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Springfield Fatts posted:The starter box was a pretty good deal but Warlord can gently caress off if they think I'm going to pay $50 for one ship. Thank god for 3d printing. 
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Jan 23, 2023 22:30
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Springfield Fatts posted:The starter box was a pretty good deal but Warlord can gently caress off if they think I'm going to pay $50 for one ship. Thank god for 3d printing. I'm going to rep for Henry Turner's Blender exported STLs. He sells you a Blender file for a few bucks, and you can set options to export an STL in 1/700 or 1/1200. https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-gb-speedy-class-brig-14-guns-1782-1806-blender-exporter-aoa-gb-4-259555
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Jan 23, 2023 22:53
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Cessna posted:Yeah, sorry, that was meant as a joke. I've had Scho-Ko-Kola, and it might as well have been meth for me given the amount of caffeine in it. I know they really got the hard stuff in pill form. As an interesting aside- I'm always curious as to why Germans got the bad press for giving amphetamines to their forces. The British did it on a large scale too but nobody ever mentions it. "As Nicholas Rasmussen argues, the effects of amphetamines, although highly subjective, appealed to commanders such as Montgomery because the ‘consciousness-altering properties’ of the drug ‘made men fight harder, and the men liked it’.[11] In other words, when facing problems with morale and the need to protect an increasingly precarious source of manpower, the British army turned to a pharmacological technology, which sustained wakefulness and provided a subjective boost to wellbeing, to help maintain the fighting abilities of its personnel. In many respects, we could cautiously consider amphetamines as a psychoactive component of Montgomery’s ‘colossal cracks’ doctrine." https://defenceindepth.co/2017/08/11/amphetamines-and-the-second-world-war-stimulating-interest-in-drugs-and-warfare/
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Jan 23, 2023 23:39
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The Germans got bad press for it because the Germans did it. The USA still does it and people only care when the USAF strafes friendlies and someone can blame it on the drugged up pilot.
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Jan 24, 2023 02:49
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I played my first Pike and Shot OHW game yesterday with my brother, and it went fairly well: Much like the Horse and Musket rules it was all over rather quickly, and lacking the wider strategic goals of a campaign felt a little flat - but it was lovely to push the dollies around. We played Scenario 17 from the OHW book, "Static Defense", where the red player deploys three units inside an easterly town, and three ontop of a north-western hill. Blue player advances from the southern table edge and wins if he is in sole control either of the two defended areas. Red units must remain within 3" of their defences. My opponent was learning it all simultaneously so may have been a bit much to put him on defence - but as Neil Thomas promised, by turn 3-4 we had all the rules down pat. It ended up a pyhrric victory for the Blue army, who siezed the village at the expense of everyone and everything but the last health point on a single regiment of foot. Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Jan 24, 2023 |
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Jan 24, 2023 07:51
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Southern Heel posted:I played my first Pike and Shot OHW game yesterday with my brother, and it went fairly well: They turned out great with the flocked bases!
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Jan 24, 2023 08:48
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Thank you! The rear of the near unit has a bit of an obvious lip, but I pressed them into service before the final touch-ups. I decided to order Absolute Emperor after our discussion on game scale. I'm honestly quite fed up with how unfriendly historical rulesets can be to read. Very few define their terms upfront, and most of them don't start on first principles at all. Honestly, I can't imagine being so fixated on proportional unit/ground scale that I must know exactly how many figures need to be mounted to a base and yet almost all the rulesets cover this in great length before they talk about how many units the game is designed around, or what size table I'd need. The old 'use cm instead of inches' is fine, but one game whose name I've forgotten was "designed to be played on a standard table-tennis table", and the other was designed for a 6x4" - both of which suggested that same conversion. Shako suggests that each unit of 2-4 bases is a battalion or squadron in the first few pages, then says it doesn't use any concrete figure or time scale, and ground scale is distorted to promote better in-game relationships between unit types. It says that unit basing doesn't matter as long as it's consistent between players, but neglects to set out the expected size of the armies or the battlefield to play on until the very end (it's 30+ units each) General d'Brigade suggests each figure should occupy a frontage of 8-10mm or (15mm scale) or 15mm (28mm scale) and each base should be 6-8 figures in two ranks, but then has a bizarre table like this:  Which I guess is to say that an 1809 Line regiment should be 6 bases of 6, 7 or 8 figures? And then also this??  Which then suggests that in Brigade Clary one Line Reg is two lots of 6 bases of 8 figures, and another is two lots of 6 bases of 6 figures? And the whole army is 13 units? Did anyone look at this and think "Yep that's totally clear and the best way to present this kind of information" ? I'm sure there are fork-wielding fanatics who love these rules to the exclusion of all other but they just seem incredibly turgid ...
