Warhammer Historical: Great War Practice

It's been an absolute age since I've played a game of Warhammer - 40K or Fantasy - so I am dipping my toe back in the waters with a few small games. I decided to try the Blitz scenario from the rulebook, with 1914 Germans trying to push through the BEF and reach the 4' marker of the table. About where the two British artillery pieces can be seen. For the BEF I took the bare minimum of infantry, a single company of two small platoons (E and D) and one Company Command Section (B, hiding behind two pillboxes of dubious historicity), and augmented them with 2 HMGs and 2 18lb artillery pieces. I fully expected the German to overrun the BEF without much trouble.

On the German side, I used the Guards list, which is superior in close combat, while every infantryman has grenades, aiding him in assault. Some of my choices here were influenced by the comparative paucity of German models in my collection. I deployed a Colonel with a General Staff Officer and a full Battalion Command Section (1), a single HMG (2) and two off-table 77mm pieces (3, marked on table in accord with the rules), with which to support the attack. The left flank (1st Company: two platoons, 4 & 6, and a Command Section, 5) and the centre (two platoons, 7 & 9, and a Command Section, 8) were to advance, hopefully soaking up some damage, while the right flank, featuring a heavily reinforced platoon (12), a normal platoon (10) and another Command Section (11) was what I was hoping would do best by virtue of its superior numbers.

It was a very instructive experience. Having been used to the Imperial Guard, I'd never been accustomed to regarding Flak Armour as useful ere now, but when your basic troops don't get a save unless they are in cover or accept being pinned (unable to advance) in the next turn, it really brings it home. The German right flank got shot to pieces by artillery, while the central machine guns knocked out most of the attacking force in that area. The left flank advanced almost to contact before I abandoned play, and was probably going to push through the BEF platoon on that flank. The German HMG was useless, mainly because of my spectacular dice-rolling abilities. Turn 1: eight dice in sustained fire, requiring a 4+ to hit. None hit. No lesson to be learned there, aside from not letting one's infantry block one's fire. Things improved slightly, but not by much.

The German artillery was ineffective, which was my own fault for trying to take out the two pillboxes with the HMGs. I should have been better served firing on the infantry behind the walls. I erred in taking the walls to give a 3+ save when it was a 4+, and in failing to realise until the very end that the German artillery, being off-table, gained the Indirect Fire trait, which meant that the infantry shouldn't have had any save against it anyway! One round did miss the pillboxes and take out most of the Command Section, the officer legging it back up the road toward the artillery for one turn before he regained his composure. German rifle fire was ineffective, which is to be expected. With one shot at 12" if infantry move, they were never expected to do much. The BEF infantry was predictably good at shooting as the Germans closed the range. The problem for the BEF is that their basic infantryman is so very expensive. I've never been sure if the points value is adequately reflected in battlefield competence.

I think when I come to replay this game I'll pare the Germans down to two large companies of troops and a pair of off-table artillery pieces. The artillery will engage in a bit of counter-battery fire, as the Royal Artillery did some murderous good work, then focus on the infantry. On the British side, I will either remove one artillery piece and spare crewmen, and buy a third platoon for the defenders, or just trim down the spare crewmen and slightly enlarge the two platoons. at 1,000 points for the Attacker and 500 for the Defender, there really isn't a lot of room for anything else. Next game will be a bit different, anyway, as I plan to use my newly constructed canals, which will give the BEF less to hide behind, but may cause bottlenecks for the Germans.

Terrain Construction: Canals

For the longest time I have been meaning to make some waterways, natural and unnatural. It seemed to make sense to start with canals, as they are easier to make, being more regular in appearance, and because they're just the sort of scenery one would want for 1914 BEF games.

Materials:
* Foamcard or polystyrene tiles
*Thin card
* Plasticard (or other suitable basing material)
* Protractor
* Rulers
* Scissors
* Knife
* Pencil
* PVA glue
* Superglue
* Paints

 1. I cut some 1mm thick plasticard into 4" by 6" pieces. With it only being 1mm thick, I didn't want to make the pieces too long, lest they end up warping. The idea is for the pieces to be 4" wide with a 3/4" bank on either side, leaving a 2 1/2" waterway in the middle.

2. I then grabbed some foamcard and a few spare ceiling tiles. The foamcard I was able to superglue directly to the bases in 3/4" widths, but the ceiling tiles I glued to pieces of thin card, which I had already superglued to the bases. I reasoned that simply gluing them with PVA wouldn't provide a strong bond.

3. I cut some rectangles (and curved pieces) from the same thin card, and glued them atop the foamcard and polystyrene ceiling tiles to give the impression of stone flagstones. For the curved pieces I used an old protractor from my school days to mark out circles, then carefully cut the pieces to size with scissors (for the strips of card) or knife.

4. I undercoated everything with some artist's Prussian Blue. I then painted strips of white closest to the stonework, a medium blue strip between that and the middle, then added water and PVA to the Prussian Blue and applied that over all to bring the colours together.

5. After it dried I painted the stonework in a dark grey, and dry-brushed it progressively lighter. After that I applied washes and spots to the stonework to make it look somewhat discoloured and irregular.

6. I ended up with 4 * 90-deg corners, 4 * 45-deg, 1 * X-piece, 2 * T-junctions, and 13 * straights. So I can make a 6 1/2' long canal if need be. The plans for the river are for it to include 12' of straights. After the river/stream pieces are complete, I'll set to work on bridges. Since the canal and river will share dimensions, they will be capable of being linked together.

Inadvertent Gardening

There's something very relaxing about strolling round the garden. Although lately I've found this not to be quite the case. Mum's been worried some of our trees have grown a bit much, and could clip lorries on the road, so my brother's been up a ladder cutting them down. So on Thursday and Friday afternoons my strolls were interrupted by seeing this, and a recognition that I need to help out. We have moved a lot of branches, mostly small ones, though not all. We have coal fires, so this will also be a helpful thing come winter. As you can see below, we'll seem extremely posh with oak burning on the fire.

We shifted about ten or fifteen times the weight of the branch below, but it was the largest single thing I moved. I had hacked and sawed in half the branch my brother had lopped off the tree, and didn't fancy cutting it down further. So I balanced this thing on my shoulder, and carried it around the house to the outdoor woodworking area. For scale, that's a standard pallet about three foot on each side. I have a new-found admiration for folks who toss the caber!

Not exactly light wood!

Scotland: Phew!

I am rather pleased that voters in Scotland have decided against independence. I am not triumphant about it, just quietly pleased. I really didn't want to see the Union dismembered, but if it had been the will of the folk living there, it would have been a sad but necessary thing to accept. Happily, that has not happened. Nonetheless, my sincere sympathies go to my friends who were in favour of independence. However, the division in support is so marked that it's clear voters in Scotland are distinctly unhappy about the present state of politics in the UK. Many spoke of voting for independence as though it was about escaping the clutches of unpopular London, which is probably a perspective shared by much of the country. That is to say, there is a feeling that the capital disproportionately sucks talent, people and money from the rest of the country.

Some years ago, the Labour government came up with the idea of regional assemblies for the UK, which didn't fly in part because folk weren't keen on another layer of untrustworthy politicians slicing off taxpayers' money. Given how successful the Scottish devolution campaign has been in acquiring additional powers and funds for such a small proportion of the inhabitants of the UK, however, I would wager this notion, were it resurrected, would see more support this time around.

That and other considerations are in the future. For now, I'm simply pleased voters in Scotland decided against leaving the Union. Hopefully we can try to sort things out together.