FALL PLANS: fight and be home by Christmas!
Well, I will be home for Advent, Christmas AND New Years unless geo-politics get totally de-railed. Along the way I hope to do better with my fall planning goals than some famous tyrants have in the past...
This blog was my first, and it is sort of "home base" for my gaming hobby, altho it started as a 40mm ECW project. It doesn't always get as much posting as Up the Blue! as being in the Army [again] has made modern warfare a topic of professional and gaming interest. Despite the posting disparity, this is where I reflect and plan my gaming out and - hopefully - become more focused and more responsible!
Trends
I'm definitely trending to faster-playing games [about an hour, maybe two] that still deliver satisfaction in "feel", period flavor, tactical decisions, and dynamic fun. As I've gotten interest in grander tactical and operational level games, I've reconsidered board gaming. This has also been pushed by my reconsidering the use of gridded games [whether squares or hexes] thanks to the Portable Wargame books by Bob Cordery. Finally, larger figures and modern periods have also been a trend, altho it's somewhat contradicted by my 1/285 micro-armor excursion.
I still think that Ancients and Horse & Musket are among the two best periods to game with miniatures. However, there's been a lot of new thinking on the "modern period" of the last hundred years. Many people are abandoning the tedium of rivet counting and obsession with weapon performance and exchanging it for an approach where command, mission and morale are balanced against weapons and technology. That is not only more realistic - and reminds me of what I hear and see in my Unit - but it is a lot more fun, also!
Without further ado, here's what I hope the end of 2019 to bring:
TOP PROJECTS
1) Skirmish
--- WoC Star Wars
--- Terminator Genysis x2
--- 54mm Plastics, NW frontier, ACW:
--- One-Hour Skirmish Wargames
2) “15mm Fall”
--- WWII Brits v. Italians, N. Africa [UtB!]
--- Franco-Prussian War [here]
--- Ancient Greeks, Hoplomachia [SttS]
3) Medievals 25-28mm: Dark Ages --> Feudal Wales
--- Saxons, Vikings, Normans, LotR [SttS]
4) Modern micro-armor: Syrian 2020
--- Team Yankee, Blood and Thunder, models [UtB!]
1) Skirmish gaming is often quick and fun, with a strong narrative and manageable rules, altho a few sets do bring in the bizarre micromanagement of 1970s wargaming.
One-Hour Skirmish Wargames has set a new bar for a revolutionary game design that works, has feel and is fast. It would be hard not to continue playing these rules!
- More traditional but very well done is Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars the Miniature Game. The figures will be played as part of OHSW, as well as playing the original rules for their own merits. Hoping my son gets into them also.
- The Terminator Genysis miniatures boardgame has been a hit with my son and me, so I got the expansion. Also, the tabletop miniatures version by Alessio Cavatore is great in its own right.
- 54mm AIP plastics have been a hard project to keep moving on. I must admit that it is hard for me to deal with the mold lines and just accept that they are not finely detailed metal sculpts bur more like toy soldiers. Still, I've 10 Brits and 20 Pathans that are looking for a simple paint job then to put on the table for some skirmishing.
2) 15mm Fall. 15mm is probably the single best table-top miniature scale as it can be quite colorful up close on a small table, but can also have great "mass" effect with enough figs on a large table [excellent terrain and lighting required!].
There's some nearly-completed projects in 15mm that have been languishing in the hobby doldrums for quite a while.
My Hoplite Greeks and related obsession with the cumbersome but flavorful Hoplomachia rules is a good example. I've also a decently sized Republican Roman army with Testudo figures that is done, and a bunch of Gauls that are half done. Finally, my WWII North Africa Brits are crying for completion, with a half-finished Motor Company and Crusader Squadron. New on the agenda is the Franco-Prussian War, a surprising direction but one I'm really enjoying.
All the above also have corresponding board game potential, with WWII N. Africa leading the way at 4 or so, followed by a couple of Roman and one Greek. Still looking for the right FPW board game, but that will have to wait.
Ergo, Fall must be declared "15mm Fall" for painting purposes. At the least, I'd like to complete the North Africa forces and then the Hoplites, as well as the French Mitrailleuse guns and crews I've been working on for my FPW host.
3) Feudal / Dark Age 25-28mm project. There's a few hundred more Welsh and Saxons nearly finished with paint, and then they need to be based / flocked. This will more than double the number of units I have. Like the hoplite Greeks, the project has had zero momentum for years and I can't explain why.
4) Modern micro-armor: Syrian 2020 project has been very ineresting, and the micro armor a lot more fun to work with than I ever thought it would be. This project has been stalled mostly due to a lack of rules I like. However, the loan of Frank Chadwick's "First Battle" modern combat rules in the form of 1980s Team Yankee, and WWII Blood and Thunder has given a new impetus to the project - I dig these rules! I expect to be hitting both hard next week on the table as well as writing up my own RAW of the rules as a WORD doc.
