Indholdsfortegnelse for WSS 133 i Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy

“Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them, Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell. They that had fought so well Came through the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of hell, All that was left of them…” — Alfred, Lord Tennyson The wild charge is one of the most characteristic actions a wargamer can make. It is putting your trust in the abilities of your soldiers and the dice – just going for it. Just like in real life, it can mean unnerving an opponent and reaping a great victory or — if not timed right — it can spell disaster. However, when it is undertaken skilfully and in good order, a charge in the right place…

FEATURE THE CHARGE – THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD OF TACTICS The trick with any charge is to pick the best target; to use the maximum force at the best point in the enemy line in order to break it. Beware of the pitfalls, however. A canny enemy will try to distract the chargers with skirmishers, leading them away from the main battle line. Whilst it is tempting to run over these skirmishing pests, it'll take your unit time to realign and move back into the fray. Nor is charging your best offensive unit directly into the thick of the enemy usually a good idea – particularly if that target has had the opportunity to prepare the ground with stakes or pits and/or they are well equipped with missile weapons. A successful charge…

COLUMN THE IRREGULAR Everybody wants the same thing: a nice, enjoyable game. Something so that when you're packing up your miniatures afterwards, you'll think, ‘What a lovely time that was.’ We can definitely all agree on this. I hope you're sitting down for this revelation, but I have something outlandish to tell you. I am a woman. I've been a woman in the wargaming hobby for twenty-four years, fourteen of those working in the wargaming industry. What's even scarier is that there's more than just me - there's blooming loads of us! Why does this matter? Well, it doesn't; but it also does. I'd rather it didn't, but there you go. This article isn't about being a woman in the hobby, though - it's about being a tiny woman on the…

HOBBY FASTER, BETTER, MORE I would consider myself somewhat of a veteran wargamer, having started some 35 years ago. I am a little vague here on the exact date as it was Games Workshop “Talisman” board game and associated miniatures that were my entry point into the hobby. I started collecting miniatures for wargaming as my Talisman painting neared its end. With this longstanding relationship with metal miniatures, I am very “old school” and prefer the weight and heft of metals. Over the past years I have been collecting both sides for a Sharp Practice American Civil War project (see WS&S 132). I mail ordered the bulk from Foundry and picking up the odd blister pack here and there at wargames shows. Painting my Spanish Napoleonic army was a good break…

The rulebook itself is a slightly-larger-than-A4 bound hardback book of 124 pages and features a clear contents page (but no index!), plenty of good photographs of scenic tables and a two-page quick reference sheet at the back. Navigating the book during gameplay is easy, as the general layout throughout is reassuringly well executed. The book begins by setting the scene to guide players into understanding why V for Victory (VfV) is structured like it is, before moving onto ‘Basic Training’, forces, and then how to play the game. Approximately halfway through the book we are introduced to ‘Orders of Battle’ with force building, army selectors and scenarios. The ‘Orders of Battle’ section covers 14 OOBs from the European theatre, four of which are Axis; OOBs are built around an HQ…

THE RIGHT DECISION Like a lot of people, my early gaming days involved a sci-fi ruleset we all know. It's not the best-balanced set of rules, though, and I spent a lot of time getting frustrated that I was not winning games. My older, wiser self prefers to just enjoy the story of a game. I am quite happy playing an unbalanced or balanced match-up, just to see what happens. This attitude, however, can be continued into how you make decisions in a game too. Recently at our local club, we were playing Chosen Men, and my Spanish guerrillas had a rule that they hate the French, so had to charge them if in range. The sight of a ragtag bunch of half-crazed Spaniards charging in and taking down a…

In 200BC, Antiochus III once again attempted an invasion of Coele-Syria. He had gained experience and victories in campaigns against the Parthians and had even taken inspiration from the Parthian cataphracts he had encountered. This new element was adopted by the Seleucid army and would play a key role in delivering the killer punch that would help Antiochus to reassert control over the border region from his Egyptian rivals in what was to become the Fifth Syrian War. The Ptolemaic defence of Syria was led by an Aetolian mercenary commander called Scopas. Scopas was appointed in 204BC having successfully managed to rebuff an earlier Seleucid invasion of the region in 201BC. Although outnumbered, he was doubtless optimistic that he could do the same again. There were limited routes of access…

