2018, 2019: Focus for Horse and Musket Period!

French staff officers execute FDMP [French Decision Making Process]. 

Note DMAB [decision making assistance bottles] to weigh the merits of various COA.

[Painting blurry as it was executed by official participating correspondent.]

http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/BATTLE_OF_DRESDEN.htm

This has been a year of waffling - struggling with decisions about the Horse & Musket period in general. There are so many cool things to do in this era, and for me it goes back to English Civil War, and extended to the American Civil War. However, this very abundance made it difficult for me to get focused with it - until now. 

Apologies for the rambling, post - if you dont' want to share in gamer angst, skip down to the 2019 resolutions and lines of effort at the bottom! This being my first blog, it is sort of the catch-all for thoughts on gaming in general, with 10 posts on Game Design and 12 posts on hobby "Focus" in general.

One of the main obstacles is that there are so many local gamers who have all the popular periods. Unless scheduling is an obstacle, you can play pretty much anything at some point. Therefore, any popular H&M period has to be something that you want to do, purely for yourself, and enjoy painting and gaming it either solo or hosting games with others. It's pretty discouraging to invest in miniatures only to find no one wants to try the period "you way".

This blog started with 40mm ECW because the large figures are really different. However, rules have constantly been a real struggle; getting the right level of battle, the right style of rules, etc, has constantly derailed progress. I've tried the OHW rules, dabbled with File Leader, Muskets and Tomahawks, Bill Protz's "Guide to the ECW" and been very inspired by the "For Ye Kinge" blog, and the rules he uses. Doing gap fill on the Romanov 40mm figs also didn't enthuse me, but I may not even need it, have to experiment. And of course for the S&S figs they don't need it. Anyway, a program that hasn't made consistent progress.

I still have 25mm American Revolution Hessians by Old Glory, a brigade-sized force. I'm always thinking that at the least I should just finish up a brigade of Americans to fight them, but I haven't felt that motivated to buy and paint them up. I also thought of using them as Prussians for 7YW and getting French instead of Americans, so I can have cavalry. But, there's plenty of it in 15mm locally.
American Civil War in 6mm got me experimenting quite heavily for a while in ACW using Neil Thomas' rules, both "One-Hour Wargames" and "Wargaming: an Introduction". I liked both of them for their various merits, the OHW ones needed the most work. I also traded off for a bunch of Bacchus 6mm and pushed them around experimentally for OHW at home, then used 15mm ACW from others for WAI rules. I ended up spending a lot of time studying the period and then stepping back and studying H&M rules, mechanics, and history in general. However, this did not lead to well focused gaming!

Overall, this blog has been like a travelogue of forays into the period, along with a lot of rule design and focus posts. 2018 was - mostly - more of the same.

2018: a year of desert wandering then finding the Promised Land 
- Basing has several posts, including hobby skill posts using MDF bases for my Hessians, and several theories of what Units represent on the table.
- OHW Horse & Musket was played with General Winkie. It was fun, and we used his 20mm plastics that were a gift from a pal.
- "Come to Jesus" moments filled spring, with a lot of items sold off at the Cold Wars flea market [proceeds went to local charities, and I raised over $1000!]. After toying with the idea of getting more 28mm WSS plastics, I decided that 28mm was too big a scale for what I wanted and toyed with 10mm instead. I sold it all off.
- A Hiatus lasted six months, May thru October, as my Unit did an NTC rotation, and all the preparation and recovery that was around it; exhausting but exciting, also. There was one post in September, a "Come to Jesus" moment showing lots of sales and the purchase of "Terminator, Genisys" by Alessio Cavatore [covered in detail at my "Up the Blue!" blog].- A November offensive into Horse & Musket gained ground. I returned to working on 6mm Bacchus figures, and responded to the complaint of a gaming buddy "K2" about owning painted 15mm Franco-Prussian war armies and never getting to use them. As I'd been wanting to try the NT "19th C. Wargaming" book, I offered to try it out with him. As K2 was serious about getting somewhere with his investment in the period, the right synergy of rules writing and adapting, playtesting, and research was found, and momentum began...
- Advent and Christmas were filled with much research into the 19th C. period, including the Austro-Prussian War, and War of Italian Liberation. The rules development was going very well with four playtest sessions conducted. The period is colorful and quite violent, with bayonet v. firepower debates raging in the wardroom as well as the battlefield. Plus, no one in the area is really covering the period, giving me and K2 a virtual monopoly. This makes hosting games a lot easier as there are far fewer "experts" with lots of refined tastes as with Napoleonics, for example.

Figure selection drove me to distraction, and much internal debate about scale, especially 10 v. 15mm. Eventually the combination of size and cost pushed me to get figures in 15mm, like my buddy. Basically, 10mm seems too small and my favorite figures by Pendraken are pricy. The Old Glory 15s Christmas sale finally had me making a definite decision, so I pulled the trigger on getting forces for all three wars [albeit small ones]. For now, the Franco-Prussian war is at the top of the list, followed by Austrians and Italians.

 "We have reached the Promised Land"! 
Hopefully I will go forth like Joshua, and not end up like Moses...

2019 Goals: Green=GO!, Amber is "Advance" and Red is "Ready, but not priority"19th C. Rules
Paint up French and Prussians in first quarter.
Playtesting Rule Mechanics w' club in May, NJMS later?
Write drafts for 7WW and Italian WoL, ACW

*Eagles: continue to develop Naps and 7YW versions, perhaps ACW & AWI
*Plow ahead with two forces for 6mm ACW

*Try Command and Colors Napoleonics