LaSalle 2

Tuesday afternoon presented a rare opportunity to game up at the club and Greg ran a game of new version of Lasalle with his 15mm figures.  We refought the Battle of Elchingen, with Steve commanding the French as Ney and me playing the Austrians as Riesch.  Greg adapted a scenario from the Age of Eagles ruleset.  This was the first time Steve and I have played the new version of LaSalle.  I I did play test an earlier version but the one that made it to print is very different.

Steve's French troops are of superior quality but must deploy from a bridgehead and then attack my plucky Austrians are setup along a ridge.  Like most games, I forgot to take a lot of pictures but history did not repeat itself.  My Austians were able to launch an attack on the French's left flanks just as they were launching their attack on my center - the French attack had trouble breaking my lines and got stuck in while my flanking attack was very successful catching some infantry battalion in square.  By mid-game the entire French left was in tatters and Steve elected to concede the field.  The Austrian victory was due more to our newness with the rules and the fact the scenario needs to be tweaked a bit more to make it more balanced.

So is LaSalle 2 Any Good?

I am intrigued with the rules, and definitely want to play them again but there are some good and really confusing aspects to them.

Good Stuff:

Sequence of Play

The turn structure is very fluid and your opponent can interrupt your turn based on your actions when your armies get close in.  I really like the structure and think it provides for a very fluid game with lots of hard tradeoffs.

Momentum Points / Command Friction

Each player is given a set number of momentum points based on force size and a minor random factor if you choose to commit your general and get a d3 roll of extra points.    The points are based on the number of brigades that are deployed on the table so it goes up or down based on reinforcements / losses.

Fire Combat

Artillery and musket fire use the same procedure that is simple and fun - you roll a d6 and every 4+ is a hit.  There is a second save roll for hits, with higher quality troops saving on a 1-4 and average quality 1-3.  An infantry battalion in line fires with 6 dice and an artillery battery fires with 4, which is double to 8 when in canister range.  There are optional rules to add flavor, so you anglophiles get one or two extra dive for the Brits.

Small Units

Infantry and calvary units consist of 4 bases - that make moving stuff really easy and for those of us from the church of six bases per battalion means our armies just grew by 50%.  You still get the grans look of a Napoleonic game but moving stuff is a lot easier - also 50% easier!

Confusing Stuff:

I haven't played enough to label anything as bad so will list out the "confusing" issues I have with the rules.

Melee Combat is Deadly - maybe too much

The close assault procedure is an opposed dice role where each player rolls a d6 and adds their current strength plus any modifiers for defensive terrain or formation (all of which are plus 1's) - so 2 full strength battalions running into one another have a strength of 6 which you add the roll of a D6.  If you loose the combat by 3 or more your battalion is destroyed and removed from the game.  Rolling a few "1's" at the wrong time can loose the game for you.

Skirmish Fire / Initiative Determination

Initiative is determined by each player rolling some D6 based on the units you have on the table, with every six counting as a success.   The player who rolls the most 6's gets the initiative for the turn and can decide who goes first.  You also get an extra momentum point.  Sounds great right?  Oh I should mention that the number of D6 you roll is based on the battalions you have on the field.  I had 6 Austrian brigades and about 22 infantry battalion (+/-) and was rolling 45 D6 each turn which was really tedious.  I understand the math behind rolling lots of dice as it evens out the chance for really random outcomes - like rolling a 1 vs a 6 in melee combat but the giant bucket of dice used here seems a bit of overkill 

Limited Role for Commanders

While we played with the basic rules, there didn't seem to be any of the Napoleonic flavor I expect from commanders - generals aren't really used expect to either add D3 of momentum points or you can plop them down once during a turn and perform a global formation change for any units within a set range.  That's it - that's all they do.  You also only have one per side - no St Cyr or Friants to help out in a nick of time.  Maybe I'm a little to "Hollywood" but I like my Napoleonic generals to be able to attach to units and influence combat or rally rolls and be at risk to enemy action.  In LaSalle your generals are essentially administrative counters

Overall, I think the rules are very promising.  They likely will not replace General D'Armee as my favorite but I think there are some really neat concepts in them and really do look forward to my next game with them.

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XI is Done: What a Blast!

 

The 11th version of the Analogues Hobbies Painting Challenge (creatively named XI) is now complete.  I had a blast and enjoyed every minute of it (as usual).

