Test Prints

I'm not sure why, but I decided to start of this unit of khaki-clad British soldiers with just three figures.

Honestly, it makes no sense - four would be great for a unit in a grid-based game like The Portable Wargame or six for half-sized units in The Men Who Would Be Kings, but three?

Armies in Plastic colonial British painted in a mix of craft and Vallejo acrylics.

In any case, I'm pleased with the final result and I'm starting in on the remaining seven in this unit in the next day or so.

The tedious bit is obviously the straps and belts and such, but otherwise, now that I've decided on the colors for the puttees and the boots (damned if I can remember - but fortunately I only have a few hundred shades of brown to sort through), the rest should be fairly easy to knock out in assembly line fashion.

Shiny Soldiers Fight at Firefly Church

This afternoon's kick off to my Thanksgiving SoloCon feature a skirmish between the forces of Ginland and Vodkia near Firefly Church. As I'm in something of a food coma right now, I'll leave the pictures to tell the story.

Rules used were In Good Company (available from the Lone Warrior website).


On an unrelated note, I started the day off by watching "Is Paris Burning?" - about the French resistance in Paris just prior to the liberation of the city. It's long but not at all drawn out and absolutely worth a watch.

A Quirky Little War

Of course, it would be an 80 degree day that my son would (finally) decide to take a handful of his army men outside to play. Despite the heat, I wanted to join in the fun and fortunately, I was invited to as soon as I finished work for the day.

What started out as playing with toys evolved by his own suggestion into a full-fledged game - albeit with some shifting rules of the kind common with 7 year-olds, but also an interesting initiative mechanism I would have never thought of. The young general commanded Army Tan, while your most humble and unbiased correspondent commanded Army Green. The rules appear below the pictures.

The dastardly Tan tank well hidden. 

The main body of the glorious Green Army advances against the despicable enemy.

A sneaky and underhanded Tan mortar - clearly an individual of dubious character.

The feline kaiju known as "Archimedes" approaches the Tan vanguard.
All shudder in fear of his fuzzy foot.

The devious Tan general contemplates his next move.

The Rules as They Were Played

The armies: Each player gets 5 figures and a tank.

The setup: All figures and tanks are to be well camouflaged at the start

The turn:

The Older Player asks the Younger Player to spell a word (in our case from this week's spelling list for school)

If the Younger Player spells the word correctly, they may take an action. If the word is one which has caused the Younger Player difficulty previously, an extra action may be awarded as judged fair by the Older Player.

If the Younger Player misspells the word, the Older Player may take an action.

After the action has been resolved, play continues with the Older Player asking the Younger Player to spell another word. The same word may be reused as many times as desired (or necessary if you're preparing for a spelling test).

Actions:

• Move - Generally as much or as little as desired and does not seem unreasonable. After movement, camouflage may be reapplied at no additional cost.
• Fire! - A ranged attack made using sticks and twigs gathered from the detritus on the lawn is thrown from a reasonable distance proportional to the player's skill level to attempt to knock down opposing figures.
• Melee - Close combat - move figure into contact with enemy. The enemy figure is knocked over. Any tank touched in melee is automatically destroyed.
• An enemy tank cannot be attacked until all infantry are knocked over.
• Medic! - Any 1 knocked over figure may be returned to standing.
• Cloverfield -  aka the nuclear option. According to the International Standards Committee of 7-Year-Old Rulesmakers, this option may only be employed by the Younger Player and at their discretion once per game. The Younger Player rips up a bunch of clover from the lawn and drops it from a height above the enemy soldiers. Any figure (not a tank) touched by the clover is knocked over.

Winning the Game: Destroy the enemy's tank. The enemy's tank cannot be attacked until all enemy infantry are knocked over.

Notes:

• Knocked over figures may not move, fire, or melee.
• The prone pose figure is impossible to knock down in ranged combat and therefore can only be defeated in close combat. This should be given to the Older Player as they cannot make use of Cloverfield.

In Good Company : Some Thoughts

In response to requests for a copy of the rules on my previous post, and in light of my lack of scanner I went to the Lone Warrior site hopeful that perhaps the rules had been uploaded there. To my great surprise, I found that In Good Company is available for download as of March 2019.

I recommend checking out the entire site - especially the downloads of rules and sample articles, and if you aren't already a member, consider it. The price is reasonable and you get four PDF issues of the magazine per year.

In any case, I digress.

My purpose here is just to add some of my thoughts on the rules as I played them the other night, what I liked and what I thought was missing, etc. There are barely three pages of rules, and a  "quick reference sheet", so it should come as no surprise that I might have questions or encounter areas where I felt something could be added.

