I know, I know, in my last post I laid out my plans for the new year, and honestly I’m not sure they’ve changed a lot in less than two weeks. Santa the gamer was quite kind to me. Actually Missus Kevin was quite kind to me. She rounded up the remaining figures I need to complete my LOTR project, elevating it to a must do wrap up. I’ve finished another unit of Cuban rebels for the The Men Who Would Be Kings. However, my time right now is pretty focused on The Hundred Years War.
I have few project interests in the Old World. No Romans or “ancients” per se. My Dark Ages SAGA stuff for sure. No Seven Years War or Napoleonics. They’re pretty, but a black hole of gaming because I could paint my entire life and never have enough. Nope, most of my interests are in the Western Hemisphere. AWI, Western Expansion, The Mexican War, Maximilian, The Spanish American War and it’s subsidiary effects. But that Hundred Years War thing.
I find it to be a fascinating conflict, incredibly complex, with roots more than a century before its outbreak, even back to 1066. It’s a war with terrific economic stress on both sides throughout the conflict. There are great kings English and French, ineffective kings, mad kings, great leaders, poor leaders, changes in technology, sea battles, great sieges, politics, politics, politics, usurpation, civil wars, civil wars within civil wars, and the emergence of France as the first true nation-state. It’s amazing.
And I have figures. A virtual shit-pile. How many? I have no idea. I am planning to remount them for Lion Rampant. Not a great rules choice for big battles, but I think I can make it work. Daniel Mersey is quite flexible in that way. But just to give an idea of how many figures I may really have, I’ve remounted six units of crossbows plus one unit of mixed missile and melee troops, two units of French local levies, for a total of 108 figures, plus four units of French mounted knights, and a unit of Irish skirmishers for the English. A total of 140 figures. A drop in the bucket. I was looking at my painted longbows last night and they number at least 200. Maybe a few too many. That leaves aside dismounted men at arms and various other wretched infantry, many mounted figures, plus all the unpainted stuff (which will likely be added as SAGA armies for the new Age of Chivalry factions.)
So I’ve got a lot of figures for the period.
What’s changed is that these figures have mostly laid fallow for the past decade, and now I’m super enthused about them. Maybe it is the imminent arrival of Age of Chivalry, maybe it’s the publication of the final volume of Jonathan Sumptions’s history of the Hundred Years War. I’ve also read Dan Jones’ excellent new bio of Henry V and recently ridden the Michael Livingston traveling circus. But something has fired up my interest in revisiting this project
I’ve begun to consider scenario plans to go with it. I would really like to do the Battle at Blanchetaque ford in 1346 just days before the Battle of Crecy. It would be a very different, interesting game. However it would require a lot of playtesting due to the unique nature of the action. I just don’t think there is enough time to do the remount and do enough practice to make a good game at this time. Instead I’m drawn to the Battle of Shrewsbury of 1403. It’s a battle between Englishmen during Henry IV’s contested reign and the sky will be filled with arrows. It should be fun, and I’ll keep you posted dear reader.
Michael Koznarsky’s gift of the Wooden Hand of Captain Danjou was a highlight of my 2024.
2024 was a pretty good year in Kevin’s wargaming life. I painted a lot of figures and played a lot of games. It was a year that was hard for a couple of reasons, but it was a time of some personal growth too.
2024 was the year of The Big Move. Enfilade lost its longtime home in Olympia on very short notice and we were able to relocate to the LaQuinta Inn and Suites in Tacoma. I did a lot of the work but certainly not all of it. The convention came off. It was good if a bit crowded. I look forward to 2025, if for no other reason than we’re not moving this year. I would be lying, however, if I didn’t say I haven’t fully recovered from The Big Move.
Camerone at Enfilade. It was amazing in no small part because the participants were so wonderful.
One of my biggest accomplishments of the year was the completion of Camerone. This was not my project alone. Mark Waddington built the hacienda and it is simply splendid. Mark is such a wonderful creator and he happily constructed the building for the game without charge and I simply can never thank him enough. Did a couple of playtests of the game and ran it with an appreciative audience at the convention. Michael Koznarsky provided me with a beautiful cased articulated Hand of Captain Danjou. What a wonderful and thoughtful gift. I’ll need to be thinking of other uses I can have for the hacienda.
These are my Pacific Northwest Natives by Paymaster games. The critter on the right is the mythical Ogopogo that lives in Lake Okanagon. I haven’t quite figured out how to get it into a game.
Moros and Americans.
