The Kingdom of Orbajosa

We are making a somewhat halting start to a new Imaginations campaign using the Warpaln 5/5 map cards, Theater of War by Piquet/Brent Oman for Army level conflicts in a fashion not yet entirely clear, and Piquet: Les Grognards for the actual battles, and other single figure type  rules for various alarums and excursions, skullduggery, and the like. In an effort to completely baffle the Tin God (Joe), I elected my new country to be based upon Spain rather than France under the Consulate. Hey, it's a good excuse to use my relatively new and colorful Spanish Napoleonic Army more! Each country's nominal Army is around 25 units of generally suspect quality. Naval matters await further specification. 

Flag of the Kingdom of Orbajosa.

Brief Background:

The modern day Kingdom of Orbajosa had it's origin in the latye 15th century, when control the last of the country was regained from the S'Mores following the successful Siege of Pomengranada by El Sid. This, along with the discovery of the New World and an influx of precious metals from the mines therein, triggered off the "Siglo de Gordo" (The Fat Century; sort of like Fat Tuesday, but lasting a lot longer...a lot closer to two centuries, in actuality, ending in the late 17th century, but whatever) during which literature flourished and great churches and palaces were constructed. Unfortunately. the inflation caused by bulk importation of silver and gold ultimately devastated the economy, and the country fell from being the leading power of the day to its present status of a backwater. The principal economic activities is the growing of fruits and vegetables; Garlic from Obajosa is world famous, and featured on the flag. Fishing, mining, and metalworking are other industries favored in Orbajosa. The country is more than 98% Catholic. In general, the population tends to be fairly poor, but are fiercely proud (for reason generally unapparent to outsiders).  

Cast of Characters:

Gonzalo I Cebolla, el Rey

Maria Apio, la Reina, aka Doña Perfecta

Rosario, daughter of Gonzalo y Maria

Diego, son of Gonzalo y Maria

Manuel de Gordo, Principe del Pedazo, Prime Minister

Don Carlos Inocencio, Foreign Minister

Don Pepe Pimienta, Minister of War

Don Juan Berza, Interior Minister

Don José Maíz, Commerce Minister

Don Pardo Guisante, Finance Minister

Mario Mazanilla, Minister of the Navy


Leading Generals

Cesar Calabazo

Fernando  Frijol

Pablo Patata

Luis Legumbre

Bartolo Brócoli

Lorenzo Lechuga

Vicente Zanahoria (said to have some remote Fuddlander relatives)

Map cards laid out; the Top is North; the lower row of cards to the South is part of Fuddland, and the country evidently extends another two rows of cards South from there. 

Joe's sketch map of the continent - A, B, and D are various non player territories. C is Orbajosa, E is S'Gottland (Greg), F is Dahara (Roger) and G is Fuddland (Barry, aka Czar Elmer) 

Political Map of the Northern part of the continent - all non-player states.  

Political map of the Orbajosa (pink), showing its four provinces, along with Bayern and Thuringia to my North.

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Similar maps of Dahara, S'Gottland, and Fuddland have been promised but as yet the Royal Cartographers have been unable to locate same. 

Link to the Campaign page on Joe's blog. 

LANNES Campaign: Set up for game 5 - The Battle of Wheeling, 1812

Part of Warplan 5/5 Card 12A; the atlas indicates that the distict is firm grazing land with fences and orchards. 

    At the conclusion of game 4 of our LANNES Campaign (Fitchwoods), [played almost 8 months ago, the determination of the next battlefield came up as 12A.14, the village of Wheeling. I recognized this location immediately, because Wheeling  was the site of the climactic battle of our very first Warplan 5/5 Campaign back circa 1971. Charlie (Red, using British figures) and I (Blue, using Bavarians and French - of course!) were allied against Paul (Green, using Russian Troops) and Chuck (Yellow, using Austrian and Westphalian troops).Charlie and I were attacking from the South,  with a significant numerical advantage, but that meant facing the walls of Fort Wheeling (12A.13) Fortunately, we had prepared for this and had our Siege train of 18 pounders  advancing through 12A 18. Meanwhile, Paul's main army was rushing to assist his ally, advancing from the East into 12A.15. 

