Cuatro Cervezas, Por Favor!

Last night we got going with our four player Peninsular War Campaign. I gave you the heads up on this in a post on 16th July. You might want to read that again to recap on how it was set up. 

As it was, last night went surprisingly well: The rules, at least the ones used so far, actually worked.

So the campaign was set up with the main army pins in their jump off positions. This is not the campaign start position. Before turn one there was a set up turn. The end of turn card was removed from the campaign sequence deck (36 cards) so that each army would get two activations and each player would collect two campaign event cards. The only stipulation for play was that no one could initiate a battle or move into an enemy victory point area (marked with a small blue yellow or red pin). The set up turn was a good idea. Firstly, it allowed the players to decide how they wanted to try to get into position prior to kick off (rather than have me, as player and campaign master, deciding this for them); secondy, it gave everyone a run through of the cards in the campaign sequence deck and how the game would work (including the small amount of book keeping required); thirdly, it stopped a breakneck dash for battle before everyone was 'ready'.

After the set up turn was over this was the strategic position. 

At the start of the evening I had told the players that if required there could be a second set up turn if required. We took a vote, requiring a majority, for a second set up turn: It was rejected unanimously. The game was afoot!

Note that there will be movement impeding torrential rain in the region of Extemadura until it lifts (white pin with rain cloud): Extreme Wet campaign sequence card: Occurs on a roll of 5+; region is determined randomly on a D10. Clears on next appearance - then re-roll. Causes a -1 move dice modifier; rivers in Extremadura and downstream are in spate. There is also an Extreme Heat card - which has the same move modifier and does the opposite to rivers.

Now things took a bizarre twist. The only thing that happened in turn one was that Soult turned both his activation cards before the End of Turn card came up. The card deck was shuffled. First card out, End of Turn. Two end of turn cards back to back. The card deck was shuffled. First card out, End of Turn. This is from a 36 card deck! 

Now in some campaigns, with a calendar running, this might have made some eyes roll over but, in this campaign there simply isn't one. Campaign turns are simply that, and how long they are in 'campaign time' is elastic and will happily remain a mystery. When it comes to campaign time scale this has been my view for a long time because in so many wargame campaigns battles simply happen too frequently. With elastic time, where a turn can be a week or three months, you can brush this under the carpet and not give it a second thought; likewise, when three End of Turn cards pop up one after another you can say each turn was a week, or even a single day.

Turn four threw up two potential battles. I tried to force my way into Valencia by moving Suchet against Freire around Sarrion. The single road approach makes Sarrion a good place to defend, and Peter had chosen it well. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring him to battle (I failed to roll 4+). Damnably slippery, these Spaniards!

Then, from Manresa in Catalonia, O'Donnel successfully moved against MacDonald who had crossed the frontier to Vich in the set up turn. Both sides now rolled for concentration. The Spanish concentrated F2 (2 divisions) into Manresa for the attack. The French rolled to concentrate 4C (1 division) into Vich but rolled low. They will not be available in the upcoming battle until after the second appearance of their Stratagem card - and even then they will be in off table reserve. 

Next, we rolled up for table terrain. Now here, to save prep time, I cheated a bit. We are using the terrain maps from Sport of Kings and Bohemian Blitzkrieg published in the Age of Reason rule books. I chose four pages of table maps (17 table maps per page) for open terrain, three pages for mountain terrain and two pages for closed ('woody / farmland') terrain. This battle was in mountains so we rolled a D3 to decide which page of mountain maps to roll on. Then we rolled D20 to decided the actual table map. A result of 1-17 would correspond to the maps on the page by reading them off in order (note they are actually numbered 1-100 but we were ignoring this); a result of 18 - 20 would give the defending player the choice of table map from the randomly decided page. Mark rolled a 2, which corresponded with map 87. Note: The table for 87 is the two squares directly to either side of the number - each being 6' x 6'. 

After rolling for 'on the day' command quality (Peter rolled average for O'Donnel; Mark rolled skilled for MacDonald), the players rolled off adjusted D6s for table edge and who would deploy first. Mark won with a 3 Vs 2; neither side had doubled the other so Mark chose to defend the 96/98 edge and will deploy first.

Obviously, early 19th century military maps were not all that accurate when it came to the actual topography of the area concerned. They were a guide. At least that's my explanation.

Here are the hills as best as I could get using my insulation board hill sections.

With the cloth thrown over, it's not too shabby a representation of the map. 

The slopes on the hill sections have a gradient of around 1 in 3, which is pretty close to the natural 'drop' of the cloth over the shapes. So that the shapes can be easily picked up, I've gone round the contours with some flock (I'll pick this up with a mini-hoover after the battle is done for re-use later).

Then, on with the rest. The streams and bridges (there are no major rivers on the campaign map so none here), were put on first; followed by the roads; then the villages; then the woods. I might dress the steep rugged hills with some rocks and scrub later.

Note: Road networks are not as important in my rules as they are in Age of Reason so mine, whilst following the basics of the map, has been simplified.

Mark's three French divisions under MacDonald, less his cavalry division (two units of cavalry - type to be decided at random on fight night).

MacDonald's 'reserves' - 4th Division under the tardy Sebastiani. I fear Mark might need these earlier than due.

Peter's five divisions of Spanish under O'Donnell, less the cavalry division (three units of cavalry - type to be decided at random on fight night). 

Next Wednesday we will determine cavalry types, followed by divisional commander and troop quality (a single D6 roll per unit). Then the players can depoly (hopefully quickly) and the battle of Vich, the first battle of this campaign, can begin.

Ideally the battle will last one and a half sessions giving time to get the next campaign map move in at the end of it. Keep it "rollin'. rollin', rollin'", as they say.

After this battle, just about every rule will have been tested. We will have a chat and, if the players are reasonably happy that they are fit for purpose, I'll make them available on request.