FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE FIGHTS: RAMILLIES, 1815, GAME DAY PRE-FIGHT

On Friday night last (29 September) I ran the final tune up game for our upcoming October club game day event. The hope was to get as many core members of each of the sides together for a final practice with the rules and to run a scale version of the game under the same victory conditions so that everyone would be versed in the situation, troops, and mechanics. Unfortunately, life hit several of our members in the forehead at the last moment, so we didn't have a full turnout, but it was still quite good, with six players. 

Playing for Team Prussia, above left, were Mike (white shirt), Bob, and AJ (just out of picture), of AJ's Wargaming Blog. Playing for Team France were, above right, from left to right, Earl (otherwise known as "boxcars"), Ralph, and Pete--who was on loan from Team Prussia. The game was held at AJ's (who graciously offered to help) on his big game table: 12' x 6'. One of the major objectives I was after, aside from the earlier ones, was getting a look at the figure to space ratio on a larger table...

 ...the main table on game day will be even bigger: 20' x 6'.  I  downscaled it onto AJ's 12' table, and deployed roughly 2/3 of the troops to see how things fit.  I was concerned about not having enough troops for the space on game day. As can be seen above, the troops quite handily filled the 12' table, with space to maneuver.  I now don't have any worries about having too few figures for the larger table on game day!  There will also be connecting tables on each side to add depth to the game as well (but more on that in the AAR after it happens). In short, the exercise achieved its ends--oh, and it was a fun game on a Friday Night, too!

 

Continuing from his streak on the last game night, Earl's dice were red hot. If he keeps this up on game day, it will be "game over" for the Prussians!  Given the number of troops, we didn't get to a conclusion, but still got a good feel for the flow for game day.  

If you're curious about the title of this post, Ramillies, 1815, the scenario is based on an alternate version of the 1815 campaign that I concocted---mainly to justify putting all of my Prussians on the table against most of my French--don't we all strive to have a game where we can lay out all of our stuff? I'll give full details in my game report in the wake of the event. So patience, dear readers, until then...

Excelsior!