So I went looking for trouble…

I needed a reason for Austrian and French fleets to clash before the First World War, something historic and plausible if possible, a factual jumping off point for a little naval campaign based in the Mediterranean and, given the ships I possess, circa 1906 / 07 ish. 

Fortunately the major powers around that period were forever getting up in each others grills and I quickly found just the thing.

You might want to go and have a look at the Tangier crisis on Google (other search engines are available)… but if (most likely) you just can’t be arsed to do that, I’ve listed the essential highlights below.

a) 1904 - Britain and France sign the Entente Cordiale - Germany is mightily pissed off.

b) 1905 - France continues to expand its influence in North Africa, focussing on making Morocco a protectorate.

c) 1905 - 1906 Pissed off germany does a bit of meddling. The Kaiser goes to meet Sultan Abdelaziz assuring him of German help to maintain Morocco’s independence. Sabres are rattled.

d) 1906 - An international conference is called to settle the matter. Britain, Spain and Italy side with France. Only Austria Hungary sides with Germany. The Germans are told to back off and mind their own beeswax. The Kaiser is humiliated.

So naturally that wasn’t actually the end of the matter…and it sort of rumbled on in a very low key manner until a second crisis occurred in 1911, but for now 1907 will serve as my campaign jumping off point.

So here’s the alt history bit to hang my new campaign on.

e) Following the conference a humiliated Kaiser begins secretly shipping weapons and “advisors” to Morocco via his supporters in the Austro Hungarian government. Wilhelm is not terribly concerned about Morocco in itself, of course, but in the right hands he hopes the weapons will fuel an insurgency that would be embarrassing and costly to France.

f) June 1907. The Austro Hungarian registered SS Amstetten strikes a mine while entering the port of Nador and is lost with all hands. Arms and amunition are recovered from the wreckage. 

g) Austria Hungary blames France for the sinking and demands reparations. France accuses Austria Hungary of attempting to destabilise Morocco, and threatens military action.

h) Germany comes out in support of Austria Hungary but Britain orders its Navy to readiness and the Kaiser backs away, washing his hands of the affair and leaving Austria Hungary to carry the can. 

i) A French Coaster, the Isle de Maran, goes missing in clear weather while en route to Le Souqet. 

j) Elements of the French and Austrian navies put to sea, intent on seeking redress.

The campaign will have strategic turns lasting a month (in game time) in which the players will assign their available vessels to a series of mission types conducted in unspecified geographical locations (look ma no maps). The French have more ships available than the Austro Hungarians but the latter fleet has a minor qualitative edge. Many of the French ships are Protected Cruisers for instance, having a fraction of the armour that the Austro Hungarian Armoured Cruisers have.

The French vessels initially available are:

Hoche - Battleship

Bouvet - Battleship

Charles Martel - Battleship

Galilee - Protected Cruiser

Linois - Protected Cruiser

D’ Entrecasteaux - Protected Cruiser

Friant - Protected Cruiser

Amiral Cecille - Protected Cruiser

Cyclone - Torpedo Boat

Tempête - Torpedo Boat

Ourage - Torpedo Boat

Coming into the region from other deployments are the Armoured Cruiser Bruix, 2 x Light Cruisers and 6 x Destroyers.

The Austro Hungarian ships are:

SMS Habsburg - Battleship

SMS Marie Theresa - Armoured Cruiser

SMS Sankt Georg - Armoured Cruiser 

SMS Kaiser Karl VI - Armoured Cruiser

SMS Zenta - Protected Cruiser

SMS Huszar - Destroyer

SMS Ulan - Destroyer

SMS Tural - Destroyer

In reserve they have the Battleship Wien and the Armored Cruiser Kaiser Franz Josef.

Any number of vessels may be assigned to one or more of the missions shown in the last piccie below, but the players assign them in initial ignorance of their opponents assignments.

Once the two deployments are complete the planning forms are placed next to each other. Where two missions are found to be in opposition a battle will occur. The winner of a battle is awarded 5 victory points. 

Once all battles have been resolved a cessation of hostilities check is taken, wherein the damage sustained to each fleet and the number of victory points accrued will be influencing factors. 

