One door closes..

 

The slightly grubby rucksack in the picture ( it's been carried between my house and my partner's,  weekly for several years ) contained my 'work PC' and phone- a nice man from DHL came to collect it last week, finally ending my 24 years supprting  IT systems for a major UK supermarket.  Five different employers in that time, mind you - oh, the joys of outsourcing and  'TUPE' transfers.  What does this mean? In the short term,  an email bombardment from an outplacement agency re:my 'jobsearch',  and would I please upload my CV? To which I answer 'what CV?'  I haven't had a job interview since 1997... I think I'm going to be a disappointment to them.  

It's surprising just how much mental effort and 'bandwidth'  is required by the process of  being made redundant, and the result is clear from the reduced frequency of blog entries here and the total absence of gaming in the past few months. But now it's done, I think I may have a bit more hobby time, which is very welcome.  I need to have a bit of a think about how to use that - expect some sort  of  'thinking aloud' post on future plans quite soon. 

The good news is, some gaming has indeed occurred - the first instance of which was a 'Command and Colours' Austerlitz extravaganza,  which has been covered by the host, Liverpool Dave, on his St Cyr on Wheels blog,    It was a brilliant  afternoon, and a great pleasure to meet fellow blogger Nundanket again too. Cheers guys!

I've been mssing getting actual figures onto a table too, and I wanted a quick and easy way of getting back into that habit. Something 'Fast Play', on a small gaming area ( say, a 3 by 3 grid? ).. I think we can see where this is going, Having prepared a pinboard gaming 'table' for 'The Fast Play 3 by 3  Portable Wargame' not long ago, it was high time to give it a try. Everything required was to hand, in Bob Cordery's recent The Portable Wargame Compendium, as follows: 

(i) Terrain:  see page 92,  Pre-Generated Terrain by Mike Tabor - just roll a D20. It came up '7' which gave me this very simple terrain: 

Just one wooded area, on the defender's baseline, right flank. 

 (ii) Forces : page 85,  Army Composition by Mark Cordone. Each side will have six units plus a commander, simply roll a D6 for each and select the suggested numbers of common unit types. I used my Seven Years War forces, and rolled as follows: 

Prussians rolled a '6' and got 

-  Four Line Infantry units ( 2 battalions 44th Fusiliers, 2 battalions Von Kleist Frei Korps ) ,

- One Cavary unit  ( 1 squadron Von Kleist Uhlans ) 

- One Field Gun and Crew. 

Austrians rolled a '1' ,  resulting in

- Two Line Infantry units   ( 2 battalions Botta d'Adorno foot )

- Two Cavalry units ( 1 squadron Cuirassiers, 1 squadron Grenze Hussars ) 

- One Field Gun and Crew

- One Light Infantry Unit ( 1 squadron dismounted Grenze Hussars ) 

Plus one commander for each side. All units have 2 SPs ( Strength Points ) and I decided that all units would be 'average' quality. So, an interesting mixture! 

Lastly dice for attack/defence, and the Prussians were deemed Defenders - which seemed quite appropriate given their infantry-heavy array. Both sides set up, as seen below: 

 

Prussians on the right. The units are set up on their respective baselines, with some held back in the 'Reserve' areas behind.   Prussian infantry covers the whole front, with their Uhlans held in reserve: Austrians have their Cuirassiers massed on their right, and Light Infantry  ready to skirmish in front of the woods on their left. Attackers move first on Turn One, after that dice for initiative each turn. So, Austrians to start Turn One.  And that's where we'll leave it for now: a full battle report will be the next post on this blog. Meanwhile, keep safe, and well, everyone. 

 

UPDATE : thanks very much to all for sympathetic comments re: the redundancy. It wasn't voluntary, but it wasn't entirely unexpected either, and I think I am at an age and situation where I can accept it and move on to a new stage in life.  It is rather strange thinking 'what to do today?', and little things like not having to finish my morning walk ( habit acquired in lockdown) in time for the 'daily stand-up' meeting!  

One very sad aspect, though: back in May, on a day walking by the Thames near Richmond, I had a very useful conversation with an old friend, Kevin,  who had much experience of working through TUPE/redudancy processes, also in the IT sector, from both worker and manager point of view. What I mainly got from him was 'don't take it personally, don't get angry, they are only working to a budget, good luck to them if they are making a mistake, on their heads be it. Make the best of it, take the (hopefully  generous)  payout and enjoy life'.  That helped me quite a lot, and I looked forward to meeting him again now, to tell him I had gone through the process OK and was looking forward to the future - he had himself managed to retire about 6 months before. But that was not to be, Kevin passed away suddenly in June, and today his family and friends gathered to mark his passing and remember him. Cheers, mate, and thanks, I won't forget.