From Empire To Revolution - The I World War in the East

TooFatlardies has just released From Empire to Revolution, a supplement to its popular WWI rules set Through the Mud & the Blood for company-sized and skirmish actions. As usual by TFL, the book is available in pdf format from its website at the princely cost of GBP7.0

This 80-pages long book covers 

• A full section dealing with the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies of the war, including OBs, tactics analysis, etc.
• 16 historical scenarios between 1914 and 1917
• A bibliography section to allow readers digging deeper in the topic

I have just downloaded my copy and therefore did only have time to rapidly skip through it. But written by Chris Stoessen, a very familiar name already in the TFL circles and active blogger,is more than enough guarantee of quality to me. 

Chris other works for Sharp Practice  in the American War of Independence or more recently "In the Name of Roma" for I Ain't Been Shot Mum and Chain of Command are thoroughly researched, solidly base on historical events, well written and this last publication, beautifully edited.

I really appreciate, on the one hand, that Chris has waded through this muddy and less well-known front of the Great war; and I hate him, on the other, because he's opening my appetite to engage again in the period (after a long absence!!)  and to start a new project, distracting me from my current endeavours (Spanish Civil War and WWII Chain of Command) 

WWI Special Report at El País

A quick heads-up for Spanish nationals or Spanish fluent readers, El País newspaper include today a long special report on the First World War. This conflict is not well known here and only lightly taught in the primary and secondary schools in Spain. But as expected, the 100th anniversary celebration is attracting a lot of attention from both the general press media and many specialised history publications like Desperta Ferro or Historia Rei Militaris most recently.

Ehrhardt E-V/4 Armoured Car

Barrage Miniatures has just announced a new vehicle to its growing range of WWI "rarities" in 28mm. Time now for the German Ehrhardt E-V/4 armoured car mainly used in the late war battles and which saw service almost until the IIWW.

A nice model to add to your Christmas wish list!

Gallipoli Campaign # 1 - Red Beach

In the heels of the very successful Stalingrad campaign, my wargaming group is now undertaken another major project around the campiagn in Gallipoli. The first game of the campaign was played on Friday night but quite unfortunately I could not attend due some family committment. For this hgame we are using the WWI rules "Through the Mud & the Blood" from the TooFatLardies factory with some adaptations to the historical context of the game.

This game started with the landing of a contingent of Australian troops aiming to secure a beachhead from where to launch the offensive into Turkish territory. Despite facing some low quality units, the news I got from the battle indicate that the first Australian waves were mowed down by the deadly fire of the Turkish HMGs, tainting the snad in red... although the following waves are starting to consolidate a foothold in the contested beach.
The next game is scheduled for Friday January 11th. I leave you now with a nice recollection of photos from the battle yesterday.

Back to the Trenches: Forlon Hope

In addition to sorting and editing the hundreds of photos from our recent trip to the UK, I have invested some time this long weekend in Madrid to umpire a WWI game with Through the Mud and the Blood, the period platoon level rules of the TooFatLardies factory. 

The scenario was simple: in early 1918 following a successful local attack on a German trench, the remaining elements of a British platoon have reinforced the former Hun defenses and now await the inevitable counterattack. Unfortunately for them, the German interdiction artillery fire is blocking the arrival of reinforcements. Therefore, their only hope is to make enough casualties to the Germans to make the attack stall and allow some time for the British to send new units.

Dragons Back from London (II) - Bovington WWI Material

In this first instalment, I will show the photos of the First World War collection at Bovington

Overview of Main Hall

Little Willie, Mother/Father of all tanks

Training the New Recruit in Through the Mud & the Blood (II)

On Sunday we continued training Alfredo, our new apprentice, in the dark arts of Through the Mud & the Blood, the platoon-sized WWI wargaming rules of the TooFatLardies factory. I choose the second training scenario of the companion booklet Stout Hearts, after the successful training game that we played 3 weeks ago.

This second scenario is a classical assault on a two-line trench position defended by the Germans (1 HMG and 2 rifle sections). The British player commands a full infantry platoon (rifle, Lewis gun, bombers and rifle grenadier sections respectively) with a moppers-up section following the main force; the objective is to secure the position, consolidating the flanks to avoid surprise German attacks, and to dislodge the HMG entrenched in a bunker.

