/hwg/ - Historical Wargames General

I played the Tarawa scenario from Empire in Flames last month with a mate. We're planning on doing the full campaign all the way up to Okinawa as our introduction to Bolt Action.

Anyway, Tarawa was an absolute blast. I caught his entire right flank in an artillery barrage that annihilated almost the entire force, except for a lone flamethrower-weilding trooper who then struggled through the waves dodging sniper rounds to reach the shore and then proceeded to roast an entire squad of SNLF grenadiers. We christened him Captain Flamerica.

My central bunker held a sniper and MMG team; they were scarcely touched the whole fight until some Marines managed to reach the back door.

My final banzai charge of the game was the remnants of my last SNLF squad against the remains of a Marine squad whose transport went down near shore. I took down a handful with me but the Marines finally claimed the shore.

By the final count I was sitting on 43 victory points to his 11, which more or less mirrors the real Tarawa. It was a total bloodbath and we both had a ball.

For reference, the US gets double the points of the Japanese player and a free preparatory bombardment with -1 to damage. Japanese forces start in foxholes and trench lines, giving them Hidden. US must enter the board by landing craft, but get as many free ones as they like. Japanese get a free minefield for each free transport.

Soldier from my Modern ImagiNation.

It's easier to take photos of figures if you aren't holding them.

In case the user looking for Eastern Front literature from last thread is still around. Brusilov's own war memoirs were translated into English as A Soldier's Notebook: 1914-1918. It seems to be a bit hard to track down copies online though, you might want to try a library.

I'm still here, and yes! I'll see if I can track one down. The lack of general literature on this is rather vexing.

Apparently my university library has a copy, and we have a drastically underfunded History department. So I guess this is a good omen for the odds of finding it in libraries at least.

pic related

awesome! I'm planning on playing the Battle of Peleliu tomorrow. I'll borrow those minefield per transport rule. to account for the massive hidden Japanese artillery in the mountain caves and mortars, I plan on giving the Japanese's FAO two but one artillery strike.

>Modern ImagiNation.

Who makes these? A google search for Modern ImagiNation turns up nothing.

ImagiNation just refers to made up countries, nothing to do with a setting or specific manufacturer.

So, still no Skirmish Outbreak?

A horse colour chart to help liven up painting your cavalry

:/HWG/ Russian AFV's and Horse Eugenics

This is actually really helpful! Much appreciated!

Great image thanks, sort of makes me want to pick up some cavalry just to make use of it.

Might be an odd request here but does anyone know where you can get 6mm models of bigass missiles etc? Stuff like ballistic missile carriers, anti aircraft emplacements etc?

GHQ have a SCUD launcher but that's it.

What do people think about Pike and Shotte? Any impressions?

aaaand done. quick and dirty.

I haven't played it but I've read it, it's built on the same platform as hail Caesar (which I have played) and black powder (which i have not)

As far as a more simple/beginners intro to war gaming the era, I think it's pretty good, you might end up satisfied with it or eventually want to move on to something more intricate and detailed. HC didn't disappoint me, but for hellenistic war gaming I was left wanting more, so I've been thinking a lot about trying war and conquest or to the strongest. It pretty much did what it promised which is (presumably as with black powder and Pike and shotte) give you an adequate framework for playing large multiplayer games to a decisive conclusion quickly (within three hours). It's intended also to provide a platform for customization and house rules to the players taste, but I felt there was only so much that could be added on this front. The rolling for orders system was a little confusing to my group (used to warhammer) but didn't really give is any upset results, possibly because I gave each player a command 9 general (Ptolemy, seleucus, antigonus, and demetrius for an early diadochoi battle loosely based on ipsus) as well as cmd 8 division commanders

If you haven't read through the P&S rules yet, they're in the OP's folders, can't hurt to give em a try

Hi, anyone got a wargame that would be quick and easy to learn, and use 1/72 models? It also needs to be on a relatively small scale as we don't have many tanks.

First of all, thank you.

>As far as a more simple/beginners intro to war gaming the era, I think it's pretty good
Doesn't sound promising (I guess I would be considered a veteran then).

