Sunday, August 31, 2008

War of the 5th Coalition:

rpardo has asked if I have any website focusing on this and I do not yet.

My first thoughts can be seen here.

I am hopeful to find as many interested gamers as possible to co-ordinate some sort of a re-creation of the 5th Coaltion.

I have recently re-read Osprey Campaign Series #33 In the back of this book there is an excellent treatise of wargaming this campaign by Dr. David Chandler.

I am keen to make some attempt at this sort of kreigspeil on as large a scale as we can possibly muster.

Dr. Chandler wrote of using a mail system to manage things, we can do this now on a planetary scale with e-mail.

I did a similar sort of thing on a smaller scale during the mid 1990's using e-mail to co-ordinate some games. The french player decided to 'quit' due to other life needs and we decided to end the game with a second French Revolution taking place in 1807. Talk about a wild series of battles!!! Davout ended up as the new 'grand general' after a massive series of battles in northern Italy. Everyone at the final battle had a great time.

We may be able to limit things more in scope so that only about the next 9-12 months will be involved.

Perhaps there are enough interested Napoleonic players or participants to pull this off?

Drop me a comment or email via the link on my information page here in blogger.

9 comments:

rpardo said...

Hi Murdock
You can count with me for your Project!
Rafa

Oldpaw said...

Sounds like fun, my favorite year of the Napoleonic wars! Sign me up if you have space.

Oldpaw said...

My favorite year of the wars. I'd like to join up and participate in some fashion.

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

I have no Napoleonic figures, but I do have in interest in the period. If you have some small bit part players you need volunteers for, please count me in!

MurdocK said...

Excellent Rafa, I had thought you might be an interested player.
A great addition to the planning would be if you had a number of Austrian figs to go against your French?

Given that you are planning Leipzig I thought you may have at least some...

MurdocK said...

Hlynrian!

Wow, you are very local to me!

This could make for some great intrigues!

Please contact me via my blogger email address at your earliest ability.

We can then chat about the figs and direction - participation you might like to have...

MurdocK said...

Steve-the-Wargamer!

Some of the ideas I have for this game involve having players that are part of the Austrian military elite(s). You know the ones that 'mess with everything'!

Alternately you could also participate as a 'flank' theatre game controller, perhaps in italy or Poland?

So many possibilities...still need more players!

marinergrim said...

Hi murdock,

I'd like to take part in this too if possible. Don't mind being one of the less than than capable members of the Austrian Staff college or a supporter of the Ogre of Europe.

MurdocK said...

Grimsby Mariner!

Excellent that you are interested.

I am aware that your club has some number of Napoleonic Figs with a few 'more or less' regular Napoleonic minis players.

Do you know if they will have any interest in participating in any way?

The availability of such great minis and the table setup in Grimsby would really launch this little project into something much larger.

I have done a 'Wars of Coalitions' game using three different gamer tables (in two scales) where the same minis collections never met one another yet the three sets were used to 'simulate' a number of battle actions. Obviously the 'set-up' phase of this 'big' game will take us into next year before any orbats and contact actions take place between combattants, but it would be interesting to know if there exists any desire to run tabletop games that have a longer-reaching effect than 'just that one game'.

The players on the tabletop may also need to be willing to 'accept' directives from nation/game controllers from far away. Obviously these would be more of an army corps type thing, like 'delay enemy for as long as possible' or 'evade direct contact and do not get trapped' or "have at them!".

Perhaps you can chat out the possibilities in the next week or two?