Captain Blood's Western Desert: P.125 - SdKfz10 half-track with 2cm Flak 30

[Cubs]

Thanks. Sounds like a good plan. I'll do that 

Get ready for a chin-wag because Stu does like a gossip!

[Arlequín]

We too are playing with 8 man infantry units for visual effect. 4 just doesn't look right to me.

Eight men were the 'real' combat strength the British expected to get by having ten-man squads and at a push accepted six men as viable, so they are going to look more the part in a game. A company is going to mean 100+ figures though.

Not that 100+ figures is a bad thing when it comes down to it. 

[Cubs]

I am a little confused about there being no casualties as such. If the game is being played at squad level, I'd have thought casualties would have been an important element. It doesn't matter how high your morale is, if you've got half a dozen men down, your squad is not going to be operational and no amount of resting or falling back is going to change that.

I'm also a little confused about how a tank becomes more vulnerable after taking non-damaging hits. How does the crew morale affect the ability of the vehicle to resist further hits?

I do like morale-based markers for larger scale games, but at smaller skirmish level, personally I think casualties and actual damage must be taken into account, because it will and does have a material effect that cannot be reversed during an action.

[Arlequín]

Yes that takes some getting used to if you come from playing a rule set where there is a visible result from shooting the enemy up. As written though the four-figure squad is only a game place-marker representing anything between 6 and 12 men, and the rules are meant to place you at company or battalion command.

If you're sat there in the Company CP you know 1st squad is way out by the farm, but you have no idea how many have bought it, nor do you need to as long as they're doing their job. From that perspective they are either there/not there, you don't really need to know the details and working out casualties and then morale means more rules and dice rolls. You just need to know if they're good to go or not and do they need mending.

You could use the same number of figures for elements to match their morale value and instead of markers take figures off. If you've three men left out of five, you know that equals two morale tokens. You could swap out casualty figures as an alternative too. You just have to be prepared to put them back if morale improves. Whatever works if you have a need to visualise casualties in the game.

It sounds odd but apart from the obviously dead men, 'casualties' can be seen as a number of things. Wounded guys, guys tending to them, the guy keeping his head down, the one in shock at seeing someone hit, or the guy just getting his breath back. Potentially a whole squad can be temporarily out of action by degrees (Morale Markers) because one guy got hit, but when/if they get it together again (Company Morale Check) they are only actually one guy down for all that kerfuffle.

It's a rule set that's at the opposite end of the spectrum to having to almost dice to check that your guys all have dry socks on and all the other details a corporal on up worries about. In other words you're being a commander, rather than being that and every subordinate leader in the unit at the same time.

As for the vehicles I imagine it's to represent things like the commonly attested event of crews bailing when something loud enough to sound like it could hurt hits the ride; they don't actually usually wait to see if they are going up in smoke. Whether they go back or leg-it depends on morale or their TC's boot. Can vehicle crews get stunned? Has the engine stopped (some turrets rely on the engine running for power)? All stuff that could go wrong that is not permanent in other words. At least I think that's where they've gone with that.

I can't say I've not wondered about aspects of the rules myself as I'm going through them and certainly I keep having points where I think "Why?". They've abstracted a lot of stuff and avoided a lot of rules, and thinking out the box I do wonder if they are actually needed generally, or it's just that we think we should have them.

If you want more bells and whistles there's probably a fair bit you can bolt-on if you've a desire to. They're sort of the Lion Rampant of WWII Rules and I don't think that's a bad thing.

[Cubs]

Right, so the 'morale' isn't really moral at all then, it's simply a catch-all phrase for reduced effectiveness, and if the dice say your squad isn't regaining 'morale', then that represents a permanent reduction in effectiveness (such as a serious casualty). Still seems a little vague to me for smaller scale action, where the little things do make a big difference (one unlucky man stepping on a mine or catching a bullet can make all the difference).

Hmmm. I guess without playing it, I don't really have a handle on it and can't comment further.

I suppose every game must have a degree of abstraction and you can't represent every tiny nuance. I guess you just have to accept nothing will be a fully realistic re-enactment and concentrate on enjoying a game.

