Updates

After new year, everything seems to have slowed down slightly. Posts are coming less regularly across a couple of sites, including this one, in the wind-down after the holidays. Only natural I suppose, but I'm going to try and make myself post a bit more. I've been staying active, but mostly it's by tinkering around with painting stacks of more infantrymen, as my army overhaul requires. No posts, but it's at least activity!

Games are also a bit less likely at the moment. Usually I use the big loft, but thanks to the cold weather it's a bit of a no-go area at present. I wandered up to look for a rule-book the other day and nearly froze to death. Only by rapidly building a fire and launching emergency flares down the hatch did I manage to get rescued (that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you know what I mean!)

For painting project news - two regiments have been completed and two more, one of them a jaunty Hungarian unit, are almost completed on the painting desk. Sooner or later I'm going to have to de-base my old figures and remount them into new formations, which will halt full-scale gaming for a while. I'm a bit torn about if I should do it now or delay it a bit longer.

There's an excuse to helt games at present, or at least scale them down a fair bit, following Luftberg's defeat at the battle of Passditz - and what a fight it was! Aschenbach rolled a six for their river-crossing scheme, then another six for their execution of it, which means they acted with textbook effectiveness - such luck! Once it came to the field though, even though Luftberg lost, General Von Hentsch can point proudly to his handling of the army. He got to some good defensive terrain, held it at the end of the battle, brought up his reserves to counter the Aschenbach attack and very nearly turned the tables to sieze a victory. The whole thing probably slipped away over just a few dice rolls.

Which brings me to my thoughts on the rules. The 'Horse, Foot & Guns' rules (HFG) are effectively DBA in a new period, so the scale has dropped away compared to Might & Reason (M&R). No more dwindling strength points as regiments trade blows, no commander actions, no charges and counter-charges. All the action is handled in a broad-brush manner, where a single dice-roll could turn a breakthrough into a rout. I don't know if it's as good for a small, personalised army in a small campaign, because you can aford detail then. If you fancy a quick knockabout battle, or are running a large-scale campaign, I think the rules are excellent. Personally however, I think I'll be returning in future to M&R.

So, what next? I'll have to return to the campaign map to decide the results of the battle, so that'll be a future post. Aside from the narrative, I'll also throw in an update on my miniature rebasing & painting project as I progress. Roll on the warmer weather!