I will use my own set of rules because I’m eager to try them out, (they’ve been sitting on the shelf since 2021) though I am in possession of several other excellent sets that I intend to try out as well in the near future. 

Here are a few piccies relating to my rules, taken during a recent play test - which may stimulate comments (good or bad).

The battleship Habsburg comes under long range heavy gunfire. A six is required on a 1D6 to score a hit, but any miss causes a splash marker that adds +1 to any other heavy guns attacks (while the marker remains in place).

For every hit on a target with medium and light guns you roll one of these dice. Heavy guns roll 2.  The icons indicate what has been hit and as you can see here, we have both guns and armour strikes. In case you were wondering they’re just icons stolen off the interweb printed out and stuck on blank dice. Simples.

Each ship has a data “tile” held off board to record damage with markers. The Jaureguiberry shown here can take 7 hit markers before she’s lost but the individual hit markers also have secondary effects. This French battleship is taking on water from a hull hit, has lost steering and is currently on fire. A second fire inflicted on her while this one is still in being will result in a magazine explosion. The quality of the markers is poor but I resisted the urge to get “too frilly” until I’ve worked out if any changes need to be made.

Orders are issued from the squadrons flagship to subordinate groupings of vessels (divisions) in the form of flags placed next to the vessel data tiles (I hate clutter on the table). Only one order can be changed per turn - so you need to think ahead. 

Flag type order counters made out of MS Word symbols and stuck onto spare mdf bases.

Flag code books. There are three in existence for a player to choose from - pre game. The orders are standard on all of them but the colour and number of the flags is different - which stops you from knowing what the opposing admiral has just ordered his fleet to do.

Here are two divisons of a French naval squadron with their current orders on display. One is in line astern and firing at long range, the other is in line abreast (on the board) and ordered to close and engage. Orders are changed 1 at a time and can be removed or added to.

And finally… Not very exciting to look at but key to the campaign. Both players assign their available vessels to the missions in the boxes then bring the two sheets together to see which of the missions they have chosen have been opposed. Opposed missions result in a battle. The mission types include blockade, coastal bombardment, sea lane patrol, blockade runner, coastal defence patrol and merchant ship escort.

I’ve playtested the rules a few times in the last couple of weeks but I’m pretty sure the forthcoming campaign will reveal holes in the logic at some point. All part of the fun I suppose. 

Toodleooh.

Goings on at Maison Broom

Sometimes good things can come out of bad - which is an unusually glass half full kind of thing for me to find myself saying…but it’s true. 

See I’m a bit light on the whole hobby dosh thing at the mo (US TRANSLATION - I’m on skid row / I’m a bum and I ain’t got no money) since the wife’s 60th birthday and our 40th wedding anniversary will unfortunately not pay for themselves - and it’s forced me to delve deep into my lead pile of shame. 

Some of us accrue a lead pile with the certain knowledge that its contents will be turned into table ready masterpieces within a rigidly preplanned production schedule…(coughs)…isn’t that right Jon, while some of us without the gift of purpose and planning lose interest in a project almost as soon as the miniatures arrive - put off by the enormity of the task that suddenly lies ahead. 

You can guess which category I fall into. 

After a while the lack of any finished product from such profuse and carefree spending becomes a matter of internal guilt and shame - definitely something to keep out of the view of curious wives and their desire to establish “how much did all this lot cost, then”. As a direct consequence of all this - for the last two years most of the East Midland’s chief export has resided in my special cupboard of mystery - to which only I have the key.

Working on the assumption that I must have seen something in these jolly little bags of lead at some point and baulking at the prospect of buying something new from my currently scant resources I resolved to dig deep into the pile to see if something within might be worth revisiting.

The first step was to isolate the still half finished stuff, with its accompanying taint of failure, (I’m looking at you Elizabethan 10mm) and make my way down to the deeper strata of things I don’t even remember buying and which, it seems, have never been touched. First out were some tripods from Tumbling Dice,  (I know, I know…always with the Victorian sci fi…what is it with me and that sort of stuff ?) models which look much nicer than the scratch built ones I cobbled together over the summer and probably require early deployment.

Tumbling Dice Tripods - with wavy tentacle additions by moi and some blurry 2mm infantry both for scale and potential opposition. FYI the left most one is sort of crouching down menacingly.

