War of Jenkin's Ear - Approaching the Finish Line

After working on this for so very long, I think I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. In doing my research for this, I came across this and have since lost the source for it. To the creator, I'm sorry I have not given you credit. But you produced a meme that made me laugh.

At this point, the book is 138 pages and included linked scenarios for Sharp Practice and Kiss Me Hardy using the To Covet Glory modifications. There is a bonus campaign for the War of Jenkin's Ear in North Carolina. There are suggestions for how to do a combined arms campaign of your own modeled after the Spanish Invasion of Georgia. Lastly, it will include the STL files the I created for the vessels in this campaign. These include a Fusta, a Galliot, a Galley, a South Carolina Scout Boat and a Piragua.

I am still trying to sort out a cover. This is my current attempt.

Edit: This is a followup attempt that I like better.

I will look for other alternatives but for now, this is what I have.

Sharp Practice Musings

As I am going through the Swamp Fox supplement, I wanted to determine what would be needed in terms of movement trays to be able to game any of the scenarios in the supplement. I was really pleased with the movement trays that I bought from Litko for my Pirate project. They worked out very nicely. So I wanted to duplicate the effort for my AWI troops.

Militia will need two types of bases. The more experienced Veteran militia will be in units of 8 men while long service and poorly equipped militia will be in units of 10 men each. All of my AWI troops are based on US pennies. So a sabot base with 20mm holes is needed. Then there are skirmish troops of 6 men each. While these don't necessarily need a sabot base, I thought that they would look nice based that way.

A trip to Litko's website gave me sticker shock. 7 2x5, 7 2x4 and 5 s slot bases worked out to over $100. That is more than I paid for the miniatures (if I remember right). Once I recovered, I set about to try to find an alternative that didn't involve me making them by hand. Warbases showed up in my search. I thought that this would be hopeless as the shipping costs would be terrible. I was wrong. The bases were each less than a pound each. I even threw in two of their casualty markers and the total with shipping was less than $37. A few clicks later and now I just need to wait on the postman.

Since Rich is getting close to releasing Swamp Fox, I have started to take a look at my older AWI supplements. Starting with This Land Divided, I am retooling the scenarios to work with the Sharp Practice II rules. I am actually really excited about this project. The aim is to keep the original supplement in tact as the scenarios worked well for the first version of the rules. Then include a second presentment of the rules, redone for SP2. That means the scenario will be close to 130 pages in length but the player can print out the parts they want rather than the whole book. When done, I also plan on releasing them on Amazon as a paperback. No kindle version for this as I doubt the usefulness of a kindle version of a wargames supplement. It seems PDF and hardcopy are more useful.

I set up my table and started to get ready to take some pictures for This Land Divided. I realized I do not nearly have enough trees. I have individual trees and some groups of trees. But not nearly enough. What I do have is a bunch of Chinese trees that I bought from AliExpress. And some model railroad birch trees. So I started working on making tree bases. I have two bases pained and flocked. I started to drill holes and fix the trees to the bases. I have too much more work to do before I take pictures. Hopefully, I will have something by the weekend.

Wanted to Float an Idea By you....

I have been looking at Patreon. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in sponsoring my scenario writing through this. Here is my thoughts. If someone sponsors me on Patreon, they would have access to the current works in progress. Depending on the funding level, they can have a copy of all of my older scenario books and any future updates to them as well. I was thinking of $1 to $4 would get the current work in progress plus the final version when it comes out and $5+ would get the backlog as well. Patreon is a recurring monthly payment (if I understand it correctly). I would also list the person as a sponsor in current WIP as well for any level of sponsorship. Also, I will take requests from Patreon sponsors for what to work on. This should keep me motivated and writing.

What I am hoping for is a little extra money to spend on research materials with which to base the scenarios on. Anyway, this is just a thought. I really would like your input if this is a reasonable idea or not.

Thanks Edit: Here is what I have put together. https://www.patreon.com/cstoesen Edit 2: I have reviewed what my current Work In Progress list is. I just made a post about it if you are interested: http://cstoesen.blogspot.com/2017/04/review-of-works-in-progress.html

Marion Scenario book now has a Tentative Name

Well I have finally settled on a working title for my Marion book. It is from a quote from General Nathanael Greene in a letter that he wrote to Alexander hamilton in describing the situation that he found when he arrived in South carolina and saw the situation that was going on. The Quote is:

"The division between the people is much greater that I imagined; and the whigs and tories persecute each other with savage fury. There is nothing but murder and devastation in every quarter." (Rankin, 1976.)

