Then I discovered Bruce Quarrie's Airfix gaming guide, that eventually became Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature that got be hooked on real wargaming with toy soldiers when I was a teenager.
In tribute to my first love of gaming, I had decided it's time to go back and do 1:72 scale; not only to save money and space, but also as I have recently discovered the unbelievable quality and variety of 1/72 scale figures and periods. I used to have a 15 mm Zulu army and now I have decided to do both the British and Zulus in 1/72 scale soft plastic figures.
Lieutenant Colonel Redvers Buller, VC, leads the Frontier Light Horse through the gauntlet on Hlobane Mountain.
The Edendale Contingent of the Natal Native Horse
The 1/72 plan for the Anglo-Zulu war came to an abrupt halt when my lovely bride of 31 years asked me to teach a Wargaming Class for one of the local Home School Co-ops. All of our wonderful 5 boys have spent the majority of their school time in home school and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Honorable Son #1 is a librarian in a major university and is married; Honorable Son #2 is a lieutenant in the US Army and is married; Honorable Son #3 is a chemical and biological engineer and is married; Honorable Son #4 is in Cow College (yeah, I'm an Alabama fine) and is in Construction Science; and Honorable Son #5 is a junior in high school and just finished his calculus in college.
I decided to do my class One-Hour War Games: The American Civil War. I used the One-Hour Wargames book written by Neil Thomas and it worked out perfectly for introducing medical and highschool children to wargaming. It took me a couple months to paint armies for the Union and Confederate armies as I was also working on other projects. There were a total of 10 battles for a campaign and the Union forces pulled out a victory with a narrow victory. The class for so popular I will be doing another class but will be doing the 17th century. In a future date I will take pictures of the 1/72 scale American Civil war forces from last semester and the new 1/72 scale forces for ImagiNation armies for the next semester.
Have you considered moving up a scale to 1/32 in plastic. There are some good quality and cheap figures out there, especially for the ACW and Napoleonic Wars. Once painted and varnished they are easy to handle and take the knocks that your pupils will no doubt give the.
ReplyDeleteRobbie, that's a good idea and one I never considered. I will have to take a look at that.
DeleteLoved Quarrie's book wen I got a copy of it 30 years ago! Still peruse it occasionally now. Never tried playing an actual game using the rules contained therein, but lots of interesting information and ideas to think about.
ReplyDeleteBest Regards,
Stokes
Quarrie's book is what really got my brothers and friends going with our Airfix Napoleonic armies. I haven't played a game with it since the 1990's but it has great information and is my favorite tactical Napoleonic rules.
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