Chancellorsville and Glory II

If there's one thing I love about boardgames, it's setting them up. I may not get through a whole game, but I do like to get the maps on the table, weight them down for a couple of days to sit flat, leisurely put the counters in place (in consultation with appropriate reference works), and then admire the scene. 

I got Richard Berg's Glory II: Across the Rappahannock about ten years ago, I would guess, when I was in Japan. I set up a couple of one-mapper scenarios, but the whole battle of Chancellorsville is a three-mapper, and I didn't have the dedicated space over there to tackle it. 

The first thing you appreciate is that three maps do the terrain justice. Here we are looking from the west towards Fredericksburg, with the Union forces in the foreground converging on Chancellorsville itself.

Moving east, we see Anderson and company digging in around Zoar Zion Church and waiting for support to come up.

On the heights overlooking Fredericksburg, McLaws stays in prepared positions (for the moment, at least).  

Further south, Early observes Sedgwick and his command across the river. 

It is 7:15am on May 1st, 1863: Hooker is at Chancellorsville, the Federals are massing, and the action is about to commence. Shelby Foote provides commentary and atmosphere; we are all set.

With the prospect of playing this out solo in front of me, I re-read the Foote account and traced it out on the map. I planned to come downstairs the next night and start the game.

But I didn't. 

And that is all we got to.

A week later, I still have not started. Back into its box it goes.

It was a nice project to a certain extent, but I'm a touch concerned, looking at the vast numbers of boardgames on my shelves, how little I actually play them. I wonder if this is what my relationship to the meatier boardgames has come to: are they now just a tool to visualise action, rather than to play it out? 

Or maybe I just need to start pulling chits and rolling dice rather than opening my phone!