Been slowly but steadily working with the game. Solo play requires a lot of imagination, assisted by “Yes, No, Maybe” dice and directional dice.
A simple scenario. A Marine squad is tasked with clearing a wooded area known to contain groups of Boxers. For the Marines, it wasn’t a wooded area, but a hornet’s nest.
Random die rolls generated three groups of Boxers the moment Marines entered the woods. It was a wild melee.
I’m using old wooden Risk cubes to denote light (pink) and serious (red) wounds. Pinned troops are marked with a brown cube, with shaken troops getting a yellow cube. Deaths are shown with black cubes.
The Marines fought well, and the Boxers were resilient….maybe because I messed up the retreats from melee. It was an entertaining slugging match, allowing me the opportunity to work with both Action and Terrain decks.
The two large groups of Boxers withdrew after heavy casualties. However, the one band of fanatical riflemen remain.
Initial Contact To The LeftBoxers Rallying For Second Attack
Still hacking away at this project. The rules and charts were becoming an annoyance, so I consolidated them into a three page cheat sheet. It’s a Beta, with charts limited to forces at hand rather than the rules’ presentation of all antagonists. The rule synopses are hand written.
Another problem working solo is random activation. My working scenario is a patrol action by a platoon of Western soldiers. It’s the classic situation; their movement triggers an enemy response.
Right now, I’m working with a crude grid, with two counters per grid hex randomly drawn. Each hex is marked for “yes” and “no” for activations.
Trying to figure out when to trigger a activation, as well as incorporating the event and terrain cards into the game flow. Somewhat vexing, but still enjoyable.
Continuing to jam 30 days of wargaming into a couple days posts.
One summer project was purging The Shed. This is where old miniatures and wargames hang out. Found my old MiniFig Boxer Rebellion figures. They had been painted to help augment forces for a large, and if I remember correctly, really nice Siege of Peking game back in Kansas City.
They’d been billetted in a cigar box for who knows how long.
Not Very Photogenic. But Angry After Being Cooped Up.
In keeping with my current retro miniatures phase, decided to start working with The Sword And The Flame (TSATF). I still have an original copy of the rules, along with a Yaquinto Bulletin that includes charts for the rebellion.
Not content to play with just the figures on-hand, I ordered more from Miniature Figurines. Old School can be pricey at roughly about $1.70 per figure.
I had originally painted up 24 Boxers, 6 Marines, 10 1st Chinese Regiment, and 6 “fanatic” figures, which according to the Foundry Press book, (Jeez, that’s expensive now) look more like Chinese Christians.
I’ve added Boxer standard bearers, Boxer riflemen, regular Chinese, more painted Marines (from E-Bay), but with officers, 3 British officers, 2 naval officers, and 10 Frontier Miniatures sailors. The latter are more or less generic, and useful in any number of roles.
I started painting and playing some introductory scenarios. Mission Creep set in. I will be ordering some German Asian Brigade infantry, along with more Chinese Regulars and some Boers to serve as civillian militia. Again time and money are factors.
The rules call for units of 20 individually mounted figures. I’ll work with Boxer units of 18, and regular units of 10 figures, plus an officer. Given my space limitations, movement and ranges will be halved. So far this has worked.
To augment all of this fun, I purchased some specialized card decks from The Virtual Armchair General. These eliminate die rolling and add uncertainity to a solo effort. A very nice addition!
This will be fun, especially when I can get the Germans and Chinese Regulars painted up to play all types of strange scenarios.
