There is always a lot of admin to be completed at the end of one campaign phase and the start of the next. None of this work can be done until the final battle has been decided, which means that there is always a long gap between wargames at this stage. For someone who is used to having a game in play all of the time, this can be frustrating.
It is all the more so this time because we are in the middle of a heat wave here in Spain, and we have very little energy for anything, let alone a lot of paperwork to prepare the next campaign phase. In addition we have my son’s family with us for their annual three week holiday. It is lovely to have them here, and having visited for 18 of the previous 20 years (thanks to covid) they are very little trouble. But our normally quiet house catering for just two of us is suddenly required to cater for 7. Our tranquil self centred routine is replaced by bedlam. I hide in my office, but it is really difficult, if not impossible, to concentrate on anything as complicated as organising a campaign.
In the week before they arrived I decided to try a one off game to fill the time. This would be the first non campaign game I have played in about 15 years. I settled on Waterloo, but not the Waterloo that the world knows so well. This one would have to fit into my campaign orders of battle and my rules. They are finely developed to deliver the type of games we like to play, with a strict 12 move game to meet the 12 hour day in the campaign. The result is the table you see above.
My first attempt included the ridge on the allied side and high ground on the French right. It also included a woods in front of Hougoumont and no terrain features on the allied left. The objective would be the cross roads and the road running left to right. However just four moves made it clear that my rules would not allow a historical refight. Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte quickly fell to French artillery and infantry. The table was set up once more as shown above. The game objective would be Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and the woods on the right. All three objectives were placed much closer to the road where the allied army was deployed, this would make it easier for them to support the objectives.
Not at all sure how it is going to work out, but already regretting that I did not just do the hard work of setting up the next campaign and setting up the first campaign battle.
Thistlebarrow,
ReplyDeleteSorry to have missed much of your recent campaign, but life - a minor surgical procedure and then a cruise to the Western Mediterranean - has rather been diverting my attention elsewhere.
During our cruise we visited Cadiz and Cartagena on mainland Spain and Ibiza and Mallorca in the Balearics. All of them were hot … and it was so hot in Mallorca that we didn’t disembark! (The air temperature was way over 40C, and once it gets hotter than my body temperature, I prefer not to expose myself to the outdoors.)
I hope that your family visit goes off well, and that you all have a great time. I look forward to seeing how your Waterloo turns out. I have a largish collection of figures for the battle but have yet to use them to fight a version of the battle.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, lovely to hear from you as always
I have been following your medical experiences on your blog, good to see that you have such a positive approach. Being positive is the best medicine in any circumstances, and your cruise must have helped to cheer you up.
We love Cartagena, it is one of our favourite Spanish cities. It is only a few hours drive south, and we have spent some time there. It is very easy to explore on foot, and so much history to delve into. Cadiz is much further, and we have only visited it once when we were on holiday in Seville. We enjoyed our visit but were not tempted to spend more time there. We walked around the city walls, but were disappointed to discover it was such a popular seaside destination. Mind I spend only one day there, so I am going on first impressions.
It has been very hot here this summer, as I see it has also been in the UK. We are pretty used to the heat after 20 years here, and have developed a good summer routine. We do an hours walk each morning, but are home by 0800. Our wargame room is the coolest in the house, and we have a very good ceiling fan, so we spend a lot of time there. We have an hours swim each afternoon to cool us down for the evening. Apart from that we do what the Spanish do, we stay indoors during the hottest part of the day, keep the windows closed and the metal blinds down. We have AC in the sitting room and the bedroom, and we have used both much more this year than in previous years.
Fortunately the Costa Blanca has lower temperatures the Murcia or Andalusia, which is why we choose to move here. We have had 40c in previous years, but this years highest was 39c. Most of the time it is 34-38c The humidity is the real problem, and that has been worse this year than previously. Or perhaps (and quite likely) we are just feeling the heat more as we got older. Looking forward to September, when the temperatures usually drop dramatically, when we can get out walking with our U3A group.
Looking forward to reading about your latest cruise.
best regards
Paul
Hi Bob
ReplyDeleteA quick PS. You might be interested in my version of Waterloo. It was very much a simplified version and used my campaign rules and orders of battle. It was much more enjoyable than I expected, but one off games will never replace my campaign games.
regards
Paul