Monday, April 23, 2007

SYW Project Begins

I'm still searching for a set of rules that I will want to invest time in. Besides writing my own rules I'm considering the following; 1. Standing Like a Wall, 2. Mod for Armies of Arcana, 3. Vae Victis (DBx variant), Pro Gloria, and Charge! I also have looked at the Duke of Alzheim's writings on his own SYW rules and various stuff I find at Free Wargames Rules website. Vae Victis would be the easiest for me to jump right into as I am a DBx wargamer. I have printed out Charge from the Old School Wargamers Group web page and intend to read it tonight. I also want to find something that will lend itself well to solo wargaming.

I haven't decided on the scale just yet either. I'm leaning towards 15mm to build up an impressive army. However, 25mm is still my favorite. Briefly considered 40mm but that ended quick when the Prince August Rosebach molds arrived; after many castings none came out good enough to pass my QA inspection.

I've settled on a map of Luxembourg, which I will modify to suit my campaign plans. Using this map will allow for easy edit for campaign updates on PC. The main combatants will be the Duchy of Saxe-Huack, the Kingdom of Ostenburg, and possibly the League of Bittburg (a free city-state confederation.) The first to receive attention will be Saxe-Huack then Ostenburg.

My thoughts on miniatures are; 1. Minifigs, 2. RSM, 3. Essex, 4. Battle Honors, 5. Old Glory, 6. Sash & Sabre, 7. Foundry.

6 comments:

Bluebear Jeff said...

As a representative of the Principality of Saxe-Bearstein, please allow me to welcome you to the World of Blog.

As far as rules are concerned, for myself and my opponents, I have written my own. The reason for doing so is that none of the sets I was familiar with handled things quite the way I wanted them handled.

If you are considering writing your own, I urge you to do so. The big thing to keep in mind is whether you have gaming buddies who will play with you or if you will be Solo gaming?

Will you be providing all of the troops? Or will someone else be building an opposing force? If the former, you can make units as large or small as you want; if the latter, you'll need to take your opponent's wishes into consideration.

As for figures, I'm using the RSM miniatures. They are amazingly affordable compared to other 25s and not all that much more than some 15mm troops. And, as I'm pushing 60, the larger size is much more visible and thus easier for me to paint.

But, follow your own muse. Don't let any of us determine which rules or scales to use. Build your forces the way you'd like.

And, once again, welcome! (I've added a link to your blog at mine).


-- Jeff of Saxe-Bearstein

http://saxe-bearstein.blogspot.com/

old-tidders said...

Welcome to blogland.

Choosing figures is always difficult; I nearly started my armies using Irregular Miniatures 42mm SYW range, but moved to 25/28mm figs due to there being more choice and types available from a lot of manufacturers.

I'm building up two armies, the Monrovian army is mostly Hinchcliffe Cavalry and Irregular Miniatures Infantry, for the Wittenberg army I'm planning currently to use a mix of Front Rank, Sash & Sabre and Old Glory.

I've chosen to use Weight of Fire rules, as they are similar to thos I used when I first started wargaming.

Allan (Wittenberg)

Snickering Corpses said...

As a representative of the Principality of Hesse-Engelburg, I also welcome you to the world of SYW blogs.

I'm still bouncing between rulesets, with Standing Like a Wall in my possession, and BAR by Bill Protz on the way in the mail. I'm also keeping an eye on Jeff's work, and hoping once he has his rules finished that I can wheedle a copy out of him. ;)

For figures, I'll join the recommendations towards 25mm, or really it's more like 30mm for RSMs if you measure base to brow. As Jeff said, determine what you like. :) That's the most important part. The only reason I suggest the 25-30mm is if you hope to field your own armies in the big SYW games run by Alte Fritz and company, that's the size most seem to be using.

If you're not already a member, I highly recommend joining each of these Yahoo groups:

old_school_wargaming
SOCDAISY
syw

I'm a member of all three and have found useful info for my fictional countries on all of them.

Bluebear Jeff said...

Adding to the groups that Jonathan mentioned, let me add LaceWars (as opposed to Lace_Wars, which is a particular set of rules). Here are some links:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/old_school_wargaming/

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LaceWars/

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SOCDAISY/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syw/


-- Jeff of Saxe-Bearstein

Bluebear Jeff said...

Oops! The URL of the Old School Wargamers got truncated. The end of it should read:

/old_school_wargaming/

So copy/paste that into the earlier URL to get to the right place.


-- Jeff of Saxe-Bearstein

Auston Jeff Butler said...

Thanks for the groups info.