Little Round Top - a Folio Game

In total contrast to the very complicated ‘By Sword & Bayonet’ boardgame that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, today I put this ‘Quick Play’ system on the table.

This is one of the mini folio games from Decision Games in their Musket & Saber series and it has the advantage of carrying the latest rules version, which offer an appreciated 'tidy up' over the previous version (and these are backwards compatible - good!), which also includes the Combat Result Table operating as the designer intended.

The series folios have 6 pages of none illustrated rules, an 11” x 17” map, 40 counters and come in at an attractive price of around £11 plus postage (at Second Chance Games in the UK). The latest four folio releases including his title, are The Hornet’s Nest (Shiloh), Balaclava and Hougoumont.

The photo here shows the map with the armies in their starting positions. The Confederates clearly look like they are about to overwhelm the Union positions, but in this 5 turn game, Union reinforcements come on early and their line becomes steadily stronger, so the Confederates must do what they can early, before they get contained.

There are two interesting aspects to these short rules.

1 - You don’t have to attack a unit that is next to you (i.e. Combat is not mandatory) ….. but, if you don’t, at the end of the combat phase, those ‘not attacked’ units can each launch a counter-attack and they have their strength double - so there are some nuanced choices to be made here.

2 - The combat system is unusual. There are 5 potential results on the Combat Result Table (one being no effect), but whichever side suffers the effect, it has to also take a morale check. If passed you check the result on the first column, but if failed, you check in the second column - the differences can bring a nice narrative and passing your morale might not always be the result that you want!

So a result of 'Dr' means the defender (D) suffers an ‘r’ result. If they fail their morale they will disrupt and retreat, but if they pass their morale, they stand in place and both sides take a loss (the good old 'Exchange' result) .... obviously they have put up stiff resistance and heavier casualties to both sides flow from that.

On first sight, with just 40 counters in play (6 of which are game markers) and a frontal assault, you might be forgiven for thinking there isn’t much opportunity for dynamism here, but you quickly get drawn into the game down at the individual hex level, looking for local advantage. 

There are 9 victory points to gain from occupying locations - The Wheatfield, Devils Den, Little Round Top (but not Big Round Top) and the various road entry points that reinforcements arrive at. To win, the Confederates must score at least 5 VP’s ….. getting 4 seems straight forward, but you have to work for that 5th point and this I think is where the game tension sits.

It plays quickly. They say 60 - 90 minutes, that is probably about right in a face-to-face game, but my solo games have been coming in at around the one hour mark.

The scale for this battle is 176 yards to the hex and 45 minutes to the turn. Generally a brigade is represented with a pair of counters, for example Semmes ‘A’ and Semmes ‘B’. 

There are no command and control rules, but I feel compelled to keep the A & B counters of each brigade operating together (adjacent or stacked), rather than doing fancy footwork to ‘count and perfect’ odd ratios in attack. Applying that discipline does bring some naturally occurring moments of frustrations and opportunities - nice!

I used to have a lot of these folio games, but they were thrown away in the big and unforgiving clear-out last year! I can see myself buying back a few of those titles and having a more enjoyable game using these updated rules. They would make very good vacation games.

I also run a separate web space called COMMANDERS, which is a bit more magaziney than here, with shorter reads that often return to subjects mentioned here.

LINK

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html

Epic Revolution (AWI)

Another instalment in Warlord Games’ Epic series has just been released … Epic Revolution, covering the American War of Independence. I picked my battle set up at the Phalanx Wargame show.

I have not had the chance to take a proper deep dive into the bundle and by now there will already be a lot of ‘out of the box’ type posts, especially on YouTube, that will serve you much better than can be done here, especially by those that have a more intimate understanding of the period …. So what follows are just some initial thoughts on where I might take this.

I got the £160 Battle Box and generally everything about it fits the formulaic approach that we have seen so far in the Epic line-up. 

