One Hour Wargames - Triple Line

 The hot weather has finally broken and it's cool enough to go back in the wargame room so we thought we'd get back in the swing of things with a game from One Hour Wargaming by Neil Thomas.  We chose scenario 26, Triple Line and here's how it went:

Overview of the battlefield, 6'x 6' with a road running through the centre and a bridge offering the only means to cross the river.  The English hold the left (Northern) bank, a banner of Knights have secured the bridge while two more prepare to support them from the treeline, a body of Archers make up the third line of defence on the hills behind them.

The sudden appearance of the French from the South has caused alarm and disorganisation in the English ranks, to reflect this the rules specify they may not cross the river and individual units may not move until the French come within 12" of them (firing is unaffected).  The winner will be whichever side is in undisputed possession of the Northern Hills at the end of 15 turns.  

The French army drew four banners of mounted Knights, a unit of armoured Men at Arms on foot and a body of light footmen from the Levy.  The opening move sees the French arrive from the South with the Men at Arms marching swiftly along the road while the Knights scout the flanks and the Levy bring up the rear.

The game gave me an opportunity to show off my new wargame mat which is actually a " green meadow tablecloth" from Temu, I bought two in this design which together cover 11'x 6', the join being hidden by the road.  There are several designs available, I also ordered one with a rocky desert pattern and a fourth printed with a river, bushes and paths, made from polyester they cost about £8.50 each with free postage from China.  The material is very thin and light so I laid them on my regular plain green baize cloth to act as an underlay, this prevented any slippage and for the price I would thoroughly recommend them.

The English Knights are all furnished by Timpo while their Archers are Airfix.  The French Knights are from Britains Herald range while their Men at Arms are Britains Deetail conversions and the Levy are 54mm Elastolin swoppet Saxons.  

The French Men at Arms rush the bridge but are checked by the English Knights and a melee ensues, the Knights carry a combat bonus but the heavier armour of the Men at Arms protects them as they batter their way through the tightly packed horsemen.

Having cleared the bridge the Men at Arms lead on up the road allowing the Knights to cross and fan out into the open ground around them. 

Seizing their opportunity, the second line of English Knights raise a cheer and thunder into a charge, they ride down the weary Men at Arms and punch their way into the supporting French Chivalry.  

Already it's becoming clear that this is a contest of attrition, the Men at Arms performed a forlorn hope to open the bottleneck at the bridge but now the turns are passing quickly and time is running out to reach the hill.  With so many Knights on the field the combat is fast and furious, the casualties are mounting at an alarming rate.

The gallant English Knights vow to sell their lives dearly, honour demands they hold back the French horsemen to buy time for the Archers on the hill.  The fierce melee churns around with no quarter given or asked, fortune ebbs and flows with every turn of the dice and the clock ticks ever onward.

Until finally the flower of English chivalry is trampled under foot and the French Knights face a hail of arrows from the archers on the hill.  With a final desperate lunge the Knights mount the hill and fall on the fearless Archers in the fifteenth turn, but it's too late, time has run out.

And so the day ended with honours even, a Draw.

The game lasted three hours but felt much less, it was heavy on combat but light on firing and manoeuvre, this I would put down to the type of troops in play.  For those not familiar with One Hour Wargames, each individual scenario in the book dictates the number of units for each side, players then dice for random allocation of units relative to the period being played.  Units are eliminated from the game after acquiring 15 hits from combat and firing, we use 1p and 5p coins to keep track of the hits to each individual unit.  

Scoring 15 hits on a unit can take an interminable length of time, but not on this occasion as seven of the ten units in play were mounted Knights, which carry a +2 addition to their combat scores, so it was inevitable there would be a lot of melee and a high casualty rate (once in melee units cannot break off from the fight).  Being mounted the Knights are highly mobile but their manoeuvrability was restricted by the terrain, the necessity of crossing the river by only one bridge, thus creating a bottleneck, and the impenetrable woods shielding the English line from any flank attacks. 

