Call of Plastic

I am a member in a Fb-group called 'Super Cheap Wargaming', which is right up my alley regarding my interest for wargaming on a budget. Earlier this year another member of the group and game designer, Adam L. Dobbyns uploaded some very easy rules called 'Call of Plastic'. At first glance I thought these rules looked just too simple to be interesting, but since I've already done some other very basic wargames last year (Basic Battles and Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust Dueling game) I decided to take a closer look at this one as well.

The rules

The rules was posted in the mentioned Fb-group, but later removed again. The rules can also be found and downloaded on this link for free.

The scenario

The Call of Plastic rules is designed to be a very easy and fast play wargame based on smaller units only allowing to activate 3 individual soldiers each side each turn, rather than several larger units. So I think this calls for a small skirmish scenario and game. 

It's tempting to use 'modern army men' as the Call of Plastic's very graphical rules suggests use of modern assault rifles and Kevlar protection. I've decided to interp the rules to be basically about ranged combat, close combat and savings and use them for what ever period I like.

I would also like to something to compare theses rules with, so I've decided to re-use the scenario I've used for the wargame reviews of Chain Reaction and One Hour Skirmish Wargames. So again I've placed this skirmish to the United Nations largest mission in both scale and operational scope during the Congo Crisis 1960-65, when UN troops 'peacekeeping' was more offensive 'peace enforcement' with force. 

Situation: 

To secure the main supply route (MSR) between the UN-bases in Kamina and Albertville, The United Nations temporary deploy several traffic control posts (TCP) at critical points along the MSR a head of the convoys and other priority transports, to avoid and handle 'disruptions'. This service are conducted by the Military Police, and each TCP are usually manned by a single Military Police patrol with a few members.

Place:

A head of several planned supply convoys from Kamina to Albertville at the 7th of May 1961, several TCPs are established by UN Military Police along the route. One of these Military Police patrols are securing the junction between Manono and Kitotolo located in the self proclaimed state of Katanga.

Forces:

• UN:
• 1 MP Patrol/ Traffic Control Post of:

• 1st. Sgt. Hicks with SMG
• Sgt. Wayne with pistol 
• Cpl. Dreyer with M1 Garand
• Cpl. Cord with SMG

• Katangese:
  
• A small squad of 5 Katangan Gendarms:
• Cpl. "Crazy Gali" 
• 3 members armed with rifles and 1 private with a SMG.

Mission:

• Katangese: To interrupt the UN presence and possible capture some of that UN equipment or weapons. I think they'd really like that Jeep too.
• UN: To hold and secure the junction so the UN convoy don't get lost on the wrong way and ends up in areas controlled by Katangese forces.

AAR

Time:    16 minutes 

Turns:   5

Result:  UN victory by accomplishing their mission, eliminating their oponent and by points.

When arriving to the junction Sgt. Wayne suggest that they take a closer look at the courtyard across the junction, as if it's safe it can eventually be used as a hold-and-turn area for those UN convoys passing later to hold some of the convoys back, a place to do maintenance on them or turn them if needed.
1. Sgt Hicks agrees. As they have plenty of time before the first convoy are expected, they decides to have a closer look at the courtyard. The buildings looks empty:

Meanwhile the UN MP's are unaware that Cpl. Gali from the local Katangan Gendarmerie detachment are leading a small patrol approaching the same courtyard from the opposite side:

Cpl. Gali needs to secure both buildings to control the courtyard and road cross, and orders one of his Gendarms up on the roof on the building they're hiding behind. Then he orders 2 others to advance to the well to give cover and and supporting fire to secure the further advancement to the furthermost building of the yard:

As 2 of the Gendarms reach cover behind the well...

...they're spotted by the UN MPs. 1st. Sgt Hicks orders his MP's to seek cover and open fire against the potential danger:

Sgt. Wayne, Cpl. Cord and Cpl. Dreyer immediately takes action and opens fire:

- They hit both of the Katangan Gendarms seeking cover behind the well. From being outnumbered, it seems like the numbers are evening out and become more favorable for the UN MPs now.

Cpl. Gali immediately orders the last member of his patrol to advance to the well, seek cover and provide supporting fire from there:

When reaching the the well the Gendarm opens fire and hits Sgt. Wayne:

Cpl. Cord opens fire and hits Cpl. Gali hiding behind the corner. The Katangan Gendarmerie are now without command, and any further advancements comes to a halt. The 2 last Gendarms are only holding their ground for now:

Meanwhile 1st. Sgt. Hicks has teamed up with Cpl. Dreyer, and they both opens fire against the Katangan Gendarm on the roof. -And hits!

