RESTARTING THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR

Our game group will restart the SYW on December 14, 2013.
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Date: October 14, 1756 (December 14, 2013)
Location: Saxony

Situation: Prussia's Frederick II invades Saxony. This time however, the Saxons don't entomb themselves at the great encampment at Pirna. They are instead free to maneuver hoping to stop Frederick or escape into Bohemia. Austria is sending assistance.

Rules: Batailles de l'Ancien Régime 1740-1763 {BAR}
Scale: 1:20. Frontage/miniature: Infantry 3/4" and Cavalry 1"
(We usually use 1:10 BIG battalions, but BAR plays well at 1:20 too)

Appearing will be some of the oldest SYW units in the USA from collections dating back to the 1970s. They have not gotten to play much. However, this will be their second outing in 2013. For their first one in almost two decades see: http://campaignsingermania.blogspot.com/2013/02/lets-talk-about-bar-3.html

Der Alte Fritz (Jim P.) is busily strengthening his 1:20 Minden Prussians while I am adding only a second squadron to the Saxon Leibkürassier Regiment. I had hoped to finish my Eureka 28mm Prinz Xavier regiment but this will not happen.

At the moment we have twelve eager players in the game with five others on standby should some of the twelve excuse themselves from the game.

This should be a photo extravaganza.
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Oh. A question from the back row. Yes?
Questioner: "Bill what have you been up to since the last post here?"

Answer: Aside from a painting funk from January into the summer of 2013, I was happily painting for, setting up and photographing sets for and writing new short stories for the Colonial General Pettygree blog. See:
http://generalpettygree.blogspot.com/2013/09/chapter-65-trouble-everywhere.html
and
http://generalpettygree.blogspot.com/2013/09/chapter-66-departures.html
If you have not seen these, you may be pleasantly surprised with no holds barred characters and story.

More Answers: Otherwise there was a a lot of activity in Napoleonic Iberia; rules, games and painting. Also Chuck and I have been painting miniatures for a totally new blog story set in the South Pacific but I've promised myself not to talk about this much. This should debut in early 2014, God willing.

I also wrote and photographed an article for Charles Grant's THE WARGAMERS' ANNUAL 2014. My title was CAVALRY ON THE TABLETOP. It starts with what I think are stunning images of my 9th Bengal Lancers duplicating the 1898 21st Lancer Regiment charge at Omdurman.

The publisher made the photos absolutely HUGE. This added a lot to atmosphere. Maneuver, the charge, hand-to-hand combat and recovery are described by a first-person participant in the charge, Winston Churchill. You will see my lancers do what he said! Kudos to Winston for his style - not me.  There is a lot more to the article; other cavalry topics. You might want to buy the magazine for Christmas! Lots of good writing and images in this issue.

And perhaps we all needed a pause from SYW activity for a while. We've done some very interesting and satisfying X-Wing combat in Outer Space, a 1940 Battle of Britain air game, two road trips to Earl's and also Randy's homes and played a couple of 20mm American Civil war games. The most recent saw the metal and plastic regiments my sons and I painted in the late 1990s getting onto the table with House Rules. The boys were age 14 at the time. See the left side of the blog for other fun games played.

However, we will be back to the SYW very soon.
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Respectfully,
Bill
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RED ALERT!!!
Your remarks are as always very welcome below.
However, I'm moderating them because of a relentless spammer.
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