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.

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!

  

Tools of the trade

I so so wanted to call this post « polishing my helmet » but after the fallout from « check out my junk » (on the old blog) I didn’t dare.

Now then…one of the only downsides to zoom gaming, (of which I have been doing more of my fair share of late) is that people get to see the kind of crack den / sex dungeon / doom preppers bunker that you regularly inhabit. Last night I realised that my regular background view might require a bit of further explanation if I’m ever to get another invite to a game. 

The longest serving of the cognoscenti may recall that I used to style myself a method wargamer, someone who wanted to know what it was like to wear the kit and use the weapons that my miniature chaps are forced to wield. It was this mind set that led me into re enactment and which allowed me to accumulate quite a hoard of medieval and ECW kit - until my first move to France saw the majority of it getting sold off.

On this my second (and final) sojourn to la belle France I’ve been lucky enough to have a dedicated games room, but it was looking a bit devoid of character until a chance encounter with an Adrian helmet at a local brocante got me thinking about tarting my new space up with something other than a bit of emulsion and the odd family photo.

Spurred on by the impulse purchase of this French military icon, the initial concept was just a display of a few more helmets but it soon morphed into helmet types and equipment that I’d worn and used in the past. Since, as I said, most of my original gear is now long gone, I started looking at the websites of people who make museum grade replicas replacements.

And just like that my wallet emptied.

Now I’d be the first to admit that having weapons on the wall is a tad…I dont know…vulgar? But I’m justifying this collection as literally a personal history trail so hopefully folk won’t feel the need be too judgy. Rest assured there will be no machine guns or nazi memorabilia here…no sireee Bob. (Especially after my “tussle” with an SS Feldpolizei reenactor at the Kent military show ground in 2013 - story for another day I’m afraid). ((Mutters under breath..Man I hate wannabe nazi’s…))

My new collection will be small and limited to my main areas of interest, i.e. ECW and early to late medieval and, unlike the blunted weapons I used when teaching people how to kill each other at RegIa Anglorum, this time they can and will be fully functional.

Philosophical question. Is reenacting or war gaming military conflicts from beyond living memory more palatable? Is anyone doing Ukraine / Russia yet? And if they were how would you feel about it?  Discuss. 

Okay back on topic. 

Helmets.

Here’s a piccie of the Adrian helmet that started the whole thing.

The Adrian style helmet is a design classic in my eyes and although they can be quite commonly found in junk shops etc over here they seem to suffer from Volkswagen badge disease. On the front of the helmet is meant to be a device showing the arm of service to which the helmet was issued but almost every time you find an Adrian helmet here the damned badge thingy is missing.

This particular one was issued to the Chasseurs Pied chaps (hence the hunting horn badge) and is an M15 version made from three pieces with a single large vent hole under the crest. There’s still faint traces of blue grey paint in places and given its 1915 production date it most likely saw service in WW1.

So that was the trigger for this particular spending spree, but it was only the inspiration and not actually linked with anything I’ve either gamed or re enacted.

Let’s get on to to my personal history trail.

First up is a Spangenhelm. Worn pretty much across Europe and the British Isles between the eighth and 11th centuries, it’s made up of four metal plates, cross ribs and a brow band with a nasal. It’s pretty much a direct descendant of earlier forms like late Roman cavalry helmets but without the cheek guards. Some examples have an aventail and back in the day I owned several of them, one of which sported said aventail cos it somehow looked more war like. (Yeah. I know, right).

I used to train folks to fight with sword, axe and spear and sure the sword and the axe look more sexy, but, just like the less glamorous artillery of WW1…the spear is definitely the main killer on the early medieval battlefield. 

With that in mind here is a winged spear originally designed for boar hunting (the wings prevent an injured boar from dragging its way up the shaft to get at you and also prevents too deep a penetration (potentially getting the weapon stuck in the target). 

The wings in combat are ideal for hooking over the rim of an enemy shield and dragging it away from the holders body. If you work in two person spear teams in a shield wall your mate on the left can wait for you to hook a shield and pull it away from the opponents body then he can stab his spear into the gap you’ve created and… erm… slot him…as modern soldiers apparently say. * Attacking on the diagonal like this is a common tactic in re enactment and I’ve often wondered if that’s why chess pawns are depicted attacking that way too?

