Table Testing

Now that the first encounter of the actual campaign is so close, I decided I should test some configurations that are close to the actual layouts or have common elements.  Having done so, I have since gone back and carried out some more work.  Suffice to say, progress has been satisfying.  In the meantime, I thought I'd share a few more pictures.

I now have three squads plus an HQ element for the Japanese, making a full platoon, one platoon of British, two squads of East India Federation, one of the mythic blocks and a squad of Australian troops ready for action.  Changes to the table layout have also allowed me to test two actual potential encounter areas.

The picture below shows an airfield as viewed from one end of the table. You can see unfinished work such as the contrast between the green undercoat on the tile with the road bend and plantation and the one to the south where the green has been sprinkled with the finishing touch of modelling grass. Similarly, the unpainted track element near the gun emplacement.  I'm gradually putting touches on but felt we needed the basic tiles ready so it was possible to play without.

With the orders coming in from the faction commanders, it's started well. A good set of first moves has opened the campaign as I had hoped.  Next time, I hope to report on the first clash.

One of the factions without a commander assigned and so not involved yet are the French. I have two squads ready, one painted recently which is an HQ squad with specialist equipment;

These are old Lone Star figures from the 50s and 60s which I always loved, as a boy, for their substance and because there were quite a lot of less common troops that used to turn up at the markets and places that sold them.

Above, my French HQ squad cross a small field in the countryside. A French marked radio van sits in the background.

Urban and semi urban settings have also been on my mind.  We have been making some new buildings, recently, as I reported.  The table test on a town edge is shown below.

This farmland on the edge of a typical European style town was used as a test of transition from open countryside to town fighting.

As always, there's plenty more to do but it feels like I'm ready for the initial stage of the campaign and building towards more serious stuff in the near future.

Progress continues

The workshops progressed well and with help, the number of items increased steadily. I have started laying out a setting on the medium wargame table to display some of the work that has gone on. 

 So here's a shot of a settlement edge.  There are some sandbags about especially around and across the road from the blue quatre-bras style house.

Here, a japanese light tank advances out of a cabbage field (made from hole punch debris painted and stuck in layers) and down a quiet country lane :)

In the background is a country inn made of cardboard.  The hedges are professional.

And the second squad of Japanese (or rather part of the squad) move into farmland.  I have two squads completed, now which I am pleased about.  The next off the line will be a French HQ squad (specialist).

So things are coming along, nicely.  The river and a few more features, coming soon :)

Meanwhile, I decided that good though the Lionel Tarr rules were and indeed some other rule sets that I possess, I really should write a set of simple solo rules for myself.  These are nearly done, too and I will publish the first set for anyone to download and test out when they are ready.

I also found an excellent resource for naval warfare on line at http://www.coatneyhistory.com/NavalAction.htm   (and I will be writing to the author to show what I have done with his work).  There, I found templates that were easier to use than reworking scanned copies of Janes 1940 deck plans.  I decided, since I had the details of navies of the time, to go further and use the templates to develop the whole fleets of nations. Paintshop Pro, as ever, helped me redesign many, adding and taking gun decks off and varying sizes to match approximate dimensions of the real ships.

Here is an example of a naval squadron owned by one of the players.

A highly useful resource. I have cut out each ship, rubber backed it and now it is usable on a detail scale map to track position of each within a square or more than a square of the campaign map.  Each player has the same option.

Onwards.........

Some background reading

Back in the library, I was pulling books from the military history and wargames shelf.  A glance through David Nash's handy paperback to check on uniforms (and the web) got me cracking on a Japanese squad.

I re-read "Pacific Onslaught" to get a feel for the battles that raged across the Pacific islands. I didn't touch Midway or the Pacific War books. I know the naval engagements too well.  I pulled in a couple of additional books, one of which is William Stirling's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" a first hand account from someone who was a journalist in Germany at the outbreak of war. It was one of Mum & Dad's (thanks Mum).  That reminded me that dad also had A.J.P. Taylor's account of the period. I might have to borrow that, too.

