2mm Gamers Rise Up!

Is something of a 2 mm Renaissance is in the air these days? Or maybe it's just observer bias - that I notice more 2mm projects because I myself am working on 2mm projects. Whatever the case, if you're interested in 2 mm projects have I got a doozy for you.

Nik Harwood brings it with a LOT of great shots in his gallery.  Go check it out.

Lake Sambee Post Mortem

Sometimes the best way to fight...is not to fight at all. 

Today we're talking about some painful lessons learned from a game of 2 x 2 Napoleonics.  It has taken me an embarrassingly long time to get a handle on how to work this ruleset.

In the Battle of Lake Sambee, an overwhelming force of Albans are invading the Tenebran Nation, looking to return the city of Grandepoint to the Alban fold.  Or to return the Grandepoint silver mines to Alban control.  Tomato, tomahto.  

Here's the general run of things.  As you can see, the Albans brought a large force up between the lake in the center a small farm on the north.  The Tenebrans, led by a very skilled general, took command of a large hill whose flanks were secured by heavy woods to the north, and swamps and light woods to the south.  A very defensible position.

Undaunted, the Albans used cannons to secure the farm on their left flank, and tasked a smaller blocking force in the south to secure their right.

Thanks in large part to my n00bishness, the Alban attack failed spectacularly.

The Alban right fell apart so quickly it put pressure on the center to make a move on the hill before they were really prepared.  That main attack had to break off units to reinforce the right, costing them even more momentum.

In retrospect, the Albans should have brought all their artillery - six to the Tenebran two - forward to long range and pounded away at that hill for as many turns as it took to scramble the lines, and then sent in the horses.  They had time, but pushed forward too fast.  Or, since the win conditions relate to the number of stands destroyed, they should have hung back and used everything they could to destroy that Tenebran southern flanking force before turning their attention to the hill.

Or perhaps the Alban artillery should have gone full Grande Battery, set up at 8-inch range, and just pounded that hill into rubble. Turns out a Napoleonic approach to Napoleonic wargames is a winner! Who knew? Part of it is on the nature of things. 

This comes up in later episodes, but is worth a blog post. After determining the terrain, setting up the physical space and the units, and getting everything ready to go...sometimes its obvious the smart play for one general is to refuse battle. The Albans should have backed off and waited a few days to come at the Tenebrans from a position of - if not advantage, at least less of a disadvantage. Particularly so, given that this is part of a much larger campaign where no general can afford to make a 'throw away' attack.

Calling it quits without firing a shot would mean all the set up was for naught!  Like so many generals before me, I had to learn the hard way that a poorly conceived attack is a far larger waste.  And that is a hard lesson learned on my part.

But we're getting there.  Always learning, and always improving, that's part of the Joy of Wargaming.

If you want to watch the whole battle, you can find it here:

2x2 Napoleonics : A Bit of Eye Candy

 More black powder gaming using a neat little trick for roads and streams...

Simple yarn.  It's just the right scale for 2mm figures, and you can nudge it all about to make just the right curves.  Placed down on a fleece battlemat and it works a treat.

Happy New War!

 The Trossian War campaign offers a lot of possibilities for narrative fun and complications, but I repeat myself.  It uses Featherstonian "Chance" cards to add a level of...uh, chance...to the proceedings, some of which offer the possibility of adding third party elements to your forces.  Painted up in the Imperial purple, these bases can also be used as rebellious militia, or even an expeditionary force from outside the Trossian continent!

It's not a large force, worth only around 20AP, but that's half the size of a normal army used in a bog-standard non-campaign game of 2x2 Napoleonics.  Three line infantry and one each of grenadiers, light infantry, heavy and light cavalry, and one HQ.

The left over pieces of the army groups provided enough material to create a small wagon train (left) and a military HQ.  These will be nice if the events of the campaign lead to a raid on a supply train or a 'capture the general' style battle.

