Patriot's Day Wargame

     Patriot's Day is a Massachusetts state holiday commemorating the battle of Lexington and Concord. Being a town employee, I had the day off. My wife, who is still recuperating from surgery, decided to take a nap, which gave me time for a quick wargame. I decide to use Chris Salander's H&M 2.0. As mentioned in an earlier post, I wanted to try to use mixed units instead of the usual infantry, cavalry and artillery.  I started with the basic rules figure allotment of 16 infantry, 6 cavalry and 4 artillery. The red army would use the conservative infantry, cavalry, and artillery units. The blue army did something different. Their army had mixed units deployed from left to right: 3 infantry; 2 cavalry & 2 infantry; 2 artillery& 2 infantry; 2 cavalry & 2 infantry; 2 artillery & 2 infantry; 2 cavalry & 2 infantry; 3 infantry.  Each army could move 4 squares of figures per turn, although anyone within  range could battle. I wasn't going to do a battle report so I didn't take any pictures until the game was half over.

At the half way point in the game, the Red Army was turning Blue's right flank.

Blue tries to stabilize their right flank.

Blue wipes out the Red cavalry on their left flank and their artillery fire drives back an infantry unit.

Red's right flank has crumbled.  However, their cavalry on the left has eliminated  the Blue cavalry  on the Blue's right flank. Red starts consolidating his right flank units.

Blue cavalry hits the Red's right flank...

...and kills two infantrymen, eliminates one artillery piece, and forces the other gun to retreat.

The Blue army starts moving their infantry on the left to shore up the right.

The Red army manages to get all their troops into combat.

The Red army starts breaking through the Blue's line.

The Red army  has the Blue army on the run.

The blue army's morale breaks and the withdraw off the field. After the fact, based on the holiday, I should have used my 1st generation Minifigs American Revolution figures.

The Point of Diminishing Returns

        I wasn't the best student in school. Which makes it surprising that about the only thing I remember is from an Economics class; the point of diminishing returns.  I won't try to explain it, but below is an illustration from a website that I came across when I Googled "the point of diminishing returns". This illustration will explain my thinking as it pertains to this post.

      I passed the point of diminishing returns many years ago. I have more toy soldiers than I will ever get to use. I find myself getting bored with all that I have. Figures bought for  one off project, which  never get completed.  With my lack of gaming in the last couple of months, it has given me time to reflect on my collection. I have decided to thin out my plastics collection, although what to do with the culled figures I know not. I don't want to sell them on Ebay. I would like to find a good home for them to go to, preferably to someone who could collect them in person. Last resort would be to trash them, which is something I don't want to do.

From fellowshipone.com.  This shows how I feel about my toy soldier collection.  I passed the "Happy & Grateful"  point 20 years ago! My goal is to cull my plastic collection until I'm back to the Happy & Grateful stage.

Bins full of plastics; just part of the collection.

This dresser is full of mainly plastic toy soldiers.

Still more of boxes and storage drawers full of plastic toy soldiers.

For comparison, most of my metals collection are in these storage drawers. 

   
     

"New" Peter Laing Victorian Figures

    I have been trying to stay away from Ebay with my current shortage of cash. However, I just happened to look one day, only to notice a lot of Peter Laing Victorian Parade mounted band figures. I must admit, I wanted to bid right away on them. I looked at the seller's other items and saw another lot. This particular lot had a large number of Napoleonic 1st generation Minifigs, with Peter Laing figures mixed in. There was also a Peter Laing carriage with a general figure and female figure in a yellow dress. I assumed that this was the carriage that went with the Victorian Parade line. It seemed that it was missing the Queen Victoria figure. On closer examination, I noticed some Peter Laing musicians in the mix.
   I found myself in a difficult situation; the auction was almost over and had to decide wither to bid on the lots. I realized that I couldn't bid on both; the foot figures would be more useful to me.  I decided to bid on the foot figures. I bidded on them, only to be outbid. I was going to give up as the price was more than I could afford. At the last minute, I did rise my bid, and to my surprise won. One problem with collecting out of production figures is you can wait years to find figures you want, and if you don't buy them when you get the chance, you can find yourself waiting more years for another opportunity.

The Royal Coach with Queen Victoria. It is missing one wheel, but I do have extra wheels that should fit.

The lot of foot figures.

There were enough regular infantry for 4 units  in my Little Wars Army, along with two Guards flag bearers. The regulars will now bring my Brigade of regulars up to 6 infantry units.

Close up of the Regular infantry figures.

The Highland band.

The Regulars band.

Close up of the Regular band.