WSS Project - a little gentle rule-testing

It's possible to keep typing for ever without getting anywhere very definite, so tonight I spent a happy couple of hours trying out the new (developing) house rules for the WSS soldiers. Interesting, as always. I found that the principal game mechanisms need a bit of tuning, as you would expect, but the hard bit is getting the flow of the turn-sequence logical (and in a sensible order - better test to see if the attached general is still alive before we give a "+1" on the morale test for his presence...)

A lot to do, but this is a definite step forward, I think. It amuses me to claim that the rules are tried and tested - they are, in the sense that the morale rules mostly come from Charlie Wesencraft, the turn sequence from WRG 1685-1845, the combat rules are based on Neil Thomas (by way of Old Trousers' hexification experiments thereupon), the idea of a single number for unit effectiveness comes from Howard Whitehouse (and, I suppose, from Avalon Hill), the activation rules come from my Ramekin game, the movement and manoeuvre rules come from a computer-driven rule-set called Élan which I used successfully for solo games some years ago...

You get the idea, the only thing which is completely new in this recipe is the combination, and how many teaspoons of each. Anyway - so far so good. Some simplifications are needed, but I'm pleased - I'll carry on with this, and get on with refurbing the armies.

For King and Parliament - At Last a Proper Try-Out Game

Last week I finally (finally) managed to set up a range-finder game of For King and Parliament - Count Goya was kind enough to travel down from his estates up North to take part.

What follows is not a serious critical review of FK&P - since the game is becoming very successful and popular, and is played enthusiastically by a number of people whose taste and judgement I respect, anything I write here is likely to say more about me than it does about the game, and much has already been expressed about its merits. If you have not played it yourself, there is a good chance you will have seen one of the spectacular demonstration games at wargame shows in recent months. On the other hand, whether or not it suits me is - inescapably - an important personal criterion.

I did have some concurrent distractions going on in the Real World, which is a lame excuse really, but I found it quite difficult to get up to speed with the rules. I had no background involvement with its Ancient and Medieval father, To the Strongest (and I still reckon that makes a big difference to understanding the concepts). I found a lot of excellent ideas in it, and I very much liked the spirit in which the rules were written and presented. I have also benefitted, I must add, from some very kind after-sales consultancy from the co-authors, and from on-line friends and blog contacts who have played it already, so I have little or no justification for being obtuse.

It's not that the game is complex - it is a little unusual, maybe even quirky, in some respects, but that's all grist to the wassname. I found there was a lot to remember - a lot of exceptional combinations of things which need to be jotted down somewhere [example - although I thought I was OK with this one, I suddenly had a wobbly moment during our game - I was sure that when "Dutch" style horse attack "Swedish" style, the melee has to switch around so that the defenders become the attackers (in rule terms). Damned if I could find it in the rule-book in the heat of the moment, so we had to fix up a Convention of the Day. I was disappointed with myself...]

With all due respect, I have to say that the official QRS is among the three or four worst I have ever seen - it is verbose, yet it seems to avoid saying anything about combat, for example. I was very grateful for the inclusion of a very good index in the book though - I'd have been in big trouble without it.

I had real problems getting my head around the Activation Penalties rules, but it turned out that I was confused by a couple of errors in the worked examples in the book. I know that Ver 1.1 of the rules has these slips corrected. I have no problems at all with the gridded battlefield, that's all pleasingly straightforward (though Morschauser followers may object to the fact that I find square-based terrain a lot more alien than my usual hexes). The use of playing cards did not alarm me, provided I could keep the tabletop clutter down to acceptable levels - I have bought in supplies of half-sized patience cards, which helps a lot, and have tried to develop a very OCD regime for tidying up after each turn. One thing which is actually suggested in the rule book, and to which we should have attached more weight, is the need to keep the "To Hit" and "Save" cards physically separated from the "Activation" cards - it is important to keep the former on your baseline, and tidy them away immediately after play, and to keep the latter on the table, placed tidily alongside the unit or leader to whom they apply. My newly-developed house protocols also require the cards to be tidied and placed face down with each brigade when its activation is complete (so you can see which brigades haven't done anything yet this turn), and we tidy all cards away and shuffle them back into the deck when the player's turn is finished. This game includes a lot of potential for making a real mess with the playing equipment, which is aesthetically suboptimal and especially so if you use small figures like mine. You have to be able to take photos of your game, after all...

