Santa Clause Updates and More

I managed to get my Santa Clause package out in the mail last night. My wife was kind enough to gift wrap the miniatures. The only trouble I ran into was with a clerk at the post office who gave me a bucket full of bad attitude.

Hopefully that will be arriving in good order. I remembered to add the initials "SC" in the name. I have my fingers crossed that it will be well received.

So with both Secret Santa and Santa Clause taken care of, I can focus on my other random motivations.

I ended up committing to writing an ACW and an AWI scenario for a friend's magazine. I have begun work on it and I think it will lead me toward another supplement. One thing I was looking for was a historical campaign in a relatively small geographic area that I had enough miniatures to do. I would want actions that ranged from a small skirmish of a company or so per side to a battle of a brigade or so per side. I think I have found it with operations in the Kanawha Valley (1861) in what is now West Virginia.

There is much going for these battles. They feature some of the larger names that would dominate the war later on. Both McClellan and Lee operated in the area at various times. It has plenty of poor quality militia and many politically appointed commanders with no military experience. While doing some reading on the subject, it seemed that to be a Confederate Brigadier General, the requirement in Western Virginia must be that you had to be a former Governor of Virginia. Many of these men were at odds with one another throughout the war and made the situation much worse for the poor troops fighting it than it should have been.

I am still in the research phase but it looks like it should be some great fun to work on.