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Saturday, 9 August 2014

Venezuela Delayed

I was loaned a copy of Ben Hughes' book 'Conquer or Die!' last week, an eminently readable account of British Napoleonic wars veterans in Bolivar's South-American campaigns. I really enjoyed it, and it features a number of gameable battles I hadn't read about in any detail before, plus inspiration for a campaign using a variant of my Alto Peru campaign mechanisms.

So, over the last couple of evening I have been assembling a sheet of figures for Bolivar's army - in some cases the same Patriot figures I have used before but with a Venezuelan flag, but also including Rifle and British Legion elements, plus a figure for Bolivar himself. In addition it includes figures for Skirmisher elements, a troop type I have played around with in previous games, but which I think may be of more importance in this theatre.

Of course, having now assembled this lovely sheet of figures, I have discovered that our printer has not only run out of ink, but that we haven't got any replacement cartridges in the house. And I'm not making a trip into town just for a couple of ink cartridges, so Bolivar's army will have to wait. I'll print it off during the week, and aim to assemble it for a debut next weekend.

As a teaser, here they all are, ready to be printed. There are enough strips for twelve elements of Patriot infantry; I can add in some of my existing elements as well, because I don't do all of them with flags. There are also two elements of Skirmishers for both the Patriots and the Royalists, plus a couple of elements of Skirmishers depicted as local Indians, a feature of a couple of actions and a nice bit of colour. Oh, and Simon Bolivar is tucked away at the bottom.


Meanwhile, if I can't print and make figures this weekend, I guess that leaves me time to play with some of the ones I already have.

1 comment:

  1. Kaptain Kobbold,

    I have been enjoying this series of blogs entries about the use of paper figures and the South American Wars of Independence with considerable interest.

    I experimented with wargaming with paper figures some years ago, and produced figures for both the Russians and the Turks for the battles around Plevna. SSee here) I discovered that they were quite quick and easy to produce, didn't need painting (a big plus in my case!), and were cheap. In other words ideal for a project that you wanted to get started quickly and at minimum cost.

    I also have a copy of CONQUER OR DIE! and there are some great little battle scenarios in it, as well as ideas and situations that can be used to spice up a campaign.

    I look forward to seeing Bolivar's army in action just as soon as you have printed and made the figures.

    All the best,

    Bob

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