Preparing for Ivangorod 1914

All things being equal – and assuming that some unforeseen crisis does not occur between now and then – I shall be taking part in the January session of the ‘Jockey's Field Irregulars’ tomorrow.

We are fighting 'Ivangorod 1914' (the battle between the Russians and the Austro-German Armies that took place after Tannenberg) using Richard Brook's OP14 rules. These were designed for just this sort of re-fight, and use 15mm-scale figures and a squared gridded tabletop. We have used them several times before to re-fight the opening battles of World War I, and they have proven to be very effective (i.e. the results are usually very close to what really happened).

(The following images show a previous Russo-German battle – Gumbinnen – that was fought at COW2013 (the 2013 Conference of Wargamers).)

My preparations are:

• To find my pickelhaube! (I have a plastic ‘prop’ one, which I will take with me even though I don’t know which side I will be on.)
• To make sure that my camera has some functioning batteries … and some spares.
• To buy some supplies for lunch. (We all bring a contribution towards the snack lunch that we eat during the day.)
• To make sure that I have a small duplicate notepad with numbered pages. (These are very useful when writing orders – or replies to orders – as you have copies that you can use afterwards to explain why you were successful/beaten.)

One thing that I won’t be doing is to read about the real battle. That way I come to the strategic/tactical situation without any pre-conceived ideas and/or hindsight. I have found that this generally leads to a more enjoyable – and realistic – experience.