Addressing Gettysburg

 If you only ever acquired one book on the battle of Gettysburg I reckon that Mr Adkin’s title would be at the front of the queue! I have his titles on Waterloo and Trafalgar and they are quite simply outstanding (the Western Front title is on my ‘to get’ list). The board game is a truly unique experience - for the reason why, read on!

Aside from the naval perspective, my interest in the American Civil War has been at best, erratic. It has been one of those periods of history that has always seemed like a good idea but has never really ignited the enthusiasm. Back in the day I had some truly horrible experiences with a number of rule sets that really turned me off the period. In fact it was only due the launch of the board game Battle Cry - which itself has a number of issues - that I made a modest attempt to revisit the period. 

The strangest thing though, is that whilst my interest tends to head towards the Western theatre, I have a fondness for the Gettysburg campaign. Along with Waterloo, I reckon that several rain forests have been expended in print over the years for this iconic battle between the States. To keep things simple I have acquired two titles on the battle specifically - the one you see above by Mark Adkin and another currently en route from the US of A. Naturally I have seen the film of the battle which I enjoyed enormously - the soundtrack grated though!

I plan to rebuild my ACW library in a measured way with some selective ‘high mileage’ titles (those that punch above their weight in terms of coverage and detail etc) but am not planning on embarking on a huge involvement in the period. A Battle Cry level will suffice although not with the game of that name.

So where is all this leading?

Every so often a game appears that really shakes things up in terms of how a particular period or battle is gamed. The Guns of Gettysburg is such a game. Take a look at the below and think to yourself - “that is right up Mr Crook’s street!”

Not a hex in sight! Areas and a really nice looking map with a stunning rendering of terrain elevation

Blocks and counters - what’s not to like?

A complete spare set of labels (and yes, I DO have a use for them!)

The back of the box

This game is the third in the series - the others being Marengo and Austerlitz - and the concept behind this is quite simply outstanding. It has a Kriegspiel feel about it in many ways which means it has that ‘being-a-general-moving-units-around-on-a-map’ feel to it.

There was never any doubt that this would appeal to me and if they ever produce a Waterloo version I will be all over it like a cheap suit!

I am really excited about this and even better - the rules are quite modest, the basic game weighing in at a mere 13 pages! Of course one could readily swap the blocks for figures but for me that would defeat the object of the game. It looks like a 19th century battle map come to life.

Really, really pleased!

The Genesis of an Idea

Available from Tumbling Dice 

All the mounted counters for the RFC/RAF - more than enough for my needs and with a good selection of types

Work on the ‘cardboard aircraft’ project continues at a measured pace - mainly because what I am tackling at present is quite laborious!

I am mounting the counters from the TSR game Dawn patrol onto 1” MDF squares (3mm thick) as the card used is really thin. These mounted counters will then be used in conjunction with a flying base to give the illusion of flight. It is simple work but for a variety of reasons quite tedious and best undertaken in bite-sized sessions.

If you look closely you can see the difference in size - small, but in need of attention

Matt 80 for the bases - very ‘old school!’

To begin with, the counters themselves, notionally 1”, are anything but. There are also some counters on which the aircraft images have been printed slightly off centre. Squaring them involves carefully placing the counter as centrally as possible (or with the ‘slightly ‘offset’ bias) on the base and then trimming the edges with a combination of a scalpel and gentle filing. Bearing this in mind, I have thus far managed to ‘base’ all the British aircraft - 32 in all - which leaves me with the French, American, Belgian, Italian, German and Austrian types to go. On top of this are the AA counters and a couple of double sized balloons.

Whilst the aircraft part continues at a leisurely pace so does the flying base part. After trialing Humbrol Satin 131 and Matt 89 (grass green and sky blue respectively) I then experimented with the old gaming standby of Matt 80 - and to be honest I am far happier with the results. 

Tomorrow I shall take the map to get it laminated so at least that part will be finished.

In the meantime though….

I have been thinking about rules to use - Dawn Patrol as written are not quite what I am looking for - and so acquired a copy of Duel of Aces from Tumbling Dice. They are very good and one thing struck me - they would be very easy to adapt for a square grid.

Which happens to be what my soon-to-be-laminated map has….

Have I found yet another rabbit hole to fall into?

Turning the Tide in a Timely Fashion

 A useful title using previously restricted or classified naval reports found in the library of the Britannia Royal Naval College. Part of a series that includes operations in Norway in 1940, hunting the German raiders, the Bismarck chase, hunting the Tirpitz and Matapan

It never ceases to amaze me how wargaming synchronicity has played a not inconsiderable part in my enjoyment of our hobby. I could site numerous examples of this from over the years but will instead confine myself to the latest one.

In my last post I briefly described Fighters of the Pacific - a new board game covering plane to plane combat in the South Pacific in 1942. The emphasise is on Carrier Operations and whilst the rules are simple, there is a great degree of subtlety in the mechanics and they ooze the all-important period ‘feel’.

I have gamed carrier operations in the South Pacific many times using Flat Top, CV and now via the Smithsonian Avalon Hill games Midway and Guadalcanal. I also played an awful lot of Dauntless - the Air Force Pacific version - so it is fair to say that I have ‘form’ with the period.

