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Balagan Wargaming Blog

Chris Harrod, Robin Doran and I played the Alternative Chacabuco scenario from Fletcher (2006) using Liberators QPR. This is the third time I've played the scenario; the first time was Liberators QPR, the second was Liberators HOTT.

I was the Royalists / Spanish (for the second time).  Chris was San Martin with Soler's Division. Robin was O'Higgins. This was Robin's first historical wargame.

Another good game. Went faster this time. We got to a conclusion in 4.5 hours including set up. The direct tactics of the Patriots helped with that. The game featured the rout of three squadrons of Elite Argentine Horse Grenadiers.

We took the opportunity to introduce some House Rules.

I wrote up a Battle Report.

Royalist Chillan Battalion routs the Argentine Horse Grenadiers

Andrew Coleby and I played an early version of the Liberators HOTT version of the Alternative Chacabuco Scenario which is based on that in Fletcher (2006). Andrew was the Royalists and I was the Patriots.

Andrew is quite keen on using more-or-less standard HOTT for historical periods. He introduced me to horse and musket HOTT with a Seven Years War game. 

This was the first time we'd tried Liberators HOTT and although both the rules and scenario need some tweaking it was jolly good fun. And we comfortably set up and finished within two hours which is a key requirement for our sessions.

I wrote up a Battle Report.

After trying a few games of Liberators QPR and seeking Clarification on some issues, I wanted to tweak to rules to fill in a few gaps. So I wrote expanded my House Rules.

I wrote an Alternative Chacabuco Scenario for Liberators HOTT rules. The scenario is based on the scenario in the Liberators Supplement by John Fletcher. 

Martin Groat and his friend Bob tried out my Mekensievy-Gory Scenario for Crossfire. Martin sent through a battle report. Apparently they enjoyed the game. I particularly appreciated Martin's comment that it was a "fiendish scenario" with "lots of tactical possibilities". 

Chris Harrod and I played the Cancha Rayada scenario with the Liberators Quick Play Rules. A great game. Really fun. On the down side it was a bit long and revealed some flaws in the scenario. I wrote up a battle report.

Badly mauled Royalist Burgos Battalion
still sees off the Chilean Coquimbo Cazadores

Chris Harrod and I played the Maipo Scenario from the Liberators book using the Liberators Quick Play Rules. We rolled for sides and Chris became the Royalists and I got the Patriots.  I wrote up a battle report. It was good fun, looked great with heaps of troops on the table, but took a while to get a decision.

Patriot right flank infantry
attack Royalist infantry and artillery

I'm keen on the Wars of South American Liberation aka Liberators at the moment and wondered what I'd have to do to use HOTT for the period.  I want as many standard HOTT rules to apply as possible but also have the option to add some period flavour.

To celebrate the completion of my Liberators armies Andrew Coleby and I had a go at Alternative Chacabuco from the Liberators Supplement. We used the Liberators Quick Play Rules (QPR) from the same book. We played four hours over two sessions at which point Andrew conceded me a narrow victory. Liberators QPR has a good period feel but isn't quick by DBA standards. The first two hours involved manoeuvring to contact; we'd solve this next time by using a smaller table. After another two hours we'd only really played out half the actual fight. But, as we can only get two hour slots to play in, we decided not to play it out to a definitive conclusion. None-the-less it was fun. Next time we'll try Liberators HOTT. :)

Argentine 11th Infantry Regiment reform
after they rout the Royalist Chiloe Regiment

With the painting part of my 1817-18 Chilean Project for the South American Wars of Liberation coming to the close, I thought it about time to reorganise that part of my site. I've also turned my gaze to the rules to use. The main changes are:

• Created a new area focussing on the Liberators Quick Play Rules (QPR)
• Put anything specific to Chilean Independence into in a sub-section of Liberators. This is mainly material from what was my "1817-18 Chilean Project"
• Created the start of a sub-section on Argentina within Liberators

The supplement to Liberators (Fletcher, 2006) includes a set of Quick Play Rules (QPR). Following my pattern of keeping the rules separate from the military history I've started a section on these rules separate from the Liberators in general. So far I've got material on House Rules and Clarifications, Basing, and Markers.

I've been looking at making my own hills. Big hills to complement the smaller commercial hills I've already purchased. I knew I should use High Density Polystyrene which is otherwise called Blue or Pink Foam.  But I was struggling to find that. After some googling I put together some guidelines.

I was going back over old emails from the Liberators 1810-1830 Yahoo Discussion Forum and found some material on uniforms. So I thought I'd put it somewhere - a new Liberators Painting Guide page. Mostly pictures of Gauchos but some notes on racial mix as well.

"El Gral. Martín Miguel de Güemes y sus Gauchos"
A. Struch - Salta 1912
Museo Histórico del Norte - Cabildo de Salta.

I've updated my page on Crossfire Markers with more photos and explanation.

Markers

I also took the opportunity to create a page with some picture of my Crossfire Box.

Crossfire box with markers and such like

Originally I began building my Generic Building Sectors so I could play the Ponyri scenario from Hit the Dirt.  Then I built a whole bunch more so I could run a big multi-player game using my expanded Ponyri Station scenario. Over the last couple of years I've been experimenting with playing Crossfire in highly built up areas ... starting with my 2 Foot City, then SU152s in Tarnopol, 92nd Naval in Stalingrad, and most recently Carabanchel in the Spanish Civil War. During this process I expanded my collection of building sectors with some bigger city blocks. And finally for Carabanchel I built some Triangular Blocks to allow Diagonal Streets. That has left me quite a big collection. Enough to fill a 6' x 4' table. Now that would be a real city fight. I've updated my Generic Building Sectors page to show photos of all of these including the shots of the big table.

