Commands & Colors

I received my copy of Commands & Colors: Samurai Battles a week ago as part of the GMT PS500 program. Got Bayonets & Tomahawks, too!

I've been a fan of the game system since the Ancients version was released. It's card-driven, but it feels like DBA to me (remember I consider that high praise), in scale and unit treatments, with the addition of rules for attrition. I have all of the Ancients supplements, plus Medieval and Red Alert (the "space combat" variant).

Of course I am converting the games to miniatures. My plan has been to use 4" hexes and 15mm miniatures mounted on 40mm wide bases for Ancients, and that may still continue to happen, but I am also now considering using 54/60mm models for at least my "favorite historical conflict," the Punic Wars. Not intuitive, I know; we lose the "mass effect" with fewer, bigger models representing each unit. I can still use 4" hexes, like I have been doing for 15mm figures, and use one model to represent each "block" in the game, so most Ancients units will consist of 3 or 4 models. Might even be able to use some of the same hex terrain for both scales with some careful planning.

Why go this route? The main driver is I have never been totally satisfied with any of the 15mm or 28mm Republican Roman models I've encountered. I really like the John Jenkins Designs models for both accuracy (I know, right?) and drama. The Gauls are stunning.

Then, one must determine in what "world" the models will live and fight, and playability is key. These models tend to be top-heavy, so either they need wider bases for added stability on uneven terrain, or the terrain needs to be very flat and even. My French & Indian War terrain and basing is a good example of the former.

Since I am more interested in playing large battles than skirmishes, terrain can be less detailed and more abstract. . . and flat. That means the bases of the models won't need to be enlarged. One thing I do want is magnetic bases, so the models will stay put in their traveling boxes. After a bit of experimentation, I found a self-adhesive magnetic tape that can be cut to the silhouette of the base edge of the model. The tape is only 1mm thick, so with a bit of paint and flocking after the fact, it won't even be noticed, and the base will visually blend with the terrain. How strong is the magnetic effect? I applied to a "left-over" French Regular as a test and he can crawl right up a metal cabinet like Spider-Man!

Basing potentially solved; on to the terrain. How flat is flat? Can't be boring. . . and we still need to represent hills. Can't have slopes, though, for the above-mentioned reasons, and for the same reasons the "tops" of the hills have to be flat.

Years ago I purchased a quantity of GHQ Terrain Maker foam hexes; I hauled some out and started making terrain. The goal was a "scrubby" Mediterranean look. I started with a sandy brown latex house paint; literally sandy as I mixed sand into the paint. This texture hides the surface look of the foam itself. I then followed that up with 3 different colors of fine green flock, held in place with sprayed coatings of diluted white glue. Multiple, soaking coats is key. The foam hexes come in 4 different "heights," providing instant flat hills.

Some other special, easily recognized terrains are needed, too. Woods, for example. I can do Woods. Again, playability is important, so I opted for a single large tree in the center of the hex that would leave enough room for the models. For the hex base I started with the same dark brown latex house paint color I use for the French & Indian War bases and layered on some brighter green flocks and "leaf litter." Here are some Woods and Clear hexes next to each other - and not every Woods hex has to have a tree.

Can't forget about the Rough/Rocky ground. I mixed a little paper mache into the latex paint and layered on some fine gravel with a little less green flock. Goal is still as flat as possible, but the look should be "rocky." A helpful feature of the foam hex is that you can actually press any high spots down into the foam after the glue dries and spray on another layer of glue.

I haven't attempted any water features yet but have a pretty good idea of how I will handle them. Here's how the terrain looks with Roman legionaries on the advance.

A little paint and flock and the bases of the models will blend right in to the terrain. I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn I have a "house rule" or two in playtest mode. And I will still be able to skirmish since the models are individually based. "Short" distance for SAGA at this scale just happens to be the width of a 4" hex. . .

See ya!

The 47th Regiment of Foot arrives!

The hatmen of the 47th are ready for action, joining the Grenadiers from last post. They've been patiently awaiting the completion of their bases for a couple years and it feels good to have them done at long last!

 

Benjamin Martin, fictional Revolutionary War pacifist but French and Indian War "hero" is ready to take on the French, supported by various family members.

Finally, here's a teasing glimpse into another project slowly "collecting". . .
 

Be safe!

So What's New?

