The Battle of Cloppenhammer - A game in the making.

With a bundle of time on my hands I have begun planning our next big Napoleonic bash. I rather saw this coming so the last time we three Marauders met I ran out a brief questionnaire about what the boys wanted from a big game. The expectations of spending five weeks or more on a single gaming experience sets high expectations and deserves to be planned in more depth than I can usually devote to scenario writing.

This post & the following posts will cover, in no particular order, my thought process in creating a scenario and when some semblance of normality returns I'll report on the game as it unfolds.

Step 1.  - Create a map.

Note that this is my Step 1 - where I started, you may well have a better point of germination!
Youtube is a brilliant resource for we wargamers. I found a magical fountain of fantasy map creation for D&D players primarily, many of these are tutorials on drawing them, I tried and was sadly disappointed with my efforts! Digging further I found a review of various FREE map making tools. Now, I am a 52 year old luddite so this was a bit scary. Enter my 20 year old daughter who is a gifted illustrator - with her help I managed to create to map below in about 45 minutes. Check it out by searching for Inkarnate free maps making etc. (Links never work here!).

The area of operations around Cloppenhammer.

We'll use this map to jockey for position with various French & Austrian Corps to bring about a battle and battlefield. My chums are busy coming up with nearly believable names for the villages, I made up the names of the four towns & river - something I am strangely fond of! This represents a fictional area of campaign in Austria 1809.

I'll expand on the use of this map nearer the time we use it. Next up I'll give you a run down of the two armies in some detail with a rationale where I have one.   

I also plan to get some uncharacteristic WIP posts up of the growing 10mm collection & any other semi random Napoleonic gubbins.

Any questions just ask. Very best wishes to you all, stay safe,

Jeremy