The Christmas Bounty Arrives: Italian Front Acquisitions

Because, like many of my fellow war gamers, my hobbies are rather, shall we say particular, my family typically gifts me money for holidays, with the instruction to spend it as I see fit (though, not to be used for practical things. My mother is quite clear about that.) I decided to parlay it this year into a round of collecting for my WWI Italian Front project. (please disregard that I'm a year behind on my plan!)

The first to arrive:

The eyes freak me out.

These figures, acquired on eBay, were painted by a previous owner and I will be repainting them in my particular style (and in my preferred colors) when I finally get started painting this project. I had them in my watch list for ages and the price dropped like a rock so I snagged them.

They will be used to represent the arditi (grenades and knives being their favored weapons). They are from an out-of-production Dulcop set that includes alpini and bersaglieri. Ross Mac first alerted me to the existence of the Dulcop set a few years ago now, and I have been watching for them to come up for  reasonable price on eBay since! 

Both sides are getting machine guns in the form of 1/35 plastic kits. While I would have preferred to use the Irregular 1/32 sets (the German MG team can easily make a passable late war Austro-Hungry MG team), the cost of shipping made the plastic ICM kits more manageable for my wallet.

Peppermint inspects the troops

They will be under scale, but I do this with my WWII figures and it doesn't bother me in-game or even in pictures. It only bothers me theoretically. 

The Italians don't have their own specific model kit, sadly. So, I will begin with a 1/35 ICM British Vickers team that I will give Adrian style helmets and maybe swap the Vickers for a Fiat-Revelli  (both the helmets and mg courtesy of ICM's set of Italian accessories). Despite an estimated arrival time of late February, they arrived yesterday!

In keeping with the toy-soldier nature of my games, rather than worry about correct artillery, I've decided to go with Britain's guns. There are two different models pictured below with Armies in Plastic figures.

Although they aren't identical, I like the idea of different caliber guns. Now, it's just a matter of which models come up the cheapest on eBay..

At this point, I'm collecting forces to meet the One Hour Wargames Machine Age organization, replacing Cavalry with Assault Troops (sturmtruppen and arditi)- 3 infantry figures per unit initially - making them useful for The Portable Wargame, OHW, and similar. Like my colonial figures, they will be individually based, allowing me to play a variety of rules with the same figures..

Taking another of Ross's suggestions, I opted to go in on two Wings of Glory planes. The Italians are the first to equip with a Macchi M.5 flying boat: 

I really love the pre-painted models. Detail I could never replicate.

If I find I enjoy air miniatures games (I have two air board games that I enjoy: Battle Over Britain from Minden Games and GMT's Enemy Coast Ahead starter scenarios), then I can always acquire more of the planes. Since it isn't likely, for now, to be more than a side show, the pre-painted Wings of Glory planes are more than worth the time saved not having to paint them

Finally, because I stumbled on this article about WWI Italian combined operations, I ordered a copy of The Battle of the Otranto Straits: Controlling the Gateway to the Adriatic. Combined with inspiration provided by Archduke Piccolo's lovely ships , I have an itch to try some naval miniatures gaming as well - although I will probably go with commercially available miniatures, rather than attempting to build my own. I know painting is involved, but a coat of grey seems do-able.

Unfortunately, I noticed this morning that the post office tried to deliver my book to some unknown ZIP code, which I can only assume is either a handwriting issue of the seller, or a mistake at the post office - eBay shows the correct ZIP, and clearly, quite a few things have been delivered to me successfully. Hopefully, I can get this resolved - it was a nice copy at a good price.

Retaking Vierville (again!)

I realize few come here to see pictures of cardboard counters on a paper map, let alone a game as brain-taxing as Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit (ASLSK), but, in addition to the figure game I posted about last time, I played the first scenario from the #1starter kit - Retaking Vierville.

As my goal is one board game per month, at least, I wanted to start with something where the rules were somewhat familiar and which will allow me to play several more games once relearned. ASLSK fits that bill nicely.

It helped too that I once again stumbled on the Texas ASL download site, which includes a full tutorial on ASLSK. It was nice to confirm that my understanding of the rules is "correct", although a few questions came up during the game that had me turning to web searchers for interpretations.

