Well, we’re not gone. I recently went for yet another surgery on my arm, which has limited my gaming related activities to reading and planning. Now though, with my arm healing up and most health protection measures lifted, we’re about to kick off a bunch of gaming and posting!
Continue reading “An Update and Plans”Category: Cunning Plans
Gaming Update
A bit quiet on the wargaming front since the Arnhem campaign. I have managed to get another Adventures in Middle Earth RPG session in, which was great, and Lucius and I locked horns online with Napoleon Total War, but that’s not as fun as moving troops on the table.
Continue reading “Gaming Update”
A (Canadian) Thanksgiving Meli-Melo
Well, it has been a long (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend. We had 2 turkey dinners and so will have leftovers for some time!
There’s a wide range of small updates that I’ll throw here rather than making many small posts (meli-melo means mismash in Canada’s other official language). Here comes the shotgun approach to posting:
- I’ve been assembling terrain in preparation for Arnhem. I’m prepping buildings for painting and decided to use some woodfiller over the MDF plugs/lugs. I’m interested to see if it works as it was fairly quick to cover the joins.
- As part of getting ready for the Arnhem I’m making fencing. The scenarios call for wire fencing – linear obstacles that provide no cover. I do have about 8′ of 15mm fences that would work in a pinch, but inspired by John Bond’s work I figured I would make some wire fencing. I happen to have a fair bit of balsa kicking around as well as several hundred craft matchsticks. So, my plan was to push the matchsticks into the balsa, secure with white glue and then tie some thin picture wire I got from the dollar store. Alas, it was not to be. The wire was too strong (the balsa was too weak – MDF would be much better) and broke the matchstick posts off the balsa. Okay. So try to wire the posts together and then mount them! Nope. The wire was a little too strong and kept wanting to pull in one direction or another. I almost gave up but came up with another plan. There was no way I was going to be creating terrain as nice as John Bond, my goal was to look good at 2 or 3 feet. So, cheat! I tied wire around the sticks and then cut the excess off. Then, mount the matchsticks and superglue straight sections of wire in place, kind of like rigging a small model. And it works! So, I have a bunch of fences I’ll be assembling this week. My plan is to rig the fences, paint an undercoat, then flock and put rust on the wire. We’ll see how they look in the end.
- Next up will be assembling and painting 2 sprues of FJs I just bought. More FJs? Yes. I’m intending to emulate Tiny Hordes (more here) and make some entrenchments using blue foam, cardboard, and clay. Once the fences are done I’ll be doing a post on how that works.
- I recently purchased some roads and walls from Fat Frank on ebay. They look great. The walls are based on cork, the roads on rubber. The roads are scaled for 20-28mm and intended for small paths. They look great for a small country road for 28mm, fitting a Tiger’s tracks with a little room to spare.
The roads also work for 15mm well enough as you can see.
The service was very prompt and quite reasonably priced. I know that making roads and walls isn’t impossible, but I needed to balance the time and energy required to do so versus the cost of the pieces. I’m quite happy with this purchase and may add to my collection in the near future.
- And now – pretty!
Lucius not only did a blog post om his North Novas last week, he also painted up one of my Warlord Uhlans. He’s pretty much done his WW2 stuff and is enjoying the Napoleonic uniforms. Lucius was a modeller before becoming a wargamer and as you can see, his pedigree shines through. I am still doing paint by number and hoping to improve. We are slowly getting forces to play some small Sharp Practice with a campaign centred around a certain Richard something. This will be sometime in the future but the forces are slowly coming together.
- Another bit of news is this:
I received the new 2nd Edition Black Powder along with the heroic “Lucky” naval officer! I must say, the sculpt is incredible. I shall see if I can convince Lucius to paint him up! We have a lot of 15mm Napoleonics and are intending to use Black Powder and General D’Armeé for them. I have my Franco-Prussians that are spoiling for a fight so we can trot them out for fun. I’m hoping to try the rules in the next few weeks.
- In other news, G+ is ending, which is too bad as I was just starting to get comfortable with it and beginning to draw some readers through it as well. This site is doing well though, with more readers every month. I’m still enjoying updating it so SPQVI will not be going anywhere.
- This week I’ll be putting up another play report from my last OSR game. I’m also hoping to playtest my modified What A Tanker ideas. I think I shall bring out my Soviets to play against Lucius’ Germans…
- Last but not least is the announcement of “The Cruel Sea”, (Beasts of War news here) a new naval warfare game that pits the light coastal forces against E-Boats! It is due to be released by Warlord Games around Christmas time. I am very excited about it – I have read a fair bit about MTB and MGB operations and the idea of fighting duels out on the tabletop is wonderful. The only thing I’m concerned about is the scale, but I shall try it out with the starter package and then, if necessary, buy other models. Won’t my wife be thrilled…
BT.
The Raid
I have long wondered why a feature film hasn’t been done on the St Nazaire Raid. There was “Attack on the Iron Coast” and “Gift Horse”, but both deviate significantly from the challenges and heroism of that day. A movie would be great! It would include all of the action and wait. Why not play the raid!
Initial thoughts:
Operation chariot
Scale: 15mm to reduce cost and increase play area
Rule Set: Modified Big Chain of Command or IABSM by TFL
Scope: The action taking place from 01:34 in the morning immediately after the ramming of the drydock by HMS Campbeltown to the destruction of the dock.
Special Considerations
Sentries: Roving sentries and security patrols. Rules by Pat over at Wargaming with Silver Whistle cover this nicely.
Civilians: Adapt Pat’s rules for sentries for the dockyard workers.
Naval Element: This would include the MLs and MGBs/MTBs so I’ll need to come up with rules for them. I think using them like tanks, each with a Junior Leader would be a good starting point. Getting a number of models, including one of HMS Campbeltown will be a challenge. This may be a good time to use 3D printing. I can come up with a rough outline of what Campbeltown looked like up on the dry-dock and go from there. The other boats will be a bit easier to source… I hope.
Terrain Set-Up: This is probably going to be the other hurdle and will take a lot of work. I’m thinking that terrain boards will be the way to go in order to model all the docks and caissons etc.
As you’ve already seen, I have many cunning plans. This one will be in the far distant future, but it does mean that I’ll keep my eyes out for useable naval elements and slowly start coming up with a proper plan. I’m sure you’ll see more on this in the coming years. If you come across and 1:100 vessels or drydock fittings that might be of use, please let me know!