First game of Infinity

Originally I had planned to play the first two battles of the campaign. But it is nicer to play with an opponent. So Sunday morning after service, we could play a nice game of Infinity. I have not completely finished the painting the miniatures, but colors are blocked in, so it is easily recognized who is who.

I have the operation Icestorm box. In these starter sets is a seperate booklet for the rules. These does not contain all the rules. ( The complete rules can be downloaded on the Corvus Belli Website.) But rather have introductonary missions, which tell the rules bit by bit. Beginning at a very simple level. We played mission one.

The mision introduces to the basic concepts of the infinity system.

  • Dice rolls (normal, opposed, etc.)
  • AROs (reactions by non active players)
  • And the usual stuff, such as movement and fighting

For this they only allow to use a basic character, with the same weapons. Maps are equal for both side, and both start with 3 soldiers. There is a lot of fluff and story on naming the different troops, but for now, they are just basic soldiers. The Red are the Nomads, Blue is Panocean. The PanOceans are sligtly better at shooting, for the rest they are similar.

We both started without any idea what we where doing. Just playing around and testing what can be done. My father played the PanOceans, I played the Nomads. We started with a small firefight. The first casualty was a PanOcean soldier..

Left flank cleared of the first soldier. You can already see, the flanking maneuver planned out.

At that moment we began to understand the system. My father tried to flank my troops form the other side. This resulted in an attack, were my troops were caught in the open. This resulted in a Nomad casualty. Luckily the source, was quickly dealt with, but another PanOcean rounded the corner.

The right flank, PanOcean soldier tries to flank around, and come in from behind.

At that moment we tried out dodging. resulting in some firefights, with a second Nomad casualty. Making the stand even. I tried to find cover from the roof, and we ended in a firefight. After three turns, I was the lucky one, to land the killing shot.

Final result, three panOceans casualties, two Nomad casualties.

All in all, it was a nice game. I am looking forward to play the next mision, and think it is an enjoyable game. My father did like the game, but doesn’t like the sci-fi setting that much. He would probably prefer a ww2 themed version (which might be doable, if you don’t use all the special abilities, and a little more troops.

I hope to play some more games in the future, and finish the models some time. But don’t expect much progress on the short term. Hope I can play some campaign games this week.

War of the broken Wills: turn 1-3

During the weekend I found some time to start the campaign. So I played the first 3 campaign turns. Next step are two battles, to end turn 3.

Start of the campaign. Two armies are marching from the South in the west. And the other three in the middle south

Above you can see the start of the campaign. Red pawns are my armies, black pawns are Potential Enemy Forces, turning into a yellow pawn, when resolved to be an enemy army.

My plan is to march with two different groups, as quickly as possible to the capital. Due to the rivers and roads, these two entry point would be the quickest.

End of turn 1 (blue D20 as turn marker in bottom right)

After turn one, marching up along the roads. Enemy movement was not that much, which is quite logical as they will try to defend.

End of turn 2, Slowly marching forward

Closing in on the first bigger towns, enemy forces, will try to block the road.

Battle time turn 3

In the West, I tried to sneak past the enemy, but their scouts got news of our troops, and did catch the second army by surprise. In the East, they just blocked the road and hope to stop us as soon as possible, by moving forward one of their armies. I don’t know what they have in reserve.

On both fronts it turns into a battle. I still have to roll for the scenarios, and find my troops. I have found a solution for the playing area. A printed grid, with some fields from google earth in the background.

I didn’t have time to play the first game, but looking forward to them. Until now, it was just half an hour, including setup and finding nice pawns. Up to the battle next.

campaign: War of the broken Wills

The only army which is in a reasonable state to play some games, is the 2mm Napoleonic armies. I want to play some more games this years, and play also some solo. Therefore I have ventured into the realms om Imagination.

The basic idea is, to have a simple campaign system, without a lot of bookkeeping. Playing multiple battles in an evening or Sunday afternoon. I have created some backstory. Probably not the best. But a reason to move some troops and play games.

The campaign system is created by myself, simple moving some armies from area to area, to secure the capital, and destroy the enemy army. Enemy movement is mostly based on the chainreaction system from two hour wargames.

The battle which will happen when two armies will occupy one area, will be played out with the Simplicity in Hexes rules, which I found on the blog of Jay Ward, with again some enemy behaviour based on the chainreation system of THW. Scenarios will be coming from the One Hour wargames book of Neil Thomas. The terrain will be a hex landscape, slightly larger as in the rules, for visual reasons.

