Of Game Scale and Ground Scale - Fighting Tarawa in Flames of War

It's been a couple of weeks since Behind Enemy Lines published my Tarawa mini-campaign. That campaign lets the players re-fight the historic battle using a series of six individual games of Flames of War. However, the small scale size of the Tarawa battlefield got me thinking about another way to fight the battle which I mentioned briefly in my campaign summary - what about using the general scenarios to set up some larger "mega battles" where the actual terrain from the battlefield is used as a template?

Flames of War is generally considered to use a "sliding" and "compressed" ground scale which allows the player to field the more detailed 15mm miniatures in what is generally a company-level game. For example, in Flames of War, most battle rifles have a range of 16" on the tabletop. Using a straight 100X conversion, that gives a ground equivalent range of about 133 feet, or 45 yards. Most actual battle rifles of the period had an effective range of 200-300 yards, or 72" to 108" (6 to 9 feet, or roughly 2-3 meters) on the tabletop. Given Flames of War is most often played on a 4 foot by 6 foot (1.2m x 1.5m) table, the compromises required to fit the game on the table are fairly evident.

In the game this system works pretty well because the battlefields of World War II were generally quite large compared to "table scale," but when you start talking about the Pacific Theater, that basic assumption isn't always true. That doesn't mean that the game suffers from using a sliding scale, but it does open up different options for the player looking to explore different table arrangements.

Betio Island, where the Battle of Tarawa was largely fought, is a very small atoll.  It is roughly 3000 yards (just shy of 3000 meters) long, and its width varies from 100-200 yards at the narrow eastern end of the island to maybe 600-700 yards at the broader central and western parts of the island.  In game terms, that means even using a fixed 1/100th ground scale, the eastern end of the island is only about 1-2 yards (3 to 6 feet) wide. Because of the small size of the island, it is technically possible to play some of the battles in nearly 1:1 scale. The map below (click for larger size) shows Betio island with a few representative 4' x 6' standard gaming table outlines superimposed over the map.

As you can see, the very narrowest tip of the island is only one standard gaming table wide, in 100% (non-sliding, non-compressed) scale, though the invasion beaches stretch on for several tables. This means it is truly possible to play the Battle of Tarawa campaign in something approaching 1:1 scale on the tabletop.

As written, the Flames of War rules assume the compressed and sliding ground scale, so the question which would arise at this point is what impact (if any) trying to play the battle with a non-compressed ground scale would have on the rules of the game. I can see a few ways to approach the problem. The first is to simply decide that the rules are played as written and the 1:1 scale battlefield is there for historical accuracy and ambiance. The proportionally shorter ranges of most weapons in this case would simulate "battle range" as actually encountered on the atoll. Another option would be to allow all defending artillery to be "off board" and only fire in bombardments - though this may handicap a Japanese player with few AT assets. The most elaborate option would be to recalculate ranges using the actual range of the weapons in question - though that would mean rifles and pistols would have a far longer range in game terms. When choosing this final option, it would be key to ensure that the table is dense enough with appropriate terrain (including elevation changes) to provide realistic fields of fire.

Hopefully this post has given you a few fun ideas on how to adopt the Pacific campaign to the tabletop in Flames of War. While the small island campaigns dominate most layman's perceptions of the Pacific campaign, they are truly only one facet of the war. Look for future mini-campaigns and battles where a wider range of more traditional Flames of War battles come to the fore.

Battle of Tarawa Mini-Campaign

The great guys over at Behind Enemy Lines asked me to write up a mini-campaign covering the Battle of Tarawa. I'd generated a couple of mini-campaigns while writing the history and flavor texts for Banzai covering the Battle of Guadalcanal and Battle of Iwo-Jima, and they really seem to have struck a chord in the gaming community. These mini-campaigns offer more flexibility than a larger firestorm campaign and are better suited to casual play, but still give the players a strong grounding in the historical roots of the battle. Behind Enemy Lines published the campaign over a period of four days, and links to each of the battles can be found below.

