Project Waterloo: Genesis

     Shortly after Historicon 2024 games registration opened, John Spiess approached me on behalf of HMGS Next Gen, asking me if I'd be interested in running a series of games for HMGS Next Gen in Lancaster this year. The games would be held in the Foyer outside the Dealer hall, so very prime space for visibility. The theme for Historicon this year is "Historicon goes to the Movies". I knew that I would want top do a Napoleonic game, but the rules needed to be simple, with a conclusion rendered in 2 hours. Rifleman Harris would also be appearing at the convention, so the battle of Waterloo was the obvious choice. Oddly enough, in 55+ years of Wargaming, the bulk of it Napoleonic, I've never run played in a game based upon Waterloo. Well, OK we did the entire 100 Days as a Campaign in a Day back circa 2025, and Ligny that years well, but that's not really the same thing at all.

    The game woukld be run three times, with a 1 hour break in between each game. In addition, it would be a walk up game; no preregistration. The target audience would be youth and Novice gamers, although by no means limited to same. Given that, a gridded board was a must, and I figured some variation of Neil Thomas's "One Hour Wargames" might be the most suitable rules. 

    The next issue would be terrain. The buildings at Waterloo, particularly Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, and couldn't easily be substituted for with other pieces. We were  also limited to a 6 x 10 foot long table (I am hoping we may be able to modify that to  5 x12 feet at the show, but no guarantees). Any model of Hougoumont, in particular, that was in anything near 25 mm scale would be huge, and occupy 1/3 to 1/2 of the Battlefield!  OK, so how about 15 mm?  It turns out hey would also be enormous (There was one forced perspective 15 version that might have worked, but unfortunately the owner has been indisposed and was not taking orders.  That lead to finding a 10 mm version that would fit the bill (more about that in a future post)

    Next, how about a scenario? Although crucial to the outcome of the battle, form a game standpoint, I knew I could not include the Prussians. If Napoleon doesn't defeat Wellington by a certain point, the default is an Allied victory with Blucher's arrival. At the excellent Hexes and Miniatures site I found a scenario for just this situation for a hexed version of Sam Mustafa's Blucher rules at: https://storage.googleapis.com/wzukusers/user-19028574/documents/1d47dce8e2d841c89274f9eb11582147/Waterloo.pdf

    The scenario requires less than 30 units a side - enough to still be quite a spectacle, but still doable and leaving the players 10 or less units each to command. Finally, I plan to use quotes form the movie for "chance cards" to be played during the game. Thus the game was registered through HMGS Next Gen as "Waterloo in Two". There is still a lot to do for the game, but I am making excellent progress on all aspects.