Modifications:

The first thing you'll notice if you follow the link above is that the rules use hexes for measurement. As I have been reading Lone Warrior on and off for ten or so years, I recalled that Mr. White mentioned on more than one occasion that his table had 1.5" hexes. Knowing that makes converting to inches easy enough.

That said, for my game, while I used the conversion for movement, my table space was a bit spare - I was too lazy to get the plywood out. So, I opted to shorten the weapon ranges to about half of what they are listed as in the rules.

The second is that the game mentions Zulus specifically and I chose to treat that as "native" units - Martians in my case.

Now on to the rules themselves:

The hospital is clearly the most obvious point of interest in the rules. I chose to remove the figures from the table, but you could leave them in place, on their side for example. Removing the figures though did lead to the question, if the entire unit is in the hospital to where do they return?

I chose to have them go to where they last were. With only three units per side, it was easy enough to remember.  But, I think a good case could be made that if the entire unit is in the hospital, then it is out of the game.

Melee worked well enough - there was a chance for back and forth, and I liked that the lancers got +2 on their first attack (At least that's how I interpreted the rules). But I didn't like that cavalry stopped dead even if they defeated the first figure encountered.

For some reason, this doesn't bother me with multi-figure bases (as when I play Neil Thomas's OHW Medieval rules) but it bothered me with individual figures. I imagine I'll have the same problem playing G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.  In the future I might house rule that cavalry can continue on into the second rank if they defeat the first figure they encounter.

The machine gun jamming on two ones was a nice touch and happened in my game on the first attempt to fire the gun. I assumed the roll to un-jam replaces the roll to shoot (and  no movement allowed) but it never came up as the crew was overrun shortly after.

Now, with three-ish pages of rules, obviously not every eventuality is covered.  Morale is missing and there are no way to differentiate troop quality explicitly defined. However, as I'll mention in a bit, there is a way to account for this rather easily.

Perhaps my favorite part of these rules and something I will try with G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. is that it uses multiple cards per unit. For a small game, this means the deck still has some size and shuffling feels like you're actually doing something. In comparison, G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. decks for a game this size are too small to really feel like you'll be able to mix up the cards enough to not know which is which.

It should be obvious (but wasn't to me until I thought about it), but you can simply adjust the cards up or down to reflect leadership / morale / troop experience. Say, 1 card for green infantry, 3 cards for veterans and so on. It requires no changes to the rules otherwise and allows for better units to possibly take more actions per turn, although not guaranteed, of course, because of the Stop card.

In Good Company: Battle of Firefly Church

Last night, I had the fortune of time to set up a game to try out In Good Company, a set of simple colonial rules from Lone Warrior #168. The rules have intrigued me for some time, not the least reason is that they feature a "hospital"- an idea borrowed from Pith Helmet - wherein casualties disappear upon being "hit" and either return to their unit, die, or stay in the hospital.

For the scenario, I borrowed a bit from the classics.

The Gentle Reader no doubt recalls that Firefly Church is located on a hill to the north and east of Hook's farm. While many battles throughout history have raged across this area, in this particular case, the forces of Army Khaki and Army Green, concentrated solely around the historic church.

Army Khaki has orders to capture and hold the church, while Army Green is to drive Khaki from the field.

The armies approach the fabled church.

The belligerents:

• Army Khaki - 1 unit each of cavalry, infantry, and a gun+team
• Army Green - 1 unit each of cavalry, infantry, and native infantry (Martians in this case, who suspiciously look like Saracens)

I will let the pictures tell the story and save my impression of the rules for another time:

The Green advance!

The machine gun unloads lead death, then jams in the face of the enemy!

The Khaki cavalry charge!

Chaos in front of the vaunted church!

Green cavalry set their lances. The stalwart Khaki troops hold their ground like so many statues.

With the thunder of hooves the Green cavalry crashes into the Khaki wall!

Khaki's cavalry turn to the din of battle at the church.

And charge into the fray!

The victors!

Morschauser Modern: American and German forces clash at Hook's Farm!

Both sides descend on Hook's Farm, cottage, and the Firefly Church in equal measure.

American tanks coordinate their firing effectively and manage to bring down one of the German behemoths. 

Meanwhile, across the field of battle, an American tank drives back the opposing German armor. German infantry storms the church unopposed.

The farm is easily taken without a shot fired by a US platoon with a gun in support. So, too, goes the cottage.

German forces continue to hold the church and their armor mounts attacks on the Americans in the cottage, while a German squad(bottom right-ish) rushes to the aid of the HMG team pinned down in some ruins.

Having repelled an American infantry assault on the church in a vicious melee, the Germans focus their efforts on the isolated American tank.

box of dice? no no. it's a monolith.

Under fire from the church and from armor to their front, an American infantry bravely withstands it all from the disintegrating walls of the cottage. With their anti-tank grenades they eliminate a 2nd piece of German armor.

