Räder müssen Rollen für den Sieg! - And a completion of the 'season'

Once someone commented on one of my photos on Facebook that "This LGB-stock costs an arm and a leg". -And, yes it can pretty expensive if you're going to buy everything brand new from the shop. As I have a "budget approach" to wargaming, I also try to have a "budget approach" to my military garden railways. Like, I usually don't buy much brand new stuff, as I'm going to repaint them to suit my military theme anyway. Therefore I usually buy a lot of my rolling stock second hand if I can find it at reasonable prices at exhibitions in Norway or abroad.

This summer several interactive auctions was held on a Norwegian Facebook group for Garden Railways, as someone was drastically downsizing their collection. As lot of different items was offered through the whole summer, a "bidding war" arose as this was a possibility to potentially acquire LGB rolling-stock very cheap. I noticed that some of these items was 'very well used', and I managed to haul some of them to my collection though:

To make it a little bit more comprehensible, here is the 'lot' item by item:

I like the design of this 'U Class' and I also have a couple of models of it in H0e scale. I got this LGB model so cheap that I couldn't afford not to buy it. The locomotive is analogue, and does not have a military service as far as I know. Please share in the comment-section if you have any information about the Class U locomotives service during WW1 or WW2.  I'm not quite sure if I'm going for a civilian train here yet, or if I shall 'militarize' it some how? Ideas are welcome in the comment section. After a clean it runs quite well (video in the bottom of this post). It was even fitted with an analogue smoke generator:

These couple of wagons was actually fitted with analogue (steam-) sound circuit boards to my surprise. I didn't make it work and may have a look at it. I didn't actually know they were sound fitted and didn't buy them for that reason in the first place, but it was a nice 'bonus':

This one will defiantly need a repaint:

I have some of these open cars, but this one with the Brake man's cabin was new to me:

And another one of the same wagon, but without the Brake man's cabin. It had really nice markings and almost the same color of the rest of my rollingstock. It looks almost ready to run:

Another flatcar (which I didn't really need, but I bought it as it came in the same lot as the car in the next photo which I really wanted):

-This was an Accucraft model, and larger than the flatcar above. The couplings, like the car itself, are American and need to be replaced:

Since I have no own garden railway at the time, I put up a temporary oval (larger than the layout I had in the garden) just to run some trains and try them out:

It's said that LGB might be very expensive, but I'm quite happy getting all these items for about £ 404 or USD $ 545 with shipping. 

I already have a similar model of the locomotive, but in H0e scale:

It seems like Linus enjoyed to run trains on the terrace as well:

Well, it looks like I got enough items, along those I got from this swap meeting and some even 'older' ones, to keep me occupied for a long, long time. I plan to give the rollingstock a finish so I can run them in rakes behind both my German Heeresfeldbahn locomotive or my British War Department locomotive without looking too out of place. After running the same trains on several outings this summer, I'm looking forward to be able to haul something 'new' to add variation. Please follow my blog for updates.

A completion of the 'season'

To complete the Garden Railway running season,  Heine invited to 'Pizza & Beer', and people could also bring their trains for a late afternoon/ evening/night running-session. I didn't bring any this time as I've experienced that my grey trains (with few lights) practically gets invisible in the dusk. Here are some impressions:

It looks like someone was spending the night in Heine's driveway:

Well, it's only completion of the 'Summer running season' as the autumn and winter seasons are about to begin. We tries to run trains in the garden(s) through the whole year. By the time of writing this, I know some of our members already have started  the 'autumn running season' with a couple of outings already. My vacation is over and I can't always attend to them all as I usually work 'unsocial hours'.

The Battle Benchy Board Game 1.0.0

Despite confusingly similar names, this game is not the same naval wargame I played and reviewed earlier in the 'Benchy Battle' bloggpost. The game I'm going to play and review in this bloggpost is called 'The Battle Benchy Board Game 1.0.0' (rules is in the file section) and claims to be similar to Warhammer 40000. Even if it's name claims to be a Board Game, it's actually a miniature tabletop game meant to be played  with (specific) 'little Benchies'. I've never played any Warhammer games before so I have no idea how similar they actually are, but I do have a fleet of Benchies, so I'll give these rules a go. 

