Pithead Miniatures Soviet tank riders

 I'm using the pre-painted World Tank Museum T-34's for my Kursk project.  Finding these tanks was a stroke of luck because the time and money that would be required to field all the tanks required in metal would have been a project-killer.  The plastic WTM T-34 tanks come in three different paint jobs and the turrets even swivel. 

To add some variety to the plastic tanks, I'm customizing them with accessory packs made by Pithead Miniatures.  These packs have tank commanders, tank riders, fuel tanks, and other stowage.  I'm already using the tank commanders to make my command tanks stand out on the table (command stands also have circle bases).  Below are a few pictures of some of the tank riders I've painted and glued to my tanks.

Brief Kursk Book Review: Demolishing the Myth

 "Demolishing the Myth" is a book that I've been waiting to get my hands on for a few months now.  As those who follow my blog know, I have been deeply involved in designing a Field of Battle: World War II (FOBWW2) scenario to simulate the LAH 1st SS Panzergrenadier Division's attempt during the Kursk battle to capture Prokhorovka Station.  FOBWW2 is a Piquet-family game that puts you in the seat of a division commander.  The smallest units are companies.

"Demolishing the Myth" was written by Valeriy Zamulin in 2005.  Zamulin was the Director of Research at the Prokhorovka Museum and only recently has this book become available in English.  Stuart Britton did an excellent job translating this book to English and the transition from Russian to English is flawless.  The book offers a Soviet perspective of the fighting around Prokhorovka and gives a fresh look at a battle that previously has been described mostly from the German point of view.

The book is 630 pages and each page has a nice, glossy feel to it.  The book is extremely heavy and I actually weighed my copy in at 4 pounds!  It contains 38 contemporary color photos taken by the author of viewpoints from the battlefield (BELOW).  Black and white photographs of action scenes and important leaders are present throughout the book.

 There is an excellent map section (9 maps) that clarified for me the different units involved in this very confusing battle (BELOW).

 And there are tons and tons of charts recording the strengths and casualties by vehicle type and troop rank of the German and especially the Soviet units involved (Example BELOW).  Everything you wanted to know to develop a wargaming scenario.

The author writes from a Soviet perspective and often refers to the Germans as "the enemy" and Soviet units as "our"  units, but I hardly cared.  I was too blown away by the insight he gives into the different brigades, the conflicts between the leaders, the mistakes made and heroes proven on the battlefield.  Zamulin combines tactical descriptions of the action during the battle with personal accounts of the men who fought there.

I was particularly moved by a passage where the book described  how the uniforms of the tank crews became soaked with fuel and grease while they worked on their tanks.  Then when they entered combat, direct fire and artillery would hit the T-34 and often puncture the oil and gas tanks.  Gas would drain into the interior of the tanks and soak the crews.  Only the slightest flame or spark would  ignite the uniforms of these brave crews.  Horrifying.

I recommend this book greatly, but I will warn buyers that it is very focused on the Prokhorovka portion of the Kursk battle.  If you're into Prokhorovka like I am, this book will become your bible.  When it arrives, you will thumb through it like a hungry wolf, trying to decide which chapter to devour first.

Demolishing the Myth Amazon Link

So using this new knowledge, I made some adjustments to my own "Drive on Prokhorovka" scenario.  I will post in a few days on this current play test of the scenario.

(BELOW) Germans prepare their initial assault on Hill 241.6.  Prokhorovka is on the horizon.   I added the small villages along the Psel valley to the left of the table.  The 99th Tank Brigade is now ensconced in those villages and the 26th Tank Brigade is on Hill 241.6.  The village of Storozhevoe is tucked into the woods now (defended by the 169th Tank Brigade) and the rail line is now curved.

(BELOW) Dead German markers ready for deployment, sir!

 (BELOW)  Only half of the Germans are deployed!  The rest show up on the next morning.

(BELOW) I've started using these neat Litko explosion markers for suppression and to mark when a unit was eliminated...I'm very happy with them.   I always try to avoid using beads and other markers to represent things on the table.  I'm now using smoke for unloaded, the explosions for suppression, and dead guys to represent stand losses on both sides.

 (BELOW) The German dismounted panzergrenadiers benefit from the Superior Firepower card.  Two Soviet infantry units are destroyed and another one is suppressed.

