6x6 Challenge progress for August

A couple more games were played with the 19th Century campaign, bringing it to a conclusion and completing all 6 games. One of the games (game 4) was actually played in early July and I somehow managed to overlook it and didn't add it to July's tally.  So for August I am showing 3 games played.

My total games for the year stand at:

• One Hour Wargames (Tank-on-Tank) SciFi Variant - 6 games completed in February
• Dark Ages with Dux Bellorum (Osprey) - 6 games completed in January using paper armies
• WW2 Naval (Pz8 rules) - 6 games now completed with the last 2 played in July.
• 19th Century European Imagi-Nations OHW - 6 games played the final 3 played over July/August.
• Galleys and Galleons (Ganesha Games) - 2 games were played in April.
• Hundred Years War using Lion Rampant (Osprey) - 6 games completed as part of a series of campaign games.

19th Century games were played sometimes on a grid and also with free movement

In September I will have to focus on my Galleys and Galleons games with my paper ships.

Pictures from an earlier game

6x6 Challenge - 19th Century game number 6

The final game of my 19th Century 6x6 challenge was to be a pitched battle between the Ustoria and Greater Novia armies. The background to the campaign has both countries battling over the disputed territory of Scailand, sitting between lands of the Ustorian monarchy and the Novian states who have united politically under the banner of Greater Novia.

The winner of the campaign is the country with the highest public opinion. Opinion is influenced by press coverage of casualties and heroic actions on the battlefield. Entering this last game we have public opinion sitting at 15 percent for both countries. A victory here will be decisive!

Greater Novia was starting the game with 8 units due to 2 of their units getting bogged down. While Ustorian forces had 10 units in all, but 3 units were going to be delayed until game turn 5. All forces had to enter the game via the roads on their own edge of the tabletop.

The opening moves of the game sees both sides attempting to occupy the towns

Greater Novian troops control the central wood and redirect their assault on the far flank

Ustorian artillery are well positioned on the hill, but are on the wrong flank! As Novian forces make their flank move in the distance.

Greater Novian forces start to pressure the Ustorian left flank. Commanders on both sides were feeding in their reserves (in other words using their rally options to remove hits)

The Ustorian flank starts to fail, but the Novian forces were slow to follow up.

The delayed units finally arrive just in the nick of time. 

The late arrivals are rushed into the line.

The Greater Novian cavalry can be seen emerging from behind the woods to charge a very depleted infantry unit, which they were to successfully eliminate. 

The Greater Novian cavalry charge was soon met by the counter charging Ustorian cavalry. The Novian cavalry disorganised after their pervious charge were soon eliminated. Both cavalry charges were to feature heavily in Press reports and generate the old debate in the nobility and usefulness of cavalry.

The closing moves before both armies held firm after having 50 percent of their units eliminated.

So how did they fare in the press reports?

Greater Novia:
-20 for the loss of 4 units
+5 for a glorious action in capturing a town
+5 for past glories with a successful cavalry charge
This takes their public opinion to 10 percent.

Ustoria:
-25 for the loss of 5 units
+5 for a glorious action in capturing a town
+5 for past glories with a successful cavalry charge
This takes their public opinion down to 0 percent.

(Neither side had -5 points for a defeat, as both lost 50 percent of their units in the same turn.)

A campaign victory to Greater Novia in the last game as both sides came to the negotiation table to sort out a settlement over the Scailand territories.

I started these campaign games with some very simple rules based heavily upon the Neil Thomas Rifle and Sabre One-Hour Wargame rules. A number of ideas have been added and tried out in the games (and a few other mini-games played) and I now need to write up my notes. I have deviated from my usual grid-based rules, mainly because I have introduced variable movement.

Painting projects I plan to do

My painting and gaming time this week was very limited due to being away for work. However, I was able to get in a couple of SciFi skirmish games using the rules A Fistful of Lead Reloaded with a number of modifications.

Space Marines move up to attack a rebel stronghold.

But this post is about the painting projects I am planning to do. The idea about posting a list comes from the blog Natholeon's Empires where the idea (using Natholeon's copied and pasted words) is: "You make a Project Management blogpost which includes a list of projects you have / are working on / one day realistically intend to be working on. In the post you link back to the blog of the person that you got this idea from, like I have with Prufrock, and these instructions. That way we might get a chain effect of people discovering new blogs that they hadn't been following before. Or maybe just a bit of community bonding like the 'good old days'."

