Tweaking the Lost Battles turn sequence. Any thoughts?

Phil Sabin's Lost Battles uses a standard universal IGO-UGO turn sequence, with the potential for turn reversal if a particularly brilliant general is present or there are dodgy weather conditions.  Unusually, combat in Phil's rules is not simultaneous, and an army can only score hits on the enemy in its own turn.

There is thus considerable advantage in getting in the first attack, especially in the cavalry fights, for these tend to be bloodier and resolve more abruptly than the clash of infantry.

Balancing this first attack advantage, the player moving second will get to see what the first player does and can then react accordingly; perhaps establishing superiority in one sector of the board, refusing a flank, or setting up a defensive trap.

This works well, and makes for a grand game, but I have often thought that it would be a relatively simple matter to introduce more fluidity into the course of events by dispensing with universal IGO-UGO and using, instead, alternate movement phases.  Lost Battles employs a derivative of the pip method to control movement and combat, so the idea is that instead of Player 1 performing all of his movement and combat and then Player 2 doing the same, Player 1 could perform one movement or combat action - expending command points as usual - and then the active role could pass to Player 2, who would in turn perform a movement or combat action and then return the active role to Player 1.  This alternative move sequence would continue until both players had used up all of their command points or had both forfeited their remaining command points by passing up the chance to act.

So, how would this change the game?

1) More interaction between players and less downtime while waiting for an opponent to finish a turn.

2) The advantages of moving first or second will change over the course of the game, and players will be able to control this to some extent.

3) There will be advantage in conserving command points so that a player can get a series of moves in last.  This could lead to the use of 'filler' moves so that players can jockey to get the last phase.  In order to make this less attractive, the player who moves last in any turn should move second in the turn following.  This may not, however, be enough; some additional rules may need to be introduced to prevent filler moves.

4) The turn-reversal ability that brilliant generals have would no longer be as effective.  There may need to be some (possibly fiddly) rules concocted to bring that advantage back.

5) Tactics will change.  The current attack - reinforce sequence can be interrupted by the enemy and turned into an attack - counterattack - reinforce sequence.  There may be more incentive for players to advance en masse, or to defend in depth. 

6) The dynamics may change.  It may encourage inertia on the part of the player whose army is on the defensive.

7) It would require 'moved' markers to be used, cluttering up the board and rendering it less attractive.

8) There may be some concerns that come up about when players can declare a new lead unit.


It's one thing to do this in the abstract, and another entirely to see it in action, so I will play out a sample turn of Sentinum to illustrate how it might work.

Here is a screenshot of the historical deployment for Sentinum, with the Romans top of the screen and the Gallic/Samnite host at the bottom.  The action starts in turn 2.

As the Samnites/Gauls have 6 command points + d6 and 1 command exemption from their leader, in standard Lost Battles they would typically first move up the infantry, using 5 commands, at which point they would roll their d6.  They would use the remaining command points that die roll generated to attack from and reinforce their right, and, if there were points left over, to combine or - if they were really lucky - perhaps even advance the cavalry on the left.

In response the Romans with their 6 commands + d6 and 3 command exemptions would attack with the levy light infantry in the centre, the cavalry on their left, and advance the heavy infantry and cavalry of the left if possible.

Given average command rolls, the turn would probably end with the board looking something like this:

By way of contrast, this is what might happen with an alternate move turn.

Phase 1: Samnites use 1 command to attack with the cavalry on their right.  They roll an 8 for 1 hit on the opposing cavalry.

Phase 2: The Roman cavalry expends 1 command and Decius' exemption to counterattack.  If they can score 2 hits they will shatter the enemy horse.  They hit once.

Phase 3: The Samnites advance the heavy infantry of their right rear into the right centre, using 2 commands.

Phase 4: The Romans mirror their move, advancing into the space in front of the Samnites, also using 2 commands.

Phase 5:  Gallius Egnatius activates the heavy infantry of his zone at a cost of 1 command and his exemption to advance the infantry into the left centre space.  4 commands used.

Phase 6: The Romans mirror this move also, using the exemptions of Fabius to do so.  3 commands used.

Phase 7: The Samnites expend 1 command to advance the cavalry of their left.  With only 1 command remaining they are now allowed to roll the command die.  The result is a 5.  They have 6 commands remaining.

Phase 8: The Romans spend 2 commands to advance the average heavy cavalry against the Samnite left.  They now have 1 command left and may roll the command die.  The result is a 3.  They have 4 commands to use.

