Innholdsfortegnelse for WSS 122 i Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy

“Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction, which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen war.” — Carl Von Clausewitz In his book, Vom Kriege (on war), Carl Von Clausewitz spoke of the friction of war – that is, unexpected circumstances or events that will (generally) hinder or (rarely) help a commander in battle. Some of these are ‘known unknowns’, which an officer can learn to overcome. The worst are the ‘unknown unknowns’, events that no commander can prepare for in his planning. And yet, he has to try. Clausewitz did have an answer. War by its very nature holds massive uncertainties, and he emphasised that improvisation was more important than a permanent or rigid doctrine.…

WARGAMING ON THE CHEAP This winter many of us will be facing difficult financial decisions in this time of unprecedented economic turmoil. Naturally if we need to reduce our household expenditure, luxuries such as wargaming will be impacted first. Some may even feel that they are being priced out of the hobby entirely. At a time when, more than ever, many of us see our hobby as a stress-free refuge from real life, this is a great shame, but it does not need to be the case. As unlikely as it sounds everyday household items from your local supermarket and bargain pound store can be used to build an entire new army and accompanying set of terrain for less than the cost of a box of plastic miniatures. Gaslands is…

A place for everything and everything in its place. The trouble is, of course, that this is rubbish. Plans in conflict don’t often work out, and the right things are very rarely in the right places. What we have instead is a rich and characterful history of engagements being fought by people who really didn’t expect to be fighting them. The first way in which we might conceptualize this idea of ‘fish out of water’ might be simply those who find themselves out of their normal martial environments. The most obvious examples are probably those sailors who find themselves quite literally ‘out of water’, from the Athenians forcing their least capable (and presumably most expendable!) oarsmen to fight hand to hand armed with wicker shields and whatever they could find…

The Sittang River created a challenging chokepoint as the only crossing point for miles was an imposing 500-yard-long steel bridge over a raging torrent. The British hoped to hold the bridgehead open for as long as possible and cover the retreating stream of ragtag units and refugees desperate to escape the Japanese offensive. There was little time for the British forces to catch their breath. The vanguard of the Japanese attack was the 214th Japanese Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel Sakuma. Reaching just three miles south of the bridge at Mokpalin they were primed to launch a full assault. Realizing the British forces to his front were collapsing, Sakuma sent a Japanese infantry company forward to probe the thinly spread defences with the aim to find a way…

Has this happened to me? Well, outside of a Flames of War tournament I watched, no, but it could. Gamers love the flashiest and 'best' toys. If the game is in the latter part of the Cold War, the tank of choice is the M1A1 Abrams, although I am partial to the Merkava and Leopard. For World War II the gamers have a higher percentage of King Tigers and Panthers in their collections then the Germans ever had access to. It goes for most eras - you get the point. Yes, we may be in a rut. We know which troops are war winners, or at least we know which forces work best with our favourite rules. Many rules add additional national and unit characteristics so that all troops have…

COLUMN That said, I’ve never been a great advocate of what I only half-jokingly refer to as “Jehovah’s Wargaming”: that very strident attempt one sometimes sees to spread the word to the deprived masses of the general public who are, apparently, only failing to pick up their brush and walk to the local club due to their sad state of ignorance. Whilst one cannot fail to admire the well-meaning intentions behind such missionary forays, I fear they are a misguided waste of time and energy. I may be wrong (my wife tells me I am regularly), but it seems to me that we are better off spending our time enjoying our hobby with friends than attempting to spread the word by somewhat randomly broadcasting our message far and wide in…

Nicomedes of Bithynia complained that he could not supply the levy because so many of his people had been captured and sold into slavery. In response, the Senate passed a law freeing all slaves that had been illegally taken from allied states. The proprae-tor of Sicily, Nerva, started to carry out the act of manumission. That obviously provoked slaves who were not originally from a client kingdom. Nerva was forced to back down and revoke the law after disgruntled landowners complained. The backlash to this swift reversal of policy was immediate as a number of slave revolts broke out. Nerva attempted to suppress the revolt quickly and sent 600 troops from the local garrison to deal with them. His forces were outnumbered, and the slaves took advantage of the rough…

For the wargamer, ad-hoc units have a certain appeal. We know they generally won’t be good, but they are somewhat exotic and might just fill that gap in the line. As they are cheap in most wargames rules, they will also be fairly numerous – which can be a problem in itself. How can these units be outnumbered by the enemy when in war-games rules these models will be cheap, so therefore there will be loads of them? What follows is, as usual, a brief guide to some of the suitable models available. This has been perhaps one of the trickiest themes to provide a set list of models for, so the list is more eclectic than what we would normally do. Space and time prohibit us from covering every…

Probably the ‘easiest’ path was through the army: by capturing enemy warriors for their subsequent sacrifice, one could climb up the ranks. In this article we will feature the new plastic Aztec models by Wargames Atlantic: we will see how to paint a noble warrior and a commoner. All the paints used in the guide are from Vallejo, unless otherwise indicated: Model Color (VMC) and Game Color (VGC). ELITE WARRIOR ‘SHAVED ONE’ We will paint a cuachicqueh, a warrior rank featured in the Codex Mendoza. They had a specific hairstyle, wore yellow quilted cotton armour called a tlahuiztli, and usually identified themselves by painting half of their heads blue and/or the other half red or yellow. Starting with the base block colour, paint the whole armour suit with a 50%…

Adapting a popular set of medieval rules for a futuristic setting may seem like a strange idea. The rules are still a ‘quickfire’ skirmish game dealing with the clash of two factions (called detachments). Typically a game will consist of 50 or fewer models per side, much fewer with elite troops. Like in its predecessor, units are divided into specific types, which reflect their role on the battlefield. For example, infantry is broken down into several types, so there are elites (with the best weapons), heavy (armoured), light (unarmoured), support (heavy weapons), and recon (skirmishers). Added to the mix is primitive infantry (bringing a sword to a lasgun fight), militia (rabble), and the Xenomorphs (big nasty ones and lesser-but-just-as-nasty ones!). The rules also cover vehicles, with fighting vehicles, transports, and…

Song of Arthur and Merlin Arthurian skirmish miniatures rules By Daniel Mersey (Ganesha Games, 2022) $8.00 for the PDF D6, Alternative turn In order to play this new version of Songs of Blades and Heroes you will need three D6 dice, a play area measuring a minimum of 60 cm x 60 cm, and three measuring sticks for short, medium, and long, although a measuring tape will do. The rules are primarily written for 15mm figures, but you can obviously adapt them for other scales. It is a skirmish system and uses individual models that operate separately. Each figure has a points cost, quality, combat modifier, and a trait. The rules are well laid out, with a very detailed introduction and list of contents, and the presentation…

Theirs the Strife: The Forgotten Battles of British Second Army and Armeegruppe Blumentritt By John Russell ISBN: 978-1914059391 (Helion & Company, 2020) - £19.99 Histories that focus on the last couple of weeks of the war in Europe in the West are hard to find, so Theirs the Strife is a welcome addition. In this book, John Russell examines the crossing of the rivers Weser and the Aller in Northern Germany by the British VIII and XII Corps in April 1945 as they advanced towards the Elbe. Although the end of the war was clearly nigh, their opponents fought unexpectedly tenaciously. At 502 pages this is a comprehensive study that will be of great interest to wargamers. As well as producing an excellent narrative of this campaign,…