On the Workbench: Terrain Tile Road Upgrades.

As readers of my blog will be aware, my terrain tiles are commercially built products that I acquired in the 1990's from the now defunct 'Purbeck Terrain'. The road system was designed ideally for 15mm and is something I have been planning to change since switching entirely to 6mm. 

Although the original can look striking when laid out I was never entirely happy with it. The designers sank the road into the board a few millimetres which was not very practical for wargaming purposes. Even less so for 6mm!

I was recently scanning the 'Rapid Fire' Normandy scenario book and the battle maps had the look of something familiar about them. The road networks depicted were the same as my terrain boards! The scenario maps were in square feet for 15mm/20mm figures so would be a simple matter of transferring to my 9" square boards for 6mm. This would provide for more realistic distances as an added bonus.

With the Cristot scenario beckoning it gave me the impetus to finally do something with my road boards. 

 The above is the original with H&R Shermans. I would need to narrow the road and raise its level.

Continued -

Nap Campaign: Map Moves 28th March 1808

The overall situation at the end of the day's map moves for 28th March 1808:

I will now zoom in on the 3 sectors:

Continued -

On the Workbench: Waffen SS

Completed and ready for basing are almost 2 battalions of late war SS for use in my Market Garden and Reconnaissance in Strength projects.

These are all excellent new sculpts from Heroics & Ros range. I have confined the camo to the Oak leaf spring and autumn varieties with a few in field grey.

Looking forward to getting these on the table and using BKCIV in settings other than desert!. 

On the Workbench: HMS Ramillies

HMS Ramillies is now complete:

I am unclear on the progression of Navwar Sculpts so not sure how their latest HMS Ramillies compares. Certainly some of the recent models I have purchased have crisper detail. This lacked some of the deck detail you see on other ships, and the ships boats amidships were almost impossible to identify. Some detail I had to paint on but in the end it is a serviceable model. 

When painting 1/3000 ships I have found that exaggerating detail by applying bright highlights and dark recesses makes them 'pop' a little more. 

Developments on my other projects includes the Kingmaker campaign and a rebooting of my WW2 in the Aegean 'Op Nostalgia' campaign.

For Kingmaker I will be trying out Neil Thomas' Ancients & Medieval Warfare rules. More specifically the Medieval module. Steve J of the Wargaming Addict blog (link on the right) highlighted these rules and there is an example of a game on his blog. The game is ready to go as soon as the lockdown is lifted and my son can visit me! I will give more detail on the rules and my additions when I complete the AAR.

'Op Nostalgia' will be undergoing a reboot. That does not mean that I have canned the solo campaign that features on the blog. It will merely be put on ice to make way for a non-solo campaign. Another of my sons, who is now living with us, has specifically requested to play this campaign. We had started it many years ago but barely got off the ground before he joined the Navy. So the intention is to start on this soon. I have paired back the naval and air elements to reflect more of the original orbats by the scenario writers. This should speed up those elements of the campaign enabling us to crack on with the island hopping battles.

More on both of these campaigns soon.

Nap Campaign: 2nd Battle of Brandenlea - Part 2 The Battle

Before I start with the AAR, a word about Skirmishers. Followers of my blog will be aware I have been experimenting with skirmisher rules for this scale. I have found it not practical to deploy skirmisher bases - they are simply too fiddly. Therefore skirmishers will be treated in the abstract similar to the Grande Armee rules. Units are given an SK factor and when within range of the enemy, will fire as per the GdB rules.

Another house rule to deal with the rocky terrain in this game, was to introduce a new terrain type of 'broken'. Basically the same as 'difficult' but infantry are unable to form up. In the rules unformed infantry are unable to charge. In this terrain I have allowed them to 'advance to contact' testing as if charging but gaining no charging benefits. Not quite so easy for the French!

On to the game:

A reminder of the initial French deployment.

Peace is broken by the thunderous roar of the opening salvo from the massed French artillery signalling the start of the action. The Spanish Walloon Guards sheltering among the rocks suffered the first casualty as cannon balls rained down on them.

Continued -

Nap Campaign: 2nd Battle of Brandenlea (Spain) - Introduction

As it has been a while since I posted on my Napoleonic campaign, I thought I would start on the latest battle by giving a brief recap of the events leading up to it.

The above map indicates the situation on 27th March 1808. This battle takes place in the south western sector.

Continued -

The New Wargames Room.

Well it was touch and go whether I would have any wargaming space and I had almost resigned myself to purely painting figures with perhaps the odd game on the dining room table.

The only potential room in our new house for wargaming we had earmarked for storage. However, it became apparent that we there was insufficient room to empty the storage unit we had previously hired. We therefore decided it would make more sense to empty the house of surplus furniture and appliances filling the storage unit instead. 

So now I have a wargames room:

There is enough space to give me pretty much the same size boards as before so all my projects are good to go. First up will be the continuation of my Napleonic campaign with the 2nd battle of Brandenlea.