[Captain Blood]

I think that characterises it pretty well - it's an enjoyable wargaming method with a lot of WWII flavour but a high degree of abstraction in various ways (although rather more concrete when it comes to tank-on-tank encounters).
I'm sure that for these reasons it will prove Marmite to many people used to more orthodox, literal mechanics. And perhaps that's why it doesn't seem to have gained much traction. All I can say is that it seems to give a very enjoyable and interesting game. But I'll let you know when I've played it some more

[Arlequín]

Yes indeed, they could perhaps have come up with better names... 'morale' is indeed combat effectiveness and a 'company morale test' is actually just the action of re-grouping.

If you like to know exactly how many SMGs, what sort of LMG you have and a literal representation of squads man for man, then it's probably not the rule set for you. If you prefer just your tactics, troop quality and force multipliers to matter, then you might like them.

The Captain's Marmite analogy is right and I wouldn't even go down the road of saying they are better than 'X', just different in the same way as drafts isn't chess; with a corresponding ratio of time investment between learning the rules and learning the game.
   

[Captain Blood]

Have now built and painted my three boxes of Pegasus palms (two different types).
These come three to a box for 9.99 GBP.
They look pretty hideous in their raw kit form - lurid emerald and tan-orange plastic. But - after an awful lot of snipping to get all the bits and pieces of sprue off - they actually go together remarkably easily, seem moderately robust providing you don't chuck them around, and are very simple to paint.

Given that they work out to around 3.50 GBP each, I think they're pretty good value.
Luckily I was in the Canary Islands a few weeks ago and spent some time looking at palm trees of various denominations...
 
Taking my observations, I sprayed these dark brown using Halfords 'camo brown' ultra-flat matt car spray, then sprayed the foliage with Army Painter Goblin Green.
The topmost leaves have had a light wash of AK Interactive Desert Sand and Dust deposits.
The underneath leaves have had a wash of caramel brown mixed with mid green to represent the ageing foliage starting to die/drop away underneath the main canopy.
The trunks are drybrushed with VMC khaki gradually lightened with the addition of a touch of white.

I've mounted these on their plug-in plastic bases (with a bit of ground texture added) for the time being, so I can use with my stand-in desert boards.
Once my proper styrofoam desert boards are finished, I'll probably drill the trunks out, and insert a steel pin that an be spiked directly into the ground surface.
I'll probably also cut a few mm off the foot of the trunks here and there in order to vary the heights a bit.

[carlos marighela]

I have the Pegasus palms as well. They are quite nice. Unless you are careful with storage  they will shed fronds. I found the plastic a bit brittle. That turned out to be a bonus as they made ready made fallen fronds for my current project. Beats cutting up tin foil.

Looks like you have a mix of coconut palms and cabbage palms (palmetto). You might want to hunt about for some date palms for NA.

[Captain Blood]

Yeah, I can see from image searches online that Pegasus actually used to produce many different shapes and sizes of palm tree kits.
But apparently the only ones available now (or that I can find retail here in the UK anyway) are these two - types A and B.
I would like a few different varieties, so maybe I'll leave a search running on eBay in case any unmade second hand OOP kits come up...

[Silent Invader]

Thanks for the most useful palm painting tutorial- I've been holding off on mine as I was quite stuck on what to do

[Dr. Zombie]

Thanks for the most useful palm painting tutorial- I've been holding off on mine as I was quite stuck on what to do

What he said. I also have a bunch of chinese palmtrees that I did not know how to handle.

[Silent Invader]

What he said. I also have a bunch of chinese palmtrees that I did not know how to handle.

Thank goodness Richard went to Canaries!

[carlos marighela]

Thank goodness Richard went to Canaries!

They have some vicious palm trees there, they became quite popular in Oz. Vicious spikes near the crown, like spears and if you cut yourself on the buggers the wound becomes septic quite readily.

[Dr. Zombie]

Thank goodness Richard went to Canaries!

Yes he really took one for the team on that one. For the great good and everything.