Yet another slight diversion!

Well, as a bit of an aside from the masses of 15mm AWI I've been doing of late I thought I'd have a crack at some 28mm stuff. There's a game at the club tomorrow, 28mm WW2 skirmish using Richard's solo rules, and seeing as I was taking part I thought it best to have a few figures of my own to throw on the table.

I've not painted any 28mm ever. The last 25mm I painted were Hinchcliffe many many years ago. I may have done the odd figure for role-playing but again that has to be at least 15 years ago!

So here are my first attempts...





The hardest part was the faces. I've tried at least three different techniques on the four figures and still not sure which looks best. But I figure for skirmish everyone's skin is going to look different so I may as well experiment!

I've got a few more figures to make up 2 squads, an HMG team and some officers, and also some Fallshirmjaeger to do when I can face the camo! Figures are Bolt Action. The Tiger in the background by Corgi!

It was a pleasant surprise painting 28s. Easier in some ways - easier on the eyes anyway! Looking forward to painting more...

Cheers

Andy

British Grenadier - rules and firetable questions

Now, after a few games (well 2!) of British Grenadier we've had a few questions raised but overall we've been very happy with the games and the way they reflect the period. The issues we've had have come down to units sizes and how these work with the fire table.

Because I've done my units at 1:10 I've got some big units. von Bose is 32 and the Guards could be similar with attached Grenadiers and Lights and a few others hit 30+. Now I'd grouped my militia into 40 fig units. We weren't playing any particular scenario and to be honest a lot of it was that the big units looked good! However, as some of the British units were smaller (16-24 figs) we had a few cases where they'd face fire from the militia, the militia would roll badly and still cause 2,3 or 4 casualties. As the British had been acquiring DPs on the advance this lead to some heavy casualties before they got in to contact or meant they were always on 2-3 DP even with rallying them off and cold never risk going in as they would nearly always be on 3DP after taking fire. We looked the effect of splitting the 40 fig units into 2x20 and on the same rolls the effect was much less than a single 40 fig unit firing.

In our next game we cut the unit size down but still had a couple of 28 fig units and again these seemed to dominate in a firefight even on low rolls. They could be in 3DP and militia and roll average and still do damage. I've been discussing this with Eclaireur on the BG forums by PM but wanted to open this up as although I've raised the point in other discussions I think it's got lost.

How do we fix it? Does anything actually need fixing? EC suggested enforcing the fire arcs so bigger units cannot always bring all to bear. I found a rule in I think Terry Wises Battle Gaming where he suggest 45 degrees firing to the left and only 30 to the right as there is more freedom of movement to the left. I quite like that and may use it instead of the blanket 30 for both ways. But I digress...

Even using the arcs still doesn't change the effect of big units. Looking at the scenario books the vast majority of units (even in 1:10 at Camden) are 16-24 range. There are a few that push to 30 but it is a few. Now I understand that GdeB had proper big units which is why the chart caters for it but I'm not sure how things work in those rules. So maybe it comes down to design. Split the big units into wings etc. and design for effect. My concern is that splitting a lot of units may either unbalance the brigades (too many units) or require too many brigades to make it work?

The alternative would be to modify the Fire Tables to factor out the effect. Richard at the club came up with the following two options. I've not looked into them in too much detail yet but the aim is to make bigger units less powerful lower on the table. And to factor in multiple hits from large volleys.

Musketry Hit Table - Alternative 1
Number of figures firing	Modified Dice Score
	0	1-2	3-4	5-6	7-8	9-10	11-12	13-14	15-16	17-18
9 or less	-	-	-	1	1	2	2	3	3	4
10-15	-	-	1	1	2	2	3	3	4	4
16-20	-	-	1	2	2	3	3	4	4	5
21-27	-	1	1	2	2	3	3	4	4	5
28-34	-	1	2	2	3	3	4	4	5	5
35-41	1	1	2	2	3	3	4	4	5	5
42+	1	2	2	3	3	4	4	5	6	6

The second alternative makes slight adjustments again. But is a more logical progression of effect.

Musketry Hit Table - Alternative 2
Number of figures firing	Modified Dice Score
	0	1-2	3-4	5-6	7-8	9-10	11-12	13-14	15-16	17-18
9 or less	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
10-15	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	1	2	2
16-20	-	-	-	-	1	1	1	2	2	2
21-27	-	-	1	1	1	2	2	2	4	6
28-34	1	1	1	2	2	2	3	3	6	6
35-41	1	1	2	2	2	4	4	4	8	8
42+	2	2	3	3	3	5	5	5	9	9

Now to be honest I don't know enough about the design issues to know how these were arrived at. I also don't want to advocate the rules be changed as stated above, I think a lot of the issues we've had are from unit size. But I want to see if other people have had similar effects/experiences and possibly for someone to argue the logic of the original table and why it doesn't need changing!

When I get chance I'll amend the table below to show the original. And I'll point a BG Forum discussion here to see if it leads anywhere. Don't have my rulebook to hand so this is just a space filler for the moment.

NB 13th April Chart Updated to show original values.

Original Musketry Hit Table
Number of figures firing	Modified Dice Score
	0	1-2	3-4	5-6	7-8	9-10	11-12	13-14	15-16	17-18
9 or less	-	-	-	-	-	1	2	3	4	4
10-15	-	-	-	-	1	2	3	3	4	4
16-20	-	-	-	1	2	3	3	4	4	5
21-27	-	-	1	2	3	3	4	4	5	5
28-34	-	1	2	3	3	4	4	5	5	6
35-41	1	2	3	3	4	4	5	5	6	6
42+	1	2	3	4	4	5	5	6	6	7

A Change of heading - so to speak...

When I started this blog it was with the intention of focusing on the Battle of Cowpens and painting up just the units for that. As with all/many wargame projects the focus has shifted as time moves on and as I discover new units I want to paint and new books lead me in new directions.

If I'd really stuck to Cowpens I'd like to have done something similar to this investigation into the battle. There is some excellent research and information here so if you've ended up here looking for Cowpens I can fully recommend a visit to the miniawi blog.

So where am I heading? I've a feeling to Guilford. I've just finished Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse by Howard and Babits and can highly recommend it. I've even finally started undercoating the figures for the British Guards and it is likely to be the next game of British Grenadier we play at the club.

And as I've read more and seen more of what people are doing with the AWI in miniature I want to up the stakes a bit and redo some of my earlier figures. I've got 40 Continental painted up as 1st New York in pretty standard uniforms and I want to paint up some more irregular guys and make two more 'campaign' like units.

And I've got some redoubts coming to be painted and I have trees to start making up decent scenery so all in all it should/could be a busy year. Life, work, wife and kids permitting!

So I've redone the header image above and now to go make a start...

Andy