On the same theme, there is a lot of information to be carried around with the units. I was a bit alarmed at the outset with the potential for the game to become buried in counters. The systems are well thought out, no doubt, but I think it is necessary for each player to decide for himself how he keeps track of the unit info. I have a long-held hatred of off-table rosters, which I find distracting and which disrupt the on-table flow. I am also famously cack-handed when it comes to knocking over piles of tiddlywinks, or leaving the things adjacent to the wrong unit, which may be explained as the Fog of War, but doesn't help the already-confused.

I got a lot of help and good ideas from a number of people (to whom I have offered my thanks previously), and I adopted (to some extent pinched) a system of small, attached labels, laminated, on which records may be maintained in dry-wipe whiteboard pen. The labels actually worked out pretty well, though the magnetic attachment system proved unreliable - labels kept getting separated from their units, which was fiddly and inconvenient. I had hoped to avoid it, but I think I had better make proper sabots for the units to stand on - it will simplify moving, and tidy things up a lot. That's sort of pencilled in as a must-do.

One aspect of the game which I appreciated (perversely, maybe) is that to some extent it is an ideas toolkit - it is not overly prescriptive - there is a need for each player adopting the game to think seriously about how he will set it up physically - what size squares, how (and if) he uses playing cards, or chits-in-a-bag, or decimal dice, how he adopts (or adapts) the information counters system to suit his scales and his sense of aesthetics (and level of OCD).

I set up a decent-looking game the night before the arranged date, and spent some of the night worrying about it, so that first thing the next morning I came downstairs and cut the size of the game down by about half. That was a sound idea - we played very slowly, since we spent a lot of time with our heads in the book, but we did OK. As units collected "disorder" markers, their fighting effectiveness fell away, and for a while there was the impression of a relentless (occasionally bewildering) series of card drawings which for the most part didn't achieve anything. With more time and experience (and wisdom), of course, we'd have put more effort into pulling units back out of the action and attempting to rally them back into shape, in a more soldierly manner. The card play is entertaining - in a social game, there is good scope for associated banter and mock applause, etc, but for a solo game I am not so sure. It might be a grunt.

We didn't finish the game, but that wasn't the point. I am left with a recollection that, even in a small game, each player's turn is quite long, and it is easy to forget where you are up to, especially when units are fighting back in melee, or returning fire - I think I might try to add a little jotter system to remind me whose turn it is. We didn't use Victory Medals (though I strongly fancy the chocolate coins idea) - we counted backwards on my ex-billiards scoreboard.

Unfortunately, my period of induction to the game has coincided with some issues elsewhere, but for a couple of months the rulebook has accompanied me on train journeys and so on, and has been my bedtime reading matter. It is a genuine relief to have advanced as far as playing a game - I have a better feel for what is involved now, I can put some more focused effort into setting up the next game. I can also put the bloody book away for a few weeks and think about something else!

The game is good - it is not the life-changing experience some might have hoped for, but it will doubtless become more familiar and more intuitive. My first impressions are a bit mixed, but overall probably more favourable than my first efforts at Commands & Colors, which has become a way of life for me now!

Some pictures follow - I won't attempt any kind of logical narrative, since it was a rules try-out, and there isn't one. Apologies for the cut-price scenery - I'm working on it.

The trial game - if the cards behave themselves, and co-operate, you can get a lot done in a single turn, and move some of your units a long way

Horse - we adopted a convention that "Swedish"-style (galloper) horse deployed as a line of 3 bases, and "Dutch"-style as a column of 4

Foot getting up close

General view - our trial game was a little sparse (intentionally so) - note the face-down cards, tidily denoting that each brigade has finished its business for this turn, and the little pile on the left is the used "To Hit" and "Save" cards - very confusing if these get mixed up. Parliament on the left here, with the red cards.

