Portable proxies on parade

Over the past few days, I've had the opportunity to use an hour here and an hour there to complete my paper Napoleonic Allied and French armies. These armies will stand in for the armies of Baden-Hundsheim and Formulgala in battles until the traveling/portable paper armies and metal standing armies for these two nations can be completed.

The mustering of these two finished armies marks quite a milestone for me. These are the first matched armies I've ever finished, in many, many years in this hobby. While working on these armies, I learned a lot about how to organize my time, how to break down a project into small, discrete steps, and how to keep my energy focused on completion. The temptation toward distraction was strong. Several times I nearly put these aside in order to start working on the metal armies for this imagi-nation campaign.

Without further mumbling, here are the two armies, mustered for your enjoyment and comment.

The armies, together, fit into a single plastic tray, with only minimal stacking of one unit atop another. To the fore we have the French army, with the Allies to their rear. The long compartment on the right holds the tools of paper miniature making: double-sided tape (much handier and friendlier to water-soluable printer inks than glue), a good pair of nail scissors, a straight-edge for folding, and a razor knife. Both of these latter are hidden beneath a bag of spare artillery figures and some unassembled command figures.

Also in there are some as-yet unfinished infantry units. These armies are now (almost...see below) large enough to fight any of the scenarios in Grant's "Scenarios for Wargames," and, therefore, are plenty large enough. The unfinished units may be added later, to allow me build the armies large enough to refight Quatre Bras, should the Napoleonics bug bite in the future.

The plan is to buy a compartmented, hinge-topped, plastic storage tray in which these two armies will be stored, and safely travel with me on business trips. The plastic tray you see here is one of my "project in progress" trays, used to keep a project organized and easily un-shelved for work as time permits.

The Allied army. The British and one brigade of the KGL are in the foreground, the British Guards behind them. Behind the Guards is the Brunswick Corps. On the right flank are the Dutch (front) and Hanoverian (rear) complements. As you can see, there are only two brigades of cavalry (one Dutch, one Brunswicker). So, OK, the army isn't quite large enough to play all of the Grant scenarios yet. I'll need to create, print and assemble three more Allied cavalry units to really be done, but these are all I had, as these units were originally made for the Napoleonic Quatre Bras project.

The British Corps. Line infantry, including one brigade of the KGL and one of Highlanders, supported by their artillery. The Guards are in line behind. The Duke of Wellington, commander of the Allied army, with his aide, can be seen behind the front line. The Brunswick Corps is formed up to the rear of the Guards.

The Brunswickers, in a bit more detail. For some reason, when I created these units, I neglected to give the 2nd (line) Brigade a standard. An oversight, to be sure, as every other unit has one. Some day, I may correct this.

The massed French army. The Grand Battery formed to the front, Ligne and Legere infantry behind, and the Cavalry formed at the rear.

French Ligne (Line) infantry, with two brigades of Legere (Light) infantry behind. The French didn't form brigades exclusively of Legere battalions. I chose to use Legere figures for those brigades dominated by light infantry battalions (the 1st Brigade, 5th Division, and the 1st Brigade, 6th Division, at Quatre Bras). I may choose to represent Grant's Light Infantry units with these brigades.

The massed guns of the French Grand Battery. It's almost impossible to tell, in this picture or in person, but the last battery in the line has a heavy 12# cannon. I need to find a way to quickly distinguish heavy batteries from field batteries from horse batteries. I toyed with using the number of crew figures to distinguish them (5 = heavy, 4 = field, 3 = horse), but three figures and a cannon on the base looked puny, especially as the light 6# cannon are noticeably smaller. I may simply mark the back of each stand with the battery type.

The French Cavalry. Carabiniers, two Brigades of Cuirassiers, Dragoons, Chasseurs and Lanciers. Which is an odd mix for Quatre Bras. Frankly, I don't remember what I was thinking when I made these units up. But, they'll work very nicely for the purposes of these battles.

