Compact Wargaming

Having played one game of the campaign, I figured I should write the setup and first battle report before moving on to the second. Being a mapless campaign with miniatures not painted with any historical force in mind, I suppose this will be a Imagi-Nation Campaign.

Somewhere on a largely fictional continent, many small streams flow out of a largely impassable mountain range and flow into a mighty river, ultimately reaching the sea in a protected harbor. The lower half of the river is held by the Red King.  The lower river valley is fertile and relatively flat, allowing for massive cash crop plantations and horse breeding farms.  Being a rich and largely agricultural kingdom, the Red King's army relies heavily on its cavalry.  The majority of the working class men are needed to ensure an abundant harvest. The Red Kingdom's army, in local custom, is made up of three columns of four units.
The first column, a cavalry column: 2x cavalry regiments, 1x artillery battery, and 1x dragoon regiment.
The second column, an infantry column: 2x regular foot regiments, 1x provincial militia, and 1x artillery battery.
The third column, an infantry column: 1x dragoon regiment, 2x regular foot regiments, and 1x provincial militia.

Upstream of the Red Kingdom's fertile fields lie the mountains, forests, and tributaries of the Kingdom of Five Rivers.  Although the main river carries the wealth of the upper kingdom to markets, the majority of the wealth comes from the higher elevations.  The Kingdom of Five Rivers was not always unified under a single dynasty.  Steep mountain cliffs isolate the upstream tributaries, leaving the people who live along the banks of the tributaries dependent on the rivers for transportation around the mountains and to other valleys.  The Army of the Five Rivers mirrors relative isolation of the tribes which settled on the upper tributaries.  Each of its columns retains some ties to the tribes from which it is drawn.
The first column, from a wealthy southern tribe: 1x cavalry contingent, 1x regular foot regiment, 1x citizen militia, and 1x artillery battery.
The second column, from a northern tribe: 1x cavalry contingent, 1x regular foot regiment, 1x citizen militia, and 1x artillery battery.
The third column, from highland rabble: 2x regular foot regiment and 2x irregular infantry contingents.

The Red Kingdom and the Kingdom of Five Rivers find themselves at war.  Several years ago, in an attempt to usher in a period of cooperation and mutual prosperity, the Crown Prince of the Five Rivers was married to The Red King's eldest daughter.  Shortly after ascending to his father's throne and before producing an heir, the young king was found dead in his palace.  The Council of Chiefs convened to determine the young king's successor. The council selected the deceased king's cousin, but the Red King believing his daughter to be the rightful ruler of the Five Rivers sent an envoy to convince the Council of Chiefs to install his daughter as queen.  On the deceased king's cousin's coronation day, the Red Army crossed its borders, prepared to install their princess as ruler of the Five Rivers, by force if necessary....

My models are very simply painted.  They do not have faces, shadows, shading, buttons, buckles, shoes/boots, straps, or anything else that would be expected on modern plastic or metal miniatures.  What they do have is a coat, pants, musket, pack, headgear, and a spherical head.  That's it. The simple paint scheme is due to two primary factors. 
1: Materials
In an effort to remain budget friendly, I did not buy expensive brushes that would get torn up in painting the relatively rough PLA plastic my units are printed in.  I already had access to my wife's collection of cheap acrylic paints, so I just used those.  In reality the materials probably only have a minimal effect on the finished product.  The biggest reason for my results is my lack of skill
2: Skill
This is the biggest driver of my simple painting schemes.  I have little (no) painting skills.  I read "Grid Based Wargaming" and wish I had half of the skill required to paint 28mm miniatures in his "simple" and "fast" fashion.  He was very generous in explaining how he gets the results he does, but I think skill and experience is the missing link for me. 
My 3D design skill also influenced my simple paint scheme.  It would look odd to me to have detailed paint on simple models.  This simple modeling carries over to the terrain that I'm designing and will be similarly simply painted.


Here are some partially painted models.  For reference, the "equator" of the head is 27mm for the artillery unit.  As you can see there are some serious scaling issues going on here. 
 

