D-7

Yikes! A week since the last post! Not much hobby time this past week, partly to do with spring chores, partly community volunteering and so on, but, I now have a start on the last minute recruiting.

Cuirassiers, Cowboys, Hussars and Uhlans, all joining the Mamlukes.

A week from today, I need to be packed and ready to go!  I could just pack up now and fudge standings for the not yet painted miniatures,  but I'll be much happier if I can finish another dozen Mamelukes (to replace stand-ins ) and 10 more French infantry....and a few more buildings, and......

One Hump or Two?

Oh! Two please, but could you put them on different camels?

The newly expanded camel corps. Not having time to order more camels I demoted the mysterious Turkish camel artillery to a normal mountain battery using mules. 

When I decided that a multiplayer, constantly growing, game using single figures and my current 'quickplay' version of MacDuff, would never get finished in the time available, I switched back to a set of 'fast play', Morschauser inspired' rules where each 'stand' is essentially a 'unit'.  Worked fine for a game that lasted about an hour, and a  game would probably have lasted longer if I'd painted up enough figures to double the number of stands. That wasn't going to happen.

A series of failed experiments of various sorts followed until finally, while trying yet another approach, it occurred to me to that I was basically writing yet another variation of my Hearts of Tin rules. (duuuhh). They were designed for this sort of thing so I typed up a One Page version using units of 3 stands for infantry battalions, 2 stands for cavalry, camel corps (relax, I only have one), local militia, and light infantry, 1 stand per battery (I don't have time now to cast up and paint double the number of guns and crews.) 

So far the test game is finally achieving my goals. Players generally can act the commander and have control over their units, but not complete control. Combat is quick but units are not so brittle as to disappear on one good or bad die roll. Hits will be tracked by unit rather than stands which reduces the hit tracking dice requirement by more than 1/2.  The players in these scenarios should have enough of a force to keep them in the game unless they are determinedly suicidal, but not so many that a decision can't be reached within the time limits.........I hope.........

The current version can be read or downloaded here: A Whiff of Dice.  

Right, I still need to finish another units of  Mamlukes, and...... 2 weeks and a bit to go!

May I Proceed?

Yes, I may, after all, it is May!  Taxes are done with, (including my wife's business), next winter's firewood is partly stacked and partly too wet to stack and Huzzah is only a few weeks away. That means...... hobby time! 

I went down some pretty strange roads hoping to solve the conundrum of making the game fun, simple but engaging, original and neither too slow nor too quick, with an emphasis on player decisions rather than luck.  However, finally, yesterday, I metaphorically whapped myself in the head and stopped trying to be clever and original and went back to OS basics. One hour in, its very encouraging.

There will be time in the next 2 weeks to play test both scenarios and to convert and paint the last score or so figures. There is yet hope!