Town planning

Just a quickie this week to show off a little project progress, so get your specs on again (or a quantum tunnelling microscope if you have one to hand) cos it’s 2 mill time…

My ECW campaign kick off is drawing ever closer, and the push is now on to complete the last few units and finish off some items of terrain. 

Here for your general scorn and derision is the small town of « insert made up name here »  containing the famous Abbey of St Mungo’s in the Marsh.

And here is the village of Wyre Piddle (there actually is one in Worcestershire by the way).

Both sets of buildings are from Brigade and are based on standard Hexon hexes (10cm between the flat sides). I’ve even left enough room to put units in the hex this time around!

One of the criticisms of this scale is the suggestion that the units are more like counters than miniatures. Naturally I disagree but it doesn’t help (in my view) when small units are based on large bases (emphasising the counter like appearance) and there is a corresponding trail of actual counters showing status that follows the units around on the board. Like this the units do indeed begin to look just like one more counter amongst many.

My solution has been to make my bases small and plain, and the units bright (real life drab colours are not your friend in 2mm). All the status information has been taken off the board and put on a separate dry wipe dashboard like this one.

Here you can see my Royalist dash board for a trial game. King Charles is the overall commander and he has issued (pre game) orders to his three main subordinates, Rupert, Astley and Wilmot. They in turn command a number of regîments / battalia who must attempt to follow the issued orders. King Charles can change the current orders during the game but in his case he can only change three of them. 

I’ve found it useful to keep a reserve brigade behind the man line on a hold order and use this to effect any major changes of strategy - mid game. 

And finally…

This blog post has been brought to you by the makers of Captain Fawcett’s Moustache Wax. The finest moustache wax a man can own. Say goodbye forever to the embarrassment of droopy whiskers. Guaranteed to improve your generalship whatever the weather. 

Now available in « Expedition » strength and « I don’t like it Sergeant it’s quiet…too quiet » strength. 

Huzzah!

Toodleooh.

All the kings horses…

Greetings pop pickers. I hope you are all recovering well from your various winterfests. Apart from resolving to never eat another mince pie as long as I live - my other two (actually serious) resolutions for the coming year are to finally stop biting my nails and to grow a handlebar moustache. Yes really. That’s it. I think it’s important not to overreach, don’t you? Achievable goals and low expectations (the story of my life). Lol.

Anywhoo…as usual this post title is a little disingenuous, for the parade laid out below is definitely not ALL of the kings horses. Unless Robert La Poste takes a fancy to them mid delivery there’s a shit ton (a technical term we use in accountancy) more on the way.

So get yer specs on…cos it’s 2 mill time…

A regiment of horse facing away from the camera, in case you were wondering, lol. The dice is a 10mm one for size comparison.

Three battalia of foote showing how they can be positioned on the board to reflect line, column and braced to receive a charge by horse. 

Talking of which…I wanted a counter to make it more obvious that a unit had become immobile and was braced to receive a charge so I did a little furtling and created these on an mdf base. Note that in 2mm, subtle colours are not your friend.

And once I got the order counter making bug there was no stopping me.  Here are hold, attack, seize and a new one « flank ». Special thanks are due to KK for giving me cause to alter the wording of the seize order. Constructive criticism is never a bad thing. Again these are on MDF bases.

My 2mm hexed terrain homebrew ECW rules, entitled « Noe Quarter », give each player two single use burn cards each battle. Here’s a couple for your inspection. I factored commanded shot, light battalia guns and forlorn hopes into the deck because at 2mm the mini artillery is way too fiddly for a guy like me with clumsy hands of death.

Terrain choices and placement are informed by yet more laminated cards. 

Back to the models. A small part of the essential baggage train. There’s no excuse to avoid this kind of unit in 2mm. In the game they frequently get in the way and require constant annoying protection. Lol. These few are a mixture of covered / open wagons, limbers, and even a cart carrying boats for bridging. You’ll hopefully excuse the fact that I didn’t manage to paint the spokes on the cart wheels. Very remiss of me. 

Command groups. The General (left) with a couple of flunkies and a « troop of shew ». The round base contains two senior colonels and a couple of donkey wallopers. I term these colonels brigadiers since they are responsible for 2 - 6 battalia / regiments that have been brigaded together. 