For those not familiar with the format, you get over 2000 figures covering the British and their Hessian and Native American Allies and the American Continental Army. The infantry are in standard strips of 10 and double ranked will fit the supplied 60mm x 20mm plastic bases. The rulebook is an A5 version of Black Powder II, with all references and artwork to other periods removed and replaced with AWI specific content. Additionally you get an MDF piece of terrain (watchtower), a pack of commanders, produced in the ‘Warlord Resin’ (Cornwallis, Tarleton, Howe, Riedesel, Gates & Morgan - below photo) and a flag sheet.

For those who are familiar, the differences in this box are that the inclusion of the commanders is a nice touch as in previous starter sets, these have been sold separately. The flags are larger and have been printed on heavier coated paper. The infantry command strip (see below) has a space caused by a missing figure. Two single figures are supplied, a flag carrier and a standard line infantry man, it is for you to choose which of those two figures you glue into that space. This is a great idea to increase the functionality of the sprue, so the gamer can now have double flagged or single flagged command bases as historically appropriate.

The bases sprue has for the first time since the series launched, been re-configured. It is now simply a bit longer with four extra infantry bases (60mm x 20mm) on it. This makes a lot of sense from a packaging point of view as the frames are now a better fit for the box, plus they will need fewer base frames overall.

Figures and bases - the sculpting on the figures is nice and sharp and the cavalry that have previously been criticised for lacking detail on the front and back of the rider, is now more detailed. It looks like to do this, they have gone with turning the rider in the saddle to the side so that chest and back are actually caught in the side-on profile, which due to the production methods is exactly where the detail can be added.

I find that one area of weakness of every Epic release so far is that you don’t get a flysheet that tells you exactly what’s on each sprue. You end up looking at the sprue and then checking through the rules and looking at photographs or internet posts to make sure that have properly identified the figure type. It is similar here, I am not overly familiar with the period, so I read through the rules text to find out which unit types might be double flagged …. I couldn’t find anything (unless I have missed it!) within the package, in the end I relied upon the photographs in the rules, which I assume to be right!

The system continues the Epic trend within the Horse & Musket period of bases being 60mm wide with a standard unit for (say) British line comprising of four bases, so a typical line unit would have a frontage of 240mm. As before, notably different sized units have their base numbers adjusted, so a large unit has five bases and a small unit three. There are quite a few units described as ‘tiny’ for example cavalry and they are down to one base.

In my previous Epic endeavours, I have generally gone for fewer bases in a unit, this helps with my table size and also cuts down on the amount of things that need painting. I have come to settle on three bases looking pleasing on the table and this works for my collections with the smaller battles and in bigger games that have more demand on the collection, dropping to two base units works fine …. It can look a bit mean compared to three bases, but it works. Also, I prefer to sit the figures on a 55mm MDF base to cut down that inherent gap that you visually get along the line due to roughly 55mm blocks of infantry sitting on a 60mm base.

Of interest is the way that the figure sprues are populated, so here you don’t end up for example with a load of cannons simply because there was one on every infantry sprue.

Rules - the box comes with the small A5 format Black Powder based rules that we have all become used to getting with each Epic release. They hold the basic rules of Black Powder II, but all picture content, support material and wordage is made specifically to accommodate Epic American War of Independence.

I already have the rather marvellous ‘Rebellion’ Black Powder supplement and it is clear that large chunks of that tried and tested text have been lifted and placed into the Epic rulebook, which is a benefit that makes the rulebook feel quite holistic in its approach as it covers so much - a lot of work has gone into this rule set to make it AWI specific - well done that team.

We get leader and unit profiles, a bit of general history, some specific unit histories and historical scenarios, all in 255 pages, really this can be considered a one-stop gaming source for the average gamer.

I know not everyone likes Black Powder rules, with the detractors mainly not liking that some units can hang around for several turns without activating, also not liking the generic nature of the rules. However, I quite like the chaos that comes from the potential lack of activation, where the hand of restraint rest upon the gamer, who without such restraint sees everything with a birds eye view and might want to react instantly with some sort of panzerblitz style ability! It injects moments of anticipation into the game as the command dice are rolled. Also, the rule is tempered by allowing automatic activations for being within close proximity of the enemy, so the chaos is more about the approach to battle.

