Recruits (13 - 15 September) in Kansas City

I just wanted to let you know that a bunch of CMH members are driving to Recruits this year.  Many of us have been there before.  I have not and looking forward to playing and putting on some games.  Doug Wildfong and I are going to put on a Bolt Action and Song of Drums and Shako's demonstration games.

The first event will be "Skirmish Actions in Italy - 1943."  This will be our Bolt Action game on a new board I will be building.  We will be pitting the Americans against the Germans and will use the same demo style system as I experienced at Historicon.  Step up play a turn or two, stay if you like, no problem if you can't.  I have a feeling that once they sit down they will not leave.  

So besides introducing new players to Bolt Action I hope to interest some into Naploeonic skirmish.  Our next event is "Skirmish around Vimeiro, Spain, 1808" that will cover some bloody skirmish actions during the Peninsular campaign.

These rules are written by Sergio Lalisicia and are a set of Nappy Skirmish that brings a new twist to skirmish combat in this period. Our club has played them and everyeone that did too a liking to them.  We even put on a Campaign a year ago where everyone played their "squad" in a series of battles which gained them, if the survived, new skills to their troops.  should be allot of fun. 

I hope to see you at Recruits next month.  I am also looking forward to some serious BBQ.  If anyone has any suggestions please post them here!  

Thanks,

Dan

Recruits website:    http://recruits.mtswebsites.com/Events.php

Bolt Action at CMH

At this weekend's Colorado Military Historian (CMH) monthly club meeting Doug and I put on a couple of demonstration games.  One to introduce more members to this very nice game system for WWII and the next to get us some practice when we put this on at Recruits in September (http://recruits.mtswebsites.com/).  Pretty much everything you see on the table is from Doug's massive collection.  I think the only thing on the table that was mine were the two buildings.  

Anyway, we had a blast.  The system is simple, retains the WWII flavor and with the blind draw movement it can be a little exciting when you are praying to get the next move to either get your tank out of the way of a Tank Destroyer or you have troops rushing out in the open looking for cover.

So here are a few pictures from both games.  Note, the first game we used only infantry squads to get used to the rules and the second battle we added armor to get a feel for that too.

Nate and Doug on the American Side

In the first battle we went infantry vs infantry.  Everybody caught on pretty quickly on how the rules sequence and basic mechanics worked.  As a result of their understanding these concepts their tactics also changed..

Rob watching the sly Americans closely.

Aaron checking on Line of Sight which is important in Bolt Action. 

Line of Sight - as I mentioned it is very important having LOS to your targets.  So important that I am either going to build or order some gaming periscopes.

Warner and Aaron watching the American advance.

Move distances are pretty easy to remember.  6" Advance
and 12 inch run for infantry.

When you ADVANCE you fire with a penalty (unless you are Americans), or if you RUN you cannot fire.

Aaron (German Marder) is spotting my Bazooka Team whose is down a man.

Firing is also pretty simple to figure out.  You move (-1), over half your weapon distance (-1), terrain (-1), small team in the case of my Bazooka team (down one man) (-1).  So hitting a small team at distance and in terrain like a Bazooka, MG or sniper team is quite a difficult shot.  In this case I was able to scramble off the board with my Bazooka.  

Funny note.  I finally got my Bazooka line up for a shot.  But, they took fire from two different German squads to his front which put pin markers on him.  When I gave him the order to fire, you have to roll a morale test minus number of pin markers you have. Needless to say, he failed, he was receiving too much fire so hit the dirt which is symbolized by changing his order to DOWN.  No shot, but as I mentioned above regarding all those modifiers.  A unit under DOWN orders subtracts another (-1) to makes them even harder to hit.  So we didn't get a shot off at that Marder who was hosing us down with MG fire too.

