Lard Island News

It is very easy to be cynical about the value of on-line polls, but I can assure everyone that we are very flattered to see Charlie Don’t Surf win the TMP Award for the best set of historical rules for 2010. This great result maintains our fantastic track record, winning first place with Sharp Practice in the inaugural awards in 2008 and then coming second with Through the Mud and the Blood in 2009. Thanks very much to all of you from Lard Island.

The light from the lantern cast long shadows along the stone flagged floor. The air was musty and heavy with the pungent odour of the tallow from the ecclesiastical candles that the Dean had lit by the door. The dust of centuries shrouded the scrolls that lined the shelves, only in one spot was this broken, this the professor presumed was where the chronicle had been discovered.

His hand trembled as with a pen knife he gently prised away the wax seal. The parchment was stiff with age, and gently he unrolled it, laying it flat on the desk where countless clerics must have scratched out endless gospels with their quills.

Positioning the lantern to give the best light the professor began to read, his trained eye taking in the large and clumsy Latin and Brythonnic text.

“It has been four hundred and seventy three years since the birth of our Lord and five thousand seven hundred and thirty-two years since the world was created. Londinium is abandoned. Few attempt to live within the walls of the old city and they are prey to the pagans who have blighted this island for a generation. With the abandonment of Caer Llundain, as it is called in our language, what hope have we in Verulamium of defending our homes, our lands and the shrine of our saint from the Saxons? Are we not betrayed by one who we welcomed among us as a foederati, shall our citizens sleep whilst the menace of insidious Siddicus remains?

Yet who will come to our aid? To the north King Cynfelyn ap Arthwys of Calchwynedd looks with envy upon our riches and the price of his help would be too high. In the east Caer Colun is fighting for its very survival and Einion of Celemnion needs all of his men to keep the valley of the Tamensis clear from Caer Llundain westwards. None shall heed our call. We shall stand here and fight alone.

Appius
Annales Vervlamiae”

All of which means that the civilised and genteel citizens of fifth century St Albans are in trouble! (See the red star on the map below for the location of Verulamium). Insidious Siddicus, otherwise known as the Saxon Cyddic, has turned against his former masters as news of London’s abandonment leaves Verulamium as the undefended last outpost of the British Kingdom of Caer Llundain. Cyddic knows how weakly defended what is now Britain’s second largest city is and what wealth remains behind its walls, as indeed does King Cynfelyn of Calchwynedd who, some fifteen miles up the road at Dunstable is looking to incorporate Verulamium into his Kingdom.

The Saxons now control Kent and the Angles are fighting to establish settlements on the east coast around Colchester, Caer Colun and further north in Yorkshire. The Saxons are attempting to push up the Thames valley where they are engaged in a running conflict with the British Kingdom of Caer Celemnion whose capital is in modern Silchester, then Caer Chill.

Here then is the Britain of Dux Britanniarum. The Romans have been gone for over sixty years, the Saxons arrived twenty-four years ago as mercenaries serving the High King Vortigern, and have been fighting the Britons for seventeen of them. Vortigern is dead and Britain lacks a strong leader to unite its peoples and stop the influx of pagans from Germany.

A Playest Report
We enjoyed our first public outing into the Dark Ages yesterday with our usual blank-sheet-of-paper workshop approach. I had done some work at Lard Island on establishing some very basic figures for close combat and missile troops (archers in our game, but slingers as well) but we also had a long list of what we wanted to achieve from our first session.

The Pre-Match Warm Up
In particular we wanted to examine the pre-combat phase of the game, where the two sides glare at each other and shout rude things as a preliminary to getting stuck in. My first ever outing into the Dark Ages was back in the 1980s with Andy Callan’s Dark Age Infantry Slog rules, published in Miniature Wargames and demonstrated at Salute at Kensington Town Hall (Happy days, better than the “aircraft hangar with all atmosphere removed” environment at Excel). I don’t recall much of the rules apart from the fact that the figures were based on beer mats (and that might be my memory playing tricks on me) and that a large part of the game was about getting your team psyched up for the ensuing battle before letting them off the leash. This was something that I was keen to address, but in a slightly more colourful manner.

As a starting point I looked at four specific areas where you could attempt to stack the odds in your favour. Firstly was individual combat between champions. Anyone who has read Bernard Cornwell’s Arthurian trilogy will recall the emphasis on this in the books. I realise that this does not count as a typical historical source, but one does not have to look far in the poetry of the period, Saxon and British, to find that Cornwell has done his homework. This is an opportunity to add period colour and flavour, and to create an interesting little mini-game that will affect the battle to come.