The set includes one final little 'capture the flag' marker.  Below you can see the square fields surrounded by hedges.  Irregular sells those hedges in line, but they are very small and perfectly sized to create a pair of small pastures.  Can't have a pasture without livestock, so I bought a flock of sheep from Irregular, based it, and now they are penned up next to the HQ in the photo below.  A pasture will make for a nice little fortified area for the armies, and a nice little wrinkle to add to any battlefield.

Make sure you check the Trossian War blog for updates on the conduct of the festivities.

Scattered Shots and Thoughts

 Time to make a scene!

Can't fight for the throne of the Trossian Empire if you don't have a continent of Tros to fight on.  So let's take a look at some of that scatter  This is all 2mm terrain from either Irregular Miniatures or PicoArmor.

Irregular trees on the right and, believe it
or not, hills on the left.
Very low hills.

Some water features, all from PicoArmor.

Not sure that I have a use for the coastal fortress or the light house, but the boat will make for a fine objective.  And even if they don't have a use, they add a touch of scenery.

Towns and such from Irregular

Now that I've got these painted, I can map out and paint up a few 'drop cloths'.  With the colors in pace and the river and widths established, we can move on to the next step.

PicoArmor churches, with a variety of extra steeples,
so you could make all these Orthodox if you want.
Figures for scale.

One thing to note on this, Irregular makes a much larger cathedral that includes the stone walkway you see in the center.  That cast wasn't very good, and it was way too big to fit into my storage, so the centerpiece didn't make the final cut.  I still used the stone base for a PicoArmor building, to...mixed results.  Looks great, but:

Now the church doesn't fit into my storage box.  The colored boxes are 4" by 6" photo storage boxes that fit neatly into a carrything case.  That courtyard makes the cathedral just a little too big.  So I snapped off the steeple and now when I want to use there is some assebly required.  Gotta roll with those punches.

A Big 2mm Update

The big hoopty for 2020 here at Chez Inabox has been the move to integrate 2mm scale gaming into the mix.  Not only that, but we determined that a move into the new frontier of mass battle black powder gaming was in order.  We like to zig when the world zags, and we rarely go in half-way.  Five full armies and a few scattered allies await five players.

The littlest Brunswickers

But all those piles of teeny-tiny soldiers need some ground to battle over, and now we've just about got it.  Here's a shot of some excellent Irregular and PicoArmor terrain for you, primed and ready for some color.

Just getting the vegetation done adds a lot to the visual appeal, n'est pas?

And to give you a better idea how tall the little hills are, here is a WIP unit of Imperial or Militia infantry ready to storm the slopes.

One of the decision points on a project like this comes when you have to decide exactly how to account for the base thickness.  The massive 25+mm figs tower enough that it doesn't really factor in at all.  When your boys are only as tall as the base itself, it forces a wargamer to think.  Should the terrain have a base just as thick as the units?  I've decided to do just that.  It makes the table look a little more 'gamey' and a little less 'living diorama', but the game comes first.  This will help establish that border between 'open ground' and 'special circumstance' and prevent it from looking like all the armies are hovering well above the rest of the terrain demarcations.

And Happy Boxing Day, ya crazy, lovable, all-too-friendly Great White Northerners.

On the Eve of War

The War of the Trossian Succession Approaches!

The fourth of five armies takes to the field in dashing black and capped in yellow.  This time around it's the not-quite-Prussian army, all 38 stands of 1-inch square menace.  That leaves just the not-quite-French army and a whole lot of terrain, and then we'll be able to kick things off in style.

Lest we slip too gallantly into the nonchalant acceptance of our little games as nothing more than mere frippery, it's worth remembering that the Malburnian/Seven Years War era saw countless shattered men, shattered families, and broken nations.  How about a moment of quiet reflection with a poem from a more recent engagement to pay our due respects to the heroes of our ancestry who marched and fought that we might enjoy such pleasant days here in the late autumn of our own turn of the Imperial Wheel?

 

The Eve of War – Geoffrey Faber

The night falls over London. City and sky
Blend slowly. All the crowded plains grow dark.
The last few loiterers leave the glooming park
To swell that mighty tide which still sweeps by,
Heedless save of its own humanity,
Down to the Circus, where the staring arc
Winks through the night, and every face shows stark
And every cheek betrays its painted lie.

