Thursday, December 27, 2018

2019 Hobby Focus & Priorities

Following on the heels of yesterday's wargaming year in review, I figured I'd strike while the iron is hot and put my thoughts and plans for 2019 "on paper."
"Sir, roll anything but a one here and your assault goes through..."  Famous last words.
In continuing in the tradition of only 2 main "priorities" with secondary objectives, I will continue with a more narrow scope of efforts in order to pool my most precious resources (time and money) more effectively towards the hobby.  The ultimate end state for these objectives is to finish an entire collection off resulting in a properly stored, gameable force. 

PRIORITY ONE
Since World War II seems to be my most popularly gamed war around here, naturally it will remain on the front-burner but the scope and focus will change.  The last 3 years have seen the focus almost entirely on the Eastern Front and specifically the German army.  Now that we are winding down the focus on the German Army and I have a huge Soviet force, we will shift focus to the Western Front in terms of painting, production, and manpower. 

It's time to finish my WWII Americans, NW Europe British, and 8th Army Desert British.  Frankly, the DAK Germans need someone to fight against and it's about time we finished them!  So upon completion of the SS Companies, production shifts over to the Americans first, and then the British Army with the ultimate goal of BATTLEGROUP games, Tigers at Caen games, and any other games that might come up on the horizon taking place in Western Europe in 1944-45.

PRIORITY TWO
Last year the AWI project was a miserable failure.  You couldn't have known this but last year when I was writing the priorities for 2018, the plan was always to complete my AWI forces, then shift gears to the American Civil War.  SO this year's plan is more ambitious than last years!  We are going to embark upon THE AMERICAN HISTORY PROJECT.

This will see my American War for Independence Armies, SO CLOSE to completion already, be knocked out early in the year, after which time I'll transition to the American Civil War and finish them off.  My ACW forces are in about the same shape as the AWI and are really just begging for a month of work on them to call them complete.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES
Some secondary objectives of mine will be to continue work on my Fantasy Forces (Orcs and Empire), begin my Ancients project in earnest, begin my World War I project in earnest and continue the 6mm project, eventually branching into World War II from moderns, once I finish the Team Yankee 6mm overhaul.  In the Napoleonics realm, I still have more 10mm Austrians to complete, and really start my 10mm Prussian force, of which I have a very small army at present.

In terms of gaming plans there should really be something for everyone down here and I have some really neat games planned.  For some of these games below, the miniatures are completed and all that is needed is to do the research:

GAMING PLANS AND IDEAS BY SCALE

6mm Fulda Gap using Team Yankee
6mm Kursk Game using FOW v4

10mm Spear to the Strife Fantasy Campaign (Invasion of the Empire)
10mm EAGLES CHEAPER THAN BRAIN CELLS WAGRAM MEGA GAME
10mm Commands & Colors Napoleonics Waterloo Game


15mm Battlegroup: Overlord Game (Canadians vrs 12th SS)
15mm Battlegroup: Torch Game (US vrs DAK)
15mm Battlegroup: Overlord Omaha Beach Game or D+1 Game
15mm Spear to the Strife Roman Civil War Campaign 
15mm Seven Years War Lobositz or Leuthen with EAGLES SYW 
15mm American War for Independence Freeman's Farm game with Black Powder
15mm American Civil War game at Antietam or Gettysburg with Black Powder
15mm American Civil War game with Commands and Colors: Battle Cry
15mm American War for Independence game with Commands and Colors: TRICORNE

That's all for now.  I know there are some other ideas that i did not post to here so as I think of them, I'll come back and update!  Meanwhile, Alex and I played an outstanding game of the Neil Thomas Wargaming: An Introduction World War II rules today.  I will post those tomorrow. 


16 comments:

  1. Excellent programme of events.
    Look forward to Torch, Freeman's Farm (of course) and Fulda Gap ...and the rest of course.

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    1. Thank you Darren. Ambitious goals as always - it's easy to dream this stuff up but always harder in reality to actually accomplish anything!

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  2. I am especially eager to see your Wagram project; a very big but very gameable battle. One suggestion - keep at least the possibility that Johann might arrive before it is too late, in order to keep the French player(s) honest. Napoleon worried about it until well into the battle.

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    1. I was looking at the Volley & Bayonet scenario (with Brigade stands). I wonder what other good scenarios for Wagram are out there using the Brigade as the basic unit of maneuver? Anything good for the Blucher rules I wonder?

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    2. There are scenarios both for Blucher and for Grande Armee (Sam Mustafa's previous grand tactical rules), they both use brigades as units.

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    3. Thank you Lorenzo. Where could i find them? Just do a google search? or are there scenarios out there to purchase for either Blucher or GA?

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    4. Steven, the scenarios for GA can be found here (Wogram is among the "Large scenarios" at the bottom): http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/gw_ga_scenarios.html while those for Blucher can be found in Blucher's section of Sam Mustafa's forum on his website (http://www.sammustafa.com/honour-forums/index.php?board=35.0) There's only one scenario for Wagram's as far as I can see.

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    5. (sorry for the typos) They are free, and I read that Sam is planning to assemble all players-made scenarios in a more ordinated war in a new (or a new version of the same) site next year.

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    6. Wow thank you so much Lorenzo! Cheers!

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    7. You're welcome, yours is a great blog to read!

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    8. Napoleon's Battles used brigades as the BMU and a scenario for Wagram. I can dig it out if that is of interest.

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    9. Jonathan i will check out my Napoleons Battles scenario book this evening thank you!

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  3. I look forward to these goals and more from you in 2019!

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    1. Thank you Jonathan! And I will await your comments on my postings! :) Happy New Year, sir!

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  4. "'Sir, roll anything but a one here and your assault goes through...' Famous last words." haha!

    Exciting plans - reminds me that I have to do my 2019 goal post also - but it'll probably have to wait until I return from 1:1 Army.

    We do seem to be in a trend to smaller-scale WWII games, like BG / WaI WWII, and I've been reading "Small Unit Actions" by the US War Dept. Historical Division which has 4 battles as the focus but each of them has a dozen WWII Skirmish games in them, or half as many BF / Up the Blue! scale battles. Sometimes it's hard to decide which is more fun, so you have to try both!

    I do have 15mm Romans for the civil war, about 4-5 units of 16 figs plus support Units.

    Time to get to work in cantonment preparing for the new campaign season!

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