2021 Review/2022 Plans

 

It's still only mid January so I can just about sneak in a "what I did in 2021/what I plan to do in 2022" blog post.

What I Planned to do in 2021 and Actually Did!

The big one was undoubtably Waterloo60, with most of the early lock down being spent doing terrain, and most of the summer! There were also at least 4 practice games, 2 by Zoom, so quite honestly I'm not surprised if my plans to do other things took a beating (not that they've improved since August!).

Painting wise I did some ECW, some more Russians (2 batches) and some WOTR - so at least a bit of each. Post August seems to have been mainly on different varieties of Albedo ACP164 figures! I did in my defence paint 6 entire armies - all in 2mm - for Napoleonic and WW2 ready for my portable wargame.

Games wise I did manage to get through four different 1984 period Company-level rules sets as part of the Company Mega-Test, and will get started on the WW2 rules in the next month or so. I did managed the 2nd Battle of Newbury, twice.

There were several games of ACP164 (Pebble Park should be in MW&BG shortly - second article I wrote in 2021), and of Stargrave and Five Parsecs and hybrids. ACP164 still wins as a on-the-table game system although Five Parsecs has a nice campaign wrapper.

And that was about that!

What I Planned to do in 2021 and Didn't Do!

Most of this lot!

No Napoleonic decadal battle, only one batch each of WOTR/ECW/Nap, only one ECW battle, no WOTR battle, no modern 28mm (to be fair the Kickstarter still hasn't arrived!). The 10mm WW2 was bought at Salute but is still next to paint. Apart from the MegaTest no further on BAOR gaming, but plans for the urban terrain gathering. Figures bought and painted, scenery made and boxes filled for the portable wargame, but no game played yet! Given COVID (that's my excuse) not battlefield walks or visits, but lots of  Zoom lectures!

What I Plan to do in 2022

Waterloo61 planning has started, hoping to do in May, which means that the we may even get to do Quatre Bras in the autumn. Luckily no new terrain needed for Waterloo61, and probably little for QB, and figures wise I just want to do about 6 new French battalions as I had to use some really ropey Airfix ones for Waterloo60. Also plan to do at least one Russian batch, and possibly a British Peninsular batch. One decadal battle and finally play General d'Armee and possibly one or two  of the other new Napoleonic sets (assuming more don't come out in 2022!)

One more WOTR batch (last before I move on to 100YW), and possibly last for a long while ECW batch. At least one battle for each period (well underway already for WOTR!).

Paint the 10mm WW2 and use them to complete the Company MegaTest. Possibly start the Battalion MegaTest (looking forward to playing 'O' Group) but that might be 2023. Do at least one BAOR game. Build out my 10mm urban terrain. Warrior/BTR in 10mm possibly towards the end of the year.

Once the 28mm Moderns arrive (Ultramodern Kickstarter) actually get them on the table. Get the ACP164 ILR Assault troops painted and on the table, and also play with the ACP164 terrorists (start the Almata campaign?) Probably not much else SF unless I can start a Five Parsecs campaign as a background task.

Try and write 3 articles (not counting Pebble Park which comes out in 2022 but was written last year). Have drafts for at least that many so should be do'able.

That should keep me busy! There is also one huge project starting, but more on that anon.

What I Plan to do Somewhen

A couple of ideas have been on the list for ages, but I've still not got around to them, and can't see that changing in 2022:

• A "Dark Materials" wargames army in 28mm, and find a suitable set of rules (just love the idea of painting all those daemons!
• Creating a 3D Catan set out of Hexon terrain hexes (have almost all the bits, just need to sort how to do roads and towns)
• Play some games with the 1/2400 (?) WW2 Naval I bought nearly a decade ago!
• Play Phil Sabin's Fire and Manoeuvre on Hexon 
• Finish the 100 Days campaign Nick and I started well pre-COVID (just needs the Battle of Hal - one for Rose Hill Wargaming Group?)
• Start a new Napoleonic campaign with Nick - central Europe?
• Start my own ECW campaign
• Bigger 2mm armies on 10cm hexes for BIG Napoleonic Battles on a small scale

That should all keep me busy!