As for being generic, yes, the base rules are sort of plain old Horse and Musket rules for the whole period, but it is in the adding of the differing unit characteristics and traits that open the game to more immersion and period flavour. I have my own rules for Napoleonics and ACW and while tempted to amend them to give an AWI game (within my own narrow and likely inaccurate view of military capability and tactics of the period!), I think for starters, the Epic book is so well done and everything is inter-related, that I might just go with those rules.

When using Black Powder, I generally lower the defensive value of buildings as they seem over resilient. More importantly, I take the rule from the Glory Hallelujah ACW supplement that doesn’t allow a unit to fire in the Shooting Phase if it has moved more than once in the Command Phase ….. a rule that perhaps could have been universally included in the base rules when the second edition of Black Powder came out.

I have two other period specific rulesets that look very nice. One is called ‘Live Free or Die’ by Greg Wagman and published by Little Wars TV and itself is based on Andy Callan’s old (1987) Loose Files & American Scramble set. The beauty is they are just 4 pages long and the full set comes with a load of scenarios.

The other is ‘Rebels and Patriots’ one of the Osprey Publishing ‘Blue Rules’ series. These seem very popular and don’t need many figures. The attraction here is that in the early days of building a couple of armies, one can build their forces to get an early game in with relatively few units. I always find that gaming as early as possible with a new project does encourage further painting, keeping the project alive.

The alternative rules will need me to be a bit creative in translating what a base represents and how to mark losses etc.

The Epic book includes the scenarios as listed below. They are very nicely presented with a variety of sizes of orders-of-battles, that can fit in with where you are up to with painting and collecting, though I have always been quite happy using raw unpainted figures while the army is growing - anything that keeps the enthusiasm going.

There is a clear intent that the scenarios listed should fit on a 6x4 table, but they say the bigger scenarios can enjoy an 8x4 with more room to manoeuvre. With my approach to having fewer bases per unit, I am hopeful that the domestic table will be quite adequate. They recommend that for tables under 6x4 that measurements are converted from inches to centimetres.

Of note, two of the big scenarios (Brandywine & Germantown) have their scenario orders of battle presented in what they call ‘The Grand manner’ (a feature also used in the old Rebellion supplement), so that units are typically representing brigades rather than battalions / regiments. Bath-tubbing by any other name, it does get the full action onto the standard sized table.

The scenarios provided are;

Bunker Hill

Chatterton’s Hill

Brandywine

Germantown

Monmouth Courthouse

Briar Creek (Georgia 3rd March 1779)

Hanging Rock 

Cowpens

Guilford Courthouse

Spencer’s Ordinary (Virginia, 26th June 1781)

Finally, you get an MDF kit to build a watchtower. As with the previous Epic sets, this looks nicely done and is scaled at 15mm. My own preference for buildings in wargames is to drop a scale down, so for my Epic, I use 10mm buildings, so I am not sure what to do with this one. As a single easy build building, it might just be best to build it and use it, but the construction is very straight forward and there is a temptation to make my own scaled down version.

Having collected all the previous Epic stuff, there is a bit of a painting queue to get through, but my approach to army building now favours producing ‘Pocket Armies’ in each period, despite the ton of figures I get in each of these battle boxes. Six units to start, then going to eight and then eventually rounding out to say 12 or so units. The kind of thing that initially that fits in with the ‘One Hour Wargames’ style scenarios by Neil Thomas.

As an initial project, just to jack things up, I fancy tinkering with the three ‘throw down’ generic scenarios, Encounter Battle, Approach Battle or Meeting Engagement. These  can be modified in terms of how many points you play and also the table size can be chosen to suit, so they are very scalable to whatever sized battle you want to go for.

Building two mirror forces of just four infantry units each, played on a 4´ wide x 3½´ deep table seems a great way to get the enthusiasm going to get some painted figures to the table.

The Continental force could just have 3 Continental infantry units, plus 1 Continental light unit and one commander. The British force will reflect that with 3 British line infantry and 1 British light infantry unit, plus commander.

In stage two, a gun battery and a militia unit (or two) could be added.

It might be a good time to remind ourselves that the figures come in red and blue colours, so they can be temporarily be attached to bases and initially fight in the their raw plastic state, while the painting is (or is not!) ongoing.