    Notable events of the battle included Charlie's newly painted British Rocket battery shooting at Paul's lead unit, the recently painted guard Hussars, and by incredible luck managing to hit them with an air burst, causing them to rout and carry with them much of the Advance Guard of Paul's troops, and Chuck's C-in-C being severely injured and out of the battle, an event commemorated to this day by a figure in his uniform being loaded into a field ambulance! This battle was played on an 18 x 5 foot table (two ping pong tables end to end) in my parent's un-insulated attic in July, so the fighting was literally very hot indeed!

    The fort will play no role in this action, though. From the end of game rolls made according to the "pick up battle" set-up for Field of  Battle, Barry will have choice of side of deployment or orientation of the battlefield, and I will have whichever he doesn't take. I will have to deploy 2 command groups my first time laying troops out, and 1/4 of my command groups will be delayed D4 turns in arriving. As Barry noted, thus far in the campaign, if a side has had delayed troops, that side has always won!

    The status of my army at the end of the Batle of Fitchwoods is as below - as I had an advantage of 8 Morale Points at the end of the battle, I was able to modify 8 of my die rolls for unit quality upgrades, resulting in almost all units upgrading. The shaded 4 units are new reinforcements for this battle. 

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Unit #	Unit Name	DD	CD	Routs Caused	Final UI loss	Routed, etc?	End Game Result
1	Vendémiaire Line	D6	D12+1		2		DD+1
2	Brumaire Line	D4	D10	1			CD+1
3	Angoulême Hussars	D8	D12+1	1	2	Yes	CD+1
4	Ardennes Light	D6	D12+1				CD+1
5	Bordeaux Chasseur	D8	D12+1				DD+1
6	Chaumont Hussar	D8	D12+1				CD+1
7	Vertu 6# Ft Artillery	D6	D10				CD+1
8	Génie 6# HA	D10	D12+1	1			DD+1
9	Bouches-du-Rhône Gd	D10	D12				CD+1
10	Frimaire Line	D4	D12				CD+1
11	Nivôse Line	D4	D12+1	1	2		CD+1
12	Côte-d'Or Light Gd	D10	D10				CD+1
13	Rhône Light	D8	D12+1		4	Yes	DD+1
14	Morvan Dragoon	D4	D12+1				CD+1
15	Travail 6# FA	D6	D10				CD+1
16	Gironde Light	D6	D12		4	Yes	CD+1
17	Loire Light	D4	D12		1		DD+1
18	Dijon Chasseurs	D4	D12				CD+1
19	Opinion 6# FA	D6	D12		2	Yes	CD+1
20	Pluviose National Gd	D4	D8				Becomes Line
21	Rouen Chasseurs	D6	D10
22	Jura Dragoons	D6	D10
23	Nord Light	D4	D8
24	Ventose Line	D6	D8
25
General	Name	LD	Special	Hit?	Outcome	Year	End Game Result
C-in-C	Francois Faucon	D12	-	no		1799	NC
A	Simeon Souris	D8	poltroon	no		1799	Down 1
B	Fabien LaFerme	D12	Fabian	no		1800	Up 1
C	Rene Renard	D12+1	Fabian	no		1799	Up 1
D	Henri Hibou	D10	Fabian	no		1805	Down 1
E	Bernard Belier	D10	-	no		1807	NC

LANNES: Force set up and scenario for first battle.

