[Les Hammond]

Units in my games move strictly to orders and there is no cheating because I play solo.

Therefore they head for their objectives using the route and standing orders given; this only changes if contact is made or relevant intel arrives at HQ (the player) and orders are updated (through the proper channels).

With a bit of faffing about, I can work out how many turns contact will be first made so considerable playing time can be saved by skipping the approach march.

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[Les Hammond]

There are a few units mentioned in Niehorster.

H39s, FTs & P178s (21 EAM);

Pz I, Pz II, Befehlspanzer I and a few Neubaufahrzeug. Maybe 8-rad SdKfz 232s by the looks of the organisation charts.

There’s also this Weserübung group on Facebook who might have more info.

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[Les Hammond]

When I bought my first Heroics & Ros, nobody I knew called it “6mil” it was referred to as “300th scale”.

I assumed ‘Epic’ (when it started getting bandied about) was manufacturer-speak for “our models aren’t actually the size you think they are. We made them a bit bigger because we think they look more impressive that way”.

New terminology is invented so that the easily led can think they are on the newest bandwagon and the inventors can believe they are at the cutting edge.

Harrumph!

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[Les Hammond]

I draw on the gaming cloth using pastel chalks. Yukky greens and some blue streaks.

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[Les Hammond]

I must be particularly psychotic or have some sort of ‘divergent personality type’ because I am convinced that I can switch allegiances at every turn or even each unit activation..

When it is a unit’s turn I can’t help but focus in on their tactical situation (and orders, obviously)..maybe that’s why my solo games take so long because I am ‘enjoying the moment’.

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[Les Hammond]

Small roller I think it was called. Quite hard to find pn the net these days.

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[Les Hammond]

Fair number of shows round here 🙂

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[Les Hammond]

I like modifiers that give the ‘required to hit’ roll (not sure what everyone else calls that method) for one reason: I don’t need to go down a list of modifiers and work out which apply, I look at the combatants on the table and I instantly recognise the tactical interaction going on. Maybe it’s because I know the rules.

Target is in a bit of concealment, there’s a destroyed vehicle belching smoke out in LOS, firer was moving but has now stopped? I just knock off the penalties and add any of the very few bonuses and if I feel lazy, roll first and it might be obvious you don’t need to work it out.

In every combat situation, you’re still going to have to mentally go through all the variables affecting the outcome anyway, whether that’s doing a bit of maths or deciding how many dice to roll or whether it’s 6s or 5s to hit.

Unless you’re not going to include all the variables. That would certainly speed the game up.

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[Les Hammond]

I think I’ll just stick to buying lead figures…

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[Les Hammond]

A couple of trees does not make a wood…

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[Les Hammond]

Was ‘popular’ in France 1940, also a dark yellow almost orange. All the size of a flag though I think so covers the rear deck. Wonder if the grilles were as effective with cloth over them?

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[Les Hammond]

What’s a WW2 cloth? You just need something greenish for European I think?

This started out as a cream bedsheet, tie-dyed with khaki green and mud brown Dylon dye in a bucket, then sprayed with a couple of rattle cans in suitable colours.
The road in the foreground is tweedy fabric cut into strips with dark brown, terracotta & buff oil pastels rubbed on. In the background are ‘dirt tracks’ drawn directly onto the cloth with the same oil pastels. The ‘dirt tracks’ come off in the washing machine.

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[Les Hammond]

I would like to think that when I’m the non-activating player in a multiplayer IGOUGO game, I’d be looking stuff up in charts, shouting out forgotten modifiers or checking esoteric nano-rules. I don’t know what the fuss is about with ‘not having anything to do’, at the very least I’d be thinking “what to do next”.

Anyway I’m mostly solo (so I’m always the activating player) and I have unit counters for both sides in a bag, that way I don’t forget which unit has activated already. Extra counters for units with increased activation probabilities can be added (poor units can be penalised too).

I like it random. I don’t see why the player should decide the firing order of his units (or indeed elements) as there is no such overarching control like that between or within units in melees/pitched battles once it hits the fan.

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[Les Hammond]

The role-playing aspect is an interesting point and one which I embrace in a sort of subjective way (which sadly can’t be quantified in rules as such).

When an element on the table has a choice between going to the left or right of an obstacle (hill, farmstead, copse, etc) rather than have tables and dice rolls I put myself in the combatant’s place: Do I fancy going this way or that and then, well just do it. Once the decision is made it isn’t undone for better or worse.

Perhaps if I can’t immediately picture the tankie’s predicament I might do an odds-evens roll or 66-33% or 75-25% toss up if I note some contributing factors but once committed I think it’s important not to rethink, redo or re-roll. That’s what was decided and the rest is/(will be?) history.

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[Les Hammond]

I’m partway into John Laffin’s Links Of Leadership and there are some interesting pointers there as to why some famous battles aren’t considered noteworthy whilst lesser ones are.

 

Well worth a read for any wargamer, let alone it’s addressing of this particular subject.

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[Les Hammond]

Name & shame…

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[Les Hammond]

I find dice rolling for the sake of it desperately uninteresting (like tossing coins, in effect) but if there’s even some minimalized link to reality I can gloss over that and enjoy watching the miniatures do things to each other (probably why I devised a ‘one shot, one dice roll for hit & damage’ system.

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[Les Hammond]

Andrew Beasley wrote:

no multiple Tigers or mega-death robots for me 🙂

Grenade launchers accounted for a Pz II & an SdKfz 231 and a Panzerbüsche took out a Panhard 178

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[Les Hammond]

To be fair, I’ve got too many. There were only 5 on the train, the rest had broken down or were unserviceable in some other fashion

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[Les Hammond]

https://youtu.be/CeDgTTX9uNw?t=161

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[Les Hammond]

bartorzech2 wrote:

Well, what I’ll be trying to do is making scatter terrain somewhat unavoidable in a game/clutter the map with it, and I’ll be keeping them even when the mission has no mines. I can also make scatter terrain count as extra cover.