(BELOW) A normal Firepower card results in general fire from the tanks and infantry of 1st LAH Division.  More suppressions and casualties are the result.

(BELOW) This panzergrenadier group thought it might be able to clear out the 99th Tank Brigade units along the  Psel River, but just like their historical counterparts, the Soviets responded with a hail of effective fire, suppressing all of the infantry in the group.  Not so easy, eh, Hitlerites!?

(BELOW) A German Command and Control card drops a spotting round on the Soviets and the on the next card, in drops the Nebelwerfers!!!  Stalin's organs eat your heart out!!
 

Piquet Archon: Studying the Viking Wars

All right. I've always been interested in the Ancient periods, but the only 28mm "Ancient" army I ever painted was a Hiberno-Norse Viking army I painted for WAB's Shieldwall book.

Since I have these nice Vikings all painted, based, and ready to go, I thought I might offer my exploration into the Piquet Archon rules as a mini-review of the book for the curious.

The Archon 2 book is the second edition of the Ancients supplement for the Piquet Master Rules. Written by Eric Burgess, the book itself is 206 pages and contains rules and army lists (campaign musters) for approximately 140 armies from 1700 BC to 1283 AD. Chinese, Mayans, Visigoths, Romans, Trojans...they're all in there. The Asian armies are also well-represented.

Each army period is organized and contains the various army lists that would traditionally fight in that region and period. I'm going to focus on the "Viking Wars" period. It is one of the smaller periods and it only lasts from pages 192 to 194. It contains three army lists: Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, and Normans.

Shieldwall is obviously important for this period and as with many of the special formations used in the time periods covered by this supplement, there is a special rule for this formation. Units may enter or leave the shieldwall formation only when the Deployment Sequence Card is flipped. Shieldwall gives extra protection from missile fire and in melee. The disadvantage is that units in shieldwall move half and do not get the UP1 bonus for initiating melee.

The intro for each period summarizes the military history of the period and lists the historical battles and time of occurrence for each battle.

The next section is the Sequence Deck section. This establishes the Sequence Deck construction for each army. The Viking army has more Melee cards, more Heroic Moment cards, and good Terrain movement cards.

The Saxons have shaky cards. They have Courage cards which force them to check their morale and Milling Around cards which waste their time.

The Normans have a strong Sequence Deck which does not match the heroism or melee capacity of the Vikings, but gives them good cavalry action and overall flexibility.

The Army Characteristics Table again places the Saxons at the bottom of the pile. They get less morale points/ACD cards per unit than their two opponents.

Both the Vikings and Saxons get 2 command groups. Only the Normans get 3 command groups. Can you say "Cavalry Maneuver Group?"

There are several special sequence cards that apply to armies in this period:

Battle Lust - This card acts as an extra Melee Resolution Card (it allows you to fight a melee). Units that are affected by the Battle Lust card get an extra bonus for melee and they must always pursue. Other units affected by Battle Lust who are within a move of an enemy unit immediately move into contact and must initiate melee if possible.

Heroic Challenge - This card allows the player to make a personal challenge with one of his leaders against an opponent's leader. Refusing the challenge costs a significant penalty in morale chips. Losing a leader to a challenge causes the normal penalties for the death of a leader.

Pillage and Loot - Ill disciplined units will have to check when this card appears. If they fail the check, they head toward the enemy's camp and loot the camp until they are brought under control by their commanders.

Uncontrolled Charge - Affected units will involuntarily move toward disordered or routed units and melee them immediately. There is a chance to remove the card from the deck after it appears.

Undisciplined Advance - If the army commander fails a Leadership Roll, his entire army will begin to involuntarily advance toward the enemy. They will only stop advancing once the general successfully makes his leadership Roll. There is a chance to remove the card from the deck after it appears.

Ineffective Missilery - Missile fire from militia units is reduced by one die for the turn. There is a chance to remove the card from the deck after it appears.

The armies each get individual army composition lists for their forces:

THE VIKINGS

Most of the Viking units are bondi units of varying quality. These are the average Viking troops. They are able to form Battle Line, Battle Order, and Square. They can also lock their shields to form shieldwall.

You can upgrade 1 or 2 bondi units to huscarl units. These units are much higher quality than the bondi.

