I've enjoyed playing some loosely-linked scenarios with my modest Seven Years War forces, but I'd like to find a way to run a 'proper' campaign, albeit as simply as possible. I've been looking at the possibilities offered by a vintage board game : Frank Chadwick's 'Soldier King', which dates back to 1982. I thought to look at it because of its setting in a fictional version of the relevant period, and its simplicity.
This is 'a game for two to four players covering the war of succession in a leaderless empire. Each player controls one army and must struggle.. to capture a majority of the Imperial electoral cities, thus assuring his election as Emperor. Movement of armies is from point to point along roads and waterways, thus emphasising the key role played by lines of communications in the 1700s, the age of soldier kings.'
The armies consist of units of Infantry, Heavy Cavalry and Light Cavalry, and units may be have status of Levies, Veterans or Guards. There are rules for resolving battles , but of course if using the game to drive a campaign then the whole idea is for the battles to be played out on the tabletop.
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| The 'Estavian Empire': note roads, highways and rivers |
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| ..and in a little more detail |
The game map depicts a fictional continent , the 'Estavian Empire', but I don't propose to actually use it! What looks interesting is the very simple rules for movement, supply, recruitment and promotion of units. I'm thinking I could probably come up with a map showing a real ( or perhaps imagined ) region of 18th Century Germany, where Austrian and Prussian forces might contend for control. I wonder if the fine maps from Christopher Duffy's book on Marshal von Browne might give some inspiration here. Bohemia or Silesia, perhaps?
I like the game's very simple point-to-point movement system and the importance of river transport (perhaps often forgotten) as well as roads. I was recently interested by comments on campaign movement in Mr. Nundanket's excellent blog, which to my mind explains why such movement in this period seems likely to be mostly 'point to point', i.e one town to another - essentially the roads may be poor, but if you stick to them, you know where you will arrive next, and that's the most important thing!
I also think that the game's counter mix could be quite useful in generating armies - in the board game the units seemingly represent 10,000-20,000 troops each, each player starting with 12 units ( perhaps an unfeasibly large force!), but for a more limited theatre of operations, a unit could equally represent a battalion for Bob Cordery's 'Portable Wargame' rules, for example. There are no artillery units, but those could be factored into the battlefield armies in a pre-defined ratio.
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| Unit types: L to R Infantry, Heavy and Light Cavalry |
I have owned this game for a long time, indeed I think I probably bought it when it first came out thirty-eight years ago ( blimey! ), and I think a few games of it were played at the time with my then regular gaming buddies during my university holidays. I'm afraid it's not been played in many a long year, so it will be nice if I can make some use of it, even after all this time!
Not good news on the pandemic front here in the UK, so it looks like even more time at home as autumn and winter progress - our hobbies may help save our sanity. Keep well, everyone.
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