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| Buddenbrocks Cavalry By Cirkwitz pond |
Things have been fairly quiet on the blog concerning the 10mm SYW project that dominated for much of the back half of last year. So what happened to it?
Well, work and my other work mostly. The first battle I was planning to do was Chotusitz 1742, the rematch between Frederick's now retrained and reinvigorated cavalry and Austrias more resilient Infantry following the near debacle at Mollwitz the year prior. It promised to be a better match-up and was a good planning target for getting units painted and on the table.
My initial OOB based on the Honours of War ruleset:
With the completion of the majority of forces, I set up my table and arrayed my forces:
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| Frederick's Main Body in their defensive position after arriving at the battle. |
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| Leopold defends South of Chotusitz proper |
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| Batthyani's Heavy Cavalry on the Austrian Left |
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| Daun and Konigsegg hold a powerful force in the center |
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| Liechtenstein threatens Leopold's position |
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| Battlefield viewed from the East |
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| Waldows cavalry streams south to support Leopold |
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| More on the Prussian left |
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| View of the Prussian left from across the Austrian positions |
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| Austrian Right |
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| Buddenbrock again |
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| Frederick's center position with Grenadiers holding the link between the lines |
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| View from the West of the Austrian Line |
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| Overall layout of the battle |
The overall layout for the battle worked out great, but there was one major hitch: There was no room for maneuver. My paltry 6'x4' table simply seemed overwhelmed by the mass of figures. The figure scale also meant that units and ranges would me large enough to result in decisive action in the first couple of turns. This is problematic as the battle requires Leopold and Buddenbrock to hold while Frederick and Waldow try to assemble their scattered forces and make it to the battlefield. I decided to try dropping the second stand from each regiment and cutting the movements and a ranges down using Honours of War's 6mm rules instead of my normal 15s. (60mm frontage rather than 120mm frontage for units) This resulted in a little more room for movement, and didn't adversely affect the layout:
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| "Improved" battlefield layout |
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| 'Diminished' east |
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| Western side of the battle |
The most important outcome of the decision is that I could now fit Frederick's divisions on the road coming in from the Northwest, so they could actually advance onto the battlefield as part of the scenario.
With the forces arrayed, the next problem presented itself: How to actually fight the battle? Studious observers of the blog may note that the majority of my games (with opponents of voting age) take place at Jon's in Spokane. This is primarily because 1. Jon has a larger collection and bigger table and 2. People actually live in the city and there are reasons to go to the city as well as play wargames. I actually live about 100mi south of Jon in a Rural area of Northern Idaho. I have not had a local opponent in several years, and the last time I managed to host a game was our first outing for the Italian Wars collection back in 2015.
So what to do? I had a plan, it didn't work. We shall investigate what happened with the next SYW update....
The collection looks fantastic, what a challenge you have too many figures š¤ the local opponent is a challenge, whilst I live in a small town I have managed to find enough like minded people within a reasonable distance. Keep looking, one option I have thought about but never actually attempted is gaming over the Internet, either on a turn by turn basis or live on FaceTime or whatever ? Might be worth a try
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough the next update is based on my attempt at an operational on-line approach to this game. Stay tuned!
DeleteThe battle layout looks terrific! Bathtubbing the forces to account for the ground scale and allow maneuver room works well.
ReplyDeleteHas it really been that lon ago (in 2015) since I was last in Moscow for a game on your table? Hard to believe, really. At least, you find time to make the trek to Spokane fairly regularly.
I think the difference is that when I come up to Spokane I usually have other things to justify the trip, or at least can arrange my schedule. Friday night fights worked well when I was actually coming up once a month for work.
DeleteAs for local games, the basic problem for me was that the people I gamed with moved off (or passed on.) and the old venues for historical wargamers (Wally's World, Hodgin's) are either gone or no longer support historical gaming. The brief period with an actual game store with table space down here generated a robust Flames of War community, but I found the atmosphere of competition over history unsatisfying.
The table looks great! Would holding the game in the garage in summer months work?
ReplyDeleteA local opponent within a reasonable drive (an hour) is an asset indeed! Of course, you can always grow your own. :-)
That would require the Garage/Shop to have enough available space for use. That is another project....
DeleteIt always comes down to time.