Phase 9: With a 2 command advantage, the Samnites try to prevent the Romans from getting an attack in with the levy light infantry in their central zone.  They spent 2 commands to express move the cavalry of the left rear to join their fellows in the left flank zone.  4 commands remain.

Phase 10: The Romans do their best to generate an attack for the light infantry and advance the veteran heavy cavalry on the right at a cost of 1 command.  They have 3 left.

Phase 11: The Samnites advance the cavalry of the right to join the spent cavalry in the right flank zone.  They have 2 commands remaining.

Phase 12: The Romans admit that they cannot attack with the light infantry and elect to move their heavy infantry into the central zone.  Since they have joined the light infantry, the light infantry can no longer make an attack.

Phase 13: With no attack possible from the Roman light infantry, the Samnites advance their centre, using the last of their commands to do so.

Phase 14: As they cannot attack and have moved everything they can, the Romans pass and forfeit their last command.

The turn is over, and the map looks like this:

The Romans will get first phase in turn 3 because the Samnites were last to move in turn 2.  It dawns on the Samnite player that perhaps it would have been better to have suffered an attack from the Roman light infantry if it would have given him the first attack in turn 3... 

****

We can see from the screenshots that there is little difference in the on-board situation between standard LB and the alternate move sequence; but I think it's fair to say that there has been more player interaction with the alternative move turn, and therefore more of a battle of wits.

So, is it worth pursuing?  What do you think?

The Negoro-gumi

The fighting monks of Negoro-ji temple are quite famous in Japan as one of the religious warrior orders.  You can read a little about them here.

Last weekend at the local summer festival some re-enactors (presumably associated with the temple) were demonstrating arquebus fire.  I always manage to miss the demonstration, but for some reason this year I was lucky enough to be there on time with the flip camcorder on hand. 

Here is the video, and apologies for the shakiness:

Interestingly enough, while Japanese are not generally known for their height, the outfits made these chaps all look like quite big guys, and although there were only a few of them it was easy to imagine that a larger contingent, attired in this fashion, would appear quite fearsome.

Reinforcements from afar...

A box of goodies arrived from the UK, today; reinforcements for my Republican Romans.  I don't really need them, but as they are mostly the now sadly out of business Strategia e Tattica range I felt compelled to respond to an advertisement placed by one of the good fellows at theminiaturespage.com.

I feel like a got a good deal and I hope he does as well.

Ah hah!

Some bonus gladiators.  I think I can do something with these...

The lovely Strategia e Tattica range!

A minor jumble, but nothing is damaged thanks to some good packing.  I spy some Chariot/Magister Militum 15s in here as well...

And the foot.

I'm not sure when I'll get these painted, but they will be a good project for a rainy week.  Many thanks to a stand-up trader!

Czechs and Americans, 1980. Part III - the Czech perspective.

Luke has sent me his comments on the game, so here they are.

Luke says:


I knew Aaron wouldn't be able to bring a 4th battalion to the table unless he took a B option, with its attendant victory point penalties, I expected him not to take that gamble, and thus be left with 3 battalions. As it turned out he took a B option, but one that didn't involve a 4th battalion, so that part of my pre-battle prognostications was sort of right; what I really didn't expect was that he would start with only 2 of them on the board, and flank march one - it was a good move IMO.

My plans were as follows:

Experience has taught me that trying to advance on all 5 objectives is a wasteful dilution of forces. Since my right contained a higher proportion of objectives, that is where I would concentrate my forces. My OT battalions were rated cheap in terms of points, and rated Green to boot, so they would take on their task in a circumspect manner: one approaching through the woods to the right of the farthest town, and the other two flank marching towards it (I figured one of them ought to show up in reasonable time). A BMP battalion would approach frontally to engage the enemy's attention.

A BMP battalion would try and hold my left, and the other BMP battalion plus the consolidated tank battalion would be held in reserve. The weakness of this plan was the only NATO1 opponents I had played before were way back at the NZ NatCon in Easter 2008, and I'd forgotten how hard it was to make any order changes in the face of their radio jamming. Hence I really needed to have put in timed orders to continue the advance on my right to go right into the actual objective (and beyond)from about turn 6; as it was, I was stalled badly on my right due to lack of effective orders once the flank marching unit arrived (the other one never got the 6 it required to arrive).

