War of the Spanish Succession Campaign

 One of the benefits of having an operation on your nether regions is that you can sit on your bum for a couple of weeks and do some thinking. Even better if you have access to books and an iPad.

One of the things that I’ve been plotting for a while is what to do with all the WSS stuff I’ve assembled. Whether I actually do it or not is a different matter, but I do enjoy the planning stage as it means I can indulge in the aspects of the hobby I enjoy: collecting, painting and researching.

I covered some lessons learned in my last post on campaigns and how my main focus is putting toys on the table. Now I love maps, but they are a bit of a two-edged sword which can lead to stalemate (or worse) if you don’t completely scrap any associated game rules (see AWI 1.0 & 2.0) or drop hexes for a point to point system (not always the case as Liberty is perfectly useable, but that is an anomaly) that limits the choices of players to feasible/sensible strategic options.

For the WSS I decided something akin to a ladder was more suitable. I was inspired by the point map in No Peace Without Spain, but the more I looked into it the more I was convinced it would distract from the toys on the table intention (TOTTI).

Now, TOTTI is a regular feature on this blog, but for the WSS I needed a bit of assistance, so I threw some ideas into Skynet and Arnold tossed this back:

Much prettier than anything I could do!

This has added some items which I’ve not quite decided on, but it’s a good starting point and could point the way to other periods, especially multi-theatre. I have a further cunning plan to develop a method of covering off-table activities for theatres I have no interest in, such as the colonies. If this works, you could potentially just play one theatre and have that both influencing and being influenced by events elsewhere.

I’ve only a few days of idling left (now my wound has stopped bleeding. That was fun…) so will figure out some simple campaign rules. When I can sit properly, I might even be able to crack on with my Front Rank command bases!

KBO

Campaigns

 Yes, CAMPAIGNS! 🤣

We’ve all had a go and to varying degrees of success. Have we enjoyed them? Bit of a mixed bag for me. Here is a sample of what I’ve been involved in:

1. ECW - The campaign rules were good, allowed us lots of leeway with actions and characters, and was brilliantly umpired with a dash of stage management. Let down by the battle rules that would only work if both sides were closely matched in numbers.

2. AWI 1.0 - played using the old S&T game Rebellion in the Colonies and Loose Files. Went OK, but scope was too large. Battles were great fun when small affairs but RitC tended to result in huge forces (piles of counters) meeting up in single hexes which is when we gave up.

3. AWI 2.0 - Total failure. Columbia Games’ Liberty was used as the basis with quite complex campaign rules. Map worked well, the rules did not. An umpire wasn’t used, which was a huge mistake, and the campaign rules did not account for forcing players to fight, so we had on instance where the yanks retreated off the board on turn one! Loose Files were the battle rules and what we did play worked. No issue with the tabletop here: the campaign rules just sucked and the result was stalemate.

4. AWI 3.0 - Still using the Liberty map, I ran this as a self-amusement umpiring the whole thing. It just followed events in the South from the previous campaign, so forces were limited and I set up all the map moves just asking players for input post battle, letting them play the tabletop actions. The campaign ‘rules’ were mostly guidelines that could form a narrative. It worked very well and reached a conclusion.

5. WW2 Pacific - A very simple map of an island fought over by Japan and the US. It was meant to be an aerial campaign, so naval rules were dealt with using the Pz8 simple set. It was about to collapse under the air rules - Lardy crap ‘Bag The Hun’ - but successfully relaunched when these were dropped for a modified version of Wings At War’s Battle of Britain set. Concluded when the Japanese fleet became an artificial reef.

6. Wars of the Roses (Eric’s ‘bloody knights’!) - The umpire went to great lengths to create a colourful and detailed map. Only problem: there was just one strategic choke point that both sides quickly recognised! Lasted one big game…

7. Strategic WW2 - I think the idea came from a book published by John Curry, but it was going to be run by a club member and included ‘grand strategic’ considerations, like production, convoys, etc AND tactical stuff. It never saw the light of day, as nobody wanted to simultaneously be Churchill, Beaverbrook, Monty or Private Binns of the 43rd Deserters.

8. WW2 Aegean - I invented a fictional country (OK, it was Freedonia and nicked from Duck Soup) that looked like Portugal but was based on the Greek campaign. I was going to use Rapid Fire and assembled enough to play it and managed a couple of initial map moves. I was lucky enough at that time to have my own 14x6’ table, so time and space for tabletop actions were not of concern. Then I met a very attractive young lady…

So, what have I learned from my efforts?

