Christmas 2019 Gazette

BATTLEFIELDS AND WARRIORS BLOG CHRISTMAS 2019
Bumper 36
page issue
Oh what a to-do! Above - the iconic

Welcome to the Christmas edition of The Shenanigans Gazette, normally Squad Leader box
reserved for a bit of fun and foolery over on the COMMANDERS web art, an ACW 12mm
pages, this edition is put together with a slightly more serious tone and figure game and a
specifically to give some wargaming distraction over the festive period. slice of action from
Decision Games’
So, if you have completely finished unwrapping your socks, scarves and
Cedar Mountain
that book that you will never read, or you are simply not doing Christmas,
mini-folio
then grab a coffee and let the Shenanigans begin.
boardgame
(Please note - I am not obligated in any way to any company etc)
1
Looking back - 2019

I have been doing this strange wargame thing for more than 40 Up to the minute
years now and though naturally during that time, interests will
have chopped, changed and evolved, it is probably fair to say Fake News!
that 2019 has been one of those years that has seen a definite
clear shift in gaming emphasis.
From the outset, there were already changes afoot, particularly

as to the type of boardgames that were in the collection and the
need to settle on a single figure scale was long overdue instead
of collecting both large and small scales and all the terrain
implications that doing that brings.
With a sense that wargaming had lost some of the fun element
of yesteryear and that there was a bit too much complexity
going on, a gaming make-over was on the cards.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that the
complexity, rather than being just about specific rules and
systems, was as much about over collecting and holding too
many game systems that constantly compete for memory space
and instead of getting a good and slick handle with a few
designs, I end up in a sort of constant state of learning and re-
learning game rules while hopping from one system to
another.
Surprisingly this seems to have worked for a lot of years, but

casting my mind back to much earlier times of gaming, when
money was tighter and product came into the collection at a
slower rate and thinking about the old Avalon Classics in
particular or something like Wargame Research Group 6th
Edition Ancients game rules, a lot more time was spent with
each game that had its place in a smaller collection and which
were seemingly ‘better’ played and understood - or perhaps it Ivor Bigbutt gets too big
was just the case that I had more grey cells in those days and for his trousers.
systems were never the issue :-).
http://
Figure scales have also been a problem, as I try to service too battlefieldswarriors.blogsp
many scales in too many periods, which in turn puts pressure
ot.com/2019/11/1066-not-
on storage space and the distraction of managing everything is
hastings.html
that individual projects do not get enough focus to move
forward and the resulting procrastination leads to a Is Slackjaw being tempted
diminished hobby by the bigger scales?
So there has been something recognisable that needed fixing.
http://
Changes to complexity, storage space and gaming focus have
battlefieldswarriors.blogsp
underpinned the progression of 2019, but seemingly, it is
literally only now as the year closes that enough momentum ot.com/2017/09/fake-
has gathered to make the tangible difference needed, a sort of news.html
light going on moment, so there is more to do and changes will
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continue into 2020 as more settled rhythm of gaming returns.
The reasons for the sudden momentum are two-fold. Firstly, I am having increasing sensitivity to
solvents and in particular to the fumes from the plastic weld glues, which affects all the prepping
of 1/72 and 28mm plastic armies. An obvious solution is to move to one piece castings, meaning
metals, which for reasons of cost and weight, makes me want to look back at the smaller scales,
with 15mm being the most obvious next lowest common denominator for good ranges of figures
and terrain and with the scale still maintaining a charm of the individual figure.
This has pretty much instantly and decisively moved me to choose the smaller scale over the
larger one or more to the point, recognise the scale that needs to be abandoned, so a genuine
clearing out has started and a huge sense of control returns regarding storage and direction.
Secondly, an increasingly persistent bad back is pushing me towards smaller games with shorter
playing times. I have a choice of two game areas. One being the family dining table, where I can
sit and the other is a space where on a temporary basis I can put up a table based around short
pasting tables with boards over them to give a 4’ or 6’ table. I rest the pasting tables on skids to
raise them to 40” off the ground, which needs you to stand to play, but the surface is high enough
that it reduces the amount of leaning into it or bending.
This table has been ideal for the bigger game, but bigger typically also means longer play, which
causes extended standing and even with breaks is causing back pain to the point that I quickly tire
of ‘that’ game, wanting it to end instead of enjoying it and then as a super bonus, end up with
increased soreness afterwards for a couple of days. So, this added dimension has me wanting to
return more play to the dining table, to be seated.
At a stroke, the combination of these two things drives a move to smaller and shorter games. A 4’
x 3’ table or smaller with 10mm, 12mm or 15mm on it becomes preferable to a bigger table with
1/72 or 28mm and one map boardgames that can fit onto a large pinboard, sit right under my
nose and be moved around when the dining table is needed, are much more practical than two
mappers ...... or to turn all of that on it’s head, everything that doesn’t fit that criteria can now be
moved on out of the collection.
It is surprising just how cathartic it is to break through the mindset log-jam of indecision that has
festered for too long. 2020 should feel quite different with this purposeful direction and some
new projects to concentrate on. In summary, the hobby changes of 2019 can be defined as;
Change 1 - The boardgame collection will be re-organised, weighted towards single ‘series’ type
system for each favoured period. These are not necessarily low complexity systems, but the repeat
play with one rule book that works with several modules makes for a good balance between rule
overhead and rewarding games.
So far I have identified single rules systems for Ancients, Napoleonics and American Civil War.
For WWII tactical, I had 4 meaty systems in significant collections. Early this year I sold one of
them and now another system will go in the New Year (a painful decision for sure). I also have my
eye on a Medieval series (Men of Iron - by GMT) and an English Civil War series (Musket & Pike -
by GMT) systems for next year, when GMT put both games back into print.
This group will now also have to have a bias towards single map games.
Change 2 - Our face-to-face boardgaming has brought quite a lot of new games and systems into
the arena this year, though a good half were not played through to any sort of conclusion due to
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the games being too long for an evening session and I’m not sure what the point of doing that is.
Some of the gaming satisfaction is certainly lost, it’s rather like having a bath with your wellies on!
Getting a solid core of shorter, single session games or even bigger games that have some shorter
scenarios brought into the collection or playing games over two sessions, (if they can be
recorded), seems to be a better way to go and work has started on that. The speculative play just
to ‘see how a game or system plays out’ doesn’t really have a place here, which is best saved for
solo play and the playing of good ‘old favourites’ needs more emphasis.
Change 3 - There are some one-off boardgame titles that specifically interest me, that fit neither
of the above two categories, but by repeated play, bring familiarity and in effect making them
more accessible through regular use. There needs to be a discipline to keep this group a relatively
small part of the collection. They need to be a sort of ‘old favourites’.
Here, games really do have to earn their keep and this is probably the group of games that will
need to be most regularly reviewed for pruning. Some time ago, we spent three years in a small
apartment. We pretty quickly learned the art of minimalism and the discipline when buying
anything, of ‘one in - one out’ to stop clutter - that is probably a lesson that needs re-learning for
this group of games. It also means being a bit more targeted when buying and not pursuing the
next new shiny thing. Again 1 mappers, smaller games and lower complexity will dominate this
category. In sum, the entire boardgame collections needs to be comprised of games that actually
get played, anything else should go!
Change 4 - The WWII collection of 1/72 will go, plus all that is 28mm. This takes out several
very large containers of buildings and over sized trees, roads etc. There is much more than a
halving of storage space freed up falling from this.
Change 5 - Just a few weeks ago, I set about thinking what it was
Have the that I wanted the figure collection to do. Since a lot of my
wargaming is boardgame based, covering the battles that interest
eagle eyed me and usually sitting around at least the medium complexity
level, I wanted the figures to be something a little more joyous,
amongst you playing to their strengths of being aesthetically charming and
having that link back to my Featherstone, Grant and Quarrie days
noticed the new of Airfix models doing dining table battles and the ‘teaser’ type
scale size of scenarios, when wargaming just seemed more fun and so a new
½mm. project began - ‘Pocket Armies’.
The first release will be a single The idea being to collect several pairings of armies with each being
pack of spearmen for the Punic around 12 units strong and from that, take a selection of around 8
Wars. Easy to paint and they
can also be used for napoleonic
or 9 units for a game.
lancer cavalry and T-34 tanks.
The significance of the project was not just about getting the larger
I can’t see it catching on though. scale into play within controlled collections, but that it used a play
area that gives a kitchen / dining table type of size of encounter.
The plan was that all armies were to be in 28mm, except for WWII,
which would be 1/72 and that terrain was to be roughly 1/72 based, so that it had a small footprint
for the 28’s, but looked right for the tactical nature of the 1/72 game.
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There is something of a nostalgic basis to this project. After reading some of the rulebooks from
Neil Thomas, though finding the rules probably sitting at a level of detail lower than I prefer, I did
really warm to his gaming ethos of a gaming style that I enjoyed many moons ago.
For example, in his After Action Report in the ‘Napoleonic Wargaming book’ in which he
advocates having armies built of 8 units, when dealing with his fictitious Battle of Leibnitz, he has
his eight unit French force consisting of 4 Line Infantry units (one of course being The Guard!), 1
Light infantry, 1 Cuirassier heavy cavalry, 1 light cavalry and an artillery unit. This style of
representative play and that type of force mix with The Guard ‘always’ being in there as well,
makes me smile as it just delivers a strong whiff of my 1970’s gaming memories in that world of
Featherstone, Grant and Quarrie - and perhaps it is this more than anything else that appeals to
me about doing all of this.
Anyway, the recent decision to move away from the larger scales has left me still wanting to do
this, but for a 4’ x 3’ table or less with either the 10mm, 12mm or 15mm scales (size! If you must).
Getting a table, terrain and armies together for this is going to be an enjoyable project.
Change 6 - Having already decided to dive with some enthusiasm into Pocket Armies, to add
extra playability, initially, rather than painting up 12 units per side, instead a pair of 6 unit armies
will be painted for both sides. This will allow earlier gaming with them, with small teaser type
scenarios and Neil Thomas style games, while the remaining forces then get painted up to 12
units, at whatever speed, to add ongoing diversity and scope to each army as newly painted units
join the ranks. The project by chance is also a timely response to the back ache, as the Pocket
Armies will likely make for faster play games.
There will be more about all of this on the blog under the label ‘Pocket Armies’, which should see
regular blog updates and posts in the year ahead. There is something reminiscent here of the
explosion of interest in ancient armies that we saw in the early 90’s when DBA came out and
suddenly people were collecting multiple small armies based around 12 elements because the
demands on collecting, painting and storage were kinder.
It is not so much the pursuit of compact armies that will help streamline things, but rather getting
rid entirely of the ‘other’ scale(s), which will liberate both physical and mental space. As with
boardgames, things will have to earn their keep to stay on the shelves.
Anyway, at least now there is a framework to get the collection of boardgames and figures closer
to being fit for purpose .......... Procrastination be gone!
Owning a fair collection of figure rules (with one more dropping through the mailbox today -
Milites Mundi from Gripping Beast), means these need to be whittled down to the ‘series’ idea,
with one system dominating each period, a bit like the WRG days. I can see things like the Black
Powder family being useful here, but it will be the rules that give an enjoyable, colourful and fun
game at the low unit density that will likely make the short list - again something that will no
doubt be thrashed out on the blog.
In October, there was the annual question of whether to pay the yearly subscription to keep my
Commanders web site going and again the winning argument (just) was that it has its uses and
does some things that the blog doesn’t do. In particular, it might make a better one stop location
to highlight series game systems, the Pocket Armies project and the Kallistra hex based terrain.
It is more ‘snippet’ driven than my blog. If I ever decide to drastically cut down on long blog posts,
the Commander site might offer a good refuge for my wittering.
5
We made a visit to the Bosworth battlefield in late summer and around the same time I happened
to dig out an old booklet that I had put together on the subject, that included some rules. This has
fired up a motivation to game the period and redo the booklet and so a War of the Roses Perry
plastic mountain has been gathering. The interest seems to have arrived at the ideal moment to
see a cross-over with the Pocket Armies project. The figure scale used will need to change (sadly,
as the Perry War of Roses sculpts are lovely), but the original rules in the booklet were based
around 10mm armies on a 4’ x 3’ space, so in some ways it all becomes a better fit.
Show wise, I did fewer shows than in previous years, mainly due to ‘circumstances beyond my
control’ and not a weakening of resolve on my part of supporting the show circuit, which is a
crucially important part of the fabric of what we do and which needs protection from the current
climate of easy internet buying and the ease that we can now enjoy spectacular tables on screen!
(Left - Photo of a cleverly presented Star Wars game

