My wargaming plans are not confined to WW2, not by a long shot. For my Napoleonics here was we’ve got slowly working towards fruition.
Kiss Me Hardy rules, 1:1200 scale. These rules are going to be the analogue to Wings of Glory for us. They will serve for quick games, though we would like to run a bit of naval campaign at some time in the future.
Denmark Campaign, General D’Armeé rules, 15mm. We are working on building up a fictional scenario, not long after Jena and Auerstadt. The British, worried about the developments in the area, invade Denmark. The French dispatch a corps to the north, their timeline for seizing the Danish fleet being correspondingly moved up. The Danish caught in the middle, will be holding Copenhagen (with their fleet). We are hoping to have a naval aspect with the outcome of naval battles influencing reinforcements and supplies available.
Peninsular War,General D’Armeé rules, 15mm/Sharp Practice 28mm. After the securing the Baltic, our attention will shift to the Iberian peninsula. We are hoping to do a campaign in 15mm, marked with 28mm Sharp Practice skirmishes and raids (that may involve a certain captain in the 95th rifles). Between L and I, we have a good start on collecting the 28s, but we have so very, very many 15mm to paint up that the plan for this is very much in the future.
It’s a quiet, grey Friday here on the Island, so here’s a WIP post. My Warrior ships are coming along. They do lack the detail of a Langton model, but some judicious paint has solved some of the problems. The gun carriages, for instance, aren’t distinct. I painted the whole mess red and then did some black over top to emulate the guns themselves. I also used a dark wash on the hulls, which I was nervous to do as I thought my decks may have been dark enough already. The results, however, have been pleasantly surprising. I am not only new to painting warships, I also happen to have only one fully functional arm as I wait for my next operation. Nonetheless, the results aren’t embarrassing.
After a dark wash
The picture isn’t the best, but the ships look like they’ve got some depth and are ready for some touch-ups and rigging. I did rig the British cutter (mis-ID’d in the other post as a corvette) and found that my superglue applicator has become, well, glued. Not to be deterred I found a way.
The British Cutter takes shape
Overall, I’m happy with how things are progressing. The yellow stripe on the British hull is distinct enough for identification at a distance, especially in comparison to the red French 2nd Rate. I’ll be trying to figure out how to base them over the next few days. Hopefully I’ll be able to post the first three finished ships at the end of next week.
BT
P.S. Note that I am using (and will continue to use) BT in the traditional naval sense, and not in any of the slang usage that may be found online or downtown.
So this week L and I played two quick games of Wings of Glory. I recently acquired two early war Stukas and some Hurricanes. So down a long, long table the Stukas went, unescorted to try things out against the Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes started their sweep slowly and were damaged pretty heavily by the Stukas, which surprised me. The Hurricanes did get behind the Stukas, who were weaving.
Not a good place to be
They managed to luckily down one Stuka. I say luckily, because the damage done was abnormally high.
The RAF coming to meet the Hun
Feeling confident that I could do it with more planes in the sky, I put my 2 ME 109s up as an escort and decided to play down the long side of the table against 2 Hurricanes and 2 Spits. That was a baaaaad idea.
The much faster Spits broke from the Hurricanes and began a long slow turn towards my force. I sent my 109s to meet them and managed to get a good amount of hits. Now, if you did not know, in the game, hits are represented by damage markers drawn by lot. “A” damage through to “D” damage. The cannons on the 109 are pretty deadly, dealing mostly “C” damage and the number of markers that L was drawing was making me smile (I later learned that he had drawn a lot of zeros).
The Stukas trucked on towards their goal, as the Spits and the 109s tangled. The Spits are so much more maneuverable though, and managed to get free and head towards the Stukas. My 109s broke in two directions, my thought being that one of my 109s could get behind the Spits, while the remaining 109 could get the Stukas through the weaker Hurricanes. Sadly no pictures of this, I was desperately trying to figure a way out of the mess that was rapidly developing in front of me.
Plans do not survive contact with the enemy, and soon one of the Spits was tailing the 109 heading towards the Hurricanes. That 109 soon caught fire as it tried to shake the Brit (my habit of drawing the highest damage markers possible continued for the entire fight). My Stukas survived the first pass of the Hurricanes, but the first damage marker I drew was engine damage for one of them. Now I was in real trouble. I had my Stukas weave to keep their rear gun arcs open as my non-flaming 109 slammed rounds into the Hurricanes as they turned tightly to get behind my bombers.
My flaming 109 went down, and then the slow Stuka. I took a little solace in blasting away one of the Hurricanes and sending it down. One Spit was smoking, one was lightly damaged, and the remaining Hurricane was limping but in the fight. I conceded the fight.
Overall, a fun enjoyable set of games. I know a bit more about how to handle Stukas, and I think the next time they fly, we’ll try some dive bombing rules (and make the opposition a little lighter)!
As with many, I have a list of projects that seems to grow just as fast as the lead/plastic pile. Here are the WW2 projects and games I’m (slowly) working towards.
Arnhem Chain of Command campaign in 28mm. I’m taking some FJs, and L has his British Airborne. We want to use some of our armoured toys, so we’re not playing a purely historical game. It’ll be our first Chain of Command campaign after fighting a few battles to learn the system and I’m looking forward to it.
Dunkirk/Calais Chain of Command campaign in 15mm. I’ve built up a BEF platoon and some German forces for a fight around Calais and Dunkirk. I have more terrain in 15mm, and I think that it will be interesting to play in 15mm scale on my table (6′ x 4′) as there will be so much more room for manoeuver.
Wings of Glory. Not really a campaign. I’ve got Spits, Hurricanes, Stukas and 109s. I anticipate a lot of pick up games and intercept missions. So far, I’ve found these rules to be fun and quickly playing.
What a Tanker, 15mm. These rules seem fun, so this is on the list. We’ll probably start with a few one-off games and then roll this in to some sort of ongoing fight through the various war machines in the war.
Operation Herkules – Malta, I Ain’t Been Chain of Command’ Yet Mum, 15mm. Pat over at Wargaming with Silver Whistle, has mashed together IABSM and CoC with some great results here. I have done some reading into Operation Herkules, and I really want to run a campaign game of the operation using those rules with an invasion in June 1942. German FJ and Italian forces fighting British troops for control of the island’s airbases before the RN can come and spoil the fun. I’m envisioning multiple tables and players, with superior commanders who can prioritize and release limited reserves onto those tables every so often. The Air Component Commander (ACC) can fight out air support battles, which adds another level of uncertainty to the game. Regardless, I’ve started to collect some of the required forces (captured Russian T-34s, KV-1/2s alongside Pz IVs: so much fun!) so expect to see a detailed post on Operation Herkules in the near future as I try to sort out exactly what I want!
Sealion, I Ain’t Been Chain of Command’ Yet Mum, 15mm.Carrying on in the same vein as Malta, I have a dream of doing Sealion in about two years. This would be a large campaign with multiple companies in action at the same time with real-time decisions being made by commanders one or two levels up about where to focus their effort. Air battles. BUF attacking behind British lines. British resistance forces attacking German supply dumps. All the good stuff. How will this work? I’m hoping to do a bunch of battles locally, but ideally other gamers around the world could get in on the action and report their status back to the umpires. Heck, this could even go on for months with skirmish battles during the week and major actions on the weekend. Anyway, a dream that I’ll keep slowly planning towards and posting on as time marches on.
Later I’ll post my project list for Napoleonic and Fantasy gaming.
