Planning projects

[kustenjaeger]

Plans are funny things.

I've got a multitude of planned or just started wargame projects that I need to rationalise. I need to decide what I am likely to use long term especially when we downsize from the current house over the next few years following retirement in about a year's time, taking into account I need to finish painting the forces I keep.

If I am lucky in about 5 years time I'll end up with 10 'sets' of forces to play small/medium sized games solo once a week or so and a larger game once a month.

So what are my parameters for future longer term projects?

1. Can be played on a 4' x 3' table, likely to be the default in later retirement, with expansion to 6' x 4' for bigger games.

2. Can be stored easily in, say, an A4 really useful box per force.  I am sure future storage will be an issue.

3. Can utilise existing terrain (or doesn't require much).

4. Can be progressed to completion in meaningful weekly chunks of, say, 10 hours per week post-retirement.

5. Provides a lot of variety in terms of types of game - so not just line them up but scenario driven, campaigns etc. 

The eventual 10 'sets' should cover a wide variety of periods - but a set might be more than 2 forces, so for example, if I went for mid 19th century I might end up with FPW French (also being used for 1859), FPW Prussian and Bavarian, Austrian and Sardinian 1859, able to be used for Bloody Big Battles but also other rules.

So 10mm is a good scale for future plans - I am unlikely to only use 10mm but my larger tactical games could end up mainly in 10mm.

Does anyone else have planning parameters?

Edward

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Whats a plan, work at random !

[Gwydion]

Wot e sed^^^^^^^^^

[fsn]

Yes ... sort of.

The only scale I use for land forces is 10mm.

Pretty much everything I do is in a temperate zone, and it's always August. That means I only have to have one set of natural scenery. A hill in August 500BC is the same as a hill in August 500 AD is the same as ... (purists now raging.) A stone wall has many applications and a tree is a tree. This monolithic approach to terrain means I'm not going to be doing the Winter War or the Viet Nam war, but we can't have everything.* 

For most periods pre 1900, I try and keep down to about 500 figures. Post 1900 I go to 1:1 company/squadron sized forces. They will fit in an A4 RUB box. For added fun, I have a few pre-1900 periods of skirmishers (e.g. Spanish-American War, Pig faced bascinets**) 

Where possible, I use an actual or at least plausible OOB, which has similar ratios of the various arms. Napoleonics are 70%-80% infantry, 15%-25% cavalry. WSS has more cavalry, and as for the C17 anything goes.

I am lucky that I live on my own, I play solo and I have a dedicated games room with an 8' x 4' table. This means I can play a game in a night or a week or even longer.

I've not had the energy for a campaign. Having said that ... I have a copy of War and Peace from Avalon Hill. I bought it (in about 1980) with the idea of transferring battles to the table. At this point, barring the Iberians, I could probably do it.  More realistically, once I've played a tankie game, I'm looking for some swordplay, then that means I'll have a yen for the rattle of musketry.




*At one point I was considering just doing wars in Sicily - Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Normans, Arabs, Byzantines, probably some medieval, WSS, Napoleonics, WWII ...Sicily offers so much. 
** Wondering about doing somne Border Reivers in skirmish. A Peel tower should be easy enough to scratchbuild. 

[kustenjaeger]

Most of my forces are designed for summer campaigning season - exceptions are some of my 20mm WW2 for winter 1944/45.

I agree about building on OOBs. My Peninsular 10mm in the painting queue are being built around 1811/12 operations between Hill and d'Erlon centred in Estremadura, with ~32 figure battalions and roughly a division plus a cavalry brigade a side.

My Spanish Civil War are based on 1936-7 around Oviedo in Asturias with a mix of troop types.

Edward

[Ithoriel]

Project planning ... hmmm!

1. Figures must be no smaller than 1/6000 scale and no larger than 1/12th scale.

2. Playing surface must be no smaller than a postcard and no larger than the Andromeda Galaxy (I mean 46.56 kiloparsecs should be enough for any game)

3. Period should not predate the Big Bang nor post-date the Heat Death of the Universe.

4. Must be able to be stored within the current universe.

5. It must be possible to buy, make or fudge the required terrain.

5. Appropriate figures would be nice but "near enough" will do at a pinch. Paint conversions preferred but not mandatory.

