While procrastinating about Panzergruppe Guderian,managed to work on additional buildings for Fistful of Lead.
Decided to keep with the Southwest locale.It fits my lack of skill and precision.Adobe buildings require the roughest of construction skills, complemented by healthy applications of spackling paste.
Throw in layers of textured spray paint, random dry-brushing with earth colors, finish with white/gray, and there it is.
The results aren’t pretty, but functional.A topic I’m working myself into a rant about.
Want to take a minute to extoll the virtures of this ruleset. Is it the greatest ever……well, no. But, it is what it is and an excellent value.
The rules are just a part of what you get. There is a whole series of stand-alone scenarios, characters to develop, diagrams of buildings, and another set of scenarios that can be combined in a campaign game.
Everyone has there preferences, but I have no desire to try another of western skirmish rules.
Finally played a game after my earlier in the month misadventures with scale.
Scenario borrowed from the Butch & Sundance final fight. Had four figures each for the “Blue” Gang and “Brown” Posse. Blue Gang hiding in small ranch complex, when Posse approaches and dismounts.
First random actions were to determine if the Blue’s sentry spotted the Posse before the first turn started and at what distance. He did, at a distance of 12 inches. There’s no running in the Rules As Written (RAW), only walk (5″) and crawl (2″). I use a run move of 7 inches.
A card is dealt for each figure. The card values (face etc) are called out in sequence with the highest card going first. For solo play, I just lay them out, and then pick in the appropriate order.
Turn 1: The outlaws are warned and get the first three plays. The sentry runs to the house to give the warning. One gets out of the building, rushing to the gate, and another moves to the corral wall. The posse shoots down the cowboy at the gate, and takes cover behind the ranch wall.
Turn 2: One outlaw runs out of ammunition (firing roll of “1”). The posse’s rifleman shoots down the outlaw at the corral. The remaining outlaws are now in the building.
Turn 3: The outlaws have the first two turns and both miss aimed fire (one action to aim and one action to fire). One of the outlaws is then pinned by gunfire. A posse member moves next to the house, anticipating a rush.
Turn 4: The two posse shooters at the corral run out of ammunition. A bold attempt to rush the building leaves the one posse member wounded.
Turn 5: The outlaws manage to kill two posse members despite partial cover.
At this point, I had to shut the game down.
As advertised, Fistful of Lead is “fast and furious”. You can nitpick the rules, particularly the inability to shoot at a moving target, but you can’t dispute this is a fun skirmish game.
Posse shoots down one of the outlaws at the front gate. Another outlaw is outside the house using the corral wall’s partial cover.Two outlaws down!One member of the posse ready to rush the house.
Thought I’d made a comittment to DBA 3. Now I’ve reneged. Played a couple of games and it just doesn’t work solo. Need an opponent. Tired of the lack of manuever and reliance on melee.
With all that lead, I had to come up with alternative uses. So, in keeping with my new focus on the old, I inventoried all my 15mm Dark Age and Medieval figures – which involved several DBA armies – and came up with workable lists for WRG Ancients.
I have the basic units for Byzantines vs. Arabs using my old Tabletop (now distributed by Alternative Armies), as well as Condotta vs. Ottomans using Essex figures. The odd troops out are my Essex Central Asian Cavalry. With some touch-up painting they should sell on E-Bay.
How Retro is WRG 5th Edition. Should be fun, but that fun will have to wait until Winter. Need time and money……isn’t that always the case?
Decided to get on the Wild West miniatures game. This decision led to a wargaming mis-adventure.
Painting the plastic figures was fine. Prep was a little time consuming with washing, soaking in vinegar and then brushing with white glue. Overall, nice to get painting again.
But, had a real snafu with the buildings. Yes, I decided to go all in and construct a western town. Bought some foam core and was in business for about $4.00. Worked with the 1/72 scale of the figures, and sketched up a basic building plan.
So far, so good.
Cut up the foam core, added balsa wood door and window frames, along with overhangs.
The plan was to finish up and play last Sunday. But….when figures and buildings were placed on the table…..it was like this.
Here’s a picture……..except it’s a Town For Giants!!!!!!!
Getting the twitch for some new miniature games, but with minimal budget outlay.
