Monthly Archives: November 2018

More Sword And The Flame

Colonials, Miniatures

Still hacking away at this project.  The rules and charts were becoming an annoyance, so I consolidated them into a three page cheat sheet.  It’s a Beta, with charts limited to forces at hand rather than the rules’ presentation of all antagonists.  The rule synopses are hand written.

Another problem working solo is random activation.   My working scenario is a patrol action by a platoon of Western soldiers.  It’s the classic situation; their movement triggers an enemy response.

Right now, I’m working with a crude grid, with two counters per grid hex randomly drawn.  Each hex is marked for “yes” and “no” for activations.

Trying to figure out when to trigger a activation, as well as incorporating the event and terrain cards into the game flow.  Somewhat vexing, but still enjoyable.

Making the Old New

Colonials, Miniatures

During the shed purge  mentioned in my August 31 post, I found some old 15mm Minifig Sword and The Flame figures.

There’s some backstory.  Back in the mid-80’s a few of the Kansas City stalwarts at Yankee Doodle Game and Hobby fantasized about a “World At War 1899” game.  Easy to extrapolate with Fashoda and Panther incidents going sideways.  I painted up some Brits and French.  Game never happened, figures went into boxes, and decades passed.  A couple years ago, I sold off all the French and most of the Brits.  The exception was some very nice Highlanders that I figured could be used in  a DBA knockoff game.

There was a package of Sihks, along with some stray British and Egyptian cavalry.  Why not paint them up and play a big game.  Can use all my Arab/East African figures for a mash-up campaign.  Plus, this meshed well with my discovery over at Wargame Vault of the old Pluck vs. Science ruleset.  It’s for big games, but I like the character creating possibilities for a campaign.

It’s not a big thing, but a good use of the old and forgotten to create some fun possibilities.  Here’s a  pictures of the recruits.

 

 

 

 

More Kriegsspiel

Kriegsspiel

Received my new Kriegsspiel pieces the other day.  Laser cut so each piece has to be hand cleaned.  Great way to drink beer, watch football and still feel productive.  Problem is……..I don’t know what the hell I was doing when it came to research.

Wanted to have a corps for each side.  When I double checked, it was another case of a brick shy of a load. Benninghoff is a reliable resource…..after all he is a PhD!, as is Quintin Barry.  So it will be another email out to Photon Cutters, for another brigade and miscellaneous corps level assets.

Pretty, But Incomplete