>It pretty much did what it promised which is (presumably as with black powder and Pike and shotte) give you an adequate framework for playing large multiplayer games to a decisive conclusion quickly
>it's built on the same platform as hail Caesar (which I have played) and black powder (which i have not)
So, the system, is largely unchanged? From Caesar to Gustavus Adolphus? That is interesting, because warfare, kind of (yes, as everybody knows), changed between those decades....

>It's intended also to provide a platform for customization and house rules to the players taste
That is interesting and from your comments, besides the minis, the only reason why I will have a closer look at it.

>If you haven't read through the P&S rules yet, they're in the OP's folders, can't hurt to give em a try
Thank you, didn't notice them. Will give them a shot.

Bolt Action if you want WW2.

>changed between those decades
:Centuries:. Sorry about that one.

Thank you.

No probs. You can play it with 2-3 infantry squads, some support weapons (like machine guns and mortars) plus a tank.

Any impressions for By Fire and Sword?

>Modern ImagiNation

My god, what have we done

>So, the system, is largely unchanged? From Caesar to Gustavus Adolphus? That is interesting, because warfare, kind of (yes, as everybody knows), changed between those decades....

It's not entirely identical but most of the core game play principles remain constant. Each unit is differentiated by stats (melee ability, firepower, moral/armor, etc.) but also by special rules. The stats are pretty much the same in the three systems, but the special rules are different, and the statlines are different. Hail Caesar has a much stronger emphasis on hand to hand combat (and splits the CQB stat into Clash and Sustained), also gives all the units more dice in melee and iirc gives them more "hitpoints" to make combat more protracted, and also let's commanders join melee Fighting (BP doesn't, P&S might I don't remember)

BP is all about exchange of fire with melee as a Cavalry Skirmish or quick decisive bayonet charge. P&S is kind of a halfway point between the two, so it does a fair job of differentiating eras.

The command/movement system is the same, the stats have the same names, terrain, victory conditions/army break points, etc. All the same more or less, so each of the three rulesets is basically built on the same skeleton, but they mostly manage to avoid being too generic

I think the warlord rulesets can be good intros, but their design intent was for veterans who just want a laid back game where everyone who shows up can throw their entire collection on the table and finish a game in an evening.

As someone coming from warhammer, I'm looking for something more streamlined than WHFB but maybe not as streamlined as these rulesets. They're a great choice when the group doesn't want to take the game too seriously (beer and pretzels and all that) but in different situations or to really accurately represent an era, something else might do a better job.

>The stats are pretty much the same in the three systems,

Meaning they all use the same kind of stats

>...and the statlines are different

Meaning the baseline capability of a given unit type, so, pikemen≠fusiliers≠roman legionaires but if you can read one unit entry, you can read them all, if that makes sense

Chain Of Command is quite nice too

Thank you for this, again.

Been having a peek at the rulebook itself, and I am quite sceptical about the various formations itself. It looks far too fictive in some instances. Will give the game a shot though.

Have you bought any of their minis? Because, irrespective of the game itself, they look quite good. Any comments?

Eh, it's basically what ak-47 republic does. Or that fivecore setting-building supplement.

Not a lot.

This may be a weird request.
Is there a set of rules for a wargame where there are no "turns", just orders, and everyones turn is done simontaneously, but not RTS, still sort of turn-based. Like Diplomacy, if you've played that.

The term you are looking for is WEGO, I believe.

Conventional turns are IGOUGO

well shit. I thought you were rattling my bones, but look at that.

Crossfire?

>8
Yeah crossfire works like this

I have warlord phalangites and warlord/immortal hoplites, both are great value for the money. The Pike and shot sets are a little older and the concensus seems to be that warlord plastic sets are hit or miss, but they look about as good as most other metal offerings, and far cheaper. I intend to collect two Pike and shotte forces at some point, probably swedish and imperial from WLG for thirty years war. I like that they sell metal helmets, caps, musket rests and other accessories separately.