Day 1 covers the initial Marine landings on the island of Betio, where almost all of the Battle of Tarawa was actually fought. It covers the assault on landing beaches code named Red 1, 2, and 3. An exceptionally low neap tide prevented the Higgins Boats from reaching shore, so only units equipped with LVT's made it to shore. In game terms the scenario focuses on this initial beach assault.

The action on Day 2 is covered in two separate scenarios in which the Marines begin their breakout from the Red 1, 2, and 3 beaches. The forces at Red 1 begin an assault on the adjacent Green beach which roughly runs along the western coast of the atoll. In a separate mission, the Marines from Red 2 and 3 Beaches begin their advance to secure the island's strategic airstrip.

With the battle going against the Japanese, Day 3 sees a change in their tactics. As the Marines on Red and Green Beaches try to link up with the Marines holding part of the airfield, a more mobile battle erupts - simulated using the "Dust Up" mission. That evening, the Japanese had planned a full counterattack, but this was broken-up by artillery, leading to a Banzai charge in the early morning hours of Day 4.

On the final day of the battle, the Marines began to mop up the last Japanese resistance, which had been forced into the narrow eastern tip of the atoll. The Marines would often bypass strong points and try to attack them from the rear. By the end of the battle only 17 Japanese surrendered out of a garrison of over 4500.

Point values used for this mini-campaign can vary, the real key is trying to balance the forces and ensuring each player tries to take a force representative of those actually used in the actual battle. Another option would be to play a "mega-campaign." Tarawa Atoll is small enough (and narrow enough) to model most if not all of the island across several tabletops. Running the battle in closer to 1:1 scale would also give the players a good feel for how tightly fought and contested some of these Pacific battles truly were.

Resurrecting a Classic Predator - Part 1

Warhammer 40K has a fairly long history. First released in the 1980's by Games Workshop, the initial rulebook and rules had a very "independent gaming" feel to them. The system was very raw, though it had a great dark Gothic feel to the game. The game itself has gone through several editions, and over time the models have changed a great deal.

One of the first plastic vehicle kits was the venerable Rhino troop transport for the Space Marines. This model was adapted to form the main battle tank for the Space Marines - the Predator. The original Predator kit was all plastic, though it would morph into a mixed plastic / white metal kit in the 90's and would again morph into an all new plastic kit with the release of the updated (i.e. current pattern) Rhino chassis. Oddly enough, Forgeworld now offers an updated version of the "classic" predator design as the Deimos Pattern Predator.

As cool as the Deimos Pattern version looks, I loathe to spend money I don't have to - especially when a Deimos Pattern Predator costs north of $75 (U.S.). I used to play a lot of Warhammer 40K back in the day, and started around 1988 when the system was just getting started. As an enterprising college and later graduate student, I built up quite a collection of partial kits in trade over the years. Now that my son is of an age to paint his own miniatures, and has taken a shine to the Ultramarines, I've decided to create my first new Warhammer 40K army in over a decade - the Space Wolves.

Digging through my old box of bits, I found pieces of an original predator kit still in reasonable shape. I'd acquired the predator from a friend who... well, wasn't the best painter in the world, so I cleaned up the painted pieces and added them to a fresh Rhino chassis. Unfortunately some parts of the kit were missing.

The turret was there, but the connecting rod that attached the turret to the hull was missing - so I added a new aluminum rod with some epoxy for strength. I also added a new muzzle brake for the gun since the original had been broken off.

I had two fresh lascannons for the sponsons, but the parts holding the lascannons in the sponsons were long since gone. I simply made up some pieces using my chopper and some sheet styrene:

These were then glued (CAREFULLY) onto the backs of the sponsons.

Finally I carved down the the new styrene pieces so they were flush with the rest of the sponson. While waiting for the sponsons to dry, I went ahead and assembled and sanded the infamous two part spiked cow catcher of doom.

