PotCXIIpouri

 I've been asked if the title of yesterday's post was an instruction to Gamage's not to sell or display martial toys any more. Sadly the store - which I visited regularly as a child, and was quite possibly where I first developed my love of the small shiny figure en masse - has long gone. The title was more an allusion to the refrain in the Proclaimers' song 'Letter From America':

On the subject of toy soldiers on the tabletop, we are two thirds of the way through a peninsular Napoleonic game in the legendary wargames room, hypocentre of such activities in the lower Wharfe valley. James posted some nice pictures of the first night here, and he certainly took some more last night so there may well be another post in due course. This is almost all of his collection (as it stands at the moment obviously) and was a feast for the eyes. Personally I thought we could have done with one or two fewer French guns on display, but perhaps I'm just being churlish. It's been a good game, swinging backwards and forwards over the two evenings. We - the British - took a bit of a hammering at first, but have in the last couple of turns dished it out. If I was going to draw any conclusions about the current state of the rules it would be that attacking is rather hard.

Gamage's No More

 The following newspaper clipping has come into my possession. Can I make it clear that I in no way condone the sentiments expressed, except of course that I like to see large numbers of toy soldiers on a table.

I believe that the year is 1915; I wonder if they were saying the same thing by Christmas 1918. It's also interesting to note the sexism which they've sneaked in among the warmongering. The Daily Sketch was absorbed into the Daily Mail half a century or so ago. It provided the downmarket bigotry which when added to the Mail's existing establishment right-wingery (they of course are the paper that supported both Hitler and Mosley) produced the current appalling publication.

Ethics

 "In any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action." - Jerry Pournelle

Valeria Messalina

 I have in the past compared the goings on at 10 Downing Street with scenes from 'I, Claudius' (see here and here). I am going to do it again.

Messalina was Claudius' empress and he was ignorant of, or turned a blind eye to, her ruthless ambition, rampant promiscuity and the fact that her selfish political machinations had caused the deaths of many innocent people. Eventually her faults became so obvious that the Praetorian Guard were sent to instruct her to commit suicide. She couldn't summon the courage and so in the end they did it for her (*).

The bumbling Claudius, elevated far above the level for which his talents and competence befitted him, is represented in this analogy by the Conservative Parliamentary Party. 

* Sorry about the lack of spoiler alert, but if you watch the 1976 BBC series - which you certainly should - then it's best not to get too attached to any of the characters.

Une Bouffée de Fromage

 One thing that often occurs in our small (but growing) regular games group - and I suspect we're not alone - is that when one side announces that things are looking so bad that they are inclined to give up it is immediately followed by the wheels coming off their opponent's master plan and the party of the first part ends up winning. Well, it's happened again; quite astonishingly Vimeiro was won by the French.

"D'you know who's going to win?"

Obviously I was exaggerating for effect when I said in my earlier post that I thought my command would be destroyed in half an hour, but not by much. The morale rules are, shall we say, complicated but what it boiled down to in this scenario was that was either side could win by breaking the morale of two large and one small command group of the other side. Reviewing the table at the start of the second evening's play - whilst collectively laughing contemptuously at the Prime Minister - it was easy to believe that the British would achieve this quite quickly. However, from the off the dominoes, cards and dice seemed to have other ideas, and their progress was slow. It was still progress though and eventually they had broken two divisions and the French commanders (James and I) were moved to launch a number of columns forward into melee just to do something while we were waiting to lose. Perhaps inevitably those forlorn hope charges succeeded and before we knew it we had also broken two divisions. In the end it came down to who was first to cause a couple of UI losses to the other, and it was us. It gave a bit of tension to the evening and one player (no names, no pack drill) got quite excited. For me, it was a bit gamey: in both senses of the word.

However, having said that, let me make two points in favour of the way things panned out. Firstly, there has to be some mechanism for ending the game. If not this one, then what? Secondly, the aim of the rules, and the reason we're doing all the playtesting, is to give victory to those who do what commanders of the time would have done; or perhaps it's better to say that it is intended to deny victory to those who don't do what was done historically. In this case the relevant factor would be cycling spent divisions out and fresh ones in. The British had the chance to do it and didn't do it. From that point of view things worked out appropriately.

Cast off

 I have been doing some more casting.

The different shades are because the resin has just been poured and is curing. Later on, and for the first time so far, I had a batch not cure properly and have to be thrown away. I suspect that I wasn't concentrating and didn't mix it thoroughly enough. I shall therefore pause and reflect before doing any more.

"Always draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency ." - Franz Kafka

Vimeiro, eh what?

 James alternates a bit, when putting on games in the legendary wargames room, between made-up scenarios and historical refights. We have therefore replayed numerous battles from the Punic Wars, the Italian Wars, the Seven Years War and so on, none of which I had ever heard of before let alone knew anything about. Even when we got on to World War II we only ever fought Sidi Rezegh. However, now he has painted up a very large number of Napoleonic units I'm in with a shout. And so we are half way though Vimeiro, sort of. As you will know if you have read his blog he has given the French a chance by allowing all their attacks to go in at once. It doesn't seem to have done them any good, and nor has my knowledge done me any good, but I shall wait until we've finished the game to explain why. What I would say is that his mechanism for forcing the French to attack in the right locations if not at the right times is quite inspired.

The big question was what changes he would have made to the rules, and he didn't disappoint. As a quick summary:

• The movement rules are far better and lifted directly from Black Powder
• The morale rules are much better, but I still don't really like them
• The skirmisher rules are certainly the operationally slickest that we have tried, which is a result in itself.
• And for no reason that I could establish he has changed all the names of the cards, resulting in much confusion. 

So, we resume again on Wednesday when I might take some photos. I shall have plenty of time because I anticipate my command not lasting more than the first half hour or so. In the meantime if any of you are in communication with James you can get on his good side by asking him which card allows you to carry out a small sapping task and whether it costs any initiative.

Besieger Gun Emplacements

 There was consensus around a couple of issues following our siege games. One was to make the game a bit quicker by starting with more of the siege works already in place and the other was about how close together siege guns could be. As I think I've mentioned before, the rules are agnostic when it comes to terrain; you play with what you have. The way I did it originally was to cast the embrasure piece separately so it could simply be slotted into trench lines when required. It turned out to be one of those ideas that were better in theory than in practice. As well as leaving the guns a bit too far apart it was quite fiddly to place on the table. So I have decided to cast up some proper gun emplacements.

The trench sections are 10cm long, so my first thought was to make the emplacements 5cm. However that's not quite wide enough for the guns and crew. In addition, I used bits and pieces from the Italeri Battlefield Accessory Set when making the masters for the trenches and saps and wanted to do the same again for consistency. That decision led to 6cm being a more convenient width and so that's what I've gone with.

The only other materials used in the masters are foamboard and Polyfilla, all covered in a couple of coats of wood varnish. I have ordered both silicone, to make the moulds, and polyurethane, to cast up some models, and will crack on when it all arrives. I'm tempted to make a mortar position while I'm waiting.