The Battle of Knob End! AAR

Well the 28mm VSF action has begun! Dave and I broke out the FUBAR VSF rule set (with a few subtle changes) and we hit the gaming table running…

Both the British (cheers!) and the Russian's (Boo Hiss!) had balanced forces and the objective of the game was to have the most (alive) figures within 8 inches of the centre of the board after 12 turns, each of these model Armoured Steam Wagons has a crew of three counting toward this total. So let's cross to Wednesday August 15^th 1877 to the picturesque rolling fields just north of the quiet Norfolk town of Knob End on Gaywood...

Both sides made a beeline to the objective using their Armoured Steam Wagons as the centre of their thrust! The initiative on turn two gave the Russian Armoured Steam Wagon first shot in the armoured duel and it used it well  causing its British counterpart to burst into flames and then brew up! The crew survived to scamper from the board! The Russian armoured infantry then occupied the brush near the objective while their infantry unit after taking a few casualties fled from the board! The Russian robot unit was slow to move up as it failed its activation roll again and again early in the game! The British may have lost their armour support but consistently successful activation rolls kept them in the game. A hail of accurate fire from their robots and armoured infantry first suppressed, then immobilised and then damaged one of its two cannons of the Russian Armoured Steam Wagon leaving it virtually out of action for the rest of the game!

After six turns the game was anyone's then the British infantry unit after suffering a single casualty failed their morale and fled toward the edge of the table! The British armoured infantry after effectively reducing their Russian opposites in number who survived all their morale rolls were in turn decimated by the Russian robots then broke and fled from the game! At this point all that stood against the Russians were four British robots who survived a hail of fire (but not without a breakdown and a few other failures!). Then with the thin red line reduced to this thin metallic grey one the British infantry unit rallied and hurled themselves forward with gusto! The chances of a glorious British victory For Queen Vic were buoyed...that is until the British infantry were mown down by a storm of fire from the Russian robots, the survivors broke on turn eleven just inches from the victory area and failed to rally on turn 12 fleeing.

The Russians won a narrow victory!

Turn one gave the initiative to the Russian 2^nd Imperial Steam Division and they raced at full speed toward the centre of the gaming area.

A good shot on turn two gave the Russians the armoured edge!

The 32^nd Norfolk Mechanised Fusiliers lose their Mark Ia Armoured Steam Wagon!

The  situation around the objective mid game, the blue coated mercenary troops fighting for the Russians hold the brush near the objective despite heavy losses...Hurrah!

The  red coated infantry flee after taking a single casualty!!!!!

Only to re-enter the fray a turn later! Hurrah again!

Only to be slaughtered the very next turn and flee again!

Russian robots surveying the battlefied! is that a glow in their eyes or just a bit of red eye from flash photography?

The table at game end, the only troops within 8 inches of the centre of the table were the Russian armoured infantry! The only effective British unit in action still is the robots of the Knob End Engineer Company!

This game was great! We learned a lot about the FUBAR VSF rule set from this session! We swapped sides and played the game again but with a great British victory second time around. The rules are easy, fun, out there and created two close games! To list where we went awry: we didn't value the 'duck & weave' and 'aimed fire' units actions, we undervalued the armour we deployed and we had either to many robots, not enough infantry or not enough Armoured Steam Wagons or guns that could deal with robots but all that aside we will being continuing our VSF games with these rules! I'll put up a separate post on the FUBAR VSF rule set with our thoughts soon! 

Next time:  more on VSF figures or rules, or maybe I'll finally write up the AAR for the Stanley's Redoubt scenario of the Russian are Coming campaign!

The Era of The Great Steam Wars Begins…

Been a while folks but I'm back, this is the start of my VSF campaign posts, they'll run in parallel with my Martian Wars ones as the 28mm ‘human’ forces will be used in both. For these games I’m going to start off using the FUBAR VSF rule set…

The years following the defeat of the Martians dastardly attempt to conquer the Planet Earth and spread their evil influence within the solar system were ones of great technological advancement for Humankind. Man’s knowledge was expanded greatly as it battled the malevolent aliens but as a consequence of the total rout of the extra-terrestrials the first rank nations of the Earth now found themselves fielding large experienced armies equipped the most modern and deadly tools of war but with no apparent enemy to use them against. It wasn’t long before the newly designed war machines became the centre of a great arms race with every country attempting to outstrip the others arms production in an effort to become the most powerful. In this atmosphere mistrust jealousies rapidly developed and it wasn’t long before the Great Steam Wars of the late 1870s erupted into life and engulfed whole continents!

