For those that know me it is no surprise that I own a hundred or so painted 25mm ACW figures and have another seven hundred or so unpainted figures.
Over the years I have listened to dozens of proposals on what to do with these figures. A couple of times I was excited enough to claim I was ready to roll. But alas the figures are still unmounted and no game system been chosen.
The problem started five years ago when I was offered a large number of Old Glory 25 ACW figures at a large discount. As the ACW is far from my favorite period and I already owned a large number of Confederates in 15mm I Should have said no, but I didn’t. A great deal and I bought 45lbs of unpainted lead.
To me the problem is more along the lines of I am not really sure what I want to do with these figures. I don’t want to duplicate what I have in 15mm, which is the most of the Army of Northern Virginia at 1:30 but there is little if anything that excites me.
There are at least four groups in the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota playing variants of “Brother against Brother”, a pseudo skirmish level game. While I have a passing interest in BaB, as it is called in many circles, these variants really leave me cold and uninterested. I have thought about basing my figures up and just running a couple of games closer to the rules as published than the other groups but I am not sure I want to deal with that headache.
There are a couple of groups looking at the British Rules “Guns at Gettysburg” a variant of General de’Brigade. Again I have a passing interest but there are a couple of hurdles to get over: the game is set at 1:20 which creates a scale problem and also requires the game to use a non-traditional ACW base (four figures on base in a 2x2 formation). The game has a nice look but over the years the more I have played GdB and its variants the less impressed I am with the core rules. They just missed something in the core rules I can’t quite put my finger on making my gut rumble as I play.
There is a group interested in doing “Rally Round the Flag”, an old standby which got lots of playing in the late eighties in 15mm. The problem is the rules are greatly outdated, being written in mid 1970’s and modern research and writings indicate that a number of the rules mechanisms not necessarily as accurate as once thought. There is a new edition of the rules available but they were meet with a lot of no way in heck am I playing those attitude.
I have suggested playing “Fire and Fury” which when suggested received the least amount of negativity. Here the problem is more along the lines of I really hate the Napoleonic Version of “Fire and Fury” called “Age of Eagles” and suddenly I find myself putting that same dislike into the original game, even though the reasons for my dislike of AoE have nothing to do with BOFF (Basic Original Fire and Fury).
So I am left with a Hundred Painted Figures and really no clue what I should be doing with them.
A suggestion that unfortunately has gotten some traction with me lately is writing my own rules and pissing off all the commercially available rules.
What do you think?
Over the years I have listened to dozens of proposals on what to do with these figures. A couple of times I was excited enough to claim I was ready to roll. But alas the figures are still unmounted and no game system been chosen.
The problem started five years ago when I was offered a large number of Old Glory 25 ACW figures at a large discount. As the ACW is far from my favorite period and I already owned a large number of Confederates in 15mm I Should have said no, but I didn’t. A great deal and I bought 45lbs of unpainted lead.
To me the problem is more along the lines of I am not really sure what I want to do with these figures. I don’t want to duplicate what I have in 15mm, which is the most of the Army of Northern Virginia at 1:30 but there is little if anything that excites me.
There are at least four groups in the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota playing variants of “Brother against Brother”, a pseudo skirmish level game. While I have a passing interest in BaB, as it is called in many circles, these variants really leave me cold and uninterested. I have thought about basing my figures up and just running a couple of games closer to the rules as published than the other groups but I am not sure I want to deal with that headache.
There are a couple of groups looking at the British Rules “Guns at Gettysburg” a variant of General de’Brigade. Again I have a passing interest but there are a couple of hurdles to get over: the game is set at 1:20 which creates a scale problem and also requires the game to use a non-traditional ACW base (four figures on base in a 2x2 formation). The game has a nice look but over the years the more I have played GdB and its variants the less impressed I am with the core rules. They just missed something in the core rules I can’t quite put my finger on making my gut rumble as I play.
There is a group interested in doing “Rally Round the Flag”, an old standby which got lots of playing in the late eighties in 15mm. The problem is the rules are greatly outdated, being written in mid 1970’s and modern research and writings indicate that a number of the rules mechanisms not necessarily as accurate as once thought. There is a new edition of the rules available but they were meet with a lot of no way in heck am I playing those attitude.
I have suggested playing “Fire and Fury” which when suggested received the least amount of negativity. Here the problem is more along the lines of I really hate the Napoleonic Version of “Fire and Fury” called “Age of Eagles” and suddenly I find myself putting that same dislike into the original game, even though the reasons for my dislike of AoE have nothing to do with BOFF (Basic Original Fire and Fury).
So I am left with a Hundred Painted Figures and really no clue what I should be doing with them.
A suggestion that unfortunately has gotten some traction with me lately is writing my own rules and pissing off all the commercially available rules.
What do you think?
5 comments:
The new rules named "Rally Round the Flag" are completely separate from the old Iron Brigade ones if I recall correctly, and the old sets are almost impossible to come by these days.
Fire & Fury is a fun set of rules, but each player will drive at least a few divisions if not a whole corps usually. I'd play it sometimes but would not want that to be the main set of rules I'd use.
I personally would look at a regimental set of rules of some sort. Guns at Bettysburg or the new "They Couldn't Hit an Elephant" by TFL come to mind.
I haven't played ACW regularly in decades. Would be fun to try that again.
Where the heck is Bettysburg?
"They Couldn't Hit an Elephant at this Distance" - tCHaEATd - I always laugh at that abbrevation. Looks to much like CHEAT to me....
Anyways I have to admit my disappointment in the number of private responses. I understand one respondant was having issues with logging in (Hiya Tom) but why 8 private responses to say "Let us know what you decide"
Jeff
Dude, if I ripped you every time you had a typo in this damn blog we wouldn't be on speaking terms. :-)
TCHAE is the ACW version of the Le Feu Sacre Napoleonic rules. If you didn't care for those, you wouldn't like these either. I like LFS and think TCHAE would be an interesting game personally.
As for the private responders, stand and be counted, you cowards. I always wonder who in the heck keeps prodding some of Jeff's responses. I know I'm not responsible for all of them.
Oh, and don't let the 1:20 ratio thing put you off. Rally Round the Flag is the same scale, and most units in the field will end up at between 15-25 figures per unit.
I have been asked to post the following comment. Please note I made a couple of minor corrections/additions to fit blogspot. So without much further ado. - Jeff
You have limited comments to "Registered Users" which of course limits those of us who don’t blog or have a google account to sending you private emails, which I assume is why you are getting the private emails. I understand why you have such a setup, I mean none of us want to deal with the spam but you aren’t going to get the public discussion you are looking for.
Matt
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