The strength of the deployment was that the reserves were of an appropriate strength - not too strong to drain my attack of assets too badly, while being strong enough to make a decent influence when committed. In hindsight, I'd have been better off keeping one (or both) of the OT flank marching units on-table and marching it right along the flank, since if you measure out the distance to their point of arrival, it would take less time to get their on-table than their expected 6 or so turns to randomly arrive. That's what you get for plaing cheap-arsed WarPac2 forces!

I had 9 actual battalions in the game; two were parcelled out to other battalions to make 7 in-game battalions (the ones parcelled out were the divisional recon battalion and the 5th Regiment's tank battalion). Each regiment had a battalion of towed 122s in support, plus a battery of MRLs. 3 of these 4 were completely taken out my Aaron's M107s: 1 shot per target. I also had a battalion of M46s for counterbattery work, but these were also taken out in one shot by the M107s. The divisional AA Regiment (all towed at this date, 1980) provided more elements. It's a lot of gear, but the quality is poor.

Aaron's flank march really surprised me. He also didn't do much in the way of cross-attaching, so his armoured thrust didn't leave much in the way of vulnerable targets for my regimental artillery to hit. As a consequence my MRLs on this half of their able did what they've never done before, and fired smoke for their single volley before being wiped out by Aaron's divisional-level M107s. It bought me a turn of extra delay before collapsing on my left, it was worth it.

At the and of the game I was technically one point ahead. But the morale victory goes to Aaron. I was contesting one of his objectives with a battalion that was going to be eliminated over the next few bounds if we had played on until exhaustion, which would have bagged him 3 more victory points. He would then have been left with two slightly damaged armour battalions, and me with 3 mostly undamaged but green infantry battalions lacking anti-tank weapons save their RPGs. So he wouldn't have been able to shift me from my objectives, and I couldn't have left them to contest his, leaving him 2 points up.

It was good fun - but we must learn how to process the turns more quickly. Most people seem to get at least a couple of turns in per hour, while we averaged over an hour and a half per turn :-(

Czechs and Americans, 1980. Part II - the battle.

Previous post on plans can be found here.

Turn 1

The Czechs deployed five battalions on table, with the central ones in reserve.  They were a formidable looking lot.  Although there was only one tank battalion, the mechanized infantry battalions - in BVP-1s - of 5th Motor Rifle Regiment each had a company of T-55s attached.  4th Motor Rifle Regiment had four battalions present, three of motorized infantry in OT-64s, and one of T-55s.

As expected, Luke had ordered a flank march.  What I had not expected was that it would be scheduled to arrive on turn 1.  No matter, I thought; he had to roll a 6 for it to arrive.  Fat chance!

One roll of 6 later, I began to think wistfully of my original plan...

The mechanized infantry of 1/30 speeds towards its objective...

The M60A1s of 2/64 advance.

The Czech left heads for the hamlet.

The map below shows the table at the completion of the first turn.  My mechanized infantry battalion is making for the two-sector town in the centre, while 2/64 armoured battalion is advancing on my right.  Luke's flank march can be seen on the top right of the picture.  The rest of his forces can be seen in the lower quarter of the map...

Turn 2

The advance continued, with my infantry speeding to occupy the town before being taken in the flank by 2nd Battalion, Fourth Motor Rifle Regiment.

Something wicked this way comes.  OT-64s crest the brow of the hill on my left.

The map below shows the situation at the end of turn 2.  The Czechs have occupied three of the five objectives already, but recon elements of my mechanized infantry battalion have taken one of their own.

Turn 3

My mechanized infantry are now dangerously exposed on their left.  Their anti-tank guided weapons systems are out-ranged and out-spotted by the OT-64s opposing them, so it is all they can do is dismount and prepare for a grim fight.  In happier news the recon elements give their opponents a bloody nose.

The M60A1s skirt the rough ground as they make their way forward. 

Oh dear.  Under pressure on two fronts, and it's only turn 3!

The map below shows the table after the third turn.  The Czechs hold three objectives; the Americans two.

Turn 4

The big question this turn is whether we will see our flank march arrive on schedule or not.  It's 50/50...

Will we get to fall upon this flank?

And we will!

The cavalry arrives!  Things are looking up.

The Czech left, blissfully unaware of the menace to its rear.

