Austrian Hungarian Legation Peking Blues

Our "little" side project continues to grow. This week we tried a different scenario. We are still suffering a lack of buildings but this is gradually being addressed but we are still using some of our rather dodgy mdf types. The objective being to polish the rules and generate a scenario to the point we can run through a game with half a dozen players. The Men Who Would Be Kings (TMWWBK)  rules already cover most situations, but we wanted to make some tweaks to suit our circumstances.

This time we are testing out our machine guns. In this case an Austrian Skoda (there was at least one at Peking, possibly two) and a Royal Navy Nordenfeldt (but due to a technical fail this was a Gattling model). The Scenario revolves around a relief attempt by the British to reach and rescue the Austrians in their Legation - which for this game is a walled compound. The Austro Hungarians have one unit plus the Skoda, the Brits two units of Marines and a Nordenfeldt.

Initial table - Austrians in the Compound, Brits enter at other end of the table

Initially everything was quiet, however this changed as the British advanced. As they approached the choke point of the canal bridges the Boxers started to appear, mostly massing at the other side of the bridges, but also to the flank. The flanking troops were ruthlessly cleared by the nearest Marines, and the Boxers, driven by the "Mr Babbage" system from TMWWBK seemed happy to just mill around cautiously around the bridges.

This gave the Austro- Hungarian mg a target - even if at long range, and they "had a go". The Skoda M93 is a typical A-H piece of technology - fine in principle but practically hamstrung by a minor and wholly predictable problem - in this case the gun ammunition is fed by a manually loaded chute on top, so the practical rate of fire is quite limited - about a quarter of what a (then) modern Maxim (or US Colt) could achieve.

The other problem with the Skoda was the junior officer was rated as a Brutal leader, which caused a -2 discipline modifier for the gun. As firing requires the unit to pass a discipline test this was not great, increasing the target number from 6 plus to 8 plus on 2d6. Even so, they managed to hit one Boxer unit hard and pin it down. Meanwhile the sailors who made up the main part of the garrison manned the barricade at the gate and fired down the street at the Boxers. The range was long, but a couple of hits from an unexpected direction pinned the Boxers.

At this point it was looking ok for the Legation. The Boxers were pinned between the admittedly desultory fire from the Legation and the volleys of the Marines and Sailors.

and then...

A unit of Boxers appeared at the corner of the wall, close to the Skoda gun. The gun commander ordered the gun to turn to engage, but the crew, possibly scared into helplessness by the brutish officer,  failed to respond. Happily the Boxers also seemed to be struck down by indecisiveness and they hesitated. All over the Legation a sigh of relief was heard - both sides had bungled. The Austro Hungarian Sailors redeployed towards the threatened wall.

Which is what "Mr Babbage" - the game's simplified system for managing the Boxers actions - was waiting for apparently. You test each time you move a unit to see if this generates more enemy, and almost as though scripted a unit of Boxers appeared directly at the barricaded gate.

The sailors turned and fired into the advancing Boxers as they crossed the barricades, pinning them. Meanwhile the Boxers outside the wall took this as their signal and rushed to the wall. The Skoda had them at point blank range, and passed it's firing test - and rolled 5 "1s" - a jam and no casualties caused!

The Boxers swarmed the wall and killed the crew as they tried to un-jam the gun.

The sailors turned to try and stop them, but it was too late and the garrison troops were caught, fighting bravely but being overwhelmed and destroyed.

As the Boxers set fire to the Legation it became clear the rescue attempt had failed. The Marines and Sailors fell back, the game clearly over.

Well, almost. The Nordenfeld gun had played little part in the battle so far, which suited its commander very well as he was a coward - he had to attempt to keep his unit out of charge range of the enemy. Unfortunately the Boxers were not going to cooperate forever, and a rather aggressive group burst from around the buildings and attacked and killed the gunners as they tried to retreat with their gun.

That was the last act of our game. Boxer casualties had been quite heavy - at least two units were wiped out by the European's fire, but the loss of the Legation building was a terrible blow. A great game was had, and thanks to Sam, Paul and Charlie for taking part.

That should be our last Boxer game for a while - looking forward in anticipation to both Blood Red Skies from Warlord, and What a Tanker from Two Fat Lardies, and I expect these will be taking up my time for the next few weeks.

Aim low part 2

Quick update - yup I got the other 3 buildings done - here is Luigi Berlesconi and his brave shipmates moving down the street

and I was thinking about the walls for my Legation.

As Richard Sharpe would say - "Aim low, fire more often"

The internet is a wonderful thing. It allows us to see and share our projects, the materials and techniques we use, and in doing so can be a great source of inspiration. Have a look here and you can see what I mean Canister & Grape blog  Superb work.

