Commands & Colours Tricorn - The French and More

The ever growing series of Commands & Colours games is incredibly popular and now covers a wide range of conflicts and periods. From Ancients to WW1, fantasy to science fiction, Richard Borg continues to create these great games with further titles promised. Whilst the basic core of the game is the same throughout the range each period has its differences, just enough to add the period flavour and make the games relevant to the wars they depict. Once you have played one its not a huge stretch to confidently take on another. 

The Ancient and Napoleonic sets, and now the new Medieval version, are all very nicely produced by GMT. The games are not exactly cheap and you have to spend a fairly contented evening applying the relevant stickers to the coloured wooden blocks that represent all the various troop types. Actually, that bit is strangely satisfying...…

Being a big fan of the American War of Independence I was pleased when I discovered there was a Commands & Colours set for this period. However, whilst it was still written by Richard Borg it was produced by Compass Games rather than GMT. No worries, the game still works the same way but, one couldn't help but notice that it was rather more expensive than other versions. Quite a lot more expensive in fact; c.£100.00 depending upon where you went. Still, I bit the bullet and bought a set. It is, in fact, not hugely different than the other sets, same stickers, same wooden blocks etc. but it did have three sets of cards compared to the single deck in other sets. The other thing I noticed straight away was the generally better quality of the game components. The game board and terrain cards are thicker and more solid, the tokens and card play sheets far less fiddly. Does this account for the larger price tag? Not really but, if you want and AWI version of Commands & Colours then you have few options. At least the games are just as good, the extra card sets and specific period rules did make a difference. The battles worked very well and it did play as a different game from the other period sets; I am quite happy despite having to tell a small lie to my good lady wife regarding wargame show expenditure. 

Now, as the title of the blog suggests, Compass Games have brought out an expansion set. This adds a French army to the mix and (at least according to the writing on the box) More! The cost of such a useful addition? £75.00.
This is actually more expensive than the core sets from GMT! So, what exactly did I get for my money after purchasing said expansion from the SELWG 2019 show? 

Ten new scenarios
Eight new dice
Forty five double sided terrain tiles
Eighteen double sided victory banner tokens
Two sets of new and updated play aids
96 wooden blocks making up:
Two French leaders
Six French infantry units (five blocks each)
One French light infantry unit (four blocks)
Two French grenadier units (four blocks each)
Two French Marine units (four blocks each)
One French light artillery unit (four blocks)
One French light cavalry unit (four blocks)
One British rifle light infantry unit (four blocks)
Two British provincial infantry units (four blocks each)
One British ranger unit (four blocks)
One British Heavy artillery unit (four blocks)
One German leader
One German light infantry unit (four blocks)
Three rebel leaders
two rebel light infantry units (four blocks each)

All in all, this expansion set is really not worth the price. To give the set the tag line 'The French and More', is pretty misleading. Yes, you get thirteen French units that allow you to play a few of the new scenarios (not all of them need French) and just eight extra units to add to the original game. I 'm sure the extra terrain tiles will be handy.... But is this really worth £75.00? Where is the More I was promised? Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder but you need to seriously love this game and period to find and real value in this expansion. Its all of very nice quality but lacks the substance to enhance the core game a full £75.00 worth.

Personally? I would save your cash and buy yourself something else, be that another board game, new figures, books, ice-cream....anything. Your enjoyment of the base game will not be damaged in any way whatsoever. Sadly.

SPQR - Have Warlord Games got it all wrong?

Warlord Games have recently published, and with some fanfare and public anticipation, a set of skirmish level rules for the Ancient period. This is something that I and clearly quite a few others have been wanting for years; the likes of Lion Rampant are great but are still focused on too large a system. SPQR promises much smaller actions with fast and furious combat etc etc etc. In broad terms Warlord Games have done this, at least at first glance. The rule book is large, almost two hundred pages, but the basic game rules themselves take up just twelve. Then there are some advanced rules, hero traits etc that take up about the same again. The rest of the book is given over to lengthy sections that discuss the dozen or so nations/factions/armies that the rules have stats for. And now the problems seem to rise and they have created some serious discussion and division on the forum boards and Facebook page.

Combat involves the rolling of seriously large numbers of dice in many situations, the balance of the various abilities and lethality of such die rolls against the in-game purchase cost of the characters and soldiers has been called into question. It seems that Roman Legionaries, expensive but skilled as one might imagine, are no match for an opposing force of many cheaper barbarian models. An entire force can be wiped out following a single attack give the number of dice involved and the various bonuses. Many and various other issues have been raised and added to the threads increasing the general feeling and look of confusion and even dissatisfaction.