No Victory Medals for us - too mean, for one thing - just the old scoreboard waiting patiently for some action

This and the remainder of the photos are here under false pretence - this is the original, larger game I set up the night before, which would have been nice to look at but a really bad idea for getting to grips with the rules.

 

In passing, note that the ploughed fields were cut from a pair of needle-cord trousers I had in about 1970. Astonishing that I cut them to fit the square grid I would adopt for this game nearly 50 years later. What planning has gone into this hobby, now I think about it.

As always, I use undersized buildings to help with the ground-scale anomalies - 15mm Hovels buildings here, with 20mm men, laid out on 7.5-inch squares (or boxes, as we say in FK&P). Plenty of wine handy, but the Puritans won't touch it, of course. The rules are within easy reach, too - the "corners-only" phantom grid markings work nicely.

 

FK&P - Heavy Going to Start With

I've had a couple of sessions familiarising myself with the For King and Parliament rules. Slow going, thus far - of course, it is possible that I have finally become too old and stupid to learn anything new, but mostly I have been having problems with the rule book.

Early experience-gainer tests. Everything vanilla - all the units are seasoned, no terrain effects to worry about, and so on. If you screw your eyes up you may see the pencil lines, which will be gone by lunchtime today. 20mm soldiers, 7.5inch squares, half-size playing cards, buckets of counters and wooden cubes standing by.

I would hate to say anything rude or unfairly critical of this game, so I must state right away that the booklet is enthusiastically and engagingly written, the style is pleasing and (a true rarity!) it is grammatically correct and the spelling is good, and the whole production is very attractively laid out.

I am happy to accept that the evidence is that this is a very enjoyable game, and that I will get up to speed eventually, and all will become clear. Good. My problem, I think, is that I have not come to this game after playing To the Strongest, so I am not quite on the right wavelength to start with, and also the authors - who have definitely come from the direction of TtS! - obviously understand the game and know what they mean, but sometimes I found it hard to pick up the key elements I need to get started from what is a mixture of design points, examples (which are useful and entertaining, but a couple of them seem to contain errors - or at least points which I couldn't find in the main text), tables, illustrations and playing tips.

Portent? - the very first activation card I played in this game - ever - was an Ace, which is a very bad card for activation. It makes a welcome change from bad dice rolls.

There are a number of examples of special exceptions to standard rules, which seem to be mentioned once only - some of them do not seem to be reflected in the summary tables, and often I found that I was unable to find the reference when I searched for it. The impression gained is that a number of post-prototype fixes were put in, and that an editor should get his head in there before the 2nd Edition appears. I am used to things being cross-referenced - especially if they haven't been mentioned yet. On a few occasions I came across terms I hadn't seen before (or at least couldn't remember seeing!), which a few pages later were explained and defined. None of this is serious, but I've found it a bit tricky. I like to remember rules in terms of norms which usually apply, with the necessary exceptions as a short and manageable list - if there are real weird cases which don't happen very often, then they are the things you know you have to check in the rules as and when.

The Quick Reference Sheet reproduces full details of unit properties - all or nothing - and undoubtedly lists some key information, albeit in a rather lengthy and waffly style - QRS's are usually brief and punchy. Oh - and they should be complete  too - rules for shooting and melees only appear here in the QRS by implication - and artillery ranges aren't set out (I couldn't find them, anyway). Since I've now read through the rule book four times, I would expect to have a better grasp of what is needed. I'll definitely produce my own QRS - that's a priority - but for some of the key rule sections - activation, combat, saves - I'll produce very short notes and tables of my own, with stuff explained as departures from a basic standard. I haven't got room in my head for amusing stories about all the features of Swedish horse - though I can maybe retrofit that sometime later.

