"The wargame of a lifetime - Waterloo 200 weekend" Topic

Dear All,

This weekend 20 wargamers from all over Australia met for the culmination of a 2 year project to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of Waterloo in the grand manner. Its taken most of the week to come back to earth from cloud 9 and wade through all the photos of the megagame, but the batrep is finally ready:

link

Rather bloody superb that.

Gorgeous!

That's the business Sparks!

What a spectacular game! Truly an event!
Larry

Very well done! Our group could get that many figures on the table, but not of that quality and accuracy for the battle. Again, very well done.

Amazing game – and outstanding minis

Awesome battle. The figures are great. Thanks for posting.

Really impressing planning and preparation! What an amazing game! Thanks for an inspiring battle report :)

What a great game!!! But after all that preparation in time and effort to not be able to complete the battle seems so sad. However, if everyone playing was satisfied…who are we observers to complain.

Beautiful battle !! I enjoyed your pictures and report. It is a shame you didn't get to finish … I wonder who would have won????

Thanks for sharing,
Mike B

Great looking game and event! Well done to everyone involved!

Incredible the amount of miniatures, all painted to a great standard. And the terrain is great, too.

I couldn't even find one person to play a commemorative game with this week, let alone 20! Color me jealous.

That looks an absolutely amazing game. You folks have done yourself proud. Did you use any special modifications to BP rules that you can share?

Wow, just wow, what a game, looks like you all had a dandy time & nice batrep too

Wonderful game Sparker. Have always enjoyed your blog and this battle sounded great fun. Thanks for sharing.

Sparker,

Well done shippers…been looking forward to seeing the results of your megalomania. Now have a nice cold beer!

"That'll do pig"

Awesome. Congratulations to all involved.

Question: In retrospect, did you think the French plan of concentrating so many units on the one table may have contributed to being unable to complete all 12 moves by, effectively, slowing the game down?

Also, hope the guys who contributed scenery for the other tables weren't slightly miffed that the major part of the action took place on one table? 8-)

Thank you all so much for your very kind comments.

Yes it was a shame not to complete, but, stacked against the memory of a superb weekend experience, with very real mateship with my team and huge respect for the opposition, not the end of the world!

Yes the reason the action slowed down was undoubtedly the tight focussing of the French main effort on one table – all the other tables were finishing their moves 20-30 minutes earlier each time.

However I have since done much soul searching around this and remain convinced that if we had gone for more historical tactics of an infantry assault here, a cavalry assault there, and committed the Guard in a third place, the game would have effectively been over for the French team by close of play on Saturday!

Any special Black Powder rules? Over the last 2 years we have trialled and debated about a dozen! But each time we discover an unintended consequence and so made the decision to abandon 'house rules'….

However, whilst perhaps guilty of quibbling, we did adopt lots of 'conventions':

1. Artillery long range was extended to the gun's poundage in feet – 12 pounder having 12 foot, 9 pounder 9 foot, and so on. Medium range for all calibres remained at 3 foot to limit the effect of grazing fire per Albion Triumphant 2.

2. Cavalry frontages. Most of us base our cavalry in 2 ranks of 3 base files, giving quite a large width, whilst BP does not specify whether a Cav unit is in column or line. We therefore allowed such a unit to squeeze through a gap 2 bases wide in an effort to beat congestion.

With regards to the scenery, well Terry, as Uxbridge, was always going to end up where the action was anyhow! But no, everyone remarked on the rare feeling of actually looking up from the action in their sector and actually having to squint to assess the progress of the Prussians in the far distance – great stuff (even if they marched far too hard for my liking!)

I wonder who would have won? Me too! It really is hard to say, I think it all depends on the dice – if the Guard had managed to speed march to the end of table 3 in those 4 moves remaining, I doubt the Allies would have had the resources to prevent a breakthrough…

But what then? Push onto Brussels with the Prussians sitting on our lines of communication?