From: Carlos Fuentes I just came back from Salamanca area with goods news! Salamanca Battlefield (or Battle of Los Arapiles) is in a great condition, near to that Lord Wellington and Soult found. Los Arapiles is today a small village with beatiful city of Salamanca 7km away and governed by same Roman bridge crossed by Wellington's army. Great, great. You know I'm thinking "all day" in your Napoleonic game system to translate into Peninsular War peculiarities. The question is: I definitelly like to use HttK scales for Pennisular War ... but not all scales, that is: ok for map scale (1:1.000.000, where 1cm = 10 km) ok for temporal scale, but strengh scale (1 force point = 5000 men or 78 guns) is good for Russian Campaign, but not (I think so) for Peninsular War due forces distribution along territory. For example, a lot of garrison maked up 1000 or so men and a little ordnance. Calvalry forces in Peninsula hardly go beyond 2000-3000 in a single and large battle... There was more 350.000 French forces in Peninsula in a given time, but a lot of them was dedicated to Garrison, to save roads and LOCs, to antiguerrilla operations and so on. That is an explanation for Wellington great victories with an Allied Army about 55.000 men 2.500 horses and 60 cannons !!! French never could to organize (exception: when Napoleon come to Spain, nov 1808) a "Peninsula Grand Army", unrest and rebellion was so hard than 50% troops had to be used continously to control Spanish and Portuguese population. Well, what do you think. It is possible to mantain map and time scales but to reduce troops scale like "x1" series ? P.D.: Sorry for my bad English. Each time I need to express more ideas and my Rnglish crack all corners... From Giocrippa wrote of La Guerre: "It is a game I adore, till the point to enlarge the map and use "Risk" miniatures. At Lecco Wargames Club it is very appreciated and rated the only true alternative to Empires in Arms." From: Carlos Guarni My name is Carlos, and I would like to know if there is anybody who would like to play 1807, or Bonaparte in Italy in Cordoba, Spain. I will wait for an answer. From: Suzie Gallagher Hello, my name is Suzie Gallagher and I handle LA promotions for Paramount Classics. We have a new film coming out called "The Emperor's New Clothes", based off the life of the great Napoleon. I was wondering if your group or organization would be interested in doing a promotion with us for this film, opening June 28. History tells us that Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the desolate island of St. Helena in 1821. Or did he? This film supposes a more fanciful tale. A secret network of loyalists hatch an ingenious plot: the Emperor (Ian Holm in a double role) will return to Paris, while a double takes his place in exile. Trading identities with a dissolute sailor (Holm), Napoleon is spirited back to France to reclaim his throne. Yet, early on in the scheme, the plan goes awry. The double refuses to give up playing Napoleon thereby stranding the former Emperor in Paris. Friendless and alone, he meets and falls for a beautiful widow (Iben Hjejle). DIRECTED BY Alan Taylor. ADAPTED FROM THE NOVEL by Simon Levy, The Death of Napoleon, First published in France by Editions Hermann Last issue raised the ire of one alert citizen (his letter is below). Where there is one there are likely more (or would be, if we all read our email!) In the future Part I will contain articles on History, wargaming, and Napoleon; Part II will have some articles on topics unrelated to our traditional subjects. Note: If your email address is listed in your customer profile at www.NapoleonGames.com, you likely will receive this enews. I hope you all find this newsletter to be of interest; if not, let me know how I can change it to make it more valuable to you. Otherwise, at the website you can edit your customer profile to remove your email address from our records. From: Dave Casper I've asked before, without any apparent effect, to remove my email address (which I never voluntarily gave you) from your database and to quit sending me unsolicited commercial emails (which I never asked to receive). I didn't press the issue, since we are all gamers, but now that you have started including offensive partisan political crap in your mass mailings, I insist that you stop harrassing me. If I receive another mass mailing or unsolicited sales pitch from you I will attempt to contact your ISP and file a complaint for abuse. P.S. Question for Mr. Kucinich: if the Bill of Rights is so sacred, why did he vote to repeal the First Amendment in the form of a gag rule on political campaigning? Editor sez: I apologise to Mr. Casper and others offended by OSG's enews. Please, contact me personally if you share Mr. Casper's feelings. For details about the USA Patriot Act, which is now law, go to http://www.ccr-ny.org/whatsnew/usa_patriot_act.asp From: L.S. Doidge I would like to thank you most sincerely, for the 100's (if not 1,000's) of hours of pleasure afforded by your games designs over the past 25 years: bravo! I have just (last week) purchased 'LGE' which appears to consist of 1998 components and a 2nd edition rulebook (version 2.13). A chum (Keith) visits me for a long weekend once per year (he lives c.300 miles away and struggles for a pass-out from his wife!) and has expressed his desire to play this title (we tried 'Empires in Arms' several years ago - just the once). I would appreciate your input (or delegated responsible adult) on the following points at your earliest convenience. Viz. 1. Would you kindly furnish me with a copy of all relevant errata applicable to this edition of the game (I could not discover an errata location of the OSG website). 