Normandy 1944 Campaign - The South Gloucestershire Fusiliers

After my recent post, I was inpsired by Norm Smith's comment to look at getting a narrative campaign in using my favourite BKCII rules, as gaming had somewhat dried up alongside my painting mojo. this was the sort of kick up the butt that I needed to be honest! But what to play? I fancied something set in Normandy, and after having looked around my book collection for ideas, I stumbled across a copy of the 'Battlegroup' rulebook that had a point-to-point campaign in it, as well as 4 scenarios based upon some actions that the Canadians fought early on. These I could see easily translate into scenarios for my 4' x 4' table, so that was one issue resolved.

Then it was a case of coming up with forces for the campaign. Now normally I would use historical OOB, but this time I fancied having a go using the D-Day Dodgers West Suffolks idea as brought to the table by David in Suffolk. So looking at my County Regiments book, I saw that the Gloucestershire Regiment had two Battalions, the second being the South Gloucestershire's, which was perfect as that is where I live, thus becoming the South Glos Fusiliers. 

With the infantry sorted out, for the tank johnnies I thought the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars in Shermans or a tank regiment in Churchills. I haven't made my mind up and will probably go with both, depending upon how the campaign unfolds and as I firm up the background fluff as it were.

For the Germans, I couldn't resist something based around the 21st Panzer Division, given their wonderful mix of kit, some of which I have buy unpainted. Again taking the lead from David, a Kampfgruppe would give a nice historical feel, but with plenty of leeway too. I'm still toying with what to call it, with the rather unimaginative Steiner (as in the Cross of Iron hero) in the lead, but Rosenkrantz coming in from left field too. I need to get my thinking hat on a bit for this one I feel.

As for the campaign, aside from being very narrative driven, this time around I will be using the campaign system and random points modifiers from the original BKC rulebook. It's been a long time since I used this, but in the past they did give some nice and interesting games. The advantage of playing solo of course is that I can come up with quite one-sided scenarios early on to help set the scene and drive the story, which wouldn't be fun to play face-to-face.

In fact I have already played the first game, but haven't had the time to write it up yet, as I don't want to rush it. I also want to give a better flavour of the campaign mechanics in the post, to help understand how things are working in the background so-to-speak. But in advance of this, here's a sneak peak from the game:

Alongside this, I've been working on some terrain bases for my BUAs, which I've been meaning to do for years. These have been fun and I need to do some for the bomb damaged buildings I bought from Pendraken at Partizan earlier in the year. This campaign is a nice spur to get those little items finished off that have lain in the 'to do' pile for far too long. More updates on these in due course.

I'm away for the next few days, so the first campaign AAR will have to wait, but hopefully it will appear sometime next week. I fear the follow on action will be delayed by family visiting, but you never know...

Thanks for reading and comments are always greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

Sun, Sea, Sand & Gaming

Over the years I've played the odd seaborne landing or two, either for WWII or my AVBCW milieu, but I've never gotten around to actually making the sea and beach to go with the actions. Instead I've fudged it with the sea just off the table, ditto the beach itself. I have pondered making some bespoke terrain boards to be used, but as they would require quite a bit of time and effort, talk less of storing them, the project never got further than the odd sketch.

So last week whilst SWMBO was out with friends, a Geek Villain newsletter popped up into my inbox saying they had all their mats back in stock. So with not much else going on, as it had been a hectic day, I did a quick browse of their products and noticed their Normandy Beach mat was available, ditto the Juno one. Whilst the latter is more to scale for my 10mm games, I found it too dark visually, preferring the brighter and sandier Normandy one. 

A few clicks later and I'd bought a mat, not something I had intended to do at all! However I have wanted to have some 'proper' terrain as mentioned above, plus the mat can be used for the Pacific landings (OK I know the sand might be more volcanic!), Burma and anything else from Ancients onwards.

The mat duly arrived today and after tidying a game away (more on that in another post), i unpacked it to take a few quick shots that can be seen below.

