Pending Projects

Taking a few moments of time, I started looking through my projects directory at what I had started but never finished. As it turns out, there is quite a bit. The problem is that the projects are all over the place and work on any one will not help any of the others. So far my list is sitting at 20 projects. I am listing these here just as a reminder for later.

Rule Set	Project Description	Completion %
Algernon	Austro-Hungarian scenarios based on FLIK 55j	15%
KMH	AWI Scenarios and Modifications	80%
BTH	SCW Scenarios	5%
BTH	Italian incursion into France - 1940	10%
DUX	Late Roman	10%
DUX	EIR Roman v Early Germans	10%
IABSM	Greek Campaign Update to IABSMv3	100%
M&B	Eastern Front Supplement	100%
M&B	302nd Engineers Sceanrios	5%
SP	Lawnmower Scenarios	35%
TSS	Stoneman's Raid 1864	10%
SP	Ottomans	50%
SP	Scenario - Action at Sonolenta Aldeia	90%
SP	The Next AWI Campaign	10%
SP	Scenario - Pohick Church	100%
TCHAE	Atlanta Campaign	1%
TSS	1861 Part 2	5%
TCHAE	Lewinsville	10%
TW&T	Next scenario for SOTCW	0%

The ones that are at 100% are in the hands of others at the moment. I really think sometimes that I just have too many interests. Painting projects are another story entirely.

A Curious Idea, Marketing & Weekend Plans

A Curious Idea
I am sure everyone is familiar with the concept of Shareware. I was wondering if this would work as a model for war games scenarios. For instance, I am working on a couple of projects in the background. One is some scenarios for Terrible Sharp Sword for the Battle of Atlanta in 1864. Rather than try to put it together in a large book of 30 or so scenarios and release it, what about putting together a couple of scenarios and posting it up on the blog for anyone to grab. If they like the scenarios, they can send something via paypal. What do ya'll think? Would that be a workable model?

Marketing
I will be the first to say, I don't have a clue how to do this. Any tips for an aspiring scenario author anyone? I have put posts on the typical places: TFL Yahoo Group & Forum, a post on the Market Place and WWII Scenario group on TMP, a post on LAF, A post on the Guild, a post on Society of Gentleman Gamers, two bloggers have reviewed the CSIR book, Wargame news and terrain posted it for me and I have some friends posting on boards I am not part of.

I am assuming at this point it is subject matter that is too marginal for the average war gamer to be interested in. Anyway, any word of mouth/internet that you dear readers could help spread would be very welcome. Any suggestions on something else I can try?

Weekend Plans
Mark is organizing a game at Gigabytes in Marietta from my book for Saturday at 12. Should be fun as it is one of the scenarios featuring Soviet Armor in the form of the formidable T-37. I really wonder how successful the CSIR would have been had they encountered any T-34s in the opening months of the campaign. Instead, they encountered tanks of such obsolescence that they did not even want them.

I have not gotten a game in with other people in a long time. I am really looking forward to this. I am even missing out on opening day of deer season for this. Ah, the sacrifices one must make. :)

I hope everyone has big plans for the weekend. Enjoy.

Thanks and Dabbling with Terrible Sharp Sword again

First I just want to pass on a thank you to Anibal Invictus for posting up a nice review of In the name of Roma on his blog: http://mylardiesgames.blogspot.com/2013/09/italians-in-russia-forgotten-army.html. Much appreciated.

While sifting though Google for tidbits on the Battle of Jug Tavern I found some really nice maps of Georgia circa 1864. I found a great map in 1:350,000 scale. The map in usable form is in a jp2 format. I tried to get the gimp plugin for it working but that is not working out. I found some other software to try out called IrfanView. I was able to open the file and save it as a regular JPG. The original map can be found at: http://www.history-map.com/picture/002/Northwestern-Georgia.htm.

But the area I am interested in is this particular chunk of the map. I copied the scale bar onto the chunk to give perspective.

Sorry if this is huge.

Now, this little plot of real estate shows where the Battle of Jug Tavern took place. If you find Lawrenceville and move west-southwest, you will find Beaver Ruin Creek. I actually live not far from there. Some Yankee labeled it Beaver Run on the map. Oh well. Also in this area is where another action took place. It seems that a home guard detachment from Athens fired a "rifled battery" at Adam's Brigade and more or less scared off 2 brigades of Union cavalry. The report of Adam's Brigade (you can get these from the book "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies" Series 1 - Volume XXXVIII, Part II - Reports from 1891) details that they were following the Oconee river to get to Athens. I am wondering if he ment the actual Oconee or the Middle Oconee River as the Middle Oconee River would have been infront of Athens while the actual Oconee passes through Athens.

