Turn 4

Turn sequence.

 Quite interesting the turn sequence was alternate colours. But what happens happens.

Overview.

Working from back left anticlockwise

Mathyoo's Frigate.

Back of the Spanish line.

Front of the Spanish line.

British ships to the left.

HMS Cutlass speeds towards the action.
 

British ships to the right trying to organise.
Not far from it now.

Still out of range.
but getting closer

Right at the end of the Spanish line
The Frigates and weaker ships
do their own thing.

Sorry Millsy not in range just yet.
But the arc is pretty good.

Curt is back up to full sail
and Lee is getting ready
to join the line of British
ships on the right.

I did think there might be some shooting this turn, alas no! Which stretches it out a little bit longer. All I can say is maybe next week.

That's it for today if the players want any more pictures just get in touch. The same goes for questions.I suspect there will be a bit more action next weekend. Movement and turning if not shooting.

Players I will need your next orders by 7am GMT on Saturday 30th August.

All the best Clint

Turn 2 Results.

Well the second turn is now played out. and the turn sequence was drawn at random with Spanish ship moves in the first phase and British ship moves in the final phase. The first Photo shows the turn sequence in order and this sequence becomes more important as each turn progresses. For club games we turn the cards one at a time to maintain suspense and to allow players some anticipation and hope that they will be in the order they want.

Overall picture of the table.

HMS "Cutlass"  a 38 Gun Frigate just arrives at the left hand corner of the Board.

Captains Rousell and King now have sufficient sea
room between them.
(Captain Ray Rousell had not named his ship so I have Christened it HMS Badger)
If you want a different name let me know.

The Spanish fleet leaving port. SS Guano, San Francis, SS Pina Colada
. Two as yet un named ships with Capitan Pyllion and Capitan Loki in control of them.
And Finally Unicornia ( a 44 gun Frigate)
 

 (Again Capitan Fran had not named his ship so the crew have started calling is San Francis!)

I will try to get a few more Frigates painted up this week
 so the "Unicornia" (Mathyoo) is a substitute ship at this time
I hope to have a better one for next turn.

Close Manoeuvres from two British captains.
(If they were ships of opposing sides HMS Challenge would be notified
 that he may have the opportunity to ram and /or board next turn If the turn sequence allowed.

Assuming these two ships coordinate their movement
No collision will occur.
 

HMS Pachyderm
heads towards the other two ships on
this side of the table

General location of HMS Pachyderm to HMS Challenge and HMS

The closest ships are still out of range of each other

There is another sail on the distant horizon out to see. AS yet it remains unidentified.

Don't forget you can either turn (if you choose) before or after you move. Just make it as clear as possible to me.

All the ships EXCEPT HMS Challenge are still at full sail,for next turn. Also kindly note that the Two frigates so far in the game can both move slightly faster then your ships of the line. But only slightly. (About 1cm a turn faster).

As ever if you need any more pictures I will be happy to either publish them on the blog if a comment is made on this Blog or Email them to you privately if you email me privately! So It is up to you how secretive you want to be. The same goes for any questions. All your previous turns emails are now deleted ready for the next batch.

As the next turn will be on Saturday 16th August. I will need your turns by Friday the 15th.

Thanks for the turn guys and I look forward to your next orders.

Cheers Clint

PBB Turn 1

Well I have had replies and orders from most participants and have Now Plotted the first move. Here are the results.

Over view of turn 1

• Spanish: All ships have used the wind to maximum advantage and all have moved forward in a line of battle.
• Millsey,  making the best use of the wind and will move 10cm next turn.
•  Fran, making the best use of the wind and will move 10cm next turn.
•  Mr Lee, making the best use of the wind and will move 10cm next turn.
• Phylion,  making the best use of the wind and will move 10cm next turn.
• and Now Joined By Loki in a 50 gunner not a long ship.  making the best use of the wind and will move 10cm next turn. And an official welcome to the game.

All the Spanish ships In battle line leaving the harbour river inlet.

Milsy in the lead followed by Fran

Then Mr. Lee, Phylion (in the middle of this Photo)
 and Loki at the end and now closing the door.

The British have started to "get organised."

• Lee Has turned Hard to Port and moved away from the shore and the potential shore batteries and is now making the best use of the wind and will move 10cm next turn.
• Peter Has continued on the same course and setting and will move 5cm next turn.
• Curt has gone to half sails which means that next turn he will only go 3cm next turn due to the angle of the wind.
• Edwin Has turned 1 point to Starboard to be clear of Rays Ship should the worse happen. He will also be travelling at 5cm Next turn
• Ray has kept going forward with no change in speed sail or dieaction and will go 5cm next turn.

