Is anybody else having problems with Blogger . It is very slow to post photos or amend text. I keep getting a message "this page is not responding" and Post: Edit. It started about ten days ago.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was having problems with the Artillery rules. In particular the effect of crew casualties. In our current rules casualties are shown as a percentage, for example 10%. Such casualties affect the combat and morale tests by imposing a minus 1 on all tests.
This created a particular problem with counter battery fire. At long range artillery required a roll of 6 using 1D6. This meant that a battery with just 1 casualty could not hit enemy gunners at long range. Long range artillery is 12” and short range 4”. This gave a massive advantage to the side without any gunner casualties and their gun dominated each game.
Counter battery fire had become a standard tactic in our games, particularly for the attacking player. The attacking player would unlimber his artillery at long range of the enemy guns, with the rest of his army out of range. Both sides would then fire away at each other, usually with no effect at all.
Apart from counter battery fire, the only other option was to charge the enemy guns with cavalry. Cavalry charge range is 12”, the same as artillery long range. The cavalry would have to move into artillery long range, and then charge the next move. This meant that the artillery could fire once at long range (3 or more for a hit) and again at short range (2 or more for a hit).
I am play testing a new rule which restricts counter battery fire to short range. I have never experienced a game where guns are able to deploy that close to the enemy guns. In practice they would be engaged by either cavalry or even infantry.
With this rule change cavalry is the most favoured option for removing enemy artillery, though a very risky one. The sequence for cavalry charging artillery is:
Cavalry advance half move (6”)
Gunners test morale, if they pass they can either fire at short range or evade to nearby supports
If gunners evade cavalry can either halt disordered, or retreat 6” to their start line
With cavalry the only option to take out the enemy gunners, this tactic is used much more often than when counter battery fire was an option. We draw chips to determine the sequence of corps moves each turn. If the cavalry are drawn after the enemy artillery they can move into charge range of the gunners without risking fire at long range
The artillery reaction has become an interesting choice. If they pass their morale test they must choose to either fire at short range or evade. If they evade the enemy cavalry can prevent them returning to the guns. If they fire they will probably hit the cavalry, who must then test their morale to charge home. They require a roll of 3 or more to do so. If they pass they charge and the gunners rout with 10% casualties. If they fail they remain at short range of the guns and are either disordered or shaken depending on their test result.
In our first game using this new rule there were two cavalry charges against artillery. In one the gunners already had 10% casualties, passed their morale test but ran to a nearby infantry square. In the second the gunners fired, the cavalry failed their morale test and were counter charged by enemy cavalry and routed.
Lots of possibilities with this rule amendment and it has added a new challenge to our wargames
I don’t often have a moan on any of my blogs, because I usually feel that I have a lot to be grateful for and know only too well that there is a lot who would happily change places with me tomorrow.
However.......
Last June I turned 80 which is one of those critical birthdays which it is more difficult than usual to ignore. We moved to Spain in my early 60s, and I remember thinking “60 is the new 50”. It may not be true, but there is an element of truth in it. My wife and I were still quite fit and made the most of moving to this lovely part of Spain.
A month after we arrived a new U3A was formed in our local town, and we were amongst the first members. This introduced us to hundreds of ex pats who had taken the decision to move to Spain for our retirement. In 2006 there was a real surge of brits moving to Spain, encouraged by the many TV programmes such as “A life in the Sun” and the free four day visits paid for by local estate agents to encourage the move. It was a very exciting time and great to be surrounded by like minded people of a similar age. Everyone was new, so everyone wanted to make friends.
We took full advantage of the many coach trips organised by the U3A for four day trips to Madrid, Granada, Seville, Barcelona and Saragossa – plus many many more.
We also discovered hill walking with a local walking group, a hobby which we have enjoyed ever since. For ten years or so we walked as part of a group, but as they got older we started our own walking group. This not only kept us fit, but widened our circle of friends.
Equally important we built our first custom made wargames table. Our house was bought “off plan”, which meant we had a large say in how the rooms could be adopted. We were able to expand an underbuild to provide us with a space large enough for a 6x6 foot table, and an adjoining room for shelves to hold the model soldiers and model buildings
A third project was to make a large collection of model houses to populate our wargame tables spreading from north Germany to southern Spain. And in two scales, one for 28mm and a second for 18mm. My wife was the artistic one who designed and built the card buildings. I got to paint them. This kept us busy for a couple of years.
My 70th birthday passed by almost unnoticed. I have never been one to celebrate birthdays or occasions. Nor do I particularly enjoy eating out, despite the many excellent and relatively cheap restaurants available locally. I would rather have a favourite meal on our naya (balcony) on a warm June evening with a cold glass of wine followed by brandy and coffee.
