Steampunk Battles

As I mentioned last time, my LARP friend and I are working on new LARP rules inspired by TankLarp. Things are proceeding well - we have the basic combat rules (essentially a mash-up of Amtgard and TankLarp) and even an outline of class rules. I don't know when we'll get to playtest; COVID is just too rampant in my neck of the woods right now to risk meeting.

But this latest craze of ours has me thinking about a new miniatures project. Given that our current setting is more turn of the century, I started poking around with steampunk rules. While I do have In Her Majesty's Name, I don't want a 1:1 skirmish. I'm looking for something with 1 base = a squad or 1 vehicle.

I recently picked up Land Ironclads. I'm still perusing it.

It may be more armor-heavy than what I am looking for. I primarily want infantry battles (like our LARP) with a smattering of heavy weapons / armored contraptions. I will probably end up modifying Age of Heroes but hope to use LI's unit stats as inspiration.

Rules are one quandary I'll need to solve, but the second involves miniatures. I am really tempted to get period-specific miniatures. This flies in the face of my generic army approach, but I am haunted by visions of steampunk walkers and tanks clanking across the battlefield while infantry scurries from cover to cover. I am pretty sure I'll do it in 3mm, although 6mm or 10mm are tempting. I just feel that vehicles will be too large in those (comparatively) larger scales. I do like the LI vehicles offered by Brigade Models, or I could just get some WW1 figures and give them a paint conversion.

I am also thinking of a new (actually old) approach to the battlefield. Lately, I've been using flip mats with dry erase markers. However, I am now in a mind to creating a felt battlefield like I used to use. Here is an example:

Felt field, pot scrubber woods, cork hill (upper right), and a village made of cardboard and balsa wood.

Stay tuned as I ruminate about this new project.