Lee After his turn to Port now 100% clear of any shore batteries.

Checking the range from Lee to Milsy.
While they are both in Broadside arch of fire
they are at 1.5 to 2 times the range.

Curt and Peter relative to Lee. So No worries yet.

Curt and Peter.
Curt now on Half sail next turn hence the smaller wake marker.
SO Peter will go faster next turn
 

Ray and Edwin no longer travelling parallel to each other.

Well those are everyone's first move. This Turn the turn Sequence was British Repair, British Move, Spanish Move,  Spanish Firing, British Firing then lastly Spanish Repair. As Mentioned in player briefings The Turn sequence is random and while I will detail it for the Game It has little effect until you get closer. So Maybe the turn after next I will Photograph the turn Cards.

Important Notes. Any Player wanting more Photos please email me detailing what you want photos of and give me 48 hours to get back to you (no I am not taking Pictures of my sexy neighbours). Any questions please allow 24 hours to reply. Thanks for Playing guys and I hope to get a few more turns in next week, from the slackers who have missed the deadline. No worries at this stage but I will not be chasing them up so no Order to me means no order to your crew! (Whine over!)

Next Deadline 9am Saturday (the 8th August) GMT. And I will attempt to post the Game Sunday morning before 10am GMT.

Cheers Guys all the best Clint

Supplementary photos as asked for by Lee and Phyllion

Taken from a step ladder with my head in the rafter
You can make out the Shoal now on Curts Port side.
Hopefully this assists in all your relative positions
Spanish at the Far end and British closer to the Camera.
 

Taken standing on my work bench.
An Odd angle perhaps but without building a bigger garage the best I can do!.

 

Growing horde.and PBB Opertunity of a game.

The whole lot so far.

Goodness me! more painted zombies from the "Zombies" game. As you will recall these are all the same pose and I have a few more 64) to do.  The shambling horde is increasing.

I am now up to 36 and am approaching critical mass for a game. Yes I know that from a game point of view more is better and that you can never have enough zeds! But 1 is far too many in real life.

They're coming to get you!

6x6= 36 Zeds

So I thought I would briefly mention why I am painting them. Well last year I was lucky enough to play in an online Play by mail game. Hosted by Shelldrake. It was a zombie game and only open to those in the Zombie bloggers association. So this year I thought I would repay that kindness and host a Zombie game of my own online. I expect this to start in a couple of weeks from now and will run as 1 turn a week. This will be as much roleplaying as wargaming. And I am pleased to say that I very reached capacity on the number of players I could handle for this game. All Zombie Bloggers and all members of the board of the living lead. 

So unfortunately there is no spare capacity in this game but you will all be welcome to follow their progress once it starts. I will probably send them out character generation info in the following week.

Pressgang!

Totally unrelated to the Zombie Game.

I am willing to recruit for a different Play by blog game though. Let me Explain! Having spoken to Ray on the Phone on Sunday night he has not managed to get very much gaming done at all this year. So I have suggested that I can referee a Naval game (in the Age of Sail) and run it on a weekly turnaround. Players need not know the rules as I will take car of all the bookkeeping and fiddly bits. They will be responsible for their ship movement choice of targets [both ships and hull or rigging] and damage control parties. They will be told how effective their gun fire has been, in the abstract only. But no indication of what has been achieved unlit it becomes visible! Such as fires, explosions (very rare), loss of a mast etc. This should not be a drain on your time too much as I am thinking that each player would control a single ship of the line.

The fleet captains will be Ray and Fran (I suspect you have all heard of them as they are quite notorious). And players are under no compunction to obey any orders Issued by them. [I know I wouldn't]!

I hasten to add that players need not know the rules. But for the tabletop application I will be using "Blood Bilge and Iron Balls." with some slight amendments to make it possible to play on a Blog as opposed to tabletop face to face.

So if this sounds like something you might be interested in leave a comment. Or email me on

Clintburnettagain[at]Hotmail[dot]co[dot]Uk

either for more information or for a place in the ship game or just a chat.

Ok folks have a lovely couple of days and see you all soon
All the best Clint

BBIB Club Game.

 Just a sheet for terrain, add an island and of we go. Yep it's that simple. Tim and Myself had a 4 ship Spanish fleet and Graham a 4 Ship English fleet. WE started several turn apart to give us time to remember the rules. The fleets were roughly equal but not exactly the same and the fleets fought with equal ferocity. I let Tim take the lead and followed in line behind him and Graham snaked his fleet the other side of the island to me and I had a whole day of sitting the furthest away from the game action as was physically possible.

