First game of the year 2026

 Well its as much a play test as a full on game.  When I was playing around with the DBA derived rules Damn Battleships Again I got to wondering about using weight of shot as a measure of the attack value of the ships.  That in turn came from something I read a while back about how much incoming fire was needed to pin or suppress a squad of infantry and once sent to ground how much was required to keep them there.  This little nugget of information was filed away somewhere at the back of my mind until I got the World War Two bug again .I started to think about what I knew of infantry tactics in the Second World War and how to reflect that in a set of rules.  

I had already set the size of infantry combat units as being the components of a section, so a 'Gun Group' with light machine gun and loader plus one other with rifle or sub machine gun and a rifle group split into two elements.  This gives the flexibility to set up a base of fire with the gun group and manoeuvre with the two rifle elements. Each element is given a factor for the weight of fire they could lay down at various range bands based upon the weapon mix deployed on that stand.  Lets call them fire points. For each fire point the base could roll 1D6 plus or minus D6 for things like cover, movement and training.  any score of six or double fives having an effect thing then would then come into play to determine the impact of the incoming fire.  Results would escalate from pinned (can't move but can shoot) through suppressed (can't move or shoot) to neutralised (No longer combat effective and removed from play).  Ground scale is 1cm to 50 yards (this may change as my ideas develop).

So to test the basic concepts for infantry combat I laid a table out on Friday and set to pitching a platoon of German Fallschirmjager against a two rifle groups (four bases) of British Infantry plus a section of Home Guard.  All set in 1940 during the fictional operation Seelowe Nord.  The scenario is that German airborne forces are converging on an airfield they are tasked with capturing.  In the way of one platoon is a small village garrisoned by the British as a defensive island.  To make it interesting I gave the British a couple of improvised armoured vehicles, a Beaverette armoured car and an Armadillo mobile pillbox (well semi mobile is a better description).

1. Starting positions.  

You can see the central area of the table in this photo.  The British defence is set up in the village and the German assault is deployed at the bottom (with the pale blue ID tags), the groups of three represent a section and the group of two is the Platoon HQ.  Neither side has mortars or artillery support.

2.  Four turns in.  White markers are spotted units (see below)

The spotting rules were dropped pretty quickly as they added unnecessary complications as spotting should be specific to a single observing unit and one or more target units, showing that would be unwieldy.  Instead I switched to a simple combined  line of sight and spotting mechanism.  Scratch the white markers here after.

As you can see in the second photo the German attack is pushing out to the flanks and the British have advanced both the Beaverette and the Armadillo to provide fire support.  The armadillo is especially useful in this as it mounts twin Lewis Guns in a concrete bunker. Armadillo armoured fighting vehicle - Wikipedia if you want to know a bit more.  It gave a really useful base of fire over on the British left.  The Beaverette is less robust but more mobile Standard Beaverette - Wikipedia.

3. The shooting starts

First contact is on the British left.  The shooting rules seem to be working as intended (after a couple of tweaks) as the advancing Germans are accumulating pinned units (the yellow markers) no suppressed units as yet (those would show a red marker).  These can be removed or reduced via a morale check at the end of the turn.  So it is similar to a step loss system.  Shooting works by checking if Line of sight exists and if the target can be seen it can be fired upon.  This then moves onto calculating the fire points being applied and rolling 1D6 per fire point less one dice if the shooter is pinned, one if the target is in soft cover and two if in hard cover.  Any six or pair of fives causes a step loss.  Units who can't clear the effects are of course more vulnerable in the next turn.  Several units may mass fire on a single target subject to target priority rules (which are not finalised as yet).

4. Closing in

As the German Fallschirmjager move towards contact on their left the Armadillo shows it worth as it suppresses the MG34 team directly to it's front.  British rifle fire pins part of the rifle section as it crosses the open ground between the woods and the defended hedge line.  Movement and firing is simultaneous so Jerry gets to return fire but will be disadvantaged next turn if they can't clear the pin and suppression effects.  That said the MG team and rifle section killed one British rifle base opening a gap in the defence of the hedge.

5. Close assault preparation

The other flank is hotting up as well as can be seen in photo 5 above.  The Fallschirmjager's HQ anti tank rifle team has advanced on the Beaverette and managed a mobility kill (white marker).  The British defence is mostly in hard cover on the German left (a log bunker in the field corner and houses) but MG fire is to be used to pin them (reducing the number of fire dice generated) which will allow the rifle team's to close in on the bunker.  A close assault with rifles and grenades will follow up and clear the first defensive obstacle.  By the way the group of troops at the far end of the village sitting all forlorn in the field are casualties and are not really there).

