My SYW Skirmish Game Table Is Set

 

The Prussian camp and field bakery.

Last evening I finally got around to clearing off my game table so that I could lay out the terrain for my skirmish level game at this year's Seven Years War Association Convention in South Bend, Indiana. The convention will be held this weekend from Thursday March 31 through Saturday April 2, 2022. The venue is  the Ramada Inn South Bend (formerly known as the Waterford Estates Lodge).

This year I decided to do something a little different and run a small skirmish level game rather than my usual serving of large linear SYW battles.

Here is the view of the entire game table from opposite ends of the 6ft by 12ft game area:

I am using two game mats from Cigar Box Battles and the two mats have roads and fields that match up so that the table can be longer. The standard mat size if 6ft by 4ft as advertised, but the actual area is 6ft by 5ft. Thus two mats give you a 6ft wide by 10ft long table area.

The buildings and trees are largely made by Herb Gundt. There are also some stands of K&M trees that Tony Adams assembled and based for me. I added a few Woodlands Scenics trees to the mix. I think that a table looks better if there is a wide variety of trees on it.

Here are some pictures of the game table, which highlight some of the vignettes that are sprinkled around the table.

The Prussian Field Bakery (Ed Phillips made these)

The Prussian camp, including some wayward camp followers.

The Prussian Commander's tent.

The village watering hole.

Every game table needs a wind mill on it.

A Prussian guard post on the main road into the village.

A view of home of Bucket Woman.
Some Prussian freikorps troops know to keep their distance from her.

I am looking forward to running this game at the convention. I will run it on both Friday and Saturday afternoons. The rules are called "Kleine Krieg" appropriately enough, and they are loosely based on a set of rules called Woodland Wars by Tom Kelley. Each player will command a squad of two stands of 12 figures, or 24 figures in total. Unit activation each turn is done using a deck of cards. Each player has two cards for their unit and all of the cards are mixed together in a small card deck. The player will be able to do something with his units twice per turn. This is also known as "The Dreaded Double Phase". Movement, firing and melee are handled using D20 dice.

One side benefit of organizing this game is that it juices my motivation to get back to 18th Century wargames using my 28mm Minden and Fife and Drum Miniatures figures. You will be seeing more 18th Century content in the coming months and a little bit less of the Punic Wars Project (this is nearing its conclusion in terms of what I need to paint).

I will try to post some pictures of the SYWA convention on friday and saturday, God willing on the local wifi.