My 2017 gaming plans

With Christmas music beginning to be heard in the shops, baubles now openly and officially on sale, (no longer an under the counter item) and the first spray of snow being applied to the windows (and it`s mid October for goodness sake!) I thought that I would turn to my planning for next years solo gaming.

With the move to Cyprus last year I didn`t actually plan out my games as I normally would.  The planning for the move, and the dreadful decisions of which wargames collections to keep and which to lose took most of my time.  But this year I am ahead of the game... so to speak.

Actually I have several games in the pipeline, some of which have absorbed a few months of plotting already.  My Bronze Age project will of course be at the forefront, but I want to return to I Ain't Been Shot Mum, and some 10mm WW2 games, as well as develop my Naval gaming with Post Captain. Since this blog is acting as my de-facto wargames journal I thought that I would set out some of my ideas, mainly so that I can refer back to them.

I have been playing through the Toofatlardies brilliant supplement Op Compass, by Robert Avery, for a couple of years now.  Nobody ever accused me of rushing.  I`m not built for it. 

My 10mm 1940s Western Desert setup is pretty well advanced, the British and Italians are complete, and the 1941 Afrika Korps about 10% done.  Next for my Op Compass games are the three interlinked scenarios for the siege of Bardia, a prelude to the fighting for Tobruk, and the first action for the newly arrived Australian Infantry Division.  

Major Mick Dundee will be squaring off against Colonello Alphonse Capone.  I'm planning to get the other members of the Marshal Petain Club to program the forces for me to enable me to fight these three games impartially.  I haven't told them that yet though.

I am carting about a hundred 28mm Sea Peoples figures back to Cyprus with me soon.  The plan is to get these painted and do some skirmish gaming.  I have completed a great little map of Bronze Age Karia, basically Bodrum and Marmaris for the ancient world. 

Three factions compete over this area.  The Karians, allies of the Trojans, as well as fighting for the Hittites against the Egyptians at Kadesh; next the Lukka, allies and enemies of the Trojans and Hittites and like the Karians named among the Sea Peoples in the Egyptian Inscriptions; and lastly the Akwesh identified as Achaeans, holding Rhodes and the Aegean islands.   

This Bronze Age game will allow me to scratch build some Bronze Age ships in 1:600 or thereabouts, and have a few games of

Naumachiae, as well as some skirmish gaming.  A High King such as Priam or Agamemnon is given the title "Anax," so if I end up using Dux Britannium as my rules for some skirmish games I`ll be able to call the games that.  It will however be largely a narrative and character driven game based around raiding and "Sacking cities."  I have some wonderfully camp heroic names worked out.

For my second foray into the Post Captain rules I intend to carry out another Naval Kriegsspiel, this time using the events of Lord Howe's Glorious First of June campaign in the bay of Biscay, concentrating on the scouting frigates and their actions.  It has been meticulously planned and plotted, awaiting only my return to Cyprus to start.  It will need my 1:2400 collection of Napoleonic Naval ships, as well as my 10mm Naval crews, Marines and guns.  Can our Heroes brave the Biscay storms, and maurauding French, and can that elusive Knighthood still be won?  

The last wargame I will mention here is another naval game.  Having used Post Captain last year I am keen to revisit General Quarters III.  One of the collections I kept for my move to Cyprus was a large setup of 1:6000 WW2 Naval.  I plan to start with a simple Hunt the Raider game, a German pocket battleship against a squadron of British cruisers.  I have some great  vintage charts of the Falklands, so with the Germans reinforced for games two and three a repeat of the First World War battles of the Falklands and then Coronel, but using WW2 ships seems like a good idea.  The early war setting and remote geography will limit the role of aircraft.  

These are of course only a few of the games I have in mind, and actually these ones are the most advanced in terms of planning them out.  In terms of painting the Sea Peoples are the main event, but I have several projects just waiting to get onto the painting tray: reinforcements for my Marlburians and Jacobites in 10mm, two 15mm Sci Fi Infantry platoons for the Lardy Q13 rules, a group of 15mm Archeologists and Tomb raiders for some Pulp gaming Chaos in Cairo style games, and of course my 28mm Sharp Practice2 setup(s)  Its going to be a busy year.