How Time Flies!

Wow, these last three weeks have gone quick! It seems the closer we get to the end of the year, the faster time seems to fly by.

In the intervening weeks since my last post though, time seems to have gone so quickly that I've not had a moment to really make much progress with anything. It also surprised me to find that we're now only 4 days away from Wargamer 2012, and so all other projects have been frantically shoved aside in order to make our preparations.

Yes, the Wyrley Retinue are once again putting on a game at this local show, and we're bringing out the Thirty Years' War again. Having run our Battle of Steinkirche (based on Steenkerke, 1692) at last year's Wargamer, as well as at Alumwell WMMS this year, we're changing the game a bit with a new scenario and a new layout (mostly utilising our existing terrain boards, but with a couple of new additions).

This time out, we're basing our game on the Battle of Lech 1632 (also known as the Battle of Rain). The scenario, as in the original battle, is based on a river crossing; the Swedes want to cross the river Lech and find their army opposed by the Imperialists. The Imperialists, however, believe that the Swedish army is only a diversionary army and so they dispatch half their forces further downriver to where they believe the rest of the Swedish army is gathering. As it turns out, there is no "other Swedish army" and in fact the Swedish force facing the now-reduced Imperialist army across the river Lech is the *entire* Swedish army (i.e. it's not a diversion). The Imperialists find themselves facing an army of around 45,000 Swedes with only 25,000 men of their own, and so the scene is set for our own battle.

Of course, those who have seen our boards for the Steinkirche game will notice a distinct lack of river, and so new boards were commissioned from the WRTMF (or "Wyrley Retinue Terrain Making Factory" aka Gary's back garden...).

With judicious use of our existing boards, we were able to come up with a layout that kept our new terrain requirements down to just two new boards - another 4'x2' board and another 2'x2' board, both made up as river/water "tiles".

The two new tiles, textured and ready for painting

Since the above pictures were taken, the boards have been painted and the river was ready for varnishing. All that's left at this stage is finishing off the various other bits that go along with the game (such as extra figures, casualty markers, plus more scenery).

I might get chance to update on progress again prior to Sunday, but if not, I'll report after the show on how it all goes! If you're in the Great Barr area on Sunday, why not pop along and come have a chat :)