Table top campaigning

Many years ago when my eyesight was better my friends and I got into wargaming with 6mm figures, my personnel collection is mostly Napoleonic and Microarmour. Now we play 15mm and are thinking that that perhaps they are a bit small and hard to paint and 25mm is the way to go. So the 6mm sit in their boxes high upon the shelf all but forgotten gathering dust, even ebay does not appear to interested in them.

Is there any way to make use of them? Perhaps there is, though the ideas I am going to try to outline here are still very rough.

Currently I play Sam Mustaffa's "Might and Reason", as well I have played his Grand Armee along with other brigade size rules such as Napoleons Battles and Volley & Bayonet. Indeed my 6mm Napoleonics are based on 15mm Napoleon Battles bases. My basic idea is to shrink these games from inches to centimetres. Normally this is done so that large battles such as leipzig can be done on a single on a single table or to allow smaller tables to be used. As such little on modification needs to be done to any of these rules to play a game at this scale. The basic 9x6 foot wargame can become an area of about 15x22 kilometres under one of the might and reason scales of 12cm to a mile. This translates into a hefty slice of southern Saxony from the border to Dresden.

For a game at this scale visability and hidden movement are important considerations. The naked eye can distinguish a mass of troops at 1700 yards, infantry and cavalry can be told apart at 1300 and uniforms at 500. With a bit of fudging this can be translated as the number of brigades can identified at 12cm, the type of brigade at 8cms and the subtype at 4 cms. So anything outside 12cms can be hidden from your opponet. Hidden units could then be replaced by a column marker of some sort. A column can be divided into 2-3 sub-units consisting of the 1st & 2nd lines and an optional advance guard. When two forces are within 12cms each player announces the number of brigades in their 1st line while all troops in 2nd remain hidden. The 2nd line may in fact be a dummy.

I like the idea of allowing for players to use a screening force and outpost lines, but the more I think about the more complex it becomes. A player can use a small column for the same tasks.

Not all troops should be deployed in columns. A static garrison can be just identified as such rather be sub-divided into 1st & 2nd lines. Further you can then roll to randomly reveal them to the other side. The idea being that eventually information about static garrison will leak out.

Once players get with 12cms then combat becomes a possibility but they will only know how many brigades are deployed in each others front line. A player may at this stage decline to advance further or they may commit themselves to move forward in order to establish the strength of the second line. Rather than move straight into fighting the battle have simple competitive die roll between the players. If the defender wins then the attacker has failed to gain any intelligence about the defender. Some possible die modifiers are:

1. Stronger front rank
2. Cavalry superiority
3. Controlling the high ground
   

While an area such as described above is tempting as a game. The problem exits that at this scale it may still not be big enough as it barely a days march across. Now while moving to 2mm or even cardboard may appeal to some and may be a good idea at least part of the idea is to use what resources I have and to maintain some visual appeal. It remains to be seen if it can work within the limitations I have set no matter how artificial.

Of course there is always room for more chrome. Some possible chrome are camps, convoys and lines of communication. Camps provide for a player to hide the number and location of troops in plain sight of his opponent, though with the problem that if you loose your camp and its associated baggage you will have to retire from the table top. Convoys provide supplies as well as the opportunity to conduct operations such as the destruction of supply convoy during the siege of Olmutz. Finally at least for the moment is lines of communication which traditionally was an objective that you wished to drive your opponent away from.

One major drawback to this as a campaign system with separate battle resolution is the need for two tables.

This could work really well if also linked with a siege that can also be played out on table.

The game would work with an umpire, even possibly without one.

So there it is, a bit rough as I said earlier and not without its flaws. But I think it has some possibility and feel inspired enough to start looking for a scenario for a test play.