That Article

Tamiya Khaki if anyone's interested with some bleached bone for the webbing. Almost complete, barring a little highlighting here and there.

And the war machine springs to life

The first of many

Marching into Belgium!

The Great War gathers pace

Clive Knight rider on Stadden horse

Spencer Smith Prussian in feldgrau drag

Feldgrau paint test

Clive Knight aviators from Tradition. Any feedback gratefully taken on board.

A sort of Funny Little Mons

So, here we go with another blog. Not a Facebook page page or any other kind of social media as this will be very much a web log for a wargaming project.

So, what is the project? 

For a very long time I have been wanting an excuse to put together a collection based on the old Stadden 30mm Great War British, German and French armies of 1914. With this in mind, I am hoping in about a years' time to have a demonstration game for the Melbourne 2020 Little Wars convention. The game will be based around the 1914 battle for the Mons canal.

The feel will be a little on the Funny Little Wars side in terms of rules mechanisms and look. 

Apart from the figures I am already extraordinarily keen to get my hands on, there will be nice cars with lounging senior officers and the odd mounted Staff officer. The Willie "Bismarck" in a pair of different paint-jobs will likely make an appearance in the command staff of both sides. As you can see, he would look well in either Khaki or Field Gray with only minor modification:

https://mavisming.blogspot.com/2015/06/remember-majuba-or-up-chamla-with-old.html

I may see if there is an excuse for putting up some old 1/48th aircraft to do recon if the cavalry can't do the job.

Artillery will be largely off table and machine guns are a problem as there are no suitable figures with the look I am after, but I am sure that something can be worked out.

The rules  am proposing touse will be home-cooked. I will be basing them on the use of D10s to give a better spread of outcomes than D6s allow. I want the rules that I get together to reflect a few things:

1. The deadly peril of facing magazine rifle fire in open terrain, especially for dense formations,

2. The difficulty of maintaining control in a fluid situation where the troops are in very open order and tend to fight their own little battle when in contact.

3. How to choose the moment to attempt to break contact and retreat.

4. The necessity of properly preparing buildings for the defence if they are to be used as hard cover.

These questions may be modified as I get to grips with the material I have to hand!