There were two sets of rules I played a few times this year that really got me. One was Tribal, 2nd ed., by Mana Press. The other was One Hour Skirmish War Games by John Lambshead. Tribal is very much a pre-gunpowder set of rules, and the original OHSWG rules are intended to begin in the horse and musket period could go up through sci-fi. What makes them similar are their diceless play systems. Everything from activation to morale is captured through a normal card deck. Tribal is kind of stylized. I have two Northwest Native armies with figures by Paymaster Games. Only played with them once so far, and I’d like to do more with them. OHSWG is a true skirmish game that plays very quickly and usually accompanied by a lot of laughter. I’ve played or run at least a half dozen games and enjoyed every one. Both offer projects with few figures. For OHSWG I have completed two projects-the Moro Wars, and Maximilian in Mexico, but I have three more I’m working on-the Cuban Revolution of 1895-98, the Spanish Frontier in Mexico with Spaniards vs. Apaches, and The Philippine Army vs Japanese in 1941. Lots to look forward to.
Printed Rohan Outriders for MESBG
The Lord of the Rings. I’m a sucker for all things Tolkien, and when my friends Keith, Scott and Kurt showed up at Weekend Warriors with figures to do the Games Workshop Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game (MESBG) I was immediately intrigued. It was a short trip from intrigued to hooked. I had a long secreted away pile of figures from the early 2000’s and it took little to persuade to paint those bad boys. Scott also showed me some Etsy 3D prints, and I was off. I’ve painted three fourths of what I have plus my printed figures. Honestly I don’t love MESBG, but I’ll play it. I may be looking at another system that is a bit less stylized. The system is rightly character-driven, but the combat feels fiddly. Plus I don’t love the GW/Warlord/Studio Tomahawk business model of endless revisions aimed at sucking cash out of my pocket. There must be a better way.
Remounting. This is a topic that frequently throws people over the edge. I wouldn’t say remounting is the worst thing in the world. It has two very positive aspects. One is that I get to reorder one of my projects in a way that, I believe, makes it more playable. Another is that it allows me to revisit a completed project, or at least kinda, sorta mostly completed, and appreciate what I have. This year I completed one big remount and began working on another. Both projects were intially singly mounted projects for Daniel Mersey’s Lion Rampant rules and now I’m remounting 3-3-3-2-1 which speeds up game play and better protects them from wear and tear. This summer I completed remounting my Aztecs/Conquistador/Tlaxcallan figures. That is a 400 figure project, so nothing to sneeze at. David Sullivan and I wrote rules specifically for these and I need to haul them out and play with them. I have begun working on a remount of my Hundred Years War figures. I’ll write a separate post about them in the future, because I’ve ginned up a lot of motivation to go back and work with what I think is a pretty large collection of these figures. This will take a while and I will have to transfer a fair amount of wealth to Mr. Litko, but I think I’ve redone seven units so far which is simply a pittance.
I gotta do a better job of getting pictures of people Mark Waddington, Mark Wensnahan and Eric Donaldson indulged my interest in the Great Snow Fight of 1864
Friends. So much has happened since the pandemic that has changed me, changed my life. The isolation of the plague, the various critical losses in my life, have made me appreciate each and every one of my people, whether they are family or friends. Nowhere is this more true than among my gaming buddies. I wish I could just drop names, but there are too many and I really don’t want to leave anyone out, because whether I play with regularly or we just see one another occasionally they truly mean so much to me. They are always up for a game, whether I run something or somebody else does. They are fun to play with and never a cross word. The Weekday Warrior group that meets on Wednesday is just super. I’ve also been drawn to Ralph Holloway’s game group that meets at Wizard’s Keep the last Saturday of the month. Lots of game attendees and willing to try anything. As we age, of course, we all suffer through a little something. I would be remiss if I did not mention my dear friend David Sullivan’s serious illness and my wish that he was well. David and I have been friends for 33 years. We have jointly plunged into some of the most dangerous of projects together, and every moment has been fun and adventurous. If I could have one Christmas wish it is that David’s illness would be cured and 2025 would be the best of years.
