big hex wargames - part 2; Napoleon's Last Battles

And another vintage and great game. Napoleon's Last battles was designed by Kevin Zucker and published by SPI in the 1970's. I think it's a great game and still stands the test of time. It was a 'quad' game in that it was 4 individual games (each with less than 100 counters) which could be joined together to get a campaign game of the Waterloo campaign in 1815. 

In this picture is half of the overall campaign game map with my big version at the back and the originals at the bottom front. The two maps are Quatre Bras on the left and Lingy on the right. These two games make a great start to the campaign, with the French player having to make an important decison about where to send his 1st Corps. The other two game maps are Waterloo and Wavre and would add the same size map to the north (top) of these maps. 

And the counters for the game; 1/2 inch originals on the left and my home made versions on the right. All the home-made counters are scanned from the originals, printed and then mounted on 3mm foamboard which is very easy to cut. After scanning the counters, I added a coloured stripe at the bottom of the counter to indicate the corps or division. This helps to identify the units and their commanders for the command and control system in the campaign game. All this takes time, but the end result looks good on the table top. 

big hex boardgames - part 1; the Battle of the Bulge

No posts for a while. Simple answer really. A friend mentioned a couple of boardgames I liked, so painting was abandoned for a while in favour of pulling old and favorite boardgames from the shelves, setting them up and playing. 

But it also put me in mind of an ongoing project I have. I'm scanning the maps and counters of old classic games and then blowing up the maps and counters to double size. This means I can spread out a game on a 6 x 4 foot table and it can look quite impressive. Here are a couple of examples - photos of others will follow in due course.

First is Avalon Hill's classic Battle of the Bulge - the 1981 edition. My home made map is in the background and the orginal on top at the bottom. The original game has 16mm hexes and 1/2 inch counters. The big map is about 5 x 4 foot with double sized hexes.  

And the counters.  On the left are the original game's 1/2 inch counters and on the right my 1 inch counters. I took the strengths from the Battle of the Bulge 81 but took the counter artwork from another Bulge game; Bitter Woods, because each unit counter in that game has the divisional symbol on it. 

From the left and top to bottom are a German parachute infantry regiment, part of 2nd Panzer, part of Panzer Lehr and the panzer regiment of the 116th Panzer (the greyhounds). Column two contains 1st SS Panzer, a regiment of 12th SS, an infantry regiment from 352 division and a Werfer regiment. For the Allies in column 3 there is an artillery regiment, the 506th Parachute regiment from the 101st Airborne (the screaming eagles), CCA of 7th armoured and a regiment from 2nd Armoured. Last column has the British 33rd tank brigade and the 26th Infantry from the 1st infantry division (the big red one). 

More ancient history

Recently, I was looking through some shelves and papers for my copy of the Charge rules, but I think I've lost or parted with them. However, I did find these old books.  Anyone remember them?  :)

Not all are mine. My first copy was WRG 3rd Edition. This was still an era of Airfix plastic Romans and Ancient Britons though I did eventually progress to buying 6 Roman Legionaries from Minifigs. I was a long, long way from an ancient wargame at the time but I did put some plastic figures on bases and pushed them around.

Various other things and interests took over and the rules lay on a shelf. I returned to WRG with 6th Edition but still couldn't quite get into it. Then I met many gentlemen who are still my gaming opponents and got 7th Edition. I inherited the 4th and 5th editions in the picture but never read them. I got armies in 25mm and 15mm; Arabs and Selucids in both scales. At last, with 7th Edition, I was playing ancient wargames, though the rules gave me a good few headaches. At times I did wonder if these rules were meant to be fun - but thankfully a wargaming revelation was approaching....   

Day after Claymore

I visited the Claymore show in Edinburgh yesterday. An annual pilgrimage. It was OK, but nothing there really inspired me. There was a 28mm ECW game and a 15mm Crimean War game which looked reasonably interesting, but nothing for the horse and musket era in between. The only stuff I bought were paints and ready-cut bases. 

However, there was one thing that made me suspicious and just a little disappointed. There are very few boardgames at shows now, so I had a quick browse along the shelves of the one trader who had some games. There was a little sign that said 10% off. I looked at some games and then a copy of Command and Colors which I saw was priced at £50. I just stared - speechless.   

