2017: A Year for Goals

And I'm not talking about football. :-)

While I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, I do have a list of things that I want to do in gaming this year, and I'd like to compare that list at the end of the year with what I've been able to accomplish.

Cliveden under siege during the battle of Germantown.

To start with, of course, this is the year that my Project 1777 should really start producing. As the 240th year since the campaign, 2017 will be the best time to carry out this project until 2027, and I don't want to wait that long! I have five more blog posts sketched out to cover the Continental Army of 1777, and then we have the Crown Forces to look to. They might take as many as nine posts (one for each brigade, one for the elite battalions, and one for the army assets), but we'll see how much I find to say.

Then we'll have the replays of the starting battles (Bound Brook, Short Hills, Staten Island, Couch's Bridge), the incidentals and hypotheticals (Paoli, Whitehorse Tavern, Matson's Ford, Whitemarsh, maybe even a storming of Redbank game), and the main combats of the campaign (Brandywine and Germantown). The latter probably deserve several posts, maybe even several replays each, as we look at the different sections of the battles.

And I'll have a lot to do to bring the miniature armies into readiness, so we'll definitely have some WIP posts there.

Napoleon in the snows of early 1814.

The new 1814 project will also be seeing some work, though that will be less historical blogging (at least as far as my current plans go) and more painting. My counterpart has a good start on Prussian landwehr infantry, and he has youthful enthusiasm on his side. I have age, guile, and a deep backstock of unpainted figures on mine, so we may be even.

Of course, the wicked thing about 1814 is that it tempts a French player to build the Garde units that are normally left in reserve in most other engagements, as they often fought on the front line during this campaign. If we can tempt Mr Sherwood into the larger scale, perhaps we can even replay the incident at Brienne where Napoleon's duty squadron had to defend him from a Cossack patrol!

My poor, neglected Great War blog deserves a similar set of resolutions. There, I may have as many goals for reading as for playing, but we'll see what turns up!