We had one close call when Aaron's Marder stormed out of cover and took a shot at Andrew's Sherman.  Aaron hit the Sherman causing one pin marker, then he failed to penetrate the armor with a low roll.  Whew!  Andrew on his next turn was going to take his shot but since he had a pin marker he had to roll morale.  Sure enough, he failed and had to back up with a DOWN marker on his vehicle.  Next turn however, we got the first die.  Andrew then moved back up to engage the Marder.  He got the shot and destroyed the Marder into it's already thin armor.

Werner, Aaron Doug and Andrew, we all had a blast playing Bolt Action!

Each battle brought up some questions that we are reviewing to make sure we get it right next battle.  I was so thrilled with Bolt Action at Historicon at this meeting we had a Flea Market and I purchased some already painted Americans for my own forces and still looking for Germans!  

Dan

Creating the Plancenoit DBN Table

For the DBN battle I decided to contract another table for the battle. I used the Shako Scenario Book to design the table from that map.

For this DBN battle we changed the scale so that each unit were battalions.  So I was able to increase the size of the village and forest area to give us a better historical feel.  So this is a 2 x 4 foot table constructed just for this event at the CSGA/CMH 2013 throwdown.

So I built the usual frame using a 2 x 4 MDF board for the bottom and 1" x 2" boards for the frame.  I used #6 1 1/4 inch wood screws to secure the frame.  So I end up with a framed box with 2 inch sides.  I purchased some blue insulation foam from Lowes.  I purchased a 1 1/2" sheet and a 1/2" sheet.  The 1/2 inch sheet was glued to the bottom.  I then added a few foam pieces in on corner to give the next sheet some angle.

I next glued the 1 1/2" sheet (of course cut  a little shy of 2' x 4').  You have to take into consideration the frame.  I used a foam cutter for all the foam cuts by the way.  I let the foam sheets bond overnight with books weighing it all down. Then I added my hill and Village pieces and a few more small pieces to provide some curves in the surface.

The next steps are captured in the pictures below.

I taped it off with painters tape and cut out the Plaster Cloth.  I also gouged out the
stream in the foam before this step.

Then with a water bottle shot sections of the cloth and smoothed out the plaster over the
contours of the board.  

When the plaster sets, I take some of that very thin winter weather tape and
 taped out my roads.   Then using some spackle and a 1" plastic trowel I filled
between the tape lines.  It sets pretty quickly so you can remove the tape and
Voila!  Nice roads.  Then I round out the edges with my fingers so the road
edges are not so sharpe.

And many of you knew about this already but I just learned this from Historicon.
Pre-mixed ready to apply Tile Grout! Oh yeah, my new best friend!  I purchased some Earth
 color.  One small container is all I used.  It was sanded grout but it went on the surface
nicely.  You see the larger trowel I used. Here is the small stream and the village square.

Doesn't that look great?!  Already has color, nice hard surface that has natural
texture to it.  It goes on like thick mud or concrete.  And don't forget to use Surgical gloves!

So here I am trying to size the area for Plancenoit.  And I know there are many
renditions of what this board should look like but we wanted to keep it simple and
 not difficult to play with DBN rules. 

The tree bases were added at the end.  Just dropped a dollop of Grout and stuck
the base  in it.  Made sure the edges were covered and when it dried no problem.
This allows me to remove the trees for transport and then simply plug them in before the battle.  

More trees 

Gave the road a darker brown color as well as the stream.  Then I added water.

The water stuff takes overnight to harden completely. I added some rock to the bottom
of the stream.

I would have loved to leave it the way it dried but I had to add flocking.  I  brushed on
the water, white glue and a drop of dish soap solution to the non road, river or village surfaces
 in sections.  Then I dusted each section with flocking. 

After the first layer was set I then sprayed the same solution from a water bottle over
the entire board.  I did that twice to make sure the flock would stay in place.

Almost ready.  View from Prussian right flank.  You can see I painted the
sides of the table dark brown.

View from Prussian left flank.

Trimmed up the green walls and hot glued them down. 

Another view.

Prussian and French in the thick of it around Plancenoit.