The Men at Arms have an armour bonus and their casualties in combat are reduced by 50%, this made them the only unit on the board strong enough to force a breakthrough at the bridge, spearheading the attack made sense even though it left them fatally weakened.  The lack of Archers was keenly felt by both sides, fewer units of Knights in favour of more foot and bowman would have given the game a very different dynamic.

At the start of a game it's always tempting to rush into contact and then find your focus drawn into the ongoing action as happened to us here, in hindsight we thought the English would have done better to put the Archers in the second line and pull the Knights at the bridge back to give them extra support. They could then use their firepower to degrade the French units before counterattacking, it was all about playing for time and slowing the advance on the hill.

The Airfix Handbook

The Airfix Handbook - James May's Toy Stories, ISBN 978 1 84486 116 3, 96 pages illustrated in full colour throughout, I would describe this as being in the nostalgic format of childrens "Ladybird Books" but stand to be corrected on this (the illustrations are photographs).  

James May is a UK TV presenter best known for co-hosting the motoring show "Top Gear" but in 2009 he also created a six part documentary series to showcase his choice of the six most notable toys on a grand scale.  

One of these projects was to build a 1:1 scale model of the iconic Airfix Spitfire kit, and this book tells how they did it, it's split into three sections:

Introduction and The History of Airfix (50 pages)

The Big Build - full size Spitfire model (30 pages)

Complete catalogue of Airfix kits by year (8 pages)

I watched the programme when it aired and was thrilled to receive the book unexpectedly on Christmas morning (Mrs C. had found it in a local charity shop) so I don't know if it's still in print but you can probably find it on the internet.  Thoroughly recommended.

The life size model built for the programme is now on display at the Royal Air Force museum in Cosford.  Among the other projects were a basicule bridge to span a canal made out of Meccano (on display at the University of Liverpool), and a full size habitable house made out of Lego bricks, which had to be dismantled after the series because it didn't have planning permission!

A Medieval host at the Plastic Warrior Show 2025

 You never know what will turn up at the PW Show each year, it's a perfect mélange of toy soldiers, all scales large and small, collectable rarities rub shoulders with terrible tat, it's anybody's game and it's always a lot of fun.  I never go with any expectation of what I might find, mostly I'm looking out for figures to flesh out my 54mm toy soldier wargame armies and this year there was a bumper crop of Medievals:

I'm always in the market to buy knights converted by Vince Mattocks, these ones were commissioned from him by an old friend of mine, Dave McKenna, who sold his entire toy soldier collection last year and I have been picking up tranches of them as they have become available.  I mention this just to give the provenance to these fine figures for whoever might own them in the future.

Much of the collection has been shown here in the previous posts covering our Lionheart wargames (see link in the Labels column on the right), the personalities are all conversions and painted in the correct liveries, the men at arms shown here are mostly unconverted.

I'd already had the pick of the collection last year then the seller found another box unexpectedly and offered them to me as a clearance lot, they worked out at about 40p each which was well worth it for the amount of time I saved in painting and research.

Vince marks all of his conversions with a stylised Vm and adds the date he made them, he also gives the name of the personage portrayed and marks them E or F to indicate English or French.  They are mostly 100 Years War but some are Wars of the Roses, there was bound to be some overlap, so now I need to list them and see who I've got!

Another converter who's work I always look out for is Eric Kemp, and his figures have graced many a post on this blog.  Several of Eric's collections were on offer and I picked examples from three of them to help rekindle inspiration and kickstart a couple of my own projects which have gone off the rails recently. 

I always enjoy working out what the donor figures were for conversions and seeing how they've been reconfigured, I particularly liked the two slingers in the picture above, a common troop type but sadly neglected by the toy soldier manufacturers.

For some time I've been quietly squirrelling away the raw material for a Renaissance period collection, Eric's painting style is very distinctive and make his conversions instantly recognisable, which is helpful as he doesn't sign his work.