The Germans cleared the bunker and swung around to laydown fire into the village from their left.  They finished off the beaverette but not before it had shot up a rifle group.  I did the morale tests at the end of the turn and the Germans rolled low and decided to withdraw.

I think I have some interesting concepts but I don't think it gives me anything above and beyond what Fistful of Tows (FFT3) provides.  So I will shelve the draft rules for the time being and give the slim line version of FFT3 (a fistful of T34s - a Little Wars TV variant) a go.  I will lift the force make ups from the full rules so I can use my 1940 stuff again.  So watch this space. 

Distracted....moi!

Of course I haven't been distracted.   Well not much anyway, in fact I'm confident that I can claim it isn't a case of me getting distracted but instead I'm just clearing some unpainted lead from the pile of shame.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  The distraction, oh yes , that.  It's the part painted World War Two stuff.  Well it's low hanging fruit isn't it.  Get it cleared and it is a good start to the years targets isn't it?  A platoon of Fallschirmjager some armour and support vehicles has now crossed the painting table, been based and is ready to go.

About a decade ago I read an entertaining book by a chap called Andy Johnson called 'Seelowe Nord' covering a what if version of Operation Sealion, itself very much a what if scenario of course, in which the landings happen on the Yorkshire coast between Scarborough and Filey.  I lived in East Yorkshire at the time and the places being described were all very local to me so of course it triggered a bout of the old "ohhh shiney complex".  The idea of armoured combat over my local geography was too good to pass up and off went an order to Heroics and Ros with follow up fill ins from GHQ Micro Armor and Irregular Miniatures  I got a fair amount painted before other things distracted me and so the balance has languished in a box for a decade or so.  In a fit of sudden enthusiasm (see not distracted at all really, enthusiasm that's the ticket) I sorted through the stuff and got down to finishing off some vehicles and figures.

The might of the Wehrmacht!  Well perhaps not.

The British stuff has already been posted so I haven't pictured that again.  This batch are the Nasty Nazis.  Fallschirmjager with blue labels consisting of three rifle sections each of an LMG base and two rifle bases, plus platoon HQ and some support weapons attached from company level.  Two bases of 50mm mortars for the Panzer Grenadier platoon and a platoon of mighty Panzer IIs.  Recon provided by the four Armoured Cars.  The rest are part of the train for the SIG33 and StugIII batteries I already had.

I came up for air yesterday and realised that I have now completed 34 infantry figures, 22 assorted vehicles and eight assorted other bits, and it's only half past January.  Next stop East Yorkshire.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026

 So it's 2026 and we are off to the races already.  But most importantly I hope everyone who reads this has a happy, healthy and prosperous 2026.  If you are not reading this, well.......

Now to business I have completed some of the part painted GHQ armour today and the 2026 lead pile spreadsheet is updated for the first time.  Note to self perhaps I should get out more.

Looking ahead I have the main part of the next two 17th Century posts completed. I just need to add some numerical stuff and list the sources I used.  These will cover German and Holy Roman Empire forces in the Thirty Years War.  After that I'm not sure what the themes for the year will be.  Hopefully more games so more game reports.  I still have a lot of stuff to paint and base and a few things to catalogue, these are Wild West and Sci-Fi figures mainly.  So you can expect some mind numbingly boring posts of the "wot I done lately" theme.

I will be trying to get these completed this month (the two left most rows are already done)

Interestingly (or perhaps not) the half tracks (M3s I think) in the photo are the oldest castings I own (of any genre or scale) as they must have been bought back in the mid 1970's.  Trust me it shows in the sculpting and casting quality.  I suspect they are early H&R or possibly Skytrex.  They seem huge against the H&R German Kfz70 trucks so I checked the dimensions via Wikipedia.  The M3/M5/M9 half tracks were bigger than the Kfz70 by around four feet in length.  However the casting is over scale by about 10 - 12% length wise although, oddly,  the width isn't far off being correct.  I'm not sure if I should keep them as museum pieces or bin them.  I'll have a go at tarting them up and see where to go from there.

The ten I have completed are early war British Cruiser tanks A9 and A10.

British Cruiser tanks 1930's designs which soldiered on until 1941-2

The A9 and A10 pictured above were very similar.  The A9 having the two MG turrets over the driver's position while the A10 did away with those as they were found to be shot traps.

This image popped up on Face Book as 12 years ago!  The original H&R order

You might recognise some of the vehicles in the above photo as being in the earlier part painted shot!  Worse than that some are still bare metal in the lead pile.  Yes dear reader, I really am that lackadaisical about painting projects.  Lets see how many I can clear in 2026 eh?  No taking bets at the back there.  Alright put down for a fiver on not all of them!

