Lard Island News

Commander Ly Chi looked down from the veranda of the Pagoda towards the river. Several members of the local community were working to get the river water through to the new rice beds that would soon be feeding his men. Chi was commanding the advanced guard of the 37th Main Force battalion of the Viet Cong. The main body of the force was still in Cambodia waiting for news that their accommodation was ready, and that would be very soon. Already the arms cache in the village was being moved into the freshly dug tunnels. It would not be long before Ly Chi and his comrades would be able to take on the imperialists and free the South to enjoy the benign rule of the Communist Party. Nothing could go wrong.

Even from many thousands feet the jungle clearance and the excavation of new paddy fields was clear to Major Milton Clamburger in his OV-10 Bronco, the freshly dug red soil a visible scar on the landscape, and fresh paddies could only mean one thing, more mouths to feed. VC mouths.

Captain Butch Taylor moved along the sweep line, words of encouragement came easily and his men responded well. Butch was a soldier’s soldier, and Charlie Company appreciated that, and yet a sweep through an area know to be occupied by the VC was always a mission fraught with danger. Men smoked, swapped jokes and laughed, and yet the tension could be read on their faces. Then the word came.

“Let’s move out”

Lieutenant Hung Lo looked down from the Huey, his eyes scanning the ground in an attempt to read the terrain. There were several LZ near the Pagoda, all of them potentially killing zones, choosing the right one and getting his men on the ground would be critical to the success of the operation. If Charlie was allowed to just melt away then the press would have a field day. Again.

In the Hog Lieutenant Walter Greenbaum made his approach, flying in a shallow dice through the fire that was coming up from the treeline. He watched the rockets as they flew straight and true and exploded with a shattering impact among the shadowy figures in black pyjamas.

Lieutenant Carter Beauford jammed another magazine into his M16 and fired again. He could see very little, but the firepower produced by his platoon must mean that he was winning the firefight, and that is just what they’d told him to do in OCS.

To the right of Beauford’s platoon Lieutenant Randy Buckmeir had already won his firefight. Well, he presumed he had as Charlie was no longer firing at him.  He had brought his men forward to the edge of the clearing, but with the firing continuing to his left he was loathe to cross the open space. God, this war is Hell.

Movement down to the right. The pilot was signalling to Sergeant Gi as the Huey descended. This was the moment of truth. They were landing very close to the fringe of the jungle, ripe for ambush, but there was no choice in this small clearing where only one slick could drop its men at a time. The first squad of ARVN Rangers leap down as the chopper hovered eighteen inches above the ground, the door gunner liberally spraying the edge of the jungle. In seconds they were gone, the squad forming up and deploying their weapons as the Huey lifted off. Almost immediately fire came from the far side of the clearing. The pilot had been right; VC. Gi tapped the M60 gunner on the shoulder and pointed towards the muzzle flashes, and a stream of bullets stitched their way across the clearing even as the next Chopper approached.

“Burn the Goddam place” Lieutenant Brad Whitford looked at the pile of AK47s and ammunition that had been found below the floor of the hooch. In the previous building they had found stocks of rice that were suspicious, but could have been the store for the hamlet, now there was no doubt. Sergeant Leroy Burlesque flicked his Zippo and enjoyed the momentary aroma of fuel.  They light every time.

“Move you mothers!” Captain Butch Taylor had never been know for his patience and he was convinced that a charge with the bayonet would overwhelm Charlie. It was a matter of a dozen yards, but in this terrain it was slow going. Three men were killed as they crossed the intervening ground, and when they got there Charlie had gone. Mind you, he was clearly beaten as he had abandoned the bodies of three of his dead. Taylor grabbed the radio. Nothing. He swore. Little did he know that the bullet that had destroyed his PRC 25 would otherwise have killed him.

“Holy mother, the artillery”.  He ran across to Lieutenant Buckmeir, with the first ranging shot coming in from Firebase Hillary he needed comms!

Lieutenant Hung Lo was forming his sweep line now. The clock was ticking. If he could move across behind the pagoda he could cut the line of retreat. From the radio traffic he knew that Charlie was starting to move out, and he was sure there was movement to his front, he did not want to walk into an ambush.

Pac Choi emerged from the tunnel. Yes, they were behind the Americans. His men spread out silently as Choi watched his enemy preparing to move on. The volley was violent and brief, the effect of the AK-47 fire more shocking than anything else, and the American troops dived for cover. Pac Choi and his men ran. They had done all they could, they had been betrayed by traitors, lap dogs of the American Imperialists. They would pay with their lives! Now his objective must be to keep his force intact and reach Cambodia.

Up to this point the US and ARVN forces had killed six VC and lost five men dead. They had discovered weapons and food in the hamlet and most importantly the tunnel complex. The discovery of the latter was solely due to Pac Choi’s emergence and parting ambush before he ran for the border. Had he simply slipped away it is likely that the Free World forces would have missed the tunnels. A further dozen VC were cut off from their exit route, six being captured by the ARVN Rangers. So the operation was a military success for the Free World Forces, but verging on a political victory for the VC due to the losses they inflicted. Had Butch Taylor relied on his firepower rather than going in with the bayonet he’d have saved the lives of three men and won a complete victory.