1. Keep it simple: don’t attempt to fight whole wars with multiple nations.

2. Everybody likes a map, but again, keep it simple so players are limited to sensible strategic options.

3. If there is more than two of you involved, one must be an umpire who can stage manage events to make it entertaining. The umpire fun comes from making the players your play things; they get enjoyment because they get challenging games.

4. Choose the ground rules wisely. If the players are familiar with complex rules, great. But you need something players can pick up quickly that gives a result in an evening.

5. Decide the size of battles you want to fight. If you are only interested in Wagram, have simple mechanisms to decide smaller actions. If you want to fight everything, one rule set does not fit all and that increases complexity.

6. Go out with ugly girls.

The key decision about campaigns is what you want out of them. I always view them as a way of generating scenarios for toys on the table, so all my plans are aimed towards that. Even if I never actually carry them out! But what I’ve learned from the above means whatever I do now should work.

Should….

Command, Control and Friction

 As usual, Jonathan from https://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com/ has given us another thought-provoking post, in this case about a set of rules called Flower of Chivalry. Now, I’ve no interest in what my late French friend Eric called ‘bloody knights’ (in a French accent…) and I will never play the rules, but they do seem to fit into a deep hole of command, control and friction rules.

I have posted on this before (and deleted it!) but I thought it worth revisiting, but it just seems to me that rules are becoming more obsessed with limiting what you can do ‘coz friction is realistic, innit?’ This leads to some terrible systems which result in playing the system, rather than the opponent. I’m sure we can all think of examples, and some are better than others, but unless you play solo and want to surprise yourself they are quite redundant when you face off against a human. And the more humans are involved no artificial friction systems are required!

I’m happy to hold my hands up and admit I’ve been down this rabbit hole, so I am not without sin. But I’ve finally reached the stage where I’m not interested in all that nonsense and want things to me as simple as possible. But is this in any way less realistic?

All rules have rules for casualties and morale. The vast majority use dice to decide the effect of both. Is this not friction? Rallying uses dice. If I fail a rally role, is that not friction? And this is without an opponent who has a say in how my toys are targeted.

As far as command is concerned, we mostly play far in advance of what we would manage in real life. Look at actual formations and they run on a rule of 3 to 5. In short, that’s all you should be managing on a table. Even if you introduce levels of command, you are still micro-managing unless a human is running your brigades, or whatever. And do you really want to watch other people playing the worst spectator sport in the world? The more toys you try to manage the more likely you will make mistakes. Is this not friction?

And all the above assumes you are making the right decisions in the first place! And remember, you are using toys that massively mismatch the ground scale and, unless you are playing back to back, can still see everything going on. That’s bound to influence your decision making, regardless of your favourite CCF system.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion that the old skool ‘+1 for general’ style rules work best for what is essentially a very silly hobby and not real life. Of course, I can’t help fiddling, so I tend to have one big man and give him a number of ‘staff officers’ he can use to influence outcomes, be that giving and extra move, rallying, or giving a +1 in combat. The number represents the skill of the commander and the effectiveness of the army’s command structure. So Napoleon would get five staff officers at the height of his power, but that would reduce as the piles become more problematic. Lee would start with four, go up to five at the height of his powers, then drop again after Jackson gallops at his own pickets.

This actually slots nicely into all Neil Thomas’ rules and would work with every old skool set I can think of too. It’s not going to help rules that are built around a system, but I would reject them anyway.

To summarise, I think there is a danger that wargamers are becoming slaves to systems that try to recreate an unattainable reality, if nothing else because the chosen tools are unsuited to the task. If this is your bent, crack on. But it’s not for me.

Grottober

 I never liked this time of year.

Just as I was given my operation warning, my mum’s health rapidly deteriorated. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s four years ago but her condition advanced significantly after Christmas and, after a long spell in hospital, she was placed into a care home in Longbridge Deverill in June. We could not have found anywhere better and the care she was given was second to none, but at 97 we knew it was only a matter of time and after a short illness passed away on 8 October, two days shy of her 98th birthday. Another of the wartime generation has gone.

Five days later, I was in the operating theatre, having all the metalwork removed from my leg. I only had a local anaesthetic so was awake throughout, separated from the action by a hastily arranged curtain. All a bit surreal but very successful and I was out the same day. Thankfully, no crutches and I was able to sleep in my own bed, rather than my usual two-week sofa crash. A whole two weeks off work while Kevina is at college can only mean one thing…

Not only that, I was able to run through the commentary too, which features Roger Moore and is highly entertaining. Now that brief holiday is over, it’s back to the exciting task of probate and executor duties while the leg binds together.