Now I had to sit down and revise some rules I had for land engagements based on what I learned playing the excellent and detailed Yaquinto WW2 warfare games.  I bet Rob, one of my old opponents would have smiled if he saw what I picked up and looked over yesterday in a collectibles shop - a German Nashorn.  We did so much damage with that self-propelled gun in battles on the tabletop.  Sadly, the chap on the counter couldn't find which seller it had been put out by and with no price, I left it behind.  I did get a Chance-Vought Corsair at my next stop which put a smile back on my face.

I also spent some time poring over my Janes Fighting Ships 1940 edition, checking the actual details of the key ships that were about to engage in action.  Fabulous source, that old tome. :)

A Workshop

This is the moment when I must say thank you to Patrick Van Gompel. Thanks to his giveaway designs for houses, I have been able to add a vast number of buildings to the templates that I already had.  I've now made so many with Chrissie that we are both going around looking at real buildings and thinking how we would reproduce them and where the tabs would be!

Rear left is one of his warehouses. Opposite it, two cottages and another on a green sward. The church is also one of his. The sandbags and long hut are from other sources.

The crossroads needs the road painting on but using paper has held the greenery and roundabout in place while they dry. 

As the days progressed, we made an inn, another church, a pre-war service station, some shops, more cottages, another low hut as a hospital, a farmhouse, sty, barn, manor house and so on.

I couldn't find all my tiles so have come up a little short. I probably need a pack of another nine to give me enough options and ensure the medium/large table is covered.

Meanwhile, my players started pondering on the briefs that I had issued along with micro graphics of their fleets so they could detach the individual ships, mount them and use them on a large scale map if they wished to.

Now for some hills, a river and more trees.

Progress

I bought my first addition to the rebuild cause back in the early Summer. I was at a car boot and spotted a ferret APC. It was in a terrible bright green paint and not a good condition but at least it only cost me 50p instead of £4-5 which it might have done.

I painted that for desert warfare as there's going to be plenty of that, I'm sure.

Pleased with that and half a dozen Britains British Army figures at £2, I had got the taste. Over the next few weeks, I started looking at every boot sale and on eBay for affordable stuff.

Furthermore, dragging the contents of crates and boxes down from the loft in manageable groups, I was able to take stock of what I still had and how many unpainted figures I had remaining after the sale.

Since the action at 1/32 level would be based at the squad level and since squads would be half the real size, I needed to create groups of 6-8 men at a time, which was a lot more manageable in order to buld platoons of around 18-20.  Armour would operate in squadrons of 3 as in most armies but you would rarely have more than one squadron per side on the field. The field guns and all other equipment would similarly be limited.

At the same time, I went looking for materials to use for building and for templates. The template for sandbags in the picture was handy. I have made a good few of those, now. The first squad I decided would be an Africa Korps one to test my 25mm painting style on larger figures.  I was relatively happy with the outcome and moved on to Imperial Japanese, two squads of plus one attached mortar section.

At the same time, with Chrissie's invaluable help, I begun the buildings workshop. The job of putting the assets back together had begun in earnest.

Alternate Earth - Some thoughts

An alternate history is perfectly conceivable.  Of course, you can argue in support of anything but there were a couple of things that were bothering me about mine. 

One was, what was the real likelihood that the Confederate States of America could have received enough support to bring the Union to a stalemate and that the USA could look so different. I had in my mind that this version of the USA might pursue a little more of the old "yankee trader" policy and swallow up islands and small states rather conveniently while taking advantage of wars between the old powers.

Also, I didn't want a USA that was quite as dominant.  The techonology lead and ability to prepare a fighting force that could win in the east and west in the 1940s would unbalance the campaign.  But was there a realistic scenario in which things didn't go so well and that Mexico was such a force to be reckoned with?

The other that was probably stretching the imagination even further was the idea that the Papacy continued to choose warlike, military minded popes after Julius II and Leo X. It would mean that Adrian VI was never pope and instead, the Papacy had found ways to replace funds used by Leo X and to continue building alliances and increasing the Papal States. Clement VII would certainly not have been selected nor any surrender of Rome and the Castel D'Angelo have occurred. He lost most of the Papal States in just the one Papacy. Had they been retained and built upon, could Italy have become an almost entirely singular Papal State?