The discussions have been so loud as to attract the attention of the author, who has had to issue not just an FAQ sheet (not unusual) but a second sheet that updates and changes central rules. Has this solved the problems? No, not really. The waters just seem to muddier now and the general impression is that the rules were not suitably play tested or checked before release, a cardinal sin in such a hobby. The on-line discussions still rage and almost every aspect of the rules are now open to scrutiny. However, I am beginning to think that the problems are actually centred around our own expectations of the rules and our not realising that they are not what we think.

Simply put, I think these rules are not meant for us old-guard wargamers and the historical detail and depth we have come to expect and, perhaps perversely, have come to need.
When you look at how the stats for each unit type are presented it suggests a certain...Warhammery-ness...? Then consider how the text reads, particularly in the introduction and early sections. The choice of language and narration seems very much aimed at younger readers or, at least those very new to wargames and not just the period. The information given for each of the armies goes into a lot of socio-cultural details and I was immediately put in mind of the Warhammer army books and their backstories for each faction. Should it perhaps then be such a surprise that we semi-professional moaners and gamers feel certain things are missing or not fitting our preconceptions?

If I am right then quite a bit of the blame has to still be laid at Warlords door. If they are producing a game, especially in the light of the many brilliant sets of rules published by them and others in the last five or so years, that it is obviously going to be of huge public interest shouldn't they have been more up front about its raison-detre? Of course I may be wrong. I am building a small force for the rules and I am working with my best friend to create further forces and games. Perhaps we will love it as is, hate it or, create a few house rules to tweek things. Whatever happens I hope that Warlord Games manages to ride out this period of public confusion and that the rules find themselves a place within the hobby.

Maximillian 1934 - Fun with the ol' Jalopy and a Lewis gun!

http://www.manapress.com.au/maximillian1934/

Car races to the death are not new to wargaming and they have always proved rather popular; Gaslands, the fairly recent ruleset from Osprey Wargames is a point in fact. But here is a ruleset that, for me at least, has a certain charm all of its own. Much of that charm comes from the style of vehicles used, vintage! As the name suggests, this rule set concerns itself with the motors of yesteryear rather than a dystopian future. It is also based around 28mm for scale (although any scale would work just as well) and this allows for some truly amazing models and the scope for some amazing conversions. As you will see, I have purchased some of the official vehicles but also improvised, adding some from other companies and one or two from more unexpected quarters.....

The game itself is simple and fast paced, the vehicles are also fast and can fly around the track at a pace some wargamers will be surprised at. During its turn a vehicle can move once for each gear it is currently in and make a turn. The move distance is based upon the physical length of the vehicle plus the length of the rather nifty Turn & Move tool used in game. This means that a vehicle in 4th gear will move four times in succession and can clear some 40 inches! That said, should the player wish to negotiate a turn or two or avoid obstacles/debris/oil slicks/caltrops/sheep (yes, sheep)/race fans/suspicious puddles etc. they will find themselves realising that speed is not everything. 

The nifty Turn & Move tool is six inches long, add to this the vehicle length

The tool is placed in front of the vehicle, angled to the degree the player feels sufficient, and then the vehicle is place on the other end of the tool but with the rear of the vehicle touching. As you can see, this makes for quite a move distance when in higher gears. Note the coloured sections and how the top arm arrow indicates which colour is relevant. Tight turns at speed are to be avoided. Being in the red zone for a turn will multiply the danger by three. A player must roll a number of Fortune dice based upon the skill of the driver and the size of the vehicle, against a pool of Fate dice, made up of one d6 for each gear they are currently in, multiplied by the severity of the turn. 4th gear and a red zone turn (4 d6 x 3) will land the player with twelve bad dice against which they might hope to counter with six good dice at best dependent upon their car and driver stats. All the dice are rolled together and the number of dice showing 5 or 6 compared. More Fate than Fortune dice is never good but the more you end up with can spin, roll, crash or even explode the vehicle!!

Add to this that vehicles are armed, from pistols up to a heavy cannon, and the game can become furious as well as fast and extremely bloody.....but a lot of fun. Players can design their own vehicles using the rules provided and even build their own models to suit. The official models are great with new ones added fairly regularly. The great thing about being based round 28mm is that there is a world of options out there to indulge in. WW1 vehicles are very useful and there are now ranges  of great cars, bike and even buses from the inter war years from several manufacturers. Of course, it is also pretty amazing what you can find at boot fairs, jumble sales and gift shops that will fit the bill, albeit with a bit of tweeking.


These first to cars are from Eureka Miniatures in Australia. Each comes with plenty of options to modify the bodywork and armaments. Resin and metal kits that go together pretty well and can look pretty good too. Personalise your vehicles to suit too, add those little touches to round out the look.