Last night we saw the British champion Mullard Ap Artor defeat Wulfstan the Saxon Champion at the ford to the south of Verulamium. What we wanted here was a mechanism that involved the players in making some simple decisions about how much of their energy they were devoting to attack and to defence, and to create a system that allowed victory here to influence the way that the men present saw their chances for the ensuing battle. In this case we allowed a victory here to influence a force in the first round of close combat, having an opportunity to add a dice or two to the pot to reflect their belief levels being buoyed up by the success of their champion.

Secondly we looked at the effect of alcohol. You only have to read Y Gododdin or Beowulf to realise that these blokes were well oiled by the time they went into battle. Indeed the price a king or warlord paid in order to keep his warriors around him was to ensure that they were constantly plied with drink in his halls. They in turn repaid that hospitality by fighting and dying in his service.

We wanted alcohol to be a double edged sword; it has positives but also potential negatives. Last evening Cyddic the Saxon was horrified to see his champion slain, but to cheer up his men he untapped the mead and they knocked back a few on the banks of the Colne. This provided them with some advantages in close combat, but it also made them harder to control. It’s the “want to fight everyone” combined with “I’m the toughest bloke in town” mentality. Yes, you do want to fight everyone, but you probably aren’t the toughest bloke in town. So Cyddic found last evening when Aelfric lead forward two groups of men prematurely to take on the British shieldwall. Cyddic was then held up crossing the ford and the British could defeat their enemy in detail rather than fight them outnumbered.

The Kings Speech was a popular rule, and Maximus Boicicus, the leader of the Verulamium force, did his best to inspire his men with some splendid rhetoric. Maximus was a Level III leader so had a 3 in 6 chance of getting it right, and only a 1 in 6 chance of getting it wrong. Sadly his men had seen the giant leek routine too many times and he was booed off stage. A somewhat rudely named card was added to the Game Deck, and if this was dealt before Maximus’ own card then he lost his actions for that turn. Had he gone for a better line in rousing speeches then his status level would have been temporarily increased and his command radius extended.

Finally we considered the Gods. What is striking about the period is how incredibly religious (or superstitious, depending on one’s own approach) these people were. Reading Saint Germanus’ account of his trip to Britain in 429AD is a window on to another world. Germanus meets a bloke, baptises him and then tells him “Great news old chap, you’ll be dead within the hour and God, Jesus and all the angels are waiting up there for you”. Amazingly the bloke couldn’t be happier! Clearly we cannot ignore the impact of religion in these peoples’ lives. What we have created is an “inclusive multi-faith mechanism” that covers anything from Bishops invoking God to pagan priests slicing up a chicken to check out its entrails. The net result is that if the Gods are with you then your men will get better reaction results in close combat, if not then the results will be worse and any foederati, or mercenaries, fighting with you are going to be open minded to other exciting career opportunities.

So, we now have four pre-game options that the players may employ to psych up their forces, all of which have slightly different results, and all of which have potential down sides, albeit good results are more likely than bad ones. This fits into an initiative structure that allows this section of the battle to be variable in its duration. If your opponent has better champions than you, is a better orator than you or has better priests than you, the chances are that you want to dismiss all of that as mumbo-jumbo, so if you have the initiative you can do just that and begin the battle proper. If he’s still choking his chicken then it’s tough luck; he’s too late!

The Big Fight
Close combat in the Dark Ages is both complex and simple. There is much said about how we know very little (or nothing) about the warfare of the period, and consequently how we can just make it up as we go along. I would disagree. We are very short on written accounts of how battles were fought, what we do have is written in an heroic fashion and speaks more about the prowess of the leading figures than what actually happened, but it also contains gems of information that we can use as pieces in a jig-saw puzzle. In the first stanza we learn the following:

He was a man in mind, in years a youth,
And gallant in the din of war:
Fleet thick-maned chargers
Were ridden by the illustrious hero:
A shield, light and broad,
Hung on the flank of his swift slender steed:
His sword was blue and gleaming,
His spurs were gold, his raiment was woollen…

So we have a bloke with a sword and broad shield on a horse, if nothing else that tells us that we are dealing with a force with some capacity to fight mounted, and there are ninety odd more stanzas still to come! There is, of course, debate about when Y Gododdin was written, and taken alone as a source it is in danger of simply telling us what we want to hear, however outside of the normal texts that an historian would refer to we do find a large body of knowledge that is less controversial and rather more empirical. Archaeology.

Can You Dig It?
This is a big subject, and one that I intend to only cover very briefly here, but essentially archaeology can provide us with lots of information on what weapons were being used where and by whom at what date. Carbon dating is a massive boon in this respect and is incredibly accurate when dealing with stuff that is “only” 1500 years old. From this source we can establish the location of various cultural groups at different times, largely through graves, and this provides us with an indication of where the “front line” between Saxon England and sub-Roman Britain was at any point in time.

