Year Seven

Its that time again, my annual "happy to still be here" post. Its a day late due to my  bicentennial post but then one of my PT instructors at college often referred to me as "the late Mr. Macfarlane".

Anyway, apart from having to miss Huzzah due to a scheduling conflict, this has been the best 12 month period in ages so the goal is to equal or better it.

Hobbywise its largely Steady as She Goes. Hopefully a bit more social gaming again. On the homefront the plan is to continue consolidation efforts with more things table ready without that improvised look that has plagued me while exploring options.

Cold Wars 2005. One of Rob's Meisterzinn Homecast British battalions disembarks.
A little of this.

Tentatively Rob & I will be running a French & Indian War game or two at Fall In 2016 in Lancaster in November. Hence the push to get MacDuff finalized and polished. Getting the figures on table momentarily revived dreams of a universal set of rules for games running from French & Indian  skirmishes to  battles against Baluchs and fighting on both Northwest Frontiers. Playing a couple of games and getting a feel again for the space and numbers of 40mm figures needed to get it looking and feeling right for larger actions was a good reminder of why that isn't going to happen. So I will stick with my plan for homecast Acadian games focused on small fictional scenarios but eventually leading up to a Louisburg campaign sometime after the PA British molds come out in a year or two.


I also intend to spend significant time with my 4cm Elastolin dark age/medieval figures. If it comes together in time this might appear at Huzzah 2017.

However, what I really want to figure out and polish are my shiny Atlantican lads. I've been struggling with the "many small units vs a few large units?" question and predictably it looks like the answer is neither.  The combination of grid squares, linear warfare and 12 to 18 40mm figures has had mixed results for me but apart from the grid this was always the sweet spot for Hearts of Tin so I intend to make another run at it while keeping unit footprint and ranges as small as I can so as to fit the game comfortably to my 4x5 for most games.

More of this.

I'm not ready to drop the grid yet though so intend to keep it for the 54's and 1900 collections. For some reason the grid combined with skirmishing units seems to make it easier for me to accept small units of big figures with short weapon ranges.


That all seems so sensible that I have my doubts but here we go!