Merry Christmas to one and all

Merry Christmas from Maison Broom to one and all.

The Current Mrs Broom loves Christmas and insists I take part in it even though I’ve got miniatures to paint!

May all the battles you face in 2025 be little wargaming ones.

Further goings on at Maison Broom.

Bugger me it’s November already. Where the hell did October go? All the leaves are off the fruit trees and we are down to 1 egg a day so it’s definitely autumn despite the sunshine.

Although I’ve another naval game in the pipeline I thought I’d take the opportunity to bring you up to speed with matters military here at La Maison Broom. 

First off, my recent dive into the depths of the lead pile unearthed a little treasure trove of Wiglaf miniatures 18mm Saxons.  I’ve been painting away like a busy little squirrel ever since and this is where we are so far.

7th century Saxons in 18mm - discovered hiding in the lead pile.

The plusses are that I already have the terrain and the rules to use with these chaps, so apart from a few more packs of personality figures I should be good to go. The minuses are that I discovered Kalistra 10mm Romans lurking in the lead pile while digging as well. I had hoped to order some of the 3d printed ones recently showcased by Keith on his Bydand blog - but the Kalistra lads are already here so it makes more sense to persevere with them I suppose.

This latest scouring of the lead pile has made me realise how fixated on a project I can become, and also how quickly this  then seems to turn into a form of burnout and disinterest. 

What I need to do (and I’m sure the Current Mrs Broom was referring to my wargaming when I went up to bed the other night) is to spice things up a bit ;-). You know the drill, different scales, different periods, go where angels fear to tread and all that. Maybe try and have more than one project on the go that I can flip back and forth to.

Maybe, oh I don’t know, something like…this…

Or this…

Empress Miniatures 28mm Indian Mutiny range

Oh my God they look so good…

Of course it’d mean all new terrain and the figures are ruddy expensive but I’ve got a set of rules to use, so there’s that. I mean okay so I’ve been trying to cut costs, but for gods sake I could be run over by the bus tomorrow and have never even tried these. 

It’d mean a move towards skirmish gaming with The Men Who Would Be Kings and no hexes but it’d snap me out of my “I’ve got no room for gaming so I’ll only buy small minis,” rut.

Nah. 

Cmon. It makes no sense at all. What am I thinking?

But they do look soooooo good…don’t they?

Okay, enough with the levity and the ho ho ho’s. 

As you may recall I had the summer off from blogging in order to recharge the old batteries. It involved a fair amount of time with chickens (anytime spent with chickens is time well spent, trust me) but I also went for a wander or two around the outskirts of my hamlets parent village (St Dizier Leyrenne - yeah you can google earth it if you like, it’s not like I’m going to know, now is it?). 

It was July 19th and I was nearing the end of a pleasant stroll through the woods when I came across this.

And just like that I fell down the local history research rabbit hole that I referred to a couple of posts ago.

By mid 1944 the German army had been bled white. The units left “occupying” France were by and large a hodgepodge of signal troops, SD, Gestapo, recuperating units from the eastern front and so on. You get the drift. 

Just after the invasion, orders were received to begin an anti partisan sweep in my department. Despite the supply and man power problems experienced by the Wehrmacht, 2500 troops, 110 vehicles and 7 “cannon” were formed into Brigade Jesser, and this caravan of retribution then burned and looted its way through my local area for about 2 months

On  16th July 1944 they arrived at the entrance to Bourganeuf, which is my nearest town. Here they were confronted by Capitaine Jaques Chapou and elements of his CFI partisan group. 

According to locals Capitaine Chapou was shot here on the approach to the town while preparing an ambush, and a number of his  men were duly captured. Zee Germans would have been approaching from the top of the picture.

Given the numbers involved the partisans were soon overwhelmed with the Capitaine going down in a hail of fire. 12 resistance fighters were captured and imprisoned in the Zizim tower until the follow up SD units could arrive. The official version is that these men were deported to Germany - though none were ever seen again. 

The tower of Zizim in the town square - left of picture. Built in the 15th century to house a captive Ottoman prince. You know… like you do. 

The Rue de Verdun was sealed off at both ends and families dragged out into the street to be searched and generally roughed up. My neighbour Solange was only 9 at the time and she still remembers it well. I guess you would.  