These next two are from 1st Corp, part of their WW1 armoured vehicle ranges. Again, resin and metal kits that provide sturdy models that also paint well. Clearly, somebody bought these machines after the war as scrap and upcycled them to bring to the race. Heavy and slow compared to the racers above, just done stand in front of one! The first one is called The Woolwich Infant....the second is Hawkwind…..wonder why?

These next two are handy finds, the truck (a gift from me best bro) is a plastic kit with 'modifications'. The second is an old metal kit, no idea who produced it, that I came across at a bring and buy stand at the Broadside Games Show here in Kent. Its old, possibly from the 1980's? but perfectly useful. The truck is raced by a couple of good ol boys that cranked up the power of their far truck. The car, well, even despot presidents of imaginary South American countries like to kick back and have fun occasionally!

Then, of course, we go from the sublime to the ridiculous. These last two cars are indeed silly indulgences but still work. The Orwellian Flyer began life as a rather jolly and tacky resin ornament I found at a boot fair. The size is just right, if perhaps a little small, but is was 20p. I had to saw off an inch of scenic base to get the wheels to touch the ground but it was worth it. The addition of the farmers skull and friendly chicken, not to mention the three machine guns, help make this a fun but very useable addition. Given its size I generally use this as the smallest of the available car sizes, fast and nimble!
The Rat-mobile was given to me by a friend. It began life as a novelty pencil sharpener! A new paint job, some machine guns, some bits of packing crate so the crew can see over the dash board......all come together to make another useful addition. It also goes to show just what you can find that can be very useful and cheap!

Operation Osprey - A solo campaign

Operation Osprey: The Search for Unobtainium Deposits in Darkest Africa.

A solo campaign interlinking various games and rule books from 

the Osprey Wargames series

Despite being a member of a very active club, I often turn to solo wargaming; not everyone is available to play at all times after all. I wanted to play more than just random games and so devised a way to connect several into a mini campaign. I am a huge fan of the Osprey wargame titles and, with a little tweaking, created an entertaining and workable system using three of them - The Lost Expedition card based game (LE), The Men Who Would Be Kings (MWWBK) and In Her Majesties Name (IHMN). Each would be played in the above order with figure losses and the results of each having an effect on the next. 

The three games and the reason behind the title, Operation Osprey!

The campaign is set in Darkest Africa at the very end of the nineteenth century. The Society of Thule (a company taken from the IHMN rule book) have discovered a way of creating temporary zombies from their own fallen troops to help continue a fight. However, the effect is difficult to produce, works within limited ranges and all too quickly destroys the zombies it creates. Far better results were found using the ultra-rare mineral, Unobtainium (sorry), but so little is available and at a prohibitively high cost the project stalled. 

Until that was, a paper was published by the Royal Society in London. A solitary survivor of a long lost expedition to Darkest Africa had been found and, along with tales of an abandoned city and pockets full of diamonds, returned with a small figurine made entirely of the purest Unobtainium. If there was enough Unobtainium to fashion such a trinket, how much must there be in the city itself? The Society of Thule immediately funded a large military and scientific expedition to find the city and secure all the Unobtainium for themselves.

Setting up the campaign

The player takes the role of the Society of Thule. In the campaign they will be using a mix of both Thule troops from the IHMN rule book and regular infantry from the MWWBK rule book. 
They should build the Thule force, including the characters Von Stronheim and Dr Kobalt, to the recommended 250-300 points and up to twelve figures. If less than twelve figures are used then add enough regular infantry figures to make up to twelve. 

 The Society of Thule with extra regular infantry to make twelve figures

The rest of the expedition is made up of three units of twelve regular infantry. In effect, the player will now have four units of twelve figures as per the MWWBK rules, making a twenty-four point, forty-eight figure modern infantry force. This is the entire expedition force available to the player and any loses taken at one point will be unavailable at the next.

The players forces including Thule troops amongst the riflemen

The enemy forces consist of two distinct sets. Firstly, you will need a twenty four point native tribal force as per the MWWBK rule book. These are the defenders of the land the campaign is set in. Secondly, you will need a suitable IHMN force to act as shrine guards. Build this to the same number of points as you have used to build the Society of Thule force but, divide it into groups of about 50 points each. My suggestion here is to take characters directly from the rule book. My own forces for this part of the campaign are very simple. I have a giant bird that I use the Yeti stats for, two mummies without any magic forces and some fifteen native spearmen; roughly 280 points in all. The bird and each of the mummies form their own groups and I divide the native spearmen into groups of three to six figures. 

The shrine guards, divided into groups of about 35/50 points

Now assign each group a playing card from one suit and add twice the number of cards from the other suits. Warbases produce a very handy set of 30mm round playing card tokens, these are perfect for the task and can be placed amongst the terrain to represent hidden and random enemies. https://warbases.co.uk/product/playing-card-tokens/

You will, of course, also require a copy of the Lost Expedition card game.


