Wargame Bucket Lists

I am not a fan of bucket lists. You know the sorts of thing: ‘I must see Shangri-La before I die.’ Lists of things to do and see before we adjourn to the great cruise ship (or, knowing my luck, the cramped package holiday jet) in the sky. But recently I discovered that I have had a wargame bucket list, and that, so far as I recall, most of the items are ticked off from it.

I am not sure whether this is a good thing or not. After all, popular rumour has it that when all your unpainted soldiers are painted, then the wargamer dies. Presumably, they die happy, insofar as anyone can, but that is a pretty serious end-of-the-road scenario. Perhaps the same applies to bucket lists of armies. I hope not.

Anyway, not being a fan of bucket lists, I have not really been keeping track, but when I posted recently about my Korean fleet it did, eventually, penetrate my tiny mind that the Koreans, and the concomitant Japanese fleet, were ‘bucket list’ items and were in the process of being ticked off. What I mean is that acquiring and using such fleets had been in the back of my mind for years, and was now being done.

That gave me a bit of a pause for thought. Were there any other items, obscure or obvious, that had been on such a list? And the more I pondered the more I suspected that there were. This goes back a long time, of course, to when I was just starting out as a wargamer. I would read, as many wargamers, I suspect, do, the army lists and dream of one day, having this or that army.

Being a skint teenager at the time, reliant for any toy soldiers at all on Christmas and birthday presents, these armies were, and remained, pipe dreams. Of course, being even then a solo wargamer made the possibility of them even more remote – I would need two armies for most of the pipe-dreams, which made it even more expensive and impossible.

At the time I was using, mostly, 15 mm figures. I still have them, badly painted in enamels in a box in the cupboard behind me. I eventually ran to ECW armies, assorted medieval armies (I never quite sorted out what they were), and a few ancient Romans and Picts. Most of these were Peter Laing figures, which have long since, I think, disappeared from the world, although there are a few collectors of them around, I think. I also managed a trip to Minifigs HQ in Southampton and had a few of their ECW infantry.

When I returned to wargaming, space was at a premium, and I decided to go for 6 mm figures instead. I started, naturally, with ECW before branching out into other areas of the world. And this is where I started ticking off some of my bucket list, which had never been articulated or written down, but was just ‘there’.

So, for example, in 15 mm, as a penurious student, I really, really wanted a Polish army of the 17^th Century. You know, the one with the winged hussars. After a bit of messing about in 6 mm, I realised that it was perfectly possible, and they have graced a number of wargames with their presence, along with Muscovite and Ottoman foes.

Similarly, with the advent of DBR, or at least the army lists, my scope and range enlarged. Aztecs and Inca were acquired, although painting the hordes of figures nearly broke me. Indian types with elephants arrived, although I have never quite solved the question of how to represent chained guns and wagon forts in 6 mm (or any other scale, for that matter). As I was running a campaign game of near world wide scope I also had Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Siamese and Indonesians, all with their elephants and rocket launchers and all the other nice but dangerous looking technology that the early modern period threw up.

I also went back to the ancients and got some of my other teenage years dreams off my chest, as it were. Hoplites were a big thing, and Baccus’ latest hoplites graced my army boxes, although painting all those infantry made my shoulder hurt. Romans, Sarmatians, Persians, and Parthians also arrived, as the blog will attest over the years. The Armies and enemies of Alexander and the Successors came.

Finally, some of the oddities were filled in, most particularly the Hussites. These have to be one of the strangest armies in western history, at least. Not only were they significantly wagon-based, but they were also rather successful, at least until they started fighting themselves. That, of course, is a conundrum that I have yet to solve: how do two wagon-based armies actually fight, rather than just try to stare each other down. Still, the Hussites do have a reasonably important place in the development of western armies, popularising the use of gunpowder.

And so back to the fleets from Korea and Japan. These, as I mentioned, have been on the books for a while but no suitable models were available until recently. Now all I need to do is work out what to do with them and also to start on the Chinese vessels. The Chinese might have abandoned ocean-going vessels, but they still had an inshore navy at the end of the 16^th Century. Plus the fact that Korea has a lot of islands.

So, is that it? That, so far as I recall, is the end of my dreams and aspirations of the last 40 years or so wargaming. I can open the cupboards in the snug (aka the wargames room, but do not tell the Estimable Mrs P that) and pull out every army I have ever thought about wargaming with. More or less, of course. After all, I am still a wargamer, and as we know with figures, more is often, well, more.

Still, am I alone in this? Does anyone else have a wargame bucket list? And, if so, what happened when you finished it? Should I just create another one, or settle down and have some wargames?

The Political Life of Charles I

Those of you who bother watching my Facebook feed, and have good memories, will know that I have been reading this:

Cust, R., Charles I: A Political Life (Harlow, Pearson, 2005).