There's also a couple of websites where you can get them at a heavy discount, $25 usd for 40 hoplites for instance

I haven't tried buying from caliver books yet but they claim to offer free shipping worldwide if you buy ₤15 or some such, and they have the best discounts I've seen so far, so I intend to try buying from them for my next purchase

They don't carry everything from warlord but have most of the plastics, including BA, I don't remember if they had P&S though

Thanks friendos

Sorry to ask this but would someone please post the crossfire pdf? It's in the OP link but my phone can't fucking open it for some reason. Thanks.

please

File's to big to post in the thread

I guess I'll just have to read it when I get to my computer. In about 10 days... God I fucking hate phones sometimes.

>I have warlord phalangites and warlord/immortal hoplites, both are great value for the money. The Pike and shot sets are a little older and the concensus seems to be that warlord plastic sets are hit or miss, but they look about as good as most other metal offerings, and far cheaper. I intend to collect two Pike and shotte forces at some point, probably swedish and imperial from WLG for thirty years war. I like that they sell metal helmets, caps, musket rests and other accessories separately.

I've bought from warlord their plastic kits in a bid to keep down costs are somewhat monopose (looking at you firelock boxed set) not so much a problem as apart from hats/helmets in the tyw/ecw both sides utilized the same gear and formations.

The immortal/cutting edge ancients stuff being an 'outside range' is smaller/slighter than other brands.

One worrying thing is they've been pushing gates of antares so much that they've put a stop to the old system of being able to do custom orders and i've noticed their article content is in steep decline as they reuse stuff.

Although they have put out ads for contributors they specified that the person must be close to Nottingham and while they would have access to products/bits early they would not be getting payed money.

I've noted as well their staff articles while interesting are also impractical, sure Rich Dando from mail order can get ahold of bits for a load of custom jobs...the average Joe cannot, if he wants to copy Rich he needs to fork out for a load of boxed sets/blisters in order to get a few components.

I worry warlord seems to be going the way of GW.

>they've been pushing gates of antares so much

They have? I have still been seeing zero discussion of it pretty much everywhere. Maybe like one thread over on lead adventurer. That game has fucking nothing interesting going on.

I do get your concerns about them going a bit GW. Though I've been getting them given how they've just been buying up other people's ranges. Now whilst there's nothing wrong with that in principle since it is often niche stuff that the creator wants to not deal with/push to a larger audience and really it is helpful to the consumer to be able to get more stuff from a single source instead of having to dig through a ton of stuff to find things (and there is still plenty of competition), well, the way they've been handling it has been less than satisfactory as suddenly stuff is unavailable or changed.

I don't want Warlord to become the GW of 28mm historical wargaming.

>47599857
>They have? I have still been seeing zero discussion of it pretty much everywhere. Maybe like one thread over on lead adventurer. That game has fucking nothing interesting going on.

Exactly, it's quite clearly flopping (just like the kickstarter) most of the races are generic and boring, the Ghar kinda look interesting(especially the outcasts with their scavenged gear) but overall i'm gonna give it a miss.

I both love and hate their snapping up of other ranges, on one hand they've saved a few ranges that probably would have died out, on the other they sit on products for ages, they bought arsenal miniatures years ago and previewed some gorgeous Malta defenders by Paul Hicks...in Christmas 2014...

Also concentrating on new ranges and neglecting their 'own' stuff, at the moment they seem to jump between pushing gates of antares and project Z.

I don't want Warlord to become the GW of 28mm historical wargaming.

So do I :'(

>The immortal/cutting edge ancients stuff being an 'outside range' is smaller/slighter than other brands.

Yeah, I have both it and the Phalangite set and it's pretty much too small to exchange heads between the sets, unfortunately. It also has a much wider variety of body poses (8 on the main sprue and 2 on the "command" sprue, vs 4 from the Phalangite set).

That said, they're about as slight/small as the LotR figs I have, and they don't look terrible alongside the WLG phalangites, in separate units.

I've also heard how even the sets they produce themselves can vary, for instance the notorious Caesarian legionaries.

>Gates of Antares, going the way of GW

I've also noticed this and had some similar concerns, in particular the price-gouging they've done with the rereleased wargames factory figs, especially the zombie-related kits (which cost, on average, more than three times what WGF charged).

