Flock it

Because once my new cycle of chemotherapy kicks in I will probably not be up to any face-to-face gaming  . . . (the fatigue is really devastating) . . . I have been working on getting my 18th century troops refurbished so that I can have two opponents (Saxe-Bearstein and the vile Stagonians) available for solo play.

This has involved some reorganization, some re-painting, much new painting and a lot of re-basing.  In fact I now have over 300 troop bases to flock . . . and a tedious job it will be . . . but when I'm done I will have a nice pair of armies to use for solo gaming . . . well I will once I've re-written my "Tricorne Wars" rules for solo gaming.

And for those who are interested, no I have not given up on my ECW project.  But there are many hundreds of figures that need to be readied, painted, based and flocked yet . . . and even then I will only have one side (Royalist, of course) so it wouldn't be available for solo play . . . but it will give me something else to do during chemo recovery time.

On another note, my solo "dungeon delves" continue.  I'm finding them interesting since I never know what will happen next . . . and they don't take much time or energy to play out.

Speaking of "out" . . . we need to stay "in" for a while.  Our part of Vancouver Island (off the west coast of Canada for those who don't know) generally only sees one or two snow days a year . . . but we are currently in our third day of continuous snow.  We have about 8" (20 cm) currently on the ground and are supposed to get another 6" (15 cm) today.  Yes, I know that these are not devastating depths for many areas but we are not used to them.

I hope that things are better in your part of the world.

-- Jeff

Troop Dispositions

Today I was reading Malcolm Wanklyn's "Decisive Battles of the English Civil War" and he made a reference to a primary source that showed the planned deployment of troops a couple of days before the battle took place . . . with a comment that that didn't mean that was how the troops actually got deployed for the battle.

Anyway this made me think of all of the times . . . even with a "helicopter" view of the terrain . . . that my deployment sketch had to be adjusted because when I put the figures onto the table there wasn't room to fit the troops in "as sketched".

I can only surmise that this often happened in real life as well . . . particularly when commanders lacked our view/knowledge of the terrain.

Surely I am not the only wargamer that this has happened to . . . am I?

-- Jeff

(off-topic) -- My Solo D&D Blog

While it is neither historical nor involving figures on the table top, I have been running some pen & paper solo Dungeons & Dragons "dungeon delves" over on my "The Laughing Owl" blog.

I am now asking readers to suggest where they think the party should explore next . . . so if you are interested, you might want to take a look through the previous posts at The Laughing Owl and then offer your suggestions.

Here is a grand overview of the explored areas so far (try opening it in a separate window for closer look):

-- Jeff