Year 14! The Plan.

WELL, here we are again! Another new year begins!

 (For casual or newer readers, July the 3rd is the anniversary of my 2010 heart attack. (The only one if I can help it!) Celebrating it not only reminds me of a personal revolution in lifestyle, it also reminds me to look at how my New Year plan is going, and to adjust my plans accordingly. (Healthier than I've been in decades thank you, despite coming up on my last 60-something birthday in a few weeks time.)

One ongoing goal is to reduce the number of miniatures and books etc that are cluttering up my room. Some are there as remnants of long ago collections, some because of "haven't got around to" syndrome, others as "excess to requirement" stragglers, and so on. When I do reduce, I do not usually immediately re-home figures and books but wait for a few months/years to see if I miss them or if I've found a way to make them less redundant. However, as life goes on, I am losing patience with the overflow of excess boxes, bins, stacks etc and constant nagging thoughts such as "I really should get around to painting this lot some year" or "I ought to get these guys on the table as long as they're here..." and finally "If I haven't gotten around to these in the last 30 years, what are the odds I'll get them done in the next 10 or 15 years?". 

The truth is that while I'm a bit of a hoarder, and once wanted to do everything of interest to me, as 70-something looms next year, I find that in the 55 years that I've wargamed, I have at least dabbled in pretty much everything that I have had some interest in. However, too many of them were not pursued with the depth I would have liked and too many were taken up to match what friends were doing.  My main desires now are to spend more time on fewer collections, play more mini-campaigns even if they are just a series of scenarios with a narrative link, and reduce duplicating, including that of the "same weapons and tactics, different hats" syndrome.  (See the active collections here: http://gameofmonth.blogspot.ca/p/overview-my-armies-rules-and-plans.html)

Almost all rules and plans have exceptions, so I am keeping three 40mm 'Horse&Musket' collections.  Two of these are inspired by, but not recreating, certain wars in my country's history. One is inspired by the British conquest of Acadia and New France, the other was inspired by a mix of the War of 1812 AND the Rebellions of 1837-38. The 3rd one is my Britain vs Revolutionary France collection which has absolutely no reason to still be here except that I put a lot of work into putting it together, mostly converted home cast figures, they reproduce my first 15mm armies in the early 80's, and it allows me to steal scenario ideas from CS Forester's Hornblower" stories, and, well......I like 'em!.

So, there we are. The plan, rather unusually, is only a tweak of last year's plan, but its working for me.

AMBUSHED! .....AGAIN!

This game could have made a fun (for me anyway) battle report with a separate behind the scenes post, but for non-hobby reasons I decided that one sooner blog post was better than two later. So here we are with a melange of relevant topics!

My annual review and plan will follow in a few days so let me just say that my 54's are once again going back to individual toy soldiers fighting small actions. (I would call them skirmishes but in this hobby that usually means 1:1 semi-roleplay games.)  This is just the sort of game that With MacDuff To The Frontier was written for, so I dugout my copy of the Courier where the original, Colonial, version was published. It took about a minute for my brain to short circuit and I wondered what the heck I was thinking some 30 years ago when I typed up the first version, on a non-colour DOS (no windows) home computer and shared a copy after a discussion on the rec.games.miniatures.historical news group. (anyone else remember those days?)  Anyway, I started work on a one page set of rules for my 54's and after 5 or 6 turns of changing things (hence the cards showing on the first few pics) and finished with a one page set of fast play rules, borrowing many of the mechanisms in the battle rules. Here is a link to the rules as used for the last half of the game: "On The Frontier".  Now, on with the game!

When the Sapper's attempt to clear the wood failed with heavy losses, Col. Ross, in command of the Column, ordered the Sappers to fall back while supports moved up.   

(**Note: click on pictures to see them enlarged or double click for an even closer look.)

The GG Bodyguards and the mountain gun had formed a rearguard but now pressed forward.

The Convoy escort deployed for an assault on the ford, while securing their flanks.
(This was the last turn of card activation, one unit at a time. The rest of the game was my usual one side acts then the other.)

Ambushed!  Plug the gaps! Forward the Reserves! The Mounted Rifles had been forced to retreat by heavy fire and the Victoria Rifles were sent in to take up their place. The sudden appearance by some of the Hunters, allies of the Kree, startled the Dominion forces and they shifted troops to screen the convoy from this enemy on their right flank. For a few minutes, no one noticed the gap in the infantry which left the convoy vulnerable to enemy fire, not until a heavy fire of bullets was sent at the lead wagon.

"SAVE THE OXEN!"

The  Kree were known as good shots and one of the oxen collapsed, halting the convoy until the harness could be cleared away and some bodies rounded up to help move the wagon. While this work was being done, the infantry closed the gap and returned fire. 

The sun was starting to sink and Col. Ross began weighing the risks (to his career) of  retreating to the Depot and calling for reinforcements vs risking his battered force in an attempt to sweep away this human barricade. The old saw "Faint heart never won fair maid" echoed in his head and he ordered a heavy fire poured into the enemy while the Mounted Rifles were ordered to clear the Southern wood.

 

It had been a long hard day under fire, but the cheer at the order to attack, followed by a heavy and accurate fire, seemed to turn the tables and the enemy broke. (or to be precise, the Dominion troops sudden rolled unusual numbers of high dice and the ambushers broke on the 2nd to last turn). 

Up next:  ....ummh, I don't know! Any requests?