I haven't had much time to play wargames of late - a lot of time was spent prepping for the wrap up of our D&D campaign. But, I did have about an hour late one evening last week where I put a small G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. game on a 36" x 30" clearing on the kitchen table.
The picture below is everything I dreamed of when I first started wargaming!
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| Tally ho! |
Regardless of your feelings about the orange and black Tanitians (not Carthaginians), or the bare table, I think you will find there is a definite Victorian adventure novel flair to it.
I have been drawing maps, brainstorming histories and personalities. This is the kind of thing I do not get from strictly historically-inspired games. And it has caused a revaluation of what collections I want to maintain and what I might want to move on.
That's the topic of a different post.
For now, I am working on finishing up a few French Foreign Legion to fill out their Gatling crew. I also have 5 of the black-with-orange-lines Tanitians to finish up.
And I should probably rebase the British and Russians to match the VSF collection as I think it's clear there needs to be more of these glorious lancer charges against lost civilizations or the civilizations of other planets.
Well, I like the look of your orange and black-lined figures. Classic figures painted in a classic style.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jonathan!
DeleteThose orange types really stand out, don't they? I wondered where the Greeks got their pottery designs from... There's something 'Space, 1889' about all this, a concept I always liked the sound of, but never managed to slot into my range of projects...
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Ion
Thank you, Ion! Space: 1889 is definitely an influence, although I came to it after I was already somewhat familiar with the genre. I owe much of my concept of Victorian Sci-Fi to so many blogs, now sadly quiet.
DeleteYour game looks excellent John! And didn't we all start playing with our toy soldiers on the kitchen table? The Tanitians and Lancers make for a perfect Victorian Sci-fi battle and I look forward to future updates!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Brad! Kitchen table, living room floor, the sofa (I was fond of the gaps at the corners between the cushions - they were caves to underground bunkers!)
DeleteAt least for WW2, if I use tools like Nuts!, Where the Sten Guns Dare, or Platoon Forward I can inject a lot of story and life into the figures. (I only play individually based skirmish games so that's probably a factor.)
ReplyDeleteMentioning WW2 is particularly poignant as it is one of the collections I am considering jettisoning.
DeleteI have had some good games with strong narratives, , and interesting characters, with Chain Reaction (either 2 or 3? I don't remember) in a Sci-Fi setting. I find Nuts! harder to achieve that with - possibly the period (WW2) which I often feel ties me to a realistic approach, or, as I've been thinking a lot about this, possibly the scale of my figures - I really need more space for PEF resolution or everything is right on top of everything else.
I have never used the characterization elements of Platoon Forward - I really should try those. I love the scenarios and the force generation.
I don't have Where the Sten Guns Dare, but I do have his 5 Men in Normandy and I like a lot of the characterization options. The game itself is OK but because the whole book is modular, I can pull out the characterization and use that with any set of 1:1 WW2 rules.
I think the biggest mistake I made for WW2 games was trying to represent bigger and bigger formations. I got caught up in various rule sets and reading other blog write ups and opinions - I should have stuck to a squad or less and not chased platoons, companies and battalions, which I don't find as compelling, narrative-wise (when I'm creating the game/narrative. I love reading other people's game reports at those higher levels).
I may have have finally realized 1)my roots are with Dungeons & Dragons, so I tend to prefer 1-figure: 1-Man (GASLIGHT is that by default, although I tend to think of the extras as some amorphous blob and call them a company) 2) Because I was, and am, almost always a Dungeon Master / Game Master, I like to build worlds or at least locales - I find this harder to do in historical games although there are exceptions 3) When it comes to WW2 in particular, my influence is movies, not history. I want comic book WW2, not Osprey WW2. It seems, for the last several years, I've been playing it in a way that primarily places the latter over the former when it comes to desired end result.
FWIW, Where the Sten Guns Dare is designed to emulate comic book or movie WW2 such as Guns of Navarone or Where Eagles Dare. Might be worth a shot?
DeleteLooks just right to me.
ReplyDeleteWhen supplies of time, space and energy are low, a small, quick, fun game is just the thing.
Thanks, Ross! I feel like it's that expression about engineering - you can have time for a game, you can have space for a game, you can have energy for a game. But you can only pick 2.
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