Interruptions! Always Interruptions!

 But that's another matter. 

The armies were deployed and the French advanced. Artillery and skirmishers engaged. The infantry are about to engage and..........

Hopefully, tomorrow we will find out how it goes.

Ready To Go

 Practice helps! The armies are good to go. There are more battalions, squadrons and batteries to be cast, converted, and painted, but the lads are ready to go as are the stand based rules. 

 Now to settle on a scenario and see how it goes.

The Armies Return To Base.

If you have enough practice at re-basing, you can get it done fairly quickly.  I was about to flock them when I remembered that my table is painted, not flocked and this will be where most FR battles will take place. So, I just painted the bases with the same paints I used to paint the table. To be honest, I rather like the effect. Wish I'd thought of that earlier. 

One of my earliest 40mm French Revolution games, November 2021.
 French attacking Highlanders, somethings never change, the French were just as aggressive in 15mm, several decades ago. Note the 4 figure bases, 4 to a battalion..... Sigghhhhh...I should have just listened to myself......

I should be game ready by the weekend.

Another Approach

Earlier today, I was pondering my options for my "Final Solution"  and suddenly remembered back to 2011 when I decided to copy Morchauser's organization of 5 stands of 4 figures. Since I've been running into various obstacles, I looked up some of those games that were included when I played Scenarios For All Ages by Charles S Grant and Stuart Asquith. 

The games all got a short report on my old 'With Macduff' webpage and when I shut that down I transferred them to a blog:   https://redbookplayed.blogspot.com  By chance, this week's game back in March 2009, included the young version of veterans that were in action two weeks ago,

ps: Note the 50mm square, 4 man, stands. hmmmmm

31 Mar 2009 Scenario 15: Forlorn Hope (1)

This game was played solo using 40mm 19thC armies and Hearts of Tin.

I'm still gathering forces and working on the background for my Red vs Blue campaign so technically haven't started yet but it seems to be developing a storyline all by itself. After the surprise appearance of Pirates as Blue allies in #11, an attack on a fortified city suggested a punitive expedition by Red, so instead of trenches and breaches its a surprise attack from the jungle at 1st light: the escalade of Freeport. The pirates had 1 unit spread out along the wall in detached companies with a heavy battery in the stone tower guarding the log boom blocking the river. A 2nd unit was asleep in town as well as the Grenadiers of San Carlos who had volunteered their services to defend the town. I counted the pirates as Veteran Militia. Apparently there are some religious issues as 2 armed Franciscans were serving as aides to Captain Mulrooney, the Pirate chief.

Red had 2 storming parties, one with 3 ladder parties, all grenadiers, and a company of rifles led by Brigadier Macfarlane, the other with 2 companies of grenadiers, a company of rifles and an Engineer with petard, all under the command of Brigadier Grey. The back up force under General Turner comprised the Rocket Troop, FTC Horse Artillery and 2 battalions of foot as well as the gunboat FTCS Recycle with a heavy mortar.

Grey's party managed to creep within 6" of the gate before the alarm was sounded but the laddermen, no doubt slowed by their burden, were not even 1/2 way from the edge of the jungle. As the alarm went up the rocket troop galloped forward and opened fire as the Recycle steamed into view. In short order, the surprisingly accurate rocket and mortar fire had silenced the Tower Battery (accurate if not counting a rogue rocket that just missed the Tigers!). Meanwhile Gray's grenadiers charged forward and engaged in a desperate close range firefight with the defenders while the Engineer struggled with his charges (tied melee) but at last the fuse was lit, the door blown open and the forlorn hope entered. Now where were the relief's?

There had been some confusion in the jungle and the Tigers were not even 1/2 way there so Grey sent 1 company to seize the rampart above the gate while the other held the door itself. Over on the wall, the 3 ladders went up but resistance was surprisingly fierce and 2 of the 3 parties were thrown back. The 3rd company was undaunted and clung to a narrow foothold.

The Buffs were quickly at hand and started feeding men up the ladders into the fight under a withering flanking fire. Macfarlane spotted an empty stretch of rampart and led the closest ladder party to it to effect a lodging, eventually reinforced by riflemen and some Buffs. Inside, fierce and bloody fighting reigned as the pirates and San Carlos Grenadiers struggled to evict the enemy but eventually, despite local, temporary victories, their casualties were too high and they fled back through the town, leaving it to its fa

The Path With Least Resistance

Well, my improvised, cheap, magnetic base liners arrived.......oh well.... They work ok with light figures, like the plastic Prince Valiant figures, Not quite as well with metal homecast figures. 

Oh well, the return to removable individuals on group bases will continue. 

On the bright side, I won't have to cut smaller bases so a battalion can have 4 figures per company stand. Instead, I can use my existing bases with 4 washer based figures on each 4 figure 'company' stand.

This puts me back to a 16 man battalion on 4 stands being wider than an 18 man battalion on 3 stands.

Oh well!  On the good side, the 16 man battalion has a wider frontage than the 18 man unit. To me, the wider frontage looks more linear and the 4 stand battalion may be split in two..

"Once more dear friends unto the base...."

 or perhaps "All my life's a circle"...... 

Yup, narrow magnetic bases again instead of big round washers or glued down figures.