The map below shows the table at the conclusion of turn 4.  Things have swung the way of the Americans.  The Czech flank march has ground to a halt overlooking my position, unable to advance without a further directive from above.  There is more good news: the Americans are locating the Czech batteries and the M107s have begun knocking them out with deadly counter-battery fire.

Add to this the arrival of 3/64 in the enemy's left rear and the Americans are feeling quietly confident.

Turn 5

Will this be the turn that the Americans win the game?  The Czech right is stopped, while the Americans have the Czech left in a vice.

So near yet so far: the Czechs find it frustratingly difficult to coordinate their assault.  The Americans, meanwhile, keep their heads down and call in the artillery.

The M60A1s of 3/64 about to overrun the Czech rear elements.  2/64 can be seen to the left of the picture as the pincer closes.

But the Czechs have a few tricks up their sleeves. 　In desperation they call down rocket fire.  It arrives, and the Americans on the flank are blanketed with smoke, thwarting all attempts to fire.

The map below shows the situation after turn 5.  Well-placed smoke is preventing the Americans from making good the advantage on theirr right, and is buying time for the T-55 battalion to race to the rescue of their beleaguered colleagues.

Turn 6

There is fighting on the Czech left and artillery is called in on the Czech right.  American counter-battery fire continues to be devastatingly efficient.

In this sector smoke is now the Americans' friend...

The flanking troops are unable to bring much of their firepower to bear due to the smoke.

The Americans are able to force a morale test on the leftmost of the Czech battalions, but it still maintains its position.

The Americans have not made as much progress as they would have liked, and the T-55s are making their presence felt on the Czech left.

The map below shows the table after turn 6.  It is in the balance.

Turn 7

The advantage swings back to the Czechs as their high command finally gets orders through to 2nd Battalion on the left.   They are to coordinate with 1st Battalion and commence their assault on the American position in the town.

2nd Battalion gets its order change at last!

The men of 1/30 call down as much artillery fire and smoke as they can.  Somehow they manage to beat off 1st Battalion's assault on the town, but they will not be able to hold much longer.

The M60A1s of 3/64 advance through the smoke, picking off enemy armour as they go.  

The map below shows the situation at the end of turn 8.  2/64 and 3/64 are both now in firefights with the enemy on the American right.  The ATGW capacity of the BVP-1s is beginning to take its toll on the Pattons, and casualties are sustained on both sides.

Turn 8

The American armour continues its assault on the Czech left, causing significant damage, but the American left is under extreme pressure of its own.  Who will break first?

3/64 gets into the enemy rear areas, but BVP-1s take out two M113s with ATGW fire.

OT-64s advance on the American left.  The Americans break the battalion to their front but cannot reposition themselves quickly enough to reinforce the flank.

Heavy fighting on the Czech left as the tank battalions clash.  The T-55s are bringing more guns to bear, but the Americans have their best chance to inflict heavy causalties.   Neither side can land a telling blow.

This is the situation at the end of turn 8.  Two Czech battalions have been broken.  The Americans control three objectives; the Czechs two.

Turn 9

Time is running out, so the Czechs launch an all-out assault on the American left.  They successfully call in rocket fire (at last!), which causes predictable carnage.  The dazed and confused Americans are now dangerously close to breaking: one more casualty will do it.

The OT-64s prepare to assault the American positions.

One American stand and two Czech stands are destroyed in the close assault.  It is enough to force a break test.  The Americans fail!

The armour breaks another Czech formation, and is finally in position to focus on swinging the door shut on the Czech T-55s - but it is too late.  

The map below shows the situation at the end of turn 9.  The Czechs have broken the American left, and the Americans have done the same to that of the Czechs.  The American armour has once again failed to score hits on the T-55s, and this has decided the affair, for their presence means that the objective, despite being in American hands, is classed as contested.

Time has run out, and the forces disengage!

Conclusion

By game end the Czechs control three objectives and have broken one American battalion for 8 VPs.  They lose 1 VP for having taken an 'a' option in their force.

The Americans hold two objectives and have broken three Czech battalions for a total of 10 VPs, but they lose 3 VPs for having taken a 'b' option, and another for one of their objectives having enemy close enough to contest it.

The Czechs therefore win, 8 points to 7!

Thoughts

This was an excellent game.  It was in the balance throughout; one turn going one way and the next the other.        The winning of the game for the Czechs came, I felt, in the middle turns, when Luke's use of smoke bought enough time for reinforcements to arrive and evened up the firefight by preventing the Pattons from being able to bring their fire to bear while allowing T-55s and BVP-1s to get into range and gang up on isolated American vehicles.