So the working title is Murder and Devastation in Every Quarter. It might be overplayed. What do ya'll think?

It will contain 12 scenarios. 11 of them are from August 1780 to December 1780. I added an additional scenario featuring the colorful troops of Light Horse Henry Lee's Legion in January 24, 1781 just to add some Continental troops to the book. Also i am including a pint sized campaign for the battle for Georgetown. I am making great progress on it so far and am about 40% through the whole thing. Anyone interested in some BETA testing?

New Blog

I decided to separate out my Wargame stuff from the novel traffic. If you have any interest in keeping up with Thomas Devereaux and the crew of the CSS Appomattox, please head on over to the other site. http://chrisstoesenfiction.blogspot.com/.

Interestingly enough, the single post on the new and unadvertised site has generated more traffic than this blog has today. I am not sure how that works.

New Cover

I have been tinkering with the cover of my book on Amazon. I made some minor changes to it. Let me know what you think.

Book Mailing Lists

I am fooling around with attempting to make a mailing list for my novel series. I have been reading some marketing books about doing this but really I have no idea of what I am doing. I just set up a mailing list as one of the books suggested. If you have any interest in signing up, please go to my dedicated page for it. Or fill out the form below.

I will not be sending out emails more frequently than once a month, if that often so please know I have no intention of spamming anyone. Thanks for your interest in my books.

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

Odds and Ends

Just sent out a mail to the Santa Clause participants to check who has not received their present yet. So far, I know of one that is in route a bit long but we are hoping for the best.

I think Google does not like me. Traffic on this blog has taken a huge nose dive. Not sure what is going on. Then again, I may just be boring everyone.

The CSS Appomattox is doing really well on Amazon. I surprised myself. I just checked and it is showing as:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,109 Paid in Kindle Store
#18 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Alternative History
#41 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical > Alternate History

I can't believe that I hit #18 even if it was just for a couple of seconds. That is pretty nifty to me. I have the first two chapters completed of the sequel already. Its proving to be a fun exercise at this point. This time our heroes will find themselves seconded to the British Army in an attempt to curry favor with the Crown. They are moved to a backwater in hopes to get them out of the way, they arrive in Egypt in late 1884.

It is distracting me from working on my ACW scenario book though.

I just received confirmation that my four M113's for my 1980s US Infantry force has been shipped. I now need to figure out what minis to get for the infantry. Any recommendations? I am locked into 15mm.

Tan, Rested and Ready

Giving Thanks

Well its been a marvelous week away from work and responsibilities but its time to get back to work. I have much to be thankful for. The biggest thing right now is for a father-in-law willing to drag my family all the way to the Caymans for Thanksgiving. I am very blessed.

ACW Scenarios

But never fear, I was not idle while lazing away in the islands. I have been diligently at work. OK, ok, I was somewhat working on my ACW scenarios. Enough that I think i will get in a few games this week to test some stuff out. There are a number of skirmishes that occurred in Western Virginia that there is only the briefest of mentions made of. Typically there is a date and a loose location of where it occurred. Regimental histories published after the war gloss over these small engagements and frequently ignore them all together. But these are perfect sized scenarios for Terrible Sharp Sword.

So I was playing around with the notion of trying some out. One in particular caught my mind. It was fought between Union 3 months troops whose term of service was about to expire and raw untrained Virginia militia. This was before Virginia had even voted on secession. Many shots were fired but almost no one was hit. Terrible Sharp Sword makes this scenario very doable with the shock system and the training levels that are part of the system.

But what about scenarios larger than company sized? This is where I am starting to struggle. I am thinking of making scenarios at several different scales. I love TSS as a system. There is optional rules to expand units out for larger battles as well. But there are other rules out there that do this too. So I am looking at possibly using They Couldn't Hit an Elephant and some rules from Captain Games. With the battles I am looking at, I am not sure that I will have any big enough for TCHAE. But we will see. I am still only working on things in June/July of 1861 at the moment so its still early.

