Fresh off the press - WW2 stuff

Here are the trucks for the battalion of British infantry I painted a week or two ago, plus the battalion command stand.

The battalion command stand. A K2 ambulance with a medical officer asking for directions.

I could have done this piece as a 'non-useful' diorama piece. But, having thought about it, I decided to use it as a command stand. Doing it this way means that my ambulance will actually drive about a bit and get used - it also saves on cost.

 Another battalion of British infantry.

Plus transport and command stand.

I have also revisited my desert basing. Initially, I wanted bases to show that the desert of WW2 was not the 'sand sea' of Beau Geste. However, in doing so, I think I lost the sameness of 'dun colour', so often referred to in first hand accounts, with too much green. The desert was all the same colour with different textures.

So I've gone back over the lot, staining out the green with brown ink and dry brushing with the 'base colour'.

Now my desert bases look like this. I'm much happier with them now.

Painting Report - Budget units

 A Russian hussar regiment. In this case, the Serbski Regiment in cornflower blue. This unit should have 'tall' fur hats, but eBay could only provide me with short ones. These figures were £2 a pop, and I'll take the short fur hats, thank you. SYW experts might wince, but I'm happy to compromise - after all, I'm from the generation of war gamers who.....

 

4th Grenadier Regiment. This unit still needs a flag.

This latest units has a couple of ringers in it. I have sawed off some tricorns and replaced them with miters. I have replaced an NCO standard bearer's flag staff with a musket. Ebay can only go so far in providing what you want, but with a little time and effort it can be just enough. If you look VERY closely - but, who the hell does.

In these times of austerity........

The Battle of Paestium - Nero's Cannae

And so, after a short break,  the campaign continues. We left the campaign just as Nero was about to strike a decisive blow for Rome by knocking Hannibal out of Italy and the war. He attacked at Paestium which is in the region of modern Salerno. I looked at this area on Google Earth; the coastal plain south of Salerno is wide and very, very flat - it is the perfect place for a battle. I set the table with a few places of 'Type II' scrub land and left it at that.

The Romans fielded a total of 76 Unit Integrity points to represent the 12 CU Nero had brought to the battle. Hannibal fielded 57 UI to represent the 9 he had brought. Nero drew 7 characterisation cards (8 for UI, minus 1 for being two command grades less than Hannibal).
Hannibal also drew 7 characterisation cards (5 for UI, plus 1 for being two command grades better than Nero, plus the 1 for just being Hannibal).

 

The shots above show the two hands of characterisation cards for each army. You should have seen Nero's face when he discovered the lack of morale chip cards he had drawn (right) in comparison to Hannibal: The Roman army wasn't up for it at all.

As Scrotivius wrote:

"....the 'Pride of Rome' would rather have been in a brothel than in the open field and showed it with irreverence and ill discipline...."

Hannibal deployed his infantry in a convex curve with the left refused. His cavalry and elephants were deployed forward on the flanks.

Rome deployed in a balanced formation with equal cavalry wings and infantry massed in triplex acies in the centre.

 Rome began the attack.

Carthage threw out skirmishers in an attempt to slow them. 

The Carthaginian skirmish line was was thrown back having caused little harm.

The Roman infantry crashed home in the centre. 

On the Roman right the cavalry clashed. At first honours were even. 

Then the cavalry battle began to swing in Carthage's favour. 

Then the Romans collapsed after being flanked by superior numbers. Most of the Carthaginian cavalry was still in the field but quite shaken (all units needed to rally back lost UI).

The Roman infantry, still present in great numbers, were now surrounded and outflanked by rampaging Carthaginian cavalry - could Hannibal's infantry perform as well?

Yes it could!

 A victory was awarded with a double envelopment bonus. First battle casualties were diced for. Rome did well - losing 1 CU. Hannibal did badly - losing 3 CU. But then the Romans rolled for retreat with a plus two modifier - they rolled 5 scoring the magic 7! The whole army including Nero was lost. Bloody hell, there are only 2 Roman CU in the whole of Italy!!!!!!

Scrotivius wrote:

"When news reached Rome, Senators were mobbed in the streets by wailing wives and mothers asking for word. The people began to riot and shout Nero Zero, Nero Zero! No one could believe the stories of isolated pockets of brave soldiers being hacked to death without mercy - for none, not even the allies, were spared.........."
"....Such was the shock of the defeat that Rome's allies also failed her. Many places thought true to Rome went over to Carthage."

Carthage played card campaign card 24 immediately Rome had removed the appropriate number of control markers (because I couldn't believe the effect and wanted to take advantage before I woke up). Carthage took control of Regium and Neoaplis (both walled cities) and gained a foot hold in Sardinia.

I'm not sure there is any chance of Rome coming back from this but we shall see.

A tank battle by way of a rules test

Last night Peter and I played another Western Desert game. The rules are working quite well now - though there are lots of things to add, and everything to write up. The game is a German attack on an isolated British infantry battalion in a defencive position, perhaps the flanking battalion of a brigade (currently being painted), with British armour rushing to support.  The table might seem quite crowded, but each unit (typically 2 - 3 stands) is a company and ground scale is 18" to 1 km - the table is 8 km long. Anyway, here are some shots of the action.

