napoleonic wargaming

Three Campaign Battles

2012-01-28T10:48:00.005+01:00

Campaign Map 10 August 1813

It has taken 10 moves, and two months, to arrive at the first campaign battle. This is mostly because I have changed the campaign rules to allow each corps commander more freedom of choice, and they are all being somewhat cautious. Perfectly understandable, but it has meant that Jan and I have not had a campaign wargame to play since November.

The first battle, at Torrente, is the result of 16th Italian corps advancing to relieve the garrison at Flix, and being confronted by 3rd Spanish corps, and 4th Spanish corps about to cut their communications with Torrente. The Italians then have to carry out a hasty withdrawal to avoid being cut off. The battle started on Move 10.

Move 11 resulted in two more battles.

8th French corps attack 2nd Spanish corps who are laying siege to Miravat.

The garrison of Miravat belong to 17th French corps, who have left a small garrison at Tortosa to raise the siege of Miravat. When Suchet hears of this he orders them to return to Tortosa and leave the relief of Miravat to 8th French corps. They arrive back at Tortosa just as 1st Spanish corps is about to attack.

This posed a problem for Jan and I how to fight the wargames. We were already fighting Torrente when the second two battles were declared. Obviiously we will have to finish that battle first.

The second two start at midday on 10 August. This means that there will only be 8 hours/wargame moves to nightfall. So if the first battle is not resolved within that time we will have to decide whether to clear the table and fight the second, or carry on with the first battle for the next day.

To keep the campaign and wargame in the same time frame each day is 12 hours and each wargame 12 moves. So one hour is one move. Each campaign move is four hours. This was done to allow nearby commanders move to join a battle if they wanted to. If the battle/wargame starts at 0800 in the morning, then there are 12 wargame moves. Quite sufficient to resolve a wargame. But if they start at 1200 there is only 8 moves, not really long enough.

During the battle/wargame Jan and I command the corps, but at the end of the battle command goes back to the corps commander. If there is a clear winner I judge that one corps will remain on the battlefield and the other retreat. But if the battle is undecided it is down to the corps commander.

We will just have to fight the three wargames and hope that all three result in a clear winner and loser. Otherwise we will have to leave it up to the corps commanders and if necessary relay the table to fight a second day or one or more battles.

If you would like to follow the battles you can find them at

http://1813campaigndiaryparttwo.blogspot.com/

PBEM Player Commitment

2012-01-23T22:11:00.003+01:00

Thanks for the feedback on my last post. Its always interesting to read the experience of others, and their suggestions to improve my PBEM campaign.

Campaigns seem to be like Napoleonic Wargame Rules. Everyone has a different view of what makes a good game/campaign. Even worse with campaigns because there are so many different types and objectives. And most of us are just doing the best we can. Unlike wargame rules there are no real guidelines, or suggestions on how to run the perfect campaign.

I have a very firm idea of what I want from my campaign. It must produce good wargames for Jan and I to fight. That is easy to achieve with a solo campaign, but much more difficult that I had anticipated in a PBEM campaign.

The real problem is player commitment.

I try to achieve this by explaining what is required of any player. There is only one rule. They must be able to respond to my emails within 48 hours, or let me know if they are unable to do so.

In return I try really hard to produce the sort of campaign which I would love to take part in. The problem is that what I would like from a campaign is not necessarily what someone else would want.

I try never to expect more than I have asked for. In general terms a player in my campaign should be able to commit for about four months. He should be prepared to spend half an hour a week writing his orders. He must answer my mail within 48 hours. Not a lot of commitment in my opinion.

In return I run a campaign forum and a campaign diary blog. I respond to every email I get within 24 hours. I try to keep the momentum of the campaign going by publishing something on the forum, on the diary blog or send reports or messages every day. Certainly at least once a week each player will receive a complete update on his performance and any messages due. The turn around for a campaign move is never more than one week, often slightly less.

Yet I seem to have never ending problems due to lack of player commitment. The most common one is not responding to my mail within 48 hours. Every week I have to send a reminder to at least one, and often two or three, players.

Fortunately I don't lose players very often. But when I do the problems really start.

Just over a week ago one of my long term players, who has taken part in three campaigns, told me he had to quite due to work commitments. This is perfectly understandable, and we parted on good terms with my assurrance that he would always be welcome to take part in a future campaign.

At that time I had four reserve players. Two were filling the role of Chief of Staff. This is a non playing role in the campaign. There is one for the allied army and one for the French. They receive copies of all reports, updates, orders and messages for each of their four corps commanders. This is so that they can keep up to date with each of their corps. If a corps commander is unable to write orders, or has to drop out of the campaign, they are asked to fill his post.

In addition I had a further two reserves. They had asked to join the campaign, but I did not have a role for them at present.

In those circumstances you would think replacing my French commander would be easy.

I offered it to the French chief of staff. He could not do it for very good personal reasons.

I then offered it to the Spanish chief of staff. He did not want to take it on, as he had spent a lot of time under studying the Spanish corps commanders

I then offered it to the first of the non committed reserves. He agreed to take it on. I spent two days sending him a mass of reports, maps, orders and a brief on what had happened since the start of the campaign.

Two days later I asked him to write orders for the next move. I also explained how to do it. He replied that it might be better if I did it, as he had not received critical documents. I sent the documents again, and explained that it defeated the whole object if I wrote the orders. He then told me that he could not open the attachments I had sent him. I asked him to confirm that he has been unable to read any of the documents I had sent. He replied that in the cirucmstances he did not want to take part!

Why I wonder did he ask to join in the first place? Why did he not tell me he could not open attachments as soon as he received the first one? Had he done so I would have printed the documents on the email rather than send them as an attachment. But who would ask to take part in a PBEM if they could not open email attachments?

PBEM wargaming should be the answer to the army of solo wargamers who can not find an opponent near them. Its so easy, and so much fun. Before I took on PBEM I could not understand why it was not more widely used. Now I understand all too well.

Over the past two years I have communicated with a lot of organisers of PBEM campaigns and this player commitment seems to be the main reason for them abandoning their campaign. Sometimes it is an abusive player. Sometimes it is lack of response from one or more players. Sometimes it just all proves to be more trouble than it is worth.

I have been fortunate that my own experience has, on balance, been much more positive than negative. PBEM adds greatly to my enjoyment of my campaign. Given the choice I would prefer to have nine neighbours who all wanted to take part in the campaign as corps commanders. But that is not going to happen. PBEM is a very good alternative. But it can be VERY frustrating.

Campaign Manning Problems

2012-01-21T21:53:00.002+01:00

In my earlier experience of running a wargames club I have found that it is not unusual for one or more members to lose interest if there is a break in the routine of the weekly meetings. So I was not greatly surprised to find that the same thing happened with the PBEM campaign following the two week break for Christmas/New Year.

The first was one of those failures to respond to an email, and again for the follow up email. Fortunately I had a reserve ready to step in. But I was shocked to hear that the reason he had dropped out was that he had been involved in serious traffic accident. The problem with organizing things on line is that you have very little personal contact with the players. And there is always a tendency to think the worse if they do not reply to an email. So this event has taught me not to jump to conclusions.

I was less prepared to lose another player within a week. This second one had taken part in all three of the PBEM games I have run. But for most of the current game he has been late sending in his orders, and has had to be reminded. I was about to write and ask if there was anything wrong when I received a mail from him that pressure of work had made it impossible to continue.

As always I accept that real life often makes taking part in a game difficult or inconvenient, so there were no hard feelings. If players tell me that they wish to withdraw from the campaign they are always welcome to join again at a later date. And once again I had a reserve ready to take part. He was also prepared to write a brief of his corps activity for the new player.

But I was very surprised, and more than a little concerned, to find that the game had not gone well for him at all. I have changed this campaign considerably from the previous three. The major change was to allow the corps commanders much more freedom of choice. But also there was the introduction of detachments, garrisons, sieges and lines of supply. All were in response to comments after the last campaign. All were intended to make the campaign more enjoyable for the corps commanders. But clearly they had failed in this particular case. It was clear that he preferred the earlier type of campaign.

It is always difficult to get feedback on how players are enjoying the campaign. Or what could be done to improve it. I suspect that most players do not want to appear ungrateful or negative about the campaign by offering criticism.

But I was concerned that this feeling might be wide spread amongst the corps commanders. So I have posted his comments on the forum, and asked each player to let me know how they feel about the new systems and how this campaign compares with earlier ones.

I really don’t like to change anything mid campaign. But if this feeling is wide spread then I will have to consider doing so. It’s a lot of work for everyone concerned, and I want to make sure that everyone enjoys the experience. It would not be difficult to reintroduce a greater degree of control by the two CinC, and to make the task of the corps commanders less demanding. But I don’t want to do so unless I am sure that this is what the majority of the players want.

If you would like to follow the discussion you will find it on the campaign forum at

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/napoleonicpbemcampaign

Battle of Torrente

2012-01-16T10:07:00.002+01:00

Wargame area outlined in white

It has been a long wait for the first battle of our PBEM Spanish campaign, but it looks like it will have been worth the wait.

We have completed nine campaign moves, over four weeks plus two off for Christmas, and have finally produced a battle. And its quite a complicated one. The Spanish have laid siege to an Italian brigade in an isolated village.

General Severoli, the Italian corps commander, ignores his orders to hold Lerida and marches to relieve the garrison. As he nears the village he finds the way barred by a Spanish corps, and receives reports of a second Spanish corps moving to cut his communications with Lerida. To add to the mix a small band of guerrillas have set an ambush. Try transferring that lot from the map to the wargames table!

As the wargame starts Severoli has ordered his rear guard to abandon Torrente and his main body to retreat accross country to join them on the Lerida road just east of Torrente.

In a wargame the retreating side always has an advantage, especially if they move first. The attackers have to move carefully and in column of attack. The retreating side can move must faster in column of march. Also the Italians have cavalry, and the Spanish do not.

To ensure that the Italians do not just outmarch the Spanish, I have stipulated that they must hold at least one square of the wargames table until nightfall. The game starts at first light, so there are 12 hours/wargame moves to nightfall.

Nothing is ever predictable with our wargame rules, but I am hoping that this game will live up to its early promise.

The battle/wargame plays an important part in the PBEM campaign, so I take photographs of each move and write up a move by move battle report on the Campaign Diary Blog at the rate of one move each day. This gives Jan and I plenty of time to fight the wargame, and keeps the corps commanders involved in the progress of the battle.

If you would like to follow the battle you will find it at

http://1813campaigndiaryparttwo.blogspot.com/

Major Review of our Wargame Rules

2012-01-11T20:23:00.003+01:00

Reason for Review

The rules were designed to fight large battles with three or four corps per side, and with all brigades starting the battle at full strength. We have used them for this type of game for five years, and we enjoy the game they produce

However the PBEM campaign has resulted in more battles with just one corps per side, and often with heavy casualties at the start of the battle. This has created a number of problems with the rules, and for some time we have adjusted them to suit the new style of game.

The time has come now to review the whole rules to make them more suitable for the type of games produced by the PBEM campaign.

I want to keep changes to the mechanics of the rules to a minimum, and only bring in changes where absolutely necessary.

The two major problems at present are the use of Poor Card and use of the Command Points.

Review of Command Points

At present there is a real problem for the attacking player. The allocation of CPs are just too few to move and fight the six fighting elements. This is a pretty central part of the rules, and any changes will be far reaching. So its important to test play them to make sure that changing them does not create more problems than it solves.

The present rules are designed for five commanders per side, one CinC and four corps commanders. The CinC only commands the four corps commanders. Each corps commander commands six fighting elements.

The new games often have only one commander. He still commands six fighting elements, but they often start the game with casualties from previous games. Worse still at the end of the last campaign some commanders had to fight with just one or two fighting elements.

First Proposed Solution

Not only the corps commander, but also the six command elements, will roll for CP.

The corps commander CP will issue general orders to his brigades.

The brigade CP will decide whether they can move, change formation fire or fight when required to do so.

The corps commander will get an extra CP if Gifted, and lose one if Poor

The brigade will get an extra CP if A class, but lose one if C class. In addition they will lose one for each casualty. So when full strength they will do most of what is required, but as the casualties mount they will be unable to do so.

This will create an interesting problem when the corps commander is planning his battle. He will have to consider where to place his best, and worse, brigade

If you would like to follow the development of the rules you can do so at

http://napoleonicwargamerules.blogspot.com/

Project for 2012

2012-01-08T14:57:00.002+01:00

My project for 2012 will be a complete overhaul of my 1813 campaign.

Having spent 2011 converting the campaign from solo to PBEM, and having fought two mini campaigns, I am now convinced that PBEM is the way to go for the future.

The campaign, including our wargame rules, was designed to suit Jan and I. To provide the sort of wargames we wanted to play and to make full use of the wargame table, figures and scenery we had available. It was designed to be run with the minimum of administration and both the wargame and campaign rules were short lists rather than full rules.

Despite this the conversion to PBEM has worked quite well. However the mechanics have had to be changed drastically to meet the requirements of eight campaign players. As a solo campaign I could easily provide battles when I was ready to fight a wargame, and of a size which suited the rules I was using. This has proved impossible with the PBEM campaign.

