Game schedule 2020

Those of you who know us personally, and those of you who frequent this blog know that the frequency of our games has dropped to levels somewhere between 'once in a blue moon' and 'geological time frame'. For various reasons, both Phil and myself have, conventions aside, not hosted a game in almost two years now. This is obviously not a good thing. For nostalgia's sake, here's a photo of a game setup on my table:

Let's attempt to rectify this a bit. This post is me putting up a list of games I plan to organise at my place this year. Hopefully, by listing these games here, they might actually really happen :) . So, without further ado, here's the list.

Very probable

These games are very probably going to happen, simply because they use bits of my figure collections that are already complete and need no extra work:

• Another Great Northern War game
• 'All along the watchtower' -- the third game in the Grassus Gambit series. Game 1 was published way back in Miniature Wargames with Battlegames 374, game two was played many moons ago but not reported (except for the picture up top). This is Ancients, using my Celt and Roman collections.
• Another Ancients game using my Post Roman (Arthurian) British and Saxon collection

Less probable, but still will happen

• The battle of Linz Uhrfart in 1809, between Württemberg troops (French ally, part of the Confederacy of the Rhine) and Austrian troops, in the long tail behind the French army about to fight Aspern-Essling.

This is in the 'slightly less probable' category because I'm currently replacing my Victrix French plastics with German troops - actual Württemberg troops and (so far) two battalions of Rheinbund - one of Saxon-Coburg-Saalfeld-Gotha troops (probably including some ancestors of our king) and the other Würzburg. I know that the Würzburg battalions actually fought in Spain, but I'm calling wargamer's license on this, because they were the only ones in stock with Dave Thomas at Warcon 2020 I could build a complete battalion with. So there.

Less probable

• A game with my nascent collection of Thirty Year's war figures (currently tallied at all of 2 pike and 2 shot units), using Pikeman's Lament
• If my dwarves get to a playable level (currently tallied at one unit of crossbowmen and one of artillery), and Phil or JP (who has a wonderful Orc army) are willing to schlep along an opposing force, there will be a Dragon Rampant game with them.

These are obviously the least probable, as the big majority of figures for them still needs to be painted.

So, let's get back together a year from now and see how many of these games were actually played :)

Wet Paint: dwarven heavy metal

As always, attending a wargames convention (Warcon 2020 in this case) gets the wargaming mojo going again and I've spent an enjoyable few hours at the painting table. This resulted in these cheery fellows:

Say hello to the artillery section of the Watch of the Seventh Deep. Those with deep memories (or good search fu) remember their crossbow toting brethren, whom I painted over 7 years and one house move ago. At this rate, I'll have an army of them ready to play by the time I'm retired and living in a care home somewhere.

Like the crossbowmen, the figures are plastics from the Kings of War range of Mantic Games. Here's a few other angles of them:

Imaginations in 20mm (20)

Today I ran a testgame using my 42mm imaginations armies, using our own house rules. The ruels obviously can still use some tweaking, but the timetrack system seemed to work well.

The most comments were about the balance between movement and firing, and that currently the rules don't seem to provide an incentive for troops to 'move forwards', although this was partly also due to the scenario and not having set a time limit for reaching the objectives.

Many of the passers-by were impressed by the figures, and some of the elders recognized some of the home-cast models (although I never homecasted anything myself ... but 2nd hand sites are very useful for picking up the efforts of others :-)).

Here are some images, I will keep a full debrief of the rules for a future post.

Setting up the game.

Blue army starts deploying.

... and the same for Green army.

Green is moving forwards.

Blue Generals in the front.

Overview of the table.

The first cavalry units are trying to find a ford.

Cavalry skirmishes on the Blue side of the river.

Heavy cavalry fighting. The wooden chips are damage and status markers.

Green is approaching the fords in full force.

... but they are taking fire.

Another view across the field of battle.

Blue in a strong defensive position.

Green deployed along the river.

Warcon 2020 images

Edit 10 Feb: some more pictures on https://miniwargamers.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-wargames-show-in-belgium.html .

I just returned from Warcon 2020 today. It's a nice little convention in the Belgian calendar, and there are lots of opportunities to talk to old and new gaming friends.

We ran our toy soldier game (more on that in a next post), which was quite a success in terms of playtesting.

I didn't buy too much stuff - for some reason there was nothing really that struck my fancy, although I have to say I didn't hit the Bring and Buy when it just opened, and only went to look when most of the stuff was already gone - or so it seemed. Someone told me later there was a Citadel Imperial Dragon for sale - don't know whether that's true, but anyway, one cannot buy everything ;-)

Here are some images of the games, in no particular order.

Imaginations in 42mm (19)

This weekend at Warcon we will run our 42mm Imaginations game. I finished 2 additional units for each side, one side getting 2 extra infantry regiments, the other army 1 infantry and 1 cavalry regiment. I still have an infantry and a cavalry unit on the painting table, but these will not be finished in time. I still need to finish two buildings.

So, what will the game look like? I am trying to aim for a more simple, stylized, toy-like look. That means a green (gridded) cloth for the terrain, some simple trees, and I decided to unearth my old Geohex hills (they haven't seen a gaming table for a long, long time ...).

The scenario is based on a traditional Charles Grant table top teaser. Both sides approach from oppositie banks towards a river, there are 6 possible fords (only 2 of which are fordable, unknown and selected at random), and the winner has to control both fords by the end of the wargaming day.The dynamic of the scenario is such that both sides probably want to find out the exact location of the fords first, and depending on their location, will develop a plan for crossing the river and try to secure a bridgehead. I have played this scenario in various settings before, and always gives some good games.

General overview of the table. Two buildings are still missing.

Another look.

New cavalry unit for Green. Figures are semiflat homecast Schneider figures (I didn't cast them, I acquired them like this :-)).

New infantry unit for Green. Figures are also from Schneider. The paper flag is handpainted, and fits in with the other infantry flags.

A new infantry unit for Blue. Figures are Schildkröt. The paper flag is handpainted. The Blue army is a more "modern" army, and hence the more modern flag design.

Another new infantry unit for Blue. Figures are again Schildkröt.

A look from the Blue side.

... and from the Green side.