Italian Tankette Rolls Off Production Line

Thank you for everyone who commented on my injury post. Whether it was to well-wish, commiserate, offer levity or sympathy, it was all appreciated.

To further cheer me up, my plastic building brick (not Lego)  Italian L3/CV33 arrived.

It comes in around 180 pieces and looks pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Cute may not be how you want your armored fighting vehicle described, but well, I mean, it's cute!

Even the real ones aren't imposing. I suppose if one was coming towards me, guns blazing, I'd feel differently.

Then again, it'd probably break down and I'd be fine. They didn't have the best record in the war.

Back to the model.

The hatch works, so I can plop a mini-figure inside if desired (this model cost $13.99 USD. I can see buying two more eventually, for a platoon/company/battalion and putting a commander in one. That's still less than what it cost me to buy a single 1/50 resin T-34, and there's no painting required)

The treads are each assembled from 29 individual pieces. Assembly was made complicated by those pieces being 1) tiny and 2) lacking the use of my index finger on my left hand. The rest of the model went together with little difficulty.

Even with name brand Lego models, rough handling, say the kind anyone under 12 might do, will result in parts coming off. That said, despite being knock-off bricks, everything is fairly tight - almost too tight in some cases, and I had to really force the pieces together -  and so far nothing has come off, even when wrestling the hatch open and closed with my clumsy fingers. 

The treads did separate when I tried to roll it across the carpet. I just wanted to see if the gears "worked" or was all display. I won't do that again!

This kit finished off my initial Brick War 2 build-up. 

There's more to come in this arms race, but there's no rush. My bank account thanks me.

In the meantime, I've got three hastati in progress on the paint table, three Blitz Bowl Reavers in progress, and some French Foreign Legion ready for prep and priming. Plus, working on ideas for VSF Lost World/Antarctica campaigning and building/assembling a mega-dungeon of sorts because my son has asked me to create and run one for him!

One Thing Leads to Another

So, this happened on Friday night while working on some new hills with cardboard and a utility knife (aka box cutter):

Remember kids, cut away from yourself.

The biggest issue is this is my fretting hand, which means playing guitar with just three fingers. And I have lessons to teach. Not impossible to work around, but annoying.

Anyway, I  wanted to do something with my toys, so I got out some old friends to bring them up to snuff for my current gaming preferences. 

Here is how they  started (1/72 plastics definitely not glued to US pennies):

 

 

They were painted some 17 or 18 years ago - the very first "proper" wargames figures I painted and sentimental (along with those homemade Adventures in Jimland counters I mentioned the other day).

 

Craft paints were all I had and that flesh color leaves a LOT to be desired. They look so sickly!The flock? is also from the craft store - its like chunks of sponge.

 

I may touch them up at some point - some paint flaking but also that flesh color - along with overhauling my Pacific figures.

 

In any case, here they are based for squad-based rules like Crossfire, Hammer of Democracy, or even Morschauser's modern rules.

They had a quick impromptu outing on the kitchen table with Morschauser, and given I was a little bummed about my finger, it was just what the Doctor ordered (not really, he said don't get it wet,  prescribed antibiotics, don't use the finger, and the stitches come out in 2 weeks).

Starting with Earth and Campaign Thoughts

Warning: a lot of  prose ahead,and not so much eye-candy

"Start with Earth" is a Ken Hite game-design mantra.

And it makes sense really, because its easier to get players to have a connection with the setting they are familiar with - places, history, people, are instantly meaningful without requiring reading fluff or novels or what have you (like, say, Forgotten Realms).  So, you start with what they know, and then add the fantastic elements.

Now, as a solo gamer, I don't have this problem of a lack of familiarity - I make up everything and I'm the only one who has to buy into it. 

Except, it takes a lot to build an entire world. Case in point, Venus. 

I mean, sure, Venus is an actual planet, but actual Venus and Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) Venus are two vastly different things.

And what I've been finding is, I'm having trouble reconciling my desire for different kinds of games with the need to develop histories not only of the native populations, but also the history of Earthlings on Venus. Space: 1889 has done this for gamers, and I like it, but it doesn't really line up with my conception of what I want at this point. Not least of which is how Earthlings get there. 

Of course, I can change the bits that don't suit me, but each change brings about more questions that I feel compelled to answer. It's more than just filing off serial numbers - and i get to a point where I am basically starting from scratch.

