"The Seven Weeks War - refought as a wargame campaign" Topic

Having an interest in the wars of the later 19th century, and also having access to several thousand 15mm model miniatures representing the Prussian Army and their Austrian and Saxon opponents, I felt that with a bit of tweaking this might make a good wargame campaign. In particular there were many factors which could be modified to give the Austrians a better chance in a wargame recreation of the campaign. The scenario chosen for the campaign assumed that the Austrians would not make the same mistakes as their historical counterparts, and also allowed them to develop their own plan of campaign which, as it turned out, was very close to the worst case scenario envisiaged by the Prussian General Staff in their own planning for the war.

The wargame campaign took about 6 months to prepare, starting in 2011, and about two and a half years to play, ending in October 2014 with a spectacular Austrian victory!

Over the past two years a number of TimeCast customers and wargaming contacts have suggested that I publish the results of the campaign, as it was felt that it might be of interest to other gamers. After some consideration I decided to do so – here are the results. I hope it inspires an interest in the period in other gamers.

Click on the link for the web page:

link

Barrie
TimeCast

having access to several thousand 15mm model miniatures representing the Prussian Army and their Austrian and Saxon opponents

Lucky man.

Thank you for sharing. I've read a bit about the war, from several aspects. It is even mentioned in the diary of "Walter". I salute you on your achievement in creating and then running the campaign over such a period.

Excellent! Bravo!

Very cool!

I will have to share this with a friend of mine, he loves gaming the various European wars prior to 1900.

Fabulous!

If Trotman's Wargaming in History did not already have a volume on the 1866 war, this would be a worthy candidate.

WOAh!!!

The map link inside in itself is worth gold.

very interesting…

I hope Bruce W. 59-66-70 did see this.

Does it rain a lot near Newbury?
Jc

WOW. The Austrians encircled a Prussian concentration and eliminated it. Pretty cool!

Thanks so much for posting this.

Barrie, this is a formidable achievement. Your players owe a huge debt to their dedicated and knowledgeable umpire.

What is especially impressive to me is that you managed not only to succeed at the campaign level, but also to generate so many good tabletop games from it.

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
link

Very neat!

Thanks for posting

There are three things you need to run a successful campaign:

1. Preparation (aka Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted). Take time over the initial setup and things will run more smoothly.

2. Select the players carefully. Players in my campaigns (I have run several covering the FPW and 1859) are invited to play. I only choose players that I know, who I think would make a good player or who are recommended to me by other players. The players are enthusiastic and committed to the game.

The worst thing you can do is throw a campaign open to the average wargame club members – after the opening moves players will start to lose interest (particularly if they have been defeated) and the game game will slow and eventually die.

3. Time. the campaign took me an average of 12 hours work per week to administer, plus extra time when things were busy setting up the games etc.

Anyway, I am glad that you found it of interest. I was rather pleased with the result!

Barrie