So I shall plug away, but there is going to be a power of typing going on to get me up to speed! One further thing which is gently catching me out at present is that some of the TtS jargon is counter-intuitive to a newbie. In FK&P, "hits" means what in other games I would regard as "strength points" (or even "blocks"!), "disorders" means "losses", and there are a few other conventions I just have to get used to - OK - I can manage that. I also had difficulty finding the exact timing of tests for officer casualties, and thus far I haven't found out how far a melee attacker has to pull back if he doesn't eliminate the enemy.

Last night I did some cavalry melees, which were slow because I haven't got the hang of everything I need to know yet. First things I have to fix are:

(1) the tabletop - my original intention was to put pencil lines on to mark complete squares, pick out the corners of the square cells in black Sharpie pen, and then paint out (or erase) the construction lines. After I'd got the boards marked up, I reckoned I'd give it a go with the pencil lines still in place - they are not very visible anyway. Bad news is that it became obvious last night that the playing cards are going to get very grubby with raw pencil on the table (however discreet), so I have set about painting over the construction lines. We'll just have corners, as recommended, and as I originally intended.

(2) the half-size playing cards are OK - it is necessary to work at keeping things tidy and organised, or the result is a terrible mess, but I expected that. However, in the absence of proper counters to keep track of ammunition, "dash" (for horse), pursuits, "disorders" and all the other things you need to keep track of (and this is before you get to whether the cavalry are badly mounted, whether the units are raw/seasoned/veteran, the characteristics of individual leaders, the "gallant gentleman" classification...), I used a variety of coloured tiddlywinks, which won't stack without falling over and spreading about, which are not really very easy to handle and which look just awful. I can't be doing with very much of that, so some quick progress with proper tracking systems is necessary, or I'm going to shelve this. I'm thinking about it, and have had some useful ideas from commenters (thank you, chaps) and via email.

That's about it for the moment. I've started touching-out the pencil lines, and I'll do a bit of typing of CONCISE tables, and I'll be back on to trying out aspects of the game this evening.

Lots of Django Reinhardt on the CD player at the moment - that keeps the painting speed up! Just thought I'd mention it. Oh yes, and while I'm digressing, I've finally chucked out the remainder of the Nescafe - we bought two large jars of bog-standard Nescafe instant coffee a while ago, because they were on special offer with some rather handsome mugs. I am afraid that I do not like Nescafe - I realise this is entirely my own problem. I could, of course, have disposed of the actual coffee and simply regarded that as part of the cost of the mugs, but - no - this particular mug is far too mean for that. Eventually, halfway through the second jar, I have disposed of it. To be more accurate, my wife got tired of my complaining about it, so she threw it out on my behalf, and I've gone back to my preferred Douwe Egberts instant. Good. A bit like the relief when you stop banging your head on the wall. Some strange ritual, suffering, so as not to waste anything. Hmmm.

Rules Testing - Battle of Albuera (16th May 1811)

Godinot's brigade have a think about their diversionary attack on the village - Von Alten with the KGL light infantry are in residence...

One of my projects at present is to develop a tweaked version of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics for in-house use. This game is intended to work (quickly, and simply, and without ambiguity) for very large battles, for battles which require large, grand-tactical movement of troops (such as off-table reserves), and for games which for other reasons do not lay out logically in the conventional C&CN, across the table, left/centre/right configuration - end-to-end-of-the-table battles, or oddities like the tactical bits of sieges are examples.

The tweaked rules are currently still in a state of flux - the main features are that they do not use the C&CN cards (they use a dice-based activation/initiative system), and they do not enforce strict alternation of moves, but they do use (most of) the main C&CN movement and combat systems. Until they are more stable, I don't really want to say too much about the rules themselves, though I will make some observations of a general nature at the end of this post. The important thing I wish to make clear at the moment is that the tweaked version is not intended as an improvement on original C&CN, nor a correction; it is merely a modified cousin of the game to suit specific kinds of wargames that I seem to be very interested in, so there is no need for anyone to rush to defend the original game, nor to pitch in from the other side, to write it off. Oh yes - my working title for the modified game is "Ramekin". This has no special significance or merit apart from the fact that it amuses me, and it stops me calling it "Vive l'Empereur" or "The Vivandiere's Moustache" or similar.

