Joy of Six - Warning Orders July 17th

I went over to Lee's last night so we could reorganise the units we will need in just over three weeks time for Joy of Six. Many of you will remember that last year we put on Project Waterloo that saw every battalion, battery and cavalry regiment that saw action up to about 6pm on the table. You can find the report here. Our plan not to do anything this year as we could not get an ancients game sorted in time was changed when Lee talked himself er, US into putting on a game. Given our choices we decided on using a quarter of the boards (six foot by four) and refight the attack on Hougoumont. 

Action from last years attack.

This will make use of the excellent Leven Miniatures building set and trees as well as a rather small proportion of our troops. I will be fielding about 35 units to Lee's allied 20 odd. However in a change to last years move and talk display rather than actual game we should have time to actually play the game as well so our finished rules will finally get a public outing. Lee and The Boy will be doing most of the playing whilst I will try and cause upset by talking to anyone foolish enough to get close. Last year we and my mate Matt's bunch were the big games so it's nice to take a back seat this year.

Looking forward to meeting lots of you there though so hope plenty turn up. I still need to get my order into Leven as they have released a bunch of new buildings that are rather tasty.

Post setting up the game and sorting out a few wrinkles we sat down to discuss games and new projects etc and whilst most of the chat went the way I expected I was in for a few surprise twists.

It can not be a surprise to anyone that getting a few games of Black Powder SYW games under our belts as soon as possible was at the top of the list. Look for a game in the next two weeks with a mix of painted and primed figs as we both battle towards a respectable force. I like BP so it will be good if we hit it off. If not then it's off to Osprey but lets wait and see.

Lee now is almost done with Napoleonic's. OK what I mean is that Lee now has almost all Nations in 6mm Napoleonic's and his painter has been churning out figures at such a rate he has thrown some 6mm Confederates at him to pad out the returns to keep from quite finishing his collection. Not that he has the Prussians as I have enough for the whole 100 days campaign. I am so relieved we went 6mm. The only question now is which battles to go to first. We can almost fight any battle from the period at Battalion level though we still need to do some work for a few of the really big or exotic ones (such as Egypt) so between SYW battles we will get a few of these going again.

Ancients, Lee has a few good armies in 15mm that have not graced the table in a couple of years whilst I have played Matt a bunch of times, mostly with my Persians. Hail Caesar will be the rules with Lee and myself happy to move away from Field of Glory. Not that HC is a lock, I just have a fair bit of experience of them with Matt and Kev's Cabin.

Give me a few months and I will have enough Persians in 6mm to give my Macedonians something to chew on. Lee is also extending his 6mm Romans so we can start work on our 6mm Ancients rules as well.

Lee also wants to get on with his Saxon's for Saga and given I have enough figures for about fifteen points we can get a game or two of this going to give him reason to get going.

The biggest surprise is how far Rapid Fire has fallen down the list. Lee continues to buy out the world reserve in figures and vehicles etc but his lust to play has dropped off for now. Of course that means nothing, as soon as we meet up next time he will be pushing for a game of this. 

Until a few months ago we were managing a game at worst every other week but his work has been really busy and real life industries had kicked in but as half the battle is organisation and habit we are booking game time again ahead of time and you can bet within the next two to three months all of the above will have been played at least once.