That was 2025, that was

Another year is rapidly coming to an end and joining rather more of them than I care to think about in the rear view mirror of life.  It's been a mixed year with health problems  both for myself and the esteemed Mrs E.  Mine seem to have been dealt with fairly successfully but Mrs E has appointments, potions and lotions to be attended, consumed and applied. Hopefully in that order as I'm unsure how to attend a potion!  Wargaming and modelling life has continued in the usual fashion and as usual I have reviewed the year to keep me motivated.  The key points (and I know you are gagging to know this stuff) are as follow.

The objectives I set myself were

• Complete the following DBA armies and ideally extend them to ADLG size: 
• Early Byzantine Army (its about half way there), 
• Goths (Ostro and Visi),  
• Hunnic 
• Other Germanic types (Franks, early Saxons, Lombards etc).
• Early Moors
• Finish the year with less unpainted stuff than I started with
• Rebase my 6mm British Civil war troops
• Build a couple of 2mm armies for Strength and Honour
• Play some ADLG
• Play some Strength and Honour
• Put together some sort of AI system for use in solo games

So how did I do?

The Goths, other German types and Huns can now field a m9inimum of the full 12 element DBA armies.  The other Germans achieved this by means of proxying Goths and Anglo Saxons though.  The Moors are still short of the basic DBA twelve elements but the missing figures are in the paint queue.  The Early Byzantines stalled mainly as I couldn't decide if I should buy the new Baccus figures to replace my proxy figures.  Lets call that a 3.5 from 5 score.

I finished the year with a smaller lead pile than I started it with, even with the additional figure purchases taken into account.  I started with 1,123 6mm figures and vehicles unpainted and ended with 1,080.  But during the year I had added 640 figures so the total output for the year was 683 6mm figures and vehicles.  I even reduced the world war two 6mm lead pile by a mighty eight castings!  The 25mm plus pile of shame hasn't moved although some work occurred but without anything being actually finished.  But again it is a win.

All my British Civil War figures were rebased and some unpainted ones painted and based for the first time.  I even extended the army by moving into the Thirty Year's War with new figures.  So that is a definite win.

I also created a small Russo-Japanese War naval fleet which was not on my radar for 2025, but, you know how it is, enthusiasms come (and go).

Now we come to the outright fails.  I sort of lost interest in building 2mm Strength and Honour armies partly because I saw some of Mark Backhouse's 6mm work and thought that it would be much easier to use my existing 6mm ancients for the game system.  I abandoned the solo AI system as I found a couple of existing systems that seem to have solved the issues I was getting bogged down in, not that I have bought anything as yet.

As for playing some games of Strength and Honour or ADLG.  Well what can I say I have had a very poor year for actually getting games on the table so It should come as no surprise to find I failed these objectives.  Must do better as my primary school teacher used to say.

Overall I'm happy with what I managed in 2025, I'm not getting any younger and sooner or later will have to accept that I should dial back on my hobby ambitions, but this is not that day!  So on to new objectives for 2026.

These are:

• Finish 2026 with a smaller lead pile
• Complete the following DBA armies:
• Early Byzantine
• Hunnic
• Early Moors
• Add more TYW units
• Play more games
• Add 6mm WW2 to database
• Add 6mm WW1 to the database
• Add 20mm and larger scale stuff to the database
• Add buildings, camps and other terrain to the data base

In general I want all my collection catalogued, you know just in case some has to dispose of it without my help.  I will probably not add any further DBA 6mm armies other than those listed, although I may extend some of those I already have beyond the basic DBA lists.  It seems a updated version of DBA is on the horizon and also I'm intrigued by the concepts within the new fantasy version DBF, especially the points system so I might get side tracked there.  Come on now, you know me of old, the one constant is I can never stick to a plan!

POST SCRIPT

I managed a full recount of unpainted 6mm on hand on New Year's Eve and it was slightly higher than expected at 1,143!  But the actual movement between castings added and castings completed and based still reflects a net reduction of 43 castings.  So still a win even with an extra 63 castings on hand.

These Matilda's don't waltz

For the last few years a motley bunch of early World War Two vehicles have been lurking in the deepest dankest depths of the lead pile.  Some were almost complete with others rather less so.  In a fit of unexpected enthusiasm and looking for a break from hordes of Goths I dragged some of them kicking and screaming into the light of the painting queue the other day.  I found three packs of GHQ British armour and some Heroics & Ros Germans part painted and decided that some British Matilda IIs would be a decent place to start.  They had been undercoated (probably a decade ago if I'm honest) and had had the green and black camouflage applied but nothing else.  So off to finishing school they went.