All my Generic Building Sectors on one table

Continuing my experiments with Crossfire scenarios in heavily built up areas and/or on small tables, I put together a scenario set in the Carabanchel sector in Nov 1936 as the Nationalists assault into Madrid. The scenario features Moroccan Regulares versus Anarchist Militia - and I finally got to field my Nationalist Panzer Is.

Map for Carabanchel Scenario

The table

This is also the first scenario which features my new triangular building blocks to give diagonal streets. I put quite a lot of thought into the design/floor plan of the triangular blocks. But it was worth it as the diagonal streets add quite a lot to the tactical challenge of a city game.

Chris Harrod and I played two very good games with this scenario. In both cases the defending Republicans won - once under Chris and once under my command.  Despite this outcome we believe it was a near run thing in both games and have declared the game "balanced".  The games played to conclusion in 60 minutes and 90 minutes so great for an evening session after work. Andrew Coleby and I will be giving in a go soon as well.

Although set in the Spanish Civil War it can easily be adapted for other arenas, for example, it would require very little work to adapt it to Stalingrad. The defenders become Russian and the attackers German. Replace the Panzer Is with something a little more 1942 in style (assault guns perhaps) and give the defenders one or two anti-tank guns (at most 76mm) to compensate. And lose the Political Cooperation special rule.

See the Battle Report Summary and two Battle Reports (1, 2).

Whilst on holiday recently I read, and wrote up, Michael Jones's book "The Retreat: Hitler's first defeat".  Prior to this my main source for the Battle for Moscow was Braithwaite's book Moscow 1941. I'd previously written up Braithwaite's book but with a second main source I took the opportunity to create a section specifically on the Battle for Moscow. I'd done something similar for Stalingrad and Moscow seems epic enough to warrant an area of its own. The starting point was my notes from Braithwaite's book, supplemented by Jones. Most of the detail is in the Timeline for Moscow and as usual I've included some ideas on potential scenarios.

Dick Bryant play tested my draft Astrang Crossings Scenario. The scenario has the 5th Seaforths fighting off German attacks from both sides. I've put up Dick's comments as a Battle Report. Unfortunately the play test was pretty one sided with Dick believing the British mortar and artillery superiority was overly decisive. I've taken this on board and modified the scenario - hopefully achieving more game balance. In particular I have:

• reduced the FM of all the British artillery and mortars.
• made the breakout force "Reckless" to reflect the near suicidal determination of such troops to escape encirclement. This means they behave like Russians and Japanese when charging to contact, i.e. ignore Pins and get killed by a Suppress. 

With those changes Dick thinks it well worth trying the scenario again.

Andrew Coleby, my co-author on Twilight of the Sun King, has come up with a variant for the Thirty Years War that he calls the 'Twilight of the Winter Queen'. He has also provided a scenario for Lutzen and a battle report.

General Der Artillerie Walter Hartmann commanded the German 87th Infantry Division from 1 Feb 1943 to 22 Nov 1943. In 1947 he wrote an analysis of German experience in positional warfare and retrograde movement based on his experiences. I wrote a summary of the Infiltration of Position Four and two draft scenarios based on it, one for each of:

• Crossfire
• Megablitz

The Crossfire Scenario is a mini-campaign linking two games; I've concentrated on the battles involving the infiltration force. The Megablitz Scenario covers the whole action in one game with the entire 87th Division on table and facing a Soviet Rifle Corps. Both scenarios are draft but seem to offer interesting games.

I've got almost a battalion of Fallschirmjaeger for Crossfire. This force was cobbled together from figures I got from John Mclennon and Rich Wilcox. It includes a well painted platoon by John Mclennon himself plus figures from ebay - a nicely painted company and an averagely painted half battalion. Roland Davis has volunteered to paint the missing bits - predominantly MG-42 stands. But he didn't want to do this until he'd seen photos of some of my existing troops. So I've duly added pics to my WW2 Painting Guide for Fallschirmjaeger.

I've painted the eight artillery stands necessary for the Royalists at the battle of Chacabuco (12 Feb 1817). This is part of my Chilean Project for 1817-18. I'm painting the Royalists and Roland is painting the Patriots (Argentines and Chileans). I think I've now all done for the Royalists for Chacabuco but I still need the Patriot artillery.

Royalist 4 pounders

Andrew Coleby and I tried out my Moroccan Knives scenario. Andrew wanted to try  Spanish Civil War Crossfire and I wanted to experiment with a small table and lots of terrain; like the 2 Foot City but in the countryside. We only get a couple of hours to play when Andrew comes over so the game had to be small. All this meant we had small companies facing each other on a 4'x3' table covered in woods features. It turned out to be a good little game and I've written up the battle report. Andrew scored a well deserved win. I'd make only one change to the scenario; I'd add a time limit, for example, attacker has to achieve their victory conditions in 2 hours real time or the defender wins.

Moroccan Regulares Platoon outflanks the Anarchist positions

I picked up an Aztec army from ebay a while ago and yesterday I got a Mayan army. Coincidentally Chris Harrod has just visited the Canary Islands leading to a resurging interesting in Conquistadores and the New World. And New World DBA. From previous games we realised that the smaller, 75 AP, armies made a better game on a 2'x2' board so I've updated the New World DBA Army Lists for Mexico and Peru to include examples of 75 AP armies.  For example:

I've started work on a Nordlingen (6 Sep 1634) Scenario for FOG Renaissance. A spanish-Imperialist force against Swedish-Saxons. The order of battle is from Slitherine Forum: Nordlingen After Action Report although I have:

• Translated to the Troop Names in the relevant FOG lists
• Included the full troop description (rather than just, for example,  "2Pk + 4Mq (Average 42 points)")
• Formatted using my normal orbat format
• Checked the points

And I've added a map.

I have a confession to make. When compiling the Crossfire orders of battle for the Spanish Civil War I got confused by quantity and structure. I've now rethought this and changed the orbats accordingly.

