OK, the 13 hour brisket cooking marathon (with accompanying beer consumption) got in the way of making progress with the Renaissance Skirmish. But have been hacking away at other projects.
Finished up my representational 15mm African Village structures for the East African Campaign. Here’s a quick shot.
Ran through the rules last night using a few figures. Play is quick and straightforward.
Planning to use my random dice to generate the tactical situation for the scenario. The scenario parameters will include defender alertness, number of defenders outside of buildings etc. (whatever the etc is).
Will use directional dice to dictate where the attackers come from.
Next step is to determine the plan of attack.
When attackers within 8 inches (two moves) Yes/No/Maybe dice will determine if a building is occupied by defenders. A “Maybe” result will require another role with the building occupied if second roll is a Yes or Maybe.
A four-sided die will be used to determine how many defenders in a building. Once all defenders have been placed, any remaining buildings cannot be occupied except by defender movement during the scenario.
Should work for starters. Will give it a go over the weekend.
Here’s a quick shot of a few of the figures. These are all Warhammer Empire figures purchased on E-Bay either painted or unpainted.
Original thought was to augment my Renaissance armies, but they were just too large, especially compared to the smaller 25mm Hinchliffes which make up the bulk of those forces. Scale for these figures is roughly 30-32mm.
Great looking, which would make sense since they were sculpted by The Perrys, and they paint up well.
Finished up the crossbowmen and put together a “cheat sheet” for the “On The Seven Seas” rules. Great way to learn and retain. Here’s a link to the On The Seven Seas PDF version of the playing aid.
Set up the table for a skirmish game using the “On The Seven Seas” rules by Osprey. Yes, I know, these are pirate rules. But, when I purchased these rules, Osprey’s latest and period applicable offering “En Garde,” was not available. While the reception for “Seven Seas” has been mixed, I do like the faction/greed/fear mechanics, and the simplicity. We’ll see how they work on the table.
The game will be a village fight between two factions. One will hold the village, the other intending to loot and plunder.
I’m using houses from Hobby Lobby. These are cardboard and very close to scale for my larger Warhammer Empire figures. More on them in a followup post. I kept the four houses a neutral gray, with only red chimneys and add-on flower basins for color.
I’ll use a few figures and push through a quick couple of turns this PM.
Finally home, and one of the first orders of business was to finish the RE-8. What a perfect clunker.
Just one more aircraft to finish for the BoB Campaign. But before that happens, I need to finish up my six Renaissance Skirmish figures (more on that in my next post) and the slog-that-is-the-BoB-gunboat.
Here’s a few photos of the “Harry Tate”.
Too much time on my hands, so I started working on some variant rules for a Habbinaya campaign. Here’s a general outline. Overarching idea is to add a bombing option without layering on too many additional rules, chrome, or charts.
Aircraft Pool – Similar to BoB. Iraq pool includes German/Italian after “x” number of rounds (role for intervention each “turn”?).
Morale Points – Each side receives points which are reduced by successful bombing attacks. British morale roughly 2 times that of Iraq.
Bombing – Targets are either Iraq ground units, Habbinaya, or either side’s aircraft. Bombing resolved on fire combat table’s one resolution line using six-sided die. For aircraft hit role die for type destroyed. Ground unit/installation hit, reduce morale by “x” point(s). If bombing at Diamond altitude, get +1 on die roll.
Flak – Role six sided die on fire combat table’s one resolution line. If target at Diamond altitude get +1 on die roll. If hit, role on fire combat table’s eight resolution line.
Air Combat Rounds – This is where it gets real sketchy….critical to keep track of ammo use/short burst optional rule.,
Mission lasts “x” card plays.
Determine if mission is escorted or not escorted.
Determine if mission is intercepted or not intercepted.
Defender must disengage from escort in order to attack bomber.
Bomber must survive “y” of “x” mission card plays in order to bomb.
I’ll keep fooling around with this until I return home and can do some research on OB.
Still playing Minden Games’ Battle Over Britain. After several solo plays, decided that a campaign is the best way to enjoy the game. Similar to B-17, where the “one-of” games are fun, but a couple in a row get boring.
Along those lines, I put together aircraft ratings for the 1941 air campaign over Habbinaya, Iraq for those aircraft not available in the Battle Over Britain series. I’ve always been fascinated by that campaign and the use of antiquated aircraft to defend the RAF base.
I don’t have access to a word processing program that constructs a grid, so the ratings will be linear in the following sequence. Speed, Agility, Fire/Fire Rear, Performance and Damage.
These ratings are based on aircraft data from various sources, and comparisons of ratings in both the Minden game and Perry Moore’s Sonderkommando, an interesting simulation of the campaign.
Northrup A-17 1,1,-1/-2,1,10
Hart/Audax 2,2,-2/-2,2,8
Oxford 2,1,-2/-2,2,11
Vincent 1,1,-2/-2,1,8
Breda 65 2,1,-1/-2,1,10
DH 84 2,1,-1/-2/2/10
The next step will be to come up with the campaign parameters.
Been messing around with Minden Games‘ Battle Over Britain (BoB) the last few days. This “Tactical Plane vs Plane Air Combat Game” is designed by Gary Grabner, who also owns Minden Games, and publishes both Panzerschreck and Panzer Digest.
I’ve always liked Gary’s games, and the BoB series is no exception. First published in Panzer Digest as Faith, Hope & Charity – Air Battles Over Malta, 1940-41, the series now includes Battle Over Britain, Flying Tigers and a Solitaire Module.
What attracted to me to the series is its use of a wide variety of early war aircraft. These include CR-42s, Gladiators, a Polish P-11c, a Dutch Fokker D.XX1, and a German HS-123.
As with many Minden Games, the action is generated by the use of a deck of playing cards. These cards are used to establish each aircraft’s altitude and firing position on a Dogfight Display. This display is a simple grid using card suit and value.
Each aircraft counter has a top-down view of the aircraft, along with its Speed, Agility, Fire Modifier, Performance, and Durability Ratings. Speed indicates the number of cards in the player’s hand, Agility determines how many new cards can be drawn if the player “Yanks The Stick”, Performance rating differentials allow players to disengage from combat, and Durability is the number of hits an aircraft can take before being destroyed.
He’s incorporated a lot of chrome in both the basic and optional rules. These include ammunition, rear fire, a tailing bonus, ace status, and bailing out. The latter can be used in a campaign game. Several ideas (which Gary refers to as “abstracted”) are included in the rules.
The components are basic, but get the job done. I can see using a small terrain map with the grid superimposed, along with Tumbling Dice 1/600 aircraft to create a nice visual effect.
Gary designed this as a “fast and furious” card game with high replayability. He achieved these goals. It’s a lot of fun!
Am TAD for the next few weeks, and daily focus not on wargaming.
I left my three projects in various stages of completion pending return. Sigh.
However, I did bring few modest pursuits/games.
Right now I’m messing around with the Galleys and Galleons rules. While out at author’s blog I came across an entry about using WizKids collectible card game pirate ships.
These are inexpensive plastic ships featuring galleys, junks and sailing vessels. The galleys and junks are perfect for my East Africa Campaign, while the sailing vessels tend to be more 18th century than the mid-16th centrury. The components are punched out from credit card looking templates. While simplistic, and adorned with logos, they pass muster as an inexpensive way to fight small fleet actions.
The naval aspects of the campaign will be secondary, so building fleets for the Chinese, Turks and Portuguese without a considerable investment of money, time and effort is a most welcome development.
I am also working with an old set of WRG rules for galley warfare as a supplementary system. I downloaded the Galleons and Galleys rules in PDF at the Wargame Vault.