I am very pleased to report that I find myself in a 3-way tie for the most points with Martin C and Noel W.  All three of use crossed the line with 3,643 points.  I'm really pleased that we tied as I think that's the best outcome.  Remember points are based solely on output, if there were any adjustments for quality of painting, I would be trailing Martin and Noel by a wide margin.  

Still, I'm very pleased with my production this year.  While my total points total isn't as high as some previous Challenges (me personal best is 5,051) this challenge represented the most I've has to do because of the large terrain component.  It's also the first challenge where I didn't paint ANY 28mm figures.  I had a few primed and ready to go but just didn't want to paint them.  In past challenges, easily 75% of my points totals came from 28mm figures so there is some interesting commentary there on how my gaming and hobby direction is evolving.  Perhaps more on that in another post.

Similar to past Challenges, I did organize XI with building out what I need to put on a large participation game whenever conventions come back.  Stalingrad is the most ambitious project I've ever tried to pull off and it's still an open question if it will work.  The main project form Challenge X, the Russo Japanese war was also finished off this year as both the Japanese and Russian fleets were painted up.  Finally this year saw a jump into 6mm ancients and the completion of 3 different armies - Republican Romans, Parthians and Seleucids.  This ancients foray is in part to the campaign we are running at the club and on the LWTV channel.

I'm sure all of you are burning with desire to understand what comprises the 3,643 point total and that's a natural - what? you're not?  That's insane 'cause you're getting it anyway.

Total Submission:                    18

Total Points                              3,634

Avg per Submission                 202

Figures Painted:

6mm

Infantry                                1,656

Cav/Guns                               439

Vehicles                                     1 (an Elephant!)

15mm

Infantry                                251

Cav/Guns                                 8

Vehicles                                  30

1/2400 Ships                          98

Terrain Cubes                        54

(Terrain is scored by volume - each 6" cube is worth 20 points)

The chart above summarizes my challenge based on points by scale and allows a nice comparison to the totals for the full Challenge.  Challenge XI was atypical for me given the lack of 28mm production and you can see that in my much higher points share for 6mm and 15mm (34.8% and 21.2%) vs the overall averages for 6 and 15's of 2.4% and 10.6% for all participants.  

One of the more interesting things I see in Challenge XI is the relatively small share of 6mm when everything I hear in the hobby points to it's growing popularity.  Of course the sample size for Challenge XI is 84 and skewed towards people who focus on painting so it's likely not fully representative of the hobby.  I was very surprised to see that my little ancients foray accounted for 63% of all 6mm figures points

Points by project is't really a surprise with the main project (Stalingrad) accounting for roughly 1/2 of the total points and the 2 big ones totaling just under 85%

As stated earlier in the post, while my points total isn't a personal best, the level of effort put into this years challenge was likely the most I've ever done.  That's all due to the terrain building effort for Stalingrad and my choice of 15mm vs 6mm in scale.  Making hex terrain is a lot of fun but it is time consuming and somewhat labor intensive - well as labor intensive as any hobby project.  The choice of hexes was made for two reasons - one practical and one emotional.  

The practical reason is speed of play.  As a convention GM of more than 100 games with 8+ players one of the things that really slows play down are tape measures, especially when you get "that player" who is measuring to 1/64th of an inch and brings their own protractor to figure angles.  Hexes eliminate the need for tape measurers and also make LOS a lot easier.  The key is to use a ruleset that takes advantage of these aspects without rendering the game to being just a hex and counter experience.

The emotional reason is that I really want to put on the best game I can for my players when we can all return to gaming in large groups.  I really miss it and I'm sure so does everyone else.  I can't remove all the stress and loss we've endured due to COVID but I can try to make sure when we get back to the new nromal that next participation game experience is both fun and memorable.  The first time I really enjoyed wargaming was playing Squad Leader and running the Guards Counter-Attack scenario - it was a blast and lead to a life long hobby.  I want to try and recreate that evocative experience in miniatures for my players.  Will I succeed, who knows? but I'm going to give it my best shot.

Thanks to Curt and all the challenge participants for keeping me motivated to grind out the Stalingrad terrain.  XI was fantastic and I cant wait for XII.  Ok I need a bit of a break so I can wait a little bit for XII.

Now where the hell am i going to store all this stuff.....

The Last Day of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XI

 

My last submission for the 11th iteration of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has been submitted - it was a 80 or so "countryside hexes" and were a nice change of pace from the grind of Stalingrad.

These hexes are intended to be used with both 6mm stuff like in the second picture and

15mm miniatures as in the third picture.

