CinC Lefebvre - Missing in Action

Campaign update
I suppose it's not all that unusual when a campaign falls apart after the first battle occurs. The meshing of a campaign system to a tabletop gaming really does attach two quite different games together and requires a fair amount of commitment from numerous people.

In any event, the game has been on pause for a few weeks now. I think the primary problem is so few people are set up to game out the battle themselves. This puts a high load on Gavin, who I understand is working a fairly new job with a much larger commute. It's hardly fair division of labour considering he has a family AND needs to debug the system.

Here is the writeups by Mike and Gavin.

At this junction we see another source of trouble for the campaign. The system wasn't explicitly built around the tabletop ruleset. This gives more flexibility by using #'s of troops and an ambiguous fatigue factor but it means that decision have to be made about which rules to use and how to port results back and forth. I think this has also stymied the campaign given that the result have not been re-inputted into the system.


Rules
This first/last battle was fought in 6mm with principles of war (which I managed to track down a copy for myself as I was interested by what I had found online HERE). One of the things that appeals to me about this system is the requirement for orders to be given to your formations. Between the orders, and the blinds, the variably amount of actions a given formation generates and the difficulty in changing orders for units you create a fair amount of friction in changing the battle plan on the fly. The use of blinds as either deployed or marching (basically is the rectangle lengthwise or width wise) seems very appropriate for the era. I'm hoping to get to a point where I can get in a game or three myself. I managed to find another example of play for a different era here.

Gavin/Mike noted (if not in their writeup then in the campaign forum) that the forces involved were a bit too large for this system. I know that Malcolm's campaign (the progenitor of this one) used napoleon's battles (the system I've been working towards for my own 15mm naps).

Figures
One of the nice results of the campaign is that I've been making progress on painting up my own napoleonic figs. It's a pretty steep cliff you need to ascend to start playing in terms of numbers though. I'm working towards playing a 'small' napoleon's battles scenario with a friend in town, Marengo. The requirements for the french player include: 200 infantry, 12 command stands (of between 1 and 3 figures), 1 artillery base (~4 figs), and 36 cavalry. This doesn't include the breakdown of cavalry and infantry into their different types (light, line, hussar, etc).

I intend to get some pictures of the progress up soonish.