sabato 11 novembre 2017

Neil Thomas' Wargaming the Nineteenth Century review


I was looking for a ruleset to use my new Risorgimento figures and my attention was caught by "Wargaming the Nineteenth Century in Europe 1815-1878" by Neil Thomas.


I already heard of him as author of One Hour Wargaming and other works concerning our hobby, but I never dealt with his works.

Since I couldn't find much about the set on the net, I decided to purchase the kindle edition straightly from the publisher (Pen&Sword) at 4.99£. Great value for the money, but...there are no pictures only drawn maps. I know that in the printed edition (19.99£+ shipping) there are several pictures of gaming tables. Anyways, nothing essential. (EDIT: I found the pictures, they are at the very end of the book and not inside it)

The book gives a good historical and military introduction of the warfare in the period and then speculates on the best way to model a wargame to represent it. The process really reminds me Sabin's Lost Battles

The rules per se are just 8 pages (in the printed copy) and are very old style in layout, but the approach is interesting: simpler is better, and so we get a distillation of 19th century warfare. Those looking for detailed rules will be disappointed, but I love easy (yet period-specific) games. The rules are aimed at small battles involving around a brigade per side. They are very simple and should play in about 2 hours, involving about 10-15 units per side. Command and control is included just as optional rule, since "a player is able to act foolishly without external rules"

The rules are completed by 15 army lists, 5 generic scenarios (one mini-game) and 10 historical scenarios covering the main conflicts in Europe from the Carlist War to Franco Prussian War. There is no point system, but an interesting army generator which with a couple of dice rolls generates a casual army.

For the Italian Risorgimento there is only one scenario included (Montebello 1859), but are provided lists for generic revolutionary and monarchic army (1848), French, Italian, Austrian (1859 and 1866), Garibaldini and Bourbonic (1860). There is an error in the rating of Bourboinc troops, in my modest opinion, the author was too influenced by some sources he used. Anyway, this can be solved with some work. With some work a Papal State army can also be produced, and additional historical scenarios, too.

In conclusion: it's not the scale of battles I'm interested in, since I'm going to play the period with 28mm figures and I aim to play a large skirmish kind of game, as Lion Rampant or Sharpe Practice, but I'd steal some idea (best form of adulation, isn't it?) if I ever had to write my own rules.

mercoledì 1 novembre 2017

Shakò64 Borbonic Hunters (1)

The debout of Shakò64: a Italian company dedicated to Italian Wars of Indipendence.

 

Italian Wars of Indipendence, or Risorgimento, is considered a lesser conflict and is often overviewed by wargamers and manifacturers. For this reason a new manifacturer dedicated to this period is a wonderful news! Shakò64 entered the hobby market this year. I recently received a sample from their first released range, consisting in Cacciatori Borbonici (Borbonic Hunters) a light infantry unit of the Army of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies which fought against Garibaldi's redshirts during the 1860 campaign. 

In their online shop are currently aivalable: Hunters with different combination of campaign dress/frock coats and jackets with covered/uncovered shakò or kepì and Hunters Command group wearing tunic, with the same headgears options, but the manifacturer intention is to extend their range to cover both the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and Garibaldi's armies. Also aivalable the flag for some battalions of Borbonic Hunters and Carabinieri (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th battalion Cacciatori and 1st and 2nd Carabinieri). They're sold in packs of 4 for 9€ (2.25€ for infantry figure).




The figures are sculpted by Cosimo Auricchio, former sculptor for Ital.Model, a discontinued brand producing figures for the Italian Risorgimento. At the first look they looks very well sculpted virtually no flash and smooth mold lines, basically ready to be washed and primed! Very interesting the choice to provide separate backpacks (at least 3 different models) to add variety and help the paintjob. At a first measurement they looks 27-28mm to eyes level, so definitely a modern range (the so called "heroic 28mm"), larger than Mirliton and Foundry, and similar to Gringo40s. Comparison is needed (stay tuned!).