Gaming Table

Training the New Recruit in Through the Mud & the Blood

A lovely Sunday for me today, played my first game in three months, got a new recruit for our legion of local TooFatLardies faithful and had a decent lunch at the Real Madrid's stadium cafe to celebrate Father's Day (actually its is tomorrow, but I prefered to avoid the usually overcroweded restaurants on March 19th).

I made my good action of the day, training Alfredo, a new recruit in the 'arts' of the Through the Mud & the Blood, the TooFatLardies WWI platoon-sized skirmish rules. Well new recruit may be an exageration after all, as Alfredo was one of the founders of our club back in in the early 80s... but only recently he has returned to the hobby.

Anyway, Alfredo being only slighltly familiar with the rules, I decided to go for the first training scenario of the companion scenarios book Stouts Heart, depicting a British 1917 platoon with its four sections (rifles, Lewis gun, bombers and rifle-bombers squads) that has to take a well defended cross-road strongpoint.

Villers Fauçon - A WW I Battle Report

My gaming mates and me usually met just before year-end to play a long game and them go out for dinner. This year the turnout was surprisingly large and I had to arrange not one, but two games in order to accomodate everybody (a total of 14 players). Luckily, our Stalingrad campaign organiser Alfredo volunteered to undertake and umpire this second game, giving me enough time to plan a WWI battle with Mud & Blood.

One of our club members have been recently painting some nice British cavalry minis and was eagerly looking to put them on the table.

Great War early war British cavalry

While looking for materials, I remembered that Sidney Roundwood (see his most excellent blog here) had published in one of the bi-annual TooFatLardies Specials a couple of scenarios involving cavalry actions, with the added attraction that some light armour was also involved. 

Action at Bois-en-Hache

Probably spurred by all the noise around Armistice Day yesterday, we played last night a WWI game with the TooFatLardies battalion level rules If the Lord Spares Us. Although these were initially designed to play Middle East actions, a Western Front adaptation was published in the Summer 2011 Special called "Storm of Dice".

This has been my first experience with this set of rules. Released in 2005, they maintain a good quality level but I have to admitt that look a little bit outdated compared to the most recent products of th TFL factory like the WW II period I Ain't Been Shot Mum or the Vietnam era Charlie Don't Surf. Having said that, they make a very good and relatively short game, for example in a late Friday afternoon.

At the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month... 93 years ago

Spain was a neutral country in WWI and for that reason there's almost no emotional attachment to this period of history in my country. And probably for that reason too, it is only very lightly covered in the Spanish school's official programs. The knowledge among the general public is low at best.

After 30 years wargaming and tasting almost all possible gaming periods, I never felt particularly attracted to play WWI... until 3 years ago when in my local club I got hooked by one of the best scenery displays put on a table by two of my club members, who were playing WWI in Africa.

Trench Raiders in the workbench

I decided to reduce my pile of lead figures and painted this week a group of British trench raiders that I bought from Renegade Miniatures last Spring. The minis are not as good as those produced by Great War Miniatures, but have some peronal character and I think they will look great when placed on the table.

Night of the Hunter

Sidney Roundwood is another of my favourite bloggers and a key member of the TooFatLardies community. His blog, mainly dedicated to the WWI rules set Through the Mud and the Blood  is a source of inspiration for wargamers and aficionados of this period. Sidney has published several add-ons to the main rule body dealing in detail with tanks, snipers or trench raiding actions. More recently he's be working on night fighting and  today we we have played one of his latest scenarios, "The Night of the Hunter" which can be downloaded  here.

WWI Archaeology News

I thought this piece of news released in the BBC website could be of interest for WWI aficionados:

Archaeologists are beginning the most detailed ever study of a Western Front battlefield, an untouched site where 28 British tunnellers lie entombed after dying during brutal underground warfare. For WWI historians, it's the "holy grail".

Great War in the Middle East

Every fortnight, we held a long game in our club during the evening to the early morning hours. The latest was last night and involved Turkish and British/Australian forces clashing in Palestine. The game was played with Mud & Blood as ususal. I did not participate and therefore cannot write an AAR, but have just received the photos and they are worth taking a look, just click here or here