. Texture ECW casualty marker bases. Complete
3. Finish ECW musketeers. Probably at least a regiment's worth. Maybe have as firelocks? Complete
4. Finish ECW command figures. A few to paint and texture bases. Complete except for His Maj and Warty Nose to paint.
5. Finish ECW odds and sods, e.g. limbers and gun crews. Limbers and horse teams done. 
6. Paint bridges. Complete
7. Finish AWI. Quite a few Brits done but no Yanks. Brits need cleaning up too.
8. WWII Finns and Russians (10mm) - lots of infantry and AFVs. Completed infantry
9. Touch up and base 6mm siege train, pontoons and transport. 
10. Paint and base Baccus 6mm cattle/bullocks
11. Base Leven hedges so they don't keep falling over. 
12. Finish 6mm gabions. Complete.
13. Paint and texture bastions (3mm scale).
14. Paint and base new ECW horse, foot and mounted officers. Complete
15. Paint and base ECW petardiers and labourers.
16. Paint Leven town walls.

I'd love to get some AWI action on the table but before that I have a FaceTime game on Friday (a Napoleonic scenario) and a playtest of IDV to do.

Due to all of the above I have decided to put on hold any thought of doing an 18th century Dutch army. There's just too much to do - I'd need to build a French army at the same time. That has got some attraction (especially as it'll give Old Fritz AND the Queen of Hungary another opponent). But it's just too much to take on right now.

In Deo Veritas playtest planning - Newbury I

I’ve been casting around for a battle scenario to play test In Deo Veritas (henceforth’IDV’) and have settled on the First Battle of Newbury, 1643. It’s a large battle by ECW standards (around 14,000 a side) as IDV is aimed at the larger confrontations of the period. I didn’t go for one of the scenarios in the book as I’ve done one of them twice now (Cheriton) and I don’t have enough toys for the other one (Marston Moor). I haven’t properly checked, but I might not have quite enough for Newbury either. ‘Hey ho’ sings my inner cavalier. There is room on my table, however, to get the scaled down battlefield on at the official IDV groundscale of 40 yards to the inch.

I don’t have any of the books dedicated to the battle (there are quite a few tempting titles) so I’ll go with what I can find on t’interweb and my general histories like Wanklyn’s Decisive Battles or Scot and Turton’s Hey for Old Robin. This satisfies the ascetic in me, and avoids raised eyebrows with more books landing on the doormat. It’s also ‘just a playtest’ as I will tell the pedant lurking in my head.

It’s beginning to sound like I am fighting my own inner Civil War, with all these references to internal Puritans and Cavaliers. Is anyone else like that?

I’ll post my orders of battle later when I’ve crunched the numbers. As for timing, I’m not sure yet as I still have to properly plan the scenario for, and schedule the second FaceTime game with my son. I did think we had plenty of time this weekend as it’s a traditional Bank Holiday (public holiday) here in the UK, but when booking work calls today I came across the fact that the Bank Holiday has been deferred to next Friday to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Most European countries get May Day AND a Victory Day celebration. Not us though. Despite always banging on about the War we don’t see fit as a country to celebrate its ending. Maybe it’s because in our insular heads it hasn’t ended. *

Gratuitous photo of some buildings just outside Richmond Park (on the Kingston Hill side).  They look vaguely 17th century to me, so kind of relevant.

A bientot. Mind how you go.

* I have Dolores O’Riordan singing Zombie in my head now having re-read that bit. “In your head, in your head, they’re still fighting.’