But here through bending trees blows a great wind;
Through torn cloud-gaps the angry stars
Look down.
Here have I heard this night the wings of War,
this dark and frowning countenance I saw.
What dreadful menace hangs above our town?
Let all the great cities pray; for they have sinned.

On the Table at 2mm

With the painting out of the way, let's take a look at what 2mm figures look like on the table.

But first, here is a side-by-side shot of the Great Traffic Light Alliance, with British on top and Austrian in the middle and Russians on the bottom row.

Any serious wargamer would chafe at the oddities of these line infantry.  Any wise wargamer would understand that the pieces are representative - we're going to be using these guys for everything from the Marlborough Ear to Seven Years War and maybe even a little Napoleonics.  That's a pretty wide swath of history that saw a lot of refinements in battle field tactics.

My armies are hampered a little by the decision to purchase army packs that work great for one specific era.  Using them for a broader than intended sweep means sacrificing purity for flexibility, a sacrifice that I am willing to make for the cause of good gaming.

And here is a good shot of how easy it becomes to recognize friend from foe on the table.  Ignore the massively out of scale roads.  (It makes me smile to think of 6mm terrain as way too big.)  Instead, note that the Austrians and Russians are easy to tell apart.  So too with the difference between cavalry and line infantry, with even a little cannon holding the giant crossroads easily distinguished by its unique appearance.

While I'm not yet a 2mm supremacist, this project has been very fulfilling.  It's a new scale for me, and the game scale - full Corps represented by around 20 elements - offers new challenges and a fresh approach to big battles over that of the usual "Rank and Flank" style games.

Don't be intimidated by their size - these guys are great.  

All my figures to date are from Irregular Miniatures.  They don't have a massive line of figures, but it's the biggest around (heh) and at this scale figures are extremely flexible.  It wouldn't be much of a stretch to choose some fantastic colors and name the blocks shown above as orcs or elves!

A 2mm Primer

With three full armies of these tiny little blokes under my belt, I'm finally ready to share some experience with you, dear reader.  By no means an expert, the best I can offer is my experience working with this incredibly small scale.

First up, when you spray coat them, use a very light touch.  As you can see, a light dusting provides highlights to the raised areas, and a bit of shadow in the deep crevices.  As smaller figures, you don't even need to use the black primer, white drybrush method with them - the shadows arise naturally.

I've mounted my primed figures on small tongue depressors or craft sticks for ease of handling.  No chance to handle these figs any other way!

Painting was a breeze.  Using nothing more than the usual washes and a little dry brushing it is a simple matter to pick out just enough detail to get these guys looking like a proper army.  You want to use bright primary colors, just as one does with 6mm figures, and a little light drybrush to lighten them up one more notch and you're good.

Here you can see what a simple schema of yellow on white can do to make these guys look good.  The horses are a mix of colors hit with a unifying wash of dark ink.

The next issue is, of course, basing.  I've opted for simple 1-inch square bases for my figures as they can be used individually or combined to create larger formations - depending on the ruleset.

These craft squares are only a nickel each, and while they are a bit thick compared to the units...they provide a better handle for the unit than the figures.  They have a nice rounded corner, making them pleasing to the eye, and only cost about five cents each from Jeff Bezos' Crazy Internet Emporium of Goods and More Goods.

Next comes the ground cover.  A simple fine sand affixed with PVA glue (unthinned) holds both the sand and the figures in place.  The material I use has a nice unsorted character, with the larger coral pieces making for nice big boulders to break up the green monotony.  

This is old school basing, and very traditional.  It's traditional because it works, particularly at this scale where static grass just isn't an option.  Even the smallest grass would look like massive vines!

And finally comes the painting of the grass.  Here you can see what each step looks like with the base color on the bottom row, a light green highlight, and then a very faint touch of mustard yellow to dull the contrast and give them a bright, summery feeling.  The top row has a few boulders picked out in dark gray, if you can make them out.