The one below is a 2m long two handed spear and you use it with your shield slung on your back (or on its strap across your left front / shoulder).

Swords. I’m still waiting on the Copper Gate helmet reproduction to go with this magnificent 7th century sword. It’s a copy of the Fetter Lane sword found in London in 1893. It’s posher than the one I used in RegIa but hey it was a 60th birthday treat so what the hell. And yes… it’s sharp. The hilt is really fancy and the blade is a very nice patterned Damascus steel but this isn’t a very good picture unfortunately. Point of balance is around 5 inches along the blade which makes it a pretty hefty piece for chopping with. 

The Current Mrs Broom - who’s ace at needlework etc… hell she’s just ace - did me two faux Bayeux Tapestry pictures for my walls as well. One is taken directly from the tapestry but has Harold holding a spear rather than plucking an arrow from his eye (see the whole « was the tapestry altered » theory) and the other being the work of Stew (sadly not blogging at the mo) which makes me laugh every time I see it.

Here’s a slightly better picture of the sword, (in the wrong place of course thanks to blogger) courtesy of the blokes “what made it”.

Next up, here’s a Sallet helmet circa 1470.  I had two goes with my original of this at the yearly Tewkesbury battle re enactment. I was only a grunt and actually a guest of one of the societies staging the event. (I borrowed most of my kit for this). I wanted to join the group but the cost of yet more equipment, fees, and of course the time meant that I never got fully into it. 

And the item underneath the spear was what I was wielding at Tewkesbury - well a blunt version at any rate. It’s an English Bill, a close cousin of the Halberd if you were wondering. 

I reckon I should be sorted come the zombie apocalypse. Lol. 

Then there’s Meg my matchlock musket - last fired in 2016 and probably never going to be fired again…which is sad. Glad I never sold it cos I think it looks okay up on the wall, instead of locked in a gun safe as it was in the UK. I never used the apostles since my re enactment regiment (Sir William Pennymans Regiment of Foote) was a royalist one that upon re equipping in Oxford was issued paper cartridges in a leather bag (due to equipment shortages) in 1642 / 1643.

Roaring Meg - roars no more.

I think that’s probably enough militaria for one day. Might do another post on new additions as and when they arrive. 

Final thought. We only get to play at war with our toy soldiers. No one gets hurt (unless you mishandle wire spears…lol.) In reality it takes a brave man to stand against maniacs waving real weapons at you, so don’t be too hard on your chaps when they next fail a morale check. How brave would you be?

Toodleooh.

*Remind me to tell you sometime about the day I cut half of a blokes ear off and lost a tooth to a blunted axe in the mouth by way of compensation. True story. 

*Disclaimer* (I am aware that my never ending supply of wild stories can sound a bit like, BS, but honestly when it comes to life I seem to have the reverse Midas touch. Shit just seems to happen to me). The only saving grace is that given the passage of time even the worst happenings can seem quite amusing, and that’s something to cling on to in this crazy upside down world. N’est - ce pas?

Medieval mayhem with B.O.B.

This post was meant to be the next step in my ECW campaign but sadly...we now have house guests. (I know, right). Guests who expect the spare bedroom to be turned over to them for sleeping in, of all things, and guests who insist on eating their meals at the dining room table...otherwise known at Broom Towers as gaming platform B.

Anywhoo...while they were all off getting cold and thoroughly miserable at the beach I resolved to spend the five minutes they weren’t sucking at the teat of my largesse to test out some recent tinkering with my home brew WOTR rules and more importantly my “absent opponent”. 

One of my nobles with his household troops in a large company.

For the majority of my gaming life I’ve played solo battles using the “do the best thing for both sides” approach but in the last year I’ve noticed a bit of “favourite unit bias” creeping in. You know the one - where a bad combat result wasn’t quite what you thought was reasonable for your newly painted / best looking / most highly ranked chaps and the temptation to ignore or change the outcome insidiously creeps into your mind. In January I started using a basic Absent Opponent to control the manoeuvrings of the “other side” but in truth I wasn’t sure I’d got it quite right and so I continued to explore how other people had approached the problem. 