An aerial view shows the disposition of the forces, with most infantry in cover. Note that the tan k on the American right has taken out some of the infantry that had been harassing it. A frantic commander orders the tank crew turn its focus to the church to assist the gun team and infantry squads in clearing out the pesky Germans.

The American left begins to sweep one of its tanks and a gun around to the German right flank. The Germans respond in a desperate attempt to stave off defeat.

Suddenly finding itself in the sites of the German Jagdpanther, the Sherman on the hill retreats for safety.

With the American squads in the cottage and behind the stone wall eliminated, the Germans try to press home their assault on their left - focusing on the isolated tank - in an attempt to steal victory from the jaws of defeat.

Furious shelling from a gun and a Sherman take out the Jagdpanther. It is the deathblow for the German attack force.

Having suffered 50% losses, the German commander orders his troops to fall back.

Total turns: 7

*** Some notes that probably belonged on the last post ***

Initiative was card based - borrowing from a method used in old Two Hour Wargames rules. If the suits match, that side goes first. If the suits don't match, higher card goes first.

The ATG/field howitzers and mortars rained down their terror with impunity.

Melee with the roster system is 'interesting'.

Tanks are Solido and Rocco(?). Guns are CTS and Britains. Figures are Britains, Toy Soldiers of San Diego, Matchbox, 21st Century, and Airfix.

Morschauser Modern and Battle of Hook's Farm

As mentioned here, I had decided to try my hand at the esteemed Battle of Hook's Farm, set in WW2 rather than the more traditional Horse & Musket period, owing largely to an abundance in my collection of the former, and a dearth of the latter.

Before I get to the game proper, it seems wise to at least mention some of my pre-game decisions.

A map of the battle field from Little Wars: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500571h.html#sec4

First, how to convert Wells's tidy "a compact little force of 3 guns, 48 infantry, and 25 horse" to the period?

I opted for the following: treat this as a 1:1 type game and thus 48 infantry is roughly 5 infantry squads/sections in WW2. However, given the very close to 2:1 ratio of infantry to horse, I decided on 6 infantry squads/sections as 1 under-strength company if you will.

Why as 1 under-strength company?

To justify the use of armor in place of 'horse'. Of course, one cannot justify 25 tanks on the battle field, no matter how much fun that would be, when fielding only 48 infantry. A company could well be supported by a limited amount of armor however.

Following the same line of thought for infantry,  I decided 10 horse is roughly 1 vehicle, or 2.5 vehicles total. Rounding up, thanks to the 2:1 infantry to horse ratio, I get 2 sections : 1 vehicle.

Why 'vehicle' and not 'tank'?

While in the original, Hook's Farm is, despite the reports by the blue army commander, a battle between two exactly equal forces, I thought variety, being the spice of life, after all, was a better option. And given the make up of my toy soldier WW2 forces of 3 tanks, 1 jeep/kublewagen, and 1 APC for the US, and 4 for the Germans, some randomization could be entertained.

For the US: Roll 1d6, 1-4: tank, 5: jeep, 6: APC
For the Germans: Roll 1d6: 1-3 tank, 4: kublewagen, 5-6: APC

In the event, each side ended up with 3 tanks

As for 3 guns, I opted to stick with the number but again, randomize the exact conversion of the word 'gun'.

Roll 1d6: 1-3 ATG/Field Howitzer, 4-5: Mortar 6: HMG

The US ended up with 2 ATGs/Field Howitzers and a mortar. While the Germans acquired 1 ATG, 1 mortar, and 1 HMG.

So, to summarize the OOB:
Americans:
6 infantry squads/sections
3 tanks
2 ATGs/Field Howitzers
1 Mortar

Germans:
6 infantry squads/sections
3 tanks
1 ATG
1 Mortar
1 HMG

I had some issues translating the map in Little Wars to my table. I had originally planned to play on the floor, which would have allowed some more maneuvering but the presence of company in the living room prevented me from taking it over. As such, 'the country', was a bit cramped.

There were some modifications to be made to the rules: 6" for infantry, 9"for tanks, taken from Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames WW2 rules, the 12" sighting rule from the same, and the weapon ranges also borrowed from those rules.

Morschauser's 'roster' option was employed with 4 points per infantry unit, and 2 points for everyone else.

Other situations were dealt with on the fly -occupying buildings is something Little Wars forbids and Morschauser doesn't really seem to address, so I left it to my gut as it occurred.

After setting out the US per the description of the blue army deployment, I mostly randomized the German force layout and started to play.

For a victory condition, I went with the first side to take out  >= 50% of the enemy would win the field, or at the end of 10 turns, I would count roster points remaining.

Next time, for real, the battle report.

Turn 1: The armies begin their advances.