Pushing GoA, Project Z and that stupid terminator game is lame. It seems like they've almost abandoned releasing new plastics for Hail Caesar, just as Victrix starts ramping up hard-core with what might end up being more than 10 new kits released this year for ancients.

Also, a pet-peeve is that immortal was planning to release (and had sculpted) plastic Persian infantry to complement their hoplites, and WLG seems to have just bought it and not released it. They also bought a plastic landsknecht project that was a failed kickstarter, but released it as metal, very lame.

I get the rationale, it costs more for them to make plastic and they can charge more for metal, but still very disappointing.

>well, the way they've been handling it has been less than satisfactory as suddenly stuff is unavailable or changed.
>I don't want Warlord to become the GW of 28mm historical wargaming.

This.

2 Hour Wargames.
Basically the usual IGOUGO, but because of the reaction system, a lot of stuff happens every time you move something.

watchs.me/how-its-made/how-its-made-season-27-episode-1.html

Episode of "How it's made" for perry miniatures. It's the last segment.

Thought you bros might like it.

I'd also warn that even warlords own metal ancients i've heard are smaller than other manufacturers.

I agreeing that they have almost completely abandoned their own ranges apart from bolt action which like GW is slowly but surely becoming all about the tanks...we do not need a million and one variations on bloody tanks and half tracks.

Stopping selling most of the old Paul Hicks bolt action is bullshit, they've shown(through 'limited' releases) that they still have all the moulds but refuse to actually sell the stuff.

I'd be angry about the wgf stuff if it didn't look so bad.

Also chin up they just released new ancient sea peopel from their cutting edge line so...maybe?

Bump it

Anyone else played this system? I really like it.

The plastic landsknecht are coming next year when I asked them on FB.

also for ancient and medieval: DBA

What is wrong with the Caesarian ones?

RIP in peace 2 Churchill tanks.

Couldn't handle all those point blank shots from T-34s.

At least they took about 150 soviet infantry with them!

I recognize the Esci female radio operator at the back there

Now here's a rare find - a previously unknown, complete scan of a hex&counter classic: France 1940, from Avalon Hill. It's nothing mindblowing, but it is relatively simple and accessible. Almost half the rulebook is just designer's notes, and there are a lot of alternate scenarios. It's actually a reprint of the game in S&T #27 with nicer design and a little more development, but I'm still chuffed to find it. On the BGG page I couldn't help noticing a really bad review from none other than Chaosium legend Sandy Petersen, who describes this as "Dunnigan at his worst". So, one for collectors only I guess!

mediafire.com/download/dbsk4e76hg795dh/France 1940.pdf
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/746/game-france-1940-german-blitzkrieg-west

I don't think a lot of people would touch it (let alone play it) simply because of that reaction system.

I mean, troops are supposed to be under your command, right? It's your game - you're supposed to be the one directing their actions.

>I mean, troops are supposed to be under your command, right? It's your game - you're supposed to be the one directing their actions.

Sure, but think about the brazillion games where losing control of your troops happens because of morale and things like that. Or heck, the ones where you can't even be sure you'll get to activate a unit at all.

I think it's pretty nice when troops react to enemy actions rather than just being 100% under your control, it feels more believable that they'll open up on someone running at them instead of every single one shooting at the guy that the Eye in the Sky demands.

Well, yeah - loss of morale is somewhat expected in any wargame. It's sorta like an 'icing on the cake' after the whole 'bash their heads in' part.

But to have your troops charging off against an enemy - or retreating without even having been attacked - is a bit too much 'icing on the cake'. And too much sugar is bad for ya.

I disagree. It's a cute idiom and all but it's just a matter of taste.

To me, there's no real difference in activating a unit and having it completely whiff it's entire turn because you roll like shit, and having it do something else you didn't want, like charge prematurely or run away.

Units reacting in unpredictable ways to the presence of enemies adds another layer to gameplay and makes movement more important, because you try to put your guys in good spots to react.

If I want perfect micro control of every guy, I can play Starcraft.

I get that you don't like it but it's silly to make sweeping statements about how you think most people agree with you.

Yeah, I love their games but they're not for everyone.