I'm not sure where I'll end up in the standings but it was a wonderful event.  I encourage you to go check out the site as the last day tends to bring out a avalanche of final submissions.

Now I need to get to work getting some flooring down and cleaning up the basement.  The combined effects of a flood and massive set of hobby projects have pretty much rendered the "man-cave a disaster of epic proportions!

Stalingrad: Second Test Game

 

Last night we ran a second test game of the Stalingrad rules using the Northern section of the table.  This game was slightly bigger as both the Soviets and Germans fielded full battalions plus support elements.  

There were three players per side, each controlling a company plus.  The scenario was based on the Soviet counterattacks of Sept 15th, 1942 which was a surprise fro the Germans as it was historically.

There were a number of rule tweaks from last time and 4 out of the 6 players had never played the game before.

The Outcome was the slimmest of Soviet victories at 25 to 24 victory points.  Artillery proved to be both devastating and unpredictable and people seemed to enjoy the rule making artillery fire persistent over a turn.  The white cotton makers outline a german strike which impact the units under the template and any units that move into those hexes over the course of a turn.  I do think its a bit too powerful and need to tone down the impact.

We played for about 2.5 hours and managed to get 5 full turns in which works out to about 5 minutes per player per turn, which is about as fast as one can get in a convention setting.  Convention games run for 4 hours of which 3.5 is real play time and I'm planning 4 players per side so I should be able to get 7-8 turns in each session which is more than enough.  

I did get a lot of suggestions for improvements to the rules which will get incorporated over the course of this week.  The new shooting rules seemed to be work well but the areas for improvement include

1) Remove / Lighten the "Free" Rally Phase

The current iteration of the rules have a rally phase for both players as the last step of every turn.  Any unit that is not in "Good Order" (either Shaken or Broken) gets a free rally roll and the results are that most units return Good Order so it's really hard to sustain an attack.  Everyone felt it was too easy to rally so I need to change this rule.  The options are to just eliminate the phase and force units to attempt to rally as part of their platoon activation or limit the number of rally attempts by forcing a platoon of company leader be in the same hex as the unit being rallied- I'm leaning towards the latter.

2) Streamline Vehicle Combat

Vehicle combat has too may steps and bogs down so needs to be streamlined.  It's also pretty inconclusive.  3 Soviet T-70's stood up to 3 StugB and 3 Panzer IIIJ for multiple turns and the germans dice rolling wasn't that bad.

3) Snipers

I didn't explain these rules very well and both sides forgot about them until. the end of the game.  One needs snipers to really do Stalingrad but its a level of chrome that may not work in a large participation game where simplicity of rules is a must.

There are a bunch of other suggestions that I need to think about but the past 2 test games are making me really confident this will be a fun game for a convention.

Now back to finishing up for the Painting Challenge.

 

Bucentaure Update

 

Spring is almost here and that means its time to get Bucentaure ready for the water.  Last July she got a little scratched up during a storm and very high tide so we need to get the hull repainted along with some other minor repairs.  The paint work will be done by professionals as I would just screw it up.

I’m going to try something new this year with the boat.  Rather than keeping her tied up at a dock during the sailing season, the boat will be stored at a “Boatel” facility.  What’s that?  It’s an steel cradle that’s on land and the boatyard uses a big fork lift to put her in and out of the water.

I’m really ready for Spring

First Test of the Stalingrad Rules

Last night up at the club was pretty momentous for me as it was the first time my rules and Stalingrad terrain were used by "real people" rather than just solitaire by me.  We played on the northern section of the board and had 2 companies plus supporting elements for each side.

 

Comrades Josh and Greg Surveying the battlefield as they prepare to meet the Axis invaders.  The third Soviet player Dave arrive just after this picture was taken.   The Germans players for the game were Tony, Ed and Dieter.

The soviets had 2 full infantry companies, a platoon of Naval Infantry and 3 T-34 tanks.  The german forces had 1 company of infantry, 1 company of Pioneers with a flamethrower and 3 Panzer IIIJ tanks.

Midway through the game as Ed has maneuvered his pioneers to assault Pavlov's house (the two white buildings in the center).  This was turn 5 and the Soviets finally rolled to bring on their tanks to surprise the Axis.

Sadly for the Russians, their shooting skills were poor and after exchanging point blank fire for several turns they managed to not damage any German tank while 1 T-34 was damaged and lost its main gun.  What this really means is that the rules for AT gun combat are too cumbersome and need to be revised.