Looking ahead to the New Year, here are some things on my plate:
I’m planning to run three games for Enfilade 2025. The first is a naval game, the Battle of Inquique. This is a hypothetical game based on the not-so-hypothetical friction between Chile and the United States over politics and the 1891 death of two American sailors in Valparaiso that nearly led to war. We’ve played this scenario a few times and tweaked some bugs out of it. We’ll use David Manley‘s Fire When Ready rules. My second game is a One Hour Skirmish War Game scenario based on the Moro Wars in the southern Philippines. This is another scenario we’ve run a few times. I am offering it as a six player game though I haven’t run it as more than four. Looking forward to it. The play tests have been fun. My final game, the big one, I’ll run on Sunday. It is a game based on the Battle of Blanchetaque that allowed Edward III to cross the Somme River to face the French at Crecy. This will be a Lion Rampant game with lots of scenario specific rules that offer both sides some challenges. Still lots of work to do on this bad boy.
In keeping with Blanchetaque and all things Hundred Years War, SAGA (Studio Tomahawk) is about to release it’s new book, The Age of Chivalry. I’ve pre-ordered it and I’m hoping it doesn’t make an utter botch of things. It will include a pile of interesting armies that I could see sucking up every bit of my painting interests until the end of time. Though I have many painted HYW figures, I also have many unpainted HYW figures. Of course I do.
My other big get done project is my Cuban Rebellion for The Men Who Would Be King. I’ve completed the Spanish regulars and have a good start on the Cubans. I need to add some Spanish auxiliary figures at some point. It’s a period I’m really intrigued with, though everyone kind of says “hunh?” when I mention it.
I have lots of other bits to work on too between some air war, naval war and One Hour Skirmish War bits. My big challenge is to play as many games as possible from as many projects as possible. Maybe I should keep track.
I guess I’d like to close with a couple of other thoughts/goals/ideas for the new year. My goal is to keep painting and as long as my sight and hands allow me I hope to pop out some 60 or so figures a month. Sometimes it will be more and sometimes it will be less. But because painting is something I really enjoy and not a chore, I should find time to paint almost every day. I’m not going to say no new projects because something always happens. Since I’m retired, but working one day a week for gaming, there’s always a few bucks for new stuff, and I’m always a sucker for something new and beautiful. But it would be nice to paint more figures than I’m purchasing. And no I’m not going to keep track.
Old metal Games Workshop figure of the Gamling with the Rohan standard. It really wasn’t Gamling in the book . . . but don’t get me started.
It’s the middle of the month already, but it’s been a good month . . . sort of. I’ve devoted a lot of time to painting, not a bad thing because the weather in August and September is much cooler and wetter than is typical. On the other hand, my back yard looks like it would in April or May which is not so good.
As promised I’ve been working on mostly Lord of the Rings figures. I have some of my own stash of GW plastics that I’ve been saving for 20 years, and I’ve ordered more from Etsy (of course I have.) The Etsy figures are 3D prints and are very nice looking. They’re also pretty spendy. Six or more dollars for a single foot figure isn’t unusual and I confess to biting the hook pretty hard. However, at the suggestion from my good friend Mark, some of these 3D mini masterpieces can be replaced by much cheaper metal historicals. So, I’ve ordered a mixture of the excellent Footsore Dark Ages figures to become the wildmen of Dunland at likely less than half the cost of the printed variety.
These are plastic Games Workshop figures I’ve had for many years. It was fun to get them painted. They’re my first mounted unit, and there are at least five more to finish. Red shields represent the Westfold.
Because I’m a lover of all things Tolkien (except the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies, bleah) I saw myself having larger and larger ambitions to acquire and paint EVERYTHING. I think my appetite has shrunk to somewhat more manageable size. I am going to go big on my beloved Rohirrim. I’m adding enough Dunland figures to do the scenarios in the War in Rohan book, and I’ll eventually add enough Isengard figures to do whatever Isengard figures do. I’ll resort to GW plastics and metal figures when I can because they cost less, and the fact of the matter is I’m good for now.
This 3D printed guy is Erkenbrand Lord of the Westfold and Captain of Rohan. He’s a great miniature. All my plastics are weighted with washers.
I’ve finished painting my first mounted Rohan unit. They are GW figures from the long ago hoard, and have the red shields of the Westfold. I’ve completed some personality figures included Gamling with his Rohan flag. I’m working on some very nice printed mounted royal guardsmen printed by Forgemaster Miniatures in the UK.
Last week I was able to run my first One Hour Skirmish Warfare game, using my Moro Wars guys. It was a straight up scenario and I enjoyed it very much. The rules are quite simple and invite some scenario specific rules and general common-sense fiddling. In our game the Americans were holding an advanced post and were assaulted by some angry Moro clansmen. The cards prevented Moros from getting their act together to pull together a dynamic charge, so the Americans were able to pick away at them bit by bit. It was a great learning game for me, and I’ll be running the same scenario on the 21st at our annual Fix Bayonets get together.
