Skirmishing with my old toy soldiers.

 

Taking a breather from some very intense games of "ASL" I got out some of my oldest toys and have been playing some "One Hour Skirmish Wargames".

The soldiers are my Airfix and Britains Deetail 1/32nd which I have had since I was about eight years old. Veterans for sure!.

I have put labels under their stands with names on, I mainly used names from "Combat Commander" leaders. The narrative of the game means more somehow when the wee men have names.

I am having a lot of fun with these rules, I kept all the distances the same but I use a bigger 5 inch grenade template for the larger figures.

I staged a few photos for this post, this isn't actual gameplay.

I have a bunch of Russians to play with as well, I made the signage on the buildings detachable so I can go from the Western Front to the Eastern Front in a jiffy.

I'm planning another game tonight in which a cut off US officer needs rescuing from a village swarming with Germans. It should be fun!.

A nice change of pace, "One Hour Skirmish Wargames" gets a recommendation from me!.

Battle Cry with 54mm toy soldiers.

Keeping the Commands and Colors theme going I played a couple of games of Battle Cry with my 54mm toy soldiers.

 I discovered that I could just fit the soldiers into a 90mm hex so I quickly set up a game. Here are some shots of the table.

 The blue is quite a lot darker in real life without the camera flash.

 The soldiers are Armies in Plastic and HaT Industries.

 I had a couple of grand games.

 The chap waving his hand about is a general.

An unforgiving close up of my French Zouaves.

 Storming the ridge.

 A cavalry counterattack halts the Prussian attack. Then the lone Prussian general gets killed by a marksman and the French win the battle.

Great fun!.

Funny Little Wars

 I tried out Funny Little Wars today on the living room floor. The objective was the large hill (pile of books) on the right of shot.

 Creeping about on the floor after a big roast beef dinner was not easy and there were several loud and rather pungent emissions from behind me. Even Little Wars can be quite nasty.

 French Zouaves in column.

 The objective.

 Germans in column.

 The French take the hills first.

 But the Germans outflank the French right wing.

 Melee!

 German artillery bombards French positions on the objective.

 The German Lancers charge the French gun.

 And skewer the crew.

 Vorwarts!.

 The French Lancers defeat their German counterparts.

 But the French morale is now critical and they retire from the objective hill.

 Game over.
You can see the template and Games Workshop deviation dice that I used in the absence of spring loaded cannon. I guessed the range and rolled to see if the shot deviated and if it did I rolled two d6 to see how far away the shell landed. It worked well.

Here are the 28mm Irregular Miniatures Home Service soldiers painted up with three coats of Klear to make them nice and shiny.

I copied the flag from Trebians blog 

wargaming4grownups.blogspot.co.ukhttp://wargaming4grownups.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/british-indian-flags-from-1860-war-with.html

COMMANDO!.

 More nostalgia for old Paul, I have owned these soldiers since I was about ten years old.

 I fancied a fast, not too serious game with them.

So I made up some very simple rules as I went along.

 And I wrote them up later, see below.

 Germans behind the hedgerow.

 Defending the workshop.

 A new box of 14 Airfix Russians.

The Russian box has a lot of sub machine guns!.


COMMANDO!
                                                                 

WORLD WAR TWO WAR GAME RULES FOR AIRFIX 1/32nd SCALE TOY SOLDIERS

USE ONE BOX OF SOLDIERS AS YOUR SQUAD YOU SHOULD USE THE WHOLE BOX AND NO MORE - WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET!.

SET UP THE BATTLEFIELD AND ROLL TO SEE WHICH SIDE YOU DEPLOY YOUR SOLDIERS ONTO.

ROLL AS BELOW TO BRING YOUR SOLDIERS ON STARTING WITH THE SQUAD LEADER.


ROLL 1 D6 TO DETERMINE THE NUMBER OF ACTIONS YOUR SQUAD MAY MAKE . IF YOUR LEADER HAS NOT BEEN HIT ADD +1 TO THE SCORE.

EACH SOLDIER MAY TAKE UP TO TWO ACTIONS PER TURN.

ACTIONS ARE : 
 A MOVE UP TO 9"

CLIMBING OR CROSSING A LOW OBSTACLE

SHOOTING OR LOADING A WEAPON

THROWING A GRENADE

FIGHTING IN CLOSE COMBAT

REPLACING A HIT MACHINE GUNNER OR BAZOOKA MAN TAKES TWO ACTIONS



SHOOTING:
ROLL 1D6 PER SHOT TO HIT

SCORE 4 OR MORE IF THE TARGET IS IN THE OPEN OR HIT BY EXPLOSIVE
SCORE 5 OR MORE IF THE TARGET IS IN SOFT COVER
SCORE 6 IF THE TARGET IS IN HARD COVER

WEAPON                                              

PISTOL   RANGE  9"    SPREAD  -      SHOTS 2

RIFLE   RANGE  36"  SPREAD  -      SHOTS 1

SUB MACHINE GUN   RANGE  18"  SPREAD 4" SHOTS 2

LIGHT MACHINE GUN   RANGE  36"   SPREAD  9"  SHOTS  3    REQUIRES A SOLDIER TO ACT AS A LOADER OTHERWISE ONLY GETS 1 SHOT

GRENADE  RANGE  9"  SPREAD 5" BLAST CIRCLE     SHOTS  ALL SOLDIERS UNDER THE TEMPLATE

BAZOOKA   RANGE   18"   SPREAD  5" BLAST CIRCLE   SHOTS  ALL SOLDIERS UNDER THE TEMPLATE

LIGHT MORTAR    RANGE 18"  SPREAD  5" BLAST CIRCLE     SHOTS    ALL SOLDIERS UNDER THE TEMPLATE





CLOSE COMBAT: ANY SOLDIERS IN BASE TO BASE CONTACT ROLL 1D6 THE HIGHEST SCORE WINS AND THE LOSER IS HIT.



GRENADES ARE THROWN AS A SHOOTING ACTION AND MAY ONLY BE THROWN BY A TOY SOLDIER CLEARLY CARRYING ONE. THE TEMPLATE IS PLACED WITH ITS CENTRE UP TO 9" FROM THE THROWER BUT IT DOES NOT EXPLODE UNTIL THE OTHER PLAYER HAS TAKEN HIS MOVEMENT WHICH MAY GIVE HIM A CHANCE TO AVOID THE GRENADE.    


MORALE: THE FIRST SIDE TO HIT TEN OF THE FOURTEEN ENEMY SOLDIERS WINS THE BATTLE!.

Blasthof Bridge with 54mm Toy Soldiers

Blasthof Bridge from Lawford and Youngs "Charge!, or how to play war games"

Featuring Kornberg and Soubises descendants meeting on the field of Mars, circa 1900.

 Kornbergs troops advance.

 Soubises men are in the sunshine.

 Kornbergs Uhlans cross the river.

 Soubise captures the bridge.

 But Kornbergs infantry and artillery await them.

 The Uhlans make it to the other side.

 A small unit if infantry are sent to ford the river too.

 But a cannon awaits them.

 The cavalry clash - Soubises men win this one!.

 The Zouaves are annihilated as they cross the bridge.

Shot to pieces Soubises force is now forced to retreat.


I used the rules from "Charge" with increased ranges and move distances and although the dynamics of the original Blasthof scenario were altered by this and the different forces used the game was enjoyable.