Planning the 1815 Campaign - maps

Quatre Bras

I am working towards is doing the 1815 campaign in 10mm for the 200th anniversary. Obviously there is recreating the battles that took place, but there is also the option of a "what if" campaign to play with.

Looking for a suitable campaign map was a bit of a challenge. I decide to look for some old board games that covered the campaign. The bonus would be getting the unit counters to plot the movement. I was not interested in playing out the combat in the board game, just using it to track movement and to work out the OOB's of the battles that took place.

Wonderfully detailed map of  "L'Armee Du Nord"

I found two suitable board games, both by Clash of Arms Games, - "The Emperor Returns" (1986)  and "L'Armee Du Nord"(1993). They were both a bit difficult to get, but some patient watching on eBay and boardgamegeek.com paid off. I got both sets unpunched and BNIB!

Both move divisions around and cover the Belgian campaign. The artwork on the maps is the same, done by the talented Rick Barber,  but the scale differs. "The Emperor Returns" is 1 hex = 3200 metres using one 34" x 22" map. "L'Armee Du Nord" is 1 hex = 700 metres using three 34" x 22" maps. They are both fantastic maps.

I think the "L'Armee Du Nord" is the map I will use as the detail makes setting up a table of terrain a breeze.

Board template to translate to tabletop

To help translate the hexes to my game board I made up a clear plastic template the size my game boards would represent using 1 mm = 1 yard. This allows me to move the template over different parts of the map to see how this would translate into the terrain I have.

One option to consider in the future is mounting the boards on a metal backing and magnetise a set of counters. This would allow the campaign to be safely stored on the wall of the War Room saving some space.