at the Phoenix Wargames show in Cumbria - UK).
I love wargame shows, they are my self indulgent days

and I appreciate all of the effort of everyone who
contributes. (But!) There are two things though that
continually seem to be the case. Firstly, spare seating
is hard to find. As a punter who would like the odd 5
minute breather to relax the muscles and then get off
again to do another round of delighting traders, some
spare seating would be appreciated. This is going to become a growing factor if the hobby really is
greying.
Secondly, the figure scale diversity is decreasing. There are a few dealers doing 15mm and smaller
(but not at all shows) and often just one table with a small scale figure game going. I know the
bigger scale is more camera or spectacular friendly, but for the sake of diversity and to help the
traders, I wish the show organisers would have a quota or some-such and just ask some clubs to
put on a smaller figure game. It would be a shame if gamers with mobility issues or having an
interest in the smaller scales are staying away from shows and in an internet world that becomes
an easier decision to make for anyone who is not served by the show scene!
Figure painting just trundled along, getting nowhere near the levels that might be considered
‘productive’ and certainly not enough to keep projects moving ever onwards. Getting involved
with the bigger scale did give me a couple of modelling opportunities that I enjoyed.
Terrain gathering did rather well this year, particularly the acquisition of a couple of Gale Force
Nine gaming mats (discussed later), together with some of the nice Conflix 28mm pre-painted
buildings ..... I do like resin!
Perhaps the most impactive thing done has been to take out about 30 - 40 minutes web browsing
time each day to do something more ‘useful’ instead. This therapeutic windfall helps give a mid
week game, room for reading fiction again and also for doing those bitty jobs like priming, basing
and varnishing.
Despite restricting screen time, there is (surprisingly and perhaps worryingly!) still plenty of
screen time left to enjoy the work of other bloggers and forum posters who bring a lot of pleasure
and inspiration to their audience. Thank you all.
Anyway, all-in-all, a good 2019.
6
Looking Forward - 2020

Ah, yes - this is the time of year that we all promise ourselves more gaming and an increase in
quality time. Well that sounds perfect, so let’s do it .... again!
In fact next year promises to be quite exciting with new some plans to pursue. All of the
preparations and changes from this year should start feeding in to some interesting table time.
The boardgames will see something of a year of consolidation of purpose, with further
reorganisation to include strengthening the number of series games, clearing games that just
don’t earn their keep on the shelves and getting rid of ‘another’ tactical WWII system.
It would be good to get a few of the reprints of older games on the

table, such as Fortress Europa, though it does have 2 maps. The
‘nostalgia’ games tend to have a lot of mileage, as perhaps we tend only
to remember the better ones! High on the playing list will be Cobra
from Decision Games, this has just been released as a third printing,
with the original in the S&T magazine being the first boardgame I ever
played back in 1977, so some serious nostalgic fun there and the sort of
game that will fit into the newly determined ‘old favourites’ category.
For figures, the Pocket Armies idea should start to see something
tangible, with hopefully a pairing of a fully functional army done and
another under way by the end of the year. To keep the project alive, the first two armies will be
built to six units so they can at least get on the table with Neil Thomas type rules and scenarios.
Financially, this was to be more of a low budget year, with the existing lead / plastic mountain
keeping me busy and away from significant figure related purchases, but if 15mm and smaller
creeps back in, that will require some investment, though of course off-set against any selling of
the bigger stuff. As for boardgames, there is still some reorganising to do and a couple of the GMT
re-prints interest me, but next year, continuing sales of my games that don’t earn their shelf space
will likely cushion the effects of any purchases.
Hopefully something will happen with the Wars of the Roses as part of the Pocket Armies project.
In addition to the creation of two 1485 (Bosworth) armies, it would be good to do a rewrite of the
booklet that I did in the mid 90’s and in particular a re-examination of the rules that were
included. I have half a mind to try and get the rules to work outside of the immediate period to a
wider medieval application. I know that I have a Bosworth specific Christmas gift - can’t wait!
But first, the Kallistra 12mm 1066 armies have had something of a whiff of stagnancy about them
for a couple of years now, I keep saying this is a painting job that will get my attention and it
hasn’t turned out that way. All of the metal is there for a Hastings project, it just needs to happen.
As for blogging, it will likely be more of the same. It always surprises me that there is something
new to talk about and the blog has gone on for longer than I ever thought it would. The Pocket
Armies project should generate some new interesting content.
I will likely start reducing the size of the posts though, especially where being ‘wordy’ does not
particularly bring anything to the party. I am conscious that we are sliding into an internet world
of brevity and video and that the discipline of a long read is losing its place at the table. My
current typical output takes up a lot of time, so it’s just a pragmatic response on my part to bring
some of my hobby time back to actual gaming (irony - this Gazette is over 17,500 words long).
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Doing an article for one of the wargame magazines is also going on the list. The shelves of my
local news outlet suggest that they are getting fewer copies in to sell and regardless of that, there
are still unsold copies at the end of the month. It does note bode well. Last month I saw 7 copies
of one particular magazine come in and 7 copies were still there at the end of the month. Even I
didn’t buy that one and for years I have bought all 3 faithfully every month. The issue in question
didn’t capture my imagination, with perhaps too much filler, though I notice this month that of
the 7 copies, only 2 remain, so who knows! Anyway, offering an article may help and even go
towards funding the Commanders web site.
For my Kallistra Hexon games, I have three sets of home grown hex based rules available, WWII
tactical (Tigers at Minsk), ACW regimental (Two Flags - One Nation) and Napoleonic brigade
(Eagles at Quatre Bras). The latter certainly needs more work and is something that would be
good to do next year (below shot is a McPherson Ridge scenario - ACW).
Finally, enthused by the recent

works of other bloggers, it would be
nice to see some campaign based
gaming on the table this year.
Nothing too heavy, just something

that links an ongoing interest
between games and makes the
playing of the last turn or two in
each game done with a thought of
how casualties and geographical
gains or losses will play into the next
game.
So, taking what was started this year

and seeing it through into next year, we have better boardgame focus, losing some complexity, the
Pocket Armies delivering good aesthetics and fun on the dining table, more reading, more
modelling, less screen time to give a sense of ‘getting things done’, choosing games that will not
antagonise a sore back and getting shorter games into our face-to face gaming time. This should
all come together for a more holistic approach to hobby time - let’s see how long that lasts :-)
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Pocket Armies
The Pocket Armies project has plenty of mileage and is a big commitment in terms of painting
and collecting, especially as armies will need to be produced in pairs. It does however deal with
the butterfly side of my nature by accepting that a wide range of interests will inevitably be
covered, but allowing that each will be controlled and contained into the reasonableness of just 12
units per army.
Important aspects of the project are that a single scale of terrain should be used since terrain
seems to be the single biggest hogger of storage space. Terrain should have good generic value
and there will not be the doubling up of similar features that multi-scale collecting causes.
Secondly, this is to work with ‘kitchen table’ style gaming, so the demand on the total quantity of
terrain needed, as a small table fills faster, should reduce and the whole thing of compressing
gaming time and playing space should increase accessibility to actual play. Hello mid-week game.
Thirdly, the armies themselves, limited to around 12 units should not become a collecting or
painting burden. They will be the ideal size for doing teaser style games or highlighting various
smaller parts of a bigger battlefield.
Finally, I would like to take the project to a time in my early gaming years when you just picked a
set of rules for a period and stuck with them, learned their nuances and could play without
constant rule referencing. A New Year’s resolution for 2020 might well be framed to stop buying
the next shiny thing and game more with what I already have.
Even staying within the limits of a 12 unit army, we are in the realms of around 150 - 200 plus
figures per army by the time you add in casualty figures and commanders. This is of course times
two armies for the pairing, so 300 - 400 figures is a respectable number and a good reason why to
aim for a half army initially and then build up from that.
On the table, these sort of numbers should elevate the game to something that sits between
skirmish and full battle, while still fitting the domestic table.
Getting basing right from the start will be important and another wise New Year Resolution might
be ‘never, ever, ever re-base anything ever again’! If only, my 1066 forces have seen 3 basing
systems so far! Thankfully these days, rules are less demanding or prescriptive about basing.
To get my eight or so units onto the kitchen / dining type table (or the 4’ x 3’ already discussed), I
note Neil Thomas in his ‘One Hour Wargames’ book has armies of between 4 to 6 units per side
on a 3’ table, with each unit having a frontage of 6” or less (150mm) and that is a helpful start. His
rules have a basic line infantry movement allowance of 6” and a rifled musket range of 12”.
My 10mm and 12mm stuff is generally on 40mm bases and this was popular certainly with 6mm
ancients for the Warmaster rules and also for WRG /DBA stuff, so it is a common basing, but I am
wondering whether a 30mm base frontage would be a better fit, as 3 bases at 90mm would look
better on 100mm hexes and on an open table, four bases might make it easier to reflect march
column and other formation changes that things like napoleonics need. For WWII, I like a single
base to represent a full infantry section and for it to have an inherent light machine gun.
Interestingly there has been a bit of talk recently on a few blogs of gamers finding around 12 units
per side to be ideal for an evenings game, with enough going on within the game to give some
good play and hold attention, so perhaps this is the Goldilocks solution :-)
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Fancy getting yourself a boardgame or two?

