It felt like time for a change

While I enjoy traditional battle wargames, I also enjoy petite guerre scenarios with ambushes and raids, the sort of game that I wrote "With MacDuff to the Frontier" for.

Today, that was the sort of game that I felt like playing.

Reconnaissance in Force

Since I had just painted some Scruby natives to join the Black Fox in mid-19thC Atlantica that seemed like a good starting point until I remembered that this collection needs to use the same rules, organization and basing as my War of 1812 collection  since some of the figures will serve in both. That decision is pending and I want to wait until I have time and interest to look at a couple of scenarios and orders of battle before making a final decision on rule, on/off grid and basing options.

So, having recently found a better home my 45 year old 30mm Quebec figures where they will be seen and played with (Look for guest photos of them at BIG Bushy Run game later this fall), and thus been able to resurrect my plans for a 40mm "Not Quite the War for Acadia"  campaign, I turned there. Alas I haven't started that resurrection yet either, and its also a mess with no decision on rules and organization: Square Brigadier or go off grid with Hearts of Tin or with MacDuff?

From a 2016 MacDuff game (link). 

A straight Not Quite the Seven Years War Charge! game would have been possible but I've put off a decision on using 1/2 distance Charge! since my table is about the same size as the one used for Blastoff Bridge, the sample intro game which effectively uses 1/2 distances and it suddenly seemed too much work.

Now, my revived 54mm collection was designed for just such games with each unit being a "Company" but when I increased the size of the grid and moved the setting to Origawn, I somehow decided to treat units as battalions and aim for battles not semi-skirmishes. After all, who assigns a full brigade or more to escort a couple of wagons?

I started to feel constrained by my own attempts to  rationalize my collection. This had been picked last fall to once again retake its original place as my "go to" collection, capable of doing any sort of game according to my mood and allowing me to add what I felt like and paint as many uniforms as possible.  Obviously I had accidentally led it off the tracks  while trying to rationalize the rules, setting and painting plans. I was now constrained by self imposed restrictions such as "I have too many battalions in bearskins  and shouldn't paint more of the same Zouaves and so on.

The solution was simple.

The convoy proceeds according to the book despite being in friendly territory. 

When in doubt, follow your heart.