Tuesday 3 March 2009

"Village Wars" in 25mm Project..

This is a 'background' project that I'm doing, a bit here and a bit there, and eventually I'll be able to put a game on with it. The idea of it, I have to say, has come from those old wargames books, and Battle Games stuff..'Wars of the Faltenian Succession' and so on. Being largely into Napoleonics, I fancied another period/scale, but I didn't want the effort of historical reference, so...I thought to myself, I like tricornes, and I like Old Glory figures, so I'll use their SYW range mostly, and paint the units up into my local village colours..easy to do, colourful, and stress free..I also wanted a lot of 'civilians'..because you get them in most wars, but not usually on the gaming table.
The benefit of 'doing your own thing', is that you can please yourself..hence there will be units of infantry, cavalry and artillery, as well as Village Mob, Village Idiots, Nuns (yes, Nuns!) and some Monks too..after all, it is the 1700's, and there were a few about back then. Also, you can use figures from slightly different era's, but which 'look right'..I have some ECW 'floppy hat' cavalry to paint up, having recently seen a Hammer House film, (you know, Peter Cushing), with some religious nuts riding around being very pious and righteous..I thought to myself, yep, I want one of those units too, they may be slow moving, but they'll put any non-believers to the sword once they start mixing it.
Also from Old Glory, from the 'Blue Moon' range, I have some smashing wagons and horses, which can be used as 'baggage', or just as locals wandering about, as they do, or as a distraction to certain units. From Hovels, I've obtained some lovely figures, being various farmers, locals on the beer (two of the figures even look a bit like myself and Hairy Dave, which is worrying), stocks, drunken harlots, farm animals, that sort of thing, which will grace the table nicely I think.
I'm heading towards one unit/Regt per base, of about 12 figures, to keep it easy, and I want each unit to have a name..'The Wykeham Foot', or 'The Wolds Regt', or 'The Lonsdale Losers'. Obviously, there will have to a 'Back Bar Forge Irregulars' unit..that'll be using the mob and drunken figures then...rules wise, I fancy doing my own, maybe a combination of bits from DBN/Featherstone/WRG style rules..with appropriate modifiers for all those 'odd' units. Whatever we end up with, the accent will be on having a fun, entertaining game, with lots of dice throwing...
Here's some pictures of what I have so far, and it reminds me that I need to waffle less and paint more..

A Regt of Wykeham Foot..(in the school colours)..
A Regt of HuttonBuscle Foot..(they all wear green up in that village)..
A unit of 'Village Mob'..you know, the local types who are up for a bit of a scrap, but easily distracted by beer wagons passing by..and harlots..and suchlike..
A unit of 'Nuns with Attitude'...try and trash their Church, and you'll have to get past them first..
A 'NorthMoor' Artillery battery with Limber..yep, they all wear brown in that village..with being non-historical, I can use older classier looking gun models too. I have a 54pdr to paint up...

And this is my latest nearly finished unit, in a sort of pink colour..not quite sure what they will be called, I may have to be careful naming this one..
I have a fair amount of stuff to paint my way through, but by keeping the units relatively small, I hope to be gaming it soon.

8 comments:

Ricky Frost said...

Looks really good Peeler. It's got me thinking what if I got some of these figures to do a Hunmanby lot?

Peeler said...

Thanks Rich. I think we'll have to have a Hunmanby Brigade...have a look at the Village sign, or School Board for the relevant colour scheme....:-)

Poacher said...

Lovely stuff, peeler. It's really nice to see it comign along so well, too. Wish I had more time to do mine.

I'm already daunted by the work involved in casting, cleaning and painting the rest of the PA 40mm units, and might abandon the project in favour of using the excellent Zvezda 20mm Great Northern War figures.

Peeler said...

Thanks Poacher. I know what you mean re time and effort...both sometimes in short supply! Be a shame though, i like your 40mm PA stuff. Has an 'Old' feel to it. I haven't heard of Zvezda...got a link?

Ricky Frost said...

Zvezda is a Russian model company like Italeri and Airfix.

Peeler said...

:-0 Silly me, course it is, have just seen the Site for them. Look pretty good really....hmmm....:-) No! Leave it, can't be doing another period/scale....

abdul666 said...

Peeler,
I have to confess that it was by chance that I stumbled on the link to your blog when perusing the membership of the 'Fortress' forum. Always a pleasure to discover a new Lace Wars imaginary campaign -I was hooked to the hobby by C. Grant's 'The War Game'. Your inspiration and setting are pleasantly original, your uniforms quite eye-candy: looking eagerly forward to enjoy the unfolding of events!
Cheers,
Jean-Louis
aka Louys de Monte-Cristo

Peeler said...

Thanks Abdul, nice to hear from you. And THAT is one heck of a Blog you have there! May well have to poach some of those uniform colour schemes you've posted up....
Regards,