Or Problems I Have with Historical Wargaming a.k.a. Are these the right Woodland Indians?
About twenty-five years ago, I was running demo games of Grenadier's Kill Zone at Salute. When a historical wargamer (who was probably the same age as I am now) came up to look at the game. Now this was a demo game of Killzone which was a Sci-Fi skirmish game based on Mark Copplestone's Future warriors, Which included some very nice troopers. Which I had painted up using American army desert camo scheme (See example below). His first (& only) comment was 'That's the Wrong Shade of Khaki' and then promptly walked off. Now there are many levels of annoyance about this comment (not least of which was that I had painted them using Humbrol's Khaki paint) but it is one a good example of one of the things that puts me off historical wargaming.
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Ok, so if you have made it this far , then you are probably asking what has this got to do with the Woodland Indians in the French & Indian wars (FIW)?
I bought the Woodland Indian Tribe plastic set from Warlord games under their American War of Independence (AWI, 1776 -1783) range. My assumption was the AWI was only 13 years after the end of the French-Indian war (1754-1763). So, they must be suitable for the French & Indian wars? Right... Also Warlord Games also do a FIW range which why I was puzzled they didn't feature in both ranges.
But Warlord never mention that this range of figures might also be compatible with FIW range. Which is downright odd, as I very much doubt the Indians changed much in the 13 years between the wars. And come to that most of the Europeans wouldn’t have changed much either. This does make me think I might be making some massive ‘historical’ wargames faux pas.
After a bit of background reading it seems that the Woodland Indians mainly supported the French and the tribes that supported the British had been 'civilised' . So I'm pretty happy they would be suitable for the FIW. Anyway, Magua now has some troops for his war on the British.
On A Side Note
After searching around for the Grenadier Troopers, which I thought I still had. I couldn't find them. But I did find these photos from 2001! Which explains why the pictures have very low resolution. I was very much experimenting with lighting at this point which explains why some are better lit than others.
Rob
Hahaha, the annoying and complex world of historical wargaming! :D
ReplyDeleteHistorical wargamers are an interesting lot. I understand your frustration, and also your desire to play anyway. Lately I've been curious about gaming the Mississippi valley in the American Revolutionary War, seeing as that's where I live and all. And the actions, such as they were, were mostly quite small and gameable "skirmish" level actions, but with some real potential for interesting stuff like arms smuggling, night raids, river crossings, and so forth. Even some room for French and Spanish artillery and a few stone forts. Fair number of native Americans recruited to both sides here too. Have fun with your pursuit of button counting! (And remind me to work on those French colonial fiddle tunes.)
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