6. Ability to complete within my lifetime a "nice to have" but not entirely necessary.

Anything meeting those parameters should be considered as, at the very least, "Under Consideration!"

Some are "In Progress!"

None will ever be considered "Complete!"

[kustenjaeger]

Project planning ... hmmm!

1. Figures must be no smaller than 1/6000 scale and no larger than 1/12th scale.

2. Playing surface must be no smaller than a postcard and no larger than the Andromeda Galaxy (I mean 46.56 kiloparsecs should be enough for any game)

3. Period should not predate the Big Bang nor post-date the Heat Death of the Universe.

4. Must be able to be stored within the current universe.

5. It must be possible to buy, make or fudge the required terrain.

5. Appropriate figures would be nice but "near enough" will do at a pinch. Paint conversions preferred but not mandatory.

6. Ability to complete within my lifetime a "nice to have" but not entirely necessary.

Anything meeting those parameters should be considered as, at the very least, "Under Consideration!"

Some are "In Progress!"

None will ever be considered "Complete!"

:-)

Edward

[Big Insect]

Personally I'm one for matched forces.

So if I am going to produce an Ancient German army - I might 'focus' it on the AD-9 Battle of the Teutoburg Forest and therefore produce a 'matching' Early Imperial Roman force.

Likewise, if I am going to undertake a Crimean War project - the Russians are a 'must' - but I might choose to build a Sardinian/Piedmont or maybe even a Turkish force (rather than the more obvious British or French opposition) as I like to try and have balanced forces.

Similarly for Cold War Commander, I have my NATO Dutch and a Soviet 1st Army WARSAW Pact force to oppose them. I also have built smaller US Airborne and US 9th Infantry force I can use to support the Dutch, if necessary.

I'm also pretty eclectic in what I play - I like most periods but if I am doing WW2 (for example) I am more likely to build Japanese & British in Burma or Finns & Soviets than Eastern Front Germans & Soviets or D-Day or North Africa.

I'm also a 'fan' of multi-use forces - so my Western Late Roman army will be happy to confront either my Franks, Huns, Goths etc. All of which can equally fight each other or act as allies to the Romans or (in some cases) each other. A 'mix & match' approach.

I am also going through a big 'post' retirement rationalization project, that has seen me take a good, long, cold look at what I have in my project cupboard. I'm trying hard to rationally at what scales I want to play which periods in. I probably don't need early WW1 in 20mm, 15mm, 10mm and 6mm (all of which I currently have - in some quantity  ). Likewise, a 28mm Colonial project (unstarted) will be sold-off, as I have masses of Sudan & South African colonial in 15mm - already painted & based & much loved.

I have worked out that I can on-average paint c.2 full x 28mm 'ancient/medieval' armies, for my favored rules set, per annum. But I actually rarely play with more than 2 armies a year (competitively) so some of the c.9 armies I have acquired in unpainted lead over the past 40+ years of gaming - that are still unpainted - have already been sold off.

If I start something new now ... I really (really) have to 'love it' and be prepared to commit to playing with it. However some things, like my much loved Wargames Foundry 28mm Opium Wars matched armies, I just cannot bare to be parted with (well not just yet anyway).

Some periods just don't really interest me (anymore) - & I know this is wargames sacrilege but WW2 and Napoleonic are amongst these. SYW/WSS and ECW are likewise things of the past for me. Napoleonics being just too huge a project and SYW/WSS and ECW I just found too 'limiting'.

My 'fantasy' project are now either focused on Hordes of the Things armies (mostly in 15mm) or a painted (but still to be based) 15mm Lord of the Rings project. 2024 is the year of basing & rebasing as a priority.

I've also started selling off a host of unpainted 6mm Future War Commander armies - to allow me to focus on the new 10mm Pendraken ranges to play with FWC II.

