Portrait of the General as a Young Webcam

 

 The view of General Spry

A few days ago  I got a small wireless webcam on a whim. I'd been talking to Ross of Game of the Month via the webcam that came in my shiny new labtop. It was interesting to hear Ross's voice after reading his blog for so long and one of the fruits of this extremely interesting chinwag was hearing about Ross's experiences playing game via Skype. 

I'm very lucky to have a relatively wide group of wargaming pals within a stones throw of home, but there are friends who either live abroad or who aren't in a position to join in the regular fun. There was also another intriguing possibility.

General MacKinnons view

The footage above is very rough, I'm having difficulty adjusting the focal length of the webcam, but I think it's sufficient to get some idea of what I'm aiming for. This is the Busaco scenario set up and the footage is taken from the British generals point of view. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with this or even it I'll do anything, but the possibilities it presents bear consideration.

A game could be run using the webcam to shoot footage from the perspectives of general of each side.  That footage could then be sent to a player using Vassal to keep track of the cards, the position of his own troops and roll dice. A typical Napoleonics game takes less than an hour, though I imagine this would lengthen the process considerably.

We shall see if this goes any further.