Intriguingly it can also provide us with an indication of how people living them saw themselves and their world. For most of my life I have lived in St Albans, twenty miles to the north of London and home to the Roman city of Verulamium. Verulamium was the third biggest city in Roman Britain and still exists under several foot of top soil in a large park and fields to the north of the existing city of St Albans. Incredibly the Roman city has only ever been partially excavated, and then largely in digs in the 1920s and 1930s where the emphasis was very much on finding the Romans, rather than anyone else who had lived there. It is assumed now that anything post-Roman or Saxon was probably simply ignored or, due to the greater emphasis on wood for building rather than stone, not considered relevant. It has only been in recent decades that anyone has considered “What came next?” and amazingly nearly every dig over the past twenty years has found evidence that Verulamium continued to flourish for many years after the withdrawal of Roman rule.

This should not be surprising. The “fact” that the Romans withdrew lock, stock and barrel in around 410AD and everything went to hell in a hand-cart within half an hour is now discounted. In truth the British had been running their own affairs for some considerable time by 410, and had taken responsibility for their own defence as well as their day to day administration. It is interesting to note that in Verulamium the discovery in the 1980s of a stone build barn dated at between 450 and 470 was found in conjunction with water pipes installed at around the same time and grain storage and processing facilities, all within the walls of the city. Clearly the post-Roman occupiers were now growing their food supplies within the walls of the city rather than on farms in the surrounding area. Indeed this image, below, shows us what the “city” would have looked like.

So, in a nutshell, using the dual sources for evidence, historical texts and archaeological evidence, we can piece together a much clearer image of what occurred in 5th century Britain. When developing the rules this has been our starting point as we are seeking not simply to produce a set of wargames rules, but to build them into a campaign system which will allow the gamer to explore the history of the period and the conflict between Briton and the invaders. We believe that by providing some historical backdrop the gamer is then able to better re-create the warfare of the period. To understand the issues that faced a Dark Age commander.

By way of example, last evening’s game saw the British field a significant number of Levy troops. In most wargames these are cannon fodder that we can chuck in to try to disorder the enemy before we send in our good troops. That’s fine; however what happens if your levy are also the people who work in the fields in the picture above who provide the food that keep the population fed? In the campaign system we are developing losing levy in any numbers will count significantly against any victory points you may get if you win the battle. As it is victory points that will gain you prestige, and consequently followers and wealth with which to equip them, losing your workforce is a BAD idea.

Which indeed presents another issue we wanted to address. Dark Age warfare was a tough and nasty place to be, but the idea that you’d see whole armies slaughtered on a regular basis is just not right. It is no good going back to your city and saying “Great news, we’ve won a terrific victory against the enemy, however all your husbands are dead”. Leading a Dark Age army is as much about knowing when you’ve lost as when you’ve won, and we were very pleased that the casualty levels we saw in yesterday’s game were sensible. Cyddic’s Saxons were clearly beaten despite only suffering total losses of around 15% to 20%. He could have pulled back, rallied his men and reformed them for another attack, but being more pragmatic he decided to slink off and plot for his next attack. However it will take him four months to make good his losses by sending back a ship to northern Germany, so he’ll only have one more chance to take on the citizens of Verulamium before winter comes.

On the British side the victory of Maximus Boicicus was such that over the next few weeks refugees from the abandoned Londinium have more than made up for his losses and even gained a couple of additional soldiers to add to his force, so he is already putting his foot on the first rung of the campaign ladder. At present he has three points on the path towards becoming a Warlord and two points on that to being declared King of his own minor Kingdom. He doesn’t have to make his mind up which path he will ultimately take until he gets to ten points, so we’ll have a couple more games before that is likely to occur.

If you’d care to read a game report then my old chum Sidney Roundwood has penned one for his ever popular Roundwood’s World Blog. His facts are wildly inaccurate, the game was set in 478AD, but then his is a mere Saxon pagan so we can’t expect too much. Here’s his account: http://sidneyroundwood.blogspot.com/2012/01/in-year-of-our-lord-452-ad.html

As part of our ongoing programme of updating the I Ain’t Been Shot Mum scenario supplements, we are very happy to announce that The Defence of Calais by Robert Avery is now available in v3 compatible format.
The supplement focusses on the epic battle for Calais in 1940 when British greenjackets held ut against the might of the Wehrmacht in order to protect Dunkirk perimeter just a few miles up the coast. Fourteen scenarios provide the gamer with all the excitement and flavour of this last stand in the finest tradition of British arms (and let’s face it, we’ve managed a few over the years!). And the good news is that this fantastic supplement is still just £7! You can check it out here: LINK

Lardy Gift Vouchers are the perfect way to get gifts for the gamer in your life. Starting from just £5 they can take the hassle out of festive shopping.

