WSS #37 Sept 08 - LIGNY DOSSIER

[barr7430]

aahhh.. yes the artillery
Well of course under the new rules 12pdrs have a range of over 90 inches!!

Why would you need to paiknt MORE Prussians??? You have enough and so does Kev.. (what's that Kev?... you don't? ok!)

[charge0.wanadoo.co.uk]

THE SWEEDS!!! I can see it now all blue eyed, blond and FEMALE - who makes the figues? (Colin will know) .
On a more serious note, as many of you will know, a campaign of any sort is no small undertaking. It can be enormous fun but the bigger it gets, particularly with more players, in general terms the slower it gets.
I would suggest that as a starter we do something that involves map moving - a mini campiagn. There are various options but one might be to do the map moving on the Friday evening and then play Saturday/ Sunday. I would be happy to assist in the organistion. Another might be to have say three or four principle commanders reasonalbly local (Scotland) and meet a month before the game for a day and do the map moving and preliminaries so that we could move straight to setting up on the Friday evening. Yet another option would be to halt a game on the Satuarday night and involve everyone in the map moving on Sunday morning.
One obvious danger of such a game is that some players might not have a role until late Saturday - we would have to try to avoid this and make sure everyong was in play by saturday afternoon. It would be easier to make it a ficticious battle and I can see real possibilities with 1815, starting with the initial dispostions when the French crossed the Sabre on the night of 14 June. There is a little book I wrote for Argus publications many years ago in their "Wargaming in History - Waterloo", where in Chapter 15 "An Introduction to campaign wargaming" there is an outline map of the positions of all the forces on the night of 14 June. From there we would map move to the point where we had a battle (or 2). The end result might be that we fight one or more different battles - not necessarily Ligny, Quatre Bras or Waterloo. Certainly food for thought or Highland park at Stonehaven.
Yours aye, Charles (Not Bernadotte)

[Blucher]

Barry/Gents

The 'transport wagons' have just arrived in 'East Prussia' and delivered the magazine at 'WH SCHMIDTS'. First chance for us in 'The Fatherland' to have a look at it. What a great job you did on it Barry!

Must admit, I thouroughly enjoyed the article and enjoyed 'goose-stepping' down memory lane!

I would like to thank you all again and especially Kevin for making it well worth all the effort (and 2 years of my life!).

'Sentimental Old Blucher'

[barr7430]

You may need a therapist Blucher mein alte freund!... the boys are talking about wanting to do it again!!!

Thanx for the kind words.. I actually enjoyed writing it (I enjoyed reading it too because i hadn't done so since I finished it a few months ago!

[thinredline]

I think one of the most endearing facets of both the Ligny and Peninsular games was the effort and results achieved by Adrian and Charles in their terrain. That effort and its excellence should not be locked away in a dark room never to be seen again on LOGW Tables. I know Charles has had the Spanish out at KWC, and Adrian (and LOGW colleagues) has been displaying at shows. The idea of refighting recent Napoleonic games using R2E in its published format is therefore highly attractive to me personnally, and we get to see and use the terrain again.

Mini campaigning - as long as its R2E, and not GdeB

Bob

[barr7430]

That's a nice sentiment Bob (but you haven't tried them yet )
No, seriously, there is a lot of text in R2E but actually you don't need to read it if there is no dispute or problem in the game. The whole idea was to make for a very fast flowing, dynamic, decisive game which, if it reached a point of getting bogged down in a disagreement could be arbitrated extremely smoothly because ALL the explanations were already in the rules regarding the machinations of the professional Rules Twister.
Dave O' Brien has been in particular, an immense help in this process as has Pat Connor. Exposure of the rules at SESWC through various games that I or Dave has run have helped. Jack Glanville has made useful suggestions as have Clarence and other readers. For those of you who might make some kind of labyrinthine connection between the phrase 'Rules Twister' and the aforementioned gents... there IS NONE!!!... they are the good guys!
The next step is a Corps level game that I am organising to check the next layer of command works ok(as written)
Then Wethink an army level game. I want to play it on a smaller table with all the gents before we get to a big game so that everyone has at least played once or twice with some... Dave, Peter Mac, me,Dave Imrie having played many games.
I am really excited about it now as it is WORKING!!! Hooray!

[thinredline]

Looking forward to it using the Ruleset Barry, BUT,
when have you ever known moi to "READ" - A SET OF RULES

The general jist of wargaming for me is most assuredly the spectacle of the game, rules and winning at all costs don't figure highly on my agenda. Needless to say, the craik and good company make the LOGW very pleasureable weekends for me.

I will make you a promise however, I shall purchase, and even "READ" FROM COVER TO COVER" R2E on publication, so that I might one day stop relying on the good offices of the umpires to guide me thro a game.

Bob

[thinredline]

Oh, and yes, on a recent lunchtime walkabout in the dear environs of Elgin. one came across a WH Smith outlet, and lo and behold WSS #37 was on display
One needless to say, purchased said item, and had a jolly good read.
Well done Barry
Thinredline