The start of 2 mill ville (part two - see previous historic posts). There’s a load more in the painting queue, plus a lovely castle and some vauban style horn works etc coming up. These will be organised into villages and based on a single hexon hex topper. They’ll look pretty cool en masse I think.

The campaign rules have been sorted out and the main map simplified a tad. We should be good to go with that end of Jan or first week of Feb based on current progress I reckon. 

Toodleooh.

Doolally tap and the next big thing

My Nan always used the phrase doolally tap when I was a kid to describe someone who’d gone nuts. You might have come across the more commonly used shortened version - doolally. I always thought she’d added the last bit on by herself but it seems not.

Collins - Word Origins

C19: originally military slang, from Deolali, a town near Mumbai, the location of a military sanatorium + Hindustani tap fever

Anywhoo… things have been going well over here…too well really. I’ve even stopped biting my nails. Which makes me worry. Not that I need an excuse to worry of course, It’s my default setting. Indeed the longer the period of quiet contentment the more the fear builds of the unseen and silently growing disaster that will definitely engulf me when least expected. 

Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you! Lol.

Man, it’s bloody exhausting being nuts. 

Of course I have been here before (in every sense) so it’s come as no surprise that the old noggin has started fraying at the edges a bit. Moments of forgetfulness have increased tenfold and my ability to multitask has disappeared entirely. 

The number of times I’ve thought I’ve left comments on blogs or answered emails is ridiculous - so if you think I’m snubbing you, nope, soz,  I’m just in a bit of a blue funk at the mo. (Does anyone other than Biggles actually say that?). I still love you. It’s me not you. (Been a while since I’ve had to say that). 

Probably as a fallout from this there’s been some fun with lost car keys and last week a lost wallet (containing every possible piece of frustratingly difficult to replace - yet totally essential documentation). 

Amusingly it seems that when I lose my shit… I actually lose my shit! 

Which brings us to the next big thing. 

I’ve owned and sold…and lost, and re bought…and then sold again ECW armies in every scale (apart from 54mm). Although it remains my favourite gaming period I just didn’t feel I had it in me to repeat the laborious and costly process once again. But with the likes of Iain over at Caveadsum 1471 taunting me with his ever growing collection, who was I kidding? 

So the next big thing is ECW. Again. 

Now don’t sigh but I’ve gone for 2mm once more because the advantages of this scale are many fold. 

1. No bendy pikes. I loved my Baccus 6mm lads and had many a good game out of them but the delicate pikes were a nightmare.

2. Pikes in a single tall block. Not pikes that are irritatingly short and are more like spears (I’m looking at you Pendraken 10mm).

3. 2mm has only a modest array of representational « types ». My wonderful 15mm PP ECW lads were (as always at PP) a pretty decent price per pack…however…there are so many wonderful packs you ended up spending a bloody fortune. I also insist on trying to paint them as though they are 28’s.

4. They’re 3D. The Wofun 18mm flats were an instant army solution for this lazy gamer but they were expensive and somehow never really floated my boat. Does that make me a « sideist » ?

5. I can continue to eat meat and don’t have to sell a kidney. Anything over 20mm is sooooo costly if you are looking to do some of the real big battles at anything like a realistic scale. 

6. The ends in sight. Well I’m 60 now, so I don’t fancy spending the next two precious years building up a reasonable force that’ll end up in a skip when I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. That’s two years I could’ve spent on drugs and hookers as Stew might’ve said. In two years time I’ll probably be into Space Nazis or some other nonsense and deeply resentful of the untouched ECW lead pile taunting me from the cupboard of shame. Gotta get this project done well…and on the hurry up.

So what went wrong with 2mm last time around? 

1. The rules. I bought Twilight of the Divine Right and hated them with a passion that I can barely express. Odd since I know that Chris at Horse and Musket likes ‘em and we see eye to eye on most things.

2. The standard units supplied by Irregular are regiments in different size and armament proportions. I just went with it and based away. Natch. Lovely. Except upon completion I recalled that most regiments were routinely merged into standard sized battalia for combat purposes, so my representation of them for larger engagements…was…erm…wrong. Aaargh.