The two Great Empires with the most at stake in this period of expansion into the Dark Continent and the Orient were those of the British and Russian Imperial Families. Relations between Queen Victoria and Tsar Nicholas I were on the face of it cordial but below the surface they both envied and feared each other’s expansionist policies. Both countries governments laid plans to win this ‘Age of Imperialism’.

In July 1877 with Russia battling the ailing Ottoman Empire in the Balkans the British took advantage of their distraction with the infidels to claim vast stretches of the Dark Continent in the name of Queen Victoria, never had so many pygmie tribes been totally wiped out in such a short period of time in the whole history of mankind!. However the British were blissfully unaware of the machinations that were going on within the Imperial Russian Diplomatic Service and Military Intelligence. These branches of the Tsars Imperial Bureaucracy had developed a cunning plan to lure the British into a sense of false security keeping virtually the whole of the Russian Imperial Army ready to strike while a diversionary force dallied with the Turks. The Russians believed the pompous British would expose themselves by deploying the majority of their armies and navies on the Dark Continent with its worthless deserts and mountains and underdeveloped population and they were correct!

The Tsar now prepared to plunge the world into a series of Steam Wars that ‘would sort the men from the boys’…

We go now to Wednesday August 15^th 1877 to the picturesque rolling fields just north of the quiet Norfolk town of Knob End on Gaywood, this was the date and location of the first clash between the Tsar’s mighty 2^nd Imperial Steam Division just landed on the English coastline and the hastily gathered men of the depot battalion of the 32^nd Norfolk Mechanised Fusiliers supported by some territorials of the Knob End Engineer Company. A small crossroad which the Russian Commander General Dimitri Klebb deemed of vital importance for the supply network of his forces was where the first shots were fired and the first drops of blood were to be spilt!

Captain Edward Smythe-Shuttlebottoms ram shackle battle group on the morning of Wednesday August 15^th 1877 taken by a photographer from London who happened to be in the town of Knob End on Gaywood at the time...Smythe-Shuttlebottom is seen on the rear deck of the Armoured Steam Wagon.

The Antagonists:

The British:

Captain Edward Smythe-Shuttlebottom

Veteran infantry from the 32^nd Norfolk Mechanised Fusiliers

Lieutenant Freddy ‘Stinky’ Smellie

Robots from the Knob Engineering Company

Ensign Harold Dungworth

Mark Ia Armoured Steam Wagon

The Russians:

Poruchik (Captain) Ourumov

Experienced infantry from the 2^nd Steam Regiment

Sub Poruchik (Lieutenant) Zhukovsky

Robots from the Kalin Experimental Automaton Battalion

Praporshchik (Senior Ensign) Drago

Mark Ib Armoured Steam Wagon

Next time  maybe a breakdown of of VSF figures, maybe an AAR who knows!

Building the Landship HMLS Dreadnought

I have been distracted by Little Wars Adelaide 2015 over the last few weeks preparing to manage a table for the day, I’ll be running an American Civil War game covering the Battle of Olustee using Longstreet rules with over 3,000 6mm figures, I think it’s time for me to add a couple of new pages to this blog covering my other periods of interest…anyway back on track here’s a run through of the construction of the HMLS Dreadnought.

My first 28mm scale Steam Powered Landship worked out so well I decided I needed a second one so they could engage in majestic dreadnought style engagements!

This Landship is about 20cm long and has a beam of 6cm (ahoy there I had to throw in a nautical term!) similar to the first one but is more ship like as it’s based on period pictures of 1870s battleships. The change from sloped stem and stern (ahoy again!) plates allows me a bigger deck space to 'play with'!

The first step was to turn seven bits of flat styrene into a boat shaped hull, the sides and bulkheads (ahoy!) are 1mm styrene and the curved plates are 0.5mm styrene. I glued the 4 outer skin parts together with a 5mm overlap on each joint creating a long strip and then  when these joints had dried I curved the whole strip around and glued it together while securing it in the correct shape with weights, it was easy than I thought it would be:

Then I added some deck and hull embellishments, the main turret holders and splash guards:

The main turrets were cut from 40mm PVC pipes and capped with 1mm styrene:

Wheel ‘units’ were then built for the Lego wagon wheels, you can see them here with the black axle stubs located on them:

The next step was to add rivets to the hull and I used my good old sewing pin head technique, it takes longer to do than the other methods I have seen do but gives an excellent uniform look. Each hole is drilled then the trimmed sewing pins are super glued in place (from the back where possible so there’s no glue residue on visible parts):

I included a 28mm Askari Naval infantryman here for comparison...

