2024 Reflections of a Megalomaniac Wargamer and Amateur Historian

My goals for 2024 were typically overly ambitious – some would say megalomaniac. As usual I didn’t achieve them all, in fact hardly any. This year was a wargaming disaster.

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Summary of the Year

For the second year running, I missed a few balagan posts. And the number of wargames played was way, way down as well. We only played six games in the entire year! Misery.

Similar reasons for the problems as last year … demands at work and home with a general trend towards being the family’s taxi driver and watching teenagers play netball rather than stay home and do wargaming stuff. Not a bad trade, but not what was I anticipating when I wrote out my goals last winter.

The real killer is that Jamie, Adam, Chris and I just didn’t manage to meet up as often. Like me, the others had competing commitments.

Luckily there was some wargaming activity. I did a fair bit on Tilly’s Very Bad Day, particularly on potential variants. I ended up focusing on Bolivar’s Very Bad Day to coincide with my new fascination with the War in the North (South American Wars of Liberation of course).

There was a bit of activity in Crossfire-land, but not as much as previous years.

Otherwise just bits n bobs. I am particularly proud of Mika’s Year 7 Castle Assignment – Berkhamsted Castle in 1:550th scale. Having said that, the Macedonian Bronze Shield Designs – The Balagan Collection is also pretty cool.

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#1 War in the North and Bolivar’s Very Bad Day

I’ve been wanting to do the War in the North part of the South American Wars of Liberation for a couple of decades. John Fletcher finally spurred me into action.

So I outlined by obviously excessive plans for the 1815-1819 War in the North – Steven’s Wargaming Project

I also did a bit of stock take of my existing figures and found Steven’s miscellaneous Liberators units for 1812 and 1814

After dabbling with a couple of other periods I settled on developing a variant of Tilly’s Very Bad Day for the South American Wars of Liberation.

I have been calling it Bolivar’s Very Bad Day, but thought I should check what others thought, hence Bolivar’s Very Bad Day – Is that the right name?

My big thing was how to improve the core Tilly’s Very Bad Day rules as I think about variants.

There was a bit on distance including Musing on Tilly Units of Measure (TUM) in Tilly’s Very Bad Day and Musing on distance distortion in Tilly’s Very Bad Day.

Then I did a whole series on Resolve:

• Musing on resolve – horse and pike+shot in difficult terrain
• Musing on resolve – strengthen before weaken during the morale phase
• Musing on resolve – unit rally
• Musing on resolve – commander rally at a distance

The feedback was pretty unsupportive so I canned them all in Musing on resolve – recent tweaks rejected

Then I had a big rant about hills. In particular Why I think hills are horrible in wargames rules.

Luckily I think some of these questions can be answered by Using geometry to find implicit crests on a hill.

Next up was my scheme for Liberators on Big Bases and the closely related topic of unit types in Bolivar’s Very Bad Day.

I thought I should look at the Battalion line, column, and square – Tactical formations during the Napoleonic Wars.

And based on an exchange with John Fletcher from years ago I had a bit of a think about Valour, Discipline and Training.

Also inspired by John Fletcher, was my Musing on Commander Special Attributes in Bolivar’s Very Bad Day

While all of that was going on we played a few games of the draft rules.

First up I thought I’d do a version of one of John’s Fletcher’s scenarios: Alternative Chacabuco – A Bolivar’s Very Bad Day Scenario and Battle Report 2

I also did quite a lot of thinking about Battle of Vargas Swamp 25 July 1819.

And, hallelujah, I finally did a Sipe Sipe (1815) scenario: Sipe Sipe – A Bolivar’s Very Bad Day Scenario

We even got it on table: Sipe Sipe – A Bolivar’s Very Bad Day Battle Report. But it still needs work and also needs a fair chunk of time to play.

Because Sipe Sipe (1815) was too big for an evening I went back to Tucumán (1812 ) with Tucuman – A Bolivar’s Very Bad Day Scenario and Battle Report

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#2 Crossfire

I spent a fair bit of time researching the Battle of Foy and we got it on table: Foy – A Crossfire Battle Report

I also got my WW2 Moroccans on table in Moroccan Knives – A Crossfire Battle Report 3

Gunnery Sargent Rock (Bruce Stewart) sent through a couple of battle reports. First up was 2 Companies a Side – A Crossfire Battle Report

Then came Perano – A Crossfire Scenario and Battle Report

Then came some musing on Crossfire. In Ground Scale in Crossfire with Maps I compared three ground scales: 1:300 is a table 360 metres across, 1:1000 is 1200 metres, and 1:1700 is 2040 metres across. 1:300 is too small, 1:1700 is too big and 1:1000 is just right.

