Sunday, June 10, 2007

An Old School 18th Century Wargame

Greetings one and all,

By way of a brief introduction I am a 35 plus year wargaming veteran who cut his teeth on Charge! using unpainted Airfix Napoleonics. Over the years I have tried an enormous amount of rules for differing periods up and down the historical spectrum and if I have learned anything as a result it is that prefer the simpler rules, leavened with some knowledge of the period gained through research. It was with this in mind that I found myself looking wistfully at the Spencer Smith website and and the possibility of some enjoyable games using old fashioned rules. I always liked Charge!, not only for the rules but also for the vein of humour running through the book. Large regiments may no longer be fashionable (for which read cost and time to paint) but this is the essence of why I came into the hobby. Massed ranks of figures blazing away or trying to force a conclusion against their opposite numbers; great handfuls of dice and all the flam and paradiddle of a bygone age. I seem to recall from Charge! that the authors recommended the use of fictional armies to remove the element of bias and I guess in a nutshell that is why we are all here. My two fictional armies, which will be organised as per Charge!, will be the Grand Duchy of Artois and the Electorate of Kronenburg. These are French and German respectively and the units comprising these will be named after wines for the French and beers for the Germans. Initially, I am looking at a modest set up - each force will consist of 6 line companies, a grenadier and a light company for the infantry and 4 squadrons for the cavalry. I will add 3 guns and howitzer to each side as well.

I intend using Charge! for this project, perhaps with a smattering of The Wargame thrown in for good measure.

At the time of writing I have yet to order the figures but I have already designed the uniforms which will not look out of place on a historical SYW battlefield.

The beauty of using SSM figures is not onlythe cost but the simplicity of the figures themselves - they only need a simple paint job to be effective which means SPEED of finish. This is a major attraction for me as I am a notoriousy slow painter.

I will update the blog as the project progresses and as I flesh out the two adversaries.

All the best,

David

1 comment:

Bluebear Jeff said...

David,

Welcome as the 20th member of our league of 18th century imagi-Nations.

One of the joys of this forum is that we don't care what rules, figures or even scale we each choose for our gaming.

Here we are all equal in that we are free to declare for either the 'Emperor', the 'Elector' or even attempt to remain neutral.

And, of course, we may participate in many small conflicts totally aside from the 'big boys'.

I'd guess that your Grand Duchy of Artois would lean towards the Emperor (Gallia in the current war); while the Electorate of Kronenburg is likely to side with the Elector (Hesse-Seewalt currently fighting Gallia).

As you may know, Gallia (Bill Protz) and Hesse-Seewalt (Jim Purky) have been battling on-and-off for decades. They occassionally have very large OSW-style games in the American midwest.

I certainly expect the results of these games to effect what happens here (even though I won't ever be able to make one of them).

So, jump in and send some diplomatic dispatches . . . remembering always that our object is to have fun.


-- Jeff of Saxe-Bearstein

http://saxe-bearstein.blogspot.com/