Coming soon, some shots of these units upon the hexagonal Chessex field of battle given so generously to me by a friend. And then, with luck, a game!

A lull in the movements of the armies

I was supposed to travel last night, and spend a fruitful night in a hotel room trying out my new portable wargame, but unfortunately the trip was cancelled. It may be just as well, really, as spare time has been very hard to come by, and my armies are completely absent of artillery at this moment.

Tonight I may have time to finish the guns, however. If fortune smiles on me, this will mark quite a milestone. This will be, as odd as this may sound, the first time I've completed a matched pair of wargaming armies.

The armies will have units sufficient to fight almost all of the scenarios in Charles Grants "Scenarios for Wargamers," except for a few cavalry units on the British side. This lack stems from the origin of these figures. I created them in order to refight the battle of Quatre Bras, using one stand to represent each brigade of infantry or cavalry, and one stand per battery of artillery. The British and Allied army had only two cavalry brigades at Quatre Bras, the cavalry of the Brunswick Corps, and the Dutch 3rd Light Brigade. I plan to add a few more units of cavalry once I have time to create them. Some British Light Dragoons and Hussars, and perhaps a unit of Horse Guards, would be nice additions.

I hope to have pictures of these armies up on the blog here in the next few days. And perhaps, spare time providing, a battle between the mock-forces of Baden-Hundsheim and Formulgala, before long. Stay tuned.

The 18th century, in paper

Work continues to assemble by British and French Napoleonic paper miniatures, for use during my upcoming business trip. They will stand in for the forces of Formulgala and Baden-Hundsheim in a border skirmish scenario of some kind. An affair of little importance in the political situation between the two powers. Or is it? Might it instead be the tipping point, plunging the two nations into open warfare?

In the meantime, I spent a little time this weekend beginning some 18th century paper miniatures, so that future traveling games will look much closer to my vision for these armies. And, these figures make nice color studies, informing my choices about the paint I'll eventually put on their little metal counterparts. As a starting point, I used the line drawings available on the Prince August website. These illustrations form part of the catalog for their Holger Eriksson line of molds for 40mm semi-flat miniatures. With their kind permission, I thought I'd share the work-in-progress so far.

Baden-Hundheim infantry

The regulars are simply the Prince August line drawings, with layers of color added. The Grenadier command figures are simple digital "head swops" using the marching grenadier's head. The "Turkish" infantry use the drawings as a base, but have been heavily modified by myself. The drum comes from the cavalry drummer drawing. Note that I plan to use the infantry office figure, with different colors applied of course, for the officer of Grenadier battalions. I may use him as the officer for the "Turkish" battalions as well (I really MUST come up with a name for the "Turkish" province to the south of Baden-Hundsheim), or create a more characteristically Turkish officer figure, depending on how the story of these Southern borderlands plays out. Are they well integrated into the Baden-Hundsheim political machine, and therefore lead by their own loyal officers? Or are they provincial troops, led by officers of the Baden-Hundsheim nobility? I haven't decided yet.

Baden-Hundheim cavalry, from a Prince August line drawing.

Formulgalan Artillery. All figures based on Prince August line drawings.

Baden-Hundsheim Artillery.

I'm not too keen on the lavender gun carriages. I'll probably change those. I may add an officer to each battery as well, from the Prince August standing officer drawing.

Feedback very welcome indeed. Oh, and I should mention that I'm not dead set on the purple uniforms. I'm going to make up a set of these in the brown scheme as well, and see which I prefer.

"I have always depended on the kindness..."

of good friends (to paraphrase Mae West).

A very close friend gave me a really amazing gift, after reading my post on creating a portable wargame: a large vinyl Chessex game mat, with hexes on one side and squares on the other, a set of dry-erase markers, and a set of game dice in purple to match the uniform coats of Baden-Hundsheim.

I'm deeply touched. This gift was thoughtful and supporting and very, very much appreciated.

