Virtual Horse and Musket

After playing a satisfactory sci-fi version of One Hour Wargames on a virtual board, I started thinking about earlier periods. I tried an ancient/medieval battle but was not completely happy with the result.

The units made from PowerPoint shapes seemed to clash with the terrain, which was pictures of terrain items.

This got me thinking about alternate units. I tried Junior General, but I could not get them in the dense ranks at the scale I wanted. I then saw that someone had photographed their miniatures for use on a virtual tabletop. I decided to try that with my 3mm Magister Militum horse and musket figures.

My cat Cooper photobombed my first attempt.

But I finally got the shots and then copied them onto my battlefield.

Better, but still needs work. In particular, the bases clash with the background. I tried removing the background but it was too fiddly. I could take some stands off the bases and photograph them against a white background. I think it would be easier to remove in PowerPoint. I just didn't relish the thought of de-basing stands.

I was looking at some virtual units I created last year. They were just simple rectangles but they looked nice. They reminded me of units on a map, like this:

Which put me in mind of a game that Kaptain Kobold reviewed. W1815 used simple blocks on a map. I find the game to be rather attractive. I wondered if I could emulate something similar. So I changed my approach. When I started my crazy virtual wargaming phase, I created a tracker that used an old-time looking map as the background. I recycled the background, and turned it into this:

I actually rather like it. This is One Hour Wargames scenario 28 - Botched Relief. I set it in the long-stalled Tweenwater War. I played one battle then put the campaign on hiatus until I finished an Imperial army. I'm still waiting.

In the Tweenwater War, Redgrave is fighting on 2 fronts. I already set up their next confrontation with Bluderia.

This is scenario 12 - An Unfortunate Oversight.

It's not as pretty as actual miniatures, but I like the look. More importantly, virtual tabletops have me playing games at an unprecedented pace (for me)!