I still have several detail pieces to add to the tank, but it is starting to take shape. I'm adding a few Space Wolf gubbins from the more modern kits to help give it a bit of visual uniqueness.

Once the assembly is complete, I'm planning on giving it a modulated paint job with some modern weathering techniques on top of that. I'll continue to post updates as I make progress on this project.

Flames of War Pacific is Here!

I know it's been a while since I posted, but I have not been idle in the meantime. I've been working on several projects - some of which I can talk about, some of which I can't at this point. The launch week for Flames of War has come and gone, but there are still links to several really good articles for getting started in the Pacific theater on the Flames of War site. As always, this is going to be a phased introduction for the products - so it will be a few weeks before all of the miniatures to support the new books are in stores. Of course, I'm so behind on my painting, I'm honestly hoping to have my Japanese together sometime around the end of the year.

Speaking of the new books, my big contribution this time around was writing most of the histories and flavor text that ended up going into Banzai. It was a fun book to write-up, and there were several challenges along the way. The Pacific War was brutal, and as an author I always try to write with as even a tone as possible. One of the coolest parts of the new book is the mini-campaigns you get in both Banzai and Gung-Ho which allow the players to recreate pivotal battles through a series of tabletop missions.

These missions have proved to be pretty popular, and I was asked by the great guys over at Behind Enemy Lines to create more mini-campaigns along the same lines focusing on other areas of the Pacific. So far I've finished one of them - a mini-campaign covering the Battle of Tarawa. Tarawa was a small, heavily defended Atoll which was taken by the U.S. Marines over a bloody four day battle. The campaign is going to be published by BEL over the next several days, but Part 1 is up now covering the first amphibious landings on the island.

I have several other items in the pipeline for the blog, but I've also had a fair number of outside commitments I'm working on as well (more on those and how they relate to the hobby later!). I'm hoping to start getting up my detailed treatment of the Polish Black Brigade starting in the next week or two, so stay tuned!

Japanese Tank Painting Guide

Though Japanese tanks would rapidly fall far behind the rest of the world in terms of both technology and quantity, as late as 1940 Japan fielded the fifth largest armored force in the world! Given that fact, and with the the upcoming release of Banzai, many players are looking into how they should paint their Japanese armor. I contributed to the original Japanese armor painting guide in Rising Sun book, but given Banzai covers a wider time period and range of vehicles, I decided to update my painting guide based on what is available today. Another consideration is that often the available information on Japanese World War II tank camouflage is contradictory, so this represents my current best representation based on available information. If I have any readers in Japan, I’d love to correspond with you on this topic!

Pre-1942, the Japanese used a variety of camouflage schemes and colors – the most common being a hard-edged three-tone scheme. In some occasions the transitions between the camouflage colors were traced with black or dark gray lining. Disruptive stripes of yellow were also used on some vehicles – note, the disruptive yellow stripe could be coupled with the black or dark gray lining between colors, especially on Type 89 medium tanks. The three primary colors were khaki (Khaki-iro) – also known as “Japanese Artillery Brown” with disruptive patterns of roughly 30% mahogany brown (Tochi-iro) and an olive green (Midori-iro). In some cases a fourth darker khaki color is evident - referred to as an "Alternate" to the basic Khaki in the chart below.

Starting in 1942, the Japanese transitioned to a new set of colors in an effort to better standardize its camouflage schemes. The black/dark gray lining and the disruptive yellow stripes were officially dropped. A new three color camouflage scheme was adopted using a new khaki color similar to German Panzer Dark yellow – in some references called “Parched Grass” (Karekusa-iro). The disruptive colors were a dark olive green or drab (likely Tsutikusa-iro) and a dark mahogany brown (also called Tochi-iro in many references, though in some cases the shade identified is darker than the pre-1942 version). In the South Pacific, an additional Willow Green color (Kusa-iro) was specified rather than the darker olive color.  Some tank components, such as guns, also appeared to have retained the legacy “Atrillery Brown” (Khaki-iro) color, though other references have this as a slight variant of the base khaki. Camouflage schemes were generally hard edged, but beginning in 1943 feathered edged camouflage patterns became increasingly evident.