Given that the original post was on May 1 this year, and I am writing the blog on the UK election day, it has taken me a while. This was, in the Estimable Mrs P’s parlance, my ‘downstairs’ book, which means it kept getting covered with other items, newspapers, periodicals and so on. It is also a fair-sized chunk of book – 474 pages or so, by my reckoning.

I mentioned on the Facebook post that I am not a great fan of Charles I. While, I suspect many people are emotionally in favour of the Royalists, in reality, we would (if we had survived to adulthood) probably have been favouring Parliament. It is, I suppose, a bit like party loyalty – it lasts and lasts as an emotional attachment until your party is just so horrid as to switch your vote.

Anyway, that book, after a bit of an introduction, starts with Charles’ advent into the political scene with sone of James I’s parliaments, where he say, of course, in the House of Lords, in 1621. This was the start of his political education. He was also sworn in as a privy councillor in 1622, and had the benefit of his father’s advice, particularly the Basilicon Doron, originally written for Charles’ older brother, but containing James’ political philosophy and views on how kings should behave.

While we, and many historians, might dismiss this work as a conventional renaissance ‘mirror of princes’ exercise, Charles seems to have taken it seriously. He had a strong sense of duty to God and his people. He believed, more or less, in the Divine Right of Kings, came to dislike Puritans and in religious policy tried to steer the Church of England away from their influence. Charles was also a neo-stoic – he endured all sorts of assaults on his honour and prerogative but was convinced that Providence would vindicate him.

As we know, it all ended in disaster. In fact, given that the problems started at least in the 1629 Parliament and lasted more or less 20 years, we could classify it as a slow-motion train crash. Charles managed to get himself a reputation for duplicity and double-dealing. This was because he had a few things he would not budge on, and so he would only pretend to negotiate over, say, the episcopacy, while also attempting to subvert the agreement by other means. Thus he was dealing, by 1647, with the Scots, the English Presbyterians and the English Independents, hoping that they would sufficiently fall out among themselves to give him an opening.

As, indeed, it happened, as the Scots, more alarmed by the rise of the Independents than of the prospect of a restored Charles who might not be wholly under their control. The advent of the Second Civil War, of course, more or less, cost Charles his head. But even so, as Cust shows, there were still negotiations to be had and a deal was possible, if not probable.

Charles, however, was susceptible to bursts of overconfidence. One of the biggest mistakes militarily he stands accused of is deciding to fight the night before Naseby. This seems to have been decided between Charles and Rupert. Cust suggests that they could have escaped to the safety of Newark. But, possibly, Rupert wished to get at the New Model Army early, before it had settled into a fighting force, and Charles, perhaps overconfident in the abilities of the Royal army, and ill-informed as to the strength and whereabouts of the enemy, agreed.

I suppose that this one could be argued back and forth. Was it necessary for the Royalists to fight at Naseby? Maybe, and maybe not. They would have had to fight sometime, of course, and the New Model infantry, as the battle was to demonstrate at least in part, was a bit fragile. If a retreat to Newark was attempted, they would have to withdraw in the face of Cromwell’s cavalry which might not have been as easy as some commentators have suggested. It would be an interesting question to wargame, however.

Such bursts of overconfidence, intermixed with faulty intelligence, were rather the norm for Charles and his decision making, however. It was rather hard to believe that the country would survive at all without a king, no matter how reduced his powers. The most radical Parliamentary leaders do not seem to have really believed that his execution was even politically possible until November 1648, or thereabouts. Nor did Charles, at least until he was really put on trial for his life.

As is so often the case, the trial veered between farce and tragedy. But Charles, neo-stoic to the end, more or less had decided on martyrdom. In fact, this achieved most of his political ends, by a roundabout route. Not having negotiated away anything more than the concession of 1641 meant that the Restoration monarchy was able to pick up from where that left off, rather than the more limited monarchical powers which could have been agreed later. I suppose it took 1688 to get the Parliamentary system we know, roughly speaking, now.

Anyway, as Cust observes, while the early Stuart state had a good number of difficulties which were never going to be easily resolved, neither Charles’ father, nor is oldest son, would probably have landed up in the pickle Charles created. He was too obstinate and did not know when to agree and when to hold firm. He regarded the Parliamentarian side as being rebels and traitors and believed that to such people a Christian king was not obligated to be honest. It was them who should be on trial, not he.

In a sense, he was right. A fair bit of the Parliamentary junto were, in fact, engaged in activity that could have been regarded as treason, and, to some extent, went into a civil war to cover their tracks. On the other hand, Charles was not above blame for some of the problems and views, particularly of himself and his kingship. It was all rather a mess, a contingent mess, granted, but a mess nevertheless.