The Last Katangan Gendarm is trapped by the well as there are no one left to give him covering fire so he can retreat. He unsuccessfully return the UN fire. The UN fire on the other hand is massive, presise and devastating...

...and they finally takes out the last Katangan Gendarm:

Even if the UN Military Police patrol suffered one casualty, it's still a 'victory' to them as they manage to hold the road cross for the coming UN Convoys, and they control the courtyard if needed for one of those Convoys.

Pros

• The rules are free.
• The 2 page graphic rules makes this very easy and quick to learn and play. 
• You can play this game with any toy soldiers or readily available  army men regardless of they have assault guns and Kevlar or not.

Cons

• There are only rules for ranged combat in general without any consideration to different firearms, RPGs, grenades etc. and different rate of fire and damage potential. Some weapons just make more damage than others and have different effective ranges.
• There are no negative modifiers for moving over or through difficult terrain. A soldier will move as fast through or over cover as he would in the open.
• These rules doesn't differ between different covers from hard, medium or soft, or if the soldier is just 'concealed'.

Conclusion

Thise is a very basic game in it's simplest form, limited to moving and fighting on 2 different ranges. The only modifier is for cover. The graphic rules makes them very easy and quick to both learn and play, and these rules are great if you want to introduce wargaming to a newbie.

My experience is that these rules makes it too convenient for the combatants to stay in cover and exchange fire as there isn't any positive modifiers to move into a closer and more favorable position and add the chances for hitting in ranged combat. Perhaps the intention in this game is actually to have the combatants rush into battle and fight heads on, as you gain more points for downed enemies in close combat, like described in this YouTube-video?

Nevertheless if the point of this game is to storm into battle to try to score as many points as possible, I played it my way and had a narrative and enjoyable game. Since being both easy and  very fast to play, I had time for a couple of games. Thus using same scenario, forces and tactics the result varied (a lot). If you have not tried these rules yet I recommend you to give them a try. - it won't take much of your time.

It looks like Adam L. Dobbyns has made a slightly more advanced verison of this wargame addressing some of my 'cons' above. Please follow my blog for updates if I decides to try them out as well. 

On the (t)rail of history: Heritage train on one of Norway's most spectacular Railways

My wife took me by surprise when she suggested we should join a heritage train ride this weekend on the Rauma Railway, which is one of Norway's most scenic and spectacular ones. Of course I couldn't resist. I'm not only into model railways, but like to study the prototype as well. Besides this travel is in an area with a lot of WW2 history. She is a keep!

The train ride started in Hamar, which is the town where the Norwegian Railway Museum is located. This heritage train ride was arranged by the Railway Museum, and the motive power of the day to pull the old coaches was a 1958 Nohab Di.3 diesel. A really Classic:

Maps like this was signposted in all of our old coaches, and also presented some few facts about Norway in different languages. It seems like our population was 'less than half' back then:

I've marked our trip on the map; It began in Hamar in the south and went up through Gudbrandsvalley to the mountain at Dombås, before going down the Rauma valley to Åndalsnes, then returning the same way. A trip taking some 11 hours through different and spectacular scenery and changing weather conditions:

Shortly after departing Hamar:

A short stop at Vinstra on the way up to the mountain pass at Dombås:

Dombås is a mountain pass between Southern and Northern and Eastern and Western parts of Norway and an important road and railway junction. Dombås was strategically important during the battle of Norway in april 1940. It was held with combined Norwegian and British forces, but the Germans tried to capture Dombås by using Paratroopers for the first time during WW2. The German Paratroopers landed to scattered and lost the airplanes with their heavier weapons. Even if it came to heavy fighting, the German mission failed and the Paratroopers were eventually captured. Due to this the Germans heavily bombed Dombås and Rauma valley. Since the Norwegians managed to secure Dombås, The Norwegian King and Crownprince could also be evacuated by train passing Dombås.