Those old rigid lines of you being either a boardgamer or a figure gamer and never the twain shall
meet, have well and truly gone past their sell-by date. It seemed a strongly held conviction when I
was starting out in the hobby that you were one or the other, but the crossover between the two
genres has become increasingly blurred in recent years and a new generation of gamers are
coming through, who are more than comfortable with seeing nice sculpts in their boardgames,
plus rules such as To the Strongest and the Peter Pig stuff that use grids, together with game mats
being produced with grids on them, show that now, the cross-over is commercially viable.
Anyway, all of those things aside, this

article is specifically addressing YOUR
NEEDS to be able to have that midweek
game, with minimum set-up and take
down time, compact enough to get onto
the kitchen table for an hour or so and
also small enough that if you have a
mobility restriction or are recuperating, it
becomes really easy just to sit at the table
and play a game in comfort, with the
game right in front of you and without
any bending or stretching needed.
Just having one or two games tucked

away in reserve for such occasions, if nothing else, at least guarantees that some dice will be
rolled.
In choosing a game, it helps initially to think in terms of the map size that you can best work with.
A traditional standard map is 34” x 22”. A half mapper is ..... well half that, at 17” x 22” and then
there is the rarer beast that is a quarter map at 17” x 11’’. The latter is a gem, as it can fit on a large
tray and smallish maps tend to go hand in hand with fewer counters and shorter rules.
I have a large pinboard with a sheet of plexiglass cut to just fit inside the frame. This conveniently
holds the larger paper map and of course anything smaller and it is easy to move the board
around the house if necessary.
The rear of the box / cover of most boardgames will have information about their playing time,
complexity level and whether they are friendly towards solo play (many are - you just play both
sides to their best advantage) and some are dedicated purely to solo play.
I recently did an AAR type article on a small Gettysburg game that has just 28 counters and plays
in 60 - 90 minutes. This is the sort of thing that is ideal for the non-boardgamer to have a dabble
when the moment is right. There are some details of this game over on my blog at;
http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2019/10/gettysburg-full-3-days-battle-with-less.html
In fact many of the games on my blog page can be described as kitchen table games.
Second Chance Games is a UK online retail outfit that has a huge back catalogue of games, it is
worth a visit to their site just to do a bit of research and browse around for games that you think
may suit you. Board Game Geek and Consimworld are two dedicated boardgaming sites that will
give you a ton of information on games and get your questions answered. Anyway, just a thought.
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Fancy getting yourself a small figures game?

If you have just read the previous article, then the reverse is also true. Figures or mini’s if you
prefer, just look great .... Period! Boardgamers may be put off from figures just because of the
prep needed to get a game going. You need figures, paints and some terrain and a set of rules.
Getting all of that together does take a bit of effort - but, find yourself a ruleset that you like and
you can play a different battle every week with the same figures over and over, this is so different
from boardgames, which frequently rely on you buying another game, cutting another full set of
counters and then learning a new rulebook just to play a different battle from the last one that you
played ..... but in the same period! So time investment between the two genres is not too different.
Most figure gamers have taken quite a long time to get their figure collections together, often
servicing different periods and different scales, but you don’t need to that. There are an increasing
number of rulesets that are pretty much set down at the skirmish level and you could be playing
your first games after only collecting 40 - 60 figures per side.
A new kid on the block is Rebels and

Patriots (wargaming rules for North
America: Colonies to Civil War) from
Osprey Games by Michael Leck and
Daniel Mersey (cover artwork to the left).
The ruleset is £12.99 (can be got
cheaper) and are a very accessible read.
The colour plates in the book are pretty
much worth the entry price anyway -
very motivational and a worthy treat!
By now, there should be plenty of videos

and blog comment on these rules to give
you the idea of whether these and the games they give would meet your needs and/or budget.
Of course, once you start collecting figures, you can choose to move to other rules and even grow
the collection if you want to. Just getting these sort of visuals up on the table on a Saturday
afternoon might open up the pleasures of your gaming to a new direction.
There are plenty of videos out there for painting guides and you don’t need to be a great painter.
For wargaming purposes, prime the figure, block paint it (i.e. flesh face, blue coat, white trousers,
brown musket, black hat etc) and then apply either a wash or one of these polyurethane shades
that you will hear about - this settles into the recesses of the figure to provide instant shading. If
you want to, you can then dab a few bits of highlight colour here and there to help make the figure
look more defined. A quick blast of protective varnish and you are there!
Don’t worry about needing to collect dedicated hobby paints, you will be fine with the cheap
acrylic crafting paints, which I think are each around £1. Keep your brush damp (acrylic sets hard
fast and can ruin a brush!) and try not to let the whole painting thing feel like a task.
Before getting involved, you could test the water with a practice game or two with just empty
bases or even paper armies (downloadable).
Anyway - worth a dabble.
11
A wargame terrain surface.

Over the years I have made many attempts at improving the look of the gaming table and in
particular the playing surface. Whether this has been wooden boards textured, insulation board
carved, game tiles with grass matting glued on, cloths of various descriptions, plus cloths / fleece
painted, sprayed, textured etc. they have generally failed to live up to the mental image I had of
how they would look on the table.
Of course today the commercial availability

of ready made solutions is increasing, with
a giddying number of looks and textures to
look right for tables needing anything from
sandy plains through to deep space and all
flavours in between and then we may be
able to choose mat size and whether to go
for an open or gridded surface.
We are all in different places in terms of

what budgets we have available and so the
home brew mat remains as important as
ever, but as I look back on how much I have
actually spent over the years on trying to get this right, there is a certain economic reality that in
my case, buying commercially would have ultimately been
cheaper than crafting - wonderful thing that hindsight :-)
Fake glue and
I trod this path once before when I tried umpteen ways of
trying to get hex terrain onto boards / cloths and I could never
a sticky
keep the angles true, the further I got into the mat, the more situation !
the grid distortion became obvious. In the end I bought
Kallistra Hexon and the initial outlay gives a ‘for life’ product Told to create units
and it does the job once - properly.
of 24 figures, Major
Anyway in the continual search of improving the look of the Kerfuffle gave the
open table, I game across the Neoprene (like mouse pad
task of gluing the
material) game mats put out by Gale Force Nice, who do quite
a bit of terrain support for Flames of War related products. figures to their
bases to Private
These matts at 6’ x 4’ might feel expensive (£64), but they do
have the advantage of being double sided, so you can tell Bungle, who of
yourself you are actually getting two mats for that price - that’s course did exactly
what I did and it worked :-)
what he was told!
One thing the neoprene doesn’t allow is stacking things
underneath it to form ridges and high ground, in the way that a
fleece or cloth does, but that aside, the flexibility of plonk
down’ terrain suits me. The photo above shows the realistic
effect of the city mat.
The neoprene does have the advantage that it is firm enough to

roll up, so that it fits back into its long box and doesn’t get folds
or creases during storage.
12
Horsey, horsey, my kingdom for a horsey!

The cry, we are told, from Richard III in his last moments of battle and indeed life, as witnessed
and recorded by his bestest friend, Sir. Shake-a-Spear, and romanticised since by every
wargamer. So we are compelled not to leave 2019, and the important 534th anniversary of the
Bosworth battle, without a tribute to what may be the earliest fake news moment reported by the
Gazette.
In preparation for a (hopefully) near future Wars of the Roses project, based around the Pocket
Armies idea, The Perry 28mm mounted command set in metal entered the collection, but with a
smaller scale possibly nudging it’s way into the project, this 12mm Kallistra command stand was
done as a tester instead, representing King Richard and Sir Percival Thirwall, who carried
Richard’s banner (though this is Edward’s banner here!). Set amongst the boggy marshland of the
fen, is history about to be repeated!
In what seems now as an eternal age, but was in fact ‘just’ 25 years ago, at that interesting time
when home computers were almost becoming ‘a thing’, I was thrilled just to own an electric
typewriter with a built in memory. The typing was in effect digitally inputted, with a small screen
showing around three lines of text at a time and when the file was complete, you just pressed the
print button and off the typewriter went!
On this trusty machine, I put a booklet together

that covered the Battle of Bosworth 1485 and
included a set of rules for 10mm armies. A
friend at work who had a ‘real’ computer and
was saving up for a CD ROM unit! helped by
scanning photographs with one of those (now
archaic) hand held scanners.
A recent re-discovery of the booklet raised

some mixed feelings. I was dismayed at the
amount of grammatical mistakes and poor
quality of pictures and layout. It was the
product of self publishing made with indecent
haste and without having the proper and necessary checks and balances to get things right.
However, it was what it was and my interest has been re-ignited with a plan to update the
booklet ........ from my trusty iPad this time .... will he ever learn! :-)
The battlefield has since been placed 2 miles further away from the traditional site, so between
that and the rules having a tidy-up (perhaps making them less battle specific), the whole thing,
including the creation of a pair of armies, will be a fascinating project.
I know that for Christmas, an incoming gift will be Mike Ingram’s new book called Richard III
and the Battle of Bosworth. This promises (I hope) to be something that is useful to the project
with the necessary new maps, terrain description and how the armies came into their positions.
For boardgame interest, GMT are going to do a Tri-Pack version of their Men of Iron series. This
brings together three out of print modules into one box, so will be a bumper package and will
include the Bosworth battle from the Blood and Roses module, with the battle map taking account
of the latest thinking on the battlefield location, so that should be interesting and it also looks a
suitable game series to feed into my collection of series based boardgames.
13
A year in the life of the blogosphere.

