August 1914

A friend came to see me on one of the evenings of the last week — he thinks it was on Monday, August 3rd. We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below on which we were looking. My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words: "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

Viscount Grey of Fallodon, "Twenty-Five Years 1892-1916" (New York, 1925)

Bitten by the ECW bug?

It may surprise you to know I am not the type to spuriously start a new project. (Aside from Wild West, FIW, B-Movie Aliens, Starship Troopers, and 15mm Rogue Trader, all of which are at various stages of limited progression.)

I forget what I was browsing for at the time, but I came across some very nice ECW paper figures on the Billy Bones website. Now, I've experimented with paper figures before, and enjoyed them, but it is true that they can't beat 'proper' figures. 

So what would make a difference? Thinking about this, I have felt that paper figures should offer something, stylistically, that metal figures don't. From my forays into the world of paper, I'm left feeling that there are two broad categories of figure. The first attempts to produce some reasonably realistic figures that look quite accurate on the table. The second goes down more cartoony lines, but still satisfies the same aesthetic principle of trying to recreate the visual effect of painted figures. 

From my perspective, both these offer a decent quick fix, but afterward leave me wanting to play with metal or plastic. Enter Billy Bones Workshop. 

Currently, they offer two ranges: ACW and ECW. Both offer stylised paper figures which invoke recognisable imagery from the period. In the case of the ACW figures they look like they are photos taken during the period and for the ECW figures a style is employed reminiscent of woodcut art common in that era. Even better, the ECW set includes common terrain features such as hedges, roads, rivers and buildings, all drawn in the same way. So the overall effect is something which is not so easy to replicate with miniatures and highlights one of the strengths of paper figures.

I have only assembled a few stands, but here are a couple of pictures from each range, taken from the Billy Bones site:



 

So that's the figures sorted for my games, but I need rules as well! Perfect Captain came to the rescue here with what looks to be an excellent set of wargame and campaign rules. And they are all free (with the option to donate to charity)! I set up the start of my campaign last night and hope to post on how it develops. First impressions of the campaign rules are good. There seem to be a couple of holes, but nothing which can't be fixed and certainly nothing worth complaining about given the price!

Here's a picture of the campaign map, followed by the starting garrisons. 

Royalist forces

Parliamentarian garrisons

In this close up you can see the markets making up one of the garrisons:

On the top left is the commander, the codes show his attributes, in this case that he is Disciplined and Bookish. Disciplined is useful in battle and in taking some campaign actions. Bookish can be positive when taking certain campaign actions. It comes in handy when developing fortifications or organising more forces for your army.

Most of the unit counters have a number, showing how many bases (squadrons) currently make up the company. 6 is full strength. Gun markers represent one base of artillery. So this garrison is quite mixed. Two units of Seasoned Pike, two of Seasoned Musketeers, one of Harquebusiers and a light gun. Worth noting is that, while you might start with some Seasoned troops, the time scale of the campaign (usually about half a year) means you don't get a chance to replace these and any forces you recruit will be Trained Band, consequently not as good in battle.

I've just calculated income for the first turn and determined the weather (which has turned out to be bad). I am now about to issue orders. More on that later!

Star Wars Game (5150)

 I took advantage of the fact that I still had the table ready from my recent Slaughterloo game and decided to have a Star Wars game using the 5150 Star Army rules by Two Hour Wargames. I ended taking a few more pictures than I expected, so this is something of a pictoral summary, with my comments and observations dotted between. Click on the pictures if you want to see larger ones.

The set up: an alien jungle planet. Three possible enemy contacts were set up, two toward the top left of the picture and one by the stone column.

I decided to semi-generate some reinforcements by organising the squads I would use and assigning each one a card. When required, I drew from a card deck to see what turned up. I made up stats as I went and have them filed in a box for future use.

Due to an odd die roll on the first turn, I ended up getting reinforcements before my platoon arrived on the table! 4 Phase 1 Dark Troopers. As it happened they were not so useful...

The Dark Troopers make first contact: A Rebel squad in a defensive position. Might be tough to shift them.

Rebel fire takes out two of the Dark Troopers.

My main force arrives. On the left flank I deploy two squads and the platoon command squad. All are troops of average quality (Rep 4)

On the right flank I deploy my weaker squad. Unfortunately all Rep 3. This would mean they would be less likely to activate efficiently, but I figured all I wanted them to do at this stage was take and hold the jungle in front of them.

The final Dark Trooper attempts to charge and falls to Rebel fire. Useless robots!

On the right, my Stormtroopers advance and survey the carnage!

Contact with the other PEFs. One is a Rebel Squad of average quality but with a poor leader. The other is a poor squad of Klatoonians.

