Author: Chris

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Russ Lockwood’s AAR Monthly Journal – October 2024

Russ as the Lion of Stockton

Russ Lockwood’s AAR Monthly Journal

About Russ Lockwood
About Russ Lockwood

Happy Halloween. It’s scary good to get back to wargaming on a big scale with two multi-player, multi-table games as well as the one-on-one games. And let’s not forget the news section where I further link Taylor Swift to wargaming (sorta). Plus the usual cornucopia of book reviews. Enjoy.

 October 2024 AAR

Springtime for Napoleon:
Snappy Nappy SnapCon X: Yorck
Battle of Wittenburg Recap: Eugene

On a Pedestal: Malta Convoy
Umpire’s View Of The Fifth Session
Umpire’s View Of The Sixth Session

Red Devils Ambush: WWII One Hour Wargame

HMGS Next Generation Outreach: Battles

NEWS
Taylor Swift vs Joan of Arc: Followers
Against the Odds Magazine: 100th Game
New Wargame: Britskrieg!
2nd Edition: One Page Bulge
Cadwalader AWI Lecture: Princeton Battlefield
WWII Australian Heavy Mortar: 3D Printed
And Elves, Too: 3D Printed
New Wargame: Langport 1645

Maritime Dominion: Card Game

Mega Multi-Table D&D: Return of the Lich

Books I’ve Read
The Trojan War: As Military History

Storm Clouds Over the Pacific: 1931-1941
Brotherhood of the Flying Coffin: Glider WWII

Robert E. Lee’s Reluctant Warrior: Wickham
Becoming Eisenhower: Between World Wars

Hitler’s Last Chance: 1945 Movie Kolberg
Joan of Arc’s Army: France 1415-53 (MAA 558)

Barbarossa 1941: OKH German Army Atlas
Operation Dragoon: Southern France 1944

Captured at Arnhem: In Their Own Words
The End of August: Novel

Roman Army Units West Provinces 3 (MAA 557)
Warships Komandorski Islands 1943 (NV 333)

The Union Army 1861-65 3 (MAA 559)
Through Hell to Dunkirk: Evacuation

The Rif War: 1921-1926 (Elite 257)
Mers El-Kebir 1940 (Campaign 405)

Lockheed Constellation: Legends of Flight
The CAC Boomerang: Australia’s WWII Fighter

US Air Power 1945-1990 (v1): Technology at War 2
Japanese Combines Fleet 1942-43: Fleet 8

8th Army Soldier versus Italian Soldier 1942
Romania 1944: Campaign 404

Sumatra 1944-45: Air Campaign 49
The Messerschmitt Bf 110 Story

How Hitler Evolved Traditional Army Establishment
The Fighting Fathers: South Vietnam

The House of War: Christendom and Caliphate
Perceptions of Battle: Washington at Monmouth

Yugoslavia and Greece 1940-41: Air Campaign 48
Borneo 1945: Campaign 406

Russ

About Russ Lockwood >>>

pdf icon AAR_Wargaming_SnapNap1813_Malta_France44_DandD_HMGSNG_News_BookRev.pdf

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Make your own spears for free

Make your own spears for free 🙂

I came across this interesting video on YouTube about how to make spears for your soldiers out of broom straws.  Now I have seen this sort of thing before.  I personally tried it back in 2010 with mixed results.  This video was different because it gives hints into what type of bristles to use AND how to modify them with flat nose pliers to look like spear or pikes.

As I have trouble printing decent spears here (note my disclaimer on the sales page) I thought this might be a good PSA 🙂

So here is the YouTube link.  I hope you enjoy it and please give the author a thumbs up.

Make your own spears for free
How to make you own spears – better than the commercially available spears and less than a penny each. Pikes, lances, javelins, bamboo, even how to make a pilum.

 

Quick Links

LOTR Leaders

Medieval Leaders

AWI Leaders

7YW Personalities

 

 

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Army Builder Program

Just a reminder, instead of a Labor Day Sale we have our ongoing Army Builder Discount Plan.

Use code armybuilder at check out 🙂

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Wow – New Paint Markers – A Game Changer

Wow – New Paint Markers – A Game Changer

Let me begin this post by saying that I do not sell any of these products mentioned in these post here nor do I have any affiliation with any company’s mentioned.

For a few years now I have been using Sharpie pens to help with my painting.  Usually their black, and other colors along with gold and silver.  They don’t seem to have white or yellow.  I particularly wanted white to help me paint white straps on my Horse and Musket troops.