The opening shots saw The British fleet score the first blood. The return fire from Tim's two ships was far more accurate and made the British broadsides look really weak (Tim rolled well on the dice and did so most of the day).

And then the chaos started. Each ship going it's own way and no real formations. It was all a bit hectic and uncontrolled. So I can't tell exactly what happened and to whom and why. What follows is a few of the highlights in no particular order. It is worth saying that fires and crew losses were the significant ways that ships were lost. Graham's flagship suffered command and steering hits and was forced to sail in a straight line for several turn.

Another of Grahams ships was turned into a blazing inferno with some black joker damage card being drawn. Tim then boarded it to seize it as a prise but the plucky British crew fought them of (eventually). Seeing that He was going to loose a ship as a prize Graham fired into the boarding action with one of his other vessels. This killed all the British but so many of the Spanish that they did not have enough for a prize crew so had to abandon the attempt. The action cards came up for Graham to fire again and he managed to kill the few remaining Spanish sailors on Tim's ship. So he manoeuvred and boarded the two ships, one firmly ablaze, the other severely damaged, but with no crew at all, as they had already struck their colours.

As I had been chasing down this ship with my as yet undamaged 80 gunner. I let rip managed a bow rake rolled well on the dice and drew a total of 15 damage cards. The result was that my broadside both killed all the crew on Grahams ship but also set it on fire in 4 areas. So with no crew it was left to burn.

The last piece of action of the day as we were running out of both time and energy was my 74 gunner chasing Grahams flagship. This is where the cards and the dice (ok and my judgement) deserted me and Graham repaired his 100 gunner and could now both steer and had restored it's chain of command. Graham also had a 54 gunner, the weakest ship of the line which had sailed out of shot for all of the game. If my manoeuvre card had been turned over first I was in a position to bow rake the 100 gunner at less than 1/2 inch range. Alas for me, it was not meant to be and Graham was able to move the 54 gunner to bow rake me and the 100 gunner slipped away out of my arc of fire. The next card flipped was Grahams firing phase and my mostly intact s74 gun ship was punished severely.

We ended the game there due to lack of time. If we had carried on it really could have gone either way. Graham had a very badly damaged 100 gunner and a 54 third rate. I had a badly damaged 74 Gunner and an untouched 2nd rate.. Tim had lost both ships but had inflicted so much damage on the 100 gunner of Grahams fleet that it would have struggled to stay in the game for much longer and probably would have withdrawn. Or knowing Graham would have just dropped anchor and tried to keep guns towards any of my ships by using some clever rudder and wind manipulation.

Over all a very enjoyable game and a Sunday full of fun. That's it for today. Thanks for reading I hope to have something painted my Wednesday so I hope to see you then. All the best Clint.

Finishing Touches

As you can see I have made a more traditional wind marker. In addition I have cut out 2 turning markers and a wind/Sail-speed marker. All these markers are painted on both sides and while for practice games we have used photocopies these have been hand cut from 3mm thick grey board (a type of cardboard). These are very useful in play so let's hope I don't forget them on Sunday.

I have taken today off of work just in case I needed to get a few things finished off. Truth to be told I am on target so I'm going to have a lazy day.

This morning I have varnished the ships bases and the wake markers. As they need 16-24 hours to dry they will be ready 1 whole day ahead of schedule. And for about 20 minutes this afternoon I will be applying a second coat of watered down resin W (PVA to normal un Sheldon Cooper type people) to the foliage on the two coast boards. Just to deter the shrubs and trees from escaping on the journey to the show in the back of Grahams car. So about 15-30 mins work to do and I am all done.

The boards look ok and they will function well enough both at the show and at the club should we choose to. Which is the point. I try to build games we can play at the club as opposed to one off game boards that are totally specific for a one shot game. Thus I feel they are more practical than some one shot games which may on the day look better, but have no longevity or further use once the shows are over. I must admit I would like to do a show game that looks totally fantastic but for now that's a pipe dream.

Tomorrow afternoon I am to travel down to Sittingbourne and help set up the tables, only 20 mins on the train each way. So I shall try to take a few pics of the pre show setup as well as the WIP of setting up a show. While Saturday morning I will be putting the fudge into teenie-tiny little bags so no one will overdose on the day and each will get a fair amount..... well that's the plan anyway.

I am so far ahead of the game that I have even placed some pre-orders with some traders for pick up on the day. One of which has given me a nice big and healthy 15% discount.