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Jan 24, 2023 17:17
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That looks like people got really hung up on recreating specific battles and are going "oh yeah in THIS period it's normal for units to be understrength sometimes because it happened that one time..." and not grokking that unless the number of figures per base matters then a six unit Regiment with eight per is exactly as strong as a six unit Regiment with six per and they've undermined the entire concept.
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Jan 24, 2023 20:29
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Arquinsiel posted:That looks like people got really hung up on recreating specific battles and are going "oh yeah in THIS period it's normal for units to be understrength sometimes because it happened that one time..." and not grokking that unless the number of figures per base matters then a six unit Regiment with eight per is exactly as strong as a six unit Regiment with six per and they've undermined the entire concept. It looks like in that system they give a frontage per figure so the size of the base would in theory depend on the number of figures on it. Thus the number of figures per base would affect the frontage of the unit and, in theory, game play. I don't know if that is good design or not: that would depend on how it interacts with the rest of the rules.
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Jan 24, 2023 22:09
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Southern Heel posted:I'm honestly quite fed up with how unfriendly historical rulesets can be to read. Very few define their terms upfront, and most of them don't start on first principles at all. quote:Pickett’s Charge American Civil War rules offer the gamer command challenges and tactical challenges at a divisional to corps level in a miniature wargame setting.
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Jan 24, 2023 23:23
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A_Bluenoser posted:It looks like in that system they give a frontage per figure so the size of the base would in theory depend on the number of figures on it. Thus the number of figures per base would affect the frontage of the unit and, in theory, game play. I don't know if that is good design or not: that would depend on how it interacts with the rest of the rules.
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Jan 25, 2023 03:55
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Arquinsiel posted:I guess me not spotting that speaks to the validity of Southern Heel's complaint so. I guess you're right as to how the other rules will affect things. I remember the arguments about 20mm vs 25mm based troops for WHFB back in the day. I think the overemphasis on basing is a qaint surviving trait from older rules. I assume it can come from two diffrent thing that pushes an importance on basing: - the attempt o make rules that simulate battles rather than put an emphasis on being fun games. This can be seen in endless TMP grog discussions on land scale, movement rates, "how many minutes is a turn?" etc. In this detailed-oriented mindset, having bases that properly reflect unit sizes (like 1 mini = 20 men) to represent that, for example, a French battalion in 1809 would be a bit bigger than a Brittish, while an Austrian would be a lot bigger, and so on. - a culture of competitative wargames (WRG, DBA, DBMM etc) in both the US and UK, where players would travel a lot to different clubs, tournaments, shows etc. In a lot of these games, basing size is a part of balancing troop types (like deeper bases generally being a disadvantage in WRG and their clones), and geometry is a large part of the "skill" of a player, i.e. just a few millimeters or a few degrees can have a big effect. For both these reasons, sticking to an exact basing size becomes necessary. That said, historical wargaming has changed a lot since. The competative games are generally not built as much about geometry, popular games like SAGA and FoW puts other things at the forefront as what it means to be a good player. Even when positioning is a thing, it's not on a millimeter level. Also I don't think competitative gaming is nearly as big in historicals now as say, the 90's, as there are so many other games that scratch that itch today. The other thing is that game design is, generally, better today. The better games developed in the last 20 years simply doesn't try to be simulations in the same detailed way that some older games tried, because it usually doesn't work and it's not fun. It's better to try to make games where the RESULTS are somewhat realistic, than to try to make the MECHANICS completely realistic. This all boils down to most good games played today working just fine no matter the basing style, as long as the two sides are not based radically different.
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Jan 25, 2023 10:11
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lilljonas posted:This all boils down to most good games played today working just fine no matter the basing style, as long as the two sides are not based radically different. I think you're right about a sea change in newer rules, it does seem that only older rulesets are all that concerned with this minutiae - it feels like a comparison between raster and vector imaging - one can be scaled up and down and is defined by its components, and the other just gets pixellated and distorted and is only defined as a whole. Maybe it's because these older rulesets originated in a period where there wasn't as much cross pollenation, more difficulty in reissuing and refining rules and much longer feedback loops - combined with a target audience who are probably naturally more conservative in ideas and susceptable to the more detail == more gooder mentality. As a statement of intent I've ordered copies of Lasalle 2nd Ed. and DBA 3.0 from Caliver Books in the UK.