The chart above shows my current best data for the various colors used by the Japanese on their AFV's both before and after standardization in 1942. The Gunze Mr. Colors are taken directly from their commercially available paint sets for early and late war tanks. The Tamiya color equivalents are taken from various recent 1/35th scale kits and represent a major update to older instruction sets. The Ammo of MIG colors for early war come from their WWII Japanese early colors "Smart Set," while the late war colors represent a mix of color matching by eye and converting RAL colors (from Tamiya and Gunze) to their Ammo of MIG equivalent. The Vallejo colors were obtained using color charts and eye matching, while most of the new Battlefront colors come from their painting Japanese page with updates based on the late war examples done by eye based on the current range. I haven't seen the modeling page in Banzai, so Battlefront may have other suggestions. Vallejo Air also has an IJA range which I've added to the table above (with the addition of an olive drab from the same range).

When painting your force, it is important to consider that Japanese tanks were often not re-painted in the field. It is therefore completely acceptable to have a mix of early and late war paint schemes in the same force. The post-1942 schemes should therefore be far more prevalent on vehicles produced starting in 1942 such as the Type 97 Kai (Shinhoto Chi-ha), some Type 95 tanks, any tanks reserved for defense of the home islands, and the various self-propelled guns based on the Chi-ha. Hopefully you will find this chart helpful. I plan to continually update it as additional data (and hopefully new paints!) become available in the market.

What's on the Table - A Blast from the Past and a New Theater for Flames of War

So my son has reached the age where he's starting to get very interested in miniatures (just turned 8). He's somewhat interested in World War II, but while he really likes the Flames of War miniatures I do, they just aren't speaking to him yet (and 15mm is a hard scale to start with as a new painter). He's painted some fantasy miniatures in the past, but really hasn't had much to do with them, so they tend to sit around a lot. So I hit upon the idea of taking him by the local Games Workshop store to see if everyone's favorite gateway dru... ummmm... heroic wargame set in a dark future would hold any interest. All I can say is - "oh wow." He was captivated immediately - and really enjoyed watching two guys in the shop play a game.

I first started playing Warhammer 40K back in the Rogue Trader days - 1989 - so I have a fairly long history with the game. A quick perusing of all of the normal online forums confirms that, as always, 40K continues to suffer from balance issues and codex creep. While that matters to someone looking for a serious tournament scene, for the dad wanting to be able to build miniatures and play a few fun games with his son, it really doesn't matter at all. As expected, my son really gravitated to the Ultramarines, so we started with a simple tactical squad.

He pretty much absorbed that one immediately and we were able to run a few quick games. Since he'd finished that, I was able to run a horse trade for a Space Marine Strike Force (sadly out of production at this point) so he could round out his force.

Now he's been very motivated to finish his homework and do well on his spelling tests so he can build miniatures with dad! He even gets to use real glue, snippers, and a hobby knife - and for a 2nd grader he's doing pretty well:

I still have a lot of old Space Marines from way back when, but the last time I painted 40K was about 2004. As always, for me building and painting is at least half (nah - probably way more than half) of the fun so I decided to get something new so he and I could build some miniatures together and paint as a team. Owing to the plethora of Norse influences in my life via the SCA Kingdom of An Tir and Vikings on the History Channel, I bit the bullet and went with some Space Wolves. The fact that they've finally released the Wulfen of the 13th Company is also fun, and they have some boss new vehicles since last time I played as well.

