Busy Week - Little to Show

Its been a very busy week, and I have worked harder than usual on the blogs, but there is not much to report on this one.

Some of you may know that I do four or five blogs each week. One of about living in Spain, and is mostly aimed at our walking group plus friends and family in UK. A second is about our walking visit to Napoleonic battlefields over the years. A new one is about rewriting our wargame rules. There is usually one about our current campaign, but we are between campaigns at present. Then there is this one. This is a general blog about all of our Napoleonic interests, and is designed to give a brief update on what is happening with the other blogs, or sometimes to deal with a subject which does not fit easily into any of the other ones.

I have two main projects at present. First there is the map making. This has proved to be a whole new interest for me. I spend hours and hours creating the two master maps, one of Germany and one of Spain. These are a mixture of real maps and my understanding of how the strategic road system worked in the Napoleonic period. I am hoping that the result will be a series of map which will recreate the historical campaign problems of the period. For example on modern maps the road system has made new centres important, and bypassed historical ones. There is also the problem that as wargamers we are inclined to think that battlefields were important strategic places, often they were not.

My maps consist of a 20 mile grid, and each square has one city, town or village. There are three squares which cover the Waterloo campaign area. The southern one shows Charleroi, strategically as important now as then. The northern one shows Brussels, again no question what to put in that square. The centre one is the problem. On the AA road atlas which I use as the map reference Nivelles is the major town. Genappe and Fluers are the other two shown. There is no sign of Waterloo or Quatre Bras! Clearly Nivelles is the right town to show on this square.

So how to overcome this problem. The maps with the 20 mile grid are the strategic maps. But when two armies come within 80 miles of each other I make a tactical map. On this one nine wargame scenic squares cover the same 20 mile grid. So I have nine squares to show more detail. Nivelles is still shown as the major town, but both Waterloo and Quatre Bras would be shown as cross roads, each with one building to represent a farm or hamlet.

But you will see that a detailed knowledge of historical battlefields, and why they were chosen, is a great advantage if you want to make accurate campaign maps.

The second project is my wargame rules. I am really enjoying this project, as it makes me think about the rules and what I want to achieve with them. They were originally written as a sort of "idiot's guide" for Jan and I. We both have terrible memories and always need to refer to the rules. So I typed up one page to cover each phase of the game. I left out all of the things which we knew, understood and agreed. So what was left was a collection of key points. For example movement showed distances in different formations, but nothing about the formations.

I am also pleased that I have had some response to the rules blog, and all of it constructive and helpful.

I suspect that the rules, and the campaign, will never be complete. Both, and playing wargames, have taken over from the many hours a week I used to spend on painting model soldiers. I have no wish whatsoever to expand or change my collection of model soldiers. I know that this will seem strange to most wargamers, who never have enough figures. I can well understand this attitude, because it was my attitude for about 35 years. I always wanted more or better. But having worked my way through that stage, during which time I was left with hardly any time to actually play wargames, I am now enjoying the fruits of my labours.

We have never spent more time wargaming, nor enjoyed it more. Almost every day we spend a couple of hours at the wargame table. We often question a rule or a result, but we can usually agree on the outcome. If not we are both happy to roll a dice. Then long after the heat of battle I can sit down and consider whether it is important enough to change the rules. Most times it is not, and such a change would create more problems than it would solve.

Like I said at the beginning. Its been a busy week, but very little to show for it. However it has been another enjoyable week and makes me appreciate again how lucky it was when I found that copy of "Charge, or How to Play Wargames" on the library shelf in the late 1960s. That was the start of it all, and I can't imagine what our life would have been without it.