In terms of infantry there are only really two TO&E to worry about:

• Normal Infantry = Company of three Sections (Crossfire Platoon) of three Platoons (Crossfire Squad). Could be 145 men but normally 100.
• Legion Infantry = Company of three Sections of two Platoons of three Squads. Very odd structure. If you total the men in this structure you get to about 150 men but casualties would mean they operated with much fewer men. Accounts give the Squads as fighting on with only two men from the normal complement of 7.

In Crossfire I originally opted for 4 squads per platoon so the total number of men was roughly 145-150 divided between the three Platoons. This fitted both company structures above for the number of Sections (CF Platoons) and total number of men. It wasn’t intended to reflect the actual organisation within the Section (CF Platoon) particularly for the Legion structure which has that extra layer of command.

However the the orbats in Crossfire itself ignore the number of men (e.g. ignore casualties and non-combatant roles) and concentrate on how they are organised. For example a full strength US infantry company had 200 men. That would be a lot of stands in Crossfire. But the CF orbat just gives them the standard 3 squads per platoon. In light of that 3 squads per platoon (or less) is probably more sensible for SCW as well. 

I have now changed my Crossfire orbats for the Spanish Civil War to have 3 squads per platoon. A beneficial side effect is that I now can use my "extra" painted stands to build more platoons.

It has been a while since the last post as I've been busy with a new job. However with the release of Field of Glory Renaissance Roland and I have restarted my Thirty Years War project. Roland has already painted a Dutch army for me covering the period. He is in the process of painting the Spanish.  Meanwhile I've been reading the rules and making some notes on the armies: FoG R Army Lists, 30 Years' War Starter Armies, and 30 Years' Spanish. Essentially I'm trying to get starter armies for the Battles of Nordlingen (1634) and Rocroi (1643) with the option for as many other armies as possible. All by using the figures I've already got plus with minimal additional troops. The chart on the 30 Years' War Starter Armies is the main tool for this as it shows which troop types are used in which armies. There is a specific issue with Later Imperial Spanish in Wars of Religion: Western Europe 1610-1660 This list covers the period 1621-59 but the starter army is limited to 1632-34. Perfect for Nordlingen but not for Rocroi. On 30 Years' Spanish I explore a couple of Starter Armies for the latter period.

Post 1635 Spanish Tercio

For the Portuguese Colonial War - set in Africa - I used Wild Animals as my Blinds. Lion, Tiger, Giraffe, Rhino, Croc, African Cow, Hippo, Ostrich, Antelope, Warthog, Hyena and Ape on a tree. This is also a nod to the movie "Ghosts in the Darkness" where some supposedly supernatural lions kills a whole bunch of people in southern Africa. The Ghosts are meant to "suggest" something rather than "be" something so I don't bother painting them realistically. I paint them a generic green.

Lion Blind - the ultimate Ghost in the Darkness

Section K is my first unit of insurgents for the Portuguese Colonial War. They are well equipped with weapons and uniforms. The uniforms are a mix of khaki, olive drab and camouflage. Although khaki dominates a bit, as it did in reality, it was the camouflage which was fun to paint. I included quite a range of camouflage types.

Section K (to the right on the tree line)
skirmish with Portuguese Commandos

I've started my Portuguese 'army' for the Portuguese Colonial War. So far I've got a section of Cazadores and a fire team of Commandos. All in camo and equipped with G3 assault rifle and MG42 machine gun. The machine gunners are conversions.  

Portuguese convoy arrives at a village
The Section Leader of the Cazadore escort organises perimeter defence

All of the games from Two Hour Wargames are based on the same mechanisms. Since Chain Reaction 3.0 has their core rules, and it is free, I wondered what the other rules sets are giving me. You could argue that this exercise is a waste of time as I've already bought the other rules but really I'm thinking "if I wrote my own supplement what would I have to write and what would come from Chain Reaction 3.0?".

I'm currently thinking about the Portuguese Colonial War so the three sets of rules I'd decided to compare are all 20th Century: CR3, FNG 1st Ed, and Nuts 2nd Ed. Both CR3 and Nuts 2nd Ed are new generation rules published in 2009.  FNG 1st Ed is older (2006) but there is a new version coming soon. 

My starting point are the table of contents for each set. I've highlighted where there are differences. The comparison is made slightly more difficult because the core mechanisms are evolving and older games differ from the newer generation. I've tried to gloss over these.

The summary is that the supplements have the core rules plus more detail on equipment (weapons and vehicles), army lists, running a campaign and specific missions.

I've started on the orders of battle for Fogo Cruzado my Crossfire variant of for the Portuguese Colonial War of the 1960s and 1970s. They are based on the historical orders of battle. As Fogo Cruzado is more or less 1:1 scale the basic stand is a Fire Team rather than a Squad. Similarly heavier weapons such as Medium Machine Guns (MMG) are individual weapons rather than sections of 2 or 3. So far it is Portuguese including Light Infantry (Caçadores), Intervention units (unidades de intervenção), and Special Groups (Grupos Especiais or GE).

Roland has painted the first of my Spanish for the 30 Years War and latter part of the 80 Years War. A couple of Pike and Shot units.

Spanish Pike and Shot

I've been busy painting Royalists for the 1817-18 Campaign in Chile. In the latest burst of energy I added the Concordia Hussars, Abascal Carabineers, Frontier Dragoons, and Conception Battalion.

Concordia Hussars

Archiduque Painting Service have done some lovely work painting up Perry 28mm Carlist War figures. They kindly sent over some samples which I plonked into a gallery.

Carlist Navarese Lancer

Roby from Italy asked my advice on Sci-FI Crossfire. I'm no expert but that didn't stop me writing up some ideas.

I reread Geoffrey Parker's "Dutch Revolt" whilst on holiday recently. This time around I took notes for a Timeline of the Dutch Revolt. Unfortunately I only had time to write up the events through to April 1572. When I get time I'll add more detail.