The Advent of the Koreans

Patience, they say, is a virtue. It is not one which has been particularly to the fore in my wargaming ‘career’ to date. But, eventually, most things which are of interest are turned into models. I have referred before here to my fleets for the Japanese invasion of Korea in the late Sixteenth Century. A fair few of them have meandered across my painting table and been duly photographed and put away. Some of the pictures have appeared here, partly to catalogue which ship type is which, because the names and types of ship are, to the westerner, downright confusing, to say the least.

Further ships have now meandered across my painting table. These are below.

In my filing system these ships rejoice in the name of ‘bunes’ although that is not, of course, accurate. The ships on the right are seki bune, which medium warships of Japanese origin and design, I think. The larger ones in the middle are ataka bune, large warships. The two masted jobs on the left are kenminsen. These are a bit more slight looking than the warships and they seem to have originated as ships taking envoys to China, and then as merchant ships. Fair enough.

Now, the patience bit. Many moons ago when I was young I collected all sorts of 6 mm soldiers from the early modern period, as the reader of the blog might well be aware. As my reading extended, I acquired ‘Samurai’ armies, that is Japanese armies of the age of war. But men with swords clobbering each other can get a bit dull, and I had heard of the invasion of Korea, so Korean, Ming and Manchu armies were acquired. Well, really, cobbled together from various of Irregular Miniatures 6 mm ranges, reaching from ancients to colonial.

As I recall, a really nice campaign was enjoyed. I had a hex map drawn with coloured pencils, and three Samurai armies invading, against, initially, a single Korean force. This latter was, eventually, reinforced by the Ming and the Manchu, and the Japanese were forced back into defending a town. The final battle was a glorious assault and defence of the said town, after which the invaders surrendered.

At this point the project sort of stalled. Not only was there not much information available on the wars – if you typed ‘Korean War’ into early search engines you got a very different war as results – but I was aware that there was a distinct naval element to it and, nowhere to be found were suitable ships. Nowhere. At any scale.

A few years ago I had another go at the land wargame, recorded as the Citrus Campaign. This too rather petered out. By this time I had got my head around the importance of the naval aspects of the war. The Japanese lost command of the sea early, and never regained it. Through the heroics of Admiral Yi Sunsin and the Korean navy, including the intriguing turtle ships, eventually the Japanese gave up. They were also, it turns out, facing a massive attack from Ming China down the peninsular, and also having to try to deal with a major insurgency crisis.

Imagine, then, the feelings of interest that flowed through the veins of this crusty old wargamer when I discovered that Tumbling Dice had a range of 1:2400 scale Chinese, Korean and Japanese ships. Not only did they exist, but they were the right sort of scale for my activities. My pleasure was only mitigated somewhat by the realisation that ships usually mean having to build stuff, and, as the blog will also testify, I am really not good at building stuff, particularly ships with separate masts.

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and the fleets were duly delivered by Santa. ‘That is ages ago’ I hear you cry, and, indeed, it was. But the Korean fleet is now finished, its assembly and painting having been delayed by the masses of 28+ mm civilians on show recently. But now, in all its glory, the Korean fleet is here.

I can see you are excited. In the middle of the middle line are the turtle ships, flanked by Korean warships of the p’anokson type. To the fore are scoutships, kobaya, which I suspect were originally coastal freighters, although some sources suggest that they were light, swift vessels designed for boarding. To the rear of the seki bune, ataka bune and kenminsen, as already documented.

I am not sure about the inclusion of Japanese types for this navy. It seems reasonable enough, granted. The cultural, trade and diplomatic links between Korean and Japan were, after all, well established. The turtle ships formed the main strike force, backed up by the p’anoksons. The Koreans had developed the use of ship-board cannon, while the Japanese favoured boarding, as just mentioned. While I am about it, I might as well mention that this seems very similar to what was going on in the West at the time, with the Spanish Armada and the English race-built galleons. But I digress.

Anyway, the first phase of the project is now finished. As it happens I am writing this blog in a different room from my usual ‘study’. The reason for this is that my desk upstairs is presently covered by Japanese ships with masts stuck on, which are drying, hopefully vertically. I dare not move them while that process is going on, and therefore have had to alter my own location, rather than risk droopy masts.

After the Japanese fleet, which is, in truth, about half finished, there is a Chinese fleet to consider. This is, in fact, mainly a Song dynasty fleet, but I will live with that. I read the other day about the fleets the Chinese put out in the late 1400s, and how their ships were technologically superior to those of the West at the time, and, indeed, for about another 300 years the Royal Navy only adopted compartmentalisation at the end of the Eighteenth Century. I am considering campaigning beyond Korea, as well. I mean, the Chinese fleets went to the Spice Islands. What if they stayed?