Barry and I got together today to kick off our LANNES campaign, and rolled up the starting forces and Generals for each of our commands. First, here's what I rolled up for my command

FRENCH

Unit #	Unit Name	DD	CD	Routs Caused	Final UI loss	Routed, etc?	End Game Result
1	Vendémiaire Line	D6	D10
2	Brumaire Line	D4	D8
3	Angoulême Chasseur	D6	D10
4	Ardennes Light	D4	D8
5	Bordeaux Chasseur	D6	D8
6	Chaumont Chasseur	D6	D10
7	Vertu 6# Ft Artillery	D4	D8
8	Génie 6# FA	D6	D10
9	Bouches-du-Rhône Light	D6	D8
10	Frimaire National Gde	D4	D8
11	Nivôse Line	D4	D10
12	Côte-d'Or Light	D6	D8
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
General	Name	LD	Special	Hit?	Outcome	Year	End Game Result
C-in-C	Francois Faucon	D10	-
A	Simeon Souris	D12	Poltroon
B	Blaize Bassier	D8	-
C	Rene Renard	D10	Fabian
D
E
F

Next, here's what Barry rolled up:

RUSSIAN

Unit #	Unit Name	DD	CD	Routs Caused	Final UI loss	Routed, etc?	End Game Result
1	Line	D4	D10
2	Line	D4	D10
3	Line	D4	D8
4	Light	D6	D8
5	6# Battery	D6	D10
6	Line	D6	D8
7	Line	D4	D8
8	Line	D4	D8
9	Line	D4	D8
10	Light	D4	D8
11	6#	D4	D10
12	Dragoons	D6	D8
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
General	Name	LD	Special	Hit?	Outcome	Year	End Game Result
C-in-C	Boris Badenov	D10	N/A
A	M. Smartov	D12	N/A
B	Trembalalotsky	D8	Epileptic
C	Boramirov	D12	Heroic
D
E
F

Having set that up, we used the system from Field of Battle for introducing variety in to the Scenario. First, we determined the effects of  Fate. Each of us rolled 3 D4's for Fate, followed by a D12 for each.

French

D4	Decision Area	D12	Narrative	Effect
2	Strength	9	Numerical Superiority	Up1
1	Tactical Adjustment	10	Inspiration	Up 1
4	Deployment	3	Delay	Down 1

Russian

D4	Decision Area	D12	Narrative	Effect
3	Reconnaissance	5	Objectives	Down 1
3	Reconnaissance	10	Encircling Attack	Up 1
1	Tactical Adjustment	5	Outposts	Down 1

After that, each commander allocates a Die Type to each of the Four Decision Areas. As we both have D10 C-in-C's, We each had  D10, D10, D8, and a D6. The allocations were done secretly as follows - numbers in parentheses indicate the allocated die type prior to modification by the Fate process.  

Area	Fr Die	Fr Roll	Russ Die	Russ Roll	Result
Tactical	D8 (6)	6	D4 (6)	1	2 of winner’s Cmd groups may make Tactical Afjustment
Strength	D12 (10)	3	D8	8	⅛ of loser’s Cmd groups late
Recon	D6	5	D10	7	NE
Deploy	D8 (10)	6	D10	7	NE; winner gets to choose table orientation or side

Thus it appears that the French, while having overall superiority in numbers in the area, suffered serious delays due to administrative foul ups, and will be outnumbered well into the battle. Fortunately, the Russian outposts were very lax, and that combined with inspiration on the part of the French leaders, will at least allow them to refine their tactical arrangements once the Russian intentions are clear.

We decided to generate the Battlefields using our Warplan 5/5 cards. Rolling randomly, including several back ups in case a district that was all water or otherwise deemed mutually unacceptable, we determined that the battle will take place in district 28A.14, as shown below.

The Warplan 5/5 Atlas further describes this district as "Bleak rocky District - River Deep. Running through deep rocky gorges. Very poor road."  The nearby village is AINSWORTH (as in ains worth much, I think!). So this would appear to be the Battle of Ainsworth Gorge, 1799. The hills will obviously be Class III rocky hills, the River Class III fordable by Infantry only (it wouldn't make much of a game if unfordable, and Class III is bad enough!), with a single class II pine woods. When I set up the table, I will probably leave just enough room along the river banks for a unit (Light Infantry only!) to move in March Column on either side of the river. I don't think my advantage in Cavalry will prove much use in this battle!

This will be a 6 x 6 table. By the time we get to the third game, I think we may want a larger table. At that point I think we will just add one of the 2-4 adjacent squares, which we can determine randomly or by mutual agreement.