At the same semi Carboniferous level were other goodies from TD - an entire project in fact - from a past fixation of mine that never left the planning stage. Until now.

I thought I couldn’t do stuff smaller than 2mm, but I was wrong. Welcome to the world of 1:2400 scale pre dreadnoughts. Ships designed, constructed and employed at the height of the belle époque.

I have two small fleets, one French one Austro Hungarian, a set of rules written years back and a sh*t ton (or its metric equivalent) of blue hexon tiles…so I think I’ll have at it. 

Waddya reckon? 

Austro Hugarians, led by the battleship Habsburg. Dead quick to paint up as you can tell. All the ship info is on the underside of the base since I find it more pleasing to the eye that way - flying in the face of convention I know, but hey don’t box me in with all your rules daddyo.

Amiral Cecile, Friant, Charles Martel and 3 Jeune École style torpedo boats - ready for action despite being in peace time colours. I suspect there’s going to be some trouble in the Mediterranean quite soon.

Two generic merchant ships. A troop transport and a collier. I took the lazy way out with the bases and sprayed them with a texture effect blue spray quite close in colour to the hexon tiles. Anything for an easy life.

It might get me out of playing against this guy for a while…

Major Clanger - views the battlefield at a recent 2mm refight of Cheriton inspired by Jon Freitag’s battle marathon over at Palouse Wargaming Journal. The Major (playing as the Paliamentarian faction) beat me handsomely. As usual. He’s done nothing but crow about it since.

Toodleooh.

Keep it simple stupid..! (Part 2) The big game.

Rather than throw him in at the deep end with a single battle I’ve been working incrementally through my rules with Jérémie, so that he can get a handle on some of the concepts and ask questions in a none competitive environment. Fortunately the arrival of son number 2 and his family of locusts gave me the opportunity to test things out on another newb who at least spoke the same language. Sort of. 

We settled on a different scenario to the one I’d set up for the last post in which there was no set defender / attacker - just a have at it sort of thing. The usual win conditions (eliminate enemy leader or 5 units) was applied and I present the proceedings in Broom Battle Picture Library format below.

In an effort to aid comprehension a lot more counters were used than is normal. Not sure if they help matters, but hey ho. 

Okay so I’ve taken on the role of Hubert Mowbray (Yorkist) medieval “mushy pays” magnate and occasional Lord of Tipton - to the right of the picture. The fruit of my loins is acting as Crispin Walpole Earl of Dudley (Lancastrian) on the left. We both have fifteen units and our fight only represents the outcome on the far right flank (from my perspective) of a much larger battle where the unseen centre and left wing portions of the main armies are similarly engaged. Turn 1 sees me get the initiative and I roll 9 command points with the two black dice - which is pretty respectable.

Individual unit quality is hidden to both players at game start, apart from hexes adjacent to the leader and his command stand. Poor old Lord Mowbury (me) was surprised to discover that most of his nearby men were remarkably lukewarm about the forthcoming scuffle and the only guys actually “up for it” were the gaggle of peasant spearmen recruited from the nearby town. (We’ll assume they have a lot to lose should the Lancastrian forces win and go on the rampage in their farms and homes).

I ordered 9 of my units to move - companies of archers moving forward into bow range (1-5), knights out onto the right flank to counter his knights (7)  and Lord Mowbury (8) moving leftwards to see for himself how enthused his leftmost billmen actually were. 

The lad rolled well too - 8 command points are issued to his men. On his right flank three companies of billmen advance towards my repositioning archers. Is he actually attacking or is he using them as arrow magnets in order to save his own bowmen? I wasn’t sure. Unhelpfully out of shot, Crispin’s knights move off to the left and prepare to hit my flank. 

At the end of turn 1 is the joint missile fire round. All missile troops that are in range, arc, and l.o.s. are marked with a yellow counter.  The guy with the initiative (me) fires first with one unit then fire passes to the other player until all potential units have shot. Apart from “ready to leg it” units, archery and missile fire cannot kill off a target stand merely disorganise it and / or force them to retreat. In a disorganised or retreating state (with their backs to the enemy) they are extremely vulnerable to melee - not to mention costly and time consuming to reorganise and turn back around to fight. 