I added some photos to my Painting Guides for the Rise of Rome including

• Numidians
• Carthaginians
• Gauls
• Ligurians
• Celtiberians
• Macedonians (completely new)

African Spearmen

I picked up a small Aztec army on ebay. I don't know the figure manufacturer. It isn't Essex, Gladiator or Falcon - I know because I've got unpainted figures from all of them. I've also mixed in three Essex figures that I had - two painted by John Mclennan and one by me. I took some photos of them.

Aztec Commander

My Dutch Revolt army was the first army that Roland Davis painted for me. In fact it was the second Dutch Revolt army Roland had painted in a row. He had previously painted this army for John Mclennan. I saw John's army at a Wargames Tournament in New Zealand, fell in love with it, and asked Roland to paint one for me. Which he did. He was, I understand, a little tired with the Dutch by the end of it. Now, after far too many years, I have finally got them out of their box to take a few snaps.

Dutch Regiment of Foot

I took pictures of some Napoleonic troops I picked up off John Mclennan last year (British and French). Nominally they are for my Albuera Project using Shako. I've not much to show for either army just yet but I'm a little ahead on the Spanish.

French Divisional Commander

Last year Roland Davis painted up the staff, cavalry and infantry for the Chilean component of my Army of the Andes. This is part of my 1817-18 Chilean Project for which I'd already posted some pictures of the Argentine element. I've finally put up some photos of the Chileans. I’m particularly pleased with the Caballeria Cazadores de la Escolta Directorial; Roland had to add epaulettes to Granaderos a Caballo figures for these chaps. Just the Patriot artillery and most of the Royalists to go.

Chilean Caballeria Cazadores de la Escolta Directorial

Dick Bryant and his team played my Battle of Malmedy Scenario a few weeks back and sent through a Battle Report. Dick recently ran the scenario again at a local convention and sent through some additional comments.

Chris Harrod and I started a Fall of Hispania Campaign using Field of Glory. In the first game of the campaign Chris's Alans beat my Dominate Romans.

Victorious Alans

Chris Harrod and I played my Almanza scenario using my 5mm figures on a newly painted 3'x2' gaming board. So I wrote up a Battle Report. I had 14 units to Chris's 20. Even with three "Elite" brigades I thought I was doomed. That all changed when Chris advanced his Spanish horse off the hill and my Portuguese horse routed them. The battle was also notable by the fact three of the four generals were killed in action.

Duke of Berwick dies

I picked up Visigothic Sain 409-711 by Roger Collins. Right up my alley. So I've been adding Visigothic events to my Timeline for the Fall of Rome.

The Yahoo Group: TwilightSK discuss various tweaks to the standard rules. In particular Tom Loback and Vincent Tsao of the Corlears Hook Fencibles generate lots of suggestions. This is my list of optional rules and/or musings based on that discussion. It is largely the suggestions of Tom and Vincent but with some twists of my own.

Vincent and Tom from the Corlears Hook Fencibles are the most prolific contributors to the Yahoo Group for the Twilight of the Sun-King rules. Every week they submit a scenario, some tweaks to the rules, or an after action report (AAR). This week it was an AAR for Battle of Chotusitz which, with their permission, I've republished here.

Frederick arrives

Steve Spence made me laugh with some comments on the Crossfire Discussion forum about whether Crossfire is an IGOUGO game or not. So to honour the discussion I created an entry in my Crossfire FAQ on IGOUGO.

I'm in the process of re-flocking my Fall of Rome armies. I've mostly done the Alans, Huns, and Germanic Cavalry (Visigoths, Vandals, Suevi).  Now I've got the the Germanic foot horde to do. Romans later.

All this activity has got me thinking about a mini-campaign. Basically I want to try out the armies under Field of Glory (although it could be any rules) and wrap a very light weight campaign around it. The context is the barbarian invasion of Roman Hispania.

Recent discussion on the Yahoo Group for Crossfire prompted me to add some FAQ entries for ground hugging:

• What is ground hugging?
• Can a ground hugging stand move?
• Why can a pinned stand ground hug?
• Why can't suppressed stands ground hug?

I'm still keen on the Portuguese Colonial War so I've been looking at the 15mm Figures available. Peter Pig is the only source of Portuguese figures. The trouble is the machine guns. The Peter Pig figures have a GPMG as the squad support weapon and some Russian thing on wheels as their heavy. That might be suitable for Insurgents but not for Portuguese. The Portuguese started the war using the Dreyse (MG13) in the squads, the German MG42 at company level and a Breda at battalion level. From 1962 all of these were phased out in favour of the German M3 which the Portuguese designated the m/962 MG42-59. This was a slightly modified version of the original MG42. So my plan is to find suitable figures with an MG42 (i.e. WWII Germans) and do a head swap - Peter Pig have a suitable head pack with the Portuguese cap.

Paul from the Man Cave wondered if I'd seen Solo Wargamer: Micro-Campaigning Part II. I hadn't, but I did find it quite interesting. It seems perfect for a campaign featuring Alexander the Great's invasion of the east.

Dick Bryant sent through a Battle Report for my Battle of Malmedy Scenario. It was an overwhelming victory for the Germans. Dick will be trying the scenario again but suggested a couple of tweaks.

Chris Harrod and I have been playing my New World DBA variant for a while and I created a Quick Reference Sheet to help game play. But I've only just remembered to put it on the site.

I've been on the hunt for a set of rules for the ancients period. I've read about Commands & Colors Ancients a few times so thought I'd give it a go. In our first outing Chris Harrod and I played three games in four hours.  The verdict is that it is a fast and easy game to play but with only a very modest score on simulation. We liked it enough to consider playing through all 15 scenarios in the core rules.

