Six Year Plan - Mortal Gods hits the table, and why cards will strangle a game.

So in 2019 I was playing Impetus in 28mm (great game) and Mortal Gods from Footsore Miniatures* was released. As I already had some Persians I thought Hoplites? "Why not?" So I split the starter set with my mate Paul and then ............... got distracted. The plastic hoplites got given away and the rules sat idle.

Then a few weeks ago Rob and Mark suggested we get into a small scale historical skirmish - they suggested Saga, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow. I'm not a fan of Saga. 

While the Saga wheels were slowly turning I remembered Mortal Gods and mentioned it - and was surprised that both Rob and Mark had it but had never played. So we decided to give it a go.

AND - it's been fun. We've played twice now and will be introducing them to our games group next week.

The rules are a development of Test of Honour, but they certainly have quite a lot more hidden under the hood and don't have the problems I remember with power creep that ToH succumbed to (IMHO).

One positive now we are playing is just how small the forces are. The rules say the usual 12-20 figures a side, but as we are initially only playing 225 points it's looking very much on the 12 figures end of the scale. I can probably paint that in a week. The group bases were easy enough to manage now I have a 3d printer (yes everything is a 3d printer problem when you have one)

AND - there's the rub. The starter set is now out of print. The game relies on a number of cards. Stat cards, Omens, Wound Cards, and Gifts (special abilities). Back in 2019 when this was released cards were all the rage. EVERYTHING had cards, and some of them were even limited availability just to encourage the FOMO \ Gotta catch them all thing. Luckily Mortal Gods didn't, but it did rely heavily on cards to carry the info that in the past would maybe be handled by army lists and playsheets. This is a bugger if you want to introduce a game to a new player "It's great but you cant play without the cards so tough" etc

So now I'm speculating (based on conversations with folks in "The Industry") but cards are expensive. Compared to the other content, printed materials are a major cost factor. You can't do without rules, and playsheets are pretty much essential, but other printed "stuff" like cards or counters ain't cheap. Plastic figures - what usually draws the punters in, is ridiculously cheap to manufacture once the frame \ mould is created. I'd wager in many cases the cardboard box almost costs more than the figures inside. Here the Mortal Gods starter set was already in a happy place because the project was a collaboration with Victrix, who had already made the Hoplite and other figure sprues. The problem is the Mortal Gods starter had 163 cards in there. When Footsore planned the game they will have bought x sets of cards, which would be enough for their expected production run. No idea, but let's say a thousand just to work with. They got the printing done at a bulk discount, but what happens when you sell them all? Crap! You probably can't expect to sell another thousand sets any time soon as the peak demand will have passed, but printing cards in smaller batches is going to ramp up the costs. So cards strangle wargames. 

Footsore have obviously realised this and have converted the info on the cards into a more traditional roster system and tables. They have done the same with their Gangs of Rome game which in v1 released with lots of individual cards but now have shifted to playsheets and roster sheets for v2. 

So I've bought some Hoplites and will hopefully be playing some more games soon.

*It's a skirmish \ warband game set in Ancient Greece, a little bit like Warlord's SPQR except it works . I forgot to explain that !

Feeling slightly "icky" - Volkssturm & JoJo Rabbit

I was looking for some support for my new VolksGrenadier and I noticed they had the option if fighting on home soil of taking a Volkssturm squad. Very thematic, why not? 

I searched for some miniatures and in the end found some 3d files that fit the bill (JustSomeMiniatures). These were printed and I've got them painted over the weekend. 

To give me some inspiration I watched Jojo Rabbit. I love that film, its funny, poignant, shocking and all over brilliant. It even proves that Taika Waititi can actually direct a film without losing his thread, can do action scenes very well and his portrayal as Hitler is certainly different. The final battle scenes are superb and the historical look and feel is excellent - if seen through the eyes of a ten and a half year old boy.

AND that sort of hits the nail on the head. I've painted up my Volkssturm and they look great I think. Great that is if you think old men and children should be fighting a war. For the record the actual age of Volkssturm was supposed to be from 16-60 years of age, but in the end 10 and 12 year olds were involved. 

I'm not the most cerebral man when it comes to my wargaming. I have no problem building, painting and playing Germans (or Japanese) in WW2 games because I think we need to recognise and acknowledge the historical bit in historical games, though I don't "do" SS. I also don't shy away from the symbols, the German Swastika appears where it historically would because I think we should not shy away from that sort of thing. Let's face it, every soldier who fought for it was either killed, captured or surrendered so it represents nothing but abject failure and defeat. If it stands for anything it should be  reminder of a divided world uniting against tyranny, but at that point I'm rambling into some long and quite political grass.  Context is for Kings. Having said all that this squad has had me thinking.