Welcome

It almost escaped me that Ken Reilly started to follow this blog. Ken is the owner of Yarkshire Gamer. He has some recent posts with a great looking WWII Western Desert Game and some Spanish Civil War stuff going on there. Please stop by his site and visit. Welcome aboard Ken.

I am a Winner

I just received some rather nice treats in the mail when I came home on Sunday. A package was waiting for me with some pill boxes and some dragon's teeth all in 15mm. I had entered the TFL's blog Force List contest for Chain of Command. I placed well (honorable mention or something) and the prize was these great terrain bits.

These are great. I need to paint up the dragon's teeth as I need road blocks for my chain of command games. I will paint up the pill boxes as well. I think these are supposed to represent pill boxes used in England in preparation for the German Operation Sea Lion that never happened. Anyone know if these will work for Soviet pill boxes in 1941? Just curious as I will probably use them for that anyway.

There was more that I was going to tell ya'll about but it has left my mind. Anyway, glad to be home again.

A Treasure Trove of Information

If you have any interest in the American Civil War, you have to check out this site: War of the Rebellion, Army Records, Series I, Volumes 1 - 29 from Western Illinois University. What a fantastic resource. These include the official reports from both the Confederate and Union Armies. It spans the whole war and each volume has a area and period of the war that it covers. I have been searching for these on Google Books in the past but this has all of them in one place.

These books are fantastic resources for everything from the largest battles to the smallest skirmishes. Swing on by and check them out.

Santa Clause Updates and More

I managed to get my Santa Clause package out in the mail last night. My wife was kind enough to gift wrap the miniatures. The only trouble I ran into was with a clerk at the post office who gave me a bucket full of bad attitude.

Hopefully that will be arriving in good order. I remembered to add the initials "SC" in the name. I have my fingers crossed that it will be well received.

So with both Secret Santa and Santa Clause taken care of, I can focus on my other random motivations.

I ended up committing to writing an ACW and an AWI scenario for a friend's magazine. I have begun work on it and I think it will lead me toward another supplement. One thing I was looking for was a historical campaign in a relatively small geographic area that I had enough miniatures to do. I would want actions that ranged from a small skirmish of a company or so per side to a battle of a brigade or so per side. I think I have found it with operations in the Kanawha Valley (1861) in what is now West Virginia.

There is much going for these battles. They feature some of the larger names that would dominate the war later on. Both McClellan and Lee operated in the area at various times. It has plenty of poor quality militia and many politically appointed commanders with no military experience. While doing some reading on the subject, it seemed that to be a Confederate Brigadier General, the requirement in Western Virginia must be that you had to be a former Governor of Virginia. Many of these men were at odds with one another throughout the war and made the situation much worse for the poor troops fighting it than it should have been.

I am still in the research phase but it looks like it should be some great fun to work on.

The Coming Thunder - Errata Part II

I was recently notified of a mistake that I made on the map for the Battle of Fairfax Courthouse (June 1, 1861). I had one of the buildings mislabeled so it appeared that there were two Methodist Churches instead of one being the hotel. I am putting the corrected map up here. For you to grab. If you have purchased the book through Wargames Vault, I have updated the book there. If you bought it directly from me and want the update, please email me and I will get you sorted out with a corrected copy.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Projects - Need some help in choosing a direction

I just managed to get my entry for the Chain of Command Challenge done and I started looking through my list of projects that I have begun but not finished.

1) CSS Appomattox - This is an alternative history novel that I have been working on for about 6 months or so. I am about 63,000 words into it of a projected 100K.

2) Flik55j - This is a supplement for Algernon Pulls it Off covering on of the most successful squadrons of the Austro-Hungarian air force. Given the holding pattern of Algy II, this may just remain in a holding pattern.

3) Small Warriors - This is about 80% done. It is a set of scenarios and modifications for Kiss Me Hardy covering the smaller warships that engaged in the American Revolution. Covers Royal Navy, Colonial Navy, State Navy and Privateer forces operating near or out of South Carolina during the Revolution. It also includes Sharp Practice scenarios as well.

4) Wacht am der Limes - This is a modification to Dux Britanniarum set on the German Limes during the Early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. This one is still in the idea phase. I just bought some more miniatures for this. At this point, the potential forces will be larger than that of regular Dux.

