It comes about partly because I have been walking a couple of times this week, both around Thruscross Reservoir - between Skipton and Harrogate - and then a rather longer route from Knaresborough to Ripley and back.
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| Your intrepid bloggist is front right, still rocking that hat |
It is also partly because of yesterday's post on playing the scenery rather than the troops. I was reminded (by myself) that I already possess a set of rules that actually do that: Peter Pig's 'Patrols in the Sudan' where the restless natives get to both relocate and hide in various pieces of terrain as the game develops. In fact they can disappear into one piece and reappear from another and the intention is to represent their superior knowledge of the locale.
Now I have two daughters and, many years ago when they were young and enjoyed board games, I foolishly imagined that I might also get them to play figure based games with me. But which period? And what sort of game? I decided, and can't for the life of me remember why, that the best bet would be some sort of colonial affair. However, especially against a background of modern day imperialism aimed at muslim countries and living in Bradford, I really didn't want a lot of white men with superior weaponry massacring brown people in droves. So that ruled out Zulus, Fuzzy-wuzzies, the Northwest frontier, the US cavalry vs the Indians; in fact pretty much everything.
Eventually, it came to me. We lived close to Ilkley, and the girls had on many occasions seen the remains of the Roman fort that may or may not have been Olicana (I know opinions are divided, but the name does seem to be a bit of a coincidence if it isn't) and had learned about the local Celtic tribe, the Brigantes. The solution therefore was obvious - I would build armies of Brigantes and Romans and rather than 'we' being the invaders and oppressors 'we' would be the freedom fighting local inhabitants nobly fighting against the forces of civilisation who had would do nothing for us except for sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health. We would seek to win back what they had taken from not just us, but from our fathers, fathers, fathers, fathers.
And so I started to paint various 20mm plastic sets of Celts and some Romans, and also hunted for a set of rules. The ones that I most liked were the aforementioned 'Patrols in the Sudan'. Clearly they'll require some bodging but, I was rather taken by the thought of turning the scenery that I see all around me while walking, into movable pieces of terrain. Now, obviously the girls were never in a million years actually going to play the game so I've never tried it out in practice. However, I now have a large collection of Celts and various things to create scenarios such as a villa, civilians, gladiators, etc. I do have Romans, but they're crap even by my standards so will need replacing at some point. When the glorious day comes that I have my own wargames room (cries of 'Ha' mark the happy return of the rhetorical pedant) then I shall give it all a go.
And what of all this 'under a woman's leadership' guff? That was Tacitus referring to the Brigantian queen, Cartimandua and the inclusion of a warrior queen in her chariot was another part of the plan to get my daughters interested.
Now I have two daughters and, many years ago when they were young and enjoyed board games, I foolishly imagined that I might also get them to play figure based games with me. But which period? And what sort of game? I decided, and can't for the life of me remember why, that the best bet would be some sort of colonial affair. However, especially against a background of modern day imperialism aimed at muslim countries and living in Bradford, I really didn't want a lot of white men with superior weaponry massacring brown people in droves. So that ruled out Zulus, Fuzzy-wuzzies, the Northwest frontier, the US cavalry vs the Indians; in fact pretty much everything.
Eventually, it came to me. We lived close to Ilkley, and the girls had on many occasions seen the remains of the Roman fort that may or may not have been Olicana (I know opinions are divided, but the name does seem to be a bit of a coincidence if it isn't) and had learned about the local Celtic tribe, the Brigantes. The solution therefore was obvious - I would build armies of Brigantes and Romans and rather than 'we' being the invaders and oppressors 'we' would be the freedom fighting local inhabitants nobly fighting against the forces of civilisation who had would do nothing for us except for sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health. We would seek to win back what they had taken from not just us, but from our fathers, fathers, fathers, fathers.
And so I started to paint various 20mm plastic sets of Celts and some Romans, and also hunted for a set of rules. The ones that I most liked were the aforementioned 'Patrols in the Sudan'. Clearly they'll require some bodging but, I was rather taken by the thought of turning the scenery that I see all around me while walking, into movable pieces of terrain. Now, obviously the girls were never in a million years actually going to play the game so I've never tried it out in practice. However, I now have a large collection of Celts and various things to create scenarios such as a villa, civilians, gladiators, etc. I do have Romans, but they're crap even by my standards so will need replacing at some point. When the glorious day comes that I have my own wargames room (cries of 'Ha' mark the happy return of the rhetorical pedant) then I shall give it all a go.
And what of all this 'under a woman's leadership' guff? That was Tacitus referring to the Brigantian queen, Cartimandua and the inclusion of a warrior queen in her chariot was another part of the plan to get my daughters interested.
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