So, I went digging through various forums online for ideas (primarily about Venus, but  also about VSF settings generally) and it hit me:

Antarctica

Antarctica is extremely interesting for a whole variety of reasons, not least of which is that it remains basically unknown until 1897. Its existence had been posited,but no one had even seen it until then. So, IRL, at the time my intended campaign is set, the 1880s-ish, it's still an unknown, as subject to the imagination as Venus or Mars. 

Why not then shed the shackles of creating an entire world, and simply modify this one? That is, start with Earth?

So indeed that is my plan. 

My apologies to those who were looking forward to a campaign on Venus. That said, it will look exactly the same. [Also, I reserve the right to do a Space: 1889 game, as written in the future]

East Antarctica (I just learned there is an East and West Antarctica) will feature a sunken "lost world". 

Lost world gaming was some of my very first wargaming.  

I had found Adventures in Jimland (as I had no suitable figures at the time, i made my own cardstock top-down counters - I still have them) online and was immediately taken by the diary-style game write-ups. Lost worlds are also the basis for some of my favorite adventure fiction (King Solomon's Mines, The Lost World, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc).

So, I am partial to the concept. 

Because of its location, Antarctica is not easily exploited (in real-life or in my planned gaming). In game terms, that means the European build up has been slow- indeed other then some forts, that's about it. It's still an age of exploration  and thus hunters and scientists and cartographers may make trips into the wilds as often as military patrols. 

And, getting to the valley(a deceiving name for something so massive) can be an adventure in itself.

Huge Tracts of Land

Now, Antarctica is HUGE. I mean really huge. 

It's the 5th largest continent. It's twice the size of Australia. You can fit the entire USA in there and still have extra room. This will be relevant in a minute.

Although I don't intend for a map campaign, with maybe the exception of some mapping expeditions, I wanted a map so I would at least have a consistent relative sense of where things are. 

I found a half dozen suitable drawings of Antarctica (While a plain line drawing would seem ideal, I needed them to have some landmarks on them so I could place my lost valley where I wanted it - like I wanted the South Pole to remain an icy location, and not in the valley, and the Transantarctic Mountains to be left alone sine they will probably be the Mountains of Madness, etc.)

I imported one of them into Google Draw and made a an outline of the valley. It looked nice but I had no idea of the scale. So I found a map with a scale included and made some hexes in the appropriate size and tried again. 

Wow.

The valley was way bigger than I wanted - you could fit several European states within and still have room for unclaimed areas. Now, while I don't intend to have the Europeans fight each other initially, I'd like the option of them at least finding each other eventually!

So, I shrank things down .

Here, with labels for the factions, some inland seas and some mountains (which I may move around a bit more) is what I am calling call the Minimum Viable Product:

Each hex is approximately 250 miles across point to point. The hexes allow me to map in more detail if I choose to, say five 50-mile hexes per 250-mile hex, ten 5-mile hexes per 50-mile hex, and five 1-mile hexes per - mile hex.

However,  I think on the whole it looks nicer without the hexes. Nothing to write home about mind you, but I can tell where the factions are likely to be encountered, which helps support narrative consistency.

The yellow squares are European forts/base camps. I tried to set it up so each European faction would face a more than one native contingent, and the battles would differ from each other by the makeup of the various forces. There's also plenty of room for future powers to join if I should choose to paint them (Germans and Italians are possible given the extra figures I have),

The Russians, who have an abundance of cavalry, will initially encounter Solis Nox (the medieval figures) , who also have an abundance of cavalry. Later, Res Publica will enter the picture when they are done - and they are largely melee focused.

The British will encounter Solis Nox and Tanitia. As with the Russians, they too will eventually encounter Res Publica eventually. The British are a fairly balanced force. Solis Nox, I have mentioned already,  Tanitia is primarily melee with little to no range support, but they do have casters and that terrifying Abyssal Beast.

The French will encounter the Bokrug Confederacy (lizards) and Tanitia. The French are entirely foot infantry at this point, while the Confederacy offers a solid mix of units, including a magic-wielding shaman and dinosaurs.

The Country

It is probably clear (although it wasn't to me until recently) that what I'm designing is a setting, not properly a campaign, despite having called it "the Venus campaign" for ages now, or, of late, "the Antarctica campaign" (at least in my head if not on screen).

Like Wells's "the country", it is a place to fight in and over. It is a campaign only in as much as all of the games that will take place in the setting contribute to some overall understanding of the lost world.

It is more like Greyhawk than, say, the 1916 Strafexpedition.

It is an imagi-nation, in some ways, a true Fantasy setting in others.

In any case, there is no objective, there is no winning, only a land to explore and a history to write.

