Hooptedoodle #323 - Mugs' Game - yes, I do tacky as well

Yesterday's unexpected digression onto the topic of coffee reminded me that I have forgotten to show off my new Napoleonic mugs. I got these a few weeks ago from Amazon - I was looking for something completely unconnected, and came across them. Too good an opportunity to miss, I'm sure you will agree!

Those of you who have come to take for granted my ubercool, cosmic sophistication and exemplary good taste may be a little shaken by this picture. I thought they were fun, and crass enough to appeal to the inverted snob in my soul, so I ordered four of them (which involves a pleasing but baseless implication that I have some friends who might join me for coffee). Here they are - eat your heart out. The world of novelty mugs is a source of unbounded surprises - I did also, briefly, consider a mug bearing a political poster for Mussolini, but I decided against it. I'll maybe get the set of espresso cups with that design. Hmmm.

Interesting footnote to this purchase: I ordered 4 designs, but because I couldn't get them all from the same Amazon Marketplace supplier I spread the order over two suppliers. The spirit of competition is alive and well, even in the world of online shopping - or maybe not. The four mugs arrived in a single parcel, with a single set of documentation. The two suppliers are in fact one and the same, merely trading under two different names. Oh well.   

FK&P - Heavy Going to Start With

I've had a couple of sessions familiarising myself with the For King and Parliament rules. Slow going, thus far - of course, it is possible that I have finally become too old and stupid to learn anything new, but mostly I have been having problems with the rule book.

Early experience-gainer tests. Everything vanilla - all the units are seasoned, no terrain effects to worry about, and so on. If you screw your eyes up you may see the pencil lines, which will be gone by lunchtime today. 20mm soldiers, 7.5inch squares, half-size playing cards, buckets of counters and wooden cubes standing by.

I would hate to say anything rude or unfairly critical of this game, so I must state right away that the booklet is enthusiastically and engagingly written, the style is pleasing and (a true rarity!) it is grammatically correct and the spelling is good, and the whole production is very attractively laid out.

I am happy to accept that the evidence is that this is a very enjoyable game, and that I will get up to speed eventually, and all will become clear. Good. My problem, I think, is that I have not come to this game after playing To the Strongest, so I am not quite on the right wavelength to start with, and also the authors - who have definitely come from the direction of TtS! - obviously understand the game and know what they mean, but sometimes I found it hard to pick up the key elements I need to get started from what is a mixture of design points, examples (which are useful and entertaining, but a couple of them seem to contain errors - or at least points which I couldn't find in the main text), tables, illustrations and playing tips.

Portent? - the very first activation card I played in this game - ever - was an Ace, which is a very bad card for activation. It makes a welcome change from bad dice rolls.

There are a number of examples of special exceptions to standard rules, which seem to be mentioned once only - some of them do not seem to be reflected in the summary tables, and often I found that I was unable to find the reference when I searched for it. The impression gained is that a number of post-prototype fixes were put in, and that an editor should get his head in there before the 2nd Edition appears. I am used to things being cross-referenced - especially if they haven't been mentioned yet. On a few occasions I came across terms I hadn't seen before (or at least couldn't remember seeing!), which a few pages later were explained and defined. None of this is serious, but I've found it a bit tricky. I like to remember rules in terms of norms which usually apply, with the necessary exceptions as a short and manageable list - if there are real weird cases which don't happen very often, then they are the things you know you have to check in the rules as and when.

The Quick Reference Sheet reproduces full details of unit properties - all or nothing - and undoubtedly lists some key information, albeit in a rather lengthy and waffly style - QRS's are usually brief and punchy. Oh - and they should be complete  too - rules for shooting and melees only appear here in the QRS by implication - and artillery ranges aren't set out (I couldn't find them, anyway). Since I've now read through the rule book four times, I would expect to have a better grasp of what is needed. I'll definitely produce my own QRS - that's a priority - but for some of the key rule sections - activation, combat, saves - I'll produce very short notes and tables of my own, with stuff explained as departures from a basic standard. I haven't got room in my head for amusing stories about all the features of Swedish horse - though I can maybe retrofit that sometime later.

So I shall plug away, but there is going to be a power of typing going on to get me up to speed! One further thing which is gently catching me out at present is that some of the TtS jargon is counter-intuitive to a newbie. In FK&P, "hits" means what in other games I would regard as "strength points" (or even "blocks"!), "disorders" means "losses", and there are a few other conventions I just have to get used to - OK - I can manage that. I also had difficulty finding the exact timing of tests for officer casualties, and thus far I haven't found out how far a melee attacker has to pull back if he doesn't eliminate the enemy.