Well, I'm working more hours than I do normally, so I have no great stories about all the hobby projects I'm finally getting completed. . . Not playing any games, so the basing goes on. Above is a photo of the British Grenadiers from the 47th Regiment. Working on the "hatmen" still. No photo, but I also finished up 3 French and 3 British artillery crews.

Been tinkering a bit with solo rules for both DBA 3.0 and Commands and Colors: Ancients, but really most free time I have right now is going toward completing bases.

I did pick up 2 new rule sets in the last month or so. I supported the Kickstarter for Clash of Spears, a skirmish game set in Ancient times, in particular, the Punic Wars.

They had me at "Punic Wars." Scale is small-unit; around 6-12 soldiers per unit. I really like the deployment system; it reminds me a little of Sharp Practice 2. It's different but also uses a concept of "deployment points" that is a fun alternative to the "line up and go" of some Ancients games. The rest may seem familiar. . . roll to hit, roll to save, lots of traits and customization possible. Haven't played it yet. Lots of pretty eye candy.

The other set is Muskets & Tomahawks 2. 

Another very pretty hardback book. Same basic game as the original version, but with some streamlining and clean-up. The command system has been re-vamped; the optional hand management system from the original version is now standard, and an interesting additional system of command points has been overlaid to provide more tactical flexibility. Like Sharp Practice 2, Muskets & Tomahawks 2 is a broader volume covering all theaters of "black powder" warfare, not just the colonial wars in North America. To get the army lists and specific rules for said North American conflicts, a second softcover book is required: Redcoats & Tomahawks.

Not sure that this will ever replace my "go to" Muskets and Mohawks, but I am sure I will at least give it a test-run.

And while we're talking about small-unit skirmish rules (I just realized we have a theme going now), check out Wiley Games' new Fistful of Lead offering:

Stay Safe!

I'm back again. . . and playtesting

Didn't realize I was gone again, did ya? Well, I had that second partial knee replacement surgery 3 weeks ago. I have two straight legs again, but it will take a few months of physical therapy and some hard work to have them working at peak efficiency again. Sigh. . .

For a little distraction that doesn't require much heavy lifting, I am helping to playtest a game that covers - you guessed it - the French and Indian War. Bayonets & Tomahawks is a GMT P500 game, and I've been watching its development since it was first added to the list. Go here to check it out; discussions with the developer (yes, I got involved) and a good look at playtest components. GMT is also the home of some of the Commands and Colors series of games: Ancients, Napoleonic and soon, Samurai Battles.

A little bit about Bayonets & Tomahawks from the GMT site:

I think this game will make a great campaign vehicle for generating our F&IW battles. It's focus on the operational aspects of the conflict as opposed to the political (not ignored!) should lead to meaningful battles as well as lots of opportunities for raiding and low level skirmishes.

Unit scale meshes perfectly with my troop collection: Brigades at about 3 times the size of light units and war parties. My regulars are organized in 3 10-man units with light troops as single 10-man units. Best of all, the units are simple representations of manpower, whose unit strengths and weaknesses are utilized by the game's battle system rather than abstract strength points with pros and cons already factored in. This should make it simple to transfer the battles to the tabletop, to be fought with miniatures, with one's miniature rules of choice accounting for potential unit performance.

An incredible amount of research has gone into this game - obvious if you check out the InsideGMT articles on the GMT site. The map really shines; it's based on contemporary renderings as opposed to "period" place-names superimposed onto a "google-earth" map. I am a fan of this approach. It really transports you back to the 18th Century wilds of North America. At least, if you're open to said transport ; )

Here's a shot of the print and play components all ready for . . . play. 

More later as I actually get in some games. See ya!
 

Red Alert! I'm back!

Red Alert! I'm back! I'm back? You didn't notice I hadn't posted for a couple of months? Well, the Red Alert isn't for me. . . more on me at the end of this post. First, the gaming content.

Richard Borg and PSC games launched a Kickstarter for a new space fleet game, and I'm all in: Red Alert. It uses the tried and true Commands and Colors board game system that started with the American Civil War, then moved into WW2, Ancients, Napoleonics, WW1 and now to what would seem an unlikely genre, space fleet combat. I am a fan of
Commands and Colors: Ancients from GMT Games and have played a lot of games using 15mm miniatures. I also own and play Commands and Colors: Samurai Battles by Zvezda.

So, does this system work for "space combat?" The kickstarter actually posts the complete rules for download. 