However 80 years old demanded my attention. As it approached I became aware that many of our walking friends had given up hill walking. Being in the U3A there is always a supply of new arrivals eager to join in new activities, particularly walking which is not only healthy but also a great way to meet new friends, even if your are not a natural mixer. However the group was remaining the same age (average 70ish) but we had gone from the youngest to be far the oldest.
My wife Jan had had an accident on the mountains, which made her very wary to tackling the harder climbs. We had always walked together, and I just didn’t enjoy the walks so much without her. So I decided to start a new walking group, but this time easy 9km valley walks. We both enjoyed them, and within a few months it was just as popular as our previous more challenging mountain walks. But it was an admission that we were both finding the walks we previously enjoyed very challenging.
In March last year my optician confirmed that I had cataracts of both eyes which now needed attention. I was quite shocked to discover that I had lost 20% of the sight in both eyes in just a few months. I visited our local GP and was referred to the local hospital. But, as in the UK, there would be a long wait. With all the elderly Brits living locally there is a lot of call for replacement knees and hips plus of course cataracts. It would take 9 months to get the hospital appointment, and another 5 months to get a date for the first operation. Fortunately my sight did not get worse during this long wait – at least until a few weeks ago.
In late May I became aware that I could no longer read paper size print without eye strain. I managed ok with the computer, until a few weeks later when I found that becoming difficult too.
Then a week ago I caught a bad cold/flu from my wife, causing me to worry that the operation might be cancelled if they realised when I turned up for the operation. Finally four days ago an early heat wave arrived without warning. Temperatures rose from a pleasant 24-26c to a very uncomfortable 34-36c.
So for the past few days I have been feeling very sorry for myself. Unable to spend so much time on the computer, feeling too ill to either walk or want to wargame and the approaching operation on my eyes which I would rather not think about too much.
Tomorrow is the first cataract operation, and the weather forecast is for lower temperatures next week. So hopefully when the next blog comes along I will be feeling much more my normal self and not feeling so sorry for myself.
To celebrate the above I have updated my blog photograph. The earlier one was taken in about 2008, this one was June 2025. Our walking group surprised me with a birthday cake and a photograph of Jan and I after one of our walks. I was starting to feel a little dishonest positing the earlier photo and can feel that I am being more honest with this one.
Typical
Bavarian Corps
The only purpose of my 1813 campaign is to provide interesting battles to wargame. Each campaign phase is now designed to provide about 9 battles
However I also want the campaign to recreate an acceptable Napoleonic strategic appearance. This second objective has long caused me serious problems in designing and managing the campaign.
Most, if not all, historical campaigns follow the same general principles. The attacking general aims to achieve overwhelming odds and a strategic advantage for the opening battles of the campaign. This was particularly so during the Napoleonic period. Having achieved this initial objective the attacker would follow up and seek to destroy the weakened enemy army.
Any wargamer will quickly realise that this is not going to achieve my objective of interesting wargames. And certainly not six or more battles/wargames per campaign phase.. In most wargames casualties are much higher than in historical battles. It is very hard, if not impossible, to wargame a tactical retreat. This is particularly true if the wargame rules used rely heavily on luck, in the form of dice.
If the winning army is allowed to aggressively pursue the retreating losing army, the second and subsequent battles will be very uneven. This is because it is hard to win a wargame when one side starts the game with many more casualties than the other side, and particularly if those casualties are in cavalry or artillery.
It did not take me very long to realise these limitations. And given that I wanted each wargame to be enjoyable, I have to find a way to reduce the impact of losing a wargame. I did so by allowing both armies to be reinforced to reduce the effect of battle casualties.
First I kept the actual wargame casualties, but moved them into one infantry brigades per corps. For example if there were seven infantry casualties spread between four brigades, I would concentrate them all in one brigade with seven casualties and three brigades with no casualties. This worked quite well, because both armies would have three full strength brigades and the odd casualties in the fourth brigade would mean it was non operational.
But it didn’t work so well with artillery and cavalry casualties. There is only one brigade of each per corps, so they could not be concentrated in one brigade. In my rules each casualty is minus 1 on morale and combat tests, so a brigade with two casualties is effectively non operational.
I overcame this problem by keeping all casualties in the brigade which received them, but reducing each brigade to just one casualty. This meant a slight disadvantage for such a brigade of minus one for combat and morale tests. Because both armies had similar numbers of brigades affected this worked reasonably well. I have used this system for many years.
In my current campaign rules each army has nine corps, divided into three armies of three corps each. These armies can only move east or west, and consequently remain opposed to the same opponent throughout the campaign phase. If one side has more brigades affected than the other, this will remain a problem throughout the whole campaign phase.
However recently I have become increasingly aware that even these reduced casualties can give the winning side too much of an advantage. And particularly when the casualties are cavalry or artillery.
Using one 6 sided dice, adjusted by appropriate plus and minus factors, to decide all combat and melee tests give a fast and decisive result. When two very experienced players regularly game together this is necessary to avoid long and protracted wargames. But it can make it very difficult to overcome casualties.
