Enfilade 2015 Preparations

I’ve been getting ready for my Enfilade 2015 games. This year I’m only running a couple games, one Coastal Forces scenario and the raid on St Nazaire game. I got some new ships for use with both games and I did a lot of work on the St Nazaire terrain.

Starting off with the new ships, earlier this year I made a big order to The PT Dockyard. It was mainly for some German ships for both my Enfilade scenarios, but there were also a few British ships in the order, which I will assemble later.

Here is a group photo of the ships.

My new German ships

First up, I got a pair of M40 Minesweepers. There were over 100 of these ships built and they were used in a lot of different functions during the war, so they will be a generally useful model.

M40 class minesweepers

I also got a pair of Vorpostenboote Trawlers and a Vorpostenboote Whaler, which will be good for convoy escorts.

German VP boats

I painted all the ships up in disruptive camouflage patterns that I tried to match from photos and descriptions. I still need to mount them on a base and do a little weathering, but overall I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.


The work the St Nazaire terrain is pretty much done. In my last post I showed the bare-bones of the layout. Now things are more filled in and finished, including additional warehouses, bridges, and more. Here are a few shots of the updated terrain.

Overview of the terrain

An overhead view of old town and the old mole, it is more filled in that my last photo shoot

The warehouse area

A view of my scratchbuilt lift bridge

The drydock area, I need to finish the cranes for this section

Kevin and I also did a walkthrough of the game. Hopefully the real game goes as well as our walkthrough.

Campbeltown rams the caisson 

The commandos move to land at the old mole

An MGB covers the landing at the old mole

Not Built in a Day

I’ve been continuing to work on terrain for the Raid on St Nazaire game, which is taking longer than I had hoped. With most of the buildings done, it was time to actually work on the ground for the town.

I’m really experimenting with the ground. I didn’t want to have a large piece of board for the town and, originally, I was planning on just using cut gray felt to represent the area of the town. I thought that the gray color would represent the concrete of the dock are pretty well. However, Kevin thought that the single layer of felt would not give enough of a height difference between the water (which will be a large felt cloth) and the land. After talking it over, I decided to try mounting the felt on foamcore board.

Looking at the city layout, I decided I could break my terrain into three pieces; the south side of the Normandie dock, the north side of the Normandie dock, and the warehouse/old town area. Here you can see the area I’m trying to represent, with the area in red being the main game area. 

St Nazaire Raid area

After drawing up some patterns, I added few more pieces for the old mole, the east jetty, and the land on the west side of the area. Next I cut out all these pieces in gray felt and spray painted some green and brown onto the pieces. Finally, I cut out the foamcore and glued the felt to it. With that done, I laid out different pieces to see how it looked.

Here is the east jetty, going to Old Town, and then to the warehouse area

Overhead view of Old Town and the old mole

Overhead view of the warehouse area

A closer view of Old Town

Normandie dock area with the drydock in the center

The Normandie dock with the battleship Tirpitz in the dock (which was what the British feared)

Overall, I think it is looking pretty good. I do need to add more buildings and trees; I didn't have the buildings Kevin painted up so things look a little sparse. One thing I worry about is that it looks a little too clean. I think that based on the scale/distance, you probably wouldn't see how dirty/grungy stuff is. But I will try to figure out a way to break up the gray some.

Next up is working on the swing bridges and caissons for the drydock. 

A Quick Update

While I've been telling myself that I should be putting up more blog posts, so far 2015 has not produced much. While I didn’t post updates in February, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing any hobby related stuff. Here is a quick update on what I’ve been doing since my last post.

First up, I’ve been working on the terrain for the “Raid on St Nazaire”game that Kevin and I are going to run at Enfilade. Kevin has been working on the British ships and some terrain, while I’ve been working on terrain and Germans ships.

Here are a couple photos of the buildings and warehouses I’ve been painting up. The buildings will form the majority of the old town of St Nazaire and the warehouses will be placed near the old harbor entrance and the Normandie drydock.

Buildings for St Nazaire Old Town

Warehouses

All of the buildings are from Skywave 1/600 kits. We will probably need to scratchbuild a few more buildings and the bridges, but overall the terrain is coming together nicely.

I’ve also been thinking more about the modern submarine game. Based my previous success with Shapeways models, I decided to order a 1/700 scale Chinese Type 092 Xia class ballistic missile submarine from the Kokoda Trail Models shop. Unlike the previous order, this was the common White Strong & Flexible material and the final model feels a little grainy. Overall, I think it will paint up well and look good.

The starboard 3/4 view of the Type 092 Xia SSBN

Port side view

And it should fit in nicely with the Chinese Type 091 Han and the Kilo subs I already have.

Type 091 Han SSN (top) and a Kilo class SS (bottom)

The Kokoda Trail Models shop has several other 1/700 scale submarines that I’m thinking about too. Addtionally, it has several 1/700 scale after-market parts for warships, including sails for American Guppy submarines. One of my on-and-off side projects has been to make 1/700 scale models of American submarines, but no one makes any Guppy subs in that scale. So I ordered one of the sails and I’m going to try to add it to a modified Hobby Boss Balao class sub. The sails only come in Frosted Ultra Detail material, so the cost of one sail was almost as much as the whole Xia SSBN. But the smoother material should fit right in with the plastic kit. If it looks good once it is painted up, I will probably look into getting the other two sails so that I can show all the basic Guppy looks.

