A Consideration Of Rules...

So I really wanted to start my 18^th century tricorn project, I had some good ideas that granted needed some serious fleshing out but I really wanted to get this thing going.

The biggest obstacle, for me, was actually deciding which rules to use, because rules define the forces, and the forces are which models I needed to buying. I like skirmish gaming, really with not more than ten or twenty models per side on the table, and occasionally five or under. The idea of those massive army battles, with regiments and battalions and the 8’ long table, while very attractive, also seem like an impossibly long time to prepare for, what with purchasing and painting the hundreds of models and creating enough scenery and finding the time to actually stage such a battle… no, it must be skirmishes for me, no doubt about it. And, of course, since I have already been a skirmish player for years, I had quite a few ideas about what might work.

My go-to rules set is Vor: The Maelstrom. Simple, with alternating activation, and some easy to use custom force rules that can be tweaked to do literally anything. I have used these rules for just about everything from modern to far future science fiction at one point or another. I know them inside and out, and are at the top of my list of Best Rules Ever. But after some serious thought, I realized they lack a certain feel for the black powder era, and I moved on.

I asked on The Miniatures Page about what might be some good skirmish rules for the tricorn era, and I got two good recommendations. The first was a game called Donnybrook, which I had never heard of. As it turns out, it hadn’t quite been released yet. After it was released, I read some reviews, and it didn’t seem to be quite what I was looking for. This was also true of the second recommendation, Sharpe Practice. Both looked like good games, and maybe I will get to try them some day. But not this time.

The third recommendation was Song of Drums and Shakos from Ganesha Games, which is really for Napoleonic wargaming but easily handles black powder warfare at a skirmish level from about 1700 to 1865. And, in the event that I wanted to add more fantastical elements to my games, the root game rules, Song of Blades and Heroes, is fully compatible; there would be no problem finding rules for Ottoman war elephants, if I so chose. Best of all, I already both owned both sets of rules as well as several expansions for them. And I have no idea why I didn’t think of these rules first off.

So, I finally had my rules, and it was time to start working on my initial forces. First off, I wanted to figure out what to field for El Principado de la Comadreja. And to do that, I would actually have to do a little research on the principles of warfare in 1725.

Hmmm…

In The Beginning...

Ahhhh… Imagi-Nations. That peculiar wargaming conceit of creating a fictitious country in a setting otherwise grounded in historical reality (although some more imaginative people add less realistic elements to their games, and begin to border on fantasy.) Most gamers seem to gravitate towards either early 18^th Century with all the tiny nation-states following the war of Spanish Succession, or towards modern Africa and/or Middle East, with “banana republics” providing the template for small countries or even warlords to field forces in a tabletop game. What I find really nice about the “Imagi-Nation” idea for wargaming is that I am no longer tied down to a particular organizational pattern or require specific uniforms, equipment, weapons, etc.

Perhaps ten years ago, I built an army for Hordes of the Things using Russian troops from the Great Northern War. And I fell in love with the tricorn era, wistfully looking at all the pretty models available and never really figuring out what I wanted to do with them. Since then, Wargames Factory has released plastic soldiers in 28mm that are generically for the early 18^th century, and I have wanted to get THOSE more than anything else because they are inexpensive and I don’t want to invest too much time and money into a project that I will create but probably never play with (unless I bribe my children, of course.) The problem being, of course, that I still had no clue what I wanted to do with them. And sometime in the last couple of years, the Imagi-Nation idea took hold in my head, and I slowly began to make my terrible plans…

To start with, I wanted an offshoot from Spain. I’m not sure why, but somehow Spain is the bad guy in my family (really, I do know why, but I am not going to go into that here.) But Spain it had to be. After some actual research (gasp!) I found that the Spanish Netherlands were right on the border of both France (who I wanted to be the bad guy in my games) and the Holy Roman Empire, with all those little Germanic states I could pluck more opponents from. And ruled by a princess! With an all-female royal bodyguard! I could finally find a use for Eureka’s “Sandras” figures! And so, El Principado de la Comadreja was born, with the reigning monarch La Princesa Remolacha as the head of the state. This would also give me some opportunity for court intrigue, with her sister La Princesa Sebolla scheming behind the scenes to inherit the throne herself.

And just like that, I had the makings of an Imagi-Nation. I had my country, a couple of reality-grounded opponents, and even the possibility of infighting. There was just one little hitch: I still had no idea which rules I should be using, or if I was even going to be able to get this project off the ground at all. Because I have started SO many, and they sit half painted collecting dust in the shed…


Images swiped from the internet and used without permission