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]

Tiny Turns

 These N-scale turn templates from Litko should work fine for my 6mm Gaslands game.

It is a little bit, but we can make it work.

The Littlest Gaslands

Picked up a batch of the "Mad Ron" road warrior vehicles from Irregular Miniatures on a whim.  Just look at these tiny little knights of the road:

Still have to paint those motorcycles, and the big dang semi-trailer slash war-rig.  The good news is that terrain is already done.  I've got the little city all laid out and ready for some vehicular mayhem.  These are perfectly scaled to the terrain set-up that I've got for Riot!

The only issue that gives me pause is that the gauges I ordered are N-scale which maps to 18mm figures, and these little rugged adventurers are in 6mm scale.  Normally I'd be fine with this.  I use smaller scale figures all the time.  Most wargames use a very reduced ground-scale compared to the figure scale.  This should solve my biggest complaint with Gaslands - that even in sixth gear the cars only move about four carlengths per turn.  The speeds just don't feel right when you watch live plays, and don't get me started on the weapon ranges.

I'm also glad to make it harder to ram.  Tagging a vehicle that is actively dodging you at full speed isn't as easy as most rule-sets make it out to be.  This should reduce the numbers of collisions and make the game more about the racing and shooting and less about trying to notch that one big RAM attack.

But there are other considerations here, for sure.  I just don't know what they are, and won't until I get some lead on the table.

Stay tuned!  

In the meantime, enjoy some additional eye candy:

My cars are painted in considerably more day-glo colors than most of what you see on the YouTube reports.  Everyone favors a black matte coat, a bit of gray and metal and rust drybrushing, and then they call it done.  With vehicles this size, I don't have the luxury of a monochrome schema.    You need those colors to help identify the cars at a distance.

Also, it's just a lot more fun to play with colors.

Not sure you can see it, but that bike on the right is carrying three guys and a big-ol' cannon.

It's a Riot!

 Matt Hartley's Riot!  Revolting People from Watt Tyler to Watts is an interesting wargame.  It's a truly fourth-generational game in which mobs of outgunned citizens try to effect change against a far better armed, but outnumbered, army of the ruling class.

Enjoy some eye candy while I pontificate.  Alert readers will notice that I've put a grid over the tops of these buildings.  In Riot! the mobs can loot and burn structures, but each counter only affects one square inch at a time.  Mine are a little less regular than the rules stipulate, but they'll work just fine.

Definitely a beer-and-pretzels game, it uses a simple AI to maneuver the rioters about, and the player tries to limit the damage with his small number of security forces.  The first check on the player is an AP roll of 1d6, each pip of which allows one unit to move or attack.  That makes it harder to split your forces because it limits how many stands you'll be able to use from turn to turn.

Combat is a simple 2d6 roll off for each matched pair of bases, with a few modifiers for supporting units or flank attacks on the mob or for weapons hot.  It's quick and dirty, and the cops don't have nearly the advantage one might expect.

It turns out the better tactic for cops is to simply stand off and try to herd the mobs away from their targets.  You can exert some control over the AI - or at least influence outcomes - by staying close to a mob, but not directly engaging unless you really have to.

Which leads to a very fluid game, and from all I've seen on TV these days, pretty well mimics the ebb and flow of protests in the streets.

More to the point, the game is a lot of fun, and can provide some insights into a warfare of a very different sort.

Halfling Upgrade, Livestock, and More

 Just added some odds and ends to the 15mm fantasy toolbox.  These are all from Irregular Miniatures. Let us start with some wildlife and a hapless porter making 1gp a day hauling too much gear down into dank holes filled with monsters.

A bit of food and somebody to enjoy it.

And something for the pot.  Scenics or goals, a bit of livestock will be a nice addition to the table.

And here's a great comparison shot of my old halflings on the right.  Really just 6mm heroes.  The 15mm fat boys on the left are so much more obviously Proudfeet - I mean, what kind of halfling wears boots?

Civic Improvements

It's the little things.  A little bit of Saturday evening traffic, a little bit of grass, a few scattered bits of terrain, and suddenly you're looking at a real city.

The Irregular Miniatures 6mm vehicle pack is a perfect start to things, and includes the entire front line shown above.  I think it comes with a total of ten figures, but given that I ordered a full pack alongside a bunch of other figures, I honestly can't sort out what came with what pack.  The two News Vans might have come with the riot pack, or might have come with the vehicle pack.

Where ever you see green grass in this shot, I first glued down a fine beach sand, painted it brown and dry-brushed a light tan.  Originally I had thought to make a hill out of the park, the better to add a bit of height to the city, but more height would have precluded easy storage, so it stays a nice little funnel for protesters.  The bases that attack that statue have room to work, but they can get bottled up pretty quick in there, so they'll need another mob running interference.

A couple of those buildings are only one story tall.  Do you think it is worth painting those roofs a darker gray or brown to break up the monotonous gray of the board?

Here's a close-up of the totally not 7-11 and Licker's Liquors.  You can see how the grass and earth gets a little choppy around the edges in some cases.  You can also see a little green trash can at the corner of the building on the left, and a red newspaper box in front of the store on the right.  No game effect, but just that little touch of scatter to liven things up.

City Construction

It's the little things.  With some doors and windows and signs painted onto the structures The City is really taking on a life of its own.

 A little ode to the bookshop that helped instill a love of gaming in ankle-biter me.

A smarter man than I would have pre-planned the traffic route through the parking lots and carved ramps up over the curbs.  But I'm not sure he would have had as much fun as me.

The whole place still looks a little gray even with some colorful paint on the walls.  Needs some greenery. Stay tuned...