Somewhere in France, 1940

 My Father's Day gift of five Italian minifigures arrived in time for me to stage a little skirmish in the first hour of the day.

The Italians had installed a howitzer on a hill close to the front lines in anticipation of a coordinated bombardment of the French reserves.  A French recon patrol spotted the position and two squads of a nearby platoon were dispatched to neutralize the enemy.

Defenders of the gun of dubious origin.

Not a fan of the grey helmet for the NCO, but it beats wearing a field cap on the lines with bullets whizzing around - even if he is in the relative guarded safety of a ruined French farmhouse.

French squads move up on the left and right - one for the gun, one for the farmhouse.

The squad creeps up to the edge of the woods undetected. They fire and immediately kill one of the guards outside the house!

After intense fighting squad on the left captured the gun, but lost their NCO and another rifelman in the process.

On the right the house was secured, but another dead NCO, and two riflemen were added to the toll. Perhaps some good came of it, as Italian maps indicating other artillery positions were recovered.

Rules used were One Brain Cell Toy Soldier Rules with the Overwatch and Wounds options. 

Playing time was maybe 30 minutes? I don't know, I was having too much fun to keep track!

Happy Father's Day!

A New Project or Un Nouveau Projet : Brick by Brick

As Sinatra sang, "I did it my way."

Or rather I will be.

While having a clear out recently, I admitted to myself that I was never going to get around to painting (or finishing in the case of one squad) the Warlord Games 28mm French WW2 force I had acquired,, let alone acquire and paint an opposing Italian force (for the very short Italian invasion of France, which was Mussolini's attempt at a land grab to gain a seat at the negotiating table post-victory).

Those figures are moving on.

However, it *is* a project that has interested me for some time. 

The possibility of playing a "what-if" campaign, where France holds out against the Axis stirs my imagination. This is the same reason I will not part with my 1/72 PTO collection - invading imaginary South Pacific islands allows me to campaign (you know, when I get to it) without feeling too constrained by history. 

And despite letting go of a lot of gaming-related stuff (a LOT), I still have the desire to do something wargame related with Lego / Lego-clone figures.

The two ideas collided while I was searching for Lego minifigures for Halloween's game last year, but I let it go (because I had the Warlord figures at the time). Also, the price.

Well, I stumbled on a good deal on Etsy, last week, and so, this arrived Monday:

 

The two guns are of questionable historical accuracy but they will suffice. The figures came with extra heads -bandaged/wounded or just different expressions - which will be useful too, to give the figures variety.

16 French infantry with Adrian-type helmets in uniform colors suitable for WWII (they aren't all the same, which is a shame,but I'm not going to complain and I think they are somewhat close to accurate in the amalgam). Besides I can group them into units by color and easily tell one from another.).

The figures need minor assembly. There's always a risk you'll end up short an arm or a hand. Then again, there's always a chance you'll end up with extras too.

Infantry-wise, this is almost all I need for the French for my current plans - 3 to 4 figures on a base can be a squad or a company, a group of 5 individually-based figures can be a squad,. And thus this bunch could be a platoon. You get the idea. Re-basing Lego figures is easy-peasy.

Four uniform styles. Two helmet variations. I need to pick up a weapons pack - I've seen some that include a gun that could pass as an FM 24/29.

 

Cobi makes a suitable brick Renault FT-17 which will make a good Christmas present to myself when the time comes. 

I have a "building brick" Italian CV33 on order from eBay (I believe it's  Chinese brick clone) and I'll be receiving a set of 5 Italian infantry for Father's Day (oddly, I just realized that my son's mom and I exchange gifts to celebrate, but he doesn't even give either of us so much as a card!)

Fistful of Lead works with just 5 figures, and One Hour Skirmish Wargames, does too (although you end up being able to do more double and triple moves), and so I'll be able to play from the get-go once the Italians get here, no painting required! 

 (I play with toy soldiers because I like the toys and I like the stories the games produce. I do not particularly enjoy painting - it's a means to an end)

Lego figures look fine on regular wargame tables, but I have a ton of greenery from the games I've run for our family fall festival and I can raid my son's excessive collection of bricks to make other scenic items. So I may mix it up and do full Lego games or just use the figures with my usual terrain depending on mood.

It's not an entirely super serious project- it's Lego/clones after all, but that's the best part about solo-gaming - you only have to please yourself.

