Peter Perla: A tribute

Peter Perla, who died earlier this year, was the doyen of professional wargamers. His book, THE ART OF WARGAMING, examined the relationship between professional and recreational wargaming and discussed their similarities and difference. Peter was actively involved in professional and recreational wargaming, and brought together his expertise in both in his book.

I met him several times at Connections UK as well as at King's College, London when he came to talk to the students undertaking the MA Wargaming modules. During the latter I had a long chat with him and was stunned when he not only complimented me about the PORTABLE WARGAME but also showed me that he had a copy of the text on his iPad!

After the recent Connections UK 2024 conference, several of the leading professional wargame designers contributed to a video tribute to Peter, and this can now be seen on YouTube.

Steamer Wars Hexed

Back in 2014, the doyen of British naval wargamers – David Manley – published a set of wargame rules specifically for wargamers who wanted to fight the gunboat battles that took place on Lake Tanganyika during the the Great War. It was entitled STEAMER WARS: WW1 NAVAL WARGAMES ON LAKE TANGANYIKA AND BEYOND ...

... and was republished in 2020.

When David Crook (the author of THE PORTABLE IRONCLADS WARGAME book of rules) decided that he want to refight the battles between the Royal Navy and German Navy gunboats on Lake Tanganyika, he looked at David Manley's rules ... and adapted them so that they would work on a hexed tabletop. The result was STEAMER WARS: WW1 NAVAL WARGAMES ON LAKE TANGANYIKA AND BEYOND: TACTICAL RULES HEX ADAPTATION.

The book is twenty pages long and is split into six sections:

• Foreword
• Introduction
• Generic Vessel Data
• The Rules
• Specific Ship Data Tables, Lake Tanganyika Campaign
• Adaptor's Notes

The rules a easy to understand, do not require much more than a D10 die and a couple of D6 dice, some means of recording each vessel's damage, a hexed tabletop, and some suitable models. The following images show examples of some of the book's pages:

For some idea how the rules work, David Crook has published a very thrilling battle report on his blog, A WARGAMING ODYSSEY.

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STEAMER WARS: WW1 NAVAL WARGAMES ON LAKE TANGANYIKA AND BEYOND: TACTICAL RULES HEX ADAPTATION was written by David Crook and published in 2024 by David Manley's Long Face Games. It is available to buy from Wargame Vault in PDF format for £3.50.

Hare & Hounds: A simple campaign aid?

Thomas Gleason - one of the contributors to the Portable Wargame Facebook page - posed an interesting question a few days ago:

Not sure if anyone is familiar with a Hare & Hounds board. ... The layout got me thinking about utilizing this type of movement for certain types of terrain ....

A typical Hare & Hounds board.

He then goes on to suggest that units in built-up area might be able to move diagonally whereas those in forests would have to move in a straight line up and down the board unless they were on a road. He then asked:

Has anyone attempted to use this style of movement in a 3 x 3 game. Maybe (it) would add too much complexity and blocking within such a small space.

Hare & Hounds is a two-player strategy game that was popular in northern Europe from the medieval period until the 19th century. The rules are very simple: The hare is trying to get past three hounds who are trying to surround and trap it. The three hounds are represented by three playing pieces that start on the circular spaces at one end of the board, and the hare is represented by single playing piece that normally starts the game in a square in the middle of the board or on any of the vacant squares.

1. Having decided which player moves first, they alternate their turns.
2. The Hounds can only move straight forward, diagonally forward, or sideways.
3. Hounds cannot move backwards.
4. Hounds can only move one space per turn but only onto a vacant square,
5. Only one Hound may be moved each turn.
6. The Hare can move one space per turn in any direction but only into a vacant square.
7. If the Hare successfully passes the three Hounds or reaches the other end of the board and lands on a circle, the Hare wins.
8. If the Hounds surround the Hare so that it cannot move, the Hounds win.

