Wednesday 30 December 2009

Welcome

Walking home from the library, aged 13 or 14, I had never been so excited. I was supposed to be getting books for a school project, and had stumbled across "Charge! or How to play war games" by Brigadier Peter Young and Lt Col James Lawford. Flicking through the intriguing pages, I spotted the first pictures of the armies laid out below their start lines for the action at Blasthof Heath. I was hooked.

It would be my “Desert Island book”. And with two small armies of Staddens, Surens and Spencer Smiths (balanced forces of horse, foot and guns) as my “Desert Island luxury”, I would hope never to be rescued!

In my early wargaming years, I dreamed of being able to faithfully replicate the units and actions fought out in Charge. And, for some time now I have been building up my "Classic Wargaming" collection, and so thought this blog would be a useful way of charting progress.

Now, some might say, "but Phil, why not just include this on The Blasthof Blog?" (a group blog, set up recently, and familiar to most readers I should imagine). Well, in short, I feel it would be inappropriate for me to hog team "air time" or monopolise space there.

So this blog will simply chart the development of my collection, and include pictures of units as I finish them, and games as I play them.


First up is the Erbprinz regiment, included previously elsewhere, but posted here for a good start to what I hope will be a fun journey, recreating what I call "Classic Wargaming".



In the upcoming posts, as well as showing the development of the collection, I will also be looking at the unit organisation laid down in Charge, outlining a few minor changes I have made, and also documenting the development of my own set of rules, very much in the flavour of the original, but rationalised for my own use, including an answer to the question, "what are all those officers, drummers, and sergeants for?"
Meantime...
Best wishes