Friday 18 May 2012

The Road to Waterloo


The Scot's Greys in action

Despite the recent dabble in the waters of the Mississippi I am still looking to tackle the 1815 campaign with a combination of Columbia Games: Napoleon for the strategic dimension and my Hexon collection in the conjunction with the block armies for the tactical side. I shall be using Bob Cordery's Memoir of Battle rules (with the dubious benefit of my inevitable tinkering!) and in the meantime I have been organising the roster sheets and translating the units into their equivalent block formations. The basic concept behind this is that the forces and indeed the action itself, will be largely telescopic in that should I need to fight a brigade level action the blocks will be individual battalions and for divisional level game the individual units become, in effect, brigades. The beauty of Bob's rules is that such an approach is perfectly feasible but for me to exploit this versatility I need to have three levels of organisation.

The divisional level organisation is already in place as I will be using that supplied in the aforementioned board game. The game uses a step reduction system and each division typically will have a combat value of between 2 and 4. I am tempted to fight a game using the divisions with a block representing a point of the combat value by way of an experiment.

The roster sheet I am preparing at present is at battalion level and so after this I will need to look at the brigade level version. The divisional level organisation combat value will need to have both a brigade and battalion level equivalent so that casualties at the lower level can go towards the adjustment at a strategic level. This all sounds rather cryptic but once I have it all written down it will make a little more sense - at least I hope so!

6 comments:

Sean said...

I'll be following this with great interest as I have had a similar thought for re-purposing old wargames to give a strategic element to the table top.

David Crook said...

Hi Sean,

I will certainly be giving updates via the blog for this project - 1815 has been a passion of mine since as far back as I can remember - as they arise. The blocks will work very nicely for this and I am quite excited at the prospect.

What game had you in mind for similar treatment?

All the best,

DC

Sean said...

Several actually, which I think is part of my problem.

The Civil War - Victory Games
Vietnam 1965/1975 - Victory Games (although not sure about gaming this period)
Imperium Romanum II - West End Games or Julius Caeser - TSR
Machiavelli - Avalon Hill
King Maker - Avalon Hill
Squad Leader/ ASL - Avalon Hill
Third Reich - Avalon Hill

As you can see, long on ideas, short on execution.

Partly trying to justify all the space my old games take up.

David Crook said...

Hi Sean,

That is a list and a half and no mistake! There seems to be a fair mix of strategic and tactical stuff so I can see how your dilemma is shaping up!

Good luck with whichever you go with first of all though!

All the best,

DC

MurdocK said...

Awesome that you are taking some action to include the strategic element in tabletop actions.

Far too often this important factor is dropped and you get crazy things like the Imperial Guard going into battle first ... long before some Marie-Louise's are sent in, and that is just not the way things are done.

The entire Nafzinger collection is online, with some searching I am certain you could find the accurate order of battle:

http://www.alternatewars.com/CARL/Nafgizer_CARL.htm

I have had similar rumblings many times with Napoleons' Battles, SHAKO and now FPGA as the tabletop rules set for the strategic encounters set up by other input systems. As with the others we will be watching.

David Crook said...

Hi Murdock,

Many thanks for the heads up re the Nafziger OOBs - that will be handy and no mistake!

Tying the strategic level game with the tactical side has been a long held ambition of mine for this campaign and slowly all he parts are falling into place. I hope to be running with this before the 200th anniversary in 2015!

All the best,

DC