My Box of Britians

"Splendidity!"

I have a box of old Britains that have been with me for the past 11 years. I got them from my former girlfriend's father for Christmas and they are still with me even though the girl is not (she ran off with an Italian chef....but I think I may have got the better deal ;)!). Her father was a collector of toy soldiers and some of his collection wound up in the huge collection of Malcom Forbes, so he was a pretty serious collector at that. I managed to get some single figures and a partial "Queens Coronation set" one Christmas from him that are really nice even if a little less than pristine collector quality. As a gamer, I always have a bit of a "beef" against the high prices that those figures are bringing these days.

As I currently struggle with my pencil, pad and calculator to figure out how to make two "Little Wars" armies of the new Spencer Smith Little Britons happen here at the Lead Gardens, I took a few of these old figures out of the box for a bit of inspiration.

A Bengal lancer, ...one of my favorites!

If you look close you can see Her Majesty herself.

...after many years of service, this fellow is in need of some rest...perhaps

 

in a nice RTV rubber mold

This fellow in the pic is an old Britians that I found at a flea market almost 20 years ago with a few guardsmen in home service uniform. I think his is a pretty old vintage as the oval bases I think are pre 1940s.

I always loved this figure because of the stalwart pose and simple lines of the sculpting. I think the figure was repainted by a prior owner. I was thinking about this guy and wondering if I might try to make a rubber mold and try to recast a unit of these. These may be a bit hard to cast at home without a spin casting set up so I'm going to have to do some research to see if is at all possible. I think the horsemen would be difficult as I think they would require a three part mold.

All the figures in pretty tattered shape but they have stayed with me because I don't have the heart to sell them on ebay (even though I would probably sell them if I ever got an offer...)

I'm hoping all of my readers have a peaceful and fun holiday season. I'm splitting time shopping with my wife/taking care of kids with some progress gaming and also making some organizational changes in my gaming space to make the gaming a little more pleasurable and less disrupting to the household.

It seems this time of year is really a time for reflection and remembering the good stuff.
Happy Holidays!

New Musketeers!

 Just finished a new company of 40mm Prince August Homecast...these fellows will do service as a unit of my Imaginations. I'm gradually scaling up my Imaginations collection to 40/42mm to fit in with my French and British so I'm taking my already named units and imaginary history and up-scaling them for my home-casting project.

finished unit with the miscast muskets ready for repair...

These castings are from the newest PA molds that came out last November. As always the PA casting is pretty easy except for some musket barrels that did not cast to the right length. So I used my flat toothpick fix that works really well for most PA musket sword casting repairs. It works as well as the round toothpick solution for wagon/gun wheels.

 I also did a few minor head modifications to get better three dimensionality and some more extensive mods to make a standing flag bearer...but the PA figures (particularly the artillery castings) do well as a base for unusual conversions.

The toothpick fix...super glue works as both the adhesive and as a way to seal the wooden toothpicks.

All painted up, the toothpicks are pretty convincing!

And as a unit, the fix is almost undetectable!

Ready for the field!

An Odd Idea

 I was reading the classic "Little Wars" a few nights ago (something I do from time to time to get re-inspired), and an idea was rekindled in my head regarding how to make woods on the gaming surface. H.G. Wells had a set of large rectangles of wood planks that, when stacked, served as hills. Though it's not mentioned in the text (but outlined in some detail in his "Floor Games"), his approach to making woods involved having the hill boards drilled in a grid to take short branch cuttings from actual trees to make his wooded areas. You can just make out the grid of holes in the pictures in "Little Wars". I've always wanted to give that idea a try but never had the wherewithal to tackle it given that it seemed like a bit more than was necessary to produce woods. But the idea still hung around my thinking and finally ran into an opportunity to give it a try...now this is an odd idea for sure as it involves "damaging" a game I own...but I still thought it had good possibilities so I decided to give it a try.

A Reb unit assaults a wood defended by Union infantry and a battery of artillery. (The game board is a bit shiny and I was thinking a quick coat of matte spray might make the whole look of the game a bit more like a tabletop wargame rather than a boardgame.

Basically I took the idea of drilling the game surface to accept trees to one of my "Battle Cry" game boards to try a way of producing wooded hexes without having to use the flat tiles included in the game.

