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.
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| 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. |
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| The red troops are losing men and ground. |
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| The black troops break though the reds center; two red soldiers retreat. |
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| 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. |
If family feuds are yor thing but you want a different setting, you might try the 16th border marches between England and Scotland. Not all feuds were across borders (e.g. Maxwells vs Johnstones on the Scottish side), not all were 'family feuds (e.g. Kerr of Ferniehurst vs village of Jedburgh).
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me family feuds are an excellent source for skirmish wargames. I have Osprey's "Border Riveters" and had planned to read it earlier. Perhaps this will be one book to take with me. I was also thinking of taking a book on American Filibusters with me.
DeleteA fun looking skirmish game - enhanced by the use of Peter Laing miniatures.
ReplyDeleteWith the limited time I have right now, I'm trying to find ways of getting short, quick games in. Both sides started with 15 figures. I think the game would have played out in around 15 minutes, if I didn't keep stopping to think about different rules.
DeleteGood to see your Peter Laings in action. I can add another to border feuds, something I found through the Forgotten Georgia blog - the Walton War between Georgia and South Carolina over the "Orphan Strip" of land circa 1804 to about 1811 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_War
ReplyDeleteBizarrely it all flared up again briefly in 1971 ... best wishes Mark Man of TIN blog.
Mark, I will have to look up about the Orphan Strip. I started using a small note book to jot down different ideas. I will have to start writing down good suggestions like that.The Peter Laing Boers could be used for so many games. Also, whoever owned them did an excellent job painting them.
DeleteThanks for sharing this John. Looks like a fun game.
ReplyDeleteIt was my pleasure. Once again the rules used made for a fun game.
ReplyDeleteJohn - as always, I love your game write-ups and your blog gives me some great ideas
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!
While on vacation I have been thinking of using smaller tiles with my 2mm blocks, where I could fight mini campaigns. Also I want to start making small Peter Laing armies using Neil Thomas' "One Hour Wargames" charts fot inspiration.
ReplyDeleteTry reading 'The Story of Burnt Njal' for a Viking Saga feud/campaign. It seems the troubles are caused in most part by the women!
ReplyDeleteI will have to look that up. Perhaps it will give me ideas to use my Peter Laing Vikings. Caused by women? Who would have thought!
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