I’ve also been able to work in couple of other things. I painted six of the Flight Deck 1/300 scale Betty bombers. Very nice stuff. I’m very impressed with their 3D prints. Today, I hope to start masting six Japanese cruisers from the pre-dreadnought era. I’m going to try using the New Times Journal masting jig for the first time, just to see if it makes the job easier.
I’d like to close with just a few random thoughts from a 69 year old miniature gamer. It feels like I have a lot of stuff. I don’t object to having the stuff. I’m kind of addicted to adding to my mob o’ dudes. I love painting and I’ve loved working on and completing my big ol’ pile. It feels better to have purchased and completed my figures than it does to have a bunch of unpainted figures that I know I’m never going to even try to paint. But it really does feel like I’ve maxed out even what I think I might be able to do. I have this great group of friends who always expand their interests, and I think I just have to say, “That’s great, but I’m just gonna have to play along with your figures.” No harm in that. These are the projects I have left to complete. In some cases I already have all the figures, while some need a bit more.
Lord of the Rings (MEBSG) Rohan, Dunland and Isengard. I have elements of all of these and I’ve begun work on all of these.
28mm Cuban Rebellion, and Spanish American War. Again, I have most of the figures and I’ve worked on all sides. Back to them in October.
SAGA Armies: Vikings, Saracens and Mutatawwi. I have all the figures, just need to get it done.
Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirk’s Hill and Eutaw Springs for Regimental Fire and Fury. Some figures are painted. Some figures are not. Probably need more figures. Yeah.
The Gringo 40’s Indian Wars new guys. Seduced by the new stuff, what can I say. I have some. I need some. More stuff is being released. Help. The newest of the new shiny things. Will begin as a One Hour Skirmish Wargame project, but it has potential for yikes.
ACW ships. I have a bunch of Bay Area Yards resin hulls calling my name. I don’t see to hear them at this time.
1/300 planes for the Pacific and Vietnam. I do kind of pick at these guys. I just need to devote some real time to getting them done.
There are more small scattered things to wrap up, but those are the biggies. It’s why I need to just say no to new things.
Your obedient servant manipulating his Mexican forces to their doom.
I actually do play games. I know I often write about my interests and what I’m painting, but I do like to run and play games. Yesterday I ran a Rebels and Patriots game at Wizard’s Keep in Kent. This is a monthly event, and what a wonderful day in great venue. This event is organized by Ralph Holloway and if you’re interested in playing a game or meeting new gamers, I can’t think of a better place.
I can’t make every event, but I was available for March 30th and I decided to run a Rebels and Patriots game. It needed to be big enough for a fair number of players. I thought Maximilian in Mexico would work. I have a lot of figures and all that was left for me to do was cobble together a decent scenario.
Rebels and Patriots by Daniel Mersey. 16 bucks on Amazon. Just do it. I’ll teach ya how to play.
For those of you not in the know, Rebels and Patriots is an Osprey set of rules by Daniel Mersey. Mersey has written several sets of rules Osprey has published. They all have a similar game engine, requiring a successful activation die roll. The mechanics are simple, easy to learn and teach, and allows games to move pretty quickly. Each side in yesterday’s game, “The Long Retreat, Vol. III” had four or five units per player, at least half had not played the rules before and we reached a conclusion in nine turns and about 2 1/2 hours. Highly recommended, it’s the best twenty bucks you will ever spend on a set of horse and musket rules.
My challenge was to come up with a scenario that did not involve throwing troops of equal point values out to slaughter each other. That’s boring. So we instead did a scenario that was not atypical of the French in Mexico–the French chasing a retreating Republican army that was trying to get to safety. There were two French players, and one player that had a force of Imperial troops. Imperial troops were those serving in Maximilian’s Mexican army. The French were Napoleon III’s expeditionary troops that arrived in Mexico in January 1862 and remained until 1867. The Imperial troops represent the army of Imperial Mexico raised by Maximilian after he arrived in Mexico in May of 1864. The French were hard bitten veterans of Algeria and Mexico and I rated them as veterans and aggressive. The Imperial troops were conscripts and volunteers, with little experience by November 1865-the time of our scenario-and were rated green.
Imperial forces advance!!!A look across the table. Republicans on the left, French and Imperial forces on the right.