5) The third book in my AWI series - This would begin around November 1870 and follow the action north into North Carolina. I have the outline of about 3 scenarios so far. Not far along at all.

6) ACW Atlanta Campaign - I am working on a supplement for They Couldn't Hit an Elephant and Terrible Sharp Sword that covers the battles for Atlanta. Was to be finished for the 150th anniversary but that is not going to happen.

7) An Anglo-Zulu War Supplement - This is well under way but I need to get some games in to make sure what i am trying works. That and I need to paint more Zulus. I think this one is at about 45%.

Anyway, I went through these and I am really interested in all of them. I just don't know which way to go. Any suggestions?

Welcomes, Plans and Other things

Welcomes

I just noticed that another follower has joined the site - JHaygood. Now if this is the same JHaygood that I think it is, WELCOME! One of my first war gaming opponents with IABSM was Jay Hagood. Glad you could join.

Summer Scenario Sale

To all of you who have helped out, thanks. Hopefully by the end of the week, I can show off what you have helped me get.

Chain of Command

In going through the lists for the early war period, I decided it might be worthwhile to take a picture of each force including the supports. I will try to put these together over the course of the week. I think it will help me organize.

Writers Block

Well, I have lost much of my motivation. I have about four projects in various levels of completion. Yet, I can't even begin to sort out where to continue. I know I want to do another AWI campaign. I have the Zulu stuff going on. Then there is the novel I started. And there is a force list that I want to do for the opening days of Barbarossa. I am just not sure what I want to work on next.

TooFatLardies Summer Special

I started to think about the Summer Special. I try to write something for each of the Specials but I have been in a bit of a funk lately and just was not motivated. That is until last night. I actually now have three ideas. The first is a Bag the Hun scenario for North Africa in December 1941. The second is a Chain of Command scenario featuring the pacification of the Ein el Hilweh refugee camp in June 1982. It presents an interesting command challenge with Israeli armored formations holding off swarms of small RPG armed teams. The third is a scenario covering Colonel Elijah Clarke's failed attack on Augusta Georgia in September 1780.

Let me know if any of these sound more interesting than the other. I will focus on that one to make sure it gets completed first. Hopefully the muse has not struck too late and something can make it before the cutoff.

Amazon & Kindle Version of In the Name of Roma and Terrain ideas

I just got in my first Royalty payment from Amazon for In The Name of Roma. It is enough to buy a small terrain item out of which will be very welcome. To those that purchased it, thank you. I would love it if someone could post a review or two out there. It was kind of exciting.

Now on to important things. For an eastern front game, if you had to choose, what would be the most important terrain item you would suggest having? Recently I have been fixated with having a rail station and tracks. I still have about four feet of track to finish painting. Some day I may even do it. But what else would you say is a necessity for an east front game? Specifically set in 1941. Any suggestions?

Updates to In the Name of Roma

I just finished my conversion of In the Name of Roma to Kindle format. In doing so, I have found a number of small formatting issues and small spelling errors in the book that have frustrated me. I am going back through and fixing these and will be updating the PDF version to match the changes that have gone into the Kindle version.

If you are curious about the kindle version of In the Name of Roma, please check it out on Amazon.

Pending Projects

Taking a few moments of time, I started looking through my projects directory at what I had started but never finished. As it turns out, there is quite a bit. The problem is that the projects are all over the place and work on any one will not help any of the others. So far my list is sitting at 20 projects. I am listing these here just as a reminder for later.

Rule Set	Project Description	Completion %
Algernon	Austro-Hungarian scenarios based on FLIK 55j	15%
KMH	AWI Scenarios and Modifications	80%
BTH	SCW Scenarios	5%
BTH	Italian incursion into France - 1940	10%
DUX	Late Roman	10%
DUX	EIR Roman v Early Germans	10%
IABSM	Greek Campaign Update to IABSMv3	100%
M&B	Eastern Front Supplement	100%
M&B	302nd Engineers Sceanrios	5%
SP	Lawnmower Scenarios	35%
TSS	Stoneman's Raid 1864	10%
SP	Ottomans	50%
SP	Scenario - Action at Sonolenta Aldeia	90%
SP	The Next AWI Campaign	10%
SP	Scenario - Pohick Church	100%
TCHAE	Atlanta Campaign	1%
TSS	1861 Part 2	5%
TCHAE	Lewinsville	10%
TW&T	Next scenario for SOTCW	0%

The ones that are at 100% are in the hands of others at the moment. I really think sometimes that I just have too many interests. Painting projects are another story entirely.

