Ripples

A few days ago I  started to think about my next solo game. There are a few figures that I want to paint before I play again but I thought that was it. One of the dangers of the blogosphere however, is inspiration when you weren't looking for any.

 I think I was weakened a little  by looking at Kevin's splendid new naval brigade but the trigger for my internal disturbance came when a certain Duke calmly mentioned making a bounce stick for Tony Bath's Horse & Musket rules as presented in Lost Tales. I didn't remember looking at said rules when I got the book and next thing you know I was neck deep in Don Featherstone's Colonial and WWI in East Africa rules and picturing 20 man units of 40mm Askari.

It was nip and tuck but I eventually managed to drag myself back to reality before any serious damage was done, just another attempt to differentiate between close range firefights and charges with cold steel, oh and a decision that I was right last year and I should be using a grid with a smaller number of larger squares, squares big enough to each hold one of my 8 man infantry battalions in extended order or 2 battalions in close order. Of course it would be rather impetuous to have the thought  over coffee one morning and have it repainted by lunch.

Besides the base color is waaay too translucent and needs to dry overnight before I add more shades to break it up and hide the intermediate grid. Here we see a battalion in road column passing through a town block, a battalion in extended order and a regiment of cavalry. Each of these would be  a scenario unit.

This change means rolling back range and movement increases found necessary with 270 squares rather than the 120 originally used with the Square Brigadier.  Apart from the look of the thing when using larger squares, experience tells me that the smaller number of squares tends to make for a tighter, more intense game with less drag.