Yarrr - it be Talk like a Pirate Day!

Its been a watch or two since I been at home to post on this special day, but I hope you're having a rum today!  Here's the traditional saucy wench to celebrate this special day...

Back to the Future with Colonial Gaming

Fan's of Osprey's war-game rules will recognise the name Daniel Mersey as the author of such excellent titles as Dux Bellorum and Lion Rampant as well as the upcoming Dragon Rampant .

On his blog over the weekend, Daniel laid out his very impressive writing schedule for the next year.  Dragon Rampant has a lot of people getting very excited (and so they should be I think) but what really caught my eye was The Men Who Would Be Kings.  Planned for an August release, it will be a colonial 'big skirmish' game using the Lion Rampant engine with some modifications for gunpowder weapons.

Not the real cover - a mockup by the ever amusing (and talented) Dalauppror 

You can follow posts about this game at the author's blog here

'So What?' I hear you ask.  Well truth be told I used to be a bit of a colonial gaming affectionado.  Me and the lads used to do a mean bit of Zulu War gaming pretty frequently back in the day using the Fields of Honor rules, which we quite liked. As I recall, there was a neat mechanism where you took casualties, took maorale test for those and them got half your figures back (treated wounded and the like). It mean that units started to carck and break without having to be halved or more first, which felt realistic

That was around 20 years ago now, but I still  have my collection of 15mm Brits and Zulus.*** 

So while the game looks geared toward units of 28mm figures (and there are some nice plastic options there) as long as you can mark off individual casualties, 15mm should work fine.  Could it be that all I have to do is dust off my exciting collection to play a new game without having to expend vast sums of money and spend hours of painting? That will never catch on...  In any event it might reawaken an old flame.

So still a year to go but I'll be watching out for this with interest.  
And its not like I don't have any other gaming diversions on the go in the meantime...

*** However, I do fear for their condition.  In the more than two decades since their last love, they have been deep storage three times and moved more than a dozen times in the same box.  I did consider selling them off several times, but resisted.  Lots of great memories in those figs after my friends and I played an ongoing cooperative campaign.  We each had a character Officer figure and commanded British/Allied units with the Zulus on 'auto' style reaction rules, painted medals on chaps who did particularly well etc.  I commanded the Naval Brigade (include a fine Gatling gun) as Commander Hornblower! 

2017 EDIT: Figures have now been unpacked - see here:

https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2017/11/we-come-on-orders-of-great-white-queen.html
and here

https://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2017/11/why-do-you-come-to-land-of-zulu.html

Terrain Modelling Inspiration

Last week my family visited Plymouth Rock and the nearby plantation which has reconstructions of the traditional native American village of the region and a Pilgrim Village, circa 1620-30.

I found it to be very interesting from a modelling perspective and snapped a whole bunch of pictures of the architecture and building materials.  While they might be 17th Century/ECW period, they clearly have applicability for a wide range of genres.  Here are some of them:

Here are the pics from the Indian village:

Riverine Warfare

A couple of interesting articles at Weapons and Warfare website recently, relating to Riverine operations in Vietnam.  If you are into Brown Water Navy you should drop by and check them out:

http://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/08/26/riverine-warfare-vietnam-i/

http://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/08/26/riverine-warfare-vietnam-ii/