In How big are Crossfire Terrain features I looked at my 4″ to 8″ terrain templates.

In Musing on Terrain Density in Crossfire I explored how have more and smaller terrain features impacts play.

And then I pulled together my Revised guidance for terrain set up in Crossfire, with a particular look at how much of the table to cover.

On the modelling front, I have a growing collection of wrecks

And I got some Burmese Battlefield Reinforcements

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#3 Bits n Bobs

After that was just a a few bits n bobs.

English Civil War using Tilly’s Very Bad Day

1643 Game 8 in the Lower Thames Valley of Populous, Rich and Rebellious our four player Campaign using Tilly’s Very Bad Day, and set in the English Civil War.

Deep Battle

Deep Battle, my draft rules for Operational level wargaming, barly liped along. I had another thing about Deep Battle Design Notes 7 – Ground Scale

I also want to get some Soviet Paratroopers and Partizans for Deep Battle. The Partizans are readily available but I had to do some research on 15mm Wargaming figures for WW2 Soviet Paratroopers.

Macedonian Wars

I’m keen on writing a set of rules called “Hannibal’s Very Bad Day”. I didn’t actually do anything with the rules, but I did take steps to getting my armies into order. For a start I spent a fair bit of time researching men Armed in the Macedonian fashion.

Of course, the Macedonian phalagites have shields. Bronze shields. So I did more research and came up with:
Macedonian Bronze Shield Designs – The Balagan Collection

In 2025 I hope you’ll see those shields as decals on a new set of Macedonian phalanxes.

Arthurian

I felt like a bit of dark age grief so polished the rules: Twilight of the Britons – Update to Version 1.1.

Then got the figures on table with Twilight of the Britons – A Battle Report 3

Modelling

A couple of weeks got soaked up with Mika’s Year 7 Castle Assignment – Berkhamsted Castle in 1:550th scale

And because I’m painting figures again for the War in the North I invested in some Brushes for painting 15mm wargaming figures.

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Did I achieve my annual goals?

Nope. Not even close. I did really, really badly on my original megalomaniac aspirations from the start of 2024. We just didn’t play enough.

Project	Rules	Aspiration in 2024
Crossfire ➞ in WW2 ➞
Play some Crossfire	Crossfire	[Fail] I wanted to play six games and failed miserably. We got only two in, although Bruce sent through a couple more Battle Reports.
Crossfire freebie booklet	Crossfire	[Fail] I still have to address Arty’s feedback on Crossfire Freebie #2 and publish it.
Revised anti-tank rules for Crossfire	Crossfire	[In progress] I wanted to finish the revised anti-tank rules for Crossfire. The good news is I have a complete draft for the revised rules. Feedback so far is positive. I even got it proof read and fixed the problems. But then the project stalled as my group never got together to do final play testing.
Feature buildings	Crossfire	[Fail] No progress on the factory for Crossfiregrad in the style of my Cool Ruins [Done] Build and paint the other two Custom made Manipuri Hindu Temples for 14th Army
Tilly’s Very Bad Day ➞ in 1618-48 Thirty Years War ➞ and 1642-51 English Civil War ➞ and 1600-1679 Northern Wars ➞
Populous, Rich, and Rebellious – English Civil War Campaign	Tilly’s Very Bad Day	[Fail]. I wanted to play five games but we only played one and so finished 1643. We didn’t play any of the four games scheduled 1644.
Eastern Armies	Tilly’s Very Bad Day	[Fail] I didn’t pitch Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against Zaporozhian Cossacks. Actually I didn’t get either army on table so I still haven’t fielded my fortified wagons (Tabor).
Gabions	Tilly’s Very Bad Day	[Fail] I didn’t experiment with field fortifications during the Thirty Years War – that would have required playing some games.
Tilly’s Very Bad Day Scenarios	Tilly’s Very Bad Day	[Fail] I didn’t write any more Tilly’s Very Bad Day Scenarios.
Deep Battle ➞ on the Eastern Front ➞ in WW2 ➞
Deep Battle	Deep Battle	[Fail] After some progress in 2023, 2024 saw no real progress on Deep Battle, my Operational Level Wargame rules on the Eastern Front.
Tilly’s Very Bad Day Variants ➞
Tilly’s Very Bad Day variant	Tilly’s Very Bad Day	[In progress] I wanted to write a variant for Tilly’s Very Bad Day and started the year toying with three periods: Rise of Rome (Hannibal’s Very Bad Day), Fall of Rome / Arthurian (Arthur’s Very Bad Day), Liberators (Bolivar’s Very Bad Day). I made most progress on the last of them. The good news is my thinking has progressed a lot, but I’m yet to draft the rules themselves. All I have is a Quick Reference sheet and copious notes.