Bourlon Wood

We played on Saturday night a WW I "monster scenario" (at least for the Mud & Blood standards) loosely simulating the British efforts to gain control of Bourlon Wood during the Cambrai Battle. I said "monster" because it involved over 100 minis per side and, as I initially feared, it was an oversized game that did not fit well with the scale of Through the Mud and Blood.  That translated into a very loooooong game that we need to cut abruptly after almost five hours playing, ending with a clear advantage to the German (as you will read below) at that point.

On our way to the frontline

Exciting week-end ahead as tomorrow evening we will celebrate one of our regular "Longest Nights" at the club (see previous reports in the blog). This time it's me organising and umpiring the game and I have chosen a really large WW I scenario located around Bourlon Wood in Cambrai (1917).

To increase the level of "fog of war", but also to smooth the game (there are a total of 8 players confirmed, 5 on the British side and 3 on the German, which is large number to tame), I have appointed two C-in-C, ione for each side, and they have supplied specific orders to each member of their respective teams. Orders will have to be implemented and would only be changed by the C-in-C using runners. We'll see how this works, but in principle that should  limit players taking advantage of the "wide battlefield view" in their decisions.

As you may have noticed, I'm not providing now details of the scenariom and that's on purpose: do not want of  the players get any intelligence of the enemy forces they will face tomorrow. So, lots of tanks, artillery fire, gas and, of course, the brave infantry. We will play with our favourite set of rules "Through the Mud and the Blood" from the Too Fat Lardies and I expect to post a fully illustrated AAR early next week.

Napoleonic Blog

Now for something totally different and far away from the Lard world, the key themeof this blog. I want to call your attention to this blog on the Napoleonic Wars with a strong focus in the Peninsular War or "Guerra de la Independencia", as we call it here in Spain. Don´t get misguided by the name of the blog ("Project Leipzig 1813) because it covers all the Napoleonic Wars period.

The author is a long-time and well-known, as well as deeply knowledgeable, Spanish wargamer, Rafael Pardo; and if I'm not wrong (my memory is not what it used to be), he  was one of the first Spaniards to use Internet in the late 90s-early 2000s to share his passion for the hobby and history (ans science, his true profession).

I have recently returned to wargaming the Napoleonic period with Lasalle ( I was not really hooked by the TFL rules called "Le Feu Sacree" when they were released last year) and I cannot recommend more you all becoming a follower of Rafael if you like this period of history. Hope you find the blog enjoyable as I did.

WW I Contemporary Documents Site - finding gold?

In addition to painting, collecting and gaming with minis, one aspect that brought me into this hobby was history learning and research. Actually I'm an economist by profession (and this has allowed earning a good life so far), but initially I wanted to be a historian and if not now a professional in that field at least I have developed myself as a good "aficionado".