Over the last few weeks I have come across a lot of reviews for the AK Interactive Paint Markers.  These appeared to be a game changer for painting.  They appear to have 32 colors and they work well on any material you might use in our hobby.  The draw back was they were made in Spain.  Shipping was out of this world.  I did finally find a company here in the US that stocked them (see below).  I ordered the primary set which is white, red and yellow to see how they would do.  They were amazing.  They went right on my primed and unprimed plastic miniatures with ease.  The tip is strong and very fine.  It hasn’t bent or failed yet.  These are exceptionally good for camo work on vehicles and armor.

I will place a few you tube links below as well as a link to the US business I got my order from.

This week I dropped down to the Hobby Bunker in Wakefield Mass to pickup some supplies and Victrix 12mm WWII Soviet Infantry for my Kursk project for D-Day to Berlin.  I brought the yellow marker to show the owner Matt.  He was very impressed and left me with the impression that he would stop them.

YouTube Video Reviews

 

 

The US company I ordered them from was called Last Cavalry LLC

I hope you found this post helpful and informative.

Chris

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Announcing the Army Builder Program

Announcing the Army Builder Program

We had such a great response to our birthday sale that we decided to offer a permanent discount.  As the banner below says, you will save 25% off your miniatures orders of $30 or more (rules are excluded).  Enter the code “armybuilder’ at check out.  There will be a reminder on the shop page with the code, enjoy 🙂

Chris

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A Snappy Nappy Reply From Russ Lockwood

Town Crier

A Snappy Nappy Reply

Russ Lockwood
Russ Lockwood

Mark:

Thank you for your kind words.

> I follow the ‘Blunders on the Danube’ site and all the multi-table game AAR. I am really impressed by all.

Peter, James, Mark, Greg & company do put on a wonderful day of Snappy Nappy gaming called SnapCon. Next one is October 5 (about 10 miles east of Hartford, CT), if you happen to be on this side of the pond. It’s at The Portal, 60 Hilliard St, Manchester, CT 06042.

Peter’s e-mail is in the CC. He runs the blog and the SN ‘SnapCon’ list.

>I write to ask you if the rules have ever been converted to earlier periods (Seven Years War) by anyone?

I recall Chris Parker gave it a whirl years ago. I’ve added his e-mail in the CC in case he can add some more info about his efforts.

There was a Franco-Prussian War variant, but that was lost when the SN group on Yahoo disappeared. And it’s in the wrong time direction.

There is an IO group: https://groups.io/g/SnappyNappy

Not as popular as the Yahoo group.

 

In theory, mechanics for 7YW should play roughly the same, with a slight tweak for deployment: I’m thinking instead of the second stand being placed wherever the player wants when going from column to line, the stand must be placed to one side to reflect more rigid linear deployments. Not sure about the timing of formation changes, say from line to square, etc. The best Napoleonic units could perform these rapidly. I have to dig out my Christopher Duffy book on the 7YW. I’m not sure about firing distances of musket or cannon — maybe a tweak to ground scale needed to keep things about the same.

We haven’t done a 7YW battle in our group for a while…or maybe I wasn’t at the game that night. I found a write-up of Rossbach from 2018, but it was using modified Shako II rules. I’m attaching the After Action Report (AAR) newsletter I wrote. Dan played in a Command & Colors Kolin game at Fall-In 2022. Here’s a link to the PDF download page:

 

If you like the AAR, I’ll add you to my AAR list and e-mail the monthly PDF issues to you. If you think it nothing but horrible spam, let me know and I won’t. It’s changed over the years, but I think it’s gotten better.  😀

Or, Chris is nice enough to post the AAR on his website: Here’s the June 2024 issue:

FYI: I do a lot of book reviews of military history books in the AAR. All of them are up on HMGS.org, which is searchable:

Currently 1,479 reviews available.

If you have any other questions, SN, AAR, or otherwise, please don’t hesitate to ask…

Thanks,

Russ

On 07/15/2024 6:44 AM EDT JACQUELINE LODGE wrote:

 

 

Dear Mr Lockwood,

Please forgive this ‘cold call’ email.  I hope you don’t mind me contacting you.

I have recently retired from the British Army and find I have a great deal of time to pursue my long-standing wargame hobby!

Firstly, I am a recent convert to Snappy Nappy and love the rules. I combine them with WoFun 10mm Napoleonic figures, which work brilliantly. I follow the ‘Blunders on the Danube’ site and all the multi-table game AAR. I am really impressed by all.

Sorry to ramble. I write to ask you if the rules have ever been converted to earlier periods ( Seven Years War) by anyone?  If so, please would you kindly point me in the right direction to where I might find them. In addition, please could you advise where on the net I might find the best snappy nappy group to join.

