Jim's Wargames Workbench

I've been tinkering with some more Perry Miniatures plastic figures this morning, this time some late medieval men at arms from the Wars of the Roses bows and bills box set. I've had these in the plastic pile for ages, having originally intended to assemble them for a couple of Lion Rampant retinues way back in 2015.  If they aren't too fiddly and I enjoy gluing all the bits together, I'm thinking of starting a Lion Rampant project to follow on from my The Men Who Would Be Kings field forces, or perhaps even run them in parallel but only tackling one War or the Roses unit at a time. I've also been having thoughts about the numerous boxes of Wargames Factory plastic Malburian infantry, cavalry and artillery that I acquired for Maurice, but that's another story. Anyway, here's the result of my tinkering so far, in the shape of plastic Bertrand and his injection moulded mate.

Before we set off back home from North Wales, I was allowed to have a shopping spree in the Porthmadog Models shop. There was load of stuff to choose from but I settled on three boxes of the Wargames Factory War of Spanish Succession figures which are now hard to come by and so often quite expensive. I now have an extra box of artillery, infantry and cavalry to add to the bargain bucket boxed sets that I originally picked up for peanuts in a North Star sale ages ago. They're not bad sculpts and very good value for what you get in each of the boxes.The long term plan is to use them for a Maurice imaginations project, although I've also thought about using them as the basis of a Bavarian army for the WSS using the same rules. Very happy with that!

 

I enjoyed an excellent game of Maurice this evening at the club, playing as the French against Mike's British and using his superb collection of Foundry and First Corps Malburian figures. The game was really close in the end and at several points swung in my favour but, in the end, the perfidious British managed to wear me down and outflank my defenders, forcing them to rout from the field with their tails between their legs. I've only played Maurice once before and thoroughly enjoyed it, so it was great to have another crack at this really interesting period and innovative set of rules. It also looks stunning and I'll have to seriously resist the temptation to scramble into the loft in search of my bargain boxes of plastic Wargames Factory figures!

There's a summer sale on at Northstar with some interesting things reduced down to a fiver. I wanted another artillery set for my WSS imaginations project, so for a fiver I now have a battery of four cannon and some more mounted command figures for a nice vignette. I might even be able to use some of the gun crew as sappers too. 

I was also tempted by the Chris Peers western gunfight rules The Law of the Gun, which looked interesting and might be ideal as an game to play with my boys. I've played a lot of Legends of the Old West and some Dead Man's Hand games as well but neither are quite simple enough for a nine year old to pick up without quite a bit of stopping and starting.. 

The rules are designed for one to one shootouts between small gangs of no more than four figures, so at a slightly lower level than other rules that I'm familiar with. This should make them just right for a bit of roleplay style action. I like the way Chris Peers writes his rules and the no nonsense mechanisms he uses, so I like the sound of these rules too.

I have two posses painted up and always planned to do a third one but didn't get round to it. This would be a cowboy outfit to use alongside my lawman and banditos. I also really should invest in some decent terrain now that all those nice mdf buildings are available, assuming you have deep enough pockets!

Although the postie wasn't able to get through the snow, I did get some excellent presents for my birthday this year, some of which I chose myself and others that were a pleasant surprise. The lady wife bought me a 32GB Kindle Fire HD to share, so I'll be able to delve into the vast selection of military history books that are available as downloads, ready for reading during the holidays when she isn't. I can also download all my rules .pdf's to the harddrive for instant reference at the club. Cool!

My offspring allowed me to spend some of my own money on shiny new metal, which was very nice of them and a change from the usual one way financial arrangement. I took advantage of the Northstar 1675 range sale and bought myself a French and a Dutch army in 28mm, which was quite extravagent but a very good deal. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them but they're some of Mr Copplestone's best figures and might be used with Maurice, which includes some special rules for this earlier period.

Finally, my sister has sent me some Peter Pig vouchers, which will be used to start an IABSM version of the now defunct 5th Battalion DCLI project, this time in 15mm. I'm going to focus this effort on a company of infantry with some tank support, using the figures in the late war British range. However, I'll be avoiding the usual Normandy theatre and instead have a wet/cold weather equipped force to break the Siegfried Line and tackle the Reichswald.

Good stuff!