More miscellaneous and reading

Blogging has slowed way down lately. This is mostly because of work, which is increasingly busy and under construction. (I stayed two hours late yesterday because we couldn't close a new door, much less lock it.) Haven't gamed much at home lately.

However, I've just been switched from Children's to Adult/Teen Librarian at work, which might be handy, as the teens are actually actively interested in tabletop gaming. I hope to start a weekly tabletop period soon, which will be mostly roleplaying but with the chance of slipping in other things on occasion. We tried a round of the storytelling card game Once Upon a Time last week, which was hilarious. It's a fine icebreaker, and one of those games that leads to outsiders hearing weird out-of-context statements. The oddest one was where we ended up setting the story in a town populated entirely by stepmothers. A few others I hope to use are Fluxx, Munchkin and Apples to Apples - the last easy enough for young children.

I've been reading a lot, of course, and as usual have been influenced towards particular gaming periods in the process. For example, I read Wiley Sword's The Confederacy's Last Hurrah, about Hood's Tennessee campaign in late 1864, and am working on Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Civil War. That led to some ACW18 Paperboys construction - a few bases of Confederates and a few more of black troops. The Rebels will be opposed to my Glory:1861 force, and both groups will (she said, tentatively) take part in a wargame demo next week at work. I am thinking of running the Sawmill Village scenario again, which at this point will only require a couple cannon bases to ready.

I couldn't resist adding these to the display. Might
read the right-hand book later.

I was hoping to run Olustee this month instead, as a battle during February 1864 (same month as Black History Month) featuring black troops, and set in Florida, our own state. Not going to happen at this rate, if only because my boss would prefer me to plan, and more importantly promote, events well ahead of time. Another possibility for March is Hampton Roads, as I have 3D prints of Monitor and Merrimac and a simple ruleset that has worked well with kids before, and it's the 160th anniversary of the battle.

The Confederacy's Last Hurrah, while generally good and packed with first-hand reminisces of the battles of Nashville and Franklin, is let down a bit by a lack of maps. It's won some awards, though, and I may look for more of the author's work.

Battle Tactics of the Civil War is something I'd heard a lot about, as Griffith had a controversial thought about the war and its historiography - that it wasn't the first modern war and rifles didn't really change the equation as much as people think. His reasoning is that the rifles of the time were not used at such range and accuracy as would have caused greater casualties with Napoleonic tactics, but rather that the armies were poorly trained in actual tactics so that, coupled with the terrain, they tended to fight at very close ranges where accuracy and range weren't that important. Also doesn't have much in the way of illustrations, which is disappointing as I've heard there's a version with Peter Dennis as illustrator. Which got me making more Paperboys whilst reading. And I've just ordered a discounted copy of the ACW Epic Black Powder set from Warlord Games. Not sure that was a good idea, but at least I don't intend to paint it!

The other period I've been reading up on and thinking about is the 18th century. I recently finished Christopher Duffy's epic two-volume history of the Austrian Army in the Seven Years War. Dense but readable, an excellent history and even uses model soldiers in some of the photographs (to demonstrate formations) - I wonder where he got a thousand little musketeers. I ended up making a few of my own. Unfortunately, Paperboys in PDF are the devil to resize. I have access to several printers, and none of them have the same settings, so printing is always an experiment. The originals are A4, my paper is 8.5x11 inches, sometimes the printer resizes this to fit the page automatically and sometimes it doesn't. This would be okay if I was alright with 25-28mm figures, but since discovering 18mms I haven't really looked back. So resizing the originals which already were coming out wrong... I am on the verge of ordering the Wofun 18mm plexis of Dennis' 7-Year-War collection.

These chaps ended up on 25mm-wide bases;
I was aiming for 30mm.

At least I wouldn't buy the entire large, varied collection - I do have a battle in mind. The Leuthen scenario from Junior General would be my go-to, and since each regiment would be just three bases in size and I'd get twelve bases per 14.50 Euro in 18mm, this seems achievable. I'm hoping I could fit it in on my small table by reducing the ranges and moves, and the figures would still match, Imagi-nation-wise, with the rest of my 18th-century 18mms.

So that's what I've been up to in the last few weeks. Hoping for a couple 3x3 Portable Wargames tomorrow out in the sunlight!