Club Projects

2024: The Thirty Years War

“Like caterpillars, they have soiled, devoured, fed, devastated and destroyed everything." — A description of what soldiers (of both sides) would typically do upon besetting a village.

For this club project, we embraced Warlord Games’ Epic Pike & Shotte miniatures. We’ve had a fantastic time throughout the years playing the English Civil War (ECW) in 28mm that this seemed a natural evolution. Electing not to repeat our ECW painting, we decided to take on the challenge of The Thirty Years War (TYW), a conflict from 1618-1648 that forever changed Europe.

Participants are putting together forces that can easily be used for either of the sides, either the Holy Roman Empire and Hapsburg Spanish alliance or the forces facing them (German Protestants, Danes, Swedes, and French). We’re using the Tercios ruleset, which has a free intro version perfect for introducing new players, and a more detailed rules that adds period flavor to the basic mechanics.

Let the Defenestration of Prague begin!!!!

2023: Border Reivers

Call out the hot trod!

For this club project, we tried skirmish-level Elizabethan border reivers. The goal was to get members of the club who find the larger projects a bit daunting an opportunity to get involved with a lower painting and financial commitment.

The ruleset we used was “Border Wars - Under a Reiver Moon”, which uses in the neighborhood of 10 miniatures. It was a narrative campaign with each player taking on the role of an English or Scottish family along the Marches!

2020-Present: American War of Independence

Covid-19 played a role in our latest club project. Just as we had acquired and started painting miniatures, the virus and subsequent shutdowns made it challenging to start.

We’re a steadfast group, however, and have been progressing, putting on regular games at the club for the period. Using 28mm miniatures from a variety of manufacturers along with Osprey’s Rebels & Patriots ruleset, we’ve gamed The Shot Heard Round the World, The Battle of Bennington, and Freeman’s Farm, amongst others.

Club members are eagerly looking forward to continuing wargaming the Revolutionary War in the mid-Atlantic and Southern theaters in the future!

2018-2019: Wars of the Roses

This club project saw club members choose which side in the famous English dynastic war they would join - the House of York or the House of Lancaster. Some members couldn’t choose, and were mercenaries, available to both sides.

Using Osprey’s Lion Rampant rules, the club played out a campaign, where each side was able to choose where to attack on any given game night. The winners were awarded the city, town, stronghold, or castle selected, with each location being worth a set amount of points depending on its strategic signifcance.

The Lancastrians went out to an early lead in the conflict, but Yorkist leaders never lost faith in Richard III and fought their way back to nearly an even footing. Eventually, the campaign came down to a final, climatic, castle siege. At the end of the night, the Yorkists stood triumphant, having bested the usurper Henry Tudor.

As agreed to by club members prior to the campaign, the losing players dolefully submited their miniature leaders to the Yorkists, who summarily removed their heads with ceremonial clippers. The heads were mounted on the castle wall as a lesson to any other contestants for the English throne.

2017: English Civil War

The King, Charles I, and his Parliament waged a 2017 campaign on club tables.

2015: Deus Vult! The Crusades.

Using SAGA, the club held a narrative campaign of Crusaders in the Holy Land.