Snorkers, (Good Oh!)

I have been following the development of these oddly named rules for a couple of years as Desmondo, in his Shed of War, shared destroyer actions set in the North Sea and Java Sea on Bluesky.

Well, this looks jolly good I said to myself. Exactly what you've been looking for.

Nimitz is certainly fast paced,  but it is set at a bigger level with carrier groups throwing air strikes at each other. Trying to have a half dozen destroyers a side skirmishing is very quick and bloody. 

The title, Snorkers (Good Oh!) is a reference to the movie The Cruel Sea. 

You can buy your own copy here, at In Which They Serve Games.

I certainly have more than enough ships.

I suppose I might get tempted by North Sea or Mediterranean actions next.

Tank, Anti-Tank, and Anti-Air Assets

Some more additions to the Royal Mantovian Army, all printed for me by Don.

First up some replacements for the Sherman Fireflies, which honestly aren't doing badly, except because they are on attachment from my WW2 Canadian army, they are in plain olive green instead of the NATO Three Colour the rest of the Mantovian vehicles are sporting.

I settled on the Comet because of it's visual similarity to the Centurion, and British armoured units were still using them up to the early 50s as well.

In most rule sets it compares favorably to the Firefly, so it's more of an aesthetic switch than an  upgrade in capability. 

I can't decide if they are from entirely separate light armoured battalions, or a light squadron in a battalion of Centurions, or from a heavy squadron in an armoured recce battalion to support the Ferret armoured cars. Since the names I give my units are more reminiscent of a Napoleonic army than anything modern, it doesn't matter I guess. 

I added some camo netting made from cheese cloth soaked in white glue before priming.

To protect the battlegroup from marauding MiGs I got them an AA tank. Because I like coherency in my AFV formations I opted to add the Centaur AA tank (based on the Cromwell/Comet chassis) to the Squadron HQ troops. If there had ever been a Centurion AA tank, I'd have gone with that. Sadly there never was, not even in prototype. Which is too bad; a Centurion turret with four 20mm cannon jutting up to shoot down MiGs would look cool.

I have a second print that needs gun barrels in reserve.

Finally, the Battalion Armour Defense Platoons for the infantry get recoilless rifles. I couldn't find a 1/100 scale. stl for the British BAT1, but Don found this little gun.

On both prints, the carriage was so swarmed with supports I lost both, barely salvaging the wheels and the rotating bit the gun barrel attaches to.

But I clipped some T shapes out of left over plastic windows in the Bits Stores and glued everything on.

They're so tiny I boosted them up on some thick card so the wheels are even with the tops of the crew puddle bases. The crew are kneeling command figures and mortar men holding mortar bombs, which are close enough to look like a shell. 

Of course within 10 years everyone was putting these on Jeeps and Landrovers, but for now they're towed.

British Army ca 1959. 

The barrels are shorter than normal, but my excuse for that and not being on the bed of a Jeep, is so that they can be hauled up the side of a mountain. 

Return to Brequar Manor

Scott was up for playing anything, so I thought it was a good opportunity to set out my new expansion to the trench system I painted over the summer and run some Quar of Command and revisit the Brequar Manor scenario.

Since the Tollyn-Maeryn are providing the gun crews, I thought that the 8th Company, 22nd Fusiliers, Is-Caerten Gwyffyth ap Foldgyhth'wlech Officer Commanding, should be the defending force.

Scott ran the Crusaders, with appropriate speed and aggression. I played the defenders with appropriate bad luck.

Slightly more elaborate trench layout. Added a bunker for the HQ. Defender's Jump Off Points are the bunker and the three T intersections. Attacker comes in from the upper left corner of the table.

Crusaders moving up to make their assault

Sentry at MG post taken out and first squads are in the trench.

Base of fire element also moves up

Defenders begin deploying. The delivery bicycle is a bit impractical in the trenches.

Base of Fire/Support Element moving into the first trench.

Defenders rally and begin putting fire down on the advancing Crusaders.

A squad tries launching a counter attack from the bunker, but has to fall back.

Advancing along the trench

Bombers in the ruined house putting a lot of hurt on my HQ Squad. The Officer and Senior NCO are both wounded. This greatly reduced my Command and Control, limiting my options.

"See that geezer over there? Put some bombs on him!" In the official background, the Tollyn-Maeryn make use of rhyfle grenades, so I allowed them to use TWO actions to load and then fire rhyfle grenades, which were 2 firepower each and reduced cover. If my HQ Squad hadn't been pinned I was going to do a Group Action and have both squads fire rhyfle grenades and eliminate the Crusader Bomber Squad.

Support Element assaults the Bunker with it's Rhyfle and Bomber Squads, killing or capturing the defending squad, causing the Defender's Force Morale to collapse.