The STL-files on the page where I found the rules suggests that you can 3D-print wrecks to block line of sight, so I'll just use the wrecks from my previous 'Benchy Battle' and place them where my ships run out of health. 

The Scenario

The scenario will be the same as my previous 'Benchy game'; Navy B are protecting the water of the coast of 'Benchy Islands', while Navy A will try to defeat them and gain control of 'Benchy Islands'.

Forces:

• Navy A

From left to right; Gunboat, Corvette and Battleship 

• Navy B

From left to right; Battleship, Corvette and Gunboat,    

Mission:

• For both navies; To eliminate the opponent to gain control of the coast of 'Benchy Islands'.

The Game

Time:    1 hour and 8 minutes 

Turns:   10

Result:  A win for Navy A by a very narrow margin. 

Navy A was keeping a steady course for Benchy Islands:

When Navy B observed Navy A's offensive course, Navy B was seeking cover in sheltered waters:

It was not too obvious for Navy A where Navy B was located anymore:

Navy B was just lurking inshore, waiting:

When Navy A was approaching the Navy B Corvette made a reposition as the Navy A Battle Ship was heading towards the strait it was seeking cover in:

While in the open the Navy A Battleship turned and gave the Navy B Corvette a broad side and got a couple of hits before it reached cover:

When Navy A was entering the range of fire, the Navy B Battleship moved and gave the Navy A Corvette a 'broad side' a scored a couple of hits:

The Navy A Corvette returned fire and scored a couple of hits too:

This was the situation at the end of the initial clash:

The Navy A Corvette moved out of the Navy B Battleship's line of fire and tried an attack on those 2 Navy B ships hiding behind the small island, and scored another hit on that B-Corvette:

Navy B's Battleship took up the pursuit and gave that A-Corvette the Coup d'état:

Navy A's Battleship moved further into the strait to try to to fall Navy B in the back, but at the same time they were moving out to open waters:

But the Navy B Battleship came into sight, and the Navy A Battleship opened fire and scored another 2 hits:

The Navy A's small Gunboat sneaked around the island and clashed into the Navy B's small Gunboat. The Navy A boat opened massive fire...

...which the Navy B boat wasn't able to save:

At this point the Navy B's Battleship moved into position to return fire against the battle ship from Navy A, and hit with 3 shells:

An overall view of the situation at this point of the battle:

Navy B's Corvette retaliated Navy A's small Gunboat's attack... 

and sunk it in one salvo:

At this time the Navy A's Battleship had moved into a better firing position and gave Navy B's Battleship a final bombardment:

Now it was only Navy B's Corvette vs. Navy A's Battleship left in the battle:

The smaller Corvette tried to out maneuver the larger Battleship and opened fire and hit with one shell:

The Battleship turned around and gave the Corvette a broad side.

The smaller Corvette couldn't survive that massive fire, and sunk:

The attacking Navy A had the last floating ship, and it was heavily battle damaged at this point. This was a scanty victory for Navy A, which now controlled the sea of Benchy Islands

Pros

• The rules are free. The rules are easy to play.
• The rules are actually easy and only 4 really short pages long, but it feels like they're written unnecessarily complicated.

Cons

• This game uses specific types of 'naval' Benchies. I guess you can substitute the different kind of ships. I just played the game with the Benchies I had sorting them after 3 different 'classes'; Heavy, Medium and Light according to the rules and using their actually number of guns for weapon stats. My ships doesn't have rotating turrets either as suggested in the rules, so I'll just have to imagine my turrets turns to get Line of sight. 
• Turn sequence seems very unclear in the rules. I played it by rolling for activation each time for a ship, and a turn ended when all ships on both sides had activated. 

Conclusion

After playing this game I have a feeling that these rules are quite not finished yet. -Like the rules for activation is missing completely. The rues are also unnecessarily complicated written and should be simplified perhaps even with charts. I also think the rules are too specific for the 'Navy Benchy'-models the game designer intend to use for his games, and it would be better to categorize the ships into 3 or 4 different Classes based upon size and weaponry. Due to these shortcomings the rules are absolutely playable, and I did have a good time playing them out on my table. You could too.

I still have my 'Benchies' so I'll think I'll move on and try them out with some other free rules. Please follow my blog and find out.