Following the path of Catalonia Stands Alone – 1713-1714: the Catalans' War ( link ), it has just been released a new free, PDF format booklet focusing on the Peninsular theatre of War of the Spanish Succession. This time though, we've chosen not to publish any uniforms & flags guide but a complete, willingly self-contained long term campaign. This new booklet has been assigned no. 3 in our so-called Desperta Ferro! collection ( desperta-ferro-ed.blogspot.com ) and given the name of Defiant Principality – War of the Spanish Succession miniatures campaign. For consistency reasons, it has been formatted in a style closely similar to that of our previous works, and registered under a Creative Commons license too.
The campaign ruleset itself is labelled as a long term one because it might easily last for quite long, up to 12 or even 24 months, at a rate of 1 turn per week. It is supported on a hexed main map and is inclusive not only of the basic movement and supply compulsory rules, but it also deals with population inter-actions, civilian unrest, side changings, sieges, supply lines and diplomatical inter-actions --in a way we believe quite simple to learn and easy to manage. A few significant historical events have also been included as random, due to the dramatic influence they would have exerted if happened at a certain stage of war, but many others else might be easily introduced too. The booklet is comprehensive of complete OOBs for both sides at the battalion level, as well as adequate ratings for either units and leaders. Finally, some thoughts on eventual reinforcements for both sides are also explained.
With the aim to give to the Catalan side some chances of victory, their Regular units have been slightly upgraded with respect to their enemies'. Also with such re-balancing purpose in mind, the historical unbalance of forces has been reduced from 6:1 to a quite more convenient 3:1 [icon] --although massive Two Crowns reinforcements can still be drawn up to the historical 68 Spanish and 62 French regiments of foot, albeit at the price of a not less massive loose of victory points.
The booklet's title of "Defiant Principality" has been straightly inspired by the what-if campaign a gaming mate and I are currently developing through a weblog of that very same name ( what-if-catalonia.blogspot.com ), which is affiliated to the Emperor vs Elector 18th century Imagi-Nations community ( emperor-elector.blogspot.com ). Comments and suggestions from other EvE players have allowed us to expand our game far beyond the ruleset itself and our own expectations, thanks to the resulting diplomatical intrigues and plots set after the campaign events. Naturally, we are by no means able to express on the ruleset such fertile inter-actions --or the amazing roleplaying developed by an independent RPG group who've developed some thrilling stories in co-ordination with our own wargaming activity… All this goes far beyond the humble purpose of our booklet --no other than sharing our own, intensely enjoyed experience!
Defiant Principality – War of the Spanish Succession campaign can be downloaded from this page: link . Absolutely for free.
builds a cutter and a corsair, both in 1/1200 scale.
