The Road Goes Ever On

This blog post covers the future of The Via Regia blog.

(The post is sprinkled with wonderful pictures from Alan and Elaine Daniels.  They took these at Salute and have been kind enough to share them with us to use on the blog.  I really, really like Alan and Elaine's pictures.  They are quite different to your run of the mill wargames photos.  I have been lucky enough to discuss these with them by email, and I hope to try to learn their approach in the near future.  More of this later.)

Back in January we set up this blog to chart the build up to our Lutzen 1632 game at Salute.  We have well and truly done that, so I suppose it could be the end of the Via Regia, the end of the road?  However, as J. R. R. Tolkien himself penned, 'The Road Goes Ever On', and as this blogging lark has been so entertaining to write we have decided to keep it going.

What will be the new topic for the blog if Lutzen and Salute are 'done'?  Well, the plan is for the blog to be about the more general wargaming journey we are on.  In the immediate future this will be building more  Thirty Years Wars (TYW) units.  The game at Salute featured figures from three collections.  The way we split the up the units we needed for the game meant that, if we intended to do games on our own in the future, we would have some gaps in typical TYW troops.  I, for example have not got any Croats yet, and have only one Imperial Cuirassier unit.

In the less immediate future we are all keen to investigate the battles further east during this period.  The Swedish-Polish wars look interesting.  We already have many Swedish units, and so we would mainly be collecting Poles.  Seventeenth century Poles?  What did they have?  Winged Hussars!  I have wanted to collect these since I first read about them in Gush, and then saw the spectacular factors they had in the WRG Renaissance rules.

It feels a bit like a mid-life crisis.  Some people get to that certain age and rush out, buy a leather jacket and motorcycle, and roar off in to the sunset.  Not me.  I think that I will keep my mid-life crisis to wargaming.  Who hasn't seen a fabulously painted unit of Winged hussars, bedecked with huge flags and lance pennants, and thought "phwoar!".  I will therefore be throwing all caution to the wind, strapping on my eagle feathered wings, lowering my striped lance, and charging full tilt in to future.  (I am already aware that the wings are a topic of some contention, but please don't spoil my dream this early!)

Once you start researching the Poles you then come across their other enemies, Cossacks and Turks.  Oh, dear.  I think I may have just mapped out the next 5 years!   It is just at this point that Barry Hilton at Warfare Miniatures releases his Turks and Cossacks.  https://www.leagueofaugsburg.com/shop/products-subcat-57.html
Well, one is only mortal flesh.  I think there is a certain amount fo inevitability about it all.  But, important to not get ahead of myself.  Expect things to stay firmly in the German states for the next few months.

It would be great to hear suggestions for the future plans from any readers .  Any recommended books on the Poles and the wars with Sweden in the 1620s would be gratefully received.

Until next time!