Nothing like a grenade through the firing slit to say "Let me in!"

Fun was had. The Crusaders won under every possible metric: casualties inflicted, objectives taken, Force Morale. 

Take aways:

• need to move the Tollyn-Maeryn that just arrived from Don to the front of the painting queue.
• paint some HMGs for trench support weapons. I think the Pulp Figures MGs from his Deck Guns set will be perfect.
• clarify the use of Big Quar Command Initiatives for Group Actions.
• add rhyfle grenades rules to the Player QRS
• make separate QRS for each different army maybe

Yokshie Tokubetsu Goes to Midgard

Weirdy-Beardy's Warrior Monks engaging Yokshie Tokubetsu's center

We got our Samurai out this weekend to try and see if Midgard would work for them. Finding a semi-biggish battle set of rules has been a problem. Ok, ok, I really haven't done much with my Samurai in a long  while, since this game of Seven Spears. Of course I haven't done anything with my Samurai, except buy (and then promptly put into storage) 6 boxes of Perry figures, since November of 2023. There were all those Quar grabbing my attention. 

Rebels on the left. The legitimate Lord, Yokshie Tokubetsu, on the right.

So Saturday afternoon I hastily scribbled out some lists for Yokshie Tokubetsu, the Lord of Tea, and the Ikko-ikki who are contesting his control of the region with their nonsensical complaints about oppressive taxes and how to properly perform the Tea Ceremony.

Yokshie Tokubetsu's sonae advancing. Formed units of 6. Skirmishers 3 to a base.

Samurai are Warriors with upgrade to Armour 4 and Spears as Tribute plus Steadfast.

Ashigaru with Yari are Warriors with Pikes.

Ashigaru with teppo are Massed shooters with Armour 3, Marksmen, Longbow and Hell's Breath 

Ashigaru with yumi (bows) are skirmishers with Longbows and Marksmen

The Mounted Samurai I made Heavy Riders (Knights)

The Hatamoto with yumi and naginata got Armour 4, Spears as Tribute, Pikes, Steadfast and Fearsome.

Hatamoto shooters got Marksmen and Hell's Breath.

Yokshie Tokubetsu himself is a Level 3, Mounted, with Battlesmiter and Today We Fight to Win.

He was assisted by five Taisho (Captains) who were all Level 2 with Battlesmiter.

This came to 362 points and 43 Reputation.

Ikko-ikki.

The Ikko-ikki are much more of a mixed bag, with everything from fierce ronin and monks swinging naginata (Brutal trait) to peasants clutching sharpened bamboo poles (Warrior Horde). As a force, they generally aren't as well equipped so the samurai were armour 3 and everyone was Reluctant. Some units were even downgraded to Armour 2. The bandit cavalry armed with bows were treated as Heavy Riders with Elf Bows, so not as shock charging as the Lord of Tea's cavalry, but the shooting helped them. They certainly held their own against Yokshie Tokubetsu's cavalry. The Bandit Chief was very tooled up; level 4, a legendary weapon and Today We Fight to Win. Their force came to 39 Reputation.

Bow armed Skirmishers foreground. Peasants beside them. 

After this game, when there was confusion over unit compositions and who was with which group, I had asked Don to print me some movement trays holding 6x 1" round bases. Some were neatly lined up 2x3, and others were more wiggly for orcs or skirmishers or peasants with bamboo spears. This naturally meant I had to quickly cut new measuring sticks for the different base width.

Yokshie Tokubetsu's Samurai doing surprisingly well against the Monks

Yokshie Tokubetsu (in yellow coat and helnet) rides to his doom. He is killed by an arrow leading his Hatamoto forward against the Monks with yumi.

The game went very well I thought. Lots of pushing to and fro. Things were looking very bleak on Yokshie's right as his cavalry fared poorly against the ronin. But in the final combat the bandit chief had his buntai of Mounted ronin destroyed around him, costing him an extra Reputation.

When the dust settled, the Ikko-ikki were at -1, and Yokshie Tokubetsu's heir was at 0. So a very tight game indeed. Although I made some errors with Reputation Tokens at the start, so this might not have been correct.

I messed up a few things as usual. I'm pretty sure I buggered up some Reputation. And I forgot that every hero had Battlesmiter and Yokshie Tokubetsu had Today We Fight to Win, which might have helped kill those monks.

I need to think about a trait for Hatamoto though. They should be harder to shift and fight to the death if their lord is killed. 

But results were very exciting and I'm now looking at those 6 boxes of Perry figures and planning what to paint next. Of course I'd been thinking about Sharp Katanas or Seven Spears when I made the order, so I've got a box of teppo and yumi commanders which will mess up unit numbers.

But, if organized into units of 3 and 6, I should, hopefully, be able to field an in house opponent for Yokshie Tokubetsu.