The Portable Spanish Civil War Wargame

Other wargamers continue to use and develop my PORTABLE WARGAME rules. Amongst them is Nick Huband ... and this afternoon he sent me a photograph of the starting positions for a wargame set during the Spanish Civil War.

Nick has extended the board so that it is 12 squares x 8 squares and plans to use it to fight an action between an advancing motorized column of troops from the Italian C.T.V. (Corpo Truppe Volontarie) and a defending group of Spanish Republican militiamen.

The C.T.V. have three tankettes, a towed infantry gun, two motorcycle infantry units, six motorized infantry units, two motorized infantry support weapons, two infantry trucks (to carry the motorized infantry), and a motor tricycle command unit.

The Republican militia appear to have eight infantry units, a couple of infantry support weapons, and an armoured car ... and the advantage of being dug in.

I will be interested to hear how this action pans out, and if Nick shares a battle report and any photographs with me, I will write a special blog entry about it.

Madasahatta revisited

Way back in the mists of time (well at least thirty years ago!) there was a wargames shop in Manor Park, East London, called NEW MODEL ARMY. It was owned and run by Eric Knowles ... and to me it was almost heaven on earth! Not only did Eric have a large stock of wargames figures on sale (mainly Minifigs and Hinchliffe) and the usual wargames paraphernalia you would expect to find – books, paints, brushes etc – but his shop had a basement where a few invited wargamers were allowed to join him to fight tabletop battles. I – and a young man named David Crook – were amongst the chosen few, and we were both lucky enough to have taken part in Eric’s massive ‘Madasahatta’ campaign.

The background to the campaign (along with copies of the campaign newspaper that appeared during the opening months of the year-long campaign) can be seen on my Colonial Wargaming website, and regularly revisit it every so often because it brings back so many fond memories. But that is not the reason why I am currently studying the campaign map with a degree of intensity. The reason lies in a chance remark the David Crook made to me in a recent email.

What David asked was whether I thought that the map could be recreated in 3D on a six foot by four foot tabletop using Hexon II terrain tiles … and whether I had enough figures to re-fight the campaign using the sort of rules I outlined when I fought THE INVASION OF ROHAN wargame in July.

On reflection I am not sure that it is possible to recreate the island of Madasahatta on a six foot by four foot tabletop using Hexon II terrain tiles (the island is a funny shape, with all sorts of irregular inlets) … but I think that it might be possible using Heroscape™ terrain tiles. As to figures … well I have quite a sizeable number of suitable 15mm-scale figures mounted on both single and multi-figure bases so it might be possible.

I am hoping that this is not going to turn into an itch that I just have to scratch … but somehow I think that it might!

End of the (financial) year

I managed to finish reconciling my company's accounts for the last financial year this morning. (My company was set up in July 2001 and its financial year ends on 31st July each year.) I had to wait until the bank statement for July/August arrived last week to do the reconciliation, and now all I have to do is to produce the Income and Expenditure analysis (which should take me another hour or two) and then I can send everything off to the accountant to be checked and the financial return for 2011-2012 can be prepared and sent to Companies House.

Running a small company can be fun ... but making sure that you don't fall foul of the regulations takes time, effort, and money. That is why I use an accountant to check everything that I do, even though I am quite capable of doing the work myself. (My father was an accountant for almost all his working life, and I picked up the essentials from him.)

All this means that so far I have not been able to spend any of today's Bank Holiday wargaming ... but with a bit of luck I might manage to do some later.

Film feel-good factor

In my recent 'My Twenty Questions' blog entry I stated that my five favourite films were:

• Things to Come
• Zulu
• The African Queen
• Gettysburg
• Enemy At The Gates

I have been feeling somewhat under the weather for some time (my wife and I have Summer colds which we just cannot seem to shrug off) and I decided to watch a film ... and came to the conclusion that I should choose one of the one's featured on my list.

But which one to choose?

This question made me think about why I had chosen each film in the first place.

THINGS TO COME is there because of the profound effect it had upon me when I watched it as a child.

ZULU is on the list because even though I have watched it many, many times, it still makes my heart rate quicken and my spirits rise (it also has a wonderful cast of actors and some great lines!).

THE AFRICAN QUEEN is there because I love C S Forester's books, and this film was so well made and the acting was superb.

GETTYSBURG is on the list because it represents a pivotal point in the history of the United States and because the sheer size and spectacle of the film is unmatched by any other I have seen.

ENEMY AT THE GATES is included because the battle scenes have what I feel is a realistic grimness that captures what it must have been like to fight on the Eastern Front.

(Films that almost made it onto my list included SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, THE LONGEST DAY, A BRIDGE TOO FAR, ZULU DAWN, BREAKER MORANT, CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER, THE FOUR FEATHERS (the 1939 version by Alexander Korda), GUNGA DIN, KHARTOUM, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.)