Anyway what do people think? Should we represent things like Volkssturm in our games or is it a bit too far, and if not, what is?  

Also if you haven't already seen it, watch JoJo Rabbit!

Update on Ze Germans

In an earlier post I mentioned I had "picked up" a German Late War army for Bolt Action from Warlord Games, with the intention of using it for Chain of Command (why not?)

It took a while to get the painting started, but a bit of perseverance and I'm almost there.

For Chain of Command I decided I would go with VolksGrenadiers in late1944 \ spring 45. The organisation is as follows:

Senior Leader (the boss)

Grenadier Team - 3 Rifle-grenadiers

2 Assault squads - 8 StG44s

1 LMG Squad 8 troops with 2 MG42s formed into two LMG Teams

Not too much - only 28 miniatures as base. I decided to go with a pair of Panzerschreck teams as supports, as a glance at the ORBAT said "how many!!??", a tripod mounted MMG, a sniper, medic and Forward Observer. I am also going for a Hetzer (cos Hetzers gotta Hetz) and a Panther on the off chance I get a maximum support point game. No towed guns etc - I don't like painting horses and that's what the VolksGrenadiers get as transport in real life.

The army box didn't contain the Panzerschrecks, sniper or Hetzer but I was fairly confident I could source them elsewhere, or in the case of the Hetzer I already had a printed one. I thought I would 3d print some Panzerschreck tubes and add them to Warlord figures to fill that gap. 

So a month or so later and I'm almost there. My Panther still needs painting, as do the Medic and Sniper, but they're not going to be a big issue. My main problem is the MMG team, which for Bolt Action is only three guys but for CoC I'm going to need another two crew \ ammo bearers. I managed to banjax my original plan by simply using up all the kneeling bodies in the army box on the infantry squads (Doh!) so I'm scouting around. Other than that, I think I'm done.   

So what about using this in Bolt Action - is it possible? 

Yup - well, pretty much. I ran it through Easy Army , an online list builder, and with some jiggling it fits. I can run the same three squad organisation, though to get a pair of MG42s in the MG Squad I would have to split it in to two small squads and add an extra man to each - no problem as the three rifle grenadiers are not represented in Bolt Action so I can sub them as plain riflemen. The MMG is also a bit vexing in that under version 3 of Bolt Action they are bought as a Heavy Weapon Platoon with a minimum of two weapons - so I need either another MG42 on tripod or I can paint up the 8cm mortar team that doesn't appear in Chain of Command. I gave another option - drag my "Stalingrad" era MG42 into the game I suppose - will look a bit out of place due to the different bases but otherwise should be ok for now til I make a more long term decision. If I'm running with an armoured "platoon" I can take the Hetzer and Panther together. All that comes to easily 1200 pts plus in Bolt Action v3.

Do I need some more "stuff" for these? Reading CoC2 there are some missions where light armour is an advantage. I think a Sdkfz 250 would fit the bill, either a vanilla 250/1 or maybe a 250/9 with a 20mm?? 

So that's Ze Germans done for now. Not 100% sure what will be next but we will see

Cheers

I made a thing! Chain of Command ammo tracker

Will look better painted but I'm chuffed!

For Chain of Command V2 I needed a squad ammo tracker for my new Volksgrenadiers (update soon). Basically each squad starts with 2 Panzerfausts, three HE grenades, and one smoke grenade. Problem is I wasn't sure how to track them. 

My initial plan was to get a normal base and stick a micro dice "cage" into it, and a few bits of cut up models with a spare Faust etc. Drop a dice into the cage and use that to track usage. Simples!

OK a bit wasteful and faffy but it works. I'd need at least three for the squads and two different but similar ones for the Panzerschreck teams but again it was doable.

Then I got a bit thoughtful - could I print them?

So I've spent a few hours teaching myself basic technical jiggery pokery and have a result! OK none of the result is "original" - basically I am "remixing" free 3d .stl files and slapping them together, so not exactly rocket science, but for a 59 year old with almost no experience I'm pretty chuffed. Before you ask, the big plan is to use different coloured micri dice for the Fausts, smoke and Frags.

Ok more honesty - the Panzerschreck counter worked first time, but the squad ammo counter just turned into spaghetti  

Got the bit between my teeth now. I'm going to make a two die version with no Panzerfaust for the earlier Germans, and then maybe think about the Brits...... 