What value is Blogging as a media platform in 2019 ..... are we still
relevant?
This year in particular seems to have seen a number of gamers

increasingly migrate to using Facebook as a media platform of
choice. Though I’m not sure to what degree this transition of
preference has particularly weakened the value of the blog or
interest of blog audiences.
They seem to be two quite different beasts with Facebook not suited to in depth content or a
convenient archival system, but then, an internet audience seems to becoming almost
overwhelmed with free content and perhaps they are
dashing around so much from one post to another
that they actually prefer to snatch-grab smaller posts
that just give a concise flavour content - I just don’t
know and not being a FB user, I can’t properly
compare the two worlds.
It seems to me that bloggers blog because they enjoy

sharing their own content, but that in part of the
sharing many do enjoy a contact with the audience by
way of their comment and the worth of what the blogger does may be indicated by that and by the
‘followers’ count. The issue of commenting (or rather not commenting) does crop up from time-
to-time and I have been quite vocal in the past at the growing tendency to enjoy free content
without dropping the odd word of thanks or encouragement.
Over time, I have come to temper that reasoning, as it would be pretty difficult to regularly service
a significant amount of comment, but it remains the case that we blog against a background of
little audience participation or obvious appreciation and where it does exist, it generally comes
from a tight group of like minded people who are both regular visitors and kind in their support.
My most visited post ever is also the longest I have ever done (until this Gazette!), it is a pretty
exhaustive comparison of 5 tactical games and yet despite 15,352 viewings at the time of writing,
it has garnered just 12 individual voices and that begs the question of why I would ever do a piece
of work like that again, even though another batch of 5 tactical games begs to be done ..... well
possibly follower numbers make the difference here. (http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/
2014/12/comparing-lower-complexity-tactical.html)
Anyway, the point of this piece is not to whinge, but rather to observe and question whether either
the long post or the blog is relevant enough to matter or even be worthwhile. The wargame
magazines seem to be under sales pressure and perhaps it is the blogs that have been capturing
their audience, but it would be sad if as a niche community of wargamers, we manage to lose both
magazines and blogs, add to that those wargame shows that are under pressure on the wargame
circuit, then we may be witnessing an unwitting unravelling of our precious media support.
Thanks everyone who supports the blogging world either directly or indirectly and thanks to
Mike, a kindred gaming spirit, for our weekly meet-ups and friendship. The hobby is strong and
giving as much as it ever did.
14
Sgt. Valerien, take your men and capture the

museum now!
Scenario 6 from ASL Starter Kit 1 - Released from the East. It is Late 1941 and the Germans have
been closing on Moscow. On 11th December, tough Soviet Siberian troops, recently released from
the east, counter-attacked against the German occupied medieval town of Istra, intent on blunting
the German advance. Both sides had very capable troops, with the Siberians also benefiting from
their winter camouflage which helped them move about in the open.
The Soviets have been tasked with capturing two out of three multi-hexed buildings. Sgt. Valerien
is to take the museum and he works his men down a row of houses, using their cover to get him
nearer to the large building.
The Germans have an infantry platoon (3 squads) in the

museum, with two sections up front and a third in reserve.
Their defence is built around a HMG located on the right
shoulder of the building and covering the avenues of
approach.
As the Soviets move into the last buildings that face onto the
museum, the Germans open fire, getting a 2MC result and
retaining fire for the HMG, but that opening good fortune
went to rats as the machine gun fired again and jammed. The
attempt to fix it just made matters worse, leaving it permanently unusable. On top of that the
Soviets passed the 2MC check!
A desperate firefight started and despite losing their HMG, the two German squads put down so
much fire (got a good dice roll) into the Russian position, that Valerien took a wound, his morale
fell apart (the morale test resulted in 12 being rolled), causing him to reduce to a lower value
leader (to an 8-0 which was represented by swapping out the leader counter for the Sgt. Evich
counter). Of the two sections with Valerien, one broke and the other became pinned.
The third German section that had been held back, moved up into the front part of the building,
to increase the German total fire value from 8 to 12 FP’s.
With Valerien’s men tied down, a couple of Soviet squads from the neighbouring platoon started
to work their way across. They had already successfully captured the school house, but fire from
the museum halted them in their tracks, with one going pinned and the other breaking. The
defenders were looking very secure and it was difficult to see how they could be ejected.
Valerien ordered a final and daring assault, attempting to

overwhelm the building, this included some help from the
neighbouring platoon, who got badly chewed up on the way in.
A Soviet squad and ½ squad from Valerien’s platoon made it
into the building and locked down the defenders with Melee
attacks. The fight was desperate and even though the Germans
outnumbered the attackers, initially they could not fight them
off. It was only in the last turn that the Germans managed to
totally expel the Soviet assault. Valerian had failed, but
elsewhere on the table, the Soviets had managed to capture their other two objectives.
15
Wargaming in small spaces.

The creation of the Warriors & Battlefields blog fell from some gaming limitations that are likely
fairly widely shared, these being limited space to game, limited space to store and limited table
time, which mostly meant snatching a few hours from the kitchen / dining table, before it is
surrendered back to it’s family duty! and so ‘wargaming in small spaces’ became the default
sentiment of the blog.
At the time I was living in a small apartment, though a move to bigger place has since loosened
those restrictions to some degree, but my gaming world and the blog are still dealing with
kitchen / dining table sized battles.
The large pinboard gets it’s share of blog

coverage. This space of 22” x 34” and by
good fortune just about takes a standard
large boardgame map and is also big
enough to do some small 10mm figure
games, whether on an open board or on
the 8 x 6 hex field, which was the basis
for my WWII tactical Tiger at Minsk
rules (see photo left of the city board).
The blog is filled with examples of
games played in this sized area.
The pinboard is a fantastic device for the space strapped gamer as it can be moved around the
house to suitable play / storage locations or moved off the table at meal times or it can even be
rested on an ironing board and played whilst standing if you don’t have any table space.
For 2020, I would like to get most of my gaming working from both a 3’ x 2’ (like the pinboard)
and a 4’ x 3’ space as required. The former being perfect for 1 mapper boardgames and small
figure games with reduced frontages and the latter for occasional 2 mapper boardgames or for the
more developed figure game.
It may be that pushing the Pocket Armies idea to 15mm (or less) and working this off a 4’ x 3’
table might tick many of my boxes at one go, including getting a seated game and reducing total
storage. Unit frontages working at around 120mm (4 x 30mm bases) on a table this size seems an
ideal partnership, more importantly, the terrain, especially buildings is more compact and easier
to store and looks right.
The ability to match a game to our needs is certainly out there, we often just need connecting with
it. I have run a Quatre Bras game on an 18” x 18” board with 2mm figures and have played a few
interesting boardgame titles that could sit on a tray or on a board across the arms of a chair, ideal
for vacation, hospitalisation or recuperation at home, when physically the bigger game is too
difficult to manage.
It is a shame that neither our magazines or the wargame show circuit particularly go out of their
way to highlight the small and ultra small game, in a world in which our organisations are seeking
ever greater inclusivity, recognising that a sizeable audience do not have or cannot use even
modest table sizes seems to have escaped notice.
16
The Flakey Shakey Fakey Intel report

Allied High Command were stunned when pictures emerged from the
Modellers Camera Club spy ring suggesting that German forces had
developed and deployed a revolutionary ‘shrinking laser’.
A pair of SU 152 tank destroyers had been moving amongst city ruins,
when as the photographic evidence suggests, the leading vehicle took a
laser hit and immediately shrank. Laser specialist Professor Beam
believes that the weapon is likely tank mounted, with a range of around
500 metres and he fears that the weapon would be easy to mass
produce, with the potential of turning Allied forces into an army of
Dinky Toys within a matter of weeks.
Not wanting to be a party pooper, a sheepish Professor Poop has

since emerged to dispel the laser theory, saying that somehow a
comparison photograph of his wargame 1/72 and 10mm collection
became mixed up with the images submitted by the spy ring. He says
he is sorry - though probably not as sorry as Professor Beam who has
since become an expert in a different field altogether, one that is
quite muddy and involves a lot of shovelling.
17
Woodlands Scenic static grass applicator

Just when you thought wargame bases couldn’t get any prettier, along came grass tufts and
transformed the look of what we do and tuft mania has seemingly gripped us.
They are widely available and a sheet

can typically be bought for a fiver,
which last me ages ..... so why would
you want to make your own?
Well I mostly didn’t, but I was in a

model shop and the chap had just got
in a couple of Woodland Scenic static
grass applicators. These are the proper
commercial job and so come priced
accordingly. I was half interested, the
man offered a discount and some sales
patter and moments later, I was the
proud owner of said machine (how did that happen!). Anyway, I then had to buy some grass fibres
of various lengths from 2mm to 12mm and entered the learning curve of tuft making!
The first moment of discovery was that there was a gap between what I imagined it would do and
what it actually does do and so you have to learn how to use it and initially a few days were spent
regretting the buy.
Anyway, I have developed three uses. Firstly to make simple tufts. A jig was made from cork
sheet, with 10mm holes drilled into it. The cork is rested on baking parchment. A drop of glue is
placed into each hole (think of it as a cell) and then the applicator scatters the grass over the cork.
Some of the grass needs lifting into a more upright position, but it works, the glue dries, the jig is
lifted away and you have a sheet of tufts.
Next, on the same paper, I do some longer lines of glue freehand to open paper (no jig),
sometimes swirling the glue line to give it shape. Use the applicator and as above, support some of
the fallen grass to a more upright position. When the glue dries, peel off and you have long strips
to put down the side of buildings, at the bottom of fences or on river banks etc.
Finally, using the shortest 2mm grass, paint down a larger area of glue directly to the scene, put
the earthing cable (or leg) into the glue and scatter the short grass over all of that area, you end up
with something a bit more ‘wheat field’ or stubble looking.
The process relies on the low voltage electric charge in the applicator being earthed with the
working area. I use a baking tray and put the parchment on the baking tray, while attaching the
earth wire from the applicator to the baking tray. If doing a larger patch, the earthing wire can be
placed directly into the glue. The applicator uses a 9v battery.
The bespoke results are good and if you cover a larger area a couple of times, it probably pays for
itself quite quickly. If you just like making terrain items that have naturalised ground cover, it is
useful, but may not pay for itself, though you may not mind that. If you just like to add the odd
tuft to a figure base here and there, it’s probably better to just buy the tufts as you need them.
18
McPherson Ridge - Gettysburg.

