Monday, November 14, 2016

Mustering While the Thought is Hot

I had better things to do today than muster 54's, well OK, not better really just not hobby related. However,  the fatigue and  burn out from my long drive is just catching up with me and peaking, so here are my short and long term 54mm toy soldier goals and an assessment of where I'm at.
Red's Commander musters his division for inspection, ready or not.
For the North West campaign I intend to muster the following for both Red and Blue based on Thomas's One Hour Wargames unit selection chart. Other scenarios will be accommodated by fudging or drawing on the full armies. There is one glitch in that I cannot imagine such small forces having two artillery units and anyway, I can no longer field four 54mm guns. In the short term I will substitute any unit but ere long I plan to convert two Britain's WW1 MG's into anachronistic carriage mounted Maxim guns. My old Marx repro Gatling which I no longer have was too big anyway. This means 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 2 sharpshooter, 2 cavalry/mounted rifle units. Infantry units will be 6 figures, artillery 1 piece + 3 crew, cavalry and sharpshooter units will be 4 figures. (Plus engineers and a field hospital)

For the Canadians I have enough infantry although I eventually want to replace at least some of them with figures in campaign dress. I have 1 unit of sharpshooters and some figures to refurbish as a second unit. The cavalry will consist of a unit of lancers in stetson and I have figures to convert to NW Mounted Rifles in pillbox caps. The artillery just needs the machine gun made.

The Americans need their infantry units expanded from 4 to 6, the cavalry upped by 1 figure each, the machine gun added, and a few sharpshooters touched up a bit to look more Buffalo hunter/scout like.

Hopefully all of that will be done by the end of the year including basing all three armies.

My initial forces for the Eastern campaign will have six, twelve figure, infantry units each plus two each of other units. The British can fudge that as seen above but some units could use refreshing and I intend to replace the copies of the Herald Highlanders with some line infantry and I will probably reduce the Naval Brigade to one company plus a gunboat crew. That can wait until I bring the American infantry units from 6 figures to twelve, add 3 more including Zouaves, and add cavalry as mentioned above. I also need 2 guns, not too big or too expensive. With luck I'd like to see at least a small game by New Years. Perhaps one of the  scenarios from Thomas's Wargaming tbe Ninteenth Century book which I picked up on kindle just before my trip. Coincidence?

4 comments:

  1. Ross Mac,

    There is something very attractive about wargaming with 54mm figures, and I keep looking at mine and thinking 'I should really use them on the tabletop rather than just on the lawn when there is time and good weather'.

    Based on your suggested unit organisation, my collection would certainly allow me to field at least a division-sized Red Army formation ... and possibly a sizeable Blue & Grey Army.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  2. The proof of how well thus works on a smallish table will be in the playing but it feels good to be breathing new life into this collection.

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  3. A most impressive parade and some interesting ideas...

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  4. 54mm can work on the small table and curiously looks good to the toy soldier afficianado. Thank you for sharing Ross. I can't wait till Tahnksgiving when I might get a chance to 'play' with my own toys.

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