Get your gift vouchers now from our web site: http://toofatlardies.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=20&products_id=83

Background
Anyone who has read first-hand accounts of the men who served during the Second World War cannot fail to be impressed by the importance of leadership on the battlefield.  With the millions that donned uniforms to fight the core of professional officers and NCOs were rapidly expanded to incorporate men for whom the military had not been their chosen career, but who through an accident of history found themselves with a rifle in their hands. 

These mass, civilian armies were probably the least prepared for the type of warfare they were to encounter.  In previous centuries the inexperienced man could simply join the serried ranks and learn “on the job” under the watchful eye of his officers and NCOs.  Indeed such had been the case through until the open warfare of the 100 days campaign in 1918 when modern infantry tactics were truly introduced. 

Now warfare was different.  Men were relied upon to exercise initiative at the lowest level of command, the rifle section or squad.  The responsibility of command laid upon the shoulders of leaders with little or no experience themselves and with limited life expectancy.  Sidney Jary recalls his own arrival in France in July of 1944:

“Gentlemen, your life expectancy from the day you join your battalion will be precisely three weeks”.  The florid, moustached major who addressed us at the small reinforcement camp, a few miles from Bayeux, obviously had a misplaced sense of humour or he should have been sacked.  On second thoughts he definitely should have been sacked.”

Men similar to Jary would briefly lead their platoons and companies at the sharp end of warfare and would learn on the job, or they would die trying.  Success was naturally variable.  Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery wrote in his Memoirs in 1958:

“The first thing a young officer must do when he joins the Army is to fight a battle, and that battle is for the hearts of his men.  If he wins that battle and subsequent similar ones, his men will follow him anywhere; if he loses it he will never be any real good.” 

And in doing so simply echoed a great General from nearly a hundred years previous.  Robert E. Lee wrote to President Jefferson Davis in 1863: 

“No matter what may be the ability of the officer, if he loses the confidence of his troops, disaster must surely follow.” 

It is simple for use to view an army as a homogenous force of heroes.  As I write this on Remembrance Sunday in the United Kingdom it is easy to be persuaded that all soldiers were “Lions” even if one is disinclined to believe the insidious companion that all officers were “Donkeys”.  Yet to do so would be to ignore the fact that military organisations since the birth of civilisation have divided themselves, in simple terms, into leaders and followers; and for good reason. 

It is not necessary to accept the false premises presented by S.L.A. Marshall in his 1947 Men Against Fire to believe that men are not automatons, capable of absolute efficiency in every situation.  Marshall’s work is seriously flawed, to the point where it cannot be considered as anything other than his own personal opinion, however it is almost universally accepted, even among scholars such as Roger J Spiller who was the prime mover in exposing Marshall’s failings, that we cannot simply discount everything that Marshall claimed.      John Keegan in his defining work The Face of Battle produced in 1976 at the height of his career, wrote:

“Infantrymen, however well trained and well-armed, however resolute , however ready to kill, remain erratic agents of death.”  

Erwin Rommel in 1931 wrote in his Infantry Tactics that “War makes extremely heavy demands on the soldier’s strength and nerves”  for us to expect them to operate under those circumstances in the fashion that they would on the parade ground is to demand more than is possible.  Human nature will, in most stressful circumstances, dictate that for the average man self-preservation will be his chief motivator, and sadly this flies in the face of military efficiency.    But there is a solution.  Rommel continues: 

“Winning men’s confidence requires much of a commander…but once he has their confidence his men will follow him through Hell and high water.”  

General “Black Jack” Pershing in his Experiences in the World War, penned in 1931 was equally certain that leadership was the key.  He stated that “A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops” but went on to say that “on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralise the best of troops.” 

In fact it is impossible to read accounts of military history where leadership, at all levels, does not play a central part.  To magnify the importance of this leadership the battlefield tactics of the first half of the twentieth century placed more responsibility on the shoulders of junior leaders as the concept of the “empty battlefield” emerged.  Now decisions that would have been taken by senior officers a hundred years previous had devolved down to platoon or even section level.  It is little wonder that success was mixed. 

C3 in I Ain’t Been Shot Mum
When developing any set of rules it is undoubtedly the area of C3, command, control and communication, that has the greatest influence on how the game plays.  I am convinced that this is the element of any game that determines whether the individual player decides he likes or dislikes the rules as a whole; this is where we find out whether the rule developer and his audience are actually on the same wavelength.

What we wanted to do from the outset was to remove a level of abstraction from the rules.  Rather than simply allocate troops a command rating that somehow was wrapped up with their troop quality, we wanted to actually see our commanders, or at least the key ones who had passed the basic challenge of being respected by their men.  Let’s take a look how that works within the framework of the card driven system. 

Play Your Cards Right
Unlike a game of poker or pontoon, the card deck in I Ain’t Been Shot Mum does not have a fixed number of cards.  For each game the deck can be tailor made to suit the specific scenario, thereby allowing us huge variety within one simple system. 

