Why all the hate? Warlord games "Epic Scale" ACW

Warlord Games have sprung a bit of a surprise recently by announcing their new "15mm" American Civil War range for their "Black Powder" game. The fanfare accompanying the announcement was well coordinated, including a free sprue of miniatures on the front of January's Wargame Illustrated - available now in December for reasons which I don't really understand. I grabbed one and I like what I see.

The main bullet points are these are hard plastic, and instead of individual figures the infantry are strips of ten men standing shoulder to shoulder. Each sprue has ten such strips - one Command, then a mix of two other infantry strips. The sprue also includes a gun and crew, and a mounted officer. So each has 100 infantry and a gun and crew. Both sides are getting the same sprue but on release the Union will be coloured blue, the Confederates Grey as I understand it.

The announcement has been followed by a large amount of hostile posts in the online wargaming community. These posts have broken down into a couple of broad themes, mainly "proprietary scale" and "wrong" equipment. 

The scale thing does have some validity from a certain point of view. The nominal size in the press releases is 15mm. 15mm is a traditional and industry size (not scale) and very popular for ACW due to games like the excellent "Fire and Fury". The issue is that these figures are 13.5mm foot to eye, 15mm to top if head \ hat. That puts them distinctly on the small side - they're not compatible with other "15mm" which tend towards 15mm foot to eye, indeed some are stretching to 18mm. I can't work out why Warlord bothered to mention it to be honest, but it does give plenty of ammunition to anyone wanting to call "foul". If they had said "Epic" scale and leave it at that then I'm sure there would be (slightly) less uproar.

The equipment thing is also a bit more valid. The sprue is going to be the same for both sides - i.e. the only difference is going to be paint. The figures are dressed in a mix of headgear - kepi and slouch hat on the same strip. OK this isn't strictly correct according to the manuals, however it isn't a big stretch of the imagination to say they would and could be mixed headgear on campaign. 

All this is missing the point I think. For those of us who are complaining they don't fit with our current collections, IT ISNT MEANT TO! Love them or loath them this is Warlord making a product to fit their Black Powder range and for that game only. It's a bit like complaining that your draughts pieces are the wrong shape to play chess with. 

The real issue here is just how damned good they look. I love Fire and Fury, and similar ACW games, and played them extensively in 15mm. The problem is no matter what basing scheme you use your representation of a Regiment \ Brigade \ Battalion or whatever always broke down to looking like a half dozen bases with three or four figures on each - like those episodes of Sharpe on TV when thirty guys are pretending to be the whole South Essex battalion. The visual effect you get with these with 20 figures on a 60mm base is bloody good. I'm looking hard at Regimental Fire and Fury - and indeed other rules like Sharp Practice where the main bases are elements, and wondering how they will play using these Warlord Epic bases instead. 

It's not just the figure count by the way. The shoulder to shoulder nature of the strips means these do look far more like a close order infantry formation than just about anything we have seen (excluding maybe 2-3mm blocks) because with "traditional" single based figures you struggle to get the impression of ranks and close order no matter how many you stick to your base.

I'm aware this is starting to sound like an advert so I will chuck a couple of criticisms in. The decision to use just one sprue for both sides isn't a good one. I can see why, but an all kepi sprue, or even a sprue with all the troops in a strip in uniform headgear would have been much more preferable. I'm also frowning at the decision to release the supporting models in "Warlord Resin" - the bendy resin that has been used on several Warlord projects now with mixed results. I don't like the idea of trying to clean up figures this small in that material. At all. I'm also unsure how good cavalry will look - I'm looking at the bases and thinking there will only be 5 to a base (assuming the bases are universal - which seems to be the case).

However that said I'm chucking my money at this. The starter set has literally thousands of infantry (2400 to be precise, and 24 guns) in there for an RRP of £90 that's amazing value -  the idea of representing units in 1-1 is do-able if you feel the urge. I've no idea how Black Powder plays, but I'm pretty sure it wont be beyond the wit of man to work out a way of using these for Fire and Fury or whatever, ether as a straight base for base swap or a 2 for 1 with the odd half base chucked in to deal with odd numbered units. Let's be honest, with figures this cheap you can easily justify the wastage that you would incur carving the strips in half if you wanted.

So there is my initial thoughts on this new Warlord "thing". I'm sure that if this works, like with the original 28mm plastic ranges, this will grow and grow, with AWI and Napoleonics being obvious candidates for the "Epic" treatment. 

Into the Zone (2) - err "Why didn't I think of that before?"

 OK I just had a brainwave of sorts. Why not 3d print my Zona Alfa crew? I don't have the skills to design models myself but HeroForge has a design your model function and they have a Black Friday sale on, so I thought, why not?

