Imaginations in 42mm (13)

Following up on my (solo) experiments with a ruleset for my armies of 42mm toy soldiers, I can already draw some conclusions w.r.t. further developments and a first real playtest.

1. Troop Density

The basic unit size is 8 infantry figures (4 for cavalry), and they can split in 2 subunits (4 figures for infantry, 2 for cavalry). That means that either an infantry unit can act as a unit of 8 figures strong, or as 2 subunits of 4 figures each. Since I give great importance to how the game looks visually, figure density is an important consideration.
I also decided the Commander in Cheif and his staff is represented by 2 cavalry figures.

Below you see both armies, with either full units in 1 hex, or 2 subunits in 2 different hexes.

Blue Army, 8 infantry figures per hex, or 4 cavalry figures per hex. The CinC is in front of the battleline. This is the visual impression when all units are located in a single hex.

(Part of) Green Army, deployed with all subunits taking up their own hex, resulting in 4 infantry or 2 cavalry per hex. Each infantry subunit has either an officer or a standard bearer.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with how things look, although I have a slight preference for the denser troop formations. But since units can be split or joined again during battle, we will have to play a few games to be sure.

2. The Time Track

The main mechanism in the game will be the time track, inspired by the mechanism used in the boardgame Conan.

Every unit is represented by a tile in the track. Every side gets 10 commands points each turn, and can use these to activate units (different actions can cost a different amount of command points). Once a unit is activated, its tile is put at the end, and the entire row slides forwards. Units in front can be activated cheaply, units in the back (which have been activated recently), are more expensive to activate quickly again.

During my solo playtest, it seems to work, but I will probably only make the first 2 slots a cost of 1 or 3.

3. Combat Resolution

I decided I wanted a mechanism that did not remove toy soldiers (after all, I painted them, so I want to see them on the table!), and that combat results would only be determined when a unit was activated. This requires that each time a unit is the target of an enemy unit in firing, it receives a little marker. At the start of the activation, the number of fire markers is used to determine the overall effect, and the fire markers are removed.

I used a very simple combat resolution table, shown below. I rolled a D6, cross-indexed with the number of hits received.

However, I forgot to include some more interesting effects. Thus, I will redesign this table, including some more effects:

• Out of ammo
• Unable to move
• Disorganized
• Retreat
• Panicked Retreat, with adjacent friendly units retreating as well
• Retreat, nemy units following up
• Losing some commands points
• etc.

Any of the (permanent) above effects such as out of ammo or being unable to move can be "removed" by a rally phase (beginning or end of a unit's activation), which I still need to think about in some more detail

I think having a variety of combat outcomes can greatly add to the atmosphere oft he game and add to the evolving narrative.

4. The Imaginations

I still haven't come up with good names for either of the two countries, except that I have decided I want the names in Dutch/Flemish (see also this blogpost for some previous thoughts on this).

Green Army (the more traditional one)

• Generaal: Sigisbiduwald von Trappstein-Hohenschlieffen
• 1ste Regiment Fusiliers, Companie A & B (Black)
• 2de Regiment Fusiliers, Companie A & B (Red)
• 3de Regiment Fusiliers , Companie A & B (Blue/Yellow)
• 1ste Karabiniers te Paard, Eskadron A & B (White)
• 1ste Artillerie (Brown)

Blue Army (the more modern one)

• Generaal: Philip-Leon du Madeleine du Tré
• 1ste Ban Schutters, Schaar A & B (Red)
• 2de Ban Schutters, Schaar A & B (Turquoise)
• 3de Ban Schutters, Schaar A & B (Straw)
• 1ste Verkenners Te Paard, Patrouille A & B (White)
• 1ste Mechanisch Geschut (Magenta)

Imaginations in 42mm (8)

In a previous series of blogposts I commented on my initial 42mm imaginations armies. The project has been dormant for some time, but I decided it's time to get things moving again.

The photographs below show the lay-out of the initial battle. The "Blue" army will try to occupy a series of positions (2 hills and a bridge) outside the city of XXX of "Green" army (all names still to be decided ... ;-)), in order to set up artillery positions to attack the town in a later stage.

The time period of this project is late 19th, early 20th century. This allows for some technology to be included, but still allows for late 19th century pomp w.r.t. fancy army uniforms etc.

As for the scenery elements, I have reused some of the buildings of our Blue Lotus game. Adding some items such as cars or telegraph/telephone poles makes it look as if we are indeed have a setup in the technological era. It makes an "old" city, still having its city walls, a believable setting.