In this history, after Garibaldi's sack of Gualeguaychu during the taking of Uruguay , the French tried to employ him in Brazil for a period but he proved too difficult to control. He was betrayed to the Haspburgs by his own employers and killed. Italian nationalism never rose above a murmur whereas the unification under Papal rule continued until just Lombardy and Naples remained, the former under French rule, the latter part of the Hapsburg Empire.     

It does require quite a lot of belief that key events being changed, a different history would result.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Getting things back together

Having set out to be ambitious and run a campaign spanning the world and involving so many potential players, I needed to get my stuff back in order.

It had been quite some years since I last had an operational wargames table and even longer since all the scenery and add ons had been collected together.  I knew I had lost several buildings and tiles which were destroyed while I was at University.  I also knew that the remaining table pieces, split in two, were not sturdy enough for the new setup.

For some time, I had plans to convert the garage into a kind of den with pool table, darts board, subuteo table, sporting memorabilia and a fridge full of beer.   This had begun but now things had to be moved up at a faster pace as the wargames table needed to join the options.

I would also need more pin boards and map space.

OK, wargame table configurations sorted. I had three suitable pieces that could be moved about into different layouts and all three offered enough space, particularly as in one, you only just had room to squeeze around the right side (as seen from this end).

To turn the room into a suitable ops centre for controlling the campaign, there were other resources required.

Magnetic maps and pin boards.  Pinning up the first encounter area and finding the pins to represent the forces immediately in the theatre, my enthusiasm started to bubble up.  This could definitely work.

Over the next few days and weeks, I had to find players to provide orders and direction and start rebuilding my resources.

Some years ago, I had sold off quite a large chunk of my collection, believing I would never actually use it again.  Now, wanting to revive one of my favourite pasttimes and the armies that I had, I knew I had a lot of work ahead and some investment, too.

In addition, a wargames table looks nothing without scenery, urban through to uninhabited regions being the settings for clashes.

I had decided that I would also fight up to 1/32 scale to enable me to use my favourite figures and not simply constrain myself to 1/72 or 00 and 1/300 scale battlefields. That meant a lot of what would go on the table would have to be symbolic but that would make it easier as I could be liberal with scale as long as the rules addressed that.

With a number of tasks identified, I pressed ahead :)

The Alternate Earth

In setting out to run a new campaign, rebuilding my wargames table, troops and resources, I wanted to provide a setting that had flexibility for changes in history and freedom of choices for the players.   I am not a great fan of recreating existing battles and scenarios based on real historical circumstances although I have fought many of both.

Being a student of history, I wanted a justifiable background even if you had to stretch the imagination a little.  There are many key moments in history where the future direction hangs in the balance. I believe that with a few nudges, something like the alternate earth that I present might have been possible.

The players received the following brief;

Background to Twilight’s Long Shadows Campaign

“It’s Earth, Jim, but not as you know it”

Introduction

The campaign is set in our world but one with an alternative history.  Certain key elements have been changed to leave a very different political situation from reality. 

For example, the U.S. Civil War was fought to a halt at Gettysburg and in following encounters (support for the Confederate States coming from France and perhaps elsewhere to balance the strength of the Union) with the result that a line was drawn roughly along the 35^th degree latitude between the Union States of America and the Confederate States of America. A second US Civil War broke out in 1916, lasting eleven long years which was damaging economically as well as in people terms, to both sides. Consequently, they agreed a settlement under which there is one United States of America with a single president and senate but both Union and Confederacy maintain their own standing army and air force, sharing a navy. All states have a larger devolved responsibility in day to day governance and a governor can veto central bills of law (although the process then becomes very complex.) The uneasy relationship between North and South continues although slavery has officially been abolished. There is no doubt in this USA, that black and other ethnic groups are distinctly second class citizens. Meanwhile,  Mexico, backed by Habsburg and French in turn own Texas, most of modern day New Mexico, half of Arizona and Southern California as well as nearly all of Central America. Mexico is rich and has had a much more stable history than its northern neighbours.

 With no first world war because of slight changes in the time line, Lenin and his revolution was suppressed by Imperial Romanov Russia thanks largely to British support.  The Habsburg Empire remains intact, led by Prussia and with Russia, is sometimes an ally, sometimes rival to the British Empire and Commonwealth.   The Fifth Republic of France was the most left wing state, having seen two restorations of its monarchy before with the help of Garibaldi (exiled from Italy where the revolution was put down by the papacy) and Jacobite forces, it finally threw off any royalist recovery. Today, after a right wing reaction, it is led by its President and council, chief of whom is its hugely influential military commander, Charles De Gaulle.

