[Pre-Cabinette Archives c.1980s]
It's a year since I started my blog so, as a sort of commemoration, I thought I'd post the photos of my visit to the Wargame Holiday Centre back in the 80s when it was still up near Scarborough and being run by Peter Gilder. The photos have already featured on the Peter Gilder tribute site but I rather fancied putting them up on my blog as well.
The first of my photos was taken looking east along the upper / northern edge of the table.
IIRC I was in charge of Marmont's VI Corps and Latour-Maubourg's I Cavalry Corps. Unfortunately, I was assigned the north-east corner to defend. This meant was that I was advancing out of a corner and into a terrible cross-fire.
Clearly someone had blundered, or had I just been set up? Never mind, aside from being disappointed by my cavalry's poor showing I remember it as a closely fought action. In fact, I recall it being a fairly bloody draw.
All in all, a memorable weekend.
Back then it was all film, no digital, so I've had to scan in the printed photos that I still have. The quality isn't great, but it's in line with what we were used to seeing in the magazines of the time. But nonetheless, classic units like these Saxon Cuirassiers still look pretty good to me.
I went with a couple of friends to do a 'Leipzig Weekend'; well, if you're going to go big, that's surely the one to do. The table was probably the same dimensions as that featured in Peter's magazine articles[1] called 'Let's Fight Leipzig' which included the map shown below (north is at the top).
The first of my photos was taken looking east along the upper / northern edge of the table.
And then one looking east along the bottom / southern edge of the table.
This final one showing some of the players (luckily old-fashioned cameras didn't do selfies), is taken from the middle, looking north-east towards the deployment area of the Army of Silesia.
Comparing this with the map, shows that Peter was either using different 3-foot square terrain boards or had assembled them differently from the map. Also, the gap in the western edge was the same width all the way, but there was a spare terrain board that could be used to fill it if required - leaving the French players surrounded in the middle.
My cavalry corps, suffered terribly, as units were destroyed or driven back through those following up behind, which prevented them from advancing while being interpenetrated. And so was born the amazing 'disappearing cavalry corps'!
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| Into the Jaws of Death ... |
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| Into the Mouth of Hell ... |
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| ... rode the six |
Clearly someone had blundered, or had I just been set up? Never mind, aside from being disappointed by my cavalry's poor showing I remember it as a closely fought action. In fact, I recall it being a fairly bloody draw.
And, as I can recall not much more at this remove, I'll just post some more photos without comment.
All in all, a memorable weekend.
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| What do you reckon ... shall we call it a draw? |
Notes:
[1.] Miniature Wargames issues 4 and 5.
Well done on your first year’s blogging. May there be many more.
ReplyDeleteI hope so, already I've felt some self-imposed pressure to post stuff - I must chill out and keep it fun.
DeleteThanks for posting this great piece of nostalgia Rob and well done on your blog's first year. I'm very impressed how much you recall of the game!
ReplyDeleteI do remember some more but as my mum would've said, if you can't think of anything nice to say, say nothing.
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