Monday, March 15, 2010

American Civil War – in 25mm

After years of debating what to do with all those 25mm American Civil War I picked up for better or worse I have finalized a plan.

I have decided to mount 3 figures on a 1 ½ inch square base with five bases to a typical battalion/regiment, thus one stand represents about 100 men. Putting 4 or 5 of these battalions together with a mounted colonel and a stand of artillery will than represent a brigade.

Due to the fact I have so many figures I gave Jim a bag of the Union's Irish Brigade (II Corps, 1st Division, 2nd Brigade), Keith a bag of VI Union Corps, and Joe Knight a bag with figures from the XI Corps. They will need to add a second bag to complete their brigades, but it should be fairly cheap ($30 to get everything they need). I then handed Tom Zwirn a pack of like 100 Confederate Figures and told him to paint up whatever he want and hand me back the rest of the figures, which is semi organized for Early's Division of Second Corps.

I personally have painted up the First Division (Both the Iron Brigade and Cutler's 2nd Brigade) from 1st Corps and a couple of Brigades of Heth's Division (Pettigrew and Brockenbrough) as my commands. Or rather I had them painted up.

The plan is to use Crusader Games "Rank and File" with their upcoming ACW Supplement. The decision to start out with "Rank and File" is more about getting nice easy simple rules (Beer and Pretzels) that minimizes the need of multiple people buying the rules and HOPEFULLY minimizes the need arguing over the intent of the rules vs. what they actually say. Of course with so many rules I wanted to avoid (cough Johnny Reb III cough) this was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated when I bought the figures. The fact that Crusaders rules aren't going to cost me big dollars and have a decent print quality to them didn't hurt either. I should add I don't think these rules are perfect, rather I think these rules will allow us to get started and really debate what we want to do as a group.

My goal is to get a couple of games run in 25mm later this summer and decide upon the level of interest and how much effort people want to put into the period. For me, since I already own the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in 15mm at 1 stand = 100 men I really um undecided upon how much effort I want to put into it. I am thinking about re-organizing the ANV as 1:150 per base for Fire and Fury and selling off the extras, IE Basic Fire and Fury using the proceeds to finish off the Union which I currently have about 1/3 of the Army of the Potomac. Since I am short Artillery for the ANV it actually might workout okay.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rank & File is a good basic set of rules for the period, and it looks easy to add mods on to for specific periods and/or personal tastes.

I agree that the print quality is excellent value for the money. I have their 'Crusader' ancients rules and the new 'Rate of Fire' WWII skirmish rules and this seems to be a trend with Crusader. Nice, straightforward rules presented in an attractive format without costing an arm & leg.

The Perry plastic ACW figs would allow newcomers to get a large army assembled at low cost (for 28's) as well.

Jeff said...

Why Plastic Figures?

It is not really that much cheaper and they need more prep work to paint?

You can pick up Pre-Painted 2nd Edition Old Glory for $2 a figure. Our unpainted for $.60.

Anonymous said...

Old Glory only comes that cheap if you invest in the army card, which tacks a quick $50 on to the investment. Right now you can get a box of 36 Perry plastic infantry for as little as $22 including shipping at multiple places on the net. If economics is the main sticking point, for a small order the plastics make sense.

There's also matters of aesthetics and the whole metal vs plastic debate.

knightwire said...

Plastic vs Metal?

You mean besides the weight? :) The Perry ACW plastics (and Naps for that matter) are aesthetically superb.

If I was an expert painter I would be buying them in the four box deals for $22 by the bucket.

Since, however, I am not an expert painter I will probably be taking advantage of the $2 painted deal RBP is offering.

Which reminds me Jeff... do we have enough Confederate players? I have no hang up on pushing the Grays if need be. (And purchasing them.)


-Joe