One-Hour Ancient & Medieval Skirmish Wargames By John Lambshead (Pen and Sword Military, 2024) £14.99 Dice: Card drawn Alternate card-drawn activation This new book is a stand-alone complete rule set for skirmish games in the pre-firearm era. And to be very up-front, I love it. You will need the book, a ruler in inches, a pack of standard playing cards for each player, miniatures (around 12 per side is a good start), a play area of 3 or 4 feet square, and terrain. The rules occupy the first 32 pages. The second part – ‘Creating a Warband’ – contains a complete points system for creating forces and 20 specimen warbands from different time periods. The final third of the book is a series of six sample scenarios detailing forces, table…

COLUMN Armed with that revelation, you might be forgiven for thinking of some detailed skirmish-style wargame based upon the world of espionage, gadgetry and supervillains. You would, however, be dead wrong. In fact, I've been messing around with a new space combat game which I call – being a matter-of-fact sort of chap – Space Battles. What has starship combat got to do with James Bond you might well ask. The connection, in this case, is not so much with said special agent, but rather his penchant for a specific game: baccarat. Bond's mission turns upon a game of baccarat in which he aims to bankrupt the baddie of the piece, Le Chiffre. Fleming finds it expedient to have Bond explain to Vesper how the game is played. It's an…

The Templars’ Rule of the Order of the Knights stressed the need to keep good order… as might be expected from a monastic order of obedience, poverty, and humility! Each of the Knight Brothers was assigned to their squadron which was led by a commander and a banner bearer. With ten knights acting as a bodyguard, the rest were to form up ‘in front and behind, to the left and to the right, and wherever they think they can torment their enemies’ so long as they were in a position to defend the banner if needed. Secular knights must have had similar structures of anywhere between 10 and 50 men. When the charge was launched, the aim was to break through the enemy. Unlike the situation envisaged by many wargames…

Prussian forces HEAVY CAVALRY BRIGADE Commander: Major-General Friedrich von Bredow • 7th Magdeburg Cuirassiers ‘Von Seydlitz’. 3 squadrons. • 16th Altmark Uhlans ‘Hennigs von Treffenfeld’. 3 squadrons. All the Prussian cavalry are not considered broken until every unit is shaken. They should be considered to have elite morale. 3RD ARMY CORPS Commander: General Lieutenant Constantin von Alvensleben 5th Infantry Division: General Lieutenant Ferdinand von Stülpnagel 9th Brigade: Major Wilhelm von Doering • Leib-Grenadier Regiment (1st Brandenburg), No. 8 • 5th Brandenburg Infantry Regiment, No. 48 10th Brigade: Major Kurt von Schwerin • 2nd Brandenburg Grenadier Regiment, No. 12 • 6th Brandenburg Infantry Regiment, No. 52 Attached to Division • Brandenburg Jäger Battalion, No. 3 • 2nd Brandenburg Dragoon Regiment, No. 12 • Four batteries (two heavy, two light) of the…

Contrast or Speed paints are a boon for painting smaller scales and can result in a high standard of finish. For this article I am using Vallejo's Xpress range of contrast-type paints. After I cleaned and stripped the individual figures, I used Tamiya extra-thin cement over the cuts to smooth any untidy marks. The figures were then undercoated with white spray primer — apart from the Triarii figures where I used black. There are some solid areas of plastic that will need to be painted in dark colours — chiefly between the models’ legs and where the figures join at the top. If you are not familiar with the heavy infantry, they have been cleverly designed to represent a tightly packed unit with three rather than the two strips Warlord…

Painting WAR: WWII British and Commonwealth Armies By Rubén Torregrosa ISBN: 978-8412819717 (Miniaturama Publishing, 2024) - £21.00 Well, this is probably one of the easiest and hardest book reviews I've had to write for WS&S: ‘easiest’ because it's so utterly, utterly superb that I could simply list its virtues here and be done; ‘hardest’ because to do so would almost certainly not make for interesting reading. Let's give it a go. The introduction is genuinely warm and friendly (in translation from Series Coordinator Diego González Haro), and then we get a one-page biography of a smiley Torregrosa: I'm already feeling welcomed in. Next comes a ‘General Painting Guide’ that is so brilliantly comprehensive a guide to materials, tools, brush techniques, tone, colour theory, highlighting and even project planning, that I…