Weeks spent on the internet looking at AI algorithms and slick card systems made me realise that I didn’t want to spend every turn consulting a rabbit warren like decision tree nor did I want to construct an elaborate set of action cards for the enemy to draw from. 

Having settled on what I didn’t want, I created B.O.B. 

B.O.B. is, (as you’d quite rightly expect from me) a highly contrived acronym standing for my Battlefield Orders and Behaviour system. 

Having had a hand in creating my own nemesis as it were I’ve become tempted to go the rest of the way and dress up a potato, or perhaps a melon, in homemade (but period specific) military attire so that I can position it opposite me during a game - giving BOB a physical presence. The Current Mrs Broom rolled her eyes and sighed in approval when I mentioned the idea, so I suspect the concept has merit!*

I probably ought to mention as well that my home brew WOTR rules have undergone a massive transformation since they were last played in January, chiefly through the theft of a unit activation mechanism from Mr Cordery’s excellent Clash of Empires rules, discovered entirely by chance while researching project x.

In case anybody’s mildly interested in how B.O.B works I’ve sketched it out for you below.

Battlefield Orders and Behaviour - BOB

The absent opponents posture or “stance” may be defined as aggressive or defensive, and may differ across the width of the AO’s command. A single card drawn (from a deck of twelve) at the start of a game will determine the AO’s initial stance. The card is divided into three to reflect the two flanks and the centre of the battlefield and has icons showing which sections must adopt which posture.

 

A B.O.B. card also indicating a flank attack will be made.

Reading from left to right, (from the human players perspective) the areas include any unit in the 4 hexes on either flank or 5 hexes in the centre of a standard C&C battlefield. If a unit moves from one zone to another during the game, in its next activation it adopts whatever posture is indicated for the zone it now occupies.

 

Red triangles indicate an aggressive posture and blue squares a defensive one.

 

Activation

 

The AO’s units will behave according to their type within the confines of an aggressive or defensive posture such that:

 

Aggressive

 

o Aggressive - Missile units should firstly - try to shoot at targets, but if none are in range they should move in order to bring the closest one into range.

 

o Aggressive - Foot units should always try to move to melee the closest visible enemy. If none are in range they should move towards an objective (WOTR – units containing enemy leaders).

 

o Aggressive – Mounted knights (in WOTR) should ride straight at the closest enemy leaders position in order to engage in melee. They may ride straight through hexes of opposing levy leaving a disorder marker on them in the process but may not engage in combat. Other mounted unit types may only move towards opponents of equal or lesser quality (retinue or levy) with a view to engaging in melee – albeit without a charge combat bonus.

 

Defensive

 

o Defensive - Missile units should move towards the nearest cover (including adhoc defences and in hexes behind foot units) and if in cover already, fire or make ready. Units that have made ready must fire at a target as soon as it becomes visible or moves into range.

 

o Defensive - Foot units move in order to be adjacent to another friendly unit and may defend themselves in combat only.

 

o Defensive - Mounted knights should move to where the defence is weakest and dismount to be treated as foot (WOTR - replace mounted with a men at arms stand).

 

Changing posture

 

o Two melee losses, two combat induced retreats, two failed activations or the loss of a leader in a battlefield sector (in one turn) causes an involuntary move from aggressive to a defensive posture there.

 

o Two defensive melee wins, all units activating in a battlefield sector (in one turn) or no enemy attacks or advances in the sector causes a shift from a defensive to an offensive posture. 

 

o Posture change occurs in the admin phase at the end of the turn. A card is taken from the pack (as an aide memoire) to replace the original and reflect the current posture stances across the battlefield.

The new game rules include fire arcs, zones of control, unit facing, ammo supply for archers, disorder due to terrain or combat, large units, class, and a bespoke set of combat dice in the manner of C&C (should they ever arrive from America).

