Wednesday 8 July 2020

Tempted by Historicals

Hi!

I've got a day off tomorrow and had hoped to go out with the car now that the Lockdown has begun easing here in Scotland but it's currently in the garage for repair which is a bit annoying.

Instead, I've been enthusing on some historical miniatures.

Over the last 25 or so years, I've collected and painted loads of sci-fi and fantasy miniatures but only a handful of historicals and those have mostly been converted into sci-fi or fantasy settings rather than for historical gaming.

Recently I've got to thinking that I'd like to dip my toe in the waters and picked up Pikeman's Lament, Rebels and Patriots and Lion Rampant which seem to be fun rulesets that concentrate more on an enjoyable gaming experience than super realistic gaming.


I'm also interested in some of Peter Pigs rulesets as they seem rather quirky and interesting too and I do have a real love for the Peter Pig figures too!



The quandary is which era do I want to go for? There's literally a ton of options and I must admit that I'm conflicted with what to try out! I love reading history books and historical fiction but haven't really thought about what setting I want to explore.

The best thing about the rulesets I've mentioned is that they don't require huge amounts of space, with games ranging from 2'x3', 3'x3' or 5'x3' which is doable in the space I have and creating even fairly large forces in 15mm scale isn't prohibitively expensive.


I'll need to have a think about what I'm going to do and if it's possible to start small and build up a decent sized force over the course of a period of months and see what I can come up with as it would make for an interesting project for something I've never tried before.


I'm thinking of starting with one of the Osprey games selection as the figure requirements are lower and if things go well, trying to expand towards one of the Peter Pig rules and seeing how things go.

As usual I'll no doubt flit from this to any number of other projects but I do hope to make a bit of a go of it amongst my other shenanigans and I hope to use the opportunity to learn some more history while I'm at it!

In the meantime, All the best!

10 comments:

  1. Don't forget Ronin. A good game. You can actually game with fewer figures than stated of course

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    1. I'd forgotten about Ronin!

      I do have a copy of it and may have to rummage it out to have a peruse.

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  2. No. Please no.

    I get the appeal (lately my boardgaming purchases lean to WWII indeed) but hell, everytime some historical-head says me "these who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it" and such I respond "those who don't dare to dream have no future".

    If people never dreamed of flying, submarines and space travel who knows it would be a reality in modern times.

    Really had bitter experiences with historical gamers, as pretending that stomping aliens with a robot is dumb yet the axis winning (wich didn't happen AFAIK) is ultra fine.

    Anyhow. Always been in this for the fun, the colors... and most ain't found in that ranges of games. In recent years we got the Osprey books and flames of war, bolt action... Still missing the colours.

    Might give Of god's god mortals a try tho. You know, the one having Ra and Anubis with a worshipping army of ancient Egyptians fighting Thor and Heimdall alongside with Norse raiders and such...

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    1. I'd actually been pondering Of Gods and Mortals but sculpting my own stuff for them in a very stylised fashion kind of like the Lewis Chessmen for the Vikings.

      I get your point with the crotchety gamers though. As I mentioned in a previous post I've been a solo gamer for over a decade as the rules lawyers, power gamers or killjoys I've encountered sucked all the fun out of playing with toy soldiers!

      I do have a bit of an ulterior motive with the temptation with historicals as I want to try incorporating historical style forces into my own settings. Imagine a block of pikemen facing a Fae host or a bunch of ravening giants or a Pirates of the Caribbean games...

      The drabness of WW2 gaming with lots of brown and grey doesn't appeal to me much I have to admit but the Spanish Civil War has some interesting units and its a fascinating, if heartbreaking subject to read about.

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  3. Go for it, I play alot of historical games along side my Sci-fi and Fan outputs. I don't worry too much about being historically accurate but do enjoy abit of web surfing to get close without draining any fun out of it.

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  4. I feel you.

    ...for obvious reasons the Spanish Civil War is something I try to stay away the further the better. You know here is known as just 'the civil war' after all 😅

    The drabness, my dreaded enemy. Still, the setting works wonders if you include the third w. Weird WWI and WWII work for me as the drabness really contrast heavily with limegreen ethereal smokes, reddish glows out of hell and colorful mutants.

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  5. You can still have a little bit of non-historical wimsy as well if you go the imagination rout.

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    1. Indeed!

      I'm pondering a bit of Industrial Fantasy at the moment and will need to have a bit of a think about how I'm going to get it to work!

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  6. I kind of like those semi historical games, where there's a twist. For example, I recently came across a Napoleonic looking game, but in the land of Oz and with fantasy elements.
    The thing I like the least about historical games is the lack of freedom when it comes to painting, I really don't like painting uniforms.
    And then there's the reasons Javi already mentioned.

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    1. I did spot the OZ stuff a while back and quite liked the look of it!

      I do have my Flintloque stuff that has a bit of historical stuff but the fantastic additions so maybe I should look at it!

      I must admit that following the return to work, I'm having a bit of a slump so am keen to try out something a bit different to get the hobbying going again!

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