In any case, the game was an engrossing close run thing that game down to the end of the 5th turn (the allotted turn count for the scenario):

The American platoon moves through the town. It's quiet. Too quiet.

The initial German advance is pushed back, the Americans capture the objectives early, with American reinforcements arriving via the road to the North (right of the map)

The Germans give as good as they get, with vicious building to building close combat and concentrated range fire (those Desperation Morale markers aren't for giggles after all).

It's not enough and the superior American squads manage to rally (mostly) and retake lost buildings.

The cost to the Americans was high, but the Germans were unable to again wrest control of any of the key objectives. An Allied victory.

The more I play these rules, the more they begin to -  well not fade into the background, but the less obtrusive they become. The story is rising in prominence.

It also was nice playing this game leisurely rather than racing through to finish in a 2 hour window before bed. I set it up on Friday night, sorted all of the counters I'd need for the forces, set up the Americans on the map but then didn't start playing until Saturday. Even then, I played in starts and stops - a turn here, a turn there, stepping away to think about the situation while sipping coffee, before diving back in.

I have played this scenario several times now - and am again confident with the basic infantry rules. The next board game I'll play War of the Rats (Scenario 2) in order to bring in squad weapons and satchel charges.

A Static Defence (One Hour Wargames Scenario 14)

I had an itch for a figure game, but didn't want to do another WWII scenario, so I decided to take the opportunity to give my khaki British force their inaugural outing.

(Please note the grid is not being used - it just makes things easier for terrain placement and speeds measurements)

Defenders of the town.

Defenders of the hill.

The British put all of their eggs in one basket and prepare to attack the hill in force.

Cossacks ride to support the hill defense.

The approaching wave of khaki, the Cossacks set their lances for the charge.

Prepare to fire!

Men and horses collide! The cavalry retires to the hill to prepare their next charge.

Screw guns and Gatling bullets tear into the advancing Highlanders!

This stalwart unit would repel three successive charges.

In an ill-fated gamble, British lancers tried to sweep around the woods and pass by the town's defenders to flank the screw guns. Withering fire stopped them in their tracks.

Moving into line, the khakis bring the Gatling and screw gun crews under fire. The Gatlings fall first.

They rush the hill to face the lone Russian infantry unit waiting for their advance.

The screw guns advance to bring the British back into sight, but are halted on the hill side under fire.

 

Technically, I'm not sure the British won - they now occupy the hill, but the hill side is contested. I'll call it a minor victory.

*****
The rules used were a modified version of the One Hour Wargames Rifle and Sabre rules. When skirmishers were called for by the random force generation, I substituted regular infantry.  For  artillery, I allowed that one piece could be a Gatling gun. I gave it a range of 18", rather than any bonus when doing damage (infantry get +2). 

I realize logically it doesn't seem to make sense, but the effect does, so I consider that a wash. 

A stationary Gatling can attack enemy infantry twice before the infantry can return fire - once when the infantry moves into the 18" range, and once again when the infantry moves into their rifle range of 12". This way, it doesn't step on the bonus that infantry have but gives them a way to deal more damage. I think you can also argue that they don't get the +2 because they are subject to jamming/accuracy issues.

Otherwise, the rules were as written. 

I have to say again, I think the less you know about a period, or the less opinions you have about what you expect from the rules for a given period, the more likely the One Hour Wargames rules will satisfy. As I don't have any particular expectations for the period, I found them more than satisfactory.

I suppose if I had to pick something that was missing,  I'd like if the infantry could come to blows but I don't know how common that was in battles between European powers. That said, it would be possible to simply allow infantry to charge into hand to hand using rules from earlier periods - as the units are limited to attacking via their front facing (unless they are in a town) and so bonuses for flank and rear hand to hand is applicable (coincidentally, this is why simply bolting on hand to hand rules for infantry fails for the One Hour Wargame WWII rules - units don't have flanks or rear, thoutgh you could modify the rules further to accomplish that).

I'm looking forward to another game with these figures - hopefully by the next game I will have my second unit of Russians completed.

Weekend Update

Work continues apace on the Russians although they look little different than they did the other day, so no picture. 

