Introducing the Armies

Hi guys - this is a preview of a post I'll be putting up on Palladian Guard in the next few weeks.  It'll help familiarise everyone with their armies, and for Paul hopefully you'll get a better idea of how the 2mm games are structured.

The Japanese forces.  You'll notice they're not labelled - since Paul has a whole division, these models have to be nondescript enough to stand in for any Japanese unit.  To that end they have a generic command stand and five battalions.  Each battalion consists of three companies and a battalion commander stand.  The reinforcement stands represent columns of troops forming up, and will be used as 'spawn points' if the Japanese have more than five battalions.

Japanese machine guns and artillery.

Japanese reinforcement columns.

A Japanese infantry battalion - you can see how effective the new khaki camouflage is!

The Russians.  They have slightly bigger companies, and four battalions to each regiment.  They have more machine guns than the Japanese, but much less artillery.

A Russian battalion.

Russian reinforcement column, next to the regimental commander and machine gun sections.

Some of the trench network...

Hope that whets your appetite!

Campaign Setup Update

Morning everyone!  Another busy week at work has finished, so I thought I'd post a quick update of how things are progressing.  First off thanks to Paul for his tireless reseach.  I'm currently reading The Fleet That Had To Die and Human Bullets for a 'feel' of the period, both of which are proving very useful.

Rules

After chatting with Paul, I thought the best thing to do would be for each of the 'team captains' to double hat as the individual brigade commander and the overall strategic commander.

So Paul will make the general moves for General Nogi, and the moves and battles will be randomised.  But also you can play General Oseko's Divison and those games will be played on the tabletop.

I think that'll be the best balance between tracking the overall state of the campaign and giving it a realistic focus on 203 Meter Hill.  Thoughts?

Models

The 2mm figures from Irregular have arrived, and these are the Russians:

 

To give you an idea of the scale, each base is a company, each row is a battalion and each 4x4 group is a regiment.  The two regiments make up the Guards Brigade.

For the Japanese, they only have three battalions to the regiment and their companies are slightly smaller.  Paul, you'll have two brigades in total (although only models for one - since there will only ever be one on the table at a time.  You'll have the luxury of being able to rotate regiments through!)

You can also see some of the ships in the background.  I have a few paddle steamers, armed yachts and auxiliary vessels to make things a bit more interesting.

Tabletop Games

I'm working on a system of 'subordinate orders'.  These are pre-game orders which Paul can give so the Japanese won't quite be NPCs, you can specify casualty thresholds, artillery priorities, primary and secondary objectives etc and I'll do my best to implement them on your behalf as a sort of umpire.  Ollie and KB will of course be fully occupied leading their regiments!

Siege Rules

After sharing the draft rules with you chaps, I think they're nearly there.  The basic structure is done, so everyone still has chance to familiarise themselves with the rules before the campaign starts.  They are still very much unfinished, so please send suggestions in and I'll incorporate them.

Next Steps

I hope to start the campaign at the beginning of May.  I'm in the middle of moving bases so I'd like to hold off until that's done, but it should give me enough time to base all those lovely models.