Planning and Preparation

The quick change of period between games has been good in many ways but I'm ready to focus a bit more for a short while and despite past resolutions that I would never rebuild past 15mm collections with a 40mm version of the same thing......I appear to be doing that happily and looking forward to more. Well, after all, its a hobby meant for enjoyment, not a business endeavour or Sacred Quest so,...why not eh? 

So, having put that work into my Turks, why not bring them back out? 

When I decided to allow myself to revisit the 1790's in a larger figure size, I decided that I would NOT recreate armies for fighting pitched battles, but would instead aim towards more "petit guerre" forces and scenarios: raids, ambushes and so on. By default, this means the rules have to be aimed at this level which was the sort of thing the original "With MacDuff" rules were aimed at and my first instinct was to haul them out and adjust them to the new setting, but I soon realized that what worked for 4 hour multi-player games on a 6'x8' table in my 40's wasn't going work as well for solo games on a table roughly 1/2 that size as my 70's creep closer and closer.

From the archives: an early 20thC reprise of a 1980's 15mm French Revolution Guadaloupe game run at Cangames in the mid 80's. My 40's are now playing on a table about 1/4rd the size of Gary's table!

During the first outing of my Turks, I ended up scribbling down some 'back of a postcard' rules, basically a stripped down version of my old Morschauser inspired rules which developed into the more complex Hearts of Tin. These had each stand of figures being a "unit", if on its own, or part of a formation if grouped with others. I liked the way that worked but decided to push on and continue to try to develop a workable game for 8 figure companies on a small table. They were working fine till the terrain intervened and I had to improvise rules for splitting companies in two to occupy buildings, send out skirmishers, place guards on key terrain features like bridges or a battery for scenario purposes, then it got messy! 

It seems to me that the Morschauer inspired path is the best solution for big figures on a small table. Experience tells me that its also easy to teach new players that each "stand" or tray or figures is a game unit which may be grouped together and give them a short list of stats: movement, range number of dice to roll, score to hit, etc, and let 'em at it.  

For my Boxing Day game, I also had to improvise rules for detachments detailed to garrison buildings or protect a flank.

So, its time to dust off, re-simplify and tidy up "Hearts of Tin", paint a few more Turks and maybe add a few buildings, or a fort.......