Pause - I have played Command and Colors with friends and have been thinking of getting my own copy. I know the current rrp of the game and what it sells for. And I already have the Napoleonic version.   

So - here's me looking at a game priced £50, and I know it has an rrp of £45 and usually sells for around £40. And then I'm thinking - this trader has inflated his prices so that when he 'generously' offers his 10% show discount he's actually selling the game for the rrp.  

It reminded me of Claymore last year, when a rather well-known Books seller inflated the prices of some rules sets. I reckon they just added what they'd normally add for postage, probably hoping that people standing with the product in their hand are not going to quibble about an extra 2 or 3 quid.  

And so - OK - maybe the traders are just offsetting expenses or transport costs, but it feels just a little like we're being ripped-off.     

GNW tail-end thought

Last week at the club, two chaps were playing FoGR in 15mm and using Danish vs Austrian/Empire, both armies from around the 1690's.  This is roughly the end date for FoGR, so just before things move fully into the horse and musket era. They used Dixon figures and some other bunch whose name I've forgotten.      

I didn't think I wanted to go 15mm for the GNW, but the mass of figures looked good on the tabletop.  I'm trying not to listen to the voices ... the Claymore show is on in Edinburgh this weekend ... but I'm nearly sold on doing armies in 15mm. 
      

GNW work in progress

Work continues. Now added black to hats and shoes and the chappies are now looking almost complete.  Apologies for the quality of the photo ... I will get better at this bit. 

And other GNW stuff I'm trying to push forward at the same time.  At the front are artillery figures for battalion guns.  The idea here is that a battalion gun base will have 1 artilleryman (blue uniform) and 1 seconded infantryman with a 3 or 4 pdr gun.  In game terms, they will just be another unit, but I wanted to have lots of colour variation.     

At the back are the generals. I wasn't quite sure what to do here to avoid any strict sense of uniforms so I have the chaps in white, red, straw yellow and blue.  The idea is that the general officers are really pleasing themselves what they wear.  And gold lace, lots of gold lace. Anything not covered in lace should probably be covered in more lace.  Initially I used a pale gold, but after looking at one figure I thought, nah! - too pale - needs to be brighter, and so a bright gold was used. The chap in the red will be the grand fromage - or whatever the Danish equivalent should be - le grande bacon, perhaps. 

Memoirs of a Napoleonic gamer - part 31

Rules sets everywhere!
I've skipped ahead a bit in this saga - but it's just to show how absurd the Napoleonic wargame scene is just now. Maybe it applies to whole gaming scene.

Last week at the club we spoke about a new set of rules called March Attack. They looked quite good in the hard copy which a friend had. Essentially they looked to me very much like the Advanced Shako ideas before they were simplified into Shako 2. I thought I might like to try them. 

This friend also had a copy of the new Warhammer book Waterloo. This is a big glossy production, aimed at 28mm Napoleonics. Other than the eye-candy, I didn't look too much at the rules - but they seem just another typical set of 28mm rules.         

We also spoke about a new set of rules and figures coming out of Spain - Napoleon at War.  Another very glossy set (very nice indeed), and aimed at 15mm and very influenced by the Flames of War experience. You can buy the rules and boxed sets of miniatures with bases direct from Spain. And this week the friend showed up with the rules and a box of French infantry. The rules also look a bit FoW-ish. Nothing wrong with that at all - except it's yet another set of rules. The other (slight) problem with these rules is that they use a non-standard basing system, so players are just going to have to use their existing based collections or face a lot of rebasing. But then I think - old Napoleonic gamers are not the real target audience here - it's gamers new to the Napoleonic era who can get everything they need from one supplier.       

So what will I play in the coming weeks - I don't have a clue. I'd like to try them all, but I'm not likely to have the time or opportunity. I also want to continue playing the rules I already like, so much of this new stuff will fall by the wayside. And besides, at 20 - 30 quid a pop, I'm not going to buy these rules on eye-candy alone.  

Still - I'll be interested to watch this Napoleon at War and see how it fares in a busy marketplace.