This scenario covers the advance of Archer’s Brigade in the opening hours of the three day battle
of Gettysburg. The Confederates have advanced over Herr
Ridge at 0800 hours and now they are moving towards
Willoughby Run, which they need to cross to reach their
next objective - McPherson Ridge. Willoughby Run is a
shallow waterway that is defended on the far side by
Gamble's dismounted Union Cavalry Brigade. The cavalry
are buying time for Union reinforcements to move up and
strengthen the position.
As Archer attempted to cross Willoughby Run, his men were caught in a cavalry ambush from
amongst the bushes on the far side. The game has Union artillery on the front slopes of
McPherson Ridge engaging with Confederate artillery, which is 1000 yards away - off board.
We are using Kallistra 12mm figures and Black Powder II rules, everything is playing on a 3 foot
wide table, with units having a frontage of around 12cm. The game will play for 7 turns, with the
Union going first. There is a link for a download of this scenario at the foot of this article.
Archer (Confederate) deploys his brigade on a two

regiment front, each with a regiment to their rear for
support. As they enter Willoughby run, Gamble’s
cavalry open fire from their ambush positions, getting
an extra fire dice for their ‘First Fire’ attribute that
they were given to represent the ambush.
This is very effective, causing casualties and 14th

Tennessee to go disordered, but to their rear, 7th
Tennessee pass their ‘Passage of Lines’ test and push
through 14th to charge at dismounted cavalry (8th New
York), who in skirmish order, become disordered and shaken (through losses), but their discipline
holds enough that they just fall back. Never-the-less, this is unhinging the Union left flank.
Meredith, who is marching to the battlefield with his elite boys, fails the reinforcement entry test,
but will automatically enter in the next turn. The Confederate left (1st Tennessee) have gone both
disordered and shaken while crossing Willoughby Run and Archer is compelled to ride over in
person, to rally them.
Union spotters on the ridge shout ‘Hoorah!’ As they see

Meredith’s column of two regiments appearing from the rear
and they signal Gamble of the arrival, who with extra resolve,
galvanises his men to roughly handle a Confederate charge
against his right, by delivering very effective close fire. The
tenacity of the cavalrymen in the hand-to-hand fighting that
follows surprises 1st Tennessee and they are held.
As the lead elements of Meredith’s Iron Brigade, still in march

column, put their feet on the rear slope of McPherson Ridge,
19
Archer’s Confederates are still caught up amongst the cavalry positions, with their right stalled
and their left taking such losses that 13th / 15th Alabama (a combined regiment) break and flee.
Turn 5 plays out and sees what looks to be the critical part of the battle unfolding. Archer has
ordered his entire brigade to charge to contact in an effort to clear the cavalrymen. The order fails
to reach the left, who content themselves with a firefight, but on the right 7th Tennessee,
supported by 14th, sweep forward and brush 8th New York from the field. The way ahead on that
flank to the ridge is clear. However, the
attack had considerably strained 7th
Tennessee, who are now both
disordered and shaken. They do not
know it yet, but on the other side of the
ridge, two regiments of Meredith’s
fresh and tough Iron Brigade have
shaken out into line and though a little
tardy in doing that, are now ready to go
into skirmish order and start to filter
through the wooded forward slope of
the ridge and prevent its capture (see
photo right).
While still under fire from Pelham’s artillery, Calef’s A Battery is manhandled down from the
wooded slope and out into the open, where the guns are re-laid in the direction of the Confederate
right, forcing 7th Tennessee to retire. 14th Tennessee turn to face the artillery. The Confederates
are now truly snarled up below the McPherson slope.
On the Union right, Gamble’s 8th Illinois Cavalry are put to flight and with two of his regiments
now collapsed, the brigade counts as being broken and the remaining regiment (12th Illinois / 3rd
Indiana), mount up and start retiring from the battlefield.
In the final moments of the battle, Meredith pushes his two regiments forward, entering the light
woods and skirmishing through the trees until they reach the woods edge on the forward slope.
He will hold here and keep the ridge secure. On the ground between the ridge and the Willoughby
Run, things are moving quickly. 14th Tennessee take heavy fire from the artillery and also from
the Iron Brigade, firing from the wood, causing them to leave the table. In turn Calef’s artillery,
out in the open and exposed, is destroyed by 1st Tennessee.
With the loss of 14th Tennessee, Archers Brigade is broken, so 1st and 7th Tennessee will have to
withdraw, but since we are at the end of game turn 7, that brings the game to a tidy conclusion.
Archer’s Brigade had eventually cleared the way to get up onto McPherson Ridge, but the
cavalrymen had bought enough time for Meredith to get to the ridge first and secure it.
Since this and a second playing, I felt that within the restrictions of the scenario, Archer struggled
to reach the Ridge and that Meredith’s arrival on the hill was too reliable, lacking the uncertainty
that game tension needs. The scenario has been tweaked to be increased from 7 to 8 turns and
Meredith’s arrival on the table has been delayed to turn 4.
This seems like a good little scenario for small tables, small forces and is relatively quick to play,
plus it is tight enough to test a variety of rules with. Here is a download link to the Scenario;
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2jgx2zg7460ea50/Willoughby%20Run.pdf?dl=0
20
The Fake News Mince Pie Quiz

The answers are at the very end of the Gazette, if you cheat, no more mince pie for you!
In what year was the battle of Trafalgar? (Clue, it was 214 Years ago)
Who named their battle after the yummy dish of Chicken Marengo? (Clue, It wasn’t Josephine’s
night and has nothing to do with the Battle of Chicken Kiev)
What footwear was named after a well known commander? (Clue, it was really named after a beef
based dish that this commander possibly invented on his day off)
What battle did the band ABBA use in a song title? (Clue, it was really about a UK train station)
Who won at the Battle of Cannae? (Clue, Terentius Varro came second).
What game is best known by the abbreviation ASL? (Clue, the

‘S’ does not stand for ‘simple’ nor ‘L’ for ‘light’) Fake-ticious
Name two of the three battles fought on English soil in 1066? rumblings!
For an extra mince pie, try to get them in the right order.
(Clue, a Bridge and a Gate will get you to two of them) Sir. Giles Gubbins
What do the opposite sides of dice always add up to? (Clue, the disturbed by the
number of brides or brothers) whiff of scandal, has
In the fictitious War of the Worlds, which planet did the threat affirmed that he did
to Earth come from? (Clue, one of these sugary treats a day not hide in Stinkers
might help you work, rest and play - they did in the 70’s!)
Wood during the
What number was given to the title of a song about the young
rout of Windy Pass,
men sent to fight in Vietnam? (Clue, 55 - 33 -1 -1 -1)
he was simply
Anagram - name this famous WWII battle, ULBEG? (Clue,
investigating the
Weight watchers are always fighting this)
sound of some wild
Which WWII naval battle saw planes from the Hiryu aircraft
trumpeting !
carrier attack the Yorktown, putting her out of action? (Clue,
it’s the right moment to call half-time)
What is a blunderbus? (Clue, the public transport timetable

was unreliable, but it didn’t deserve shooting to ribbons)
What colour is Vallejo paint code 70.918? (Clue - this is one of

my most useful colours and works well enough on elephants)
During the Wars of the Roses, who was known as The

Kingmaker? (Clue, did he have a sister called Dionne?)
Which two American Civil War commanders gave their names to essentially the same WWII tank
used by the British? (Clue, This one had two guns my precious)
Finally, True or Fake? Richard II was known as Richard Cœur de Lion (The Lionheart)? (Clue,
The Lionheart fought in the Third Crusade)
21
Piggy Wiggy Woo!

Just in time before Shenanigans goes to press, a thud behind the front door signalled the arrival
of my 15mm dabble with Peter Pig figures. Could this be a middle ground for a small or big scale
torment!
The initial order was for 3 bags of infantry. One each of Union infantry (ACW), Levy Billmen
(Wars of the Roses) and American Riflemen (WWII). Peter Pig can certainly claim a fast turn
around of orders, especially considering the time of year. I liked them enough to wonder what a
full infantry unit, an artillery battery and a cavalry regiment might look like when compared to
what I have already. So a second order went in for some additional ACW forces since having both
12mm and 28mm ACW bases for comparison, it seemed a worthwhile little side project.
Of course, despite staring at the website for ages, I still didn’t have it right, the command base
would need a few more ordinary infantry and the flag bearers needed flags! (who’d have thought)
and more nags were needed for a horse for a unit. A small farm house was added just to see how
buildings in this scale might work, plus some 30mm bases to experiment with. So a 3rd order
flowed from computer screen. Again, excellent speedy service and finally, everything was in place.
Anyway, thoughts on the figures?
Cleaning up - these were clean figures needing minimum preparation. A quick file to any mould
lines and most of the bases have the remnant of a small nib under the base from where it was held
onto the tree during casting, which is easily pared back. I phoned the company and asked whether
the figures need to be washed before painting - they don’t.
Sculpts - characterful in nature and with detail moulded high enough to be able to catch the
brush and be painter friendly.
Detail v Viewing distance - sits in a good place, a sort of crossing point between detail and
impressionistic painting, you can be careful, but no need to be too careful. A block paint, followed
by wash and then a highlight here and there seems to give the right sense of pop. The figures can
have a sort of mass look, but those that enjoy the individual figure will still get that.
Scale (size - whatever!) - the advantage to my eyes

is that the figure still has a small footprint, but
with a sense of 3D bulk or mass, so that basing can
still be on the same sort of size that I have used
with smaller scales, but the bulk is more
appealing. There seems to be a good ‘in scale’
balance between horse, artillery and infantry
compared to larger scales in which horse (or
tanks) can feel too big, while the infantry are nice
and in smaller scales, the infantry too small, while
the tanks, horse and buildings are ideal, so from
that perspective, the scale is good.
My future with these figures - well last year I stupidly sold off a decent amount of WWII
15mm, feeling it was not for me, but after this brief liaison with these PP figures, I’m thinking
about creating a pair of six unit ACW forces with a view to doing some of the Neil Thomas
scenarios in his One Hour Wargames book. I will be able compare with my other two ACW scales,
so will be better placed to decide which way to jump.
22
Blasting from the past - Battletech