One day in 2009 I came home and found that I'd published a set of rules called the Twilight of the Sun King. Or more accurately the Pike and Shot Society had published the rules on behalf of Andrew Coleby and myself. OK, I admit it wasn't a complete surprise because Andrew had mentioned a vague plan to do this in Mar 2007 but after a year and half I'd forgotten all about it. But there they were ... a nice little booklet with my name on it. Rather gratifying at the time and surprising since the rules had originated in 1994.  Imagine how pleased I was today to discover that there is a Yahoo Group: TwilightSK, that people are playing the rules, and that they like them.  Rather chuffed I was.  :)

I was attracted to Legends of Araby by Two Hour Wargames because of the Arabian Nights theme and its reputation for good Solo Wargaming potential via the campaign system. Unfortunately Legends of Araby was written in 2003 and the rules do not reflect current thinking as defined by Chain Reaction 3.0 Swordplay (released 2009) and I'm more interested in Spanish history so a more apt setting for me is Al-Andalus and the Reconquista.  So that is why I started work on a Legends of Al-Andalus Campaign Game.

I was looking into options for Solo Wargaming and discovered references to Legends of Araby by Two Hour Wargames.  Their games are based on the mechanisms of Chain Reaction 3.0 and are pitched as RPG-lite, i.e. role playing games without the book keeping. In fact they are fairly brutal skirmish level wargames. They appeal to me because they are quick (less than 2 hours), there is a low cost of entry (rules can be free and only need a few figures), you can play on a 2'x2' table, and many of the games come with a campaign system.

The Holy Roman Empire (HRE) board game by Mark McLaughlin has elements, including a great map, which make it a good basis for a miniatures campaign. A Mapless Campaign is simple to run and encourages on-going participation by the players.  I thought it would be possible to combine these hence my Mapless Holy roman Empire Campaign.  

Added Field of Glory (FOG) stats to my Mapless Campaign page.

In my musings on Desert Warfare using Crossfire I starting thinking about the possibility that different terrain and/or troops might be different heights. As it happens Blitzkrieg Commander implements this concept so I wrote up how Visibility with Different Terrain and Troop Profiles could work in Crossfire.

Back in 1984 Mark McLaughlin designed a board game of the Thirty Years War called "Holy Roman Empire" or HRE for short. It looks a good basis for a miniatures campaign so I've summarised some of the features which I think make it interesting. Some areas of the original game are a bit obscure so I've also added some clarifications where necessary.

Map of Holy Roman Empire (with Errata)

I think the FireStorm campaign system can be used for other game systems such as Crossfire so I wrote up my version of the system based on what I could find on the web and in the press and then filling in the gaps.

Chris Harrod and I played my Nombre de Dios Scenario for New World DBA and I wrote up a brief Battle Report.

Francis Drake dies at Nombre de Dios

Marco Grillanda kindly sent through some pictures of the Rif War figures from Rif Raf Miniatures. They do 28mm and specialise in the 1920s. Very nice too.

28mm Riffi from Rif Raf Miniatures

It has taken just under five months but I finally published today. There is still a lot to do but it was good enough to go live. It turns out there are over 890 pages on the site and I ended up having to hand finish each one. That means there are bound to be problems with at least some of them. If you spot any problems please let me know.

In a spare moment I made a Timeline for the Fall of Rome.

I'm in the middle of revamping the whole site. I started back in July but I thought I should post something here just so you know about the changes. I've written up the technical details of the migration in a Web Development Blog if you are interested. As part of this process I'm changing the folder / URL structure. I will ensure that all major pages will have a redirect but some minor links will break.

Moved the general wargaming and Crossfire specific news together on this page. Also created a Sitemap.

Wrote up more notes on 1961-75 Portuguese Colonial War including an Fogo Cruzado: An Afro-Portuguese Crossfire.

Like Crossfire I Ain't Been Shot Mum (IABSM) is also a company level set of rules for WW2. I'm not interested in moving from Crossfire but there are quite a lot of nicely presented scenarios and campaign supplements that I'd like to use. Hence my notes on Crossfire meets I Ain't Been Shot Mum.

One day Arty will do a version 2 so I thought I'd write up my Wish List.

I thought I see what my favourite two divisions look like under Megablitz:

• 2 New Zealand (NZ) Division
• 250th Infantry Division, Spanish Volunteer Division, Division Azul, or the Blue Division

I have prepared a PDF version of the Megablitz Quick Reference Sheet. I have kept the Combat Matrix separate because the matrix should go on the 'Combat Box'.

I wrote up some notes from Moscow 1941: A city and its people at war (Braithwaite, 2006).

The Megablitz rule book includes a fictional 1940 scenario called Dot Sur La Mappe. My own forces are Eastern Front so I've tried to transfer the scenario to 1941 and Operation Barbarossa. Hence my version called A Dot in Russia.

I've started writing up some notes about the Portuguese Colonial War. I'm thinking of using a modern variant of Crossfire to game the period. So far I've got a brief Timeline, Portuguese Order of Battle and Insurgent Order of Battle.

I played Game 8 of World Crossfire Day.

I've written up how to make Terrain Templates and Gullies (in the Modelling section) and how I used them to make Field of Glory Terrain.

Making Terrain Templates

Making Gullies

FoG Terrain

My Punic Wars armies have been languishing for many years. With the advent of Field of Glory I'm adding to my collection so thought I'd update my Punic Wars Painting Guides at the same time.

Iberian Large Shield Cavalry

Chris and I have been playing a few games of FoG lately so I took a few snaps and wrote up one of the battles - Punic Wars Battle Report.

Punic War Skirmish

With tons of Ancient and Medieval figures in storage after becoming dejected with DBM I was quite keen to find a new set of rules. I recently bought all of the Field of Glory books and started converting my armies. First up were the armies for the Rise of Rome: Mid-Republican Roman, Later Carthaginian, Ancient Spanish, and Later Seleucid.

In the general burst of photographic activity I updated the photos on my Fortifications page.

