Wooden Wars Imaginations: Big Battle Playtest

" And I rattled my Wig..." 
~ Judge, Monty Python

 Gryphonsburg Guns open fire on the Duchy of Hypzig.

Imaginations: Big battle play test  

With Kublacon coming up, I really wanted to get all the soldiers onto a battlefield and test them out, as aside from the smaller unit Game of " To the Stongest" that I helped run at Recruits  game convention last year, I've not fielded this many 54mm woodens on a table top. Floor sure, but not table top.  So this past weekend, I ran a "play test" game at my local South Bay Gamers Club meeting.

Grenadiers caught by gunfire are driven back and confused.

The play test went smooth enough, and lead me to three main questions:How big can my armies be?  How much room do I need for the forces? And, will the rules I want to use work?  I'll start with the last question and work backwards.

Beauty shot of Stanley Stinnett's blue's of Gryhonsburg. 

Warmaster is Master! 

It's no surprise to my bloggy friends and club mates that I love Rick Priestly's Warmaster rules system. He should probably be knighted for them. Sure, lots of flaws, but you show me a rules set that doesn't have them?  I took the main rules for Warmaster and adapted them to a Wars of Spanish Succession era army type list.

 How did they play? Honestly better than I had hoped.  After the game, which game to a conclusion in 7 turns (approx 4 hours of play, including lunch break) all the players compared notes and the only changes I'm making are to command ranges, and that is due to the unit sizes being so much larger than a 10mm scale unit. firing  ranges felt "period" and bringing the bayonet was really decisive. The only thing we had a bit of trouble with was drive backs from fire, and I might simplify that up a bit for a convention game.

I made measuring batons with markings on the back, for ease of play

Empress P's Army of Hypzig

Unpainted grenadiers get some support from the Duke of Gryphonsburg.

Room to Roam

Once we had all the troops available to us (8 units infantry, 3-4 cav and 1 battery of guns each)  at the table (note unpainted Grenadiers and half painted fusiliers- it's a playtest!) It was quickly clear that, for a friendly game the 6x 8 foot table was fine, but for the convention, I want to stretch it out a bit more and make it 12 feet long. This will give more room for terrain , such as the woods and a small village, but more importantly give room for 8 players to be able to control their troops.

when you're 54mm tall, 6 feet looks a long ways away

My cavalry got boxed in and were scant support. I need a bigger table!

Explosion markers denote units that are "confused" and must rally.

The rules really held up and allowed for the entire battle to shift.

 Mustering Forces: Army sizes

With the rules working, and the table space figured out, at this point it's really just how many troops I can get painted for each side. Ideally I'd like 12 infantry battalions, 6 cavalry regiments, and 2 batteries of guns per side, but we'll see what we can get done. 

A Colonels command stand.

Long shot of new mounted officers- more on them next blog!

Colonel ZubZub's White battalion holds the center

 Wrap it up- I'll take it!

 All in all I was super happy with the whole package, and the feedback from my club mates was constructive and ego boosting (I'm American, I can say that).  Now the hard part getting it all shiny for the upcoming con next month!

I'm super excited about this project, and hope to announce soon that these models will be up for sale on my webstore.

Cheers!

ths