Campaign Delays and Tweaks......and diplomatic language

Nearly a month into the new year and I haven't got around to playing the solo campaign. A mixture of lethargy, tiredness, work, other pastimes and time spent with the Margravina has put the breaks on.  A week ago I was seriously thinking of switching the campaign to a 'play by map' format and fight the battles out on the tabletop. This would lengthen the overall time taken to play the campaign, but at least allow some map moves in spare moments. I dithered around with this ("I haven't got any Italian looking trees made yet") until eventually I got to Friday and I set the table up after work for the 'play on table' format. This is where the whole campaign area is set-up on the table. Hexes are about 40 miles across. Thus:

Northern Italy and part France - castles indicate ports: Toulon, Nice and Genoa. River is the Po (only one shown on the whole board). The church to its western end represents Turin. Hexes with trees represent mountains

The whole "map" of Italy. I didn't represent the heel and foot. The leftmost column of hexes will represent the sea - I need to cover it in something blue. The "city/port" towards the bottom left is Naples, next one up Rome. A northern biased map. On reflection I've probably made the leg too wide near the bottom.

Moves will represent a month of time. Troops will move at 2 hexes per turn unless they cross mountains or the Po. All other rivers and difficult terrain (towns and villages are assume to slow movement right down) are "factored in". Unlike my general AWS campaign a year ago, the Alps can be crossed, but passes are closed to armies for several months of the year, and stacking is limited to represent the effect of narrow valleys on columns. This should prevent the French and Spanish amassing overwhelming numbers on the Piedmontese unless the latter leave the passes unchallenged.

I recently bought some 1:2400 ships from Magister Militum, to represent the Gallispan and British fleets. My, they are tiny! You have to glue on masts and some sails. You can imagine how that went! I managed to get 4 done in an hour before I gave up. I'll try to finish the rest before the weekend and given them a shoddy coat of paint. Wonder if anyone in the house has some tweezers.

As luck would have it, on Saturday evening the 17-year olds wanted a small gathering in the Kriegskabinett, so the gang could plan their post-A-Level trip. My nerves about gangling youths knocking the table were unnecessary, I'm pleased to say. And in a boost to my ego, one of them asked me if those were "Albanian style eagles" on the flags - I hand paint my flags on these 6mm figures, so I was 'dead chuffed'* the eagles on the Austrian flags were recognised as such.

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And finally (as they used to say on the News before items about skateboarding squirrels and the like), I came across the missive below on anti-social meeja. I do hope it's genuine.