Here we are again. At the moment, we're in the process of play-testing a system of computer assisted game rules. We should have the results to you next issue. As you may know, I am interested in several related fields. So, since I know EE&L reaches a wide audience, I'd like to ask our readers something. Does anyone know anything about radiocontrolled model boats? I'm planning to build an RC Confederate ironclad that fires. Can anyone out there help? I can't decide whether to build it from scratch or to build the superstructure over an existing hull?
Now that that's out of the way, here's another place for you to blow wads of money. Model Expo, Inc., Box 1000, Mt. Pocono Industrial Park, Tobyhanna, Pa 18466, is mainly a supplier of model boats but they supply all kinds of art and modeling supplies at very reasonable prices. Besides boats of all levels of complexity, they sell all sorts of accessories in all kinds of scales, fortress guns, launches-neat stuff. After you order, you receive a flier with lots of wonderful sale items.
One thing that came to me from so many years of playing first with 54mm plastic ACW figures in the 1960s, as well as Airfix and Scruby's, and now, with the assorted sizes currently in use-is that we went from scales of 1 = 1 to 1 = 10 to 1 =20-and after that I couldn't take it. 50 to 1 -give me a break. Yes, we know about the cost of figs, but bigger battalions just look better. Which brings me to my point: when you scale down to some sort of representation of a military formation, what are you trying to do? Division or larger masses of troops can become an Avalon Hill style mishmash of troops that just sprawl and "soak up" casualties. Abstract regiments cannot form into realistic formations.
What to do? Stick with the idea of a company stand. Throughout the Napoleonic Wars, a company was the basic unit of maneuver and formation-that's what counted. Stick with that and with some kind of roster system. That will work for just about all periods-and it gives you the nicest looking armies.
Ouch, 'tis the first day of '94, and I have a little tidbit of lore for the holidays. While lounging at our second house in the wilderness of PA-where there is awful TV reception--I was watching the Rose Bowl Parade, and I mentioned to our esteemed editor the fact that all those marching bands owed everything to Napoleonic bands. Yes, sir, all those drum majors look like hussars and grenadiers rolled into one, not to mention that the bands themselves must be the largest consumers of shakos in the world. The next time you see them march by on the tube, remember that's one of the living inheritances of the Empire. Scary, huh?
ELECTRONIC WARGAME PROBLEMS
An interesting problem came up in a phone conversation with one of my mysterious sources. For once, this has nothing to do with the business side of the hobby.
Now, as much as some among us talk about the purity of the hobby, we are all guilty of the grossest "fantasy mongering " the moment we deviate from an historical fact.
Right, let's see those Aztecs charge the Romans again-how historic. But, be that as it may, in the best tradition of an "Alternate Universe," my friend is attempting to construct a "what if" scenario of 1815 based on the "sideshow" forces in the Waterloo campaign.
Anyway, he called to ask me what I knew about such stuff. I had to reply that, outside of the main performance and Grouchy, so far as I know little has been written that is available in any popular literature. One thing I did know about the time and place-because I had at one point asked our Beloved Elder Editor about this-was that leading out of Paris a small network of "macadarnized roadways" existed back then, and for that matter they still exist today. These were actual hard surfaced roads-built by capitalist running dogs and the government-and they seem to have been around for some time. They were the best thing to come down the pike (sorry about that) since the Roman roadsprobably didn't have painted lines though. Well, that's something that wargamers have ignored for ages. However, Jean will rectify this omission in EE&L 6 or 7.
And as for 1815, does anyone have any good sources for my friend? He'll probably have been destroyed and defeated by the time you read this, but still, the information is bound to prove interesting.
More and more, what really appears important in a realistic game is a Command and Control System (or the lack of one functioning). In a lot of the magazines' reports there seem to be a trend toward the use of "Response Cards" to received orders in order to replicate the "fog of war." I didn't know so many groups actually lacked the stereotyped " Nerd Gamer." We never did.
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