Friday, October 12, 2007

Best laid plans:

Of Habsberg "mice" according to Frenchmen.



I have looked into the time horizon and seen a future filled with Austrians and British.

Along the way I have delved into the critical battles in Bavaria and along the Danube from the 1809 Campaign. While they are all gameable (some easier than others), I am searching for players interested in something 'more' than just another tabletop 'refight' of a historical battle.

The 1809 Campaign, calls to mind massive movements of armies and political considerations needing to be taken into account for each step of the way for the Austrians, and equally massive headaches (initially) for the French. Such things can be done, and I would really like to 'give it a go'.



To my mind what is needed, at a minimum, are three players willing to take on the roles of Marshal Berthier, Emperor Francis I and Archduke Charles. With more players can come more 'intrigues' and more potential. Such as with 5 players at the start then there could be Berthier, Davout, Francis I, Charles and one more player taking on the 'political' roles of Britian and Prussia. Obviously as more players are added, then the ability to act for certain players would be reduced (such as a 6th player becoming Russia). Needless to say, that the 'battles' also need not only be faught out on my tabletop alone...should there be willing others to take on such battles by proxy.

2 comments:

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

..this is beginning to sound exciting - I look forward to reading more! As a particularly old school type of tool, I also recommend the (free) Berthier campaign management software to manage your campaign, and introduce some "fog of war" - there's a link from my blog if you're interested...

MurdocK said...

I have tried to run Berthier before, sadly I find the output somewhat less than satisfactory and it has a rather steep learning curve (for me).

I have plans to use a more graphical interface, possibly borrowing maps from other sources, or designing my own. These tools are likely to be combined into a 'management' system probably using my own designed gamebox for Cyberboard

Thanks for the input, would you be interested in taking on any of the 'big 5' personalities?

Or in taking part as a proxy table host?

Or in partaking as a smaller function, such as Poniatowski, or Archduke Ferdinand?