A collaborative historical project - A discussion

[job]

I'll vote out the 7 years war just since it's the one I know least about on the list.

It was the poor man's 30 Years War, and even that was a pale imitation of the 100 Years War.
...I guess.


Punic Wars
Dark Ages
100 Years War
War of the Roses
Sengoku Jidai
French-Indian War
Napoleonics

I was going to axe it myself despite having proposed it. The irony is that it still is on the board, French and Indian War being just the North American version of it.

[The Other Dave]

Hmm. If we can start floating ideas about what does interest us, of that list I think the Punic Wars would be pretty neat, because I've wanted to get into ancients for a while now and also, elephants. :elephant emoticon:

[Primarch]

Hmm. If we can start floating ideas about what does interest us, of that list I think the Punic Wars would be pretty neat, because I've wanted to get into ancients for a while now and also, elephants. :elephant emoticon:

For any scale smaller than 28mm, that would be my first choice.

[job]

I'd agree that a 15mm or 6mm ancients battle would be awesome, but the outsized effect of elephant models does diminish with scale...

Personally I am currently most excited to do Medival and Sengoku options on the list. I've been dying for an excuse to start collecting some Perry bushi, and the Perry plastic Medival sets just seem to sell themselves to me. Moreover, I think many of us may agree on using Hail Caesar and Pike and Shot as rulebook a. For the Medival models, I believe a couple of members have a head start.

[komura]

@All
I'm afraid say I'm late for this topic.
First of all, I welcome any historical collaboration with you at any period.
My first choice is Japanese Sengoku era. I can give you of my knowledge about background.
The second one is Napoleonic. It will make me gearing up collecting Austrian.

[Primarch]

The Perrys do make exceptionally nice toys.
I have some of their War of the Roses figures and they are really nice kits. Their Samurai and Ashigaru are likewise nice minis, though as they are all metal they tend to be more expensive, but easier to assemble.

In terms of my own plans and projects, I'm happy to work on any of the options on the list above. I keep meaning to buy more Samurai to finish off my Kuroda clan force, so I will probably go back to doing the Sengoku Jidai at some point sooner or later anyway. So that gets my vote for a group project. It would be expensive, unless you're happy using WGF minis, in which case it's a little more reasonable. (Warlord are currently rereleasing the WGF sets for Test of Honour). I'd be using Perrys exclusively though.
Dark Ages is another one I'd like to do. The minis are easy to paint being largely dressed in chain mail. Compared to Samurai, Vikings are a breeze. Plus Gripping Beast are fairly cheap.

#edit# - Danggit, I just looked at Victrix's website. Punic Wars plastic infantry and cavalry, with Elephants on the way.

[Primarch]

My vetoes are gone, but! I wouldn't want to do sengoku jidai unless we could find a ruleset that actually modeled the way Japanese armies fought then (mixed formations of fairly slow ponies with infantry running alongside, rather than the strictly-separate formations of Cavalry! and Infantry! that most wargames rulesets model), and it's my understanding that there really aren't any.

As I mentioned back up the thread aways, there are two ways of dealing with mixed units in the HC/P&S/BP rules. One comes from HC and the other from P&S, but either will work with any set of rules.
The P&S option is the simpler of the two. Simply divide the mixed unit into two pieces, mounted and foot. They must remain within a certain distance of each other. The HC option (and the way I think is perhaps better) is to give the unit a case of schizophrenia. The unit moves like cavalry (9" rather than 6") and fights with the stat-line of a unit of Samurai on the first turn of combat. (since the mounted Samurai would be the first into the fight). If the combat continues into a second round the unit fights with the stat-line of Ashigaru (as they move up in support). If the unit ever becomes shaken they revert to being infantry with the Ashigaru stat-line permanently, even if subsequently rallied. (As there aren't enough mounted troops left to make a difference). It means a little more keeping track of things, but models the unit's behaviour better than treating them as purely infantry or cavalry.

[The Other Dave]

Interesting, that's a clever solution!

Still, while sengoku is attractive, expense is an issue for me and personally I think I'd rather do something that has non-WGF plastics support in 28mm, unless we do a project that allows for side games with quite small forces. (I'd cheerfully collect and play, like, Osprey's Ronin in 28mm.)

[Primarch]

Interesting, that's a clever solution!

Still, while sengoku is attractive, expense is an issue for me and personally I think I'd rather do something that has non-WGF plastics support in 28mm, unless we do a project that allows for side games with quite small forces. (I'd cheerfully collect and play, like, Osprey's Ronin in 28mm.)

So essentially that takes the Sengoku Jidai off the list as I'm not going to collect it again in another scale. It also limits F-I War to smaller scales as it's only available in metal.
Punic Wars
Dark Ages
100 Years War
War of the Roses
French-Indian War (not 28mm?)
Napoleonics

Anyone else fancy adding some more restrictions?

[The Other Dave]

Well, I do realize my feelings about scale are idiosyncratic. I'd happily take part more peripherally / watch from the sidelines if I'm an outlier in terms of what people want to do with period and scale - people do seem interested in sengoku jidai after all.