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Jan 25, 2023 11:31
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Got a hotel room for my first Historicon and spent $300 on Sash & Saber Provincials for some Sharp Practice FiW....I'll be at 4 wars for SP when those are done I'm having a great time with my club too. I ran ACW Sharp Practice (Union escorting a pro-Union politician in southwest Tennessee, 1862) and Live Free or Die         
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Jan 25, 2023 14:14
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Oh poo poo was this at the TSS game day?
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Jan 25, 2023 14:46
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Springfield Fatts posted:Oh poo poo was this at the TSS game day? Yep!!
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Jan 25, 2023 14:52
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Southern Heel posted:I think you're right about a sea change in newer rules, it does seem that only older rulesets are all that concerned with this minutiae - it feels like a comparison between raster and vector imaging - one can be scaled up and down and is defined by its components, and the other just gets pixellated and distorted and is only defined as a whole. You should also not forget that honestly, before the last two decades, most board games were trash rules wise. The recent board game golden era has been a great boon in that it has shown a lot of designers of other types of games that there's a lot of other ways to make good games. Also you'll find that Lasalle 2 and DBA are about as far from each other on a spectrum as you can find.  I play and like both, but holy moley Lasalle 2's movement rules are a sweet nectar for your soul after you've played games with very restrictive and detailed movement rules.We like it enough at the club that we're doing a Lasalle clone for playing renaissance, and we migth even for the hell of it make a fantasy lasalle clone to play warhammer, because right now I love the basic rules engine and how it does activations and movement. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Jan 25, 2023 |
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Jan 25, 2023 15:13
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lilljonas posted:(like deeper bases generally being a disadvantage in WRG and their clones) "Frontage" is - was - also a big deal for basing. Say two units line up against each other and take up a space 100mm across. If one player's models are on 20mm bases they can get 5 models in. If the other player's are on 25mm bases they can get 4 models in. That gives one player an artificial advantage. I do not miss the days when this was a problem.
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Jan 25, 2023 15:51
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Cessna posted:"Frontage" is - was - also a big deal for basing. WRG specifically has universal frontage for all troops (40mm) and then different troop types have different depth, like Blades being 15mm deep, skirmishers 20mm, cavalry 30mm and so on. And this has an effect on combat, as a unit can be pushed back it's own base depth, and that becomes an actual tactical thing to consider. In such a system, basing things as you want will actually give you an edge, so then it makes sense to become very anal about basing methods. We have CoC armies based on 20mm and ones on 25mm and sure, there's a small tactical advantage to 20mm. But not nearly enough that I think basing them the same is a necessity for a good game. Same goes for Saga, we have everything from 20mm square bases to 25mm round bases, and some base styles do give an edge (most notably for cavalry). But not so much that I think the game should enforce a basing style, which is common in older games.
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Jan 25, 2023 16:57
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Cessna posted:"Frontage" is - was - also a big deal for basing.
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Jan 25, 2023 17:04
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I loved the IDEA of individually based rank and flank - particularly changing formations, etc. - but it just never worked in practise for me and as soon as Kings of War came out I adopted the regiment-base standard and though now I go with multi-basing I still err towards simplicity in that regard. Gosh, KoW was fantastic for rolling lots of dice wasn't it? Liljonas I think it was you who recommended Lasalle to me way back in the day. I'm glad you're getting mileage out of it still, it bodes well. I've got some 2mm Nappies on order from Irregular and my plan is to base them up on 1" squares for Lasalle and AE singularly, and as pairs for DBN. We'll see how it pans out, I'm having so much fun with historicals at the moment! I am not going to abide by the DBx depth basing as I'm playing only for my own enjoyment and those edge cases where the base depth matters I'll deal with as I go. I've yet to recieve Lasalle or DBA in physical form yet, but spent the train ride home yesterday reading Absolute Emperor and honestly that was like a breath of fresh air too, after how turgid and bloated the rulebooks like GdA/Shako appear. It immediately clears up terms, basing, frontage, depth, and board size. It talks at length about the compromises and abstractions of an army-level wargame (i.e. skirmishers, horse/foot artillery, etc. are built into other rules). It also has a couple of small rules tweaks to translate to a corps or divisional-level game, with each base representing a battatlion. If anyone is curious, a cliffnotes version of the rules is basically: Armies are divided into corps under a commander, and each corp deploys and remains within command radius of their commander with a specific order (attack, defend, flank, hold, retreat) that they must obey until an order is changed. All of the turns are simultaneous in sequence of phase, i.e. both sides issue orders, both move, both shoot, both charge, both perform melee. Rolls are all D6, using the frontage of the unit (1,2,3 or 4 bases) to determine the number of dice rolled for shooting/melee, the target number being 3/4/5+ depending on the experience of the unit. Units are halted or disordered through damage inflicted, and are degraded over time to represent loss of command. Corps commanders can spend 'elan' which is also depleted by units being destroyed, to re-roll dice or change orders. Loss of elan typically results in a corp retreating even if they are not destroyed. I'm very glad that I bought these rules, they're lovely and the base rules have just a little more grunt than One Hour Wargames Horse & Musket, and have plenty of optional extras like national characteristics, historical commanders, etc. that can be included to spice things up. Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 09:06