(Quick note: In Piquet, units are rated by a die type that they use for Fire, Melee, and Morale. The die the unit uses in a particular test is modified up and down in size depending on the circumstances of the test. The unit's die is then rolled against the opponent's die. In this example an average bondi unit might be rated No Fire/D8 Melee/D6 Morale while a determined huscarl unit might be rated No Fire/D12+1 Melee/D12 Morale.)

You can also have 1 or 2 archer units.

There are Berzerker rules for the Vikings. Two units can be designated as Berzerkers before the battle begins. They are great in melee and are treated as fearsome, but they have no armor. Alternately, the Viking commander can make up to two bondi or huscarl units decide to go berzerk during the game on a Heroic Moment card. Inspired by their warchiefs, the troops fly into a rage.

Berzerkers are powerful units and when they are successful, they inspire the army, but if they lose a melee or rout, their defeat can have a devastating effect on the overall morale of the Viking army. Berzerkers are a gamble and they can win a battle for the army, but the army looks to them for inspiration and if they suffer a setback, they can lose a battle.

Vikings are affected by the following cards: Battle Lust, Heroic Challenge, Pillage and Loot, and Uncontrolled Charge. Obviously, it is easy for this army to get overenthusiastic and out of control on the attack.

THE ANGLO-SAXONS

This army is an interesting one.

Half of the army can be housecarls. They are better than Viking bondi and not as good as Viking huscarls, but there are a lot of them. The housecarls can form Battle Line and Battle Order. They can also lock their shields to form shieldwall.

The fyrdmen and a few bow-armed skirmishers make up the rest of the Anglo-Saxon army. The fyrdmen are mostly bondi-quality, but some are even worse. These troops represent the common Saxon regular militia. The fyrd can form Battle Line and Battle Mass (a less organized Battle Order). They can also lock their shields to form shieldwall.

The Anglo-Saxons have one more trick up their sleeves. Their housecarls and fyrdmen are armed with darts. Darts represent various short range missile weapons that the Saxons can throw at their opponents as they get close. These missiles give the Saxons some chance to disrupt attackers as they approach their battle lines, especially if the Saxon shieldwall is arrayed along a superior position like a ridge.

Anglo-Saxons are affected by all of the cards for this period. Only the housecarls are affected by Battle Lust. This army obviously prefers to stay in shieldwall and await the attack with its missile fire, but the various involuntary movement cards will make it difficult to keep the Saxon troops from losing patience and breaking ranks. A poorly timed Ineffective Missilery card could also be devastating.

THE NORMANS

Approximately half of this army is stirrup-equipped heavy cavalry. Heavily armored and bad news for unprepared infantry. The stirrups give the cavalry an UP2 modifier when they initiate melee rather than the normal UP1.

One skirmish unit can be infantry armed with heavy crossbows. A few skirmish units can be armed with advanced bows.

The remaining units in the Norman army are sturdy spear-armed infantry. They are equipped with a mix of heavy and medium armor.

The disciplined Normans are only affected by the Pillage and Loot card.

So there you have it.

The Vikings are aggressive and can gamble with a few berzerk units on the assault, but they can easily lose control of their assaulting troops.

The Anglo-Saxons rely on their plentiful housecarls to bolster their shieldwall, but the poor discipline of the troops, especially the housecarls, can ruin the best Saxon defensive plans. Hello! Hastings?!?

The Normans have good troops and excellent cavalry, but they should wait until their enemies are out of shieldwall before they move in to attack. Efforts should be made to lure their opponents out of good positions.

That's only three pages out of the book and I think Eric Burgess did a great job of framing army lists that can let you fight many exciting battles between these historical Dark Age opponents. Each army has its own personality, strengths, and weaknesses.

This high level of detail and careful design is consistently present throughout the book. If you're interested, the Archon supplement book is available at piquet.com.

HYW Basing Upgrade

Good basing can go a long way to making units look great on the table. We've all seen nicely painted figures based on bases that don't look as good as the figures. For many years, I focused too much on the miniatures and I saw the bases as a necessary evil that just needed to match the table and made the figures easier to move around.

I recently decided to re-base my Hundred Years War army. When I first started painting the army, I wanted to have my figures based individually so I could play Piquet and still use them to play Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB). I put magnets in the individual bases and used larger, green metal bases to create the bases for my Piquet games. Unfortunately, the metal bases really looked like crap on the wargaming table and the figures would shift around on them.