I really like the "fleet" aspect and emphasis on "positional" warfare as opposed to "dogfighting in space" like WW2 airplanes. My plan will be to exchange the multiple miniatures per unit to track losses with the individual 1/2500-scale Star Trek miniatures, tracking losses with "shield" markers instead of additional ship miniatures. That will mean about 12 ships (plus fighters) per side. The game ships in March 2019, which should be enough time to build the models, but we'll see!

Here are a few images from the Kickstarter. Hurry, if you're interested, it closes in about 40 hours.

So where have I been? Getting new knees. Or, at least getting the first of two partial knee replacements. Hereditary osteoarthritis and years of martial arts training finally made the replacements essential, at least if I want to be able to walk for more than 15 minutes at a time! Surgery, rehab exercises and a full-time-plus job is cutting into hobby time. Plan is to get the second knee done in the fall.

I decided NOT to leave you with a Cluck-Amok-style selfie featuring my new scar : )

 

While on the subject of scale. . .

 Last week I played my first game of DBA 3.0 at Village Games in Champlin. Three games, actually. This latest update of DBA is the best DBA ever. I'll provide more on the games played in an upcoming post. That same day, after playing 3 games of DBA, I watched a local Star Trek: Attack Wing tournament for a little while. The day of gaming got me to thinking about my last post on Star Trek "scale." Though Star Trek: Attack Wing uses ridiculously scaled-down "ranges," it didn't keep me from enjoying "the game." The same way that playing with twelve elements of around fifty total 28mm models to represent an army of maybe 50,000 soldiers is enjoyable - see the photo above. 

Once I enter the "game world" I accept the "world" we've constructed with our rules and our models and just. . . play the game. In between games I think about how I need more models to create a more realistic impression of the masses of soldiers that were present on ancient battlefields. . . like this photo of some 15mm models based for the Command and Colors:Ancients rules (I was working on rules for the Republican Roman Legions). . .

It looks really cool but I have just as much fun with 12 elements of 50 soldiers. . .  at least during the game. So how do I explain - or rationalize - the scale and size of my French and Indian War project? Obsession, I suppose. . .

Happy Fourth of July! Freedom is good.

Project List

As promised in an earlier post, following is the list of projects that I have undertaken, prioritized in the order of my favorite historical or fantasy genres, using the premises developed and described in my previous post.

Helpful Hint: Please read my previous post as the introduction to this list.

The Baron lately wrote about games he felt defined him, many of which he played as a youth. I didn't play RPGs or miniatures games in my youth, so I wasn't relating to his post. And then it dawned on me that my obsession with hexes, and using boardgames as foundations for miniatures games, is most likely directly descended from the board wargaming I did during my middle- and high-school years! A friend of my dad gave me 4 used Avalon Hill games the summer before my 8th grade year and I can't tell you how many times I played my two favorites, Afrika Korps and Battle of the Bulge. I discovered SPI shortly thereafter. I was a model and diorama builder as a kid, and somehow also knew that people gamed with their models. I owned and pored over the D&D Mass Battle Rules, Chivalry & Sorcery, the Hinchcliffe Barsoomian Battle and Roleplaying Manuals, Angriff! and actually painted some Miniatures for Starguard!, but I never played a miniatures game until I "came back" to wargaming after discovering DBA in the early nineties.

What has this to do with my project list? I made the decision about 4 years ago to focus on 4 major game projects - beyond the "space" I had carved out for HOTT (actually Great Hordes! which I consider HOTT with extras) - all of which were based on boardgames that used the hexagon to regulate game play. Thanks to The Baron I now know why - the "why" can always be traced to one's childhood : )

So without further ado:

1) Ancients: Macedonian and Punic Wars

The Punic Wars is hands-down my favorite historical period. I would be happily gaming away in this period with Great Hordes! in 28mm except that you can't represent the Republican Roman manipular formations without some nod to attrition in the rules, and I couldn't find 28mm Romans that I liked. Not figures that weren't "right" or "good," but that I LIKED. When Xyston finally got around to Romans in 15mm that I LIKED, that led me to revisit 15mm as a scale of "epic grandeur."

And then I found the board game Command and Colors: Ancients from GMT Games. Simple, but not simplistic, with an elegance of play akin to DBA with the added concepts of attrition and skirmishers that "shoot." Troop types give good period flavor, and BIG multi-player battles play FAST. Although, Command and Colors: Ancients does not currently properly represent (subjective rant will appear in subsequent post) Roman manipular tactics, the game system is robust enough to suffer the "appropriate tinkerings." I reluctantly traded the pips of DBA for the cards of Command and Colors: Ancients.