The result is kind of cool, but perhaps a bit "out there" if one wants ever to resell the game. And maybe just a bit too "fiddly"....I just drilled each hex vertices using a small bit (1/16") and sized to take the trunks of some nice little wire trees I got on sale at my local hobby shop. I forget the manufacturer of the trees but they are simple twisted wire trees with some clump foliage glued on. But when you stick them into the board surface it gives a fairly good alternative to the woods tiles. (I think this idea would work even better if you laid the gameboard on a piece of blue styrofoam insulation so the trees would hold better in the surface.

I'm still not completely sold on this idea. I just drilled a corner of one of the two Battle Cry boards I own just to experiment with it. I have to give it a few days to see if I really want to drill all of my boards this way. it just seemed to me that if I was painting the figures I should do a little more with the terrain. It kind of warps the boardgame idea...but the effect is pretty good.

I also want to do the full treatment of this idea for my 40mm homecast horse and musket stuff by doing up some layers of boards drilled to H.G. Wells specs. (...and not to mention the new Spencer Smith 42mm 'Little Britons" has got me on full alert... with calculator in hand trying to work out how to afford a classic set of "Little Wars" toys soldiers! (Many thanks to Ross for the link!)

Nothing like some experiments to get the gaming juices flowing!

New Prince August Molds

Just getting home and tucking into an afternoon martini after a tough day at work is usually enough for me to feel good, but today was extra-good... my mailbox was stuffed with a box from Prince August with a fat box of some much needed molds! These arrived here in Virginia in record time...a mere week across the pond. I think the folks at PA have made a nice effort with their new website and new molds to step up their business and I really hope all the PA fans out there encourage them. Also included is a nice new catalog with good illustrations of all the available figures.

I also realized that I had forgotten that I had submitted an order for 2, 40mm Karoliner "914" molds in loading poses so I now combined with the firing poses I already have, I've got the ability to cast up some "freikorps" light troops in half the time! I was also inspired to add a sapper/engineer company to my armies and have some base figures for conversions so the new artillery figures will do well in that regard.

...Now where are those bloody olives...

Airfix Treasures

Three 24 figure units of Germans, two guns, three MGs and a Commander...a basic beginning to wargame force!

One of the unsung charms of "breaking old school" is the possibility of resurrecting older figures and putting them to use again. I was doing some garage cleaning this afternoon and found a couple of cool treasures of the Airfix kind. I found a box of Airfix WWI figures Germans and some British 18lbrs (I think Emhar?) that I had painted 15 years ago. I also found a big bag of French Foreign legion that can do service as Early WWI French as well as some early war British in peaked  hats. So I think I may try to paint up the rest and see what I can put together by way of a Featherstone style game.  If you look closely in the fist pic towards the back of the box I have some German 77mm field guns scratchbuilt using Airfix ACW guns.

Plastic prep: ready for the soap bath!

I also found a bag of Airfix ACW artillery that I needed to rekindle a big box of classic Airfix ACW. I got all this stuff at a convention at least 11 years ago(...how time slips by...) 

I was thinking I might just base them up to recreate the two small ACW forces seen in the example battle in Don Featherstone's "Battles With Model Soldiers" I'm missing cavalry but I can maybe find some on ebay.

More Crazy Tiny Wargames

 I'm continuing to tinker around with very tiny wargames using the Portable Wargme Rules. Even my wife was, "wow, that's really tiny!..." so I guess that's something to be said...
I also took a cue from the blogs out there in that I put the "Diceshaker" app on my ipad and used it to generate the die rolls. It actually works really well and is a sort of no nonsense die rolling app that works just fine for this.

I played Quatre Bras out a couple of times with the British winning the first go and the French the second...so fun all around. Such a small game is pretty cool because I just kept it set up on the kitchen counter and played a few turns over my coffee this morning before the kids woke up and I headed off to work...and without the tell-tale clatter of dice, I was able to keep the wife slumbering too!

French columns assault Gemioncourt Farm

French columns take a drubbing from disciplined Brit volleys...

A second game experimenting with a gradual arrival of Brit reinforcements as in the historical battle...

The French get the better of the British left in the initial stages of game 2.

The Black Brunswickers held strong in Gemioncourt Farm in both games despite heavy assaults from French columns.

And finally I had a few minutes this afternoon after work to dig out some old plastic minis from a Parker Brothers Battle Cry game from the 60s...the board is long lost but I still have the minis so I pressed them into service. This is a hypothetical layout of Gettysburg at a very abstract level without ridges (that I am going to make this weekend) to see if I can stretch Bob's portable rules to their limit on a 7" square?!