While a starter of 4 - 6 units would be a good leg-up to army building, I already have a bit of a fancy for getting the Bunker Hill scenario to the table. I don’t know why that is really, but a few years ago at the now defunct Phoenix wargame show (northwest UK), someone had put on a 28mm Bunker Hill game and it just pressed my ‘interest’ button. It doesn’t seem a particularly exciting situation with a line of troops advancing on a defensive position on a hill, but for whatever reason, it is just one of those game demo’s that has stayed with me, which of course is the magic of a wargame show.

Having said that, when buying the game box at the wargame show, I came across two Osprey Campaign titles, one for Guilford Courthouse and the other for Monmouth, so who knows, perhaps a slice of action or two from one of those titles might tweak the interest.

(Above) On top of that, I have the rather wonderful Illustrated Encyclopedia of Uniforms of the American War of Independence 1775 - 1783 by Lorenz Books. The detail is most excellent for 28mm painting, but it also serves to make sure the Epic colours and facings are right. It was worth buying the box set, just so that this book could be pulled from the shelves :-)

So there we are. There is a goodly amount in the box and this looks a good addition to the Epic line-up. We shall see what we shall see!

RESOURCES:

My COMMANDERS web pages are a bit more magaziney than here and in coming weeks, comments about this Epic box will be posted there.

LINK

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html

Phalanx 2025 Wargame Show.

But first! We start with a little Fake News and then a report on a splendid day out at a wargame show!

A continuation of the Fake News Bulletins that have not been visited for over 4 years (see index to the right of the page) …. though this one is interlaced with some truth …. how annoying :-).

Having been laying low since late 2019 and now wanted by the authorities across several UK counties for secretly building up stocks of 28mm Napoleonics, while publicly painting up Epic scale, Monty Bartholomew ‘Slackjaw’ Smythe, a one time reporter of extraordinary imagination, needed to make covert contact with several wargaming luminaries, without attracting the attention of the said authorities.

Cautious about using his telephone and now suspecting that his computer had been hacked and switched to auto divert, pushing him to certain 28mm based sites, because that was where all Google searches for ‘tasty gorgeous figures’ were now taking him, he had been resorting to putting coded messages in the Lonely Hearts column of the Gazette.

Professor Rivet of the Dark Art of Modelling Forum and the stout Rusty Rowlocks, with blushes spared, read the column every day, waiting for news from their friend. 

Then on a very ordinary Tuesday in mid June, there it was, “Heartbreak Harry seeks Madame Divine for some hot action across the table”, there could be no doubt, Slackjaw was arranging for a meeting for the coming Saturday at St. Helens for the Phalanx Wargame Show!

It was the perfect ruse, where best to hide some wargamers, but in plain sight amongst other wargamers at a wargame show - inspired! 

They would each have to buy one of those back packs, as these generally work in cramped public spaces at pissing every other punter off and clears a space of four foot all around you, guaranteeing you will be left alone.

Friday night came, alarm clocks were set and fake shopping lists prepared. They had their cover story ready in case they were stopped and searched by any official. “I’m here to buy some Meroitic Kushite horsemen, would you like me to tell you about their Blemmye Allies”? would be their rehearsed response. It had the known effect of making an interrogator instantly glaze over and in the most severe cases - induce dizziness and vomiting!

The next morning after a car journey that took twice as long as it should have due to Smythe taking counter measures in case he was being tailed, plus of course the obligatory coffee and muffin stop at the halfway point, he arrived as the doors opened at 10 AM.

Smythe, was disguised as an older wargamer with his arse hanging out of his trousers, to help him blend in .… I shall say no more. He had driven up with Mrs. Wargamer, who was intrigued by the shopping list, but not intrigued enough to ask any questions ….. well, especially not after the last time, when the list was then explained in great detail!

Anyway - what a fab show, Smythe got so involved with the shiny stuff that he almost forgot about his mission to meet with the Good Professor and Rusty Rowlocks, the latter, an integral cog in the ‘Let’s Pretend’ movement.