Table 'terrain boundaries'

Usually, green wargames terrain and its boundaries can be easily marked. Trees and lichen can be used to mark the edge of a wood; lichen can be used to mark the edge of a marsh; and the beauty of lichen is that it is very flexible - it 'bends' to a slope - and sits quite firmly on the table. Here is a picture of what I mean.

But, in the Western Desert, lichen boundaries would look a little odd; as would long lines of applique terrain pieces, laid end to end to form a boundary, because they would be too clutter-some for that general 'open desert' look we associate with the Western desert.

Last week, Peter and I experimented with declaring whole terrain tiles as a terrain type, marking each with a few small applique terrain pieces. This week I improved the look of my 'terrain area offering possible hull down positions' markers. I laid them out, within the boundaries of the tiles as I did last week. They looked OK, but I thought how much better it would be if I could mark the boundary with a 'line' of some kind to get a much greater variety of terrain area shapes and sizes.

First, I wondered about chalk but, being polystyrene, the tiles might not take well to being cleaned, and chalk has a habit of being a little more permanent than one might suppose. What I needed was something as versatile and flexible as lichen, but which had very little profile - it had to be totally and easily removable, thin, heavy, very bendy, and easy to put on the table-top. In a flash it came to me. I went straight to ebay to get a price and was pleasantly surprised - it was £0.60 per metre. I ordered 14 meters of '3mm x 4mm antique bronze'. Last night I put it on the table.

Can you see the long, thin, line surrounding the small rises?

Can you see what it is? 

Subtle, isn't it?

Closer.....

And, just in case, and to give you an idea of the thickness of the 'line' here it is next to some 15mm scale infantry.











I think this is quite an elegant solution, but only play testing will tell if it is durable. In fact, I think it is very clever, so clever that I'm unsure that it could could be an original idea of my own - I must have seen it somewhere before [?].

A very short break from campaigning

Just for a change, Peter and I decided to throw something a little more heavy than pilums at each other. During my vacation from war game projects I've been enjoying painting a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Recently, I've been painting some Afrika Korps stuff for Operation Crusader and I have managed to complete Battle Group Cramer of 15th Panzer Division (less one coy of 15cm howitzers). Having already completed 22nd Armoured Brigade Group of 7th Armoured Division, I suddenly realised I could put together a tank battle.

The rules, largely based on classic Piquet's "Point of Attack - The Blitzkrieg", are still very embryonic. They are being designed to be very period specific - in this case covering Operation Crusader / Siege of Tobruk 1941, and the Gazzala Battles 1942 during the Western Desert campaign. As they stand, there is enough to do the basics, and rest can be explored or fudged as situations arise.

One quite interesting idea we tried last night, is to use the table tile grid for terrain definition - the tiles with a small hill in them are areas where hull downs might be found. There are few proper hills in the Western Desert, but the ground is not dead flat. The small hills (I'll be making some smaller purpose made mounds) are just movable markers. At the end of a movement within such a square a unit of vehicles, or deployed guns, can attempt to go 'hull down' by rolling their 'Other Difficulty' dice Vs D8.  The German 'Other Difficulty' dice is D10 the British is D8. This dice is a catch all fall back used to decide odd situations not covered within the rules and includes the tactical nous of tank commanders. If a vehicle or gun finds a hull down it is marked with a cover marker which it can place to either front, flank, or rear (again, I'll be making some better markers than the 'dug-in' markers we used last night).

Anyway, the game worked fairly well, though it took some time to remember the differences between classic Piquet and Piquet, Field of Battle style. I took a few shot to commemorate the new units losing their cherry - or is that a bar mitzvah for the Germans?

The British win most of the initiative and attack.

The British seek the tactical advantage of 'rolling ground'.

The Germans bring up the heavy stuff.

This one stand unit (representing a battery of 4 guns) is absolutely lethal - in Piquet terms it's base fire dice is D12+1 even after taking account of the small numbers of guns - it's a real tank killer.

British Crusader tanks manage to find hull downs.

The virgins. 8th Panzer Regiment in wedges advancing, under fire, across open ground.

And the punches keep on coming!

The situation map after the Battle of Faleri 209 BC. During the next two years a lull ensued. During the lull both sides sought to gain advantage through diplomacy and sneaky tricks until.............

Rome: Card 57: Hannibal councils Carthage - No troops may leave Africa until after the next reshuffle. 

Carthage: Card 49: Hannibal moves to Paestium.

Rome: Card 21: Mercenaries desert - Hannibal loses 1 CU.


Carthage: Card 13: Hannibal recruits 2 CU in Bruttium.

Rome: Card 53: Nero moves to Rome.

Carthage: Card 36: Diplomacy in Spain - Rome no longer has possessions south of Idubeda.

Rome: Card 12: Assert political control over 2 areas.

Carthage: Card 12: Assert political control over 2 areas.

Rome: Card 43: Rome raises slave legions, promising freedom for service.

Carthage: Card 17: Assert political control over 1 area.

Rome: Card 7: Nero gathers the strength of Rome. He marches south and brings Hannibal to battle on a plain near Paestium.

Rome musters 12 CU, Carthage musters 9 CU.  

  The situation at the end of the map phase - Summer 207 BC. Rome, it would seem, is insistent that Hannibal should leave Italy.