So with luck a post tomorrow evening. If not the next one will be Monday.

All the best Clint.

Happy accident?

Not everything goes to plan for any of us. I was hoping to share some figure with you this morning. Alas due to an accident on one of the BBIB Broadside boards I have had my spare time snatched away as I tried to deal with it. I must have had a careless moment and a dollop of yellow paint was discovered towards the centre of one of the boards. It was a small dollop but had dried overnight. This gave me two options, Scrape it and sand it off, or treat it as an opportunity. I took the lazy (erhm... I mean the more considered) way and treated it as a happy accident.

Two coats of varnish later I added white "breaker" waves around this tiny (paint) "island". It has now become a reef or a shoal or some other navigation hazard. It makes one section of the board ever so slightly tricky. It is not a large hazard but it is something to avoid moving into. Which is a polite way of saying everyone else will avoid it and yet somehow it will be strangely "magnetic" to my ships!

Two closer pictures of the blemish the lower image being bigger than life size. So it really is not a huge mote and now that I have come to terms with it I actually think of it as an advantage and adds something to the boards. As indicated in the title it is indeed a happy accident.

That's it for today.  Club tomorrow and a game of "Dead Man's Hand" . So until Monday have a good couple of days and with luck talk again on Monday.

Post Script: I can now get a local supply of Confectioners chocolate. So with luck I should be able to make something nice for the BROADSIDE Bloggers. Although I must admit I will be giving certain traders priority..... it all depends on how much I an make in time.


All the best Clint.

WIND ?

I promise this has nothing to do with what I have eaten or my digestive tract in any way. This is in fact what I am considering using for my wind marker at the BROADSIDE show. I originally bought it for "Uncharted Seas" by Spartan Games. but until the weekend it had just sat there unpainted and un loved. I even tried to sell it at a bring and buy but no one else wanted it either. So this weekend I gave it some paint love and got it finished. From the time the undercoat took to dry to finish (still to be varnished more of this later) took about 20 minutes and most of that time was me procrastinating. IF it is used as a wind direction marker I will add a VERY almost "Persil" white line from it's mouth to the base edge so players will know for sure which ay the wind is blowing EXACTLY!

The reason It has yet to be varnished is that I have yet to varnish the boards for the show and It makes sense to me to do the wind marker and the boards at the same time so they have the same very glossy appearance.

My dilemma is whether it would be right to use this and not a more traditional arrow to identify the way the wind is blowing. An arrow is perhaps clearer and much more expected and a lot less likely for passers by to think I have introduced sea monsters into a Napoleonic Navel Game. If I do use this I will have to be ready for kids (and stoopid adults......you know who you are,) to leave the show thinking there was a fantasy sea battle. So my question is will people at the show be very literal or will they accept it as a wind marker?


That's it for today. next one is Thursday. So until then thanks for reading and let's get painting.
All the best Clint.

Herding Cats

I am sure most of you will be aware about crowd funding. I am pretty sure that many of you will have already backed a number of projects and perhaps even this one. I did think I should let you know that I have pledged to this one. Mantic Games are launching a science fiction skirmish game using the popular Kickstarter LINK I will refrain from saying too much more as you can get all the information from the horses mouth as it were by "clicking" the link.

What I will talk about is why I am getting involved. As 4 members of my wargames club have already pledged (I am the 5th) I will be starting at the same time as everybody else so there will be no playing catch up as there have been with so many projects in the past, which is always disappointing and the other guys have played a few games and learnt the rules long before I get a chance to even paint a single figure. Unlike a couple of others I am only taking the $40.00 starting force. It is tempting to go large on this, but better to get one force and paint it up and get it on the table rather than buy everything and get nothing done. Which would be typical of me. I have decided on "Enforcers" as my army of choice. Mostly because they are the most complete force at this pledging stage which hints that they are a sculptors or game designers favourite. Also being humans they might be usable in other games and in game terms should be quite versatile. Well that's my thinking so it's bound to be WRONG!

Anyway enough about things in the future back in the here and now. I have been herding cats again, which actually has been closer to juggling cats this time. The upshot is that the Planned game for BROADSIDE is now going ahead after a short period when insufficient club members were originally available. As of yesterday 2 more club members have told me they can make it so we are up to 4. Of these 4 2 have played the rules (Myself and Graham) and the other two will have to learn it on the day. I was hoping to run it next weekend at the club, but as I would be the only one to play it at the show there really is very little point in that. I might as well keep the ships and the terrain clean, safe and undamaged at least until the day of the show. All this uncertainty has meant that I am now behind on the build, one loses interest quickly when one feels a lack of response. Luckily Monday is a bank holiday so the chances are I will be able to pull it back.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading and I'll post again on Sunday. All the best Clint

Fishing Village WIP and PRE Salute Game Anaysis.