These rules, in their evolving form, were recently used for the Eggmuhl game here, and for the demo game I set up for my aunt (yes, all right, all right).

This midweek I had planned to set up a solitaire playtest game to do some more refinement (or, as is often the case, to abandon some of the most recent brilliant innovations, since they might simply be a waste of time!). Playtesting is a necessary investment of effort, of course, but playtesting on a solo basis has hazards of its own, since the writer knows what he intended the rules to mean, and how they were supposed to work, and will tend to fail to spot the big holes in them during solo play. Thus I was doubly delighted to have a collaborator yesterday - Count Goya came to help out.

I set up a biggish game based on Albuera, which is a battle of which I had limited understanding previously, and one which is noted for the intensity of the fighting, and the fact that it could have worked out in a number of ways - in fact you might say that it was several different battles, fought successively, in different directions.

I did a lot of reading (so did Goya), and set up a game on my bigger (10'4" x 5', 17 hexes x 9) tabletop. I did some work to sort out which bits of the complex OOBs actually appeared in the field, and - though the numbers of units I fielded didn't match the original battle, the implied numbers of troops were pretty close. [Thus, for example, Girard's Division in my game was 5 battalions, which is about 4000 men, which is correct, though in the original battle these men were spread over 9 battalions.]

I read over, but did not use, the published C&CN Albuera scenario. My game was somewhat larger, and my map was rather more closely based on fact (again, this is not a criticism of anything). We started the game at the point where Beresford (or someone on Beresford's staff) notices that the French are not really serious about attacking the town of Albuera itself - this is a diversion, and the main part of Soult's army has performed a smart left hook, so the principal attack is on the Spanish troops on the Allied right. Thus Stewart's 2nd Division, with Colborne's brigade in front, are sent marching to the right, to cover the Spaniards' exposed flank.

Albuera is renowned for having some key incidents which may not fit with normal wargame rules. Most famously, the French light cavalry - notably the Vistula Lancers - wrecked Colborne's troops, who failed to form square (because Stewart and/or Beresford ordered them to stay in line to maximise firepower, or because there may or may not have been a violent rainstorm which obscured their view and damped their powder, or because they didn't expect the cavalry to be out there on the flank, or for some other reason). It is possible to incorporate some chance card type decision point - I confess I don't care for rigging a game in that way. As a gesture towards history, we adopted a simple dice-test for any infantry wishing to form square - just for the day.

I'm not going to step through the AAR in more detail than comes from the photos - we were not attempting to re-enact anything - Albuera served primarily as an entertaining context for some playtesting. There were some interesting historical parallels in the game - some worked the opposite way to the real battle, of course, and some worked the "correct" way, if in a slightly different manner. We ran out of time, though the French appeared to be winning when it was time for dinner. Whether or not the Allies realised they were beaten, of course, is the critical issue...

Overall view from behind the French left flank at the start of the game. In the foreground is the left hook - La Tour-Maubourg with the cavalry, the divisions of Girard (in front) and Gazan (behind), then Werle's brigade in the centre and, at the far end, Godinot's diversionary assault on the village

View from behind the French right flank - on the Allied side, Karl Von Alten has a KGL brigade in the village, and behind him are Portuguese troops (Otway's cavalry and Harvey's large infantry brigade from 6th Divn); I'll describe the other end of the Allied set-up in a moment...

...and here you are - Zayas' Spaniards in line in the centre of the table, with Stewart's 2nd Division marching to their right behind the Spaniards, to cover the flank. On my game system of replicating the numbers of troops rather than the number of units, Stewart's command comprises Colborne's Brigade (in front, 3 battalions), then Hoghton's (2 bns), then Abercrombie's (2 bns). In rear of them is the 1st brigade (Myers) of Cole's 6th Divn, and beyond them we are back to Harvey's Portuguese (who received no orders throughout the day!)