The game was designed to test some of the victory conditions in the rules which, as suggested above, are two-fold; military and political. One of the things that has taken the time with developing Charlie Don’t Surf is getting the game to tick two key boxes that are interlinked. It must represent the reality of the war in Vietnam without being a parody, and it must give both sides a real challenge and an opportunity to get a victory on a very uneven playing field. It would be easy, far too easy to produce a game that is a parody of this complex conflict, and even easier if that parody was that seemingly appealing winner – the war as it “should” have been rather than the war as it was.

What do I mean by this? Well, one of the frustrations of any counter-insurgency campaign is that one side generally won’t play fair. The Free World forces in Vietnam were, above all else, seeking to bring the enemy to battle and defeat him. Had Charlie played ball and done the decent thing, standing up and fighting, then he would have been in big trouble. So quite naturally he stuck to his own game plan.

This can be a real issue for wargamers and in particular game designers. We could make the assumption that in our games Charlie is particularly rough, tough and nasty and ready to play the stand-up fight game, and then the Free World forces could deploy all of their very sexy assets to gun him down wit style and aplomb. Easy rules to write, easy game to play, probably very popular, but frankly a complete load of hog wash. Nothing more than a Vietnam version of ‘Whack a Mole’, with Charlie popping up from his tunnels and Rambo blasting him to the Stone Age.

The real challenge in designing Charlie Don’t Surf has been to develop a game where both sides can fight their own war; where both have strengths and both have weaknesses and both need to attempt to dominate the battlefield by developing their plans to take these into account. The net result this far is a game where the double whammy of a military and political victory is hard to achieve, where there is frustration on the ground as the enemy won’t do what you want him to do, but where by playing to your own strengths, by clear thinking and careful planning either side can dominate the battlefield if his opponent allows him to.

Images

In the first image (above)  I have marked the contours in orange for clarification. The Pagoda stands atop a small oval shaped knoll and to the north (i.e. the top of the image, is another similar hill with a clearing on top. The rest of the table is relatively flat with a wide river along the western edge. The VC have to name one table edge as their line of communication – the edge off which they will retire if Free World Forces are too tough for them.

Stage One

In the second image we see the US sweep line of the 1st and 2nd platoons advancing on the right and running into two ambushes. On the left the 3rd Platoon is able to form a base of fire and bring its weapons to bear on Charlie in the treeline. A Hog arrives and adds its fire.

Stage Two

In the third image the VC who sprung the initial ambushes are largely withdrawing to disappear from sight, whilst one squad remains in place to cover their withdrawal. US firepower is overwhelming, but it hangs in there long enough for its comrades to get away. Meanwhile the ARVN Ranger platoon arrives by helicopter to seal off the potential VC escape routes to the north and east. 3rd Platoon are searching the hooches.

Stage Three

The game is up for Charlie, a charge by the US 2nd Platoon finally clears the enemy from the treeline, whilst the ARVN Rangers are successful in winning their firefight with the assistance of the Hog. They also move two squads round to cut off the retreat of a dozen VC. To the south Pac Choi gives the game away by emerging from a tunnel and springing one final ambush on the 1st Platoon before running for the border. Meanwhile 3rd platoon evacuate the civilian population and burn the hooches.

Critique
This was a “nearly but not quite” operation for the US forces. They lost too many men, largely due to the lunatic charge when firepower would have done the job better. They were too late bringing in the ARVN platoon; in essence the hammer was striking before the anvil was in place and that allowed many VC to leave the table unchallenged. Part of this was the limited size of the LZ stopping a fast deployment. All the more reason for putting the ARVN in early.

For the VC a failure to concentrate their forces meant that they never really hit hard in any one place. They did, however, take full advantage of their ability to sneak off and set up another ambush. Bizarre they left two HMGs they had in the tunnels, the extra firepower could have really hurt the US forces. What has been interesting over the months of playtests has been watching the players learn to use the correct tactics. The US forces are aware now that avoiding ambushes is almost impossible, so you move tactically to limit their effects when they are sprung. You also make sure that the supporting troops are close enough to add their firepower when it is needed.

The VC players are really learning to hit hard and then slip away. They now know that in the confusion after the ambush the US player’s knee jerk reaction is to form a base of fire and get himself organised, providing the VC with valuable moments to simply disappear. Our game saw a full company of US forces (the weapons platoon was off-table with its mortars) plus an airmobile platoon of ARVN Rangers and a Huey Hog gunship in support faced with just two platoons of Main Force VC imbalanced game if we were to use any points system, and yet the VC came very close to winning a political victory, and could easily have avoided handing the US a complete military victory if they had not given away the position of their tunnel entrance in the final moments. What was more both sides really enjoyed the game.

Great game for me as umpire. My enthusiasm for these rules is almost boundless at present and I get a real sense of satisfaction as we finally declare the rules watertight and now move on to work on the final presentation and wording. After eight long years it seems that Charlie will, at last, surf.  Projected release date is May.