Usually there's a leadership option and "stars," where your main character(s) can always act and can order other dudes around, and experienced other dudes will usually be able to act on their own anyway and can also order other dudes.

Of course, they may not do what you want depending on circumstances. It can be a right pain getting a split-up squad back out of whatever cover they've found if things go horribly. But I like that.

They also do cool campaigns.

(I haven't played 2HW in a while, because fivecore is love, but I still like them)

>I get that you don't like it but it's silly to make sweeping statements about how you think most people agree with you.

Well, those 'sweeping statements' have the backing of nearly-unheard-of (niche?) (cult?) status of both THW and The Perfect Captain - both of which are based on these principles.

IMHO, there is a point in the 'reaction' games where wargame becomes management-game.
i.e. did you win or not becomes a matter - not of against whom you put your men, but of under whom you put your men.

And most of people don't like that for the same reason they don't like logistics (which is even more important to winning) in the their games:

It takes focus away from war - and into bean-counting.

>logistics
ugh, thanks for reminding me that I need to try megablitz one of these years.

Any other good (miniatures) wargames that include logistics as a meaningful concept? Probably quite high-level ones, although, related to ongoing chat, the 2HW 'nam game has a microsupplement for helo resupply missions.

The single-stat troops are too same-y for me, especially when everyone outside your own squad gets "average".
Also the scale is uneven - one squad of personalities with backgrounds and the rest of a reinforced platoon all cardboard copies.

I meant to attach that.

Thats how some battles went down though. Not all should be fair in a battle.

For example in the thirty years war you would often have cases of units standing around all day waiting for orders. Now in a tabletop battle, you usually want to have full control over all your forces at all times, but really this wasn't the case, and still isn't even with modern radios and satellites. You can get pretty close to total control in modern times, but back when orders had to be sent by horseman, it was a real struggle to command an entire army.

Personally I love limited command control, and I love having enemy reactions in your turn.

For example: Your infantry are waiting for tanks to cross a clearing, say between two buildings and have very limited line of sight.
An enemy tank moves past this line of sight, but moves right past and out of view.

In real life you would have a chance to fire rockets or whatever as soon as the tank entered your line of sight and so having reactions like "I fire during your turn" is perfectly feasible and realistic. It shouldn't happen all the time, but it should still be something that can be done in a game. If you can never react in an opponents turn, it starts to feel very static, as troops do things that they just wouldn't have done like taking a charge without reforming, or not firing at point blank range just before the enemy charges, etc.

Cake analogies aside, its down to the period you want to play and how accurately you want to model it. If you want to play renaissance period with complete control of all your units at all times, thats your prerogative. Personally I like any limitations of command or conrtol to be present in a system. I want to feel like I'm at a certain height in the command hierarchy, with orders from above and units to order below me. I want to feel like one of the generals in the battle. And often that includes having no control over some of your units, and just doing the best you can with what you have.

There's also the sf game Starship Marine, where (optionally) extended boarding actions might require you to bring up supplies and carry out casualties.

Interesting that it's skirmishy games that come to mind when I think about this stuff. Probably because I haven't played many operational games, and there seems to be a mid-level that most games operate at where logistics are less noticable. Skirmish games are usually fast and don't need them, but if you get bogged down in a fight then every bullet counts. Massive-scale games really should have something logistical included. Most wargames, though, are in the middle-ground, where fights are battles, and "logistics" are relegated to "attack the supply dump" or "convoy" scenarios, because the force's logistics are handled at a larger scale and the man-to-man stuff is too low-level to notice.

I agree completely - there should be reactions and battlefield friction (Clausewitz-style) - all I'm saying that implementing those things at true scale (i.e. 'as it should be') would take the 'war' out of wargame.

For example: inspired by 2HW & tPC, I actually wrote a wargame to try and implement this - I called the system YOYO: 'You're On Your Own.'

The premise is that once enemy gets closer than their immediately superior commander, any unit and commander will have to test for their Stance: Enraged, Steady, Shaken or Broken.
But the game quickly bogged down to a lot of individual testing, and I found it takes a lot of time just to fight a 4 vs 4 unit battle.
There was barely any fighting (i.e. confrontations) - and a whole lot of running around for a straight-up battle it was supposed to be.

