A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Discussion of Flames of War, Black Powder and other historical games.
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Mike the Pike
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by Mike the Pike » Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:34 am

May I be so bold as to knock the War of the Roses (do I still have a veto) and the F&I war on the head and make it a final four? The first because Prim and Lovejoy are already doing it and the second because LJ and I (and anyone other interested parties) are planning to do it in skirmish scale someday (soon?).

That would leave us with...

The Punic Wars
The 100 Years War
The Dark Ages
Napoleonics

If everyone is amenable (humblest apologies if anyone feels I've overstepped the mark) then shall we start thrashing out the merits or otherwise of this final four?
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job
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by job » Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:55 am

I would like to do the Sengoku period. I hear ToD, Primarch, Komura and myself with interest. Would it be possible to lure MtP or Lovejoy? Anyone else fancy themselves a Nobunaga?

It seems that everyone's resources will be different in terms of money and time. (Possibly space and hobby resources too.) There are also different desires for scale of their forces (a skirmish warband or a battle arrayed host). But I don't think this as mutually exclusive.

Why don't we agree on a historical scenario and the forces we want to organize. Everyone commits what they want to do and we can help fill out the different formations. (If ToD just wants to do some skirmishing warriors, he does that; another guy units of calvary they want to model; another person does a whole formation of teppo and yari.) What do you guys think?

I was thinking a scenario pitting 6 "brigades" (borrowing the BP term) on two sides against each other. Too big? Too small?

I personally can provide funds, but I need help with painting as I lack the time I once had. So maybe I can help finance par of another players' force if we can broker an agreement.

Of course if Sengoku isn't the slated project, I was hoping we could do something similar for whatever our historic project may be.

Anyway, just an idea...
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Mike the Pike
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by Mike the Pike » Tue Mar 07, 2017 12:38 pm

I reckon my two faves would be the Dark Ages (Vikings vs Anglo-Saxons???)
OR
100 years War. I'd love to be the Burgundians as long as I get to drink Burgundy while we play :D
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Simon W
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by Simon W » Tue Mar 07, 2017 7:32 pm

I'm certainly in for something like this. One of the 'joys' of a big project is that players don't have to assemble and paint complete armies, just a few units, so it's OK to go off at a bit of a tangent from our current collections.

Periodwise, I'm up for pretty much anything. I saw Job's mention of the Seven Years War in his post. I've just started to get some figures together for that period in 28mm (Crusader Miniatures) although with both Prussian and Austrian armies to build up it's going on to be a long road...

I've also got an 1836 Mexican army (28mm) on the painting table if anyone fancies being Davy Crockett. I've made a bit of scenery for that period as well. ACW also appeals to me. I've got some 10 man squads painted up for 'Brother Against Brother' which offers an easy way into the period.

On a more personal note . now I've got the job situation sorted out here in Nagoya, I will be able to venture out and get involved on the gaming front at long last.

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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by Simon W » Tue Mar 07, 2017 7:52 pm

Sorry - didn't read to the end of the thread before I posted. I see you're already down to a final four. Dark Ages - Romano-British etc? I've already got about 30 minis for that period. Failing that, I could give 28mm Napoleonics a go.

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Primarch
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by Primarch » Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:28 pm

Mike the Pike wrote:100 years War. I'd love to be the Burgundians as long as I get to drink Burgundy while we play :D
And here was me expecting you to want to play the French. :D

Ok, so it looks like Sengoku is still on the table, and we all seem to have slightly different ideas of what to do and we haven't even addressed things like which scale to use or which battle(s) to cover. The current list is:

Punic Wars
Dark Ages
100 Years War
Sengoku Jidai
Napoleonics

Does anyone have any serious objections to anything left on the list?

So how do we do this? A simple vote? Janken? It seems that it's not really possible to make everyone happy.
There is a tiny voice in the back of my head saying "Do ALL of them," but I'm trying to be realistic here. I mean, I probably will do all of them, but not all at once. :D There is nothing stopping us from doing one project now and another once it is finished.

So... let's approach this from a new angle. Everyone picks their favourite from the list above and makes a sales pitch explaining why they think it is a good choice, lays out a rough guideline to the forces involved and offers suggestions for the miniatures to be used (and the costs). Once we have an idea about the specifics of a project we might change our minds.
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Primarch
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by Primarch » Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:38 pm

The Battle of Fulford
Part of the Viking Invasion of England
Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fulford

Armies:
Vikings under Harald Hardrada
Vs.
Saxons under the Earls of Northumbria and Mercia

In Mid-September 1066 a large Viking army landed on the North East Coast of England and proceeded to advance on the city of York. The Anglo-saxon army left the city and engaged them at Fulford. While the Vikings had the advantage of numbers, they were not able to deploy their full strength during the battle, feeding troops into the combat as they arrived, so the forces were fairly evenly matched. Historians put the numbers at around 5000 Saxons and 6000 Vikings. The battlefield was open with a river on one side, a marsh on the other and some high ground in the Viking deployment area. The asymmetrical nature of the battle (Saxons begin with a greater force while the Vikings got a steady stream of reinforcements during the fight) should make it interesting.

