JOHN'S DUGOUT

Axis and Allies - War at Sea may not be the best for refighting historical actions. It's a beer and pretzel game for large fleet battles. There isn't much subtlety, its a bruiser of a game, roll buckets of dice and ships die quickly. Maybe Ideal for most wargaming clubs 3 hours of play. If you don't like the gridded cloth just use 6 inch range bands. For this scenario visibility is one square or 6'' and rules for darkness are in play. The weather is bad - chuck some squalls down. The damaged Bismarck can either go straight forwards or left.  Rules for hitting small ships (-1)  Destroyers are HMS Mauri, Poiron, Cossack, Sikh, Zulu.  In the actual engagement, three seamen were killed on Zulu by a shell and an antenna mast lost on Cossack. 10 torpedo runs were made 16 fired and none hit. Later the destroyers fired starshells to guide in KGV and Rodney.  Arguably Vian's assault helped demoralise Bismarck's crew. Vian's destroyers search for the Bismarck I te...

I 'm of the view that WW1 colonial theatres are the more interesting and easier to game. The Western Front is too much of a slugfest. Until you bring out the Stosstruppen for the Jerries and the tanks for the Allies. Plus you've got to build a lot of terrain like trenches and barbed wire. The Eastern front and RCW is still a war of manoever and also the opening phase of 1914 in France. When HAT brought out Schuztrupen and Rugga, British in tropical gear and Indian troops a friend of mine couldn't resist and started collecting armies for the East African theatre. Follow me men! British in tropical (centre) and Kings African Rifles (right) I think we got the colour of cloth wrong, pretty sure Tanga was jungle and rubber plantations. This must be the Tanga beachhead! That sand cloth is better suited to the Middle East. Next time a lush green cloth. Right: Kings African Rifles bayonet charge My friend Alex introduced his own house rules using cards to activate units. This brok...

 An e ncounter game using: Andy Callan’s rules This was a game played round a friend's house in March 2022. I had a 20mm Hessian Army and Alex a 20mm French Army so I guess this is set either during Savannah II or Yorktown. Hessians enter the farm compound! Andy Callan's rules (Loose Files) are a nice set of light to medium complex rules designed to get you started wargaming the AWI without expense. You need to make some command consoles for each general and grab some pins. Plus get handful of gravel from the drive. Or buy a set of tiddlewink from the Works or even use Pokemon gems. These are for disruption points (DP's) My right: Hessians skirmish against American allies and French guns We tried his streamlined rules from Peter Dennis Paperboy's American Revolution but found that Callan's original set is better. The game centered around capturing a farm house in the middle. This was atop a knoll and surrounded by picket fencing making it quite difficult to assault....

  Here's some pics of a Stargrunt game at Lincombe Barn Wargames Society, July 2019. We used my friend Owen's armies: New Anglican Marines defending an outpost attacked by Federal States Europa Foreign Legion.I brought some jungle and scratch-built hard cover. Stargrunt gives a realistic infantry led game but without a scenario there is an tendency for both sides to take cover and blast away at each other. This is reinforced by the in position rule which gives troops a bonus for 'going to ground' even in cover. The absence of a points system could result in one player taking the mickey. You are reliant on the game host, to either balance the forces, OR create an achievable scenario.   Wow, the colonists have power-washed their domes NAC Marines entering a built up area. The Legionaires are plodding in from the opposite side. The resin buildings are by Grendel and painted by former member Rob Hooper. The sci fi crates scratch-built by myself from plastic junk. The battl...