Below I will tell the background story, and show the map. The map has been created with the help of the fantasy map generator on the web. (see link below) the data has been exported to QGis, a map making tool. Playing around, some visual formatting was done. If you like the map, you can download it for your own projects, and also the more detailed rules for the campaign in the links provided at the bottom.

The land of Ukkhinbar. The capital is the largest city in the land (denoted by the square)

Background story

The year is 1785, 7 years after Marcus Fontusius Rethida and his sister Cillia Rethida were forced to leave their beloved country Ukkhinbar. They had grown up as prince and princes at the royal court in the Capital Wawic. But had to flee south during the coup. Their own nephew had murdered their father and crowned himself emperor.
Now it was the time to march back to their hometown. Five large armies listened to their command. When they had left, they had been young. Heading south they found rest in Segifell. A rough city, were you’re live was most precious. They had met an old man, which had taken them into house. The 17 year old twins, had been weeping and sleeping for a week, they had lost everything. Only the ring, received from their father was still on their finger. The man tried to comfort them, and learned them a riddle: “Bait with smelt to catch a cod”
The first year they worked here and there. Creating more and more connections, and growing a larger network. Both on the legal side as on the dark side of the world. After three years, Marcus and Cillia started to think about revenge on their Nephew. They started to employ people for their cause. Now after the 7 years, they have amassed 5 armies. Built from mercenaries, pirates and adventurers. But very loyal, as long as they paid regularly.
They had only a limited amount of money, so they had to do a quick campaign. Moving as swiftly as possible, to liberate the capital. After that they would deal with the rest of the country, but would have access to the treasure of the crown to pay the armies. Spies are reporting multiple armies which are defending the capital and surrounding lands. The only way to their home, is forward.

Deployment

  • Enemy start with 9 PEF Armies
  • You start with 5 armies, two under command of Marcus and three under command of Cillia.
  • Each army is 6 units. Scenario determines how many units are involved in each battle. Following OHW scenarios
Scouts have reported nine possible enemy forces (PEF), you will enter the lands from the south.
  • You start on southern edge, with 5 armies, deploy as you wish.
  • Enemy start northern cities with 9 PEFs. 1 PEF start at other side of water to the right.
  • each campaign turn is 1 day.
  • Capital must be reached within 30 days, to ensure you can pay the armies to complete the campaign.

Plan

I hope to start the campaign next weekend, most of the things are ready.

  • rules
  • armies
  • dice
  • terrain pieces

Only the hex grid for the scenarios I have to arrange. I have the possibility to print on white paper. The files are ready, but I am thinking in a little more pleasing solution, with more eye candy. I don’t have a solution yet.

This is just my first try, to play a campaign, have a backstory. I don’t know how it will turn out. And probably adapt the rules on the fly. Hope it will make some fun.

Sources

  • One-Hour Wargames: Neil Thomas, Pen and Sword 2014
  • Morale Napoleon, grand tactical rules for the Napoleonic wars: Two Hour Wargames

Document links

Assembly of planes

The lead pile

This weekend I had planned another attack on the lead pile. Glue-ing the magnets under the planes. There is still a long way to go (probably around 150 planes to go)

But the different air forces are slowly growing. The picture of the ww2 era planes did not turn out to be clear, so there is another can full of planes. I hope to do still some more planes, and then to prime all the planes, so I have something to paint for the coming months.

For glueing of the magnets I have used the following magnets. I prepared a lot of square magnets, with the smaller magnets put on it in the correct orrientation. (I checked the orientation against the bases) Than file or scrape a flat area under the belly of the plane. Put a dot of CA glue on it, let it dry for half a minute, and put them together holding them for another half a minute. Then I would let them cure for 5 minutes. Before removing the rest of the stack and the cube.

Previous weekend, I also started to make some targets to attack. A bridge, fuel storage, an a piece of dike. Hope to put a convoy or some troops on it.

I hope to proceed with the magnetizing the coming weeks. And by the end of January priming them and preparing for painting. Probably not all planes will be based by then, but enough to sustain painting for a couple of months.

The Battle of Scherpenzeel

Last year I have done a lot of reading and searching on the battle of Scherpenzeel and the days leading to this battle. For this moment, I will skip the political landscape, and focus on the scenario I think is most plausible at the moment.

