Hook-up with The Baggage Train

Steve Oates at The Baggage Train has recently completed work on his 1/300th scale Arnhem Bridge model and it's now available to buy.  The model is an awesome 80cm long and you can be add Steve's extension modules to represent the bridge at Nijmegen. To celebrate this, we've agreed to put on a game using this and some other models from Steve's range.

Now I don't suggest that we try to build Arnhem town in 1/300th - that would involve thousands of buildings and, I suspect, wouldn't work brilliantly as a game - so I've taken the liberty of transplanting the bridge to the north African republic of Maghrebia.  Maghrebia looks remarkably like Libya in its geography but there is more than a hint of Iran about the make-up of its armed forces.

For at least some of next year's games, then, SOTCW will be presenting the Spanish invasion of north Africa!  I propose to use Cold War Commander rules and to set up a "matrix campaign" where the result of each game takes us down one of a number of possible paths to the next action.

More later!

Boxer Rebellion - test game

The first test game on a full sized layout was held at the Deeside Defenders club on Thursday. Here are a couple of pictures of the action.

The British Legation is in the foreground with the British order cards laid out alongside so we could keep track of them (only three of us were play-testing).


German, French and Japanese legations, all quiet here except the problem of food supplies

One obvious need is for more ruins, we still couldn't fill the table using Pete's, mine and the Clubs terrain, so I have started work on more.

Overall the test went well, just needing tweeks to the orders and event cards.

WIP2 - Peking 1900 for Gauntlet

Things are progressing I've assembled the sheets of textured paper and painted on the roads and insides of the legations. Further progress has been made with the buildings

Immediately in the foreground are from L to R the British, Russian and US legations

Next are the Japanese (J) German (G) and French (F) Legations with the Italians out on a limb.

Finally the opposite view showing how isolated the Austrian legation is.


A test game will be held tonight down at the club, so I'll see how it all works out then.

Draft layout of Peking 1900

Given the good weather I thought it was time to lay out the legations to see how well everything fitted together. This is an overview of the entire table 6' x 10' with the edges and roads marked in yellow chalk.

Immediately in the foreground are from L to R the British, Russian and US legations

Next are the Japanese (J) German (G) and French (F) Legations with the Italians out on a limb.

Finally the opposite view showing how isolated the Austrian legation is.

It was just as well I had laid everything out as I found I had failed to count some walls, so more need to be added. The whole areas outside the legations needed to be filled up with burnt out buildings, walls, etc. The final layout will be marked out on some old wallpaper, which has a cobbled effect

Will

Northern Gathering 2011

SOTCW's Northern Gathering returns this year on September 17th in Barnsley! All members (and interested non-members) are welcome to what should be an interesting new venue.

Barnsley Association of Wargamers have offered us the use of their dedicated town-centre wargames room.

The Barnsley venue is handy for shops, transport links and food outlets. In a departure from previous arrangements we'll be starting at 12 noon but we have the venue until 8pm so I'm going to suggest that we plan to break at about 6pm and go for a meal before returning to complete any unfinished business.

For many years the Northern Gathering at Middlewood Hall (and later the Garrison Hotel) in Sheffield was a major event for SOTCW. Unfortunately we lost affordable access to both venues and since then the event has largely lapsed. I'm optimistic that this venue can see the Gathering returning returning to the SOTCW calendar as a regular event.

Rob Connolly has already made some noises about putting on a western desert game and I'm sure Mark Kniveton will provide 20mm goodness. But that still leaves room for at least three more games. Volunteers please!

Alternative Map

Will the below map is taken from the 1901 book The Siege of Peking being a diary of Rev Roland Allen. It is a direct scan from the book.



Hope this helps.

Peking 1900 - draft table plan

Here's the first first layout of the table for the game, based on a 6' x 10' table


Looking at another map of the Legation quarter in the Osprey Boxer rebellion book, the French legation may need to be further to the right, joining the road.