I decided to concentrate my archers on the most dangerous of the advancing enemy. The net result of a whole lotta bow twanging was that the most motivated of Crispin’s Lancastrian billmen became thoroughly disorganised (red counter) turned their backs on the Yorkists and started heading back towards their own lines. The remaining lower quality troops still attempting to advance looked on in disgust.

At the start of turn 2 the Lancastrians got the initiative and would move first. Crispin heads to the left to discover how the rest of his troops are feeling. Light horse move around to the right flank to back up any breakthrough the billmen make and the heavier knights continue to swing out on the right.

My (Yorkist) response to the advancing billmen was to pull my archers out of harms way and deploy them back behind my own foot troops. Unfortunately this would mean they wouldn’t be able to fire at the end of the turn, so I bunged some crossbows and a spare bunch of arrow jockeys into the centre of the field to hit the advancing enemy foot in the flank. At the back of the field and just in shot both groups of knights collide in a head on charge.

And then things started to go wrong…for me. My knights were “ready to leg it” so I didn’t hold out much hope but they did manage to disorganise the Lancastrians before fleeing the field.

Even though my crossbow chaps had made it into cover behind some hedges they were now the sole target still in range of the Lancastrian archers. A hailstorm of arrows fell on them, disorganising them and sending them scurrying to the rear. The only plus point was that a company of Lancastrian archers rolled snake eyes, indicating they were running low on arrows. (Minus modifier when firing and it costs 1 precious command point to resupply them).

By turn 3 I’d started to steady the Yorkist ship a little. My archers were now safely back behind the billmen and ready to recommence firing (on the left), my disorganised crossbows were retreating out of range (in the centre of the field) and light artillery, spears and men at arms were moving over to plug the hole in the flank left by the disappearing knights. 

View from my Yorkist right flank. Disorganised crossbowmen stream past the front of the advancing peasant spears. Way off in the distance lurks my nemesis.

My reconstituted line of bowmen managed to stall the hesitant advance of the Lancastrian billmen (not shown) and I was pretty chuffed…until this happened.

Having recovered some sense of organisation Crispin’s knights thundered into my redeploying right wing. The light field guns were still setting up when they were entirely overrun. Because they were destroyed the knights moved into the ex gunners hex - which meant they then hit the disorganised crossbowmen in the flank. 

With predictable results. The remains of the crossbowmen fled the field in the same manner as my knights and gunners.

The slightly frazzled Lancastrian knights advanced again but this time they came face to face with my most motivated of units…the peasant spearmen! The spears took a battering and were forced to retreat but the knackered knights had had enough and melted away like mist. By this point in the battle he’d killed off 4 of my units and I’d only destroyed 2 of his.

When the Lancastrian billmen began to fall back I pushed my own forward (right of picture). Unfortunately a previously disorganised Yorkist company became the target of the Lancastrian archers…

…With predictable results. Two fresh hits (6’s on the black dice) on top of their already disorganised status made them run for it - becoming my fifth and game losing loss. Bugger. To top it off I’d previously placed my good self (Lord Mowbury) in the same hex as the shattered unit and a leader check die roll revealed that I’d been badly wounded in the upper body and carried from the field. The early end to the battle on our wing led to a dice modifier which showed the Lancastrian’s had beaten the Yorkists across the entire battlefield. Sometimes you just can’t catch a break. 

Observations 

The rules worked extremely well. Units that made it across the zone swept by massed archer fire usually made contact in a disorganised state and suffered as a consequence in subsequent melees. The knights had a big impact but proved brittle in the long run. Morale played a key part, peasant spearmen with the “we could be heroes” trait managed to stop the Lancastrian cavalry in their tracks. So all good.

Neither of us spent enough time moving our blocks of foot forward into contact despite having enough command points to achieve it. Apart from the foray of the Lancastrian knights we both became bogged down in archery duels and getting units back into an organised state before attempting to advance. I’ll try to avoid that next time and see how things go. I might just have to accept that they’re not going to be in the best shape when they eventually get across the killing ground.

Next game will involve some additional rules like improving the morale of a unit mid battle. 

Toodleooh.

A niche within a niche

Okay so I was googling “cats that look like Hitler”* the other day…hey, I am retired… when God knows how I got there but I ended up watching a stop motion video of the battle of the bulge - all done in LEGO.