Each French/Imperial player had some units to play with. The two French players each had a gun, a unit of light cavalry, a light infantry unit and two line units. All units were veteran and aggressive except for the artillery piece. Lots of points. The Imperial player had three line infantry units, including the Belgian Legion, and one light cavalry units. Nothing special. Their mission was to kill Republicans and position themselves to exit the board by the road. The Imperial troops set up a foot and half on to the board, while French troops game on to the board near the road entrances.
Republicans deploy their artillery in the middle of the field with support from militia infantry and cavalry.
Choosing troops for the French and Imperial troops was easy, the question was setting up the Mexicans in a way that generally historical but offered some challenges to the French. By November 1865, the American Civil War was over. President Lincoln and later President Johnson vehemently opposed the French intervention in Mexico. Though the U.S was still recovering from the aftermath of the Civil War, Generals Grant and Sheridan notably opposed the French violation of the Monroe Doctrine and the establishment of a European-style empire across the Rio Grande. Grant served in the Mexican War 1846-48 and was notoriously sympathetic to the Mexicans in his Memoirs. He directed Sheridan to the Rio Grande with a sizable number of troops. Though Sheridan’s men did not intervene in the conflict, they did make sure surplus weapons made their way across the river and into Mexican hands. Empress Carlota wrote with sorrow about the effect of American repeating carbines against the charge of the Imperial Red Lancers in 1866.
My troops gathered around the hill. Had a chance to do some damage with these guys, but those damned dice . . .The French light infantry advance.
Taking this into consideration, I did some fiddling with the rules in the Mexican organization. The Mexicans had three commands. The first was a cavalry command with five light cavalry units. Three of the units were militia units. I made all the Mexican militia units in the game regulars, because they had considerable experience in the war on both sides. However I did make a key rules change regarding the militia, I’ll explain shortly. The militia were supplemented by two units of regular light cavalry. These units were veterans and armed with American repeating carbines. More on this to come. There were also two infantry commands. Each had a regular, veteran unit armed with repeating rifles. Each also had two units of militia foot rated as average. One of the commands had a gun. The other had a skirmish sharpshooter unit (American Sharps rifles with scopes, of course.)
The rules changes I made for the scenario were as follows:
The militia units did not suffer the green -1 modifier for activations and rallying. However, they could only suffer two disorders before melting away instead of the usual three in the rules. This made them brittle and more likely to melt away as things got bad. This better represented how Mexican militia seemed to react historically. Militia units also could not form closer order, which meant no volley fire.
The other big change was the use of repeating American arms in the game. The cavalry had repeating carbines and the infantry had repeating rifles. Activation and ranges were the same. I allowed these shooters to add 50% more dice in a successful shooting attack. Nasty. However, each time they successfully fired, they rolled to see if they needed to reload–a 1 on a D6. This was resolved by taking a turn to make a successful shooting activation. Shooting could commence the following turn and French would fall in droves. Hah!
The game began with a general advance with the Imperial troops in the middle and the French on either flank. There was some promise as one of the Republican regular cavalry units blasted the French 5th Hussars from the saddle on the left. The skirmishers and a regular infantry unit engaged the French light infantry on the right inflicting some losses. But the veteran French morale came into play as they began to take casualties, casually passing morale checks, while the Mexicans had trouble activating and hitting. I ended up commanding the Mexicans on the right flank and though I had positioned my troops to inflict considerable damage on the French in front of me, I had failed activations, rolled poorly on my shooting, and in the end, the French simply throttled me. My teammates did better, but it wasn’t going to be enough as the French advanced across the table. Even the green Imperial troops seemed unstoppable. I think everyone had a good time, all played well, but at the end of Turn 9 we called it good.
This is a scenario I wouldn’t mind trying again. I don’t think I’d do anything different for the French. They were mighty and given that they had the onus of getting across the table, they had to be tough. They also outnumbered the Mexicans. Though the activation rolls required for the green Imperialists did slow them down a tish, they were all there at the end of the game, getting ready to roll over what was left of the Mexican center.
I would change some things for the Mexicans. I’d get rid of the Mexican cavalry corps. I’d add a third Mexican infantry command. I’d also add a cavalry unit to each of the Mexican commands. Each would have the same organization with a regular unit armed with repeaters. One command would have a gun, another with skirmishers, not sure about the third command. I liked the repeaters, but I think I’d ditch the reload roll. The French seemed quite capable of weathering the storm.
I’ll follow up with a quick intro to the French Adventure in Mexico, just in case you’re thinking, “Whoa, this is cool” but don’t know how to get started.
A Gamer's Tales 