Planning Finchley Common

 For about a month now, I've been talking with the very patient George Bisset on Facebook about running a remote game to finish off my desultory '45 solo campaign. Part of the problem with remote games is my cat Lex, who will happily interfere with any game in her line of sight, and George suggested that he use his own table and miniatures, with me basically GMing. While this is a bright idea, we went back and forth on methods of ensuring that we were both "on the same table."

His plan was that I would have table squares in order to tell him "X Regiment is in A2." Even if he were using an ordinary table, so long as we determine distances and angles to terrain pieces he should still be able to manage with my instructions as a guide. While I liked this, I haven't got a table or map of the appropriate size or breakdown. I considered sticking pennies to the tabletop, and was on the verge of creating and printing a large paper map when I decided to order Memoir '44.

While I've heard many good things about this game, what intrigued me was how many of the players on the Paperboys Facebook group have used the related Commands and Colors game with paper figure stands in place of the block pieces. That and my increasing interest in Bob Cordery's popular Portable Wargame made me want to use a ready-made hex-board with plenty of terrain hexes to add to it.

I received Memoir '44 a couple days ago.

Sometimes I wonder if it's the color green that Lex likes.

The board is 13x9. The photo is grainy, 
must try to avoid that if I use this method to
communicate moves.

Experimental shot of units. Will need to fix the lighting
to make both units and hexes recognizable.

Lawrence Newman, who ran a similar campaign for his kids last year, sent me a couple useful maps. They're both from well after the battle, but it doesn't have to be perfect.

1780s. Not sure where (if) it overlaps with the next.

19th century; appears to be "enclosed."

He also filmed part of the scenario on Youtube:

In practice, it looks like we can get away with a flat, open space, with buildings and perhaps a ridge or two at the edges. Lawrence says he began the scenario with the British army deployed and the rebels marching on. Any comments or suggestions are welcomed!

Given the board size, I am thinking of suggesting a 130x90cm table, with moves made in cm (as I doubt George has an 11-foot table!). The rules, incidentally, will be the one-page D3 rules from Grid-Based Gaming But Not Always. Units on my table will be represented by single Wofun bases. Since units have "hit points" in these rules, there should be a way to mark units and track casualties, perhaps with a spreadsheet. If I can, I want to be able to do it myself, effectively "GM'ing" George's more conventional table.

Finally, George has linked me to a map-and-scenario editor on the Memoir '44 website. If I can work out how to use it, it'll be a good way to "store" unit positions, as in practice this game may take some time to play and I simply can't leave it out for the cats to pounce on...