I chose to convert to a 40mm/2" square base system. I used the 3mm thick wooden Litko bases. The basing was largely decided by what would fit on a base:

• 4 close order spearmen/pikemen on a stand.
• 3 dismounted men-at-arms (MAA) on a stand.
• 3 missile troops on a stand.
• 2 skirmish infantry on a stand.
• 2 horsemen on a 2" square stand.

This basing will make the figures easier to move and allowed me to get rid of the ugly metal bases. The 40mm square bases can work for a lot of different game systems. It also still technically can work for WAB with some adjustments, but my friend Adam, who plays WAB, interpreted my re-basing as a final divorce from the WAB system. Maybe. Maybe not.

Initially, I plan on using 3 bases for my Piquet units. As my army grows, I'll increase the unit size to 4 bases each. The bases will also allow me to model the longbowmen's chevron formation better than my old basing.

Since I planned on re-basing the figures anyway, I thought I might put a little more work into them. After seeing the great bases on James' blog, I thought I would try the Silflor grass tufts to add some vegetation and color to my bases. I ordered three shades of the tufts. They sell sample packs of them at Scenic Express for $5.99 each. They look great. I initially didn't like the bright green ones, but they actually show up much better from a distance than the more natural shades which tend to blend into the ground cover.
My basing process is:

• Stick adhesive magnetic card backing to the bottom of the base.
• Spray paint base brown.
• Hot glue the figures to the base.
• Glue Woodland Scenics dirt ballast to the bases with watered-down white glue
• Glue Woodland Scenics static grass to certain areas of the base.
• Crazy glue Silflor grass tufts to the base with a pair of tweezers. I place three tufts on each base to hide bare spots or just to fill in open areas.

I think the new bases turned out nicely.


(ABOVE) My longbow unit in chevron formation. Old Glory figures with a lot of great character. An excellent value for the price. (BELOW) One of my units of dismounted MAA desperate to come to grips with wealthy opponents. Also Old Glory.


For comparison, I posted some pictures (BELOW) from a battle last year with the old basing system. The new basing really makes a huge difference.

Getting back to the basics: Primer and Varnish

I've tried a lot of new things this year. I now paint with an Optivisor and it has significantly improved my detail painting. I'm also adding Silflor tufts to my bases for my current rebasing project (more on that later).

Two of the new things I tried this year didn't work out as well.

I used to use gray metal primer spray I bought at Home Depot to prime my figures. It was affordable ($6) and the can seemed to last for a while and get pretty good coverage on the figure surfaces. I then would varnish with gloss spray varnish (also $6 from Home Depot) and then finish it off with a spray of Testor's Dullcote to take away the glossy sheen.

While recently at a game store, looking for a new can of my reliable Testor's Dullcote, I was talked into buying a can of Games Workshop black primer. The store manager(?) explained how GW had a carefully designed primer recipe that ensured good coverage without covering up the details of the miniatures. I also bought a spray can of "Purity Seal", the matte varnish spray provided by Games Workshop because the store didn't have any Testors products. I'm an open-minded guy, willing to try new things, but I did sputter a little at the the price tag for the cans ($15 each). Especially for a can named "Purity Seal." Really...

I assumed they would be worth the cost.

The GW black primer seemed to do a good job on my figures, but the can was empty after I primed about 100 figures. And it ran out halfway through a batch of figures!!! I wouldn't mind this if it was my normal Home Depot primer, but for $15, I expected a little more capacity for priming figures.

Unwilling to shell out another $15 for another can of black primer to finish the job, I started to do some research and after visiting Allen Curtis' blog, I read that he had something called "Gesso" that he used for his painting. I vaguely recalled hearing about Gesso, but brush on primer was always something I imagined some 90 year old English gentleman brushed onto his 38mm Seven Years War flats in his library.

I've used spray primer for 20 years and I never tried any other method of priming my figures. I always assumed that spraying the primer was the quickest, most efficient, and best method of applying the primer. I perused the TMP message boards and read quite a few positive reviews of Gesso used as primer.