Our wargame rules were written to fight battles of four corps each with a model soldier strength of 32 infantry, 4 cavalry and 1 gun. This was because our 6x6 foot table was just right for 128 infantry, 16 cavalry and 4 guns per side. My earlier large collection of model soldiers had been reduced to provide suitable armies of French, Polish, Bavarian, Italian, Westphalian, Austrian, British, Prussian, Russian and Spanish armies of that size.

The same size armies are used in the PBEM campaign, but instead of one player commanding all four corps within the army, each player only commands one corps. In the solo campaign each corps moved and fought as part of the whole army. In the PBEM corps each corps operated separately. Furthermore each player wanted to have some choice as to how he should deploy and fight his corps.

This resulted in much smaller wargames. Usually only one corps per side. Sometimes two or even three, but never four. The wargame rules which had been designed for four corps per side required some adjustment to fight with just one corps.

In addition the more freedom I gave the eight campaign players, the less control I have over when battles/wargames will be fought. This has resulted in more interesting campaigns for the players, but less wargames for Jan and I to fight.

So over the coming months I am going to work out a campaign designed for PBEM. The size of armies will remain the same, but I want to be able to consider how best to play the actual campaign. Perhaps each player will have command of a four corps army, rather than just one corps.

I also want to rewrite my wargame rules to make then suitable for single corps battles. I like the rule mechanisms, so I will not be changing them too much. Mostly it will be the command and control section.

I will also write a new set of campaign rules to suit the new campaign concept. I also want them to be an extension of the wargames rules. Or perhaps the wargames rules to be part of the campaign rules.

Not sure how I can engineer more battles/wargames. I might have to run a series of one off wargames, similar to our Wellington’s battles. We have nearly completed that series, so I might start a new one based on Napoleon’s battles.

It will be a lot of work, but I have plenty of time. And I am really looking forward to starting the whole thing again from first basics.

Review of 2011

2012-01-05T15:54:00.001+01:00

We have just returned from an extended Christmas and New Year visit to our grand children at Rothbury. It’s a small village about an hour north of Newcastle, and we had heavy snow for the last two years. This year no snow, but very cold. So it’s lovely to be back in Spain with clear blue skies and daytime temperatures of 20c plus.

It felt strange to be separated from our wargames table and 1813 campaign, but it did give me a chance to consider our wargame activities during 2011.

Its more than six years since I painted my last wargame figure, and considerably more since I bought my last figure or piece of wargames scenery. This, combined with retiring six years ago, has meant that we spend much more time actually fighting wargames.

Blogs have played an important, and increasing, part in our wargame activities.

This is the oldest, and most, important Blog. It covers all aspects of our wargaming. It also provides a central reference point for all of the other Blogs. During the year I have posted here at least twice a week, a total of 89 posts. There have been a total of 39029 visitors since it started in 2009.

The 1813 campaign has a total of 13 Blogs. They cover everything from photographs of each army to campaign and wargame rules to individual Blogs dealing with each phase of the campaign. This was done to make it easier to access any part of the campaign. Each phase has its own diary and detailed battle reports. The Hannover Campaign was the main Blog for last year. It has a total of 202 posts. There have been a total of 35046 visits to all 13 Blogs since they started in 2009.

Wellingtons Battles provide one off wargames based on Wellington’s battles in the Peninsula. It has been running since 2009, and last year had 66 posts. The Blog has had 6800 visitors.

Walking Napoleonic Battlefields was also started in 2009. I published the last Blog in May. There were 104 Blogs in all, one for each battlefield. Last year the last 19 were completed. This Blog has been visited 35847 times.

In addition to the wargaming Blogs, I also do a series about living in Spain. There are now six of them, one for each year we have lived here. In the past year I have posted 67 times and there have been 12291 visits since they started in 2009

So during the year I have been running five or six Blogs at any one time and I have posted 443 entries. It has been great fun and has kept my interest in the hobby alive and well. There have been an amazing 129,013 recorded visits to these six Blogs since 2009. I do not know how many were during 2011, but visits have increased during the year and it must be at least half, which would be 64,506.

I am very grateful to each and every visitor. Although I get very little feedback on any of the Blogs, it is great to think that there are so many people who are interested enough in what I am doing to want to read about it. The totals are individual visits, but obviously most will be repeat visits by the same people.

There are 60 members following this blog, and I am particularly grateful to them. Its like belonging to a large club who all share the same interest.

Now that I am back in Spain and back in my routine, I will be posting again at least once a week. Over the next few days I have to catch up on the PBEM campaign. I will then give some thought to my plans for 2012, which will be the subject of the next post.

Thanks again for following my ramblings. Best wishes for 2012 to you and your loved ones.

Change to the Campaign Rules

2011-12-11T18:07:00.007+01:00

I had promised myself that I would not amend the new campaign rules until we had finished the campaign, but “needs must” as they say.

The problem has arisen with the infantry brigade detachments as garrisons. I had resisted requests to allow detachments, because it weakens the corps which has always been the main building block of my wargame rules. The best wargames are when there are four corps per side taking part, three in the front rank and one in reserve.

However as each campaign player only commands one corps, I could understand their wish to detach brigades to allow them more freedom of movement. And isolated French garrisons in Spain fits very well with the historical strategy of the campaign.

As with all new rules, it all seemed quite fool proof in theory. The start brief made each French commander detach three of his four infantry brigades as isolated garrisons. The theory was that they would then call them in to concentrate their corps before taking on the Spanish mixed corps.

I was, and am, quite pleased with the rules for sieges and storming a garrison, but I had not anticipated that the French would just leave their garrisons spread along the whole length of the river Ebro. This was possible because I had not allowed any sort of attrition whilst the siege was in place.

Each town can hold out for six days, and if not relieved will then just surrender and the brigade will be taken prisoner. Six days is reasonable from a historical view point. But it is 18 campaign moves, which is about 9 week’s real time. A very long time.

Worse the commanders of the two forward French corps made no attempt to relieve their garrisons. Worse still because all of the roads were now blocked it was impossible for the Spanish commanders to advance beyond the river line.

So I have had to amend campaign rule 17, which deals with towns and garrisons. After three moves, or one day, of siege I roll 1D6 each campaign move to see whether the garrison has lost a casualty due to “attrition”. This includes enemy artillery fire, lack of supplies, skirmish and other limited attacks. A roll of 6 will result in a casualty on the second day, a 5 or 6 on the third and so on.

Not only will this prompt the French commanders to raise the siege before their brigade suffers too much. But each casualty will make it easier for the Spanish commander to storm the town.

It will be interesting to see how it affects the French strategy.

The campaign rules can be found at

http://napoleoniccampaignrules.blogspot.com/

The battle of Orthez

2011-12-06T12:30:00.002+01:00

Table at the start of Orthez wargame

The PBEM campaign is developing well, and is both fun and very time consuming. But it is proving reluctant to produce a battle for Jan and I to wargame. I suspect that this is because I have allowed the corps commanders much more freedom of choice than in the previous campaign. I sense that they are a little reluctant to commit to a full battle, which is perfectly understandable.

However it does mean that Jan and I have gone a week without our wargame fix. So we have decided to fit in one of our Wellington in the Peninsula battles. We planned these one off games to be a bit of light relief from the more serious campaign games.

Orthez will be game number twelve in the series. It’s hard to believe that it was almost two years ago that we played Rolica, which was the first.

We had previously walked all of the battlefields in the series, which made it even more interesting to play as a wargame.

I have published the game set up and will be posting one move each day as we fight the battle. You can find it at

http://wellingtonsbattles.blogspot.com/

Campaign Fog of War

2011-12-03T12:59:00.001+01:00

I am not sure whether it is just my impression, but the fog of war seems to be working well in this campaign – perhaps too well.

The corps commanders have been given must more freedom of action in this campaign than in the previous one. This is particularly true of the Spanish. They are given a general objective at the start, but left entirely on their own as to how they might achieve it. The result is a mixture of caution and excessive daring.

The Spanish have a short window of opportunity to take advantage of isolated French garrisons, before the French commanders can concentrate their corps and engage the Spanish. All of this is new to the campaign, and neither the corps commanders nor I have any previous experience to guide us.

I have made it almost impossible for a Spanish corps to take a town by assault, unless the garrison has suffered earlier casualties. Obviously at the start of the campaign all of the garrisons are full strength.

The second option is to lay siege to the garrison. This will work, providing the French do not appear to raise the siege. In that case the Spanish commander will have to decide whether to risk a battle or abandon the siege.

So the Spanish problems are obvious.

Not so obvious the French ones. They have had to detach three of their four infantry brigades as garrisons at the start of the campaign. That only leaves them with one infantry and one cavalry brigade, plus artillery. Not enough to take on a full Spanish corps. So they have to calculate how long they can spend calling in outlying garrisons, against leaving a siege in place too long and losing the garrison.

And then there are the increased umpire problems. Last campaign I only had to control eight corps on the campaign map, plus a few cavalry brigades on recce. At present I have nine corps and about fourteen independent brigades. Then there are the supply depots, and ensuring that everyone is within range of their corps depot. Last, but not least, trying to keep track of the mass of messages. After just four campaign moves the register shows sixty nine messages.

I am not sure how the corps commanders are dealing with their fog of war. I do know that I am having problems keeping track of everything – even though I have them all plotted on the master map.

My only regret is the lack of battles. This is perfectly understandable, as no one wants to commit to battle unless they are confident of winning. But it does mean that Jan and I do not have any wargames to fight. So it looks like we will see a return of our Wellingtons Battles series to keep us occupied.

First Impressions of the Tortosa Campaign

2011-11-29T11:12:00.002+01:00

The campaign is only 10 days old, but already we have completed three moves and are writing orders for the fourth move. Not bad going, particularly with nine players spread throughout the world.

This campaign has changed greatly from the previous one. In particular allowing detached garrisons is proving a challenge - for me as well as the corps commanders.

The idea of detached garrisons was to make it more difficult for the French to immediately crush the Spanish armies. Each corps had to detach three of its four infantry brigades prior to the start of the campaign. Each brigade was 3-6 squares (15 to 30 miles) from corps HQ. This meant that any orders for them had to be sent by message. In the previous campaign all brigades had to remain within command range of corps HQ.

Each corps is only allowed one message each turn. So they have to decide whether to write orders to a detached brigade, and if so which one. Or whether it would be better to write to a nearby corps commander and try to coordinate their battle plan.

If they order a brigade to return to corps, which most have, then I have to keep track of the brigade until it gets back. This has caused a problem, as I had not anticipated it would require an additional order system. It meant that after two moves I had to change the whole message system.

Then there is the problem of how a Spanish corps can tackle a fortified town. The rules make it clear that it is almost impossible to do if the garrison is full strength. A full Spanish corps would need a dice throw of 6.

I did anticipate that there might be problems here, so I posted on the campaign forum that it would be difficult, and that they should consult the campaign rules before attempting it. Despite this two of them went ahead and attempted to storm a town, with the predictable result that both lost casualties and had to withdraw.

Which just goes to show that it is not necessary to have complicated rules to create confusion, just allow the players a little more freedom of choice and they will produce it themselves.

It is all adding greatly to the feel of the campaign, which has a distinct Spanish flavour of confusion and fog of war.

Fire and Sword

2011-11-27T00:01:00.003+01:00

Its taken me a long time to get around to reading the third book in the Simon Scarrow series about Wellington and Napoleon. Not sure why that is so. Perhaps because there is less opportunity to read now that the long lazy summer days are gone. Or more likely because I did not enjoy The Generals, the second in the series, as much as I did Young Bloods, the first.

Fire and Sword deals with the period 1804 to 1809, much more interesting to me than the early Napoleonic era. I find Scarrow very easy to read, and I was impressed that there is very little fiction in these novels. I am not saying that it would be difficult to find parts when he lets his imagination run a little wild. But they are close enough to the truth not to offend too much.

I have read a lot of books about both the military history of the period, and the personal life of Napoleon. Less so about Wellington, as there is less available. But I still enjoyed this book. And I would recommend it to anyone not too well read on the period who wants an easy introduction.

Perhaps I will not leave it so long before I read the last volume.

Running the PBEM Campaign

2011-11-23T10:33:00.004+01:00

I was asked to explain how I run the campaign on the PBEM Forum. I know some of you follow my 1813 campaign blog, and I thought you might find it interesting.

I run the campaign on my computer, but there is no programme for it. It’s all done by typing and filing in folders. This is why I ask for you to use the standard format for move orders and CinC reports. With nine sets of reports to transfer onto the map and then write individual umpire reports you should not be too surprised if there is the occasional mistake.

The whole administration depends on a series of folders, which I use like a simple filing system. There are four main folders

Move Folder. There is one folder for each campaign move. Inside there are two folders, one for orders and one for umpire reports. I put a copy of each corps movement order in the orders folder as I receive it. When they are all in I plot the moves on the master tactical map. I then type an umpire report for each corps commander and place it in the umpire report folder. When all are done I send an umpire report to each corps commandeer.