The battle of Scherpenzeel was part of the Sticht (Utrecht) Civil war in 1481-1483. It took place in the beginning of this period. It started with a conflict between cities and the Bischop, which was the ruler of the province.

Around September an army contingent from Holland visited Wijk bij Duurstede, the city where the Bishop, David van Burgundy, housed. After some festivities there were plans made to pillage the country around Amersfoort, which was one of the revolting cities.

The route to the Battle of Scherpenzeel. In blue the 4 days of march, with the distances in km. Also some nearby castles which were present around those days.

One of the sources speak about a 4-day trip. They started at Wijk bij Duurstede, and went north over the road in direction of Amersfoort. The army was build up:

  • Jean van Salazar (Biscay noble, leading the army)
  • 34 Biscay crossbowmen (Well trained, as the number is very specific, a force to be reckoned with)
  • Around 50 man on horse back (Unclear if the bowman are included)
  • 300 other armed man under Jean van Salazar
  • 300 knights from the army of David of Burgundy
  • 300 men at arms from the army of David of Burgundy

The total army was around 1000 man. It is unclear if the Bishop himself joined the raid, or had his troops lend to Jean.

I expect that they went to “Huis ter Eem” a small castle, defending the river Eem. It is located close to Amersfoort. The house was besieged around September 1481, and destroyed by a canon. It is unclear if this was done before or after the raid around Amersfoort. The raid was either a counter action, or the reason why the house got besieged, as it might have happened after the raid.

But as you can see from the map, the distance from Wijk bij Duurstede to Amersfoort is around 37 km. Which is a long day of marching, but I think is feasible. The distance back and forth is certainly to long, to do in a single day, making the 4 day raid plausible. The army had to stay somewhere during the knight, and the castle was owned by the Bishop.

The raiding happened to the north of Amersfoort, in the direction of Hoevelaken.

The modern day map of the same area as shown above. The villages and cities have grown a lot.

Raiding and burning houses will take some time, therefore I expect that they had to move to a next castle. I am not certain which castle this would have been, but there are multiple castles located just to the east of Amersfoort.

The next day I expect that they are planning to return to Wijk bij Duurstede. Multiple sources are stating that they pillaged up to 1500 animals, cows, sheeps and pigs. This is a very large number, and would not move quickly. Also costing a lot of manpower to guide. Therefore the people of Amersfoort, gathered in an army, hoping to pay back for raiding the countryside. The mayor of the city gathered around 400 man at arms. Unclear what experience they would have, but probably consisted out of some knights and the city militia.

Near Scherpenzeel both forces met. Numerical the two forces differ a lot, 400 man for the Amersfoorters and 1000 man for the Bishops army. But because of the booty, the forces which are capable to fight, will probably more in the range of 400 against 600.

Still the battle was lost by the Amersfoorters. Somewhere between 100 and 200 people got killed, and another 100-200 were taken hostage. This had a large impact on the city defense of Amersfoort, and they called Utrecht to send some troops, as almost all men had died or where in hostage.

The location of the battle was near the village of Scherpenzeel. Hence the name of the battle. The village was located next to the road to Wijk bij Duurstede. I expect that the battle took place here, because there is a river running close by, and the road was going through a fordable place. This would make some kind of bottle neck, slowing the forces down. Resulting in the Amerfoorters catching up with the Bishops forces.

A battle will take some time, and expect that the Bishop forces would have taken some rest. Scherpenzeel does have a small castle, but it is unclear on which side this was, and a lot of damage was done to the village. As the taxes was allowed to be not paid for the next three year, due to the damage.

Geography of the battlefield

In the map included I have used the same geographical historical background, only projecting some extra information on top. The reason to use this, is to make an assumption how the route of travel would have been. Peat areas would have been swampy and diffcult to travel, especially with 1000 man and 1500 animals. Also river crossings will steer in a certain direction. That is the reason how I ended up in the current route as drawn.

In the future I hope to look more detailed into this, to investigate were the battle around Scherpenzeel took place. In the village itself, or close to the ford, or maybe somewhere to the north of Scherpenzeel, as that is the most dry area. There is only one mention of terrain data on the battlefield mentioned in the sources I have read. That is of a large hedge, either used to cover one flank or the rear of the Amersfoorters.

Wargaming

Next I hope to create some wargaming scenario using the above story. This so I can play it, parallel to the further research on the historical accounts, as I now mostly have used second hand sources.