The detail on these little GHQ castings is insane

The GHQ castings are things of beauty and deserve a far better job of painting than I can muster, but as there is only me here to do the job I set to work.  Gun metal for the tracks and a light dry brush of pale sand to pick out details and suggest a layer of summer dust coupled with a thinned wash of Agrax Earthshade later and it was on to mounting them onto some bases.  These are probably only a temporary measure as they really deserve something more robust than a card rectangle but for now I'm calling these done as I'm not going to worry about adding any 6mm transfers to them.  To be honest I don't think they look to bad for a quick paint job.

Something Panzer's don't want to meet at a billabong

I have some Cruiser Mk I A9 and Cruiser Mk II A10 in the pile also from GHQ so will probably finish those off next.

It's that time of year once again

Ho Ho Ho or some such cheery greeting.  It's almost time for Jolly old Saint Nick, or Santa Claus or Father Christmas or even The Hogfather to visit.  I hope none of you are on the naughty list and that you have an enjoyable, relaxing and above all restful Christmas break (other mid winter festivals are available from the usual outlets).  Thank you for stopping by over the last twelve months and I hope you have found plenty of interest in my various ramblings.  There are more to come in the next year.  I'm off for a mince pie and a glug of Egg Nog now.

It's English Yew if you were wondering

Fighting the Thirty Years War - Battle of Wimpfen 1622

The Through the Square Window rules include a lot of useful additional information including some orders of battle.  One of those is The Battle of  Wimpfen 1622.  The orbat is in Guide 3 covering the forces of Margrave George Frederick of Baden Durlech (No, I hadn't heard of him before either).   What intrigued me was that it involves the use of "Battle Wagons".  I immediately thought of Hussite style war wagons and well, you know, the 'ooh shiney' complex kicked in and I found I really needed some war wagons.  The orbat only includes estimates for Baden Durlech's army so I started digging.  When I started to look a bit deeper into things I found the painting below (via Wikipedia).

The Battle of Wimpfen 1622 By Sebastiaen Vrancx (original in The Hermitage Museum)

This seems to show something more like a protected camp with a defence of wild west looking covered wagons rather than Hussite style armoured and garrisoned mobile forts.  What I did like was that the wagons are not all covered in boring off white canvas.  No, there are some boring brick red and black (or at least very dark grey) covers as well.  On the plus side the painting seems to show cannon muzzles pointing out of the rear of some of them. The orbat in the rules describes these as grape shooters and gives special rules for their use.  The period images I have found term it a 'wagonburg'.  As an aside, the Wikipedia image of the Vrancx painting is worth a good look as it can be magnified and there is a lot of interesting detail in there.  

Wood cut of the battle by the workshop of Eberhard Kieser  The 'Wagonburg' is at points D on the left side

Next up (above) is a woodcut image of the battle.  I'm not clear when this was created although Wikipedia says it was scanned from a 1960 tourist guide!  Keiser himself died in 1631 so it is likely to be near contemporary to the battle.  The nature of the wagons used in the wagonburg isn't incredibly clear in the woodcut but again it looks like covered wagons.  It does give a nice overview of the battlefield though along with some information on the number of units deployed by the two forces.

This version is by Matthäus Merian and shows the Catholic League formations clearly

Merian's engraving above lists the wagonburg in the key but I cannot actually find them in the image.  It is a view from the Catholic/Imperial side and clearly shows Tilly's Baggage train around Wimpfen itself.   My feeling is that the infantry formations depicted are more accurate than those shown in the Kieser woodcut.  Flags are inside the pike blocks and the catholic blocks look to be deployed in double battalia style which Tilly preferred to use.

Double battalions were a style of infantry formation where the usual practice of deploying twice the number of files as there were ranks (and using those pesky square root formulas to determine the formation depth and width) gave the theoretical layout for a single battalia of any given number of men.  A double battalion doubled the number of ranks arrived at using the square root model at the expense of the number of files.  The idea was that it gave more resilience and the pike block had more 'punch' as it had more weight when it came to 'push of pike' (no not a rugby scrum with sticks but the point at which the two blocks were in close combat.  I will discuss what this actually was compared to the modern re-enactors push in a future post). 

The Armies

Baden Durlech's force was a mainly mercenary force and included some cavalry from the army commanded by Ernst von Mansfeld who was campaigning alongside him.  They seem to have been well trained and to have had good morale. However Mansfeld had taken the bulk of his command to join up with Christian of Brunswick to carry out a siege leaving Baden-Durslech on his own. Opposing Baden Durlech was Tilly with Catholic League troops and allied Spanish troops under Don Gonzola Fernandez de Cordoba.  These were experienced well motivated troops and in the case of the Spanish Infantry probably veterans.  This wasn't known by Baden durslech who thought he was only facing Tilly's Catholic League forces.

