For the past two years, I’ve been continuously painting and playing Hail Caesar Epic Battles: The Punic Wars. I’m happy to say I’ve finally finished playing every single scenario included in the book.

I originally picked up this game more out of interest in the game mechanics rather than a deep historical fascination with the period, so completing all the scenarios feels like a massive milestone for me.

I have to say, the Hannibal battle-set is a fantastic box. I was able to play through almost all the scenarios without needing to purchase any additional units.

I'm not really one to keep miniatures just for a collection once a project is done, so I've given the entire set to another gamer who was interested. I’m sure my army will see action again on a tabletop in a distant land.

Just sharing some pics from last weekends Historicon convention. Our group ran 4 Hail Of Fire games and 4 other games (I wasn’t there for those ones). We did two 6 player games and two 12 player games. The 12 player games were armor only and the goal was to see how many burning wrecks we could get on the table at one time. The first session got 77. The second session got over 150 (it was too hard to confirm an actual count but we were all above 150 lol)

'REAR RANK, PRESENT!'

Zulu war British infantry project recently painted up. Figures are from Empress Miniatures 😊

I'm looking to put down 40k and branch into other wargames.

I've made an attempt at Black Powder 2, as well Bolt Action 3e, just need to commit to models.

I'm not picky about setting though modern military could be cool. I would like something I can easily grab workable models as STL's as well.

Hopefully there's a handful of suggestions I can dig into.

Warlords of Archaios is a free 3d printable wargame where the rules, miniatures, and objective cards are free to print. The game has 4 factions; The Kingdoms, Orcs, Undead, and the Elves.

Download the Files on our Website:
https://warlordsofarchaios.com/

Hello, i would like to ask you for help, i am trying to find some good WW2 skrimish game. So far we played games like ASOIAF, KOW Armada or Moonstone, so if there is a game with "light" rules like that (Games with rules like W40k scares me) so a game that offer to play small battles with few models that would be what i seek. I looked at 02 Hundred Hours, but i am not sure if that is fun for the defender. And Bolt Action looks like its about large scale battles. But maybe i am wrong.

What are the best skirmish games with sci fi or fantasy themes? Ideally looking for games that I can play with 5-10 models (I take forever to paint) and games that have simple rules (I found kill team to be way too complicated for example). Ideally it’d be cool if the games have options to play with minis that have some factions with cool monsters or demons.

I have the rules and gauges for Triumph, but need a good source of 15mm ancients. I want to build two armies for it, and would like to see if someone sell complete armies (unpainted, I can do that), instead of buying it piecemeal.

Has anyone tried this? Or be better with 6mm?

After years of waiting and collecting, I finally got DB to the table. It was a blast, however some questions came up. If anyone has experience with the system, can you tell me if there is a limit on the number of times a group or formation can activate in a turn? Most nobles have 2 command initiatives to spend. Does this mean a group/formation can activate twice in a noble's turn? Are they restricted in the type of activations that they can make? For example, can a noble, who is within command range of a group, activate that group to move twice, or to move and loot, or move and fight, or even fight twice? My opponent and I ruled that a group/formation could only be activated once in a game round regardless of which nobles/lord were active. It made the game go a bit slow, however being able to activate multiple times made us concerned that groups/formations would be able to do too much. The rulebook never states a limit on activations, so I'm pretty sure now that a noble/lord can activate any group/formation within their command range as many times as they have command initiatives.

Thanks!

Hello!

I'm back and looking for suggestions. I've done little star wars and wh40k minis (on 50mm bases) for galactic heroes 2e by Wiley games (with the grim dark expansion for wh40k). Well recently I've gotten really into making tanks and vehicles and mechs. I'm looking for games that focus around those aspects, and maybe some infantry I guess if I have to, though the scales might be different or off. As the title says, I'm not one to buy plastic models and paint them, instead I crochet my own minis and craft terrain out of stuff like cardboard, foam, felt, and plastic pieces! Any suggestions for rules? I know about tonks, tanks for the apocalypse, the wiley systems. I'm curious about 5pfh: tactics, and I'm really craving something with a low model count, miniature agnostic, not a ton of book keeping and something I can play co-op, head to head, or as a GM for other players, as I tend to play by hosting events at my local gaming space. I can try to make mechs again, just kind of lost interest since I couldn't decide between western mechs and eastern mecha (that's how I've been taught to describe them at least. The difference between battletech/mech warrior and gundam.) I'm not too picky for genre as long as I can do mechanized stuff, though I prefer sci-fi or weird things over just straight up ww2 or such.

All suggestions are loved!

Attached are a few pics of my tanks, and you can check my posts for the gaslands cars and minis I did for the star wars and wh40k games I ran.

Green tank is 13 cm long from front to back of treads, 11 cm side to side, 14 cm from top to bottom, including the rurret, and 20 cm from tip of barrel to back of turret. the blue tank is 10 cm front to back, 8 cm wide, 8 cm tall, 12.5 mm for turret full length. I'm trying to reduce the sizes a bit.