Last night I did some cavalry melees, which were slow because I haven't got the hang of everything I need to know yet. First things I have to fix are:

(1) the tabletop - my original intention was to put pencil lines on to mark complete squares, pick out the corners of the square cells in black Sharpie pen, and then paint out (or erase) the construction lines. After I'd got the boards marked up, I reckoned I'd give it a go with the pencil lines still in place - they are not very visible anyway. Bad news is that it became obvious last night that the playing cards are going to get very grubby with raw pencil on the table (however discreet), so I have set about painting over the construction lines. We'll just have corners, as recommended, and as I originally intended.

(2) the half-size playing cards are OK - it is necessary to work at keeping things tidy and organised, or the result is a terrible mess, but I expected that. However, in the absence of proper counters to keep track of ammunition, "dash" (for horse), pursuits, "disorders" and all the other things you need to keep track of (and this is before you get to whether the cavalry are badly mounted, whether the units are raw/seasoned/veteran, the characteristics of individual leaders, the "gallant gentleman" classification...), I used a variety of coloured tiddlywinks, which won't stack without falling over and spreading about, which are not really very easy to handle and which look just awful. I can't be doing with very much of that, so some quick progress with proper tracking systems is necessary, or I'm going to shelve this. I'm thinking about it, and have had some useful ideas from commenters (thank you, chaps) and via email.

That's about it for the moment. I've started touching-out the pencil lines, and I'll do a bit of typing of CONCISE tables, and I'll be back on to trying out aspects of the game this evening.

Lots of Django Reinhardt on the CD player at the moment - that keeps the painting speed up! Just thought I'd mention it. Oh yes, and while I'm digressing, I've finally chucked out the remainder of the Nescafe - we bought two large jars of bog-standard Nescafe instant coffee a while ago, because they were on special offer with some rather handsome mugs. I am afraid that I do not like Nescafe - I realise this is entirely my own problem. I could, of course, have disposed of the actual coffee and simply regarded that as part of the cost of the mugs, but - no - this particular mug is far too mean for that. Eventually, halfway through the second jar, I have disposed of it. To be more accurate, my wife got tired of my complaining about it, so she threw it out on my behalf, and I've gone back to my preferred Douwe Egberts instant. Good. A bit like the relief when you stop banging your head on the wall. Some strange ritual, suffering, so as not to waste anything. Hmmm.

For King and Parliament

Plain side of the boards now have squares on

So what's all this, Foy?

Well, in common with a lot of other chaps I have been looking at the For King and Parliament rules, which are a recent ECW extension of the popular To the Strongest Ancient/Medieval game, and I have to say I am very impressed.

I am pretty comfortable with my own current C&CN-based ECW game, which handles very large games splendidly, but there are a few characteristic subtleties of pike & shot warfare which I have struggled to build into such a high-level rule set. Having received good reports of To the Strongest, I purchased the FK&P rules, and am currently on my 4th read-through. They look good. They seem to offer a very entertaining game, not too complex, the philosophy of which is very much in the spirit of how I like wargames to be, and they handle some of these aforementioned subtleties rather nicely. Hmmm.

I have reached the point where it would make sense to try the game out. My two overriding concerns are whether it really would handle what I regard as a large battle, and - to be frank - I am a bit alarmed by the amount of clutter associated with it. I don't care for roster systems, so having all necessary information on the table, with the units, is very acceptable. On the other hand, this game involves copious use of playing cards (it is a dice-free system, though there are dice-based alternatives), ammunition chits of three varieties (pistol, musket and artillery -  why three varieties? - is this because infantry may have light artillery attached?), "dash" chits for cavalry, "untried" markers, pursuit pointers, victory "medals", disorganisation chits (= losses in the terminology of most other games) and assorted information about specific leaders and units. I have obtained some half-sized playing cards, but I am concerned that all this stuff might reduce the tabletop (especially if the tabletop has me attached) to a state that in a less correct age would have been termed as like a tart's handbag.

I'm working on it - I have consulted the Jolly Broom Man, who is also looking to adopt these rules, and he has some constructive thoughts on how it may be possible to reduce the depth of laser-printed MDF counters so that one may see over the top.

First practical issue for me is that the game uses a square grid. I have no problem with this at all - I am very much in favour of grids - except that I do not have such a thing handy. Well, I didn't - I do now. I gave some thought to tweaking the game so it would work with hexes (I have boards, scenery, all sorts for a hex-based game). The Northumbrian Wargamer's excellent blog explains the adaptation to hexes, and it seems to work OK. I decided against that, to give the game a fair trial in its intended form.