Pin-up unit - the dreaded Vistula Lancers. In fact they had a remarkably bad day, and were eliminated very quickly. So much for history.

The French cavalry - Vistula boys at the front, then 2 units of chasseurs, then 2 of dragoons - at this point, they were opposed only by a weak brigade of Spanish light cavalry, so they chanced their arm...

... one of the chasseur units and the lancers moved forward to deal with the Spanish horse, and as a result of some of the most outrageous dice-rolling seen for a while the French were repulsed heavily, and the headlining lancers were eliminated, and thus would not get to meet the Buffs later.

Over on the Allied left, and in the centre, the Portuguese still haven't moved, neither have Myers' brigade from Cole's force, and Stewart's boys are making very slow progress towards the right.

Apparently not convinced about the benefits of hanging round demonstrating, Godinot's force gained a foothold in the village  - these are more Poles, the 4eme Vistule - but took a bit of a hammering for their trouble, and gave up on the idea thereafter. In theory there was a Victory Point available for occupation of the village, but after this early effort the KGL were left in peace.

Meanwhile, on the right, Colborne's brigade gets moving. On the tabletop, Colborne's boys were 3 battalions of old (proper 20mm) Lammings, and pretty shiny, too. Since my collection doesn't include the correct units for Albuera, there was some role-playing - notably our "Buffs" were actually a battalion of the 61st Foot (South Gloucestershire), but at least their flag was the right colour.

The firefight - Colborne's chaps appear on the right flank - not quite in the historic manner, and free from cavalry interruptions for the moment. In fact they didn't do very well when they got there - it was a nasty exchange though.

Early stages - Allies slightly ahead - 1 VP for holding the village, and one of the others must be for whacking the lancers. 11 VPs for the win was the order of the day.

Allied right flank isn't looking very clever, and Cole and the Portuguese are still mostly rooted to the spot on the far side. After a slow start, Girard is pressing the Spanish infantry.

Gazan's Division, behind Girard's, watches the attack develop in front. Both Girard and Gazan are prominent hat-wavers. Famous for it.

Back at the village, Godinot's demonstration is over; the combined battalion of grenadiers is sulking after suffering 3 bases-worth of casualties, the light infantry is in the wood, and the battered Poles are in another wood to the left, out of picture. The artillery can't see much point in carrying on wasting orders by firing, so they all hope their job is done and that Soult will win the day elsewhere.

Eventually, of course, the Spanish cavalry on the Allied right got their come-uppance, and were sent packing, and here General Loy, the brigadier, has a Ponsonby moment, as the French dragoons pursue him. Amazingly, they failed to kill or capture him (i.e. they couldn't roll a single crossed-sabres symbol on a total of 8 dice) and thus he escaped, choosing to leave the table just to deny the French the VP they would get if they did for him.

Better fortune for the Allies in the centre - combined-arms attack by one of Hoghton's battalions and Miranda's Spanish battery does some fearsome damage to one of Girard's regiments. All a bit late, really.

Late view from the Allied right shows that their right wing has mostly disappeared, and the left wing has hardly moved. This was just about dinner-time - the scoreboard showed the French leading by 10 points to 6, so they had more or less won.

Final view across towards what was, in fact, Beresford's position from the day before the battle. Beresford is going to get a dreadful roasting from Wellington, who even loaned him The Tree to  stand next to, as you see. On the far left you can see one of the ramekins (to hold initiative dice and order chips) from which the game gets its working title.

 Many thanks to Goya for his company and enthusiasm, and for helping out with the analysis. The game is shaping up nicely, and is a lot of fun, but we need some more work on getting the effect of musketry in balance with history, and to refine the use of the Order Chips (thanks to Tesco for the chips, by the way).

That's enough about that, I think - you'll hear more of the Ramekin soon, I'm sure.