For example in counter battery fire a total of 6 is required at long range, and 5 or 6 at close range. If one side has just one casualty it is impossible to hit the enemy gunners at long range. It is also difficult to prevent enemy cavalry from charging and routing the gunners.
I have therefore decided to play test a dramatic change in the rules. In future battle casualties will be recorded, but ALL will be replaced before the next battle/wargame. I appreciate that to most wargamers this would be too drastic to be acceptable. And if the aim was to replicate historical campaigns I would agree with them. But our aim is to wargame battles where both sides have an equal chance of winning each game. Otherwise the player who loses the first battle of a campaign will almost certainly lose all subsequent battles also.
Already we
start each new campaign phase at full strength. This change will mean that we now start each
battle/wargame at full strength. I am
not sure whether this adjustment will remove some of my enjoyment of the
campaign itself, which is why I am going to play test it to see how we feel
about it.
In April 2009 I started work on my first blog, which was called “Walking Napoleonic Battlefields”. It was a record of the many holidays Jan and I have spent exploring battlefields in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Our first such holiday was to Waterloo in July 1971 and the last recorded was our second visit to Austerlitz in July 2002. The aim of this series of blogs was to explain how we planned each visit and illustrated by photos we had taken at the time. There is no better way to understand a battle than to walk the battlefield yourself. And particularly if you have researched and planned the holiday yourself. I hoped that by explaining how easy it is to do others might be encouraged to do so themselves. I don’t have any stats for this blog because I used a different email address to set up each blog, and no longer have the passwords
In May 2009 I started my current 1813 Napoleonic campaign, and at the same time I started a blog to record the progress of the campaign and to provide a permanent record of all the battle reports. It is a campaign diary, with one entry for each campaign day and one entry for each battle report. I am not a great believer in the stats provided by the blog, but at present it states that I have 1001 posts and have had 122344 views.
Also in May 2009 I started a second blog called “Jan and Paul in Spain”. This would be a record of our life here and the aim was to keep our family and friends in the UK informed of how our life in Spain was progressing. Apart from Wargaming, our main interest was hill walking. Within weeks of arriving in 2006 we had joined a local walking group and most blog entries recorded our many walks in and around our home in the Jalon Valley in the Costa Blanca. The blog stats confirm I have posted 1084 posts and claim there have been 335220 views.
It was not until July 2009 that I started the fourth blog called “Napoleonic Wargaming” This would allow me to air my general views on my favourite subject, as distinct from the factual reports on “1813 Campaign Diary”. I didn’t have any clear idea just what I would post on this one, but it would allow me to expand on rules and Wargaming experience on the campaign diary. According to the blog stats I have written 1069 posts and there have been 548863 views.
“Walking Napoleonic Battlefields” was a one off project, and would only last as long as it took to research and post each visit.
“Jan and Paul in Spain” was started as a longer term project. The first blog covered our move to Spain in 2006, so there was a considerable amount of work to catch up to 2009. I have always recorded our holidays and day trips by taking photographs, and then filing them on my computer using a series of annual, monthly and then daily folders. I continued this when we moved to Spain. The photos taken of each walk and holiday formed the basis of the blog, with a short description or summary as appropriate. As I was now using a digital camera it was easy to take more photographs of each walk. The blog also allowed other members of the walking group to share with their own family and friends. So it is quite possible that there were indeed such a large number of views. Remember that each blog would probably be viewed by the same family member or friend.
“1813 Campaign Diary” was also planned as a long term project. However I did not understand how blogs worked, so I expected to have to start a new blog for each campaign phase, or mini campaign. The first one was called “1813 Campaign – Magdeburg” and for some time I created a new blog for each phase. It would be a few years before I realised that by using the labels function I could separate each campaign phase on one blog. This system also changed over the years as I developed a better “filing system”. By its very nature this blog provided content for a new blog post each week, and continues to do so.
“Napoleonic Wargaming” had no long term plan. I wanted to be able to post a different subject each week. Having to work to a timetable is something I enjoy, and prospective readers would know that a new post would come out each Sunday. It would be a general blog where I could explore all the different aspects of Wargaming this period. I could explain problems experienced with my ongoing 1813 campaign, or explore different ideas for new maps or rules. However right from the start it required inspiration for something new each week. The advantage of wide range choice of subjects is that I could work on posts as and when I had inspiration. I would often have four or five posts in reserve. Recently I have found it more difficult to find something new to write about, and I decided to post a summary of my “1813 campaign diary” as a regular series on “Napoleonic Wargaming”. Each one has a map, a short description of campaign movements and also of the daily battle. In addition I would comment on the actual wargame, particularly if I had encountered a problem with the rules.
I feel that this latest development has become too much a part of “Napoleonic Wargaming” blog, and I am now looking for something different to break up the weekly posts. I will let you know when I have found it.