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Southern Heel posted:Liljonas I think it was you who recommended Lasalle to me way back in the day. I'm glad you're getting mileage out of it still, it bodes well. I've got some 2mm Nappies on order from Irregular and my plan is to base them up on 1" squares for Lasalle and AE singularly, and as pairs for DBN. We'll see how it pans out, I'm having so much fun with historicals at the moment! I am not going to abide by the DBx depth basing as I'm playing only for my own enjoyment and those edge cases where the base depth matters I'll deal with as I go.
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Jan 26, 2023 12:44
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If you're going 2mm I'd think Blucher would fit your scale more than Lasalle. Both are good, being by Sam Mustafa, but Blucher has a more grand tactical feel without being bogged in in minutia bullshit. The only thing about Absolute Emperor I didn't like were the standing orders mechanic. I get it, and it makes sense for the period, but it felt clunky on the tabletop. I think I ditched it after two games.
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Jan 26, 2023 14:16
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Arquinsiel posted:As long as you are providing both armies for DBN basing things weirdly won't matter. The only real effect is that when units are forced to withdrawn they only do so by N base widths, so deeper bases might be easier to flank in niche cases. I wouldn't worry about it at all TBH. Thanks, I wasn't stressing but good to know it's not an issue. With a 3x3' gaming space, games whose units are a single-base-width like ADLG, DBx and OHW are fine, but for games where units are 4 bases and may need to spread into line, it will likely result in frontages too large for the table to support. I guess I really need to play some more games rather than just read rules, but I'm still waiting for my Irregular 2mm figures to arrive
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Jan 26, 2023 14:34
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Springfield Fatts posted:If you're going 2mm I'd think Blucher would fit your scale more than Lasalle. Both are good, being by Sam Mustafa, but Blucher has a more grand tactical feel without being bogged in in minutia bullshit. I can see how the restriction would make a competitive game more interesting and historically aligned but I'm already all about narrative already so may be completely superfluous. I've never been all that interested in Blucher although I guess I could be convinced - maybe a sabot base? I'm actually looking at how cheap it would be to get into DBA/ADLG in 2mm - sixty four DBA bases covering 7? army permutations for ~£30 seems like a really good deal, but I do want to recieve the 2mm napoleonics before I go balls deep only to find they're not for me.
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Jan 26, 2023 14:37
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Minis are secondary, you can play Blucher with cards. I mean that's possible with all games but that one specifically is designed to be played with them if you want. I think there's a free sample scenario on his website. ETA: There is, doesn't have the gameplay rules though. Should give you an idea of the model count and card system though. Springfield Fatts fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 15:51
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Holy moley they're so tiiiiny:
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Jan 27, 2023 12:39
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Ilor posted:And part of that has to do with doctrine, i.e. how a particular organization trains/operates. It's one of the things I really like about CoC, as it highlights the differences between how various combatants' armies were organized and trained. For Germans, Americans, and Brits, fire-and-maneuver were trained at the team level, with one team (usually an LMG team) laying down a base of fire while another (usually the rifle team) maneuvered to contact. For the Soviets' infantry doctrine, the smallest unit of fire-and-maneuver was the squad, so what was done on the squad level by other armies was done on the platoon level by the Soviets. As such, Soviet squads don't inherently break up into teams because that's not how they trained. You can break them up into teams if you need to, but it requires command resources to do so because you are doing something other than what you trained for. I have also heard that, at least for the US Rifle Companies, their ability to engage in the fire and maneuver doctrine changed throughout the campaign based on level of experience. For instance at the start of the war where there was more time for units to train together they would perform fire and maneuver splitting the BAR team and the rifle team. This required the squad to have good coordination between the members of the squad and a squad leader with a sufficient level of training, or it became difficult to employ. At a certain point squads were made up of so many reinforcements and junior squad leaders that fire and maneuver at the squad level became difficult and the doctrine was mostly employed at the platoon level as the smallest individual element.