I'm going to be using Vallejo paints rather than GW paints for the infantry, so my Wolves will be a little different in coloration than the standard. I'm also planning on continuing to use Ammo of MIG and airbrush shading on the vehicles, which should give my force a fairly distinct appearance on the tabletop. I'm hoping to add some runic elements to the paint schemes, especially on banners and vehicles, as I've studied Norse runestones and have done runic calligraphy and illumination in the past.

Flames of War fans, fear not! I have started a new project for Flames of War. With the Pacific books coming out, and given I wrote the overwhelming majority of the flavor text for Banzai, I've been dying to get started on my Japanese. At this point I'm starting with the Hohei Chutai boxed set (JBX01):

At this point I've got the main set of infantry sorted into individual baggies and ready for clean up and dropping them onto craft sticks for priming and painting. I'm going to go ahead and add the Nikuhaku Teams (JP706) to this painting batch, but I'll likely paint the any guns and gun teams separately. I'm (somewhat) patiently waiting for my swag order to arrive which has the bulk of the Pacific releases in it. Unfortunately finding good late war Japanese armor colors is difficult at this point - you have exactly one choice, it's a Gunze enamel.

For early war, Ammo of MIG makes a set, so I'm hoping they come out with something for late war by the time I'm actually ready to paint vehicles. I've sent them an email asking if they're looking into it, but I haven't heard anything back yet (not that I really expected to - most companies won't discuss unreleased or unannounced products). If all else fails I can mix colors.

So as always, the painting and modeling queue is fairly full at this point, but now that my son has joined in on the fun, it's become more than just a personal hobby and has become a family activity!

Polish Black Brigade EW Tournament After Action Report

We ended up having eight guys for the tournament yesterday, which considering the attendance was looking like four just a couple of weeks ago, that's great. We had four Axis and four Allied, with a fairly eclectic mix of armies, so it was a lot of fun. In terms of the list I was finally able to field, it was a variant on the "gun-brella" theme using the Pułk Kawalerii Zmotoryzowanej list from Blitzkrieg - page 26. I focused on reasonable-sized infantry companies with tons of anti-tank guns and some heavier guns, though I did include some mobile assets. Of course, as it turns out, I barely saw an armored vehicle all day as everyone tended to bring infantry or cavalry lists!

My first game was Cauldron against a very nice Bersaglieri force from Hellfire and Back. As my Black Brigade is a Mechanized Company, I was the attacker. The Bersaglieri had something like 12 platoons if memory serves, so he was able to start with a fair amount on the table, including heavy machine guns, M13/40 tanks, mortars, coastal guns, and demolishers. I started with my two Kawalerii Zmotoryzowanej Companies, one unit of anti-tank guns, and the 75mm guns on the table. My random deployment was fairly fortunate, though I was forced to put my 75mm guns at the back of the table near the defender's reserve zone. One infantry company was pretty tightly pinned down by machine guns in buildings near the left objective, so I stayed dug in and fired pot shots at them to whittle them down. The right objective was only covered by the demolishers, so I decided to focus my attack there with my larger infantry company supported by one heavy machine gun. They were able to secure the objective by the second turn with help from the Vickers tanks which arrived from reserve, but I lost over half of the company - fortunately with the help of the 1iC they were able to pass motivation. A Bersaglieri platoon arrived behind my 75mm guns, but shot poorly and were unable to assault - on the next turn my TKS platoon arrived from reserve and cut down the luckless Bersaglieri platoon - I was able to destroy enough platoons to force a company morale check, which the Italians failed giving the Poles a 6-1 victory.

