Adventures on the Wargames Table

Telegraph poles are one of those items that really seem to make a wargames table look like a 20th century battlefield, so I really had to get some. I considered making them from wooden dowelling, etc but then I saw these from 4Ground. They're advertised as ready painted but I decided that they needed to look more "concrete-y" so I painted the main 'post' black then layered on the Foundry 'Slate Grey' triad. They also make good places to put signs advertising shows - as this keen eyed subaltern has noted. Here's a closer shot of the different styles of 'tops'. The kit includes enough parts to make 7 posts with up to 2 of them being like the post on the left. Oh - and one more thing - pay close attention to the construction diagrams when building them! They're fairly easy to build, as long as you read the notes first.

A quick post to show you some counters I made today to represent minefields in CoC. Here are the Allied counters. German counters. They're simply 50x50mm GW bases covered in sand and flocked etc to match my other terrain items. The posts are just chunky matchsticks and the signs were created in Microsoft Word and printed on a decent quality laser, then backed with thin card. I chose 50x50mm bases as, being effectively 2 inches by 2 inches, it should be straightforward to imagine a further 2 inch 'zone' extending around them. I had initially planned to make some 6 inch by 6 inch bases in MDF but realised that, given the often very scenic nature of CoC tables, they might be quite tricky to place amongst hedgerows, etc. As you can probably tell we're getting quite 'into' CoC here at the "table". Plenty more figures and scenery to follow. :o)

Saturday evening... With two defeats already under my belt I was keen to do much better in this game. It's 1918 and the German Spring Offensives are in full swing. Two patrols encounter each other somewhere in the French countryside east of Amiens... Here's the table. And again from a different angle. Phil had kindly brought along some of his ruined buildings and other scenic bits & pieces. Here we see that the Germans have quickly occupied the ruined church and brought forward an MG08 to support the advance. My wife Jenny started leading the British in this game but as time was getting on she went to bed and Phil (who up until that point had been busily polishing his dice) took over. In the background you can see some BEF behind the wall - probably eyeing up that house as a good point to launch a flank attack against the Germans. More BEF in the centre of the field. They have brought up a Vickers to try to keep the German's heads down! Note the little shock...

Saturday afternoon saw us clear away the Romans (with a dust pan and brush?) and Germans and bring out the Saxons and Vikings. This time it was 3,250 points per side. As Phil kindly noted in a comment on my last post, my dice rolling had been frankly appalling in the morning so I was hoping for some kinder dice in this game ... Hmmm? Here's the deployment. I concentrated my Danes on one flank hoping to overwhelm part of the Saxon force before the rest could arrive to help out. Phil has most of his units fielded as a front rank of good/expensive Thegns, backed up by 2 ranks of the weaker Ceorls. All nice and historical. But that does mean there seems to be rather a lot of them! As Phil's skirmishers advance, one of them stops of enjoy the local leisure facilities. Yeugh! With both armies keen to get to grips with one another, it soon was time for a clash of shieldwalls. Here we see a unit of Hirdmen led by a Jarl plough in to the shieldwall of a unit of Thegns/Ceor...

As mentioned in the British Paras post, a few of us got together last weekend for some gaming fun. Saturday was a mix of War & Conquest and Chain of Command. Sunday was purely a big game of War & Conquest. I'll cover these in a short series of posts - please don't expect detailed battle reports though - I was more interested in gaming than taking lots of notes. Here's the first of Saturday's games: Phil T's German "Barbarians" led by the fearsome Warlord "Philarminius" vs my EIR (with Gallic allies) led by the newly appointed Legate Gaius Maximus Bellendicus. The game was 2,500 points per side. Here, somewhere near the Rhine, the armies deploy for battle. A couple of turns in and both armies are manoeuvring for advantage. Crumbs that's a lot of angry Germans! Phil's left flank: His Nobles square up to the Roman Auxiliary cavalry (although they're actually spare Germans - but hey!?) A view along the lines. Now...

If you've picked up the latest Wargames Illustrated (Issue 323) then you will have probably read about the new offering from Osprey Lion Rampant , penned by one of my favourite games designers, Dan Mersey . I already have his Dux Bellorum rules, which although I've not played, do look to be superb. Therefore I have high hopes for Lion Rampant. The medieval era is one that really lights my imagination, whether it's early medieval such as Normans, Saxons, etc, or later such as the HYW or WotR. Not for nothing did I have a large Bretonnian host back in my WFB days! But ... I've never really enjoyed playing huge medieval battles. They always seem to be a bit "line up and bash each other" type games. So the idea of playing dynamic skirmish games with bold knights, trusty sergeants-at-arms is too good to pass up. This really is a classic case of a wargamer seeing the latest shiny thing, but hey it's a hobby, so let's have fun! Since I already have qui...

Chain of Command requires the use of a number of markers or 'counters' to keep track of what troops are doing. You can purchase a perfectly usable set of plastic tokens from TFL. These do the trick admirably but I prefer to create my own more scenic versions - if possible. When troops are moving 'tactically' they are moving more slowly in order to make the most of any cover. In game terms this means they have an improved cover save. To represent this I've made a small set of scenic features to place in front of the troops to indicate this 'tactical' status. First, some bullet riddled corrugated iron for when troops are moving amongst buildings. The reverse in more detail. They're just offcuts of corrugate plasticard with some bits of match stick and plastic bricks. Here are some fences - ideal if troops are moving tactically across farmland. These are meant to be either bushes or parts of a hedge for when troops are crossing more open are...