It’s fair to say I spent many a long hour when both my two lads were little playing with their LEGO…and sometimes, if they were good, they got to join in too. Our best builds were forts, or siege weapons that used elastic bands to catapult marbles at the defenders, (I like to think they were brought up proper like). Anywhoo we constantly struggled to create warlike things with what was in those days a very non military toy. 

If only we’d waited for twenty odd years!

Now, I’m kind of used to having a hobby (regular wargaming) that’s considered “niche”, but it seems I’m now totally out nerded  by a group inhabiting a niche within my niche.

Here for your delight and delectation are a whole load of screenshots of WW2 LEGO tanks and infantry - that they apparently use Bolt Action to play games with!

I’m kind of in awe.

I think.

* totally a thing…Google it, it’s hilarious.

Keep it simple, stupid..! (Part 1).

I was working on two War of the Roses armies in the summer recess when a guy who was returning a chainsaw to me noticed them and asked what I was doing. He seemed quite enthralled so I promised that when I’d finished them I’d invite him around for a game…and some Pastis…(markedly different from Pasty’s, but just as bad for your health when consumed to excess). 

For a newbie I wanted to make the game playable and fun so I had been on the fence for a while about what rules to use. While trying to translate a few recognised sets into French for my opponents benefit I kept coming back to a set I’d devised myself back in the day. Now it meant a certain amount of, cough, …erm…  « work » (lol) to translate these too, but they were considerably shorter at only 9 pages and being hugely lazy that was all the excuse I needed to choose them. 

I would normally shy away from blow by blow accounts of a games mechanics but since I have picked up a few ideas off other people over the years I thought I’d break the habits of a lifetime and share some of the more esoteric, nay controversial aspects, that these rules include.

First off, and worth stressing, is that they are very abstracted and simplistic, designed actually for big battles with tiny troops like my 2mm ECW lads. They seek to bundle morale, training and equipment into one of four classes, ignoring the usual levy / retainer type designations. If you really want to know how far an arrow can fly against a 20kmh headwind or you resist the very notion that guys with the best equipment can be just as likely to run as peasants then these will be of no interest to you. Move along. Nothing to see here.

I started with the premise of two roughly equal forces and that there would in each game always be an attacker and a defender. The objectives in this period / setting are thankfully pretty simple - kill the enemy noble, or a good proportion of his forces. Settling on 15 units per side, (with a unit approximating a company) I decided that the loss of 5 units of any type would break an army and cause an automatic game loss.

Two other things to note are that 1) with small scale figures, and these troops are 6mm, on board counters can clutter the battlefield and spoil the aesthetic, so I’ve kept them to a minimum. 2) The battle depicted is actually only one wing of a much larger engagement and it is possible for you to lose the encounter but win the day (if that makes any sense).

The attackers army is composed of 5 companies of archers, 1 mounted men at arms, 2 dismounted men at arms, 3 units of billmen, 1 unit of mercenary handgunners, 1 unit of light artillery, 1 unit of light horse, and 1 company of peasant spearmen.

The totally made up Earl of Dudley’s retinue which are the attackers and thus include the light horse in the left foreground. 

The defender gets something similar but swops out the handgunners for crossbowmen and the light horse for a company of mercenary pikes. 

The equally made up Duke of Tipton (family / west midlands joke) and his retinue of defenders, mercenary pikes to the fore.

The defender chooses one of his units to leave off board in exchange for 3 items of defensive terrain. In this case 1 set of pavises for the crossbows and 2 sets of sharpened stakes for the archers. He also chooses 6 hexes worth of regular terrain that he deploys to his best advantage.

Before any units are deployed the attacker gets to move (if he wants to) up to 2 hexes worth of the terrain by a maximum of 2 hexes in any direction…but not off board.

The defender chose to anchor his flanks on 4 hexes of impenetrable gorse and 2 of woods (counting as rough terrain). For his part the attacker moved two of the gorse bush hexes (as indicated by the red arrows) in order to create an opening of clear ground around the flank and rear.

In accordance with keeping it simple there are only 3 types of terrain, clear, rough going…and impenetrable.