Homemade Bunker

I added a whole bunch of new photos to the area on Making and Painting Wooden Buildings including a specific page on each of Homemade and Commercial buildings.

Wooden Buildings

Homemade

Commercial

James Falkus brought along some recently painting buildings to our refight of Albuera. I liked the way he'd painted them so he sent through instructions for Painting Spanish Buildings.

Jim's Church

I typed up some notes of the types of wargaming trees I've got. Mainly because I've just got a big batch from Sams Trees and I wanted to take some photos before they got knocked around.

Trees

Armed with a slightly better photographic set up I tooks some shots of my Royalists for my 1817-18 Chilean Project, Napoleonic Spanish, and French Dragoons.

Royalists in Chile

Napoleonic Spanish

French Dragoons

Added some notes on East Africa to my timeline for the Portuguese Involvement in WW1. Still lots more to do.

James Falkus, Rich Wilcox, Chris Harrod and I wanted to try out Shako II. Because of my recent enthusiasm (Spanish Units at Albuera) I suggested the Albuera scenario from Fields of Glory (FOG). I took a few snaps and wrote up an After Action Report.

Albuera Village

Missing General Matrix is a campaign using the Engle Matrix Game system. I play tested it with John Mclennan and Chris Harrod using Matrix Battle Resolution for the tactical battles so we could finish in a day. With more time we could have used Crossfire for the battles.

Some notes on the scenarios I've played from Hit the Dirt.

I asked the Shako discussion forum how to improve the look of my Shako games. Tom Breza responded with instructions for Making a Terrain Mat.

John Gillson inspired me to write up the DBM/DBR modifications for the Mapless Campaign

John Gillson got me thinking about What I like in a campaign / multi-player game.

I decided to move all my World War 2 stuff into one place. Mainly this is because things like my account of Stalingrad, Arhem, and Tarnopol were buried in my Crossfire section. The Spanish and Kiwi involvement in WW2 are also here. And all the stuff which is purely about gaming with Crossfire is still in that section.

Did some work on Portuguese Involvement in WW1 but a lot more to do.

Created a Modelling section and moved the relevant pages into that section.

Chris hard and I tried out my Oriamendi East Scenario (for the First Carlist War) and I wrote up a Battle Report.

Carlists Charge

I wanted to update my Crossfire module buildings so I thought, rather than rebulding a whole new set, I'd just repaint them more carefully. Josh Kael has a good tutorial on the Kerr&King site so I thought I'd try it out to for Painting Adobe Buildings.

Muslim Village

I painted my first unit for my Spanish Army of the Peninsular War. An infantry battalion in brown with top hats.

Spanish Battlion
Brown with Red facings

I updated my 1817-18 Chilean Project with the plans for the Royalists.

Roland has started completing figures for my Argentine Army of the Andes in the 1817-18 Chilean Project.

Argentine 7th Battalion

I played my Andalusian Motorcade Scenario with Chris Harrod and wrote an After Action Report. It is a bit embarrassing, but this is the first outing of my Spanish Civil War figures.

Inspired by Martin Rapier's article " The Battle of the Ebro, July 1938: A Spanish Civil War Megablitz Scenario" I created the Ebro Offensive (Jul 1938) based on the Offensive rules.

I've already got the Spanish Foreign Legion and 2^nd Tabor of Regulares of Tetuán for the Rif War but I've been struggling to find actual Riffi figures. So I decided to make my own and Convert Ansar Figures into Riffi.

I also finished rereading Shannon Fleming's Primo de Rivera and Abd-el-Krim: The Struggle in Spanish Morocco, 1923-1927 and updating my Timeline for the Rif War.

Riffi Conversion

After doing a page on my Russian Naval Infantry Battalion I thought I'd do something similar for other Crossfire battalions. So far this means:

• Russian Rifle Battalion
• Blue Division Grenadiers
• 2^nd Tabor of Regulares of Tetuán

2nd Tabor of Regulares of Tetuán

I couldn't figure out which flags to use for which units in the 1817-18 Chilean Project so I thought I'd summarise the various bits of information and give my best guess for the Patriot Flags.

Chile (Lone Star)

Chile (Tricolour)

Argentina

I wanted to share some of my new Carlist War photos, so created a Carlist War Gallery of New Stuff (since removed). The first batch includes my pride and joy - the Carlist Band!

Carlist Band

I updated my page on Basing for the Liberators Quick Play Rules (QPR) - which I intend to use for my 1817-18 Chilean Campaign Project with diagrams of Detached Grenadier and Cazadore battalions.

I added a description of the Setting of the Rif War and suggestions for Wargaming Rules to use to for the period.

Following directly on from my renewed interest in the Spanish Civil War, I have seriously updated my material on the Rif War including

• Adding references and material on the First Rif War to the Timeline,
• Adding an outline of what the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers (SOTCW) offers on the Rif
• Rationalising the Wargaming section into separate Painting Guide, Rules and Figures sections.

Updated my Flocking page to show the range of styles I've used over time and my current thinking on Flocking using Sand and Dry brush.

The South American Wars of Liberation span an entire continent across 20 years, so I've decided to focus on one campaign hence my 1817-18 Chilean Campaign Project.

Inspired by the books put out by John Fletcher of Grenadier Productions I've started putting together some notes on the South American Wars of Liberation.

I moved this material into a folder of its own and renamed the New World DBA Index.

Several of the guys and I have got keen on the Thirty Years War so I started putting together a Thirty Years War page. Mainly a Timeline so far.

I asked Roland Davis to write a painting guide for the Black Undercoat Method. The vast majority of my figures use this method and Roland is a master of the technique.

Inspired by an article by Steve Burt I wrote up some rules for a small DBA/HOTT Camp Mini-campaign. Essentially small force, based in a camp, is blocking an enemy force's attempt to break an off-table siege. Chris Harrod and I are play testing.