After last week when we had fun with jungle, I thought that for this week’s Charlie Don’t Surf playtest I’d try to knock up some clumps of dense bamboo.  I’d been reading some US Army AARs and the thing that jumped out was the way that the terrain could be broken up by dense clumps of this stuff, especially in and around hamlets.  I was impressed with the use of astro-turf matting for ground cover, but I wanted something that looked a bit sexier on the table for my bamboo, and I had a few ideas that I wanted to try out. 

Ingredients
First catch your hare, as they say, so here’s the list of stuff I assembled for this relatively quick project. 

1.  A broom head with coarse natural fibre bristles.
2.  Some MDF, ideally 2mm, but 3mm will do.
3.  A hot glue gun
4.  Basing material
5.  Gardening secateurs
6.  Scissors

After my fish tank jungle  success my first stop should have risked another visit to the local branch of Wilkos for the broom head but, in a pathetic attempt to avoid a trip to the dark side, I made the mistake of going to an out of town DIY superstore first and all they had was a scrubbing brush for £3.50.  I bought this, but realised pretty quickly that this would not cover much area, so I went to Wilkinsons and got the larger broom head in picture 1 for less than two quid.  Fortunately it’s the wife’s birthday in a couple of months so the scrubbing brush won’t be wasted!

Construction
Cutting the bases to the right size is the first task.  As this was a first outing I thought that I’d put together some small clumps to test the ideas out, so I marked up the right sizes I wanted and then cut them out with a jig-saw before sanding down the edges.  I went for uneven shapes as I felt that this looked best.  Were I to be covering large areas I’d cut the bases out in shapes that inter-connected so as to allow them to be used in one mass or slightly apart to create paths between them. 

My initial plan was then to snip clumps of broom fibre with my scissors and then stick them in hot glue on the bases, however in the end the garden secateurs were needed as the fibre is VERY tough indeed.  With a number of bases on the go I could put a half inch blob of glue on one base, stick in the clump and the hold that in place for about thirty seconds before moving on to the next base.  I just then rotated through the bases adding a bit at a time until they were full.  Throughout this stage you look at the semi-complete bases and consider hurling them into the bin, as they look absolutely rubbish and the process is extremely tedious, but do stick with it. 

Once your bases are covered with broom fibre you’ll need the scissors to trim things up.  Remember that these things will grow relatively irregularly in the wild, so no ornate topiary here, but this does make things look a bit better. 

My next stage was painting.  This was very hit and miss.  The basic fibre is a dark brown, so I went with a khaki dry-brush first, but that looked a bit dull, so I went with a Yellow green colour that also failed to really do it for me.  In the end I added a fair bit of yellow to this, brushed that over then added lots of white and highlighted the top.  Once this was dry I gave the bottom half of the bamboo stalks a wash with a light green.  In the end this rather anarchic attempt to find the right colour left me with a quite irregular look that I was quite please with. 

After this the final stage is to add your choice of basing material, and you are done.  I think that the completed article looks pretty good.  However I’ll add a caveat here.  I would not use this method for large area, it is too slow.  For clumps to scatter across your game table it is ideal. 

This method would also be ideal for the cane breaks that we came across in our AWI supplement, This Land Divided, or for general scrub in 28mm games. 

Total time taken for the half a dozen pieces that are shown here was less than one hour.

The arrival of the new edition of Bag the Hun means a whole range of new cards.  To start off we have a basic card deck now available for download.  Over the coming weeks we’ll be producing more nation specific card sets to allow you to add even more colour to your games, but these are a great basic set to start off with. 

Check them out here:

Basic Cards

The news that a second edition of Bag the Hun was about to be published saw Lard Island News’ star reporter despatched to chat with Nick Skinner, author, raconteur and Herman Göring impersonator. 

Nick, welcome to the Lard Island News offices.  We’ve just heard that Bag the Hun 2 has arrived from the printers, clearly something you’ll be excited about.  Tell our readers, what made you want to produce a second edition of Bag the Hun?
Our Bag the Hun games are always fun but I wanted to add greater variety and scenario options to our games.  We also felt that manoeuvres needed expanding and that further tweaks were needed to reflect the nuances of warfare in some theatres. This meant that not only would the rules need to cover the ‘standard’ fighter vs fighter and fighter vs bomber combat, but that they must also cover the key aspects of ground and naval attack – in all its forms. Additionally I felt ready to further challenge, expand, develop and clarify some of the initial concepts used in the first edition to make for a more thoroughbred product.

What aspects of the rules have changed?  Would a regular user of BTH like V2?
When we announced that we’d be releasing BTHv2 we asked gamers what they would want to see in a second edition. The universal cry was for more aircraft data and more manoeuvres. I am really pleased then that the new edition includes stats on about 160 aircraft of all nationalities. As far as manoeuvres are concerned, we have been able to expand the options markedly with the addition of a number of additional moves, ranging from some that are fairly simple (like the Chandelle, for instance) through to the somewhat more intricate Thach Weave and Snap Rolls. By applying bonuses for some aircraft when performing certain manoeuvres then we can really encourage players to choose the same manoeuvres as their historical counterparts. The use of ‘bogeys’ to represent unspotted threats has added an extra element to the tabletop game and forces players to plan and to think tactically about their approaches to combat, something that I am really pleased about. These new aspects have been built on the pre-existing central mechanisms which remain unchanged, so those planning to upgrade will find the changes easy to absorb.

 What size games are the rules really suited to?
I think that beginners can easily handle a flight of aircraft (i.e. 6-8) per side to begin with and believe that the game works really well at that level too, with most dogfights being concluded in an hour or so. However experienced gamers could handle games of at least a squadron a side easily enough. We sometimes have almost 50 aircraft per side for some big games and although that is a very high number, the complexity is reduced if fairly straightforward bomber formations are involved. Mind you, the table can get pretty crowded! If you do go to those numbers it is worth assigning cards at the flight, as opposed to section, level, simply to keep the card deck manageable.

Are the rules as Anglo-centric as the first edition?  Can I use my US forces now, or will I still need additional information?
You certainly can field your US forces.  BTH2 covers all aspects of WW2 across all theatres, so there’s something in there for everyone. Additional sections on formations, manoeuvres and particular national tactics and characteristics mean that games can be set in all of the major combat arenas of the war. Some of my personal favourite games from play testing were set over the Pacific – particularly early war up to and including Midway and that theatre offers some great actions revolving around ground and naval attacks as well as some superb dogfighting clashes. I also really enjoyed Defence of the Reich games in which Luftwaffe jets attempt to stem the B17 tide. Both require very different tactics. A good proportion of our play-testing took place in the United States, and the influence of feedback from the guys involved in that perhaps helped to subdue any in built Anglo-centricity.

How long has it taken you to produce these?
Much longer than I would have liked! Like most people caught up in the rat-trap of modern life, I am only able to devote a tiny percentage of my time to the things I enjoy most. The broader scope of the rules also added to the development time. Start looking into the tactics of naval strikes and the amount of variety that can be added to games expands considerably. Once we started exploring this we realised that we’d taken the lid off a very big box. The increased scope of the games also meant that there were more concepts that need to be run through, and it is difficult to test each aspect in every game – for instance not many games combine scrambled take offs, rocket attacks on flying fortresses and torpedo runs at the same time. Each area has to be tested not only for the principal area itself, but also for each period of the war. In the six years of aerial combat from 1939 to 1945 advances in weapons and technology extended the envelope of warfare, and it was important that the rules reflected those developments and allowed players to apply realistic tactical approaches. I think they are worth the wait.

What is the rule writing process for you?  How do you go about producing a set of rules?
The important thing is to know what level of game you are aiming for, then to get some basic assumptions in place around which you will build your model. These assumptions have to be based on historical understanding, so knowing the history is key – even more so when the viewpoint is from the level at which you are trying to game. For BTH there is no better source than pilot accounts because they tell you what was important to them and use terms that have real meaning – this is crucial in setting the flavour of the rules. When Richard and I are writing together we would normally have a brainstorm on the basic mechanisms to get something down on paper, then playtest, edit, playtest, edit again and so on until we feel we have the right approach and result. The rules soon build that way. Crucially for me, a good set of rules should see the gamer wrestling with the same set of available decisions as his historical counterpart. As part of that it is important that the ‘data’ that the player uses to make his decisions is historically relevant and is obtained and influenced in an historically accurate way. So the overriding driver is what decisions did the historical counterpart have to make, and what influenced him in making those decisions. If that is modelled accurately then the gamer will be left with the right ‘feel’. My aim in BTH is that if you asked a gamer to write an AAR for the game he has just played then what you would be looking at is an account that would read very similarly top a real WW2 combat report.

Where do you stand on the “colour versus black and white” argument that is seemingly exorcising some people in the hobby at present?
I love colour. There are plenty of wargamers who do not have the time or space to devote to regular games and glossy photo-filled books are a great way to stimulate the drive that’s needed to get an unpainted army into tabletop action. There are some quality products about, but for me too many of them fall into the category of what I call “Coffee table wargaming”. Sure, they look nice to flick through whilst sipping a cappuccino, but all too often that is where the attraction ends. My plea to gamers would be to shop for rules with your minds, and not your eyes. Rules need to work and they need to be historically accurate. If that can be combined with colour then that’s brilliant, but be assured that no matter how nice your toys look, you’ll never get them out again if the rules do not give you the game you want.

Why don’t we see more aerial games at shows?
I think that the general issue is one of ‘eye candy’. Ground based games are generally perceived as offering greater scope for terrain builders, and without doubt there are some cracking talents on show in that department, but for aerial games the options appear limited. I always think that aerial games can make great participation games and I am hopeful that the ability to build in ground attack to BTH games will allow gamers to use some creative landscapes in their games. Wouldn’t it be great to see Beaufighters taking on flakships in 1/100^th scale!

