The Great Game ( a re-fight of Waterloo)

Two weeks ago I had the fortune to be up in Glasgow as an umpire for the Great Game replayed. If you haven’t heard about this it was a massive re-fight of the Battle of Waterloo featuring over 22500 x 28mm figures on the table. 

The event was hosted by the UK registered charity Waterloo Uncovered. This organisation uses battlefield archeaology to help veterans of our armed services to overcome conditions such as PTSD. I met several of these chaps at the event and they all stated how much this charity had helped to turn their lives around. It is a worthwhile cause and I would urge anybody interested in what they do to check out their website.

http://www.waterloouncovered.com/

This post is going to be picture heavy as I have already committed to writing an article for Wargames Illustrated but I will report at the end of this post my observations of what I thought went well on the day and what didn’t go quite as planned. 

Perhaps these learning's can help those thinking about planning future type events.

Before I start with my picture board I’d like to pass on a few thanks.

Firstly I’d like to thank Guy Bowers (of WSS fame) for accepting my candidacy as an umpire. It was great to catch up with you in Glasgow.

Secondly I’d like to pass on my congratulations to all those directly connected to Waterloo Uncovered. You delivered a spectacular event and you deserve all the plaudits already mentioned across the web and national media. Yours is a most worthwhile cause and deserves greater prominence.

Thirdly I’d like to thank those directly connected to the organisation of the game. In particular Bill Gilchrist, Jack Glanville, Ian Beal and Donald Adamson. Your contributions were significant.

Next I’d like to thank my fellow umpires and in particular the Australian contingent who warmly welcomed me into their select circle for the four days.

Finally I’d like to thank all the combatants in the Great Game – they made life easy for us umpires with no fuss or bother.

The pictures - and remember my thoughts on what needs to be reviewed are at the end

1. The Set Up

200 tables in four rows down the hall

The topped with a very large Battlemat

On top of the battle mat were placed the buildings

The hall had the fortune of having a gallery upstairs so I managed to get a number of birds eye shots of the action - cheaper and safer than using a drone.

As figures arrived they were catalogued before being sent to the front....believe it or not the chap in the centre used to be the Chief Exec of a business I used to work for...its a small world

By the following day there were hundreds of boxes...well done to the team that managed this.

That afternoon and the following morning I was able to sneak in and get some pictures before the crowds arrived. Each brigade and division had a card denoting its starting position on the table. The Prussians are massed on tables at the back of the room

The Prussians (one of two tables)

The French started to arrive

You might notice the colours of the tshirts - blue for French, Red for Allies, Green for Prussians, and White for Umpires

There is an historical fiction writer in this picture and I think he was quite impressed that I I had read his books

The players briefing by Tony Pollard on day 1

Tony has been taking pictures of Napoleon's command stand all round the world over the past year - managed to get him to pose for a picture of it at the game itself

The Reenactors

The French

The Prussians

The British

The Great Game

All the following pictures are of the Great Game

Add caption

Some of these pictures were taken in the breaks when nobody was around

Close to the point where Napoleon Almost got captured

So what could be learned next time?

Black Powder (1 or 2 take your pick) is a great set of rules, simple to use and learn and delivers a result. However there were tweaks in the Great Game that caused some issues. The biggest of these was to ignore the core rule of Shaken brigades. As the rules stand once a brigade has either lost or had shaken more than 50% of its forces that unit effectively becomes useless. In the great game this was effectively ignored and only once the brigade was down to one effective unit would it retire from the field. This was done to ensure that players were kept in the game. Sadly it ended up ensuring an overpacked centre with little room for movement in an attritional battle for frontage. Recommendation keep the rule as it is written and get players to recognise that there commands could evaporate quite quickly. It’s the taking part that counts.

Secondly the distances on the table were stretched and the ruleset really struggled to cope in key areas. The actual battlefield is no more than three miles across and a man on a horse could cover this in less than 20 minutes. In an ideal world troops deployed on the far left should have been able to strategically move across the rear tables to the far right and vice versa. This was not considered and we ended up with a perverse scenario that it would have taken more than two days of gaming to order a unit successfully from east to west. It was less of an issue when attacking to the front but it did mean very little tactical movement in the game. Effectively you could only attack what was in front of you. Combine this with point 1 above and you end up with stalemate. When the French broke through into the Allied rear on Sunday morning they had no opportunity to exploit their success with reinforcements.

Unfortunately the gaming battlefield was completely flat but as any proponent of Waterloo would know it is an undulating battlefield with hills, crests, valleys and rises. These were printed on the map but extremely difficult to read and quite rightly the judging team decided to forego these features. We did however reach a compromise on where the key British ridge would feature – the edge of one table. This worked in principal but might have been better if the map was slid further to the south with the ridge occupying the central part of the second row of tables. This could have been formed from some simple sheets of polystyrene for little cost and place under the mat. Sliding the map south would have also created ore action on table three (hougoumont would have been on this table).

Finally the biggest weapon in Napoleons armoury was hamstrung by the rules. At no pint could he have built an effective grand battery. The 60” range given in Black Powder does not reflect the real ranges of the artillery especially when compared to the 18unch ranch range of muskets. For such a table I would have argued an increase in artillery ranges.

Did these issues impact the game – in part yes – despite arriving early the Prussians could never bring their full weight to bear on the French and with no rapid deployment of reserves commanders could only really react to what was happening in front of them.