With the fields in place, the red uniforms really jump right out, giving these British figures the characteristic color for which they earned the moniker "Redcoats".

Tomorrow, we'll look at a comparison of the three uniform colors done to date.

 

The 2mm Journey

Here's a bit of a look at my 2mm journey, one upon which I have only just begun.  Specifically, here is the starting point for my SYW Russians.

Bare metal inventory in progress.  Planning plays a big role here, and you want to dry fit to a base so your numbers are right, before you paint.

Dark green uniforms on light green bases help these boys pop.

Horse, foot, and guns.  After a while all you see is blonde, brunette, redhead.

The beast attacks!  Parrot for scale.

One big Corp sized army, fits into a single sheet of paper.  It's a 20-base skirmish that plays and handles very different from a true skirmish game.  Can't wait to take it for a test spin!
 

Back to the History Books

Behold, the first teaser image of the Totally Not the Austrian faction for the Wars of the Trossian Succession.

Horse, foot, and guns.

It feels darn good to jump back into the historical saddle after a too long hiatus.  Yeah yeah, imagi-nations are barely historical but whatever.  Let me walk you through some of the process.

This project involves a whole lot of first times.  It's my first foray into 2mm gaming.  It's my first venture into a umpiring a grand-strategic game designed to generate tabletop battles.  It's my first toe-dip into the black powder era.  That's a whole lot of uncertainty to deal with in a project.

To help ease into things, I've had to make a lot of concessions to gaming.  Irregular Miniatures, God Bless 'Em, sell pre-made army packs for use with their black powder rulesets.  It looks like the army packs have been designed with Irregular's house rules in mind.  At this point it is too early to know whether that composition would have worked for my preferred ruleset.  At the same time, it is too late to ever know, because I've swapped out a few strips of figures here and there.

For example, my Totally Not French army comes with very little in the way of cavalry.  Very little.  Which might work for a Marlburnian game, but would leave them at a distinct disadvantage in a battle set closer to the Napoleonic era.  Fortunately, the 2mm soldiers are enough like each other that you can swap strips around fairly easily.  Provided your rank and file blocks are the same size, they can be swapped around with impunity.  This allowed me to achieve a more reasonable balance between and among the various nations.  The Not-French are still a little light in the Cavalry department, and the Not-Russians have very little heavy cavalry on hand.  

Which brings us back around to the NotAustrians.  My first ever 2mm army, they turned out pretty good.  Yellow on white with a bit of red thrown in for flare, they stand out against the light green bases and stand together as a unified team.  Sure, they are a bit monolithic, with no variety in and among the regiments, but at this scale that is of little matter.  The figures could easily be painted with more variety if one were looking to recreate a specific battle, it just isn't appropriate for Tros.

Of course, it's easy to distinguish armies when you only have one.  Check back in a week or so to see how these units compare to the NotRussians.

Irregular Army Packs

Bust my buttons, I'd done all my planning for Napoleonic wargaming, then went and ordered Seven Years War figures like a complete and utter plank!

No worries.  My next big project is a campaign set in the imagi-nation of the Trossian Empire, specifically to help account for my own blundering inexperience with the horse and musket era.  We, like the best generals, shall roll with the punches, self-inflicted though they may be.  What this means is that the Trossian Empire campaign takes place in an alternate 1775, where the big battalions are gaining steam, but horse artillery has yet to see effective battlefield use.  We're in that odd transition between SYW and Napoleon, and fighting decidedly ahistoric fights with as much of a nod toward the real world as possible.

My loss is your gain.  Let us make wargaming gold from my mis-ordered straw.  Here then for those of you who may be considering a purchase of Irregular Miniatures "Marlburian Army Packs", a reasonably accurate accounting of the contents of each nation-specific army pack. 

(Figure Code) x (Number in the pack): Description of the code

Some of these may be a bit off.  When providing my census, it took me some time to really settle into the differences between some of these codes.  At this small of a scale a few mm either way can make a difference, that my untrained eyes didn't track.  Consider all these lists ballpark numbers and don't blame Irregular if I got any of them wrong. The hand-written notes in each photo are my first stab at it, the typed rosters may have a few changes made on further review.  And if you've got any corrections, drop a comment and I'll change them as needed.