Also on the agenda is to make a serious effort to eBay a lot of stuff that is lingering. Fall is a great time to sell as plenty of folks will be buying for Christmas presents.
This blog was my first, and it is sort of "home base" for my gaming hobby, altho it started as a 40mm ECW project. It doesn't always get as much posting as Up the Blue! as being in the Army [again] has made modern warfare a topic of professional and gaming interest. Despite the posting disparity, this is where I reflect and plan my gaming out and - hopefully - become more focused and more responsible!
Trends
I'm definitely trending to faster-playing games [about an hour, maybe two] that still deliver satisfaction in "feel", period flavor, tactical decisions, and dynamic fun. As I've gotten interest in grander tactical and operational level games, I've reconsidered board gaming. This has also been pushed by my reconsidering the use of gridded games [whether squares or hexes] thanks to the Portable Wargame books by Bob Cordery. Finally, larger figures and modern periods have also been a trend, altho it's somewhat contradicted by my 1/285 micro-armor excursion.
I still think that Ancients and Horse & Musket are among the two best periods to game with miniatures. However, there's been a lot of new thinking on the "modern period" of the last hundred years. Many people are abandoning the tedium of rivet counting and obsession with weapon performance and exchanging it for an approach where command, mission and morale are balanced against weapons and technology. That is not only more realistic - and reminds me of what I hear and see in my Unit - but it is a lot more fun, also!
Without further ado, here's what I hope the end of 2019 to bring:
TOP PROJECTS
1) Skirmish
--- WoC Star Wars
--- Terminator Genysis x2
--- 54mm Plastics, NW frontier, ACW:
--- One-Hour Skirmish Wargames
2) “15mm Fall”
--- WWII Brits v. Italians, N. Africa [UtB!]
--- Franco-Prussian War [here]
--- Ancient Greeks, Hoplomachia [SttS]
3) Medievals 25-28mm: Dark Ages --> Feudal Wales
--- Saxons, Vikings, Normans, LotR [SttS]
4) Modern micro-armor: Syrian 2020
--- Team Yankee, Blood and Thunder, models [UtB!]
1) Skirmish gaming is often quick and fun, with a strong narrative and manageable rules, altho a few sets do bring in the bizarre micromanagement of 1970s wargaming.
One-Hour Skirmish Wargames has set a new bar for a revolutionary game design that works, has feel and is fast. It would be hard not to continue playing these rules!
- More traditional but very well done is Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars the Miniature Game. The figures will be played as part of OHSW, as well as playing the original rules for their own merits. Hoping my son gets into them also.
- The Terminator Genysis miniatures boardgame has been a hit with my son and me, so I got the expansion. Also, the tabletop miniatures version by Alessio Cavatore is great in its own right.
- 54mm AIP plastics have been a hard project to keep moving on. I must admit that it is hard for me to deal with the mold lines and just accept that they are not finely detailed metal sculpts bur more like toy soldiers. Still, I've 10 Brits and 20 Pathans that are looking for a simple paint job then to put on the table for some skirmishing.
2) 15mm Fall. 15mm is probably the single best table-top miniature scale as it can be quite colorful up close on a small table, but can also have great "mass" effect with enough figs on a large table [excellent terrain and lighting required!].
There's some nearly-completed projects in 15mm that have been languishing in the hobby doldrums for quite a while.
My Hoplite Greeks and related obsession with the cumbersome but flavorful Hoplomachia rules is a good example. I've also a decently sized Republican Roman army with Testudo figures that is done, and a bunch of Gauls that are half done. Finally, my WWII North Africa Brits are crying for completion, with a half-finished Motor Company and Crusader Squadron. New on the agenda is the Franco-Prussian War, a surprising direction but one I'm really enjoying.
All the above also have corresponding board game potential, with WWII N. Africa leading the way at 4 or so, followed by a couple of Roman and one Greek. Still looking for the right FPW board game, but that will have to wait.
Ergo, Fall must be declared "15mm Fall" for painting purposes. At the least, I'd like to complete the North Africa forces and then the Hoplites, as well as the French Mitrailleuse guns and crews I've been working on for my FPW host.
3) Feudal / Dark Age 25-28mm project. There's a few hundred more Welsh and Saxons nearly finished with paint, and then they need to be based / flocked. This will more than double the number of units I have. Like the hoplite Greeks, the project has had zero momentum for years and I can't explain why.
4) Modern micro-armor: Syrian 2020 project has been very ineresting, and the micro armor a lot more fun to work with than I ever thought it would be. This project has been stalled mostly due to a lack of rules I like. However, the loan of Frank Chadwick's "First Battle" modern combat rules in the form of 1980s Team Yankee, and WWII Blood and Thunder has given a new impetus to the project - I dig these rules! I expect to be hitting both hard next week on the table as well as writing up my own RAW of the rules as a WORD doc.
Also on the agenda is to make a serious effort to eBay a lot of stuff that is lingering. Fall is a great time to sell as plenty of folks will be buying for Christmas presents.
