2025 Japan year: Samurai, Yokai, Test of Honour, Killer Katanas and what not?

After finishing Conan 2025 seems to turn out to be a Japan year. I am building armies and lists (and terrain) for Test of Honour, Ronin and Killer Katanas. 

I wil very likely try out Clash of Katanas as well as the Heiho system Wargames Atlantic is promising me.

But first some paintwork: 

The tryouts of the new 10mm Wargames Atlantic samurai/ashigaru

 

Zenit Miniatures' Jorogumo

Zenit Miniatures' Shinigami

Wargames Factory (currently by Warlord Games) samurai

Wargames Factory (currently by Warlord Games) Ashigaru and Taisho

Wargames Factory (currently by Warlord Games) Ashigaru 

Zenit Miniatures' Oni and converted WF samurai

Wargames Factory (currently by Warlord Games) Ashigaru 

Wargames Factory (currently by Warlord Games) Ashigaru 

Onna Bugeisha converted from Wargames Factory (currently by Warlord Games) figures 

Bac Ninh Lady Snowblood (L) and two Reaper Geisha

Reaper Undead samurai

Reaper Ghost Samurai

Reaper male Oni

Reaper female Oni

Warlord slightly out of depth with Cruel Seas

A while ago Warlord Games released a game I had anticipated for a while: Cruel Seas. Instead of the numerous (well, if not numerous, at least present) existing modern naval warfare rulesets it would not deal with the Big Ships but with the small fast attack boats and their targets instead. 

A welcome change and a spectacular and favourite theme of mine, having read and re-read "De Engelandvaarders" by K. Norel in my youth; a chronicle of Dutch resistance fighters who fled to England in 1940 and enlisted in the Royal Navy to serve on MTBs among other missions.

Last week I played my first game. It turned out a typical Warlord product in both positive and negative aspects.

The Presentation

As we are customed to by now from Warlord the presentation of the game is splendid. The sturdy box contains all rules, dice, rulers, counters and even a largish paper playmat (both Mediterranean blue and Atlantic grey on separate sides) to play the game as well as 10 plastic ship models. There are even cardboard terrain pieces to represent coastline, a merchant ship (whole and wrecked) and a few German and British airplanes.

The rulebook is a durable A4 full-colour paperback containing the complete rules, complete fleetlists, some background, lovely full colour picture material to inspire your painting and a number of missions to play. As the game is supposed to cover all small ship actions of World War 2 the missions range from the English Channel to the Pacific, as do the fleet lists and background info. For the researchers amongst us an extensive reading list is presented. The box even has an index, which is a big plus as far as I am concerned.

The only thing missing here is a Quick Reference Sheet but that can be downloaded from the Warlord site.

The models

Warlord chose 1/300 scale to build the models in. The starter box comes with 6 Vosper MTBs and 4 S-Boats. Half of the ships are early war types, the other half the later war types like the S-100 Schnellboot and the Type 2 Vosper MTB. Later types tend to be faster, tougher and more heavily armed than earlier types.

The ships are plastic kits on sprue and are lovely. Assembly is easy and a breeze even with the rather sketchy instructions also included in the box. Warlord has announced several releases to expand on the game and the first Japanese, British, German, Italian,Soviet and US fleet packs will hit retail shortly (or have done so already). Fleet packs will also contain larger ships like gunboats, cutters, minesweepers and destroyers, all covered by the rules.

The only objection one can have against these models is that they are too big. Destroyers are over half a foot/10-15 cms and merchant freighters are even larger. A convoy in 1/300 scale will take up a lot of table space,, perhaps too much for any maneuvers to be possible. For that reason only I will most likely play this game in 1/600. But not without some heartache….

The Rules: what is good?

Already mentioned above the layout and presentation are excellent. Rules are systematically explained and illuminated by explanatory illustrations that clarify rules excellently. So what about the structure?

Initiative is determined in the familiar Bolt Action method by randomly picking coloured counters or dice from a bag. If your colour turns up, you may activate a ship. So activation is alternate. Actvation consists of movement, shooting and some miscellaneous actions of which Repair is the most interesting one, executed by the ship or plane of choice. Torpedoes move in the same activation as the ship that fired them.

Movement comes in three speeds: Slow, Combat and Full. All ships have these three speed categories irrespective of size or type. However, movement distances per speed band differ per ship type, merchants being slower than MTBs for example. A ship may make one turn per speed band moved. Large ships must make wider turns than medium or small ones. A ship may slow down or speed up one range band per turn. Handy rulers with turn angles are supplied with the game.