Musing a while however, I am also aware that there is also a danger of making comparisons with others projects, and finding yours wanting, becoming disillusioned with the result of another shelved project. This has happened to me countless times in the past.

Looking back at those Boxer Rebellion buildings I mentioned in the last blog post, it is fair to say they are OK, but not great. Of course I would like to be great, and I probably possess some of the skills (not all) to improve them. The question is, because they are not great, should I spend time and money making them better or plough on accepting "not Great" is "good enough"?  I could source some plastic tiled roof sections and incorporate them? Get some resin accessories? Buy in some mdf windows and doors etc?

I'm going to say "no" to all that at the moment, because above all else I've come to the conclusion that although they will never be up to a demonstration standard, what I really need now is to plough on and make the most \ best of what I\we have now so we have enough to make the game work. I can always come back and rejuvenate them at a later date, but for now what I want is volume, not accuracy. They're "good enough" for now

So how to progress? This afternoon, assuming the snow allows, I will spray another three buildings with the hope of getting them finished tonight. That's a bit ambitious I think, but time will tell.

Planning slightly further ahead I'm going to investigate using the same basic buildings as the more imposing Legation buildings. It may seem strange but the offset between the size and scale of the  buildings and the table area means any attempt at a realistic model is doomed to failure. That being said all we need is something representative, and having accepted that, maybe there is some use to be had recycling the old carcasses . I'll stare meaningfully at them tomorrow and see what I can come up with.

No corner left uncut - Boxer Rebellion Buildings

Sometimes I have some stupid ideas. As I mentioned a little while ago our club (Hartlepool Wargames Society) is looking for a social game - something a bit Beer & Pretzels that a lot of us can get around a table and enjoy. We were looking at Boxer Rebellion using "The Men Who Would Be Kings" (TMWWBK) from Osprey.

Last night we gave them a trial run, just using some odds and sods of terrain we have lying around. If we do decide to commit we will have a couple of building sessions - probably resulting in a "my Legation is bigger than Yours" contest :-)  At the moment however we have an embarrassing lack of suitably Oriental buildings - so much so that I borrowed a few from the nice and friendly proprietor of Asgard Wargames in Middlesbrough (Ste didn't need them as he will be shut today and I will return them tomorrow). Even then it became obvious that we will need more, but as we were just messing about on a scratch table we dug out some old mdf buildings that were lying around. These had been rushed off some time ago for a Bolt Action tournament ran by one of our members. Frankly they are as rough as a badgers arse, and painted primer grey, but beggars can't be choosers and we have dozens of the things unloved and unused.

The game went well as a first test, and we are going again tonight with up-scaled forces and more players, but as I was packing up last night I found myself staring at our unloved Bolt Action buildings - could they be converted to use for China in 1900?

The reason I thought it may be possible was the windows - which were more grill like than usual. The roofs are a bit too high and regular but that's a bridge that can be crossed later.

I was lucky enough in my first years at secondary school (back in the 1970s) to be taught woodwork by a Gent called Lawrence Marshall, who coincidentally happened to be my uncle - well sort of anyway, it was complicated. Mr Marshall, as all the 12 year old boys called him, was a man with a terrifying reputation but who turned out to be a superb teacher who taught us how to use our tools with care and attention, take our time,  measure twice, cut once. Sadly this was going to be the exact opposite as I only had a couple of hours between work tasks. At lunch time I grabbed a building I had brought home on the off chance, a pot of PVA, some coffee stirrers and a pair of side clippers and decided to have a go - the aim being to convert one before this evening's rerun. No frills, no measuring, working as fast as I could with minimum tools or prep and just a Mk 1 eyeball and TLAR (That Looks About Right). Mr Marshall would not approve.

An hour later and I was looking for some roofing material - and discovered some corrugated card in the loft. In a total frenzy and a short time later not one, but two buildings were "done".

Inspired or possessed I grabbed a couple of cans of spray and "went for it". Primer white walls, Army painter Fur roof, some really crap US imported suede to base (that stuff is awful).

4:30 and the US spray is still wet, but bugger it I am committed so some very quick drybrushing and detailing.

5.00pm done

And incidentally I also did some more "normal" work AND made a rather fine Toad in the Hole for our tea (Dinner if you are Southern), watched "Pointless" on BBC 1 and was out the door at 6:00pm to taxi my ageing mother to her devotions at the local Bingo before heading down to the club for the game.