The mat on my 4' x 4' table. 

With it roughly divided into thirds of sea, sand and land, it looks really good to me. The beach is technically way too deep for my BKCII games, but that doesn't bother me at all.

A few items dropped on to give an idea of scale. The house bases are 3"/75mm square.

It does give some nice sense of space for the vehicles etc to cross the beach, rather than being clustered together as happened on D-Day.

The cloth is not too far off my Summer Field one, should I ever need to combine the two.

Well I'm very happy with my purchase and like the other mat, is so easy to fold away and store, even in my bijou games room! Even though it is a fleece cover, the sea doesn't look out of place not being glossy and in fact I really didn't notice it as being 'wrong'.

I think that now I have this it will push me towards finishing my WWII British additions that I started on ages ago for my Assault troops, as well as landing craft etc. I would like to get the odd battleship or cruiser to sit offshore, just to aid the visual impression of the game. It has also got me thinking of some say AWI or ACW actions, combining both sea and land operations, especially as the Glory Hallelujah! supplement has some rules for riverine actions.

Thanks for checking in and for leaving a comment too, as they are greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

A 'Pot-Pourri' Post

Well dearest gentle reader, I've been meaning to do an update on 'stuff' for quite sometime now, but just haven't had the time or the inclination until now. So with storm Bert battering the UK and as a result stuck indoors, I thought I'd pull my finger out and actually write something. Whether you appreciate my musings remains to be seen!

A word of warning though, the following text contains the word "downsizing", so those of a nervous disposition may want to stop reading now or have a bottle or two of smelling salts to hand. So without further ado and in no particular order I present the following 'themes':

The 5 Year Plan

One of the topics of dicussion that cropped up quite a lot at the recent CWD was one of "how long do we think we can continue to paint to a level we would be happy with?" As many of us were now into our 60's, with all the eyesight and other issues associated with age, the broad consensus was probably about 65, possibly pushing towards 70 if we maybe moved up a scale or two. Whilst this might seem a negative, we felt it helped us focus our minds on what we need to concentrate on over the intervening years. Having just turned 61, this gives me 4 years or so to get my act together! I know my shaky arm/hand will only get worse, so as time waits for no man, I have been putting much thought to what I really want to get finished by this nominal deadline.

How Did I Ever Find Time For Work?

Another oft talked about theme was that since retirement, how did we ever actually find time to fit in our hobby related activities?! I know from my perspective that I thought I would have more time to wargaming 'stuff' since our son moved out, but in fact I think I'm much busier than ever before. Whilst I might have more time to myself, the mental pressure have increased exponentially, resulting in finding myself too pooped at the end of the day to do any painting etc. Hopefully this will improve if I can get a few things ironed out, but speed and efficacy are in short supply in local government. 

Getting More Bang For Your Bucks

Storage and collection size was yet another topic to chew the cud over and has been for sometime. Quite a few people had already started to use the 'D' word with regards to their collections, to create space and to try and make the most of those collections that they had painted over the years. From my point of view this something I had been mulling over for a good few years now, with my approach being to try and get the maximum use from my forces as possible over as wide a period and sets of rules as possible.

So for example my Imagi-Nations mid-19thC forces can be used for the 1848 Revolutions through to the late 19thC and the 'Invasion Scare' literature that was prevalent at the time. Then for a bit of fun they could feature in a sort of 'War of the Worlds' milieu too. So one force as they are currently based can be used from skirmish level games all the way up to Division sized ones, giving them plenty of opportunity to get onto the games table.