Playing the campaign.


The Lost Expedition – Locate the lost city

Losses can mount in the jungle!

The campaign starts with the search for the lost city and uses the Lost Expedition card game. This should be played as per the solo play section on page 10 of the games rule booklet; the game will only differ in the expeditions team members. Lay out the three team member cards as per the rule booklet but, place one of the regular infantry figures on each of the cards as well as the tokens the game rules require. These figures represent your scouts searching for the lost city. Each time a team member is lost during the game, remove the figure too. This figure will no longer be available for the rest of the campaign. In the Lost Expedition game itself, once a player loses all three of the team the game is over. However, in this campaign it means that these particular troops have been lost and you must then send out three new troops to find where the others got to and continue the search. When this happens, rather than start the game all over again (which you can of course, it’s your campaign after all) simply go back one card (day) on the nine card Expedition track, and begin again from that point. Once you complete the game by reaching the Lost City, this phase of the campaign is over. Any and all figure loses are packed away, any figure still alive is returned to your campaign forces and you will move on to the next phase. Note that you may not now have the neat four units of twelve anymore!


The Men Who Would be Kings – Locate the shrine entrance


The natives of this region were not found to be cannibals although, they did have a disturbing interest in anatomy and millinery… Dr. Babbage, African Travels and Amusing Hats, London, 1837.

A tribal unit appears from nowhere, thanks Mr Babbage!

Having found the lost city, the Society of Thule must now locate the shrine entrance where it is said the Unobtainium figurine was found. The player should organise the surviving figures from the Lost Expedition game back into four (probably now unequally sized) units. How the figures are divided between each unit is up to the player although all Society of Thule figures must be in one unit; this can again be added to with surviving regular infantry to no more than twelve figures. You may decide to take all of the casualties from the previous phase from one unit or spread them around all four. This is entirely up to you.

During this phase of the game, each of the figures representing the Society of Thule will only act as an ordinary regular infantryman. None of their special weapons are used and it is assumed they all have ordinary infantry rifles. If one of the societies Fusilier figures depicted with a revivifier is killed, it should be replaced with one of the Tod-truppen zombie figures. Such a figure cannot shoot so this should be taken into account when that unit fires although it still counts during melee. The player may choose which figure to remove from the Thule unit when casualties are taken including any Tod-truppen.

It is suggested that where possible a 6ft x 4ft table is used and that the player’s forces start at a narrow side, fighting their way to the other narrow side. Plenty of terrain should be added and suitable shrine entrance should be placed at the far end of the table. The battle will now be fought using TMWWBK solo rules found on page 40 of that book, playing against Mr. Babbage.  

The game will end when either side has been clearly defeated or, if a unit of at least THREE members of the society of Thule, including both Von Stronheim and Dr Kobalt, make it to the shrine entrance. If this happens, the defenders will lose heart and disappear. The campaign is lost if the Society of Thule unit is destroyed or if either Von Stronheim or Dr Kobalt are killed.

In Her Majesties Name – Into the darkness 

Dr Kobalt reaches the Altar

In this final phase of the campaign, the Society of Thule has located the entrance to the shrine and will now search for the Unobtainium. Only the surviving members of the Society of Thule take part in this game, none of the regular infantry; they have done their job. The game continues using the rules as per IHMN and all the societies’ special weapons are back in play again.      

In order to make this playable as a solo game, there needs to be a little engineering to bring some randomness. The player should lay out a playing surface roughly 3ft x 3ft and add enough pieces of impassable and sight blocking terrain to make it impossible to move directly from edge to edge. In effect it should look somewhat maze like. The player will need to move the Society of Thule from the centre of the edge with the shrine entrance to the centre of the opposite edge. Here there will be an altar upon which will be the source of the Unobtainium! After spending a full turn at the altar, the Society must then make it back to the shrine entrance with at least Dr Kobalt alive. Do this and the Player will have won the campaign. However, and in true Hollywood action movie fashion, each time the Society pass between two terrain pieces that passage is immediately blocked behind them; meaning they can never go back the way they came.

Of course, the shrine is defended. At the start of the game, randomly place the card tokens face down throughout the playing area. Each time a member of the Society party comes within two inches of a token, turn it over. If the token represents part of the shrine guard force, place the corresponding figures between the altar and the Society, six inches from the figure that triggered the token. The shrine guards are always hostile and will always try to melee with the Society until killed. 

So there you have it, a mini solo campaign using readily available resources. None of this is set in stone of course. You must feel free to tailor the system to whatever you have available or takes your fancy; different forces or settings, different order. The point is, it is possible to play more than just one-off games as a solo wargamer.