Natholeon
eldannardoI’ve taken the plunge and resprayed all of the Flames of War vehicles that we bought second hand off Paul earlier this year. No stripping – just a coat of Chaos Black, and start all over again. However, it has taken next to no time, to drybrush the desert yellow basecoat on all of them. Just the final camo patterns and little touch ups left to do, and there isn’t much more. Here’s the first three vehicles to begin with – a StuG platoon:
And I’ve been a bit quiet about it, but the Foundry English Civil War figures turned up a month or so ago. I’ve finally got time (it is the school holidays) so I’m slowly basing them up. But I couldn’t resist a test model to paint:
The first Musketeer of Sir John Norton’s Regiment of Foote. Never heard of it? That’s because I made it up. All of my regiments will be fictional for a campaign. It gives me some leeway to make up colours and narratives. Sir John is based upon one of my wargaming colleagues, and will be given a randomly determined personality for the campaign.
Now, some more WWI British to paint…
Nate
Victor Frank and Ivanna Legova
Victor Frank was born in the Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, in 1897. He gained a scholarship to Victoria University at the age of 16 and studied anthropology, archaeology and classics. His superior intellect saw him graduate at the age of 18, and on his birthday he enlisted as an officer in the Wellington regiment in order to serve in the Great War.
Vic saw plenty of service in the first half of 1918 and gained a reputation as a brave and capable leader of men. In his downtime he learned German and in the latter half of 1918 was moved to the staff. It was here that he was seconded to a classified section of the British Army, namely the Office for the Investigation of Strange Happenings, or OISH for short. He was introduced to a new war, the occult war, being waged in secret in the background.
Vic was put in charge of a mission to be flown into Germany and locate and destroy a laboratory in the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) that was suspected of working on new terror weapons for Germany, akin to their chemical warfare programme. The team that Vic lead into Germany uncovered a project to create automatons out of the body parts of deceased soldiers. Vic’s team put the laboratory out of commission but the scientist in charge, Dr von Kleinewanger, managed to escape.
After several more similar missions the war ended and the New Zealand troops went home. Vic decided to stay in his work with OISH, which now faced even greater threats form the godless Communists of Russia. It was well known that Imperial Russia was in possession of many objects of great occult power, some of which had been captured by Germnay (the focus of at least 2 wartime missions for Vic) but others that were unaccounted for. Vic was despatched to Russia with a highly skilled team, and was soon engaged in a number of missions to thwart the Soviet Occultists. From the Caucasus to the Siberian wastes, to Africa and South America, Vic clashed with top Soviet agents,and none more bitterly than Commissar Ivan Legov.
Legov and Vic fought some famous battles, the British usually getting the better of their counterparts, until in 1931 Stalin suspended the operations of the Soviet Secret Investiagtions Committee (SIC). Vic retired from active service and took up a post lecturing at Oxford University. Not long after the First World War ended he had begun to drink in order to cope with some of the bizarre sights he had seen. Gradually he became an alcoholic, and ran into quite a bit of trouble from being intoxicated at inappropriate times, like in the middle of lectures. Fortunately, he was still incredibly lucid even when totally drunk, and his students loved him.
In 1936 OISH received a message from their old adversary, Commissar Legov. Legov said that he had noone else to turn to, and that he needed help. It turned out that Legov was a likely target of Stalin’s purges, due to his friendship with Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevskii. Getting wind of this, Legov realised that his whole family was in danger, and was asking for help in defecting from Russia. He had turned to his old enemies and OISH was keen to gain his expertise.
With OISH short of agents due to budget restrictions, Vic was called back from retirement and asked to lead the team that would rescue Legov. Vic arrived too late to save Legov’s wife, but managed to get the Commissar and his daughter Ivanna out of Russia. But on arrival in London they were surprised by an NKVD agent and Legov was shot. Vic managed to defeat the Agent, but Legov was mortally wounded. As a last act he made peace with his old foe, and asked him to look after his teenage daughter. The only condition was that Vic had to raise her to maintain her Communist ideals. Vic soon found this was easy enough, as the 16 year old Ivanna could quote Marx and Lenin verbatim, and often fell into rants about the Capitalist Imperialist powers and their fundamental flaws. She didn’t like the decadence of the west, but she hated Stalin more, and so made up her mind to go along with the capitalist system until Stalin was removed and the world could become freely and happily Communist.
OISH now needed as much help as possible. The Occult threat had raised its head again, but this time the enemy was Nazi Germany. And the the Nazis were pouring huge resources into their Occult division. OISH was reluctant to enlist an alcoholic and a raving red into their field office, but the two ended up in a situation where they were fighting against the Nazis to recapture the Golden Fleece (a mission that Vic had already undertaken for OISH against Soviet Russia 18 years earlier). It was a stunning success. OISH were convinced. In 1937 Vic was asked to assemble a team and return to active service… after he finished his drink…
Filed under: DBA and variants, DBD, Wargaming, Wargaming works in progress
Just a quick update. Finished another three elements for my DBD French army – the General with the Maison du Roi; the Gardes Francaises; and a unit of Horse:
I also thought that I’d take a look at putting together a colour scheme for a Space Marine chapter. This chapter will be called the Companions, and modelled on the Macedonian Army of Alexander the Great. I chose purple initially as it reminded me of Barney the Dinosaur, and I thought this would be a fun theme, but purple and green was simply too garish!
Perdiccas here is hopefully the start of a small Space marine force.
