Don't do this often as because I am getting older, I find my participation in the hobby getting less and less, but I've not been discharged from active service yet. So here is an update reporting what is going on in AOE land.
a. Historicon 2019. I need a break so I will not be hosting any AOE-AOV-AOH games at this year's convention. Instead I'll be hosting two games of TWIGLET (Twilight of the Sun King), a nifty little set of pike & shot rules from the UKs Pike & Shot Society. The battle will be Cassel, 1677, France v Dutch. AOV will return to Fall In 2019, and will feature a battle from the 1848 Schleswig-Holstein conflict for one game, and TWIGLET for the other. In the former category, I already have all the insurgents I need (Prussians with new command bases and flags) and the Danes? Well given everyone is wearing black overcoats, with black leatherwork, my guess is that painting up a 40,000 man army is going to go quick.
b. AOV, Revolution 1848. The last digital module in the AOV series has the Hungarian Revolution section pretty well completed, with the Danes up next for playtesting. Following that will be Radetzky's campaign in Italy. Then I hope to have all said and done by Christmas this year, pricing will still be $ 4.00. Anyone have another favorite conflict they might want to include? This really isn't that hard as there were still few rifled weapons on the battlefield, so most of the armies are French Napoleonic in nature. The big time killer is researching the maps and OBs for the battles.
c. Speaking of 1848, I've just done two articles for Wargames Illustrated on two of the conflicts covered. This issue, Number 381, has my article on the Schleswig-Holstein question, and the previous edition has my little tome on the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. I do have an theme article coming up for them on the invasion of Britain by . . . Mars, but there will not be an AOV module covering that, no matter how hard my lunatic Canuck peeps howl.
d. I am now developing a simple, one page alternative to Reserve Movement for AOE that will still use all the old tables and DRMs, but work less tediously with less confusion. Historical accuracy is still paramount, but this is the one section that gives folks fits, so I want to see if I can make it a little less daunting. You don't see the process in the AOV stuff because by and large everyone had adopted French technique so there was little systemic difference, the big determinant being the commanding general himself.
e. I am going to do a little bit of an overhaul to the Website, very minor, just redesigning the PayPal order system to be a little less complex and nicer looking. One thing I am doing concerns the Warflag Website. It went down again because its domain registration had expired, but fortunately after about a week was renewed. I am downloading all the image files so that in case it does go down for good, they will be available through the AOE site for free public use. Alan Pendleberry, who did the NapFlags portion of the site, has already afforded me copyright release.
f. After that will be scenarios and more scenarios which will be available for free on the Website, all free.
Ciao, Colonel Bill
ageofeagles.com