One Hour Wargames: Machine-Age Modifications

Recently completed Italians - two of the bombers were already done, but the rest were added.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been play-testing various rules - homemade, modified, etc. for WWI on the Italian Front for larger level battles (where a base is something like one to two companies or a battalion). In the end, the most satisfying set of rules - not too fiddly, easy to remember, fast to play but not too fast, etc - has been the Machine-Age rules from One Hour Wargames - albeit with several modifications.

Some of these are my original ideas (or at least as far as I can recall), some are modifications borrowed from other sources - like Hordes in the Trenches, Trench Hammer, and "Rules for WWI Land Battles in 6mm" from The Games of War: A Treasury of Rules for Battles with Toy Soldiers, Ships and Planes.

Here are the mods I've tried and will keep:

Shooting:

• Infantry: range 12" half-damage beyond 6"
• Heavy Infantry: range 18" (to reflect the longer range of the attached MGs), half-damage beyond 9"
• Field Guns: range 24". Actual range would be longer, but since they are direct fire, they have to have line of sight, which on my table, I limit to 24"
• Assault Troops: range 6", half-damage beyond 3" 
• Mounted cavalry : N/A
  

Assault Troops:

• +2 in Close Combat
• 9" movement. 
• When in open ground, count as in cover (to account for the dispersed order compared to regular rifle units) 
  

Close Combat:

• Ignore cover damage reduction except BUA. 
• Double-damage from flank..
• Target destroyed if from rear.
  
• If the defender is not destroyed, units remain in contact.
• If defender destroyed, Assault Troops automatically advance to take their position, regular units do not. If results in new contact, Assault Troops may engage new target.
  
• Units may voluntarily withdraw from close combat, but take 1d3 damage doing so.

Trenches:

• Provide cover for direct fire only.
• Units must stop before crossing a trench.
• No shooting along the length of a trench.
• Units in a trench can see and shoot 360 degrees. 
• Opposing units in same trench may engage in close combat but 1/2 damage due to narrow front and twists and turns of the trench.
• Mounted cavalry may not enter a trench but may cross it.

Field guns:

• May move until fired. At that point the gun may only pivot on it's center point.
  

Mounted Cavalry:

• As cavalry from Rifle and Sabre rules.

On-call Off-table Artillery:<needs more testing>

• May fire on an enemy unit greater than 1 move from friendly troops and within 24"of those troops. 
• Limited to 8 uses.

Prepared Fire Off-Table Artillery :<needs more testing>

• May fire on any spot on the table as designated prior to the game - including specified turns. 
• All units within 3" of spot are hit. 
  
• Limited to 8 turns maximum. 

Activation:

This is based on my understanding of how it works in Hordes of the Things. I have no idea if it's accurate but I do like it.

• Roll 1d6.
• Number of pips is number of units that may activate.
• An activated commander may issue commands (activate) to units within 1 move at no additional cost, but no unit may activate more than once per turn.

Commanders:<needs more testing> 

I really want commanders to have something to do that feels command-like, but not engage in combat directly themselves.

• 9" movement
  
• When activated, may either: 
• Move (and attach to a friendly unit if makes contact) OR 
• Issue orders to all units within 6"  (Move/CC or Shoot, does not need to be the same for each unit) OR
• Rally a unit in base to base contact. Must start turn in contact.
  
• Rally: roll 1d6 and unit regains that many hit points.
• If the Commander issues orders to other units or rallies a unit,  roll 1d6. 
• On a 1, an enemy sniper has managed to kill the commander. (this is taken from Trench Hammer).
• A commander in base-to-base contact with a friendly unit may activate with the unit at no additional cost but must stay with that unit for this turn. Commander gives that unit a +1 bonus for shooting/CC. Commander suffers the fate of that unit if it is reduced to 0 hp while the commander is in contact.

Also of note, I used between 6-10 units per side, rather than just 6 per One Hour Wargames.

One thing missing from the above, that I want to incorporate to better capture the flavor of assault units, is a method for creeping barrages. I've tried a few options that I didn't like, but the following is next on my list and I think it has promise:  

Creeping Barrage - <not tested>

• To place barrage requires spending one activation and then roll 1d6  On a 6, place a marker at the desired point.
  
• Moves 6" automatically move marker forward each turn thereafter at no Activation cost. [Perhaps with a deviation based on the year? Earlier attempts would out pace the  assault troops, later attempts would move more consistently]
  
• All units within 3" of marker are hit  

It could hardly be WWI without barbed wire or canvas eagles, but I haven't settled on anything yet for either.

Barbed Wire:

I have some ideas but not yet tested.

Air Support:

Same.