Chessboard Wargaming: Full Circle

      On 4th of July I watched the miniseries; "The Hatfields & McCoys", based on the famous feud from the 1800's. After that I read the book,: "The Feud"by Dean King.  Once again the true story was even more interesting than the movie. What was truly interesting is that the feud almost lead to armed conflict between the states of Kentucky and West Virginia. After reading about the troubles between the two states, it struck me as a good scenario for wargaming.

   As we are preparing to go camping again, I wanted to get a game or two in before leaving. I decided to use my Peter Laing Boer figures for the game. To me these figures have the look that the feuding families would have looked like. I tried a few ideas using different rules. As I  wanted the figures to represent individuals, my attempts at using Battle Cry and See the Elephant rules weren't working.  In the end I went back to Chris Salander's Horse & Musket 2.0. Once again proving that these rules work well for skirmish gaming. I scattered terrain on my new tiled board. The sides the troops came on were randomly picked.  I did roll average dice to decide how many squares of figures could move in a turn, along with who moved first.   I wasn't even going to report on this, but the game proved most enjoyable.  I realized I am back to where my wargaming started 18 years ago when I originally found these rules and pulled out my old Minifigs and Heritage figures and started to play games in earnest.

I started taking photographs about half way through the game. The red average dice shows that the troops on the left can move three squares of figures.

The red troops are losing men and ground.

The black troops break though the reds center; two red soldiers retreat.

The black army wins. I do wish I could get my hands on more of these Peter Laing Boers. One of my biggest mistakes were trading some of my Boer figures, especially horsemen, when I first started collecting Peter Laing figures. 

Troops for Backyard Wars

       I have been looking for the ideal figures for wargaming outside. I found that Britains Herald Guards figures in the prone position was a good figure for what I was looking for. No need to worry about him standing in rough terrain. Even with the dog running around the yard, he didn't disrupt the figures if he ran over them.  Also, I just like the look of them, wearing dress uniforms with bearskins. They definitely have the look of toy soldiers. I recently bought 20 of these figures, and with the 6 I already have, this should be enough for some outside skirmishes. I've started painting the "blue" army. My next goal is to find the rules to use with these figures.

New Peter Laings and Playing Board

         I have not posted in a while, simply because I have done much with the hobby in the last couple of months.

       I did get a rather large lot of Peter Laing Egyptians. I no have several units of archers for my Egyptian army. I also have enough to make a Nubian army.

       I also have been toying with the idea of a chessboard with removable squares, where different pieces of landscape could be swopped out. I found some good sized wooden square tiles that would work well, so I ordered 90. My original plan was to use both sides, such as Battle Cry and Command & Colors does with their tiles. However, the idea of pulling up all the tiles to find the right pieces might not work as easily as I thought. So I have made a few river tiles and am working on some plowed field tiles. As the project is just starting, there is some experimentation going on right now.

Some of the new Peter Laing Egyptians being prepared to be repainted.

My new "chessboard" game board. I was originally going to paint the tiles to hide the wood grain. However, I think it give the feel of being plowed fields.

The board set up for it's first game. The are two hill tiles on the board. I believe I will paint the edges dark green so hopefully they will stand out more.

The board with a river running through it.