I got all keen and wrote up a painting guide for Napoleonic Spanish Cavalry, 1st Volunteers of Aragon Light Infantry, French 13th Cuirassiers, British Infantry, and British Allies.

I was thinking about my New World DBA and started to put together a Timeline for The Kingdom of Kongo and Colony of Angola.

I've got interested in the Peninsular War and the Wars of South American Independence again, so started thinking about Shako Scenarios, and put together some Guidelines for Historical Scenarios using Shako.

We played out the Britannia 600 AD campaign and I put together some galleries for Alba, Mercia, Northumbria, Powys, Strathclyde, and Wessex.

Updated my thinking on my draft Spanish Civil War scenario Andalusian Motorcade.

I wrote up how I Base figures for Crossfire, including variations for FO and Commissars.

I use flags for my Terrain Objective Markers.

Crossfire Objective Markers/Flags
German, Nationalist, Republican, Israeli, Soviet

In the Spanish Civil War the Nationalists paid a bounty of 45 Pesetas for each Republican T-26 tank captured. The Moroccans were keen on this offer and through their endeavours the Nationalists built up their own T-26 units. I have put together a draft scenario called 45 Pesetas to simulate this.

I've always love the Avalon Hill board game called Britannia and thought the map at least would make a good basis for a DBA/HOTT campaign = Britannia 600 AD.

We played a multi-player version of my scenario 92nd Naval Infantry - The Sea Devils and I wrote up an After Action Report.

Rich Wilcox and I played out SU-152s up close and personal from the Tarnopol 3 Round Campaign and I wrote up an After Action Report.

I made the Planned Operational Zones house rule slightly more lenient. You can now move in another operation zone, but risk losing the initiative.

A scenario featuring the 92nd Naval Infantry in their first encounter in Stalingrad.

Russian Naval Infantry - Storm Party

Updated the Cristino Organisation page, in particular added a full list of provincial regiments

I translated the Cristino Regimental Histories from Camacho: Un siglo de presencia militar en nuestra provincia (1833-1936) [Spanish].

Added further description of the Greek and Ostruppen fighting at Rimini in Sep 1944.

I just got some more material and started updating my Timeline for the First Carlist War. The first one I'm working through is:

Alcalá, C (2006). 1^a Guerra Carlista [ Guerros y Batallas 31]. Madrid: Almena. [Spanish]

I converted a the Astrang Crossings scenario I saw in the SOTCW Journal. The 5th Seaforths fight off German attacks from both sides

I've found the Moving Clock from HTD very useful so I thought I'd analyse how it is used in the various scenarios.

Chris Harrod and I played the Kodorov scenario and I wrote up the Battle Report

Wrote up my instructions for Making Soviet/Russian style Wooden Buildings in 15 mm, although still lacking enough photos

Homemade Wooden Barn

I finally got around to tweaking the victory conditions for the 'Old Chapel' Scenario for the Blue Division. I'm hoping to try it out soon. It is novel because the defender really wants to escape rather than fight it out

Changed the Zerstorer scenario so there is a Russian option (rather than British). Seems fair enough to me given I've got Russian figures and not British

I played the 3rd Battle of Kharkov scenario with Chris Harrod, and wrote up a Battle Report

Finished my write up of the Stalingrad campaign through to 18 Nov, i.e. just before the Soviet offensive.

I started writing up ideas for scenarios in the Timeline for the First Carlist War

Converted Matt Hingely's Zerstorer scenario into Crossfire. This is not your average run of the mill attack-defence scenario. The Germans are trying to evacuate a top secret war winning weapon, and the Allies are trying to prevent this

El Mercenario sent through photos of some Carlists he's been painting. They're from the new range by the Perry Brothers

El Mercenario's Carlists

Cut and pasted some excerpts on the Korean War from the Crossfire Discussion Forum

While on holiday recently I outlined the Kiwi operations from 28 Nov to 7 Dec 1943 as they took Castelfrentano and moved up tot attack Orsogna for the first time

I use Coat D'arms paints, so I thought a conversion table to other painting schemes would be useful

Add a Figures page to the Brazilian area

Created a Painting Guide for Brazil, including Tupi and their enemies

Added photos of several variations of Unit Identification that I've tried for Crossfire.

I updated my Luso-Spanish Military History page and my Luso-Spanish Empires page to more clearly show the pages related to military history versus specific rules

Made a CC2 map for the northern table of my Pocket split-table game

Added the Colonial Spanish and Buccaneers to the Army Lists for my New World DBA

Added the Chanca and Chimu to the Army Lists for my New World DBA

Rank 5 or 6 Aztec

Added a hint of HOTT to the Army Lists (plus corrected a couple of mistakes and updated the formatting ) for my New World DBA

Restarted work on the Kiwi action on the Sangro in Nov 1943. Only got as far as 26 Battalion on 28 Nov, but there is more to come

Added some more notes to my First Carlist War page based on Zumalakarregi Museum: 19th Century Military History in the Basque Country .

Wrote up my current thinking of Trench Warfare using Crossfire

Added some detail on the Portuguese Auxiliary Division to my First Carlist War page. Finally I have something about what they did!!!

Having acquired quite a lot more material - much of it from Nuno Pereira - I've updated my page on the 1826-34 (Portugal's) Liberal Wars

Rich Wilcox and tried out the first scenario - Tarnopol: Russian Recce - from my Tarnopol 3 Round Campaign and I wrote up a After Action Report

British Aide
First Carlist War

Created galleries for my Cristinos and British for the First Carlist War

Added some pictures to the Portuguese Painting Guide

Portuguese Officer

Having added a lot of illustrations to the Painting Guide for the First Carlist War, I split the Cristino portion to give a quicker download. Now has Infantry, Cavalry and Other pages

Cristino Line Infantry

A major overall to the Painting Guide for the Cristinos in the First Carlist War. Added lots of pictures and more description

Nuno Pereira surprised me by explaining that Belgium contributed four battalions - the Belgian Corps - to the Liberal Wars

Added details from volume 2 of Duncan (1997) to my account of the First Carlist War. Only four more volumes to go

Duncan, F. (1997). The English in Spain: The story of the War of Succession between 1834 and 1840 (Vols. 1-6). UK: Pallas Armata. (Original work published 1877.)