My Matilda Frog is coming along nicely but I need some decals to finish him off.

Any good sources of commonwealth jungle decals?

I may have been accused of not offering any valid criticism of Chain of Command (COC) so here it is for posterity:

THE MAIN PREMISE: COC is bad a wargame IMO and also isn't more historically accurate despite what its supporters maintain.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY

The whole premise behind COC is that corporals and sergeants (NCOs) play major role in command structiure of a platoon of infantry.

To a degree this is true but it only really applies to western forces (UK/Commonwealth, USA, Germany and maybe Hungary).

Everyone else in WW2 (Soviets, Italians,Japanese, Romanians) never did this. Their NCOs were there for discipline. Most didn't have professional NCOs instead a senior conscript (12 months service in Soviet land but often less cause Soviet units were raised quickly and deployed very quickly).

Even junior officers (platoon leaders like lieutenants) didn't have much leadership or decision making ability or authority.

Instead junior officers were mere conduits for highly detailed and prescriptive orders by higher officers.

As such many of these armies struggled to maneouvre at platoon level (ie section by section) and instead maneouvred at company level (platoon by platoon) or even higher.

We see this in action in Ukraine where Russians keep doing the same stupid thing over and over (eg brigade after brigade being smashed at same river crossing point). The lower level officers are doing as they're told without thinking.

TL:DR IN WEST YOU ARE TOLD YOUR GOAL AND THEN YOU DECIDE HOW TO ACHIEVE IT. ELSEWHERE YOU ARE TOLD EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT.

So Chain of Command does a decent job of applying the command issues from a western perspective. It is dismal from any other perspective.

Bolt Action has same problem but it doesn't pretend to be that historical. Flames of War solved it by having Soviets operate in companies whilst everyone else operates in platoons. Battlegroup solves it poorly - German squads are split into fireteams and Soviets use sections but Americans use sections too.

FULL STRENGTH

COC assumes units are always at full strebgth. This is never ever true. There is casualties,secondments to other duties illness/injury and logistical issues.

Eg in desert war infantry units were only ever the size of how many trucks were available. Australian assault companies at El Alamein were about 50 men strong (TOE was 120).

Even where full units were available, the British often kept a chunk of the unit out of the fight to keep a cadre for rebuilding in casexa unit qas wiped out.

FoW and BA both allow understength units. Battlegroup doesn't COC does not (and no the campaign system is not integral to COC).

GROUND SCALE AND FORCES

Unlike most rulesets COC specifies a ground scale (from memory 250 yards by 350 yards).

That is fine for a platoon on defence.

However this groundscale is actually what would be assigned to a company. Now most companies wouldn't assign all three platoons to an attack but would usually assign 2 with 3rd in reserve to explpit success or reinforce a sagging attack.

So COC gets its force disposition wrong. The attacker should be much stronger than the defender. The defender might benefit from passive and other defences (dug in, mines, pickets, units on overwatch etc).

BA also doesn't bother with this save in scenarios.

FoW and Battlegroup often pose major restrictions on what defender can deploy with rest of force being in reserve.

There are many other issues with CoC and historical accuracy be it its support lists, lack of night fighting.

NOW ALL RULESETS ARE IN THE SAME BOAT.

They are literal games of toy soldiers. Some might capture odd military concept but war is far different to pushing a bumcj of toy soldiers according to some arbitrary ruleset.

FRICTION v COMPLETE RANDOMNESS

Sorry but any wargame that has a luck based mechanism sicj as dice rolling to determine results has built in friction.

And in terms of command friction in WW2, other WW2 games do it as well - Bolt Action has Order Dice and pinning, Battlegroup randomises number of orders. FOW doesn't really unless units are pinned.

Where COC falls down is that everything is completely random - what you deploy, whether it can activate, how far it can move,whose turn (phase) it is,how long an artillery barrage lasts, etc in addition to traditional randombess in shooting

Rules as written in V1 you could play a game whereby one side keeps rolliing double 6s and the other guy never has a go.

Even Tactical Painter has posted battle reports on his excellent blog where a spate of double 6s cripples one side.

On the other side objectives didn't matter as much as getting Force Morale down.

You could have the opponent shut down your Jump Off points before you have even had a chance to deploy a unit.

And then random abilities that get unlocked by rolling so many 5s- more a video game mechanic than a wargaming mechanic.

I am sure your average AT team didn't wait for the Power Up bar to fill up before launching fausts at some maruauding Sheman or T-34

THE IMPACT OF ALL THIS RANDOMNESS?

Poor game play. Why risk movement when you might roll triple 1? Who cares if you have suppressed the one of the enemy squads when your guys are left standing in the open after a triple 1?

Game devolves into firefights because maneouvre has top much risk. BA V2, BG and FOW all did fire and maneouvre much better. BA V3 reduced imlact of pinning which hampered fire and maneouvre

In real life there are unexpected events of course.