 Who is Johnny Danger?
Johnny Danger is a big man of the skies. He is that fictional hero of a genre that will be familiar to all readers of Commando Comics and Battle Picture Library. Johnny, his US Navy colleague Bob Uppendown and the Hun Otto Plebb feature in many BTH games at Lard Island and all have now passed into local folklore. I think he has a rich future – especially now that Richard’s drawings have brought him to life! Actually what really makes me chuckle about Johnny Danger, like so many hyped up big men, is that when he features in a  game he’s always the one shot down with the fluke shot!

  What is your favourite aircraft of WWII and why?
I’m pretty conventional in my choices, the Zero, FW190 and the Mustang all have appeal and anyone who has studied the history of the Beaufighter cannot help but be enthralled at its versatility but nothing quite pulls my chocks away like the Spitfire Mk1. The early mark may not be as technically efficient as later models but its lasting association with the Battle of Britain means that it is a long-standing favourite of mine. With no other aircraft can the words Dakka Dakka Dakka be applied with such feeling.

What do you see yourself writing next?
One of our aims is to get cracking on the next version of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum, but aside from that I think that scenarios for Bag the Hun would be the way to go. My reading in support of the rules has expanded my library hugely and my notebooks are bursting with historical scenarios from all theatres that would make great games. It would be great to get something out for that. There has long been talk of a Malta campaign supplement to sit alongside the existing Finest Hour supplement for the Battle of Britain but I still feel that’s some way off.

What’s it like working with Richard Clarke?
Most importantly we have a laugh.  Rich and I have gamed together for around 25 years and look for our games to contain that little extra ‘something’ that makes for an improved gaming experience. His drive is infectious, his work rate – both in terms of figure painting and writing – is phenomenal and his ability to eat green chillies and to exist on virtually no sleep confirms my suspicion that he is not from this planet.

Nick, thank you for your comments, we wish you the very best of luck with your new rules.

Compact Discs.  A modern technological miracle and a huge advance into the “paper fee” age.  No longer is my office burried under piles of mulched up trees, as many of the articles and images that I get sent are on CD.  So, my desk is normally awash with them instead. 

In an effort to make some space I decided to look for an alternative use for these, and recalled seeing an article in one of the wargming magazines about using them for terrain.  Quite where the article was I could not recall, and after several hours searching I decided that making it up as I went along was probably a better use of time anyway. 

The intensive playtesting for Charlie Don’t Surf had persuaded me that our usual attempts to make a jungle by dumping half a ton of lichen on the table and then dotting around our very northern hemisphere deciduous trees was not overly convincing.  I had purchased a large number of palm trees some years ago from a cake decorating company in the US of A (a gross of them, 144 trees, to be precise) and even the addition of these was leaving us with a pretty shoddy looking table.

Over the years I had bought/claimed/stolen bits and pieces that I thought would be appropriate for jungle.  Several plastic Christmas trees that I have walked past are now missing the odd clump of foliage.  More than one astroturf doormat has been purchased in the interest of the project, but the plan, as Hannibal once never said, had not quite come together. 

The light at the end of the tunnel was a trip to our local branch of Wilkinsons.  Since the demise of Woolworths in the UK, Wilkos is the store where the Care in the Community crowd now hang out.  My wife drags me in there now and again as she buys bird food there at half the price it is in the Supermarket where she normally shops.  Fortunately the bird food is next to the fish tank bit, and there I discovered REAL cheap platic aquatic plants.  I say *real* because I had long heard stories of these wonders, but whenever I went to pet shops or garden centres that sold such beauties they were extremely expensive.  Alright if you want to chuck a few square inches of greenery in for Gordon the goldfish, but bloody useless if you wanted to cover a 6′ by 4′ table without seeing a mortgage advisor.

So, after splashing out a princely seven quid, I found myslef armed Wilkos entire stock of plastic plants and half a hundredweight of CDs.  I was ready to rock. 

What do you Need?
Before starting off on this project I suggest that you get together all the ingredients, so here they are:
1.  Lots of old CDs. 
2.  A hot glue gun. 
3.  Suitable Trees.  Two per CD, maybe the odd extra
4. Fish tank foliage
5.  Astroturf door matting
6.  Basing material.  I use Basetex as it is the right colour and that saves me painting it later
7.  PVA glue
8.  Flock
9.  Scissors

How it works
First things first,  you need to prepare your foliage.  The Sugarcraft trees that I bought come with two trunks and two lots of foliage, so in fact my 144 trees was actually 288 trees.  You can put them on like that, but I cut mine in two so that they were individual, thereby getting twice the coverage.  The fishtank foliage needs to be cut down and put in two piles, one called tall foliage, the other called short foliage.  This is easy, even my chum Panda could do that, and he’s an idiot.   The undergrowth is hugely important here, so the astroturf door matting was cut into vague crescent shaped bits about two to three inches long so that the curve conformed to the round edge of the CD (very roughly), and some other round based spiky plastic grass that I acquired from a garden centre was cut into semi- circular halves.  Once that was all done I fired up the hot glue gun and moved on to the next phase.  So far I had spend about ten minutes getting enough stuff ready for a dozen CDs.