So I spent a very happy hour or two tinkering with them and then downloaded and printed the results. I was quite impressed. Detail is a bit soft but that is countered by the fact that they can be tailored to a very close approximation of what you imaging the character should be.

So here they are - quickly painted using new "contrast" paints. I'm not overjoyed with the results but I'm happy enough ith them not to want to redo them, so......

Fat Arkady

Little Pawel

Big Pavel

FiFi

Kaz

Each stl. cost £3 in the sale - normally twice that I think, so £15 for the files and maybe £2-3 in resin is not too bad. To be honest if I never use them I have had a great time messing about designing them - HeroForge is loads of fun to play with. 

So the Crew is assembled and ready for our first trip into the Zone. I understand there is an abandoned Gaz Jeep somewhere down a forest path that may have something interesting in it. We're going to take a look. 

November painting challenge update and a strange rare bird

I set myself a target of painting 30 "engines" worth of Blood Red Skies models in November, and err, I failed. 

Ok not by much as I got as far as 28 but for some reason the last couple I just stalled. I think it was something to do with the fact they were going to be French Breguet 693 light attack bombers and they had that fiddly French 4 tone camo, but for whatever reason it didn't happen.

I did complete 8 Bf109fs and 7 Me262s and 6 Sturmoviks so that was not too bad a performance I suppose.

Today I have hit the target - ok 13 days late, but it is such a strange and pretty plane I thought I would do an update.

The plane in question is a Kyūshū Q1W Tokai , which translates as "Eastern Sea" but was given the much less prosaic reporting name "Lorna" by the Allies. 

I have to admit I had never heard of it before last week when it appeared as part of the Plane Printer Patreon that I subscribe to. It's a useful service where for a small monthly subscription you get access to models being released as stl files by the designer. Not having heard of a Plane Printer model is not that unusual as he tends to kick around in the long grass doing interesting but obscure, or at least not mainstream models. I regularly have to do a quick search to find out just what a particular release is, and this was no exception.

The Tokai is very interesting. Visually it looks like a copy of a shrunken Ju88, but it is nothing of the sort. This is the world's first purpose designed Anti Submarine Warfare aircraft. There is a lot of thought gone into the design too. Engines are optimised for low speed fuel economy, to allow the Tokai to loiter on station for longer, and it has a surprising array of black boxes, including Radar, Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) and Electronic Support Measures (ESM) - basically everything you would expect in a modern Long Range Maritime Patrol aircraft such as an Orion. The problem was the Radar. Japan was pretty advanced in the theory, but less good at getting a set to work reliably. This caused a delay in the Tokai entering service from 1943 to 1945. The Tokai was probably a world beater, but the slow speed meant it was also an easy kill for any fighter, and by 1945 the Allies were dominating the skies around Japan.  

So here it is - still needs a coat of matt but quite cute, and finally 30 engines done :-)

  

Loot Boxes in computer games. My World of Tanks experience

In case you don't know , many computer games have "loot boxes". These are items purchased for real money that contain something useful or desirable in the game. They're gambling, pure and simple, and as there is no way to prevent children buying them, they are about as dodgy as they can be. Only Belgium in the EU has had the balls to actually say so and ban them (well done Belgium).

All that stern finger wagging aside I have to admit once a year I do succumb and during the Christmas event in World of Tanks I treat myself to a bundle of these. I regularly play WoT and used to pay a monthly subscription for a "premium" account plus a little extra for in game "goodies". However the structure of the loot boxes (sorry "Christmas boxes") in WoT is that they're guaranteed to include some "Gold" (in game currency) and Premium account time. The last two years I have checked the accumulation of these and have happily discovered that the "value" of a big bundle of these loot boxes in Gold and Premium account time has easily exceeded the amount I would have spent on my monthly premium subscription, so I can justify my gambling as a money saving exercise. Probably.

The other hook of WoT Loot boxes is they can include at random a new Premium tanks. Premium tanks give increased credit returns in games, and cam also be used to train crews for "normal" vehicles. If you play WoT regularly you tend to pick a couple up.  The Christmas ones are not usually available by other means and yes, it means if you want one, you have to buy boxes with no guarantee of getting the one you want. Like I said, gambling pure and simple. Normally for me this isn't a problem - as I explained I don't buy the boxes for this reason, so anything I get is a bonus. Normally....

