Sad news

This is the first time I have posted on the blog and it is not the pleasurable event I had hoped.

Yesterday Alan lost his battle with cancer and passed quietly away with his family.

I met Alan back in the 70s and we've been friends and playing wargames together ever since. He's been a really good friend in so many ways nd it hasn't really hit me that he has gone.

The last game we played together and the last picture of us can be seen on bob the old painters blog (link down the side Douglas Miniatures 20mm crimean wargamin). Please take a look.

Alan enjoyed the game, the figures and company and I know he enjoyed the comments he received on this blog from other gamers.

I shall be in touch with his wife, two daughters and grandson in the coming days and will assure them that he will be missed by us all 

Bob

Nothing for a while

Unfortunately the cancer has taken a turn for the worst and gone to my brain how it found it god only knows!!! Had 3 brain seizures Woke in ICU to a very nice doctor asking did I know where I was! Last thing I remember was I sitting eating chicken and chips!! I seem to have cancer with a full blown phd in the Art of Chinese Warfare rather than the one that could do quite well in wood work!

Anyway, I had have whole brain radio therapy. They let me keep my mask which is individually made so I am painting up to 'surprise ' this year's Halloween door ringers! looking at it a reminded me of the British series in the mid 1960s The Avengers with John Steed and Emma Peel and the episode with the Cyborgs.  Apologies to those who haven't got a clue what I  am going on about.  I think men of  a certain age will remember Diana Rigg playing Emma Peel

A Cyborg

 The Cyborgs were Robots and used karate chops to breakdown doors and walls to get their victims and Emma and Steed had a to defeat them.  Come to think about it was thee ever more than one?

Need to spray the mask silver/steel yet.

The invisible man is the other alternative!

The result of all of this is the 2020 will be my last blogging year! pity because I came late to it and have enjoyed it.  I hope you have to.  Going to try to get a couple of games in so there might be something more yet, but nobody is holding hope for 2021.  Hope this post hasn't been depressing.  It is meant to show that even in adversity you can still have a bit of laugh

My brother made this up for m. Thanks Simon

Wargaming over the phone! - Portable Wargames

Having read various posts on TMP and on blogs about wargaming using Skype; Zoom; What's App etc., Bob and I decided to give it a go.  We decided to try out Bob Cordery's Portable Colonial Wargames rules as they were on offer on Kindle and meant that the outlay was limited in case we didn't like the concept. Sorry but rules of any sort these days are pricey and you take a bit of leap of faith that you are going to like them!

The next thing was a 'table' I had packed mine away.  I had some old blue 12 inch blue floor tiles which I thought I would paint green - but hold on, for our first try all the DIY shops were shut and I couldn't buy green matt paint for 'love nor money'.  So, for our first game my boys were all at sea playing on a blue surface.  The aim of the game was to hold the gain control of and hold the cross road. 

I set the table up with 15mm Napoleonics.  Rather than have a 'passive player' just looking at the table through a computer screen we thought we would mirror one another's tables.  In effect Bob could use whatever scale he wanted and period provided the troop types were the same (infantry/cavalry/artillery) and everyone had the same factors and grid in effect you could have 28mm 18thC Austrians and Russians on one table and Napoleonic ones on another table. We used an 8 x 8 grid my squares were 4"x4" and Bob's were 6" x 6".

Come the day, the video technology failed us due to the famous 'Poor Connection, Reconnecting. Video will be resumed shortly'  making playing visually impossible,  So we just decided to talk over the phone and roll dice each telling one another on our turns what unit was moving from which grid to the next.

We used the Colonial Rules but with Napoleonic figures as I didn't have any colonials - apart from the British and 400 odd Zulus which I had forgotten about that is.

My initial reaction to the rules was 'ohh' as I lost initiative roll and Strength Points SPs to Bob's dice rolls.  Indeed I did ask him at one point whether he was using that old Salute die which had 2 6s on it!  But I couldn't get away from the fact that my dice rolls were rubbish anyway.  But as the game progressed I really warmed to these rules and playing chess like move 'E3 to E5' short of thing over the phone worked.  Bob told me his moves and I moved the figures on my table accordingly and vice versa. 

After and hour and a half or so, I lost on the basis of Exhaustion points but it turned out to be a very close run game and thoroughly enjoyable.  

So I bought the actual Portable Napoleonic War Game set of rules, the DIY store at the bottom of the road was open so I sent my daughter with a colour swatch and my blue tiles became green!  This time it was Russians against Ottomans.  I had them in 15mm and Bob has them in 28mm.  We increased the table size to 8 x 10 squares.  There are instructionetc for written rules but we choose to leave these out for the purposes of this 'test' game.

The yellow squares at top and side of board are post-it-notes with letters and numbers

The two 'green fields' were deemed impassable.  This was a mistake as it limited cavalry movement  resulting in some very static slogs to try to break through the gaps.

My Guard Cuirassiers didn't prove as effective as I thought and were pushed back until eventually one of the Ottoman heavy cavalry regiments broke as its SP shrunk to nothing..

On the other side of the 'building' Bob's irregular cavalry held up my advance I eventually broke one unit but forgot to move forwards only to find my path blocked by another unit.

Peter Laing Inn Keeper and two barmaids handing out wine to the occupying Russians with Sherbert ready in case the Ottomans strike!

