Prepping for Charge!

So... yeah, not much accomplished this month either, though I'm slowly plugging away at a bunch of things. I'm working my way thru about three books at the moment, but Alan of Tradgardland posted a bit about the famous Battle of Blasthof Bridge a couple weeks ago that made me eager to play Charge! again. I've been doing three things in relation to it lately:

• Obtaining a Charge! QRS from the VWC group (also an interesting Little Wars-esque ruleset by Stuart Asquith called Big Wars);
• Reading Fire and Stone by Christopher Duffy, which includes a brief chapter of siege rules based on Charge!;
• Naming and labeling my copious 18mm Wofun 18th-century units according to the Athena version of the rules.

What will I do with these? At this point, I'm thinking of running a scenario from Charles S. Grant's Refighting History volume 8 - the action of Eyesbach in January 1760. This is quite a small (and unbalanced) action - one battalion of French dragoons vs. small battalions of Highlanders and Prussian horse. It means I don't need too many units ready to go, although the table is heavily forested and I haven't enough trees to fill it yet.

From Fire and Stone I learned:

• "Chevaux de Frise" literally means "frizzy horse". Not sure where the horse comes in, but the chevaux de frise does look like a fuzzy caterpillar!
• The meme that a good engineer could calculate how quickly a siege would end is incorrect - it comes from Vauban's calculation of how long one of his fortresses could hold out, so is precisely the opposite!
• The actual shape and function of a "petard."
• A "saucisson" is a sausage-shaped canvas powder bag. That explains why it's also the name of some types of salami.

I've also discovered, incidentally, that pretty much anything by Duffy is an enjoyable read, even if it's on a topic I know nothing about or that doesn't normally interest me.

I've been messing about with my new labelmaker and selecting unit names, mostly drawn from my favorite historical fantasy series Tales of the Branion Realm, by Fiona Patton. This is set in an alternate medieval Britain, and focuses on royalty and nobility, so there are absolute tons of alternate names for various counties, cities and countries, many of which correspond to real ones. There's plenty of inspiration for the British and French units in my collection, though much less for the unexplored countries on the outer edges of the map - which include the German, Dutch and Scandinavian types. 

Names so far:

British side:

• Cailein Highlanders
• Yorbourne and Heronfort Dragoons
• Yorbourne Grenadiers
• Bricklin Foresters
• Werrickshire, Essendale and Royal Kempston Regiments
• Forness and Halmouth Batteries
• Fenland Guard

French side:

• Roland and Kormandeaux Regiments
• Duglas, Lindie, Croser, Armistone and Greyam Clans
• Anvre and Dunley Batteries
• Royal Bruyere

From other fictional countries:

• Fenwick and Mountjoy Legions, from The Mouse That Roared
• McLain and MacArdry Clans, from Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series.

I'm uncertain about Prussian or Austrian units - Bachiem Mercenaries doesn't cut it, and I don't just want to number them, other than ones I have extra of (so 1st and 2nd battalions). I have a couple "converged grenadier" units - there weren't enough of any one uniform to make a four-base unit. The Prussians will be on Britain's side, the Austrians on France's. I may delve into the Warhammer Empire faction for them (some colors even match - Middenheim for a blue-and-white uniform, Talabheim for red-and-white, Reikland for pure white). The Irish Brigade are the originals - Roth, Dillon and Bulkeley - as are most of the French line regiments I've got and a green Fischer's Legion from the AWI collection:

It's not much, but it's progress. Will I play and record a game this weekend? Time will tell...

Thanks for reading.