At its most basic the system depends on unit cards and the Tea Break card.  The Game Deck is shuffled each turn and the cards dealt out one at a time.  Here’s that basic deck below. 

When one of your platoons’ cards is dealt all of the sections or squads within it are activated.  They can move, shoot, spot or any combination of all three depending on their basic quality and their level of losses.  The cards then keep getting dealt until the Tea Break card comes out.  Once that happens the turn ends.  Any platoons that haven’t been activated can now fire at any enemy within short range or spot any enemy who is glaringly obvious, but they don’t get to move or try to spot better concealed opponents.  Any platoons who have no enemy at short range or within obvious line of site do nothing, they lose their turn.  The law of probability says that any one platoon will be activated in half of the turns in the game, in the other half they will do nothing or just engage any close range enemy. 

This is where some gamers begin to jump up and down and start using words like chaos.  And they are right, of course it’s chaos!  What we have is basically all of our troops on the board but no officers and NCOs present.  Kind of like a war where anyone that knows the plan doesn’t turn up.  Our troops are being circumspect and advancing cautiously, and then tend to get stuck in firefights.  What we need in there is some leadership to get things moving.

So, let’s look at the Game Deck once we take into account our key leaders.  Remember, not all officers and NCOs are represented, just those larger than life characters that inspire those around them.  What we’ll do is just focus on the Allied first platoon in order to keep this simple. 

Now we see that for just this first platoon we are adding two “Big Men”, they are the key leaders.  This is officers and NCOs, from Corporal upwards.  Sidney Jary was candid when he said “Good soldiers and particularly NCOs can influence young officers as much as they themselves can influence their soldiers”, so we want both in there if they are up to the job.  In this example let’s assume Big Man One is Lieutenant Ian MacLeish, and Big Man Two is Sergeant Angus McBride.  MacLeish is a Level III Big Man, meaning he can do three things when his card is dealt, whereas McBride is Level II so can only do two things. 

Now we can see that adding these two chaps to the Game Deck all of a sudden makes Allied Platoon One a much more dynamic force.  If MacLeish’s card is dealt he can use his three initiatives to activate three sections within his command range, 9”, so that allows him to lead all three rifle sections forward each time his card is dealt.  Units don’t get activated twice in a turn, but suddenly probability is telling is that Allied Platoon One is now likely to be activated two turns in every three.  If we add Sergeant McBride with his we find that the chances of most of this platoon doing something in this turn are enhanced even further.   What is more we can look at the two leaders doing some clever fire and movement stuff.  Imaging leaving McBride with one section and the platoon 2” mortar as a base of fire while Lieutenant MacLeish leads the other two rifles sections to outflank the enemy.  Both groups have a good chance of being activated in each turn, 66% probability across the course of the game.  Not a bad start for our platoon. 

Of course the only job for our key leaders is not just getting troops to activate.  They can also do things like spot the enemy and rally units to keep them combat effective.  We can even add cards to assist them in this if the quality of the unit warrants it.  So we could add a Dynamic Commander card which allows the Key leaders to move more efficiently among their troops to rally them when things get tough.  We could even as a Rally cards to allow them to do that even more effectively, but that would be for a really top quality unit.  Here we’ll limit it to the Dynamic Leaders card, but we’ll also add a Mortar Bonus card to increase their rate of fire as this company is pretty effective with their light mortars.  Allied Platoon One will have to share this with the rest ot the company but if they are at the forefront of the action then the company commander will no doubt be choosing to use it for them.   So the cards in the final deck that Allied Platoon One can utilise looks like this. 

As can be seen what originally looked like chaos with just the platoon card and the Tea Break card looks a lot more organised and efficient now.  Of course there will always be an element of chance in warfare, you may well want Platoon One to rush across that field but the run of the cards mean that they sit tight for this turn.  That, I am afraid is the friction of war.  Not everything goes to plan all of the time.  Sometimes troops get spooked by movement in a hedgerow that is actually nothing more than a few starlings or a gust of wind.  What you do know is that next turn your key leaders are stacking the Game Deck in your favour and allowing you to work towards achieving victory.   

By using the Game Deck to reflect the ability of our forces we can really fine-tune each scenario to replicate real units from the pages of memoirs and the real leaders who led those brave men to victory.  Far better, we think, than simply “Elite Troops, Leadership Rating 3″.

There are two types of supplements that are available for IABSM, the four main theatre specific supplements and the scenario supplements.  Both can still be used with the rules, however some changes will be needed.  Let’s look at two two different types.