If encountering traps etc is going to be unavoidable, any movement at all might as well trigger an automatic roll for them, albeit maybe a very small percentage so that players kinda stop fretting about it…until a track gets blown off. Then it doesn’t matter if there’s no scatter at that spot and besides, who plants mines somewhere suspicious?

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[Les Hammond]

I see those snake rail fences a lot in ACW games. I assume they’re ‘just’ terrain eye candy and don’t really offer any cover?

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[Les Hammond]

MartinR wrote:

…having said that, I have read one from someone who fought in a motor battalion in the Desert, and later served in a Vickers section in 1st Airborne at Arnhem. Frustratingly I can’t recall the author or the title. I do remember that at Snipe he said his carrier was armed with a Bren, a spare Bren, two captured MG34s and a pair of rusty Brownings retrieved from a downed fighter. They unloaded all the MGs and used them to defend some nearby 6pdrs.

Could be Rifleman: A Front Line Life by Victor Gregg.
Something similar comes up here, in another of his books:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cAC-DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT10&lpg=PT10&dq=victor+gregg+bren+armament&source=bl&ots=AptOQ4Nxhf&sig=ACfU3U3csY6nBse9HE9WvuBbLz_EVtjM5g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJ07jsk7TkAhW_RhUIHS4iCLYQ6AEwDnoECGMQAQ#v=onepage&q=victor%20gregg%20bren%20armament&f=false

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[Les Hammond]

Not sure I would’ve sold all my historical armies as a result of this incident…not that a VBCW can be counted as that anyway.

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[Les Hammond]

Bruce Quarrie’s WW2 Wargaming was my first set of rules. It used blast radii for HE fire but as far as I know didn’t suggest the use of clear templates.
Operation Warboard (my next set) did, along with a design for an elongated fire arc thingammy for MG fire.

 

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[Les Hammond]

In 6mm, Humbrol 98 works for both bark and treated timber. No washes, shading, highlights or any of that nonsense

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[Les Hammond]

FAA mortar/field gun crew

Wartime was suggested but not sure if they do French WW2 TBH

 

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[Les Hammond]

Shellhole Scenics do AT crews & field gun crews are coming soon. This is from the manufacturer himself.

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[Les Hammond]

Only 6mm France 1940. Starting to feel like I’m too old to start anything new, anyway 😀

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[Les Hammond]

Depends.

D10 is I would say better than D8 for the reasons stated by Mr Average, ie granularity, I think is the term.
D2 is a 50-50 coin toss and D6 is stuck with increments of 17%.

That’s why D% makes sense to me. Does what it says on the tin and can replicate the rolls of all other commonly used dice systems.

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[Les Hammond]

Oops, sorry about that. Edited the poor hit roll to 40.

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[Les Hammond]

madman wrote:

Do individuals have to be tracked for game purposes or just squads, teams etc.? No rolling for each trooper and recording individual loses? Do leaders have an effect?

Riflemen are arranged in 4-man groups, infantry and support weapons are in teams. ‘Decent enough’ hits on groups or teams causes them to become combat ineffective and removed off the table (call it KIA if you prefer). There is no snatching up of weapons from KO’d teams. Like the rifle groups, officers & NCOs are also in their own groups, losses of either make it harder for the unit to pass morale tests (failing = lose a level, meaning units will less likely follow certain orders until rallied). Higher level HQ type COs confer morale & activation bonuses.

madman wrote:

Is there variable activations or all units act as the player wishes? You mention combat and effects are all in the same roll…Say you roll XDY above Z value units take such and such result. Do vehicles use the same combat systems as infantry?

I use totally random individual activation, I personally don’t like player interference in the action but that’s just me.

I use d% and so let’s say it’s a 40% chance to hit, a roll of 20 is right down the middle and uses the weapon average data as given in the chart. In the extremes, rolls of 01 (excellent) and 40 (poor) have effect bonuses and penalties plus graduations in between.

I like this mechanic because if you roll a really good hit, that is passed on to the damage calculation without a separate roll. No idea if other rules use anything similar, I’ve only played Bruce Quarrie’s Airfix Wargaming Guide, Operation Warboard and WRG’s 1925-1950 and those were 35 years ago 

Some YouTube clips here The Combat Run-Through one might be the most interesting for you

Happy to answer any other questions 

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[Les Hammond]

It’s a free country (under current legislation) so you can do other wargaming-related stuff, or failing that, watch war movies or read about warfare/history until the mojo returns.

Me, I’ve got to put all the turrets back on my tanks after a cabinet (which usually isn’t moved) was trundled Laurel & Hardy piano mover style down a step 

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[Les Hammond]

Depends…

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[Les Hammond]

Winning £150k on the lottery or premium bonds is all I need. That would double the time available for gaming/modelling.

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[Les Hammond]

Rules I used before graduating to WRG.

Still got them all 

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[Les Hammond]

I’m not sure laser pointers that project a line down on to the table do what the gamer requires, although I’ve seen many gamers use them and seem to be happy with what they do.

But it only draws a straight line in one plane -a cross section of table, if you will- and obstructions of any height will merely have a red line drawn across it in 2D.

Dot pointers are better. If a tree or rise in the ground interrupts the beam, it’s in the way.

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[Les Hammond]

We might have to ignore adverts for sunglasses and impenetrable advertorials in Russian for a while…

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[Les Hammond]

When a gamer asks “Can such and such unit to do this?” and the DM or rules author knocks up a workaround which satisfies all players.

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[Les Hammond]

Breakdown check crossing track-shedding linear obstacles plus wildcards.

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[Author]

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