This Didn't Work

 Don't expect any updates here.

It just didn't work.

We learned from it, but we're going to try something new.

Standing Armies

Each player has been given a pool of AP to use to purchase units as he sees fit.  Each player was awarded three HQ for free, with the option to buy more.  Each standing field army must have one Commanding General, but Kings can assign a nameless HQ as a Lt. General to serve within the same army.  Or they can buy an additional "named HQ" to command a fourth standing field army to your forces.  A single nation could, if it wanted, start the game with six armies of 15AP, for maximum flexibility.  That would require some fancy footwork and coordination to keep individual forces from being overwhelmed at every turn.

Some kingdoms start with more AP than others, to help balance out the stronger map position.  Each player has been given at least enough AP to field two full armies with some AP leftover for flexibility.  Likewise, each kingdom starts with zero, one, or two navies.  

Bear in mind the tabletop rules assume two equally matched forces of 40AP fighting each other.  The way the rules of the tabletop game work, you'll want to have one HQ for every 30-40AP worth of troops.  You CAN field an army of 60AP, but one HQ will limit its effectiveness on the table.  A nation could start with one massive field army of 100AP.  Likewise, an army of 20AP can serve as an effective delaying force to halt the advance of a much larger army to buy you time for other plans to develop.

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

Messages have gone out to all five Kings that detail the last few bits of information needed to fire the guns that start this campaign. A couple of clarifying points for those following along at home.

You can think of today as the dead of the Winter Season.  The Kings are raising troops, positioning armies, readying messengers, and assigning Generals.  With the cold weather, everything has ground to a halt, but everybody knows that with the spring thaws, war is in the offing.  This gives the players some time to get their plans and houses in order.

Players have until December 31st to freely discuss their intentions.  After that, the game is afoot and all in-game communications should be sent via messengers through the Umpire.  For an example of the way this will shape the game, note that the Red and Blue kingdoms are on opposite sides of the map.  Their messages will have to pass through a lot of potentially hazardous territory, making coordinating moves between them difficult.

This will be a much more open-ended game than you are probably used to - a lot of unanticipated wrinkles and questions are sure to arise. The impartial Umpire, I'll make any final rulings with an eye towards maximizing fun and minimizing hassles for everyone involved. For example, Allied Contingents will be addressed as they arise.  The players will have to use messengers to work things out to the best of their abilities. ("i.e. I'm sending a messenger to a general ordering him to serve under an allied general.") This may make it possible to utilize a decimated army to some good effect against a common foe. If communications are not clear, we may wind up with some fractious battles where no clear chain of command allows a powerful army to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

For those of you new to the blog, what you're seeing is the strategic face of miniature wargaming.  The moves and countermoves that arise from this game will generate tabletop battles fought out and shown on The Joy of Wargaming.  The two games fit hand in glove, and exactly how they interact will be part of the fun and excitement of things.

If anyone else is doing anything like this these days, it's completely off my radar. Via the blog and the Joy of Wargaming, we might just be able to inspire a new renaissance in the lost art of this style of wargaming.

Not sure what else to add except to once again offer my thanks for following along with this grand experiment.

First Addenda - More To Follow as Questions Arise

The Kings have questions, and we've got answers.  The rules page has been updated to incorporate these clarifications:

1. Couriers can travel by horse or by ship, and freely convert back and forth at any coastal town (not just at port towns). The assumption here is that couriers are resourceful individuals who usually pass for locals and are not above stealing a small fishing vessel if that's what it takes to get the message through. Couriers travelling by sea can freely pass through unoccupied sea lanes, but are captured when trying to slip through an enemy held sea lane in the same manner as horse-riding couriers.
2. Heavy Foot is Heavy Infantry is Grenadiers. Those names are used interchangably.
3. AP not spent must be banked at a player's controlled cities. If that city is lost to a siege, then those AP are captured and may be spent the following winter by the capturing player. If a city that holds AP is under siege during the winter months, those AP may only be spent to recruit forces in that city.
4. Red lines on the map represent mountains and high ridges that are uncrossable.
5. The ships on the sea lanes mark port cities.  Might have made more sense to use anchors as the symbol. There are a number of coastal cities that are not ports.  Nightmute is a coastal city, for example, but not a port city. A coastal city might be converted into a port, but that would require a full year of control and a pretty hefty AP cost.

AN ARMY WITHOUT A LEADER IS HIGHLY VULNERABLE TO THE ENEMY.  An army without an HQ will not move to contact an enemy force, but may be attacked.  An army that loses its last HQ will either hunker down and wait for orders or will march to the nearest Home City for safety.  Reinforcements can be ordered to join an army already in the field and do not require a general, but again bear in mind they are very vulnerable with at least one HQ in the detachment.

The !French Take The Field

Not Necessarily the French Army wound up the most foot-heavy of the Trossian Successor States.

What they lack in cavalry, they make up for with an extra cannon battery and more heavy foot than anyone else.  

Fifteen line infantry (fire) and a whopping ten grenadiers (rear) gives them a hell of a battlefield punch.

Woah, Man. That's Deep

 

And how about some flavor for the fever of the not-Prussians?

The Gray Army Marches to the Sound of the Guns

King Joe send out the call, and the people of the Gray answer.  The littlest Huns have completed their training, but have received no marching orders as of yet.

The Gray Army in all its thirty-eight stands of glory

Proud generals backed by heavy guns

Lancers ready to lance the Trossian Boil

Heavy Foot to the fore, line infantry brigades to the rear

At 104AP total, the Gray Army has the capability of fielding a massive amount of firepower at any one time.  Whether or not they want to remains to be seen.  Managing the logistics alone would be a nightmare, and might force the GM of this game to break out a larger than normal battlefield.

Remember that these stands limit the numbers of any one TYPE of brigade within a single engagement.  They are not driven by historicity, but by the sheer practicality of things.  The real logistics happen with the real world, and making allowances for such real world nuisances as "limited resources" and "kitchen table space" is one way to enforce some game-scale limitations.  As above, so below, and where an army with nothing but 30 cavalry stands would be impractical in the game, the demands of the real world serve as a more iron-clad check on player silliness than any mere line of text in a musty old ruleset.

In all their historical glory.

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