Construction Boom

I mentioned in September that we were working on the building s for our campaign.

We already have a mass of buildings, both commercial and homemade.   Most of the commercial ones are too large for the town footprint we use for the campaign battles.   We use squares of felt to represent the size of the town.   One square for a village, two for a town and three or four for a city.

Most of the commercial buildings are 25mm, and only one can fit on each square.   So it looks like isolated buildings rather than a village or town.

All of the previous buildings which Jan made were either to match the commercial 25mm buildings, or our 15mm model soldiers.  

The only suitable commercial buildings we had were Hovels medieval buildings.   I cannot remember whether they are 25mm or 15mm.  I think they were 25mm, but smaller than the rest of our collection.   So I asked Jan to make some buildings to match them.   The result is the town above.

I am very pleased with the result, and have now asked for a couple of farms.  The idea is to have a farm house and a couple of outbuildings plus a connecting wall.  Something similar to La Haye Sainte.   I would like sufficient for two farms, but all inter changeable.

Now that winter is approaching we will be spending less time out and about, and will have more time for the construction task.   I will post photographs when they are finished.

More Uneven Battles

Back in July I wrote about the subject of uneven battles.

Since then I have listened to many points of view, and eventually set on a formula for resolving them without having to fight a wargame.

My preferred option would be to have the weaker side simply retreat.  This is what I always did when the campaign was solo.  It has the advantage that the larger side takes the objective without having to fight.  

For a solo campaign this is fine, because I only have myself to satisfy.   In the PBEM it continues to draw comments, particularly from newer commanders.   They seem to feel that it robs them of the opportunity to destroy the smaller side and win the campaign.

I recently posted on TMP for to fill a command vacancy.   I didn’t get a commander, but I did get some comments from a previous, disgruntled, commander on this very subject.   He only lasted a week or two on the campaign, obviously not his “cup of tea”.  

Since then he has twice commented about my handling of uneven battles.   He obviously believes that it should be quite possible for a smaller force to defeat a stronger one.   I am not at all sure that there are many historical instances of this happening.  I suspect that a corps commander placed in such a position would try to avoid battle.   Only when this was not possible would he fight.

My, temporary, solution to the problem is to resolve it by a dice throw.   It represents the weaker side retreating, but having to fight a rear guard action against the stronger side.   As always it is a simple procedure.  The campaign is complicated enough without making it even more so.

I throw one D6 with the following results

1          larger side 1 casualty smaller side 1 casualty

2          larger side 1 casualty smaller side 2 casualty

3          larger side 1 casualty smaller side 2 casualty

4          larger side 1 casualty smaller side 3 casualty

5          larger side 1 casualty smaller side 3 casualty

6          larger side 1 casualty smaller side 4 casualty

I have only used it once, and have not had any feedback yet.

3 November 2013 – Visit to Seville

We spent most of last week on a coach trip to Cordoba and Seville, so not much time for things Wargaming.

We live in a small village near the town of Denia on the Costa Blanca.  This was our third visit to Andalusia, and the 426 mile road journey to Seville made me realise what a large country Spain is – at least for those of us from the UK.   I suspect that is no great distance to readers in the USA.

It took us 11 hours in our comfortable air conditioned coach.   A long journey, but it pales into insignificance when you consider how long it would have taken a French infantryman during the Peninsular War.  

I would guess that 18 miles a day in the heat and poor road conditions would have been pretty good going.   At that rate it would have taken 28 days to march from Denia to Seville.

From Cordoba to Seville is 85 miles by road, so our foot weary infantryman would have taken almost 6 days. 

It was our first visit to Cordoba, and our second to Seville.   So we were aware that there is not a lot of Napoleonic interest in either city.  Or if there is it is not very easy to find.   The guides concentrate on the Moorish invasion in 711, and the final victory of the Christian King Ferdinand in 1236.

The only item of Napoleonic interest was found in the impressive Plaza de Espana in Seville.   The square was built as part of the Exposition of 1929.   Around the square are tiled “Province Alcoves” for each of the Provinces of Spain.   Our favourite was Jaen, which had the Battle of Baylen as its showpiece.

Both are beautiful cities, and both are very well worth a visit – even without any obvious monuments to the Peninsular War.

1814 PBEM Campaign – Command Vacancy

I have a vacancy in my PBEM campaign for the role of Marshal Soult.

The Fifth French Army has the role of containing Wellington and his Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish army in the western Pyrenees.

For the next phase of the campaign he has concentrated five Armee Corps along the French border with Spain.   He orders are to invade Spain and take Wellington’s supply base at San Sebastian.   At the same time he will have to protect his long lines of communication from his base at Bayonne.

This is a fictional campaign designed to provide interesting and fun wargames, which will be fought by my wife and I.    The player will be responsible for all aspects of the map campaign; we will take over when a battle is declared.

The aim is to play one campaign day each week.   Each player is required to write orders to each of his five corps commanders once per week.  This task should take no more than half an hour.   The campaign rules consist of five A4 size pages, and are for reference only. 

No previous experience is necessary.  There is no need to learn complicated rules.  

You can find more information on the campaign diary blog which you will find here

http://1814campaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/

To join the campaign you will have to join the campaign yahoo forum which you will find here

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

Campaign Diary

Tactical map of Western Spain for 10^th March 1814

I have been unable to use my desktop computer all week due to a virus.   All of the campaign files are on the desktop, so it has made it difficult to keep the campaign administration up to date.

To keep me occupied I redesigned the campaign diary blog.

The blog contains a record of the PBEM campaign, including battle reports and a daily diary.   I have to be careful not to give away too much current information on the diary, and consequently it does not serve very well as a history of the campaign.

I decided that I would produce new maps which were similar to the campaign tactical maps, but which did not have as much detail or the grid.   

Campaign Diary map of Western Spain for 10^th March 1814

The entry for each day has six maps, one for each of the campaign areas, with a very brief summary of what has happened on that particular day.

The blog has an index, based on the labels.   To read a daily history of the campaign you need only click on Label 03 Campaign Diary for the current one.  To read them all you click Older Posts bottom right until you get to 1^st March 1814.

The problem is that we have already completed ten campaign days, so I had to do quite a lot of research, make six maps and update each of them ten times.   It has taken all week.   Not sure how much it will be used by the players, but it will be very useful for me as a reference.

If you would like to see the campaign diary blog you will find it here

http://1814campaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/