Hot Stuff
And it is.  Hot glue is roughly the temperature of molten lava, so mind your fingers!  For legal reasons I should warn you that if you are a child or a halfwit or have an allergy to anything then the following process could cause a terrible DEATH!  However if you are capable of walking down the street without falling under a bus then you should be pretty safe. 

Use the hot glue gun to put four blobs of glue about half an inch in from the hole in the middle of the CD at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock (as in position, not the time of day).  Into two of these stick your trees – I do mine at 12 and 6 o’clock.  Into the other two blobs stick a piece of tall foliage.  This is the stuff that gives your jungle height.  You may need to prop that in place for a minute while the hot glue cools and goes hard.  Clever people will make a lego structure to support this while drying, whereas I used anything I could find.  My mobile phone, the dog clippers and a banana to be precise.

I now do all of the CDs up to this point, that allows them all time for the glue to go hard before we go on to the next phase.  I suppose that doing a dozen of these might have taken me twenty minutes, much of which as buggering about trying to get the trees to stand up, whereas the smart-arse with the lego wouldn’t have had to do this. 

Next is the short foliage and undergrowth.  Take your CD and put some big dollops of hot glue on them.  Now add two largish bits of astroturf in their crescent shape.  Then in the bits in between you can stick a few bits of short foliage to fill in the gaps.  A top tip here is to remember that if you don’t cram the CD chock full of foliage you will be able to get figures in there and it makes flocking and basing much easier in the next phase. 

As you can see from the photo this is an imprecise science, and to be honest I think it looks all the better when finished for that somewhat random approach.  Honest guv!  Now we are almost finished, at least we are completely finished with the hot glue gun, so now is the time to visit the serious burns unit at your local hospital before we move on to basing.

Basing is dead easy.  Just slap on whatever you use for basing your figures.  I use Basetex, particularly the one that should be called “dog turd brown”.  You may need two coats of this, and ideally you’ll score the CD with a sharp knife or pointy thing before starting so that there is a better surface for this stuff to cling to.  Once again kiddies, get a sensible grown up to do this bit if you value your fingers.  Personally I didn’t do it at all as I am not allowed near sharp knives. 

After that has gone hard you can dry brush it to tart it up a bit, then slap on some watered down PVA glue and dunk it in flock.   Eh voila!

One of the great benefits of this that we have discovered after just one outing on the tabletop is that when Charlie is deploying his forces he can allocate them to a specific CD in my “jungle CD network”, ditto for the Free World forces attempting to spot or calling in fire support.  Maybe when using old music CDs you could even try keeping the labels facing down so you can see exactly which musical act is firing at you.  The very thought of calling in a Cobra strike to deal with Jedward fills me with nothing but joy…

“WOT!  NO COLOUR” I hear you cry.  It’s a funny old world at present.  It seems to me that the quality of a set of rules is now based on how colourful it is, how high the “production values” are, rather than what the rules actually do.  Indeed I am constantly amazed these days by the number of rule reviews that rave about a new set that then say at the end “I can’t wait to try these”.  Rather like Jeremy Clarkson reviewing the latest Aston Martin without driving it. 

It is very noticeable that many of the glossy publications that were being lauded a year ago are now no longer heard of; no game reports in magazines or on-line, no vibrant discussion forums, just silence, despite the perceived “high production values” that were all the mode a short time ago.  It is noticeable, but it ain’t shocking.  It is representative of the current emphasis in the hobby press on style above substance, and a year on it is proof that the wargaming public are not fooled. 

Yes, we all splash out occasionally on something that looks fantastic and promises the earth, especially when XYZ magazine foams at the mouth about it, but when it turns out to be complete tosh we do not slavishly keep gaming it; we discard it an go on to something better.  In truth what appeared to have “high production values”, that glittering, shiny object that caught the eye of the magazine editor who then reviewed “the sizzle and not the sausage”, was in fact fools gold.   

It is my belief that when producing a set of rules “Production values” should be about how well the rules are themselves produced, not the paper they are printed on.  How much time is spent on research, how much time is spent playtesting, how clearly they are set out.  This is what truly makes a quality product.  

Do I want a return to the days of the grubby A5 pamphlet?  No, of course I don’t, and if I am honest our rules are produced on high quality glossy paper, and some even have glossy covers, however I do say that the product, i.e. the rules themselves and the resultant game, should be more important than what they look like when you first flick through them.  

I am sure that there are some truly excellent rules out there that comply with the principles that I have mentioned above; yes they are brilliantly researched, yes, they have been play-tested to death, they give a great game and yes, the DO have lovely colour pictures in them.  If I am again honest I did take a look at producing our latest set of rules, Le Feu Sacre in full colour.  Napoleonics is a fantastically colourful period and we could get some great shots to tart things up no-end.  But no matter how I attempted to square the circle, the rules were just the same, and ultimately the choice for the gamer would then be to pay £12 for the rules or to pay twice as much or more for the same product plus a few jazzy snaps.  Rather like paying twice as much for your car because the salesman threw in the album of his holiday photos with his missus in a bikini.