But you can rely on trained reasonably led and reasinably motivated soldiers to do as they are ordered. We see this even where orders are suicidal (Aligator Creek or 7th Armoured Division at Sidi Rezegh).

Surely you get soldiers who surrender or refuse to fight aggressively (eg some French reserve divisions at battle of Sedan or Italian coastal formations in Sicily).

COC literally makes it that soldiers aren't often active because you might be rolling poorly (eg 4s when senior officer is off the table, 5,6).

Meanwhile opponent could be getting all good activations and double phases and is mowing you down.

FOW allows all troops to be used (though pinned units mighg not), Battlegroup randomises orders but something will always activate. Bolt Action allows all units to activate but who gets next activation is unknown

WHERE IS THE RECONNAISANCE?

The above isn't helped by the fact that attacher hasn't got a clue where the defender is.

That might be true in heavily forested or urban areas but anywhere else recon especially aerial recon (eg that flown by L3 Grashoppers or Fi-156 Storchs but also high flying Spitfires or Fw189s) could be very adept at finding trench lines. Foot reconnaissance and intelligence also was at times good at mapping frontline enemy positions.

Competent reconnaissance could find positions even on dense terrain (eg Soviets during Operation Bagration or Americans during Operation Cobra) The game has a Patrol Phase but somehow these patrol forces never discover enemy fortifications or minefields let alone dug in tanks or troops concentrations.

And even if such things aren't confirmed visually, military commanders would come to conclusions about most obvious defensive positions when looking at maps.

And it really is as if there is no reconnaissance. Literally each attacking platoon in COC blunders in. In COC universe, there are no recce forces swarming in front of main forces.

If reconnaissance of at least frontline positions didn't exist, then operations like Cobra or El Alamein let alone Overlord or Husky would have been impossible.

VEHICLES ARE HANDLED TERRIBLY

Yes I understand that COC is a game of infantry but it handles vehicles so clunkily and often vehicles are next to useless and not worth taking (people opt for infantry guns or infantry based support options).

Coupling poor vehicle utility with the unreliable list system means painting vehicles is often a waste of time.

FIDDLY RULES

The rules as a whole are very fiddly and convoluted. Very clunky writing.

A TOY SOLDIER GAME THAT PROMOTES NOT PLAYING WITH YOUR TOY SOLDIERS

So you have a game where:

1. Vehicles are often redundant, difficult to use and even difficult to include in your force.
2. A game where Patrol Phase might determine the winner before any figures are deployed.
3. A game where units might never deploy due to poor rolls (exacerbated by artillery barrages).
4. A game where units might not activate during the entire game.
5. A game where it is often not worth deploying units.
6. A game where one player might get all key phases before the other has a chance to do anything.

Literally a toy soldier game where you don't play with your toy soldiers.

Man, I want my toy soldiers doing stuff and have an equal chance of playing the game.

If you like COC good for you.

But don't tell me it is more historical than other games and I personally find it an extremely poorly designed game.

Just wanted to show off some screenshots of all the work i put in during the last days. Really proud of what it became, compared to the first version. Should work with any wargame!

Enjoy it, it's free: https://udos3dworld.com/WargamingSimulator/

How to get started: Visit the army creator (linked in the wargaming simulator), select one of the templates (depending on the game you want to play) and put in your army list. Select models for the units, download the zip and upload it in an existing game. You can play with anyone by just sharing the game link. Enjoy!

Hi gang. I'm normally one for making full tables from scratch or roll-up textured sheets. But storage and time limitations have led to me needing to get a 3x3 mouse mat style gaming mat. I've never really looked at them before, the market seems to be dominated by Pwork and Deep Cut. Are these any good, are there better options out there?

If it helps any, I'm after an arid steppes, dusty lightly grassed type affair, as realistic as possible.

Thanks in advance.

The iconic Fokker Dr.I joins the growing roster for Death Spiral™. Every aircraft is designed, printed, assembled, and painted in-house at Hexwerks Studios.
This is just the beginning.
1/144 Scale
Hex-based aerial combat
Dynamic climb, dive & altitude gameplay
More prototypes and sneak peeks coming soon.
Would you fly the Red Baron into battle?
#DeathSpiralGame #HexwerksStudios #WW1 #WW1Aviation #FokkerDr1 #RedBaron #TabletopGames #MiniaturePainting #Miniatures #Wargaming #IndieGame #GameDevelopment #3DPrinting #ResinPrinting #FromTheForge #AerialCombat #TabletopWargaming

I paint and play a number of war games but lately have been enjoying smaller skirmish games, co-op and a couple solo games. I’m late to the party with this one but really enjoyed painting up the board and minis. Im also just a huge Doom fan and this game really scratches that itch.

The whole set was printed (both FDM and Resin) and it’s completely magnetized. It’s also worth mentioning it’s produced by Black Site Studios and created by Malev (who’s currently finishing up Greathelm).

If you would like to check out a little video of it, I posted it here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbD7eXeoV3B/?igsh=MWZmemV1OHFmNGk1Mw==