18th c. Sojourn – 2017

During the year 2016, the DBA ancient and medieval periods were given a high priority and the gunpowder era the unfortunate backseat. The effort however, brought new ancient armies to the collection and terrain projects added new pieces and older ones were refurbished and made uniform. Our frequency of ancient battles during an evening lead to the development of a rule set which brought together our individual games into the context of a campaign. Averaging three games in an evening our historical match-ups took on the form a preliminary engagement, the primary battle to finish with the resolution or pursuit.

As the new year 2017 approaches I am listing a number of projects I would like to do for the gunpowder era and naturally this will breathe new life into this blog. As the 18^th and 19^th century miniatures collection is rather extensive, I doubt I shall be adding any new armies, but “never, say never”.

The campaign rules developed for the ancient period will be adapted to the gunpowder era. Its progression will be documented here so readers can follow the various stages of change.  This will be done in a chronological fashion starting with the campaign of 1674, between Turenne and Montecuccoli, and ending somewhere in India or China of the mid-19^th century.

Beginning the new year with a major war set during the reign of Louis XIV, I shall add siege rules that can be used from the period of Vauban to the Napoleonic wars. These will follow a similar direction as the current medieval set but will be greatly expanded to touch on various aspects of siege warfare of the gunpowder era.

Generally speaking, as the campaigns and battles are fought, I will invariably find a particular terrain piece is lacking to make the battle visually complete. As most of the battles of Western Europe were fought over arable land I most likely will add period farm houses, villages and bridges with other features needing to evolve from a moment of inspiration.

Illustration: By Unknown - http://translate.google.es/translate?hl=es&sl=fr&u=http://assifarnoldinfos.canalblog.com/archives/2007/08/19/5932161.html&ei=_ssFTfzhDsOUswbH0IWGCg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC4Q7gEwAw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dassifarnoldinfos%2Bturckheim%2B2007%26hl%3Des%26biw%3D1276%26bih%3D579%26prmd%3Div, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12305256