Saturday, July 15, 2017

A Trio of Stradiots

The combination of work, good cycling weather, and other pulls on my time has meant meaningful painting sessions have been few this week (and last week too).  What is considered a "meaningful" painting session?  I say a minimum of thirty minutes is needed to get enough  accomplished to make a session worthwhile.  Still, two units managed to make it off the painting desk.  The first of those units is a trio of Perry Miniatures' Stradiots for the 28mm Great Italian Wars project.
This is the third such stand of Perry Stradiots to cross the painting desk for this project.  The first two carried crossbow.  This time, the unit is armed with lance.  Rather than replace the provided soft metal lance with a steel Northstar lance as SOP,  I maintained the Perry-provided lance.  It is thicker than steel lances and not as resilient to abuse.  We will see how the lances hold up on the gaming table.  With the project yet to see action in battle, this worry may be moot.
Table is silent for now
In other happenings on the hobby front, the guys are joining me later this morning for a refight of our most recent battle of Kolin (see Kolin Post-Game Analysis and Kolin Battle Prep).  Following my post-game ramblings, Frederick the Great was energized to give the battle a second attempt.  Will pre-battle planning change from the first outing?  We will see in a few hours' time.  Rules will again be Honours of War.  A solo refight was planned but having active participants will be much more enjoyable.

Finding that the stock QRS provided in the back of the rules booklet did not contain all of the information and memory triggers needed for actual play, I spent part of the week creating a new QRS.  With the additional information added, fewer trips to the rulebook should be needed.  Also incorporated into the QRS are the 11JUL2016 Amendments and Clarifications.  Some of the amendments are significant and move the rules in a positive direction by addressing a few issues discovered in our first few playings of the game. 

29 comments:

  1. Nice looking troops Jonathan. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures of the battle. Have fun!

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    1. Thank you, Rod! Today's Battle of Kolin was saw a different Prussian strategy than seen in Game one. It was fun!

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  2. Those Stradiots look great, I love those Perry sculpted ones.

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    1. Thank you, Oli! The Perry figures are very nice and I especially like the Stradiots. I prefr the crossbow wielding horsemen over the lancer armed figures.

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  3. The Stradiots look fantastic!

    Great to hear you've got good cycling weather. I've been putting some more time in the saddle this spring/summer as well!

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    1. Thank you, Tim!
      Weather has been good. Glad to see that you are getting in the mileage in Saskatchewan too. I have been averaging about 175 miles/week. Pretty good, for me.

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    2. I used to do that sort of distance in a week... Now if I'm doing HALF that I'd call it a really good week. I'm working up to doing that sort of distance again.

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  4. Lovely paint job on these nice sculpts
    but the basing really makes them pop

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    1. Very kind of you! Good to see a new name pop up in the comments section.

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  5. Lovely painting on these lovely sculpts, great basing and I look forward to Koln 2 !
    Best Iain

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    1. Much appreciated, Iain!

      Kolin 2 was a very different game than 1. How so? You must wait to see...

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  6. Great group of light horse there, and I hope Frederick the Great has a better time of it this next game!
    Any chance that you could share the revised QRS? I agree that the published one doesn't quite have everything one would wish.

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    1. Thanks, Nathan!

      Frederick had a better time in the second iteration. How much better? Well, the outcome was still historical.

      Of course, I will share the QRS. Making a QRS is an individual art in itself. What some deem important to annotate, others can recall without a memory trigger. QRS' tend to evolve over time too as I become more familiar with a game. Some things are easy to remember and some things I can NEVER remember without a visual queue.

      If you send me a note via the "Contact Form" I will send out my QRS. It is meant to print out on a single-sided sheet of 8-1/2" x 11" paper then folded in half and cut down to yield a double-sided 5x7 reference card. I then laminate the thing.

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  7. Very nice Stradiots Jonathan!

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  8. Top notch job on these Stradiots Jon, well done!

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  9. Echo to the comments of others, Jonathan, great looking Stradiots. Looking forward to the report of the Kolin replay.

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    1. Thank you, Mark! As for Kolin II, a more competitive game was seen compared to Game I.

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  10. Great looking cav, Jonathan. Boy, they sure have some unique hats too! :)

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  11. Another great addition to the collection. I quite enjoyed our third try at Kolin, and have been looking up resources on it as a way of review. I am looking forward to trying out the rules with another scenario.

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    1. Thanks, Jake!

      For me, replaying Kolin multiple times has provided a much better understanding of the historical battle and the situation faced by both combatants. In our games, Freddie is yet to taste victory.

      Do you have suggestions for the next SYW battle to tackle?

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