"PreeeeSENT!"

I had tried this flexible approach a decade or so ago but living in the 'boonies' (quiet, beautiful, friendly, neighbourhood though) I had trouble getting the right mix of materials for magnetic bases and had to depend on mailorder across the border, while keeping my armies aligned with my usual convention co-host and the remaining handful of my local wargaming friends.

 

Then COVID hit the continent.. and for a couple of years I was playing solo (which removed restraints....) and having a hard time getting materials so I turned to scavenging for materials to 'reuse' for basic materials (wooden Clementine crates made great basing and building materials until the thin wood was replaced by a type of pressboard. which is thicker and much harder to cut.) 

Experimenting with magnets for temporary group bases in 2010!
(click here to see the post)

 
Then there was the matter of more periods than time and energy could handle as I crept up towards the end of another decade. Anyway, while consolidating armies and periods, I started with the goal of having similar rules etc to make it all as quick and easy as possible but then, some part of my brain decided that if I was going to have armies for various wars, then each collection or 'period' should have a distinct feel rather than just having different hats. Different rules, organisation, basing etc. but that was a quick way to a quagmire with few things being finished and games and campaigns slowing down.   

I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong. I'll be able to play more games if I just used as few rule sets/styles as possible and let the scenarios, the look of the figures and how I use them to give the game a period feel. 

Yay! Bases making for easy maneuvering but allowing figure removal instead of little dice to track hits.

Since I still don't have a local supplier, money is scarce, (the Canadian$ exchange is currently way under the US$,) and my pension is shrinking every year, I was in a bit of a pickle until it occurred to me to have a look at Amazon and Poof, I found some inexpensive packages of thin plywood for crafts, and some cheap magnetic backs for business cards. I still have a couple of unused 15 year old packages of Litko base bottoms that adhere to magnets, and a heap of small metal washers from the local hardware store.....

We're on!

"SERGEANT MAJOR! Get those men onto proper bases!"

The End Of The Crossroad

Well, this wasn't what I had in my mind when I sent drummers around the 19thC shelves to beat the assembly in preparation for a game, but its over now and about 4 sets of rules have been tried for a couple of turns each. I now have some evidence and recent experience for the committee (yes, yes, the usual: Me, Myself and I).  

The Queen's troops got to the town first but the Republic's troops deployed quickly and launched a two prong attack. (Random turn and road of entry.)

The grid is off though. It has its merits, but my 40mm Horse & Musket are too big to work properly with the grid that is painted onto the table and I am NOT going to repaint it AGAIN!  Anyway, I like my table the way it is, and the way the troops are based. So, the grid is off, but it would be anyway for these armies.  

A passing balloon caught this bird's eye photo as the battle progressed.

Over the last year, I've been investigating different approaches to the rules for these lads. All of the versions had something to say in their favour and some problems. In some cases I've found acceptable compromises and in other cases I have still to decide on different approaches (eg sequence of play, variable length moves vs activation, ranges, how resilient should the units be, etc, etc...)  Some of those options have been decided,  but there are still some decisions for me to make.  

The fighting got fierce and victory hung in the balance.

In any case, I'm ready to let it ride for the moment and turn my head to another collection/period.

As the day wound to an end and a bugler blew "Last Turn", the Boys in Blue (and Grey) launched a forlorn assault on the town but the Lads in Red held firmly onto the tavern, and the bulk of the houses.

The question now is: "What should I play next?"  It'll have to be one of my 8 active collections, but requests by comment or email will be considered.

Oh Well....

..At least I tried.

By the time I had played through roughly half the game, I'd had my fill of the gridded game, soooooooo...........

A quick shuffle here and there, a few tweaks to the off grid rules I used for the last couple of Oberhilse and Faraway games, and things are going smoothly again.  

So Far, So Good

 There's been a lot of experimenting but things are coming together.

More to come!

Thinking Outside The Box

My brain often seems to solve problems better when I'm not trying.  

In this instance, I was looking at the table, all set for an off grid game when I found my mind thinking something along the line of ”too bad I couldn't have a 3 stand battalion straddle 2 squares". Minutes later I thought ”yeah, why can't I?”. Minutes later........

3 or 4 stand infantry battalions straddle 2 squares. 

......with a new version of the rules in hand, the test battle was underway. So far, so good.

CUT!!!!!! Let's take it from the start.

Another attempt at standardization has failed.  The grid has some advantages BUT also some restrictions. 

For example, my 1830-1850 armies were resurrected as 3 stand infantry battalions with each stand being a "company" (as in Charge! but 6 figures instead of  19!) with the expectation that the "companies" could form as a battalion or be detached to occupy a house or guard a bridge etc.  Each of my squares hold 2 companies.......hmmm.... .  Its easier to just treat each stand as a "unit" and forget battalions or to increase my battalions to two stand "wings" but somehow it all just wasn't satisfying, especially from the narrative point of view.  

So, I've decided to go back to where I was last fall without the grid, but with the 3 stand infantry battalions.  The table has been reset and the first turns played as the approaching columns arrive at various times, and begin to deploy.

Meanwhile, Back On The Table

 Its just one of those weeks. 

Oberhilse presses a three prong assault on the town.

Balloon's Eye View.

More to come.