Two Gridded Games: Part 2

The Americans approach the outskirts of San Lorenzo

 Knowing that In my second gridded game this week that my table size might stretch "The Portable Wargame" rules a bit far, I decided to play them with doubled range and movement distances. I think this did not affect the game unduly and gave a sense of the game's scale (a battalion level attack on a town) that was similar to my last game using slightly altered Memoir 44 rules.

Under heavy fire the GI's advance. This time US armour tries to outflank the town rather than drive headlong down the main street

 In this game both side put all their initiative "eggs" in one basket and devoted their moves and firing to the struggle around the town...the units on the ridge never moved in the game though some mortar rounds were exchanged to no effect.

Still they lose a tank unit to Panzerfaust  fire from heavily defended buildings

 One change I made to the rules was the addition of infantry AT markers that are added (single figures with an AT weapon) to a square allowing infantry in the same square to destroy tanks at half range (in this game, two squares). Normally infantry and MGs are not allowed to destroy armor at a distance.

Also I used my "heroic leader figure" rule that allowed a single leader figure "stacked" in the same square as an infantry unit to call for a re-roll of the opponent's hit die and regardless of the second outcome the leader must roll a d6 less than 4 to survive the "heroic moment". That rule actually worked to the German's advantage when one of their company commander's got a good re-roll negating a hit on a significant unit...unfortunately the next turn the unit was destroyed and the leader as well so the "Amis" captured the town by result of a series of good rolls in the final turns.

Again, the "Portable Wargame" and M44 prove that complex can be simple if designed correctly!

Two Gridded Games

The Valley of San Lorenzo

 Inspired by the new edition of Bob Cordery's Modern version of the Portable Wargame I dug out my generic WWII plastic figures and a couple of odd scaled plastic tanks all of which came from dollar store sets from China. I set up a scenario set in 1943 Italy where an assaulting force attempts to capture a village surrounded by a rough semicircle of ridges.

Army Tan playing the role of the Americans

 The idea was to play out an experimental game first using Memoir 44 as is on a square grid with a few added rules for MGs and Mortars. ( MGs get a 4-3-2-1 rating and count as 3 hit infantry  and mortars a 3-2-2-1-1 counting as 2 hit artillery) Then to reset the battle and use the Portable Wargame Rules. Not so much to compare their merits, but to just enjoy gaming with both of them.

Army Green playing the role of Germans

 I'm also keen to put my homemade Spanish Village to use and since my SCW collection is still under construction, these odd little plastics will serve in their place. They are just a basic color spray coat with the helmets picked out in a darker color...pretty effective for a "quick and dirty" set up.

First game using Memoir 44

the table is a 4'x4' gridded with 2 1/2 " squares 18 by 18

The Americans approach the town

US armor assaults the outskirts driving back the defenders temporarily

Tough German defenders inflict damage as the tanks outrun their infantry support

On the right flank the GIs fight their way up the steep slopes of San Lorenzo Ridge

I just used d6s to count hits and I counted plowed fields as "rice paddy" terrain as per M44 specs.

The advancing US infantry take casualties from the Germans who have re-occupied the outskirts of the town

The battle swings in the defender's favor as one of the American armor units is destroyed by close assaulting infantry

Though the Americans manage to clear a portion of the ridge, their attack stalls and the Germans hit their 6 victory points and get a win.

So all in all a simple, somewhat crude looking game but fun nonetheless...and in keeping with the abstract level of a gridded game. The M44 rules worked just fine using a square grid (I did not allow diagonal range counting) and playing solo I just dealt each new command card face down and then played the opposite side before turning it up. A fun game for sure!

 So on to the next game using the Portable Wargame rules.

The Armies March

The English defend.

 I set up a new battle on my newly upgraded table (feels like a glorious 8'x5' after a few months relegated to the 6x4 dining table). This is actually the second battle but who's counting...

The defenders hold the bridge perimeter.

 In this scenario, I used a variation of the "Raid on St. Michel" campaign book (teaser 5) assuming a larger force holding a bridgehead and needing to hold the bridge open to get all its baggage (and loot) across the river while being attacked by a strong pursuing force.

Irish Regiment Bulkeley (now with a full compliment of 2 "companies" of 16 men) ...all that is lacking to be cast up is a mounted colonel, a second flag bearer and an NCO.

A church and walled graveyard dominate the center of the field

The French...Infanterie Regiment Lyonnais and a battalion gun on the flank facing a long march across an open field under the guns of the Brits.

I'm hoping to get this battle underway towards the end of the week...until then it remains set up. It makes me happy and reduces the end of the day work stress just looking at it, even if I don't get to roll some dice immediately.