A challenge - as you were

A bit of a re-think on the FaceTime game with my son. I was originally toying with three options:

1. An ECW scenario based on the action on Seacroft Moor in Yarkshire
2. A Continuation War assault by Finns on Soviet defences in 1941
3. A Continuation War fighting withdrawal by Finns in 1944

2 and 3 would involve the first time use of Tigers at Minsk or my own ‘back of a fag packet’ (savukepaketin takana?) rules (untested).

I’ve decided to put options 2 and 3 on the back burner for now until I’ve had a run through with the rules. There’s too many ‘new’ things already with the ‘telegaming’. Apologies for the neologism - if there’s an existing word I’d love to know it.

Option 1 also looks tricky until I can work out how best to deal with the distance versus scale I’d like to do the combat at. As this scenario was inspired by the Civil War in Yorkshire by David Cooke, I returned to said tome for further ideas. Then bingo! The battle of Tadcaster. Another small scale action albeit larger than Seacroft Moor. Possibly under 2000 Roundheads against 4000 plus Cavaliers with my son in the role of Fairfax and I’ll be gamesmaster/Royalists.

Kick off will be sometime this afternoon.  I’ll send the scenario briefing and maps to Fairfax shortly before kick off. The scenario has a potential surprise in store. Will see if he reads the briefing and ponders the map properly and thinks about the operational situation. There’s no chance he’ll see this beforehand as the lazy so-and-so won’t be up.

Good Friday

Sun, relatively high temperatures (low 20s Celsius) and the need to keep the abdominal ‘wound’ mobile encouraged us to get out.

A gentle 7km taking a relatively flat route. Very healing albeit more tiring than it normally would be.

I’m not at all religious and I couldn’t help reflect how growing up, society in the UK was effectively in ‘lockdown’ every Good Friday. As boring as that was as a child, I wonder now that we have lost something in the passing of those quieter days. This is the first year for decades when the atmosphere feels anything close to that.

It seems I’m in a reflective mood currently. My mother passed away after a brief final illness yesterday morning. I’m sad but not feeling particularly down about it as I think it was a release for her,  troubled and trapped by her dementia as she has been. Of course we mourn her passing and recognise we owe her everything.

It feels not unlike a Good Friday.

Blog list

Hmm! Not sure if I’ve inadvertently tapped the wrong ‘button’ but the list of blogs I follow has disappeared. I’ll give it a while and see if it somehow rights itself. If not I’ll have to start setting up the list again.

And there it is. It’s back! How strange.

More progress and some planning

So off the back of thoughts about a FaceTime enabled game, I got out my 10mm Soviets and a few Finns. So after prepping and priming them on Sunday I painted them this morning. I'm having the day off work for the second Tuesday in a row. This time as a bit of recovery time from Operation de Gall yesterday. This was the second removal of a head of state in the last couple of months. The last, saw Donald Lump (aka Ray Cyst) ejected from office. For that one I was fully awake (a weird sensation feeling your skin being tugged but not feeling any pain), but yesterday was under GA and I was still in a golden mood and a bit woozy in the evening.

I am basing them in groups of 3 riflemen or a support weapon team on 30x30mm bases, with each base representing a section a la Tigers at Minsk. When based I have a rifle company plus a machine gun platoon of Finns (shades of Unknown Soldier/Tuntematon Sotilas), and a small rifle battalion of Soviets including support weapons (50mm and 80mm mortars, MMGs, LMGs), plus command including Commissars.

Soviets painted and awaiting bases.

Finns ditto. The chubby lads on the right are Magister Militum. Russians but painted as Finns who often used captured equipment, and specially helmets. Front left are Pendraken I think. Behind are Pithead Miniatures. 

Two scenarios sprung to mind, both inspired by the film:

1. An assault by Finns on prepared machine gun positions from 1941
2. A fighting withdrawal to a river line by the Finns in 1944

I will play the Soviets, semi-AI stylee working to strict orders/plans, and my son can take the Finns which will require more active engagement.

I have a couple of thoughts on the rules. One is Tigers at Minsk, which might take a bit more getting used to, or a ‘back of a fag packet’ set I drafted myself a while ago.

Our heroes will have to cross this innocuous stretch of forest clearing and the water beyond.

It all now depends on whether the bases I ordered from Pendraken  arrive in time.under present circumstances I doubt it. [incidentally I rewarded myself for my recent work on the backlog by ordering up some more horse, foot and assorted siege types from Pendraken, and some castle pieces from Leven].  If the bases don’t come quickly I’ll go for a scenario based on the Battle of Seacroft Moor from the ECW. This was a fighting withdrawal over the Yorkshire landscape from Tadcaster (home of Samuel Smiths fine ales) to Seacroft a village now in the Leeds suburbs.

This will entail some telescoping of terrain as it was a distance of some 9 miles.  Both sides had an asymmetrical 1000 each, with a foot heavy Parliament force being run down by a Horse dominated Royalist posse. In my normal troop scale this would only be 4/5 bases of foot and 3 horse for the Parlies so there’s not much scope to scale this down in order to stretch the terrain.  As I haven’t got a 15 metre* battle mat the game will need partial map movement and then quickly set out tabletop terrain for close combat.