A Punitive Expedition

‘What do you mean, the Romans are coming for us?’

‘They are sending a punitive expedition.’

‘Oh, well. If it is puny we don’t need to worry about it.’

.Not puny, sir, punitive. To punish us.’

‘Punish us? What for?’

‘Um, well, we took Muchado recently, which was claimed by the Galicians.’

‘So? That is perfectly normal.’

‘Yes, sir. Except the Galicians are allied to the Romans, and so the Romans are coming to punish us for attacking their ally.’

‘But the Galicians weren’t allied to the Romans.’

‘No, sir, they were not. But now they are, and so the Romans are coming to punish us for attacking their ally.’

‘To whom they were not allied at the time.’

‘No, sir. This is what passes for logic in international relations…’

*

So, back in Spain with an old scenario, which I played a couple of times with Romans and Dacians. Both times the Romans lost, and I was starting to wonder if I was biased against them. After all, I am on record somewhere as agreeing that the only good Roman is a dead Roman. Still, this is the battle of Temeshvekovar shifted in time and space to northern Spain around 20 BC.

The Romans enter on the road at the bottom left, and their objective is the town on the hill in the far right corner. The playing cards are the Spanish ambushers, in unknown strength at each location – behind hills, woods, and rough going. About one in four cards will disclose a base or two.

When I tried this with the Dacians, they just about managed to defeat the Romans by ambushing on the hill near left, before the Romans got their march column deployed. With this in mind, I modified the Roman tactics, firstly to keep their scouting light horse free from entanglements along the way, and secondly to deploy before the column could be hit by any marauding tribal foot.

A few moves in and the Roman strategy (or is it tactics?) are starting to pay off. The auxilia are proceeding up the nearest hill, to, surprisingly, no opposition at all. The near right-hand rough ground gave two bases of Spanish light horse. I’ve sent the Roman lights on ahead, and am covering the Spanish lights with auxiliary cavalry instead. The Spanish command post on the right-hand front hill is also visible.

A few moves later the Spanish on the hill have been revealed, as have some skirmisher and light horse bases near the stream. The Roman auxiliary cavalry have caught the Spanish light cavalry and are handing out a pummelling, while the legionaries deploy to face the Spanish tribal foot on the hill.

Looking carefully at this position, I realised that, without support, the Spanish on the hill were vulnerable to being surrounded. As Spanish commander, I needed to try to prevent this, and so I revealed the troops across the stream on the Roman right, hoping that they would be more tribal foot and cavalry. Alas not, they were more skirmishers (almost inevitably in a Spanish army, I suppose). The only thing was to beat a hasty retreat from the hill and hope for the best.

The shot shows the Roman foot steadily advancing, while the cavalry from the rear of the column has moved up and is now crossing the road just in front of the legionaries. The auxilia are facing off the annoying skirmishers on the left, while the auxiliary cavalry has seen off the Spanish light horse. One base has rallies under the general and is looking threatening to the withdrawing Spanish, while the other has yet to be issued with orders.

The crunch came when the auxiliary cavalry under the general got onto the flank of the withdrawing Spanish foot and charged. This was one of those messy, swirling combats that occur from time to time using these rules.

In the centre of the picture, you can see the Roman auxiliary cavalry (with the brown disordered markers) which has just routed the tribal foot and skirmishers you can see in front of them. The cavalry have just been hit in the flank by the remaining Spanish tribal foot, however, who managed to get out of the firing line from the charge because their compatriots held out for a turn before routing.

The Roman cavalry was routed in its turn, but the general survived. The newly charged Spanish foot were charged in turn by the lead base of the Roman cavalry which you can see on the left, led by the Roman sub-general. The Spanish tribal foot base was routed, the general was hit, and the Spanish morale went to fall back.

*

At this point, I stopped the game, as the Spanish were clearly losing. I checked which units were where on the other side of the stream, and the Spanish heavy units were too far away to help. For once, the Romans had survived an ambush. I supposed that the Spanish, being now general-less, would decide that defending the village was not worth the spillage of Spanish blood and would withdraw, while the Romans would advance, burn the place, and also go home.

That was an interesting action, I felt. The card deployment for the Spanish kept me guessing, while actually, it did not really do the Spanish any favours. Perhaps I should have concentrated the Spanish, or at least the heavier infantry and cavalry, into fewer cards, which would at least have given them a better chance against the Romans. The sight of a seven-base phalanx of legionaries advancing over the hill did make the Spanish hearts quail a bit.

As the Roman commander, a more circumspect approach paid dividends, although I did start to wonder whether a time limit on the game might have made them hurry up a bit and risk being caught out, although with the Spanish deployment as it was that was not, in fact, terribly likely. But it is all ingredients for the thinking pot, as it were.