When Life Gives You Lemons

Otherwhen in its Current Full Glory

This year has tossed me several unprecedented changes one of which is having my eyes rebuilt. For the most part this is a wonderful improvement allowing me to see better than I have in over a half century, but it came with a major unforeseen issue that I can not see up close the way I have in the past, even with corrective eye wear. What this means is I must relearn how to paint. Complicated figures or painting patterns are outside my skills for now, so I went back to the simplest figures I had to recover with, these being my Toy Soldiers.

New 12 Figure Otherwhen Unit in Line

Having made this decision there are two unexpected effects with which I am now dealing. First is this painting will increase my “Collection.” I chose this word deliberately as I discovered that my formally “Practical” force, which being enough figures to play normal size games I host, was going to become larger purely for my own gratification, thus changing from being just gaming to collecting. The second was if I want to ever use this many figures in games, I needed to simplify the rules I use. Neither of these is a bad thing, but both require me rethink goals.

New Otherwhen 12 Figure Unit in Column

Organization: I am now looking at going from games of three to four players per side to ultimately nine players per side. The new organization for this is going to be in steps, the beginning being to switch brigades from four regiments down to only three, then adding a Light Cavalry Brigade of six squadrons of lancers and hussars and rearranging where artillery was allocated. This would bring me to three full infantry brigades and a light and heavy cavalry brigade along with Corp artillery for six players per side.The full future expansion was to bring all six infantry brigades up to four regiments of infantry and a battery of artillery, with each division adding a light cavalry squadron. A Light Cavalry Brigade of four squadrons, which would go from six figures to twelve and a Heavy Cavalry Brigade of six squadrons. Both cavalry brigades would also be gaining a Flying Battery of horse artillery. The Corp Reserve would go to three batteries of heavy artillery and two flying batteries of horse artillery. Commanders would increase to ten with six infantry, two cavalry, a Corp artillery, and a Commander-in-Chief.

Nodd 3 Regiment Brigade With Artillery and Hussars

Rules: These need combat simplification and command restructuring. Combat will likely combine with morale something like Command and Colors systems, while command will likely change to limited unit activation per turn with players still having a reserve order pool to improve results. C-in-Cs will likely add command improvement cards that they can assign or hold to implement themselves. I have many general thought but few actual rules right now. Critical to my thinking is that players will still be able to do more rather than less as I retain my view of game design being that players want to be rewarded, not penalized in their game play.

Otherwhen 3 Regiment Brigade With Artillery and Lancers

New Nodd Division

New Otherwhen Division

Mid Nineteenth Century Campaign - A Beginning

Part of the Hildorien Maethor Army 

 Early in the Spring I decided to run a campaign for my local game group. The goals were simple tactical rules and small force to have games conclude in 2-3 hours, area point-to-point movement and well defined objectives for the map part. Previous control of an area and the movement into that area would determine the type of battle based on cross referencing each armies posture. This would give a short time spent on map moves and focus the game on the tactical level. 

Flag of the Principalities of Mutts

I have eleven players for the game and while it is an ImaginNation setting I wanted it to feel like the historic period. I therefore have 3 major nations, each run by two players, to represent the powers of Austria, France and Prussia. There are two players directly opposed to each other that represent Italy. The remainder are all independent. The general goals are for Austria or Prussia to build and run the German state, while France seeks to prevent this. The Italians are looking for a single unified state and remain independent from the big three powers. For the independents the goals range from being on the winning side of Greater German and having a voice in its future, or retaining their independence from all other states. There are plenty of neutral/small states on the map to conquer, or control to allow the smaller states to negotiate terms with the larger ones. These will simple require occupation to obtain control. 

Flag of Hildorien Maethor

An unusual feature of the campaign is ending it in phases based on the total loses of all nations. I want to represent the short duration of most of the wars and I felt this would accomplish that and make players more aggressive. Once the loss limit is reached all controlled territory can be traded, and all armies will return to their starting levels for the start of the next phase. 

Flag of Lupuslignum

Each player begins the game with two full armies and a half strength one that is used to replace loses in the main two. The initial size of each army is based on its type, of which there are four different ones, Aristocratic: cavalry heavy, Educated: artillery heavy, Quality of Quantity: large but an abundance of green troops, and Small but Elite: having no green troops, the largest amount of veterans, but the least numerous. The tactical rules are base on Bob Cordey's Portable Wargame with a number of tweaks of my own. 

I will provide more details on rules in future posts. 

Back From the Dead...Kind of

19th Century ImagiNation Army

 After nine month of fighting with it I have finally convinced Google that this is indeed my account.

So what have I been up to these past months? I just returned from Gen Con and what a strange show it was. I don't think I have seen this level of attendance in over 25 years. Still waiting on official numbers but my estimate is 20,000 per day and 25,000 unique. That's way down from the 60,000-65,000 of 2019. Despite that, it was a good show. I especially enjoyed seeing old friends again.

The rest of the year was work, personal issues and some gaming. The biggest part is working to start up a Mid Nineteenth Century Unification Wars Campaign. I have the tactical rules done, a good deal of the campaign rules and a few of the armies complete. Now that my schedule is open again progress should move quickly. More detailed reports will follow soon.

Detail View of Line Unit