Interestingly, my first thought when I looked at the Hare & Hounds board was that it sort of resembled a ShamBattle board. I played around with it by turning the whole thing through ninety degrees and placed a single circle at each end to represent each side's capital city. The end result looked like this:

I then added another line of squares as well as two towns to each side and then marked the border between the two countries. My new version of the Hare & Hounds board looked like this:

I am now thinking about what simple campaign rules I could use with this board, but I'd like to base them on the original Hare & Hounds rules if it is at all possible.

A new YouTube video: Batterie Vara, Kristiansand, Norway

I have just uploaded a new YouTube video to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

It is entitled BATTERIE VARA, lasts just under ten minutes, and tells the story of the largest German World War II coastal defence battery built in southern Norway.

The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

Thinking about maps

The recent problems that I have had creating the maps for my Belle Époque project have encouraged me to look at alternative methods that I might use.

I have looked at several drawing programs including Paint 3D and Affinity Designer 2, but none of them seemed to be suitable. I also looked at Hex Kit (a desktop application for building hex maps for use with table top role playing games), Hexographer 2 (which comes in a free basic and paid for expanded versions), and Hexfriend. All of them are very suitable for drawing D&D and RPG maps, but none of them quite met my requirements.

On the advice of two regular blog readers (Mike Lewis and Mike Hall) I then looked at two drawing programs, Inkscape and Paint.net.

I then looked at the one blog where I know the creator has spent a lot of time designing maps for his ongoing Napoleonic campaigns ... Thistlebarrow's Napoleonic Wargaming blog. He recently revised his maps and explained the process on his blog. His finished maps looked like this:

Map of Europe.

Map of Germany.

Map of the Brunswick area.

Campaign map

These stylised maps are closer to the sort of end result that I am looking for, and having read his explanation of the way in which he created his maps, I am seriously thinking about following Thistlebarrow's methodology.

I also looked for inspiration on YouTube ... and discovered that just two weeks ago Henry Hyde had produced a video about the way in which he creates his maps.

It was very interesting to see Henry's methodology in operation, and it certainly gave me lots of ideas ... and reminded me that I really ought to re-read the relevant section in his book WARGAMING CAMPAIGNS.

This research has left me with plenty to think about. It has also left me feeling far more positive and my enthusiasm to re-start my map drawing project has been reinvigorated.

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Please note that photographs featured above are © Napoleonic Wargaming blog.

Nugget 364

The latest issue of THE NUGGET was collected from the printer (Macaulay Scott Printing Company of Welling, Kent) yesterday and it is currently being put in envelopes so that it can be posted out to members as soon as possible.

I have sent the PDF copy to the webmaster and members should soon be able to read this issue of THE NUGGET online.

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IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the first issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2024-2025 subscription year.

If you wish to subscribe for the 2024-2025 subscription year and have not yet done so, please request a PayPal invoice or the bank transfer information from the Treasurer or follow the instructions on the relevant page of the website.

Taking the wind out of my sails

Back in the days of naval warfare under sail, opposing ships would try to 'get the wind gauge' (i.e. get upwind of their opponent) so that they could dictate the course of the battle. If they did, they might even try to use their superior position to 'take the wind out of their sails'. In other words, position their ship so that their opponent's sails would be starved of any wind and lose speed. Over time this nautical term came to mean making someone feel less confident or determined to do something, usually as a result of something unexpected.

The battle between the frigates HMS Shannon and USS Chesapeake on the 1st June, 1813.

My recent tussles with my laptop have rather taken the wind out of my sails with regard to my work on my Belle Époque project, particularly my map drawing using MS Paint. The error message is no longer appearing when I try to save a map, but as the program is no longer supported by Microsoft, I am beginning to wonder if I ought to look at an alternative drawing program to create my future maps etc.

Whilst I look for a possible replacement for MS Paint, I am going to put my current map drawing project on the backburner. I do, however, have several other minor projects I can work on (including completing the construction of my recently purchased Faller kit) and they are now going to get my attention for a week or two.

