The Raft Lookout

A couple of things have recently caught my eye.

First, Campaign Game Miniatures have released two new 18mm napoleonic figure sets. The first is a party of soldiers with supplies, the other one is a Vivandière with a pack mule.

I’m especially happy about the second one – Vivandières played an important role in the French army and women in similar functions (official or unofficial) could be found in many other napoleonic armies. The models look very nice and clean. I will certainly get a set of each. Dermot has already announced that more stuff will come for the “camp and supplies” section of his range. As I’m mainly playing skirmish games, I can never have enough of such things, so I’m really looking forward to the new releases.

TooFatLardies have announced a new set of rules: What a Cowboy! The name already suggests that the game’s DNA is derived from What a Tanker!, a game I like very much (even though I’m not interested in tanks). If you follow the Lardies on social media, you will have seen some of their numerous test games. The rules will be out by the end of February. I will certainly get those, not only because I like the basic mechanisms, but also because I already have figures I can use, namely my Mexican Revolution collection.

Virago also has a long-time plan for a Wild West project (and some figures stashed away), so you can expect reports of shoot-outs in the near future.

My Spanish Civil War naval project has triggered an new interest in the Spanish Civil War in general. So my curiosity was roused when I read about a new boardgame being published.

Land and Freedom: The Spanish Revolution and Civil War looks very promising, especially since it is a semi-cooperative game where all the players work together against the fascists. This is a good idea because first, who wants to play the fascists, and second, instead of depicting the anti-nationalist side as a coherent block, it allows to show the difficult cooperation between the different factions. It is published by Blue Panther and will be out by the end of January.

It’s Been a While…

… since I last published something on here. I can’t say there’s a special reason, I just seemed to have lacked the mojo to write. But I really intend to reinvigorate the blog, especially now that I have left Twitter (you can find me on Mastodon, though, at tbrand@mastodon.wssmagazine.com).

I actually played a great variety of games this year. After my foray into 6mm napoleonics, which petered out because I couldn’t find rules I was happy with (this might have changed recently, though), I was bitten by the naval bug. I started printing, building and painting 1/600 ACW ships and developed my own rule-set, which according to playtesters is actually fun. I had quite a number of games with several people, the highlight being the Battle of Memphis when my mate Stephan visited from Sweden.

I also had the traditional birthday game, where I invited my mates Virago, Sigur and Martin for a large game of Sharp Practice. The scenario was based on the historical raid on Little Washington, N.C., in 1862. It was great fun and I finally had the opportunity to use the ship I built ages ago!

The big event and the real highlight, however, was our traditional summer gaming event. This time, our very own “Bernie Orclestone” Virago pulled all the stops and presented us with an assortment of fantastic bolides in the form of various 28mm chariots. Sigur also threw in his collection and we had a chaotic, wild and fun racing game! Sigur also wrote a great report on the Grand Prix of Monte Chaoso: https://www.tabletopstories.net/language/en/2022/07/the-grand-prix-of-monte-chaoso/

In autumn, Sigur invited me to for a game with his impressive 30 Years War collection. We played the Battle of Herbsthausen:

I also branched out with the naval stuff. First I painted fleets for the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and started a campaign with K., then I became interested in the 20th and assembled fleets for the Spanish Civil War and for WW2.

So, a lot of very diverse projects, and it feels like this won’t change soon. At the moment, I have difficulties concentrating on one topic or period – Last week, I had a sudden urge to play ACW, so I invited Sigur for a game of Drums and Shakos Large Battles.

This is a napoleonic ruleset from the Ganesha Games stable which, with some modifications, works very well for the ACW. We both like it and it might be the answer to my search for rules to use with my 6mm napoleonic, so of course I got the urge to do something in this direction… At the same time, I want to continue with the naval stuff, as Virago is also very interested and has volunteered to paint 1/600 airplanes for a campaign set in the Mediterranean.

Of course I also played other games, but more on those in my end-of-the-year post. I really hope that I will be motivated to update the blog more often. Let’s keep fingers crossed!

I wish all of you Happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever you might celebrate! Enjoy the festivities!