Henrique Schunck: While We'Re Waiting

Today was a snow day so I was sure I'd manage to write up a battle report of Tuesday's game and a good copy of the revised original Square Brigadier rules.........

Opening phases of Tuesday's game: On the first turn, the DG Bodyguard took advantage of a chance card giving a double move to gallop through town and seize a bridgehead over the river thus giving the new dismounted troopers a chance to show their stuff. They held out for turn after turn against artillery and three times their numbers but help never came.

I didn't write a game report though. Instead, I replayed the game using the updated rules as adopted after the first, rather enjoyable game which was played with various mid-game rule adjustments ( eg: drop a die vs cover or -1 from each die or just say 1/2 casualties, range 2 for rifles or 3, that sort of thing). Once that was successfully done, I then spent an unconscionable amount of time trying to use my mental powers to clear the driveway while sipping coffee and listening to youtube videos etc.

During the test game the Rebels pressed their attack against the Dominion position, their General having forgotten that he had already won unless Red counterattacked, throwing Blue back across the river and seizing one bridge themselves. It was a rather rash attack which resulted in heavy losses but it may have also fallen foul of some of the mid-game rule tweaks, as well as a sudden change in Red's luck.

Looking back over last year's 54mm games, almost all of their share of my time was spent putting to the test several alternative approaches to those Toy Soldier games. I had been quite happen with the games played in 2018 with the Square Brigadier but the games were neither very Toy Soldierish nor did they have an Old School air of detail with unit formations, relative scale and so forth and I thought that maybe my Toy Soldier games should have one or both of those things. There was also was a question of which exact niche the Toy Soldiers were supposed to be filling in the 19thC part of collection 19thC, other than being taller than my 40mm's. Were they to let me "play with toy soldiers", "play abstract wargames", "refight Historical battles and skirmishes", "play Imagi-Nation Battles", or something else?

So, last year I tried the various other approaches and found merit and fault with each but found that the merit of both faded with use while the faults grew. In short, knocking over soldiers and hiding guys behind rocks is fun sometimes when in the right mood but distracts from the real point of game while I now find that too much detail and fiddliness tends to get tedious to play while usually failing to get things "right" anyway despite every increasing complications.

The Rebels fell back and took up defensive positions and for a while it looked like the game was over until Red suddenly remembered that he needed to counterattack or lose!

Oddly enough those are the same conclusions I've reached each time I've gone through this recently but I've never made such a thorough attempt to try the matter on the table. I'm afraid Prince Valiant is condemned to be my one "single figure" collection which will allow me to "play toy soldiers" if I get that urge while my 22mm ACW and War of 1812 armies will have the "refight historical battles" job as well as the usual generic scenarios set in their particular eras.

As the last card turned, Red launched a desperate attack at 1:1 odds and was rescued by the dice. The game was arguably a Pyrrhic win for Red since Blue's army morale broke as night fell but as they hadn't yet crossed the river, Blue could argue a draw by a strict reading of the scenario victory conditions.

Updating the full 4 page version of the Square Brigadier was also on the list for today but I decided to write this post instead!