And, the timing was perfect. I just learned that I'll be heading out on an overnight business trip in a couple of weeks. An excellent opportunity to bring the new mat and try a game on the go.

To that end, what little gaming time I have has been put toward finishing my paper Napoleonic figures. They're already printed and ready to be assembled, which puts them well ahead of the 18th century paper miniatures I'm working on (more on that soon). So, for now, Baden-Hundsheim and Formulgala will take to the field in red and blue.

Thank you, my dear friend. I appreciate this gift more than I can say.

On creating a truly portable wargame

Last year (2011), Bob Cordery spent considerable effort developing his rules for The Portable Wargame. The genesis of these rules was the desire to create a set of figures, terrain and rules that would let him bring an entertaining game along wherever he went.

In the course of my job, I have reason to travel now and then. Not much, but occasionally. And, I have three children whom I love dearly, and who are the focus on my time and attention, but who leave me little spare time to set up a game and play it out. So, when Bob starting working through various designs, I paid close attention with an eye toward leveraging those rare evenings in a hotel room.

Bob's work has created a set of rules that are flexible, deliver a fun game, and are malleable to suite one's own tastes and preferred time period. Ross MacFarlane has spent a great deal of virtual ink writing about his experiments and modifications to these rules. Within the list of labels on his blog, click on "portable game" to find yourself several evenings' worth of entertaining rules experimentation. Bob's own blog has his own thoughts on the development of the rules, of course. I've tried these rules out on paper, using printed maps and "counters" made from cut up Post-It notes. But even without a proper tabletop test or two, I'm convinced that these rules will work quite nicely for games on the road.

So, there remain the questions of terrain and toy soldiers. Miniatures would seem to be problematic. They can be heavy and, of course, are prone to damage. My solution won't be for everyone.

For some time, I've been collecting and occasionally designing paper miniatures. Most often these are two-dimensional "figures" consisting of two printed images (front and back) glued together. Sometimes these are mirror images of each other, showing a figure from the side.

Patrick Crusiau has a wonderful collection of paper miniatures, useful primarily for skirmish wargames and role playing games. He also makes 15mm Napoleonic paper soldiers geared toward mass battles. I've taken his images, which are available for free from his web site, and some derived from these by others, then modified them to create units of Napoleonic infantry, cavalry and artillery. These units are very durable. Throw them loose into a plastic, lidded storage box and you can carry them on board your plane or put them in your checked luggage without worry.

These are, as I've said, Napoleonic figures. But I like the look of these massed units well enough to try my hand at creating Baden-Hunsheim and Formulgala armies. Sometime soon, perhaps. If I do, I'll find a way to post the files here, in case you're interested in using them yourself. Meanwhile, if I travel before finding time to create those more appropriate armies, don't be surprised to find my British and French Napoleonics proxied for the noble armies of my two imagi-nations.

As for terrain, Ross has played a few games on Hotz game mats, printed with 3" hexes. These look quite good, and can be folded and tucked into a suitcase easily. I rather like the look of Ross' own painted game boards, onto which he's marked the vertices of hexes. I imagine I could make my own game mat using suitable fabric, spray paint, and a paint pen or something. Either will work well for a travel game.

I plan to denote woods by filling hexes with 2.5D paper model trees. Built-up areas will be marked with paper model buildings. Or, these hexes may be surrounded with flat profiles of buildings (like these), allowing the units to be placed inside. This is attractive, as these profile pieces can be folded flat for storage. Representing elevation is tricky, and a problem I haven't solved yet. I could create elevation by bunching up bedding or placing books beneath the game mat, or I could find a way to create portable "hills" to bring with me. Any suggestions you might have would be very welcome.

So, with a few dice, a folded game mat, a plastic storage box full of paper miniature units and terrain, a copy of The Portable Wargame and a scenario from Charles Grant's "Scenarios for Wargames," "Programmed War Games Scenarios" or his Table Top Teasers in my suitcase, I should be able to get a game set up, played and torn down between checkin and bed time.

I'll keep you posted.