Using a figure ratio of 1:25, we would need about 200 Saxons and 240 Vikings. In terms of units that's 10 Vs. 12 using 20 model units. Gripping Beast have readily available plastics for both of these armies, with 40+ minis for roughly 20GBP. The boxes also come with extra command figures, so you could get 2 units and a brigade commander for about 3000 yen at current exchange rates if you shop around. I'd recommend getting one box of Saxons/Vikings and one box of the generic Dark Age Warriors for a total of 1 unit of heavy infantry, 2 units of medium infantry and 1 unit of light infantry plus your brigade commander. The Dark Age Warriors set comes with options for skirmishers armed with javelins or slings. If you want archers, they are currently only available in metal. GB do a large range of Dark Age figures in metal as do Foundry and Crusader I believe, so you can add some variety to your force if you want to. I have seen some Warlord Celts being given a simple head and weapon swap and mixed in with Viking units for additional poses. 4ground do a range of Saxon style buildings (I already have a couple) which should help to populate the table.
Ring-tail stock GB minis and 4ground if you don't want to order from the UK.


Painting wise, Dark Age figures are fairly simple with none of the elaborate straps and harnesses of Napoleonics or tiny lacework of Samurai. Chainmail and plain tunics are the order of the day. Shields can be done in a variety of styles, so you can make them as simple or as complex as you like, or just use transfers if you want to spend a little extra cash.

Possible follow-ups would include the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the Battle of Hastings. Neither the Vikings nor the Saxons were particularly unified, so Blue-on-Blue style battles are fine as well. With sabot style basing, you could also use the force for Saga if you were so inclined.

To sum up, Fulford is a nice, compact battle to recreate. It shouldn't break the bank nor take years to achieve. There is potential for expanding the armies in the future and the forces involved are versatile enough to allow for other scenarios. Don't be a bunch of Raven Starvers. Grab your axe and go pillaging!
Painted Minis in 2014: 510, in 2015: 300, in 2016 :369, in 2019: 417, in 2020: 450

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The Other Dave
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by The Other Dave » Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:04 am

OK, here's my long-shot dream project pitch! :D

Punic Wars. Why? Well, we don't play much ancients around here, so it'd be an interesting new period to explore. The Punic Wars are well-known, Romans look fantastic ranked up at any scale, and you get to use elephants.

The scale: Small. Why? Aside from my personal tastes, a smaller scale would allow us to field more units on a 6 x 4 table, allowing for more tactics and maneuver, not to mention being able to field large numbers of elephants. We wouldn't need to go as small as Mike and I did for Black Powder - 30 units on the table is a bit extravagant for ancients, I think - but that would just allow for a smaller number of units with a bigger footprint and more-impressive numbers of men.

So which scale? I think it could work at either 6mm or 15mm, actually. For both these I'm thinking a roughly 120mm unit frontage, which is big enough to have plenty of men per unit and small enough to allow as many as 10 or 12 units per army with room on the table for maneuver.

At 6mm (which is, it goes without saying, my own first choice), that'd be, using Baccus, four 60mm x 30mm bases per unit, each with 6 strips of 4 infantry, so about 100 men per 5.50 GBP unit. Elephants are 1 GBP per (sort of suprisingly expensive, actually), allowing for plenty. An army of a dozen units will thus set you back about 60 pounds.

At 15mm, that'd be, say, three 40mm x 40mm bases per unit, each with 2 or 3 ranks of 4 infantry, so 24 or 36 men per unit, which is either 7 or 11 GBP with Irregular's pricing. Elephants are 4 GBP each, which still lets you get several if you want to. An army of a dozen units would be in the neighborhood of 100 pounds, depending on whether you want to shell out for deep ranks or not.

Elephants!
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The Other Dave
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by The Other Dave » Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:25 am

Also, I might suggest that after we make our pitches, we each vote on one, or rank the two highest, other people's pitches and use that to make a final decision?
Feel free to call me Dave!
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Miniatures painted in 2023: 252
Miniatures painted in 2024:
Epic scale: 9 vehicles, 56 stands of infantry, a whole buncha terrain
32mm-ish: 3 infantry

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Primarch
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Re: A collaborative historical project - A discussion

Post by Primarch » Wed Mar 08, 2017 3:26 am

The Other Dave wrote:Also, I might suggest that after we make our pitches, we each vote on one, or rank the two highest, other people's pitches and use that to make a final decision?
Sounds good.
Painted Minis in 2014: 510, in 2015: 300, in 2016 :369, in 2019: 417, in 2020: 450

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