Another three of Eric's Normans will be joining my Dark Ages armies which are nearing completion now.

Lionheart - A Medieval Wargame with 54mm toy knights

 Our first trial of the boardgame Lionheart worked very well so we decided to expand on it by introducing some terrain elements and an additional two unit types; Heavy Foot Knights and Mercenaries. The remainder of the armies were the same as in our previous game and we increased the number of actions in each turn from four to six per side.  The basic game mechanics were explained in my previous post HERE.

The French line up with Heavy Foot Knights on the left flank (just visible at the top of the pic) and the Kievan Mercenaries on the extreme right.  For the Mercenaries we used Medieval Russian Knights made in china by Supreme along with some made in Russia by Engineer Basevitch.

While the English line advances with Heavy Foot to the front (Britains Deetail knights just beyond the Timpo Crusaders) and Irish Mercenaries with their priest following in support.

The game allows for one more unit type; Peasants, but I didn't have any suitable figures to hand so we left them out, maybe they'll appear next time.

With their enhanced mobility it's always difficult to hold back the Mounted Knights, they charge across the field when they see an opportunity to strike.  This invariably draws out their opposite counterparts and leads to a duel between the chivalry.

  The Mercenaries are strong in combat and have the ability to induce panic in any unit they attack, forcing them to retire, the danger is that they can be turned if they come in contact with the enemy King and may change sides.

The terrain comprised a line of hills with a road running through them on one flank, a central plain and a forest with a road running through it on the opposite flank.  I like to keep things simple to begin with.

The Heavy Foot Knights (centre) are powerful in combat but very slow moving, it takes two actions to move them one hex, as a result they never really got into the game.

After the Mounted Knights had exhausted themselves duelling the Infantry and Archers moved in, the latter being quite vulnerable if attacked so need close support.

The Kings and their retinues tends to become a mounted reserve, kept safely out of the way behind the lines until desperation draws them out into the fray.

As things turned out all of the action took place in the central plain and virtually no use was made of the hills or forest.  (Note to self: put more obstacles in the centre of the field next time)

I always pick up bits and pieces of Timpo medievals when I see them in the cheap junk boxes at shows, they invariably have no weapons, scabbards or shields but that's easily sorted.  They are notoriously unstable on their small green bases so I mount them on 2p coins, this will be anathema to some people but lets face it they're not rare, you can find hundreds of them on the internet auction sites every day of the week.

This time the game was much less cohesive with small groups of opposing units engaging in clumps of combat dispersed around the field.

It's a good game system and I like the way it flows, I think we will need to give more thought to how we deploy the Heavy Foot Knights or revisit the way we allocate actions in each turn.  

With a little tweaking the system could be easily adapted to the Dark Ages or brought forward into the Renaissance, so we might have a go at one of those periods sometime.

Britains American War of Independance Swoppets.

 This past year I embarked upon a review of how I store and display the unruly mass of toy soldiers accumulated in a largely haphazard way over the past six plus decades.  

Everything is being separated out between collectables and figures for wargaming, the former to stand safely on a shelf gathering dust and looking pretty, the latter boxed securely in their units and ranks ready to be deployed on the tabletop at a moments notice.

I started picking up Britains and Timpo American War of Independence Swoppets with the intention of using them for wargaming, back then they were the only figures available for the period, but they were hard to find and by the time I'd acquire enough they were getting too brittle and delicate for the amount of handling involved.  I aught to let them all go but I don't feel quite ready for that yet.

The building in the background is the tinplate "Revolutionary War Tavern" made in America by Louis Marx, the mounted figure of George Washington to the front left of it is an old composition piece made by Elastolin.

In amongst the Britains and Timpo Swoppet AWI are a smattering of figures from other manufacturers such as: Shell Liberty Men of '76, Louis Marx Warriors of the World, A Call to Arms, Res Plastics for Kinder Eggs, Awesome Toys, Casualties of War, Airfix, and a couple of white metal models.

