Testing times

Testing times indeed. I got the rest of my Wofun boys edged and based yesterday so I thought I’d drag out Mr Callan’s rules and give them a quick run through before starting my follow on ECW campaign.

Since I’ve committed totally to hexon terrain these days I breezily decided to just convert the base width ranges and movement rates given in the rules to hexes, however, the way the foot units are depicted in them is in a long line which meant for me I’d have to spread a single regiment over two hexes.

Bunched up or spread out?

If I bunched them up like the bods on the left of the picture I could just play the rules as is, however if I deployed them over the two hexes, it would mean a few extra tweaks to make things work. I’m still undecided about which course to choose but I gamed the two hex version just to try it out and wasn’t unhappy with how things went. 

Fire combat was largely ineffective unless concentrated and at close range, while coming to push of pike seemed to be the way to force the issue to a speedy conclusion. The game is not counter heavy even with the “advanced rules”... I used a pistol counter to denote parliamentary horse ammo supply, (they get only 1 volley of pistol fire per game) and (since they are only allowed 2 charges per game) a “blown” marker to prevent horse from either side exceeding their allowance.

Being a solo player the “sort of” igougo turn sequence is not a problem...and by “sort of” I mean that sides dice to see who goes first in both fire and movement phases. 

The only real area of uncertainty and contention is in the movement / melee area, where (given the way the rules are written) if I moved into melee with an enemy unit as the first player in a turn to move, during his turn he could move out of melee and disengage before any fighting. My fix is to just pin units in place that have been attacked, but it would have been nice to have had that ironed out officially.

The number of units provided in this, the biggest Wofun offering, is sufficient overall, though I think a few more horse would be useful and I will undoubtedly use the Scottish and Irish regiments as proxy’s from time to time. 

For the forthcoming campaign I expect to have 7 units in a small army, 9 in a medium sized army and 11 in a large army.

Testing testing 123

Any thoughts on what looks best deployment wise (i.e. 1 hex or 2 for foot regiments) would be welcome!

With any luck I can start the campaign next week!

Tararr a bit, for now...(as we say in Brum) or Hwyl, as we say here in the PRoWW.

New projects and Wofun thoughts

For the first time in my gaming life, (and much to my surprise) I’ve found myself with several projects “on the go” and even a bonafide lead pile!

The greatly anticipated Wofun order arrived 2 weeks or so ago but I had a huge bout of buyers remorse over the cost and ignored them for a couple of days until I could get over myself. Purchasing the biggest set they do (for the ECW) I’d gone out on a limb and blown £220.00 for the set - only to find I’d been hit with an additional £50 import tax charge before they could be delivered. Ouch. To some that might not be an issue but for those of us retired folk doing a bit of minimum wage labour to fund our gaming hobby that’s a lot of hours on cheese corner I can tell you.

Anywhoo...since their unboxing I’ve been methodically punching them out of their Perspex backing, painting the shiny edges with Vallejo sepia ink and rebasing them on flocked / gravelled edge painted stands. The number of units contained in the set means that this has become a fairly lengthy (and still unfinished) process.

About a third of the force done so far!

The Wofun minis / flats seem to come in two main “styles” one of which is that illustrated by Peter Denis. His images are muted and the tones accurately reflect the general uniform hue’s of the period. They look sharp enough in 28mm (from what I’ve seen) but in 18mm a lot of the detail gets lost in the general “muddieness” of the periods predominant greys and browns - especially so I think when the clear edges (that allow a little light in behind the figure?) are removed as I’ve done. Perhaps we have become too fixated on making our smaller scale mini’s “pop” when viewed from tabletop distance, I don’t know.

Slightly “muddy” mounted dragoon’s

So, are they good value for money? The answer depends on your requirements really. In a traumatic clearing out the barn exercise a few years ago, my mostly complete 15mm Peter Pig ECW army was mistakenly thrown away by well meaning helpers (I’ll be back in therapy for a few weeks again, having just recalled it) so for me the Wofun flats were an instant, just add water, sort of replacement. I also have a grandson who I hope to involve in the hobby and who needs figures he can handle without Grampa having a stroke over broken pikes etc.

Wiser heads like Peter over at a grid based gaming went for the paper flats by the same illustrator which can of course be scaled up and down with a photocopier and an army of any size produced from just the one book purchase. In any weighing up of worth it’s clear to see that £10.99 for the paperboys re sizeable unlimited production potential is hard to match against my £270.00 one off purchase.

I think it’s important at this juncture to point out that contrary to the marketing blurb this is not a cheap introduction into a period you might otherwise not have considered gaming and though I like the flats themselves they don’t look right to me when added as a supplement to an existing 3D force. 

On the plus side the Andy Callan rules that came with the set were really nice. Simple in execution where needed (which I like) but covering all of the nuances like volley fire, pike stands, limited pistol ammo for horse, blown nags etc etc. I’m not sure if they are totally new since Mr Callan has a fairly extensive back catalogue, but they would certainly stand separate publishing in my view. I was so impressed that I shall be using them for the tactical battles in my forthcoming ECW campaign.

The need to get my Wofun bods finished and thus kick off the aforementioned campaign has meant that two other projects have temporarily been put on the back burner.

One is the early Tudor naval campaign against France and Scotland, which has recently suffered from model availability and negative scale creep...

My proxy for the 1512 “Cordeliere” accompanied by a couple of galeasses, and caravels. 18mm pike lads are for size comparison. TD 1:2400

...and the other is project “X” which will scratch an itch of mine but be uniformly loathed by regular readers.

Project “X”

Tararr a bit for now.