An enjoyable Sunday out

Last Sunday a friend and fellow member of our Model Railway Club invited to a running session on his Garden Railway. The weather was really nice and sunny and it was a great day out. 

People are getting their trains ready to run in the fiddleyard:

A friend brought a new live steam locomotive and rake for the operating session. A most impressive engine:

Another American steam locomotive (which is battery operated):

Rätische Bahn from Switzerland:

Another train from Rätische bahn:

This narrow gauge train actually had Rollbocks to transport standard gauge wagons on narrow gauge railways (which are impressive models when modeled to true II / 1:22,5 scale):

A German Mallet locomotive:

With a 'Banana-wagon' which is kind of a signature or symbol to our club, as we used 'Banana wagons' to identify our self when first meeting each other 24 years ago. It looks like the monkeys are having a good time:

Heine trades with racing parts and has also modeled his father's old race car to 1:24 scale:

And another car he's not trading parts for yet. I'm curious to see if he makes this one to run on rails in the future:

There were kids visiting the Garden Railway this day so another 'famous' train made an appearance:

Heine has even hidden a speaker in the goods wagon (play it with sound on your own risk):

I brought my military trains, one British and one German:

Both are British steam, One narrow gauge and one standard gauge:

All in all, this was a really great day out and everyone seemed to enjoy them self:

This is in the very social end of the hobby; coming together and enjoying not only common interest in trains but also enjoying a bbq lunch togheter:

Thank you very much for the invitation and your hospitality Heine!

"Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" Dueling Game

When trying the "Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" dueling game for the very first time, this is how I eventually envisioned  the game. The image was generated by ChatGPT 

"Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" Dueling game by Gerard Du Gre must be one of the easiest and most fast playing wargames ever made. -Or is perhaps more like a dueling game. And you don't need more than a couple of miniatures to play it either. Actually you need so little and the rules are so short, that this was actually a game I considered for the 'Wargame in a Wee Matchbox Challenge'. Finally I didn't, but my own entry to the challenge just ended up as a kind of dueling game as well.

This game was brought to my knowledge thorough some excellent blogger posts by Mark at The Man of Tin Blog. By following his links to his earlier blogger posts I ended up at Alan's blog The Duchy of Tredgardland, where Kaptain Kobold suggested how to play "Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" with dice (D6) instead of cards in the comment section. All these blogger posts really aroused my interests to try this game myself.

I had no intention to use a lot of time or effort to make a lot of different attack- and defense-cards to just to try out such a a small and simple game, but Kaptain Kobold's suggestion to play it with a D6 was so simple that it could be summarized and captured in a single photo by Mark at his blog. -So finally trying out this new (to me) game became a no-brainer to me! I used the rules as provided in Mark's photo:

Photo by Mark at The Man of Tin, which actually sums up the whole game. Actually it was this photo that gave me the final push to try this game my self.

Preparing the game

Even if Mark suggests a lot of different suitable miniatures and scenarios for such a small game on his blog, I didn't find any usable miniatures at home for playing this as mine are too modern and none of them are armed with swords or sabres. I was at my local toy shop considering to buy some Playmobil Romans or Pirates for this, but the selection was poor and I thought they were a bit pricey as well. So I decided to simply try to 3D-print a couple of miniatures in 54mm for this test game instead:

I also 3D-printed some suitable broken columns as 'periodic terrain' just to set the scene:

Since I printed these in white plastic, I didn't care to paint them, so I just gave them a 'Black Wash' instead.

The scenario

I've arranged this duel as a Roman Gladiator Fight. 

Similar opponents with same weapons, skills and armour getting similar Combat Points to make it easy and balanced. I settled for 5 Combat Points each as suggested by Mark. 

Forces: 

• Attacker: Magnumius the Roman Legionnaire:

• Defender: Polulus the Murmillo Gladiator:

Mission:

• For both combatants; To win the Gladiator Match by killing their opponent.

The Game

Time:    6 minutes (when taking photos etc.) An average game takes 2-3 minutes.

Turns:   8

Result:  Victory to Polulus the Murmillo Gladiator 

The Gladiator match is about to begin:

Turn 1: The Gladiator starts off really offensive:

Turn 2: And the Gladiator keeps on his offensive fighting:

Turn 3: The Legionnaire makes a successful counter attack: 

Turn 4: It looks like the fighters are about getting exhausted and tired now and none of them scores a hit:

Turn 5: The Legionnaire makes a successful hit again: 

Turn 6: The Gladiator regain the initiative:

Turn 7: And keeps aggressively pushing:

Turn 8: Until he finally gives the Legionnaire 'The Coup De Grace'. The audience is cheering:

Pros

• This is a very easy and fast playing wargame
• You won't need more than 2 miniatures for a game, but you could add some few more if you like a more intensive and very small skirmish game.
• This game works well for SOLO-playing.
• This can be a very interesting way or mechanics to resolve close combat in other wargames too. -And you can vary different number of Combat Points for your opponents regarding how well protected with different type of armour. 

Cons

• There is not much decision making regarding tactics in such a simple wargame. 

Conclusion

I would like to thanks Mark and Alan for bringing this game to attention on their  blogs and Kaptain Kobold for finding a way to play an easy game even easier. It made me certainly want to try a game I else wouldn't have tried. This was also my first ancient wargame.

I made some optional rules so the rules also can be used for fighters with different armour (and the ability to take more damage), and allowing for some movement as well.

-And if you haven't tried this game yet, I highly recommend you to do so for a an easy, free, fast playing fun game!

You don't need much to play this game, and is an ideal game to play if you're in a hurry and don't have time for any complicated setups or long games.

Blog PostScript

At the time of posting this 'imaginary action playsets' created by ChatGPT are trending on Facebook. This is how ChatGPT would envisage a playset of an instant wargame reviewed in this blogpost:

Another suggestion by ChatGPT:

It would be cool to see this thing in production and I think such playsets would be salable. What do you think?

Drafting more troops to the Collection

An unexpected and most generous offer from Stephen from the Tunnies Terrain Blog was posted in the comment-section in an earlier post this year. He offered me bags of 1:76 scale Airfix originals for free. Wow! -What an offer!! I humbly accepted.

Stephen's generous gift sent me to the Post-Office today to pick up this exciting parcel. Which coincidentally arrived just before my Birthday as well: 

This is very brief look of what was inside:

Lets take a closer look at the content:

71 American Civil War Confederates:

79 American Civil War Unions:

43 Napoleonic Highlanders:

15 Modern NATO Ground Crew:

50 WWII Australians and Gurkhas:

32 WWII German Mountain Troops:

43 WWII German Infantry:

60 WWII US Paratroopers. Some of them were painted:

52 WWII Italian Infantry:

70 WWII British Infantry:

29: WWII British Paratroopers:

Stephen does not only run the Tunnies Terrain Blog, but he also used to run the business Tunnies Terrain and made terrain and scenic items for wargaming. He still stocks some these items, and if you want to know more about what's still available he can be contacted directly through his Blog or Facebook. So he added to the unexpected surprise by adding some groups of trees he made while running his business. It's a very clever design allowing you to instantly add wooded areas and a small forrest to your tabletop:

I vaguely have some plans how to use these figures and great trees for various projects already. Some of them will go to useful bits and pieces. But I urgently feels like deploying these soldiers in some kind of improvised wargame soon despite they're being unpainted at the time. Time will show, so please follow this blog if you don't already do so.

Thank you very much for the generous gift Stephen! 

Blog PostScript 

ChatGPT-generated images of imaginary 'action figures' are still trending on Facebook, so here is another one related to the theme of this blog-post: