Newish to the period(s), need some help deciding.

[TomMcC]

For my tuppence worth, I'd give a shout for the American War of Independence.

There are Perry 28mm minis in plastic for the main units, lots of metal options for some of the slightly odd uniformed chaps and those non-uniformed. Even the main units have a good few uniform options. 

For other scales, there are Pendraken and Kallistra in 10/12mm, and I reckon all the main companies do figurs in 15mm. And there are 1/72 plastic - never forget good old vintage Airfix. 

There are some good rulesets for the period. I've played AWI with Black Powder for battles, and Rebels and Patriots and more recently, Musket and Tomahawk for skirmish level games.  Both of the skirmish games featured between 50 to 80 miniatures.

cheers,
Tom

[Patrice]

One other era to consider is War of the Spanish Succession (...) Uniforms tended to be simpler than the later 18th Century, so easier to paint.  Uniforms were not as standardised as later, so you can fit a bit more variety into a single army, so you can have some fun without having to paint all the figures with identical uniforms (or nearly identical!).

That's what I was about to suggest. 

Another interest of this period is that, if some day you wish, many of these soldiers could also fight against pirates.

[Fred Mills]

An interesting exchange, prompted by a great question. I love ACW personally, despite the similarities of army structure etc., as the settings and scales of encounters are so different, from large scale set pieces to confused encounter battles, near-trench like conditions, and mounted infantry skirmishes.

FPW has the same, and with more colourful uniforms. As noted above, perhaps the most diverse period is actually after Sedan.

Finally, if you take an outlying country (Sweden?) or empire (Ottomans?) as a focal point, you can structure armies and enemies in several wars/eras to line up against them, either in actual or fantasy battles. This works anywhere (France vs Britain in 1870, e.g.?), so maybe just start with a style or army you like and build out.

The latter has launched me on a Roman project, Augustan era. I have no idea who (everyone?) they'll fight yet, but paint has been spilled.

[FierceKitty]

Hi FK, having recently translated Clausewitz's history of the SYW, I can report that "it's all line-'em-up-and-shoot-'em-down" is pretty much what he says too, so I'm in good company. There are some really interesting battles, to be sure, but the truly interesting decisions are mostly in the pre-battle manoeuvring, rather than once battle is joined on the tabletop, so to speak.

Still I will happily grant that there are good games to be had from Zorndorf, Torgau, Rossbach etc. I'm sure there are good reasons why it has sustained your interest for so long. No disparagement intended.

Chris

Didn't intend to come across as after your blood. But there's a sort of "Tactics before Napoleon = Music before Beethoven = Meat without salt" attitude that one runs into so often....

[olicana]

Because you seem to want something 'smart and colourful' I'd go SYW. The uniforms are fairly uncomplicated, especially if you go for figures without equipment. Some of the Foundry Prussian and Russian packs paint up quickly and well and have little in the way of straps / belts; many of the Russians are in simple summer campaign dress without coats, some with lovely blue rain capes (that make painting even simpler!





Of course, it all depends on the size of games your planning, at the larger end they can look spectacular









But smaller games with just a dozen units a side are also great fun, this one is the Reserve Demolition scenario by Grant.



Of all the collections I've painted over the years, SYW was the most fun and rewarding. So much so that I painted in excess of 2700 of them. You are right about Napoleonics in that respect. I'm painting a similar number for my Peninsular collection and although great when done, getting them done has been a slow grind and I still have about 700 to go. However, I wouldn't not do them or discount them, because they are the prettiest collections to look at and, once done, they do make you feel rather groovy.

My French, finished this year (a similar number of Brits are 85% done).

[jetengine]

Because you seem to want something 'smart and colourful' I'd go SYW. The uniforms are fairly uncomplicated, especially if you go for figures without equipment. Some of the Foundry Prussian and Russian packs paint up quickly and well and have little in the way of straps / belts; many of the Russians are in simple summer campaign dress without coats, some with lovely blue rain capes (that make painting even simpler!





Of course, it all depends on the size of games your planning, at the larger end they can look spectacular









But smaller games with just a dozen units a side are also great fun, this one is the Reserve Demolition scenario by Grant.



Of all the collections I've painted over the years, SYW was the most fun and rewarding. So much so that I painted in excess of 2700 of them. You are right about Napoleonics in that respect. I'm painting a similar number for my Peninsular collection and although great when done, getting them done has been a slow grind and I still have about 700 to go. However, I wouldn't not do them or discount them, because they are the prettiest collections to look at and, once done, they do make you feel rather groovy.

My French, finished this year (a similar number of Brits are 85% done).

Those look absolutely smashing Oli ! I have to agree on the 7 year war thing, I'm leaning more towards that or WSS (similarish uniforms, though I know nothing about it beyond it dealing with the absolutely bonkers Sun King, a super villain name if there ever was one). I still have a yen towards the FPW but might leave that to see what crops up now the perries are interested.

Would I feasibly be able to use 7 Year War figures in the French and Indian war ?

[olicana]

British and French regulars are the same for both pretty much, except that I think some British infantry sometimes cut their coats down to get through the forests of America - and later became designated as light infantry (?). French regulars are certainly the same.

Obviously, there are plenty of local American / Canadian additions for both sides and plenty of Indians. I've played a few F&IW games, mostly small ones (except the one pictured below, set around the shores of a lake, hence the table shape) and enjoyed them very much. At some point I may very well collect for this period myself - for me it's the investment in period specific terrain that is the sticking point (terrain storage issues - aaaarrrrghhhh - trees, you never can have enough for F&IW).

