Wooden Wars

 Alternative title: The Dad Dilemma

Alternative Alternative title: What to do with the damn kids?

I have 2 big projects that I want to tackle this year.  This is the first, and it involves the most fearsome beast known to mankind: CHILDREN.  

Turn back now if you are of faint of heart and nervous disposition.

disclaimer: there are no kids in this post, only snide comments about them

Child's Play

For reference, my remaining children are two boys ages 3 and 5, and a daughter age 10.

I'm lucky so far in that my children enjoy playing board games.  At this point I have more 'kid friendly / family' board games then I do grown up adult board games.  And I lean toward chucking the grown up board games because they never see action these days, or years. 

Of course, the board games are just the gateway to get them to eventually play miniature games.  This is a purely selfish desire;  I want guaranteed opponents in my old age for my vast miniatures collections that I'm going to have.  Get'em hooked while they are young; so much later in life  they don't have to say to each other "No, it's YOUR turn to play with dad, I did it last time."

I needed a miniature game that threads the needle for the 10 and 5 year old.  I've invited my 10 year girl to play a miniature wargame a few times as she's smart enough to get some games, but she's always declined stating that she "doesn't like toys with guns or weapons."  Pity, as most of my WARgaming miniatures have some sort of weapon.  Sometimes she wanders over to my hobby desk while I'm sitting there doing something from Lord knows where; I wasn't watching her, it wasn't my shift.  And then she's really interested in what I am doing, because it's bedtime.  She finds lots of things really interesting right before she should be going to bed.  

The game that I've settled on as my gateway drug is called Wooden Wars from Skull and Crown miniatures.

I saw this game being played at a convention a LOOOOOOOONG time ago, saw lots of kids and patents having a great time, so I'm glad that it's still around.  

The premise is simple and fun: armies are made of wooden flats and players shoot by tossing a rubber ball at them.  Solders that are knocked over are casualties.  It's a winning combination; miniatures for me, tossing stuff for the kids.  My kids love to toss stuff.  If there's a choice between placing something down and tossing it then tossing it wins every time with them.  

At the last convention that I attended, I sidled up next to Mr. TF who owns / runs / is Skull and Crown miniatures.  Reintroduced myself as we've met before but it has been a long while, and talked some shop.  Mr. TF is a very nice man with a winning smile and answered many of my stupid questions even after I placed an order.  

Before the year was over, I had a large box arrive: 

It was a very HEAVY Box.
Mr TF even threw in some extra goodies.
Because I am also a nice man with a winning smile
and we take care of our own.

 

My First Naps

The wooden soldiers are based on the Napoleonic wars which, my best blogging buddies will attest, I know nothing about.  Words like Hussar, Landwehr, Fusilier, and Cuirassier mean nothing to me, and could equally describe types of cheese or alien races in 40K because they sound like made up words.  

These being my first Naps, it only seemed right to start with the French.

The French soldier comes like this in bare form.
Includes an option for a fancy furry hat.

Needing to know what a Napoleonic French infantry uniform looked like, I took to the internet for a deep dive into Napoleonic uniforms.  Luckily for me, Napoleonic uniforms are fairly drab and consistent so little research was needed.  

We'll pause here for Naps players to recover their breath after hyperventilating, or to clean the screen perhaps after doing a spit take.

Actually, I just went to the Skull and Crown Blog and copied the pictures that I saw there.  

I'm also forgoing traditionally painting the flats with brushes; and am going for an easier option of using paint pens, so it's more like coloring in the spaces.  

After some experimentation I found that 'coloring' before assembling was easier
and looked better in the end..
After finalizing a color scheme I went into mass production. 

I feel some Pressure (like a drip, drip, drip, that'll never stop, whoa) as I would like to use these soon.  I think I ordered enough wooden troops for a game with 4-6 kids as I think this will be fun to play with my son's Cub Scout den.  Also; there's a convention in April that has a "young player" program and I think it'll be awesome to show off.  So April (really late March) is the DEADLINE.

One done.

After all the coloring.  Glue all the pieces together.
Here's the front and back of a French soldier.
I added the ruler to show that they're about 3.5 inches tall.

I decided to color the backs of the flats in a rudimentary fashion, as the bare wood looked odd.  It's a little extra time but with kids we all know that Time Spent  = Love.  I'm just getting lucky that the time sent is not actually with them.

Because I am a grown man in his late 40s, I'm a bit of an expert at coloring..  I cans stay in-between the lines and everything (mostly).  

This is from Peppa Pig
My youngest kids still like it.
Sometimes, I feel a lot like Daddy Pig.

As I said earlier, I feel the Pressure (that'll tip, tip, tip, 'til you just go pop, whoa-oh) to get this done quickly, but maybe I need not panic.  It's only been a week and I already have MANY done.

 

Looks Napoleonic to me,
because it looks like a high school marching band.
Which is what I secretly think to myself whenever I see a Naps Game.

Eisenhower said "Plans are useless, but planning is essential."  Right now I'm planning on making enough French and then enough British for a small 1vs1 game with my two oldest kids and seeing if they like it.  they BETTER!  Otherwise I'm gonna end up with a pile of painted miniatures that never see the game table.  What miniature wargamer has that??   Embarrassing.  

Thanks for reading.

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till next time.