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Seven Years War Campaign Report 16 • Reviews of board games, magazines, and
buildings.
Memoirs of a Miniature Gamer Pt. 3 22
• A Seven years War campaign report.
Blast From The Past Pt. 2 23
Interview With David Marks– designer of In the Name of Glory
David Marks is the designer and author of
a new set of Napoleonic rules called In The
Name of Glory. ITNOG, as it’s commonly
known by its fans, has generated a lot of
positive comments. In this interview,
David outlines his thoughts on the Napole-
onic period, wargaming in general, and the
genesis of creating a set of rules.
Editor
Getting Started
For this project I’ve decided to build First, I used the 1/2” thick foamcore Now, cutting foamcore is not an exact
a Mahdist gunboat. The boat is available from science, particularly any rounded sec-
a converted river steamer with craft stores. tions, so you will have gaps, usually at
sandbag armor, two decks, some You can use the bow and stern. Here’s where a great
antique cannon, and it will be a wood, thinner little product can help you out. By using
sidewheeler. I’ve chosen a sections of acrylic modeling gel(sold at arts and craft
length of about 10 1/2” with a foamcore, or stores near the oil paints), you can fill in
beam of around 2 1/2”. Large other materials, any gaps quickly as it dries clear and fast.
boats such as the heavily armed but I’ve found
Sultan and Melik would be that this works
around 15” long. Although your best. To take
boats will probably be way out care of the foam
of proportion to the ground scale of your sides, cut out 1/2” strips of sheet plastic
land rules, they need to look right for the and glue them over the sides of the hull.
game. You also need to decide if you If you want the bow section to be raised,
want a narrow bow or a wide bow as cut the strips for the front a little higher
well. I’ve gone with a wide bow ending or taper them so it appears as if the hull is
in a point, with a rounded stern. raised a little towards the front.
Most river steamers and gunboats in about 1” long and 1/8” wide. ments and lightly cut
the 19th century had some type of Use the back of an X-Acto them into the plastic.
wooden or teak deck. This is tough to blade to make the impressions While this method is
model in 15mm as the boards would not on the sheet plastic. This is much faster and looks a
be very long. There’s two ways that I use time consuming, but it comes little better, the only
to make decks for the gunboats and out pretty good. The other drawback is that the
steamers. method is to use scribed sheet decks will be a little bit
plastic available at most thicker than regular
The first is to trace the top of the hull
hobby stores that already has sheet plastic. Paint the
onto some very thin sheet plastic. Then,
the long lines done for you. You just decks tan, then ink them, and drybrush
using a ruler, mark off boards that are
have to mark off the boards in 1” incre- with a lighter color.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this They would mistakes if you keep going. By adding
article has been of have seen exten- pieces day by day, you can see the ship
use and has provided sive civilian coming together, which inspires you to
the gamer with some service on the do even more. Again, I cannot stress
god ideas or inspira- Nile and are not enough how important it is to paint each
tion to get started on really designed section before you glue it on. Building a
a gunboat project. for military ship, then painting it will be difficult, if
Details on this era operations, so not impossible to attain better results by
are difficult to find, keep that in doing it a piece at a time. Taking time of
which is good for mind when you the details, such as adding lengths of
gamers as you can are designing thread to the stack that are tied down to
pretty much make your rules. the deck, can make your gunboat stand
anything that looks out.
Also, the
like a steamer and no one can say that it’s
Nile can be very wide at places, then So, wedge some sections of boiler
not historical!
extremely narrow in others, so shore bat- plate armor between some sandbags, nail
If you try to build the Melik or the teries can be added to your games. There some 2 x 4s around the upper deck, drag
Sultan, remember that those boats are are also several places with islands in the a Krupp gun forward, and load up the
heavily armored and armed, so they will middle of the river, plus shallows and marines. Gordon has to be saved!
pretty much destroy anything on the rocks, so there are plenty of obstacles to
river. Instead, I would focus on creating navigation as well.
converted steamers and lightly armed
I’ve built six gunboats so far and
gunboats, which would provide a much
plan to do more. My advice is to plan out
more challenging game. A three gunboat
the construction, get the parts ( I have a
flotilla backed by dhows with Dervishes
scrap box full of sheet plastic, balsa
providing the Marines that are trying to
wood, dowels, etc….), then get started.
intercept a three or four Egyptian/British
Patience can be required at times, so if
gunboats trying to run supplies to a be-
you feel that you are pressing on the pro-
sieged city would make for a great game.
ject, back off for awhile. You’ll only get
Remember that these boats are held to-
more frustrated and make some critical
gether by rusty nails, glue, and prayers!
PRU
PRU
PRU
FR
AUS
PRU
First Contact
The French had a definite advantage in numbers, especially artillery. The huge Prussian ad-
vantage in cavalry, both in terms of units and quality, was heavily offset by the random terrain.
With several bottlenecks and no large plain for the cavalry to operate the Prussians were
forced on the defensive, which is something that they’re not very good at.
With 15SPs to the Prussian 10, the Naturally, all wargaming plans don’t turns later when the French artillery be-
French were pretty confident of winning usually work out and this was no excep- gan to unload on the Prussian battle line.
the first engagement. Their confidence tion! The Prussian cavalry jumped off The French were having a good day roll-
only got better after seeing what terrain too early and the French were waiting. ing the dice while the Prussians were far
map was rolled up for the battle. Defi- Their artillery fired into the flanks of the less than average. By turn 6 it was over
nitely not cavalry friendly, which would Prussian dragoon brigade, then the and the Prussians decided the better part
help the French as they are usually short French cavalry counterattacked, routing of valor was fleeing as soon as possible!
on cavalry during this period. the Prussian horse. Now the second Prus-
The Prussians lost 3SPs and the
sian cavalry brigade had to redeploy
The Prussians decided to attack, French only 1SP. The pursuit was not a
across the battlefield to shore up the left
which is what they do best and the rules factor as the Prussian cavalry advantage
flank.
give them several advantages if they’re prevented a complete collapse. However,
on the offensive. It was decided to strike The two Prussian infantry brigades the French had given the Prussians a
a blow at the French cavalry across the advanced to contact and despite some bloody nose in this first battle, which
river, hopefully forcing the French infan- success near the town, things weren’t probably encouraged them to make a
try on the defensive. looking good. This was confirmed a few stand against Frederick’s counterstroke.
PRU
PRU
PRU PRU
FR
PRU
AUS
FR
PRU
AUS
PRU PRU
FR
FR PRU
AUS
The best in historical miniatures what about the games themselves? Judging from what I’ve seen it seems like the rules
wargaming were designed after the miniatures, which isn’t a good sign. It’s this “dumbed down”
version of gaming that really irritates the grognards and old timers(and I’m only 44!)
with good reason. The hobby has been fracturing for awhile now and this will just
make the crevices a little larger. So go ahead and plunk down your $100 for a couple
Visit our stie at:
of boxes of pre-painted figs, run over to a table and dump them out, play your 30 min-
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ute game, then scoop them all into a plastic storage bin for the trip home. If that’s
what excites you, then by all means have at it, but count me out.