Game Stuff Done

Got the new War at Sea ships based and name tags put on today. Also, during the last game I played with my friend Dave, he recommended that I work out a system to mark my aircraft units more effectively. Dave had pointed out that it was difficult to identify units accurately during a game. So, I made up bases for each aircraft and marked them with the name of the aircraft and put them in the same national colors as my ship models. I am surprised how easy it makes the aircraft to identify. Now I should have that issue taken care of - thanks Dave! I will get photos up of these new bases as soon as I get a chance.

I also started finishing bases for my War of 1812 Brother Against Brother units. I got eight of my eleven units painted and ready for flocking. I have been reading the rules and I will be getting a test game together which I hope to play-test sometime in December.

I also got out a couple of War of 1812 terrain pieces together and prepped for painting.

Overall, a pretty good hobby day!

War at Sea Game

Friend and fellow Northern Conspirator Dave Bostwick came to the house today and we played a small War at Sea game to introduce Dave to the rules. Well Dave quickly figured out the rules and about turn 2 Dave's dice rolling came around. The results - I had my butt handed to me and Dave found a WWII Naval Game that he really liked!

We played a British vs. Italian game with each side at approximately 160 points. Each side had one Battleship, three cruisers and some destroyers. The Italians had one submarine. Each side also had a small mix of A/C to illustrate the rules for Dave.

I will not bore you with the turn by turn results of the game, but suffice it to say that the British suffered greatly at the big guns of the Roma! The British ended up losing all four of their destroyers (Witte de With, Javelin, Cossack, and Vasilissa Olga) and all three cruisers (Kent, Sydney, and de Ruyter). Only the Prince of Wales survived to fight another day.

Dave and I talked about starting a Mediterranean campaign. We have plenty of ships and with just a few additional units we should be ready to go! Dave has decided to look into War at Sea in more detail and said that he may want to get into the game system with some Pacific forces as I have the Atlantic and Med pretty well covered. Sounds good to me!

Here are some photos of the game for you to take a look at:

This photo shows shows the Italians in the right foreground with Roma, Gorizia, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Scipio Africanus. The British have de Ruyter and Prince of Wales on the left. The Kent and Sydney along with two other destroyers are out of the picture at the upper right hand corner.

I took this picture as I had finished off an Italian destroyer (ship with orange explosion). Little did I know that in just a few short minutes HMS Kent (and two British destroyers) would join the Italian at the bottom of the Med!

The De Meuron Regiment is Complete!

The De Meuron Regiment Light and Grenadier Companies as well as the Unit Commander are complete and mounted on bases. I still have to flock the bases, but as soon as they are done I will post pictures of them.

The 90th Regiment of Foot

The 90th Regiment of Foot, also called the Perthshire Volunteers, was a British unit in the Napoleonic Wars. The Battalion was a trained as a "Light" unit and so for our Wing Scale games they are mounted on elite company stands, not the regular center company stands. Here is how they are going to be mounted in various ways during our Wing Scale games. Other "Light" units such as selected French Legere, Austrian Jagers, etc. will be mounted in a similar manner. Notice that the unit can be mounted so they are "formed" similar to center company stands, "formed" by company stands and in "Skirmish" or Open order.

The 90th Light in Battalion Line Formation

A close-up of the 90th Light Company Stands

The 90th Light with two Skirmish stands screening in Front

The Stands

The top stand allows two individual company stands to become a "wing" or center company stand. The bottom stand is used as a sabot to convert a formed elite company into a "Skirmisher" or "Open" order stand.

The Wing Scale Napoleonic Game System

Here is a photo showing the deployment of two opposing forces which will be part of our Wing Scale Napoleonic Campaign.

At the top right of the photo there is a three battalion French Regiment de Ligne deployed in "l'Ordre Mixte". My US infantry is standing in for the French. The two battalions on the flanks of the formation are in attack column while the battalion in the center is in line formation. Light companies are deployed in front of their battalions and grenadier companies are deployed in the rear of each formation. A battery of two sections is to the right of the regimental formation. Each of the French battalions is two center company stands, a light company elite stand and a grenadier elite stand.

At the bottom of the photo is a British infantry brigade of three battalions supported by two artillery sections all in a line formation. The battalion on the far left of the line is made up of three center company stands instead of the more prevalent two center company stands.

A couple of things we learned during the recent play-test include:

1. Don't try to attack a line like this without prepping it with artillery before sending the infantry into a melee against it. Artillery fired into a line like this will not be that effective at Long Range. It will be much more effective if it is brought into short range so the hit numbers go up from "6" to "4,5,or 6".
2. Players will need to be reminded that the Wing Scale is played at the battalion level and combat is resolved by stand. Just like the Regimental Scale V&B, other stands can add more dice into a combat resolution, however, the combat is one stand against another and the results apply to a single stand.
3. Units attacking any formed enemy units will need at least a 2-1 or 3-1 local superiority to be pretty well assured of success.

War at Sea - French Navy

I really like the models of the French Naval units and aircraft in the War at Sea range. I have several of the ships and planes so I can do some historical as well as fictitious scenarios for the Mediterranean. Here are some of my French ships including the Carrier Bearn, Battleship Dunkerque, Cruisers Algerie and Lamotte-Picquet and a couple of destroyers.

Here is a close-up of the Dunkerque which is one of my favorite pieces. I really think the French playing pieces stand out with the khaki nametags.

War at Sea - The Royal Navy

Here are a couple of photos of my War at Sea British Navy collection. I have included the Aircraft Carrier Victorious and Battleship Prince of Wales and Cruiser Leander along with three destroyers and supporting aircraft. Note that even though these are all part of my Royal Navy collection I have identified allied ships with their national naval ensigns such as the Australian Leander, Canadian Haida, and Dutch Witte de With.

Here is a close-up of the Victorious with her aircraft the Dive Bomber Barracuda and Fighter Martlet Mk II.

The Italian Navy

Here are a couple of pictures of the War at Sea Italian Naval Forces that I have collected. I like the boats to be on stands instead of just using the ships themselves on the table. By having the stands I can put the name of the ship and a national flag on the stand which I think really adds to the look of the playing pieces.

The ships I am showing are: Aircraft Carrier Aquila, Battleship Roma, Cruiser Gorizia, two destroyers and a stand of MTB's. Note that I identify the type of aircraft and which carrier they come from by their own stand.

Here is a close-up of the Roma

War at Sea

I have a pretty sizable collection of ships now for War at Sea scenarios. I enjoy the game quite a bit. It is really the only playable set of rules for WWII Naval gaming that I have ever come across. The rules are simply, yet I think they pretty accurately simulate the conflict. I am going to post some photos of the set up I use for my War at Sea collection.

New Books Added to the Library

I have three new Osprey Men-at-Arms series books added to the Library. I got Wellington's Light Cavalry, Wellington's Heavy Cavalry and British Forces in N. America 1793-1815. All three titles are very interesting and they add facets of British Uniforms during the Napoleonic/War of 1812 period that I did not previously have in my collection. I think that each one of these books will be a great reference for me as I continue to build my British/Canadian collection for the War of 1812 and as I build my British forces for our Volley & Bayonet Wing Scale Peninsula Campaign.

Figures Have Arrived!

My War of 1812 figures painted by Fernando Enterprises have arrived. They are very well painted and with more than 100 figures, this really takes my collection forward. I am going to use figures in a skirmish level game using a modified version of Brother Against Brother. There were a couple of battles during the Wo1812 which were too small even for Volley & Bayonet Wing Scale. This Brother Against Brother should be a good level of game to recreate these smaller battles. I will be unpacking the figures over the next couple of days and I will try to get some photos up.