2023 taught me that life is full of surprises and is unpredictable - dont put off until tomorrow what you can do today and also ... be realistic. Do more of what you love and if something becomes a bore or a chore, just ditch it and move on 

I'm not sure how helpful all that is ... but it's my tuppence worth to the debate 

Mark

[fred.]

I'm not sure I really plan my projects that much. They all tend to add more and more stuff to them!

There is some synergy between armies, any broadly medieval historical force will tend to end up with some additions to allow it to be played against fantasy opponents.

WWI I have ended up with early war on grassy bases and late war on muddy bases - but given the change in uniforms it dosen't feel I have too much duplication here. For WWII I have desert and temperate forces - again there is enough difference in kit and uniforms that any duplication would have to happen due to green vs sand camouflage.

Regarding your planning for retirement - I would think hard about sticking with 1 scale, as that will make the volume of terrain you need. I have far more storage space dedicated to terrain than I do to figures. And 28mm terrain is really large and awkward to store. 10mm terrain on the other hand is really quite compact.

I find 10mm armies very compact to store, my current preferred method is 9L RUB with MDF insert trays from Commission Figurines. For WWI or WWII (where infantry don't have spears and flags sticking up) I can get 5 or 6 layers in a box. Several layers of tanks in one of these boxes can be a bit of weight lifting training!

[paulr]

Ithoriel    

Kustenjaeger, I like your thinking

Nobby's point on terrain is well made, terrain has a way of eating storage space

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

My system:
1) who is paying me.
2) who do I owe money
3) what do I need for my next game/competition
5) what's my latest fad
4) what fell off the lead mountain in the last avalanche

[pierre the shy]

Wargaming planning? I think you will find that most gamers suffer from Von Moltke's and Barrow's Laws............

"No plan will survive contact with the enemy" Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics" - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps 1979.

Looking at my tableful of "still progessing" projects beside me these certianly seem to apply to me     

[hammurabi70]

Does anyone else have planning parameters?

When I retired in 2019 I considered that I would be able to continue until 2030 when it would be appropriate to start selling down the collection to ease the burden on my executors.  At that time I used 6mm for nineteenth century and later, and 15mm for all earlier periods, although having 6mm Punic War and Outremer periods.  Covid promptly caused diversions into 10mm for twentieth century and 2mm for earlier periods in order to game over Zoom; reversing the use of scale that I had been using. Flexibility is key!

I reviewed what periods were of key interest and what I intended to do on them. 

Now I:
(1) Buy books only relating to those interests and borrow library books for anything else.
(2) Plan and have started selling off material of peripheral interest: books, games, figures.
(3) Have already bought most of the games and figures to cover what I intend to do (aiming for value-for-money); I buy for both sides of the conflict although I know others who have suitable material and consider how that might be incorporated.

Enjoy retirement and stay flexible!  I have recently acquired GMT's Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich simply because it looked interesting.  Now I just need to get on with enjoying what I have.

[John Cook]

I don't really have a plan as such. 
My projects usually creep up on me from nowhere, often sparked by something like a film or a book, or a visit to a museum or battlefield site. 
First there is the initial idea, followed by research and then a number of stages that seem to drive themselves, from identifying a range of 10mm figures, purchasing and painting the figures to fighting the campaign. 
Almost all my projects are informed by a historical campaign, currently the Tagus Campaign 1809, and I don't start a new one until the current one is finished.
All my armies reflect historical OBs and can be small or large, and can take a few months to three or more years to complete. 
The objective is to refight a campaign using the historical armies, but players don't have to follow precedence so during the planned Tagus campaign (which will probably be in 2025) the British and French might meet somewhere other than at Talavera.  More detailed planning goes into the campaign than creating the armies to refight it.
The key to it all is maintenance of the objective and refusing to be sidetracked, if at all possible!

[Steve J]

My approach is very much along your lines Edward, having had a long and hard look at my lead mountain etc. My aim currently is to finish off those little bits'n'bobs that have lain unpainted for my WWII forces for years, so they are as complete as they can be. Then I will move onto my 18thImagiNations forces and do likewise. My aim is not to start anything new until one 'project' is finished, to try and help maintain focus. So far it's going to plan...