That said, it was a fine game to watch and I know all participants had a great time.

Once again a big thank you to the organisers...

Until next time..

Hot off the Press

Morning All

Just picked up the latest copy of Wargames Illustrated and guess what....

They have featured my shed in the magazine - a full three pages. I wrote the article about 6 months ago and completely forgot about it. Thanks to the team at Wargames Illustrated

More soon

Battle of Barada River (28mm Crusades)

Last Monday night saw the Shed return to the Holy Land for a spot of Crusaders versus Saracens using the Hail Caesar Rules. To celebrate the game I ran the the cross of St George up the flagpole

The game was taken directly from the Hail Caesar rulebook - the Battle of Barada Bridge 1148.

In summary three crusading kings - Baldwin of Jerusalem, Louis of France and Konrad of Germany have decided to lay siege to Damascus in Syria. They have decided to attack the city from its weakest point which meant crossing the Barada River. Blocking their way to the river was a small force of Saracens holed up in the fields and villages. These could be joined by reinforcements from Damascus. The crusaders have to fight their way across the table before the vast reserves of the enemy can come into play.

I set out the table and forces exactly as the rule book stated. Typically a knight unit would have six figures, an infantry unit 12 or 8 and small light units four figures. I didn't have quite enough mounts for all the light horse so these are represented by 3 figure units.

The buildings are all from my rather stalled Khartoum project.

The following pictures are some snapshots of the action.

The defenders await the crusaders - Damascus lies in the distance

The first crusaders of Baldwin meet the enemy 

Saracen forces rush forward

The Crusader forces were numerous but could only enter the table at one point - a failed order meant the whole column would grind to halt until they could get off the road.

Once onto the table they could spread out and advance. The picture above shows two of the three divisions on the field

The first clash under the palms - a rather one sided affair as the Hospitallers charged into the lightly armed Turkopoles

But the Saracen forces were starting to mobilise outside Damascus. If you thought the Crudsaders had a lot of troops the Saracens had eight divisions. By the end of our game they were all ready to enter the table.

More soldiers of Christ enter the table - King Louis of France

Baldwins archers push up through the farmlands

With the Saracen advanced cavalry knocked out the defenders just sat and waited in the orchards

The battle outside the village was now in full swing. The advanced soldiers of Christ quickly disposing of the Saracen advanced guard but soon ran into trouble against the numerous reinforcements.

Trying to push on the Crusaders came under heavy fire from Moslem archers in the Orchards.

The Knights of Christ pushed on....

into another headlong melee - suffering more casualties and slowly becoming weaker

More Saracens crossed the bridge and lined themselves up to meet the invaders

Battle was raging across the village end of the table

It was time for the bloody infantry to earn their keep as thy marched towards the villager

More saracen cvavalry moved up to stifle the Crusader advance

Things fared better for the Christians as they forced their way into the orchards

It was at this point the game had to cease - the crusader cavalry had taken some hard knocks and with the Saracen forces massing for a counterattack we called a halt to the nights proceedings.

A short discussion later suggested the Crusaders would never meet their objectives and so a Saracen victory was declared.

In the scenario write up in the book it suggests the Crusaders won. They must have been extremely lucky. The sheer number of defenders puts them at a massive disadvantage.

More soon

Romans versus Britains Part 1

Hi Folks

I promised you news sometime ago about the next big project - Romans versus Ancient Britains - and here is the first posting. As before I'll add links to these so you can catch up if you miss anything.

The good news is that my wargaming mate Mark is also doing the same project (as per ECW) - its our aim to field the best part of 1500 x 28mm figures for this period by this time next year. Rather than just picking a side each we are both painting Celts & Romans.


As of today I have around 250 Warlord Games celts  - I reckon I am about a third of the way through painting these -

In addition I have around 40+ horse (a mix of warlord, victrix gauls, and I think renegade) - most of the horses have now been painted.

Plus the Brits need fanatics, chariots and some more armoured chaps. Victrix has come to help out with packs of these which are now assembled

and three bags of chariots (going to need more ;-))

these ancient britons are going to need slingers and archers so the following dark boys are going to be pressed into action with some head swaps

On the Roman side nothing has been started but the forces are now starting to appear

There is about 350 figures in this pile of plastic

More soon.....

Trying to get back in the groove

Lets face it the frequency of blog posts here has been terrible...I am, not going to bore you with excuses other than I seem to have lost a vast amount of spare time (if anybody can find it I am offering a big reward).

To combat this plight I have actually written three blog posts and these will get posted as and when required.

First up though are a few pictures from a Black Powder Battle we fought on Monday night (four players, approx 20 regiments aside) - this should have been relatively balanced but thanks to some fortuitous dice rolling by Alastair and Mark this was a rather one sided affair as they smashed Colin and John in just under two hours (probably the quickest game we have played this year).

I was on tea and umpire duty (practising for the upcoming Grand Game in Glasgow in 40+ days time).

Talking of which if you live in Glasgow and want to come and see 20,000+ 28mm figures on a humongous table you can buy tickets now from eventbrite. All money is going to charity

The evening tickets can be found here
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/waterloo-uncovered-night-at-the-museum-tickets-55893032565

I don't think they have released the day one's yet

Onto the pictures of Monday night

Most of the Brits stayed in Deep Formation (Albion Triumphant rules) and not surprisingly the French in attack columns

Thanks to all those involved