Rue de Verdun - then

And now…

On the 19th July Brigade Jesser arrived in my little hamlets parent village (St Dizier Leyrenne) with over 40 trucks parking on the village green pictured below. 

The 1944 Saint Dizier Leyrenne truck stop.

The accompanying SD detachment set themselves up in front of the monument slightly to the left of the picture and began their interrogations. There were less than 500 people resident in the village and surrounding farms. 61 people (apparently selected at random) were arrested and deported to the Reich for further investigation. Only 2 returned after the war. 

I can only assume that the interrogators from the SD were fairly efficient because somehow later that evening a company of soldiers surrounded 8 of Capitaine Chapou’s partisans who’d avoided the roundup in Bourganeuf and were attempting to escape the area through the woods to the north of my house. 

The soldiers involved were Crimean Tartar “volunteers” in the Russian legion and they brought with them all the excesses and barbarism of the Eastern Front. The 8 partisans were captured, tortured for information and then executed on the spot. 

Crimean Tartars of the Russian Volunteer LegIon in France 1944]

So yeah, it was exactly 80 years later to the day, on the 19th July 2024 that I was wandering through the nearby woods and I discovered the memorial. I was alone and the woods were silent. It all felt very sad. Apparently there are flowers left each year. Next year I shall add to them. 

Some of the Tartars responsible for this outrage mutinied on the 29th July and actually, while out of my area, volunteered to join a resistance group in the Corrèze region. Their fate after this point remains unknown. The rest of the unit eventually met their end in the Colmar pocket. 

Kurt Jesser was captured in October 1945 and held in a camp to be charged for war crimes. He was released in 1947 and all charges were dropped. A further investigation was launched in 1949 (perhaps when further information came to light?) but again the charges were dropped. He died at home in 1950.

Now, if you want “grim” on a larger and even more barbaric scale try googling Oradour Sur Glane which is also not too far away and well worth a visit. 

Toodleooh.

A niche within a niche

Okay so I was googling “cats that look like Hitler”* the other day…hey, I am retired… when God knows how I got there but I ended up watching a stop motion video of the battle of the bulge - all done in LEGO.

It’s fair to say I spent many a long hour when both my two lads were little playing with their LEGO…and sometimes, if they were good, they got to join in too. Our best builds were forts, or siege weapons that used elastic bands to catapult marbles at the defenders, (I like to think they were brought up proper like). Anywhoo we constantly struggled to create warlike things with what was in those days a very non military toy. 

If only we’d waited for twenty odd years!

Now, I’m kind of used to having a hobby (regular wargaming) that’s considered “niche”, but it seems I’m now totally out nerded  by a group inhabiting a niche within my niche.

Here for your delight and delectation are a whole load of screenshots of WW2 LEGO tanks and infantry - that they apparently use Bolt Action to play games with!

I’m kind of in awe.

I think.

* totally a thing…Google it, it’s hilarious.

Keep it simple, stupid..! (Part 1).

I was working on two War of the Roses armies in the summer recess when a guy who was returning a chainsaw to me noticed them and asked what I was doing. He seemed quite enthralled so I promised that when I’d finished them I’d invite him around for a game…and some Pastis…(markedly different from Pasty’s, but just as bad for your health when consumed to excess). 

For a newbie I wanted to make the game playable and fun so I had been on the fence for a while about what rules to use. While trying to translate a few recognised sets into French for my opponents benefit I kept coming back to a set I’d devised myself back in the day. Now it meant a certain amount of, cough, …erm…  « work » (lol) to translate these too, but they were considerably shorter at only 9 pages and being hugely lazy that was all the excuse I needed to choose them. 

I would normally shy away from blow by blow accounts of a games mechanics but since I have picked up a few ideas off other people over the years I thought I’d break the habits of a lifetime and share some of the more esoteric, nay controversial aspects, that these rules include.

First off, and worth stressing, is that they are very abstracted and simplistic, designed actually for big battles with tiny troops like my 2mm ECW lads. They seek to bundle morale, training and equipment into one of four classes, ignoring the usual levy / retainer type designations. If you really want to know how far an arrow can fly against a 20kmh headwind or you resist the very notion that guys with the best equipment can be just as likely to run as peasants then these will be of no interest to you. Move along. Nothing to see here.