Finally the defender deploys his entire force including the defensive terrain items chosen when he sacrificed a unit.

The two units of archers on the left are protected by the stakes to their front. Not so obvious is the bunch if pavises in front of the crossbows in the middle of the line. The pavises can be moved with the troops if required but the stakes cannot.

Having had a chance to observe the defenders deployment the attacker sets up his units in the hope of exploiting any perceived weakness. Two companies may occupy a hex together if they are of the same type or they are archers which can be paired with billmen or dismounted men at arms. Such a pairing provides advantages and disadvantages depending on the type of combat engaged in and which unit type is foremost.

The attacker deploys in order to exploit a perceived weakness in the enemy line. Players are invited to imagine that fighting is also taking place on one or more flanks.

So far, so good, but now we get to the weird bit most folk won’t like. 

Apart from the command stand each unit is secretly awarded one of the following quality markers. Note each army commander has, initially at least, no idea as to which of his units will perform well in battle, (for who can know what is truly in men’s hearts?). The quality markers are 1 x « We could be heroes », 2 x « In it to win it », 9 x « Only here for the beer » and 3 x « Ready to leg it ».

These quality markers affect how a unit responds in combat and can be explained broadly like this:

1. We could be heroes. These guys will go the extra mile in combat, ignoring the first of any melee hits and getting to re role one combat dice. While you would naturally assume mounted knights might automatically adopt this mantle the random deployment of the quality markers means any one unit could receive it. I would justify peasant spearmen with this marker as being highly motivated by the proximity of their home settlement.

2. In it to win it. Broadly speaking these are troops who might materially benefit from the battles outcome and thus fight with a little more determination than most. Benefits could include the possibility of individual ennoblement, the acquisition of enemy territory or even just the prospect of expensive things that can be stolen off the wealthiest of the corpses. 

3. Only here for the beer. These lads are here because they’ve been told to be, and not showing their faces on the day might prove detrimental to their future employment and their families housing prospects. They’ll fight as well as they have to, but don’t expect too much when the going gets tough.

4. Ready to leg it. Bad morale, cowardice, treachery, are all possible factors affecting this bunch. They really don’t want to be on the battlefield and will seek the first possible opportunity to bugger off. Typically this might naturally include any peasants but in this game it could just as easily be the cream of society. 

Usually you only get to see the quality of your own or your opponents units when they come under missile fire or are engaged in melee, but shown below the owning player is able, once per turn, to secretly view the status of any units he is currently adjacent (i.e. in the next hex to).

Before the fighting kicks off the Duke of Tipton is disturbed to find his leading dismounted men at arms are apparently ready to leg it, the guys behind them are not exactly convinced of his cause and the only unit he can really put his full trust in are the motley bunch of billmen recruited from the local town.

Equally disappointed is the Earl of Dudley - with no feel for who he can really depend on, so far, and the nagging worry that the « We could be heroes » quality marker may have been discarded along with the unit he sacrificed to provide the field defences.

If you feel you have the time as the army commander you can of course spend precious command points moving your command stand around the field to assess the men’s individual determination. There is also the limited ability to change men’s quality but more on this later.

So the two armies are deployed and the attacker automatically gets to go first in the first turn. Here he rolls 2D6 and scores 8, which gives him 8 command points to spend this turn. Fighting in melee occurs automatically as does missile fire (within the constraints of firing arcs and line of sight) but command points are needed to move units, shake off disorganisation, activate special events and resupply archers running low on arrows.

A useful command point score - but there’s lots to do.

I’ll do another post shortly on the battle itself, but I’ll close with exciting news on the crisp front.

Having been subject to the French crisp market for nigh on nine years (give or take) I’ve long viewed the lack of Cheese and Onion flavour (truly the king of flavours) as a glaring omission and quite frankly a source of national shame. Deciding to « be the change I wish to see » I recently wrote to President Macron  highlighting the matter and asking him to ensure that immediate action be taken to remedy the omission - especially with the eyes of the world upon us during the olympics. Though he is obviously a busy chap (and disappointingly never wrote back) ((rude))… it can hardly be a coincidence that this was the first thing I noticed when perusing the croustillant racks in Carrefour yesterday. 

Coincidence…?

I think not!

Toodleooh!