After some pondering, well in a fact a few years worth of pondering if truth be told and a recent discovery of some old simple Wars of the Roses rules that I wrote years ago, I am going to start a succession of smaller projects that will sit under an over-arching ambition of getting several army pairings together, from different periods, for some fun games that aesthetically appeal and won’t take up too much gaming time or space (he says, foolishly ever hopeful!).
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| SU 122 from a Pegasus 1/72 kit |
I will be building some ‘Pocket Armies’ in the larger scales, while using the smaller setting of the kitchen / dining table and trying to create a sense of something a bit grander than skirmishing.
This first post is just an introductory article that gives some thoughts, observations and ideas on getting the project up and running. So if you fancy joining me on a gentle ramble of plans, intentions, dreams and wish lists, then please use the ‘read more’ tab.
The project will be looking at several pairings of 1/72 and 28mm armies, covering a wide range of interests, keeping each deployable army to perhaps around 8 - 10 units that can be selected from a base collection of say 12 units or so for each army, with a view to gaming with them in a 4’ x 3½’ or at most 6’ x 3½’ space. Rules will be at the lower end of the complexity spectrum and there will be an emphasis on play, fun and aesthetics.
If things go as imagined, then it is hoped that a series of blogged articles will fall out of this project as each army build is approached, together with some AAR’s and rule discussions.
In his book, One Hour Wargames, Neil Thomas uses the sub-title to the highlight the important elements of ‘practical’, ‘time’ and ‘space’, factors that probably touch most of us. His book is all about getting a game to the table, with minimal obstruction, perhaps even having that illusive midweek evening game up and running. There is something honest and refreshing in his ambition.
He helpfully suggests a 3’ x 3’ table for space restricted gamers. His scenarios just use 4 - 6 units per side, helping gamers who dislike painting or have budget / time / space restrictions and that favour smaller collections. His unit frontage is around 6” (150mm), the infantry movement rate is typically 6”, so units are able to get to the other side of the table in 6 uninterrupted turns and he does all of this with short and simple rules that cover 9 different periods, together with an offering of 30 generic scenarios that cleverly service those periods.
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| Perry plastic ACW figures and their wood clad church |
Though I find his rule systems in that book a bit too ‘trimmed down’, the scenarios rather remind me of the ‘Teaser’ type of games associated with the influential Charles Grant. They conveniently sit on that cusp of elevating what is essentially a skirmish game, to feeling something a bit more army based if that makes sense!
His earlier books (Ancient & Medieval Wargaming and Napoleonic Wargaming), sit in a place that I find a bit more inviting, with armies that are based around eight units and which abstractly reflect ‘full’ armies, a sort of bath-tubbing of force.
For example, in his After Action Report in the napoleonic book, dealing with his Battle of Leibnitz, he has an eight unit French force consisting of 4 Line Infantry units (one of course being The Guard!), 1 Light infantry, 1 Cuirassier heavy cavalry, 1 light cavalry and an artillery unit. This style of representative play and that type of unit mix with The Guard ‘always’ being in there as well, makes me smile as it just delivers a strong whiff of my 1970’s gaming memories in that world of Featherstone, Grant and Quarrie - and perhaps it is this more than anything else that appeals to me about doing all of this.
The Captain Sensible part of me understands that for my situation at home, with limited storage and gaming space, that the smaller scales are ideal and should be getting full attention. However, the Captain Emotional part of me has an affection for the aesthetic of the bigger scale and so rather than just perpetuating the growing mountain of the 28mm stash, that perversely also lives under the constant threat of sale, it is probably better to do something that formalises their use, properly bringing them into my hobby time. So here we are! Perhaps I am making peace with the scale thing ..... well for this week anyway :-)
If I look at doing armies of around 12 units, then an army should conveniently fit into one of those plastic 4 Litre ‘Really Useful’ boxes, hugely helpful for storing and stacking while keeping a small footprint. Another reason for me wanting to stick with the Pocket Armies idea is that I am just a nightmare when it comes to topic interests, I am all over the place, so collecting several ‘small’ armies means goals, ambitions and games are more likely to be achieved and helping the project to stay viable over the longer term.
I wish I could say that individual armies will likely only need around 100 figures or so, but I think the reality is that this would be fine to give ‘starter’ games and that they will probably need to grow to a core of around 150 figures to get the diversity of force that I will want and so with two armies putting down a total of around 250 - 300 figures on the table, we do at least get something that seems to sit somewhere between skirmish and battle, while still working on a kitchen table type of space and this really intrigues me
Some readers will already be thinking that this will be too cramped and what about flanks etc? but in my nostalgic time travel, back to days when such things mattered less and fun seemed a more natural consequence of hobby time, I have already jumped such hurdles.
The project is going to use a terrain scale of mostly 1/72. I already have some of that terrain and the footprint is smaller than typical 28mm buildings, which helps with the smaller table thing. All armies will be 28mm except WWII, which will be 1/72, so the terrain size will also look right for the tactical nature of WWII actions, being a bit more convincing visually. Plus I get a chance to do a bit of modelling - another blast from the past that I have actually started to enjoy again.
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| Warlord Games Gallic foot warriors on an 80mm base |
I can see Horse and Musket units typically having a frontage of 150mm (6”) for infantry, 100mm (4”) for two guns and perhaps 120mm (just under 5”) for cavalry that could be on two 60mm bases. Pre-Gunpowder might adopt 80mm or 100mm bases. I am still working on that. Pike and Shotte - well that would likely be a mix, just to emphasise the pike block.
I keenly follow Peter’s Blog ‘Grid based wargaming - but not always’ (see link in Resource Section Below) and he puts on a lot of games that have the kind of look / size / scope that I am thinking about and the variety and entertainment levels of those games are really good.
