Planning a Mini Campaign.

With the Crooked Valley Campaign drawing to an end, my thoughts are turning to something a little grander in size. This map, again from the excellent 'Programmed Wargame Scenarios' by Charles Stewart Grant, has this fictional peninsular and that got me thinking, a dangerous thing for me.

The map is drawn in a similar style to the more linear Recon in Force scenario I am currently finishing. Only this time a square grid is used to allow for grid references.

In the text, Charles does point out that each square represents a five x five feet table, presumably the size he used at the time. But as the map has no obvious scale, those squares could be of any size. Now most of us, but not all, have rectangular tables of various dimensions and each of those squares can easily be dissected, horizontally or even vertically, to give a rectangular table. So potentially two or four table tops could be made from one square. i.e. northern table, southern table, eastern table and western table, all from a single square of the map.

This would allow battles to be fought east to west, but not have to fight length ways with a narrow frontage, you simply set the table up with a vertical line down the square at the point where the two forces meet. As long as your wargame table, matches the terrain in that rectangle, the orientation is irrelevant.


Closer look at the top half of the map.

A larger scale campaign such as this, involves a lot of extra work, we have to keep track of movement, time, weather, supplies, care of wounded, the character of individual commanders and a whole host of other information. Movement on the main map, has then to be transferred to the table when required and the battle/skirmish fought.


Bottom half of the map.

I have read many times that although a campaign is very satisfying to play, they rarely end up being played to completion. This is due to a multitude of reasons, from people getting bored or simply dropping out, it simply goes on longer than many people had planned or have time for.

Playing solo nullifies the chance of the the latter happening, but of course has its own drawbacks. One person, namely you, makes all the decisions and all the moves, there are no secrets...or are there? Returning to the book, it actually gives a series of programmed moves for the enemy force, be it the attacker or defender. These depend on various situations, closeness of friendly units, which of two possible enemy formations to attack etc.
I will probably adapt the programmed moves somewhat, as well as the map and forces involved, but that is all part of the fun and enjoyment of a project such as this.

This evening I shall make a start on my map, an adaptation of the one shown, not for me fancy software drawing programs, but pen, paper and pencil crayons for me, I am after all a Luddite with anything remotely technical, the fact that I am actually able to complete a blog post, complete with photographs, is a mystery to me.