A Short Spell of Fiddling Around

I have figures to paint;  I have stuff to do. Hobby progress has been slow, in fact it would be easy to fail to detect any progress at all. I'm going away on Friday to sit in on some Field of Battle wargaming, which should be a valuable and worthwhile experience - not to say enjoyable. More of that another time.

Mostly, I seem to have been sidetracked into doing Real Life things. I guess that includes watching a lot of football, now I think about it - we may debate how real that is.

I have, after a lot of lamentable foot-dragging, made a start on playtesting my developing, homebrewed, grid-based, Napoleonic miniatures game, which has spent a very long time being redrafted over and over. My thanks, once again, to Jay for his patience and his invaluable input, and now my thanks are also due to Martin and Dan Sarrazin, in Australia, who have started doing some playtesting for me (using Commands & Colors kit in their case) and have shamed me into shaping up and getting on with it.

Anyway, I've had a few evenings lately of walking through the exact, detailed sequence of what happens when a unit breaks from a melee (for example), and how it is different when that unit was in square or in cover (for another example). Instructive. I always knew that this process was going to turn up the need for a lot more clarity, which is probably why I've been dragging my feet. I've got used to revisions of the rules becoming smaller as the draft stabilised. Getting the soldiers and the dice on the table is bound to reveal a mass of holes, but it's all good!

Unless the testing turns out to be a complete disaster (in which case the game may quietly fade away), I hope to be in a position to report on some actual battles using these rules fairly soon. As I keep reassuring people (including myself), the aim is not to replace Commands & Colors as my game of choice, but to provide a slightly less blunt instrument with which to fight smaller, more detailed actions. To get back just a little into the world of lines and columns, and all that, when it is appropriate to do so.

In the pursuit of more light on the tactical niceties, I was reminded that I really don't know how the British Army of Napoleon's day managed to operate without French-style attack columns, so I've gone back to some good old standby books to brush up a bit.

I've also been reading a new book - a sort of memoir of Franz Joseph Hausmann, of the Napoleonic Bavarian army. This was translated and annotated by Hausmann's greatgranddaughter, and edited by John H Gill. It's interesting, and does fill in a lot of the "what was it like?" aspects of service in that army. Franz was eventually a lieutenant in the 7th Line Infantry. From 1812 onwards he sent his father detailed letters of his experiences - his father was by this time invalided out of service in the same regiment, and was keen to follow the campaign in Russia. Prior to 1812, Franz's personal journals consisted simply of lists of each day's marches. Much of the interest derives from extra information provided by Gill, and from family stories supplied by the translator.

Anyway, it is interesting rather than spellbinding stuff, and it all adds some personality and context to my forthcoming Bavarian force.

Elsewhere - and this really is trivial - I finally tracked down a little portrait of General Anne-Francois-Charles Treillard, a French Peninsular War cavalry officer who commands a division in my collection of toys. Treillard is noted, among other things, for having an unusual number of alternative spellings of his surname (though "Anne" is consistent throughout all versions), and for being famously portrayed by Robert Stephens in my favourite movie, "The Duellists".

Gen Treillard

I know this is silly, but I do like to know the chaps in my little armies. I've got portraits of most of my French generals now - I didn't have Treillard, and I still don't have a picture of Maucune (the head-banger who largely screwed up Salamanca). Maucune (real name Antoine-Louis Popon, Baron Maucune) was eventually a rich and titled chap, and I can't believe he didn't have his portrait painted, though it is possible he may have been very hard to please in the portraiture department. If anyone knows of a painting of the Baron, or if you happen to live next door to the family, please give me a shout. All I have is some detail on the family coat of arms, and a photo of his tomb, at Père Lachaise.

Maucune's final rest

Field of Battle - Rules Try-Out

Today, Count Goya - having a rare day off-duty from running his mysterious empire - kindly visited Chateau Foy to help with a first attempt at playing with my new Piquet Field of Battle rules.

