Forward Planning

So there haven't been any posts for the last few weeks...no particular reason, just life, work and tiredness getting in the way of blogging again.

What have I been up to?  Well... I played an excellent Chain of Command game down at Guildford against Keith which proved great fun as always.  I've also had the chance to try out Eric the Shed's new (and huge!) Napoleonic collection in a great Black Powder game last week.  There's a good write up here on Eric's Shed Wars blog... LINK

As you'll see I didn't exactly cover myself in glory!  My French cavalry brigades broke themselves against their British counterparts...I suppose there was a little pleasure as we also broke the enemy brigade and they were heavier cavalry than my Chasseurs.  I often find in BP games that the cavalry tend to wipe each other out and prove pretty ineffectual: maybe I'm missing something but they always seem very fragile and unable to stand up to much.  My infantry command was overrun by a rampaging bunch of Highlanders... a combination of good playing by my opponent Rolf and some rubbish morale dice throwing on my part.   Great fun though and it was great to see the result of all the work that Eric has put in over the year in getting a massive amount of figures organised, painted and based.

I failed to get to Colours last month as I was up in Glasgow, but I'm hoping to make it to SELWG in a couple of weeks...it's the show that's closest to home and is usually good fun.  Although there's really nothing I should be buying, I've been giving some thoughts to my existing armies.  I really don't want to start a new project (I say that...I am still mulling over a couple of ideas...) but I have quite a few armies that need a bit of beefing up. I've noticed that I seem to work hard to get a project to the point where I can get it onto the table and play a game and then stop adding more variety to it.  For example I have enough 28mm Napoleonics to put on a decent Sharp Practice game but only just.  It does mean that every time I dig them out I have little choice of what to field and games end up feeling too similar.

So my plan for SELWG and beyond is to concentrate on expanding some of the armies I already have and I've started working through a list.  It's a bit like the kind of planning that everyone seems to blog about in January...I've just started early!  So what's on the list...

Napoleonics...as described above I'm a bit limited in what I can field so I really could do with adding a bit more infantry but definitely some cavalry.

Spanish Civil War... my SCW armies have languished for some time and I'm thinking of getting them back out for Chain of Command but they could do with a few additions.  They don't need a huge amount added but some extra artillery and armoured cars would be useful.

Modern...I have 2 Modern projects.  My 15mm Afghanistan stuff could do with more vehicles and extra insurgents and my long-neglected 1:300 80s armies could definitely do with some attention

Ronin:  I have a couple of warbands for the excellent Ronin skirmish rules but again just need to add a bit more depth.  I also need to add more buildings for this.  A lot of my buildings get used in a variety of theatres but you cant really get away with that in Japan where the terrain gives so much of the flavour

Congo: again I have enough for a reasonable game but could do with more varied troop types and terrain

Hopefully by adding little to each of these I'll have much more flexibility and will be tempted to actually get some of the neglected armies out of the their boxes.  Of course that still leaves the very neglected projects that haven't really been started and the new shiny ones that are tempting me despite the big list of stuff that I should be doing!  Lets face it, I'm bound to come back from SELWG with something that didn't figure on the list at all!!!