My Armies in Plastic order arrived the other day - I was surprised that the package was so bulky given I only ordered two guns. Then I remembered, I wanted two mountain/screw guns (I will use generic infantry for crew) and found the best deal was to get a Northwest Frontier battle pack with 20 Afghans and 20 Indian army figures, plus the two guns.

The Afghans, which will be useful if I want to pursue the Great Game angle, include several figures armed with sword and shield. In spite of cartridge pouches, I think they can be pressed into service as levy figures for my One Hour Wargame, mostly Deetail, Saracen army.

I rather like the Indian officer and think he would make an interesting character - whether I would decide to paint up any of the others remains to be seen.

Do two guns count as a gun park?

Saturday afternoon was a nail biter of a  Panzer Kids game :

The Sherman or the Tiger?

The rules are straightforward, play fast, and there’s plenty of differentiation between tank types. 

We played the basic rules (this was my second attempt with them, my son's first) with an objective (which is an advanced rule although we didn't include the recommended ATG). The Germans had a Tiger I and a Panzer IV, while the allies fielded three Shermans. 

It came down to one Sherman against the Tiger, both with 2 hits (3 eliminates a tank). The Sherman had a cover bonus, which enabled it to withstand the Tiger's onslaught, helped too by a monumental run of poor die rolling. Finally, after some ineffective back and forth, we set a limit of how much ammo remained, and with one round left, the Tiger brewed up the Sherman for a German victory..

For next time, we're looking forward to using ATGs.

Finally, on Saturday night, I played a solo RPG (something I haven’t done in years):

I bought the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic RPG a few years ago during a time when my son was watching the Friendship is Magic TV show. Naively, I thought I might hook him with the game. His interest didn't last the delivery time of the book.

However, I was rather taken by the system which encourages cooperation between player characters via an in-game mechanism called "friendship points". It's also implicitly encourages non-combat solutions to conflict, being it's a My Little Pony theme, but you can ignore that if you choose and the system can handle it. So, point being, I've held onto the rule book and even picked up this starter set - which cost about the same as the dice it included.

The adventure was engaging ,and a little frustrating too, when I was lost in a labyrinth (I realized I had to map it out or I'd be lost a lot longer). 

Oddly, the module is a solitaire game book/choose-your-own-adventure with dice type affair, so although it provides a method to play with others (everyone rolls and if one succeeds they all do, but if one loses a hit point, they all do), the intent is that it's played by one person. Thus, in a game where friendship is the mechanism to overcome difficulty, there's no one around to spend friendship points with. 

If that's not an analogy for the pandemic, I don't know what is.  

The 2021 Plan Post

Planning for the new year is generally a time for unbridled optimism. I think 2020 taught us to scale that back a little.

So, with that in mind, I've been honing my goal list down into something less ambitious than years past.

Painting:

Although it feels a little bit of a cheat, I  have ten Russians for my colonial "Blueland" campaign about 1/2 way done, sitting on my paint table that I will finish.  I also have two guns on the way for the collection and they, with their crews, are on the list for this year.

Imperial Russians in Progress.

In an effort to finally bring WWI Italy to the game table, I am aiming to paint ten Italians and ten Austrians. I think 20 figures seems do-able, but then again, I don't think I did that many in 2020.

For WWII, a base of Soviet engineers (two figures that are conversions) will serve to complete the Soviets to be able to field either side in the 2x2 Crossfire scenarios. They're also partly done, so it's just getting back to it. There are a couple of Germans nearly completed that I should probably just finish up as well.

Games:

As for actually playing with my toys, arguably the point of this hobby, my goal is to play one figure game and one hex and counter game per month. 

I hope to play more mind you, but that would minimally scratch the itch.

New Project?

A possible new project, is the air war over Italy during WWI.

I've mentioned it before, but it's a vastly neglected topic on the Southern Front, at least in English language books. And while I have never played an air war game with miniatures,  I have continued  eyeballing some of the Wings of Glory planes. 

They aren't cheap but they do look nice - I'd want maybe 2 or 3 per side (which means at least Italy, Austria, and England, possibly Germany - have to look into that), so that adds up. In what is a Herculean effort to be properly fiscally responsible,  I'm also considering 1/144 kits or 1/300-ish miniatures. 

Now let's see how long these goals last before I'm tempted by something new and shiny!