Crowded Battlefields

As a result of Jan’s prolific wargame building project we now have many more buildings than we could ever use on one table.   This prompted me to redesign the size of towns on the wargames table.

We now represent a city with four scenic squares and about 15 buildings.   A town would half that size that is two scenic squares and about 7 buildings.   A village is one scenic square and 3 or 4 buildings.

About three or four months ago I redesigned all of the campaign tactical maps to make the battlefields more crowded.   The aim was to have one city or town, one village and one farm on each battlefield.  In addition I would make more use of my collection of trees and broken ground/marsh.

We have just wargamed our first major battle using one of the more crowded battlefields.   A major battle has three or four corps per side, in this case four per side.

The photo above shows the wargames table at the end of the battle.   The stars indicate brigades which have received casualties.   Red markers indicate brigades in rout.   But the interesting feature if how the various terrain channels movement.

On the right he city of four terrain squares covers all of one 2x2 foot square.   Marsh either side of the city further breaks up movement.

In the centre the farm at the top, and village bottom, both provide strong points to fight over.   The woods in the middle was the most fought over piece of scenery on the table.   Again movement is channelled between the three terrain features.

On the left the woods and a small hill channel movement, both advancing to attack and for brigades in rout.

I commanded the attacking army, and it was immediately obvious that it would be quite difficult to find sufficient space to deploy and attack all four corps.   Gone were the carefree days of wide open spaces where two or three corps could advance abreast.

It made the resulting wargame much more interesting.  Initial deployment became much more important.   Once a corps was deployed it was very difficult to move north or south.   As always one corps was deployed in each 2x2 foot squares.   The reserve corps was deployed in the centre square, and could not move either north or south without a considerable delay.