It all went pretty well, really - I have to say I've been doing a lot of homework in preparation. These days I find new rules quite daunting - especially a game as unusual in style and philosophy as FoB. We had a small trial action - about a dozen units a side on a very simple terrain.

Trying out rules requires a bit of mental adjustment - you have to forget about playing a game - and never mind at all about winning the thing - the trick is to try all sorts of suicidal cavalry charges against infantry lines and all that - to see what happens. That is the point of the exercise.

With hindsight, I'd have been better to follow Mark D's advice and start with a game where all the leaders and units were straight vanilla - as it was, I decided to follow the randomiser rules and create forces with units of varying quality, just to see how it went. This places a lot of reliance on the little stickers bearing the information for each unit, so it might have been a good idea also if I had made the labels big enough to read more easily(!), but no matter - it's all a learning process.

Simple, minimalist terrain featuring low-kudos cork table-mat hills. Small field (boards
plain side up - they really are hex-free on the reverse, you see).

1809 Spaniards vs French - usual stuff. The Spanish army was officially classified
as Abysmal, with Leadership ratings and Sequence Card deck to suit.

Smoke markers indicate units which cannot fire again until a Firepower card turns up

FoB Quick Reference Sheet - my edited version - with (optional) Ninky Nonk attached

A gizmo, but a useful one - an electric shuffling machine, which makes short (though
noisy) work of the task of shuffling the (sleeved) cards to the standard necessary to keep
the game working. As an aside, I note that this machine causes interference on
DAB radio - maybe we should have bought a more expensive one?

The game, it goes without saying, is intriguing, well thought out and, I believe, worthy of study. We were slow and halting today, as we had to discuss how the rules worked, and double-check just about everything (the rules manual is big and thorough, but it is not always easy to find the bit you are looking for among the numerous examples), so it was quite hard work, but we certainly knew a lot more about the game when we had finished. Familiarity will make it a lot more slick and straightforward, I am sure; my main problems today were to do with lack of facility in identifying and selecting the correct poly-dice (and stopping the damned things hiding in odd corners of the table), and with the fact that I'm really not used to a free-form (non-gridded) game these days - certainly not without a knowledgeable umpire to hold my hand. However you look at it, measuring everything is a bit of a pain in the wassname, and so much of the action today seemed to take place in odd angles between units, where the lack of space and the alignments never quite fitted comfortably with my limited understanding of how the rules work. Entirely my own problem, I appreciate. I would be very shame-faced to be starting thinking already about how the game might benefit from being placed on a gridded board, but it is hard not to!

I shall persevere, and I'm sure it will all seem more natural and feel smoother next time. We used a very basic terrain, so there's not a lot to look at here - the photos are really just to prove we got it on the table, and came out undismayed! I'm looking forward to trying again soon, but an early priority for me is to get a look at some more experienced players doing it properly, and I'm working on that, hoping to set something up.

My thanks to Goya for his company and help, and most especially to Darren for his commendable patience and sound guidance over the last few weeks.

Separate Topic - Nothing to do with anything: when I was checking out the Marston Moor battlefield a few months ago, it occurred to me that it would be rather droll to have the battlefield monument appearing on the tabletop for the miniature game. Doesn't seem so amusing now, I guess, but I was impressed enough with the idea to order a suitable specimen from a model railway supplier. In fact the item was out of stock, and the matter dragged on for long enough for me to become unsure whether I'd actually cancelled the order. Eventually I decided I had, and thought no more about it. Marston Moor came and went - twice, in fact, if you count the postponed attempt when we were snowed off. Long after everything was finished and put away and written up, I received an email this week to say that my monument was now in stock and had been posted, and it duly arrived this afternoon. It's quite a handsome item, I guess - it will have to appear in a battle somewhere or other soon, but in the meantime here is a picture, simply to commemorate the passing of a half-baked idea and the uncertainty of medium-term memory. Regard it as a memorial to all those good intentions that don't quite work out. I think it is probably generic enough to serve in a number of contexts and centuries, so no doubt we'll see it around.

Memorial to an unexceptional idea