The new ‘Beginner Box’ from Catalyst is good value
and a great way to break into the system. It comes
with a double sided hex map and two large plastic
mech warriors (Wolverine and Griffin), plus a goodly
amount of support material.
I played Battletech as a youngster and have enjoyed

being able to re-connect with the system at this
lighter level and of course enjoying a crossover
system that uses both figures and a gridded map.
‘After going through the voice recognition and engine start-up sequences, he engaged power,
and felt the ‘Mech come to life around him’ - extract from ‘Golden Rule’ by William Keith, part of
the support material provided with the starter
set.
The game comes with a hexed paper map,

additional card terrain tiles overlays and 8 other
cardboard stand-up mechs.
I painted up the two models - probably with a

bit too much rust on them :-), got the stat cards
copied and then had a few solo rounds of
jumping, firing, losing arms and exploding! All
great fun and a dress rehearsal for a near future
face-to-face session with Mike.
The starter scenario pits the Wolverine against the Griffin. The
Griffin set up behind some light woods. I added some woodland
scenery to reinforce the 3D effect of the models. The Wolverine,
from the other map edge, ran forwards 8 hexes to close the gap and
then in the Firing Phase, Griffin opened the firefight with its
‘Fusigon Particle Projectile Cannon’ at medium range - as follows;
The Griffin has a basic Gunnery Skill of 4. This is modified. The

target moved 7 - 9 hexes (+3 modifier), the firer fires through 1 hex
of light woodland (+1), The fire is made at medium range (+2),
which together modify the Gunnery Skill from 4 up to 10. The firer
rolls 2D6 and must score 10 or more to hit .... which they do. 2D6
are then rolled against the Hit Location Table, which tells us that
on this occasion Wolverines’ left leg had been hit.
The Particle Cannon has a damage value of 10, so 10 armour points are crossed off that leg on
Wolverine’s armour diagram. If another 6 damage points hit the leg, it will be lost.
Tinkering around and re-connecting with the rules was great fun. There is a lot of nuance in the
game with a range of light to heavy mechs and differences between weapon systems that allow for
the tactics to shine through, particularly once a few more mechs are placed onto the table.
23
Photography
Good light, good light, good light - there, a concise photography course and yours for free - oh
wait! that good light might cost something.
Our high megapixel cameras are generally

taking great pictures these days, the
automatic modes are now superb, but they
take even better pictures if there is plenty of
evenly spread light. This is mainly because
they can shoot with a lower ISO, so there is
less ‘noise’ in the picture and quality
improves.
In truth, our cameras by default are

generally using over-saturated colours and
over sharpening, this combined with the
high pixel count, gives very high resolution
images and can expose our figures to cruel scrutiny. Mistakes or ‘strange things’ that are largely
not visible once on the table or even at normal painting distances, become like a flashing beacon
when thrown up on the screen.
So really, is the super close shot the kindest way to show off your beauties! Back off a bit, there
will be less barreling (distortion of straight lines - like with a gun or bayonet becoming slightly
curved) and the surrounding scene can become part of showing off the figure.
For light or rather where to put it, we can consider two things. Firstly, figures can hold a lot of
shadow in normal light, so they will generally benefit from being ‘front lit’. Flash can be a little
harsh unless you can dial down the strength on the camera or put a sheet of tracing paper in front
of the flash to diffuse it a little. Too much light will blow out some of the subtle shading.
Secondly, there is the shadow that the figure throws

backwards. Light coming in from different sources
will reduce that shadow and allow for the shadows to
be a bit gentler, you can get a sort of ‘wrap around’
effect of light that softens any shadow.
Whatever your main light source is, if your camera

allows you to match your ‘white balance’ to it, then
you should do that for truer colour reproduction
without warm or cold casts.
Auto white balance is very good these days, but if you

think your colours are off, especially with the table colour looking the wrong shade of whatever it
should be, then checking the white balance setting will doubtless help.
I use one or two LED devices to light up a local scene and may still use onboard flash if needed.
My LED are set to 5600k, which is natural daylight and so I set the camera white balance to
5600k also. If you are using standard domestic lamps, then typically set the camera White
Balance to the ‘bulb’ icon to match the warmer light being put out by typical domestic bulbs.
24
For the big shot, the further back from the table you shoot, the more light you will need to evenly
flood it and small ‘on camera’ flashes normally suffer a big ‘fall off’ of light after around 3 to 4 feet,
which means the far end of the table will look noticeably darker. The less light you have, the
camera will cope with by choosing a higher ISO and the shot will typically be rougher (noisier).
Finally, check your background. It is easy to get caught up in the moment of taking that brilliant
shot, just make sure that the background works for you and doesn’t have letters or parcels sat to
one side with your address clearly on it or those fancy knickers draped over the clothes maiden!
A landlubber you say - Wrong me hearties!

One minute you are a strict historicals, land battles type of bloke, who likes their feet on terra
firma and then suddenly you have the rather lovely Black Seas game set by Warlord Games
winking at you, with furled flags, rigging (shudder) and an annoying want to say ‘me hearties’ all
of the time. All is still boxed of course, waiting for the moment for an extra bit of motivation and
time - but a good start at least for a potential new area of gaming to open up for me.
But it doesn’t stop there - No Sir. Mr. Aviator! Deep Red Skies, also from Warlord Games, with
Spitfires and Hurricanes doing twisty - turny things in the skies above Blighty, is also now sitting
on a shelf. This one requires a bit more motivation as the plastic wings on the planes are ‘skewy’
and need tempting back into shape.
There’s more ...... Talon, from GMT (above), a game of deep space combat on a hexed board, with
space craft doing things with their propulsion drives and phaser banks. I am hoping that this is an
easy pick-up game that can bring back some long ago memories of hours of involvement and
intrigue with the popular Star Fleet Battles system, though at a simpler level.
Finally! Battletech - well alright, we are back into landlubber territory, but it’s hardly sensible
napoleonics is it! :-) Hugely enjoyed this many moons ago as a younger version of me and then
recently saw the new starter set, which is very accessible and a great example of what starter sets
should look like. It includes two models, which have already crossed the painting table.
I’m hoping at least some of this will end up on the table in 2020 (Edit - the Battletech couldn’t
wait!).
25
A wargame fest .... at home!

While gaming for many of us has to take its turn with the family table being free, every now and
then the planets align and there may that opportunity for a longer game, maybe a full day,
perhaps even keeping it set up overnight to conclude the next day. For those moments, having the
chance to break out one of the ‘bigger’ games and indulge, punctuates the year with some quality
and memorable hobby time.
One of my ‘fest’ games this year was ‘The African Campaign’ published by Compass Games. This
is one of their ‘Designer Signature Edition’ games, in which they bring back a celebrated design
from yesteryear, with a make-over that generally includes bigger hexes and counters, which
typically pushes the games to two mappers. The linear nature of the North African Campaign has
the two maps (well one is a half map) sent lengthways, so being ‘Home Alone’ for the day, the
game, plus reinforcement charts was spread out, courtesy of a wallpaper pasting table. This was
set up in a sun lounge, so you can see the reflection of the glass roof struts on the plexi glass that
was holding the maps down flat.
Designed by John Edwards, the game is an updated treatment of the old Jedko 2nd Edition game,
with optional rules and variants as published in the issue of Panzerfaust July / Aug 1976, but for
my first play, I am just going with the standard rules from this classic design.
The box says - Complexity Medium, Time scale 2 turns = 1 month, Map scale 12 miles (19km) to
the hex, Unit scale Battalion to Division, Players 1 or 2 with the solo value being very high and an
average game time of 3 - 4 hours. I was standing for the game and so the mixing of playing and
taking breaks to alleviate back pain meant that the game actually ended up being set up for a
couple of days.
Historically the Allies and the Axis forces yoyo’d back and forth along the North African coast as
one side and then the other launched their various operations. What would the game deliver?
We open with the Italian forces stretched out near Sidi Barrani and the Allies further East at
Mersa Matruh. With 7th Armoured providing the backbone of the assault, the Allies attacked the
Italian positions, who fell back amongst the ridge system, exacting Allied casualties as they gave
up ground.
But the Australians and New Zealanders were able to break through the ridge at Halfaya Pass and
put pressure on the Italian flank and in a daring attack against good positions, that could have
gone badly wrong and ended the offensive, they bore down on the Italians, while 7th Armoured
attacked to their front.
26
It was a total success and the Allies crossed the Libya / Egypt border. With heavy losses, the
Italians could do little else other than to fall back slowly onto the important port of Tobruk.
With the crisis looming, Rommel arrived in Africa, bringing German support, but choosing to
disembark troops at the safe destination of Tripoli rather than running the Allied naval gauntlet
to make directly to the Port of Tobruk - he was gambling that the Italians could hold on long
enough for his troops to travel the coastal route from Tripoli to Tobruk.
Montgomery arranged his forces to skirt Tobruk and strike at the troops defending the perimeter,
making a devastating attack on Sabratha Division and Babini Mechanised Brigade. Their defeat
was total, but the Allied force was spent and only just managed to defend itself against a counter-
attack based around the Ariete Division.
As the campaign moved into April and German strength, especially air power, increased, Rommel
moved his troops above the Allied positions to envelop them. Caught by surprise, the Allies took
very heavy casualties, amongst whom included Montgomery himself. Tobruk was now safely in
Axis possession and the Allies, at risk from being surrounded and overwhelmed, pulled back
towards Halfaya Pass.
The Axis attacks continued, capturing Halfaya Pass and leaving the weakened Allied force grimly
holding onto the ridges around Sollum / Bardia. If the Allies were to lose this position, they were
so weak, that they may have been rolled up, back along the coastal road, with Alexandria
threatened. The Axis supply line was lengthening and some reinforcements and replacements
were switched from landing at Tripoli to making the riskier trip to Tobruk.
Wavell arrived to take charge of the Allies. He ordered the army to retreat back beyond the
Halfaya Pass, taking up blocking positions and awaiting replacements. Rommel sensing he should
strike before the enemy strengthened, launched an offensive that consumed half of his fuel
reserves. The Australian 7th Infantry Division, cut off from the rest of 8th Army, was removed
from the game, but Axis attempts to break out onto the coastal road beyond failed with losses to
the Italian armour.
27
Halfaya Pass was now firmly in Axis hands, Tobruk was safe, but neither side had the strength for
further operations and as June started, both sides took advantage of the stalemate to feed in
supplies and reinforcements.
The system of ridges causes a natural choke point of the coastal route between Halfaya Pass and
the coast. Taking a defensive stance, the Allies placed mines on the coast, while the German
airforce interdicted Allied units in preparation for a movement of force against the Allied left
flank in an attempt to envelop it. This used the last of the fuel reserves and though there was some
gains, the Italian Ariete Division was smashed and again a stalemate followed, with the fuel
shortages for Rommel becoming critical.
Unwisely, the Germans maintained operations out on the right flank, under resourced, it failed
and a sharp Allied counter-attack caused grievous casualties and sent the entire German right
reeling backwards. Like a barn door swinging, the Axis front line gave way, leaving their solid
positions at Halfaya Pass looking potentially vulnerable if the German right couldn’t hold.
Wavell was not ready for an offensive, but this new situation and opportunity was too good to
miss. He hammered away at the Axis right flank which grudgingly gave way slowly, but with both
sides taking continual losses in attritional actions. The Ariete Armoured Division had been
refitted and put into the field in front of Tobruk and together with 5th Panzer Regiment (of 21st
Panzer Division), worked to delay the Allies while the Axis abandoned the Halfaya Pass complex
of ridges and everything slowly fell back on Tobruk.
As the Allies closed on Tobruk, the Axis put out an effective defensive perimeter with mines and
units. There were battles in the open around Tobruk, but they just settled into slugfests of
attrition, while Tobruk withstood several assaults, one of which depleted the garrison, but the
attackers got a retreat result so could not capture the port and of course on their part of the turn,
the Axis re-occupied it, but with stronger troops.
The game then settled into an Allied siege of Tobruk, but with the attacks always being at 1:1 and
the port having stock piled replacements, which can be used there because it does not count as a
Zone of Control, the Allies had no hope of capturing the port and so the game ended in a draw.
28
Off on the campaign trail.