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Jan 28, 2023 04:44
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Southern Heel posted:tiny mans Which models are these?
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Jan 28, 2023 20:01
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Tias posted:Which models are these? These are Irregular 2mm - tbh you could probably get away with (as many do) with using a blob of epoxy putty, velcro, etc. instead tbh. but for £13 you get a heck of alot and you don't have to think much: https://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/2mmRanges/2mmHorseMusket.htm EDIT1: Here's what you get for a Napoleonic Horse & Musket army from Irregular, based up in fours:  4 bases of two cannons 4 bases of skirmishers (one not shown) 12 bases of four infantry 6 bases of heavy cavalry 8 smaller bases of light cavalry 3 HQ bases 1camp base EDIT2: I painted up some:  One brigade of infantry and one of horse so far. Honestly, I'm torn between the polarised opposites of 'oh this is so cool look how many of the little dudes there are' to 'oh well I can literally recognise almost nothing except they're a blue rectangle from anything other than close up why don't I just play with coloured blocks'. At the moment I'm erring towards the latter, but it is enough to get some games of DBN/OHW/Lasalle/etc. in so I'm going to continue and get the Russians done too and play a few games. Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jan 29, 2023 |
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Jan 28, 2023 20:21
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for my FIW I'm putting steel plates in the trays and its working super well (with the magnet in the base of each mini) to keep them standing up even under vigorous movements. This will be perfect for club nights 
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Jan 28, 2023 23:37
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Well I guess one thing can be said, they're quick to paint up: There are a few bases of skirmishers and some odds and ends which didn't fit into the basing scheme left over, but table-worthy after two sessions isn't terrible? I could probably do with re-emphasising the white trousers of the infantry (as per the one in the rear-right corner) and of course they need flocking or ground cover of some sort, but really not too bad. Russians next... EDIT: PS yes I know that not all troops would be wearing just plain blue but these need to be readable at tabletop distances. I guess I could rim the bases also but I'm happy with this as it is.
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Jan 29, 2023 13:16
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This might be kind of a dumb question, but in O Group why do some battalions have mortars listed on their force organization and others don't, when it sounds like every battalion has battalion mortars?
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Jan 30, 2023 21:51
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Is it just Soviet units that don't?
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Jan 30, 2023 23:04
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Arquinsiel posted:Is it just Soviet units that don't? The only listed battalions that have mortars on the FO are British and Canadian (in the Normandy supplement) battalions. I haven't checked the Eastern Front one. They aren't listed on the American, German, or Soviet battalions. The book also makes it clear that everyone has Battalion mortars.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:13
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Southern Heel posted:Well I guess one thing can be said, they're quick to paint up: Are those guys staging for the attack of the 50 foot Germans? Fun thought experiment, who would win: a regiment of napoleonic soldiers vs a squad of 50 foot tall Wehrmacht?
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Jan 31, 2023 01:21
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SpaceViking posted:The only listed battalions that have mortars on the FO are British and Canadian (in the Normandy supplement) battalions. I haven't checked the Eastern Front one. They aren't listed on the American, German, or Soviet battalions. The book also makes it clear that everyone has Battalion mortars. Since this isn't that, it's TFL being TFL and bad at editing I guess?
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Jan 31, 2023 02:38
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Just catching up on the thread now, so apologies for how late this was, but a while back someone was asking about Carolingian troops, so I figured I'd post the plates from the osprey book I have about Charlemagne's troops:         sorry the photos are so poo poo, but I'm a poo poo photographer. Hopefully this'll be helpful at least as regards colour choice and troop type.
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Jan 31, 2023 03:37
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Arquinsiel posted:I vaguely remember there being some bullshit in some games about the Soviets doing everything "one step up" and that always applying to everything regardless of what step you were playing at to deny Soviet players fun toys. That was my guess, that there was a previous version where some regiments had battalion mortars and others didn't have battalion mortars and they just never re-did the graphics. Wanted to see if someone had seen something I missed.
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Jan 31, 2023 03:47
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Regardless of the reasons, a Soviet battalion should have a battery of 82mm mortars.
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Jan 31, 2023 05:07
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