 As you will note on the Pictures to the right the fishing village is coming on quite nicely now, still a huge amount to do of course, but you can now see the intention much more clearly. You will be able to see blobs of glue as the pictures were taken in the drying process. It will dry clear and not be noticed (I hope). The section of the beach which is deliberately left unfinished will turn into a small harbour, wait and see. I will try not to show any more of this for the time being so that when BROADSIDE comes it will be fresh, well that's the hope. I have put enough photos up to give not only the layout but the location on the board and to a lesser extent a scale. I have left out walls and boundaries because they would be so small, about 0.35 mm. That being the case I will most likely either paint or draw them onto the boards.

But that's not want to talk about today. I do want to talk about Salute. Firstly let me say I have not been able to get two of the ingredients that I would use to make my recipe of chocolate Fudge. So no free food from me this time out. It's a shame, but never mind.

But that's not what I want to talk about either. Yes I still want to talk about Salute. Or more accurately the games that are being hosted at the show.  Here's my disclaimer! I have taken all the information from "Miniature Wargames Magazine" issue 360. Not all the information is complete and if you do your own version of this analysis you will also realise that I will have miscounted. I kept getting distracted and losing my place.

Going down the games list I was struck by how many Participation games there were and that's why I did the count up. UK readers will know that there are usually at least one wargames club within reach. So playing games at shows is not as important as, for example the states. In the US because of the size of the country (so I am informed) playing games at shows is more important. A quick count-up  informed me there were about 34 demonstration games and 57 participation games. Nearly twice as many, which I found interesting. I, personally, find it easier to run a demonstration game than a participation game at shows. So I was expecting the results to be reversed with more demonstration games than participation games. Well as you already know I was wrong!


Which meant I should look a little closer at the results to determine why I was so wrong. So I broke it down by adding another parameter. How many of each type of games were run by wargames companies as opposed to clubs.  20 of the Participation games were company lead and only 10 demonstration games. This is a little out of skew because some companies (like Crooked Dice) are running more than one game but only on one game table area, while others are getting their associated clubs to run the game for them. I mean no critism by stating this  as I am sure I would be encouraging this If I ran a games company. So follow the trend and not get too caught up in the small details. In my opinion many companies are using participation games at shows in preference to Demonstration games as it gets players more closely involved. This should not be a revelation to anyone who attends the bigger shows in the UK but it is still worth stating as it introduces the question "Where will this trend lead?" Given that it would be impractical to run a large, for instance, ACW, game with hundreds of figure on the table top as a participation game and keep all the players interested for an extended period at a show with all the trader distractions and temptations. Smaller games like Saga which can yield a result with many less figures in a fraction of the time do yield themselves more open to public participation. As twice as many participation games are being put on by manufactures this year does that mean that big battle games are in decline and that skirmish games are currently on the rise from a manufactures point of view?

I also broke down the periods being played. I did this because just skimming the list there did seam to be a lot of "Steampunk" games.

Here's a rough list, again I can't be too precise because some games straddle two periods. In Order of numbers.

• Science Fiction 21 (including 7 "Steampunk"/VSF Games)
• Ancients 14 ( Including 8 dark age and Medieval)
• WW2/VBCW 13
• Fantasy 13
• 19th Century 10 (including 5 ACW games)
• 17th Century 5 (Including 2 Samurai games)
• Napoleonic 3
• Modern 3 (including horror and other similar things*)
•  Other 2 (Snits Revenge and Those Magnificent men and their flying machines.
• Zombies 2 (Dedicated zombie games and not horror!)
• 16th Century 1
• Wild West 1
• WW1   1

If you so choose you could clump certain categories together in different ways, Horror with zombies, Wild west with 19th Century for example. There are more options of course and if/when you do the Analysis I am sure you'll do them in your own way.

I am most interested in noting what game genres are missing. In the Modern section it's mostly horror and 70's TV shows. No Afghanistan, no Falklands, no Vietnam, no Cold war battle games or Korea or Arab Israeli. If there is a ECW game on the list I must have missed it as well, which is not to say it's not there, but if it is I will have missed it.

I will draw no more conclusions before going to the show, I'll leave that to you.

I would normally post on Saturday this week, but due to the show I will leave it until Sunday. And probably do my show report on Monday. I hope you have found something of interest. Be kind to yourself and hope to blog again after the show. All the best Clint