This year there was a British Premium tank destroyer as one of the three exclusive vehicles. This is the GSOR1008* - a tank that didn't exist except on paper (lots of that in WoT) . And I desired it. Looking at the initial reviews this looks like a very Gucci piece of kit and  will make a good addition to my collection. Problem is, what if I don't get one, or get one of the other two exclusives - you cant swap or trade them. If I got to the end of my bundle and no GSOR, would I buy more and roll the dice, or just say "it was  not to be"?

So I bought my big bundle of boxes, and for the first time felt a little anxious - Did I feel lucky? and I started to open them.

75 boxes cost £85.55 (gulp). You get a 33% discount if you bulk buy (of course).  A full year of Premium time costs £68.72 but I do tend to top up a little through the year as I sometimes buy things with gold so I usually spend maybe a tenner a month (ish).

Box no 3 kicked in the special animation that suggested I had one of the exclusive Premium tanks - excitement mounted but sadly this was the ISU152K - close but no cigar. 

Box no 27 - same animation but this time a GSOR!!! phew.

Onwards and 8 later I got the Bison - the last of the exclusive tanks - so a full house and feeling quite pleased with myself, and still 30 to go.

In the end in addition to the three exclusives, I got:

30k Gold - equivalent of £84.44 to buy, 72 days of premium account (somewhat disappointing) and about 4 million in silver - the lesser in game currency. I'm going to spend some of the Gold to extend my premium account to next Christmas. 

So not too bad.  

However I still think this system is gambling and really should be banned or restricted. I'm sure quite a few parents are going to wake up to a big bill 'cos little Johnny has been pressing the "buy" button on a game account his dad has linked a payment method to.  

*GSOR (I think) is General Staff Ordnance Requirement 

Pearl Harbor Part 3 - decisions, thoughts and ramblings

I thought I would run through some of the thinking and reasons that went into the game.

Firstly this was pretty much planned on the back of a fag packet. We were chatting in The Ready Room on Facebook about the coming anniversary less than a week ago and I thought, why not?

Well not having any models was a start I suppose. Actually I did. I have a squadron of Vals printed for me more than a year ago by Paul Davison. They're a very basic model scaled up to 1:200 from 1:300 and although proportionally very nice they lack almost all details. They were a pain to clean up, but they did paint up ok in the end I suppose. Decals were from the spares box - mostly Warlord but others thrown in.

The Nevada I didn't have, but I do now have a 3d printer of my own so a quick search on Wargaming 3d got me a 1:1800 scale Nevada for $7 which printed quickly and cleanly. It's not quite the right model as it is the post Pearl Harbor refit, but it will do.

I quickly painted it in an approximation of the 1941 blue scheme. 1:1800 is probably about right as a target marker, or possibly a bit small. I suppose I could have scaled the stl up but I'm planning on playing Victory at Sea in 1:1800 so I will donate the finished model to Paul as he collects US ships in that scale.

The sea map is from Warlords Victory at Sea starter set. I roughly cut the land masses out of brown wrapping paper - I had intended to do a nice full colour version but work got in the way so brown paper and scissors it was - John Noakes would approve. He probably would chide me for using low tack tape to hold the land masses in place, because it wasn't quite low tack enough and some of the paper map surface was damaged removing it - Doh!

As usual I just used my old phone camera on this one - I have a much nicer camera but this was not intended as a big production, hence the dodgy pics :-) 

The scenario itself is quite interesting. Nevada was a very old design from pre WW1 so I didn't think it reasonable to class her as a standard Battleship in Airstrike. In the end I dropped the "Hardened" trait, and because the ship was slowed by the torpedo damage and was in very narrow waters I decided to reduce the effect of "Mobile" trait to -1 not -2. The Vals were all rated as Pilot Skill 3. You could argue they should be better as they were the cream of the crop, and had practiced their role in the attack for many, many hours. 

On the other hand the second wave of Vals were apparently not armed with armour piercing bombs. The plan was for this second wave to target the less well protected cruisers and destroyers so standard 500 lb bombs were used. The Val was an excellent aircraft but one weakness was it could not carry a 1000lb bomb, unlike it's US and German counterparts. If Nevada had been under attack by Ju87s I don't think she would have had any chance at all. 

As the Vals arrived over Ford Island they spotted Nevada making her slow way out and instead of pushing on to their assigned targets decided to try and sink the much more prestigious Battleship. It has also been suggested that they wanted to sink her in the narrow channel so as to block the harbour mouth, but I'm not sure how much of that is a cover story for what was a collective rush of blood to the head. 

