Eleven Years Ago This Week, and Today

In June of 2012, my friend Les and I played a remote game using Skype, a game oddly enough played using the armies that I've just moved back into my Active Duty list, with essentially an older version of the rules I resurrected this winter for use at Huzzah!, and the same unit organization as I adopted for my French Revolution games.

 

The Belmont Greys: The drummer (behind the colours) is a Zinnbrigade homecast, the 4 firing figures are Scruby War of 1812 Americans with my heads, and the rest are homecast from my own masters. 

There were three main reasons for my detour. The first and most pressing was a lack of space once we had moved in full time, including an elderly mother in law, but my prolonged fatigue after a heart attack was also a factor. The last reason was that at last, I had time to indulge my urge to experiment, to try all sorts of ideas and options to see what worked for me rather than what I thought I liked or what I was playing with friends. Sometimes decisions  based on best guesses have to be made but I've really enjoyed having the time to explore and test.

A shot of the "Bridge Over the River Skype" game in June 2012 
(Links to 1st post of battle report and the conclusion .)

Meanwhile, in the present, the reorganization and refurbishing has begun with enough units ready to allow me to clear the table........

Rally Round Your Colours Lads!

......., choose and setup a scenario, and then to play a game tomorrow.

 

It All Coming Back To Me Now

While I was sorting out the boxes of early to mid 19th Century figures and reviewing uniforms etc., I was reminded how much I disliked many of the War of 1812 uniforms, and that despite presenting a good variety of small actions, they were still fairly restricted from a wargame scenario POV. 

I also noted that once I had rehomed my big chunky Old Glory figures, about a decade ago, in order to focus on the smaller Scruby figures as well as my various homecast figures, including a number  of my original sculpts, (not masterpieces but my own progeny) my  1812 "armies" now have as many 1830/40's figures as 1812 ones. 

When I started assessing how much work it would be to swap heads and repaint my later figures to turn them back into 1812 figures, I called a halt until a Council of Wargamers could be held to discuss the matter.

A desperate charge by Col. Flowerdew at Faraway's surprise attack on Oberhilse's camp at Stony Creek. 
See https://gameofmonth.blogspot.com/2012/02/stony-creek-surprise.html

At the moment, it seems almost inevitable that the three Councillors (me, myself, and I) will vote unanimously to Officially reactivate my old 1830/40 Atlantica collection to play out scenarios, some based on historical 1812 battles, and other, fictional, scenarios with steamboats, trains, observation balloons, cavalry and all the rest. 

Stay tuned....

A Call For Volunteers

 It's been nearly 20 years since my 1812 shrank from 54mm to 40mm and then had to go through various reorganizations and drill books. 

Homecast from my own sculpts. 2 new recruits waiting for uniforms.

"Never say never " but I'm satisfied that my old ways suit me best so I'm once again settling on 60mm wide bases for almost everything.

More to follow.