Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who by David M. Ewalt Page A
Authors: David M. Ewalt
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footsteps beating rhythmically on the carpet as strange tableaus flashed by. Through one open door, a guy that looks like Santa Claus waving a yardstick, bellowing about assignment of artillery casualties; through another, a room-sized naval battle, fought with foot-tall model clipper ships; then a Japanese castle, surrounded by a thousand brightly painted samurai; Normandy on D-Day; William Wallace at Falkirk; the Battle of Britain. Finally, it was time to play.
Few of us slept the night before the battle. At sundown, Napoleon’s damnable artillery began raining death on the center of the Coalition lines. Our position, in the north, was unscathed, but we lay awake listening to the roar of the cannons, a constant rumbling reminder of what was to come.
The sun was high over Saxony when the word finally arrived: The French lines were moving. Our orders were to occupy several small villages in the Bohemian foothills, hold the line, and stop the French advance.
The stakes couldn’t have been higher. After Napoleon’s Grande Armée was driven from Moscow, Prussia finally drew its sword against the invader; now we fight the Befreiungskriege, wars of liberation. We will drive the French from our land and finish Napoleon once and for all.
We checked and rechecked our muskets, sharpened our bayonets, and prepared to fight.
The Napoleon’s Battles Boot Camp was staged near the center of the main exhibit hall, on a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot table. As befitting a beginner’s game, the battlefield was simple: a surface covered with green felt, with two long “roads” of balsa wood crossing at the center. Five small plastic houses served as the only ornamentation,each representing a small town—one at the crossroads, and one at the midpoint of each road segment.
Our volunteer game master explained the scenario: Twelve players would fight out a hypothetical engagement between the French and Prussian armies, six to a side. The goal was to force the opposing army to flee from the map. If the game hit its four-hour time limit before that happened, whichever army controlled more towns would win.
The armies consisted of long lines of toy soldiers, arrayed at the edges of opposing sides of the table. At a game scale set to fifteen millimeters, each miniature soldier stood just over half an inch tall. Since each mini represented an entire unit of one hundred twenty soldiers, there were something like thirty thousand men on the table, ready to go to war.
Each player was assigned to an army—I randomly drew the Prussians—and given several “stands” of miniature figures representing a specific regiment. I got two stands of line infantry, each one consisting of sixteen little plastic men in blue uniforms, with rifles drawn and bayonets fixed. Since each soldier was so tiny, they were standing in groups, four minis to a single base. I also had a stand of sixteen Landwehr infantry, the volunteer troops that proved critical when Prussia and its allies fought to liberate Europe from Napoleon in 1813. My Landwehr regiment traveled with a twelve-pound cannon, a piece of artillery on a base about one inch square. When the soldiers moved, they’d need to make sure the cannon moved with them. Finally, I had a single regimental commander, a guy on a gray stallion, perched on his own miniature base. As commander of the First Brigade, he represented my divisional leader—at all times, my regiments needed to be within three inches of him on the table in order to receive instructions.
Major von Lehndorff ordered the regiment into a march column, andwe set off for a valley between two villages, about a mile apart. To our left, a division of heavy cavalry would take one town; General von Zastrow himself led the brigade to take the other. Our job was to plug the hole between the two, hold the center, and keep the French at bay.
As we marched to our duty, we made a pretty picture. Like a line of toy soldiers glinting in the sun.
At
Few of us slept the night before the battle. At sundown, Napoleon’s damnable artillery began raining death on the center of the Coalition lines. Our position, in the north, was unscathed, but we lay awake listening to the roar of the cannons, a constant rumbling reminder of what was to come.
The sun was high over Saxony when the word finally arrived: The French lines were moving. Our orders were to occupy several small villages in the Bohemian foothills, hold the line, and stop the French advance.
The stakes couldn’t have been higher. After Napoleon’s Grande Armée was driven from Moscow, Prussia finally drew its sword against the invader; now we fight the Befreiungskriege, wars of liberation. We will drive the French from our land and finish Napoleon once and for all.
We checked and rechecked our muskets, sharpened our bayonets, and prepared to fight.
The Napoleon’s Battles Boot Camp was staged near the center of the main exhibit hall, on a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot table. As befitting a beginner’s game, the battlefield was simple: a surface covered with green felt, with two long “roads” of balsa wood crossing at the center. Five small plastic houses served as the only ornamentation,each representing a small town—one at the crossroads, and one at the midpoint of each road segment.
Our volunteer game master explained the scenario: Twelve players would fight out a hypothetical engagement between the French and Prussian armies, six to a side. The goal was to force the opposing army to flee from the map. If the game hit its four-hour time limit before that happened, whichever army controlled more towns would win.
The armies consisted of long lines of toy soldiers, arrayed at the edges of opposing sides of the table. At a game scale set to fifteen millimeters, each miniature soldier stood just over half an inch tall. Since each mini represented an entire unit of one hundred twenty soldiers, there were something like thirty thousand men on the table, ready to go to war.
Each player was assigned to an army—I randomly drew the Prussians—and given several “stands” of miniature figures representing a specific regiment. I got two stands of line infantry, each one consisting of sixteen little plastic men in blue uniforms, with rifles drawn and bayonets fixed. Since each soldier was so tiny, they were standing in groups, four minis to a single base. I also had a stand of sixteen Landwehr infantry, the volunteer troops that proved critical when Prussia and its allies fought to liberate Europe from Napoleon in 1813. My Landwehr regiment traveled with a twelve-pound cannon, a piece of artillery on a base about one inch square. When the soldiers moved, they’d need to make sure the cannon moved with them. Finally, I had a single regimental commander, a guy on a gray stallion, perched on his own miniature base. As commander of the First Brigade, he represented my divisional leader—at all times, my regiments needed to be within three inches of him on the table in order to receive instructions.
Major von Lehndorff ordered the regiment into a march column, andwe set off for a valley between two villages, about a mile apart. To our left, a division of heavy cavalry would take one town; General von Zastrow himself led the brigade to take the other. Our job was to plug the hole between the two, hold the center, and keep the French at bay.
As we marched to our duty, we made a pretty picture. Like a line of toy soldiers glinting in the sun.
At
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