Thoughts on 15mm WSS Project --

As I believe I mentioned some time ago, I have been thinking off-and-on about doing a "War of Spanish Succession" or "Nine Years War" project in 15mm.

Now this is not something that I'll be tackling immediately . . . it is a future project . . . but I've been reading and looking at various rule sets. So far I've not found a set of rules that I'm sure I like.

Too many rule sets are either too complex or use a basing system that I dislike or don't operate at the level I want.

I want battalions and squadrons to be the basic units (not brigades and regiments). I want enough figures in a battalion that it looks to me like something other than skirmishers -- which means two ranks of figures. And most of all I don't want to spend all of my time looking up tables and figuring out a laundry list of modifiers. I want something simple and fun.

So I've been thinking of adapting my "Tricorne Wars" rules to 15mm. I happen to have a lot of Editions Brokaw figures (which are smallish 15s). Four of these (at least for certain poses) will fit on a 20mm square stand.

If I use that for the "volley fire" armies and 25mm square troops for the "platoon fire" armies, the rough frontage differences will not be far off. At a rough 1:30 scale, this would mean most battalions would fall in the 5 to 6 stand (20-24 figure) range . . . some smaller and some larger, but a lot would be about that size.

Now at the same scale, typical squadrons would be 4, 5 or 6 figures in size (representing squadrons of 120, 150 and 180 respectively). Of course this difference will require a few changes in my mechanics, but these sizes should fit historical units.

As the above suggests, my thought for the WSS is to use historical armies as opposed to Imagi-Nations.

Of course, I'm still reading and this project is for some time in the future . . . but at least I've made a mental start on it.


-- Jeff