Spanish and Portuguese Military History,
Wargaming, and other stuff
Wargaming and Military History are the interests I pour most of my spare time into. This section concentrates on the wargaming rules I’m interested in. I’ve got quite a lot on running wargaming campaigns. I’ve also got sub-categories on: Crossfire, DBx (including DBA and HOTT), Twilight of the Sun King, Engle Matrix Games, Megablitz, Liberators QPR, Field of Glory. All other rules are lumped together.
Jamie and I played the second game of Populous, Rich and Rebellious, our four player Campaign using Tilly’s Very Bad Day, and set in the English Civil War.
Summary: At the “Battle of Montgomery”, the defending Parliamentarians (Jamie) defeated the Royalists (Steven) in five game turns.
I thought I needed a Quick Reference Sheet for Populous, Rich and Rebellious, my Campaign set in the English Civil War.
Adam, Chris and Jamie agreed to play Populous, Rich and Rebellious. As I hope you recall this is a Campaign set in the English Civil War. Chris, representing Parliament, invaded the East Midlands from London. The Royalists rose to the challenge and Adam tried to take it for the King.
Summary: At the “Battle of Ely”, the heavily outnumbered Parliamentarians defeated the Royalists in seven game turns.
I’ve been looking at trees. What trees to use for Operational level wargaming in my draft Deep Battle rule set. Since my Experiment on a 4 Inch Hex Grid I’ve gone for increasingly smaller terrain including Tiny Hills and Monopoly Buildings. And now I find my normal size 15mm trees are too big for the look I’m striving for, so I’ve gone for copses of small trees – trees that would normally be used for 5mm (1/300th) or 6mm (1/285th) scale wargames.
Having done quite a bit of research on ANZAC/Australian M113s in Vietnam, I’ve decided to change my plan for collecting them. I’ll recap my original plan from 2020 (ANZACs in Vietnam – Steven’s Wargaming Project), have a look at the kits I have today, and then outline my new, slightly more megalomaniac plans.
It is very common for game systems to give different units different to hit scores. The big question for me is, is it better to (1) give good units a higher to hit score or (2) reward higher dice rolls?
I’ve been doing some more musing on Operational level wargaming for my draft Deep Battle rule set. My Experiment on a 4 Inch Hex Grid forced me to get Tiny Hills to Fit the 4 Inch Hexes. Now I’m doing the same thing with buildings. In fact I’m using Monopoly buildings which are more like … Read more
So 2022 went okay. And now it is time to lay out my megalomaniac plans for 2023. I will try to tone them back a bit as, despite a lot of activity, I achieved depressingly few of my goals last year.
As usual I present this as a brain dump of my active projects, i.e. those all projects that are more or less “in progress”. The list is then split into three parts: likely in 2023, unlikely, and background activity.
My goals for 2022 were typically overly ambitious – some would say megalomaniac. As usual I didn’t achieve them all, less than I was hoping, but it wasn’t a bad run.
My Scots-Irish army arrived and I wanted to get them on-table, so I convinced Chris to bring over his Picts. Chris took the Picts, of course, and Adam commanded my Scot-Irish. This was Arthurian Big Base and Hordes of the Things (HoTT).
Summary: Quick Scots-Irish victory.
I’ve drawn a new table top map for the Battle of Moscow. This time I’ve gone for a square grid with one square per 60 km. This is all part of the agonisingly slow development of my Deep Battle rule set. These rules will be Operational in nature hence the grand scale of the map.
Jamie was coming over and I quickly knocked up this Crossfire scenario to continue my experiments with the revised Anti-tank rules. This time I wanted tanks on both sides and we ended up with three Panzers attacking and two Shermans in defence.
The scenario is extremely loosely based on the Coldstream Guards and Scots Greys defence of the Fosse Bridge on 13 September 1943. One of the many small actions following the Salerno landings in the Italian Campaign. Emphasis on the “extremely loosely”. At the time I only knew the battalions/regiments present and the location of the bridge which gave me a modern google map of the modern site. Not much to go on historically, but it gave a good game. I’ll write up the scenario later although a real Fosse Bridge Scenario will be quite different.
Both the Crossfire minefield rule and the Hit The Dirt bogging rule are special mechanisms using 1d6 and special outcomes. I think it is possible to align these with the normal infantry to hit dice, and without unduly affecting play. Since I’m revising the anti-tank rules to use the normal infantry to hit dice, this is a good time to tweak the bogging and anti-tank mine rules.
Adam remains keen on ‘O’ Group, and has put together an Eastern Front scenario called “Collective Farm 643”. Chris took the attacking Soviets and I had the defending Germans. Adam was umpire and provide all the kit.
Summary: Over quick. The Soviets took the direct route to the objectives and got hammered.
While I mull over the feedback I got about my previous post to revise Crossfire’s tank rules (Anti-tank Rating – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 5), I thought I’d share my thinking on infantry anti-tank weapons. Bazookas, Panzerfausts, Panzerschrecks, PIATs, and their poor relation, the anti-tank rifle.