On a brighter note, I’ve been chatting with Mike Starmer, the King of Caunter, after purchasing his most superb guide. It’s only £20 plus postage and worth every penny. I painted these (look Darren! More A13s!) a couple of weeks ago and before I received the book. Mike was impressed that I managed to get them so close without proper references. Colours used are from the AK Caunter set with a wash of Army Painter soft tone and plenty of dry-brushing.

Hopefully, all the crap stuff will be done by Christmas so I can settle into my sandy distractions. It will be strange, though, not having to fight my mum off the washing up.

And the depression begins!

 T’other night, I was doing something vaguely useful (but distinctly masculine) in the kitchen when I noticed it was pitch black outside. So I went to collect Smaug from whatever destructive activity she was engaged in to take her for her bedtime Jimmy Riddle, when I noticed the time: 20:05.

Ohhhhh, FFS. Summer has buggered off and the days are slowly descending into darkness and November, the most depressing month of the year.

But it is ‘Spray September’, so while there are some decent days left it’s time to get out and prime as much as you can. In my case, this means digging out some desert stuff to do over Christmas, which enables me to look at sunny photographs, even if they are black and white. Nearest I can get to the seaside.

So I have wrestled some RUBs full of 1/100 tanks down from the loft and have begun sorting them into Rapid Fire formations.

The old family picnic table fits nicely on the green bin!

I’ve probably gone OTT again. The Stuarts are drying in the garage.

Joining them will be some new Humber Armoured Cars from Tabletop Workshop which I bought from Bovington a few weeks ago. These are lovely little kits and take me back to my Matchbox version, which was the first vehicle kit I made from start to finish, including decals and scenic base. That was exactly 50 years ago! I already have some TW Matildas and they are nice models. Bit fiddly in places (probably because they were initially designed for 1/72) but a little bit of patience brings great reward. Photos will follow later in the year, but you can catch a glimpse in the top photo.

Meanwhile, here is my test chart of sandy something paints. I'm going to have to go a shade lighter than I did for my 1/72 (and 1\56) so I will need to play about before mass production. I’m trying to avoid mixing, although the big blob on the left is Richard Marsh’s recommended brew for Italian armour; a 50:50 mix of Vallejo Dark Sand and Middlestone. I think it looks rather nice, so will find my half empty tub of Dark Sand and squirt some Middlestone in it. I will probably use Beige instead of the (excellent) AK light stone, otherwise all Caunter colours will be from the AK box.

Do this sort of thing on plastic card, not paper card. Paper card makes the colours darker, so you don’t get an accurate match.

If you are wondering what has happened to the WSS, they are all prepped and ready to go in October, when I'm due to undergo my fourth and final knee operation. Hopefully, it will not be so painful that I can’t slap some colour about. But that’s what I thought before…

Onwards and upwards, Mes Braves!

1983 Retrospective (or something like that)

 As mentioned in the previous post, the descent into A Levels, hunting for a part time job and joining a club for ‘proper’ wargaming began in September and I can reasonably claim that was the point at which the childlike joy of toy soldiers began to fade into ‘serious’. At 60, I look back and wonder if that is why I am now so jaded with the gaming element of the hobby. John Ruddles got it right.

One of the things that amazes me was how I managed to experiment with so much in the first half of the year: Pony Wars, AWI, Zulu Wars, Commando raids… All on a shoestring budget! I think the inventiveness that characterised younger wargamers in the 70s and 80s has been lost. How many wargamers nowadays start off looking at magazine photos and aim for that, buying into whatever ‘system’ and it’s associated figure ranges has the best advertising, rather than chopping up cardboard boxes and raiding bins (especially the bins from Skool woodwork and art rooms - yes, I did do that) for useful bits and bobs. Or spun through a loo roll if they needed a lighthouse.

Perhaps I’m being unfair, but it would be nice to see people struggling with hair roller armies, or trying to create pipe cleaner cavalry for pipe cleaner infantry. I can do both 😉.

My main inspiration in those early years came from films, comics and Commando books. Of course, I was reading ‘proper’ history books and building my library (courtesy of Bryan Forbes’ bookshop) but who wants to do a ‘Dark Age Infantry Slog’ when you can be Gregory Peck and David Niven? This game was a mix of all those influences.

Sadly, the music which powered me through all my experimentation up to September rapidly went downhill, UB40 being the catalyst (can’t stand them!) and the excruciating Flying Pickets giving the year a musical coup de grace. There were a few honourable exceptions - Lionel Richie, Simple Minds, Assembly - but even groups that had come up with earlier belters were scraping the barrel. Compare Let’s Dance to Modern Love: even Bowie was letting us down! Little did I know Queen were limbering up to save the world…

However, worth a mention was the late, great Bonnie Tyler, whose Total Eclipse of the Heart video was filmed up the road from me in what was Holloway Sanitorium! I actually visited there on a skool trip once. Yes, St Ann’s Heath Middle Skool thought a great day out for the kids was a trip to a functioning mental hospital. Mind you, it’s where most of the teachers should have been.

