Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

Admittedly my knowledge of the War of 1812 still has a ways to go, but I've watched a couple of DVDs, browsed a few books, have more on order from the local library, acquired a number of miniature wargaming scenarios and even discovered some battle maps among my own stuff.

So I've formulated an idea for a Tournament and before I do a lot a work figured I'd give those who want to input a chance. There's also a few things the club leadership have to agree with.

The plan is to play the rounds of the tournament in groups of 8 players (for the record I'm still thinking about whether 6 or 10 might work better, but for now 8 is the number).

Each person who signs up gets to pick the side they want to play for the entire tourney -- there will be some motivations for Brits and Continentals to play the other side, but everyone can pick what they want, as long as there are equal numbers for each side.

In the first round there would be at least 1 group of only junior officers -- which guarantees some will advance.

Each person would play one of four different games against each member of the the other side in their group -- results would track victory levels and casualty point differences. Each game would be about 12 turns. So for each round you would play 48 turns. Which means you would have to play 1 turn per week for each game, although I would expect to stagger the start the games at something like 3 week intervals. (it is this factor that is influencing me to think about groups of 6 and 3 games for each round)

The games would be blind scenarios based on the standard scenarios. Essentially what I have in mind is to create a scenario that represents a segment of the battle. However, I will probably change some things about the historical situation to "balance" the troops on the map. If it works out as I expect the situation will be at least plausable, if not historically accurate. In a given round there would probably be at least 2 and in some cases three scenarios from the same battle. Scenarios representing the later stages of the battle will have reduced strength, fatigued and possibly disrupted units and missing leaders at the start of the scenario.

I anticipate three rounds. The specifics would depend on exactly how many sign up to play, but the following is a possible sequence. After the first round the top 2 players from each side in each bracket would advance -- along with the best of the rest. After the second round the top finishers from each side would be guaranteed a spot in the final round, but I would also like to make sure each club army has at least one person in the final, after that it would be the best scores among the runner ups.

There would be 8 blind scenarios for the first two rounds, but the matches for the finals would be those four scenarios that had the most balanced results in the earler rounds.

Assume I construct the 8 scenarios from 4 battles, 2 from each I would propose some "title" be awared to the player who had the best score for those two games. So if there are two sceanrios from the battle of Chippewa, the British player with the best result would be the "Champion of Chippewa" and the Patriot Player with the best record would be the "Hero of Chippewa". For the final the best British Player would be the "Champion of 1812" and the Best Patriot player the "Hero of 1812".


All games would count as battles even if two people from the same army played each other -- I assume it is obvious to the Brits and Continentals if they all play only their club army side, they reduce their odds against how many can make the finals -- so some might want to cross over.

As for the scenarios. I'm currently looking at Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, Bladenberg and North Point as the starting candidates. I'm reluctant to use the forts or even New Orleans, simply because it is harder to predict balance and if you reduce the scenario to focus on one part of the assault you are probably obligated to leave all the defenders on the map with some being fixed unless fired upon. But since scoring is relative and the "best of both sides" advance such a scenario or two could make the final cut -- needs some more thought.

At best I would anticipate this starting in February.

Comments?

Anyone interested in doing some scenario design?