Donestk: Battle for the Airport

 

Donestk: Battle for the Airport is a small folio game by Tiny Battle Publishing (also published in Flying Pig Games's Yaah! magasine, so annoyingly I bought it twice!). It represents the multiple fights over Donestk Airport by the Ukrainian Army and Dontesk Separatists in 2014/2015. Not my usual fare but the reasoning will hopefully become clear in a few weeks!

Presentation

PDF for $17 ($28 printed). 14 pages, including 4 scenarios, game notes and a 1 page QRS. All nicely laid out. One counter sheet (double sided) and an A3 size colour map. Didn't take long to get it all printed out. Didn't bother to mount on card stock or anything.

Set-Up

I played the first, introductory scenario, where about a company of Separatists had sized the terminal buildings, and a company (-) of Ukrainians, with close air support was sent to oust them. Separatists set up anywhere (but in the terminal is the sensible place), and Ukrainians start on the board edge.

How It Played

I decided to hold the Coy Comd back on the board edge to bring down the close air support and then put a platoon in on each flank. The air support wasn't devastating given the solidity of the buildings and only 50% effective on lower floors but was enough to soften the Separatists to the point where one platoon could (at the second attempt) storm the building. As they started to clear rooms the second platoon which was attacking over more open ground in the East got repeatedly pinned by the Separatist team atop the Old Terminal and survived several airstrikes. The Pl Comd got hit and pulled back into the Metro while his BTR's gradually weakened the Separatists in the Multi-Storey. On Turn 6 the Separatist hit their hesitation level, and so on Turn 7 the Ukrainian just had to choose their positions to surround the Separatists and it was all over. 

Game Impression

Pretty good game. Interesting that the rules were a differential CRT rather than the more "traditional" ratio CRT I'm used too. A few gaps/unclear points but otherwise the core mechanics worked well and certainly gave you some sense of the battle. I'll try and play one of the more complex scenarios next week.

Bills, Bows and Bloodshed Rules Test

 

#2 in this series of 4 or 5 medieval rules play-throughs.

Presentation

32pp (? - no page numbers! no index!) stapled A4 book with glossy card covers. No diagrams, just some dense "tutorial" colour images at the end. Two copies (nice) of a 2 page QRS. VERY text heavy, not a single real table or even bullet point. Some nice info on livery colours though. Written by Barry Slemmings with Graham Towers. I picked my copy up from Barry himself at Salute. Available from him on eBay at https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144287669442

Had to go up to the loft whilst the game was in progress, so nice overhead shot!

Set-Up

Mortimer's Cross again, just hit reset after abandoning the Flower of Chivalry game.

How It Played

Far better. The Yorkist horse and bowmen ambushed the Lancastrian left flank. The Courror's brushed aside their opposite number and rode straight on to catch Warwick with only his own personal guard. Luckily Warwick is made of stern stuff and his DMAA managed to fight the Currours. The bowmen pinned the advancing Lancastrians allowing Yorkist Bow and Bill to start inflicting casualties. On the opposite flank the Lancastrian bow crossed the river, but by the time they got to an enfilade position the game was pretty much over. Just left of them, on the "home" side of the river the Lancastrian handgunners did a reasonable job of trading shots with the Yorkist archers. The main effort came as the Lancastrians hit the Yorkist line on an ~3 unit front. They had their best success on the right, alongside the handgunners, routing the Yorkist archers and getting in  a tussle with the second line bill. The other two units though were stopped by the Yorkist archers, who then let their bill and DMAA through to finish off the weakened Lancastrians. The final move of the game saw the lone penetrating Lancastrian bill unit make contact with Edward and his retainers just outside the village, but like Warwick he fought them off and victory was claimed.