 

Ze Germans are Coming - Chain of Command 2

I've realised I sort of repeated myself with the last post, so this is something of a correction, or at least something with actual content.

I decided on VolksGrenadiers, thinking spring 1945 as I didn't want to have snow on the bases.  I did a trawl and realised Warlord were the only real source for suitable figures with enough StG44s to make up the platoon. I also worked out I would need an extra sprue or two to make the full platoon as a box of 30 wasn't quite enough. 

So I shopped around and decided that getting the Warlord Bolt Action Winter Starter Army was probably the best \ most comprehensive option. I don't really play BA but the box is great for CoC or any WW2 set of rules. There are some bits in there I wont need - ie the mortar team, but the rest is great.

So here is the box and it's contents. 

Metal bits - Command, MMG and Mortar etc

Open the box and its chock full of "stuff"

Lots of VolksGrenadiers

Opel Blitz \ Maultier

Instructions etc

Panzer IV H

Bases etc

So there's "enough" there. I don't really need the mortar team and I probably would have preferred a Hetzer or STuG to the Pz IV and Blitz, but they will always come in useful. It cost £78 from Zatu including postage.  Ok that's more than the £30 a box of Winter Germans would cost, but there's a lot of added value in there so I'm happy.

Now to get on with it and start glueing and painting. Wish me luck!

Starting Chain of Command 2

I'm a big fan of Chain of Command so when v2 was announced I was a happy but slightly concerned bunny. Happy because more CoC, concerned because I've seen many great rules set broken by "updates".

Not played yet, but on first, second and third reading the new rules look good - evolution and tweaks not revolution by the looks of it.

My gaming group have started building armies, and of course they went late war. I have Early War Dutch, Finns and Germans, and Mid War Germans and Russians. You can see the problem. I decided to give Late War a try and the initial thought was, "surely it should be easy to upgrade my Mid War Germans to Late War?" Oh you sweet summer child :-)

I've ended up buying everything. Ok this wasn't too bad as I picked up one of Warlord's Late Winter German starter armies at a reasonable cost and that has just about everything you would need. 

Almost

Anyway I've decided to go full Nazi and do VolksGrenadier complete with Assault Rifles - more on that later.

So look out for some build, paint and hopefully game updates soon.

Cheers

RIP BB

I recently learned about the passing of my old clubmate Brendan Brown. We had been out of touch for a while (more later). 

I first met BB at Hartlepool Wargames club in 1978 (something like that). He was a bit older than me, though not as much as I thought at the time. Brendan mostly played WW2 with Airfix models. And he had a massive selection of just about everything available at the time held in trays in what we called the cupboard at the club. On quiet nights I would sit and just marvel at them. He had just about everything . In fact it may be through that collection I first saw a Panzerfaust, held at an angle across the chest of a German soldier. Remember those days we rarely had access to books that went into that level of detail and of course no internet. He also had a couple of those 2.8cm AT guns that came with the early Airfix Germans and Africa Corps. All of this was assembled and painted in a fairly "agricultural" style as befits an early teen in the 70s. He favoured an old set of rules - something like Airfix but not - cant quite remember. He also didn't really like microtanks, which rapidly moved him out of my gaming sphere, though he did play a lot of the Hpool Club staple "Wonderful Islands" which was a sort of analogue version of modern computer games where you collect resources to build units to spread your empire etc. Lastly he was a regular in John Hendersons play by mail campaigns in "Hendermobileland" where he, John and Dave Pricket engaged in shenanigans of epic proportions including efforts to pervert John's carefully worked out economic game engines by selling chairs at a ridiculous price to avoid tax or something. Through Brendan and the like I got deeper into gaming - also taught myself how to type at lunchtimes in an empty classroom so I could produce my own campaign newspaper \ propaganda sheet that I distributed in the club. I also got caught using the school photocopier making copies and got into some trouble there, though with hindsight the teachers were probably quite happy to see one of their pupils doing something other than glue sniffing and joy riding. (to be fair I dont think glue would have much effect as I had been breathing it and enamel thinners in regularly due to Airfix!)

So I think he was my friend - he used to let me get on the bus he was driving for free so that's something. He was brash, loud, opinionated and, well, just like a lot of us I suppose.

We became distant later in life, mostly because I found his brand of politics shifting ever more to the right, while I shifted the other way. The last time I heard his voice was when he phoned in to LBC last year - wont go into detail.

Anyway, BB has gone. He's left behind the same massive collection of Airfix 20mm WW2 and some fond memories. 

Cheers