Map Campaign Part 3

 No, I have not given up on the map campaign, The First Elopean War. While I admit that most of my time had been spent painting of late, what stalled the campaign most was trying to organize it. To be honest, I sort of rushed the moves in order to get to my first battle and so I kicked some organizational tasks down the road. Well after the first battle all of that came due as I could not really pick up where I had left off with complete confidence. So I basically started over, so to speak, by calculating where every unit was.

But in order to do that accurately, and not end up with the same issue every time I stopped for a battle, I needed to fix my maps. The hexes needed grid numbers on them so I could make references in my campaign diary as to where each unit was on any given campaign day.

Reorganizing

At first I tried putting just the row letters and a few column numbers on the map. That worked for a little while, but I found myself counting hexes so frequently that I decided the only logical thing to do was note all the grid numbers for each hex that I would use. As the campaign rules require you to stick to the roads in order to maintain supply, I really only needed numbers for each town, city, and road hex.

Although it is hard to see without clicking on the images to expand it, there is a letter followed by a number for each of the hexes containing towns, cities, and roads. Now I have an easy reference for unit location. Needless to say, this took a bit of time to modify.

Once that was done I could go back and create a campaign diary, listing each unit of each army, by day, and note their position on the map.

In this example I have a section for the weather, by day, and the entry for April 3rd for the Westonian Army (which mobilized first and it attacking Eastonia). Each entry shows the city where units were starting, which city they were mustering into Brigades, and how many companies, by type. On subsequent days they would show hex grid references.

Here it shows units in motion, plus the two Brigades that have fully mustered by April 12th (and with Brigade SeLasTraga in battle at Firnskuppe, Eastonia).

Campaign to Tabletop and Back

As I was mulling over some of the comments on the blog and in Facebook (both the Solo Wargaming with Miniatures and Wargaming Neil Thomas Rules groups)

Hearkening back to the discussion about how Neil Thomas treats casualties in One-Hour Wargames (OHW), the real losses to personnel do not occur until the unit has taken quite a few hits or has been eliminated from the board. I decided that I wanted to revamp the table. Rather than focus on losses in 'companies' I decided to keep the units whole and track the number of hits it had.

Given that the initial hit losses, according to Neil Thomas, are morale and not very many men, most of those hits can be shrugged off.

OHW Combat Result	TSWG Campaign Effect – All rolls are 1D6
6-10 hits remaining on Infantry or Cavalry	Lose 5 hits on '1'.
1-5 hits remaining on Infantry or Cavalry	Lose 5 hits on '1' or '2'.
Infantry or Cavalry removed by musketry	Lose 10 hits on '1', 5 hits on '2' or '3'.
Infantry or Cavalry removed by Artillery	Lose 10 hits on '1' or '2', 5 hits on '3' or '4'.
Infantry removed by close combat	Lose 10 hits on '1' or '2', 5 hits on '3', '4', or '5'.
Cavalry removed by close combat	Lose 10 hits on '1', 5 hits on '2' or '3'.
1-5 hits remaining on any Skirmisher	Lose 5 hits on '1'.
Any Skirmisher removed by musketry	Lose 10 hits on '1', 5 hits on '2'.
Any Skirmisher removed by Artillery	Lose 10 hits on '1', 5 hits on '2' or '3'.
Any Skirmisher removed by close combat	Lose 10 hits on '1' or '2', 5 hits on '3', '4', '5', or '6'.

Note that Mounted Skirmishers count as Cavalry for casualty determination in the above table.

As it stands, the outcome of the first battle has not changed. Neither unit lost any hits permanently.

Campaign Progress

On April 14th, after having regroup from the clash at the town of Firnskuppe, and being joined by additional forces, Eastonian forces close in from the East and South onto Firnskuppe in an attempt to harass the Westonian vanguard garrisoning the town.

Meanwhile, East of Nuevo the Westonia Brigade NoSeLasTraga clashes in the woods with Eastonian light cavalry.

Again, this will be two clashes in which the Westonian forces outnumber the Eastonians. The latter are desperately trying to hold back the Westonian armies while the Eastonians continue to muster units and form their one brigades.

I will post the battles on my Solo Battles blog, as I experiment with more techniques for solo gaming.