The Eventual Table and a Scenario. . .

The basic set-up with a few Zichenauer officers and Magister Militum tent pavilions, to provide a sense of table dimensions.

Well, I just couldn’t resist setting up the three folding tables late last night, to gain an idea of how much area they occupy, before I went to bed. So, in the first photo this is what you see – an area 72” x 90”, which, when covered by the planned two foot square sections of MDF board (painted light green), will become 72” x 96”. A lovely 6’ x 8’ of gaming space. More than I’ve ever enjoyed before. I’ll space the tables out a little bit before placing the MDF boards, so there are no unsupported edges that might catapult soldiers and scenery into the air if I carelessly lean on them.

My good friend on Vancouver Island, Jeff Huddelson, mentioned in a comment yesterday that I might be able to have even more space if I purchased a fourth table. It’s an idea I really like, but I want to leave enough room to move around all four sides of the planned table comfortably. The set-up you see above will be in the central room of Zum Stollenkeller, where the Grand Duchess will also have her long awaited bicycle repair shop, so I’ll be (deliriously) happy with 6’ x 8’.

Gosh, when I was in my late teens, during the early 1980s, I had no gaming space whatsoever and had to use my bed. Granted, it was a double-sized mattress and the figures were 15mm Napoleonics, but it just never quite looked right to me, especially after ogling all of the photos of Peter Gilder’s tables at The Wargames Holiday Centre pictured in Miniature Wargames, Military Modelling, and the catalog Peter sent when I wrote him a letter. A real, hand-written letter. My, how times have changed!

Jeff also asked me some days ago about whether or not I had a specific scenario in mind for the inaugural battle here in Zum Stollenkeller . Well, after paging through C.S. Grant’s Scenarios for Wargamers the other night, I think I have the answer. The next meeting between Stollenian and Zichenauer forces will be a version of the “Bridge Assault” with, perhaps, a detonation task for that as yet unpainted battalion of pioneers.

So, to set the scene, picture something like this:

Following their defeat at the frontier town of Zollamtstadt last December, the remnants of Stollen’s understrength army withdrew into the Stollenian interior to regroup and await reinforcements. Since then, the Stollenians have been spread out around the small town of Pelznikkel, which lies astride a tributary of the Lesser Zwischen River, along the main north-south road into the Grand Duchy of Stollen. For its part, the Army of Zichenauers occupied Zollamtstadt, augmented its invasion force, and made friends with the local barmaids and serving wenches during the winter and throughout much of the spring.

With the arrival of the traditional campaigning season, Zichenau’s ruler, the conniving Princess Antonia III, is urging her generals to pull up their stockings, push farther into Stollen, seize the capital Krankenstadt, and bring her the head of, “That lobster-suited idiot Irwin-Amadeus II on a silver platter!” Meanwhile, Irwin-Amadeus, his ministers, and generals have been hard at work since the winter, formulating a plan to halt the white-coated Zichenauer hoards before they can reach the heart of Stollen.

Will their painstaking work succeed? Will Stollenian forces be able to rebound and drive Zichenau back across the Lesser Zwischen River? Is Irwin-Amadeus really the fool that he seems to be? Well, you’ll have to wait and see until the late summer.

Grant’s bridge assault scenario requires a total of 11 units of infantry, 3 of cavalry, and 7 guns. So, what I hope to do is ask a few area gamers, of some renown, along with a few of their units to Zum Stollenkeller where we’ll slug it out across the table. Barring that, I’ll use my own troops and substitute an infantry company or cavalry squadron for each of Grant’s units and halve the number of guns. In any case, there is a fair amount of painting, table assembly, and scenery creation (a few more hills) remaining before any battles can be fought here in Zum Stollenkeller. With that in mind, I’d better get going on that unit of Revell Prussians waiting patiently on the painting/radio table behind me!

Once again, General von Kallweitschen is telling Colonel O'Malley how to go about the "proper" deployemt of light troops, a business that the Colonel knows very well already. Some guys just never learn!