Holiday - “What did the Romans do ….”

 We have escaped for an end of summer break. Not too far from home this time , just getting out if the usual 4 walls before the the winter starts . We found a place just up near Hadrians Wall and Hexham . Today has seen a visit to the Roman Army museum at Magna , Vindolanda and a walk along part of the wall  it’s been many years since I visited and it was good to see the changes.

The wall over Steel Rigg. The climb got the blood pumping .

The Army Museum was well done . It would have been great to see a full legion in 28mm laid out but there you go .

 

The mannequins were very lifelike .

 

Hadrian

 

Next up Vindolanda - much more excavated since the last time I visited 

Still lots of future work to do 

 

A great day out was had.

This all brought back memories of the very first box of Airfix I bought from a Woolworths in early 70’s as a very young lad.

 

Closely followed by nagging my dad to get the fort .

 

Fond memories 

 

NWF/BoB - Afghan tribesmen

 I have been doing a bit of commission painting recently- mostly 10mm Naps , so it’s been nice to have a few days to do some bits for myself. I picked up some Old Glory North West Frontier stuff a few years ago so I am chipping away at it to add the collection . This time another 26 tribesmen. The OG figs  have lovely lot  of life to them. 

I started with a straight white base coat and then it’s various shades of light brown , a VJ flesh colour was also used . Didn’t take to long to knock em out .

This takes me to 50 foot figures and 10 mounted . I have a few more to add over the winter 

This is the current army of the “Lion of Khulm” - Martins rebellious province 😁

Gaming - ACW - Antietam Cornfield - using new ACW rules

 Yesterday saw a run out for the ACW collection . Des Darkin has released his regimental rules set ,known simply as ACW (link https://www.shedowargames.co.uk/  ) and I have picked it up . John and I decided to play the introduction scenario . 

 

 

Starting position Rebs behind fences and hasty works 

Red and Green markers represent Division and Brigade command staff officer - which are then tasked for a range of command option . However once used they don’t quickly come back - a key part of the game is managing this resource to keep your options open.

 

My Union forces ready to advance toward the cornfield - they will pick up fatigue crossing the fence and also doubling forward . I liked the mechanism that let you move at speed but accumulate fatigue - which you can attempt to rally off with staff officer tasking - hence make sure you save some .

 

My brigade in the East Woods deploys in open order - meaning it can move on the wood at full speed without fatigue penalties - I want to advance it to get on the flank of the Reb defences.

 

The dice holder record fatigues(red) and permanent casualties (black). Units move from fresh to worn to wavering to skedaddled depending on total accumulation, with various penalties to firing melee , and losing staff offices

My units absorb some serious fire but get into melee

One of mine pushes a reb defender away from the fence line 

 

However the Rebs push the other two back . I have to spend time rallying to get them to go again .

 We had played out 10 turns looking up a few things and working through it. There is similarity to other basic ACW concepts so we were picking them up quickly . I won the initiative 9 out of 10 roll and this let me reset my staff officers quicker than John so meant I was able to keep rallying etc . I liked the Command Clock mechanism which means each side is operating independently on their Staff Officer resource . Other than that we didn’t have any extremes of dice throwing which was good for this test 

Having had another read through I don’t think we got anything wrong . A few extra clarifications have been asked of Des and we had interpreted things correctly . They were - Staff Officer resource-rolls for initiative where we had various draws and rerolls . The other was around Open order troops opting to use Exploding 6’s at close range , I.e they hit on 5,6 .. but any 6 is then re-rolled and can hit again - yes this is fine it applies to all at close range . 

We will play again 

I fancy day 1 of Gettysburg with these .. 

Gaming - Back Of Beyond , retreat from Mangashlak

 Today saw a further battle in the group campaign game . Last game turn the Bolos had failed in an assault at Fort Alexandrovsky and were badly beaten . This game saw the Bolo army being harried by more arriving Cossacks while trying to extricate themselves from the Eastern side of the Caspian Sea area. The Bolos were all Morale 4’s (needing 4+ to pass ) which saw a number run retire or rout ..and this felt right for the scenario . They were short on squad LMG’s and no artillery .

The Bolo army retreating eastward to a rail line .

 

The local Cheka are mobilised at the sound of firing 

The sailors try to man a vessel coming under fire from White naval units 

The armoured train arrives to provide more support 

 

The massed ranks of the Cossacks arrive 

Charging on they come 

Overunning a Bolo Maxim 

  

The Red Cavalry evaded away from the Cossack hordes 

The Bolo infantry rolled well for movement and were able to outpace some of the attackers 

White naval assetts hit the retreaters 

It looks great and somewhat scary when it’s heading towards you .. it fired a few shots  hitting nothing! But that was its first game .

A number of Bolo units were shooting very well causing significant Cossack casualties, over 30% of the overall attackers . The Bolo cavalry managed to escape being overrun  and regrouped having taken only one casualty. The White forces decided to not press the attack and 3 Bolo infantry units escaped to fight again . The train has had an outing and its presence put the White commander off advancing further , 

We tried a change to STEA system . Rather than activating by particular unit , we used the Bolt Action dice draw and you  could pick . I will make up some MDF tokens to use rather the dice for future use . This speeded thing up nicely , and we used the STEA rules for everything else . It was a good game , not as disjointed as some STEA can get . It also looked the part 

We are doing a very large game in November at the Battleground show . My last job is to paint up the die cast aircraft I have for the Bolos once the large decals have turned up . 

The army stats used .