The eve of a fair-sized battle.
We know fighting will take place tomorrow. I have the table more or less ready, my Allied army is in position, waiting for the French to finish their petit-déjeuner and rock up for action. Although strictly I have the initiative for this battle, I have chosen to defend because my force is rather smaller than the enemy.
The field artillery is out front, ready for the official preliminary bombardment. You will see that 3 of the British infantry units also have battalion guns. My senior field commanders are in little groups of 3 figures; Marlborough (overall C-in-C) is on the prancing horse, Prince Eugène in more sedate posture.
The French and Bavarian troops are boxed in OOB, ready for laying out when they arrive. I still have to get the movie cameras set up and find all the dice, cards and counters, but everything is in hand. I even have time for some photos, just to prove we were here.
What could possibly go wrong...?
Very handsome layout, Tony. Enjoy your Sunday battle.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jon - I fear that I am about to suffer a hammering that is overdue, but I shall die bravely.
DeleteLooks great, Tony. To arms!
ReplyDeleteThanks Peter - I am topping up with glucose...
DeleteBy God they look intimidating when you lay them out like that!
ReplyDeleteIt's a funny thing - armies look much more impressive from the front. If you are nervous about your own army, walk round and look from the other side of the table, and you will feel better.
DeleteWell... as you're asking there's always the chance your marvellous weather defeats the intrepid travellers? But lets' not worry about that, it's about as likely as a big Tory win at the next election.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime while awaiting their arrival shouldn't your men be digging in?
In this case, the arrival is sort of metaphorical, since we are using Zoom, so the weather would have to work extra hard to knock out the electricity. Not unknown, to be sure.
DeleteThe battle has now been fought - the only slight technical hitch was that I decided to use my tablet as a hand-held extra camera, and it was only after the event that I realised that the occasional audio problems were caused by my walking too near to the tablet, at which point my bluetooth headphones decided to twin with the tablet instead of the iMac in the next room. If I use the tablet again I shall switch its own bluetooth off!
Digging in is a decent idea but the scenario is scaled by (you guessed) dice rolling; the dice decided that each army had 4 divisions, and there was no time for digging.