Much of the landscape has changed. Names have changed as you can no longer find Jug Tavern on a map (its now Winder). Unfortunately King's Tanyard is nor pictured on the map. We do know it was about 3 miles from Jug's Tavern and there was a bridge present that collapsed under the weight of fleeing camp followers and Union soldiers. There are a couple of likely spots on this map for that. Too bad I have not found anything as detailed as I did for Northern Virginia.

Enough for now. Take care.

The 100 Follower threshold has been breached!

While I was out of town over the weekend, I noticed that the 100 follower threshold had not only been reached but broken! Thank you all for joining.

First up we have Chris. Thanks for joining. I am not sure if you have a blog or not from your profile. Let me know and I will update.

Next is Grigork of the Megalomaniac. He has some good AARs posted on his blog with the most recent being a Black Powder game.

And number 102 is Ubique Matt from Ubique. He has recently launched into YouTube AARs. Good stuff.

I really aught to do something to commemorate this.

Now that the CSIR book is done (31 books sold at this point), I am looking for my next project. I know I want to do more with the Roman Dux campaign idea. I also want to do another Sp supplement. I am not sure if I should go with the continuation of the AWI stuff or maybe a Terrible Sharp Sword thing around Atlanta in 1864. I am actually a little bit adrift hobby wise right now. I have a painting table with some left over WWII Soviet troops. I have painted up some additional casualty figures for the Soviets and part of a platoon. I should finish that this week. Maybe.

I was looking at some research that I had for a skirmish that would be perfect for Terrible Sharp Sword. I thought I has lost it. Then I remembered that I had blogged about it back in 2011. Great. How to find it? Well Google offers a nice search gadget to pop on the blog. A few clicks later and I have it - The Battle of Jug Tavern August 2, 1864.

Cool small feature that is really useful. Now, what to do about Jug Tavern....

Another Great Prize Draw

The Blog with no Name is having a fantastic prize draw. Check out the goodies he has up for grabs. I could really use the paint brushes.

Also welcome follower #99 - Steve63. I can't find your blog to link back on from your details.

Also Sean was good enough to let me know Puggle_monster's blog: http://spprojectblog.wordpress.com/. Please head on over and check it out.

Lastly, a book update. So far I have sold 24 copies. Obviously it is not hitting a best seller list any time soon but I am pleased. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Low and Behold, we broke 50K

Yep, launch a new scenario supplement and leave town and what happens, the blog runs over 50K hits. Thank you all for making that possible. I am thinking of doing some sort of give away once I break the 300 post mark. That should come around real soon. Or once I break 100 followers which is also rapidly approaching. Speaking of...

Welcome to Puggle_monster aka SP aka Pete S. I can't tell if you have a blog or not from your link. If you do, let me know and I will post a link.

A first review - Whoo Hoo!

Ray at Don't Throw a One has posted a review of my new book In the Name of Roma.

Thanks Ray!

In the Name of Roma! is Released!

“IN THE NAME OF ROMA”

Company and Platoon level scenarios for the Eastern Front, 1941

In July of 1941, the 80° Roma Regiment of the Pasubio Division boarded a train bound for Romania. Along with the rest of the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia (Corpo di Spedizione Italiano), they would advance through the Ukraine alongside their German allies. In the coming months, the 80° would be engaged in brutal fighting across 1400 miles of the Eastern Front – covering most of that on foot.

IN THE NAME OF ROMA is a wargame supplement that contains 30 company and platoon level scenarios covering the actions of the 80a Roma Regiment from August to December of 1941. You’ll follow the 80th from the open steppe to the Donetz industrial basin, including the amphibious attacks across the Dnieper, and the fateful decision of Column Chiarimonti to attempt to seize Nikitovka.

IN THE NAME OF ROMA includes:

• 30 scenarios divided in six distinct campaigns
• Historical background information and period area maps
• Italian and Soviet briefing for each scenario
• Formation information and stats for Early War Italians and Soviets
• Forward by Richard Clarke

Though primarily written for the Too Fat Lardies rules systems (I Ain’t Been Shot Mum; Troops, Weapons, and Tactics; and the newly released Chain of Command), the scenarios in IN THE NAME OF ROMA work equally well with Arc of Fire, Bolt Action, Flames of War or your favorite rules system.

IN THE NAME OF ROMA is available from my Payhip store.

Follow this link to get a free sample scenario from the book. Note that In the Name of Roma is now available from Amazon as well.

It is also available on Wargame Vault.