My library is quite modest concerning the Pacific campaigns but in three fell swoops this has changed for the better!

The book you see above was acquired yesterday in the most surprising of circumstances. Laurel and I headed into the village (Rayleigh, where we live) to an antique valuation event at the local community hall. She had some gold jewellery that she wanted to dispose of wanted to get an idea of its value. After having done that we then ventured into the high street - Wednesday is the Rayleigh market so it was pretty busy - to see what a couple of jewellers had to say about the value. All this seems very mundane but for one significant detail. It was the first time that Laurel had been in Rayleigh high street since her surgery over three years ago. She is a not a fan of crowds - especially in her powered chair - but she coped admirably with crossing roads and negotiating some quite confined spaces. One of these was the Rayleigh indoor market which has within a magazine and discounted book stall. There was not much I was interested in but the title depicted above caught my eye and for - wait for it - £2.99 I immediately snapped it up!

The book is quite dry, using as it does official reports and such, but for all that it is really useful for planning scenarios for either naval or aerial actions. I am now actively looking out for the others in the series.

With grateful thanks to Mr Kightly - extremely timely for sure!

The second piece of synchronicity came about as a result of a gaming friend having a clear out of stuff - which I had offered to help with. The three Osprey titles you see are all penned by Mark Stille who leads me quite nicely into the third piece of synchronicity - one of my Christmas presents.

The final member of my Pacific library - the author has also penned a title on Leyte Gulf although my interest in the theatre is primarily 1942

So there you have it - a selection of relevant titles covering both the naval and the aerial side and which will stand me in good stead for Fighters of the Pacific, Flat Top, CV, Midway and Guadalcanal.

Once again my thanks to Mr Kightly for his most generous gift of the hugely useful Osprey titles!

Fighters of the Pacific

Gotta love that over the top box art!

The back of the box

Rules and scenarios

Essential game cards

The map board made up of eight sections that clip together. The hexes are 40mm across the flat sides.

The other side - complete with clouds and a couple of islands - aka targets!

The ship counters and assorted other bits and pieces - flak barrages, AA guns and damage markers

The aircraft counters. The US get 18 Wildcats, 22 Dauntless and 10 Devastators whilst the Japanese have 17 Zeros, 18 Vals and 12 Kates. 

How it looks (in a small but illustrative way) in action - lovely stuff!

One of the ideas I was messing around with as part of my ‘flying based cardboard counters’ idea was to tackle aerial combat in the South Pacific during 1942 - deep in the heart of Flat Top and Dauntless territory. The game of the title does exactly that and in quite a unique way.

I had an eye on this game since 2021 but for a variety of reasons never really got around to it - until now that is. A chance acquisition on eBay and I am now the proud owner of a copy of the base game and have the two expansions - Coral Sea and Midway - on order. I also want to try and track down the kickstarter exclusives as well - mainly as they expand the order of battle somewhat.

In a nutshell the game is all about carrier air combat - not the mechanics of launching and recovering aircraft, just the combat part - on a larger scale than usual in terms of the number of aircraft on the table. The game system is simple - planes are either high or low, the white side for high the blue side for low - and combat does not use any dice. In a nutshell, if an enemy aircraft is in the attacker’s field of fire it must dodge the attack if it has not been activated so far that turn or it takes a hit. 

An aircraft that dodges an attack is then activated and so may well be in a position to attack a separate enemy that in turn may be able to dodge. Within the game this is referred to a ‘Chain Reaction’ and is a neat way to simulate a ‘furball’.

Most aircraft can take two hits  with the exception of the Zero that can only take one but it does have the ‘Agile’ trait for free turns at the end of the move along with ‘20mm’ for increased firepower at one hex.

Movement and manoeuvring is quite simple, as befits a game that features a larger than usual number of aircraft at any given time. Aircraft are able to ‘slide’, turn, climb and dive with aircraft that have the ‘Fighter’ trait also being able to Split S.

Initiative and activation are key - activation is by air group or individual aircraft and the former can be of any size.

Did I mention that the game uses hexes? Well it does and the double sided mapboard is really nice. The hexes are 40mm across the flat sides which is rather handy and yes, I am already thinking about using the ‘sea side’ of the board for naval games using 1:2400th models.

The counters are really nice, chunky and use high quality aircraft and ship images. These would be ideal for use with my ‘cardboard aircraft flying base’ idea although gluing them to an MDF base is not really necessary - I will have to think of something else instead.

The two expansions add to the aircraft pool as well as the ships, meaning more targets, I mean carriers.

There is also a solitaire mode which is handy for me and is sure to get some use.

All in all the game is certainly worth a spin in its own right, but naturally my thoughts go beyond the initial offering and so other systems will feature. Shipping later this year is Fighters over Europe which covers the Battle of Britain with two expansions available - one covering the Battle of France (handy for fleshing out the Luftwaffe OOB and of course featuring the French) and one covering daylight operations over the Reich in 1943/44. Me 262s anyone?

In Other News….