If you go the F&IW route, and slightly off kilter, try and get the board game by GMT called Wilderness War. As well as being one of the best two player board games I've ever played, it pretty much gives you everything you need to collect for the period (and for me, collecting everything would still make it a minor collection - it's a very low numbers war), as well as giving you a fantastic idea of how the war was fought (it's card based with all the built in historical events featured).

[Will Bailie]

If cost and time to assemble forces (and also terrain!) is a concern for you, there is a low-cost way to try out games in this era:  Peter Dennis' Paper Soldiers!
https://peterspaperboys.com/collections

https://www.helion.co.uk/series/paper-soldiers.php?sid=6ae3a3c1941f9ad8e29b2012dc706eab

Peter and Helion have armies available for several of the wars that have been discussed in this thread, including ACW, ECW, WSS, SYW, AWI, Jacobite '45, Peninsular War, and more.  Low entry cost, easy to assemble so you can try out some games and then decide if you want to plunge deeper into things.

I've played some games for the '45 using Peter's paper soldiers.  There's no way that I could have painted the equivalent number of highlanders (all that tartan  ) but cutting and assembling the paper Jacobites was much more achievable.

[SJWi]

Chris et al, many thanks for the advice on the sources for FPW. I have all the Ospreys and have checked out Helion's website . Looks a good selection.

For the record and echoing some other comments I game

 SYW in 15mm. Two old Freikorps armies that need some TLC. Still looking for decent rules .I'm checking out the Osprey set plus another set whose name eludes me.

 FiW Skirmish in 28mm using "Muskets and Tomahawks"

AWI in 28mm. Based for Black Powder but my opponent swears by a simple 2-3 page set called "Loose Files and American Scramble"

Napoleonic Peninsular in 28mm . Tried Black Powder v1 but binned them. Now looking at "General d'Armee" but waiting for my opponent to return from overseas.

ACW in 6mm. Tried "Altar of Freedom" but found them way too fiddly. Now looking at the ACW adaptation of "Blucher"

Finally, I too have bought the "Paper Soldiers" Spanish Succession book as I fancy the period but not the painting!

Bon chance with your deliberations     

[vtsaogames]

AWI in 28mm. Based for Black Powder but my opponent swears by a simple 2-3 page set called "Loose Files and American Scramble"

Ditch the poorly defined order system. Design your own or do without and this rule set is dandy. Redcoats? Get stuck in, don't bother with long range musketry.

[jetengine]

So, been thinking about it a bit.

I have to be enthused both by the history AND the models before I settle on anything. 7 years war...doesn't really grab me. French Indian War does but to me thats always more of a skirmish thing then anything else (ie : Muskets and Tomabawks, Song of Drums and Tomahawks) so for bigger battles (100 odd 28mm dudes, more if smaller) this leaves me thinking about the ACW or FPW.

I DO want the 'smart, colourful blocks of troops' thing this era goes for but I obviously need to be interested in the history behind it.

Also, I presume some of the smaller scale rulesets work on smaller tables ? 4×4 for example ?

[vodkafan]

jetengine, you do seem to be keen on FPW so maybe you have already 75% made your choice.
The uniforms are nice and colourful.
 However, ACW also has some colourful (but still fairly simple) uniforms to offer, lots of nice figures out there and can be gamed big or small.  I always thought I would have to paint hundreds of figs to do ACW, but my pal suggested Rebels and Patriots and we have never looked back. We have had great fun using Rebels and Patriots with about 60 figures a side, it's not too hard a task to get a unit together when you only need 12 or 6.  A lot of our R & P ACW games are on a 4 x 4 table without feeling cramped, so that is a yes.
And the history of the ACW is both fascinating and tragic (as all civil wars are) and will probably grab you with only a little reading.

[BillK]

If you go with FIW/SYW as your preferred timeframe you can do the Sugar Islands... which are battles on the smaller side but with lots of flavor. Plenty of 28mm figures that will work for you.

Check out some of what Mark Luther's been doing with 15mm Sugar Islands here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/6mmgaming/albums/72157714041233566

[shandy]

I've been obsessed by the ACW for quite a while, mainly because of one thing: The literature on the subject is vast, but of excellent quality. You will find very good battle & campaign studies as well as social, cultural and political histories. Also, many sources are easily available, either as reprints, on university or library homepages or via archive.org.

Because I wanted to do something local (I live in Austria), I've recently started napoleonics and while there is also a lot of literature, a large number of it is either uniformology or of variable quality. However, the availability of sources is also quite good.

As has been said before, ACW is as great for skirmishes (which I do most of the time) as for huge battles and everything in between. And despite the symmetry of the two sides, it offers a huge variety of scenarios and can include fun stuff such as gunboats, trains and balloons.

[jetengine]

I haven't delved too deeply in the reading material on the ACW.

On the one hand, I read 3/4 of Keegans "ACW: A military history" and found it incredibly dull and dry before giving up. Just wasn't enjoying it in the slightest.

On the otherhand, I've almost finished the second Starbuck book and am enjoying it greatly, even if Cornwell is having a difficult time trying to balance out the Confederacy narratively as proragonists (part of the reason I suspect he slowed to a a halt on writing more,  to the point he's even resurrecting Sharpe before getting back to it)