2. Keith is arriving at the end of June, so I need to establish (which will perhaps be revealed by the response time to this email) how speedily (or not) rule queries are processed, never having had to trouble you/OSG before. 3. We would like to play the full 1805-15 game and we will have 20 hours gaming time: will this be sufficient time to complete this game? 4. Re. rule 5.6. This suggests that the Tactical Battles should be reserved for "... big, crucial battles." As we have no experience of this game, what combined size of combatants would you recommend as a worthy of tactical battle resolution? 5. I have only glanced through the rules this morning but I have detected several discrepancies. E.g.. Rule 5.124 outlines the 3 groups of Surrender Terms but the details listed in groups 2 & 3 are actually different from those printed on the game card: which is correct? E.g.. There is a 4-sided (white) leaflet and another single sided (white) 'errata' sheet. Are these actually applicable to the 2.13 edition of the rules in part or whole? If only in part, which ones should we ignore? They both mention a 16 page rulebook, which it is not, and make reference to incorrect rule case #. E.g.. Are rule "change"(s) really changes or additions? The 4th side of the (white) leaflet states: "Event Table #1: (Change)" and lists 3 DRM's. The term 'change' would indicate that the existing DRM's for the French & British are eliminated and the new 3 instituted, whilst the term 'addition' would indicate the the original 2 are still extant? Are these actually applicable to this edition of the rules? 6. Are there any plans afoot to produce a new edition of this title and if so, when is it likely to be available? I apologise if my initial prodding of these apparent anomalies (Q.4) in any way (& quite unintentionally) irks. Although I have 30 years of gaming experience, because Keith & I only have one session each year, it is vital that as much of the potential grey areas and/or confusion is eliminated prior to. The rules of some games require more interpretional effort than others and I would rather give a title a raincheck until the following session and use the intervening period to nail down the rules thoroughly, rather than be miffed at (the game) expending precious time on trying to second guess the intent of the design team given our limited time available. If it is unlikely that I can perform such within the next couple of weeks, we will opt to play my recently purchased 'Highway to the Kremlin' instead! As a complete aside, I noted on that you are hoping to produce a 2nd edition of 'Dark December', which I would certainly purchase. If you require any outside assistance with rules editing and/or playtesting with this title (I owned and enjoyed the original for many years) or any other Napoleonic title, you have but to ask for my services and I shall happily endeavour to oblige. I have experience at developing concepts and expanding upon ideas created by others. I am able to offer suggestions or comments based upon my knowledge of gaming systems and/or relevant military history. I believe that I am a good rules editor with a penchant for probing "grey" areas, asking awkward questions and have a personal quest for rulebook clarity! Napoleonic military history is my first love and my main area of interest, although not exclusively so. I have played an accredited role in editing and developing the '4th edition Bataille' rules (Clash of Arms) and rather diversely, a similar role in editing and developing 'Imperial Starfire' (Task Force Games). I have received compliments from John Butterfield and irked Richard Berg with my queries. I have previously submitted to Avalon Hill, a significant number of corrections/suggestions for the projected (sadly deep-6) 2nd edition 'Flat Top' rulebook. Of minimal relevance, for 20 years, I was the organiser of one of the largest national PBM 'Diplomacy' clubs in the UK and devised a unique system which drew favourable comments from the doyen, Richard Sharp. For several years I devised and organised (prior to the plethora of PC's!) a hypothetical Napoleonic campaign via PBM. Back to OSG News May 2002 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by Operational Studies Group 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