Rules Impressions

I think that Bills, Bows and Bloodshed is one of those cases of having a good ruleset struggling to get out. As mentioned above the whole thing is really just solid text, with no nicely laid out tables to help grasp/find the key points. The QRS is basically the same text as the main rules with just some of the paragraphs dropped. The core rules are fine though, pretty classic 1D per stand, roll 4-6s or whatever to hit, plus saving throw. Movement is variable, 2 x Average Dice, which I like. Morale though has 11 triggers (and if more than one roll dice multiple times and choose worse - nice!) and 55 (!) modifiers. To be fair the rules say that once you get the hang of it you'll roll the 2 x Average Dice and if they're good assume a pass, and if possibly bad do the tests, which is what I did start to do, but even so. One issue is that the rules do account for almost every situation, and have lots of Nationality modifiers. 

There are two big (huge?) omissions:

• There is no activation/command & control/ friction system. This is old school units do what you tell them unless they fail a charge morale test. A huge contrast to Flower of Chivalry that almost goes to the other extreme.
• There seem to be no victory conditions or army morale, so every game is a game to the death?

On the plus side though the rules do allow you to have mixed bill/bow units (which modern research seems to suggest was possible/common), allows bow to fire into second ranks, allows bow to risk withdrawing through the bill behind and a host of other niceties which a lot of other rules miss - so Barry certainly knows his period (as befits a long time member of the Lance and Longbow Society) and gaming.

Overall

The rules are good enough though that I'm almost tempted to do my own QRS, or I might just steal a few bits for my own rules. If I as doing a QRS I think I'd do 2 versions, one a "quick play" which just pulls out the main DMs and loses lesser weapons/Nationalities, and one with everything. They would be though JUST tables, quick and easy to read. Despite the negatives the actual rules are as good as, and probably better than most medieval I've played, but just let down really badly by presentation.

Edward's turn to fight off the attack!

Flower of Chivalry Rules Test

 

The next cycle of probably 4-5 games are all War of the Roses based, testing out various rules sets. Christmas delayed getting it all going, and probably not helped by my first choice of rules - Flower of Chivalry (FoC).

Presentation

80 page pdf by the Canadian Wargamers Group, published in 1993! The rules only take up about 6 pages, with about 18 pages of useful background and 50 odd pages of scenarios and army lists. Probably worth the £15-£22 price just for the non-rules content. Simple text, no photos, simple diagrams, pretty old-school.

Set-Up

I used Mortimer's Cross (1641) as the scenario. The FoC scenario implies that the battle was fought E-W, with the Yorkists protecting the bridge behind them to the E. However this gives little depth and the Lancastrians have to reform after exiting the woods and hills to the W and the Yorkists having the river to their backs. Recent research seems to suggest that a N-S orientation was more likely, the  Lancastrians moving N from Hereford towards the crossing, with the Yorkists defending just to the S of it, so this is what I played.

Each side had 3 battles, each with about 3 elements (missiles, bill, DMAA), which took up all my WOTR figures. That gives about 1:25 figure to man ratio, and on a 6' x 4' table each 10cm square is about 50m.

How It Played

Not very well. The Lancastrians fought off the flank charge by the Yorkist Courrors and closed with the Yorkist line. There was an extended melee but after 2-3 hours play I lost heart.

Rules Impressions

Just didn't work for me. Having to decide on a Aggressiveness and the roll for BattleLust for every Battle every turn just seemed over the top - would have worked fine as a per game decision, but then still rolling every turn? There's something in the whole idea, but not in how it was implemented. Firing was pretty simple, roll under target, and the casualties being the number rolled if successful a nice idea. Melee ditto. Morale was a roll under a %, with a -10/20% off per stand lost. So the rest of the core mechanic were fine but the explanations, particularly about the command and control just all seemed so confusing, and the activation mechanism so tedious I just lost the will to play.

Overall

Worth buying for the source information and scenarios alone, but not for the rules.