Message Folder. There is one folder for each campaign move. When I receive a message I calculate on the tactical map how long it will take to reach its destination. I then place a copy of the message in the appropriate folder for delivery. At the end of each move I send all messages in the next folder to the recipients.

CinC Folders. One for the French and one for the Allied CinC. Each contains the following

Strategic Map - updated by reports from spies and agents

Tactical Map – updated by reports from corps commanders

Message Log – a list of all reports received and orders sent

Messages In Folder – contains a copy of all reports received

Messages Out Folder – contains a copy of all orders issued

There are another 8 folders for such things as campaign rules, copies of strategic and tactical maps, battle reports, campaign players, campaign blog and campaign diary. But they are background, rather than used for running the campaign

It’s not really as complicated as it looks, but it does involve a lot of work. Perhaps someday someone will come along who will write me a computer programme to run it all. Not sure I would really want that, because it’s easy for me to change things as they are now, and the campaign is constantly changing and, I hope, improving.

2011-11-21T16:01:00.004+01:00

Tortosa Strategic Map showing initial deployments

The Tortosa campaign has now started.

I have managed to find a replacement for the drop out. There are nine command posts, and all are filled at present. However from past experience it is likely that some of the players will drop out, and always at short notice. So it would be good to have a small reserve of suitable players ready to take on a command.

The player commitment required to take part is not great. All players are required to reply to campaign mail within 48 hours, or to let the umpire know that they are not available. We aim to achieve one, or possibly two, campaign moves per week. Writing orders, reports and messages should not take more than an hour each time, so a maximum of two hours per week.

No previous experience is required, just an interest in Napoleonic warfare in general, and sufficient interest to commit to a three to six months campaign. Most important is being able to stick to the 48 hour turn around on campaign moves.

There is a campaign diary blog on which I publish a summary of each campaign move, and a detailed battle report. The Tortosa diary blog can be found at

http://1813campaigndiaryparttwo.blogspot.com/

If you would like more details you should visit the campaign forum at

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/napoleonicpbemcampaign

Tortosa Campaign Drop Out

2011-11-17T11:00:00.002+01:00

The campaign has not even started, and already I have had the first player to drop out!

Over the past two weeks I have filled the nine command posts. Mostly from players from the Hanover campaign, but topped up with new players. I make an issue of explaining the problems caused by players dropping out without telling me, and all players have agreed to the condition that they will reply to all mail within 48 hours, or confirm that they will not be able to do so.

All the players accepted this condition. All were sent their starter pack with maps and starting instructions. All were asked to confirm receipt of the mail. Eight did, one did not. I then sent two reminders, asking for an immediate reply if he wanted to remain in the campaign. Again no reply.

As luck would have it, he was to command one of the two French corps closest to the Spanish army. As such he is likely to be one of the two French commanders in action soonest.

The four French commanders were asked to let me have their initial deployment as soon as possible, as these must be plotted before the campaign can start. Again three did. The same one did not reply.

I have not got any reserve players, so I must now either find a replacement for the offender, or take on his corps myself. I would rather not take on that particular corps, because it is important that the commander deals with the initial "fog of war".

One of the four French corps are at Barcelona, which is about five days march from the river Ebro, which is the front line. So I have asked that player to take over from the missing one. He has already sent me the deployment for his own corps, so I have asked if he will take on command of both corps. Otherwise I will run the Barcelona corps until I can find a replacement.

It is very disappointing that this sort of thing continues to happen, despite my best efforts to make the commitment a clear and obvious requirement for joining the campaign. It may be that he has problems with his computer or email and that he has either not received the starter pack or is unable to reply. But I fear that this is unlikely. When this has happened in the past I have never again heard from the offending players.

Anyway I am not going to let it spoil the campaign. Just having a moan on here has got it out of my system!

Hopefully the next mention of the campaign will be that it is up and running and all is going well.

New Blog for Tortosa Campaign

2011-11-15T18:33:00.003+01:00

I must admit to being just a little excited to have finally started the Tortosa campaign.

This is the seventh phase of the 1813 campaign, and the second which I have run as a PBEM. The initial player packs were sent out this morning to each corps commander, each containing a strategic map, a tactical map, corps order of battle and the initial briefing document for the corps commander.

Next step is for each French corps commander to confirm his deployment. Each is responsible for four towns, plus their own lines of communication/supply. At the start of the campaign I have nominated the towns which must have a garrison, and they are now deciding which of their four infantry brigades should occupy which town. Once the campaign starts they must decide which towns to hold, and which they can afford to leave without a garrison. If they try to hold all of the four towns they will be too weak to hold off the Spanish offensive. I am REALLY looking forward to seeing how the four different commanders tackle this problem.

I am also waiting to see if I have made any major error in the administration of the campaign. There are so many changes in this next campaign that I have had to rewrite the campaign rules from scratch. I have read through them a number of times, and they seem ok. But the real test is whether they make sense to the corps commanders who have only now received them.

I have started a new blog for Tortosa. This is to make it easier to find posts as the campaign gets going. At present I am posting one entry for a brief history of the 1813 campaign and another one for each of the previous six phases. Then I will start the diary of the Tortosa campaign, with one entry for each campaign move. And finally a seperate tag for each battle report. If you would like to follow the campaign you can find it at

http://1813campaigndiaryparttwo.blogspot.com/

Successful conclusion to the Hanover Campaign

2011-11-14T21:51:00.007+01:00

When I started this campaign in March 2011 I expected it to last about three months. Eight months, and 45 moves, later it ended in grand style. It was my third attempt at running a PBEM, but the first one I felt confident enough to include as part of my two year old solo 1813 campaign. It would prove a much greater success than I had dared to hope.

The first PBEM was an attempt to run the solo campaign using exactly the same rules, but handing control of the two commander in chief and eight corps commanders to player I had never met and recruited over the internet. It came as no surprise that it did not work well. It ended early and in a shambles. But I did learn a lot of valuable lessons. Most important was that I could not just hand over control of the whole campaign and expect it to work. I would have to keep control of the direction of the campaign and I would have to ensure that if a player dropped out it would not throw the campaign into disorder.

So for the second PBEM I played the role of both commander in chief, and restricted PBEM command posts to corps commanders. It worked much better, but I soon found that the solo campaign rules did not allow sufficient choice to make it enjoyable and challenging for the corps commanders. Again I learned a lot of lessons, and now felt it was time to try a “proper” campaign.

The Hanover campaign was the result. It worked smoothly from the start and the players obviously enjoyed it because five of the original eight remained with it to the end. By sending an umpire report to each player at the end of each move I could keep control of what was happening. And if a player dropped out I could easily replace him by taking command myself until I found a replacement. The umpire report was an update on each corps at the end of each turn, and it contained everything needed to take command of the corps.

Our purpose in running the campaign was to provide good wargames for Jan and I to play. With each solo campaign I could manipulate each move to produce the size of battle I required. With a PBEM this was not possible. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that the wargames it did produce were much more challenging and fun to play than the ones I had arranged myself. And most presented unusual circumstances which I would not have considered would provide a good wargame, but in fact did.

The campaign blog played an important part in maintaining the momentum of the campaign. I published a short summary of each campaign move and a very detailed move by move account of each wargame. When a battle was being fought I would publish one move each day. This meant that both the players and I had a 12 day break from the campaign movement. It also allowed Jan and me to find time to fight the wargame. And as something was published each day it meant the players had something to read each day. It worked very well.

I feel I can say that, because five of the eight players from the Hanover phase have signed on for Tortosa in Spain, which is the next phase.

The final post on the campaign diary blog is a summary of the campaign. This consists of a map for each day of the campaign, plus a brief description of each day. This is the first time that the players have seen what the other corps were doing on a day to day basis. By clicking on the first map on the summary it is possible to do a sort of slide show of all 15 maps.

The summary is a good way to get a feel for what the campaign was all about. If interested you an find it at

http://new1813campaignhotmailcouk.blogspot.com/

New Campaign Rules

2011-11-12T10:17:00.002+01:00

I have finally finished the new campaign rules, and have started a new blog for them.

http://napoleoniccampaignrules.blogspot.com/

This revision is in answer to requests raised during the current PBEM campaign for off road movement, more detailed supply, infantry detachments and sieges. None of this was covered in the original solo rules, on which the previous PEBM rules were based. The whole campaign started with the intention of providing wargames of one to four corps. I wanted to keep the campaign simple and easy to run.

It was soon obvious that converting to PBEM would mean major changes. Our interest in the campaign remained the same, but the corps commanders understandably want more choice and options.

I am quite excited about the new campaign. It will either be a huge improvement on the previous ones, or it will be a shambles! I have spent a lot of time working on the new rules, and tried to anticipate problems. But previous campaigns have taught me that once they are used by real players the faults soon appear. Despite this I think it is necessary to "up my game" on the PBEM, and I think that this will do it.

I am working on the final moves of the Hanover campaign, and I hope to be able to start the new campaign next week. All of the command posts are now filled, all of the administration is done and I just need to tie up the loose ends in Hanover before we start.

New PBEM Campaign

2011-11-08T11:49:00.004+01:00

I am still completing the final moves of the Hanover campaign. The French have lost, but now have to try to evade Blucher’s attempt to cut them off from their new base at Hamburg. I expect to finish it within a week or ten days

Meanwhile I have the next phase of the 1813 campaign ready. It will be set in northeast Spain and will deal with the Spanish attempt to take Tortosa. There are four Spanish and four French corps. In addition there is a British corps travelling by sea from Alicante to support the Spanish.

The campaign rules have been completely rewritten to address the problems encountered during the Hanover phase. I wrote them after consulting the existing players, and they seem good in theory. It will be interesting to see how they manage in actual campaign play! I will be starting a new blog for them shortly; similar to the existing wargame rules blog.

Five of the existing eight players on the Hanover campaign have asked to take part in the new campaign. There will be nine commanders in the new campaign. A further three members of the campaign forum have asked to take part, and I have sent them details of the player commitment rules so that they know what to expect.

So I still have at least one command post to fill.

If anyone would like to take part they should join the campaign forum and apply there. The forum can be found at

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/napoleonicpbemcampaign

Decisive Prussian victory at Peine

2011-11-05T09:10:00.001+01:00

Table at the end of the second battle of Peine

The second battle of Peine has ended in a decisive victory for Prince Blucher.

Neither Davout nor Blucher expected to fight again on 5 August 1813. Having been beaten on the previous day Davout was retreating towards Celle. Blucher allowed his weary corps to rest during the night and ordered a redeployment at first light. He intended to send one corps to follow Davout to Celle, a second to take Hanover and a third to hold Peine. He was aware that IV French corps was at Brunswick, but he expected them to retire when they received news that Davout had lost the battle and was retreating north.

At first light IV French corps marched west from Brunswick to attack Peine. This unexpected move caught the Prussians by surprise, but they quickly recovered and deployed to meet the threat.

Davout immediately halted his retreat to Celle, and brought his two weak corps back towards Peine to support IV corps.

The battle was short and sharp. By late afternoon IV corps was in rout back towards Brunswick and Davout also in rout back towards Celle.

This shattering defeat has left the road to Hanover open to the Prussians, and must signal the end of the campaign. It is now no longer a matter of who will win the campaign, but how badly the French will lose.

Battle Reports

2011-10-30T18:27:00.002+01:00

I publish the battle reports from the PBEM campaign on the campaign diary blog. The blog itself has just passed 32,000 individual hits, and when the battle reports are being published gets between 20-60 hits each day. There are only eight players in the campaign, so obviously a lot of the visitors are not taking part.

One of the players recently queried the battle report regarding a cavalry melee. The entries on the blog are never more than one or two days old, so I could remember what happened. But I wanted to check the report to make sure that I had the details right. It was then that I realised how complicated and technical the reports actually are.

When I first started to publish the battle reports they were much less detailed. They were part of a solo campaign then, and I just wanted a record of the wargames we had fought so that I could read back through them in the future. I assumed that anyone else who read them would not really be interested in a lot of detail.

But when the PBEM started I wanted the players, and particularly those involved in the battle, to be able to follow each step. As the battle reports became more detailed, I started to put a reference to the rule concerned in notes at the end of the report. This has led to a lot of visits to the wargame rule blog, which is currently at more than 12,000. Not bad for a set of “house rules” only 18 months old.

Having concluded that the present report are too complicated, I posted on the campaign forum to ask whether readers would prefer the present complicated battle report, or a more descriptive and less technical method. Given the number of visits to the campaign diary I was surprised to receive only two replies. Worst still one was in favour of the present system and one preferred a less technical style. Presumably the remainder did not care much for one or the other.

Given that there is a considerable amount of work involved in the current reports, it hardly seems worth the extra effort for just one reader. So when the new campaign starts I will use a more descriptive, but less time consuming, method.

Day Two at Peine

2011-10-26T09:58:00.002+02:00

First light at Peine

The battle of Peine ended in a clear Prussian victory. XIII Polish corps ran from the battlefield on the road to Hanover. V and VI French corps had not played much part in the battle. Both were already reduced to half strength. The Prussians outnumbered the French by two to one. At midnight Davout ordered V and VI corps to fall back towards Celle.

