Less Is More?

About 3 weeks ago I finally succumbed to one of the new Omicron variants of Covid. It hit me really hard for abour 3 - 4 days and then about another 7 to feel almost 'normal'. After that a few issues with some Long Covid symptoms but fingers crossed I'm over it now. Whilst KO'd by the damned virus and with plenty of fatigue and brain fog keeping me glued to armchair or sofa, I had ample opportunity to reflect on the current state of my wargaming. 

As many of my followers know I have been pondering downsizing my leadpile for some years now and had planned to do more until the various lockdowns hit a few years back now. But the enforced rest chrystalized all my thoughts and forced me to confront the reality that, for me, I have far, far too much stuff! For those of you that have not fainted from the shock of such a heretical statement or are now busy writing letters to the Times newspaper to have me black balled from the 'club', please read on.

The Library

I wish I had one to be honest but it is what I call the collection of books, rulesets etc that fill a couple of bookcases and some piles on the floor next to them. Not very attractive by any means and a bit of a mess if I'm completely honest. Thankfully SWMBO tolerates this state of affairs for the moment, but the time has come to really sort this all out.

I love books which is one of the causes of the problem and have over the years bought many that in all honesty have never really been looked at or referenced. Add on top of this rulesets too, which like the books, have often never seen the light of day after a cursory read through of them.

I know I only really play about 5 core sets of rules and these pretty much tick all the boxes as far as I'm concerned, with a few others being dabbled with now and then. It is all too easy to see a new set and think they might be worth looking at, only for them to join their cousins on the shelves of shame. A case in point recently was General de Brigade where I thought to buy them purely for their post battle campaign rules. But upon reflection I knew that some of the books by Featherstone et al had similar stuff in them that I could use, but due to the books being spread everywhere, I never can really access them to find this sort of stuff. So time for a clearout!

 

Rulesets

Aside from the sheer number of rules that I have, one issue that I've come across that seems to be pretty universal amongst gamers is trying to remember all the rules that we play. This has become increasingly more difficult overtime and with the reduced gaming over the past few years due to Covid. Before that in all honesty I only really played the following:

Honours of War, Black Powder II, Shadow of the Eagles (new admittedly), Bloody Big Battles and BKCII.

These accounted for probably 90% of my games. More importantly they all, with the exception of BBB, had a very similar core engine mechanic meaning that the main game play was very easy to remeber when swapping from one set to another. The 'hard part' was the subtle nuances and period 'tweaks' between them, but that really wasn't too much of a challenge to be fair. What this allowed me to do was actually focus on the game, what I wanted to do and needed to achieve, rather than spending half the game with my nose in a rulebook.

Now there are plenty of excellent rulesets out there, but the aforementioned just work for me and as importantly, for my chums. You don't need lots of 'chrome' to make a good set of rules or a game. What you need, IMHO, is to be completely at ease with them so that you can focus on the game itself, coming up with scenarios, campaigns etc.

Periods To Play

I'm as guilty as any other gamer in that I can be tempted down a rabbit hole of a new period by some shiny troops in a magazine or Blog article and have, over the years, succumbed to such. But sadly most of these have just sat there on the shelf of shame after that initial buzz has faded or another article has caught me eye and taken me down another route for the same thing to be repeated again! 

So as with the rulesets, I had a good think about what periods do I really, really enjoy and will continue to play for many years to come. Broadly speaking we have:

18thC Imagi-Nations, Napoleonics, 19thC Europe circa 1848 - 1870, ACW, A Very British Civil War and WWII.

Again I reckon that these have covered at least 90% of my games over the past few years, if not more. I enjoy the challenges that each of these periods brings, as well as reading the historical background to the battles and campaigns. 

The Lead Pile

In relation to the above, the lead pile has invariably been added to as new periods have hoved into view, only to disappear all too quickly over the horizon. Even with my core eras to play, do I really need say four Seven Years War forces? Of course purists would say yes and of course they have a good point on this front. Afterall I take this approach with my WWII wargaming so can't really argue against this. But of late I have almost taken an 'Old School' Imagi-Nations approach where I simply make two opposing sides from figures I like with a good OOB that reflects the period and then simply game with them. It works for me which is of course the most important thing, especially for the solo gamer.

This approach can be seen with my Commission Figurines Red & Blue forces that could, in all honesty, be used to game all of the above periods with the exceptions of the 20thC. However I do still like to paint and play with nice figures, so will slowly build up these forces until I can get them onto the table. 

This Imagi-Nations approach will certainly help reduce the lead pile, allow me to focus on core forces rather than many for each period, which should hopefully prove cathartic and boost my painting output too! I do add in a slight caveat that this will not happen (yet) for my WWII forces, due to my love of the various marques of AFV's used throughout.

Battle & Campaigns

When I returned to wargaming some 20 or more years ago, it was very much skirmish based gaming, due to the pressures of work, storage, finances and having a young family. Over time this grew to planned all day games with multiple WWII Battalions per side. They were fun for the most part but were tiring and took an awful lot of time and energy, which I no longer have these days.

For me I now prefer battles that last maybe up to three hours with a few Bde's per side (12 - 15 units). Along side this I really like to have my battles as part of a campaign, rather than a stand alone game, where there are consequences to your actions. No Pyrrhic victories here! Skirmishs sometimes play a part at the start of a campaign or when map movement suggests that sort of thing, but they are few and far between these days.

Moving Forward

In light of the above, the main thing is to really have a damned good clearout and begin sorting stuff into piles to keep, piles to go and the inevitable maybe pile. This will allow really see what I have, which is hard to do with spread all over the house. Oh for a dedicated game room where everything was in one place!

This will be a long process due to the physical space issues involved, but a little and often should work. How I dispose of this is another matter. Probably a combination of advertising it here, forums, Facebook and ebay. Then there is the issue of pricing it all up. Some stuff maybe so hard to sell that it is simply given away.

At Present

So that's all in the future of course, but currently I've dug out my 19thC Imagi-Nations force that had planned to make it's debut at the Cotswold Wargaming Day last year, but a last minute change of plans put pay to that. So subject to Covid etc, they are due to take the field in September, so I need to paint at least another Brigade of Infantry and some Squadrons of Cavalry, plus some Command bases. Nice to have a deadline which always focusses the mind!

So until next time, stay safe and keep healthy.