Mekura Bune

Last week I knocked up a new 1/1200 model for my Imjin War "At The Height of Battle" collection. This one was a Mekura Bune, a Japanese "fast attack craft", oar propelled with broadside mounted light cannon and large bamboo poles providing protection t the sides and overhead. I modelled this as a basic craft, then with banners added to see how that worked out. They came out OK and the banners worked, although they are quite fragile and several broke off. The shape isn't quite right (the roof should probably rise towards the stern) but for wargaming purposes they are quite acceptable

Finally I set the printer scale to 50%  and printed out a load in 1/2400 which I stuck on group bases. These are for use with my "Those Who Seek Death" fleet action rules which will be released this weekend. 

Again I tried these with and without banners. And again they are quite fragile and prone to damage but the 40mm square bases actually give them a bit more protection.  But as with their larger sisters they are quite OK for wargaming purposes.

Finishing off my Napoleonics

Many years ago I got a couple of Figurehead 1/2400 fleet packs covering Trafalgar which I got painted by A&AGE when they offered a painting service I added a few extras, and then got a Danish fleet at anchor to do Copenhagen. After picking up a pile of unpainted models on Ebay I did a few, but then the project languished in a box for ages (th Copenhagen project was in 2001, so we are talking 18 odd years here).

Trafalgar weekend this year was also Rory McCreadie's memorial game which we fought out using his collection of 1/2400s (Tumbling Dice). Returning from the event I reminded myself about the lead pile in my own collection. Inspired by the game (and working on a fleet level set of rules for which 1/2400 is ideal) I resolved to finish off the remaining models. This afternoon I accomplished this as ten new Spanish SOLs, a similar number of Spanish frigates, ten merchants, two American frigates and a host of unrated ships came off the painting table.

These will win no awards if looked at up close but when viewed from a short distance as the wargaming gods decree they look perfectly reasonable.

Rory's Trafalgar Weekend

This weekend was Rory McCreadie's memorial battle of Trafalgar wargame. Rory's birthday was on October 21st but alas he died before seeing the game he'd so keenly wished to see become a reality.

The game itself was played on the 20th at the Entoyment shop in Poole (it was my first visit, what a lovely place!). We fought out the battle using a modified version of Osprey's "Fighting Sail" which plays a lot better than the original - still quite bloody as more than one 74 went from pristine to shattered in a single broadside, but less so than the original. I commanded the rear third of the Alied line, playing the role of Gravina and Alava, facing off against Cuthbert Collingwood's Lee Column. Africa attempted to engage the head of  or line but that was sheer folly and she was reduced to matchwood very quickly. Our fleet admiral decided that offence was the best form of defence and so we headed upwind slightly to close the range and attempted to commence a "hook" around the rear of where we expected the British lines to be.  The was never really going to work but it did mean that Collingwood and his leading ships sailed into something of a cul de sac and were quickly overwhelmed - for the second Traf refight in a row plying the allies Royal Sovereign was the first ship I captured. As the rest of the Lee Column came up the battle descended into a fierce close quarter battle. As in the real action I wasn't really sure what was going on elsewhere, other than to see that our middle squadron and the head of the British Weather Column shot each other to pieces (Victory pierced the line, the following ships were not so fortunate) and the head of our line doubled back in an attempt to get into the action which was starting to be successful as the game ended.

Fighting Sail uses a fleet morale system, with each side having a morale point level based on their starting forces which is eroded through damage and ship loss - when a sides morale points fall to zero the fleet disengages and the battle is lost. The scores for both sides tumbled and things could have gone either way but in the end our gunfire began to tell (and I made some wicked saving throws to stave off some heavy damage at the end), and it fell to one of my Spanish 74s, Montanes, to fire the broadside that finally reduced the British score to zero and to secure victory for the allies.

The game itself was great fun, played out in very good spirits. Rory would have been very pleased with the result!

I stayed over on Saturday night and on Sunday we played out a game between the Royal Navy and two pirate factions. The governor and his daughter were heading home to England with the fortune he had amassed whilst in the East Indies across a dangerous stretch of the Indian Ocean whereupon they were set upon by Chinese and Arab pirates. A fast, furious and fun game ensued, in which the Governor's transport was captured by the Chinese, then by the Arabs, follwoing whicjh a see-saw battle of boarding and counterboarding saw the prize change hands 6 times. In the end the Chinese were victorious, the Arab ships being heavily damaged and the Royal Navy sloop and schooners crippled, but able to escape to tell the tale. Another jolly good game, and literally laugh-out-loud fun!

