The Joy of Toy Soldiers. . .

 

Not entirely happy with these photographs, which I will need to reshoot, but they give a nice idea of my painting output for the last year or so.  We have a three squadrons of Austrian Batthyanyi dragoons and the Young Master's two-gun battery of Russian artillery.  The Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg Infantry with the Young Master's 3rd Prussian Garrison Regiment follow as well as his tabletop avatar, Herr General Paul von Stollen with a small staff at the rear.  No doubt urging the two units of infantry forward. 

At the bottom, a shot of everything.  Not sure what my camera was doing, but even with a tripod and 10-second timed delay, it does not quite seem to be in focus.  Grrrrrrr.  This was supposed the be the money shot.  Back to the drawing board as the saying goes. 

In any case, not award winning painting by any stretch of the imagination (there's that word again), but a nice, bright, glossy wargaming standard, which works well for us.  We will baptize them with dice on Sunday afternoon when we'll have a small game featuring these units and some of my recently completed woodland bases.  Because, you know, the Croats and jaegers need a place to play too.  

Rules used will be my own (Ahem!)  A Tangled Mass, which, if I can figure out how to share a pdf here, I will do so beforehand.  Simply copying and pasting into the Blogger post composition window messes up the page format irreparably.

The rules presented in A Tangled Mass are really an amalgam of others' approaches that I like and have "borrowed."  Hopefully, they will provide a quick, fun game that reflects some of the confusion and frustration of trying to get units to do what we want them to amid the imaginary clash of arms, clouds of smoke, and inherent noise.  

I am sure revisions of these deliberately old school rules will be necessary, but that's part of the fun of tinkering endlessly with them. One of the wargamer's many pots of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow.

One thing that occurs to me though.  I think we will impose a limit of 10 turns to the game.  If neither side has achieved its winning objective(s), or there is no clear decision, we will deem the game a draw.  That seems like a good way to handle limited time since leaving a game in situ to return and finish later is not an easy possibility with cats and young fingers that sometimes forget to handle things with care. 

Of the forthcoming game, more anon. 

Now, if I can get the large unit of Austrian Wied Infantry currently on the painting bench finished by mid-September, I hope to paint that squadron of 14 Russian dragoons for Young Paul in time for his birthday at the end of October.  Number 13 if you can believe it!  

A tall order, perhaps, since the coming academic year will be especially busy but we'll give it the ol' college try in any case.  

-- Stokes and Young Master Paul