I think I’ve explained my gaming stuff routines before, but maybe I haven’t. I’ll try to keep it brief.

First, at my most basic, I’m a painting guy. I love painting and try not to create needless obstacles that make it difficult to paint something. I paint every day, or almost every day. Usually a couple of hours though not all at once. With baseball soon to appear on television or the radio I’ll likely paint more.

I game on Wednesday afternoons. We have a game group called the Weekday Warriors. We’re all retirees and we play in Tacoma. Great guys. Could not ask for a better group of folks to hang out with. We started out playing SAGA twice a month. We are now moving to an every week group with other games on non-SAGA days. We did a SAGA tournament in January and February and somehow I managed to win with my Irish. Sticks and stones win every time.

I’ve come to enjoy SAGA. It’s a very gamey set of rules, meaning that though there are a variety of nifty historical elements to the game, it’s really just more of a game best played with cool guys you trust. We’ve begun using more of the scenarios from The Book of Battles, which means you’re not always just trying to clobber the other guy. I have pretty much stuck to armies from The Age of Vikings. I have four at the present time: Norse Irish, Irish, Anglo Danes, and, well the Skraelings who really aren’t in the Age of Vikings group, but were created by Studio Tomahawk to play the Vikings. Needless to say, I also have several unpainted armies because I’m a miniature wargamer.

I also love love my Daniel Mersey (Lion Rampant, Rebels and Patriots, The Men Who Would Be King, Xenos Rampant) rules because they are fun and easy to teach and play. Let me see, what stuff do I have for this? English and French Hundred Years War, Aztecs and Conquistadors, American War of Independence, America Rampant (Wayne’s Legion and later), Mexican American War, Maximilian and Mexico, The Philippine Insurrection, Spanish American War and the Rebellion in Cuba, Vietnam, and Sci-Fi stuff. Yeah, it’s a lot, but the system is so fun.

And then there is my David Manley stuff for air and sea. Again, the playability is great and like Mersey I have lots of stuff. ACW, The Battle of Lissa, Spanish American War, lots of pre-dreadnoughts and WWII in the Pacific. There are coastal combatants for both WWII and the modern era. I recently was able to play Cod Wars with some Icelandic Coast Guard versus Royal Navy and cod fisherman. Very fun. David Manley’s rules offer the right blend of period feel and elegant complexity to a very playable set of rules. High on my list are Airwar 1940 and Fire When Ready.

But now I’m just bragging. There are some other rules sets I’d like to try. Actually one I have already tried is Tribal. Tribal is a very fun, diceless system played with regular playing cards. I’ve used David Sullivan’s Bronze Age figures and Eric Donaldson’s Mycenaeans and both were very fun. These are singly mounted figures and each player probably needs about 20 figures, so not a lot is required. I really want to do these with my Makah/Northwest natives. The rules allow for some interesting scenario making. While it wouldn’t take a lot of time or figures to craft some forces to play each other in Tribal, my real attraction to it is the availability of the pre-existing SAGA armies with all the single figures to play the game. Doing double duty is not a bad thing. A perfect scale for Vikings vs. Skraelings.

Another set of rules for skirmishing is One Hour Skirmish Wargames by John Lambshead. Phil Williams ran these at Drumbeat in February and the games received rave reviews. I haven’t played them though I do have a copy of the rules. Another diceless rule system, and my friends have given them a try. Generally aimed at the gunpowder era, additional support from the author does allow for armor. A single player generally commands 8-12 figures. I’m looking at some of my game periods and how I might add a few more singly mounted figures. I’m thinking Maximilian, the Cuban Revolution and the Moro War. Apparently they also work well for sci-fi skirmish. On my list for this summer.

The last set of rules I’m spending some time with is Airwar 1940. I’ve actually run and played these rules many times. Dave and I gave up Mustangs for these rules as David Manley began playtesting them for eventual publication. David allowed us to use his beta copy and we made the most of it. We bombed the Tirpitz, attacked the Illustrious and raided Malta’s Grand Harbor. But when Dave became ill, those games were over. Our partnership was a wonderful one. I was primarily the painter, but Dave was the scenario designer. He knew the rules to a fault. I hadn’t picked up the rules since 2019, but I recently bought the Wessex edition and have begun perusing them. I love painting planes. That will be a topic of a future blog entry, and I’ve begun painting for a Pacific War project I hope will be huge. Dave had such great management tools for playing and I’m trying to put together my own that will keep game play reasonably easy.

Always something new to look at. I’m telling you, this is the Golden Age of Gaming. It’s a great time to be a miniature gamer.