The second game was Surrounded against a Japanese Kihei Chutai force from Rising Sun. As we were both Mechanized Companies, we diced off to see who was the defender and I ended up defending. So yeah, lots of infantry - not a hard target to be found. I tried to balance my force as much as possible around the two objectives (top and bottom), but the top one ended up a bit more lightly defended. I'd kept the Vickers tanks in Immediate Ambush, so when the Japanese overloaded the top objective, I had to drop the tanks to the top of the board. We played using the "Hell by Day, Paradise by Night" rules, though I think that should have been restricted to an infantry or tank company, but I didn't think it was worth hitting the books for. In the end I think it probably hurt the attacker more than me because he couldn't fire any of his heavy guns as they didn't have line of sight to my force. He worked to get into close contact as quickly as possible, even moving some guns and the infantry support at the double. Unfortunately I was able to get my Vickers, TKS platoon, and enough guns and infantry close enough to the large infantry platoon to decimate it, though the resulting assault with the Vickers did result in the loss of two tanks. He shifted his axis of attack to go after my infantry, but as I was unpinned at that point, I had enough firepower to repel the assaults. That left his force fairly decimated, and my mobile assets were able to track down the cavalry and one of the gun teams. His remaining gun team called upon its Seishin and came after my 75mm guns, ultimately destroying two, but with well over half of the unit remaining he wasn't able to secure a victory point giving the Poles a 6-1 victory.

My final game was Free-for All against a Luftlandesturmkompanie from Burning Empires. I've always wanted to play against this army, so I was excited to actually see one at the tournament. I was technically the "attacker" in this mission - and as we put down platoons, he decided he was going to do a glider assault. I therefore worked to cover as much territory as I could in a fairly dispersed deployment to ensure I could react well to wherever his gliders ended up. He ended up concentrating his gliders near the right-hand objective with only one crashing (killing both teams inside). So now we have FV Luftlandesturm among FV Polish Black brigade. The irresistible force has met the immovable object. Again, this game was going to come down to pretty much one round of firing and assault. My opponent's shooting rolls were not very good, and my saving rolls ended up being good - I ended up losing one 37mm gun and a couple of stands of infantry. When the assaults came, I therefore still had enough volume of fire (even counting as pinned down) to repel both assaults - just barely! Now the luckless Luftlandesturm were out in the open, out-numbered among the poles who quickly dispatched the two platoons and the HQ company. Still at half strength, and with mortars and anti-tank guns on the opposite side of the table, I had to get my mobile assets going. Did I mention he also had Stuka air support? I started moving the Vickers tanks and loaded up the halftracks with one infantry company (yes, I actually got to use some of my transport!!!) and started heading for the open left objective. His rolls with aircraft were nothing short of terrible, and only managed to kill a few infantry stands. I managed to get my tanks and one infantry company on the objective and close enough to his mortars to kill a few and make them take a morale test, which amazingly they failed - forcing a company morale check, which was failed because of a lack of HQ. Even if that hadn't failed, I'd secured the objective, and all he had left were a couple of 37mm anti tank guns on the opposite side of the table. Poles win 6-1, though honestly if my opponents die rolls had been better I would have likely lost at least one or two platoons. I've always thought that the Luftlandesturmkompanie was a bit pricey for what you got, and honestly this game just reinforced that opinion. I believe it would work better in a defensive battle where the defender has limited assets on the table. That way the glider infantry can concentrate their assault in one area and the defender will likely have few assets to counter them. In a fair fight where the enemy has large platoons covering all angles, there is just too much on the table and too many fields of fire to cut up the assaulting troops.

So in the end it was an absolutely great day for the Poles. The Invincible Black Brigade lived up to its name, and I ended up taking home Best Allied General and Best Painted for the force. As I mentioned before, the tournament itself was great because the lists present all pretty much represented "the road less traveled." The Allies had a British LRDG, a French Escadron de Combat, a French Compagnie de Combat, and the Polish Pułk Kawalerii Zmotoryzowanej. The Axis forces consisted of a German SS-Infanteriekompanie, German Luftlandesturmkompanie, Japanese Kihei Chutai, and the Italian Bersaglieri. Lots and lots of infantry, very few tanks and vehicles - and ironically the Poles had the most vehicles on the table (and I think I was the only one with 10 tanks as well). Kudos to the tournament organizer and everyone who came out and played - it seems like everyone had a great time, and I believe we represented the hobby well!