The game in question never came to a conclusion since my soaked and sand encrusted “guests” returned bearing fish and chips sometime around turn 5. Though I was forced to surrender gaming platform B...the chips were pretty decent compensation. 

For what it’s worth my game tactics were to sit on the ridge line and lob arrows at his advancing units. His flanking force would arrive when a cumulative dice score (added to at the end of every turn) exceeded or equalled 21 and they would appear on the indicated flank, 3 hexes closer to my board edge than his most advanced unit. His crossbowmen had managed to get into the lee of the ridge without loss and their advanced position meant that when his flanking force arrived on turn 4 they came on behind my lines. Ouch. 

Bobs flanking unit came on behind my lines...ouch!

On my left I sent a group of men at arms into the woods where his archers had just arrived. Disordered by the terrain and the run downhill they never managed a crippling blow despite their expected combat superiority. 

Rumble in the jungle? Nah...more like lots of asthmatic wheezing as my men at arms legged it across the valley then clanked around in the undergrowth.

A quick view of the “at start” battlefield.

The tipping point came when the units forced to retire under my archery fire bunched up and were forced to flee through each other causing mass panic and unit disintegration. 

With numerous disordered markers accrued whilst retiring under archery fire, the units set off a cascade off disintegration when forced to flee through each other.

On their way to put the boot in...my Billmen set off after BOB’s fleeing long spears.

This happened just as his flanking force and the fish and chips arrived - so I’ll never know how things might have turned out.

Conclusion 

Overall I was very pleased with the new rules and how BOB worked. I couldn’t guarantee his behaviour in advance, but he didn’t do anything strange either. I only had one moment of “mmm, never thought of that” in which I decided that any unit with 3 disorder tokens has become so combat ineffective it should be removed as a loss, so I think I might actually print this lot out and use them again. It occurs to me that with a little added period flavour the mechanisms might work for the ECW as well.

If you’ve just worked your way through this lot then go and have a stiff drink. You’ve deserved it.

Ooh hold on. Before you go I thought I’d share this interesting fact with you. It’s something I came across when researching the Martini Henry for project x (I’m going to have to think of a better name than that soon). I’ll quote directly from my source - Mr Haythorthwaite’s seminal Colonial Wars Source Book...

“A bullet did not fly upon a level trajectory, but was affected by gravity during its flight, and the arcing trajectory which had to be used varied according to rifle, projectile and range. To hit a target at 700 yds, for example, firing over even ground, a Martini-Henry bullet had to describe an arc of which the highest point was more than TWENTY FEET above ground level.”

Cripes!

Covid house blues

I called off my anticipated game this weekend thanks to the side effects of my first COVID jab,  however I did manage to finish off three more WOTR units. To that end I invite you to gasp in awe as I showcase my “work” through the medium of poor lighting and a crappy camera.

I also invested £10 to buy 128 hard to find ECW tomes at this chaps site. 

The Emperors Library

Here’s a screen grab of what I got for my dosh. Okay they’re all pdfs and not actual books, but hey... what do you expect for a tenner? The site covers loads of other periods so I thought I’d put this out there for anyone else that hasn’t seen it and might be interested. 

 1. A chronicle of the late intestine war in the three kingdoms

2. A Collection of original letters and papers, concerning the affairs of England, 1641 to 1660 vol.1

3. A Collection of original letters and papers, concerning the affairs of England, 1641 to 1660 vol.2

4. A discourse of the warr in Lancashire

5. A history of the life of Colonel Nathaniel Whetham, a forgotten soldier of the civil wars

6. A journal of the siege of Lathom House in Lancashire 1644

7. A narrative by John Ashburnham of his attendance on King Charles vol.1

8. A narrative by John Ashburnham of his attendance on King Charles vol.2

9. Charles I. in 1646 Letters of King Charles the First to Queen Henrietta Maria

10. Cromwell as a soldier

11. Cromwell in Ireland, a history of Cromwell's Irish campaign

12. Cromwell's army - a history of the English soldier during the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate

13. Cromwell's Scotch campaigns 1650-51

14. Crosby records. A cavaliers note book; being notes, anecdotes, observations of William Blundell of Crosby, Lancashire, esquire, captain of dragoons ... in the royalist army of 1642