Carlist Command

Inspired by material on the Viriatus Miniatures site, I wrote up the precursor to the First Carlist War, i.e. 1826-34 (Portugal's) Liberal Wars. Also wrote up Portuguese Organisation in the First Carlist War and a Portuguese Painting Guide

Moved CF6.7 Revealing hidden squads on a One [Optional Rule] to the House Rules. Although optional it is starting to appear a lot in scenarios

Started writing up the Spanish conquest of New Mexico

Inspired by some suggestions of Steve Burt I wrote up Converting (Advanced) Squad Leader Scenarios to Crossfire

Advanced Squad Leader

It seems Wildly Inspired Miniatures are producing again, including their ranges of NZ Wars figures

Added two items to the FAQ:

• What do the states Pinned, Suppressed, and Killed represent?
• Why can't suppressed stands ground hug?

Wrote up the Kiwi and Indian attack on Perano,18 Nov 1943. This was the first time New Zealand tanks saw combat

Wrote up the Kiwi and Indian attack on Perano,18 Nov 1943. This was the first time New Zealand tanks saw combat. I've included thoughts for a Crossfire scenario

Revamped the Scenario Guidelines page to give it a structure matching the Scenario Template. Lots of suggestions for Missions, Objectives, Maps, Balanced Forces, etc

Added Victory Conditions to the Tarnopol scenario SU152s up close and personal. It is a urban scenario on a 3'x2' table and introduces SU152s - surprise, surprise - and Anti-tank Barricades

SU152 painted by Ian Galley

Took some snaps of my NZ Wars kit and created a gallery. Also added a subset of the pics to the painting guide and figures page.

British 99th Regiment

Unarmed Civilians

I updated my reviews of various Rules for the NZ Wars

I also started typing up my father's Rules for Naval Warfare 1500 to 1850

Added a place holder for the Japanese episode in Portuguese history (or the Portuguese episode in Japanese history), although really this was an excuse to show some pictures of my mate Vince's Samurai

Vince's 28mm Japanese

A long time ago Chris Tubb sent me an article from the Illustrated London News of 1859 entitled "The Costumes of the Spanish Army". I finally added these details to my page on the First Moroccan War

Tweaked No-mans Land - A Crossfire Mini-Campaign to make it more playable, including using Ghosts

Reorganised the New Zealand section, to include a summary of the various wars we've been involved in, regrouping the material into folders for NZ Colonial (Maori) Wars and WW2, and adding more detail to the WW2 bit - still a long way to go

I started work on a Timeline of New Zealand involvement in WW2. It will be a long time before it is finished

Added What is the time scale? to the FAQ based on discussion on the Crossfire discussion forum, and supplemented this with further musings on my Time page

Added some of Nikolas Lloyd's and Ian Hayward's thoughts on Telescoping Ground Scales to my Ground Scales page

Converted the Crossfire Datasheets into PDF format to make it easier to download

Moved the facts about Military History, and tactics in particular, into its own section. This includes the existing material on Unit Frontages and Formations, plus a new section on Artillery and Mortar Tactics

Added some musing on Ranges in Crossfire but without rulers

I'm experimenting with a style of flocking using C1229 Earth.

Completely revamped the Wargaming pages. The gist of this change was to separate all content related to specific rules - Crossfire, Shako, DBx - from other military history and wargaming content - Luso-Spanish, Arab-Israeli, New Zealand. Campaign rules are catalogued with the tactical rules they relate to, but there is a master Campaign index as well. Apologies to anybody who had links.

Rearranged my entire wargaming section, and moved Crossfire one level up in the folder hierarchy, thus effectively breaking all links from outside (sorry). This included moving all Crossfire related pages into the same area, including Spanish Civil War, Blue Division, New Zealand Wars, and Arab-Israeli Wars - such as they are.

Also added a page on Making Wooden Buildings for Crossfire on the Eastern Front

Added five scenarios to flesh out my Tarnopol 3 Round Campaign:

• Russian Recce, 25 Mar 1944
• Push to the City, 28 Mar, 1944
• SU-152s up close and personal, 31 Mar 1944
• Battle Group Friebe, 14 Apr 1944
• Breakout, 16 Apr 1944

Some musings on Armour uses using 2d6 rather than ACC + PEN

Restructured the Crossfire pages to split House Rules from the Index, and added What's New section.

Added Scouts scenario - a probe by a Russian Recon Company in 1943

Wrote up ideas on using Hidden Movement Markers ("Ghosts") in Crossfire

Crossfire Hidden Movement = Ghosts

Started writing up Field of Fire (Swaab, 2005) about a British Gunner Officer who fought in North Africa, Italy and NW Europe.

Added a new Russian Brigade Orbat covering Oct 1941 - Jun 1942. This is the one the early Naval Infantry Brigades would have used

Wrote up ideas for scenarios bound together by a campaign based on the siege of Tarnopol, including Matrix Game and 3 Round options

Added rough notes on how I painted my wooden buildings - hopefully to be added to later

Wrote up ideas for scenarios bound together by a campaign based on the Greek/Kiwi attack on the Rimini Airfield in Italy (Sep 1944)

Added Armour Fest Scenario - something like 28 tanks on the table - and Battle Report of the game I had with Rich Wilcox

Added 2 Foot City Scenario - an entire Crossfire game on a 2' x 2' table - and the Battle Report on the game I had with John Mclennan

2 Foot City