1.  The Theatre Specific Supplements.
There are four of these available, Blitzkrieg, Gotterdammerung, Footsteps of the Legions and The Shadow of the Rising Sun.  These contain some sample force guidelines, a guide to using your force covering the numbers of Big Men and the cards to include in the Game Deck as well as AFV and weapon stats for your forces.  We  will be replacing these with new Handbooks over the coming months with the first, Gotterdammerung scheduled for release in January.   These will be much expanded to allow the fielding of a much broader range of force and also to include sample scenarios and articles, so watch this space for the first of them after Christmas. 

2.  The Scenario Supplements
We have a significant array of scenario supplements available penned by a number of different authors.  We do hope to be able to uprgade these over a period of time but that is likely to be a lengthy process and, if I am honest, probably one that will never be fully complete.  That said, all of these work with some VERY simple adjustments, as we’re about to find out. 

How to Update the Supplements
Converting existing scenarios or the four main supplements to the new version of the rules is a simple process.  The following guidelines should be used.

Big Men
This is probably the main area of change as Big Men have moved from dice to represent their abilities to Levels.  The conversion of these is pretty unscientific, but is based on the principle that Officers and Senior NCOs get a slightly better rating than Junior NCOs as they have more responsibility.  We use the following guidelines.

Officers and Senior NCOs. 
By this we mean any officer of Second Lieutenant and above and any Sergeant who is not commanding a section or squad, so Platoon Sergeant, CSM or RSM in British parlance.

 Junior NCOs
This refers to NCOs who are leading a section, squad or weapons team.  Normally these will be Corporals or Sergeants. 

 You may get some variations on themes, such as DAv+1 or D4-2, for any minus adjustment or +1 just count these as their dice type and ignore the plus or minus.  For anything with a +2 then count them as the dice type above, so D4+2 would be considered as a D6.

 Armour and Anti-Tank Guns
Due to some subtle changes in the way IABSMv3 treats armour we will be re-evaluating all stats in the forthcoming handbooks.  For now the old handbooks are useable, however some changes are needed.

Weapon Strikes
Increasing all weapon strike factors by 1 is recommended.  So, for example, an anti-tank gun with a strike of 7 will now have a strike of 8.  This applies to anti-tank rifles, but does NOT apply to infantry sections using their inherrent close quarter anti-tank capability.

AFV Morale
There is no scientific way to determine this, but the following should act as a guide 

 AFVs without a radio net should have their morale set one level lower than normal.

AFV Actions
AFVs will normally have three Actions to use when activated.  It is possible to have some forces with four Actions but these should be limited to very confident veterans.  We have found that giving Panzerjägers four Actions allows them some “shoot and scoot” options, but again this should be limited to high quality crews. 

So, that’s it.  Nothing too painful and all should now run smoothly with the new rules.

Well, I have just about recovered from the trip to Crisis, as always it was a hectic weekend which combined great wargaming, great food and great company.  This was the first year we have taken seven of us along, and the chaps played a huge part in helping us with the Best Participation Game of the show.  Here’s a snap of five of the ugliest Lardies with the trophy.  Elton wasn’t present as he was just TOO ugly.  I have no idea where I was, but nice to see they went ahead without me!

  From left to right we have Biffo, Noddy, Fat Nick, Harpers and Sid.  Quite how the camera worked with that lot gurning at it I will never know.  Anyway, the luxury trophy stands resplendent on the table before them. 

Our trip began at 08.45 on Staurday when I picked up Sid, Nick then RV’d with us at 09.30 and we loaded up the Lard Bus and hit the road.  Two hours later we arrived at the Channel Tunnel depot and grabbed a quick Burger King before embarking on the train under the channel.  Sid had never been under the sea before and spent much of the journey looking out for sunken galleons and fish.  It was a shame for the poor lad. 

Anyway, we got to France by about 13.30 and hit the coast road as it heads past Dunkirk up to Ghent and then goes round the bend to Antwerp.  Noddy, Biffo, Harpers and Elton were half an hour behind.  We got to the hotel at around 16.30, scrubbed up and met in the bar at 17.30 enjoying some light refreshments before heading into Antwerp to sample the bacchanalian delights.  In truth we were pretty moderarte and just hit a couple of pubs before getting some excellent dinner in one of our favourite old Inns.  We headed back and hit the sack around 1150.

So, up bright and early and a lavish breakfast of continental design.  Cold meats and cheese, breads, jams and conserves, croissants, juice, coffee, eggs and the likes served to set the Lard team up for what would be a tough day at the table.  We got to the venue at about 0800 and set up in pretty short order.  It was nice to have a bit of time to chat to some of the traders and do a bit of shopping before the show opened its doors. 

