I knew last week and the one coming were going to be a little silent on the blogging front, especially given that it’s end of the year, and the workload in the “day job” grows exponentially this time of year, but then COVID decided to throw another spanner in the works and the “little read dot”* shifted to “Work from Home”.
So I have very little to show on the wargaming front at the moment, I’m plugging away at my Dark Ages stuff as the time allows, but honestly in the free moments I have been more likely to stalk my blogroll and be inspired by the work of others. Normal service should resume in the later part of next week, as the “day job” shifts into holiday mode, and the lack of International travel and the Government mandated partial lockdown kinda forces me to paint figures and build terrain all while safely social distancing.
Not much to show this week, and given how crazy the next few weeks at the “real job”* will be, I expect them to be equally as light. However I did manage to get out all my old Dark Ages troops and started to take stock. Over 20 years old, originally belonging to a friend and painted in gloss by him, based on cardboard, and with that amazing 80’s flock, they clearly need a spruce up if I am going to play either Ravenfeast or Saga.
I blame it on nostalgia that wants me to field these very old castings, also it would be a shame to not let them do battle once more, especially if I can get a chance to “crush enemies, see them driven before me…and you all know the rest.“
If only I could work out who made them?
EDIT (18 May):Some of the figures (not pictured) are old Essex miniatures.
Painting Notes: Figure: Oak Brown (Army Painter, AP), Anti-Shine Matt Varnish (AP), Matt White (AP), Platemail Metal (AP), Agrax Earthshade (Citadel). Base: Burnt Umber (Daler 223), Raw Sienna (Daler 667).
* Just found out we have been ordered back into “Work From Home” in the next 48 hours. So a mad scrabble to get some bases 3D printed, and organise schedules and the such before a month of restrictive movement and gatherings takes place.Sadly this means some of the current projects will have to backseat as access to certain “toys” is curtailed for a bit, but on the flip side other projects get to come to the fore.
So Project Wargaming’s Youtube video “Markers and Game Aides for Fire and Fury” got me thinking: “Markers, labels, counters…”, while not all games require a plethora of these, Regimental Fire and Fury is not one of them, requiring at least five different markers to denote a change in status of a unit. The rules recommend using “figures” to represent these status changes, and while I like the ideas suggested, I wanted to go a little further, and look at how those markers may be organised with a unit, thus preventing in the case of multiple markers the loss of a status marker as a unit moves across the table and inevitably leaves a marker behind in the excitement of the bayonet charge, or the often equally inevitable, hasty retreat.
My “limber fortnight” also included basing these markers and tokens.
So basically, just as you create movement trays to facilitate the movement of troops, how might a tray also be created to facilitate the movement of status markers and the regimental label required by the rules.
So a google search led me to “One sided miniature wargaming discourse“, which led me to “Not just old school wargaming“, and this led me down the rabbit hole of musing and then finally to SketchUp where I decided to see what I could mock-up as a “status/marker tray” for my ACW troops. I was surprised by how large “old school’s” status trays were, but they did blend in a little on the table, and looked good. A further example from Command Base, showed how it might look for Black Powder (which is also a rule option).
I will confess I am still learning the rules for RFF, but it looks like each unit needs its “unit label”, and the possibility of also having the following markers: silenced/disorder, low ammunition, brave colonel, skirmisher, but the chances of any unit having all four at the same time seems slim. Other markers such as horse holders for dismounted cavalry, damaged guns, and low ammunition wagons, tend to be for specific types of troops. I would rather the “status tray” to be universal regardless of troop type, and something that can follow the unit around the table top, but this might be a little unrealistic. So far I have come up with a number of designs, and have not settled on any favourite, while I imagine these will work well for both Infantry and Cavalry, I do wonder the appropriateness for Artillery?
A variety of “tests” for a status tray. The dice holder can be swapped in and out as needed.
The idea is that it will sit behind a units movement tray, or the unit itself.
One question I had was should the unit’s quality be a swappable counter, and omitted from the label, but after much thought I decided it was easier to make a new label for specific battles if required. Also I’m also not sold on any particular look thus far, though I kind of like the size of the 3, but with an angled unit information display, thus a variant of the three on the right above. Though I do recognise the long thin “unit information strip” does not conform to size found in the F&F Rule/Scenario books, so puts bit of pressure on me to make up my own.
Also given that my destroyed guns, sit on a 1.5″ round base, and are good for replacing a model if it is in fact knocked out, I have based my crews individually and planned to just remove a crew member to denote that a battery had suffered damage, meaning that a “status tray” for Artillery might just require space for a single “low ammunition” token.
The Gun Bar 