Finally got the game in all its glory to someone else’s table! A long-time wargamer I met recently was kind enough to take it for a test drive. As I haven’t set it up for many months myself, and I was a little rusty with all the pieces, rules, charts, tables, and whatnot. Who was Eyre again? What was his role, or did I drop him out? Was artillery able to move in the forest? What happens when the British army lands? What does this number on the counter mean?
After some time and a bit of remembering & explaining the basics, we got going. And it was such fun to actually PLAY it!
I had a hard time remembering all the rules, movement values etc. as I usually focus on a single rule (topic) and think it through. How they all come together is a completely different beast. The game has to be historically accurate for those who really know their stuff, and naturally, a good & interesting game to play. It’s tough to balance it all.
My tester’s experience came through quite clearly. He provided comments and improvement possibilities here and there, thought about how the troops and commanders would likely have behaved in real life, and basically (seemed to me) he “played a better game” than Montcalm himself. Ok, that is not really a fair comparison – Montcalm had a colony to defend and thousands of real lives under his responsibility.
Anyway, it was great to see how someone who has no clue about the game, its components, or even the historical context, approached it. Are the rules and different components clear and understandable? Things definitely need to be clarified, simplified, and tested thoroughly. We spent some 4+ hours and “got going”, but not too far yet. All this does indicate, as I knew all along, that this will not be a light, one evening game. On the contrary – there is a lot of detail, although the idea is to keep it at a reasonable level. Players will face historically accurate challenges and complexity. A simple example is artillery: It will not move by itself, the gun (cannon) crew is a barebone crew to operate (fire) the piece and if you want to move it… you’ll need men, and a lot of them!
Finally some comments about the picture above. I received a map update the day before our session and obviously it’s not seen here. It was a relatively big update, but at this image resolution would not be that clear to most people (you see the older version). Several details were added, colors slightly adjusted, and some errors corrected, while there is still much more to do.
The version shown is a compilation of individual photo paper sheets taped together. It’s quite laborous to make, but I like the strong and relatively thick photo paper, and it looks quite sharp too! Besides, I can make a new version at home at any time with low cost. I haven’t used any of the local print shops yet because they seem to mostly print A0 in some type of poster paper which I think is not really that good at this stage.
Talking about A0 paper size, yes, the map will be rather sizable. It will not be A0 size(!), which is close to two 34×22 inch sheets (34″ is about 86 cm, and 22″ about 56 cm). I think the final size will be quite a bit less than 112 cm x 86 cm because there is a lot space that can and will be removed. There are areas that are definitely under-utilized in the game and will be either cut off or repurposed to something else like a holding box. This is one of the many aspect testing should highlight.
The main British army has landed! Group of counters below the fort are the French artillery and commanders inside the fort. The artist had added a few extra boxes on the lake which we repurposed on the fly as a holding box for the arty. Now I can scrap another sheet that I had set aside for all the artillery in Carillon.