Nugget 364: A slight delay

There has been a slight delay collecting the latest issue of THE NUGGET from the printer. I am still unable to walk unaided and Sue has been unwell for some days with a flu-like bug. As a result, neither of us have been able to collect the print run from the printers and it looks as if Sue won’t be able to do so until Monday.

I would like to apologise for this slight delay but you can rest assured that it will be posted out as soon as possible after it has been collected.

Other people's Portable Wargames ... Nick Huband's Battle of the Little Big Horn pre-battle report

A few days ago, Nick Huband uploaded some very interesting photographs of his latest project to the Portable Wargame Facebook page. He has decided to refight the Battle of the Little Big Horn (or the Battle of the Greasy Grass or Custer's Last Stand) using figures from his very extensive collection of 15mm Peter Laing figures, and the setup is shown in the following photographs:

Nick Huband is planning to use 'The Gatling's Jammed' rules from the PORTABLE COLONIAL WARGAME book to fight this battle, but with the following modifications:

• Rifle and bow & arrow ranges are 2 hexes.
• Cavalry movement is 1 hex.
• Dismounted cavalry cannot move (i.e. they are pinned in place whilst dismounted and can only move by remounting).
• Dismounting and remounting takes one turn. Troops who have dismounted or remounted may fire that turn but suffer a -1 penalty on all D6 die scores.
• Indian warriors are Elite and will always accept the 'fall back' option rather than losing 1 SP.
• US Cavalry are average.
• Each Indian warband has its own Exhaustion Point. When its EP reaches 2/3rds of its original SP, it will withdraw from the battle.
• Indian warbands will attack once the US cavalry are three 3 hexes away from them.

Please note that photographs featured above are © Nick Huband.

The computer says there is ...

... 'Insufficient memory to perform this operation.'

This message has repeatedly appeared on my laptop screen every time that I have tried to work on and save my newest campaign map ... and I am finding it very frustrating. What makes it worse is the fact that as far as I can ascertain, the BMP image file that I am trying to work on is actually smaller than the size of my recently created map of Zubia ... which is only 27.8 MB.

I have trawled through the internet to see if I can find a solution and I can find plenty that work for MS Word, MS Excel, and MS PowerPoint but not for MS Paint. (It is worth noting that I am not getting this error message when I use any of the first three programs I have listed.)

I suspect that there is either a problem with my MS Paint program (which is not longer supported by Microsoft) or there is a program running in the background and that it is using enough operating memory to make it impossible for me to work on large image files. I am therefore going to purge my laptop of any applications that I not longer use and reinstall MS Paint.

I hope that this will sort the problem out. If it doesn't, then I may well have to think about buying a new and bigger laptop, something that I have been considering for some time.

Four hundred YouTube channel subscribers!

Yesterday, the Wargaming Miscellany channel on YouTube reached a new milestone ... the number of subscribers reached four hundred!

The Wargaming Miscellany channel was set up on 17th May (just over fifteen weeks ago), and achieved two hundred subscribers on 11th July, and to date I have created and uploaded eighteen videos. I hope to add some more in the near future, and with a bit of luck this will encourage more people to subscribe to the channel.

Thanks to all my regular blog readers who have already subscribed to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel, and I hope that those of you who haven't yet paid it a visit or have no yet considered subscribing, please do so.

Nugget 364

Yesterday, the editor of THE NUGGET sent me the original of the latest issue. In turn, I sent it to the printer (Macauley Scott Printing Company, Welling, Kent) earlier this morning and I hope that it will be ready for collection later this week so that I can post it out to members of Wargame Developments by next weekend.

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IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the first issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2024-2025 subscription year.

If you wish to subscribe for the 2024-2025 subscription year and have not yet done so, please request a PayPal invoice or the bank transfer information from the Treasurer or follow the instructions on the relevant page of the website.

My map of Zubia: The finished article

I finally finished my map of Zubia ... and I am rather pleased with the end result.

I rather enjoyed the process of creating this map, and I am already working on my next map ... a map of Harabia.