Roman Dux under Construction

Well I have decided to to the German Limes route with this. The Upper German-Raetian Limes to be exact. This was a 353 mile (568km) stretch of fortifications with some 900 watchtowers and over 60 forts. Each watchtower was behind the palisade wall by some 20 to 50 meters. Each watchtower was separated by 300 to 800 meters provided they had a clear line of sight to one another. Just as with Hadrian's wall there were small fortlets (kleinkastel) staged along that held detachments from 40 to 80 men in strength. My area that I wish to copy is that of the Cohort fort of Saalburg. This is a great site in that they have some of the most complete reconstructions of a roman fort in Germany. Also it is dead easy to find data for it on the internet. (Remember, I am lazy.)

What did I stumble upon today but the most marvelous site: Vici.org. It has fantastic maps of the whole area that I am looking to include in my campaign. Here is the first map I made from this site.

Map from Vici.org. Terrible white lettering over the map is all mine.

Here we see the Cohort Fort of Saalburg with the watchtowers associated with it and the milecastle/kleinkastle that also had the same unit - Lochmühle. Saalburg was the home of Cohors II Raetorum Civium Romanorum Equitata. This was an Auxiliary unit that was at least in part mounted. This fits in with my preference for a mixed unit. To the northeast, Lochmühle had elements of the same unit present. While the milefort to the southwest was a unit of Auxiliaries from Legio XXII.

The Cohors II Raetorum Civium Romanorum Equitata was a Cohors Quingenaria Equitata unit. Formed by six centuries of infantry (80 men each) and four turma of cavalry (30 men each). This matches with the size of the fort.

The fort of Saalburg is well documented and there are any number of diagrams showing what it would have been like.

Taken from http://www.saalburgmuseum.de/geschichte/kastellgeschichte.html

Just 200 meters from the back gate of the Saalburg fort is the lime itself. The German Wikipedia sites are actually really helpful here. There is a diagram of what the gate through the lime would have looked like near this fort.

taken from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:ORL_A_03_tab_10_pic_03_Limes%C3%BCbergang_Saalburg.jpg

The child fort at Lochmühle is another story. This is far less documented as what it would look like. The general size is known. It was a 18 meter by 22 meter rectangle. It was set back about 30 meters from the lime. The artists reconstruction is dubious in that some sources claim that this fort had only one gate and this shows two gates.

Image taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/8/8b/Kleinkastell_Maisel_-_Kleinkastell_Lochm%C3%BChle_-_Ringwall_H%C3%BCnerber_069.JPG.

Basically if you take the drawing at face value, there are room for 4 tent parties and an officer in the truncated barracks as well as a storeroom, a workshop and an outdoor oven. So that works out to about 32 men plus a head NCO, just under half a century.

That just leaves the watchtowers. These would be temporary duty for about 8 men who would take turns manning the towers. These would be wood or stone structures of 3 stories in height with the entrance on the second floor. In addition to this, there would be the patrols. Plenty of things to be going on for a campaign.

I am putting an artificial dividing line for the towers to be at tower 3/63 for the purpose of the campaign. That would be as far to the southwest as the troops at Saalburg would have to patrol.

Now, if push really comes to shove and the forces at Saalburg need backup, they have to call out to Legio XXII Primigenia Pia Fidelis at Mogontiacum or Legio VIII Augusta at Argentoratum or even Legio III Italica at Castra Regina. This could come into play if I ever venture into 6mm miniatures for Romans.

I think my next step will be to make some terrain.

Welcome and other ramblings.

Since the last post, we have had Inchigh74 join the ranks here at Wargamers Odd's & Ends. he runs the blog 1914-45. It is a sight that oddly enough covers wargames taking place between 1914 and 1945. Stop on by and take a look.

I still can't get my mind off of the Early Imperial Romans. The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to look at gaming around the Limes fortifications on the German frontier. If you have any interest in this, one site that caught my eye that I am reading away on is the JAMES CURLE's A ROMAN FRONTIER POST AND ITS PEOPLE: The Fort of Newstead in the Parish of Melrose that can be found on http://www.curlesnewstead.org.uk/index.htm. There is also a PDF of this floating around as well but the site has been very nice reading.

I am getting tempted to attempt to build a Roman fort in 6mm with some Baccus Roman figures for larger scale actions and then a watchtower in 15mm for use with skirmish figures. Just not sure what I want to do. There is the Hotz's Roman Seas sets for terrain as well. There are some nice looking buildings there. Basically everything to build one of the Roman Legionary forts plus a nice Roman town outside the fort's walls. If nothing else, it would provide a template to work with to attempt to make my own. According to the web site they should not be hard to put together. Then again, I am likely to glue my fingers together as well.

Given that my scratch building efforts are not that great, what is out there? Well, JR Miniatures has a Mile fort. Several places have Roman tents. Just not sure what else is out there.