25mm ACW

Over the years I have amassed a fairly large 25mm American Civil War collection which has been in need of a project. Well the collection is fairly large it has some gaping holes; notably no infantry command figures, no dismounted cavalry, and no artillerists; which make the collection fairly useless. I always figured once I found a project I wanted to do I would add the needed figures to my collection.

While I am not sure what the impetus is, must be a new movie or something that I don’t know about, whatever the cause a couple of groups in the Twin Cities are trying to get 25mm ACW gaming going.

Normally I think new projects and ideas are a good thing. I have unfortunately ended up in the crosshairs of the discussions since I have a few figures for the period. [insert joke about megalomania and the word few].

In times past I have listened to dozens of ideas on projects and none really have caught my fancy. So when two new plans were presented I listened. After listening I really don’t have much interest in what either group is doing, hell I normally don’t have much interest in the period. After listening to these two competing plans I think if one groups’ plans came to fruition it might set back 25mm ACW gaming for a while, considering there was almost no interest before. The other group well if they have a plan I am not sure whether Pinky or the Brain came up with it. So you might hear my name taken in vain more often than usual as I rebuffed both groups. Hell for once I tried to stay out of the middle.

At the same time the other two groups are planning to take over the world, unfortunately for me, Old Glory has decided to recast their ACW line (Napoleonics and AWI are next) so being I have some holes in my collection I have to defecate or get off the pot. Okay so I don’t own any Infantry Command Figures or Artillerists and being the new castings don’t match the old castings requiring that I have to buy the old castings while I still can. All said I had to come up with a plan for my figures.

So I pulled 120 Infantry and a couple other figures out to be my two BaB forces. Both choices were based on what figures I had that I can’t use for other projects; the union will be 2nd Wisconsin and the confederate the Louisiana Zouaves (with Straw hat). Like I said decision based upon what figures I had. As Jim Smiley, amongst others, already has a pretty good collection of BaB forces these aren’t high on my “to paint” priority list, maybe 198th and 199th respectfully. And I truly wish those numbers weren’t more than a slight exaggerations on the number of projects I got going.

I’m going to use the rest of the collection, plus what I need to buy, for a “Fire and Fury” project. I know not the most glamorous choice, but at least in comparison to “Rebel Yell” and “Rally Round the Flag v2” a far more playable choice and I already own a huge 15mm collections organized at 1:33 makes the choice a lot easier.

I realize of course this is not in exact harmony with a couple of other projects people are working on. The fact my decision isn’t in harmony with other projects was very much considered before it was made. I’ll be honest with my reasoning; I’m not very interested in a skirmish set of rules (yes I did pull out 120 figures for BaB because I know other people already have this painted up) and a Tactical Game would take way to much space to be playable if the game was playable at all.