A look back at 100 Days Campiagning Nr. 4

a mixed hills and marshland 'parchment' copy of my terrain boards

The 15mm scale was chosen for my first start in miniatures gaming as it was more portable and there were two rules-sets that I agreed with.  De Bellis Antiquitatis and Hordes of the Things.  It was 1995, I had decided to take a step into the miniatures arena.

One of the first, best, sets of advice I ever had regarding the miniatures hobby consisted of:

1) choose an era that draws your interest, enough that you could see yourself spending $1000 on the miniatures, rules, terrain etc.  - an example of 'era' is: Ancients (3000 bce-500 ce)
2) find a rules set that you are willing to support within that 'era', in my first case this was DBA
3) settle on a scale to start with.  Be certain that you can i) afford the minis ii) have the space to store them iii) time to paint and game
4) GET BOTH SIDES FOR AT LEAST ONE BATTLE

a forested terrain tile, one I made in 1995

This last item I have always seen as critical.  Every time I broke that rule when expanding into a new game era or concept, I always lost interest as soon as the 'opponent' army or player was unavailable.  I have experimented with Battletech, 7 Years War era, and Wharhammer stuff, both Fantasy and 40K.  Since the last go-round cost me some $300 and a few months of time, I have decided to not do that again.  Either I can do both sides, or have enough interest to do both sides or I don't.  If I do not, then I DO NOT.

With that said it ought to come as no surprise that I did so many armies for the 15mm Napoleonic run to continue to support the terrain tiles that I made for DBA.  In using the terrain boards in the campaign as I have I also made up some 'parchment' copies of the terrain boards.

The concept for the boards is thus:  at least 1 (of 4) must be flat, at least 1 (of 4) must contain a terrain feature, unless a river is going to be used.  A river must cross at the center and be run from one side to the other.  These are all from DBA.  The fun part about such map making is that all of my terrain boards are 'off center' for the terrain bits and so when you spin them you can get a lot of different combinations.

So with the parchment versions of the boards I could create maps that the players could use to plan out the battle formations, and I knew that I could accurately lay out the troops based on the terrain boards.

For the third go round of the campaign these terrain boards continued to do service.

The Order Of Battle was revamped to better reflect the force organization that historically existed, though the players were not required to use it.

Anglo-Dutch

French

Prussian

The 3rd game layout was done with little co-ordination with the Allied commanders, and you can see it clearly.

Third game starting positions

The battles early on were all between France and Prussia ...

at Ciney

at Huy

at Huy AGAIN

at Namur

Needless to say the Prussians were eliminated, yet the drag on French power and position was enough that they could not win any battle against the Anglo-Dutch in time ...

web map at game 3 end

This was the first time I had seen a combat army hold back, and hold back, and hold back - only to win without a fight!

Most unusual strategy ... I think that the Prussian courts would not be so happy about the Anglo-Dutch had this been done historically...

What are your game plan limitations?  Do you have any restrictions on the minis you buy?

What have been your strategic experiences in Campaign settings?

A look back at 100 Days Campiagning Nr. 3

In 2003 I had three more players ready to take a shot at the play-by-email game that I had assembled.

 I combined the artillery symbol with a picture to help new players deal with the different troop types

 The game pieces had been developed based on modern troop symbols, the basic colors of the nation-states and some cap-badges or flags that I had found online.

 so Infantry got the classic "X" in a box

 Cavalry became the diagonal divided rectangle

 the shape of the pieces also mirrored the shape of the bases on the tabletop, so this irregular infantry unit has a larger 'footprint' on the table than the line infantry does

 This time around I also put in more of the commanders as graphic depictions.

 The Dutch units were also separately represented

 allowing for some creativity in the depictions

 With the French units there were many more variations of commanders

 And of troop types, even with the Artillery, the Guard has separate billing

 Again the base sizes helped to identify unit types, in this case an irregular infantry unit

 Bonaparte of course has to have his own special designation, as the guard elites were with him at all times.

 Then the Prussians, again treated with the different badges and colors generally depicting the troop types

 I had some fun with the flags I used in these logos, by using a 'flapping' application I found online I turned otherwise plain rectangles into the flying flag appearance seen on these game pieces

 Stuck for something to make the light cavalry units stand out, I chose the colpack busby with plume.

The game featured a very forward deployment of the Anglo-Allied forces:

game 2 deployment

The Anglo-Dutch plan was to be aggressive against the French on the flank.

This merely helped the French to hammer the Prussians, which was the plan - along with the classic strategy of central position,which the French won at Charleroi.

16h00 June 18 at Charleroi

The Allies continued the game, though only with the scant hope of holding off the French until time-out ...

Then once the French had occupied Brussels the only hope was to force Bonaparte out ...

Brussels from French lines 10h00

Brussels from French lines 12h00

Brussels from French lines 14h00

Brussels from French lines 16h00

Brussels from French lines 19h00

I also used The Arcadian Guild Webpages to help publicize the game in progress and to show off the actions up to date I had a smaller webmap developed:

Final Webmap at end of Campaign Game #2

Now I have shared some of the tools I used in the managing of these games; up next, the order of battle and game number three.