The view from the jungle edge. Fortunately, the enemy were mostly armed with blaster pistols and not in a position to take any shots.

I start to suffer from Rebel fire. Aside from being generally better, the Light Repeating Blaster would lay down heavy enough fire to force the Stormtroopers back into the jungle, meaning that Imperial return fire would be less effective even if it didn't cause casualties.

The exchange of fire between the two squads continues, while the Klatoonians advance on the left.

On the right flank, my Rep 3 Troopers start to suffer from the higher quality Rebel fire, although due to their armour, a lot of the Troopers lying down did not take severe wounds.

Here is an example of what happens when poorly skilled and badly armoured forces advance into the open

Zap! Over half the squad goes down.

Zap! Zap! My follow up fire wipes out the rest. The reaction system used in THW games mean that your forces can react to fire targeted at them, and then follow up with their own fire when active, so a well positioned and trained force can have a brutal effect.

Happy days! I take out the pesky Rebel heavy weapon. This should make things easier for me.

On the right, Rebel fire keeps on forcing my Troopers to fall back to cover. Of course, ones which have been stunned are less able to do so, which meant that the 'good guys' could mercilessly shoot them while they lay on the floor! Rebel scum!

I decide to start a flanking maneuver. I had a squad to the left of the one in the jungle hiding in some ruins. I felt it was time to move them round at attack the Rebels from two angles.

Sorry, blurry picture! Ewww. Gives me a headache just looking at it. But this is a squad which came to reinforce my efforts

Still not managing to shift the rebels on the right....

Despite my best efforts there seems to be a bit of a stalemate on the left flank...

Well, why not just shove everything at them and see what stick?

Yet more Imperial casualties on the right. I was basically using this squad to keep the Rebels in place while I sorted out the left flank.

A bloody conflict ensues in the jungle as I recklessly throw in my jungle scouts.

Annoyingly, this was the only time I partially failed a Man Down test in the game, resulting in two troopers deserting when one was taken out.

On the right flank I finally only have one trooper left, so the Rebels opt to charge into the jungle and finish the job. So the right side of the table is now secured by the Rebels with minimal casualties.

It takes two squads to shift the Rebels out of the jungle. Unfortunately this puts them out of sight of my forces.

The Rebels on what used to be my right flank start to advance towards the river.

Boom! What's this? Another blurry photo? It can only mean one thing: Imperial reinforcements? Did I get so excited by getting more troops that my hands started shaking?! I felt the battle could really turn in my favour now, as I got a good squad of Sith Troopers, all armed with light repeating blasters. In short, quite a devastating squad to have!

"Jungle secured, Sir!"

Rebel Troopers take up position in cover in response to the appearance of the Sith Trooper reinforcements.

The view from behind the Rebels

What's this?! Rebel reinforcements. Uh oh. The Mon Calamari are not exceptional in terms of armour or weaponry, but they do get a bonus to hit in moist environments (and a penalty in dry ones), so the fact that they turned up on a jungle planet was good for the Rebels.

Distracted by finishing off the Rebels, none of my force is positioned to respond to enemy reinforcements.

Sith Troopers advance to the edge of cover. Not only are they excellent warriors, but they have great weapons. The result...?

... The brutal destruction of the Rebels across the river.

 

The changing situation on the left flank. The Mon Calamari suffer from Imperial fire.

Having taken care of the first squad of Rebels, the Sith Troopers move towards the Mon Calamari. The result was a nasty exchange of fire, which saw extensive Rebel casualties.

The scouts advance across the river just to make sure the remaining Rebels were no threat.

At this point I decided to end the game. I rolled the activation dice a couple of times in case the Rebels got reinforcements, but nothing turned up. I had definitely succeeded in my goal of defeating the enemy force.

Luck was on my side, I think. Although the game might seem a little one sided in retrospect, I was never entirely sure what might have happened from turn to turn. Sure, the Sith Troopers were great to get, but they came in relatively late. It was unfortunate for the Rebels that they had the Klatoonians as they never had a chance to do anything and were an easy target for my higher quality soldiers. But in any case, it was a fun game. I did limit myself to infantry, something I won't do next game. One other thing I forgot to mention was that I rolled a result of Bad Intel before the game. I could quite easily have found myself facing a force twice the size, or being outflanked at the beginning, which would obviously have changed things. I was lucky there.

A final point is that, although I won this game, if I had been playing a campaign it would have been less impressive. I managed to lose a whole squad and there was a good chance I would have had to go without replacements in the next game (you don't keep reinforcements rolled during the battle). So I could have faced a similar enemy force with only two thirds of my force, making future missions much harder. Star Army certainly produces a good one-off game, but I am certainly eager to play a proper campaign against the Rebels!