I started with the premise of two roughly equal forces and that there would in each game always be an attacker and a defender. The objectives in this period / setting are thankfully pretty simple - kill the enemy noble, or a good proportion of his forces. Settling on 15 units per side, (with a unit approximating a company) I decided that the loss of 5 units of any type would break an army and cause an automatic game loss.

Two other things to note are that 1) with small scale figures, and these troops are 6mm, on board counters can clutter the battlefield and spoil the aesthetic, so I’ve kept them to a minimum. 2) The battle depicted is actually only one wing of a much larger engagement and it is possible for you to lose the encounter but win the day (if that makes any sense).

The attackers army is composed of 5 companies of archers, 1 mounted men at arms, 2 dismounted men at arms, 3 units of billmen, 1 unit of mercenary handgunners, 1 unit of light artillery, 1 unit of light horse, and 1 company of peasant spearmen.

The totally made up Earl of Dudley’s retinue which are the attackers and thus include the light horse in the left foreground. 

The defender gets something similar but swops out the handgunners for crossbowmen and the light horse for a company of mercenary pikes. 

The equally made up Duke of Tipton (family / west midlands joke) and his retinue of defenders, mercenary pikes to the fore.

The defender chooses one of his units to leave off board in exchange for 3 items of defensive terrain. In this case 1 set of pavises for the crossbows and 2 sets of sharpened stakes for the archers. He also chooses 6 hexes worth of regular terrain that he deploys to his best advantage.

Before any units are deployed the attacker gets to move (if he wants to) up to 2 hexes worth of the terrain by a maximum of 2 hexes in any direction…but not off board.

The defender chose to anchor his flanks on 4 hexes of impenetrable gorse and 2 of woods (counting as rough terrain). For his part the attacker moved two of the gorse bush hexes (as indicated by the red arrows) in order to create an opening of clear ground around the flank and rear.

In accordance with keeping it simple there are only 3 types of terrain, clear, rough going…and impenetrable.

Finally the defender deploys his entire force including the defensive terrain items chosen when he sacrificed a unit.

The two units of archers on the left are protected by the stakes to their front. Not so obvious is the bunch if pavises in front of the crossbows in the middle of the line. The pavises can be moved with the troops if required but the stakes cannot.

Having had a chance to observe the defenders deployment the attacker sets up his units in the hope of exploiting any perceived weakness. Two companies may occupy a hex together if they are of the same type or they are archers which can be paired with billmen or dismounted men at arms. Such a pairing provides advantages and disadvantages depending on the type of combat engaged in and which unit type is foremost.

The attacker deploys in order to exploit a perceived weakness in the enemy line. Players are invited to imagine that fighting is also taking place on one or more flanks.

So far, so good, but now we get to the weird bit most folk won’t like. 

Apart from the command stand each unit is secretly awarded one of the following quality markers. Note each army commander has, initially at least, no idea as to which of his units will perform well in battle, (for who can know what is truly in men’s hearts?). The quality markers are 1 x « We could be heroes », 2 x « In it to win it », 9 x « Only here for the beer » and 3 x « Ready to leg it ».

These quality markers affect how a unit responds in combat and can be explained broadly like this:

1. We could be heroes. These guys will go the extra mile in combat, ignoring the first of any melee hits and getting to re role one combat dice. While you would naturally assume mounted knights might automatically adopt this mantle the random deployment of the quality markers means any one unit could receive it. I would justify peasant spearmen with this marker as being highly motivated by the proximity of their home settlement.

2. In it to win it. Broadly speaking these are troops who might materially benefit from the battles outcome and thus fight with a little more determination than most. Benefits could include the possibility of individual ennoblement, the acquisition of enemy territory or even just the prospect of expensive things that can be stolen off the wealthiest of the corpses. 

3. Only here for the beer. These lads are here because they’ve been told to be, and not showing their faces on the day might prove detrimental to their future employment and their families housing prospects. They’ll fight as well as they have to, but don’t expect too much when the going gets tough.

4. Ready to leg it. Bad morale, cowardice, treachery, are all possible factors affecting this bunch. They really don’t want to be on the battlefield and will seek the first possible opportunity to bugger off. Typically this might naturally include any peasants but in this game it could just as easily be the cream of society. 

