A First Try Of Never Mind The Matchlocks

 

     I was intrigued by the free issue of Never Mind the Matchlocks that came with the latest issue of Wargames Illustrated . I had enjoyed the prior editions of the rules and thought that there were some interesting mechanics. I lack armies in the period of the War of the Roses so I never had a chance to give them a try. I do have armies in the period 1660-1690, just after the ECW, so I decided to give the rules a try with some tiny modifications. Pikes were pretty much a done deal by the end of the ECW/TYW so I left them out and increased the resistance of infantry to reflect the increasing availability of bayonets. I also dropped the ammunition rules as troops carried cartridge boxes of up to forty rounds instead of the "Twelve Apostles".

        I set up two generic armies; Red on the right and Blue on the left

 

the initial phase wherein players move units alternately and artillery is allowed to fire was an interesting difference to most rules, we found that the cavalry swept around the flanks while the infantry endured the attentions of the enemies guns, a cavalry clash (at the bottom of the screen) brought an end to this phase, Red's cavalry that charged were crushed and sent fleeing to the rear, musketry and cannon fire broke out across the board   

A Great Big Thank-You to all our veterans!

 

there is no greater honor than to hazard life and limb for the safety and freedom of others

        I would like to extend a great big thank-you to all our veterans. They all deserve recognition for placing themselves at risk so that we may enjoy the liberties enshrined in our Constitution.  Most do not get the recognition and honors they deserve so I would like to personally thank the ones that have impacted my life:

         George, my grandfather, the Great War. A first-generation German, he enlisted the day that we declared war on the German Empire in 1917.

         Wesley, my father, he was scheduled to be drafted for the invasion of Japan. The atomic bombs saved him that ordeal. As an Army National Guardsman he was activated to fight in the frozen hell of the Korean War. 

       Viktor, my father in law, he fled the fall of Germany as a child and found a home in the USA. He served six years in the Army and then twenty-four more in the Army Reserve, retiring as a CSM, the Cold War

       Tom from Texas, US Army, Cold War

        Brad the Unlucky, US Army, Cold War

       Trunkmonkey, US Army, Cold War

       Mike Reese, US Army, Cold War

       OldSarge, He fought in Vietnam  as an infantryman and then enlisted in the Navy and served as an airman on P-2 Neptunes during the Cold War 

       Bob Webb, US Army, Vietnam, Cold War

       Brendan Moore, US Air Force, Cold War

       Honest Dan, currently serving, US Army, GWOT

       The Hutch, US Army, Cold War

       Joe, currently serving, US Army, GWOT

       Paul daMarine, US Marine Corps, GWOT

       Rick Jones (not THAT one!) US Navy, Cold War

       Zhodani Commando,  Company F 425 LRRP., Cold War

       You are Good Men, one and all. I ,and the Nation, owe you all a debt of honor and gratitude!

Pilots for my planes

 

 

ah, the Good Old Days, when models came with crew figures,

 Monogram, Airfix and Revell usually did a good job with the sculpts

 pilot figures from the recent HS-123 build

       I have to admit that I preferred the days gone by when model aircraft came with crew figures. Now I am expected to spend several dollars each on 3D printed minis. Granted modern kits are worlds away from the primitive models that we were being served back in the 1960s-70s. However I am a wargamer, nobody that I'm gaming with is terribly concerned about our models having the right sort of throttle or the correct seat-belt latch. Empty cockpits, on the other hand, are a bit of a distraction. The lack of crew figures has driven me to desperate measures, even going so far as to steal seated infantrymen from my half-track models and carve away their rifles and helmets. 

 

infantry that have volunteered to become pilots

 

 

with some judicious knife and file work they make passable crewmen...

 

 

... especially when compared to some of the pilot minis provided

 

frankly, some are simply terrible

 

       There are some sets of pilot figures available in soft plastic but they are almost always dismounted and I find that the soft plastic kits often have significant amounts of flash and prominent mold-lines that are very difficult to clean up. Additionally, once you divide the price by the number of usable pilots figures they cost nearly as much as resin figures online. What I really need is a basic pilot figure that I can print using my Bambu Mini. Just shoulders and a head.....is that too much to ask?

Meanwhile, back in Germany; HS-123s join the Luftwaffe

        Having completed the hard paint jobs (Spanish and Chinese) I got cracking on the Luftwaffe units. These are in the standard green/black-green over light blue color scheme. I was careful about making sure that I used decals to indicate different units (although I'm not at all certain that the markings are correct chronologically or geographically).  Things went smoothly and most of the decals were good (aside from the lack of tail swastikas). My penchant for mixing my own colors slowed things but not too badly.

 

having learned the hard way  that yellow paint covers nothing except white 

I got the cowlings sorted out first then moved on to mixing up a batch of Helleblau