Painting Update (Oh! The humidity of it all!)

Finished up my ECW cavalry more or less, all that's left is basing them.  But.., oh, the horror.  I guess it's been awhile (last Summer I reckon) since I had to varnish figures in hot and humid weather.  So I forgot that you shouldn't, you know, varnish figures in hot and humid weather and now I have 24 ECW cavalry troopers that were painted kinda nice but now look all cloudy.  Oh well.  I'm not doing them over again.  To me, they're just all dusty from being in the field for awhile.

Won by the Sword (Anno Domini 1632 The Lion Goes South) Part 1

In Won by the Sword each player controls up to four "columns."  These can range in size anywhere from small cavalry detachments to armies.  They can be combined and split apart at will, but the players are limited to a total of four.

These columns are made up of infantry, cavalry, and artillery.  Though like I mentioned earlier you can have a column consisting of only one cavalry regiment.  Along with these basic units you also have various leaders and the baggage train.

Along with the columns each player has a number of garrisons in the various towns and fortresses on the map.

Here is the set up for the Lion Goes South scenario.  The columns are the little standees, and in the beginning of this scenario there are two Swedish columns (at the top of the map) and three Imperial/Bavarian columns (the Imperial army is at the bottom of the map, while the Bavarian ones are towards the middle and top).

In this game you accumulate victory points (vp) by defeating the enemy in pitched battles and conquering his cities/towns by siege.  The bigger the victory in a pitched battle and the bigger the city/town you conquer, the more vp you get.  Also, you get some vp from foraging in the enemies territory, which in this scenario is basically the Swedes get vp from foraging in the South and the Imperials/Bavarians get it for foraging in the North.

So..,  One more thing.  As far as pitched battles are concerned, a column can "offer battle," once it's activated, if it's in the same spot as an enemy column and spends a command point and a baggage point.  However, unless the attacker has played the Surprise Attack card, the defender doesn't have to fight.  He can refuse to fight and in doing so loses 3 vp.  In a pitched battle if you win a major victory the reward is 15 vp.  So...

At this point we see that a Swedish and Bavarian column have met at Augsburg.  What happened/happens?  Wait and see.