Seemed a shame to clear the table after just one game. The original game was played with Don’s 30mm Spencer Smith ACW figures but my first wargame book was his Battles With Model Soldiers and the figures were Airfix ACW so…….. Hobby time has been curtailed this last week and casting & converting has taken precendence. If all goes well I’ll get to play on … Continue reading Recycle Reuse
Over the last year I’ve been listening my way through an audiobook version of Shelby Foote’s massive trilogy on the American Civil War. Over the last 10 years I’ve been seesawing between my desire to fight higher level ACW battle with brigade sized units and lower level ones with regiments but Shelby’s books are nudging me back towards something more like corps level battles. Picket’s … Continue reading Something is a Foote
By Wednesday I had my head back in the right place, had cobbled the rules back together based on the decisions I had made last summer (and apparently forgotten despite rereading the blog posts!), and had the table reset. Once again the dice started rolling. On the Yankee left a thin screen of cavalry was assaulted by two brigades of Rebels and quickly driven back … Continue reading Here come the Rebs again!
Its looking like Tricornes are more fashionable than Kepis, Slouchhats and Shakos but there are a few hours left to go before the poll closes. Testing the improved Union Brigade & Regiment markings. The 1st Brigade’s Red Patch is more visible and distinct now that the regimental white Roman numerals have been removed yet the placement of the colour bar still clearly identifies these as the 1st … Continue reading The Final Hours!
I managed to steal an hour to play this morning. Things were moving along in the old way when I realized that something didn’t “feel” right. So I paused to think about it. Then I tried a few ideas out for “feel” before getting back to work. The problem seems fairly simple, the old stuff works fine but with the ratio of troops to me’s … Continue reading Yes..yes….no! CUT!
We can end this with just one battle. Fall is always one of the hardest seasons for finding time to paint or play but some goes on anyway. With only a few voting days left it doesn’t look like ACW is going to be the poll winner so I thought I’d give the boys an outing now. The table is set, maybe I’ll be able … Continue reading We Don’t Need No Minicampaign
Once again I sat down, looked at the still unfinished 20 turn game on my table and thought: “I have not done what I thought I was doing. Instead, I’ve gone even farther off course.”. Reset! Simple scenario. Equal forces, 3 roads either side. Roll for entry point per division. Sieze an enemy road without losing any. The original plan had been to write a … Continue reading Habits Are Hard To Break
A key Principle of War. Don’t let yourself be distracted by details or put the plan above the mission. I brought my coffee upstairs this morning and looked at the table covered in disorder markers which tended to blend in with the units. What was the Aim again? Two turns later, with modified rules in play, a Reb unit has punched their way through the … Continue reading Maintenance of the Aim or Adjusting the Plan.
I confess, I was struggling. Things either worked but were too fiddly for me these days, or they were easy but didn’t work for this size of game let alone larger ones, or just didn’t work at all! Swapping the variable length move for a simple activation chart got the movement.. ummh.. moving? Firefights proved a bit tougher since my mind was locked into various … Continue reading OK So not really so Old School after all.
Finally, battle is joined. I was a little disconcerted at first to find that various favoured mechanisms proved unsuitable for the task in hand. However, it didn’t take long to resurrect some even older mechanisms and the game is now flowing. Is it on the right track? We’ll see! Continue reading Wargames can be hell
n4g 