Blucher was delighted with the outcome. Only one small nagging doubt. IV French corps had arrived at Brunswick, which cut his communications with Magdeburg. He ordered his army to rest during the night, and prepare to pursue the two retreating French columns at daybreak. He was rather surprised when IV French corps attacked him at first light.

Davout was overseeing the retreat of V and VI corps from a hill north of Peine when he observed the approach of IV corps. He thought that they were somewhere to the north of Celle. He ordered V corps was already off the battlefield heading for Celle. He ordered VI corps to halt, and rode off to bring V corps back.

That is the opening situation for the second day of the battle of Peine. And it is a good illustration of the advantage of PBEM campaigns. I would never have dreamed up such a complicated scenario for a solo campaign. Yet this is only one of the many excellent wargames which the Hanover PBEM campaign has produced.

The downside is that there is a tendency to fight to the last brigade. In the present battle three of the six corps are below half strength. This is caused by the campaign commanders wanting to “do something” rather than just rest their corps and let them recover from the last battle. Each campaign move that the corps is not fighting or moving they receive one casualty replacement. For most corps this would mean they must rest for 6-9 moves, which is two to three days, to recover all of their casualties. But at the rate of one or two campaign moves per week that is a long time.

Apart from this one drawback the campaign is working much better than I had dared to hope. I thought that it would last about three months, and produce about 4 to 6 battles. So far it has lasted seven months and produced ten battles.

Campaign Fog of War

2011-10-22T11:14:00.002+02:00

map used for council of war

The campaign has taken a very interesting turn, and highlighted the advantage of the fog of war capable with PBEM.

The battle of Peine was the ninth battle of the campaign. The French had suffered a number of defeats, and only one corps stood between Blucher and his campaign objective – the capture of Hanover. He was about to attack Peine, the last defensive position east of Hanover, with three corps

The French commander at Peine decided to stand and fight. Davout was within supporting distance but only had two weak corps. His IV corps promised to arrive in time to take part in the battle, and on that understanding Davout ordered his army to march to join battle at Peine.

The commander of IV saw an opportunity to cut the Prussian lines of communication by marching south and taking Brunswick. This would also prevent a Prussian retreat should they lose the battle of Peine. He sent a message to Blucher, but it was delayed by the presence of the Prussian army between him and Davout.

IV corps did not take part in the battle, and the French lost. The corps at Peine was sent reeling back to Hanover and Davout had to decide what to do next. He had two weak corps left, and was facing a Prussian army twice his size. He was still not aware that IX corps was only 15 miles away at Brunswick.

As umpire I knew all of this. But as Davout I did not want to take a decision because it would be difficult to ignore all of the implications. I decided to hold a council of war with the two corps commanders at Peine. The decision would be left to them.

They were divided, and I had to use my casting vote to order a withdrawal towards Celle. The next morning IV corps attacked Peine from Brunswick. But that is the subject of the tenth battle in the campaign.

Details of the council of war meeting are on the latest campaign diary blog

http://new1813campaignhotmailcouk.blogspot.com/

Spot the Difference

2011-10-19T15:09:00.003+02:00

New Campaign Tactical Map

I recently suggested that the latest battle might be the end of our PBEM campaign, but far from it.

Peine was an excellent wargame, and concluded with a resounding Prussian victory. However not in the end of the campaign as expected.

Three of the four corps on each side were fighting at Peine. The Prussians won, and one French corps routed towards Hanover. The remaining two corps withdraw north to Celle. But the fourth French corps has appeared at Brunswick, cutting the Prussian lines of supply. The position of the Prussians prevent the French communicating with each other, so the players have to decide whether to attack or retreat using only the information available to them. Complicated enough so far. But it gets worse.

The French corps retreating to Hanover may decide to fight there, but the tactical map does not cover that city. So I have had to make a new campaign tactical map. I am sure that ProFantasy must be capable of amending the previous one, but I am not capable of doing it. I did ask for, and receive, advice on their forum. But it all proved too complicated for a simple soul like me. So I have copied part of the old map and added a new section. In doing so it is quite likely that I have made some errors.

The new map is above. The old one below. If you have nothing better to do you might like to compare them both. If you find any errors do let me know.

Old Tactical Map

Rewriting history

2011-10-16T12:02:00.003+02:00

Red chips indicate the four infantry brigades in rout

The current battle in our PBEM campaign has reached a critical stage. Plus the battle itself could well decide the whole campaign. So it is not too surprising that the corps commanders have been following the battle report pretty closely.

I have taken some pains to make the battle reports comprehensive and easy to follow, for those players who want to do so. First I take a photo at the start of each move. Then I make notes of what has happened during each corps turn, and take another photo at the end showing the position of the corps. After the game I transfer the photos to the computer and type up the battle report of the move.

Each day I post one move of the battle report on the campaign diary blog. The idea is to keep the players interested in the progress of the game, and allow Jan and I time to fit in the playing time. It is usually one or two days after the move that it is published on the campaign diary blog.

Late last night I checked my emails before I went to bed, and found one containing two questions about the latest diary entry. One was about the wargames table in relation to the campaign map, and the second was about morale throws for one of the corps involved.

I keep copies of all the battle reports until the campaign has finished, so it was easy to check the table and map query. To set up the wargames table I make a rough diagram of the squares on the map to be transferred to the wargames table. Each map is one scenic square on the table, and each is numbered. So it is quite easy to set up the table. Unfortunately I had placed the scenic square upside down on the table, and a hill which should have been north of the main road ended up south of the road! The question was whether it would have made any difference. The answer was yes it would, but we had already spent ten days fighting the game, and published ten moves of the battle report. I had to admit my error and put it down to poor staff work. Fortunately the area had not been chosen for the geographical features, it was chosen for the strategic importance of the town.

Worse was to come. I had made a complete hash of describing the incidents which had taken place during move 10 for one of the six corps involved. I had listed seven morale checks when there had only been four.

It was only two days since we had fought that particular move, and we had done two more moves since then. I could not remember the sequence of the morale tests, and the table had changed considerably so I could not just check on the table.

The notes I had made were still in the waste paper bin, so I was able to recover and check them. They were the same as the battle report, so not much help. Comparing the first photo of moves 9, 10 and 11 I was able to work out what had happened to each of the four brigades during each of those three moves. So I was able to amend the battle report. But it did take me more than an hour, and it was well past midnight before I got to bed.

But the most important part of the whole sorry story is that it made me consider just how accurate are eye witness accounts of battles, particularly if they are written down many months or years after the event. If I had so much trouble remembering a fairly simple sequence of events after just two days, how reliable are those accounts on which historians place so much importance.

Map Making

2011-10-12T09:27:00.004+02:00

1813 Campaign map of Spain

I am certainly getting my money’s worth out of my Profantasy map making system. It only cost about £30, and I have had months of enjoyment out of it already.

I am sure that, like the computer, I only use a fraction of its possible use. But, again like the computer, having learnt how to do the basic jobs I want I do not put any effort into finding out what else it can do.

It seems to have been designed for fantasy wargaming, and most of the additional software if for producing dungeons or fantasy worlds. But it is perfectly adequate for my purposes. Certainly it is a vast improvement on my old hand drawn maps.

No doubt it is an age thing, but I find it very difficult to master computer games. Just mastering the basics is often beyond me, and I just give up. Empire in Arms is a good example. It is based on a popular board game, but not one that I had ever played. It is a world wide campaign game set in the Napoleonic period. The write up was so convincing that I ordered a copy. Many frustrating weeks later I just gave up. I could not even get a basic game going. I joined their forum in the hope of getting some assistance, but that was a complete waste of time. It seemed to consist of two groups of people. First those who had played the board game, and been involved in the development of the computer game. For them it could do no wrong. Then there were those like me, who could not make any sense out of the mechanics.

That experience put me off buying Profantasy when I first heard about it. But then I found an online tutorial. This was a very simple, step by step guide to doing all the things I wanted to do. Creating a coastline, roads, hills, rivers and towns. I paid my money and after just a couple of days hard work could make a reasonable map of Germany and Spain.

And the more I use it, the more I enjoy it. It’s a bit like doing a jig saw puzzle, its very satisfying to see it all taking shape. And the best part is that you do not have to start from scratch. I keep a copy of each stage as I complete it. First the rivers, hills and major cities. Then the major roads, followed by minor ones. And finally all the towns and villages.

Every so often I come across a map which gives me more detail, or more often different detail. For example historical road system. I then work on the map with rivers, hills and cities, and put in the new road system. Great fun, and I have spent many enjoyable hours doing it.

My latest attempt is a new road system for Spain. This was prompted by Miguel, who sent me a copy of a map he had made, which was based on the historical road system. It was completely different from my roads system, which was based on a modern road atlas. It meant that I had to change a lot of the preparation for my next campaign, which is set in eastern Spain. But the current Hanover campaign is taking longer than expected to finish, so I have plenty of time to complete it.

The Battle of Peine

2011-10-05T10:21:00.002+02:00

Hanover Campaign Tactical Map

This looks like being a very interesting wargame.

This is the latest battle in our 1813 PBEM campaign. The Prussian objective is to take Hanover, and Peine is the last opportunity for the French to stop them. Peine is occupied by a Polish corps under the command of Poniatowski

XIII corps fought, and lost, a battle just four days earlier at Helmstedt. They retreated to Peine, pursued by the Prussians. A French counter attack on Helmstedt forced Blucher to recall the pursuit. The Prussians won the second battle at Helmstedt. They then resumed their march on Peine.

As they neared Peine their advance guard was driven back by a Polish cavalry brigade, who then discovered that they were facing two, and possibly three, French corps. The nearest French reinforcements were one days march away, and had suffered casualties at the second battle of Helmstedt.

In the umpire report for move 37, when the cavalry melee was fought, Poniatowski was advised what he was up against. He also received orders from Davout to hold Peine if at all possible, but to retreat north to join the main army if unable to do so.

Janson, who is playing Poniatowski, was asked what he wanted to do. If he retreated north the Prussians would take Peine, and with it an open road to Hanover. They would have won the campaign. He immediately confirmed that he would stand and fight.

XIII corps have recovered from their battle casualties and are now full strength. The leading Prussian corps has light battle casualties, and the second corps heavy casualties. In fact there is one and a half corps against one. The third Prussian corps, which also has light battle casualties, will arrive at the same time as the first French corps, which has heavy battle casualties. A third French corps will arrive just as night is falling.

Not a game I would have set up as a “one off”. Nor one that I would have fought as part of my previous solo campaign. But one that looks more interesting and challenging the more I look at it.

The first part of the battle report has been published on the 1813 campaign diary blog

http://new1813campaignhotmailcouk.blogspot.com/

Jan will play the French, I will command the Prussians.

This is a game that I am really looking forward to playing – win or lose.

Planning the next PBEM campaign

2011-10-02T22:34:00.001+02:00

Strategic map for 1813 Hanover campaign

Pretty well all of this week has been spent thinking about the next PBEM campaign, and tying out ideas. And at the end of the week, and after many hours spent map making, I have ended up where I started.

Once again it looks like my 1813 Hanover campaign is drawing to a close. I have said this before, and been proved wrong. When I set up the last battle/wargame I was convinced it would end the campaign. The Prussians had thrashed the French and sent off north with their tails between their legs. The road to Hanover was held by just one French corps, who had suffered a heavy defeat five campaign moves earlier. I was confident that the French corps commander would abandon Hanover to save his corps. He decided to stand and fight. Out of nowhere the two thrashed French corps appeared on the horizon. Suddenly we have another battle. And one that looks less of a walk over as I work out the orders of battle. I am amazed what a difference PBEM makes over a solo campaign – even for the umpire.

Anyway last Sunday I sat down to consider the pros and cons of the same PBEM campaign. I am completely sold on the idea of PBEM, so another campaign is not in doubt. But I wanted to see how I could improve the model based on my 6 months experience of this one.

From my point of view it has mostly been a great success. I have managed to keep a team of eight players going for 37 moves, and provided nine wargames. It has been great fun, and a great challenge. The only disappointment is in losing three players, all without reason or explanation. Fortunately I have been able to replace them, and the flow of the campaign has not been affected at all.

I have completely rewritten the rules for the next campaign. It will cover many aspects of supply, off road movement and detachments. I have written the rules, but whether they will work or not remains to be seen.

But the thing I really wanted to change was player involvement. In particular I wanted a system where each player would have more corps and responsibility. This would work well with the campaign concept of five armies in five campaign areas. But when I got to working out how it would all work I realised it would involve a huge amount of extra work for the umpire – me! Worse if one player dropped out it would either stop the campaign for his opponent, or I would have to take it on.

The week was spent making five maps, one of each campaign area. Then working out revised orders of battle for each area. But the more I worked on it, the more obvious it became that it was not going to work.

It did not matter too much when I thought that the current campaign was coming to an end. But I suddenly realised there is another battle in this campaign, and we would have to fight it next week.

So it’s been a busy week, with pretty well nothing to show for it all at the end. It has all been put in a pending file, whilst I work out the “last battle” of the Hanover campaign. But it has been hugely enjoyable trying to make it work.