In the end I did not manage to watch any of my chosen films … but I did watch edited highlights from three of them. They were:

The charge by the 20th Maine (GETTYSBURG)

The final Zulu attack of Rorke's Drift (ZULU)

The charge by the newly landed Soviet Riflemen (ENEMY AT THE GATES)

Watching these film clips did not make my cold go away ... but for a short while they did make me feel better!

Holiday purchases

During my recent cruise up the Adriatic, I bought a few more buildings to add to my now quite large collection.

The resin buildings I bought are not to a constant scale, but generally look all right when placed in large numbers on the tabletop.

I also bought some ceramic buildings, but these were not for me. They are destined to be passed on the David Crook as they match ones that he already owns.

The Memoir '44 'Breakthrough' Terrain Boards

I finally managed to unpack the MEMOIR '44 'Breakthrough' Terrain Boards that were delivered whilst I was on my last cruise. They are twice the size of the normal terrain boards and therefore allow you to fight battles over a much larger area.

Having unpacked them, I then decided to compare the four terrain boards that come in the pack with their 'normal' equivalents. In each of the following photographs, the 'Breathrough' terrain board is shown first and then it is shown with its 'normal' equivalent terrain board placed on top of it.

Countryside

Beach

Winter

Desert

The 'Breakthrough' pack also includes a booklet that contains fifteen scenarios that have been specially developed for the larger terrain boards. The scenarios are:

Western Front

• Counter-Attack of the BEF
• Battle of Abbeville
• Sword Beach
• Breakthrough to the Beach
• Coldstream Hill
• Breakthrough at Montain
• The Surrender of Elster's column
• Noville to Foy
• Operation Amherst

Mediterranean Theatre

• Operation Crusader
• Battle of Alam el Halfa

Eastern Front

• Nach Moskau!
• The Tatsinskaya Raid
• Battle of Prokhorovka

Pacific Theatre

• Manado Landings

You have an iPad AND a Kindle?

I have had an iPad for quite a while now, and I must admit that I am not sure how I managed before I owned one. (In truth, I am actually on my second one ... but that is not important.) I have downloaded a range of 'apps' (better know to non-iPad owners as applications or programs) as well as a load of music, several films, and three TV series. I have also used it to draft my blog whilst I am away from home, to write articles, and to make notes for (and to write) wargames rules. I have also stored a number of books on my iPad, and whilst on my recent cruise I tried reading some of them ... without a great deal of success.

The problem is sunlight. The iPad's screen, which is made from something that is very similar to Gorilla Glass, is highly reflective ... and in sunlight it is difficult to read black-on-white text. I have tried ... and I have had the eyestrain and headaches to prove that it is not a good idea. And yet on board ship I was surrounded by people who were reading books, and who were obviously not having the problems that I was having. The reason why was simple to find out ... they were all using Kindles.

After some discussion my wife (who is also an avid reader) and I decided to each buy Kindle. We have now had them for less than a week ... and have been converted! My list of Kindle books is not yet a long one, but it includes:

• Little Wars (by H G Wells)
• Floor Games (by H G Wells)
• The Complete Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
• Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (by Rudyard Kipling)
• The Complete Series of Richard Hannay (by John Buchan)
• The Works of Anthony Hope (by Anthony Hope)
• Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles (by Kim Newman)
• The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service (by Erskine Childers)
• The Secret Pilgrim (by John le Carré)

Some of the books were free, some were less than £1.00 to buy, and the rest were all less that £6.00. I think that I now have enough reading material for the next few weeks at least!

One added bonus to using the Kindle rather than the iPad is that it is a lot lighter to use and it fits into one's pocket. I will now use my iPad for what it is really good at doing ... and whilst I am away from home I will leave my reading to be done on the Kindle.

Sharing ideas

George Bernard Shaw once said that:
'If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.'

One of the reasons why I first started this blog was the opportunity it presented to me to share my ideas with other wargamers ... and on reflection, it seems to have been reasonably successful.

The last few days have seen some of my ideas taken forward and developed by other wargamers to the extent that they have begun to look a bit less vague and ill-formed and a lot more polished and presentable.

For example Archduke Piccolo has taken the very extemporised wargame that I cobbled together a few weeks back using the figures from MEMOIR '44 and the map board from RISK! LORD OF THE RINGS edition and turned it into something that looks and works much better than the original. His blog entries (here and here) about The First Marmon War (1869) were most impressive and inspiring ... and have already sparked off one or two ideas that David Crook and I have been discussing in emails over the past couple of days.