So, you’re right, there are no colourful photos in our rules, but what there are is rules that conform to our ideas of “high production values” that do not cost an arm and a leg to buy.  So come on you magazine editors out there, why not actually play the rules before reviewing them, and then comment on the game they produce rather than on just how shiny they are.  Is that too much to ask?

There is always a tremendous sense of satisfaction seeing the printer’s proofs for a new set of rules; it usually spells the end of a long period of hard work for me as editor getting everything print ready, as well as producing all the graphics and artwork.  This time, however, it was really something special. 

Le Feu Sacré going to it third edition marks another milestone on the path to getting back in print titles that were only available in PDF format.  Rather than just reprint the old edition Darren, the rules author, was keen to expand the rules to cover a much broader period, right the way through from the Revolution to the Hundred Days, incorporating the work that he has been doing with the earlier period in particular over the last four or five years. 

It is a great testament to just how good a job Darren has done with Le Feu Sacré.  In a market where new Napoleonic rules seem to be in vogue at present we are very pleased to be able to present a set of rules that has stood the test of time and that has evolved into what we think is one of our best and most popular rule sets. 

Le Feu Sacré is now available to order for just £12 for a hard copy, £7 for a PDF and £15 for both hard and PDF versions.  Official release date is this Friday, the 27^th of November.

With news that Le Feu Sacre III is about to head for the printers, we challenged the Lard Island New’s most experienced hack, Sam Shade, to track down Darren, the rules’ illusive author, in order to get a preview of what we could look forward to and his thoughts on the hobby generally. 

It was in after midnight when I found the small Speakeasy on the East side of St.Evenage.  On first glance the joint seemed to be in darkness, the only light coming from the Ford Cortina that was still burning after a normal Wednesday evening in the Hell-hole that the Doc called home.  I knocked twice and money exchanged hands before I was led into the small bar that was nearly empty.  At the counter a lonely figure gazed at the now empty bottle that stood along side a nearly drained glass.  I knew it was my man; the shabby sabretache that hung at his side and the worn Pelise had both confirmed it without need for words.   It seemed that my timing was perfect, if there was ever an opportunity to get the man talking, this was it.  “Barman, another bottle of the same”. 

The whisky was rough, even for an old hack like me, but Darren was ready to sing like a canary by the time his glass was full.  So, I gave it to him with both barrels.  Why, I asked, was Le Feu Sacre heading for a third edition, surely the last version was popular enough?

“You’re right, certainly Le Feu Sacre has been making a bit of a name for itself over the past four years since we published the second edition.  We reached the point where the hard copies were all sold out and whilst it made sense to reprint them as they were, we felt that it was an opportunity to take things further, especially with the developments that had happened over the last few years.”

“Due to my desire to game the campaigns of Suvarov we had produced some additional rules to cover the earlier part of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.  The first edition of LFS was very much about the latter part of the period, and now we had the opportunity to expand the rules to cover the entire period, from 1792 to 1815.  We floated this on the Yahoo Group and the answer was a resounding ‘Yes!’, so that’s what we’ve done.” 

The joint was empty now, but for me and the Doc, but the barman seemed happy to keep pouring the shots, so I pressed on.  So, what’s changed?

“Well, most of the changes have come in to accommodate the revolutionary period. To do this, we have used ideas that will be familiar to players of our ACW rules, They Couldn’t hit an Elephant. Units can have characteristics, such as being Stoic, having Élan, or being Brittle.  This affects their behaviour and allow the players much more flexibility (if they choose to use it) in fielding forces that really reflect historical units.  There are also more options as to how skirmishing is dealt with, I’ve paid attention to grand tactical formations and drill, along with options for commanders directing battalions.”

“Several areas are simplified, for example fighting in built up areas, and there are subtle tweaks to some of the factors just to streamline proceedings, but anyone who has played LFS before will find it an almost seamless change to go from the old version of the rules to the new one.”

“I’ve also taken the opportunity to change my writing style, from the pretty terse and functional wording of the originals, into a more descriptive and narrative format, I hope that will make it easier to use, especially as we have also changed the format to and I’ve tightened up on definitions and examples to make the rules clearer.  All in all the rules are significantly expanded due to covering a much wider time-span and are generally just better presented”.  

I nodded, it was clear that this guy was ready to spill the beans.  So, has anything remained the same, or is it all new?  

“Well after all I have just said has changed, I probably need to say that a lot hasn’t changed! The basic mechanisms and goals- fast flowing, emphasis on command and control and the impact of friction are all there.  The historical feel, something that people have always commented on is still very much to the fore, we have just attempted to add to that rather than change it.  Evolution rather than revolution probably best describes what we have achieved here.”

 Okay, so what size battles would you say that the rules worked best for? 

“Good question.  The “sweet spot” is to play an average size (French in 1812 excepted) Corps of 16 to 30 battalions with supporting cavalry & artillery, which will give you a game where you can achieve a decisive result in about three hours, so a normal club evening game.  That said, we have pushed it up to over fifty battalions per side on our refights  where we use a 1:100 figure scale instead of 1:50. This will be fine for a whole day’s gaming, we’ve done Austerlitz, Eylau, and Wagram at Lard Island Games Days or around the shows and they have been fantastic fun to play.” 