Imaginations in 42mm (7)

Now that the starting 42mm armies for my imaginations campaign are finished, I am trying to find good-sounding names for the countries and units.

First question is what language to use. Since wargaming is dominantly an English-driven hobby, it seems natural to use English. However, over the years, I sort of grew tired of all the fake German, French, Russian or whatever names people give to their units in English. Such names often have small mistakes against the grammar or inflections of the language in question. Mind you, I also do think this can be fun to do, but at least you should make the effort to use *plausible* names in the target language, not only words that sound funny in English.

Anyway, since my native language is Dutch (or Flemish as some would prefer to call it), and because there's already an abundancy of English-language imaginations, I decided to run my Imaginations campaign with Dutch names. Not only for the military organizations, but also for the places, towns, geography, etc.

Especially the names for units will not be that different from English, French or German names due to historic influences, but some Dutch words (as adjectives, designations, etc.) can be used as well, giving the whole a different sounding schwung.

Listed below is the current OOB for both armies. Not all names have been decided yet, and names of units will change and receive accolades throughout the games we will play. Also, I foresee more units to be added as campaign developments.

Country A - name still to be decided.

• Dominant colour of uniforms: Green

Units: 8 infantry figures, 4 cavalry figures, or 1 gun per unit. Infantry and cavalry units will be grouped in 2 subunits each (resp. 4 figures and 2 figures), which will be called companies and eskadrons. A subunit neatly occupies a single Kalliastra hex. The rules - which still have to be written - will accommodate for this. Each unit also has a regimental colour, visible in the uniform.

1ste Regiment Fusiliers - black

2de Regiment Fusiliers - red

3de Regiment Fusiliers - blue, although the flag has yellow as well.

1ste Artillerie - brown

1ste Karabiniers te Paard - white

Country B

• Dominant colour of uniforms: Blue

Units: same organization as country A - just to keep things simple ruleswise. Since these figures are actually Turkish soldiers from the Balkan wars, I decided that the names could be a bit more atypical. Instead of using battallion or regiment, I will call them bans, and a subunit is a schaar. Each ban also has its own colour.

1ste Ban Schutters - red

2de Ban Schutters - turqoise

3de Ban Schutters - straw

1ste Mechanisch Geschut - magenta

1ste Verkenners te Paard - white

Imaginations in 42mm (6)

It was a hot summer day today, so I took the opportunity (in between some time for real work :-)) to finish the 2nd side for my Imaginations in 42mm project. Figures are from the Balkan range from Irregular miniatures.

As with the 1st side (earlier blog and blog), I haven't decided on names for countries, let alone names for regiments and such. The only thing I needed for painting was a dominant colour for each army (Blue and Green), a colour for each regiment, and a flag design. This still leaves me plenty of imaginative room. After all, historic armies have lots of examples where the "1st Regiment" was officially the "3rd Royal Battalion", but was known as "The Jabberwockies", has a blue standard, but wore red on the cuffs, except after 4 o'clock, when they wore yellow.

General overview of the "Green Army"

1st Infantry regiment, regimental colour black. General commander of the army shown in front.

2nd Infantry regiment, regimental colour red.

3rd Infantry regiment, regimental colour blue.

Artillery, battery colour brown.

1st Cavalry - green.

Imaginations in 42mm (5)

It has been a few weeks since I was able to paint some more figures for my 42mm project (the main reason here), but here you see my progress from last evening.

The figures are irregular 42mm, from the Balkan Wars range, and are Russians/Bulgarians. I will use them in an imaginations setting, so I am not constrained w.r.t. actual uniforms etc. I chose green as the dominant colour (that's also why they got an undercoat in green).

The figures you see are only the initial stage, allowing me to experiment a bit with the overall colour scheme. The idea is still to use simple block painting only, with limited shading, but using gloss varnish as a way to let them shine. Each unit (6 infantry, 1 officer, 1 flag bearer) should have some distinctive colour markings identifying the regiment - in this case in red.

The flags have a simple design, amd the idea that as the games progress, battle honours etc. will be added such that the flags become gradually more complex.

Imaginations in 42mm (4)

Yesterdat I also finished 4 cavalry figures for my 42mm army. The gloss varnish really came out well, and give the figures the impression of shiny toy soldiers.

My question now is whether I should do something to the bases. I varnished them as well - for me it's fine as they are right now, but I am so conditioned that wargaming figures should have "proper" bases, that it still feels a bit strange to me.