I came up with a simple way of adding a square grid to the reverse (plain) side of my existing warboards - a solution which could be quickly and easily painted over if I lose interest in the idea, which understates the square pattern in the interests of avoiding dizzy turns, and is subtle enough to be ignored if an un-gridded field is needed. The picture makes it clear what I have done - this is one of the table sections, freshly marked out on the reverse side. To allow room for the 60mm square bases I use with my ECW troops, I settled on 7½ inch squares. This may seem like an odd size, but it works OK with my unit sizes, and it very conveniently divides into a 5-foot table width to give 8 squares deep. I have marked out the boards so that I can have a 12 x 8 cell standard table, or 15 x 8 if I add in the (5th) extension board . That's all fine - I haven't tried it yet, but it seems workable. I will have a problem to solve for roads (which run through the centres of cells, but I don't have any suitable bits for 8" squares) and streams (which run around the edges of squares, a system which seems more intuitively comfortable than the C&CN arrangement, but - again - I will need to set something up). Most of the other scenic bits I can probably hash together from what I already have.

Despite my (predictable?) carping, nit-picking approach, I am enthusiastic. If the rules really do allow very big games to be fought then I am ready to make FK&P my ECW rules of choice. If they work well, but don't handle anything as big as Marston Moor (etc), then I can still turn my boards over to the hex side and use the C&CN-based game for special whoppers. A lot will depend on how comfortable I am with the amount of clutter involved.

From being the only wargamer in the known universe who uses 7-inch hexes, I have moved on to be the only one to use 7½-inch squares. Whether or not this is progress will reflect how the test games go.

Bavarians - The First of the Cavalry

I'm very pleased to welcome the first cavalry unit for the 3rd Division of the VII (Bavarian) Corps of the Grande Armee of 1809. These are freshly painted by my friend Goya, for which kindness I am deeply grateful; he and I agree that painting Hinton Hunt figures is challenging because some of the detail on the old castings is implied rather than in your face - thus the exact location of the piping around the lapels on these chaps (for example) is partly a matter of guesswork.

We are also agreed, however, that the figures really do look very good if they are well painted. I bow to his efforts on this lot! Thank you again, Count G.

This is the 4th Regiment of Chevauxlegers Bubenhofen, all ready to fight on the Danube. This regiment also fought in Russia and in the 1813 unpleasantness, but by that time they had become the 6th Ch-Leg for reasons which are too fiddly to go into.

Anyway, here they are, and very welcome. The officer and trumpeter are both conversions, for which thanks are due to Wellington Man.

The number of new painted units here recently has finally outstripped my stock of bases and sabots, so I have had to order some more from Uncle Tony at ERM. In the meantime I am very pleased to have dug out some pre-used bases which were previously attached to a unit of Brunswick Hussars (now departed). Considering that wargames collections (well, mine, anyway) are a veritable hymn to self-indulgence and waste, I can't understand why re-cycling a few penceworth of old bases would give me any pleasure at all - very strange.

They'll be provided with a smart new sabot of the correct size as soon as Uncle Tony sends some along.

Rapid Fire for Rookies...

Yesterday I made the trip up to the part of Scotland which is known as Perth & Kinross - a title which is not exactly concise, and which probably isn't very traditional either, but at least it's unambiguous. The occasion was a visit to Schloss Goya, the home of the famed Count. I had a splendid trip on the bus, and arrived in time for coffee and a quick viewing of the regiment of Bavarian Chevauxlegers which the Count is very kindly painting for me. Great stuff - I am confident these chaps will be ready to show here very soon. The advantages of getting Goya to help me with painting work are twofold: (1) I don't have to paint them myself, and (2) the quality of the painting is definitely superior!

German force advance out of the low sun of morning - my two Panthers are on the left flank, advancing as slow as necessary to allow the accompanying infantry company to keep up

He was kind enough to lay on a very fine lunch, and in the afternoon we had a bash at a WW2 game he had set up - a small encounter action between German and Russian forces, racing to seize a crossroads. It was the very first WW2 miniatures game I have ever taken part in, and the rules we used were Rapid Fire for Rookies, the two-page babies' version of RF, as befits my experience level. I was the German commander; I'll not attempt to give a coherent narrative, since I had very little idea what was going on most of the time, and I must apologise for the very poor photos, taken with my iPhone. I took a great many more pictures, but most were blurred and horrible. I must also emphasise that the game did look rather better than this sketchy post might suggest! I wasted a lot of time in admiring the 20mm figures - this is all new to me.

Overall view of my "left hook" with the Panthers - heavy weapons group heading into the woods in the middle

I regret to say that this is the only photo of the Russians which was clear enough to make out - this taken from a spotter plane early on. I suspect that it was fear which caused the camera-shake. As you see, the old Russkis are very keen on straight lines

I was pleased to get my tanks into this position so quickly...