Very many thanks. I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely
Mark Lodge , England.

pdf icon AARWargaming_FallIn_SnappyNappy1812_Domin_BookRev.pdf

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Criticism of myself and my website

Town Crier

I received this e-mail today via the contact me form here on my site.

There is is enough info in it to make it ring true but some of it is way out.

I posted on the Maine Wargamers FB page.

From Dirk Dinkel

From: Dirk Dinkel uvisavargr@protonmail.com

Subject: how sad

Message Body:

how sad, that the name I remember hearing about, “Chris Parker”, who had started a branch/franchise of “The Toy Soldier” waaaaaaay back decades ago, and who would have a complete set of the Follow Me rules (along with the supplement that covered mortar fire) … is such a pathetic website … I was one of the original members of the “Maine Wargamers Association” … I was one of those many  gamers who used to go to the old Toy Soldier store to hang out with other gamers and have fun, way back in late 1977 and 1978 … I also remember seeing many years later that Pete sank a ton of money and effort into the early rip-off card games like “Magic”, and ended up with his gaming shop going out of business … sincerely, an actual former member of the Maine Wargamers Association

Follow Me by Peter Rice

 

Dirk, if you are real I am sorry you find my website such an insult.

Chris

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Russ Lockwood’s AAR

Town Crier

Russ Lockwood’s AAR June 24

 

Summer’s here. Hope you are planning to include a bit of gaming, and maybe a convention or two, into your plans.

Here in the US, I’ll wish you a Happy 4th of July holiday in advance. In the meantime, here’s the June AAR with all its gaming goodness.

Enjoy…

 After Action Report Newsletter — June 2024

Chain of Dice: WWII Skirmish
Chain of Dice: The Umpire’s View
Chain of Requests: More Chain of Command (CoC)
Familiar, Yet Surprised: CoC
More CoC Thoughts: By the Umpire
Reflections: Connected CoC Games
CoC: Experience and Tactics

Martian Spreadsheet: Terraforming Mars

1941 Battle of Alytus: Command Decision

HMGS Next Generation
1429 Joan of Arc: Darien CT Library
Sci-Fi Father’s Day: New Canaan CT Library
1429 Joan of Arc: Greenwich CT Library

News
Game Master of the Year 2024: HMGS Award
Early 14th Century English Archers: New Figures
Update: Source Pre-Colored Hex System and TimeStrike
New Wargame: ECW Volumes 3 and 4
HMGS: 2024 Election Results
Knights of Freedom: More WWII Photos
New Wargame and Books: Bloody Omaha

Point Breeze: Joseph Bonaparte’s NJ Exile

Books I’ve Read
Countdown to D-Day: The German Perspective

Tanks on Iwo Jima: 1945 (New Vanguard 329)
The Battle of Thapsus: 46BC

Soviet War in Afghanistan: 1979-1989 (EurWar 50)
The German Way of War: Tactical Management

The Hill: Brutal Fight for Hill 107 on Crete
Armies of the Normans: 911-1194

Caesar’s Gallic Wars: 58-50BC (Essent Histories)
Haunted War Tales: True Military Encounters

The Siegfried Line: Then and Now
1217: The Battles That Saved England

Operation Allied Force 1999: NATO Air in Kosovo
Manfred Von Richthofen: Red Baron

Admiral Canaris: Hitler’s Chief of Intelligence
Army of Transylvania: 1613-1690 (CentSold 115)

The Typhoon Truce 1970: Vietnam
World’s Greatest Escape Stories

Japan Runs Wild 1942-1943: War in the Far East
Inside the Roman Legions: 264-107 BCE

Belleau Wood and Vaux: June 1-26 1918, Jul 1, 1918
Clash of Crowns: The Battle of Byland 1322

Surviving Three Shermans: With the 3rd Armored Div
Panzer III vs T-34: Duel 136

Hitler’s Gold: Nazi Loot and How It Was Laundered
Jamestown 1622: Campaign 401

King George’s Army: Vol 2 – British Regts 1793-1815
Bf 109E: Battle of Britain (Dogfight 12)

Destruction Imperial Army: Vol. 2 – Battles Metz
The Beagle Conflict: Volume 1 (LAmer at War 36)

Destruction Imperial Army: Vol. 3 – Sedan Campaign
The Beagle Conflict: Volume 2 (LAmer at War 39)

The Army of the Kingdom of Italy: 1805-1814
Far From Suitable? Haig, Gough and Passchendaele
Germany’s French Allies: 1941-45 (MAA 556)

pdf icon AAR_Wargaming_ChainCmd_CD1941_TerrMars_NextGen_News_PtBreeze_BookRev.pdf

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