Many years ago when I was a teenager, there used to be a magazine called "War Monthly" which I would read in the newsagents as I was to cheap to buy them, though one of my friends did. One of them contained an article on the battle of Lundy's lane which described it as the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. I cannot remember a single thing about the article but it certainly left an impression and a longing. Much closer to the present day I come across "The Incredible War of 1812" and a monster was born.
The appeal of the War of 1812 is its size as there are no large battles requiring lots of troops. Further most of the battles are suitable for play with units representing battalions which is a scale that appeals to me especially big units. It is also a bit obscure but all its participants wrote in "English" so it is easy to research. Unfortunately its appeal is lost among the rest of those I game with. So I am going to do this as a solo project.
I would also like to explore a couple of ideas in its execution. One of the problems I have experienced in several campaigns was declining player interest. The approach that I am going to take is to split the campaign into years and theaters of war and each will be played out as sub-campaign that forms part of the greater picture. So we will start in 1812 with four sub-campaigns covering the sortie of the American Navy and three invasions of Canada. Each campaign will continue until either it has achieved its objective or admits failure. Now if time permits and the troops are fit enough a second campaign may occur in theater such as what occurred in the West after the defeat of Hull's invasion of Canada. Of course if you are like Dearborn then the whole campaign season will be wasted and nothing of import will occur.
So thats all for the moment. Next will the sortie of the American navy.