Sail for USS Cubera

I also took a little time to play a couple boardgames. On President’s Day (in February) Dave C. and I had a chance to play the Nightfigher boardgame. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the game, it is a tactical level game about nightfighters during World War II. It is a little different in that it is semi-blind game where one player acts as an umpire and controls the bombers, while the other is the nightfighter and only “sees” what the umpire places on his map. The game plays really quick (only about 30 – 45 minutes per scenario) and we played several games in a few hours. We liked it enough that we are planning on starting a campaign (rules included in the game) and will play by email using VASSAL.

Cover of the Nightfighter game

I also had a chance to play September’s Eagles with Kevin and Casey. I talked about this game in my last post and I’ve been looking forward to trying out. While the game could use a summary sheet to remind us of some of the rules, once we got into the flow of the race it moved along nicely. Casey was the winner for the game we played and we all agreed we want to try it again.

The Gee Bee Z, Wedell Williams, and Laird Super Solution lead the pack around the first pylon.

With the update out of the way, it is back to working on the St Nazaire project.

Hail 2015 and Farewell 2014

I’m a little late (okay more than a little) in doing a 2014 review and 2015 preview, which seems to be normal for me, but here is a quick look back and forward.

At the beginning of 2014 I was still in rehabilitation mode from my shoulder surgery, but in my initial 2014 post I laid out four projects for the year.

1) Work on some moderns 1/700 scale ships. I’m going to call this one a success, since I completed the Chinese Navy Type 056 corvette from Shapeways and several Taiwanese Kuang Hua VI missile boats from PT Dockyard. I used all the ships in one of my Enfilade games.

One successful project

2) I wanted to get back to my 15mm Age of Sail stuff. This was a failure as I didn’t do any work on these items.

3) Complete the planes for a Vietnam Air Rescue scenario. This was a definite success. I finished all the planes and a helicopter and ran the scenario at Enfilade using the AirWar C21 rules. I was pretty happy with the game,

MiGs and Phantoms mixing up at Enfilade

4) My fourth item wasn’t a gaming project goal. I wanted to get 30 posts up on this blog for 2014. My posts are typically pretty lengthy and I thought I could do a better job of breaking them up into shorter (and more) topics. Looking at the archive tally, it appears I only did 19 posts, which is not 30 and means a failure on this goal. Although, I think I sort of forgot about this goal sometime during the year.

So, it looks like a 50% pass rate for 2014. Not great, but not terrible. While recapping 2014, I’ll mention some games that I picked up at the end of the year as late Christmas presents for myself.

First up is Legion of Honor from Clash of Arms games. In the game you start out as a sergeant or sous-lieutenant at the start of the French Revolution and you try gain fame and fortune through 1815. The game has a lot of history and some role-playing elements. It can handle up to 6 players, but also has rules for a solitaire game.

Next is September’s Eagles from High Flying Dice Games (HFD). HFD Games is mostly a desktop publishing game company, but September’s Eagles one of their professional line games. This game covers Thompson Trophy air racing in the 1930s. The game is for up to four players (no real solitaire option) and I’m looking forward to trying it out, but will have to wait until I can get some people together. I also picked up a couple other HFD games – Gauntlet (which covers Operation Pedestal) and A Bold Fight (which covers the Battle of Mobile Bay). 

Looking forward, here are my plans for 2015.
1) Run the St Nazaire Raid (Operation Chariot) game at Enfilade 2015. Kevin and I have been talking about this for several years and finally decided that we just need to do it. Kevin has completed the British ships for this project, I’ve got an order into PT Dockyard for some German ships, and we’ve been getting together the terrain. It will be a big project, but I think we can get it done. Stay tuned for more on this.

2) Paint up some Japanese opponents for my 28mm Bolt Action Aussies. I completed my Australian figures in the last half of 2013, but never did up the Japanese opposition. This year I want to remedy that.

3) Work on rules and miniatures for modern submarine game. I’ve been kicking around some ideas in my head ever since several plastic model companies put out some 1/700 scale modern submarine kits. The question has always been how to do the hidden elements of submarine warfare while putting miniatures on the table. I’d like to have a working prototype to test out during one of the early sessions at Enfilade 2015.

A couple submarine models I've collected that would be good in a game.

4) Get back to my 15mm Age of Sail project. This has been sitting around for far too long. Bases on the previous items on the list, I probably won’t get to this until the later part of the year (certainly after Enfilade).

I’m also sure there will be other odds and ends that will draw my attention throughout the year. Including putting together some armies for the Lion Rampant rules. I had a chance to play these rules last year and really liked them. So this could be a fallback project for later in the year.

So, there is the plan. Will it really work out? Probably not, but at least there is a plan. 

