The cast-pike controversy

15 mm mediaeval Florentine spearmen. All my 15 mm and
25 mm pikemen/spearmen have been re-equipped with
wire/pins, but I wouldn't want to do that with 10 mm figures
unless they come open-handed.

Doing the Thirty Years War with 10 mm Pendraken or 6 mm Baccus figures has been on my wishlist for a long time. For someone in Britain brought up on an Anglocentric view of history, doing the TYW rather than the English Civil War appeals to my offbeat tastes.

However, I am completely put off large pike armies by the prospect of bent and broken pikes or the effort required to replace cast pikes with pins or wire. Replacing 10 mm cast pikes is very tedious and time-consuming, and not always successful. Replacing 6 mm pikes is probably not even an option.

Thoughts on scale and basing preferences

1/72, 1/76, OO or 20mm. Call it what you will, it was a
common starting point for most people of my generation.

Why do different gamers favour particular scales? The more I think about it the more I feel that personal preference is probably outweighed by model availability, 'because the rules stipulate it', or because of pressure to conform with other players if you don't want to be left playing solo.

Historical wargamers tend to be of a certain age and they began with what was available at the time. My first schoolboy armies were 1/72 Airfix figures and vehicles and some somewhat smaller Roco Minitanks though that didn't really bother me at the time. When I came back into wargaming in the later 70s I was mad for Ancients and gave away the 1/72 AFVs I had rescued from from parental disposal. This effectively broke my own connection with 1/72 but this seems somewhat untypical. (I should point out that when I use the term '1/72', I mean the ranges variously made and described as OO, 1/72, 1/76 or 20mm. Let's not be pedantic.)

Reminiscing

The turn of the year is a time for reminiscing, and as 2013 is also my retirement year I found myself thinking about my lifetime interest in wargaming. As a small boy I was always drawn to toy soldiers rather than model cars or train sets, but it was the availability of Airfix 1/72 plastic figures and kits and the inspiration of Donald Featherstone that facilitated the transformation of imaginative play into gaming with rules. As a schoolboy I was a subscriber to Don's Wargamers' Newsletter, to John Tunstill's Miniature Warfare and even to the Society of Ancients. I also had a collection of R W Spencer-Smith's 30mm plastic 18th-Century figures which I painted up for the American War of Independence. These are still made today but cast in metal.  I lost contact with the hobby when I left school and unfortunately most of my childhood possessions were disposed of.

Force on Force

It's only just over a month since I was planning new Square Bashing armies but the focus of my attention has now passed to the new Force on Force modern skirmish rules from Ambush Alley Games recently and sumptuously published by Osprey. The rules aren't exactly new, but they are new to me, new in this format, and likely to capture a significant audience. The rules have some very clever mechanisms and have been described as the most innovative new rules since Crossfire.

They are scenario-driven and centred on small-unit actions. With 15-20mm figures, they are intended to be used on a very compact table, typically only 2' square. Putting together a game should, therefore, be relatively economical in all respects. Even so, I've decided to be unusually cautious. My normal plan for doing a new game is to:

1. Buy lots of figures and scenery.

2. Start painting them.

3. Loose interest.

4. Put them into storage so I have room to start the next project!

Occasionally I manage to finish a project before losing interest, and sometimes I even get to play a couple of games. Whilst I may inevitably fall for this conventional, if doomed, approach, my current plan is to:

1. Buy some cheap 1/72 plastic figures and mount them on pennies.

2. Collect some small boxes to represent buildings.

3. Start gaming!