...but instantly one of them was knocked out...

...and immediately afterwards my only gun was also kaput - my full repertoire of German swear words proved inadequate (obviously something I'll have to work on)

So my surviving Panther went off on a tour of the battlefield which eventually put paid to all the opposition's armour, and also eliminated a lot of his infantry

My infantry trying to keep up with the advance

Mostly because I wondered what would happen, I sent a single soldier with a Panzerfaust to take on a Russian self-propelled gun which was causing problems. He missed, and you only get one shot with a Panzerfaust. That's what happened...

The unstoppable Panther continued on its tour, mopping up resistance...

Though I suffered almost as many infantry casualties as the enemy, I won on points, as they say in boxing, and I was definitely in control of the crossroads. Very interesting little game - I enjoyed it, but I sincerely hope I don't get promoted on the strength of it

I had a lot to think about on the bus back to Edinburgh. Another grand day out!

Hooptedoodle #322 - Where Are Heroes When You Need Them?

I have lived through the twitterings and the pantomime protocols of our useless, deluded Parliament for too long. A room full of over-inflated, would-be celebrities, who confuse loyalty to their pals and their wretched, outmoded political parties with the job they were elected to do.

They could not run a bath.

I am ashamed - of course I'm angry, but I'm also embarrassed to think how pathetic we must appear to other nations. This, mark you, is the very same Mother of Parliaments we are determined to keep sacrosanct, to protect from the influence of evil foreigners. The bus to Beachy Head is now warmed up, and there are seats for all. We have not yet decided whether the window blinds will be open or closed for the final descent - we'll have a vote on that next Tuesday, after the Bingo.

Bavarians - Where I'm at, and What's Next

The next thing to do is to get the 3rd Divn of Lefebvre's (Bavarian) VII Corps of 1809 finished off. I still need two infantry brigadiers, a brigade of cavalry (2 regts - one of dragoons, one of chevauxlegers - plus a brigadier) and two artillery batteries (including one of Light Artillery). That will be the main components - I can add sappers/engineers and limber teams as time permits.

I may have posted pictures of some of this stuff already. Here are the raw materials for the next steps. The cavalry will all be Hinton Hunt based, and the artillery equipment will be Franznap - for gunners I have a choice of SHQ or Franznap.

The cavalry figures set out here are (L to R) an original HH Chevauxlegers trooper, then conversions produced by Wellington Man of a Chevauxlegers officer and trumpeter, and a dragoon trooper (different-shaped shabraque). I am still doing some experimentation for the command figures for the dragoon unit, but the most likely solution at present is SHQ French line lancer command figures, with HH heads and with the uniform detail re-carved as necessary, mounted on 20mm Garrison horses - we'll see how that goes.

The artillery figures are (L to R) two SHQ figures and three Franznap. Though a good height match, you can see that the Franznap figures are slimmer, and I'll avoid mixing the two breeds in any one unit, though the different makes can co-exist on the table in separate units, I think.

Interestingly, Franznap only make gun crews for the Light Artillery, which brought me back with a bump to the small matter of how the Light and Heavy(?) artillery differed. I have not had a great deal of help on this from the better known modern sources, but in fact it's all OK. The Bavarians did eventually have horse artillery, in the French style, but in 1809 the Light Artillery was simply artillery who were equipped with - erm - lighter guns (6pdrs), and the gunners had a tendency to ride around on those splendid Wurstwagen things. Uniforms? - no real difference, as far as I can tell. So that simplifies matters a bit - I might think about getting a Franznap Wurstwagen - sounds like Phase 1(c) to me.

At risk of sounding like the Golden Globes, I thought I'd mention a few people without whose help I couldn't have made the progress I managed to date - not even close, in fact. Flipping back through this blog, I see a first mention of a possible Bavarian contingent in my State of the Union report in August 2017. By 2nd April last year I was experimenting with preparing some Der Kriegsspieler castings for the first infantry. This week I have 10 battalions ready to fight - I'm really pleased with that. For help with sourcing figures, painting, encouragement, consultancy, charitable donations of effort and castings I have to acknowledge sincere thanks to Evan, Stryker, Ian P, Aulus Grammaticus, Goya, David M, David Y, Old John, Matthew, Uwe and Andreas (die Spielzeugmacher, or Brothers Grimm) and to Chuck Gibke in the US for his knowledge of the old DK ranges. If I've forgotten to mention you, then you know I'm grateful anyway - in particular Jonathan, Lee, Peter A, Ray, Aly, Ross and those others who have egged me on by making encouraging comments as the troops appeared.

Thanks very much!