Nate
Filed under: Battle reports, DBA and variants, DBD, Wargaming, Wargaming works in progress
I’ve just finished a playtest of my rules mechanics for solo wargaming in the age of Louis XIV. It was a chance to try out my DBD modifications and see if I could play an’impartial’ game. The scenario and battle report are below…
The Battle of Kleine Muffinstadt
In this scenario one side is marching onto the battlefield having undertaken a surprise march. The defender is camped betwen the Flusswasser and the village of Muffinstadt. 2d6 are rolled to determine how many elements the defender has ready, and how many elements the attacker has on the board. Another die roll determines the direction the attacker will enter from, and for subsequent elements the roll is made again. A list of elements is made, each given a number, and 2d6 used to determine which elements are present or not. The General’s element is always present. Throughout the game, any elements that didn’t arrive initially are rerolled for. I made an error here, and made the artillery a 12. As this is a rare element, you are better off having it as a 7 – more chance of getting it. This is because there are 5 entries each for Horse and Foot, so quite a good chance of rolling for them. At any rate, the upshot was that the French never got their artillery out of the camp.
The battlefield looked like this, Kleine Muffinstadt in the top left corner, the camp beside it, the Flusswasser running from top to bottom, two roads and the Muffinberg hill in the centre:
The first die roll confirmed that the Imperialists were attacking the French. But the French obviously had plenty of piquets about, as three quarters of their army was deployed when the Imperialists began to arrive. Initial deployment was as follows:
Turn 1 saw the Imperialists advance down the road towards Kleine Muffinstadt. The general and the Horse regiments were in the van with the foot in the centre and the artillery bringing up the rear. This wasnot preordained by dice, this was my decision, and one that I would alter next time. It would have been better to have a mixed vanguard, as will later be seen. Meanwhile the French advanced, and an element of Horse left the camp.
Next the Imperialists began to deploy their Horse, hoping to charge in before the foot could completely deploy. The last foot element appeared coming down the other road. The French made ready to secure the Muffinberg with a unit of Horse, and swing the battleline so that its flanks rested on Kleine Muffinstadt and the Muffinberg. Another element of horse left the camp and joined its partner in an advance.
The two sides continued to move towards each other. It was about here, as the shooting began, that I forgot a crucial thing for DBx games. You are meant to add the factors for the elements to the die roll! I remembered to do all the grading, but couldn’t work out why things were dying so easily. Then I realised what I’d done wrong! I put everything back 2 turns and started again! This is the situation in the reworked turn three…
Now that I knew what I was doing, it was time for combat. Their was no bias in what I was doing – the PIP dice made sure of that! Both sides were getting ome good rolls, but trying to sort out a battle line for the Imperialists was growing increasingly difficult. The infantry were still forming up as the Horse entered into battle! Meanwhile, the French were creating a sound battleline. The horse and Dragoons met on the slopes of the Muffinberg, and shooting from the French infantry destroyed an element of horse.
The Dragoons died, sending the flanking horse recoiling. The situation at the beginning of Turn 5 looked as follows:
Turn 5 saw the French Horse on the Muffinberg recoiled by an element of shot, but also the loss of the Imperialist general! I didn’t end the game there, though. I decided that it was typical of this time for the battle to continue with troops blissfully unaware of their general’s death (as at Lutzen when Gustavus Adolphus was killed). As I could make up the rules as I went along, I did decide that the their would be a -1 penalty to the Imperialist PIP die roll for the rest of the game.
The Imperialists rolled a 6 – the best possible reult – for their first leaderless PIP roll. It enabled them to form a good line of battle with their infantry, but it was all in vain. A last element of horse succumbed to a deadly crossfire, and the Imperialists were defeated (I play the 4 elements lost army breakpoint rule). The infantry retreated to the south, screened by the last 2 elements of Horse:
What did I learn? Well, first off, the DBD rules modifications work. I was quite happy with the combats. Secondly, keep Horse supported with foot if possible and advance only after you are happy with your batleline. Third, definitely don’t use Dragoons as your head on attacking element against horse – wipe out! Finally, solo wargaming is fun! I really enjoyed the game, and the ability to play through a scenario with rules, but then alter them without having to convince anyone that it is a good idea worked really well! The scenario was designed with the intention that the battlelines would only form slowly, but 2 big dice rolls meant that the Imperialists were at a bit of a disadvantage from the get-go, as the French were pretty much totally deployed from the beginning. But that is how it goes – you can’t guarantee your plan will work. When I start the real campaign with these guys, this type of scenario will be modified quite a bit to take account of scouting points etc.
Time to get the 2 sides all painted now, I guess. It took me one and a half hours to paint my first foot unit – the Orleans regiment, and I’m sure that it would only take 3 hours or so to paint 4 elements. I’m not being pretty with them – at gaming distance there is very little detail to see, so they are getting a basic paint job, and it seems to work. Here is a close up of the Orleans boys:
No wargames fashion police please! I’m quite aware that these guys might not have had red breeches and stockings, but its my army and I’ll paint it for effect, thankyou very much! I’ll keep posting pictures as the rest of the figures get done.
Nate
The last of the WWI Germans were painted yesterday. I now have enough figures for my 750, 1000, and 1500 point Warhammer Great War forces. I’ve taken a quick photo of them in the cabinet, but missed the command figs, the artillery, the tanks and aircraft out. It is night time, so apologies for the poor photograph. It does give you a general impression of the force though:
I think it is only fair to mention that this cabinet has a mirrored back, so the first impression is twice as much as what is really there. :( Now I just have to help Dan finish the British. They should be ready in about a month!
Nate