I hope to play the scenario using the Sword&Spear rules, and 2mm figures. So I have to create some army lists, and starting conditions. Probably I will create multiple scenarios, to check if the troop strengths can be made more competitive if needed.

To be continued

Geography of a Battlefield – “The origin of the Dutch landscape”

The origin of the Dutch landscape

In this post I hope to provide a quick overview of the history of the Dutch landscape.

Dutch Landscape ~1500BC

The Netherlands before the Roman occupation was partly sand and partly a marchy, swampy peat landscape. The southeastern parts (in light yellow and ochre) is higher and mostly consist of sands. The west and north is mostly covered in peat (reddish brown) with some swampy areas and streams (light blue and light green). Historical there is not much known on this area. There are some hunter gatherer communities, as found from archeological digs. But there is not much recorded on what actually happened.

Dutch Landscape ~100AD

During the roman occupation, or annexation, the cultivation of the land was started. They dried out the peat areas, to create farmland and to obtain fuel. this started around the bigger streams and rivers. As these were used as way of transport. And where the ancients highways. Most roman forts are found next to the rivers. The drying can be seen in the peat areas which are getting smaller.

Dutch Landscape ~800AD

Up until the medieval times, the cultivation continued and the large peat areas were getting smaller. The additional effect was, that the land was getting lower. When peat dries, it will shrink. Also it will start to rot, reducing the height level of the land. This is important in the next few ages, as it will increase the risk when a flood happens.

Dutch Landscape ~1500AD

After multiple floods (between 1000-1200 AD) the sea has reclaimed some lands. The zuiderzee (southern sea, nowadays mostly called Ijselmeer) has increased in size, and the northwestern part of the Netherlands is a lot smaller. To reclaim the land of the sea multiple projects are started to make polders. This will continue the next centuries, with hightpoint around the 17th century. But also the modern day Flevoland has been reclaimed from the Ijsselmeer, as shown in the above map, with the projected contours.

The next step will be to focus on the Gelderse vallei again. Located in the middle, just below the Ijselmeer. Some large peat areas are still present, providing some economical interest.

Podcast

Quite recently I have been listening some podcast about the Dutch history. This quite interesting with a lot of information, and gives a quick overview of how the swamp land had grown into the Netherlands.

See their website or check on spotify

Sources:

Vos, P. & S. de Vries 2013: 2e generatie palaeogeografische kaarten van Nederland (versie 2.0). Deltares, Utrecht. Op 07-11-2019 gedownload van www.archeologieinnederland.nl

https://www.republicofamsterdamradio.com/historyofthenetherlands

A new year

The new year is already a week old. My start was a little different than planned, and just started with some fiver. But all is running normally again.

Last year I started this blog, to motivate myself to continue working on the different projects. I managed only 32 post. I had hoped to post a little more regularly, around 1 every week. But the whole of December I skipped. For the new year I won’t make a new year resolution to do it every week. I expect some changes in personal life, so probably not spending a lot of time on hobby stuff, especially around April.

But overall I do have some plans, on what I hope to achieve this year. Last year I have build a new desk to work on. The next step would to find a suitable storage solution for all the different projects. To store the miniatures, terrain and all other odd bits, during assembly, painting and in storage between games. Preferably transportable to make sure I can bring the miniatures to games in the same box as where they are stored.

The second aim, is to start and create a wargame scenario for the Battle of Scherpenzeel. The whole research will take probably be longer, but I hope to create some simple scenarios, of what the battle of Scherpenzeel would have looked liked. Parallel to this I hope to do a more in dept research on this battle, and try to recreate what actually happened. But this will be a multiple year plan, so I don’t expect any outcome for this year on that.

The third is linked to the second goal. Create an army for the battle of Scherpenzeel. Probably in 2mm scale, either Irregular miniatures or Forward March Studio combined with some own creations. If working in 2mm I will probably also include some odd roman or ancient forces, to play with the same rule set Sword & Spear. I hope to at least play one game of Sword & Spear this year.

The last goal is to paint and base a part of all the different air forces i acquired last year. i Have already started on this last weekend, and glued some magnets to aircraft. Hopefully i can continue this the coming weeks, so they can get primed, ready for painting.

This was the first post of this year, and hope that this will be a good start. Probably there will be more post without a lot of picture, and more logging my thoughts, to keep motivation and hope it is to interest for others.