After moving ships may shoot. All weapons on a ship may fire on different targets. Firing is done by rolling a d10, adding or subtracting modifiers for range, visibility, speed of target and shooter and coming up with a 5 or less. A hit does a number of D6s damage (scrap hull squares) where 6es will indicate Critical Hits that may destroy essential ship systems like a rudder or specific weapons. Torpedoes may be dropped into the water in the Shooting phase as well. In a stroke of brilliance one ruler has the most common modifierst printed on its back. Splashes around the target ship from previous misses in that turn enhance the chance of it being hit. The game provides plastic splash counters.

All this results in a fast and easy to play game. But not one that, in my opimion, emulates fast attack boat combat particularly well. I think there are a number of problems. 

The Rules: what could be better?

The random Initiative method is a matter of taste. It defintely results in dynamic and surprising games. However bad luck may ruin the most clever plan. I would prefer alternate activation without the random factor. But I admit this is a matter of taste.

Turning circles do not work right and are the same width no matter how fast or slow your boat moves. This more or less cancels any effects of speed on turning which in my opnion should have been essential in a fast attack boat combat game. Tighter turning circles for slow moving ships would have been much more interestiung and really would not have been hard to implement. Besides that, all ships may make a turn when stationary, which makes large ships incredibly maneuverable. Finally, as one acccustomed to boats I get hung up on the fact that in CS ships turn around their stern, while in reality ships with steering rudders will turn around their bows unless they have bow screws.

The effect of splashes is very pronunced as any splash of a larger calibre miss increases the chance of a subsequent hit with 10%. In reality this effect did indeed come into play between capital warships but had no effect at all amongst the agile and fast moving small attack boats that left splashes behind very fast and mostly engaged in flat-trajectory fire anyway.  

Airplanes may attack boats but strangely enough may not strafe them, which was the most common form of airplane-to-ship attack.

Purists may also want to alter the effects of certain weapons and weapon layouts. However CS is a fast flowing game and should perhaps not be cluttered by too much detailed ruling. But the problems with turning circles, splashes and strafing attacks  should have been solved. Some excellent houserules to complement (and/or complete) this game with can be found at this link.

The rules also already know an extensive Errata list, which could have been somewhat prevented by better proof reading. It can be found here.

Conclusion

Cruel Seas is a beautifully executed and promising game that is enjoyable to play straight from the box. But it would have been a much better game having benefited from rules that emulate fast boats better and some more proof reading.

The choice for 1/300 scale will produce some stunning naval modelling but will run into its own limitations in larger scenarios as soon as the recommended 3x4 table is stuffed with ships actually too big to fit on it.  

Turning a cheesy German into Sean Connery!

When I acquired Warlord's free Count von Hosenschlange figure (it is a gift with the Devil's Playground book. Do NOT Google the meaning of the word!) I was immediately  reminded of a character in one of my favourite movies: Sean Connery as Juan Sanchez Ramirez de Villa Lobos.


The figure was close, but not perfect. The eyepatch was wrong and of course the iconic peacock feathered cape was lacking. But for the rest it was spot on as far as I was concerned.

So the first step was to gently cut away the eyepatch and use the metal there to more or less sculpt an eye. Not easy and not entirely satisfactory but my sculpting skills are quite limited, so it would have to do.

The second step was to add the peacock feathers to the hat and cape. I simply sculpted them over the existing figure parts using green stuff. It made the feathers look more bulky and fluffy. Hmm. So far it could still be mistaken for a complicated fur coat....

Putting the primer on did not really lay my worries to rest....

I briefly considered to replace the rapier with Ramirez katana, but dismissed this.

Undoubtedly Ramirez would have been adept with a rapier as well and it saved me the trouble to cut away the poniard.

I also chickened out of giving him an open shirt. Removing the front of the coat ran a serious risk of ruining the figure alltogether and I liked the laced collar.

As the rest of the figure's clothing nicely matched mr Connery's costume in the movie painting those was a matter of matching the colours in a satisfactory way.  I still need to add some details.

Then some serious study of the colouring of peacock feathers ensued. I gathered all my courage and started mixing greens, yellows and blues with the result below.

There is still some detailing to be done on the coat, but as one of my first serious attempts at sculpting something other than hair it did not turn out half bad!

And to show off his new cape, he went a-pirating!

Black Powder: Rebellion!

This week I received my pre-ordered copy of Black Powder: Rebellion! It has been a long wait but it was worth it! Ever since Black Powder came out I have used it to play the American Revolution. At the time no one was very enthusiastic about the period so I decided to collect and paint all sides myself and do it in nostalgic 20mm plastic. So now I have over 800 20mm figures and the rest of the world has in the meantime started collecting 28mm Perry and Warlord.... But that is another story; on with the review!

