"One Hour Wargames" - Scenario 1 - Pitched Battle (1) - Set up

Having picked up Neil Thomas's book at Salute, and it having been far too quiet round here (though DG and I continue to exchange round, and chain, shot on a daily basis on the truly excellent Wooden Ships and Iron Men web site, where we play correspondence style), I have hatched a plan with DG to work our way through the scenario's one by one, playing different periods, and different rules, as we go along....

 Don't expect me to provide a whole load of book content free gratis - if I was the author I'd be mightily peeved at anyone who did, and rightly so - but I would encourage anyone with an interest to hand over some spondoolicks and obtain a copy...  purely in my humble opinion of course, but I think it's worth it for the scenario's alone...  I probably won't even try the rules (but I'll have a read of them eventually). For a good review, I recommend this on Mike Whitaker's blog [clicky]

Either way, this is the first scenario, and is basically an encounter battle based on the Battle of Ceresole in 1544 (he links all of his scenario's to an actual battle and gives an overview of the similarities, which I really like)

He also has a randomised force generator based on the number of units he specifies for the scenario which allows for a little pre-game mystery and suspense if, like me, you keep your own force composition secret, and your opponent does the same. Couple with map deployments to meet the scenario requirements, and neither DG or I will know what we are facing, or how they've deployed, until the actual game which I like.

So without further ado;

• this scenario will be set in the Marlburian period (so we can use my 15mm’s)
• all unit morale modifiers will be 0 (for both sides) 
• no National characteristic bonuses will apply for either side (ie. British/Dutch firing bonus doesn’t apply etc etc) – each side will be totally equal, except for the results of the randomised force generator
• no brigadiers for either side - commander in chief only (these are used in the rules for morale saves/improvements)
• the following guidance/proviso's apply to the randomised force generator:
• artillery will always be "light", 
• we ignore troop types that don’t apply to the period
• one of the columns in the table had no troop types for this specific period so I substituted “Heavy Cavalry”
• Given both sides are equal, and knowing his predilection for them, DG is playing the Allies, and I will play the French
• Map deployments were exchanged yesterday

We have now exchanged our randomised orbats, and they comprise the following - an interesting challenge, as I have the artillery but DG has the cavalry - should be interesting!

Deployment and game report in the next post!