The last image shows 2 old toy soldiers - lancers - I acquired during a garage sale many years ago. I have no idea about the manufacturer or how old they are, but they fit size-wise perfectly. I'll probably clean them up and repaint them in as close to their original colours as possible.

Imaginations in 42mm (3)

I finished the 3 infantry units & 1 artillery gun for my late 19th/early 20th century imaginations campaign. I applied 2 varnish coats, one spray-painted mat varnish, then a gloss varnish applied with a paint brush.

I was not entirely sure the gloss varnish would work out ok, but it did. I have the practice of first trying the varnish coat on a few figures first, before applying them to the whole bunch.

I am quite happy with the results. Below you see them, using my vintage wooden block set to build a small fort.

Imaginations in 42mm (2)

A progress report on my 42mm Balkan Wars figures, which will form the core of my imaginations armies.

As you can see, I have 3 units of 8 figures each. Each unit has 6 riflemen, a standard bearer, and an officer. I plan to develop the hex-based rules such that 4 figures occupy 1 hex. That means that a unit will occupy 2 hexes, thereby nicely dividing a unit in 2 subunits. Whether these are Regiments/Battalions or another scale remains to be decided.

Each unit has a distinctive fez colour (red, straw, turquoise), with artillery crew in the back having a magenta fez. This of course is not historical at all, but is a nice way to visually distinguish units. Moreover, since these figures will be used in an imaginations setting, I do not feel any restrictions w.r.t. the historical colour of uniforms, although things must remain plausible. Note that the unit colour also is repeated in the flags.

I spend quite some time on deciding the flag pattern. Since this is an army in the late 19th, early 20th century, a somewhat modern look was ok. I also wanted something different than the traditional 3 vertical or horizontal bands, or cross patterns. I browsed many webpages listing historical flags, but finally took some inspiration from naval signaling flags.

The current design is rather simple to paint, and allows customization and addition later on - either when more units are added, or when these units have deserved their battle honours. As in some of my other campaigns, I don't mind repainting figures or flags to match their wargaming history.

The only thin that's left to do is to paint the bases, do some touchup work, and (gloss) varnish.

I also started working on the horses, and my efforts of indexing my wargaming magazines already proved it's usefulness. It pointed me directly to an article on painting horses in MWBG 374, which in turn had a reference to a colour plate in MWBG 366 (which I did not list in the index), but will be very useful. In less than 5 minutes I had the relevant reference material.

Imaginations in 42mm

Ever since I read a copy of Little Wars I wanted to do a proper toy soldier game. The closest I came was a game of Shambattle (1929), using my Woodens figures.

My Shambattle game.

For a long time I've had my eye on some 42mm toy soldier style figures, produced by Irregular Miniatures for the Balkan Wars. The main reason was the picture below, which appeared in Wargames Illustrated 158 (November 2000). It was a convention game based on Little Wars.

Wargames Illustrated, issue 158, November 2000

However, I never ordered some of the figures (too busy with other wargaming projects), but a few months ago, I finally placed an order for 2 armies. Each army has 24 infantry, 4 cavalry, and a cannon.

I want to use these figures in an Imaginations setting, so I am not too worried about the correct painting schemes, but I do want each army to evoke a specific character. This process hasn't fully converged yet - I still have to come up with names etc. for my countries. My approach (which I also use for my scifi and fantasy settings) is usually bottom-up (invent things as you need them in your games), so things will fall in place.

This hasn't stopped me from starting to paint some of the figures:

Work in progress ...

Work in progress ...

As you can see, I am using different colours for the fez for various groups of figures, instead of painting them all red. Since I will use these figures for an Imagination campaign, I was looking for some ways of giving various units a different visual look, and their hat colour was an obvious candidate.

I opted for block painting - a simple painting technique without too much shading or highlighting. This suits me fine (I've never been a great painter ... ). I hope the gloss varnish will emphasize the colours, because now they still look a bit dull. The figures in the back are not green army men, but 42mm Russians/Bulgarians, the other army I ordered from Irregular. I have the habit of using an undercoat of the dominant colour, and since I want to give them green uniforms, I spray-painted them all green. It's the same reason why the Ottomans all have blue bases ;-)

As for developing the future look of my units, I am still not sure what path I will take. But I've always been a fan of the "Operette" style of military uniforms. One source of inspiration ever since I  was a kid, were the uniforms depicted in the Tintin album Ottokar's Sceptre, of which you can see a colour plate below.

Military uniforms, Ottokar's Sceptre