Conrad Kinch and the Mad Padre have provided another example of one of my vague suggestions being turned into a workable idea. I had suggested that the iPad/iPhone application FaceTime could be used to stage wargames where one or more of the players were remote from the tabletop action. By using the built-in camera on the iPad or iPhone (and the WiFi connection that FaceTime uses), the remote player could 'see' the action almost as well as they would if they we actually present. Not only that but the ability to talk to each other ensured that the human interaction that helps to make wargaming such an enjoyable hobby was also present. Conrad Kinch and the Mad Padre have now used FaceTime to fight a wargame, with Conrad Kinch being in Dublin, Ireland and the Mad Padre in Alberta, Canada! (For the Mad Padre's views of how the experiment worked, look here.)

Here's to sharing more ideas ... and many more blog entries!

My Twenty Answers

Now that I am feeling a bit less under the weather, I thought that I should take my turn answering the dreaded ‘Twenty Questions':

1. Favourite Wargaming period and why?
Any conflict that did or might have taken place between the late nineteenth century and late twentieth century because it is the historical period that I have had most personal contact with via my family’s history or my own experience.

2. Next period, money no object?
54mm Interwar conflicts between imagi-nations.

3. Favourite 5 films?
Things to Come, Zulu, The African Queen, Gettysburg, Enemy At The Gates.

4. Favourite 5 TV series?
Callan, Only Fools And Horses, Dad’s Army, Morse, Yes (Prime) Minister.

5. Favourite book and author?
THE WAR GAME by Donald Featherstone (but only by a gnat's whisker from Joseph Morschauser's HOW TO PLAY WAR GAMES IN MINIATURE).

6. Greatest General?
Monash (with Slim and Zhukov each a close second).

7. Favourite Wargames rules?
Anything written by Richard Borg.

8. Favourite Sport and team(s)?
Cricket … England, Essex, and the Mumbai Indians.

9. If you had a only use once time machine, when and where would you go?
On a personal level, nowhere. I may have regrets about things that have happened in the past, but I would not want to change the way my life has progressed so far. As to historical events ... I would, love to have seen the Battlefield of Gettysburg before the battle started to get a real 'feel' for 'the ground'.

10. Last meal on Death Row?
French Onion Soup, Beef Wellington (with chips, just to prove I am a peasant at heart!), and Tiramisu.

11. Fantasy relationship and why?
I don’t need one as I am happy with the real relationship that I have.

12. If your life were a movie, who would play you?
Johnny Depp (but I actually look much more like Ricky Tomlinson!).

13. Favourite Comic Superhero?
Dan Dare … who may not have had any super-powers but who was my comic book hero when I was growing up.

14. Favourite Military quote?
‘The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his.’ (George C Patton)

15. Historical destination to visit?
The Black Sea in general and the Crimea in particular.

16. Biggest Wargaming regret?
Not being able to wargame every week with the people I have met through being a member of Wargame Developments.

17. Favourite Fantasy job?
Being a member of the idle rich!

18. Favourite Song Top 5?
British Grenadier, Jerusalem, Land Of Hope And Glory, Seven Drunken Nights, Fairytale Of New York (I only chose songs that I can sing!).

19. Favourite Wargaming Moment?
Watching the Japanese Dreadnought Fuso sink five German Pre-dreadnought Battleships one after another during a Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame fought in the basement of Eric Knowles’ shop many years ago!

20. The miserable Git question, what upsets you?
Rude and inconsiderate people who think that everyone and everything around them has no value or only exists for their benefit.

It took nearly a month to get here, but ...

At the beginning of July I ordered a whole lot of MEMOIR '44 stuff over the Internet. Most of it arrived within a matter of days, but the pack of 'Breakthrough' Terrain Boards did not. I waited ... and waited ... and waited ... and just before I went on my latest cruise I contacted the company that I ordered the boards from to find why they had not been delivered.

They assured me that the terrain boards had been posted to me on 17th July, and they could not understand why they had not been delivered. We mutually agreed that I would wait until I returned from my cruise before taking the matter further.

It was very pleasing to find that the boards had been delivered whilst I had been on my cruise ... but it would appear that they had only just arrived before I got back ... nearly a month after they should have been delivered!

There was no indication on the packaging as to why it had taken the Post Office so long to deliver the parcel containing the terrain boards, but I understand from my neighbours that postal deliveries were more than usually erratic during the period of the Olympic Games.

The terrain boards will allow me to stage much larger MEMOIR '44 battles (and battles on the boards using my own rules) as they are nearly twice the size of the standard terrain boards. There are in fact two double-sided terrain boards in the set:

• Countryside
• Beach
• Winter
• Desert

The pack also contains a booklet with 15 'Breakthrough' scenarios specially designed for use with these larger terrain boards, including Operation Crusader and Operation Amherst).