The building shown here is the Louis Marx tinplate "Civil War Mansion" from their "Battle of the Blue and Gray" playset.

Native American allies are provided by Mohicans from Britains Herald range and Charbens.

 These figures have all spent far too long languishing in boxes so it was nice to get them out and put on display where I can appreciate them a bit more.

Feast and Famine.

 We're already heading towards the end of the car boot season, and this year the pickings have been very thin, but last weekend there was a bumper crop:

The complete haul above cost less than £20 in total, particularly pleased to get the Tudor houses in the background which are ceramic ornaments and in scale for 28mm figures (but will work fine with 54mm).  The vast bulk of WW2 Airfix are conversion fodder destined to become medieval footmen.

I needed some French para's to go with my Viet Minh for the Indochina project but don't like to mess about with vintage Starlux if I can help it so these Hugennot copies will do the job just fine.

Some of the better odds and ends will be gifted or end up in the junk boxes at the Plastic Warrior Show next year.

At first I though the crude hollowcast copies of Britains Zulus were homecast and planned to repaint them but when I checked the markings under the base I saw they were made by Hanks, so I'll probably keep them as they are. 

Honved infantry for the Risorgimento

 Or at least my take on them. I've been sitting on a pile of Airfix Napoleonic French Line infantry and Grenadiers which I've been steadily trying to find other uses for, I got bored with painting French uniforms a long time ago!

In this case a unit of them are joining my Risorgimento project as Hungarian Honved infantry from the  1840s.  Anyone conversant with the period will instantly recognise that the uniforms aren't quite right for such troops, but at least the colours are, more or less, and that's good enough for me.

A simple conversion, just a head change for a metal Austrian shako from Dorset Model Soldiers and a paint job, mounted on metal washers for stability and basing uniformity, the standard is printed from the Warflags website.

Some of the other units in the Risorgimento project have appeared here before in this game based on the Battle of Calatafimi

While I had the Dorset heads and the relevant paints out I added a couple of Austrian Artillery crews to the mix, these made from BMC American Civil War figures.

Not Quite Victorious Army

 But I'm sure they will be when they eventually get onto the table for a game!

For some time now I've been building up a generic Chinese army, I'm not sure why and I can't remember how it started, perhaps I just like the colours.  And the flags, the flags are great.  Anyway, there is no grand plan, I just bang out another unit every now and then when an idea comes to me, it's quite therapeutic, doing something different.  Here's what I've got so far:

When I call them generic what I have in mind is that they will be used as an opposition in a Colonial scenario or possibly in the "Back of Beyond" or even at a stretch against Samurai.

These irregulars in black pyjamas and red bandanas are based on the Vietnamese Pavilion Noirs, mostly made from Hing Fat and other pirate figures, some have been given shields from wooden disks, others have Chinese heads (from Dorset Model Soldiers) just to give a bit of variety.

The flag has been cut out using pinking shears to give it a scalloped edge.  The inscription means something but I can't remember what, hopefully nothing rude.

Imperial Infantry, Artillery and Cavalry in the centre, irregular horse on the flank.

The matchlock men are more Hing Fat pirates, their tunics extended with plasticene, otherwise just a paint job.  The spearmen are medieval knights, made in China, which are currently available everywhere, and very useful they are too.  For a more Quing period look they've been given plumes on their helmets and replacement spears from metal rod with tassels added.

The cannon started life as a table cigarette lighter, it looked sufficiently gaudy for the job and just need a spruce of paint.  The crew have been given Mandarin hat heads (Dorset Models again).

The Imperial Cavalry started life and Italieri Mongols, the flags I found on the internet and just played around with them in Publisher.

The irregular Cavalry are the remains of the Italieri Mongols padded out with some Huns made in Spain by Jecsan.

More of the irregular Cavalry.