Meanwhile the PBEM battle looks like being very different. Most of the corps involved start the battle with heavy casualties. This is not something I would have tackled for a one off game, but can not be avoided in a campaign game. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

More news of the battle shortly.

Luck of the Dice

2011-09-26T14:52:00.002+02:00

We are currently fighting a non campaign game, and the dreaded luck of the dice has raised its head once more. We were really looking forward to this game. It’s bigger than many of the campaign games and does not have the pressure involved when you are fighting some else’s battle.

Right from the start the dice refused to favour me. It’s not so much that I could only roll 1s or 2s, but time after time I failed to hit anything with my artillery. My morale rolls were always low, not enough to rout but certainly sufficient to be shaken. Dice plays an important part in our rules, and a long run of poor dice can have a dramatic effect on the game.

I am attacking, so good morale is even more important than when in defence. The attack has stalled, and of course this means the whole game has stalled.

At first Jan was quite pleased. She needed to inflict casualties before I could close to attack range. But this has gone well beyond that stage. It seems quite certain that she will win the game, but there is little pleasure in winning when it is only down to dice.

Neither of us play just to win, but rather to enjoy the game. And a one sided run of poor luck like this just robs the game of enjoyment. Worst, there is nothing either of us can do about it – other than abandon the game. We could do that, as it is not a campaign game. But neither of us want to “give in”.

Worst of all, there is nothing that can be done about it. The element of chance in our rules is what makes the games so enjoyable (for us anyway). And to adjust the rules to reduce the element of chance would spoil our enjoyment even more, as it would make the game so much more predictable

So I guess that we will just have to struggle through the remaining moves with the best grace we can muster, and hope for a more even game next time.

Last of the summer reading material

2011-09-23T22:21:00.003+02:00

Here in Spain the hot summer days are turning into the much more pleasantand cooller autumn. It will soon be time for us to abandon the lazy summer routine and take up our more energetic walking routine of the rest of the year. I will still do my share of reading, but it can no longer be considered part of the summer reading. So it is appropriate that I just found time to finish the "The Generals".

This is volume two of the series which follows the lives of Wellington and Napoleon. This book covers the period 1795 to 1803. This covers Napoleon in Egypt and Wellington in India.

I first read this book when it was published in 2007, and enjoyed it enough to get the whole series. I then read “Young Bloods”, which is the first volume. And having enjoyed it so much decided to read “The Generals” again followed by the last two volumes.

To be honest I did not enjoy it as much as “Young Bloods”. I don’t think it is because I had already read it some years ago. I am pretty familiar with the story line, and wanted to read the four books in sequence. I also thought that I would enjoy it more, as it deals with a period of their lives which I am more familiar with than the previous book. I did enjoy it – just not as much.

It may be because Napoleon in Egypt is my least favourite period of his military career. I love reading about his Italian campaigns, and I having walked many of the battlefields I even enjoy reading them again. I also enjoy Austerlitz, Jena and so on. But I have always found Egypt a little boring. No doubt because I have never visited any of the battlefields there.

Equally I find India the least interesting of Wellingtons campaigns, or Wellesley as he was then. I have read, and enjoyed, the Sharpe series set in India. I then read, and also enjoyed, Jac Wellers “Wellington in India”. Not sure why I find it less interesting than the Peninsula, but probably because I have visited all of his Portuguese and Spanish battlefields.

Whatever the reason I found “The Generals” less of a good read than “Young Bloods”. I have already bought the last two books in the series, so I will read them in due course. But not with such anticipation as I approached “The Generals”.

The Battle of the Nive

2011-09-18T11:38:00.002+02:00

Table at the start of the battle of the Nive

Our Hanover PBEM campaign has reached a quiet stage, where both sides will have to retire to lick their wounds before moving forward to fight again.

Whilst waiting for the next campaign battle to arrive, Jan and I have set up one of our occasional wargames inspired by Wellington’s battles in the Peninsula

The battle of the Nive is the eleventh in our occasional series of Wellington’s Battles in the Peninsula.

This was a complicated battle fought over the period 9-13 December 1813, and involved fighting on both sides of the river Nive. Wellington’s aim was to force Soult to retreat and abandon Bayonne.

Our wargames are inspired by the historical battles, and not an attempt to recreate them. So we combined all three days fighting on both sides of the river into a single wargame.

The game was fought in 28mm with only 128 infantry, 16 cavalry and 4 guns per side.

The battle report will be published on my Wellington’s Battles blog each day. The set up of the game compares an historical map and order of battle with our wargames table and wargame order of battle.

The battle report can be found at

http://wellingtonsbattles.blogspot.com/

Poor Commander Card

2011-09-14T15:47:00.003+02:00

There has been a debate on our campaign forum about the use of the Poor Card in my wargames rules. I thought it would be a good idea to raise it here also, in case anyone has any suggestions.

At the start of our latest campaign battle I had decided not to use the Poor Card in the wargame. There are five commanders in this game, but only one poor commander. This was our normal practice when there is only one poor commander in a game. I changed my mind because there was some support to keep the Poor Card on the forum.

It is always a bad idea to change rules based on just one wargame. But I would like to share my view on the effect of the Poor Card in this game, and to invite your comments for or against. As always I reserve the right to the final say as far as the wargames rules are concerned, but I welcome constructive comments.

I want to be able to give any Gifted commander an edge in the game, and to limit the ability of any Poor commander. But I do not want it to dominate the game. I want a Gifted commander to be able to carry out a more ambitious plan, and to punish a Poor commander who tries to do so.

At the start of each move the commander rolls an average dice. A Gifted commander adds 3, an Average one 2 and a Poor one 1. The total is the number of orders he can issue during that move. These are called Command Points (CP)

The three CP for a Gifted commander, and only one for a Poor one, already do this to a limited degree. And perhaps that it all the difference there should be. To move himself and all brigades the corps commander requires 7 CP. If he also wants to fire or skirmish the requirement increases. In most games even a Gifted commander will rarely have enough CPs, a Poor commander almost never.

In addition an attacking commander requires more CPs than a defending one. And again it is quite right that the poor commander is penalized.

Any effect must be logical and reasonable. The Halt requirement is both. It takes three CP for a poor commander to do so, and he must then wait for orders from the CinC to do anything other than Halt. Halt is a natural response for an uncertain poor commander.

The problem arises when it happens too often in a game. If there are five commanders per side, as the rules are designed to have, and each side has at least one poor commander it is not too much of a problem. When there is only one poor commander it is likely to have a much greater impact. And if there is only one commander per side it is almost certain to dominate the game.

It is possible to use a Gifted or Average CinC to take command of the poor corps. But this prevents him from his proper role of coordinating a multi corps battle. It is also very hard to accept that any commander would do so for any length of time. Surely he would just replace the poor commander?

The recent battle is a good example of all that is wrong about the Poor Card. Time after time 4^th corps had to halt. Eventually Blucher had to take command, and keep command, in order to keep them moving. This resulted in both 1^st and 3^rd corps standing still for at least a third of the battle. A very unlikely sequence and one which I find hard to accept.

So what to do with the Poor Card? I can see three options

First leave it as it is. Next poor commander has to change his orders to Halt and await new orders.

Second do not use the Poor Card at all. Remove it from the rules.

Third only the next commander drawn will be affected. If he is a Gifted or Average commander there is no effect. If he is a Poor commander then he must change his orders to Halt

What do you think? If there a better fourth option that I have not thought of?

Any constructive comments will be greatly received.

Summer Visitors

2011-09-12T12:30:00.003+02:00

Our son and his family have just returned home after a two week stay. It’s been delightful having them with us, but it has greatly reduced our wargaming activities. They visit each year, so they do not require us to show them the local sights. And most days they went to visit one of the local beaches.

With two adults, one four year old and a one year old our relaxed daily routine goes out of the window. They take over the house and we just fit in around them. I sneak into my office for half an hour on the computer when I can, but I made the mistake of showing the four year old a “Ben 10” game on the computer (don’t ask who Ben 10 is) and since then every time I try to get on the computer he follows me and we have to play one of his games before I can check my emails.

Despite this I have managed to keep the campaign going. We had set up a campaign game just before they arrived, and most days we managed half an hour in the wargames room for one move at a time. The one year old had her cot in the games room, so we had to fit our game moves around her regular sleeping periods!

This was the game which prompted the Poor Commander debate mentioned in my last blog entry. There are three Prussian corps, one with a poor commander, against two French corps both with Average commanders. So the Poor Card would strike the Prussian army each time. The penalty for the Poor Card is that the poor commander would have to change his orders to Halt.

The game is not yet finished, but is proving quite a challenge. I have the Prussian army, and Jan the French. With our rules, indeed most wargame rules, odds of three to two would normally result in a pretty one sided wargame. However this Poor Card has made it really difficult for me as Prussian commander.

The commander in chief can take command of the poor corps, and thus avoid the Poor Card penalty. But if he does so, he can not then issue orders to the other two corps. After a frustrating start to the game, when the poor corps halted out of artillery range of the French, Blucher took personal command of the poor corps. The Prussian attack stalled, and the French withdrew out of artillery range. The poor corps was committed to an attack on its own, against two French corps.

To hand over command to the poor commander would take Blucher three command points. During three critical moves he only had five command points. So if he handed over command that move would effectively be lost for both the poor corps and Blucher himself. And it was very likely that the Poor Card would immediately cause the poor corps to halt – within range of the French.

An interesting problem and a surprisingly enjoyable game. I am still not sure about this Poor Card and whether we have the balance right. But it has certainly given me food for thought.

Poor Commanders

2011-09-04T10:23:00.004+02:00

Our wargame rules are derived from LFS, though they have been much amended to produce the type of game we enjoy.

There is a lot I like about LFS not least their use of Gifted, Average and Poor commanders. I have kept this effect, but have reduced number of options and what can be done under each heading.

Our rules, like LFS, are turn driven by the selection of a card. Each commander has a card, and he takes his turn when it is drawn. In addition there is a Gifted and a Poor Card.

The Gifted Card allows a Gifted commander to move when it is drawn, or he can wait until his own card is drawn if he prefers. Useful, but not really a game winner.

The Poor Card has a much more drastic effect. Once drawn the next poor commander must miss his turn entirely. Not too bad if there are more than one poor commander is a game, and particularly if there are poor commanders on both sides. But it can dominate a game if there is only one poor commander. It is quite possible that he will have to miss most, or even , all of his turns.

For this reason Jan and I have always ignored the Poor Card in games where there is only one poor commander. So I was quite surprised when campaign players felt it should be played in every game – even the player who had the poor commander concerned.

So as a temporary measure I have decided to make the poor commander affected by the Poor Card change his orders to Halt, rather than miss his turn.

Halt is not included in the LFS options. I introduced it for a player who felt he could not safely carry on with his CinC orders. Normally only the CinC can change corps orders, this is the only exception.

Halt prevents the corps from advancing towards the enemy, or initiating any offensive action. In effect they halt and wait for new orders from the CinC. However they can retire out of enemy artillery fire if they wish, or manoeuvre to take up a better defensive position. They can also fire or fight to defend themselves.

A further penalty to the poor commander is that he must use his command points to change his orders to Halt. This costs three points, which reduces the number of orders he can issue that turn.

I have considered various options to change the effect of the Poor Card. All of them involve complicated rule amendments and all are difficult to accept as a natural reaction of a commander. However Halt is already covered by the rules, and can be explained by a lack of confidence on the part of the poor commander.

New Campaign Rules

2011-08-30T13:19:00.001+02:00

The revised (PBEM) campaign rules are taking shape. I have added PBEM, because pretty well all of the revision is due to the campaign moving from Solo to PBEM.

For solo play four A4 pages were more than sufficient. They were similar to the first draft of our wargame rules, more a crib sheet than a set of rules. My main aim had been to keep them simple.

The first PBEM campaign quickly highlighted how unsuitable they were. Everything had to be explained in more detail, so that players could grasp the implications of what they wanted to do.

The rules quickly grew from four pages to twelve, though three of those are examples of how to write orders or reports. And this was just to cover the same basic rules I have used all along.

However things are about to change for the next campaign. The introduction of off road movement, forced marching, garrisons and sieges have all added to the size of the rules. And all have required a great deal of time to think them through and revise draft after draft.

The new rules are already eighteen pages long, including six annex which cover such things as organisation, orders, messages and fighting ability.

I suspect that all of this extra work and more detailed rules will be largely ignored by most of the campaign players. I quickly discovered that most players either do not read, or do not follow, the rules. Some seem to completely ignore them, do their own thing and wait for me to put it right. However one or two read them from start to finish, and raise endless points. Almost always based on historical examples.

I have long since given up any attempt to defend either my wargame or campaign rules on any sort of historical basis. To me both seem to recreate the Napoleonic period to perfection, but I have come to realise that there are so many opposing views on every aspect of the period that it is a fool’s errand to try to appease everyone.

The important thing is to keep it simple. I would love to be able to keep the rules to three pages, but clearly that is not possible. The mechanics of the campaign have to be covered in some detail, and even then are often ignored. But the rules are guidelines only. Far better to roll a dice to decide the outcome of something that is never going to happen again, than to try to write a detailed rule just in case it does.

