Somewhere in Europe

For too many reasons to go into in this post, I've embraced the idea of scaling back my 54mm WWII collection. The Hammer of Democracy games convinced me not to unload the whole collection, but further rumination revealed to me that I have far more figures and vehicles than I want in this collection.

Rather than rid myself of it entirely,which would throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I plan on reducing it to the size that brings me the most joy in this scale: squad vs squad with MG support, and some vehicles for flavor. Which coincidentally could give me two squads per side with support for Hammer of Democracy.

To test this concept, I've turned to Five Men in Normandy to generate a squad to follow through a short campaign. The result was an 8-man US squad consisting of one pistol, one smg, one BAR, a scoped sniper rifle, and four rifles.

For tactical rules, I am not totally keen on Five Men in Normandy. When they work for me, I think they are the bee's knees, but I have had too many games that have bogged down into a dice rolling fest with no result in the middle of the action. So, instead, to play the game, I broke out One Hour Skirmish Wargames ( OHSW ). OHSW is one of my favorite sets of rules and although I've had issues using it for some scenarios in the past, I believe it had to do with my setup, not the rules.

As part of the force generation in Five Men in Normandy, you can add some characterization. Similarly, in OHSW, you can assign some skills to your soldiers. I used the former and then tried to find equivalent skills in the latter. My intent is to learn about my squad as I play, so only three figures are defined as characters so far:

• "Sarge", Sgt. Tony Sergente - "the 2nd most famous Italian-American singer in South Philadelphia"- is the squad leader. He is Leader(3) and Inspiring.
  
• One of the kneeling poses is a sniper and politically motivated working class idealist, Pvt. Leupold, with deadshot(2). 
• The 2nd in command, who loves his little brothers and mom's apple pie, is Cpl. Baker, Leader(2).

For their first mission, they are tasked with holding a building and giving the advancing Germans a bloody nose, before falling back.

In game terms, the US must eliminate 50% of the Germans (who, by an act of random generation, have eight men as well and fortunately for the Americans, no LMG) before their mission is complete.

I set the turn limit to 8 turns for the US to complete their mission - if not they will either be overrun or they will fall back, but fail their mission, which has an impact in terms of the Five Men in Normandy campaign rules.

A random setup event indicated there is a thick fog for the first two turns (Because turns in OHSW are variable in length, I opted to treat this as four phases instead)- which limits LOS to 4".

My table, by the way, is 38" square. Given WWII unit frontages, this means I more-or-less, and unintentionally at that, have a matching ground and figure scale. Color me surprised.

In any case ...somewhere in Europe:

The US squad set up first - the BAR, Cpl. Baker and two rifles in the building. Sarge,  Pvt. Leupold and two rifles set up in the trees alongside the road.

The Germans advanced in a line, using cover and avoiding the road

Feldwebel Able issued commands from the safety of the trees.

The BAR opened up in a big way.

The sniper took aim and unleashed devastation on the fascists.

The Germans, perhaps too cautious (although, given the BAR gunner's accuracy and the sniper, who can blame them?), stayed in cover and concentrated fire on the house. They did manage to knock the BAR out of the fight but Cpl. Baker ordered one of the other rifles to pick it up and so it was back in action almost right away.

The deputy squad leader bravely (?) crossed the the road to try and harass the G.I.s over there. Sarge had other ideas.

The poor German had no chance - each got bonus card draws equal to their Leader skill. 3 to 1 in favor of Sarge.

A last ditch effort by the Germans to clear the house with grenades failed, although it temporarily knocked one of the GI's for a loop.

OHSW worked a treat.

The game went the full eight turns, but the US inflicted 50% casualties on the Germans and so completed the mission successfully.

The US finished the game with two casualties of their own. For the campaign's sake, I drew a card for each casualty to learn their fate. One returned to the fight, the other is out. The squad is down to seven men for the next mission (whenever I might play it).

More for Venus

Painting as means of dealing with grief has continued and the result is six figures added to my Venus collection.

Tanitians.

Had to overexpose these a bit in order to see any detail.

This completes the French force (10-figure unit, 1 leader, 5 figure gun crew), although I have more figures if I choose to paint them. 

The Tanitians have two more figures primed and waiting - that will complete their ranks (and I have no more figures). However, they will eventually get some Parrot People allies, who will function as Harpies when I am playing Age of Fantasy and treating the Tanitians as Dark Elves.

I have been sketching maps and brainstorming background for Venus - world-building is something I enjoy immensely, and I find it helps quiet the mind as well.

