On the workbench

Despite my delight in AT-43 being pre-painted, I find that I have too many UNA troops to be useful in a skirmish game. This is due to having bought two starter sets some years back. So I have repainted some in a simple scheme, again using the dipping technique with Wattyl Walnut Stain & Varnish. This time I used a brush to apply the varnish rather than dip. BUt the result is the same: good shading with a minimum of effort.

Next of the to do list I have some ECW cavalry by Eureka (Gordon’s Horse), Swashbucklers from Brigade, peasants from both Foundry and Mega Miniatures, and some Bundeswehr troopers from Eureka. Not necessarily in that order.

Progress

On Friday night Greg and I threw around design ideas for the rules for the French Revolutionary period being contemplated by Eureka.

We settled the scale, or at least the scale principals, and agreed on the specific actions that the rules were to model.

In brief:

Scale: figure scale to model company tactics, but sliding to allow lower level light infantry tactics as well. The manoeuvre element is the 8 to 12 model Company. Figures are single based, moving in clumps. Formations such as line, column and square are not relevant as these occur at higher levels of organisation where several companies cooperate. Crudely we may say that the man to model scale is 1:20, but this might best be seen as the top point of a bell curve depending on the specific instance.

The specific actions we wish to model would be house to house fighting, bridge assaults (Napoleon at Lodi, for example), light company encounters before the main battle line, task force incursions, and so on. We really have to make it clear that these rules are not for modelling Valmy. There are other rules already available for that.

Movement is measured and conventional (curses! No grids!). A single model house represents a single real house.

The core mechanic is based on the Cast of Thousands (CoT) system, already employed for many of Anubis/Eureka offerings. This might appear to be a lazy cop-out, but Greg and I did discuss many mechanisms with the aim of finding the one that correctly modelled what we wanted to do.

Finally, the new working title for these rules is ‘Terrible Passage’, echoing Napoleon’s observations of his bridge encounter.

Next steps: 1) Greg and I need to get a closer understanding of the regional/cultural differences in the protagonists of the period in order to build the factors that will differentiate the sides in the game. 2) We need to do some more reading on the minor tactics of the day and double check that our core mechanism can be extended to cover them without making the rules a joke. 3) As figures become available we must have a sufficient and growing quantity painted up to rigorously test the system. In the meantime Greg and I have figures we can push around. But we want to get the real thing, with camera in hand, so that we can simulataneously capture scenarios for illustrative purposes in the rules. 

It’s looking good.

Bugs from Uranus

These vicious insects were originally Irregular, I think. I picked them up from Nic at Eureka one day, the last of the production run as no one ever bought them. I think they are rather cute little fellows. Very suitable for any 28mm VSF game – particularly suited to being Lunar Selentites, I thought.

Revolutionary – thoughts on scale

We want the scale of the encounters to be at the company level, up to brigade. Applying real world man to model ratios to this in 28mm gives us a clue as to what the scale must be. That is: how many models fit in a line on a reasonable sized table?

This diagram shows these workings.

Cast of Thousands

Complete metaphor. 1920’s film set uses extras from whatever movies are being shot to attempt to make an epic. A cross-genre comedic big battle wargame, the purpose of which is to allow mixed forces to fight each other. Rules for moving terrain during play as well – because they are only props after all.

Qadarni & Hirilakte

Squad/skirmish game for the Tekumel setting, based on Guerra Floridas. Requires feedback from Howard on suitability of GF.

Figures by Eureka Miniatures http://www.eurekamin.com.au/

Guerra Floridas

Squad/skirmish game for Aztec warfare. Currently in review @20071109. Things to do: follow up with reviewers. Neil Burt This guy knows how to do Aztec and how.

Version 1 of rules, here: guerra-florida.pdf

Toytown

Clothespeg solders versus the Teddies.

Roofworld

Necromunda set in Victorian Pax Limpopo London.

Revolutionary

Revolutionary battles – working notes.

This set of rules is designed to support the range of 28mm figures designed and produced by Eureka Miniatures. These figures cover the armies of the French Revolutionary period, 1792 to 1798. The goal of the exercise is to have a long term product range, supported by a complete set of rules and supplements that will grow alongside the figures. The rules must be robust and conventional enough to capture old-school gamers, though should also display some of the trademark Eureka flair.

• Based on the Command magazine game: Hougoumont.
• Battlefield is a conventional (undeliniated) area – ideally for a 4’ x 4’ space.
• Game design is conventional in all important respects: movement is measured, line of sight and model terrain operate in similar fashion to WAB, dice used are d6, incremental loss of figures as a result of combat, limited recourse to ‘novel’ mechanisms and concepts.
• The scale of the encounters modelled is at the company to brigade level. That is: the manoeuvre element is a group of figures on a stand representing a Company. An entire side in a battle – one’s army – is a combined arms brigade/task force.
• These rules model minor infantry tactics specifically during the French Revolutionary period: 1792 – 1798, and extending by implication a decade or so in either direction.
• The armies the players command are task forces with orders to achieve limited goals. They may represent only a tiny part of a much larger battle that is occurring simultaneously on a much larger canvas, or they may be self contained units operating far from support.
• Figure scale is somewhere between 1:10 and 1:25.
  • An infantry stand holds 6 to 8 models. This stand represents a Company of 80 to 180 men (depending on the nationality and condition of the Company).
  • A cavalry stand holds 3 models. This stand represents a Troop of horsemen.
  • A single infantry figure may represent a voltigeur team (these guys must have specific rules).
• Rules must model:
  • Covering fire & move
  • Shoot & scoot
  • Big volley
  • Élan – the power of the revolutionary zeal for France in comparison to the pressed professionalism of its enemies
  • Climbing & defending obstacles
  • Taking cover
  • Light infantry tactics
  • Opening, closing and forcing gates and doors
  • House to house melee