Initial Draft Complete - In the Name of Roma!

I have just put the the finishing touches on the last scenario. It is complete. So, what is in it?

Well there are six campaigns.
Campaign 1 - The battle for Two Rivers August 10-12. This has five scenarios for company level rules (IABSM in particular but could be done with FOW or Crossfire).
Campaign 2 - With the Vikings at Kiluskino and Verhnieprovsk August 18 - 21st. These are five scenarios for platoon level rules (Chain of Command or Troops, Weapons and Tactics but would work with Bolt Action or Arc of Fire).
Campaign 3 - Petrikovka Campaign September 1941. There are six scenarios that are a combination of platoon and company level scenarios.
Campaign 4 - The Donets Campaign October 13th - 31st. Another six scenarios at either the platoon or company size.
Campaign 5 - Gorlovko November 1 - 5th. A mere 4 scenarios covering the seizure of this industrial town. Mostly Company level scenarios in urban/suburban terrain.
Campaign 6 - Nikitovka November 6 - 12. Four more scenarios covering this tragic campaign that found the 80th Roma trapped behind enemy lines and the heroic effort to break it out.

That is a total of 30 scenarios featuring the Italian units of the Corpo Spedzione Italiano in Russia (CSIR) as they advance over 1400 kilometers across the Ukraine in the Fall of 1941.

The scenarios are still being play tested and this time they will include photographs of games in play. Also the scenario maps are being beautified as my initial efforts with MS Paint look like my four year old drew them. So far, this is going better than I thought.

At this point, the book is 150 pages. Once some graphic work is done, that will grow it a little bit.

Gorlovko: October 25th - 29th, 1941

I am currently writing the scenarios for the actions in Gorlovko (Горловка or Gorlovka or a couple of other spelling variants) by the 80th Roma Regiment. The city has a very interesting history that does not really belong in a war games scenario but i found it to be interesting.

It seems that the town was built in the late 1800s under the impetus of a Belgian investment. The town began as a collection of a few shacks surrounding a few mines. The town began to grow and grew to fame as the site of an armed uprising in 1905. There were a few actions in and around the town during the Russian Revolution.

German postcard of the town in 1920. By 1929, the town had grown to some 23,000 people. But the real growth came in the 1930s. By the late 1930s it lept to nearly 200,000 people. The infrastructure was just not there to support those numbers.

The capital of the region was Stalino. The city of Stalino had its own issues with crumbling infrastructure. It was viewed that Gorlovko could be upgraded easier than fixing Stalino. The plans were to add a new modern city center called Novo Gorlovko that included a party headquarters, modern appartments, hotels and businesses to the town. Also schools, hospitals, telegraph and telephone lines, sewage, paved roads and a tram line were all to be built.

One of the mine complexes circa 1933.

This move of the capital was short lived. It seems a high party official went for a visit and his vehicle became hopelessly bogged in the mud roads near the mines. He promptly returned to Stalino in a huff. While some funding was cut, many of the building projects did take place. The town rapidly grew through the 1930s.

The tram line was run from the city center out some 8 kilometers to one of the main mine complexes.

By the time the Italians arrived in 1941, there were a few modern structures present in the town. Most of these were industry related. The town had taken a war production footing in relation to coal production. The mines were running at full capacity. The mines were still surrounded by low ramshackle structures.

And some of the buildings that the Italians were fighting among.

Anyway, it was interesting to find out a little about this city in the Ukraine. I also got enough pictures to figure out what my map will look like for the scenarios.

Sources:
http://moyagorlovka.blogspot.com/

http://forum.gp.dn.ua/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=941&sid=9324176d89c7749fba15579546851d0e&start=75

http://gorlovka.prostogorod.ua/%D0%9E-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5/%D0%98%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F/%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0-%D0%B2-xx-%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%B5-345/

http://infodon.org.ua/stalino/198

http://beket.com.ua/doneckaja/gorlovka/