So the rules are taking shape. Over the past three months or so I have revised them half a dozen times, and I am now quite happy with them. But I am pretty certain that once the campaign starts I will discover problem after problem. There is nothing quite like game experience to throw up the not so obvious glaring errors.

Wellington's Battles in the Peninsula

2011-08-24T22:55:00.003+02:00

The battle of San Marcial

After such an intensive period of fighting, the Hanover campaign has gone into a temporary period of recovery. All of the corps have suffered during the recent spate of battle, and all are in need of a little rest.

It will not last long, because the critical battle has not yet been fought. After seven battles the casualties are pretty evenly spread. So it is still a very open campaign. But one more large battle could easily end the whole thing.

Despite the absence of fighting, the campaign is still going strong. We are back to writing orders again, and the response is a little sluggish. Perfectly understandable, particularly with the holiday season. But it does mean that there is unlikely to be another battle for a week or so (real time, not campaign time).

When this happens we set up a non campaign wargame to keep us occupied. These are usually part of our Wellington’s Battles in the Peninsula series. Each wargame is based on one of his battles. Not a historical refight, but a wargame loosely based on one of them.

Our current one is the battle of San Marcial, the tenth in the series.

This is an interesting battle, as it was Spanish v French. I think it is the only battle fought solely by Spanish troops with Wellington in command. He has British troops in reserve, but refused to use them as he wanted the Spanish to get the credit for the eventual victory.

The battle was fought on 31 July 1813. Soult launched an attack to relieve the French garrison of San Sebastian. As this battle was being fought, the town was taken by storm and the garrison surrendered.

I could not find a lot of detailed information on the order of battle. In all of my reference books the whole order of battle is shown for the battles of the Nive, but not a detailed breakdown for San Marcial. So I have had to make up the order of battle.

Soult has four divisions. Wellington has three Spanish and one British divisions. The Spanish have a strong defensive position, and the British held in reserve. Wellington did not use his reserve on the day. I doubt if I will get away without using them in the wargame.

You will find the battle report by clicking on label 13 on the right

Decisive French victory at Wolfsburg

2011-08-18T13:41:00.001+02:00

Table at end of battle of Wolfsburg

The second battle of Wolfsburg has been a decisive victory for the French. This result has given them one last chance to turn the table on Blucher.

This most unpromising battle turned into an excellent wargame. It started with an encounter battle between XIII French and 1^st Prussian corps. On move 9 V French corps arrived behind the Prussians, and 4^th Prussian corps behind the French. Difficult enough to grasp, even more so to wargame around.

1^st Prussian corps started nearer to Wolfsburg, and gained an early advantage. However this was to prove their undoing. Unable to take the town, XIII French corps moved around the west of the town, to meet up with V French corps moving south.

This caught two Prussian brigades, one infantry and one cavalry, between the two French corps. After a cavalry melee the two Prussian brigades were forced to surrender. This is the first time I have had to deal with surrender during a wargame. Normally the loser of a melee just runs away towards his supports.

Normally I would have just removed them from the table and forgotten them. But as the wargame was appearing on the campaign diary blog as a move by move battle report, I felt I had to justify the French reaction to the Prussian surrender. The cavalry brigade which had caused the Prussian surrender had to leave the battle and escort the POW to the French rear area.

Strange that this has never happened before. But then again I have never fought a wargame when both sides were reinforced in such a strange way. Just another example of the unpredictability of a PBEM campaign.

We discussed it on the forum, and the general opinion was that the winning side should not be penalized by having to take prisoners. I doubt if it will happen again, but if it does the POW will be removed immediately and the victors disorganized for one or two moves to reflect the effect of having to escort the prisoners.

It’s good that the campaign is so good natured that all players look for acceptable solutions, rather than to create disagreement for the sake of it.

PBEM Campaign Rules

2011-08-14T13:21:00.002+02:00

The Hanover campaign is still going strong. A short time ago it looked like it was coming to an end, but unexpected battle results blew new life into it.

The current rules are a second draft, and when I wrote them I was hoping to keep the whole thing simple and short. But five months of constant campaign play has brought out some weakness. Not so much in the rules themselves, but rather what is allowed in the campaign itself.

First there was reinforcing a battle. This resulted in one campaign day per campaign move to being changed to three campaign moves per campaign day. That has worked very well, and will be kept.

Then there was the predictability of movement restricted to roads. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, and said that I was having problems finding a simple solution. I have had a number of excellent suggestions by campaign commanders, and have settled on a simple but effective solution. Each off road square has a value, rising as the terrain gets more difficult. When I receive orders to move a corps off road I roll one D6. If it is equal to, or higher than, the square value the corps moves in and can move again next move. If it is lower he remains one move, then I roll again for the next move and so on until he reaches the value. In addition any roll of 1 is ignored. So it could take a corps two or even three moves to pass through one off road square.

Now I am looking at garrisons and attacks on them. In our current rules only cavalry can be detached, and then only to recce. However the next campaign is likely to be based in eastern Spain, and will be a Spanish army against a smaller French army. The Spanish will not stand much chance in a formal battle, unless they can inflict casualties on the French beforehand to weaken them.

The French will have to hold a large area, and keep the roads open for resupply. The Spanish will be able to move more or less at will, and it will be easy to cut supply lines or attack isolated garrisons. It will also be easy to set up an ambush.

So I will need new rules to cover both garrisons and ambush.

Having received such excellent advice about off road movement, I am hoping to get some more about garrisons and ambush.

The campaign forum is proving very useful, both for me and for the players. It gives me an opportunity to keep them informed of what is happening and for them to give me feedback on anything that is not working too well. If you would like to follow the discussion on garrisons and ambush you will find it here http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/napoleonicpbemcampaign

Meanwhile it looks like my simple, and short, campaign rules will grow ever larger and more complicated.

Lighter Summer Reading

2011-08-09T13:23:00.002+02:00

I needed a little light relief after struggling to read Nick Lipscombe’s epic “Peninsular War Atlas”. And Simon Scarrow’s “Young Bloods” was just what I needed. It tells the story of the early years of Wellington and Napoleon, from 1769 to 1795. It is a novel, rather than a history.

I had read a number of books about the personal, rather than military, lives of both Wellington and Napoleon. In particular Elizabeth Langford’s two volume biography of Wellington, and J M Thompson’s “Napoleon Bonaparte” So I was not particularly interested when I first heard about this project in 2006.

Last year a friend, another active reader but not a wargamer, mentioned that he has read all of the “Sharpe” series. I have read them a couple of times, and enjoy them for a little light reading. He mentioned that Simon Scarrow had written a similar series about the Roman Army called the “Eagle” series. He loaned me the first volume, and I was hooked. Over the year I read the whole series.

It was then that I realised that Scarrow had also written four books about Wellington and Napoleon. When we were last in UK I bought all four, and have just read the first one.

I know that some wargamers are dismissive of the “Sharpe” series, and I suspect that they will feel the same about “Young Bloods”. I have always admired that Cornwall wrote a good yarn based on an historical incident. And Scarrow has done something similar here. I found it a very enjoyable read, and an excellent introduction to the early life of Bonaparte and Welsley.

I am looking forward to the second novel, “The Generals”, which covers 1795 to 1803.

Another Prussian Victory

2011-08-03T11:03:00.004+02:00

Battles of Rosche and Wolfsburg

Much to our surprise, the battle of Rosche has resulted in a convincing Prussian victory.

Both corps had fought previously, and both had casualties from that earlier battle. But the Prussians had more, and they were concentrated on fewer infantry brigades. So they started the battle in a worse condition than the French.

The Prussian commander could have retreated, but decided to stand and fight. I had thought this a very unwise decision. How wrong was I !

As always it was down to luck, or lack of it.

The French artillery should have scored at least one hit on the weak Prussian infantry. They only needed 8 with 2D6, but kept on missing

The Prussian cavalry had one casualty, so the French full strength brigade should have won the melee. They didn't.

The massed French infantry column did win the first round of melee. But they lost one brigade during the approach and then had to face three Prussian brigades with two French. Having advanced into the gap left by the broken Prussian brigade, they had to turn to their left to face the remaining Prussian infantry. In doing so their conscript brigade was in front, and their elite brigade in reserve. They lost the second melee.

While the French gunners fared badly, the Gods of War smiled on the Prussians. Counter battery fire is usually pointless, as you require 11 with 2D6. The Prussian gunners scored 12 and got a hit. The French gunners rolled 1 for their morale test and routed.

The French bad luck extended to their morale tests, and that was the final straw. As the gunners abandoned their guns, the nearby French square had to test their morale. They had no casualties, nor did they have any supports or a general within command distance. They needed 3 to hold, they rolled 2.

By move 11 the French side of the table was spotted with red markers, which indicate a rout. Every single brigade had broken and run.

As the French commander I started the game full of confidence. Despite early set backs I still expected to win up to move 6. From then on it was a matter of surviving.

Excellent game, and very enjoyable.

This was the sixth battle of the campaign. After the first four the French were in a strong position, and seemed very likely to win the campaign. Then Blucher organised a surprise counter attack in the south. If this went wrong the campaign would have ended it a French victory. It didn't go wrong! The French were shattered, and retreated along the road to Hanover.

With this battle the French have lost the north and south. All will now depend on the centre.

VI French corps are retreating north from Helmstedt. 1st Prussian corps is moving south towards Wolfsburg. They meet and fight the second battle of Wolfsburg. However 4th Prussian is moving north behind VI French. And V French is moving south behind 1st Prussian.

Second Wolfsburg looks like being the most complicated, and most important, battle of the campaign to date.

Its about to start, and you can follow it on the 1813 Campaign Diary blog

http://new1813campaignhotmailcouk.blogspot.com/

Campaign Map Movement

2011-08-01T12:55:00.002+02:00

Campaign Map

The campaign was designed to be simple and easy to administer. This is particularly so for the map movement.

A corps can move one square per campaign move, or three squares per campaign day. Each square on the map represents one square on the wargames table. So one days march on the map is the same as the width of the wargames table. Nice and easy.

Movement is restricted to roads. This made sense when it was a solo campaign. But the change from solo to PBEM has resulted in a reasonable request from the players for off road movement Many dislike the road grid system, which makes movement very predictable. To be honest I agree, but it has to remain if the map is to represent the wargames table. And I am finding it difficult to devise a simple, yet effective, rule for off road movement.

Obviously off road movement would have to be slower than on roads. If one move off road were one square for a corps, then it would need to be two for a cavalry brigade. So far so good. But then road movement would have to be at least two squares per move for the corps, and three or four for cavalry. This would mean an increase from 15 miles per day for a corps to 30. And from 30 to 45 or 60 miles for cavalry. Worse still, it would effectively reduce the campaign area, as everyone would move around the map twice as quickly.

The present rate of 15 miles per day for infantry and artillery, and 30 for cavalry, is about right. Better still the one square per campaign move is very easy to keep track.

I would like to keep the present on road movement rate. So I am looking for a simple way to half it for off road movement. It would mean that a corps would move half a square per campaign move, which would require additional paper work to keep track of the half square moves.

The temperatures are too high at present for these complicated calculations, and they are not helped by the cold glass of beer, or two, required to get me through the hottest part of the day.

Summer Reading Material

2011-07-28T10:18:00.001+02:00

Finally finished reading The Peninsular War Atlas. I have had it since Christmas, but have read it in two sessions. One in April and the second this month. It is what Jan and I call my “upstairs reading”, which is to say it is not bedtime reading and requires to be tackled on the naya with a glass of wine.

Most of my Napoleonic reference books come under this heading. In the summer months it is too hot to do anything too physical, so reading is a good way to pass an hour or so. I tackled the seven volumes of Oman’s A History of the Peninsular War in the same way a couple of years ago.

I must confess that I found Oman easier to read than Nick Lipscombe, which I found to be very hard going. The maps are excellent, but the text is pretty dry. To cover so much in so relatively few pages is no doubt necessary, but it does make the task of reading the whole volume quite a task. More than once I found myself dozing off as I tried to complete a page. But that may owe more to the sun and wine than to the writers prose style.

On the other hand the maps are the best I have found on the period, and its very useful that he covers the Spanish battles as well as Wellingtons. I found the contour lines to be particularly useful. I have walked most of Wellingtons battlefields, and it was interesting to compare the contour lines with the ground as I remember it.

I would think that a lot of people have bought this book. Even when new it was very good value for money, and certainly filled a gap in the mass of literature available on the Peninsular War. But I wonder how many of those actually read it cover to cover? I suspect very few.

Despite that I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is looking for good maps on the period. A very welcome addition to my reference library, and one which I am sure I will return to, if only for the maps, in the years to come.

The Battle of Rosche

2011-07-24T15:32:00.002+02:00

The battle of Rosche

We have started the first of the two battles to be fought on 30 July 1813

The Prussians are taking quite a risk in offering battle, because they still have a considerable number of casualties from a previous battle. They have six in total, which does not seem too many. One infantry brigade only has one, a second two and a third three. But each casualty is really 10% and reduces fighting and morale ability.

