Thursday, May 21, 2015

Enthusiasm versus Reality

Recently I picked up a copy of "The Sands of Sudan" by Carlo Pagano, a set of colonial wargames rules inspired by Peter Gilder.

Being a traditionalist, imperial colonial I love the hey day of colonial empire, when being "British" wasn't seen as being a sin and the world map showed a hell of a lot of "pink".  My school books still show those wonderful days when the world was civilised and less troubled as it is now.


I confess to not being particularly excited with having to read rules, they always get in the way of painting figures. The rules were though a decent price, being $40AUS, which gives you a lovely glossy colour rule book, seperate card Quick Reference Sheet and a deck of 54 cards with blanks.

The rules themselves appear (from my pick a page and read style) to be simple enough that even I can understand them.  The game is essentially an umpire against a or a number of players. The event cards determine the play of the anti-colonials (mahdists is this case).  Combat while involving lots of numbers and casuality determination would appear to resolve quickly once the basics are learnt from a few games.

My enthusiasm for this game has peaked!  Then reality set in as I started to look at the number of figures I would have to purchase and paint, and that's were all good plans stop.  This game requires a lot of miniatures, the rules are specifically for 25/28mm scale though they say 15mm is possible.  I had a look at my colonial collection and found that I am lacking substantial amounts of troops and types to be able to play the game they way I'd envisage it.

So I now add another set of rules to by rules bookcase and wait for a day when my enthusiasm matches reality.

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