I am sure that most wargamers of a certain age are familiar with both Charge! and The Wargame, written by Peter Young and James Lawford for the former and Charles Grant for the latter. I am no exception to this and have fought some truly epic actions using these rules 'back in the day'. I would dearly like to revisit these rules at some point in my life but unless a very large lottery win comes along it is sadly never going to happen - I would not be disciplined enough to start and finish such a huge project in the meantime and so it is pointless for me to even consider such an undertaking. 48 figure infantry and 24 figure cavalry regiments would be an enormous commitment in anybodies language unless you had acres of space, years of free time and a bank balance the size of Roman Abramovitch! Unless you could find a very cheap source of figures that would be simple to paint (18th century lace and finery is very much a step too far for my modest painting skills!) then in my opinion it would be a non-starter. Or would it?
Over the course of the last year or so I have acuired three complete sets of the board game Risk - the version of which containing some generic looking late 18th century hard plastic infantry, cavalry and artillery. This is the second version of the game to feature historical figures (I am not including the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings variants in this) and the current version is far better than the first - mainly because the infantrymen is standing up rather than kneeling at the ready. The only problem with these is that they are scaled at roughly 12mm which means a problem arises when you want to acquire such things as metal command groups. I had a look at some Pendraken 10mm AWI figures but whilst they are nice they look too small alongside the plastic figures. I need therefore, to find a manufacturer of small 15mm figures - preferably from an American War of Independence range as the style of the figures are closest to the third quarter of the 18th century.
This is most certainly not a new project - in fact it is not even a project at all at the moment - and my search is purely to see if this is feasible in the long term. I am confident though that at some point in the time the battles between the Electorate of Kronenberg (founded in 1664) and the Grand Duchy of Artois will come to pass.
2 comments:
Do it! And don't go small!
Have you seen the RSM95 figures? They are beautiful, especially in an Old School way. And fairly inexpensive at:
Infantry - 36 figs w/command if available/ $29.00
Cavalry - 12 riders and horses w/command if available/ $25.80
Art Batteries - 2 guns and 12 gunners/ $14.60
Artillery - 2 guns (3 Pdrs (3 guns)), 6 Pdrs, 12 Pdrs, Howitzers/ $6.00
Generals - 6 mounted officers/ $12.90
Miners - 6 Miners (2 Officers, 4 Miners w/Shovels)/ $5.40
Seated Figures - 6 (Either Officers, Fusiliers, Tillermen or Rowers)/ $5.40
Limbers - 4 horses, 2 riders & 2 limbers/ $8.40
Horses - 6 horses/ $8.10
Accessories - All $3.00
Their website is http://www.dpcltdcom.org/index.html and you can also see some of their figures throughout my blog.
Ed v H-F
http://hessefedora.blogspot.com/
Hi ED,
Many thanks for the link and the price list. The figures look very nice indeedbut sadly I will not be tempted. For my budget they are too expensive and would also need a lot more effort than I could sustain. I am sticking with 15mm (or smaller) for armies with 28mm reserved for my odd foray into sci-fi and fantasy skirmishes.
Great looking blog with some superb looking figures and I loved the gaming room set up. I used to have one of those until my son moved back home....
All the best and thanks once again for dropping by.
DC
Post a Comment