Toy Soldiers Lost & Found

       With my wife out of work waiting for surgery, I haven't had time to work on gaming. I have spent more time on the computer looking at wargaming sites. One that peaked my interest was Toy Soldiers and Dining Room Battles .  On it he has a series of battles using Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames played between two teams of children. What's more, the game is being played as a narrative campaign. Also, the armies used were made up of Zvedza Great Northern War figures, which at one time I was going to use for wargames, being excellent figures.
     I found myself excited at the thought of using OHW rules and 18th century figures. Unfortunately, I gave away my large Revell SYW collection years ago and sent the Zvezda figures I had with them; I
and traded my plastic Spencer Smiths SYW for some Peter Laing AWI figures. I started thinking of buying some Hat SYW Prussians to make two armies, if I could find them. However, with my wife not working, money is tight so I decided not to buy figures at this time.
    I then thought of my large collection of Editions Brokaw SYW figures. As I haven't used them in years, I could easily base them and used them in a one off game.

    I started looking for them in my new "gaming room". While I still haven't found them, I did find several different figures which will come in handy in other games. I found among an odd lot of Airfix figures I bought last year some Infantry Combat Group figures, and looking through some food containers of Airfix figures, I found some more 1st generation WW2 German infantry. These should give me enough figures to use with Memoir 44 as I had thought of using before.

  I also came across some Zvedza GNW figures and Revell SYW figures in another tub; possibly enough  to copy the armies on the TSaDRB blog.

   What's more, I found another tub with more Spencer Smith  SYW plastic figures. I was thinking of holding on to them; however, now I think I will try to reach the person who got the rest of the collection and send them to him.

    Still, the search goes on for my Edition Brokaw figures.

Airfix Infantry Combat Group figures. The unpainted figures are the figures I didn't even realized I had. I plan to use them with Memoir 44 instead of the infantry figures that come with the game.

Airfix 1st generation Germans. These with be used with Memoir 44. 

The newly found Spencer Smith SYW figures.

Some of the Zvezda and Revell 18th century figures that I might use with Neil Thomas wargame rules.

2mm and Chessboard Battles.

   With my wife out of work again from an injury, and me recovering from a cold, I haven't had much time or entusiasum for gaming. As I started feeling better, I wanted to get a game in, but didn't want to spend a couple of hours in the cold basement after getting over being ill. I brought some of my 2mm figures up to the new den and fought a game. That game ended quicker than expected and I found time for another game. For this I brought up my Peter Laing recasts and used the chessboard and  Chris Salander's H & M 2.0 rules.

2mm game. The Red Army has seized the ridge line and the Blue Army brings up two batteries to shell the ridge.

The Red Army fire drives back both Blue batteries  and the Blue infantry suffers heavy losses. At this point the Red Army launches a general assault along the entire line.

The Red Army splits the Blue Army in half, and wins the battle.

Chessboard battlefield. The game is set up to use H&M 2.0 rules.

The red cavalry pushes through the center of the blue army.

Between the red cavalry and red infantry, one blue unit loses one killed and two retreat.

The cavalry overruns the blue artillery. He now has blue's headquarters within striking distance.

Blue manages to push the cavalry back.

The red cavalry captures blue's headquarters. After checking the rules, only infantry can capture the opponents headquarters. A red infantry unit is 3 moves away from the headquarters.

The blue cavalry drives off the red cavalry.

The blue army launches a counterattack.

The red army is on the run.

The red army's left flank is gone; the red army concedes the battle.
While playing the game, I forgot some of the rules which makes this game interesting. With the original rules, each side can move 4 squares worth of figures. Usually I will roll an average dice to add some degree of  uncertainty to the game. In this game I stuck to the original 4 squares movement. I did roll for initiative for which side moved first. For the first half of the game I played using Command & Colors style rules, where only the 4 squares worth of figures could engage in combat. However, after looking at the rules, I remembered the rule that ANY unit was in range could engage in combat, which during a wargame, does make sense.
After playing this game, it has me rethinking of using these rules more.  In the rules, four figures are allowed in a square; you can mix and match the pieces. Over the years, I usually just make units of infantry, artillery, and cavalry.  This game I moved different infantrymen to join other units. It has me thinking of using combined arms units instead of the same old infantry, artillery, and cavalry units.