A bit quiet on the wargaming front since the Arnhem campaign. I have managed to get another Adventures in Middle Earth RPG session in, which was great, and Lucius and I locked horns online with Napoleon Total War, but that’s not as fun as moving troops on the table.

For wargaming, we are working on (too) many projects and are trying to prioritize:

Von Luck

Next up is Kampfgruppe Von Luck pint sized campaign. 

The Para’s are all ready and we have either on the paint table or on its way, about 60 German infantry, plus supports to finally get some non-Fallschirmjager opponents. Granted, we could use my FJs as the Panzer Grenadiers, and get the campaign kicked off sooner, but it’s time to expand what we can put on the table and this seems like a good time.

Early War

With the Blitzkrieg 1940 handbook being full of such goodness, we hummed and hawed about scale before I remembered that I already have an early war Brit platoon from Forged in Battle and Early War Heer from PSC. I also already have most of the armour, so this will be my 15mm WW2 period. I have some specials and the inaugural Lard Mag so I am hoping that we can do an early war campaign at the end of summer. The Gembloux Gap campaign is my ultimate goal, so I am looking at growing my French forces. I have yet to find early war French snipers or AT rifle teams (or cavalry for that matter) in 15mm… any suggestions? 

Napoleonic

In the fall we will have a number of painted Napoleonics ready. We have a fictional campaign in Denmark in the planning stages, though that may change as we wanted a naval element and those ships are very far down the lead pile. We may try some small actions in the 100 Days to get into the period. Still looking at rules. Sharp Practice seems too small and General D’Armeé seems too big. We’ll have about 5 infantry battalions plus supports a side. I’ve got Field of Battle (Piquet), and Black Powder 2 as options. The campaign system will be based on Dawns and Departures, probably a simple ladder for this one. 

Cruel Seas

We are slowly getting ships painted (and 3d printed)! We will eventually do a combined land/sea battle of Op Chariot with some of these boats, but I also would love to some coastal action in the Med, maybe even with some sort of campaign. I hope to get a few quick fights in as the weather heats up and painting falls off. These rules are fast and fun so along with What a Tanker and Wings of Glory, I think we’ll pull them out for a few beers in the summer sun.

Operation Varsity/Plunder

Just as I have some early war 15mm troops, Lucius has late war (but a lot more of them). He has several companies of standard infantry but also has over 300 sorry 500 (!) paras in 15mm, as well as a lot of late war Germans. We are slowly working towards making a Varsity campaign, though we haven’t settled on a ruleset yet (IABSM vs Big Chain of Command) as Lucius gets these guys ready.

Middle Earth

I have a lot of 28mm figures for Middle Earth, most of them primed but unpainted. These are a mix of GW and some historicals, as I prefer the image of Gondor in chain. As such I have several boxes of Normans awaiting work. I would love to run Dux Arda eventually, but first I have a wargame planned. I intend to integrate a battle or two into my Adventures in Middle Earth campaign using either Dragon Rampant or Dux.

Best Laid Plans…

As you can see, we have a lot going on and not a tonne of spare time, so we’ll be busy for a while! I’m really hoping that we can get the Von Luck campaign done before mid July, and then play some non-linked games of different rule sets before getting into an early war campaign in September.