But as he approached the rendezvous point, he saw his two associates being taken into custody by an official who actually knew his Kushites from his Boukellarioi and who was beyond the reaches of any hoodwinking by such charlatans.

As for Smyth, he had not gone totally unnoticed, his mask of anonymity had momentarily slipped, as he was spotted by trader, Marty Trenchfoot, whilst flicking through the pages of a book called ‘When the storage runs out’. These days, Marty is not so good on his feet, but he did manage to get to the door in time to see the departing Smythe getting into his inconspicuous stretch limo.

Once again, Smythe slips the attention of the authorities and manages to add to his stash of goodness - hopefully we won’t hear from him again!

SHOW REPORT

Held in the Sutton Community Leisure Centre in St. Helens (northwest UK), the show is run by the Spartans Wargame Club, occupying the main sports hall as their venue. In a large side room, a very successful Bring ‘n Buy sales area is run by the club officials.

I have been visiting the show every year for as long as I can remember, but it has become very apparent over recent years that some ‘A’ Lister traders are no longer attending, each year we seem to lose someone. This is against a background of the  bigger shows, York, Partizan, Hammerhead and Salute growing. I’m sure we are in an evolving situation for both shows and magazines and we just have to hope that both can remain financially viable and relevant to their audience.

Having said that, at the time that I left, I was told that numbers were similar to last year. It did look a tad quieter to me and one regular trader told me that they were having a slow start.

The Bring ‘n Buy is hugely popular and takes on the appearance of a scrum for the first two hours. One just has to hope that monies generated in there are brought back into the trader hall later. This is where I feel the balance of having a fully trader supported show in the future lays.

A bit of a pre-occupation for me at the show this year was back / leg pain. I knew it would limit what I could do and for how long and I had some trepidation before going as most shows do not really give enough seating. I have previously moaned before about the lack of available seating at Wargame shows, just to take that ten minute breather, though at this show there were plenty of seats set around the gaming tables. Whether they were intended for the public or not I don’t know, but I generally found that when I wanted to take 5 minutes out, I could grab one of these - Thank You.

One thing that was very noticeable to me this year was a much better diversity of figure scales used in the games. 28mm is always popular at shows, no doubt because it is a good exhibiting scale for the punters, but here we had a real goodly percentage of smaller scales on the table as well, with a few 15mm, a 10mm and a 6mm game and I really enjoyed those tables.

Very interestingly, the games were heavily orientated to historical subjects, with four of the games being nice napoleonic battles.

The show is very well supported by local (and not so local - thank you) clubs each year and this year was no exception.

I have to say, it turned out that pretty much everything I wanted trader wise, was at this show and I had a good spend, after telling myself that better to support the one show than spreading the jam thin over several shows!

On arrival I had a quick scoot around to see what was what before spending any cash. The four prime things that I had on my shopping list were present, but of course the wargaming temptress found me an easy target …… fools and their money and all that!

In no particular order ….. The Haul;

First up, I had intended on pre-ordering the new Epic Rebellion set (American War of Independence) from Warlord Games, but I wanted to wait and order it from Phalanx, so that the show would ‘get the sales tick’. I pre-phoned them the previous week and they said yes that was fine, I would be in time, because the game was being released the weekend after Phalanx.

So I was taken by surprise to see the game sitting there on their shelves, released today. They kindly recognised my ‘pe-order’ intention and gave me the bonus George Washington figure. This looks to be a lovely box of goodies.

Next up, Coritani, great supporters of the show circuit. From them, I added to my narrow resin waterway sections as I needed a ‘Y’ section and some extra sections to the set that I bought last year. Also some tufts (there are 5 sheets there) and a rather nice pre-painted 15mm gun emplacement, which will look nice with a couple of cannon.

Also great supporters of the show circuit, Pendraken have recently released a range of 10mm MDF city block type kits and I want to do a small city board for my growing 10 / 12mm collection, so these look ideal and more importantly for my fingers ….. an easy build.

Warbases had some flowered tufts at half price and I took two dropper bottle paints from the Fanatic series, these are heavily pigmented. I needed a light grey (all those Confederate uniforms) and a single plate metal to replace all of my other metallics.  