15. Heath's historical annual; or, The great civil war of Charles I. and the Parliament

16. Historical gleanings on the memorable field of Naseby

17. History of Charles the First and the English Revolution vol.1

18. History of Charles the First and the English Revolution vol.2

19. History of Richard Cromwell and the restoration of Charles II vol.1

20. History of Richard Cromwell and the restoration of Charles II vol.2

21. History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, 1649-1656 vol.1

22. History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, 1649-1656 vol.2

23. History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, 1649-1656 vol.3

24. History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, 1649-1656 vol.4

25. History of the great civil war, 1642-1649 vol.1

26. History of the great civil war, 1642-1649 vol.2

27. History of the great civil war, 1642-1649 vol.3

28. King and commonwealth, a history of the great rebellion

29. Letters and papers relating to the first Dutch war, 1652-1654 vol.1

30. Letters and papers relating to the first Dutch war, 1652-1654 vol.2

31. Letters and papers relating to the first Dutch war, 1652-1654 vol.3

32. Letters and papers relating to the first Dutch war, 1652-1654 vol.4

33. Letters and papers relating to the first Dutch war, 1652-1654 vol.5

34. Letters and papers relating to the first Dutch war, 1652-1654 vol.6

35. Letters from Roundhead officers written from Scotland and chiefly addressed to Captain Adam     Baynes

36. Memoirs of Prince Rupert, and the cavaliers. Including their private correspondence Vol.1

37. Memoirs of Prince Rupert, and the cavaliers. Including their private correspondence Vol.2

38. Memoirs of Prince Rupert, and the cavaliers. Including their private correspondence Vol.3

39. Memoirs of the civil war in Wales and the Marches, 1642-1649, Vol.1

40. Memoirs of the civil war in Wales and the Marches, 1642-1649, Vol.2

41. Memoirs of the two last years of the reign of King Charles I

42. Memorials of the great civil war in England from 1646 to 1652 Edited from original letters of Charles the First and of numerous other eminent persons Vol.1

43. Memorials of the great civil war in England from 1646 to 1652 Edited from original letters of Charles the First and of numerous other eminent persons Vol.2

44. Military Memoir of Col John Birch. Governor of Hereford in the Civil War

45. Monk; or, the fall of the republic and the restoration of the monarchy in England, in 1660

46. Monk's Contemporaries Biographic Studies on the English Revolution

47. Notes of the treaty carried on at Ripon between King Charles I. and the Covenanters of Scotland, 1640

48. Oliver Cromwell. H.H. the Lord Protector and the royalist insurrection against his government of March, 1655

49. Oliver Cromwell and the rule of the Puritans in England

50. Oliver Cromwell's Letters & speeches vol.1

51. Oliver Cromwell's Letters & speeches vol.2

52. Oliver Cromwell's Letters & speeches vol.3

53. Papers relating to proceedings in the county of Kent, 1642-46

54. Robert Blake, admiral and general at sea

55. Royalist father and Roundhead son; being the memoirs of the first and second earls of Denbigh, 1600-1675

56. Rupert, prince Palatine

57. Scotland and the Commonwealth. Letters and papers relating to the military government of Scotland

58. Select tracts relating to the civil wars in England, in the reign of King Charles the First by writers who were witnesses of the events which they describe Vol.1

59. Select tracts relating to the civil wars in England, in the reign of King Charles the First by writers who were witnesses of the events which they describe Vol.2

60. The army lists of the Roundheads and Cavaliers, containing the names of the officers in the royal and parliamentary armies of 1642

61. The autobiography of Joseph Lister, of Bradford in Yorkshire, to which is added a contemporary account of the defence of Bradford and capture of Leeds by the Parliamentarians in 1642