"Rebellion!" is a supplement for the Black Powder wargaming rules, aimed at playing the American War of Independence or American Revolutionary War, depending on which side of the pond you're from . It is a book like we have come to expect from Warlord Games: a hefty 149-page full colour softcover folio filled with (excusez le mot) "wargames porn". Every page spread shows illustrations and lovely photographs of someone's expertly painted (yes...28mm) collection. The editor of this book is apparently a follower of the "blurred bases" philosophy as almost all bases have been photoshopped away, but that is about the only gripe I have about the illustrations.

The book is meant both for players who are knowledgeable about the period and for the debutantes. It starts with a 16-page concise history of the American Revolutionary War. As one would suspect reading the title, the British authors have foregone the term War of Independence. While 16 pages cannot possibly deal with all the intricacies of this complicated conflict the book does succeed in presenting a consistent and comprehensive summary. If you know nothing about the American Revolution and want to learn the wider scope of the military side of it, you could do worse than reading this.

The book then describes in detail the British, Loyalist, German, Continental (American) and French armies. Lists of all participating regiments are given and the organisation is explained, which is no sinecure when it comes to the Continental troops as their organisation varied with the colonies from where the troops originated as well as in time, as Congress adopted different rulings on drafting and recruiting as the war progressed. The lists mention uniform colours, periods of service and the battles the units took part in. Very useful for writing scenarios!

Then weapons and tactics are briefly discussed, followed by portraits of the famous (or notorious) commanders of the conflict. Dashing Tarleton, treacherous Arnold and pompous Gates are all there, together with their opponents and compatriots.

Then, on page 62, the book arrives at its true treasure: the scenarios!

As you may or may not know, Black Powder is a generic ruleset aimed at playing the battles of a 200-year period starting around 1700 AD. With such a scope, the characteristics of any specific conflict are not likely to emerge and the rules risk being a rather bland mix of everything. The designers have cleverly countered that by designing a few dozen Special Rules which you can add to units. This way, for example, American Frontiersmen with rifled muskets may be Sharpshooters that reroll misses, making them deadlier shots than their smoothbore musket-armed opponents. One can even vary this Special Rules depending on the scenario. Regiments that are Unreliable in early battles, gain experience and exchange this Special Rule in time for Steady, as they become drilled veterans.

The authors describe all Special Rules in relation to their vision on the Revolution. Some, like Heavy Cavalry and Form Square, are permanently discarded . For the rest it is described what their function can be and how they can be used to influence the specific scenario, when one wants to get a particular balance between the opposing forces. While you may not agree with the authors' ideas, it does give a particular Revolutionary flavour to the rules.

The book then gives you a whopping 19 scenarios ranging from the massive battles of Monmouth and Brandywine to small skirmishes like Gloucester Point, the latter deftly defeating the prejudice that you need a million figures to play Black Powder with opposing forces of 12-14 figures in strength!

Not surprisingly the book also gives valuable suggestions for playing with smaller units, as battles of the period were often fought between small groups of soldiers. Using Company stands instead of Regimental lines will enable you to play the smaller scenarios a lot sooner than you will have painted the large forces that you will need for something like Guilford Courthouse. The book ends with a recommendation for further reading on the period.

This is all that the first read of the book allows me to write as a review. As you may gather from it, my first impression is very favorable. Whether you are already invested or merely interested in the period, Black Powder Rebellion! is a fine purchase.

As I am in the luxurious position to play most scenarios with the figures I already have, now is the time to go finish my winter table and play Princeton!

Rebellion!, a Black Powder supplement
by Stephen Jones
Published by Warlord Games 2014
Price 20 GBP

Mobs, Cannon, Outhouses and demons.....

I have painted the last (for now ;o) of my Witchfinder General figures, mostly Warlord Games Miniatures reinforced with some miscellaneous stuff I had lying around. Below are the WG Clubmen in their role as Angry Villagers, traditionally equipped with pitchforks and torches. On the left you can see a plastic WG matchlock man and two lovely plastic pirates from an old Pressman boardgame I acquired years ago.

 As someone pointed out my tavern did not have a loo. Unable to cope with such a level of unrealism I felt compelled to correct this. Behold the Outhouse!

 Perhaps you´d better close the door, sir.....

A gallows for an upcoming WF scenario.

WG Saker gun and crew.

And if you roll a 6 on your Familiar roll you´ll get this! Does this look Familiar to you or not?