Soldering On

It turns out super glue is not the way to fix a broken rifle on a Britain's figure.

Now, don't get me wrong, I thought it worked, but when I went to move the figure (well over 24 hours later), the broken bit just fell off again. Subsequent attempts failed, even after doing my best to scrape off the dried glue and some paint.

Somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain I recalled someone somewhere on a blog mentioning solder.

I don't recall the exact context but to that person I say thank you!

I pulled out my soldering gear (I usually use it for quick and poor repairs of my effects pedals and such for guitar) and after much swearing and gnashing of teeth (I really need one of those third-hand tools) voila:

Badly soldered but repaired broken rifle.

OK, pretty it is not, but it is a strong repair - both the rifle bit and where the strap attaches to the leg.

Here it is after a touch up of the paint and the figures (this one and the one with the broken strap that I did manage to repair with glue):

A fire team. A squad. A platoon. Whatever you want to call three figures on a base that's arguably too small for them.

Close enough for government work, as they say.

And just for giggles, these plastic pre-paints arrived last night:

These are not the droids you are looking for.

I have been eyeing this Jawa pack for a few years now (seriously), mostly because I love R5D4. If that's NOT R5D4 being used as a horse, I don't want to know.

CTS is having a sale on the long since discontinued Star Wars Unleashed Battle Packs - said to be 1/32-ish - and since I was ordering stuff from them for their Black Friday sale, I thought I owed it to myself to get these.

I plan to acquire Sand Troopers for a little payback scenario (Jawas: The Revenge) - hopefully from Santa or my own rather depleted hobby budget (thanks to the AiP sale):

Image found on Internet. It's available from a bunch of t-shirt sites.

Shiny Happy Highlanders

The Thanksgiving break gave me a few nights with time to paint and so I happily finished up my 10-figure unit of Armies in Plastic Highlanders.

I think I am most happy about how the flag came out.

Here they are with the lancers:

There's an AIP gatling gun and crew on the paint table now - unfortunately I'm missing the hopper for the gatling gun, so I will have to improvise that.

When that's done I'll have a small force suitable for a small game of G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. (with an undersized cavalry unit) or perhaps In Good Company from Lone Warrior #168. Barring that, there's always some 1:1 skirmishes a la Featherstone's Rules for 'Close Wars'.

Armies in Plastic is having a Christmas sale, and I am tempted to pick up some British infantry to provide another unit or two for this side and possibly a camel unit, just for one figure to act as a main character/hero (in G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. terms) or an overall commander. Using 4-figure infantry units, I could then field a moderate Portable Wargame force or have a more involved battle with the other rules.

Medic!

These two Britain's need some time in the sick tent before they can return to the front.

The one on the left has suffered the embarrassing snapping of his rifle while demonstrating his bayoneting technique with a tree (I have the broken rifle part, it's just not pictured). His fellows found it all rather amusing but the officers were less pleased.

The one on the right has more acceptable repair needs typical of the average soldier: broken strap and some paint chips covered up.

I have NO idea what the best way to fix the rifle or the strap is - my first thought is super glue (because my other alternative fix-all is duct tape). Please stop me if I'm about to commit some terrible mistake

W. Britain's Big Red One figures, damaged

Highlander Progress

I’ve been working on finishing this unit up that I started last year. A sealant and some gloss is all that remains. I was going for a Deetail type paint job. While I’m not entirely happy with my efforts when I view them in close up, they look ok from wargaming distance, even with my glasses on, so I can’t complain. Next up, I’ll finish work on the officer and bag piper. 

A Very Morschauser Friday

After what is generously described as a hiatus, I finally was able to put figures on the table the other night. I opted to replay this scenario from 2 years ago (my how time flies!)

Now, as then, I opted to use Morschauser's Modern rules with roster, rolling one die per stand, not per point (to make things last longer). Mortars aren't covered so I grabbed the 48" range from Neil Thomas OHW - which might not be accurate, but it was good enough.