I think this is a great idea to try out and see what happens. Earlier this year I joined in on a similar blog activity the 6x6 challenge initiated by Kaptain Kobold of The Stronghold Rebuilt, which has turned out to be a lot of fun and along the way I discovered other really interesting blogs.

So on to my project list. It is not an especially very long list and includes repainting some old miniatures I have retained from my youth, which are currently in boxes having not seen the light of day for decades.

Napoleonic - just started the project last month using a collection of old Spencer Smith plastic miniatures I picked up in an exchange.

WW2 Burma - a recently purchased small collection from the Airfix range. This will be my fall back project if I get tired of painting Napoleonic units. I still have to find one or two Japanese tanks and need to consider making some jungle terrain. I plan to use these armies with the Crossfire ruleset.

Samurai - a very old collection of 25mm MINIFIGS which were purchased in the late 1970's. The aim will be to create a couple of armies for use with DBA version 1.

English Civil War - the plan is to repaint my old Hinchcliffe 25mm miniatures. This was my first collection of metal miniatures started in the early 1970's. I think I was 12 years old at the time. They have multiple paint styles and the plan is to strip off the paint and begin again. They will be based for the Chipco game Age of Gunpowder.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar - I bought the starter pack and plan to use these for some skirmish wargaming with the Song of Blades rules.

Warhammer 40K - I have a few kits to complete. Some are for my Chaos army and include the recent purchase of the Dark Imperium starter box set. Along with a Skitarii starter box to add some variety to my other armies.

Space Marines not doing so well in this contest

A Fistful of Lead Reloaded with a W40K setting

The release of Armageddon the Shadow War by Games Workshop got me thinking about doing some skirmish level wargaming with my 40K models. I knew I had no desire for an overly detailed set of rules and so started to look out for some alternatives.

So when a few weeks back when Wargame Vault had a sale I took the opportunity and purchased the wild west ruleset A Fistful of Lead Reloaded for less than $10. They sounded like a fun set of rules and from some of the reviews I have had read, and a couple of game reports had them adapted and used them in a sci-fi setting.

Playing on a 4 foot by 3 foot area.

To begin with I stuck with most of the rules, the only major amendments were with the to wound table, where I subtract 1 or 2 from the dice roll depending upon a figure's armour. For example, -1 for space marine armour and -2 for terminator armour. Then adding to the to wound dice roll if the weapon is a power weapon such as a plasma rifle.

Add caption

In the four games played I have found the rules are quick to play and enjoyable. I now need to come up with a mini campaign for a few games during the week.

Rebel troops prepare to engage terminators

19th century - 6x6 challenge game 5

While I do some reading and planning for a mini-campaign using my recently completed French Indian war armies. It was time to get back and complete my 19th Century Imagi-Nations campaign which is one part of my 6x6 challenge.

It feels like it has been a while since I last played a game. So I had to dig around in past posts and campaign notes (scribbles) to find out where I had left off the campaign. The featured post on the right has details the campaign which is won by the side with the best public opinion after 6 games.

Public opinion going into this game stands at:

• Ustoria 30%
• Greater Novia 40%

The last major engagement was won by the Ustorians, and after each major engagement there has to be a rear guard action. For the games themselves I use the setup rules from Wargaming 19th Century by Neil Thomas.

Having rolled for the number of terrain pieces and randomly laid them out based upon dice throws. Having a gridded table helps with this process. The forces were selected from tables in Neil Thomas' book and delivered the following:

Ustorian Advance Units

• 6 x infantry
• 1 x skirmishers
• 1 x cavalry
• 2 x artillery 

Greater Novian Rear Guard

• 1 x artillery
• 2 x infantry
• 1 x dragoons*
• 1 x cavalry

* Whenever 2 cavalry are selects the side has the option of changing one of the units fro dragoons.

All is set for the game...