Both of these points are correctable, I’ve now written my own rules, which unsurprisingly I rather like, and I’ve purchased different components from Irregular with which to construct realistic battalia on a broadly 1:3 ratio (thanks to Elenderil’s previous posts over at Small but Perfectly Formed). 

2mm Battalia. Horrible close up but forgivable at arms length. I remember a teacher saying something similar about me a long time ago. 

Crimmeny or Jings (as they say in Scottish comics from the 1950´s) I’ve even managed to get the terrain looking okay. Representational woodland for your delight and delectation.

All of which will lead me back to a slightly revised version of my ECW alt history campaign from the old blog that some of you may remember.

So that’s still to look forward to. Unless you hate the ECW and think that the ACW is the best CW. (As if). 

Time wise I’m going to take a bit of a pause in posting I think while I assemble my two opposing factions for this slugfest. Maybe do one post in December then come back in Jan 24. Part of me is wondering if this might be a good way to round things off in toto. Going out as I came in so to speak, with an ECW campaign. I like the symmetry of it. I’ll get back to you on that one. The jury is still out.

If I don’t drop a post before the big day have a great Xmas, kwanza, festivus, bachanalian mid winter sex feast or whatever is your jam.

Toodleooh.

 

Major Clanger's hat

I'd set up a game yesterday to work through my own set of 2mm ECW rules and Major Clanger (as he now styles himself) came along to play the opposition.

After a series of interruptions and a very distracted set up I grabbed dice, order counters, and the A.I deployment cards and had at it. I took a few piccies and had just got everything ready when real life called a halt to proceedings before they'd really begun, (yes at 58 I'm still being called in from playing to have my tea!)

Deleting the few images relating to the abortive game this morning, I noticed there was something not quite right going on.

Maybe you can spot it?

Clanger's new hat is courtesy of the nimble fingered current Mrs Broom by the way. 

The battle of Bridgetown

Okay then, welcome back to the world of eye strain that is 2mm gaming. Best get yer specs on I reckon.

Given the victory conditions required to win this battle (see previous post) I felt it was better to concentrate on capturing just the one bridge rather than splitting my forces over the two. The enemy on my right flank seemed the weakest so I deployed the more mobile part of my forces accordingly.

The two C&C cards I chose out of my four card hand allowance support this plan, and the remaining two, drawn randomly, turned out to be useful too. Of course once the chosen cards had been used I was dependant on what came out of the deck…which seemed fair since no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

My initial intentions. Foot in blue, small units of horse in red, and artillery in yellow. There you go. Clear as mud.

I’ve felt for a while that I needed an actual opponent in my wargaming, and as you can see “Small Clanger” took on the role of opposing generalissimo for this occasion.

Don’t be fooled by all that children’s tv cuddliness. He’s got a drink problem, bad breath, and a foul temper.*

I got to kick off proceedings and the first card I played allowed me to move all eligible units in one game section. For those who’ve never played C&C before the battlefield is divided into two wings and centre, and I offer that up only for general info…there won’t be a test afterwards I promise.

My small regiments of horse were sent straight off in the direction of the bridge, determined to do their worst against  any enemy blocking their path.

Turn 1. My small horse regiments gallop over the heath towards the bridge. Using the pre chosen cards meant I was able to get off to a good start.

Turn 1. SC moves his right flank Dutch school horse cautiously towards my forces, masking his artillery in the process. 

Turn 2. The cavalry charges go in, with mixed results. A regiment of horse is forced to retire by preemptive fire from the defending foot and while casualties are inflicted on the foot nearest to the bridge they are prevented from retiring by their heroic Brigadier.

Turn 2. Small Clangers foot advance down the road and into the first of the enclosures, while his mounted dragoons move through the narrow alleyways of the town in the hope of preventing me seizing the best defensive terrain.

Turn 3. And just like that the Parliamentarian left flank collapsed. My reorganised horse charged the guns previously on the right of the picture, destroyed them with no loss, took a breakthrough move into the empty hex and then hit the next enemy unit in line with a bonus attack. An almost identical outcome occurred to the right of the picture. If the destruction of units had equated to victory banners (for me) I’d have gained four out of the five required!