One of the enjoyable things this year has been seeing some fellow bloggers running campaigns. It
has been fun to see the bigger story unfold and good to see engagements fought with one side
knowing when they really need to break-off to preserve their force for the next battle. Only
campaigns can deliver this sort of discipline and flavour.
It would be nice to see a campaign grace my table / blog in 2020 and once that thought occurred,
a multiple of possibilities became surprisingly obvious. My own experience of campaign games
has been limited with each one being based around WWII actions, covering both miniatures
(ladder system for Tigers at Minsk) and boardgames (Lock ‘n Load, To The Motherland and
Avalanche Press, PanzerGrenadier).
I have been promising myself an ASL historical campaign for a long time and have Hatten in
Flames and Red Factories that have ready made campaigns and though they beg to be played,
they are not the format that I am immediately thinking of. These will likely stay on the ‘must do’
list for a while longer.
Having a fairly regular weekly face-to-face gaming session brings some interesting opportunity,
though I would prefer a campaign to be something we could occasionally dip into, rather than
have it dominating a block of play sessions and of course it would have to be on something we
both have an interest in. There are also other opportunities for solo based campaigns and
suddenly the gaming calendar has the potential to be strained to service some of these ideas!
Anyway, a secondary and related idea occurred, this simply being linked games, which may be the
more likely thing to pursue next year. There are three basic models that are in my thoughts;
Firstly, just taking a single battlefield and carving it up into a number of scenarios, so that the
whole battle can be played out as a number of smaller actions that are a good fit for a smaller
table and smaller order-of-battle (the Pocket Armies perhaps). The scenarios are played semi
independently of each other, but an understanding of the connectivity of the full battle is still
worked towards.
So perhaps for 1809 on the Danube, there

would be separate scenarios for a fight across
the pontoon bridges, assaults on Aspern and
Essling villages, a crossing of the Russbach
Stream, the defence of Glinzendorf or perhaps
a sharper focus on some individual moments in
time such as the fight for the fortified Granary
building at Essling.
The scenarios would be built by looking at the

historical battle and determining the critical
points of interest and then writing up the
scenarios to match with an appropriate order
of battle.
Secondly, a similar idea, but the actions would be driven by actions created by a boardgame.
Having just played Danube 20 published by Victory Point Games, covering the Wagram battle
(fought over the same area as the Aspern-Essling battles) there were some Austrian counter-
attacks in places that created situations with troop types and strengths that differed from the
29
historical account, but that would have generated moments of real interest and variety had they
been transferred to the tabletop.
The Danube 20 game is played at the army / corps level, so

you would have some freedom in showing how say III Corps
was actually deployed on the table, but I have recently
bought Kernstown in the ACW series by Revolution Games,
which is done at the regimental level. This module covers
both the 1862 and the 1864 battles in some detail with good
map (photo below) and unit information.
This scale has great scope for throwing up transferable

scenarios that the gamers is compelled to put on the table
exactly as the boardgame situation reflects without bath-
tubbing forces are having any leeway as to where units
should be actually placed.
Thirdly, for a tactical WWII boardgame system, it

would be interesting to take just a slice of a bigger
campaign action, such as isolating 5th July 1943 on
the southern shoulder of the Kursk assault and
scripting those assaults out as smaller actions that are
presented as individual game boards, linking them by
travel lines that manage the direction of troops and
reinforcements.
The board types on the campaign map can just be

picked from the boards within your collection that
best suits the situation, such as being urban, or having
a river crossing or being predominantly fields or woodland.
This sort of linked scenario game fits with any of

the ASL, Panzer, Lock ‘n Load or Old School
Tactical type games.
Here, the historical situation was that German

332nd infantry failed to take Bubny early and so
3rd Panzer Division, who successfully took
Gertsevka Station, had to sent a detachment to the
area shown by the open farmland battle board for
flank security. The interconnecting travel lines
allow for this kind of shifting and re-directing of
force.
though I mention game boards, this sort of set up can be used for either figure or boardgaming or
a mix of both if that takes the fancy. For figures, each board area could be representing a table,
say 4’ x 6’ or 4’ x 3’ or 3’ x 2’ for the micro scales.
Each of the grey arrows is a separate German formation, advancing along fairly fixed axis of
advance and divisional boundaries.
Anyway, this is something to chew on for now, but will hopefully make it onto the 2020 agenda.
30
The Battle of Blogger’s Acre

Anyone interested in gaming in small spaces should check out Shaun Travers’ blog that has
ancients and WWII armies in 6mm, playing out battles on boards that are never bigger than 2’ x
2’, a size that he finds convenient enough to keep set up in a shallow drawer.
Using his own rules, his most recent game is an early war, east front game, played out on a 50cm
x 50cm surface, which is perhaps easier to visualize as a standard sized carpet tile (well in the UK
anyway). This is a link to Shaun’s recent game, a must visit for the space strapped gamer. http://
shaun-wargaming-minis.blogspot.com/2019/12/ww2-6mm-game-east-front-1942-testing.html
Just to show how much game value falls from ‘small space’ games, I have based a game around
his recent scenario using my own hex based rules (Tigers at Minsk), converting to a hex grid of
just 6 x 6 hexes. This is sitting in a space that is just 65cm wide by 56cm deep.
I had most of the stuff for Shaun’s order of battle, but needed to proxy other guns for the 37mm
and 50mm anti tank guns and use a StuG IIIg model for the StuG IIIe, but the proper stats were
be used. The initial morale value of the Germans was lowered by one to represent the green
troops and was increased by one when the German reinforcements arrived. TaM uses a game
clock, so six D6 were rolled with each pip worth one minute to get an arrival time of the
reinforcements (22 minutes was rolled). The German Command Radius was also dropped to 1
hex, while the Soviets dropped from the standard Command Radius of 1+2 hexes to 1+1 hex.
Shaun’s post highlights the difficulties that the Soviets have in getting to their objective (the
church) with comparatively few infantry ... how did we get on?
31
The Battle for Blogger’s Acre!

0900 hours - Soviet Morale 4, German Morale 2.
Due to restricted terrain, the road is the only usable approach for the Soviet vehicles and anti tank
guns so the German 50mm anti tank was gun deployed on Crump’s Hill, a position dominating
the road route. The infantry were placed in Caveadsum wood, at the church, in Steve’s Hostelry
and at Kevin’s Boardgame Emporium.
The Soviet’s, commanded by Major MikeSki, decided
that rather than spread the infantry across both flanks,
they would advance up the centre left to take
advantage of the cover of the woods to get them to the
church ... on time!
Major StewMann, commanding the German force had

made a good choice by placing a rifle section at Kevin’s
Emporium (left photo) and as soon as the first Soviet
rifle section entered the board behind Whitesell Inn, this German section pinned the Soviet
advance. The remaining infantry sections moved leftwards and entered at the woods.
The road-bound T-70’s received immediate attention from the 50mm anti tank, but despite an
easy shot, they missed, though retained their fire (not marked opportunity fire) and when firing
again in their own part of the turn, they knocked out the leading T-70.

The Soviet truck towed 37mm anti tank guns
moved up behind Jolly Broom Supplies and
again, effective fire from Kevin’s Emporium
struck and knocked out the leading truck. The gun
section got both guns set up, ready to return fire.
Lieutenant RousellSki took his observation team

into the Supplies store, he had on-call access to
the battalion’s 81mm mortars. An infantry section
entered Whitesell Inn, giving them a view of the
church.

(The game clock generated Random Events. The Germans lost their automatic command for the
turn and the Soviets were allowed to remove one Pin marker, which came off the unit in Whitesell
Inn, one assumes that brandy played it’s part in that recovery!).
The observer team (in Jolly Broom Supplies - below photo) called in mortar fire against the
50mm anti tank team, but missed by a wide margin. Private LeeSki, who thought it should be his
turn to spot, smiled!
32
There was better luck in the woods, two Soviet rifle sections, led by Captain BleasedaleSki out
manoeuvred a German rifle section, removing it from
play after Close Combat, but each of the attacking
sections became pinned (this leaves units vulnerable
to removal).
The 50mm anti tank gun continued to fire at the

remaining T-70, a sitting duck, but missed!
0924 hours - Soviet Morale 3, German Morale

dropped to 1 for their loss and then returned to 2 when
the reinforcements entered play.
The 50mm had a charmed life, the Soviet 37mm anti tank guns went ‘out of command’ (can’t do
anything that turn) and the second round of mortar fire missed the 50mm again! but the over
shoot did land amongst a German rifle section that had moved up from Steve’s Hostelry, to hug
the rear of the hill and make their way towards the church - but casualties were minimal and the
infantry section continued with its redeployment.
Bouyed by the arrival of reinforcements (the StuG IIIe entered on the road and the two infantry
sections infiltrated into the woods), the Germans put out a tremendous rate of defensive fire,
pinning both 37mm anti tank guns and removing one of the already pinned units in the woods.