I am now roughly a quarter of the way through the Dawn Patrol counters. It is tedious work as the US idea of what a square inch looks like does not appear to be anything like the UK version - coupled with some occasionally offset printing - so some careful positioning, trimming and sanding is required - for each one. Having said all that it is definitely worth the effort!

Quick Reference Sheets? Hmmm....

Hexagonal Firing Arcs - Take 2.... (Appearing on a QRS near you very shortly....)

One of the things that came out of the game last Wednesday was a request for a Quick Reference Sheet (QRS) for the Portable Ironclads Wargame. In truth I had always planned to produce one but never really got around to it. 

Guess what I have been doing for the last few days? 

Yup, a Quick Reference Sheet - except that at the moment it is anything but!

The rules section of The Portable Ironclads Wargame runs from page 37 to page 42. Six pages in all although the firing arc diagram adds another so call it seven.

My QRS currently stands at eight sides of A4.....

I should qualify this by pointing out that one A4 sheet has the new firing arc and examples of how a ship turns off the bow or the stern, another A4 sheet contains the charts and tables so the actual rules themselves are on two sheets of A4 - only the first of which would be essential, containing as it does the most important stuff.

The rules sheets refer to the rule numbers in the book as well as the associated table/diagram which in turn are referenced back to the appropriate rules so navigating the four sheets of A4 should present little difficulty.

Ideally I would have liked to have gotten the whole thing onto two sheets of A4 but short of using a 'bible print' font size - not very kind on old wargaming eyes - I cannot see how much I can cut it down by. Having said that the rules now read far more economically in this format. Once I have finished them I plan to make use of them at the next club game to iron out any wrinkles and make any amendments they may be necessary. After that they will be uploaded to the Gridded Naval Wargame and Portable Wargame Facebook groups.

A long overdue task, but a welcome one!

Action along the Winnebago River

The Prologue….And it came to pass….

Yesterday evening saw the Portable Ironclads Wargame getting a run out at the club. The main purpose of the action was to try out the square grid but more importantly, to prepare Messrs Fox and Huband for more challenging games ahead. 

The scenario was deliberately simple and with but two ships a side. For the Union, under the command of  Mr Huband, the river monitor USS Ozark and the double ended gunboat the USS Agawam whilst that ‘Will ‘O the Wisp of the bounding main’, Mr Fox took command of the ironclad the CSS Missouri and the CSS Gaines. The action was short and sharp as the pictures will show.

Opening moves - the Union opted to head in two directions whilst the Confederates maintained a line ahead with the CSS Gaines leading the CSS Missouri

The two Rebel ships caught between the USS Ozark (bottom left) and the USS Agawam (top centre). The CSS Gaines was able to deliver a hefty blow against the Union river monitor.

Retribution was swift though, as the CSS Gaines was subjected to a withering fire from the Union ship

In fairly short order, the gallant Confederate ship was subjected to a withering fire, battering her into a sinking wreck

With the Rebel fleet down to the ironclad the CSS Missouri - now with the two Union vessels across her line of retreat - the action came to an end. 

The game was brief but enjoyable although a couple of areas of confusion arose. To begin with the use of squares and positioning of ships within got a little scrambled. When moving orthogonally a ship sits squarely across the two squares - on the centreline if you prefer. When operating diagonally a ship would sit on the central spot formed by the two squares touching at a single corner.  In the heat of the action this got a little muddled but to be honest it made little difference to the overall outcome. 

Squares and dots aside the general consensus was that the rules would benefit immeasurably from a quick reference sheet. Guilty as charged with that omission - it is something that I always intended doing but never quite got around to doing so. I have started work on one and it will be uploaded on the Gridded Naval Wargame facebook group file section.

All in all though, I was pleased at how it went and it was a good work out to exorcise any gremlins before we move up to more challenging and complex actions.

Once again my sincere thanks to Messrs Fox and Huband for their time and carefully considered input.

Cheers chaps!

 

Reaching for the Sky….and Beyond!

WW1, the Battle of Britain and ‘Over the Reich’ - perfect for my ‘cardboard aircraft’ aerial adventures

As part of my ongoing aerial project I wanted to get copies of the rules available from Tumbling Dice as part of their Wings at War range. Normally these include a selection of 1:600th scale aircraft but I only wanted the rules. A quick email to Paul at Tumbling Dice and I am now the proud owner of the trio of rule sets you see above. The incentive to crack on with the flying bases and counters has never been higher!

“Space Battles” was always going to get my attention…..

Another set of rules I have just acquired are set of starship combat rules penned by Rick Priestley. These are designed to be usable with whatever models you like although he does provide his own background for those that would prefer this. A couple of things that caught my eye with these rules is that they are grid based - a square grid no less although a hexed version would be perfectly usable - and use packs of normal playing cards for damage etc - no dice are involved.

I have only just skimmed through these rules but there are some interesting ideas therein - along with enough starship technobabble to appeal to most Sci Fi gamers. Needless to say I am thinking about using the painted Red Alert fleets to give them a spin.

In the meantime though, I need to get organised for the Portable Ironclads Wargame taking place at the club this evening.

Lots to do then!