Here are the two finished buildings with some Legation defenders

Then at 7pm our game began. Sadly due to my misreading of the rules it ended very badly for the Legation troops who were trying to silence a Boxer battery - they got cut off and cut up amid the ruins of buildings burned in the earlier riots - here is the high water mark as Austro-Hungarian and Italian sailors vie for the glory of reaching the guns first. All the figures are from the Boxer Rebellion range available from Andy C at Old Glory.

I'm rather pleased with the buildings. I still think the pitch of the roof is wrong, but they now look slightly more Oriental, and with a little more care I think they will do just fine - now all I need is the Tartar City Wall and a couple of Legations building and..............

and Stop Press! As I was spreading PVA and cutting coffee stirrers I talked on Skype to the multi talented Dave Gray about the possibility of doing a laser cut roof to convert out BA buildings, and quick as a flash he came up with this - it is a new roof and detailing set. Rather nice I think - Well Done  Dave!

Size Matters - Scale Creep and Pasta

OK I have to say from the outset this is a bit ranty. I also have to say there is no suggestion I could do better as a putty pusher, but this has got under my skin and I need to vent.

Why are figures getting bigger?

As a side project I've been working on some Boxer Rebellion Great Powers units. The plan is to have a go at 55 Days at Peking in 28mm as a club game using a varient on The Men Who Would Be Kings rules (TMWWBK). I already had some Old Glory Austrian Sailors. These represent the landing party from the Cruiser Zenta. Old Glory's range is several years old and a nominal 25mm, but in reality they are on the large side which means they pass easily with most "modern" 28mm .

At this point I should add OG were a bit "cute" with their Boxer range - as far as I can tell the Italian and Austrian Sailors they do are the same bodies but with a head- swap. Worse things happen at sea. The other issue is the posing - OG have gone for some very dynamic running poses, even to the point of one guy running with his rifle to his shoulder in a firing pose - very strange. And while I'm on the subject the packaging from OG is very inflexible - you get 30 in a bag, usually an Officer pose and 5 "normal" guy poses. One last minor problem is OG don't make a Skoda M93 machinegun, which the Austrians had at the Legation, but this isn't a problem as Redoubt do, and their crew, although bigger than OG, are still close enough. Anyway I have had them a while and I rather like them. I also had the mixed Naval Arty crew OG do - again mostly headswaps.

So at Vapnartak in a moment of weakness I found myself buying a bag of Pom Pom guns from OG too. The twisted logic being use the arty crew plus some suitable Matelot gunners to make a 1Prd QF which the Italians had at Peking. This has so far went smoothly, so my next thought was "if you have the gun, why not get the Italian sailors to go with it??" Here I ran into a problem. OG only sell their figures in bags of 30 (as I mentioned earlier). In TMWWBK units are generally 12 strong, and in fact the whole Italian contingent at the Legation was only 29 men meant that buying a bag of Italian Sailors was going to be wasteful, so I thought I would shop around.

I discovered 2 other manufacturers of 28mm (note that) Boxer Rebellion era Italian Sailors - A fairly old Redoubt Miniatures range, and EMP miniatures, who had recently created a range using Kickstarter and these looked quite nice, so only needing a dozen, I decided to order them from EMPs "28mm Historical" range over the weekend. EMP were damned fast and the figures arrived today. I opened the package to discover 2 had broken rifles (in transit I assume) so I got on to EMP and they happily volunteered to replace them with no quibble. All good. Then I took a look at the figures, and another problem loomed - literally. They're HUGE. Not just in relation to the admittedly "25mm" OG figures, but also in relation to just about every other figure I have.  One of them stands 37mm tall! the rest a few mm less, but all so far past 28mm foot to eye as to be useless alongside other figures. Either pasta in the late 19th Century had powers to build the physique only dreamed about by modern bodybuilders, or there is a scale creep problem.  Here's a pic to explain far more than words can.

 L-R EMP, Old Glory, Redoubt (EMP stood behind) and EMP again.

As you can see the EMP figures are literally head and shoulders taller than Redoubt and OG, and yet are nominally the same "28mm" scale. And that's before you put them on a base.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. Actually I'm not - I'm going to go to OG and buy a bag of Italians from them, even if that means spending more and getting "spares". At least they will fit with the rest of the collection. This is a shame because the EMP figures are interesting if you ignore the size problems - there are some nice poses in there (but importantly no officer - another problem with them).

Anyway - Caveat Emptor and all that, but it does wind me up that figures are getting bigger and bigger for no apparent reason. Ah Well

Current Projects - Project Creep and Abstinence

Its been a bit quiet on the blog front - mainly due to Real World stuff, but also because I have been fairly single minded in trying to get some of the lead mountain painted and ready to play, so rather than hitting the keyboard I've been using a paintbrush.