(Random Events again, the Germans pinned the rifle section in Whitesell’s Inn with sniper fire
and the Soviet’s made an Ambush fire at infantry holding the church, though without effect).
The Soviets by now had much of their force pinned, so paused while they tried to get their attack
going again, but the initiative was now firmly with the German’s. The 50mm anti tank gun
knocked out the second T-70, which it had previously ‘stunned’ and the Stug IIIe, pumping HE
shells into the Soviet anti tank guns position, pinned both guns.
Worse, the rifle section in the woods that had never managed to unpin since the Close Combat,
was hit again and removed from play. This crashed the Soviet morale to zero and everything had
to test to see if it fell back. One of the 37mm guns had had enough and they retreated off the table
and infantry vacated Whitesell’s Inn.
With their momentum totally lost and the enemy now holding the area in some strength, the
Soviets broke off the attack and retired.
Conclusions - As with Shaun’s game, the Soviet infantry were not strong enough to overcome
this defence, though the easy loss of their armour support to the 50mm gun significantly dinted
their morale, causing much of their dilemma.
In truth, the dice were probably more unfair to the Russian side as they suffered more pins and
found them harder to get rid of and the German 50mm became quite dominant, though in
another game, this might have fallen quite quickly, especially with effective off-board mortar fire.
So a fun game with goodly amount of tension as the dice fell.
33
Home Grown Hex Based Rules

I enjoy the hex / figure combination and at the moment I have three home brew sets on the go
that seem to give a good game, though invariably there is usually something to tweak. Each have
their own pages on my Commanders web page.
WWII tactical is catered for with Tigers at Minsk

in which individual tanks, weapon teams and
rifle sections are represented by a single base,
with the section light machine gun being
inherent with the base.
The original rules were designed to work on a

pinboard sized game board that nicely holds an 8
wide x 6 deep grid, though they seem to work
equally well when expanded out to a 4’ x 3’ table
with a 12 x 9 grid.
Last year a Western Front 1944 - ‘45 module was

added. This year, it is likely that British and U.S. forces will be expanded and a few scenarios will
follow, while the rules will just get a tidy up and some thought given to whether the examples of
play could be done in a more concise way to make a shorter, but better illustrated set.
As they stand, up to three bases can occupy a hex at anyone time, this means that for three tanks
to sit in a 10cm hex, the figure scale used really needs to be 12mm or smaller and even here,
fitting bases and terrain in the same hex can get a bit tight.
Some gamers have mentioned wanting to use either a bigger scale or for the rules converted to
work with a hexless table. I have a draft that I am working on for the latter and would also like to
tinker with some tweaks that might get 15mm working with the 10cm (4”) hex.
The other two rule sets are Horse and Musket based, one for Napoleonics called Eagles at Quatre
Bras (EaQB) and the other covering the American Civil War is called Two Flags - One Nation (TF-
ON). Each of these designs came from a different direction and a their first drafts at least ten
years apart.
They shared some common ground and my hope was to merge them into a single Horse and
Musket set with some additional pages to cover the American War of Independence. I did start on
that, using the TF-ON as the base set and so these rules now accommodate quite a bit of the EaQB
thinking ... However! While some merging has been possible, there are some areas that just won’t
work together and for the sake of getting a common set, I had thought of just jettisoning the
problem areas, but now am more inclined to develop separate sister sets, so that each can retain
those elements that seemed important when each was first drafted out.
EaQB have units representing brigades, with turns potentially an hour long (based upon the draw
of 4 playing cards) and unit facing being looser than the other sets because of the hourly time
frame. All of that is likely to stay, as are the formation, testing and Heavy Casualties routines.
They do feel a little awkward at times, probably because of the involved sequence of play, so it
seems smoothing that out is the main task. They have sat as a Beta version since 2015, so to
formalise a version 1 would be a step in the right direction. They were initially developed with the
Commands & Colors sized game board in mind and I used the C&C blocks when working out the
34
Quatre Bras scenario, but as much as that battle fascinates me, it is a low density battlefield and
moving to something like Danube 1809 actions might make for a sounder testing of the rules.
They are a slim set and I

am anxious not to ‘grow’
them too much and in fact
all three of the rule sets
could be re-examined with
a critical eye to try and
keep flavour in, but bring
complexity and rule size
down for a wider audience.
TF-ON are fairly well

developed. The biggest
recent change was to get
rid of the ‘Game Clock’
which allows the game to
advance in a number of
randomly determined
minutes and it was linked to combat results, such as retreat for 30 minutes etc. A nice idea, but
awkward to apply and the way the maths of turn advancement worked, there were good reasons
for returning to a simple turn based system.
However, both other rule sets use a Game Clock and I do like feature, so I think the next version
might see it return, simply as a way of marking time, events and reinforcements for narrative
reasons, in the same way as it does in the other two rule sets.
The rules are set at each unit representing a regiment (one of the main blockages of merging with
the brigade level EaQB set), which I like for this period. I might (this pains me :-)) consider some
re-basing of the 12mm armies, dropping from 40mm bases to 30mm. At the moment a regiment
has two 40mm bases and the change would simply take this to three bases. This is a lot of work
for little effect, so I am still hesitant, but 3 x 30mm gives a 90mm frontage, which looks better in
the 100mm hex, looks right in march column and also wraps around contours a bit easier. In the
photo at the top of this article, the regiment nearest
the camera has been changed to 30mm basing.
(Left - latest Hexon purchase are the half hex tiles

to give a neat straight line up either side of the
board).
As mentioned above, I have bought some Peter Pig

ACW packs to sample the scale with their 30mm x
30mm bases so I just need to see how all this
interplay of hexes, Pocket Armies and figure scale
works out.
Anyway these are all things that no doubt will get

thrashed out in the blog during 2020.
35
Answers to the Fake News Quiz

Trafalgar was fought in 1805
Napoleon fought at Marengo
The Beef Wellington was created in honour of Wellington
Abba sang Waterloo
Hannibal was the victor at Cannae
ASL is Advanced Squad Leader - a WWII tactical board game
In 1066 we saw the battles of Gate Fulford, Stamford Bridge and Hastings in that order
Opposing sides of a die should always add up to 7
The threat came from Mars
Some of them were just Nineteen ...... N.N.N.N.N. Nineteen
The Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of Midway
A Blunderbus is a gun
Vallejo Paint 918 is Ivory - a superb colour for working with or instead of whites on figures
Warwick - Richard Neville was The Kingmaker, he died at the Battle of Barnet 1471
Depending on turret design, the British called the American built M3 either Grant or Lee
Fake - Richard I was known as The Lionheart, he was born in 1157. Richard II was born 210 years
later in 1367
And there we are!

Thanks for sticking with the long read and ramble.
Hopefully there were enough bits of interest and Jolly Good Stuff here for the reader to pick their
way through and help them survive the day. For more of this High Jinx sort of content, please
check out;
The Blog at http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com
And
This is more of the
My Commanders webpage at https:// same and just
commanders.simdif.com
carrying down the
lettering
36

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BATTLEFIELDS AND WARRIORS BLOG CHRISTMAS 2019

Oh what a to-do! Above - the iconic

Looking back - 2019

From the outset, there were already changes afoot, particularly

Surprisingly this seems to have worked for a lot of years, but

continue into 2020 as more settled rhythm of gaming returns.

(Left - Photo of a cleverly presented Star Wars game

I love wargame shows, they are my self indulgent days

Anyway, all-in-all, a good 2019.

Looking Forward - 2020

It would be good to get a few of the reprints of older games on the

Finally, enthused by the recent

Nothing too heavy, just something

So, taking what was started this year

Fancy getting yourself a boardgame or two?

Anyway, all of those things aside, this

Just having one or two games tucked

Fancy getting yourself a small figures game?

A new kid on the block is Rebels and

By now, there should be plenty of videos

Anyway - worth a dabble.

A wargame terrain surface.

Of course today the commercial availability

We are all in different places in terms of

The neoprene does have the advantage that it is firm enough to

Horsey, horsey, my kingdom for a horsey!

On this trusty machine, I put a booklet together

A recent re-discovery of the booklet raised

A year in the life of the blogosphere.

This year in particular seems to have seen a number of gamers

It seems to me that bloggers blog because they enjoy

Sgt. Valerien, take your men and capture the

The Germans have an infantry platoon (3 squads) in the

Valerien ordered a final and daring assault, attempting to

Wargaming in small spaces.

The large pinboard gets it’s share of blog

The Flakey Shakey Fakey Intel report

Not wanting to be a party pooper, a sheepish Professor Poop has

Woodlands Scenic static grass applicator

They are widely available and a sheet

Well I mostly didn’t, but I was in a

McPherson Ridge - Gettysburg.

Archer (Confederate) deploys his brigade on a two

This is very effective, causing casualties and 14th

Union spotters on the ridge shout ‘Hoorah!’ As they see

As the lead elements of Meredith’s Iron Brigade, still in march

The Fake News Mince Pie Quiz

What game is best known by the abbreviation ASL? (Clue, the

What is a blunderbus? (Clue, the public transport timetable

What colour is Vallejo paint code 70.918? (Clue - this is one of

During the Wars of the Roses, who was known as The

Piggy Wiggy Woo!

Anyway, thoughts on the figures?

Scale (size - whatever!) - the advantage to my eyes

Blasting from the past - Battletech

I played Battletech as a youngster and have enjoyed

The game comes with a hexed paper map,

I painted up the two models - probably with a

The Griffin has a basic Gunnery Skill of 4. This is modified. The

Our high megapixel cameras are generally

In truth, our cameras by default are

Secondly, there is the shadow that the figure throws

Whatever your main light source is, if your camera