Usually you only get to see the quality of your own or your opponents units when they come under missile fire or are engaged in melee, but shown below the owning player is able, once per turn, to secretly view the status of any units he is currently adjacent (i.e. in the next hex to).

Before the fighting kicks off the Duke of Tipton is disturbed to find his leading dismounted men at arms are apparently ready to leg it, the guys behind them are not exactly convinced of his cause and the only unit he can really put his full trust in are the motley bunch of billmen recruited from the local town.

Equally disappointed is the Earl of Dudley - with no feel for who he can really depend on, so far, and the nagging worry that the « We could be heroes » quality marker may have been discarded along with the unit he sacrificed to provide the field defences.

If you feel you have the time as the army commander you can of course spend precious command points moving your command stand around the field to assess the men’s individual determination. There is also the limited ability to change men’s quality but more on this later.

So the two armies are deployed and the attacker automatically gets to go first in the first turn. Here he rolls 2D6 and scores 8, which gives him 8 command points to spend this turn. Fighting in melee occurs automatically as does missile fire (within the constraints of firing arcs and line of sight) but command points are needed to move units, shake off disorganisation, activate special events and resupply archers running low on arrows.

A useful command point score - but there’s lots to do.

I’ll do another post shortly on the battle itself, but I’ll close with exciting news on the crisp front.

Having been subject to the French crisp market for nigh on nine years (give or take) I’ve long viewed the lack of Cheese and Onion flavour (truly the king of flavours) as a glaring omission and quite frankly a source of national shame. Deciding to « be the change I wish to see » I recently wrote to President Macron  highlighting the matter and asking him to ensure that immediate action be taken to remedy the omission - especially with the eyes of the world upon us during the olympics. Though he is obviously a busy chap (and disappointingly never wrote back) ((rude))… it can hardly be a coincidence that this was the first thing I noticed when perusing the croustillant racks in Carrefour yesterday. 

Coincidence…?

I think not!

Toodleooh!

  

The home front

There’s not much wargaming or painting going on over here at the moment, and god knows when my 6mm Baccus Lancastrian army will show up, so I’ve decided to close up shop for a couple of months while I generate a few things to write about (if Stew can do it so can I). 

If nothing else I should have a few ECW battles and an airship mission or two to kick things off again when I return.

As an early retiree on a limited income (cue the playing of a very tiny violin) I sometimes have to make difficult decisions on how to spend my hobby money. This month (in a spend I shall have trouble categorising for the wargaming census) I err spent it on a couple of birds…

Literally.

Meet my two new family members, Bancroft and Makepeace. 

Bancroft & Makepeace. Hanging out with chickens can be very restful. 

They’re a pair of fancy pants chucks, Bancroft is a Brahma and Makepeace is a Favorolle - not that you’re especially interested I’m sure. 

Makepeace doing a runner after taking a dump in my welly.

Being French they immediately went on strike over the lack of adequate wi fi in their enclosure, so no eggs of note so far.

Les Poulets avec les gilets jaunes. It’s a French thing.

Hopefully they won’t start blocking access to the garden or burning tyres.

Have a great summer everyone. 

Toodleooh.

This one’s for Stew

Stewart’s continued erroneous assertion that the American Civil War is the best civil war cannot be allowed to stand.

Consider this to be me and my homies in an abandoned parking lot under a freeway - hollering back. 

Ohh the ECW is the best CW 

Though some might disagree

See our king had a thing for kissing his ring

And shooting his MP’s.

Then there’s new modelled Tom and old Ollie Crom 

A dictator wannabe 

Yes the ECW is the best CW

As sure as sure can be.

((Drops da mike))

Lol. 

La vie en France

It’s been a while since I shared a few nuggets of French life with you so hopefully you won’t mind if I jot these two down while they’re still fresh in my mind. 

There are unsurprisingly two types of France. The busy metropolitan, high fashion, high crime, snooty, unfriendly, stylish France - and the backward, empty, countryside - where I live amongst the paysan.

The people here are suspicious of change and unimpressed by fancy cars or outward signs of wealth. They have a strong sense of community, now largely absent in the dog eat dog Disunited Kingdom, (Discuss…) and their solidarity allows them to face down the government if they try something people don’t like. (It’s refreshing to live in a country where the government fears the people rather than it being the other way around). 