As an opening to this project, my first two army pairings will be the Union and Confederate forces of the American Civil War, for no other reason than I am already part way through painting both armies in 28mm and also I have enough plastic and metal in the pile to get me to where I want them to be. I will say no more on this subject, as it will disrupt the introductory nature of this post. A separate post about the ACW armies will follow in due course - though these figures have been in the ‘in progress’ stage for some three years or so now, something needs to be done about that :-)
The photographs here suggest I have collections of forces in the larger scale already, but that is not true, these pictures are just showing odd bases that I dabbled with for fun.
I do however have quite a lot of part armies in plastic, still on the sprue that patiently wait their turn to see the painting tray, these being Napoleonics (French / Austrian), Wars of the Roses, some Sci-Fi and plenty of WWII, both east and west front.
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| Perry Wars of the Roses in plastic |
I do however have quite a lot of part armies in plastic, still on the sprue that patiently wait their turn to see the painting tray, these being Napoleonics (French / Austrian), Wars of the Roses, some Sci-Fi and plenty of WWII, both east and west front.
Except for not wanting to get into the ridiculous situation of growing a plastic mountain that has in any case effectively been under a ‘for sale’ status for a few years, packed, unpacked, packed .... repeat! I would likely have also added AWI, 1066, English Civil War, Republican Roman, and something with chariots to that list by now - it’s all very silly of course!
Anyway, part of the attractiveness of this project is that I have quite a bit of kit already and rather than reluctantly selling it all off for the usual loss, I may as well get it up and running, which at the very least may get all of this out of my system, but hopefully will do so much more than just that!
Part of the reason for me posting this article today, which has been in a loose draft form for a few weeks, was that I came home today with four Zvezda mini kits and an Armourfast box of 2 x Sherman 76's fast build sprues and so have jumped off the fence!
Part of the reason for me posting this article today, which has been in a loose draft form for a few weeks, was that I came home today with four Zvezda mini kits and an Armourfast box of 2 x Sherman 76's fast build sprues and so have jumped off the fence!
I am most likely visualising all of this with a certain naivety. Something that seems to only have positives to me at the moment, but that the actual practical application may fall short of any such perceived panacea of gaming, we can only test the water and see how things go.
Either way, the entirety of this project that will eventually cover several periods is quite significant in terms of impact on my available hobby time and so to get this moving ever forward, I am giving myself some rules / structure that I know will work with my character traits. So I will;
- Try and paint something every day, even if it is just boots today and hats tomorrow.
- Always have something already primed and on painting sticks. Painting regularly is not too much of a problem for me, the disruption to that discipline happens at the point of a unit being completed and then I pause until the next unit is prepped and primed - that pause can last for weeks and then months and this project cannot survive that sort of indiscipline.
- Stick with the mini-project in hand. There are a lot of things I want to do, even as I type this, I want to do some Wars of the Roses bases and some WWII bases and I have just been admiring a box of Victrix Napoleonic Austrians, still on their sprues, but that just dilutes effort (as it always has done), so I will stay with ACW until it is significantly complete.
- Speed painting. I have never really liked painting - period, but must admit there has been some pleasure in painting the bigger stuff and there is a satisfaction in seeing the number of my regiments grow, which in turn makes it harder for me to part with them. I want to try to strike that balance between getting figures knocked out, but have them being able to stand up to the sometimes cruel scrutiny of digital photography for blog shots. I will go for a block paint, wash and highlight and hope that this gets things to an acceptable wargaming standard and that it keeps the projects moving forwards.
- Gaming with unpainted figures while the army grows. Yes I know, some of you are already weeping, but for me, gaming in the privacy of my home, this allows me to get organisations and basing right, settling on a rule set and maintaining motivation while an army goes through the rotation of getting onto painting sticks and proper basing.
For rules I will initially go for a mix of titles that sit at the easier end of play, which will probably bring some interesting blogging opportunities and over time, I will no doubt shake down to a few sets that nicely do the job at the scale I will be working at. I don’t want to become over anxious about rules or indeed any part of this project, it should never feel like work and there should be a strong bias towards play, a mindset dare I say that was likely taken for granted in my earlier days of gaming and that has partly lost some ground over time as the hobby becomes more ‘serious’ and more sophisticated - perhaps we have become too serious! Many of my boardgame rules carry complexity, I want this project to be a bit more joyous!
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| SU 152 fast build 1/72 kit from Pegasus |
The lengthy writing and re-writing of articles that I do here, the study of rules from what seems like a continual stream of new boardgame titles, the writing and testing of my own rules, the thinking, planning, thinking, painting, too much screen time and thinking and more thinking that circulate around and seemingly dominate the important bit - ‘getting to actual play’, demands that a re-balance of bringing ‘play’ back into sharper focus is needed and I am going to be placing a strong emphasis on gaming in this project.
This taken together with my recent work on streamlining my boardgame collection to be based around series games that have common rules, making it easier and quicker to bring games down off the shelf, with the rules already familiar, will hopefully enhance my hobby time overall.
Anyway, enough. If any of this interests you, please keep an eye out for future ‘Pocket Armies’ posts and as ever, your views and insights are always appreciated. The project has the potential to grow legs and be something significant within my own gaming world, or of course, like so many other enthusiastic ideas and good intentions, it may whither and sit in that perpetual queue, we will just need to wait and see.
Thanks to everyone who follows this blog, your continued support is appreciated in so many ways and a strong and viable blogosphere gives us all some friendly space to inhabit in our spare moments to share ideas and enjoy what others are doing.
Resources
My COMMANDERS site is more snippet based than here and painting / collecting update for the project will no doubt make more frequent appearances there. LINK
Peter’s Blog, Grid Based Wargaming - but not always, LINK