I had a good deal of luck in that the Czech left failed to coordinate its attacks until late in the game (jamming came in handy here!), and in that the M107s were magnificent in knocking out four enemy batteries with counter-battery fire.  It was significant that the left fell only once the M107s had run out of ammunition.

Luke was a deserved victor, as his timing and skill was superior to mine.  It also turned out that he had another flank march to come on board but forgot about it, so he was actually fighting at a further disadvantage.

For myself, I underestimated how long it would take to break the Czech left, and paid the price.  It is a delicate balancing act, and I have a lot to learn yet.  So, a most enjoyable game, and many congratulations to Luke for a nicely worked victory.

Luke's thoughts can be found here.

Czechs and Americans,1980. Part I - plans.

The second of my o-bon gaming days was in Osaka with Luke, where we got a Modern Spearhead game in, utilizing his Czechs and my newly-painted Americans.

Both sides were attacking, with three battalions of the 3rd US Infantry Division, 1st Brigade, running into a force from the Czech 3rd Infantry Division, 4th and 5th Motor Rifle Regiments.

We were fighting over five objectives - four towns and one hill - each worth two victory points.  An additional two VPs would be gained for each enemy fighting battalion wrecked.  Having taken a 'b' option of extras to Luke's 'a' option I started the game down 2 VPs and would need a good performance on table to make up the difference.

The image below shows the table with objectives marked.  The Americans enter from the top edge of the board and the Czechs from the lower.

(Note that all 'map' photos are courtesy of Luke, though some will be altered by my fiddling them about in MS Paint)

To give you a quick key to the terrain, the tan felt pieces are hills while the green pieces indicate forested areas or, if terraced, wooded hills.  The yellow-brown squares are fields of tall crops; the yellow-brown squares with flocked edges fields surrounded by hedges.  Dark brown squares are ploughed fields.

My Americans were organised into one mechanized infantry battalion (1/30) and two under-strength tank battalions, 2/64 and 3/64, with the latter reinforced by a company of infantry in M113s.  I also had two off-board artillery battalions, one of M109s and the other of M107s.

Knowing Luke as I do, I expected there would be a lot of Czech artillery and rocketry to deal with, so despite the extra cost in VPs I thought it was essential to take M107s so that my counter-battery fire would pack a punch.  The extra company of infantry that came with this option would also give the armour of 3/64 a bit of extra backbone, so I felt it was worth the VP handicap.

As far as plans went, I was in two minds.  The basic idea was to use the mechanized infantry to secure one town and use that as the base around which my tank battalions could operate, but there were a number of ways that this approach could be realized.

The first option was to concentrate on repelling the flank march I expected on my left, thus:

Despite the attractiveness of securing my left, the problems with this plan were twofold: the tanks of 3/64 would likely be open to an attack on their flank over this route of advance and there would be little chance of reinforcing them.  The other problem was that the second tank battalion, 2/64, would be obliged to either sit waiting for Luke's flank attack to arrive or push ahead, through forested terrain.  That seemed to be too restrictive, and I did not have enough men to let some lie idle.  In the end, I went for a second option that looked like this:

This plan clearly had weaknesses too - most obviously in having unsupported infantry on the left - but a flank march would, I felt, give me better mobility overall, keep the Czechs guessing as to the make up of my force, and offer the chance to take up the offensive on my right without losing the ability to change to a more defensive stance if the situation demanded it.

I was not sure what Luke had (seven battalions, as it turned out), but as mentioned I figured that he would be doing a flank march - or perhaps even two - and using the rest of his force to tie me down while the rockets and artillery did their work.

I envisaged something like this:

I needed a plan that would allow me to counter an attack of this nature reasonably effectively provided that his flank march(es) did not arrive too early and that he did not get too lucky with calling in his artillery.

I reckoned it would take about six turns to wear down his left - assuming that my own flank march arrived in time - so if my left could hold out that long there was a good chance I could turn his flank and win the game.

In short, I hoped my plan would do the trick!

(stay tuned for more)

Edgehill with Pat

Things have been busy here recently, but I'm very pleased to report that two excellent game days have been had this month.

First up, on Saturday 11th, I headed to Pat's place in Kobe for our long-delayed game of Edgehill using Ben Hull's Musket and Pike series.