Ed was able to mass his pioneers and swept the Soviet defenders away from the complex.

The critical point of the game came here at the 3 hex "Yellow House" in the center of the picture.  Josh was defending with a single Soviet Rifle Platoon against 4 German platoons.  It was an epic struggle which saw the Germans repulsed multiple times before Josh evacuated the house.  His staunch defense created a Hero unit and the Yellow house has been forever renamed "Joshinov's Hovel" in the annals of history.

Unfortunately for Josh his hero squad they were forced to retreat through errant soviet artillery fire and met an untimely demise.

We got in 9 turns of the planned 12 and the game was declared a narrow Soviet Victory.  

The rules seemed to work really well but there are a lot of opportunities for improvement.  Using hexes did prove to really speed up play.  All-in-all, it was a great first outing and I am very fortunate to have such great club members to inflict my game upon.

The task the for the next few days will be to make some rule revisions and retest the game next Monday.

 

'O' Group: New Rules from TooFatLardies

 

TooFatLardies and Dave Brown have a new set of company level WW2 rules coming out called 'O' Group.  I'm a big fan of Mr Bowns' General D'Armee and am very excited to give these rules a go.

So excited I've ordered a set and have been reading my PDF copy.

The scale if 1"=25 yards, which is the same scale used for the Stalingrad table

Intrguing...

You can find these rules at the Lardies website here

What do you See?

 

Most people would say they see a really cheap wire brush head on top of a very messy workbench.  Not me!  No I see a incredible well organized storage depot of 6mm scale pikes!

I went to the hardware store to pick up some modeling supplies and spent some time in the brush section looking for just the right "pike brush".  The bristles had to be stiff enough to be sturdy but not break or impale when brushed by a hand.

I also picked up a gallon bucket of pre-mixed tile grout plus some other odds and ends for terrain making.  Getting ready for the last push in the challenge

Russo-Japanese War Fleets: Done! - No Wait, I am a Channeling Clark Griswold.....

It was time to take a break from the 15mm Stalingrad project.  Finishing up the Russo-Japanese War project by painting up the ships seemed like a grand idea and last night the labeling of the last ships and flotillas of the Japanese fleet was done.

Sitting back to admire my work - to bask in the glory of my creation I heard a familiar sound playing in my head.  You've likely heard it to.  It was the musical notes played during the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when Rusty asks his dad if he brought a saw after trekking out miles into the wood to  find the perfect Christmas tree.  Here, let me remind you:

I noticed something wrong with one of the labels on a Japanese cruiser - the old 3rd class Niitaka.  There was something off with the flag.  It seems I manage to put 2 flag images on the label and they were slightly offset.

Oh well, its only 1 ship - who cares, right?  Well just to be safe, I checked the others and, well ummm, it seems this double image problem was on every label save one - the Battleship Mikasa.  That's when I heard that familiar Kettle Drum sound.

It seems I was a bit over-zealous with my copy and paste in excel when making the labels and managed to put multiple copies of the image on the labels.  This is a great example of being too focused on completion rather than quality.  Todays project inbetween business calls will be to re-label the Japanese fleet and then double check the Russian labels.

Somewhere, Homer Simpson is smiling.

Stalingrad Project: Supplies Running Low

 

Like any military campaign, terrain projects are won and lost over logistics.  If one does not have the raw materials, one does not make a lot of progress.  While the core tabletop has been built there are some extra details I want to add and my supplies are running very thin.  My gallon bucket of pre-mixed flexible tile grout is just about empty.  I started the project with this bucket 3/4 full so it has served me very well over the past few months.  I'll need to run out and grab another bucket in a day or two.

Please excuse the disheveled work room between the messiness of a giant terrain project and the basement flood it's a shambles.  In all honesty, it was a shambles before the flood but now there's an excuse!

Also running low on railroad ballast and talus.  I was using 4 different types and started the project with all of these bins full.  I have made a tactical error here as I never wrote down the names of the different ballast products and those are now "lost forever".   The rubble terrain making technique I've developed for this project does not involve painting so I'm lucky the supplies held out until the project was finished.

What are the blank hexes for - I'm doing some testing on making generic "countryside" terrain in 15mm scale and so have 2 road, 2 clear and 2 to be forested hexes to see how it looks.   I'm kind of all in on hex terrain.

Using lots of different texture sizes is important to getting a good look on the table top - I've found four is a really good match and its worth the few extra steps to ensure things don't have too uniform of a look.

Looks like a trip to the hardware store is in the cards for later this week