Turn 3. The Clangers reserve horse regiments cross the river to reinforce the centre - or intervene on his left flank.

Turn 4. Disaster! The first regiment of horse to cross the bridge and hit the defending foot on the far side helped to determine the Roundheads “raw” status (red counter) but were rudely handled and thrown back in confusion. The follow up regiment of horse also took a hit when attacking but this damage was doubled when they were unable to retire into the hex behind them as required by the dice. 

Turn 4. The disaster continues to unfold. Clanger’s brave foot wade into my retreating unit on the bridge and finish them off in melee. The only bright spot is the loss of his foot unit on the riverbank which came about in a spirited back and forth that cost me another hit. The score is one nil to him at this point.

Between turns 5 and 8 there was a lot of manoeuvre and further casualties were inflicted - mostly on my forces. 

By turn 9, pictured below I had captured the bridge, giving me three victory banners and he had destroyed 3 of my units giving him three victory banners. I needed to hold the bridge for a further two turns to give me the 5 victory banners required to win. 

My small horse regiment holding the bridge was battered and only had one hit left in it. My foot were making best possible speed (given the cards I had) in their direction, ignoring the enemy dragoons now firing into their flank from the enclosures and the two full regiments of Dutch tactics horse marshalling on the road outside of the town. Clanger needed to destroy two more of my units to reach his five banner target.

Turn 9. I control the bridge and try to hurry my foot along to give the horse some support. The raw Parliament foot still holding the far bank refuses to die

Turn 10. I held the bridge against a final do or die attack by the raw Parliament foot, which resulted in their elimination and me effectively gaining one more victory banner for holding the bridge for a full turn (4 out of 5).  Unfortunately his cavalry charged from the road and destroyed one of  my advancing foot units giving him the 5 banners he needed to win. Another case of a bridge too far I suspect.

Thoughts and observations

Unfortunately 2mm doesn’t really make for a blog friendly picture fest, as you will have observed, but it does have a small playing footprint and still gives an enjoyable game. Set up took 10 minutes and the game itself was over in two hours. I suspect its the sort of game I’ll probably play without bothering to report on it here, and now the units and terrain have been created I’ll have the freedom to experiment with my own hexed rules in the future as well as C&C. 

If 2mm was an itch…I can now consider it well scratched.

In this battle I was keen to capture the bridge as quickly as possible, using fast but brittle small horse units to get to it before  Small Clanger could counter by redeploying reinforcements. As it turned out I might have been better grinding slowly forward with my more resilient foot, but hey ho…could’ve would’ve should’ve, eh. Despite this mistake the outcome was in the balance right up to the end and was the closest fought engagement I’ve played for ages.

Something bigger next time I think.

And finally…

Small Clanger taunts me with a brief victory dance before going off into the cupboard to get drunk.

TTFN

*After the series was cancelled in ’72 most of the cast had trouble coming to terms with their lost celebrity status. Many tragically turned to drink and drugs. 

In 1975 The Soup Dragon was caught shoplifting in Finefayre and in ’76 the Iron Chicken was arrested for possession with intent to supply. 

Tragic.

C&C ECW reloaded

I’ve been on a bit of an ECW tip lately and have been experimenting with a number of published and unpublished rules. The main thing to come from all this dabbling was the realisation that nothing matched up to Msr Foy’s excellent C&C ECW set. The built in card mechanic suffices as a crude A.I, the game itself doesn’t overly tax my noggin’ and of course there’s hexes…lots of lovely hexes!

Now my original C&C cards are still, I suspect, in La Maziere Aux Bons Hommes, and the only ECW forces I own these days are my 2mm ones, so a degree of work was required to get things up and running. After a four week wait for a new 2ft x 1.5ft game mat and a whole heap of printing…I’m finally there.

Elenderil over at “Small But Perfectly Formed” kindly let me nick a map and set up of his from a 2mm game he ran back in 2018. I’ve twisted it through 90 degrees to better fit with the hexes and altered some of the forces to accommodate the C&C model - otherwise everything else remains broadly the same.

