From Alasdair McIntosh As the letters are my favourite section in MWAN I thought I had better contribute something as it has been quite a while since my last letter. Two years ago I came out of remission and had to have more chemo and a stem cell transplant. That knocked a hole in my gaming schedule. When I started painting again I decided to go for limited projects which I would finish before moving on to new ones. After years of buying miniatures on impulse because they looked nice I came to the conclusion that I should find a good set of rules first, then collect suitable figures to game with. So here are the projects I've been working on. The first project was the Jacobite Rebellion in 10mm. The rules would be Piquet, primarily for their unpredictability. I have always liked 10mm as a scale. It has a bit more character than 6mm (although I have two large 7YW armies in 6mm which really look the part.) while still giving that massed look you get with 6mms. The project would be cheaper than 15 or 28mm scales and the tartans would not have to be too detailed! Picking Culloden as a model for my forces I would stop after I had enough figures to recreate the battle. I have so far resisted the temptation to go down the path of a French invasion force. That way lies madness. I like choosing a battle or campaign as a basis for collecting my forces as it stops the temptation to buy elite units because they are good in gaming terms and forces you to buy the poor quality units present at the battle. There again, I suppose that depends on what battle you take as representative of your chosen period. I opted for "Irregular Miniature" 10mms as they were readily available, nicely proportioned and easily convertible. I filed down some of the early period musketeers, with the coats not turned back, into kilted highlanders. No putty or glue required! Pendraken are producing some very nice SYW 10mms but as yet no Jacobites. The only problem with Irregular 10mm is that some of the miniatures are a bit thin at the ankles and can snap if roughly handled. I played around with the base size and decided that 40mm wide bases would prove too expense in terms of figures. I opted for 30mm with 8 figures in two ranks of 4. That gave a 32 man battalion. The Highlanders had deeper bases and took 10 figures in a three uneven ranks giving a 40 man battalion. Cavalry was 3 to a base. I use a black under coat which makes for very fast painting. The flags were hand painted for the government troops but I bought Jacobite 15mm flags from Old Glory and photo reduced them down to 10mm scale. For basing I used a product called Basetex which is a wall plaster mixed with sand and acrylic paint. It gives a good texture, drybrushes very nicely and is very hard wearing. A friend made and painted some highland cottages in 10mm which look great. Of the four or five games I've had using Piquet the honours are fairly even between Government and Jacobite victories. My next project I fell into accidentally. Our group is the Phoenix Wargames Club in Glasgow. We meet on a Tuesday night, which gives us about three and half hours to set up, play and pack away. A lot of members play Armati as it is an ideal set for quick games. If you have an army based for Armati you are guaranteed a game on club meeting. While at the Kirriemuir show Feudal Miniatures had a painted DBA Scots Common army. That is about a quarter/ third of an Armati army. So I bought the painted miniatures plus the rest of the troops unpainted which I would need to complete the army. I would not have gone for this period normally as I am not a big medieval fan and Scots Common requires a lot of foot figures, therefore a lot of painting. However the fact that that I could buy part of the army already painted, and the nationalistic lure of shouting "Freedom!" in an Australian accent while recreating scenes from the film Braveheart was too much to resist. The first few outings at the club for this army almost killed my enthusiasm as assorted missile armed foes cut my men down in droves. I needed an historical opponent for my Scots. Feudal English. At least we beat them sometimes! As I am lazy in my shopping I wanted the army from one manufacturer only. Essex was the first choice. In size they matched Feudal Miniatures nicely and had a good range of poses and troop types. It was only afterwards I realised that I had bought my Scots from a Scottish company and my English army from an English company! Is that taking authenticity too far? I have also painted casualty markers and individual miniatures to use for disorder markers. A pet hate of mine is casualty caps, poker chips, metal washers, pipe cleaners and all the other ugly ways to represent morale and casualties. After spending ages painting a nice looking army how much time does it take to do a few casualty stands? If you don't like idea of casualties on the table top for whatever reason then at least use small pebbles, tufts of green sponge, shields etc, which don't spoil the look of the battlefield. (Sergeant Major at the top of his lungs; " Pick that rubbish up you horrible little man you! I expect a clean and tidy battlefield, you sorry excuse for a soldier!"). My painting references for this project were the Osprey Campaign book on Bannockburn and a booklet picked up at a show on the heraldry at the battle of Bannockburn by Peter Armstrong. Published by Lynda Armstrong Designs. Both excellent references. The basing for these armies was Basetex in a dark earthy brown, drybrushed a lighter shade then patches of static grass glued on with wood glue. With all my reading on the Scots Wars of Independence I had to buy the board game Hammer of the Scots which is a Columbia Games wooden block game. It is a very beautiful game and nicely play balanced. I highly recommend it. I may use it as a basis for a miniatures campaign sometime in the future. My third project was brought on purely by the enthusiasm of my friend Derek in South East Scotland Wargames club. They have been playing a lot of PBI 2. This is a rule set from Peter Pig Miniatures for company level WWII using a 4'x4' table divided into 6" squares. The basis is command and control. Leaders roll to motivate their troops and if successful they roll for action points. It is short, fun and has a very nice pre game system to produce potentially uneven sides. If any one is interested I will do