* which is what 9 miles would work out as using my normal rules. In any case we have rain forecast for the weekend so the garden option is out of the question even if I did have a sufficiently large cloth.

So is it to be Njet Molotoff or No Popery?

A challenge

Speaking to my son up in Liverpool early this evening I was telling him about doing some of the painting/basing jobs I’ve been doing. He asked if I’d got any games in lately or if I’d persuaded the girls to play a wargame. On being told no he said why don’t we do a game over FaceTime. Good thinking, I thought.

So my challenge is to come up with a scenario that will not only work with the technology, but exploit its potential. I’m thinking along the lines of a game where he doesn’t get the full picture. I could show him short clips of what is going on on the table. Hmm. But what to play?

I have SYW and ECW forces ready. Or I could attempt to finish enough of the WWII or AWI in time.    The advantage of the first two is I have reasonably well tested rules, but the second two would give me an added incentive to get things done.

There are some great possibilities here. I think I need a clear plan and a clear method for carrying out the game.

If anyone wants to chip in with suggestions for historical battles, or imaginary scenarios I  am all ears. I will of course post an account of the game. SYW doesn’t have to be limited to Prussians v Austrians or Russians. It doesn’t necessarily have to be SYW. 

Money for old rope

I’m enjoying this feeling of cracking on and ticking jobs off the list. So much so that I’m spinning a whole new post out of it. Here's the updated list. Bar a couple of odds and sods I’m now looking to tasks 7-11. Bridges are now done, so I’m now staring at the next item in the list, ‘finish AWI’ figures. However, Jonathan over at Palouse Wargaming Journal got me thinking about the WWII Soviets. And now Bob Cordery has built up the temptation by writing about Unknown Soldier which I also covered here back in September.

1. Finish ECW 'clubmen'. Just 'texturing the bases and a bit of touching up of paint. 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
5. Finish ECW odds and sods, e.g. limbers. Limbers and horse teams done. Forgot to add ‘casualty marker bases done. Just His Maj and Warty Nose to paint..
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. 
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. I made significant inroads into these in the run up to Kunersdorf.
13. New in at number 13. Paint and texture bastions (3mm scale).*

A possible #14 is to ‘do something with the ships guns I used in the Leaguer of Grimsby. They need basing but I need to think carefully about how they will fit in with whatever fortifications I have. And #15, when I decide on a design or designs, is to make something with the other bits I bought that ‘look useful’ like the matchsticks (sans heads) I got from the craft isle at the supermarket.

* These are sample piece I bought a couple of years ago for use on the principle of ‘1 scale down’. Actually they’re ‘huge’ with faces about 7cm long. I had to build up the parapets on one  with green stuff to make it usable with 6/10mm figures. I ran out of green stuff before I got to the second one.

I hope you’re all keeping your spirits up and remaining healthy. And thank you for continuing to read this drivel.

PS it just struck me that all this activity is probably to do with me having finished the Minden book, and having decided not to finish Wanton Troopers (the Civil War in Bucks). The title of the latter book makes it seem much more exciting than it is - it’s ‘serious’ history with nothing much by way of narrative of the campaigns.

Self-discipline

There's been a rare outbreak of self-discipline in the Schloß Nundanket. I made finally made an indent into the list of a dozen oustanding tasks that I drew up 4 months ago.

Here's the list and what I've managed to do. It's quite motivating to see some progress.

1. Finish ECW 'clubmen'. Just 'texturing the bases and a bit of touching up of paint. 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
5. Finish ECW odds and sods, e.g. limbers. Limbers and horse teams done.
6. Paint bridges.
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.
9. Touch up and base 6mm siege train, pontoons and transport.
10. Paint and base 6mm cattle/bullocks - Baccus, bought with my Naps. Too big for my SYW (H&R and Irregular).
11. Base Leven hedges so they don't keep falling over.
12. Finish 6mm gabions. I made significant inroads into these in the run up to Kunersdorf.

So over a quarter of the tasks done. However, 7 and 8 are much larger jobs. I dived in without checking the list and forgot the clubmen because they'd ended up in the wrong box. I'll probably do them next and decide what to do with the Puritan preacher I made out of one of them. I had a half-baked notion to use him as some form of additional morale/steadiness chip if I developed a suitable rule modification. I'd have to make a similar figure that looked a bit more Churchy for the Royalists - a bishop maybe?

I'll probably crack on with the bridges after the clubmen. Then probably the hedges. I'll not make any firm plans to tackle the rest of the list but I'll see how I feel when 1, 6 and 11 are done.

This burst of enthusiasm was brought about by having a day's leave. I had booked time off for day surgery which got cancelled owing to the mobilsation of all hospitals (NHS and private) to help deal with the current situation. I decided to have a bit of R&R rather than cancel the day off. I was up early enough to shoot off a couple of work e-mails and watch an old WII based comedy before setting off for a walk around Richmond Park, then the 300 Spartans in the afternoon. It worked too. I was feeling a little jaded and now I feel more geed up.

Update: clubmen now finished. The parson is now leading his flock from the command stand.