If you want a much better census of what each specific code represents and what it looks like, check out the Tiny Tin Troops website.  It has many nice photos of each, plus a reasonably full accounting of the 2mm terrain items on offer over at Irregular.

Austrian

BG1 x 8: Foot in two ranks of ten

BG3 x 3: Foot in skirmish, five figures

BG4 x 8: Lancers in loose order, one rank of six figures

BG5 x 20: Cavalry in one close order rank of eight

BG6 x 6: Artillery and caissons

BG7 x 3: Mounted trio of generals

BG13 x 6: Pair of mounted brigade commanders

BG14 x 36: Foot in three ranks of eight

BG23 x 6: Foot in loose order, ten figures

BG130 x 1: Army HQ

 

British

BG1 x 42: Foot in two ranks of ten

BG2 x 27: Foot in three ranks of eight

BG3 x 3: Foot in skirmish, five figures

BG4 x 10: Lancers in loose order, six figures

BG5 x 29: Cavalry in one rank of eight

BG6 x 6: Artillery and caissons (missing one caisson)

BG7 x 3: Mounted trio of generals

BG8 x 1:  Horses and minders

BG10 x 6: Cavalry, lancers, six figures

BG13 x 8: Pair of mounted brigade commanders

 

French

BG2 x 60: Foot in three ranks of eight

BG6 x 8: Artillery and caissons

BG7 x 6: Mounted trio of generals

BG8 x 1:  Horses and minders

BG10 x 6: Lancers in loose order, six figures

BG13 x 6: Pair of mounted brigade commanders

BG14 x 30: Foot in two ranks of thirteen figures

 

Prussian

BG1 x 48: Foot in two ranks of ten

BG3 x 6: Foot in skirmish line, five figures

BG4 x 16: Lancers in loose order, six figures

BG5 x 30: Cavalry in one rank of eight

BG6 x 6: Artillery and caissons

BG7 x 3: Mounted trio of generals

BG8 x 1:  Horses and minders

BG13 x 6: Pair of mounted brigade commanders

 

Russian

BG1 x 40: Foot in two ranks of ten

BG5 x 20: Cavalry in one rank of eight

BG6 x 8: Artillery and caissons

BG7 x 3: Mounted trio of generals

BG4 x 6: Lancers in loose order, six figures

BG13 x 6: Pair of mounted brigade commanders

BG18 x 8: Mounted Cossacks in loose order, five figures

BG23 x 4: Foot in loose order, ten figures

BG130 x 1: Army HQ

 

My Dream Game - Early Stages and Advice Needed

I'm looking to recruit a few friends to play national leaders and strategic commanders of a continental scale game.  I'm getting into horse and musket for the first time ever, and it's long been a dream of mine to play an actual campaign with more depth than a narrative campaign.  I'm hoping that they'll enjoy the strategic level game, and that it will generate some organic and unusual tactical battles that I can play through solo on the tabletop.   

Figures by Irregular, painted by Nik Harwood

It will be a horse-and-musket era campaign in the Ruritanian/Elbonian style.  The strategic game would be run largely as a PBEM or online game among friends, so it can be pretty loose, but it needs enough structure for the players to be able to make informed choices.  Preferably something with a map that we can push counters and armies around on, and that opens up the possibilites of ra bit of strategic maneuvering.  The battles will be run using some fast play rules scaled for Corp level using 2mm figures.  Maybe throw in a few skirmishes if the strategic game allows for the chance to have some "Richard Sharpe" level fun missions, but that's for later.

The prospect of running such a campaign is a little daunting, particularly given that my horse and musket gaming is largely limited to participating in games hosted by men with a lot more experience in the era and a lot more brains than myself.  

Any of you fine fellows have a recommendation for reading, or for strategic level rules that wouldn't suck up all my game time with logistics and fiddly number crunching?

[Cross-posted from the Lead Adventure Forum]