It’s quite hard to inflict casualties in our rules. Skirmish fire requires a total of 6 with one D6, plus 1-3 depending on the skirmish quality of the brigade. Artillery fire requires 8 with 2D6 for a hit.

If the French are unlucky with their firing, then the Prussians may just pull it off. Particularly if their artillery have good dice. Fortunately both cavalry brigades are without casualties and both are heavy, so any cavalry melee with be on equal terms.

With our rules its morale which makes the big difference. Each brigade requires at least 3 with 1D6 to make their morale. They get plus for supports and better class of troops. But minus for casualties, nearby rout or poor quality troops. So the Prussian brigades with 2 and 3 casualties are pretty fragile.

The game has just started, with the French marching towards the deployed Prussian corps. It will take 3-4 moves for them to deploy and start their advance towards the Prussian line. Then it will be down to the luck of the dice.

This is not the sort of game we would have chosen to fight, and was forced on us by campaign decisions. But I must admit that it produces interesting tactical problems, as the Prussians try to avoid casualties and the French are desperate to inflict at least one or two at long range. If the French are forced to advance against steady infantry and artillery they could easily attract sufficient casualties to lose their initial advantage.

You can follow the battle report by using the 1813 Campaign Diary on the right under My Blog List.

Two Battles For The Price of One

2011-07-21T10:45:00.002+02:00

Location of campaign battles

The campaign has picked up again and seemed to move smoothly between the table top battle and the campaign map moves. However move 22 has provided a problem which I have been dreading since I converted to PBEM – two battles at the same time.

Each campaign move is four hours, or four moves on the wargames table. There are three moves per day; the fourth is rest and sleep.

Breaking the day into three moves works well. It gives the players an opportunity to react to changing circumstances during the day, and issue orders to react to them. This also allows them to “march to the sound of the guns”, and makes it easy to calculate where and when reinforcements will arrive on the wargames table.

After each battle the losing corps has to retreat during the night move, and must avoid contact with the enemy for the following three moves, or the whole of the next day. This clears up the log jam created by the battle, and allows the winner to pursue and push the loser back for at least one full day.

Each battle takes a full day. This would be three campaign moves or 12 table top moves. I publish one wargame move on the campaign diary blog each day. This allows the players to follow the battle, and it gives Jan and I plenty of time to fight the wargame.

This process takes 12 days, but the players submit their corps orders each four days.

However with two battles fought on the same campaign day I have a new problem. Each battle could take up to 12 moves, then I have to clear the table and set up the second battle and that could take another 12 moves. And if is possible that one, or both, of the battles might go to a second campaign day.

The problem is that both battles are being fought at the same time, so I need the players to write orders each 4 game moves. Both battles start on campaign move 22. So players would have to write orders for move 23 at the end of move 4 of each battle. But if I publish one move each day that would be day 4 for the first battle and day 16 for the second.

I could just put the campaign on hold for 16 days, and then publish the first hour of the first battle. By then I would have fought the first hour of both as a wargame. But that means a long break in the campaign.

There are eight players in the campaign, and I want to avoid them getting bored and losing interest. When I ran a weekly wargames group I always found that after a two or three week break, for holidays for example, it was not unusual to lose a player. So I want to keep the routine of the campaign going to avoid this loss of interest.

One of the battles is quite uneven, and I suspect it will not last the full 12 moves. The other is very complicated, and could easily need a second day for nearby corps to “march to the sound of the guns”. So we will fight the first one as quickly as we can, and start to publish the battle report on the campaign blog as soon as we start the second one. In that way I should be able to keep the move orders in harmony with the table top moves for both corps.

I am getting great satisfaction for the smooth way the campaign is running, and in adjusting it to keep the momentum and player interest.

Battle of Helmstedt

2011-07-18T10:50:00.005+02:00

End of move 1

We have just finished the fifth battle of the campaign, and it proved to be great fun.

The battle of Helmstedt started with French XIII corps deployed just east of the town, and 3^rd Prussian corps marching to attack them. The Prussian 4^th corps was four hours/moves behind and would arrive at the start of move 5. VI French corps was also four hours/moves away, but was waiting for orders. They would arrive at the start of move 9.

Jan, who fought with the French, played a clever delaying battle/game. She kept XIII corps in position and fired on 3^rd corps as it deployed. Then she retreated slowly towards Helmstedt.

I fought with the Prussians and could see that night, in the shape of move 12, would arrive before I could close with XIII corps. So I put one brigade in a farm to protect my right flank against VI corps, and put the remaining three infantry brigades into a large column of attack. I could then move them for the cost of just two command points per move.

By the end of move 12 XIII corps was directly in front of the town, and could retreat no more without breaking formation. VI corps had arrived on their left, but too far away to take any part in the battle. My column of attack was within skirmish range of the town, but my artillery was screened by the column, and 3^rd corps was too far behind to take part in the battle.

End of move 12

This was when we decided to give it one more move. If we still failed to get a result we would have to fight a second day. I had already decided to have a council of war with the two commanders on each side, and allow them to vote whether to continue or not.

Move 13 proved to be very unlucky for the French, but exceeded expectations for the Prussians. In just one move the centre of XIII corps broke and routed. It was a convincing Prussian victory.

End of move 13

I often wonder how much interest there is in the battle reports, as I get very little feedback. I know that the campaign blog has 10-20 visitors each day, so I know someone is reading them. But I miss the feedback.

So I was particularly pleased that this battle invoked a lot of correspondence to the campaign forum. There are two relatively new players, and much of it came from them. However a comment from Tom McKinney, one of the longer serving members, made me realise that the lack of feedback does not necessarily mean lack of interest. It also made me smile.

“………I usually pick up the day's battle results from my phone before I get out of bed and I can tell you on many occasions I have wished I hadn't started the day that way”

Rewrite of Rules

2011-07-13T11:52:00.002+02:00

I have just finished a rewrite of the rules, and have published them on the blog.

The rewrite was to include some changes which have crept into our day to day wargaming, but have not been included in the blog rules.

Most of the changes are typing errors, or minor amendments. But there is a new rule, which is Cavalry v Artillery.

This was an oversight when the rules were first written. It was covered in Opportunity Charges, because the only time cavalry charged guns was when they were limbered. We always seemed to avoid charging unlimbered guns. On the few occasions when we did, we used the mechanism of the Opportunity Charge. That is to say we allowed the gunners to evade to a nearby square.

The whole business of reaction was raised during a recent game, and I realised that none of it was covered in the appropriate rule.

When I wrote the rules I tried to include all aspects under one rule. For example I tried to cover all you would need to know about infantry skirmishing in Rule 11. I also wrote the rules so that the sequence was the same as the wargame.

When they were written they were for our use only. They were never intended to be available to the public. But when we started writing battle reports on the blog I published a blog of the rules so that anyone interested could check what the rule actually said.

Now they are visited regularly, and I felt it was time to review and update them. I did this when we were in UK recently. But I updated our own hard copy of the rules. The layout is different on the blog. With the inclusion of a new rule, and slight changes to most of the existing ones, I had to retype the whole blog.

The old errors are corrected, but I suspect I may have included many new ones due to the retype. Time will tell.

There is a link to the rules blog over to the right.

Campaign Off Road Movement

2011-07-09T12:58:00.004+02:00

Current Campaign Map

After 21 moves and five battles, the current campaign is probably nearing its end. I say “probably” because I have no idea when it will actually end. The fifth battle is still being wargamed, and could go either way. If the Prussians were to lose with heavy casualties the campaign could end in a couple of moves. If the same were to happen to the French, it might go on for another 21 moves. If you want to follow the battle of Helmstedt, and the campaign, you can find it on 1813 Campaign Diary on the right under My Blog List.

After 21 moves it seems a good time to review what went well and what went not so well. I do not want a long delay between the end of the Hanover phase of the 1813 and the next one (possibly eastern Spain). So I have raised two points for consideration on the campaign forum. First is off road movement and second variable movement.

The current rules only allow on road movement. Because the map is based on the scenic squares we use on the wargames table, this has resulted in a very grid like movement. It also means that movement is very predictable.

A change would appear popular with the players, some have suggested an increase in roads, to allow more north to south movement. This would cause problems, as the tactical map is related to the strategic map, and extra roads would mean extra squares, which would destroy the connection between the two maps.

The tactical map is really just series of wargame squares. On the wargames table off road movement is allowed without penalty. So it seems reasonable to allow the same on the tactical map

Proposed Campaign Map

My suggested solution is to allow off road movement. The only roads shown on the new map are the main strategic roads in red (city to city) and secondary roads in yellow (between main towns). Minor roads have been removed.

Movement is allowed north, south, east and west. It is also allowed north east, north west, south east and south west. But no movement is allowed in a terrain square, except on a red or yellow road. Terrain would include hills, woods, rivers and broken ground.

I have put the suggestion on the campaign forum and asked for comments. It will be interesting to see whether this simple solution will meet with general approval. You can follow the discussion by clicking on the link under 1813 campaign forum at the top right.

Summer Reading Material

2011-07-07T13:06:00.001+02:00

We are well into the Spanish summer and are adjusting our routine to the higher temperatures. Gone are the twice weekly walks in the hills, replaced with twice daily swim in the pool.

The Costa Blanca is not by any means the warmest part of Spain, but to anyone brought up on the average British summer temperatures in the mid 30s need adjusting to. The locals do it by avoiding the sun, and doing any chores in the early morning or late afternoon. And of course the famous siesta.

We try to do the same. Gone are the twice weekly walks in the local hills, replaced by twice daily dips in the pool. But you still need something to keep your mind occupied.

We are fortunate that the wargames room is the coolest part of the house. So we have an hour or so each afternoon. There is a large ceiling fan over the table which further reduces the heat.

But that still leaves a lot of the day to fill.

When not wargaming we often watch a DVD for an hour. With the shutters closed and the ceiling fan on high the sitting room is quite comfortable. My son bought me the whole series of The Sopranos on DVD for last Christmas. There are 28 DVDs, which is about 84 hourly episodes. That should see us through the summer months.

But we still need some mental stimulation, and my attention has turned to Nick Lipscombe’s The Peninsular War Atlas.

This was another Christmas present. I had to have it for the excellent maps, but I realised as soon as I saw it that it would be heavy going to read. It looks very similar to Esposito and Elting West Point Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars, and I had also found that very hard to read.

I am reasonably well read on the Peninsular, having read Napier and Oman plus many more. In fact I read Oman’s seven volumes for a second time when we moved to Spain five years ago. But I do have to work at it.

I made a gallant start on Lipscombe in February. It is one of those books that you have to sit at a table to read, certainly not bed time reading (or at least not my sort of bed time reading). The first part of the book deals with the early Spanish battles, and I always find those hard to follow. I am now more aware of the Spanish locations, but I still find it difficult to remember which commander is which. So by April I had given up the effort.

Recently I read on TMP the suggestion that it would be a good idea to David Gates The Spanish Ulcer and use the maps from Lipcombes Atlas. The former is one of the few easy to read books about the Spanish war effort, and the latter does have excellent maps. So this seemed like a good suggestion. But first I felt I owed it to Colonel Lipscombe to read his full text.

So The Peninsular War Atlas has been added to my list of tasks to complete during the summer months. It is not a book I could sit and read for too long. So I try to read one page two or three times a day. So far I have got to page 273. Only 76 pages to go.

Perhaps next year I will tackle Gates and Lipscombe together?

Campaign Movement and Deployment

2011-07-04T11:48:00.007+02:00

Typical battle at start of move 1

Its good to be back into the campaign and it seems to be running quite smoothly. We have completed 20 moves and fought four battles. The fifth battle is just starting and you can read about it on the 1813 campaign diary – link under My Blog List opposite.

The campaign rules are still in an early stage of development. They are the third edition and have been developed over three PBEM campaigns. At the end of each campaign I update them to cover lessons learnt.

At the start of this campaign one move was one day. This created problems with reacting to enemy moves, concentration and “marching to the sound of the guns”. To overcome this I changed it to three moves per day. Movement rates are the same, but players have the opportunity to react to events three times during the day.

This has worked well. But as often happens you solve one problem and create another.

Each map square is one scenic square on the wargames table. The table is three squares wide and three deep. In effect the table is one days march on the map.

It’s critical that when the map is transferred to the table, there is sufficient space between the two armies to fight the battle/wargame. The ideal situation is that they both enter the table from opposite ends. They then each have one square to deploy, leaving one empty in the centre. Each square is 24” square, slightly longer than maximum artillery range. When they are deployed they move towards each other and fight in the centre

Typical battle start of move 5

If one is in defence and the other attacking, I usually set the defender in either the right or left square. The attacker then has his nearest square to deploy, and the centre one to move through to attack. This allows the defender to inflict artillery casualties as he moves through the centre square.

The problem arose when one commander wanted to start a battle at 1200, rather than 0800. On the map there was only one square between him and the defending corps. So he would start the battle in the left hand square, in column of march, with only 8 hours/moves to fight the battle.