The Greater Novian rear guard prepare to delay the attacking Ustorian forces

As a delaying tactic Novian dragoons and cavalry treated the first few advancing units

The delaying tactics are over and the dragoons and cavalry start to retire to the next line of defence

More of the Ustorian advance guard move down the road towards the waiting defence line

Initial attacks begin on the flanks

The Ustorian attack starts to build with artillery in place to support the attacks

The Novian right flank is exposed and their defence line is at risk

On the same turn a cavalry charge takes out the supporting artillery. The Greater Novian defence line is in trouble

The Novian forces rally to their next line of defence between the woods, building, and hill

Ustorian forces regroup for the final assault

Ustorian forces are grinding down the Novian defenders, but are taking heavy casualties

Breaking the final line was very costly in Ustorian units

The last Novian unit retires. An Ustorian victory, but only just, another lost unit would have handed the victory to the Greater Novian rear guard.

This turned out to be a good close game. How did public opinion move with the press reporting of this latest engagement?

Ustorian:

• 5 units lost = minus 25%
• Past Glories with the successful cavalry charge = plus 5%
• Glorious action with the taking of the final defence = plus 5%
• All up they lost 15% public option and now sit at 15%. Even with the recent victories the public at home get war weary.

Greater Novian:

• 4 units lost = minus 20%
• Defeat with the lost more than 50% of their units and allowed 5 enemy unit to leave the field = minus 5%
• A total loss of 25% moved their public opinion to 15%. The earlier victories have been quickly forgotten by the press and their readers.

Down to the wire with one game to go in the campaign.

This weekend I continued to paint more Napoleonic units, all old plastic Spencer Smith miniatures. I am painting these in the same style as my 19th century Imagi-Nations armies, a very straight forward approach minimising the detail. I have in my mind the old Britains toy soldiers I used to play with as a young child.

If you are interested in the steps to painting very toy soldier looking miniatures, without too much effort. Here are the steps.

The paints I use are all from the Games Workshop range. Partly because I have a good selection of them and they are nice and flexible. Very useful with soft plastic models.

The miniatures are cleaned up with a sharp knife and stuck to card for painting

They are then covered with a liberal application of PVC glue in preparation for applying the paint

The miniatures are painted allover in the uniform colour

Facings are painted next. I will touch up with the base colour if my painting is really sloppy

Hats, rifles and bayonets painted

Backpacks, ammunition pouch, and leggings

Final touches shoulder belts and epaulettes

Once painted a final coat of PVA glue and the stand is painted green

All done

A slightly closer photo

Starting next project with another project in sight

My current project, which I have just started, is to begin painting up some of the Spencer Smith Napoleonic plastic miniatures I gained as part of a swap earlier in the year. Looking at pictures on the Spencer Smith website the miniatures appear to be a combination of French, Austrian and Russian troops. The good news is if I am short of any miniatures I will be able to buy additional metal ones.

Anyway, over the weekend I started painting them and finished two units. My painting approach is the same as my 19th century imagi-nations armies, quick and simple painting with a shinny finish to hide many of my painting flaws, and give them a toy soldier look.

French infantry 

Russian infantry

A possible distraction I have to this project began when I popped into my local arts and crafts shop to get some more brushes. They often stock a small range of Airfix model kits, and there on the self were two boxes of Airfix WW2 Japanese, which I have not seen for a very long time.

I have always had in the back of my mind the idea to get some miniatures for a small WW2 Burma game. I have a copy of Crossfire rules which require a lot of cover for a good game, and they would seem to be quite suited for a WW2 Burma game.

Taking this opportunity I bought them both and was able to get some more WW2 kits from other model shops. I am now in the position where I have two projects on the go at one time. This is something I generally try to avoid as I like to for the most part focus on one project and get it finished and on the table for a game.

Recent purchases 

Rules

French Indian War rules updated

This week has been very much focussed on the French Indian War period. Firstly, I was able to play a game which included my scratch built fort (see earlier posts of how to make this cheap and easy terrain piece).

Secondly, I have updated my French-Indian War rules with all the scribbled amendments accumulated over the last month of so (see a link to them above). There were quite a few notes and have taken up quite a bit of my time - so this is a rather brief post.

The assault begins

Skirmisher units outside the fort are proving a distraction to the attackers

Matchsticks represent wall destroyed by artillery. This was the furthest the British got before the French regulars sallied out of the fort and successfully counter attacked.

Thirdly, and finally, two books are hopefully winging they way to me:

• Charlie Wesencraft's Seven Steps to Freedom Wargaming the French and Indian War and the American War of Independence
• The French-Indian War 1754-1760 from Osprey