First quasi-project is Western Gunfights using the Fistful Of Lead (Reloaded) rules. They’re available over at WargameVault. My real hope was to use them with smaller 10mm figures. No real options there. Tempted to work with 20mm “Punitive Expedition” figures, but that’s a pricey proposition for what could be a “one and done” game. So, found this at the local vintage toy store.
Cheap, can fabricate some buildings, and if it’s fun……go to the more expensive option.
Also purchased an Osprey title on the Technical vehicles.
Now all revved up (no pun intended) on a miniatures treatment using 1/285 GHQ vehicles. Again, pricey, but no real options for low cost tactical minis. Very, very tempted.
Gave in and decided to go with DBA 3. Haven’t been overwhelmed with the differences in scale, and the introduction of “solid” troop types. Well, maybe because I don’t have the Army Lists. Still, the addition of “Threat Zones” extending out one stand width from all units precludes unlikely gymnastics, and forcing a fight or withdrawal.
So, the tournament is back on. First round involved Swiss and Condotti. Condotti scored an unlikely upset by turning the Swiss flank moving through bad going, and forcing a Swiss charge into Mounted Knights. Another tactical lesson learned.
After a truly abortive first turn of the Thunder At Cassino campaign, decided to regroup by playing a DBA (2.2) game that’s been set up for…well maybe…six months. Late Swiss vs. Some Mutant Army With Lots of Crossbows and Knights. Hell….can’t find anything like it in the lists.
Hammered it out Sunday afternoon during boring NFL action.
DBA is what it is. Simple, Quick and Generic. I’d like to see some chrome…. like Swiss having an extra bound to simulate their speed/audacity in the attack, or range differentials between bow types. But, for that, I need to try DBM, or some other system.
For The Quick and Dirty, You Go With The Devil You Know. Never played it FTF, and that is how it should be played. Ugh…..cut-throat tournament action….guys with rulers down to the eighth of an inch…..all that facing stuff……Ugh.
It was fun. I’ll set up again, but with Cavalry/Light Horse armies to stretch things out.
Here’s a semi-lucid photo summary of the game.
Turn One. Light units Deploy. Swiss In Foreground.
Mid-Turn 5. Things Get Interesting.
End Turn 5. Pikes Struggling Against Bows(?!?) While Knights’ Attack Develops.
End Game. Knights Quick Kill Pike, Swiss Left Wing Shattered.
Finally started pushing cardboard, but immediately ran into problems. Not unanticipated, but one of them brought the session to a halt.
Movement phase difficult because counters are damned fiddly. Movement trays? Bad thought. Cardboard is easy, right?
The French advanced with skirmishers front, engaging each Spanish regiment. I do like the way the game looks!
Then, another problem: Casualties. The game calls for a detailed accounting of losses. Makes the fiddiliness of moving regiments pale in comparison. So, in the name of my sanity, decided to assign losses to the entire regiment, removing company counters for each 10 percent loss of the regiment’s total strength. Skirmishing companies will be accounted for individually.
Drafted up a regiment, company strength, total strength worksheet. A picture is shown below.
Crude, but hopefully effective.
While messing around this morning found this link/article over at Web Grognards. Confluence of events?
Thrashing now. Trying to reconcile the game system with reading Napoleonic tactics. Disconnect with battalion/regiment frontages and depths. Of course, all of these book dictates are conjectural, based on manuals, pundits, and the revisionist interpretations of manuals and pundits.
One hex in Squad Leader is 40 meters or just over 43 yards. The hex width is 3/4 inch. Counter frontages in System 7 are one inch equals 40 yards. Battalion frontages were 75 yards. Not a match, but close enough.
The real problem appeared to be a company counter depth of 5/16 inches or roughly 14 yards in scale. According to my interpretation of a Chandler, a six company battalion advancing in column would have an overall depth of 15 yards. This is problematic, especially since according the rules, maximum stacking is two companies, which leaves a depth of 42 yards per battalion if attacking with two companies abreast. All of that just doesn’t make sense and at this point I was dizzy.
Somehow came to my senses, looked a few more resources, had a pop…..ahhhhhh…the depth was 15 yards per company or 45 yards.