In 2017 the metropolitan elite in Paris decreed that the standard 90kmh speed limit would be reduced across France to 80kmh, for safety reasons. This is good idea in a major city where journey times are short and traffic / pedestrian volumes are high, but out here where it’s 2hrs to the nearest major city and where you might sometimes get caught in a three car traffic jam it was a major irritation that needlessly added more time to every journey. Representation was made to the relevant ministers…and duly ignored. 

Big mistake. 

Within 2 months every working speed camera in an area the size of Wales (by way of a UK comparison) had suspiciously caught fire and most folk went back to driving at 90kmh. 

Unable to immediatly pay for new cameras all such transgressions went officially unrecorded and within a year the 80kmh edict was reversed for our region.

Just lately we have experienced the start of another wave of discontent, this one centred on the hugely powerful French farming community - who typically work 70hr weeks and whose standard of living has been gradually undermined over the last ten years. The farmers feel their world is being turned upside down (nice ECW reference I slipped in there eh?) but the expression they use is that they are “walking on their hats.” To give voice to this expression they began (about 2 months ago) to turn all official road side location names upside down, like this:

Not our village but you get the picture. The farmers here are walking on their hats - and this is a sign to the government of their distress. 

The police and the authorities know who is doing this of course but strangely no charges have been brought and the signs have still not been put back up the right way. 

Okay that’s the political expression of community covered but let me give you a couple of more personal examples of its practical benefits. 

Back in November I had cause to nip down the bank to draw out 240 euro to pay a bill then I decided to pop to the pharmacie for my noggin meds. 

In between leaving the car and crossing the road I managed to drop my wallet out of my man bag (no judgement on the man bag please it’s almost obligataire out here) and only discovered its loss when I got into the Pharmacie. 

The very spot in Saint Dizier Leyrenne where I had cause to mutter “Mon dieu. Où est mon portefeuille?”

Retracing my very limited route to the car failed to find the damned thing so I then went into a death spiral of doubt and recrimination. The wallet contained things whose importance far outweighed the 240 euro in notes, namely my driving license, my card giving me permission to live in France, my card entitling me to access medical care, my bank cards etc etc. 

Back home I began the nightmare process of organising replacements but fortunately had not got very far with it before our mayor sent a man round to let me know the wallet had been found and it was being kept at an address some 30km away if I wanted to collect it.

When I got to the indicated place that evening I found a typical broken down farm shack, a woman in a thin cotton dress and a snot nosed kid wearing only one shoe. They didn’t have a pot to piss in by the look of things but when they handed over my wallet its contents, including the cash, were all still there. I forced a reward on them for their honesty knowing full well that back in Wales the money would have been up some bastards nose and the wallet with cards tossed in the nearest bin…quick sharp. 

It was almost enough to restore my faith in humanity.

Almost.

Then there was last week. 

In a nearby wood, documented in a previous post, was a proper nomadic style yurt in which lived Jeremie and Marie. They had an off grid lifestyle and it’d be harder to find two nicer folk. Though they had permission to occupy the site and had been there for two years there’d been a bit of a disagreement with the land owner over money and they’d been told to bugger off asap. 

Jeremie and Marie’s yurt in happier times.

With bugger all money, no references and no transport (other than a bike) they were royally screwed - unable to even take the yurt with them. 

In a city they would have become homeless. Fortunately for them our commune [Saint Dizier Masbaraud) owns a number of former railway properties that for complicated reasons they are obliged to keep and maintain (should the rails and the trains ever return) and which are semi permanently empty. The mayor fixed them up with one of them within a day, no references or guarantors required and the whole shemozzle at a peppercorn rent. There was still the problem of moving their surprisingly large number of possessions of course but this was quickly fixed when the word went round and 16 strangers with four vans, three trailers, a camion and an ex pompière vehicle turned up to help out. 

Here’s the gaff in question. 

And here’s are a couple of members of the impromptu moving committee. At 12.00 two tables appeared along with wine, beer, pizza, locally made bread, pate, etc. Everyone stopped working and sat around for a leisurely chat and a munch. No money changed hands at any point. Refreshing in more ways than one. 

As the famous advert once said…and to which I’ve been forced to add a correction. 

“There are some things in life that money can’t buy. For everything else there’s Amex  Community Spirit.”

Toodleooh mes amis