Perhaps to convince myself that I'm in better shape than I am, I played this one on the living room floor.

The US soundly trounced the Germans in 7 quick turns, so I reset everything for another go, and gave the Germans one more unit of infantry. This resulted in a much better battle which the Germans only barely won in Turn 10.

A PZ IV prepares to finish off the the last remnant of the US assault

I hesitate to ascribe any sort of momentum to my gaming but it was a joyful time and I hope to do it again soon.

The First Dice of 2018 Have Rolled!

It doesn't look like much, but tonight I had my first run using the Five Men in Normandy rules by Ivan Sorensen.

I used the generic Nuts! (from Two Hour Wargames) infantry test scenario: small band of paratroopers assault a farm house with a sentry outside and an mg-42 team inside.

After one short play test, it's too early to say anything - I was surprised by the bail result, and the frequency I encountered it, but I also think I did something wrong. I need to re-read it and do so more carefully. It also isn't clear to me if activating the LMG counts as activating two figures (because of the loader) or just one.

Two US Paratroopers enter a small, but colorful, woods a short distance from the target farm house.

As for the use of naked figures and alien-looking 'trees', in my defense, I'm visiting my parents, and only grabbed a handful of unpainted plastics (they travel quite well when tossed into my backpack, compared to painted figures).

The trees, by the way, are cat toys.

Thoughts About One Hour Wargames Medieval

With respect to Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargame Medieval rules, as I have mentioned before, I have no experience with any other medieval rules to compare but they work well enough for me and feel different than the WW2 set, which is good enough (what can I say, I set a low bar). While I enjoy playing them, they are not without issues, owing, in large part, to the very simplicity I find so appealing.

If you can focus on anything but that curling cat hair, you are a better person than I am.

In my last outing, I was perplexed by how to handle units in the town.

What qualifies as "in town"? How many units can be in the same town? This is important as units get a significant defensive bonus (halving hits against it) from being in town.

And does the idea of knights fighting in a town have precedent? See,not only do I not have any experience with medieval wargames, I know virtually nothing about the time period outside of Hollywood depictions. I just happen to think armor is really cool.

Ignoring my ignorance of history for the moment (I know it looms large, but please, for the sake of this discussion), the questions about towns from a rules perspective still stand.

In the event, I ruled that two units could count the defensive bonus from the town, as long as half, or near half of the base was inside the borders defined for it. My rationale was that, for this scenario, the map showed a 4" x 6" town approximately.  My bases are roughly 4" square. Depth is not given in the rules (a width of 4" to 6" is suggested) but I have to imagine that most people aren't using 54mm+ figures on deep bases. I figured that at least two bases would fit for most people, so I would allow the same if the units were in base to base contact. I'm not sure this is the best rationale and I welcome suggestions.

Now with regards to that defensive bonus.

At the end of the game, a unit of men-at-arms entered the town. They have a natural bonus of taking only half damage. When they are in town, do they take half again, so that men-at-arms take 1/4 damage? I couldn't find anywhere in the rules that says these bonuses aren't cumulative and so 1/4 damage it was. I'm not convinced this is the best for game play, but lacking any reason not to do so, it worked well enough. It also means you should probably hold your town with men-at-arms, which doesn't sound wrong to me in light of my ignorance of the period and despite my failure to do so for the Redsylvanian forces.

Neither of these rules questions are show stoppers, but players will have to address them when they arise. If you play solo, as I do, you can, like I often do, make a different decision each time and no harm done (or by coincidence make the same decision each time because you forgot what you did last time), but if you're playing the game with others, it's probably for the best to decide this ahead of time, and use the Morschauser suggestion to dice between differing opinions and move on.

For a much more in depth look at the rules, here are some links I came across that address the issues with much detail and thought:

https://ecw40mmproject.blogspot.com/2017/05/whats-missing-in-one-hour-wargames-rules.html
https://darkages40and25.blogspot.com/2017/10/one-hour-wargames-medieval-rules.html