"General, you're holding the map upside down." never words a commander wishes to hear on the day of battle; and truly words of ill-omen. But it wasn't all like that. It all started with a call from Dick Bryant. The Courier, it seemed, wished to put on a genuine old-fashioned 30mm column line and square game in honor of the late baron Vietmeyer. Surely nothing could be more suitable. After all, the baron had written and powerfully defended CL & S, and I could remember yet his dire warnings about smaller castings and middle-aged eyes. 'We lost a 20mm Green Rifle battalion in a woods, Robert. We had to stop the game and search for it." So the game was suitable. As for players, only the die-hard cadre of the old Midwest Napoleonic Wargamers Confederation still had serious numbers of 30mm castings organized at 1:20, and of the cadre Bob Baldwin and I were the senior Historicon regulars who weren't renting booths. Would I be a Cin C? Sure, why not? Could I find a suitable old C,L,&S battle? Well, how hard could it be? Rummaging through old baronial archives) there was Maida--a little small for a participation game perhaps--Talavera (my own design) but, perhaps a bit large) and Fuentes--too far back even for me to remember. Copied everything, sent the copies to dick, returned the originals to Rick Vietmeyer, and forgot about it. After a while, a letter came back. I would command the British at Fuentes, game conditions enclosed. See? Nothing to it. Troops: I had the points but not the right units for the Peninsula. Could Dana Homo provide Portuguese to take the place of my usual Hanoverians? Sure, borrowed from someone else. And better-looking British than my old Scruby KGL brigade. Sappers would be a problem, since we were all basing by platoons now. Could Hap Jordan help? Sure. A rocket battery? Do I have to? Yes, I did, but Ted Haskell would provide. Good thing it was a small game. Rules: Still had mine. Artillery sticks: Rick Vietmeyer would loan out the baronial set. And a plan: 'British defend. Set on-between points w,x,y & z. French set on behind a,b.' well hard to read the letters on a copy of a copy of a map, but it looks pretty clear: hold a woods, a ridge and a town. Two brigades of British line, a brigade of Portuguese, a light infantry and a heavy cavalry brigade, with a fusilier and a highland battalion in reserve should be pretty historical. and about right tactically. Had no notion how many. players I'd have, or how experienced, but a brigade wasn' t a bad CL&S command, and all they had to do was hold their positions. Poor Bob Baldwin had the tricky part, trying to organize an attack by strangers. Comes the day of the game. I reached Lancaster the day before, so there I was calm, rested and ready, right? Wrong! actually. Tired and sweaty from lugging hundreds of 30's half-way across the Host Resort and semi-hysterical at leaving borrowed troops unsecured while I went back for the rest. Then I found out I'd read the map backwards. My set on area was a rectangle mostly in what I'd thought of as the French center, and we'd spend the first two turns advancing into a fog. Joy forever, unconfined! From there, things actually improved. Guess they would have had to. The Portuguese on my left deployed into a pretty credible defensive line. Fuentes itself held off repeated assaults. On my right, a brigade of British line vaporized on turns two and three but while it was touch and go for a bit the reserves were able to establish a good line and blunt the main French assault. As at Albuera, the discipline and firepower of British infantry were making good the deficiencies of their commander. The Portuguese, unsurprisingly got the dirty end of the stick. With their slightly inferior firepower they lost (barely) a battle of attrition with the French infantry, leaving one French battalion in unopposed possession of the game objective--the upper contour of the ridge. I had stolen the Portuguese cavalry support to reinforce the right where they never drew their sabres, and left in reserve behind Fuentes a battalion of fusiliers (which never fired a shot); but which were too far away to reach the critical French battalion by the final turn. The men had done all that lead could do. The fault was entirely my own. Lessons Learned 1. Study the battle. My copy of Oman sat on the shelf while I tried to pretty up castings. Five minutes' reading would Have clarified the game conditions. 2. Ask dumb questions. I should have stared at the map and written Dick Bryant until I was sure I knew what I was doing. 3. Never borrow castings. The added anxiety isn't helpful on Game days. I should have forsworn both history and appearance to use my Hanoverians and Brunswickers and my old Ugly KGL rather than sweat over these obligations. Down the Road, I am preparing "convention armies" – no, not like Burgoyne's! These are cheap plastic forces easy to transport and less aggravation if a stand or so goes AWOL. 4. The worst day spent wargaming (this was it) is still better than a good day at work. Map The Vietmeyer Memorial: Column, Line & Square Game Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #75 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com