1984 would see an improvement musically, academically and financially over the final months of 1983, and I mostly enjoyed my Friday nights at Staines, although it was clear I was not part of the ‘in crowd’ and I would not make any friendships, lasting or otherwise. From a gaming perspective it did introduce me to different periods and scales but I’m not sure if I spent my years there just going through the motions and doing what I thought was expected of me, because no matter what I played there was always something missing…

It was the smell of French Marigolds as you rummage around to find a paratrooper with a broken leg.

Anyway, a quick visit to the loft and I found these survivors from the raid. Enjoy!

Lloyd, Ravenwood, Marion & Doctor Jones

Written in 1978!

German mobility!

If I look harder I may find some more bits. Note my WSS generals are being prepped…. 

For men of a certain age…

Let me take you back to… August 1983

 The summer of 1983 was probably the warmest and sunniest since 1976. This was ideal for my purposes as I could set everything up and leave it out overnight, giving me a whole day to play and time to savour every event. In many ways, it was the last gasp of toy soldier innocence: in September I would join a club, start A levels and planning for life in the real world. It would also be the last gasp of cracking chart music as UB40’s awful droning kept Madness off the number one slot, Culture Club’s soft poppy nonsense appeared and the year ended with The Flying Pickets destroying Only You with their bing bong bobbly bollocks. This might be worth a full post later…

Anyway, on with the show!

The Plan

The commandos split into three teams: 3 men (including the sniper) would be parachuted into the jungle to set up a block or ambush on the coast road, the main group would land at the port, which would be secured by the local resistance (leaving a signaller to alert the sub for extraction), and head for the radar station. They would enter as stealthily as possible, take anything of interest and blow up the rest before racing back to port.

All the baddies’ reactions would be diced for - nothing was fixed, I would make it up as I went along, using Recon’s figure skills where I could. After all, I wanted a few surprises! If all went well, it would be a boring game: but the dice gods were not going to let that happen…

This is roughly the makeup of the teams. Sadly, I did not keep all the stats or write a battle report, so this is all from memory. All the commandos and resistance had names, but I can only remember a few.

Team 1: Captain, Lieutenant, RAF Sergeant (Howard), Radar Expert (my Australian officer conversion to Indiana Jones!) with the remainder mostly Australians with one US infantryman (following the US involvement in Take or Destroy. He was named Lloyd, after Jim Lloyd, a character in Centennial which I wrote on his base in 1978!). There was also RSM Peacock, the Matchbox 8th Army Bren gunner who looked like Jack Watson.

Team 2: Sergeant, OR, Sniper (Shepherd) - all Australians.

Team 3: The resistance and Signaller (Thomas).

Act 1: No Plan Survives…

Although the mission started on time and there was perfect coordination between the sub and paras, the parachute landing was chaotic, with the three paper discs going all over the shop and Shepherd breaking his leg on landing, so one down already (very Dirty Dozen)! The others were widely separated, but they eventually managed to work their way to the road. There was a much bigger problem, though: the DAK spotted the parachutes and quickly arranged a force to investigate.

The Italian reaction was… stay in bed.

The main group landed successfully to find only two resistance fighters that answered the call: Ravenwood and Marion (you can see the heavy influence of Raiders on my teenage years!). The captain judged this would not be enough to guard the port, so along with Signaller Thomas one man was left (any more would weaken Team 1 too much). But that should have been enough as was no sign of the DAK and Team 2 was OK, wasn’t it?

Team 1 quickly set off for the radar station, while the DAK assembled a strong search team for what they thought was just bailed aircrew. This force was a Hanomag, a Kubelwagon for the Kapitan and sergeant (Airfix, the sergeant being a DAK grenade thrower that Paddy the moggy had chewed the grenade hand off!) and a Bedford, all fully loaded. There was also a Stalwart but the dice said no.

Team 3 set about fortifying the port as much as possible, fortuitously including a roadblock. At this point, there was still no sign of the enemy, but I thought that would be the most sensible course of action. With Team 2 still scrambling about the French Marigolds, it would prove a good call.

Act 2: Ambush!