All of my campaign games are 12 moves. This is the 12 hours campaign time. One campaign move is 4 moves/hours. In most battles the first campaign move (four table top moves) is spent marching the attacker onto the table. The next campaign move (four more table top moves) is spent deploying into column of attack or line. The third campaign move (final four table top moves) is the actual close combat battle.

If the battle starts at 1200, or worse still at 1600, there is just not enough time to move onto the table, deploy into an attack formation and close with the enemy.

Typical battle start of move 9

I don’t want to say a corps commander can only start a battle at 0800. But I don’t want to have to set up a battle/wargame, spent 8 moves crossing the table and then have a night move when the defender can just march away.

So I am working on a skirmish type engagement for corps who wants to attack later than 0800. First the attacker will have to deploy his corps from column of march (a formation which can not fight) to column of attack. This will take a full move. He can then attack the enemy with just one infantry brigade, and that will be fought under infantry skirmish rules. It will be done as a paper exercise, not on the table top. If the attacker still wants to attack, he can do so at 0800 next morning.

It all seems reasonable in theory, but I will have to see how it works out in practice. I have learnt from bitter experience that there is often a great deal of difference between one and the other.

Desktop back in use

2011-07-02T15:48:00.001+02:00

It took three days to get my desktop computer working again, which was longer than I expected. So it’s great to have it back again.

I am one of those people who know absolutely nothing about computers, or indeed cars. I can operate both, but when either goes wrong I have to call in the experts. Fortunately I have very good experts in both cases. Both are British and both do house calls.

My computer was built for me by my son six years ago. As he keeps reminding me, that is a long time for a computer. In addition living in Spain is very hard on computers. The very cold winters and very hot summers are not good for them. Nor is the uncertain electricity supply, which can result in damaging power surges. Finally during the winter lightening can also do a lot of damage.

Before we left UK I was aware that I would need a good surge protector, and it was one of the first things I bought when we moved to Spain. Within four months we had an electrical storm, and my router was burnt out. When I took it to the local computer shop I was advised that this often happens, indeed it makes their day when a really good storm arrives. Apparently a lightening strike can move through the telephone lines, right into the router. We soon heard horror stories of phones blown off walls.

Worse still a house down the road was hit by lightening a few months later. It destroyed all of their electrical instruments, including computers, TV and a fridge. So now at the first sign of thunder or lightening everything is disconnected and we sit in the dark watching the lightening display.

All of this is very wearing on the poor old computer. It made two or three visits to the computer during our first year, and early in the second year they declared it BER (beyond economical repair). Fortunately I had my laptop. As I was looking around for a replacement desktop I heard about Paul. I rang him and described the symptoms, and he assured me that it could be repaired, and would not cost a fortune.

He was true to his word, and it was soon up and running again, and all for about 50 euros. He has been my first port of call for any computer problems since. Over the years he has replaced “bits” as required, and has never charged me more than the original 50 euros.

My latest problem was caused by heat, assisted by cold! During the summer months it gets very hot here, and this can cause the computer to overheat. But apparently the real damage is done during the winter, when the very cold weather causes more damage. Something about extremes of heat. He takes a lot of trouble to explain these things to me, and he hardly seems to notice when my eyes glaze over.

Anyway he has brought it back to life. He called at the house on Tuesday and spent almost two hours working on it. Then he took it away and retuned it on Friday. All of this cost just 40 euros.

Apparently the compact case, so much easier to handle than the previous heavy tower case, does not work so well in the hot weather. Not enough room to circulate the air. I had been told this before, so I placed my desk fan behind the computer. Apparently this may have done more harm than good, as it stops the hot air circulating out of the computer. Anyway the fan is at the side now, which I am told should help a lot. Time will tell.

Meanwhile I have been working on the campaign on my laptop. We have completed move 20, and I am setting up the fifth battle of the campaign. More about that in my next post.

Sunny Spain

2011-06-27T22:33:00.002+02:00

After ten days of a typical British Summer its lovely to come back to blue skies and warm evenings. The days are getting very hot, but the water in the pool is also warmer. Spanish summers do take some adjusting to, but we seem to have adjusted much better than we expected.

The Spanish spend most of the day indoors, keeping out of the sun. We have followed their lead, and spend most afternoons wargaming. Our wargames table is the coolest part of the house, and we have a large fan over the table if the temperature rises too much.

Most of today has been spent catching up on the administration for the Hanover campaign. This has resulted in the fifth battle of the campaign, and one that looks like being very interesting.

The Prussians have taken a hammering in the latest battles, and have had to retreat towards Magdeburg. The French have taken a day to regroup and prepare for the final push towards the river Elbe. However crafty Blucher has concentrated two of his corps and has ordered a last ditch attack on Helmstedt. Davout has ordered a second corps to move to support the Poles holding the town, but whether they arrive in time depends on whether the corps commander has anticipated the order and started to move closer to Helmstedt before it arrives.

I have also been working on the rules. I managed to write a first draft of the amendments, which include reaction to cavalry charges. These are all things which Jan and I have been using in recent months, but had not amended the rules yet. They will need a little play testing before I amend them on the rules blog.

My desktop computer has started to crash for no apparent reason. My computer man thinks it may be the heat, and that may just need a good clean out - or perhaps a new fan. He comes to have a look tomorrow, and I am hoping that it will be quick and cheap. Meanwhile I still have the laptop. But the keyboard seems much too small for my fat fingers.

If he sorts it out tomorrow I will be able to send out the messages and umpire report ready for the next set of orders. Then I will see whether Marmont will arrive in time to save Poniatowski at Helmstedt. The PBEM certainly adds a degree of uncertainty to the campaign, which was missing when playing solo.

Wargame Rules

2011-06-23T12:14:00.001+02:00

The reason for the current lack of posts is that I am at present on holiday.

I brought my laptop with me, and I fully expected to get some work done on the next phase of my 1813 campaign, or at least on the new maps I want to make for it. These are two jobs, which I can never seem to find time to do at home, and two weeks away from the wargames table seemed like an ideal opportunity.

However I have found it really difficult to concentrate on wargaming and campaigning when away from my familiar surroundings. I have everything on the laptop which I would need to do either of the above tasks, but I just can’t seem to settle and concentrate.

Jan and I are visiting my son and his family, and the grand children aged 4 years and 10 months are just proving too much of a distraction.

In the middle of this wargaming desert I received a flurry of questions about our wargame rules. These were carefully written to suit our particular wargame needs. That is to say the number of figures we have, the table and scenery available and the wish to fight large Napoleonic battles on a reasonably small table with 28mm model soldiers. Not the type of rules, which I would have thought, would have a wide appeal. Particularly as they seem to go completely against the general trend of either single corps sized games with each battalion represented by 12 figures. Or at the other hand large tables covered with huge armies in the style of the late, and great, Peter Guilder.

It must be about two years since I first posted them on the blog. The intention was that anyone reading a campaign battle report could check the rules if they wanted. Since then there have been a steady trickle of questions and an ever-increasing number of visitors. Today the count stands at 6773 hits. Not bad for a fun set of rules which were only ever intended for use by Jan and I.

Anyway one of the questions asked was about reaction to charges. In the rules there is a special rule for Opportunity Charges. These occur at the start of the other players turn, and in certain circumstances allow the target to react by changing formation, providing that they first pass a reaction test.

One of the questions raised was whether this reaction test should apply to normal charges. In fact we do allow it in our own games, but I am not sure whether we should or not. Part of me feels that if you leave one of your brigades open to a flank attack, then you should accept the consequences. On the other hand that is not the sort of competitive Wargame that Jan and I usually play. We will often allow something not allowed in the rules, rather than ruin a good wargame. For example a very low throw, say double one, at a critical point in the game. We might allow it to be taken again. We would not do so for a campaign game, where we feel we need to be extra careful as there is a third party interest. But in a “fun game” we might well do so.

Normally I would have just made a decision yes or no. It highlights my feelings of “wargame isolation” that I did not do so, but botched the reply. On the other hand at least it will give me something to think about for the remainder of my holiday - at least when the grand children are not demanding my full attention.

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

A New Project

2011-06-14T21:53:00.003+02:00

Hanover Tactical Map

As the hot days of summer approach I am looking for a project to keep me cool and out of the midday sun.

At present I am considering whether it would be worth while to make new tactical maps for the next phase of my 1813 campaign.

The present PBEM campaign is going well, and I am pretty sure that the next one will also be PBEM. But I want to build up the player participation, and to allow them more choice of action.

The biggest problem is that the aim of the campaign is to produce good wargames. And the wargames will be fought using our “house rules”. These are based on a corps of six elements – four infantry, one cavalry and one artillery. The rules rely strongly on command and control, and the six elements are critical.

This is a big problem, because prevents the corps commanders from breaking up their corps, and thereby restricts their options. When the campaign moves to the wargames table command radius is also important. This is just 8” on the table. Each square, both on the table and on the tactical map, is 48” x 48”. So it is important that corps remain within one square as far as possible.

In a historical campaign the players would expect to be able to use concentration and movement to gain an advantage. This would result in an uneven and very one sided wargame using our rules. So the challenge, and satisfaction, must be different.

I have come to the conclusion that the best way to improve player satisfaction is to make it clear that the campaign is actually more similar to a board game than to a historical map exercise.

The advantage of my campaign is that the whole tactical map is a representation of a large wargames table. The player can choose his ground, and be confident that the wargames table will look exactly the same. He can also give detailed deployment orders for use on the table.

So far none have done this. I suspect that this is because I have not spelt out the board game aspect. They are using the tactical map as a historical map, and it does not work well. Because of the grid system, and the restriction to road movement only, it is difficult to concentrate and support each other.

So I am going to work on a new map which will have more interesting terrain options. I am also considering whether to allow off road movement. All of this sounds quite promising, but I will have to carry out some play testing to see what the disadvantages might be.

If nothing else, it will keep me out of the hot Spanish summer sun.

Wellingtons Battles

2011-06-10T18:17:00.005+02:00

The battle of Sorauren

The campaign is going well, but is going through a quiet patch at present. This is mostly due to the recent spate of battles, and so many corps trying to recover.

It appears unlikely that there will be a campaign battle/wargame in the coming week, so I have set up a wargame based on Sorauren for Jan and I to game.

This is the ninth in a series of occasional games based on Wellington's battles in the Peninsula.

Its nice to be able to relax with a one off game with no consequences for anyone else.

Its also a slightly larger and more complex game than the recent one corps per side campaign game.

You an find it at

http://wellingtonsbattles.blogspot.com/

Hanover PBEM Campaign Summary

2011-06-08T11:53:00.010+02:00

Campaign area outlined in white

The PBEM campaign is now three months old, and I thought it might be interesting to post a summary to date. It is quite possible that some of the corps commanders may read this blog, so I will have to be careful not to give away any information which might be useful to them in the campaign.

23 July 1813

This was the deployment of both armies at the start of the campaign. Obviously they were not aware of enemy locations.

Having crossed the river Elbe Blucher orders his corps to advance west until they make contact with the French. His strategic objective is Hanover, but he can not develop a plan until he locates the enemy corps.

Davout has received reports of a large scale Prussian advance over the river Elbe. He has ordered his corps to move east and take up defensive positions between Uelzen and Brunswick.

24 July 1813

The first battle of the campaign was west of the northern town of Uelzen. 2^nd Prussian corps was marching west, IV French corps marching east. The battle opened with an indecisive cavalry skirmish, followed by a full battle. The Prussians won and the French retreated to Munster. Both sides suffered moderate casualties.

25 July 1813

Steinhorst was the site of the second battle. V French corps occupied the town, but moved east at first light. 1^st Prussian corps was ordered to attack the town from Bodenteich and they met in the middle. The result was a French victory, and the Prussians retreated towards Bodenteich. Again both sides suffered moderate casualties

26 July 1813

VI French corps attacked Wolfsburg at first light. 4^th Prussian corps fought a hard fight, but withdrew at nightfall leaving the French in possession of the town. It was an inconclusive battle, with minimum casualties. But the French claimed a victory.

27 July 1813

IV French corps was recovering at Hanover, when their cavalry reported that 2^nd Prussian corps had abandoned Uelzen and marched south. The French moved to take the town, the Prussians realised that its loss would sever their lines of communications and immediately marched north again. The result a hard fought second battle for Uelzen. The result a decisive French victory – the first of the campaign. The Prussians retreated towards Rosche with heavy casualties.

And that brings us up to date on the campaign. To say anymore would give away information which would be very useful to the players.

Each move in the campaign is 4 hours, with three moves to a campaign day. So the campaign has reached 15 moves in three months. Just a little better than one move a week. That was my objective, so I am pleased to have achieved it.

Four battles, and all single corps per side, is less than I had hoped. One battle per month is not enough to keep us busy. It is also considerably less than we achieved with our solo campaign.

The administration of the campaign takes a lot more time than I had anticipated. On the other hand the PBEM campaign is much more interesting and enjoyable than our previous solo campaign.

So overall a gold star for the campaign to date. It has worked much better than I dared hope and provided sufficient interest and satisfaction to make me want to develop PBEM rather than revert to solo campaigning.