Well, the single-stat troops do kind of make sense: all you really need is morale:
If your troops are shooting at the enemy - sooner or later they're gonna hit 'im.

As far as I know, the only other ruleset with some kind of logistics is Lighting War / Red Storm

We had that with TWH. Love the system and would be happy to use it for single player. But we had what? 4 or 5 per side and in the first player's turn things took forever. React? Run away, hunker down, fire until someone dies or freaks out and runs away.

Can be fun but you have to be in that frame of mind for it (like most things). Bit like Battletech. I know people who hate it, but I am happy to play and track everything. Weird.

Same here.
I'd love to play more of it (Perfect Captain, too) - but, as it stands right now, you have to be a freakin' super-computer to work it all out.
Note: I'm talking about processing speed here - not RAM. For such a great game, it takes a really tiny amount of RAM to run it - if you know what I mean.

...

No irony, insult or joke: I wish I could play like you, with a bedsheet and some unpainted minis on a card.

Does Zaloga ever sleep? He seems to crank out a book a month!

Downfall 1945: The Fall of Hitler’s Third Reich (Osprey Campaign 293)

As the final month of fighting in Europe in 1945 dawned the Allies embarked upon a series of mopping up operations, destroying the last centres of German resistance as the essentially defeated Wehrmacht fought on in increasingly desperate conditions, driven on by the explicit no surrender order issued by Hitler. Yet at the same time, the Allied alliance was already on shaky ground, as German resistance was crushed the Allies began to eye each other nervously across a battletorn Europe, with the politically driven military decisions to have a huge impact on the future of the continent. This book traces the final operations of the war, from the liberation of Denmark, the Allied drive towards the Baltic straits, incursions in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and engagements in Eastern and Western Germany, whilst also analyzing how the Allied strategies in the final days of the war were a hint of the future difficulties that would drive the Cold War.

mediafire.com/download/nrlm9jxb2gx072x/Osprey - CAM 293 - Downfall 1945.pdf

Two options.

He's a very good writer, with little time for distractions and a huge knowledge of the sources.

Or he does like most of my Uni professors, employ a lot of poor fucks who do the job and then he places his name on it, giving pennies to the subordinates.

I like his books, so I hope he's merely efficient.

But

But who knows.

>Or he does like most of my Uni professors, employ a lot of poor fucks who do the job and then he places his name on it, giving pennies to the subordinates.
It will be this.

That is unexpected and also badass, landsknechts are some of my favorite historical figures and the set they bought from that guy looked really great too

I don't own any, but people say (and scale comparison pics seem to bear out) that they are the smallest figures WLG sell, and that they don't really rank up with any other manufacturer

Not necessarily a problem depending on how one wants to use them, but a complaint I've heard a lot

I played a game of Blucher last night, and I can honestly say I've never seen a game in which both sides continuously rolled so poorly in crucial engagements, and I mean really shocking sort of rolls, losing combats with 12 dice against against 6, drawing combat with 8 dice against 3 sort of rolls almost every turn for both of us.

Really turned the game into an attrition slog, units charging in with the advantage, being repulsed and then themselves repulsing the inevitable countercharge.

> Heavy underperformance from both sides

You weren't playing Austrians vs Italians, were you?

Unfortunately not, it was Spanish (expected performance really) against French (underwhelming).

Neither army broke in just over 3 hours of gameplay which I suppose is expected if neither player can actually kill anything. Disappointingly the Spanish won a fairly minor victory on points which is a pretty dismal result for the proud French.

its the simple life user, just a man and his ruleset, playtesting to perfection.

introducing HEAT properly is changing everything, allowing infantry to deal with heavy tanks much easier, but its going to take some re-balancing in mid and late war. Heavy tanks will become cheaper, as they're already under-performing (the pic should have been a balanced battle - but both churchills were raped)

get ready boys!!!

> Embarked in a newly-painted model in its first game

Those boys are fucked.

Move it! GO GO GO!

Machine gun right ahead!