The Russian War, Lee Village Hall

I spent last weekend in deepest darkest North Devon taking part in a campaign based on the 1855 Anglo-French operations against Russia in the Baltic. The game was put on by the NWS chairman, Stuart Barnes Watson using his extensive collection of 1/2400 models from Hallmark and Tumbling Dice. Stuart was using my "Iron and Fire" ironclad rules and so he asked if I'd be happy to umpire. I&F is written from an 1860-80 ironclad perspective so I devised a set of period specific rules to cater for the slightly earlier time period, and also to cover the campaign specific elements. 

Lance surveys the battle from the Umpire's position

Day 1 saw the British and French repeating their 1854 attack on Bomarsund. The scenario that Stuart had devised had the Russian rebuilding the defences that had been destroyed in 1854, whilst the allies were seeking to occupy Bomarsund to establish a forward operating base for the blockade of the Gulf of Finland. The main differences between this battle and the 1854 campaign were the completely steam powered nature of the allied fleet and the Russian use of ships to defend the islands as well as shore batteries. Alas for the Russians the allies attack was very competently handled; light defences on the outer islands were rolled up by the British Inshore Squadron, the main defences and anchored ships engaged and defeated by mortars carried in the small fleet of bomb vessels. Realising the game was up the Russian steam ships escaped, leaving the islands to face their fate.

Stuart, the Russian commander, checks the range from one of his batteries.

Battlelines drawn at the start of Day 2. Russians in the foreground, Allies to the top

Day 2 was to have been an Allied attack on Sveaborg, but this would simply have been a rerun of day 1, so we recast the day as a fleet encounter in congested waters on the approach to Kronstadt. To win the Russians had to sink or burn the majority of the Allied bomb vessels, which were the primary threat to the Russian fortress. unfortunately again, the Allied players proved too canny for the Russians who, despite many clever ideas and subterfuges (including offensive minelaying) were unable to crack the very well organised Allied squadrons.

I wonder if the residents of the sleepy village of Lee knew what world-changing events were happening on their doorstsps? 

All in all a very enjoyable weekend (even the Russians thought so, despite having their heads given to them on a plate twice). The rules and amendments worked well, even with 100+ ships engaged. Oh, and much beer was consumed at the rather excellent local pub in the village of Lee between days 1 and 2!

The weekend did, however, reinforce my thoughts that the Russian War (aka the "Crimean" War) is a tricky one to wargame. Both fleets are large - but both have good reasons not to get heavily engaged. The Russians, with the vast majority of their ships reliant on sail power, are at a severe disadvantage in a fleet action (and as day 2 showed would most likely get chewed to pieces). Meanwhile, the Allies, lacking many specialist inshore craft, would be mad to attempt to force the very strong defences of places like Sveaborg and Kronstadt (behind which the Russians, if they have sense, will be sitting). So one has to develop rather contrived scenarios in order to force an action, run a counterfactual where the Russian fleet has a far higher proportion of steam ships or (as I may do in the future) run a campaign set in 1856 where the Allied have the benefit of the massive 1855-56 inshore warship building programme. It is, of course, an ideal setting for skirmish games based around British landing parties in Finland - ideas of converting the Airfix Great Western into a gunboat for 15mm figures are forming in my mind :)

Fleet Action Fun

Having posted about the battle of Cape St Vincent earlier in the week and thinking it would be fun to try a refight using my fleet action rules that evening I unfolded a terrbile series of events. First deciding that the rules were tosh, next embarking on a major rewrite of said rules, then looking at the two dozen or so 1/2400 models that i have left to paint. Now this morning I've done about half of them, plus all the struck ships and fallen mast markers that I had also failed to paint previously, plus thinking about whether can convert any of the renaissance galleys i have in that scale to become Russian and Swedish galleys for a Baltic game, and now I'm busy looking at revising the stowage I have for them and the way I'm identifying each model, which will probably become a project in itself. And all this as I'm supposed to be painting up models for a photoshoot for an article I've written. AND after I'd developed a plan for the year's wargaming and modelling that didn't include 1/2400 fleet action games!


I really must learn to get some focus here!!