As I get started in wargaming, I'm trying to keep my cost down.  I'd love to have hundreds of very high detail metal miniatures and piles of terrain, but those are out of the picture for now.  In this post I will attempt to show that with a little hard work (and some tempering of expectations) wargaming can be done on a modest budget.




Please pardon the unfinished painting of the units, bad lighting and bad photography.  This image is intended to show a somewhat encompassing image of the text in this post.



Terrain:  Currently my terrain is felt. It was bought at the chain craft store.  A 3'x3' piece of green costs somewhere around $5 USD.  I bought some 9"x12" pieces in other colors to cut up to represent hills, forests, roads, water, and built-up areas.  Each piece cost about $1 if I remember correctly.

Board:  $0.  I put the felt directly on the kitchen table.

Miniatures:  Ok so here's where I cheat a little.  I own a 3D printer.  I had it before I started putting this wargaming idea together.  I designed and printed my own range of vaguely Napoleonic miniatures. (Link: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2521148) Each stand cost me less than $0.25 USD in plastic.  I count my printer as a hobby, so I don't include my time as an expense.  Each vaguely divisional force is made up of six units, so a playable force costs $3 before painting.
My wife is a pretty crafty lady so we already had a small collection of cheap acrylic paint laying around.  I used that.  If I had to buy it all I think it might cost between $5 and $10 depending on how many colors you use.

Dice: Purchased from amazon $5.

Grand Total:  Less than $30.  Not too shabby.

I promise pictures are coming to the blog shortly.  I just need to find some time to actually take them.

I got hooked by wargaming after being frustrated with some of the classic war-themed strategy games, so I decided to make my own.  Telling someone that you're making your own game generally gets some strange looks and raises some questions.  I generally start by explaining what I don't like about the classic games, and then try to describe my game in terms they might understand.

I liked the idea of RISK, but it always turns into a massive army marching across whole continents in a single turn.  Turning in cards at the right time seemed to be more important than almost anything else. STRATEGO is fun, but the underpowered units never win.  I don't really like that level of determined outcomes.  I played my dad's boyhood copy of BATTLE CRY!, and somewhat enjoyed it, but I didn't like how one army could occupy so much space on a map.  One single army could easily span several hundred miles and then instantly form battle lines and fight as a cohesive force.

Many younger people have played the TOTAL WAR series of PC games.  If you have, then you know that you fight battles on the tactical level, but move your forces at the strategic level.  My game, and most wargames, focus somewhere nearer the tactical battles from TOTAL WAR.  My specific game is grid-based, so I don't worry with fiddly spacing and unit depth.  I don't have unit formations in my game.  I let the lower level commanders make those decisions.  In my game the players move large units across the battlefield, capturing objectives and completing scenarios.  Most historical battles focused on holding key terrain features and locations, not just lining up and destroying the enemy army as in TOTAL WAR.

Units/miniatures are the heart of any wargame.  Most are highly detailed and somewhat realistic looking, although most are drastically non-proportional.  It is difficult to sculpt the human body in such a way as to make a sturdy enough to cast at the 15-28 mm scale.  I designed the models at the following link to serve as the units in my game.  They are intentionally void of complex detail. The metal and plastic miniatures can be beautiful, but I don't want to spend the time to become proficient at painting.  The models I designed can be painted very simply, which is good enough for me.  I figured that if I'm going to have a grid-based game where units can only move in set distances and only make precisely 90 degree turns, the simple uniforms and spherical heads are an acceptable abstraction. 

Link to models I designed: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2521148

The v1.0 rules include provisions for line infantry, light infantry, artillery, and cavalry.  I have considered adding more unit types, but those four make a decent start. I considered buying used and pre-painted models, but after realizing I could 3D print my models for very little money, I refined the models and started printing.  Some of the models experienced some quality issues, and I might reprint some in the future.

Each based unit would vaguely represent a regiment.  Four infantry (one being light infantry), one artillery, and one cavalry bases will make a division with attached cavalry regiment.  This will serve as the basic forces with which the game will be fought.  The army composition can be easily tailored to support history or customized to the player's preferences. 


EDIT:  If you're interested in having any of the models but don't have access to a 3D printer, let me know in the comments.  I'm sure we can work something out.  I considered putting them on shapeways.com, but thought their pricing was too high.