As I stared at the empty can of GW primer (Why don't they have a name for the primer? Maybe it should be called "100 Figures Made Black"), I began to consider my past experiences with spray primer:

• Even after spray priming the figures, I often have to go over them again with a brush-coat of thinned black paint to cover the angles and crevices the spray can missed. It seems impossible to angle the spray can to completely cover the figure.
• I'm always worried about the humidity, or the temperature, or if the primer will come out fuzzy, or too heavy.
  
• There's nothing like standing out in freezing weather trying to prime outside with a spray can, using your body to prevent the wind from blowing the primer away from the figures.
• The smell. I can prime my figures outside, leave them outside for 3 hours, bring them into the garage, and after 15 minutes, the primer smell will drift through the house and earn me the stinkeye from my significant other.

So, I printed out a 40% coupon for Michaels Craft store, drove out to the store, and picked up the last bottle of Liquitex Black Gesso for $8.40. Once I arrived at home, I squirted out a little of the Gesso, brushed it onto the figures, and it worked great. No smell. No mess or mixing. Great coverage. It looks like it is enough Gesso to prime hundreds of figures. And it didn't obscure the detail on my Perry Miniatures' men-at-arms.

Now, about this Purity Seal. It definitely does the job and takes the gloss shine off of my gloss-varnished figures, but like the primer, it seemed to run out of steam after about 100 figures. It didn't perform any better than my old, reliable Testors Dullcote spray and I can buy at least 3.5 cans for the price of 1 can of GW Purity Seal.

Overall, both GW products produced satisfactory results, but the high cost makes them, in my opinion, a poor investment. Although I have to thank Games Workshop's high prices for giving me the motivation to try out Gesso. I think my wife thanks them too.

Theater of War: Campaigns made easy

Theater of War (hereafter referred to as TOW) is a Piquet campaign system written by Brent Oman. I wanted to write this review because the rules are really a gem and they don't seem to be well-known in the wargaming community. TOW is written with Piquet in mind, but could be easily adapted for any rule set. The small booklet contains 92 pages of tables and rules and the pack includes sample rosters, sequence cards, and maps. The rules can be used to play any historical campaign from Biblical Wars to the Vietnam War.

I've participated in many campaigns in my wargaming career and almost every one has started with a great deal of enthusiasm, but inevitably one campaign side killed the campaign by massing forces for a battle that were larger than the tabletop forces could represent. The campaigns would also generate battles that the players weren't interested in fighting on the tabletop. "Oh yeah, I'd love to defend with my 5,000 militia against your 40,000 regulars. Let's devote a weekend to that battle." TOW avoids both of these campaign-slayers.

First, you have to set the time scale and map scale for your campaign. Are you campaigning around Gettysburg in July 1863 or are you recreating the Eastern Theater in 1863? My intent is to use TOW to recreate Lee's 1862 Sharpsburg campaign. The map will have the Potomac as its southern border. It will be roughly divided by a north-south mountain range. The action will take place in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

The map can be divided up into map areas that are defined by terrain type as Light, Medium, and Heavy. Light areas cost less movement points, Heavy areas cost more movement points. Certain movement areas might be worth from 1 to 4 campaign(victory) points. In my campaign, Harper's Ferry is valuable and would be worth 4 points.

You next have to establish your campaign roster. This a roster of all the units that will be available to your side during the campaign. A formula allows you to calculate the campaign roster size based on the quality of your army's Piquet sequence deck and army list. You then compare the unit total from the formula with the army list from the appropriate Piquet supplement and fill out the roster.

For example, my 1862 Confederate campaign roster lists 2 elite infantry units, 6 regular infantry units, 5 militia infantry units, 2 regular smoothbore artillery batteries, and 3 regular medium cavalry units. A total of 18 units. The 1862 Union sequence deck is terribly inefficient. As a result, the Union campaign roster calculation authorizes a total roster size of 28 units!!! 1 elite infantry unit, 11 regular infantry units, 11 militia infantry units, 3 artillery batteries (1 of them is elite), and 2 cavalry units (1 is militia). Starting to look like Antietam, huh?

So, right now you know the Rebels will never have more than 18 units on the wargaming table and the Union will never have more than 28 units. Now, you Rebels shouldn't get too worried because General McClellan might have those units available, but he still has to get them to the battlefield.

Okay, so how does Little Mac get all these units onto the table?

