Plans & Thoughts on AWI and Colonial Wargaming

No, I'm not conflating the American War of Independence with Colonial Wargaming (though come to think of it....). A post by Jonathan Freitag on his Palouse Wargaming blog reminded me of an error I made recently. The post (partly) concerned a game he played via Zoom of Patriots and Rebels. For the unitiated Patriots and Rebels is a set of skirmish rules published by Osprey for wargaming the petit guerre in North America from colonial times to the ACW.

Now if you've noticed I have been thinking a lot about wargaming the AWI lately. Mainly this entailed agonising over base sizes for a long-delayed attempt at loose Files and American Scramble. Maybe that was at the back of my mind one night recently when I was looking at ordering something on my wife's Amazon Plus account (so I could save on postage). I did declare the purchase and offered to pay (which the kind soul declined to accept). Honest!

So I was excited a day later when a slim volume shaped package was delivered. Excitement faded to disappointment and I thought "the plonkers have sent the wrong book".

My reader might be thinking "that book looks apposite bearing mind nundanket's recent blogospherical cogitations". Apposite, but not what I'd ordered. Or rather what I thought I'd ordered. You see I was after this:

Now I'd been looking at this on Amazon and even added it to the 'basket'. I was then distracted by the 'people who bought X also looked at Y and Z' thing. The ordered was duly placed and when I found the 'wrong' book had landed on my doorstep with the accompanying delivery note "'claiming'" that was what was ordered, I rushed to the laptop and dug up the order on Amazon. I was building up for a good old "can't people get anything right these days" rant, but the wind was taken out of my sails. I had ordered Rebels and Patriots. Dimwit!

Any road up, I placed a correct order for The Men Who Would be Kings, and promptly compensated my beloved's bank account without giving her the chance to politely refuse.

I read both sets of rules and pronounced them 'good enough to try'. I will use multiple based figures for Rebels and Patriots since I've got 10mm AWI figures. This will be a side order to my intention to play 'proper battles' using Loose Files. The Men Who Would be Kings, however, I plan to use singly based figures as I'm thinking of making a departure from my usual tiny scale wargaming and venture into something bigger. Both sets of rules have a lot in common, naturally, but each has 'period chrome'. They don't look terribly innovative, but do look reasonably simple and potentially fun. The declared intention with The Men Who Would be Kings is for wargaming with a hint of Carry on Up the Khyber or Flashman. Well that sounds right up my strasse! The Men Who Would be Kings also has a 'programmed opponent' called Mr Babbage's engine, which is spiffing idea.

The exact period of 'colonial', I intend to play is not certain. The location is likely to be the Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan. Probably 1850s. And maybe with a touch of the Great Game thrown in. I've been looking at Irregular's 20mm range. I might then extend the period through time (got to have some pith helmets somewhere alomg the line) possibly right up to the 1920s. The Irregular range looks good for the 'Mutiny' period but the others are all for the earlier periods such as the Sikh Wars and First Afghan War. Ironically, my usual preferred manufacturer, Pendraken, does the Mutiny, 2nd Afghan, NW Frontier 1890s, plus 2nd Boer War and WWI Middle East which would give me Brits at least for the whole period. That would also give me the opportunity to have a crack at Johnny Turk too. Plus Cossacks from the Crimean and Russo-Japanese Wars, which would do for Great Game Counter-Factuals. Hmmm!

Any suggestions as to other manufacturers with 20(ish) mm figures that cover the periods I'm interested in?