1000 and the doors opened to a truly cosmopolitan crowd, Holland, Belgium, Germans, France, the UK, the US and Canada were all represented.  For those considering travelling to Crisis you may rest assured that English is the lingua franca and it is spoken perfectly.  What is wonderful is the friendly nature of the show, something that radiates from the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp and infects everyone there.  It really is the most friendly show I have ever been to and as a result the games are a huge pleasure to run.  The morning game saw Anti Tank Ace Gunter Mensch take out an incredible 11 Soviet tanks, whilst the afternoon saw some hectic armoured action as a German force attempted to break out of the Kessel.  The games were tremendous fun and filled with laughter and good natured banter.  I am told that at times the crowd was two deep around the game, so it is undoubtedly due to the enthusiasm of the participants who joined us that IABSM won the prestigious award.  Thanks to you all. 

By the end of the show I’d been on my feet for seven hours and my voice had almost completely gone.  I had hoped to get a game of Saga in during the day, they were on the next table, but this never happened.  I did, however, get a chat with Darren of the Beasties and we talked through the game in some detail. 

So 1700 came and the joyful punter retired back to their respective homes whilst we cleared up.  The Lard Bus was soon loaded up and by 1730 we were in the hotel.  I had a couple of beers while my adrenalin levels dropped a bit after being “on stage” all day, then a quick shower, change of clothes and we met up in the bar again.  It was very pleasant to meet up with the chaps from North Star and have a few beers with them.  We headed off about 2000 and had  a quick beer in town before our table in the Peederstaal was ready.  Horse steak for most of us, except for veggie Noddy who chewed on a turnip and softy Sid who went for beef.  A splendid meal ended at 0000 and then a couple of bevvies in the pub round the corner until 0100.  Here’s a snap of all of us in the boozer. 

 As we sat and enjoyed the great company and excellent Belgian beer we worked out that this was the fourth time we had attended and the third time we had won the best Participation Game trophy which is a great honour.  Unfortunately Sid’s terrain let us down on the other year.  It’s at times like this that you learn who you can really cut the mustard and come up with the goods.   You can see some of Sid’s non-award winning terrain on his blog here:  http://sidneyroundwood.blogspot.com/

You can also see some snaps of our game and the other games present at Crisis.  He may not be very good at making terrain, but he can take a decent photo. 

So thanks to the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp for hosting yet another excellent show.  Thanks to all of the punters who voted with their feet and won us the fantastic award.  It was a brilliant launch for the new version of the rules.  We had to get re-runs of the cards and token sets to cope with demand, so thanks to all who bought the rules.  We have had a number of invites from clubs around the continent a a result, so hopefully we’ll see you all across the channel soon.

It was Friday evening when the terrible news about the demise of Battlegames came through on Nick’s Blackberry.  We were sat in the lounge of the Holiday Inn in Antwerp discussing the next day’s game and the mood around changed from boistrous fun to real shock.  It has been said that as a hobby we’ve never had it so good with the selection of figures, terrain, books and magazines, and largely thta has been true.  However the big bonus for wargamers is the think you’re looking at now; the internet.  We can shop 24-7, we can read articles by any number of bloggers, see any amount of wargaming “porn” produced by some of the hobby’s finest artists, and, indeed, by some of its worst.  What the internet does not have is an editor who filters out the chaff from the grain, the good from the bad and indifferent.  Sadly it seems that the skill of only presenting the best is much undervalued, and without a shadow of a doubt Henry did that in spades. 

For six years I have subscribed to Battlegames.  Not on the basis that every article in every edition of the magazine was absolutely up my metaphorical street, but because it was instantly clear to me from the outset that here was a magazine that was well thought out, well balanced in its content and without doubt well worth supporting on the basis that if we don’t back it we will ultimately lose it.  Sadly that has proved to be the case.  Having been a wargamer since the 1970s I’ve seen Battle for Wargames, Practical Wargamer and several other short-lived publications all go the same way.  I guess the blindingly obvious moral of the story is that if you want a magazine to survive then it’s no good cherry picking the editions you want to read, you need to really back the product in order to secure its long term future.  There’ll be plenty who don’t like that advice, but it’s a simple fact. 

Of course behind this sad loss for the hobby is a personal tragedy.  Henry has lost not only the magazine that he worked so tirelessly to perfect, but also his job and his income.  At any time in life this would be a painful experience, but for a man no longer in the first flush of youth this must be doubly daunting, especially with the economic situation.  The fact is that Henry has been supporting the magazine with what little savings he could amass for some considerable time now.  The fact that the curtain has finally fallen is a reflection of the stark fact that he has no more money to keep the magazine alive.  What is therefore sickening it to hear a tiny but vociferous minority calling him a “crook” as they will no longer be receiving the balance of their subscription.  I hope that they take a few moments to consider that Henry has lost everything by comparison to their loss of a few tens of pounds.  Somehow I doubt that self-centred, selfish and arrogant people like that are capable of such actions. 