Phoenix Games Studio do some dense nice tufts, so I got a pack of them, a refill for my wet palette set and a nice light coloured basing paste for the Roman / Carthage Epics - the one I bought last year was too yellow!

After the Epic AWI figures buy, I needed some support material. Two used Osprey books, one Monmouth Courthouse, the other Guilford Courthouse, were gleaned from Dave Lanchester’s fantastic stock and I also picked up the Rebels & Patriots Osprey rules from Christopher Morris Books. The latter I unfortunately threw away last year in the ‘Great Rules Purge’!  …… don’t say I told you so!

This little bundle were surprise buys. First, the Geek Villain fleece mat sold by Bow & Blade Games. I thought it was just farmland, but now having opened it up, it has roads, a river and a bridge. I really only wanted an anonymous countryside mat, but looking at it, it is very much growing on me. This is my second mat of theirs and I can understand why people collect these. The obligatory 5 Pro-Art brushes from the very friendly ABC Brushes keeps me stocked up with fine brush points and a small collection of useful tents, walls and cows! picked up on a second passing of Pendraken.

So, all told, I rather feel that this year, I have filled my wellies! Mrs. Wargamer is obviously hugely impressed with the haul. I think secretly, she wishes she was a wargamer!

And now for some games; (click for a slide show)

Above - Saving Private Ryan in 28mm from Beacon Gaming.

Above - 7TV game, Lurkers of the Deep by Spartan Wargame Club (show hosts).

Above - Arsuf (Crusades) Participation game with Lion Rampant based rules by Lance & Longbow Society.

Above - 9 Years War 1593 - 1603 from Tiger Miniatures

Above - very gorgeous! Part of the Bannockburn table with 54mm figures by the Independent Wargamers.

Above - Seige of Bastogne 1944 by James Mitchell and Bren Dolan. This is a 6mm game that sits in the frame of a re-configured pasting table. They may have been using Eisenhower rules. Last year, they did a lovely napoleonic game in the same format.

Above - Liverpool Wargaming Association excelled this year with a number of tables to support the show. Here we have Pavia 1525

Above - Magnificent 7 by The Pit Gaming Shop.

Above - Cold War Gone Hot - Oldham wargames

Above - Mark’s Game - The Spartans Club, Rolica 1808 in 10mm. I saw a ruleset on the table called Napoleonic War of 5 Nations.

Above - Mailed Fist Wargames Club, Napoleonic 15mm

Above - Cheshire & Staffordshire Wargamers - Dead Mans Hand.

Above - 15mm Sassanid and Byzantine by East Lancashire Wargames Association. They also had a good turn out, putting on three games.

Above - Burma from East Lancashire Wargames Association. I think this was a Lardy Chain of Command game, one of their ‘pint sized’ scenarios.

Above - Bolt Action Africa by The Copper Sapper Company

Above - Halifax Wargames Club, a 15mm Fuentes de Oñoro 1810 game using Empire Bataille rules. The club favours the rules and ran a Waterloo game here last year

Above - 28mm AWI computer moderated game by Old Guard Wargamers.

Above - Another game by the Liverpool Wargames Association, this one d’Erlon’s attack on the left (1815). There are two lovely farmhouse models on the table and the ridge. The bases look to be 100mm and I am wondering whether this is a DBA derivative, live their 1066 game of some years ago,

Above - Liverpool Wargaming Association. I think this was just set up as a display, advertising the club.

Above - Wakefield & District Wargames, a Cruel Seas game, with lovely models. This may be 1/700.

As always, a lovely show. I think that I enjoyed this more than last year. Thanks to all the traders and to the gamers who put on tables and gave their time so that I could have a splendid day and thanks to the organisers who make this all work and to you, dear reader, who puts up with the occasional ‘Slackjaw’ nonsense of Fake News and some pretty long winded posts along the way!

Resource Section.

My sister webspace ‘COMMANDERS’  showcase the various figure and boardgame systems that I am enjoying and gives a flavour of where current projects are up to. Link.

https://commanders.simdif.com