The situation:

It’s 1643 and a Royalist force is making its way out of Wales in order to reinforce the King at Oxford. At a river crossing into the Midlands they find their way blocked by a small Parliamentary army.

Objectives:

The Royalists will earn 3 Victory Banners for each bridge hex they occupy, plus 1 Victory Banner after that for each turn they remain in occupation of it. The Parliamentarians will earn 1 Victory Banner for each Royalist unit they destroy. The game ends automatically with a win for the side that is the first to score 5 Victory Banners.

Parliament’s forces set up first and are controlled directly by the C&C cards, the Royalists set up second and are controlled by me. The Roundheads may deploy anywhere within the first three hex rows, the cavaliers within the first two.

Put yer specs on! 

The battlefield seen from the Royalist left flank.

Elenderil’s original map of Bridgetown

Both factions are allowed four command cards in their hand at any one time.

Terrain: The river may only be crossed via the bridges.

Forces: 

Parliament

3 x artillery - trained

2 x horse (Dutch tactics) - trained

2 x horse (Dutch tactics) - raw

1 x dragoons - trained

2 x foot - raw

2 x foot - trained

1 x C in C

3 x leaders

Royalist

3 x artillery - trained

1 x horse - veteran

4 x foot - trained

2 x foot (small units) - trained

5 x horse (small units) - trained

1 x C in C

4 x leaders

Told you you’d need your specs. Parliament’s left flank deployment with artillery covering any approach down the road.

Parliament centre. The numbered flags indicate which of two units behind the map occupy the building hexes since the unit bases won’t fit between the houses! I’ll use this system for woods as well.

Parliament right flank, with two horse regiments in reserve over the river and a series of enclosures bordering the road.

Game rule tweaks:

No plan survives contact with the enemy: I will initially choose two of the cards from my four hand allowance to support my overall strategy, thereinafter I will make the best use of fresh cards that are drawn from the deck. 

The element of surprise: The Parliamentary player will have his command cards dealt blind and left face down. 1 card will be revealed from his hand each turn and acted upon. Once used and discarded it’s replacement will also be concealed. The status of Parliamentary units (raw in this case) will only be revealed when a unit becomes involved in combat. Status will be determined by die roll - a process that will cease in this particular game once two foot and two horse units have been marked up.

Size doesn’t matter: Small units lose 1 combat dice and have one less hit capacity than a regular sized unit. For example, a normal sized foot regiment can absorb three hits before destruction, a small foot unit only two. Correspondingly, large units can absorb 1 extra hit before destruction, though none are listed as such in this scenario. Note a unit may always roll 1 fire combat dice.

Range reduction: Given the scale of the units, muskets may only be fired into an adjacent hex, not two hexes as per the regular rules, this effectively reduces foot to a melee capability only but veteran units gain +1 combat dice anyway, perhaps reflecting firing by salvee.

Preemptive fire: Trotter (Dutch tactics) cavalry being charged by galloper (Swedish tactics) cavalry may fire at their attackers before they enter into melee - however the attacking unit may not start from an adjacent hex. The trotters (not Del and Rodney) may roll 1 combat dice whose results will impact the charging gallopers before the melee they are instigating takes place. If preemptive fire is utilised then the trotters must deduct 1 die from their usual melee battle back allowance. Note a flag result from preemptive fire will cause the gallopers to pull up short and not enter melee even if a leader is attached to the unit.

Foot and commanded shot may adopt a similar tactic unless raw.

A unit may only use preemptive fire once per turn. 

Since I now have the luxury of leaving this pocket handkerchief sized battlefield out for as long as I want I’ll cover the Royalist deployment and the battle itself in the next post. Hopefully the brief delay will allow you to make a quick visit to Specsavers. Lol.

TTFN

Broomtown or bust

Just thought I’d post a couple of pictures from my recent play testing of Elenderil’s new rules. It didn’t really require the scenery to be out but I thought I’d do a quick review of things at the same time.

As you can see the roads need lining with foliage and the edges of almost everything need to be darker green to match the mat. The river needs toning down too while I’m at it. I’ll be creating some hedged enclosures next and cutting up the duplicate mouse mat to make the contoured hills. You can’t see them in the pictures but there are a couple of Broomtown residents dotted around the place as well. Lol.

