Austro-Prussian micro-campaign

[ChrisBBB]

We fought two linked historical 1866 battles – Nachod and Skalitz – as a micro-campaign. The link was fairly simple: if the first battle was a draw, we fought the second one per the historical set-up; if either side won the first, they received a small advantage (equivalent to about 5% reinforcement) in the second.

Each game took about 3 weeks to play as PBEM, with teams of two or three players a side. With a couple of weeks' interval between, that means we fought the micro-campaign in two months. That's not bad going – to complete any campaign is an achievement, and many campaigns that are launched on a tide of collective enthusiasm lose momentum and fold much sooner than that.

The 'linked historical episodes' approach, giving the victor some small reward in the next game, is one that has worked nicely for us and other BBB player groups for longer campaigns. (The longest I'm aware of was a 15-battle Franco-Prussian War epic that took a New York club a year to play – but they did it.) It's logistically simple, with no need to track casualties, supplies, etc. It means you still get to refight historical battles, but perhaps with a small what-if twist. It avoids the problem of the 'tail wagging the dog' where the campaign maneuvers result in too many one-sided and unsatisfactory tabletop encounters and too few exciting games. At the same time, it sustains player engagement and gives each game importance beyond the battle itself.

In our micro-campaign, as you'll see from the AARs, the campaign link proved crucial. AARs on our two linked battles are here:
Nachod:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2020/04/austro-prussian-1866-pbem-nachod.html
Skalitz:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2020/06/austro-prussian-1866-pbem-skalitz.html

These were good sporting contests and I think all the players had a thoroughly good time (describing the games as 'splendid', 'gripping', etc). My thanks and compliments to both teams for some fun gaming.

Chris

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