This train had a bistro-coach:

Our lunch: 

After passing the highest point at Dombås, we continued at the Rauma branch line on our way down to Åndalsnes. Now the weather drastically changed into winter:

Further down the Rauma valley there were less snow again:

There were a lot of battle actions through the Rauma valley in april 1940 as well. The Norwegian gold reserves was evacuated from the Germans from Oslo 1940, and transported by train to Åndalsnes to finally evacuate it by ships. The Germans kept bombing Åndalsnes very heavily and the 'gold train' was withdraw to Romsdalshorn station to get some protection against the aerial attacks by the steep mountain there; Trollveggen. At the station 49 tons of gold was eventually reloaded onto trucks and transported to Molde by road and eventually evacuated by British ships. I've seen the reloading scene modeled a couple of times in H0 on Norwegian layouts:

A couple of photos I took from the 'Gold Train' display at Romsdalshorn station during a motorcycle trip in the summer of '23:

Both these actions could serve as inspiration to create wargaming scenarios. Coincidentally Mark at the Man of Tin blog also made a post about using the evacuation of the King and gold as inspiration for scenarios using his newly painted combined Norwegian 1940 Infantry/ Star Wars Hoth Rebels this weekend. A very interesting project I recommend you to visit and read:

That's the brief history lessons for now. Time to continue down the valley to Åndalsnes:

This is at Åndalsnes Railway station at sea level. The 'Golden Train' in the background is a tourist train taking mainly cruises passengers to Bjorli and back in spectacular scenery and telling the important war history from this area:

Back at Hamar later in the evening:

It's always difficult to film a train in which you ride yourself. -But I've found a YouTube-Channel where the user sthalvardsgt had uploaded 3 videos of this train while running:

Perhaps about time to take a look at the movie Gold Run again. 

Important updates on 1 BC (Brain Cell) Toy Solder Rules by Pete Kautz

From a wargame using 1BC Toy Soldier rules from 2024

An attentive reader of my blog very recently brought to my attention that all the links in my blog to the 1 BC (Brain Cell) Toy Soldier Rules by Pete Kautz was broken. Thank you for notifying me Miquel! 

When checking the links I see that not only Pete Kautz' pdf file for the 1BC (Brain Cell) Toy Soldier Rules (http://www.alliancemartialarts.com/1BCToySoldiers.pdf) is currently offline, but also his entire website at https://www.alliancemartialarts.com/ . I don't know for how long time they are offline, but in worst case; forever.

As all the published links to these rules through the internet terminates at these URLs it means that his rules are not as available as they used to be. -Which is too bad as they are easy to play, great starters and they are also my "go to rules". 

I've found a couple of saved copies of the rules online:

• 1 BC (Brain Cell) Toy Soldier Rules on Wayback Machine
• 1 BC (Brain Cell) Toy Soldier Rules on SCRIBD

I have updated all my links I know of in my blog correspondingly. I know these rules, which are turning 25 yrs this year have a lot of fans and I recommend other bloggers to update and share these new URLs to these rules too so we can keep them available and in live for other and coming wargamers.

Blog PostScript 

Inspired by the comments to this blogpost, I've decided to post a complete copy of the rules them selves on this blog, so they'll stay online on another URL as well:

From a wargame using 1BC Toy Soldier rules from 2024

Easter Special

This is about to become an annual event as Heine invited to another 'Easter Running Session' on his Garden Railway this Easter as well. This was an opportunity to try out my new 'truck loads' in running trains just some few days after receiving them:

They didn't look too out of place in a rake pulled by my WDLR livesteam engine either:

A lot of people came by Heine's garden and here are some impressions of the 'Easter Specials' running this day:

Heine's Chocolate train. 'Kvikk Lunsj' (almost similar to Kit Kat) is often associated with 'Easter, skiing or hiking' in Norway. This load was even enough to supply the visiting kids 

This is a scrtatchbuilt RhB locomotive

This RhB locomotive. a 'Crocodile', is a WiP 3D-printed model

This was an 'Easter Special' after all, so I've loaded some railway cars and trucks (which were revealed when I removed the lorry canvas) with some gifts for Heine since he kindly keep inviting us over:

"Easter Feast" The Gleng MRC way:

Even if is Heine's Garden Railway is a really large one, he have plans for expanding it even further (!)
Exciting!!

A while ago there was another 'thing' occurring on Facebook, but it didn't make it to another 'trend' though. It was like the earlier A.I. 'action figures challenge', but just with Lego instead. I made it to make a contribution:

It's about time doing some table top battles again, so I guess the next blogpost will be wargame related. Perhaps trying out some new (free) rules this weekend?
Stay tuned and find out!