"Firing into the Brown" #68 - Skirmish Games, gibbets and stuff...

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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Le gibbet, ces't finnis! 😁

This one was built completely from scratch.. as you can tell.. 😏

..from bits and pieces in the spares box.. coffee stirrers, dowels, plastic strut, and a bit of left over plastic sheet with the wood emboss..

..plus a bit of old garden wire for the nooses..

Glue gunned together in a hurry - primed black and then dry brushed in the same scheme as the recent Cedar Gulch buildings..

..I also found a figure suitable use as the hangman..

Pleased with that..  maybe it's time for a necktie party!

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I was much taken with some recent posts on Tradgardmastare's blog [clicky] featuring Alan Lambshead's book on "One Hour Skirmish Wargames" and having realised the book was only £4.50 on Kindle decided to invest..  price of a pint* later (well price of a pint round here anyway) and I had obtained what turns out to be an excellent addition to the "One Hour" stable..

It had been a while since I had last had the 15mm WWII project on the table, so by way of a learning exercise, I thought I'd get some figures out and have a go - basically just to see how the mechanics translate to the table top..

Nothing too complicated then; in Skirmish Wargames rules terms (and this game only featured the core rules), two squads/sections each with a +1 leader (NCO) and a force motivation value of 3 (more on what and how those work later)..

* (does anyone else match costs to how many pints it would buy??😏)

Table set up as follows - which was taken at the start of Move 1 after both sides had drawn initiative cards - Germans to the left, British to the right, and they have won the initiative so move first - unfortunately their activation points cards were poor so they didn't get too much. The Germans however had a couple of good cards before the Jokers turned up to end the move..

Start of Move 2 and one of the the German squads have managed to occupy both floors of the house their side of the road, while the other squad is filtering down the covered gap between the hill and the house, covered from enemy fire by the barn to their front..   you'll note that the British activation cards were so poor one of the squads hasn't even got moving yet, and the other isn't doing much better!

Start of Move 3 (following) and the British have had another poor turn for activations - one of their squads is about to occupy the house their side of the road, Those NCO's on the hill are exchanging fire from soft cover... ineffectually.. 😏

..and now on Move 4 it starts to hot up as a fusillade of shots are exchanged between the two houses..  on their separate hills the NCO's have seen sense and headed for cover. The second German squad has occupied the barn, and that British squad has finally got their ar*e in gear and moved up to the hedge line to cover it..

Start of Move 5 and to help track where everyone was in the buildings I have removed roofs..

The tardy British squad is contesting the barn with the German occupants - there's only a single door so it's congested, but there is a lot of fire exchanged and the British NCO (large round base) is making maximum use of his SMG (at this range he gets two shots as opposed to the usual one for a rifle). Note the two lone stands by the Ace of Spades - those are first British casualties

...and here's where the other two sections were..

Move 6 - following - a long move 5 that had used almost the entire deck before the Jokers turned up resulted in a lot of action - you'll note the numbers of casualties - there is still a German NCO and rifle man in their house ready to loop round the back of the British squad to attack from the rear...

Amazingly the British managed to pass their morale check at the end of turn 5, but the writing is on the wall and having won the initiative, decided that for the British, "discretion is the better part of valour", and  would use it, to 'leg it away'..😏

Post match analysis:

• A force motivation of three for such small forces was a lesson learned...  it only becomes obvious after a game what the importance of that value is, it represents the coherence of the force, their motivation irrespective of troop type, quality or training (though these can and do effect it as the author says). It's used as part of the morale check, and you add the value to a card drawn with the aim of getting a number greater than the number of casualties you have suffered..   with a force motivation of 3, you aren't even seeing the possibility of a morale fail before you suffer 4 casualties (and then it's only a 1 in 13 chance you'll fail), and these were forces of only 8 figures.. 😀 Low motivation numbers for small forces going forward I think..  or use bigger forces..
• The +1 leaders mechanic worked well - it represents training and allows the officer in question to pull an extra card with a view to getting an improved result when firing, checking morale, etc.
• No company crewed weapons in this game, or armoured vehicles, both are represented in the rules so next time they will feature..
• Need to buy some full size cards, the one's I use are small one's from Christmas crackers and they are a bugger to shuffle..  😁

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...