Secondary gun turrets where made from 25mm PVC pipes and they pivot on 20mm PVC pipe pieces. A lower superstructure to hold them in place and carry the conning tower was built from 1mm styrene. At this point details like the hatch, rear flagpole support, coal bunker, front tow point and lights were added:

The cannons for the front secondary turrets are Perry ACW gun barrels and the MGs for the rear ones were made from plastic tubing, wire and sewing pins:

The last major part of construction was the conning tower with mast; this was made from 1mm styrene, PVC pipe, washers and sewing pins. The mast parts are made from a meat skewer. The funnel/smokestack was made at this point too:

The funnel/smokestack was fashioned from a Heineken 5 Litre mini keg pouring spout, much fun ensued emptying the keg to make this part available!

Here’s the turrets, superstructure, conning tower and funnel resting on the hull…

The Landship was undercoated with cheapie spray can primer then Humbrol Black Matt 33 and Grey Matt 27 were used to paint it. For the main armament I used the same cast 32 lbr barrels as were on the first Landship and these were painted brass as were the Perry cannon barrels, the home made MGs got a coat of Humbrol Gun Metal 53 and lastly the rivets on the wagon wheels were done in brass:

I really like the way this ‘model’ turned out and I’m not giving anything away saying a third Landship is on the way yes those pesky ex-colonials from the Americas are trying their hand at one!

As soon as Little Wars Adelaide 2015 is done and dusted I’ll be posting up the Russians Are Coming Campaign Game 4 Set Up/Special Rules and AAR…

Campaign Game 4 - Stanley's Redoubt

This is the background of the fourth of the seven scenarios of a campaign game covering the Russian Invasion of the Colony of South Australia, The Russians are on the attack against  outnumbered but emplaced Colonial troops, little do the Russians know the South Australians have reinforcements close at hand:

A week into the invasion of South Australia Lieutenant-General Lazarev was satisfied with the progress his ‘army’ had made. Every evening since the landing had he held a council of war in which he met the fleet commander, Lieutenant Commander Rozhestvensky and the force’s diplomat, Aleksandr Jomini to discuss the day’s events and plan the next ones operations. Saturday night’s meeting centred on two salient points; the first was the failure of securing sufficient supplies and horses for the army through foraging and the second was what should be the objective of the next attack to be launched against their cunning enenmy. The long discussion on the latter topic ended in the conclusion that the securing of a deep water port i.e. Port Adelaide was a higher priority than occupying the City of Adelaide itself. Sound and conservative reasoning advised against advancing inland without a secure supply base. Seizing the port would offer a safe haven for the Russian ships and there was also the expectation that the ports warehouses would be filled with crucial foodstuffs for the army. With this direction of advance in mind strategies were formulated for the Sunday morning offensive.

In the final plan while 3 battalions of Lazarevs infantry were to advance from the Russian beachhead northward to Port Adelaide with support from the big guns of the fleet, the remaining infantry battalion with the Cossacks attached were to act as a diversion probing aggressively towards the South Australian capital hopefully pining down the defenders. Little did the Russians know their troops exertions toward the port were to be wasted as the South Australian commander Downes with the support of Governor Jervois had decided to sacrifice Port Adelaide and concentrate all their forces to defend the City of Adelaide. They considered holding the capital was crucial to maintain the morale of the populace and they believed any reinforcements forthcoming from the other colonies would not arrive in Port Adelaide with the Russian fleet prowling just off its entrance.

This meant that less than a quarter of the Russian force was about to assault the full strength of the prepared South Australian defenders!

Adelaide’s peace was broken on that fateful Sunday morning as the Russian’s fleet’s big guns bombarded Port Adelaide and hundreds of Russians advanced under the barrage’s cover.

Meanwhile as part of the diversion a half Company of the West Siberian Combined Battalion commanded by Captain Pushkin moved furtively along the route of Port Road towards Adelaide. Just before 10:00am he was alerted of a Colonial defensive position blocking their advance by an excited Cossack scout and he moved forward to reconnoiter it. He was faced by a palisade the locals had hastily erected to defend the roadway. He consulted his sergeants and decided on an immediate frontal attack! His infantry with a few Cossacks in support moved forward…

Sergeant Stanley Bruce and his guard detachment manned the palisade facing the Siberians. His men were part of the Adelaide Rifle Company and impatient for a ‘scrap’ with the invaders. He knew reserves from the Company were close at hand so was confident he could hold his position. The palisade he and his men had constructed the previous day was dubbed by the locals 'Stanley’s Redoubt', they had named it in his honour. As he watchwed the enemy pressing forward toward him Sergeant Bruce reassured himself that his men would successfully push them back but yet a feeling deep within his sub conscious wished it was a sturdy redoubt he was standing behind instead of a handful of hurriedly erected logs!

AAR and scenario forces, set up, special rules and victory conditions to come soon!