While I don't have the ECW game that Edgehill comes from I do have two of the others, so I was looking forward to getting to know the system in the hope that I could then play a few games solo.

The M&P system clearly owes a debt to Berg and Herman's Great Battles of History series, most strikingly (for me) in the way that leaders and their commands are activated, but it is still its own game, with the wing orders, cavalry interception and general reaction rules giving the game plenty of character.

I should qualify my comments by saying that I have only a very passing familiarity with warfare from this era and am not therefore a sufficient authority to say how the games reflect the history, but you can be sure I will not allow such gross ignorance to prevent my commenting on the system itself!

Weaknesses.

It's quite fiddly in some areas - morale status, formation status and casualties all have to be kept track of separately; so too do the pistol shots used for cavalry - yet in other areas it is, by comparison, not fiddly enough. Musketeers, for example, are able to shoot in reaction any time a unit comes within range.  Although their chances of scoring a hit are only about 30% per volley, that they can potentially fire unanswered shots against up to four separate units seems to me to be an unrealistic anomaly.  That said, it appears to fit together well enough as a whole.

Under certain orders, rallying and recovery can only be done by army commanders, and as army commanders can be activated any time a formation is activated, we saw them  running around the board like chooks, and, in the case of King Charles, dying like chooks as well.  I think I would prefer to have rally and recovery included in a slightly more abstract way, but that's just personal preference and is not based upon a survey of the period...

Strengths.

The activation and orders systems work very well together.  There is a lot of 'game' packed into this aspect of the system, and I like the choices that it throws up.  The interception and reaction mechanisms mean that even the inactive player has important decisions to make, so there is constant tension and interaction between the two sides of the board.  The combat system allows antagonists to experiment with different types of tactics and it is clear that good play will be rewarded and poor play punished.  As I say, how those game choices relate to the historical choices I am not qualified to say, but it certainly makes for interesting game play in which timing plays a key role.

The battles flow surprisingly smoothly once the basic sub-systems are learned.  Our first game took a long time and a lot of flicking through the rulebook, but the second one went much faster and I think a third would have gone faster still.  Once people are sufficiently familiar with the system (I would say three to five plays in) I think it will become a game in which the rules take a back seat to the game play and in which players have the ability to be the authors of their own success or the arbiters of their own downfall.

The battles.

(This image of the battlefield is taken from Gnut Grunitz's VASSAL module)

In the first game I took Parliament while Pat took the Royalists.  There was fighting on both wings but the ability of my musketeers to get off a number of successful shots in reaction meant that the Royalist cavalry superiority came to nothing.  Seeing this, the heavy infantry of the Royalist centre concentrated on attacking the left, and while moving into position opened a gap in the line which Parliament was able to successfully infiltrate and exploit (thanks to some extremely favourable dice that allowed an order change and three activations in a row!) in a manner similar to Alexander at Gaugamela.  Despite scarcely creditable bravery from Charles and his immediate company, the king himself was eventually captured and we called time with a Parliamentarian victory.

In the second game we switched sides, and as the Royalists I concentrated on clearing the left in an attempt to outflank the formidable heavy infantry of the enemy.  Foolishly, I left Charles in an exposed position, and a  succession of poor activation rolls by myself matched by good ones from Pat saw Charles captured again, though I fear this time they just lopped off his head immediately.  The heavy infantry advanced, but Pat's skillful movement and interruption of the Royalist activations saw him lure my men into musket range and take a grievous toll on them before melee could be joined.  We had to call the game so that I could catch my train, but Pat probably had the upper hand on the field and had clearly won on points by virtue of his bold capture (and execution) of the royal person.

(Image courtesy of Pat, showing my Royalists in a tricky position after being led into the guns of Balfour and Essex)

It was a great day's gaming, and I am very keen to play some more of this fascinating system.

Many thanks to Pat for a fantastic day (and for yet another very good lunch!).

Now we're getting somewhere...

Latest progress with the 6mm Americans.  Vehicles have been drybrushed with Tamiya buff (XF-57) or Tamiya desert yellow (XF-59), given a protective coat of Klear and a spray of matt varnish.  Tracks have been given a going over with a Tamiya weathering stick and the vehicles mounted on their bases ready for flocking.

The M113s will need troops added, but we're definitely starting to see some progress and should get things done in time for the big game next week...

And the weathering stick, for those who've not seen one before.