Thanks to the lighter-weight dressing that I’m now wearing, I can get up to my toy/wargame room and home office without too much trouble. As a result, I’ve been able to sort out the mess I left on my work table when I went into hospital in December and to have a look at the various collections that I have.
The latter took me some time, and at the end I was left wondering what project I ought to work on next. My Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War project had stalled in the run up to my operation, and will require quite a lot of work to get to the next stage. I also realised that I still have quite a substantial number of 25/28mm pre-painted Del Prado Napoleonic figures to renovate, varnish, and base ... and that I have several small 15mm late nineteenth/early twentieth century armies that need to be based (or rebased) so that I can use them with my PORTABLE WARGAME rules.
As well as the above, I also rediscovered the warships and merchant ships I built when I was play-testing the pre-dreadnought rules for my GRIDDED NAVAL WARGAME book. Some of the models have suffered minor damage whilst in storage, but it would not take much effort to repair them.
So what should I do next? (This is a rhetorical question, by the way!) I’m very tempted to see if there is some way to combine my pre-dreadnought ship model and 15mm figure collections into a single imagi-nations project. This would be a relatively small-scale project that I could easily breakdown into bite sized ‘chunks’, and would fit in nicely with my gradual recovery from surgery.
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Glad to hear your getting a bit better and thinking of the next project .
ReplyDeleteThe Good Soldier Svjek,
DeleteIt’s still a bit ‘two steps forward, one step back’, but being able to think seriously about my next project has helped to lift my spirits.
All the best,
Bob
Imagi-Nations is the way to go...imho.
ReplyDeleteI've been thoroughly involved in my own project, just finishing up a solo "bot" that will allow me to play as the defender facing an aggressor nation. I've some rules to write and a few tables to tweak, but it works to my satisfaction. Next up, the bot that controls a defender against my own attacking nation.
I share this because much of my own efforts have been inspired by long reading of your posts over the years. You've had a huge impact on my perspective of wargames and wargaming.
Justin Penwith,
DeleteI’ve been playing around with imagi-nations since I was a child, and although I love historical wargaming, I adore imagi-nation wargaming, and draw great inspiration from what other wargamers do.
Your ‘bot’ sounds very interesting. Are you going to make it available to other wargamers? I’m sure that lots of other wargamers would be more than a little interested in something like this.
Thank you for your kind words. I’m pleased and just a bit humbled by what you wrote.
All the best,
Bob
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI was first turned off by the idea of Imagi-Nation wargaming, not that it was bad, but my thought was "history!" as wargaming, but over the years of reading various books and articles, and then reinforced by your own imagi-nation posts, I came to realize that "historical wargaming" is not what we'd been doing over the decades, but more of a kind of playing at history. After reading about yet another re-fight of Gettysburg, I felt that my perception had been mistaken all along.
Yes, I have recently blogged a bit about the bot, showing the process of my development and thought along the way. I think I have most of the one part nailed down, now, with just a couple of additions to post about, probably by or over this weekend.
Once I have a chance to write the actual "rules" that explain the use of the bot, I'll be posting that as well. I've friends in California who are going to test them out, starting next week, so I've got a deadline to meet.
Everything I wrote is true. I think we are all influenced by others in the gaming hobby, you just happen to be one who has done so for me.
Justin Penwith,
DeleteInterestingly, in order to ‘play at history’, you need to know quite a lot about history. Anyone who tries to create imagi-nations that don’t feel historically accurate, is doomed to fail. Even D&D players draw on the imagined histories written by people like J R R Tolkien for their inspiration and shared reality.
Even ‘proper’ refights of original battles become fictionalised versions of those battles as soon as the first moves are made and dice are thrown. I have yet to see a refight that actually reproduced the events and results of the original battle.
I follow your blog via Feedly (and it is featured in my Favourite Blogs sidebar), and I rather like your point-to-point campaign map. I’ve experimented with similar maps, but without a great deal of success, but seeing what you’ve done has convinced me to give them another go.
Good luck with your project, which I will continue to follow with great interest.
All the best,
Bob
Bob,
DeleteThank you for your comments. Just to be clear, the map I used in the posted example is not my creation, but I used it as it best shows how the bot functions, until I can finally get my map finished. My map travails have been long and frustrating as I had two versions completed, but a harddrive failure wiped them out.
For my campaign, point to point works best, at the strategic level. My tactical maps were actually inspired by the Portable Wargame, which I will be posting about probably in March.
Justin Penwith,
DeleteI should have written ‘I rather like the point-to-point campaign map you have used’ rather than ‘I rather like your point-to-point campaign map’. I did create one for the Waterloo campaign, but never actually used it, although I did feature it in one of my books.
A combination of a point-to-point strategic map coupled with tactical maps created using my terrain generator makes a lot of sense.
All the best,
Bob
Great to hear you're a bit more mobile now bob, thus allowing some form of gaming related activity. Nowadays I try not to seat to much about what I 'should' be playing, rather I go with what takes my fancy as and when time allows.
ReplyDeleteSteve J.,
DeleteAlthough there is still some way before I am fully recovered, I am hoping that just being able to push a few toy soldiers around on a tabletop will help to improve my morale no end ... and the thought of having a project to work on should be an even bigger boost.
All the best,
Bob
Spoilt for choice .. just start one and see which blossom blooms ;) Good to hear that the recovery is continuing apace ;)
ReplyDeleteGeordie an Exile FoG,
DeleteI’m going to give the late nineteenth/early twentieth century basing/rebasing project a try first to see if ‘lights my fire’.
I’m still recovering slowly ... but I think that the end is finally in sight.
All the best,
Bob