Entertaining day of Warfare

Every year I go to "Warfare" at Reading, staged by the Wargames Association of Reading (WAR) and, in my opinion it is a show that has it all - a wide variety of games, many of very high quality, more traders than I can possibly give enough time to, and a big Bring and Buy that is very well organised and run. It's a weekend show and this time I went on the Saturday, it seemed busier to me than ever before, but maybe that's just a "first day" thing.
I had lots of friendly chats with traders and gamers and also did well at the B and B - disposing of my 20 year old 15mm Peninsular War armies (I expect they will turn up on Ebay!) and getting the bargain of a lifetime - about 200 unpainted Foundry and Front Rank 25/28mm Prussians to add to my growing metal mountain to augment the Imagi-nation armies.

I always liked to share my photos of the best games in the "Greatfield Galloper", but this year I have a blog instead and so can present the efforts of some of these very talented people to a wider world.

This was, in my opinion, the best looking game at the show. Run by Skirmish Wargames in their "one true scale" - 54mm, it was a proper battle, not a skirmish, using the Black Powder rules, based on action at Leipzig in 1813. Maybe I'm biased  as I have known the ringleaders - Mike Blake and Ted Herbert, since the late 1960s when we all started and they were pioneers of the idea that each man could have personal characteristics, and that very small scale actions could be gamed with realism and fun. These days they have stepped up the scale somewhat, but, as you can see from the photos, every figure is treated with a flair for detail and accuracy, as if victory depended on him in a big battle just as much as in a skirmish. French, Russians, Austrians and Prussians were battling for supremacy over a very realistic terrain notable for me by the hairy rugs that gave fields with tall wild grasses, perfectly in scale with these bigger figures.

Ted and Mike were constantly busy and in demand
 but they each managed to spare some time for me

Mike explained to me that the size of figures easily adapted to "Black Powder" by halving the amount of figures for a unit, and the game went quite quickly - they were due to have a different scenario on the Sunday. In fact, adding his to other good comments I've heard about BP I was inspired to seek out a special show deal of the "Black Powder" rule book and the 18th century supplement, "The Last Argument of Kings".  At £40 this was a bit much for an "impulse buy" so The Duchess was quite amenable to paying for them and keeping them for me for Christmas. That will be a treat to accompany the after-dinner port in Greatfield Manor, and then it will be a while later before I can organise a game to try them out.

You can see more photos of Skirmish Wargames' Leipzig here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/109237116437799043486/SkirmishWargamesLeipzig1813?authkey=Gv1sRgCJXOtbWu6c6jcA

Another game I liked, because it was Mid-18th Century, and had lovely figures and buildings (in 15mm), was the Hastings and St Leonards Club rendition of Chotusitz in 1742 (above). I had a nice chat to Graham Cross who was responsible for the armies and he told me they were the result of being invalided with a broken leg a few years ago. I sort of thought that my hospitalisation this Summer might have had the same beneficial effect on my own figure painting schedule - but I recoved far too quickly! Anyway - a really nice effort Graham, thank you. Please take a look at his work in detail here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/109237116437799043486/HastingsChotuzitz1742?authkey=Gv1sRgCPGKioikmojtZg

Finally, one other game seemed worth  my photographing. This was a battle between Japanese and Allies somewhere in the jungles of South East Asia in the early part of World War Two in 28mm, put on by Battle Group South. It included a river port and buildings full of character as well as the Japanese and other soldiers and small tanks you don't often see on a wargames table.  It was very convincing, and although my general photo above is not well focused you can enjoy those sinister Japs in detail by viewing the slideshow here.
https://picasaweb.google.com/109237116437799043486/WW2SouthEastAsia?authkey=Gv1sRgCIHs9LPQzJ66fw

About "Wigs and Wine"

Before I describe to you the battle we fought over the terrain shown in my earlier posting
http://notjustoldschool.blogspot.com/2011/11/spookily-deserted.html
I'd like to tell you a bit about the rules we used which I've called "Wigs and Wine" (WiWi for short).

They are derived from "Wigs and Wampum" (WaW) my rules for French and Indian War gaming. WaW was designed for small scale battles with a figure ratio of 1 figure representing 5 men. Most players say that they give a good feel for this period and are fun and unpredictable, but, given average luck, will reward the skillful player who uses his troops properly. WaW was originally derived from a very simple set of Don Featherstone type AWI rules downloaded from the old school wargaming news group files archive. However, here in Cheltenham, we worked on them over several years to play up the Indian and frontier fighting characteristics and added usefully adapted  bits from other rules such as "Brother against Brother" and "Habitants and Highlanders". You can download a set from my Downloads sidebar, under FIW Collection.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByUrqygnzQAwZTcyZThlYjUtYmI0ZS00NmRkLTk3ODQtMjhhYzg0M2FkYWYx&hl=en_US

Moving from FIW to Europe in the Seven Years War proved more problematic as I moved, with WiWi,  to a 1:10 ratio inspired by old school Young and Grant big battalion games. The rules use the old fashioned, Player A, Player B alternate move and fire sequence, musketry volleys of 5 figures per die and 10 melee points per die. We have very few additions and subtractions but varied saving throws depending on circumstances. Morale again is simplified with a check at 10 per cent loss and each 10% thereafter, except only one check per turn. Morale can be decisive, with an unlucky and exposed or leaderless unit leaving the field with relatively few losses, or alternatively stalwart Elites fighting on down to a quarter strength. The biggest difficulty is cavalry which tend to be smaller units and so lose their 10 per cents quickly. Also because cavalry have more melee points per figure melees involving all cavalry tend to be very bloody affairs ending in near-mutual annihilation, not very realistic, and we really want those expensive cavalry castings to stick around longer!

As the battle of Futonville  is only the third big one we've fought with WiWi  we learned a few more things and are currently working on amendments to help the cavalry have a more subtle role and last longer. In addition I tried to have some "big" battalions of over 60 figures, including special rules for integral grenadier companies, as opposed to separate composite battalions. On my 9 foot by 5 foot table they proved too unwieldy, with not enough room to get into proper formations, so we'll change to a maximum of 48 figures for future games. This will  probably mean a change to 1:15 ratio and a reduction in ranges to keep in scale.You can access the "Wigs and Wine" rules from the Imagi-Nations Collection in the Downloads sidebar (I've set it to access for anyone , but please email me if you have a problem with it.). I will post an updated set when I've rewritten them. Feel free to let me have your thoughts if you give either WaW or WiWi a try.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByUrqygnzQAwNjQxZDZlYzUtMGEzMC00YTZlLWEwZmItMDNkNDJkYjFjYmJj&hl=en_US

Finally, before I give a battle report in the next posting, an unusual incident during the game. At one point Pete threw his die from a distance to try to get it into the top of the dice tower, it hit the top edge and bounced......right into my glass of beer! Needless to say I didn't need asking twice to down the remaining amber liquid to retrieve his die.....but according to house rules it has to end up in the bottom tray of the tower to count! 

Jaegers in the marshes

Sorry about the deserted landscape of my previous post, I couldn't be bothered to go from the garage to my study to get some figures out of the cabinets! But then I  thought better of it and couldn't resist taking some photos of one of my other new terrain tiles - a stream running through a marsh. This needed to have some human interest so I've put in it some of my Le Noble Freicorps Jaegers and an officer trying to look business like.

Frog's eye view!