Your armies are called Battle Groups(BG). BG's range in size from 1(smallest) to 4(biggest). Your BG's move around the campaign map according to how your campaign game plays out. The total sizes of your BG's depends on your historical period, Medieval can have a total of 6, ACW can have 8, Vietnam has 10. Basically, as your staffwork becomes more sophisticated, you can have more individual BG's running around on the map.

You have your map. You have your roster. Now you build your Campaign Sequence deck. If you have the Piquet supplements, your army Sequence decks convert directly into the Campaign deck. When you play a campaign turn, you roll a d20 vs your opponent's d20. The winner gains the Initiative and is able to use the die roll difference in Impetus to flip cards from the Campaign Sequence deck. (So, in my campaign example, the Confederates roll a 17 and the Union rolls a 12. The Confederates gain the Initiative and have 5 Impetus.)

Being McClellan (or Lee)

The Sequence deck supplies cards to your Campaign Hand. There are three basic types of cards: Campaign cards, Battle cards, and Campaign/Battle cards. It costs 1 Impetus to play a card, draw a card from the deck, or discard a card from your hand. There is a maximum size of your Campaign Hand. Summer: 6, Spring/Fall: 5 and Winter: 4. Playing the Campaign cards from your Campaign Hand allow you to do the following:

• move BG's into Light Terrain,
• move BG's into Medium Terrain
• move BG's into Heavy Terrain
• establish supply depots, combine/split BG's
• you waste an action
• some bad cards make your BG's withdraw or drain your remaining Impetus
• scout enemy BG's
• trace supply, count campaign points for occupied map areas
• besiege fortresses
• build your Battle Hand
• engage in a battle
• halve movement costs
• wild card (any of the above)

The Battle cards in your Campaign Hand are called your Battle Hand. The Battle Hand can be used to increase the size and power of your tabletop army in a battle. Battle Hand cards are Attack*, Defend*, Retire*, Flank*, Strength, and Strategic Reserve (if appropriate). Instead of playing cards to move your BG's on the campaign map, you can instead place these Battle Hand cards into your BH hand to use in case you become engaged in a battle.

When two opposing BG's are in the same campaign movement area, and the Initiative player plays an Engage in Battle card, and burns an Impetus to initiate the battle, we now have a tabletop battle. Initiating a tabletop battle ends the Campaign turn. The Campaign turn also ends when a player runs through his entire Campaign Sequence deck or both players tie on their Initiative die rolls.

When a battle is started, both sides now play their Battle hands. The Battle cards I marked with an asterisk above are battle type cards. You can only play one kind of battle type card in battle, but you might have more than one of that kind in your Battle Hand. A table in the rulebook cross references the played battle type cards and dictates what type of battle will be wargamed: Attack vs Defend, Encounter, Flank vs Attack, etc.

More than one battle type card (i.e. 3 Attack cards) can increase the value of your table top army. Strength cards also add to the value of your tabletop force. The Strategic Reserve card can add special "Imperial Guard" type reserves to the battlefield if that is appropriate for your particular campaign.

Picking your killing ground

Once you play the cards from your Battle Hands, you can determine which side has the advantage based on better Battle cards and/or superior BG size. The advantage lets you flip more Army Characterization Deck(from basic Piquet) cards than your opponent to determine the size of your tabletop force. Generally the advantage will let you randomly draw more units than your opponent from your campaign roster. Some special cards also let you hand pick the best units instead of trusting the random draw.

The units selected from the campaign roster are entered into each player's battle roster. The units are formed into commands. TOW uses card draws from each army's Sequence Deck to establish the terrain on the battlefield modified by the campaign area in which the battle occurred (Light, Medium, or Heavy). The battlefield objectives are established using card draws from the same Sequence Decks. Some objectives award victory points. Some objectives confer morale bonuses on the owners.

Once the terrain and objectives are laid out on the table, it's time for each player to deploy their commands. Each player simultaneously flips cards from their Sequence Decks. The flipped cards dictate who deploys commands first and in which zones on the table they can be deployed.

When the troops are deployed onto the table, the combat begins. Based on your particular rule system, once the battlefield victor is determined, the level of victory is translated into consequences in the campaign game. There are three levels of victory: Crushing, Decisive, and Marginal. Losing battles make your BG's retreat on the campaign map and a percentage of the units in the losing BG's will suffer a downgrade in combat effectiveness in their next battle. Winning battles also moves you closer to victory in the campaign, right???....

