Closing out 2012

Wargaming thoughts on the year ending and the year upcoming...

Like most folks, I am taking a few moments to look back on 2012 and look forward to 2013. It is fairly easy for me to summarize 2012 in a word... "fast." This year, from a wargaming perspective, sped by so quickly. I never seemed to be able to find the time to get to all of my projects. Work was busy (thankfully!) and I found the time spent with my 3 year old daughter to be more fun than painting figures. I also realize that this situation isn't likely to change so I will simply scale back my goals and projects for the coming year. I still want to collect 10,000 to 20,000 figures to cover all of the historical gaming eras that I have an interest in, it just may take a bit longer to get them all on the table!!

Playing wargames is the most important thing to me now when I consider my hobby. If you had asked me what my favorite aspect of the hobby was just a few years ago it would have been painting. Now, with my time limited a bit more than in past years, I find the wargame itself to be the most enjoyable feature in wargaming. Nothing like gathering with your friends to play a friendly game and swap a few jokes!

I wish all of you good health, prosperity, and good luck (may you always pass that critical morale test!) in 2013!

Happy New Year!!

What I did all Summer...

Wow, it has been a while since I have posted anything. Due to various family events, I have only managed to play a few games since my last post. Sadly, I have "lost" my files related to the few games that I did manage to play. So, I will close the chapter on Summer 2012 and move on.

I have purchased a few figures for playing the Back of Beyond. I am trying to assemble a Bolshevik force and a Chinese Warlord force. As members of our group already have Indian, British, and Turkish forces I think that adding Red Russians and Chinese troops would allow us to stage a series of games very quickly. I am still reading, when I find a spare moment, on the period. I am currently working through Hopkirk's The Great Game. I am also trying to decide on a set of rules to use. So far, I have purchased Setting the East Ablaze and Back of Beyond for Contemptible Little Armies. I suppose that I should decide on a rule set in order to be most effective with my figure purchases.

Map making for wargames

I am about to reveal how little I really know about map making. This is especially painful as I was trained as a geographer in college! I use a program called Macromedia Freehand running on a few different PC computers. The "secret" to making my maps is understanding layering. In Freehand, one layer set atop another layer will obstruct your view of things on the lower layer.

So, in my mind, I deconstruct the map that I wish to make into sets of items or layers... maybe, if I show you it would make more sense. Here is a map that I made for a game that I hope to run someday soon.

1. Base layer - draw a rectangle, mix some blue, and fill in the rectangle.

2.Ground layer - I use the pencil tool to free hand the outline of the ground. In this case I mixed a darker brown for the earth and chose a tan/sand color for the shoreline.

3. Trees layer - Next I draw a small sample of circles, fill them in with some green color from the mixer, and then cut and paste my circles until I have enough to make a forest.

4. Rapids layer - I needed to show rapids in the river so I drew the needed shapes, colored them a lighter blue, and then close a pattern for the rapids and whirlpools to differentiate them.

5. Portage and shooting range layer - Using the pencil tool I drew the shapes needed for the portage trails and the shooting range, colored them a tan color, and then chose a pattern for them to differentiate them.

6. Rocks and Movement Info layer - I drew a few rocks and placed them over the rapids area. I added text boxes to give movement information for players to use if I ever get to run this game.

7. Event markers, Title box, and border layer - Lastly, I added "event markers" and a title to my map. Most importantly, I added a thick edge border to cover up all of my imperfect drawing of shapes on the lower layers...

It really sounds more complicated than it is. Map making is only as complicated as you wish to make it. As long as the map conveys a good idea of the terrain and helps a reader understand the action being described then it is a good map. I hope that this helps a little for those who wish to make maps to describe a wargame battle.

News from the Front

Its been a while so I thought I would post some kind of update just to let everyone know that I am still knocking about...

Things have been hectic lately (who can't use that excuse?) so I have not made the kind of progress that I would like on my wargaming projects. I have over 50 1914/1915 German infantrymen scattered across my painting table. They are a mix of Renegade and Brigade Games figures. I am not very happy with the uniform color (an early version of Feldgrau) that I have tried to replicate in miniature with little success. Each picture that I look at has a different shade/tone/hue so I finally came to the stunning realization that anything close to my target color is likely to be correct. As a Napoleonic painter this is a bit of a difficult concept for me but I am learning to cope with it! Most importantly, I remembered that none of gaming club members fought in the Great War so they won't know if I am wrong...!

During this large push to get my Bosche painted I am also mounting/remounting my 25mm American Civil War figures to play Guns at Gettysburg. This rules set will transform our games from playing skirmish actions to fighting battles with a division of troops per side. I am very excited about this project and look forward to fighting a battle before the end of March with GaG.

In addition, I have uncovered some information relating to the design of the flags needed for my 25mm Napoleonic French troops for the Campaigns in Egypt and the Holy Lands. A fellow wargamer has shared with me an old article that describes the flags very nicely and confirms (and corrects!) my dicey translations from a french language book on flags of the Revolution and Empire.

OK, so I am still wargaming and painting... I hope to have some pictures soon so I can prove some of these outlandish claims! Back to painting...

Breaking silence

Things here at the old wargaming blog have been rather silent lately. I've been very busy with other "real life" issues to get much done in wargaming that was worth any note. As the weather was reasonably warm today I was able to spray some sealer onto a dozen Old West gunfighters so that I would have something to show for my efforts during January. I tried taking some photos of them but it was not bright enough, or I did not have the camera settings correct, so there was no evidence to present...

We tested the "skeleton" for a set of gunfighting rules yesterday and, as usual, my ideas during development didn't play out at all as I had anticipated. What I envisioned was close range pistol dueling with figures dropping left and right. What I got was a protracted affair where nobody got put out of the game for about the first 45 minutes or so! I plan on tweaking things to make it more bloody (I was concerned that players would get knocked out too fast and be left with nothing to do before the first game!) with a view towards each player now controlling 3, 4, 5, or even 6 figures in any given game. This should lessen the sting of gunfighters getting killed if you have another figure to fight on with.

That pretty much tidies up January 2009 - with little to report.

February 2009 should see me return to my Great War project of 1914 French Infantry, some 1914 Germans in Picklehaubs(!), and some 1918 Germans. Still aiming for an early April game with these guys!!??!!

And yes, I know I promised a comparative pic of my various WW1 figures from differing manufacturers. Maybe later this week...