Monthly Archives: August 2018

Meet The Boxers

Miniatures

Continuing to jam 30 days of wargaming into a couple days posts.

One summer project was purging The Shed.   This is where old miniatures and wargames hang out.  Found my old MiniFig Boxer Rebellion figures.  They had been painted to help augment forces for a large, and if I remember correctly, really nice Siege of Peking game back in Kansas City.

They’d been billetted in a cigar box for who knows how long.

Not Very Photogenic.  But Angry After Being Cooped Up.

In keeping with my current retro miniatures phase, decided to start working with The Sword And The Flame (TSATF).  I still have an original copy of the rules, along with a Yaquinto Bulletin that includes charts for the rebellion.

Not content to play with just the figures on-hand, I ordered more from Miniature Figurines.  Old School can be pricey at roughly about $1.70 per figure.

I had originally painted up 24 Boxers, 6 Marines, 10 1st Chinese Regiment, and 6 “fanatic” figures, which according to the Foundry Press book, (Jeez, that’s expensive now)  look more like Chinese Christians.

I’ve added Boxer standard bearers, Boxer riflemen,  regular Chinese, more painted Marines (from E-Bay), but with officers, 3 British officers, 2 naval officers, and 10 Frontier Miniatures sailors.  The latter are more or less generic, and useful in any number of roles.

I started painting and playing some introductory scenarios.  Mission Creep set in.  I will be ordering some German Asian Brigade infantry, along with more Chinese Regulars and some Boers to serve as civillian militia.  Again time and money are factors.

The rules call for units of 20 individually mounted figures.   I’ll work with Boxer units of 18, and regular units of 10 figures, plus an officer.  Given my space limitations, movement and ranges will be halved.  So far this has worked.

To augment all of this fun, I purchased some specialized card decks from  The Virtual Armchair General.  These eliminate die rolling and add uncertainity to a solo effort. A very nice addition!

This will be fun, especially when I can get the Germans and Chinese Regulars painted up to play  all types of strange scenarios.

Lost Weekend?

Boardgames, Sessions, World War II

The bad news came on Thursday.  Tim couldn’t make it to our annual Labor Day Weekend wargaming/college football blow-out.  His pup, Crater, was not doing well and putting her in a kennel was out of the question.

Had just finished setting up the maps and sorting the counters for Storm Over Scandanavia’s Campaign for Sweden Scenario.  Might as well make the best of it.

This is a hypothetical German attack after the Fall of Fance.  The timeframe is July-September 1940.

An infantry affair, with very limited armored resources for both sides.  The Germans do have air superiority and a wealth of General Support air assets.  This advantage is mitigated by wooded/lake terrain.  To make things even more challenging, much of the German commander’s combat power is in the extreme north of Norway, and will have to work its way south, or be railed to a more central position.

The Swedish set-up is mandated by their mobilization region (MR).  There are also garrisons in each region.  They are immediately activated once Germans enter the area, or activiated during the initial phase if the Germans are adjacent to the region.

All victory point calculations aside, the Germans must take Stockholm.  The Swedish deployment has made an amphibious attack (using rail ferries!), implausible.  As mentioned, a northern axis of advance will take too much time.  So the main effort, using three corps, will be through west-central Sweden with axes of advance channelized by lakes and terrain.

Should be interesting.  Here’s a quick photo of the setup.

 

Building Boom

Miniatures, Terrain and Buildings

While procrastinating about Panzergruppe Guderian,  managed to work on additional buildings for Fistful of Lead.

Decided to keep with the Southwest locale.  It fits my lack of skill and precision.  Adobe buildings require the roughest of construction skills, complemented by healthy applications of spackling paste.  

Throw in layers of textured spray paint, random dry-brushing with earth colors, finish with white/gray, and there it is.

The results aren’t pretty, but functional.  A topic I’m working myself into a rant about.

PGG – Another Thought.

Boardgames, Review

It’s a point-and-shoot.  Part of the appeal.  Germans barely stoppable, and the Soviet body count just grows and grows.  But they just keep coming…..and that changes the German commander’s view about four turns in.  How In The Hell do I stop them?  So you keep looking at the table twice a day.

That’s the other part of the appeal.  You appreciate Heinz G’s Quandry.

Here’s an excellent link.  I wish they had kept at it.

https://grognard.com/zines/sr/spi_no1.pdf

 

Finally…….

Boardgames, Review + Session Report

Finished off a long and torturous session with the venerable and highly rated Panzergruppe Guderian.

Getting it on the table was a lengthy process.    Purchased on E-Bay eons ago.  Arrived in fetid condition, probably stored in a basement in Missouri for the past 20 years.  No slur on The Show Me State, as  I lived there for 10 years, and had a number of games go bad in the humidity.

Game spent about 6 months in a car freshener laced garbage bag along with some really smelly Osprey Men At Arms books.  Rules had to be copied since the originals were falling apart.  Lucky the copier didn’t succumb.

It is a fun play, until the German player has to get involved in (I think unavoidable) attritional showdowns at or east of Smolensk.  

Opening

 

The unknown Soviet unit strengths make it a very good solo game.  The Soviets keep throwing units into hasty defensive lines, while the Germans try their best to outflank them, and wait for their infantry to appear,  sew up the pockets, and get the ZOC kills.  Unfortunately, the infantry units are a little late in getting on the map. 

My mistake was to leave armored units to seize Smolensk, rather than push them east.  Again, if I’d been more patient, the infantry would  eventually  have arrived.  But, time is of the essence in this game.

Also, once a unit is in contact, it is committed and  can only  leave its opponent’s ZOC through victory or an unfavorable combat outcome.  Panzer losses reduce the ability to attack at doubled strength.

So, why long and torturous?  Just couldn’t bring myself to get muddy and bloody east of Smolensk once the Soviet defenses had really coalesced.  Kept looking at the game table and finding beer to drink and/or  chores to do.

The key to this last defensive line was using Soviet commanders – who have a command radius allowing units to use full movement – as “shepherds” to help units into action quickly.  Rail movement is limited, and the German interdictions drastically reduce rail movement.  So, getting everyone moving west is a Soviet priority.

The Soviets also have a limited interdiction capability.  This is limited to twice a game, but given the German line of communications bottleneck, an interdiction  reduce literally all German units east of Smolensk to half strength during that turn.  Timing here is critical for Soviet success.  

By Turn 8, it was coming down to one turn of die rolls for the Germans.  Without a breakthrough, stalemate.  Rolled them, and the Germans remained locked up, with only a limited reserve  too weak to continue east.  

End Game

A marginal victory for the Germans.

Another Fistful

Miniatures, Review

Want to take a minute to extoll the virtures of this ruleset.  Is it the greatest ever……well, no.  But, it is what it is and an excellent value.

The rules are just a part of what you get.  There is a whole series of stand-alone scenarios, characters to develop, diagrams of buildings, and another set of scenarios that can be combined in a campaign game.

Everyone has there preferences, but I have no desire to try another of western skirmish rules.