a review of the rules. Not wanting to get sucked into the bottomless pit of WWII equipment and vehicles this set was ideal. At most you need one company (about 100 miniatures a side) and six armoured vehicles a side which is the maximum allowed in a scenario. Of course the temptation is to then buy 3 of every type of tank to use in different games. I decided on the Fall of France 1940 period. Germans and British to start with. I could then go onto other early campaigns, real or hypothetical. At the risk of outraging the WWII fanatics out there I have to say that the early war tanks can only be described "cute wee things." Peter Pig was the natural choice of manufacturer (15mm), as their infantry are very nice miniatures and the vehicles are crisp, clean castings. Of the three projects this one was the quickest to put together, including the scenery for it. Very recently I bought a new SYW set of rules called King of the Battlefield as it claimed to be a fast play set, with period flavour. I immediately sent for it as I enjoy reading rule sets and was wanting a SYW set for quick games at the club. Luckily for me I was able to make use of my existing 6mms (without rebasing) to try the rules out. I've played two games so far and they have proved to be fast and simple with a good historical feel. I'll send in a review. I've even dug out some 6mms from the deep dark recesses of my gaming cupboard and started painting them again. The bulk of my 6mm armies were painted about 10 years ago when my eye sight was so much better! God I'm beginning to feel old. I am very tempted to start this period again in 10mm as they are very quick and easy to paint and I'll be able to see them better but they still give that massed look you get from 6mms. I sent for some samples of Pendraken SYW miniatures as they are beautifully proportioned and detailed. Here is a link with photos and a review of some of the range. httD://www.wargamesreview.com/revie ws/minis/Dendraken/oendraken.html I organised another game of KotB at the club. This time I used my 10mm Jacobites set. I had put together a scenario based on an actual battle from the rebellion but both players were unaware of this. Pete and Mark played the game and it followed the historical sequence of events fairly closely and produced a very close game. Both sides marched on table and deployed. As it was Mark's first time with the rules he got himself into a fankle, with units wheeling in front of each other, disjointed lines, open flanks etc. It proved quite a dramatic battle as a lot of units on both sides were rated as 2nd class which meant they disappeared when they failed a morale test! The Highland charge swept away the first line of Government left wing, with some losses to themselves, but then foundered on the supporting line. I enjoyed the look of the figure scale so much I am going to buy some Prussian and Austrian Pendraken 10mm SYW miniatures despite having sizeable numbers of 6mms in this period. I like 20mm scale a lot due to starting out wargaming with the Airfix plastics. The scale is a good compromise between detail and space taken up on the table top. I have never had a metal 20mm army as miniatures quickly jumped up to 25 and 28mm or down to 15mm. Pete has FPW Pendraken 10mm forces, both sides. He has not settled on a favourite rule set for the period yet and so we have tried a number of sets. Like yourself I find it hard to stop collecting a favourite period/range of figures. This is part of the reason I like quick and simple rules as they allow me to field masses of units on the table. Thanks for all the pleasure you have provided over the years Hal by producing MWAN. From Paul Trapani Just wanted to drop you a line. I am presently painting up some Union 10 mm for the ACW Had to downsize my board too. I started painting the 10 mm figures that I got from Musket Miniatures Saturday afternoon and by Sunday had five brigades painted and based. The 10 mm are a pleasure to paint. They go pretty quick. I found two other manufactures, GHQ and Perrin miniatures. I hope they are as good as the AIM figures that I now have. Looks like I will be sticking with this scale for a while. I will give you an update as I go along for sure. From Kevin Readman Little Wars was full of beautiful games this year, it made you yearn to be in each one of them. Of course, you can only be in one cool game at a time. Among my favorites this year was the Last Squares sponsored English Civil War 25mm game; they had wonderful terrain, gorgeous figures and a well run game. I really appreciate large games with large numbers of players that run relatively fast and smooth (having a number of judges that play tested the game seems to be one of the keys to success). This game had a wonderful contest of daring players and with fluid battlefield action. Another splashy game was Mike Cosentino's San Juan Hill. This was another large player game successfully executed, using a modified Sword and Flame rule set. Again, nice terrain, nice figures and lots of fun. I love the hats Mike. At Little Wars I like to find a Battleground game and this year playing Rumanian infantry in Red Tide was no disappointment. Like most hidden unit games, it is all about location, location, location, the game set up determines the balance of power. I could not believe the Rumanians could actually hold off the horde of Reds and their tanks but they did. The game had the set up flexiblity and power balanced equal so either side could win. Thank you Yaro for hosting the game. The show looked like a great success. Lots of good dealers, a nice variety of games, well organized. The new game ticket system was a show quality improvement. The turn out was solid too. Normally I stay with historical games at Little Wars but Saturday night some friends joined Nick Siedler's Aliens: Colonial Marines game so I hoped into it. I have to say we had wave after wave of laughs from this game. Aliens is one among the best SF flicks and this game captured its tone. Perhaps it was playing with the G.I. Joes but this was a fun event. By the way, anyone know where I can get Leading Edge Alien figures? Too bad they are a dead line. If you have a collection of these ALIEN figures that is collecting dust let me know. I would like to pick them up and play them with the kids. Back to MWAN # 123 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com