The order of battle in the rules only gives the Protestant side's forces but I found Nazfiger's order of battle on line, which fills in that lack.   According to him we have the following:

I made some notes and some assumptions on the above that might help.  The number s are the headcounts for each unit as listed by Nazfiger.  For the Spanish the nationality listed is where the unit was originally raised this has an impact on their quality.  

For the Catholic League it looks like Herzog Holstein's and Wangler's foot were brigaded together under von Scharfenburg.  That would bring them up to roughly the same size as the other League units.  I'm assuming that a half Kartaune is similar to a demi-culverine.

Baden-Durlech's 20 x 8-3pdrs are probably the grape shooters in the wagons.  The wagons are not listed but the rules give 10 bases of wagons and the illustrations show a minimum of eight (in the Vrancx) and could be showing 20 -30 plus in the Keiser.

The style of the cavalry is a little more difficult (apart from where it is clearly described).  As a default I'd say treat them as Kuirassiers except from the baden Foot Guards who you might want to consider as Dragoons or Harquebusiers in keeping with the fact that they are infantry who have been mounted on horses.

I'm assuming the Spanish foot are well trained with good morale and the Spanish raised  tercios could be professional with the cavalry being lower rated than the foot.  Accounts say that Baden-Durlech's troops were well trained and had good morale and Tilly's would be at least as good.

The battlefield

The table divided into 305mm (1 foot) squares.  Ground scale is roughly 1mm to 2 paces

The table is shown with the right hand short edge being the North.  Red lines are roads although these are at best gravelled.  Wimpfen was walled and had 'modern' earth work defences.  Obereisheim seems to have had some sort of ramparts from the Keiser print.  Biberach also seems to have had some defensive works although it is hard to be sure from the period prints.  Biberach lies on a tributary of the River Neckar called the Bollinger Bach.  As there are bridges over this and the Neckar I'm assuming they cannot easily be crossed.  The brown line running through Wimpfen denotes an area of raised ground.  probably not more than 50 feet higher than the rest of the table at it's highest point.  Black blocks are villages and towns, Green 'splodges' are woods from the prints they seem to be medium density so I would treat them as passable but disordering for foot and not allow cavalry to fight within them.  Lastly the dark yellow curved line shows the rough position of the Protestant wagonburg.

The Protestant forces deploy to the north of the Bollinger Bach and above (west) of the River Neckar but no further forward than Obereisheim.  The Catholic League deploy in the squares containing Wimpfen and the village below Wimpfen on the Neckar.  The Spanish contingent must form a second reserve line.  Tilly's camp and baggage train was close by Wimpfen while the Protestant baggae was in and around Biberach (except those wagons used in the defensive line).

The events of the actual battle

The Battle commenced around 11.00am and was closely fought.  It seems that sheer luck played a large part in creating a Catholic victory.  This was from a random artillery shot detonating the Protestant magazine after around seven hours fighting.   This panicked the Protestant forces and allowed Tilly's men to force the Wagonburg line of defence.   How to create this as an event on the tabletop is a tricky one. Some kind of random event, but without knowing the chance of it happening it is hard to say how to do it. Perhaps draw a card from a standard playing card pack every time a League/Spanish artillery piece fires and if a specified card or cards are drawn we have a big Boom!  The number of trigger cards I leave up to you but I suggest this mechanism doesn't come into play before the equivalent of 2 game hours of fighting has elapsed.  Once the magazine explodes all Protestant foot should be penalised by reducing their morale state.  I'm not being very specific as you would have to tailor this for your rules of choice.

Easier to deal with was the fact that Tilly kept the Spanish in reserve in case Mansfeld's army returned to link up with Baden Durlech.  I would have a random number count down system to trigger Tilly releasing the reserve.  Probably rolling a dice each turn and counting the  cumulative total until a predetermined number is reached.  I would make the trigger number a multiple of 3.5 (average roll on 1D6) with the multiplier being determined by how many game turns (on average) I want Tilly to wait before releasing the Spanish.  I'd also suggest that they are automatically released if the protestant magazine explodes. 

Refighting the battle

I probably won't get to have a crack at this until after Christmas.   I need to obtain some wagons for Baden Durlech, a few more pike and shot units to represent the Catholic army's large battalions and some more Kuirassiers.  That's more lead  added to the unpainted mountain (sigh!).  If anyone gives this a try before I do please make a comment on how it went.