I wish Henry the very best of luck for the future and would like to thank him for all of his hard work when producing a magazine that had broad appeal across the hobby, that was not just a vehicle for advertisements and adverticles for a clique of companies.  I do hope that some form of e-magazine can continue, but Henry now needs to focus on putting food on the table and maintaining a roof over his head.  Whatever happens next we will look back on Battlegames as a bright star of quality that lit our firmament all too briefly.

STOP PRESS  —–STOP PRESS

Well, hopefully we spoke too soon.  It may well be that Henry has been able to find a solution to his issues.  We have little information just yet, but the news on the steet is that he is in negotiations that may prove fruitful.  If that is the case then we can only hope that this incident will have raised the profile of a great magazine and new subscribers can be found.  If we don’t support hobby magazines we’ll be left with nothing.

It’s a busy week, nay a hectic week, on Lard Island.  We are getting ready for our inaugural game at Crisis this coming weekend, all the figures and vehicles are now ready, the buildings and terrain features are drying out rady for the photo shoot tomorrow night.  In addition to that I have been working on a few bits and pieces for the rules, just a few freebies that people might find helpful. 

Firstly we have the shiny new Blinds for you to download.  At present these are only available in the classic IABSM blue and green.  As we produce the Handbooks we’ll be making more of these for you to download with all sorts of different nationalities represented.  For now, her’s the basic sets.  You can have then in Letter size for North America or A4 for the rest of the world. 

Blinds IABSM A4  These are the A4 ones

Blinds IABSM Letter  And here’s the Letter size ones for North America

These should come out at 6.25″ by 4″ without any need to scale your printer. 

Secondly I have completed the Low Ink Printer friendly version of the rules.  One of the disadvantages of going full colour is that it can be expensive to print them out, so we have sorted out a Low Fat edition which will me much kinder to your pocket.  If you have bought the PDF edition of the rules and would like this just drop us an email viw the web site.  We’ll send it back in short order.

Keep your eyes firmly on this site as we’ll have more news very soon about more helpful items such as the playsheet which will be available.

Richard

We’re gearing up for our official launch game when we demonstrate the rules for the first time at Crisis in Antwerp on the 5th of November.  We took a break from our preparation to take a few snaps of how the new Game Tokens work in a snowy scene somewhere on the Russian steppes. 

When designing the tokens for IABSM we were very keen that they were simple and intuitive to use.  To make it even easier we thought we’d have a bit of a run through here and show them in action. 

Some tokens are a bit too obvious to need an explanation; even Nick can understand them without pictures.  The Low on Ammunition marker and the Aiming Point marker for artillery and mortars just do what they do.  You place them on the table next to the relevant unit or where you want your support units to fire at.  Enough said on them. 

More interesting are the Pinned and Suppressed markers.  These are precisely the same, but if a unit is Pinned it will have one marker to show that, if suppressed it will have two.  At the end of each turn one marker will be removed, so a Pinned unit reverts to its normal state and a Suppressed unit becomes Pinned.  In the picture below the unit on the left is Pinned, on the right it is Suppressed.

The AFV damage markers are new to the rules as is the Loss of Action marker.  In the picture below you’ll see a Panzer III firing on a Soviet T34 in the bleak mid-winter.  As you can see, the Soviet tank has two green spanners to indicate some kind of damage that restricts its movement.  When attempting to move any dice rolled lose two pips, so a tank rolling 4 and 6 which would normally move 10” now only moves 6”. 

With the new rules we also have a chance of the AFV breaking down.  If the Soviet tank rolled nothing better than 2’s on its movement dice then it would not move at all and would have broken down. 

Let’s look at the Panzer III.  You can see that has a red spanner next to it.  This indicates that it has been completely immobilised.  It can’t move for the rest of the game.  What’s more the fact that it has a red marker means that any Shock it takes subsequently is doubled, the crew being far more likely to abandon their vehicle. 

Next we can look at the little target markers, again red and green, that affect how well an AFV fires.  Here we can see the same tanks again, but this time the Panzer III has picked up a green target marker indicating some limitation on its accuracy when firing.  It may be that the sighting optics have been damaged, it may just be that the gunner is wounded or simply shocked by the action thus far.  When this tank fires it will do so with a -1 on its roll to hit.  So if this tank rolled 4 and 3 to hit, a total of 7, it would count that as 6. 

We can also see that there is a green star with the number “1” on it to the rear of the tank.  This indicates that in the next turn it will have one less Action than normal.  So if it had just two Actions it could possibly fire an aimed shot at any target in its arc of fire and then fire a snap shot.  It couldn’t fire two aimed shots. 

So that’s really it.  The simple “traffic light” green and red system should be very simple to use and thereby avoid the need for the rules to be checked for effect.  The tokens are also discrete enough to not clutter up the table with gaming litter.  We place ours either on the rear deck of the AFV or directly behind the tank in order to minimise the visual impact.