DANG 2014 - Cogs of War

The DANG (Dave’s Annual Naval Game) 2014 game was Cogs of War: The Hundred Years War at Sea. While sounds big, the mini-campaign really only covered actions in the English Channel in the summer of 1340. Historically, the French had spent the last two years conducting raids on English cities and disrupting trade. At the end of the previous fighting season the English had repelled the French raids and stabilized the situation. This set the stage for a new set of battles in 1340 and would lead to the decisive Battle of Sluys. Our game would see if the English could recreate a historical win.

Image of the Battle of Sluys from britishbattles.com

Everyone began arriving at my place around 9:00 AM and we spent the next hour catching up on things, talking about the projects we are all working on and planning, and munching on some breakfast snacks.

After a short review of all the rules (we used David Manley's unpublished Medieval naval rules, which include fleet level rules, tactical rules, and the campaign rules), we split up sides for the game, with Scott, Dale, Mark and George playing the French and David S., Kevin, Arthur, and Dave C. playing the English. Each side then took some time to review the positions of their fleets and plan out their strategy. The campaign could be a maximum of 30 turns, with each turn representing approximately 3 days, and we would start rolling at turn 25 to see if the game ended early. With everything ready to go, I set up the campaign map and scoreboard.

Here is a better view of the map

Both sides started off by sending raiding forces across the channel. The English also caught a French force at Le Crotoy, but the French we able to win the initiative and avoid battle.

French ships from the first non-battle

Raiding continued for the next couple of turns, with the English scoring more points than the French, and almost catching the small French force (once again the English could not win the initiative to force a battle).

English ships unable to catch the French

On turn four the French moved a large force to combine with the smaller one that had been avoiding the English and charged to attack. Once again, the English failed to win the initiative and were forced into battle against the larger French force.

English setting up their ships

We set up the battle, but before starting the tactical battle we took a break for some food.

Potato boats

As you can see, we had some appropriately themed potato boat snacks. To paraphrase a famous naval quote: "We have met the enemy and they were delicious." There was some talk about using the potato boats for gaming, but we decided to eat them instead. Although that would bring a new meaning to the term “Food Fight.”

After the break it was on to the battle. The English had one crippled stand (from a semi-successful raid) and were hoping to do a little damage to the French and then break-off the battle. The French were just hoping the English wouldn’t just run away. The French set up to try to catch the English right, with a force of galleys leading the charge.

French forces on the move

French galleys closing in

The English sent a couple medium cogs were sent to take on the galleys and were able to cripple one with missile fire.

Cogs sent to take on the galleys

But the galleys were still able to close with the cogs and sink one. Note the missing cog below.

Galleys take out one cog

Over on the other side of the battle, the English decided to abandon their crippled cog to fate, hoping it would slow down the oncoming French.

Crippled cog being left behind

But there wasn’t really much it could do by itself and it was quickly dispatched.

The crippled cog being run down

Back on the right, a French squadron of small cogs was closing on the main English squadron and King Edward ordered a couple medium cogs to take them on. One of the French galleys moved to help out the small cogs, while the other two galleys attacked another cog.

Maneuvers on the right

A real scrum was developing on the right, which threatened to hold up the English line and allow them to be caught by the main French squadron.

Scrum on the right

A slightly different view

Luckily for the English, they were able to dispatch the galleys to clear the way, while the two medium cogs fought a rear-guard action against the French small cogs. The French were able to sink both medium cogs while the rest of the English fleet escaped. At the end of the battle, the English had lost four medium cogs and one small cogs (the cripple from the start of the battle), while the French losses were three galleys. At the end of the battle the scoreboard looked like this.

Score is pretty close

At this point both sides seemed to take a new look at their strategy for the game. The English thought their best strategy would be to expand their raiding (since that’s where most of the points were). The French were also thinking about more raiding, but still felt they needed to do something to drive off the English. Both sides were moving into better raiding positions when disaster struck the French.

On turn seven a Storm random event hit the French fleet that was raiding the English coast causing the sinking of a large cog and the crippling of five medium and one small cogs. This was a major blow to the fleet. This was followed up on the next turn by a Widespread Storms random event that hit all the fleets in the game. Once again the French suffered a number of crippled and sunk ships, while the English only had a couple crippled ships. The storms also disrupted movement, preventing the French from getting to good raiding areas, while the English were already in good places to raid.

On turn ten a Becalmed random event disrupted movement, again hurting French efforts to launch raids.

By this time the English had been very successfully raiding the French coast and were running away in victory points, so the French players decided it was time to concede the game. The final score was 52 to 19, for a big win for the English and the storms of 1340.

Final Score (not so close)

Overall I thought it was a fun and interesting campaign. I think everyone enjoyed the game, although the French players certainly had a ‘what is going to happen to us next’ look about them at the end.

I need to look at rules on the battle setups again to see if I did something wrong there and there were a few suggestions about the raiding rules, but overall we liked how the games played out. The game could have gone either way until the weather intervened and disrupted the French plans.

DANG 2014 participants (L to R) me, Scott, Dave C, Kevin, Arthur, Dave S (seated), Mark, Dale and George