So, how do you win the damn campaign?!?

Each side has National Will (NW). When your National Will reaches zero, you lose the campaign. Each battlefield loss costs your side a corresponding loss in NW. The level of victory, size of the losing BG, and value of the campaign map area where the loss occurred can all increase the cost in NW that a battle loss will inflict on the loser.

Another way you can lose NW is when the Campaign card "Supply" is played for the first time during the Campaign turn. Both sides then add up the Campaign Points (VP) of any campaign areas occupied solely by their BG's. The side with less occupied Campaign Points deducts the difference from its National Will.

This is interesting because in my Sharpsburg campaign, I might leave AP Hill's Division in Harper's Ferry, hoping to score some Campaign Points, but if the Supply card doesn't come quickly I don't get to count those points. So, the Rebel player might leave old AP down there waiting for the points when he could really use his BG back with the main army. It becomes a race against time. Do I leave a BG down there to score the points or bring it back to fight the incoming Union troops? Sound familiar?

Summary

Theater of War lets you run a campaign, organize the armies, generate the battlefields, and keep track of victory. Like most Piquet-based systems, the sequence decks generate a lot of uncertainty about what the future holds for your little Battle Groups.

You might want your BG to move into the light terrain outside Frederick, Maryland, but until you get that Light Terrain Move card, it's not going to happen for you. Just like in real historical campaigns, your armies and subordinate generals don't always react right away to your orders and desires.

Do you concentrate on marching your armies to execute your masterplan or try to build up your hand to improve the Battle cards you have available in case Stonewall Jackson is lurking in ambush behind that mountain range? Is that Battle Group in front of you a screening force or the Army of the Potomac on the move?

Even if you're not a Piquet player, the cards supplied with the rules allow you to customize each campaign deck to reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing forces. With some tweaking, TOW can be modified to give you an excellent campaign system.

If you are a Piquet player, the rules allow you to fight campaigns with any army from any Piquet supplement you own. This is a must-have for the Piquet library.

The production values are decent. Some of the type is a little small and you won't see any interior color pictures, but the book is jammed full of typo-free tables, charts, and rules. There are some black and white photos of nicely painted miniatures. The package includes sample battle maps, campaign maps, and sheets of Campaign Sequence cards you need to cut out to play with.

Theater of War is available for $30 from the Piquet website

LED Gunfire Lights

I went to Historicon this year and had a chance to watch a great Napoleonics game put on by Architects of War and the Perry Brothers. While I watched the game with great admiration, I suddenly saw one of the players put smoke in front of one of the units. The smoke had little flashing lights inside of it that made it look exactly as if the troops were firing their muskets.

I was very impressed by the effect these smoke markers created on the table. You put a few flashers behind a strip of pillow batting (filling for pillows available in cheap large bags from JoAnn Fabrics) and you have your gunsmoke. It gives the battlefield a very active look as if combat is occurring even in areas where the player action is not focused. For Piquet, they make great markers to indicate unloaded units who have fired.

Almost immediately after getting off of the airplane from Pennsylvania, I emailed Architects of War and asked about the lights. They told me the lights were LED flashing lights. An extensive search on the internet found two websites that supplied them in a variety of colors.

extremeglow.com
flashingblinkylight.net

They're called a variety of names like "LED blinking round body pins". Apparently they are used for rave parties.... Whatever.

The LED flashers are thimble-sized metal cylinders with a magnetic bottom. You pull out a small paper tab, twist the bottom half, and they begin to flash two different colors. Don't lose the paper tab because you can reinsert it into the flasher to keep it from accidentally lighting up. They give off no heat and come in a variety of color combinations.

Red/Yellow works great for tank fires, cannons, and building fires. I prefer Yellow/Yellow for musket fire. Other colors would work great for sci-fi and fantasy. Yellow/Yellow is actually hard to find.

I made a video to show how the lights can look on the battlefield. Obviously, it's hard to see them in a photo. I lowered the room lights a bit so the flashers are more visible. It makes them a little more "flashy" in the low light, but in good lighting, the flashes look more like real gunfire. Neither of these are professional films, okay? I made them quickly to illustrate the effect, so spare me the filming critiques. :)