English Civil War Royalist Take the Field

The Original Half-Army with Royalist Colors

Your comments are welcome.

Warlord Games(tm) have very good boxed kits for the English Civil War and for the Thirty Years War.

Building the Kits

Once I made a complete mess of one musketeer the others were quite cooperative with my fumbles and hack performance. I hacked off the first chaps arms, cleaned the wound, and re-applied a new set of arms and “gonne”. Never a finer set of lively lads ever graced a spray-paint booth with courage and determination as they.

Here is a link to Warlord Games ™. http://store.warlordgames.com//collections/pike-shotte.

The Half-Army Concept

In my gaming environment producing half-armies in historical setting has finally caught on. I have been “building” both sides for historical, sci-fi, and fantasy gaming for eleven years. I do the same with “skirmish” gaming gangs, teams, and posses.

Other generals have adopted a similar mien, producing half-armies. This serves multiple purposes. You are most able to guess the first purpose, I shall not mention it then.

The second purpose is we have a fine group and a lot of interest in gaming with a ‘friendly’attitude. So, when other generals bring half-armies now two can play in a limited space.

Three, since I have two half-armies for an invitational game or a ‘one-off’ game I can provide a new player or a fellow gamer to ‘give Pike & Shotte a go’: men in flouncy shirts and rugged warriors all.

Four, combine both half-armies into one army for large engagements with another general.

This army in the picture also includes Wargames Foundry(tm) and Old Glory ™ figures. Both companies produce top quality miniatures for the English Civil War and other eras in history.

I had experienced quite an upset to build a fine large army and place it in a ‘carrier’ and dust it every week. With half-army concept I get more time playing with my figures and enjoying the camaraderie. I suppose ‘small tactics’ well executed often produce good results. If I’m going to dust them anyway I might as well use them too.

Wargames Foundry–“The Foundry” http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/our-ranges/english-civil-war/

Old Glory–http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/products.asp?cat=202

The Machinas ™ Game Board The Plan

PART ONE

The Plan Brother Pilots drive-in at an abandoned desert air strip. The airstrip and the board box are the first parts of the terrain plan. This will be the general layout of the Machinas™ Wasteland Game Board. It will be between 24” and 27” (61cm and 69cm) wide and 30” to 34” long (76cm to 86cm). This planned size will fit onto the 4”x6” (1.25m x 1.84m) tables at my Hometown Gaming Store. Plenty of room for our Two Hour Wargames ™ rule books and the cards.

I will build the board inside a frame for two reasons. First, I need to keep the game compact for demonstration purposes. Sometimes I have nearly a 36” x 36” (1m x1m) table for demo games. We’ll keep the cars inside the frame. The second consideration is for sturdy storage. I’ll fix a removable hinged lid for the board so all the terrain will fit inside.

To save on weight I might use thin luan / underlayment or corrugated black polycarbonate for the box’s lid. I have some luggage handles from a woodworking supply company so that will trick it out and give me an easy way to carry the game board. It’ll be very light weight but the sturdiness comes from how it’s constructed. It’ll be like a rock band on tour, Machinas™ will be inside a hefty crate. I plan the frame for the Machinas™ board so I can drop in a different board as the players make suggestions about what sort of theme they’d like to see.

Variety, I like it.

Probably paint the exterior of the board black and stencil a hot-rose-pink-red “Machinas” on the outside top and sides.