I've also decided to pair down the number of games I'm buying into for a couple of months just to allow myself time to enjoy what I already have. This has meant some "culling" and abstaining from games that I would usually be very interested in. Current abstentions being Gangs of Rome, Dreadball 2, Tanks (ok not that hard to abstain as the game is DOA around here) and Dr Who.

The "Big Project" this year is going to be Stalingrad in 28mm for Chain of Command. To that effect I have been sticking together and assembling German Pioneers from Warlord Games, plus supports. The original plan has started to expand to include at least 4 tables of themed terrain - more on that later.

The "new" project is going to be Blood Red Skies - assuming it takes of (geddit?) I think this is a no-brainer because unlike a lot of games where the rules are an excuse to sell minis or jump on a franchise these rules were developed by that Andy Chambers bloke because he thought WW2 dogfighting hadn't been done properly. They have been his pet project for years - the delay has been down to him trying to convince games manufacturers there is a market. Having tried them, I have to say I think theyre pretty darned good and am therefore getting ready for the release in April.

And the dark horse is .............. Boxer Rebellion in 28mm. I've been looking for a multi player \ Beer & Pretzels type game I can run at our local club - Hartlepool Wargames Society. I saw some "fun" games of Rourkes Drift run at Asgard Wargames at Middlesbrough and using "The Men Who Would Be Kings" rules and thought they would work well for Boxers - so I'm slowly prepping for that too.

That's about all for the mo - some pics of work in progress to follow once I get that damned Heinkel sawed up :-) 

Musings on models - production and the future

I'm busy tooling up for a Stalingrad campaign using Chain of Command in 28mm along with a couple of friends Andy, Mark & Paul. Blogs from a couple of them can be found here and here and are well worth a look.

Anyway we were exchanging progress pics and I sent this one of some of my support options currently getting painted up. Left is a Perry Miniatures Pak 38 in metal from their Afrika Korps range, centre is a Warlord Games leIG18, right is a Rubicon Models Pak 36 and lurking at the back is a Butlers Printed Models StuIG 33.

In between banter it struck me that this pic shows just how varied and diverse our supply of toys has become, and also highlights the way technology is moving forward, even for hobbyists like us. The Perry and Warlord models are "traditional" metal, mastered (I assume) by hand from plasticard, brass rod and greenstuff then converted into production models and cast in a centrifugal casting machine. That can mean mould lines, flash and warping (though mercifully both were almost free from those) They're sold in plastic blister packs with only a generic card back.  They're both very nice too, but are still being made the way we've been making wargames models for the last 50 years and if we had the talent you or I could set up with limited outgoings and do the same (though clearly not as well) from the garage. In fact the only thing that has changed about the whole process as far as I can tell since I started wargaming in the late 1970s is the packaging, which once upon a time would probably be a zip lock bag or cardboard box.

The Rubicon Pak 36 is a CAD (Computer Aided Design) model, digitally mastered which has then been converted to an injection moulded plastic kit. Detail is therefore precise and crisp. This is a big step up both in technology and scale of production. The mould needed to produce this kit is very expensive (relatively) and therefore only viable with production runs spin casters could only dream of. Injection moulding brings more detail and precision - unlike spin casting every model should be the same, and flash and mould lines are minimal. The kit is packaged "commercially" in a full coloured printed box with printed instructions. This is a quantum leap ahead of the other two, though you could reasonably argue that when viewed at the distance you would when they were on the table you would be hard pushed to tell the difference.

The Butlers StuIG is a 3d print. It's also the budget option. In all honesty the detail is ok but not great - in fact it is positively poor on the running gear particularly, and there are areas where it has failed to print such as the front tracks, but as you can see, it painted up well enough. I'm not going to harp on about 3d printing being the next big thing - I did that a few years ago when I first saw the Shapeways aircraft for Wings of War. The difference is that 3d printing is now within the reach of "Joe Wargamer" - in fact I know of at least two local chaps who have taken the plunge and got 3d printers. At the moment this is still an art or craft rather than a full on manufacturing capability, but assuming the usual laws of cost and capability continue, we will see both costs fall and quality rise on home 3d printing - then, well who knows?

I suppose I should mention prices. All the guns came in at around £12-£13 including crew (3 on the leIG, 4 on the Pak38 and 5 on the Pak 36) The StuIG was also £12. At the time I ordered it I thought it was the only model of this vehicle available in this scale but I later found out Company B do one - albeit for £30ish.