You can't see it from here but eye level you can see the subtle curves I tried to
build in. If you look on the left you can see the handle I attached for easy carrying.
Along with some "bumpers" on the bottom and two on the opposite side of the
handle so you set it on its side.  I also put a handle at the far short end in order to
pull it out of my SUV easier.   I thought the terrain came out well and the game even better. 

 Thanks,

Dan

DBx SMACKDOWN 2013

Colorado Springs Gamers Association (CSGA) and the Colorado Military Historians (CMH)

SMACKDOWN!

 Well another smackdown is almost in the books.  Last Saturday CSGA hosted our annual DBx smackdown at their club in Colorado Springs.  Of course everyone had a blast but due to a scheduling problem we have one more Doubles BBDBA event to complete.  General John Brown has coordinated this last pivotal battle in September.  It will Greg and Matt going against the Evil Hayes Brothers Art and Roy.   Over the last two years of this competition the score is 1 to 1!  Go CMH!

This year we added a new Dbx event by way of throwing down some DBN.  We chose to play the Prussian attack on Plancenoit.  The French VI Corps trying to hold back some the angered Prussian IV Corps.  It was Doug Raines and Nate Forte playing the French and Doug Wildfong and myself playing the Prussians.  Note that Nate is from CMH and was granted a special Presidential pardon for playing for CSGA.

Here are a few pictures.

DBMM Pat and Dick fought this one out.

CSGA and CMH duking it out!

DBA Commanders -  Bernie, Doug, Terry and Greg

Our CMH CinC General John Brown going against Rob

DBN Commanders Doug  W., Prussian right, Doug R., French left,
Nate Forte, French right and I was the Prussian left

So the DBN battle was a very close run action.  We modified the scoring system and scale to provide us a better historical feel.  That meant that the whoever solely held Plancenoit received 2 points.  But ala, Drums and Shako Large Battle (DSLB) we awarded a side one (1) point that had penetrated the enemies Zone 1 (6 inch form centerline).  And if you got Infantry into their Zone 2 (rear 6 inches) then the side would be given 2 points. One additional condition was if you got Cavalry in Zone 2 you could score another point.  This provided us with a very desperate battle where the Prussians are pushing into the French Right Flank and trying to punch through into Napoleon's rear.  

Prussian right on the attack!

So the DBN battle was a very close run action.  We modified the scoring system and scale to provide us a better historical feel.  That meant that the whoever solely held Plancenoit received 2 points.  But ala, Drums and Shako Large Battle (DSLB) we awarded a side one (1) point that had penetrated the enemies Zone 1 (6 inch form centerline).  And if you got Infantry into their Zone 2 (rear 6 inches) then the side would be given 2 points. One additional condition was if you got Cavalry in Zone 2 you could score another point.  This provided us with a very desperate battle where the Prussians are pushing into the French Right Flank and trying to punch through into Napoleon's rear.  

My Prussian siege at Plancenoit, man those French line were stubborn!

Two French Brigades were rushed in to await the Prussian IV Corps attack.  And as the Prussian's pushed into the area the Young Guard were ordered to close up and gaps with the Old Guard on standby.

You can tell this is fourth turn, the Young Guard arrived Turn 3
and they are on the outskirts!  My columns were pushing them hard.

It got to the end where both the French and Prussians scored one (1) point for having infantry in each others Zones.  Plancenoit had enough units in there to contest the village so no points there.  So it was 1 to 1 so we went to the units destroyed to break the tie.  The Prussians were down 5 to 8, damn!  This being a DBx throwdown tournament we had to convert that to DBA scoring so we agreed on a 60 to 40 score in favor of the French Dogs.

You can see Doug on our fight flank secured a point by getting
across the road into the French lines.  I was eventually repulsed except for one Battalion that
 can be seen in the near corner of Plancenoit.  That was enough to deny the 2 points for either side.

Great fun, I would like to fight this again next year in the competition and add Quatre Bras as an additional battle.  Let's see if we can get more players next year for our DBN event.

Thanks CSGA for your hospitality providing food and a great playing environment.  I wanted to also add safe, well, it is in the Police Station.

Dan