My 15mm version of the action around the 'building

Bob's 28mm version of the action around the 'building'

Bob's version of the attack on the Russian gun

 

I did destroy 6 of Bob's units but these were basically poor quality infantry he used to shield his Janissaries on the left flank from my infantry and some units of light cavalry and poor infantry on the right.  We got this wrong in terms of the type of troops we choose for the terrain.  Too much cavalry on the Russian side.  The Russian Field gun did sterling work deriving back units of Ottoman heavy cavalry but the horse artillery couldn't get into the game.  Bob had similar problems with his guns which after some initial salvos couldn't find any targets.  The rules on Close Combat seem counter-intuitive and slowed us down as we had to forget some of the ways of thinking we were used to in terms of the effects of Commanders etc. and reverse the way you calculate hits from firing in these rules.  Once we got our heads around it it made sense but it took a long time and slowed down the game which took a little enjoyment from it.  Now we have got it we are determined to try again.

No substitute for a game in the same place but a very good next best thing and we both had an excuse to get figures on the table even if in different scales and 'grid' table size and to move them about always a pleasure in itself.   So all in all a plus in the circumstances.  Thanks to Bob Cordery.

Strelets Rif Foot Rebels

Following on frrom the last post, I have now finished the Stretlets Foot Rifs.  Like their cavalry compatriots these are lovely little figures, with lots of details.  You get three sprues of identical figures plue 3 (one on each sprue) and 5 command figures (41 usable figures). Streltsey 16th-18th century Russian Infantry.  Not very helpful in the terrain of North Africa and Arabia.  Fortunately, I was able to pass these on to John Cunningham.  

What is it with the designers of plastic figures that it is almost essential to include a number of questionable poses - in particular figures clubbing with rifles.  The same is true with this set.  Worse still is that there are 2 poses using rifles as clubs on every sprue - 6 comparatively useless poses.  

Having a good look at one of the clubbing figures, I thought that I could reasonably convert one of the two poses to a standard bearer.  I think this has worked well and was a very simple conversion.  I am not sure whether to convert the other 2 figures.  

Amongst the other two poses are 3 figures with Lewis Guns. 

 There is a nice 'Command Group' of five figures. 

 The rest of the figures are useful riflemen.

At the moment this set is easily available on ebay and from a number of suppliers.  I didn't realise that Strelets 'retire' sets seamingly quite quickly.  There was a nice set of Arab Uprising figures listed under WW1 which would have worked well with this set.  However, even though is was only released a couple of years ago,  it is no longer available, such a pity.

Strelets Mounted Rif Rebels

I was browsing through the Plastic Warrior Review and came across Strelets Mounted and foot Rif Rebels and wondered if we could use them in Jack's colonial army to bump up the Dervish forces.

I am not sure if they were work but I went ahead and painted them anyway, starting with the mounted figures.  We have 20 or so B&B Foreign Legion figures so we can always try a small game with them instead.

There is a lot of detail on these figures if you want to go there, but my eyes are not up to it these days,   I think they would benefit from some of the Army Painter dip  or similar to bring out the detail, unfortunately, mine had gone rock hard and I am too mean to buy some more at this stage!!

Now painting the Foot figures

Bob's Petrine Army

Bob has been busy during the lockdown and here is his blog on his Petrine Army.

This is my latest project, and is not yet complete. It is the Russian army of Peter the Great, not to fight the Swedes in the Great Northern War, but to take on my Ottoman Hordes. It is dated to as close to 1700 as I can make it, a time when although there were uniform regulations they were not met, and the Russian army is at its most colourful with green, red, blue, white and yellow uniforms.

The two senior regiments the "play mates battalions" formed from the child Peter's playmates on two estates are here. The Preopbrasjenski Guards, 

and the Semonovska Guards. A private in the Preopbrasjenski Guards was the equivalent of a lieutenant in any other regiment. Its C in C was always the Czar.

One of the original "soldat" regiments that survived into the new army - Sir Patrick Gordon's regt.  His flag is listed as a white cross on a red field - since he was a Scot I have given him the St. Andrew's Cross.

At the rear of the army is two regiments of Streltzi -yellow and red coated. It is often stated that the Streltzi were disbanded and they were, but Peter could not manage without their numbers and they were reconstituted.

Peter the Great instituted new cavalry regiments, mainly dragoons and although by the 1720s all were in green at this time they wore yellow, red, white, light and dark blue as well. But as with the infantry there were not enough of them so Horse and lance units were used. These included the local nobility, as well as irregulars such as Cossacks, Culmucks, lancers and hussars as well as reiters.

This is under construction and not all are shown but the noble cavalry has been painted.  All the noble cavalry including the command (but not the dog) are from Hinchcliffe. The Dog is from Irregular Miniatures..

The dragoons/Horse grenadiers are from Irregular and Lancashire games.

The first 5 regiments of infantry are from Ebor, others from Irregular Miniatures; Lancashire Games and Wargames Foundry. The Streltzi are from Old Glory.

The 2 mounted officer and the engineer section are from Reiver.  

The Orthodox priest is a resin figure from V&V Miniatures and appears with my Russian Napoleonics as well as supporting Peter the Great.

Still as work in progress - hope you enjoy them.

The large card building is a Russian kit of the cottage that Kutozov used as his HQ.