TTFN

2 mill ville

First off - an apology. I’ve become aware that a number of my comments are failing to register on other folks blogs, I’m not sure why this should exactly so my strategy, (since I’m notoriously tech averse) is to wait the bugger out in the hopes that it gives in and fixes itself - like my broken toe did the one time.  

Anywhoo… despite being in the doldrums I thought I’d post a quick update on the 2mm front as a sort of progress report. The old black dogs been hanging around for the last few weeks but despite that I’ve ploughed through half a dozen Cogs, finished the 2mm armies, tinkered with a couple of my own rule sets, play tested Twilight of the Divine Right…mmmm… and set too on the terrain I need.

I’ve a lot of buildings to complete and that’s before I get on to castles and fortifications. I thought this scale’d be easy and quick…lol.

The buildings are from Brigade and are lovely despite my cacky painting.

The rivers are blue masking tape on plastic card, with a heavily pva’d garnish of fringe foliage. I’ve done enough sections to cover twists and turns over a 3ft length which should be enough. The woods and the roads are on the way.

I shall be cutting up a new 3mm thick mousepad game mat (sacrilege) to make contoured hills in the same colour and texture as the base game mat. I hope that’ll look okay. 

Fiddly diddly naval nonsense

Yep, things are progressing on the teeny tiny front, so I thought I’d post a few photos of where I’ve got to. 

Before I get into the ECW stuff I thought I’d show the miniature medieval cog wars ships I’ve started on. This has been a slow burn project in the pipe line for over a year but seeing as how I’m currently determined to destroy my eyesight I thought I’d better get a few painted before I need an electron microscope. At the rate I’m going I’ll be using grains of rice as units next. Lol.

Anywhoo…

The cogs are of different types as you can see and some are still unfinished. The large cog (or possibly round ship?) is from Outpost games, the dinky red fore and aft castle vessel (medium cog) is from Ral Partha and the poor quality casting of a northern or Baltic cog is from Navwar. All are 1:1200 scale but if you need a size comparison the pointing chap in the background is 18mm high. There are a number of galleys on the way from Outpost which the French used a lot for raiding in the channel. I suspect I’ll be using Mr Manley’s Lords of the Sea rules with them, or possibly Galleys and Galleons.

I’m about half way through the ECW unit production now, having set myself the slightly ambitious project of creating enough units to cover massive battles like Marston Moor. 

Twilight of The Divine Right specifies different sized regiments (amongst other things) and since I want to show a units size directly it’s meant there can be no one size fits all compromises. Hey ho, still enjoying doing them. I’d have liked to have shown some scenery but there’s been a total cock up on the game mat front and as a consequence I’ve not started any as yet. Anyway here’s a few piccies to whet your whistle.

First up are two baggage camps plus a few wagons from the baggage train, sorry, trayne:

Next up is 50% of the foote units I require - the rest are WIP but nearing completion.  There are three groups here. On the right are what TOTDR defines as regular sized regiments, left foreground are small regiments and behind them… large sized regiments.

Dragoon’s were completed early on. Here we have regular and small dragoon regiments in both mounted and dismounted state. Yes I did paint the horse handlers at the back!

Horse - these are small and regular sized regiments, with stands for the two opposing army commanders and subordinate generals.

Lastly we have the gun line and their marrowbone dog treat / fig roll gabions. I’ve banked some earth up around their positions to hide the square edge of the casting since last time. I don’t think it would’ve taken a gun crew and the attendant drivers, wagon chaps etc long to have thrown up a bit of an earthen wall, and they’d look okay in siege games too I think.

Still to come are a shed load of horse (20 units) 6 musket only units of various sizes, then there’s commanded shotte and a few regimental guns as well.

The picture quality is as usual pretty poor and the lighting abysmal…both fairly important things to get right when your trying to show 2mm figures, so apologies. Take my word for it, they look okay. 

Actually when you get up really close you can pick out things like sashes and weapons on the castings which is a shame because even if you painted them in you’d lose all that detail and spoil the overall effect when seen from a distance.

Anyway…best get on painting I suppose. They’re not going to finish themselves!

TTFN