The power of the East India Company converted to the East India Alliance and finally, the Federation of East Indies and PacRim.  The trade based Federation hold much of the land in the east, with their main bases in Malaysia and Indonesia but with worldwide interests including becoming successors to much of the collapsed Portugese Empire so that they now control Brazil, Phillipines, Bangladesh (East India) and other provinces. The Royal Dutch house is ally and part ruler of the EIF.   

Their rivals in the east are usually too busy fighting one another to make progress but nobody ought to under-rate Imperial China or Imperial Japan.  The Communists nearly overthrew the empire of China but the East India Alliance, Britain and the Union of America weighed in to crush the rebellion.  Chang-Kai-Shek leads the rebuilt Communist China and is gradually gaining ground.  Imperial China holds Mongolia and other territory but recently lost Formosa to Japan. Japan holds a number of Pacific islands and South Korea.  Relatively recently, it failed to seize Alaska from French Canada. Seeking oil and natural resources, Imperial Japan is on the move. Formosa fell in 1940. Since then, it has been building its strength and in 1941, took the Solomon Islands from the USA with no reprisals other than increased US support for China.

The British Empire is huge and many faceted but they also have a Commonwealth of allied states who have independence on a day to day basis.  These include Australia and New Zealand and British Canada.  French Canada remains a French province.  South Africa and India were granted full independence, the latter remaining allied with the British. Britain controls most of Argentina, many islands, Gibraltar, much of Africa and other interests worldwide. Britain is struggling to keep its diverse empire together and is not ready to defend it in every corner.

Another worldwide player is the Divine Papal State or Vatican Empire as some call it. The pope is generally chosen from aggressive military minded churchmen and is actively involved in planning their campaigns. This has been the Vatican policy for centuries, now. The papacy and its allies, The Templar Dependencies, Jesuit Mission and Catholic Balkan Republic hold vast swathes of land including parts of Africa, the Middle East, Italy, Portugal, Malta, Cyprus and Venezuela. The Catholic Balkan Republic combines parts of Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Hungary.Catholic Spain has served the Papacy since it was lost by the Hapsburgs.

France holds lands in all areas but in particular French Canada, Uruguay and some of what is southern Brazil, backs Paraguay in wars with Bolivia (Bolivia is funded by the Habsburgs whose Habsburg South America comprises Chile, Peru and Ecuador.) France also holds Belgium, Monaco, part of Switzerland and has land in the Middle East.

The last giant is the Ottoman Empire. Still staggering under the weight of its poor economy and difficult political divisions, it nevertheless holds from Turkmenistan in the east with lands encompassing Armenia and Turkey, the majority of the Middle East including Yemen (although not British held Oman and Aden) and North Africa from Egypt through to Morocco remains part of the Ottoman dependency.

There are many independents but the notable ones are Sweden which interferes in Norway constantly. Since the fall of Denmark to the Habsburgs, Sweden also claims the Faeroes, Iceland and Greenland.  Finland is her independent ally.  The Teutonic Republic of Lithuania plays all sides and is allied with the Republic of Poland and also Sweden.   The Zion State of the Israelites which claims land in the middle-east but is largely based in modern day Georgia has financial backing from Jews worldwide. It is also friendly with the French Republic, Union States of America and to a lesser extent, Britain.

The Union States of America also hold Panama and Colombia after a successful campaign against the Papacy ten years ago.  This territory is not shared with its Confederate partner.

South Africa has swallowed most of Rhodesia but has been warned off by Britain in some attempts to expand further as well as getting short shrift when it looked towards South America.  India has taken Nepal and Ceylon, modern day Pakistan and some of Afghanistan. 

With the Ottoman Empire losing its grip on what remains of its lands, an aggressive French policy and Japanese expansion, there are many flashpoints from which war could spread.

Welcome to the Wargame Campaign “Twilight’s Long Shadows” so named reflecting the fading and probable collapse of the old order.

It is now 1942.