Aides de Camp from the latest Piano Wargames Kickstarter, which ends in less than 14 hours.
Over 100 messages that I had I typed up, took quite a while.
I did not get all the messages. Unfortunately, Wittgenstein had thrown out the ones he had.
I am sure others did the same... and I noticed gaps, where i have replies but do not have the original message.
Still, very interesting and tells the story of the battle of what the Generals knew.
Some fog of war at its best.
I find it interesting if you filter on a commander like Wittgenstein, you can see when he received information; that is after a 10-15 min delay that I used to relay messages. He found out that Blucher was under attack at the Altenburg table around 12:01 (12:15), and that came from Yorck, not Blucher. We kicked off at 11:30 am so it was about a half hour for Ney to get to the next table. Same for Tormosov, about 20 min to get to his 1st table, Dresden, and then another 30 some minutes to get to Altenburg with a Transit town in between.
Some commanders have no messages. That is because they had Napoleon riding with them.
I numbered the messages by team. you can see the Allies sent out twice as many messages vs the French over the 1st hour of the campaign. (24 to 12).
The Allies messages go silent after 2:30 as either Wittgenstein was killed, or he had just assumed command of the Barclay troops and did not have time to continue to write messages. Or he realized every Corps was locked in battle at that time.
I need to dig into more analysis, like compare these to the transit logs.
What a cool record! The kind of thing you love to find five years after having played the battle...
ReplyDeleteNot too different from the research historians must do to piece together events after the fact!
DeleteA very interesting perspective of events and one worth preserving.
ReplyDeleteThe message log is always interesting!
DeleteGonsalvo -
ReplyDeleteFascinating story emerges from messages like these. That this is not a comprehensive list - messages gone astray and/or records destroyed - is probably what happens anyway; but it does leave certain gaps in understanding what went on. This whole project has been a joy to follw.
Cheers,
Ion
No matter how much we remind players to turn in their messages, some get discarded, others exit in players pockets, some just get lost. Yes, just like in actual fact!
DeleteLove your blog! Really appreciate all the resources you share!
ReplyDeleteRegarding multi-table play, were the C-in-Cs issuing orders (rules-as-written Snappy snappy) or was it more informal/implied? I wasn’t seeing formal orders in the messages above. I’m thinking about running a small campaign in a day, and wondering how people make it work in practice.
Thanks, glad you are enjoying it! We don't use the order hierarchy in SN for these events, and allow the commanders to interpret the orders from the C-in-C (as well as messages from other subcommanders.
DeleteTake a look at the Australian small SN Campaigns in a Day if you will have no more than 6 - 8 players. (Under Snappy Nappy Down under near the end of the "campaigns" page).
Happy to be of assistance with your event if you like.
Thanks for the suggestions! My son and I had fun with a single-table SN battle and now I think we’ll try something larger with friends.
DeleteYou could probably do it with as few as 4 tables and 6 players using the system they used "Down Under". What size figures do you have?
Delete15mm French and Prussians. Back when I first got into Napoleon’s Battles, 15s were the thing. If I were to do it all over again, I’d do 10mm. I’ve rebased for SN by mounting 2 NB inf stands into 1 SN base.
ReplyDeleteHadn’t seen the Australian blog before—thanks. I think I can pull together 3-4 tables and 6 players (plus me). If I ever get my Anglo-Dutch minis painted, I’ll finally do a 100 Days campaign.
Although I use 25's, 15's work great for SN, as would 10's.
DeleteI love the uniforms too much to do the smaller scales! :-)