Rules: Living on the Frontline

Well, there's life in the old dog yet!

It's been a while since I last posted anything here but the creative juices are starting to stir, least of all because of the release of Living on the Frontline by Caliver Books, a set of modern ECW rules using Mark's Winter of '79 background as a basis (but usable for any, including this one...).

A lot of the work on Living on the Frontline has been undertaken by Wargames Illustrated sub-editor Wayne Bollands who has also set up a Winter of '79 Facebook page that has a growing community and lots of interesting ideas.

Now where did I put those TAG Modern British?

Rules: Force On Force

First off apologies for the lack of updates on the blog. This year, as you may have seen on my Bleaseworld blog, I've been trying to focus my wargaming activities into specific topics each month. Whilst this has been quite productive from an Ancients, WWII and RCW point of view, there was never an intention to forget to keep England Prevails ticking over.

However the good news is that the Royal Wedding and Amazon's 43% off the rrp offer on Force on Force has seen the juices starting to flow again. Largely this is down to Force on Force which has rekindled my interest in moderns and not only kickstart this project but also embark on a parallel late 1980's Cold War clash between the US and USSR in far off Whirarwistan.

If you haven't checked out Force on Force I highly recommend you do so. It is a very flexible system allowing you to fight different types of battle between regulars or with regulars against irregulars in a very small areas (two foot square table recommended for 15 and 20mm). Perfect for either the streets of Liverpool or some mud brick hovel in Whirarwistan.

Also, as part of my theme focus months, May is "moderns month" in Bleaseworld and I plan to not only paint up some troops for Whirarwistan, but also some of the 28mm's I bought for the planned FIBUA games in the 2ECW.

Rules: Gaming the 2nd English Civil War

As the country is poised on the bring of civil war I've taken a quick breather to consider gaming the conflict. The original idea was to use my old 20mm moderns and this still is a primary driver, but as I've been developing the background various other ideas have occurred to me.

First off, with the Guards moving up the M1, is using Cold War Commander. I bought a set a while back to allow me to use my 6mm Soviets, possibly in Afghanistan but it occurred to me that some of the larger 2ECW battles with adhoc battlegroups would be a lot of fun (especially as I like tanks!). As I only have Russkis in 6mm I am pondering whether to go 10mm which will allow more character to the forces or maybe the other end of the spectrum with 3mm...

For small scale infantry actions I intend to use ColdWar: 1983. Mike Baumann did a great job converting Panzerfauste to modern infantry combat and I love the GUTS mechanism which recreates the 'friction' of combat so elegantly.

Skirmishes between regulars, territorials, militia, para-militaries and foreign volunteers in 28mm are very, very tempting especially with some of the excellent 28mm moderns on the market.

Another idea is to use AK-47 Republic. This may seem a bit weird but I envisage that the infrastructure breakdown across the UK will be pretty extreme in part. Not quite Twilight 2000 but not far off in parts.

The political element of the game may also suit what I am trying to achieve with a lot of ideologically motivated troops of varying military ability. I haven't got a copy so will need to pick one up sometime soon...

Finally when considering the split in the Army I was pondering the response of the RAF. For the most part I anticipate the (newly renamed) Republican Air Force will remain loyal to the government, although there will be elements that join the rebellion and of course, foreign volunteer forces (how can I resist the idea of A-10's flying over our "Green And Pleasant Land"?).

Obviously I will plump for AirWar: C21 here.