Next up on the paint table are some WWI Austrians to bring that force up to snuff.

Grief and This Hobby

It is with a broken heart that I write this. Trigger warning: death, loss, grief (that means skip this post if you don't want to deal with that)

On Friday, I had to a make a very difficult decision.

Intellectually, in the face of the data the doctor presented to me, and my own observations of Peppermint's behavior over the previous days, I believe the decision was, ultimately, the right one. Emotionally, I would give anything for more time with my fuzzy little boy and for his illnesses to have been less serious.

To say I miss him terribly would be a gross understatement. 

Prayer and meditation helps to deal with the grief and this sense of loss, to no one's surprise I'm sure. 

To my surprise, this hobby of ours has helped as much if not more.

On Friday night, I was at a complete loss of what to do with myself. My son had submerged himself into video games (we deal with things differently) and I had tried that but found myself feeling restless. I meditated, read, but I still felt a crushing darkness looming over me.

I don't know what compelled me to pick up some figures to paint, but I started in on it and for the time I spent, all was quiet inside me. The toy soldiers stood their ground firmly against the darkness as I toiled over their paint jobs.

There was a little feeling of guilt afterwards, for having done something enjoyable in the face of loss, but I could do no good for anyone sobbing into one of Peppermint's sweaters. And so, for that reason, I returned again and again to painting over the weekend.

I will be forever grateful for having been able to be Peppermint's dad, and for all of the lessons that he taught me. And I am grateful that I found this hobby, which, in moments of stress and grief, can provide a respite.

On a Dusty Venutian Plain

I haven't had much time to play wargames of late - a lot of time was spent prepping for the wrap up of our D&D campaign. But, I did have about an hour late one evening last week where I put a small G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. game on a 36" x 30" clearing on the kitchen table.

The picture below is everything I dreamed of when I first started wargaming!

Tally ho!

Regardless of your feelings about the orange and black Tanitians (not Carthaginians), or the bare table, I think you will find there is a definite Victorian adventure novel flair to it. 

I have been drawing maps, brainstorming histories and personalities. This is the kind of thing I do not get from strictly historically-inspired games. And it has caused a revaluation of what collections I want to maintain and what I might want to move on.

That's the topic of a different post.

For now, I am working on finishing up a few French Foreign Legion to fill out their Gatling crew. I also have 5 of the black-with-orange-lines Tanitians to finish up.

And I should probably rebase the British and Russians to match the VSF collection as I think it's clear there needs to be more of these glorious lancer charges against lost civilizations or the civilizations of other planets.

Many Rivers to Cross

On Saturday night, while Peppermint was asleep and my son was busy playing Roblox with a bunch of his friends, I decided to sneak in a game. I recently painted the bases on my WWII figures (finally) and I wanted to get my newly painted bridge out for a game, so I decided on one of the small Crossfire scenarios, scaled down force-wise, and using Hammer of Democracy.

Because the rulebook is a PDF that I have yet to have printed, I wanted my laptop close by. I figured the best way to do this would be to play on a portion of the kitchen table. After clearing stuff of the table (well part of it - the kitchen table serves as my hobby desk, work desk, dining table, and toaster storage!), I decided on a  36" x  30"space

The US had two squads, mortar and FOO (off-table heavy mortar). The Germans had a single squad, FOO (off-table heavy mortar), mortar, and an MG team (inside the bunker).

The squad on the US right attempted to cross the river but soon came under off-table mortar fire, fire from the house, and from the German mortar team across the table. They never made it across the river.

 

 

On the US left, after waiting for several rounds of off -table heavy mortar fire  to bombard the bunker, the squad crossed the river under MG fire.

Shot up, but determined, the squad assaulted the bunker...

Both the US squad and the MG team inside were in bad shape. Each had 5 points of damage. With the automatic point caused by the assault both were at 6. Units are removed at 7 points. In the event of a tie, both sides would suffer a point of damage and both would be eliminated. 

I rolled the dice and held my breath.

The MG team held their ground and gave better than they got. 

With the second squad destroyed/routed, I called the game a German victory.

I got the toys out and played a game, so that was a success, but I think three squads vs one would be a better balance. Or I could have sat back and let the US off-table mortar and on-table mortar do more of the work, but that would be boring. 

I also could learn the smoke rules. Smoke would definitely have helped!

The small space used worked just fine and I can see doing this more often. Rolling dice on the table but not on the game portion of it was refreshing. And it turns out it was nice to sit down and look at the rules on the laptop when needed. 

Heck, maybe next time I'll sit down while I play!