The DAK quickly motored down the coast road, reaching the barricade without incident. The hanomag passengers dismounted to clear the obstruction, but luck was with the commandos this time as the DAK Kapitan failed to smell a rat and dismount his remaining troops. Suddenly, Team 2 arrived and all hell broke loose, with both teams pouring fire into the hanomag group, catching them in a crossfire. Despite the good start, the armoured support soon told and the hanomag’s MG blasted the defenders with accurate fire. 

Now, the action remains a bit of a blur, but the commandos were getting the worst of it. Despite lower skill ratings, the ‘quick casualty’ method I used for the baddies was to D6: 1 = no effect, 2,3 = pinned and 4+ out of the fight. While this was easy to manage it meant they had a 50% chance of surviving and doing further damage, while the commandos could be weakened by wounds.

When Team 2’s sergeant saw the DAK dismounting the Bedford, he knew he had to act, so a heroic action was needed… He charged the hanomag, tossed a grenade to kill the crew (4+ all round, I think!) and turned the rear machine gun on the Bedford, scattering the DAK. Sadly, he missed the KW which had driven off road and a blast from the MG killed him outright.

It was now a matter of mopping up. The remaining commandos and resistance were either dead or seriously wounded, but they had halved the DAK and the Hanomag was burning and blocking the road. The Kapitan now realised there was more than downed aircrew and the radar station was at risk, but it took the DAK some time to clear the obstacles and that all helped Team 1.

The Italians slept through it all…. Mostly.

Act 3: Charge!

Team 1 made good time to the checkpoint and managed to stealthily ‘remove’ the guards with some ease, but the sentry on the main gate was either eagle-eyed or heard the port battle, because he raised the alarm and sleepy Italians stumbled out of their barracks to take up their posts. At this point, the commando captain realised there was no other option than a rapid and violent attack, so with Peacock leading the charge they stormed the gate and made short work of the unfortunate Italians with only a couple of light wounds to show for it. Peacock took two commandos to the rear where the colonial troops completely ignored their officer and charged up the mound to retake the station. Peacock & Co made short work of them, including their brave officer who fought on alone until cut down by a Tommy gun burst. As Jones and Howard went to work on the radar, the prisoners (yes, I gave the pinned Italians the chance to surrender) were locked in their barracks and Lloyd volunteered to slow down the vehicles that could be heard revving their way cross-country to get round the still burning hanomag.

Lloyd was confident his Garand had range and rate of fire to make a nuisance of himself if he hid in the rocks. He also took a 2” mortar (the nib and cartridge of a Parker Replay pen which, when the nib was held back and released, would spring forward about 4 feet!).

It was now obvious there was trouble at t’radar, so the Kapitan sped forward in the KW with the Bedford following close behind with the handless sergeant. Lloyd waited until they were in range and fired the 2”: it landed straight in the front passenger seat of the KW, killing everybody aboard! In true James Coburn style, Lloyd cursed his luck: he was aiming at the Bedford.

The DAK sergeant, thanking his lucky stars he changed his ride, ignored the KW wreckage and sped onwards, the DAK passengers shooting at Lloyd, wildly but close enough to keep his head down.

Act 4: Finale

Now the game was in the balance. There were not enough DAK to retake the station but not enough commandos to blast through the DAK, so if the DAK played it smart they could corral the commandos long enough for me to make an umpire decision on the result (considering there was another Stalwart’s worth of DAK available!). But I had reckoned without Peacock, who with a sharp burst of fire killed the Bedford’s driver causing it to crash. Again, the commandos reacted quickly and rushed down the mound, using fire and movement and Peacock’s covering fire to keep the DAK down. The DAK could only respond with a few pot shots, so the sergeant and two surviving men ran to the nearest cover (I think it was my heel print in the spoil heap) where they were safe but unable to influence events. Or so I thought…

Charges successfully placed, the surviving commandos withdrew, but as Peacock turned to leave the last DAK rifleman took a chance and fired off a shot at extreme range. Peacock fell dead, a fluke headshot.

Soon after, a large explosion shattered the radar hut (no Italian prisoner were harmed) and the surviving commandos returned to the port. They found Thomas wounded in the Airfix Strongpoint and I judged he was fit enough to signal the submarine so ended the game there.

Epilogue

This sort of game could never be reproduced on a table or played anything other than solo. The nature of the garden gives the kind of terrain no table can provide and the solo element allows a single vision that can easily be tempered by the Recon system, flexible thinking and dice. It’s obviously not something that can be thrown together in an evening; it involved a lot of planning, but the end result was worth it. If I had my time again I would love to have a crack at a John Ruddles garden, but time, age and my crumbling knees are against me.

But while I could, I did. And I will never forget it.

 Please note the numbers on the counters are only a vague indication of strength!