Technical Campaign Discussion (but not rules Q & As)

I've had a great response so far to the early January orders. I am awaiting only a few players orders to complete the turn:

Baird

Napoleon
Victor
Moncey
St Cyr

Castanos
Cuesta
Acevedo
Blake
Romana

Thank you everyone.

I did not receive any January information.

I've just re-sent it. Please let me know if you don't get anything within 24h. I can put the thing up on dropbox for you if this continues...

I'm now waiting on:

Baird

Napoleon
Victor
St Cyr

Acevedo
Cuesta
Blake
Romana

So that momentum is maintained I'll be closing the turn at 23:59h Sunday 29th March GMT.

Turn 16, late January 1809 is running. As usual I'll give this about 2 weeks, though if people are quick it could end sooner! Please note that 23:59h BST Sunday 19th April will be the close of the turn.

All communications from various corps and army staffs have now been sent to all commanders and diplomats. If you have not got anything from me in the last few days, please e-mail or PM me. Thanks.

Thanks to the prompt replies I have all orders in except for French VII Corps (Sean/St Cyr) and the Spanish Army of Cataluna facing them (Pepe/Llamas), plus Mike/Cuesta near Valladolid - this last position is critical so Mike can you please let me have your activity asap.

Holiday, at a time like this?! Need I remind him, the French wear blue...

Cazadore

Spanish infantry

Spanish Guards

Infantry at Talavera

Spanish gunners

Cavalry

Be very careful who you shoot at, Mr Moore!

Here's the overall tabulation of the success or otherwise of the French campaign in the Peninsular for 1808. The scoring system is in the main rules (Rule 4.0)

FRENCH WIN/LOSE SUMMARY

1808

Early June = Moderate Success [+0]
Battles (0) = [+0]
Late June = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (2) = Atalayuclas, Alagon 2 wins [+2]
Early July = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (3) = Valladolid 1 win, Ordal, San Milan 2 losses [-1]
Late July = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (2) = Barcelona 1 draw, Gerona 1 loss [-1]
Early August = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (0) = [+0]
Late August = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (3) = Vimerio 1 loss, Navalcamero, Sesena, 2 wins [+1]
Early September = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (1) = Calahorra 1 loss [-1]
Late September = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (1) = Aranjuez 1 loss [-1]
Early October = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (1) = Murcia/Gerona 1 loss [-1]
Late October = Moderate Fail [-1]
Battles (1) = Miranda del Ebro 1 win [+1]
Early November = Moderate Success [+0]
Battles (0) = [+0]
Late November = Moderate Success [+0]
Battles (0) = [+0]
Early December = Moderate Success [+0]
Battles (1) = Pamplona 1 win [+1]
Late December = Moderate Success [+0]
Battles (0) = [+0]

Total Score = [-9]

1808 declared a significant Allied victory.

Not a good year for the French, but if you look closely, we're certainly on a roll lately!

How does the campaign take into effect the Habsburg Resurgence?

I'd rather not say in such a public place!

OOBs and sitreps for the English and French have all gone out for early Feb. I have done some of the Spanish and will finish these tomorrow.

Its possible we could have a MONSTER battle soon

We're talking sprite ratios of at least 8, maybe 10...

Just for fun I have created a very small action set in the campaign in a very minor part of things. The battle is small and needs 3 players a side, a division commander and 2 brigade commanders each. We can play this Friday evening UK time (tomorrow) at 20:00 or 21:00. The two region commanders who are directly responsible are once again David Brewster and Pepe. No plans or prep is needed at all, for whoever turns up I can brief players on the night.

David, if you can make a later time or a different day over the weekend is better for you, let me know and we may be able to shift this to accommodate you.

Doodle here.

Unfortunately I'm working till 5pm tomorrow PST....which is much much too late for the European crowd. My digital troops will probably be better off without my ham fisted command tomorrow. Bon chance blue coats!

We going to try and do something regardless of who shows up Martin?

Yes, we have 4 players which is enough, 2 v 2 will work very well. 3 v 3 is best but we'll go as we are, though 2 more players are welcome, first come first served. I just tested the scenario and no-one has brought wet powder or lost their bayonets this time!

MJP has noted on the Doodle that he can only be there at 21:00 BST / 22:00 CET so we'll start then. Please be in TS by 15 mins beforehand.

YES SIR and thanks!

All updated OOBs and sitreps for early February have gone out. I'll let the turn run until the 17th.

Its just possible we'll have a battle next weekend

Following Santander there have been some changes in the French team. Patrick is going to take up the role of Marechal Mortier commanding V Corps.

I am looking for at least 1 more person to take up a French map command, possibly 2 but one is essential.

Please e-mail me or send me a PM if you are interested.

=========================================

As for the next turn - late February - I will get this moving asap. I had a long technical delay trying to unravel the Santander post-battle losses and recoveries until Niall came to my rescue with his expertise again.

Santander is a minor French victory due to them holding the field of battle in the evening and securing their own wounded as well as many Allied wounded and stragglers, however the Allies are not considered defeated at all as they accomplished all their objectives. I will be applying the defeat criteria against them for routed and captured artillery however. Their supplies are intact and their army is not demoralised, far from it.

If it were not for the loss of such a critical port-city this could even be considered a victory for the Allies where for the first time English and Spanish generals and troops co-operated together.

Note that for the next turn winter is over, spring and dry weather have arrived thus map movement rates will improve.

Apologies to everyone at the slowness of this turn. I am still processing winter attrition losses for all corps/armies and drafting the turn-end newspaper reports. I have been distracted by lots happening to me recently including meeting a new special person who is taking up inordinate amounts of my time. I need to manage my time better and allocate fixed times to processing campaign admin!

Please bear with me a little longer. To the new players who have joined us, please don't think these kinds of long delays are normal. I usually manage to complete a turn at least once every 3 weeks unless we have battles to fight.

Good evening Your Majesty, Marechals, Generals,

I have the first week in September booked off as leave and I plan to use that time to restart the campaign. I'll work on the assumption that everyone who was around for the last turn still is, with a couple of exceptions and command changes that I've arranged.

Any battles that are generated from this turn onwards, late-February 1809, will use SoW-Waterloo and the three KS Nap II Mods. It will still be useful for players to have SoW Gettysburg installed, and the pay-for add-ons as the more people have the old game the more variation in maps I can use.

The major work is to finalise the last of the winter weather attrition for some of the armies and to write up the early-February newspaper report. After that getting the turn updates out should be quite easy. The most work will be converting the OOBs to WL pattern and making all those tedious xml files but they can be converted as and when each army or corps get into its next battle.

If anyone who has recently joined us would be interested in a map command in the campaign and/or participating in the online MP battles, please let me know.

This has been an Imperial World Domination announcement; thank you for listening.

Great news indeed! I was fearing the true depths (heights?) of my strategic fiasco's would never see the light of day.

Looking forward to that Martin! It will be an eventful 1809's campaign season.

We too are ready. Now that we have the right maps. We were using a map of central Europe and just didn't think the Danube was so wide. Turns out it was the Mediterranean. Also explains why we could never find that one cavalry squadron who volunteered to find a suitable crossing. So we just ended up taking out a big piece of paper and drawing a circle in the middle, labeled it "Madrid" ... Good to go.