Where does the time go?

31st January. Another month gone and not a wargame played!

I am almost ready to play “Corunna Bathtubbed” but I have to make several stream tiles. Checking my supply of spray paints I needed more green and brown, both for these tiles and the extra hills that needed to be painted.

When finally ready I intend to make up for lost time by fighting the battle three times with three different sets of rules. The first will be “Est-il Heureux”, the second the “Grenvile’s Kids’ Game” and the third playing will use Bob Cordery’s “Portable Wargame”.

Est-il Heureux was a game system that I designed for battle demonstrations at Napoleonic re-enactment events, using printed soldiers on wooden blocks on a free terrain. I later adapted it to a gridded table. I used to play these games in an open tent in the guise of a French veteran soldier, a pensioner of Les Invalides. My tale was that my game was seen by a visiting Prussian gentleman called “von Reisswitz”, which inspired him to create his own game…

Grenvile’s Kid’s Game is a simple game I developed to entertain the younger gentlemen of my current re-enactment regiment: Sir Richard Grenvile’s Troop of Horse. The game mechanics owe a lot to Richard Borg’s “Commands and Colors” games, but adapted to a 12×12 squared board. The cards are replaced by a simple dice activation system.

The Portable Wargame possibly needs no introduction to my readers. It has a large and growing online community on Facebook, and more information can be found on Bob’s blog: https://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com

More on the detail of these rules will follow in the forthcoming battle reports.