Pearl Harbor is full of "what if" situations, but I wonder if the decision by a significant portion of the second wave dive bombers to attack Nevada and the destroyer Shaws which was in a floating dock so looked much more impressive than she actually was, rather than the very vulnerable and tightly packed cruisers in dock a stones throw away. Everyone knows the US Carriers were absent on the day and this in part allowed the USN to strike back through them only six months later, however I wonder if the carriers would have been committed without the support of the cruisers that escaped damage on Dec 7th due to Nevada & Shaws drawing in so many Vals. We will never know of course, but it's interesting to speculate.  

Pearl Harbor - Nevada's escape Part 2 - the game

So I set up a small table to represent the bottom end of Ford Island and the channel out to the sea. This was pretty much an unplanned project so the land areas were represented by hastily drawn and cut out templates on brown wrapping paper - if I were to do this again I will do better! 

My model USS Nevada sailed heroically out, and was immediately attacked by the first of three flights of Val Dive bombers.

The first flight pressed home their attacks from astern into the teeth of fierce AA fire from the old Battleship. The first bomb missed, but then the second scored a Critical hit, costing Nevada a hull point and a point hit, reducing her AA capability from 3 to 2 dice. This could not have happened at a worse time as three more Vals were screaming down, scoring two more hits. All the attackers escaped unscathed and Nevada was in serious trouble as the second flight attacked from the starboard bow.

The second wave must have been feeling lucky - but this was not the case. As each of the five Vals began their dives the AA gunners again did their utmost to bring them down. The second attacker was hit and damaged, and the fourth shot down into the sea alongside the burning battleship and another was seen limping away trailing flames as it was hit on it's way out of the target area. No bombs hit the target in return. One attack to go......

One Val that won't make it home

The third and decisive attack

The third flight attacked. Again the Nevada put up a brave defence, shooting down two of the attackers but this time her luck ran out, and another Critical hit took away her last hull point. For narrative purposes I decided to allow her to be sunk in the shallow waters off Hospital Point.  

Beached but recoverable

Okay, so as a solo game in many ways this is an exercise in dice rolling, however having been in lock-down for months I was ready for something just like this, and I enjoyed myself immensely. 

Last part will be just a clearing up and a few thoughts on the game 

Pearl Harbor anniversary - Nevada's escape Part 1 - History

We all know about Pearl Harbor - or at least we really should know at least something as it is one of the pivotal events in the history of the last 100 years. We often try to re-enact historical battles as wargamers and as the anniversary loomed up I was pondering that attack and how it was such a one sided battle that it had little gaming interest. The Imperial Japanese Navy was very active and the United States Navy surprised and mainly just sat and took hit after hit. The USN did fight heroically, but with one hand tied behind it's back. So not much of a game for two players. Unless of course you happen to be in a lock-down situation where opponents are not easy to find. A little bit of basic research showed that there were in fact plenty of scenarios that could be played out as a solo game using Blood Red Skies \ Airstrike.  I fixed on the attempt of the Battleship USS Nevada to escape the confines of the harbour and out to the supposed safety of the open sea. 

Nevada attempts her breakout

Nevada was an old ship, launched just before WW1 started and designed in an age before air attack was even considered a threat to a Battleship. She was refitted between the wars but this did little to improve her horizontal protection, which was marginal at best. The refit did however improve her anti torpedo defences, something that came in very handy at around 8.10am on Sunday December 7th when she was hit by a torpedo dropped from an attacking Kate bomber from the first attack wave. The hit caused flooding but was not immediately fatal. 

Unlike the other battleships anchored in Battleship Row, Nevada was not moored to another ship. Also, the watch officer Ensign Joe Taussig had decided to run up the second set of boilers that morning - usually only one would be in use in port at any time, but Taussig was planning to switch them that morning as an exercise. These two coincidences probably saved the ship. As the attack developed Nevada was able to reverse out of her position and make way for the open sea where she would no longer be caught like a fish in a barrel. The torpedo hit caused some flooding, but not enough to jeopardise the ship. She steamed past the blazing wrecks of the rest of the Pacific Fleet Battle squadron, raising the badly shaken morale of everyone that saw her. 

Just before 9am she was clearing the bottom of Ford Island when the second wave of Japanese aircraft arrived, and was promptly attacked by three groups of Val dive bombers. 

Aichi D3A "Val"

She fought on, receiving numerous hits, the most serious of which caused a major fire around the main armament magazine. In another fortuitous coincidence the magazine had been cleared of shells in readiness for a resupply with newer shells planned for that afternoon, so unlike the Arizona, there was no magazine detonation. The ship was seriously damaged and bomb hits had started serious flooding, so the ship was grounded near Hospital Point.

Nevada grounded and fighting the fires

In the aftermath she was re-floated and refitted, and went on to give sterling service providing fore support to landings, including at D-Day.

So that's the history. Now let's drop some bombs!