Maintaining Focus

I am as gulity as the next man of being afflicted by the flap of the butterfly wings, but of late I have been trying, mostly with some success, to maintain focus on some core periods but with the added flexibility as outlined above. Currently they are the 18thC, 19thC and WWII, but with some others waiting in the wings so to speak, but more on that anon. So what I am trying to do is actually finish the core forces for these periods, which once completed, will allow me to get in some good sized games and then flesh them at as and when the mood takes me. Once these are done, then other projects can come to the fore on the painting front, with the same aim of getting two small core forces together which I can build upon.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

Somewhat linked to the above, was the topic of having too many projects and/or forces that were very similar from a games point of view, which many of us touched upon at the CWD. Whilst I love the idea of being able to game Poland '39, France 1940 and Russia 1941 (and I have all the figures to do this), when actually playing a game using BKCII, there isn't much of a difference in terms of the gaming 'challenge' dare I say. Now of course it all comes down to scenarios, the forces involved etc, but from my point of view I feel they are too similar when I need to maintain focus. so that is not to say that I will not re-visit them in the future, but currently I have decided to try and finish my Germans and British for France 1940 before looking at the other campaigns or forces.

Books

Whilst I'm desperately trying to maintain a modicum of focus on the gaming and painting front, with regards to books my interests have more freedom to wander, but still generally around the periods I have always found to be of interest, plus some others that are pretty new to me and may lead to new porjects in the future.

I had planned to limit buying new books, but this year I have received lots of book vouchers and some Amazon ones too, so what is a man to do? Well buy, baby buy of course! The following cmae about via a mix of browsing in Waterstones, Blog posts and searching for books by the same author.

A period that has always fascinated me, but one that I felt needed a bit of a re-fresh, so when I saw this book in Waterstones, it was an easy purchase. An excellent author who has a great eye for detail, but doesn't allow it to overshadow the broader picture. He also succinctly weaves together the multiple story lines in a way that makes them easy to follow.

As a result of reading the above and loving it so much, this book was bought to again flesh out and re-fresh my frankly limited knowledge of 1066 and all that. I'm really looking forward to reading this as I'm sure it will provide plenty of wargaming inspiration.

One of those Kings that one hears so much about but one that I have very limited knowledge of, ditto the period itself. It will be an enjoyable and enlightening read I'm sure.

The result of a Blog post, as were the following two books. I have the figures to make some forces up, so wanted some good background reading before I make a start.

An essential I suppose as I want to use Lion Rampant II for these games.

This is a real gem of a book and thanks to Geoff for recommending it. A perfect primer for the main book above.

Now this is our daughter's favourite period bar none, but yet another one I know only the barest bones of. I'm at the early stages of reading this but it is set at the perfect level, with again nice amounts of detail which do not get in the way of the main narrative. Highly recommended.

I saw this in Watertones and it ticks many boxes for my interest in 1848 onwards. When I first started my 19thC gaming, it was to be the 1st Schleswig-Holstein War, but then morphed into a mix of ImagiNations and/or the Hungarian War of Independence. So I am currently torn between buggering about in The Baltic of The Balkans, with both having plenty to recommend them, but the latter will allow some Ottoman troops...

Having read plenty of the ACW these past few years and knowing there was some British involvement on the peripherary, this book should be perfect to really fill my knowledge out more on this conflcit, but also some 'what if?' actions as well as the Fenian raids. I have all the figures required, so something for the future no doubt.

A favourite author and a follow on from his Sicily book. I know a fair bit about the Italian campaign already, but it won't harm me to learn some more.

What Next?

I have been painting some of my 19thC imagiNations forces, but real life has seen that gring to a halt these past few weeks. Alongside these I've been working on some BUA bases to go with my 6mm buildings and hope to continue them soon, but back problems have been getting in the way. Real life is always busy in the run up to Xmas, so time may be more limited than normal, or I may need that painting distraction to avoid all the hype!

I've bought some more toys, mainly a small force that will become 19thC Russians at some point, which will work equallt well in the Baltic or the Balkans. Some buildings have been bought for the Crusades, but will most likely remain in their bag for sometime yet. I also added a tank or two to my late war Germans, but will keep that as a surprise for another post.

I have a WWII game in mind based upon a magazine article, but tweaked for BKCII. I might get it set up and played over the weekend, but I'm not rushing into it and will wait until the muse is upon me.

Thanks for reading and getting this far and if you can, a comment or two is always welcome!

TTFN.