Could I finally commit to scale? As much as I like 28mm miniatures, they just don't feel as "epic" as masses of 15s, even when using masses of 28s. I can't personally go smaller than 15s; there just isn't enough interesting detail in Ancients to make painting anything smaller worthwhile. When Xyston finally released Romans I LIKED, I jumped into the period again because Xyston is a great range with all of the Ancients armies I want.

Next I had to commit to basing. Agony. I tried various combinations of base sizes and numbers of figures on all several different sizes of hexes, but I eventually decided on standard DBA basing on the 4" Hexon terrain I already own. Kallistra's Hexon terrain allows the miniature battlefield to be modeled in a realistic, dimensional manner. I am doubling the infantry stands (2 stands = one block) for more mass and may re-base the cavalry so they have more mass, too, but the standard basing will allow me to play with other people's toys, and to play DBA or even DBMM if I am ever so inclined. This is a photo (teaser!) of 5 15mm Carthaginian units (2 infantry stands per block) with the Romans (also 5 units worth) in their manipular formation opposing:

Possible scheme for Cavalry on the right; standard on the left: 

I am finally satisfied enough to commit so I can start gaming my favorite period again.

My only completed Ancients army is this Carthaginian army, consisting mainly of Essex miniatures, that I originally painted and based for DBM. It has seen many a DBM and Great Hordes! game, as well as allowing its Punic, Numidian, Gallic and Spanish elements to be used as separate DBA armies. At some point I plan to replace it with Xyston miniatures, but the next army on the painting table in this project will be Roman! Until then, here are the Carthos, with a few extras for "morphing."

The Generals:

Punic Cavalry:

Sacred Band and Libyan Spear:

Numidian Light Horse:

Libyan and Numidian Psiloi:

Elephants:

Heavy Chariots and Artillery:

Baggage:

 Iberian Light Horse:

Iberian Psiloi:

Iberian Scutarii: 

Gallic Psiloi: 

Gallic Warbands: 

Gallic Cavalry: 

Gallic Light Chariots and Horse: 

  

2) French and Indian War

This project began as an adaption of the boardgame Hold the Line from Worthington Games. I thought if I used the John Jenkins 54mm figures and these simple rules I coud get this project up and running quickly. The figures were the right idea, but I wasn't happy with the representation of the wooded terrain I was getting with the hexes. Instead I opted for more traditional geomorphic terrain squares and rules that provided more period flavor: This Very Ground. I also have the flexibility to play at a more man-to-man skirmish scale. You can see more of this project in my earlier posts.

3) World War Two: North Africa

The plan is to use Tide of Iron from Fantasy Flight Games with an amended battalion level order system, perhaps similar to Spearhead. Or I might just play Spearhead. Scale is 1/285; Miniatures are all GHQ MicroArmor. The Baron did some initial painting of armor for me, to which I will add detail, weathering and then base. Lots of infantry need painting, too. Terrain will either be Hexon or GHQ Terrainmaker hexes. Photos will come when something gets completed. . .

4) Crimson Skies

This was to be my nod to skirmish gaming. No adaptations here; just the straight-up oop board game from FASA and the miniatures from Ironwind Metals (originally Ral Partha) played on Hotz Artwork mats. You can get into the game with just 2 model airplanes. We played a lot of this in Tulsa and had a lot of fun with the "roleplay lite" aspects of the alternate history. I plan to post a lot more on this project, nostalgic happenings and new, in the future.

Additional Projects. . .

Of course I have more projects I want to do . . . and for which I have collected miniatures, terrain and assorted rulesets. For the following I am currently contemplating either playing Great Hordes! or some set of skirmish rules to be determined after more research:

Ancients: Classical Greece through the Roman Principate

Samurai: Ge Koku Jo / Fantasy

Conquistadors / Aztecs

Norman Conquest: England and Italy/Sicily

Dark Age Fantasy; “Broken Sword” theme per Poul Anderson

World War Two North Africa / Italy

Barsoom (This will definitely be skirmish scale)

StarSoldier (A pet project with extreme science-fiction aspects, not just beefed up moderns)


Whew. I probably won't post much more Blah Blah Blah this summer. I got some F&IW stuff to get done to do Recruits XX justice. I'll post as I get stuff done, though.


See ya!