62. The champions of the crown

63. The civil war in Hampshire (1642-45) and the story of Basing House

64. The Civil War in Worcestershire, 1642-1646, and the Scotch invasion of 1651

65. The Covenanters in Moray and Ross

66. The diplomatic correspondence of Jean de Montereul and the Brothers de Bellievre vol.1

67. The diplomatic correspondence of Jean de Montereul and the Brothers de Bellievre vol.2

68. The first and second battles of Newbury and the siege of Donnington Castle during the Civil War, 1643-6

69. The garrisons of Shropshire during the civil war, 1642-1648

70. The great civil war of the times of Charles I. and Cromwell

71. The history of the grand rebellion vol.1

72. The history of the grand rebellion vol.2

73. The history of the grand rebellion vol.3

74. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Begun in 1641 vol.1

75. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Begun in 1641 vol.2

76. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Begun in 1641 vol.3

77. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Begun in 1641 vol.4

78. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Begun in 1641 vol.5

79. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Begun in 1641 vol.6

80. The House of Lords during the Civil War

81. The Irish rebellion of 1641, with a history of the events which led up to and succeeded it

82. The king in exile. The wanderings of Charles II from June 1646 to July 1654

83. The King's general in the West. The life of Sir Richard Granville, bart., 1600-1659

84. The last years of the Protectorate, 1656-1658 vol.1

85. The last years of the Protectorate, 1656-1658 vol.2

86. The memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, lieutenant-general of the horse in the army of the commonwealth of England vol.1

87. The memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, lieutenant-general of the horse in the army of the commonwealth of England vol.2

88. The Nicholas papers. Correspondence of Sir Edward Nicholas vol.1

89. The origin of the first Dutch war of the Restoration

90. The parliamentary generals of the great civil war

91. The quarrel between the Earl of Manchester and Oliver Cromwell - an episode of the English Civil War

92. The Royalist Composition Papers vol.1

93. The Royalist Composition Papers vol.2

94. The Royalist Composition Papers vol.3

95. The Royalist Composition Papers vol.4

96. The travels of the King; Charles II in Germany and Flanders, 1654-1660

97. The whole proceedings of the siege of Drogheda and siege of Londonderry

98.Tracts relating to military proceedings in Lancashire during the great civil war

99. With Milton and the cavaliers

100. A letter or an epistle to all well-minded men in England, Wales, and Ireland ; in special to the Parliament and Army

101. Barnstaple and the Northern Part of Devonshire During the Great Civil War

102. Cromwell's Soldier's Catechism

103. Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army During the Great Civil War

104. History of Scots Affairs, from 1637-41 vol.3

105. Memorials of the Civil War. Comprising the Correspondence of the Fairfax Family vol.1

106. Memorials of the Civil War. Comprising the Correspondence of the Fairfax Family vol.2

107. Military memoirs of the great civil war. Being the military memoirs of John Gwynne

108. The Protector ; a vindication

109. London during the great rebellion. Being a memoir of Sir Abraham Reynardson, knt

110. History of Scots affairs, from 1637 to 1641 vol.1

111. History of Scots affairs, from 1637 to 1641 vol.2

112.  Lives of the warriors of the civil wars of France and England, Volume 1

113.  Lives of the warriors of the civil wars of France and England, Volume 2

114.  Memoirs of the Most Renowned James Graham, Marquis of Montrose

115.  Minute Book, War Committee of the Covenanters, Kirkcudbrightshire 1640-1

116.  Montrose and Covenanters vol.1

117.  Montrose and Covenanters vol.2

118.  Numismata Cromwelliana or, The medallic history of Oliver Cromwell, illustrated by his coins, medals, and seals

119.  Scotland and the Protectorate. Letters and papers relating to the military government of Scotland 1654 to 1659

120.  The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland

121.  The Cromwellian union; papers relating to the negotiations for an incorporating union between England and Scotland, 1651-1652

122.  The life and campaigns of Alexander Leslie, first Earl of Leven 

123. Bellum civile - Hopton's Narrative of his Campaign in the West 1642-44

124. Sussex in the great Civil War and the interregnum, 1642-1660

125. The Confederation of Kilkenny

126. The Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby

127. The narrative of General Venables

128. The Ulster civil war of 1641, and its consequences; with the history of the Irish brigade under Montrose in 1644-46

 You will get the following files:

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