“Saying that the rules can expand to take on larger battles, one of the Yahoo group regulars, Bob Hewson in Hungary produced some amendments to play smaller games of just twelve battalions a side or less.  Amazingly enough entitled ”mini-LFS”. So the system is pretty robust to being mucked around with.”

I’d been to SELWG and I’d seen the game there – 15mm figures to the fore, so I had to ask, what scale figures did he recommend?

 “Well, to my mind anything from 15mm down to 6mm is ideal, indeed some of the 6mm games that I have seen recently around the shows are very impressive.  My collection is 15mm, Rich reckons I should sell it and go smaller, but I have too much time and effort, not to mention blood sweat and tears, invested in my 15mm stuff to change now.” 

 “28mm is possible, but I would have to say you’d need a big table and you’d need to make some changes to measurements.  There are some great Brigade and Divisional level rule sets out there that I think are better suited to the larger figures, or why not really do it properly and go with Sharp Practice?!”

So, did the Doc think that Napoleonic gaming was having a renaissance?

“I’m not entirely convinced that it’s ever been away!  Actually what I think has changed is that there are a lot of people who would like to play Napoleonics, but have been put off by either rules or a small number of gamers who get very worked up about “their” period.  Have a read on the various wargames fora, Napoleonic gamers can be a pretty abrasive bunch sometimes!  I think that many of these potential punters have been tempted back by a plethora of fantastic new figures and products like Sharpe Practice that have given them an entrée to the period and now they are looking to expand into the larger battles of the period” 

“It’s still the “one true period” in my book; no horse & musket period is as balanced with regards the three arms, actually even Rich agrees with that, and just because you don’t see loads of Napoleonic demo games doesn’t mean that we’re not playing it at our clubs & homes.”

 I could see the bartender was waiting now.  Only an inch was left in the bottle and soon the early morning sun would be rising over the tower blocks of St.Evenage.  It was now or never.  How, I asked as I poured him the last of the whisky, do your rules differ from all the others that are out there?

“Historically accurate, more enjoyable, faster, cheaper, the make the player more handsome and you have better sex.”  

Wow, these were big claims!  Then he laughed.    

“No, seriously, I’ll answer by explaining why Le Feu Sacre was written. I wanted a game which gave me the challenges that a Napoleonic commander had. That meant combined arms attack and defence added to a representation of real life friction in the command and control mechanism. So for me the game has to be above Division level and needs to be Corps level to allow for historical inclusion of favourite troop types, heavy artillery and cavalry, beyond the odd light regiment. To fit on a normal size table, that ruled out 1:20 figure scales and several popular rule sets.  That said, I wanted it to stay at the battalion level so you kept some “feel” for the period.  Once I had decided that this lead me to the conclusion that we were looking at twenty to thirty battalions per side.”  

“Then I knew that I wanted to play and finish these games in a normal club evening, so two to three hours. And of course, because I am as much an historian as I am a wargamer, the results had to be historically credible. This drove the combat mechanisms and “result oriented” focus to the rules. In particular, the simplified treatment of skirmishers, and the merging of musketry into combat calculations. This one, above all, marks LFS out as different. As a Corps commander, I’m concerned about whether my unit attacks and defeats the opponents, not if they choose to stop at fifty yards away to fire, or whether they use fire by rank, platoon or whatever. I think that in the most part I’ve succeeded. So if you want to play that type of wargame, where you are really faced with the same levels of problems and decision making of your historical counterpart then I think you’ll like Le Feu Sacre.”

So when will the rules be available?

“The final artwork is being done now, and the proof reading is under way.  The plan is to have the rules with the printer within the next ten days and then on the shelves in November”.

As I left the bar and walked among the tired, grimy streets I knew that Darren was right, I would enjoy Le Feu Sacre, and so would many other gamers who were looking to bring a bit of history to their tabletops.

Expect nothing but Tarleton’s Quarter from Jan Spoor of Maryland, with this cracker 0f a scenario for Sharp Practice in the AWI.  

Here Jan provides not just the scenario but also additional rules for this conflict, adding the flavour and character that Sharp Practice is all about. 

Click on the following link to enjoy Tarleton’s Quarter  

My only disappointment was the lack of church to lock Mel Gibson in!

Great news for those who have been awaiting the re-release of le Feu Sacre, our Napoleonic wargames rules for Division and Corps sized actions.  We are very close to getting these to the printer, just some final formatting and proof-reading to be done.    

As a taster Darren, the rules author, will be running a refight of Wagram at SELWG this coming weekend which will see Lardies from across the country gather at Crystal Palace to give the rules a final test-drive. 

For those at home and overseas who can’t make SELWG we can but tempt you with a look at the rules new cover. 

What’s the ETA?  Well, November is a certainty, so keep your eyes peeled here or on our web site for news of its arrival.