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!

  

Bugger me that went quick

Yeah it went quick alright. Quicker than a thousand greased gazelles to be honest. One minute it’s April and I’m signing off for a bit of a break and the next thing you ruddy know it’s almost September!

As it happens I swore off the bloggersphere almost entirely, so apologies to anyone whose blogs have been sans moi this past few months. Like I told the wife recently. « It’s not you it’s me, love. »

Starting on a grim note (always play to your strengths) I’ve been investigating the VERY local activities of this particular son of a bitch.

You can expect more on this twat and his merry men when the mood takes me. It’s always good to have something to look forward to I find, n’est ce pas? 

Thankfully, light relief has been provided by the wonderful zoom games I’ve been allowed to take part in, which are very well documented over at Palouse Wargaming Journal and Prometheus in Aspic. Other than that I’ve been tinkering in my geek cave of mystery with the following:

Galleys and Galleons - always good for a bit of fun solo gaming. This piccy is from « Revenge of the Megalodon » I think…(given there’s a ruddy great shark fin in the middle of the photo). I enjoyed myself so much with these 1:450 PP models that I broke out a few more from the pile of shame and have now painted them up.

6mm Baccus WOTR troops. 15 stands of men from the Earl of Dudley’s (made up) retinue were completed.

And here are a similar number of chaps who are followers of the Yorkist Duke of Tipton (also made up). Each force represents one wing of a larger Yorkist / Lancastrian army and they were created along with some home brew rules to introduce a French friend to wargaming. I’m pretty chuffed with the rules so these will be getting a good old work out I suspect. 

2mm Martian madness. These tripods were cobbled together out of fishing weights and bent coat hanger wire. Necessity is definitely the mother of invention it seems. The steam tank / land ship came from Brigade if I recall. This project is now mothballed for the foreseeable.

Victorian / steam punk submarine wars. Two lashed up subs to test some home brew rules…which were reassuringly terrible…sigh. The one on the left is the « plongé » armed with an extendable hollow charge explosive device which it can attach to enemy ships and the one one the right is the « SS Steak Knife », equipped with an oversized underwater ram on the nose and three internal mines released via the dorsal hatches. Another project shelved, probably for ever.

Bit of a tangent…but I’ll leave you with some pictures of the wonderful world of French crisps. No cheese and onion unfortunately but we do have these delightful flavours by way of compensation:

Two of my five a day. I need these, my therapist says, because I am weak. 

Not sure which genius came up with the mushroom flavour but I’ve written to Macron suggesting they get the medal of honour. 

Toodleooh.

The home front

There’s not much wargaming or painting going on over here at the moment, and god knows when my 6mm Baccus Lancastrian army will show up, so I’ve decided to close up shop for a couple of months while I generate a few things to write about (if Stew can do it so can I). 

If nothing else I should have a few ECW battles and an airship mission or two to kick things off again when I return.

As an early retiree on a limited income (cue the playing of a very tiny violin) I sometimes have to make difficult decisions on how to spend my hobby money. This month (in a spend I shall have trouble categorising for the wargaming census) I err spent it on a couple of birds…

Literally.

Meet my two new family members, Bancroft and Makepeace. 

Bancroft & Makepeace. Hanging out with chickens can be very restful. 

They’re a pair of fancy pants chucks, Bancroft is a Brahma and Makepeace is a Favorolle - not that you’re especially interested I’m sure. 

Makepeace doing a runner after taking a dump in my welly.

Being French they immediately went on strike over the lack of adequate wi fi in their enclosure, so no eggs of note so far.

Les Poulets avec les gilets jaunes. It’s a French thing.

Hopefully they won’t start blocking access to the garden or burning tyres.

Have a great summer everyone. 

Toodleooh.

Gas bags over Lovitznia

As I revealed in an earlier post I have a bit of a “pash” for airships and especially fantasy / steampunk ones. Since Christmas I’ve been running a smallish campaign covering the 1890´s aerial conflict between the two Eastern European Imaginations of Maltovia and Lovitzna so I thought I’d bore the arse off everyone with a few piccies and a brief description of what’s what. If nothing else it’ll be a break from the ECW. 

Variety. 

You know.

Spice of life and all that.

Anywhoo…

The two countries (Maltovia and Lovitznia) were borrowed from my Penguin paperback copy of Capt W.E. Johns “Biggles Goes To War”. I was a big Biggles fan when I was little, which probably explains a lot.

Maltovia and Lovitznia’s border is long and difficult to traverse. In the south the two countries are separated by a high mountain range and in the north the border is marked by a thirty mile stretch of the river Dniepr.

In 1888 the Lovitznian High Council agreed the funding and construction of the Lovitznia Maltovia Friendship Bridge and by mid 1891 where my campaign begins it has finally been completed.

Not long after the bridge is finished the Maltovian government receives intelligence that the Lovitznian army is conducting “manoeuvres” within striking distance of the crossing. Reconnaissance by the Maltovian’s sole Aeroleve confirms the situation. The Lovitznian ambassador is summoned but denies any ill intent on behalf of his country. Maltovia begins to mobilise its small and ill equipped army and hurriedly arranges the purchase of a single outdated Montgolfier class cruiser recently decommissioned by France. Within days of its arrival it is pressed into service on a desperate mission.

The Maltovian high command concludes that only way to halt a Lovitznian invasion is to take away the ability to cross the Dniepr in any numbers. The shiny new bridge would have to go.

On June 4th 1891 the two machines of the Maltovian airforce took to the sky and headed east, the mew cruiser laden down with a clutch of bombs and the escorting aeroleve carrying half a dozen rockets. 

The rules used were my favourite Galleys and Galleons, modified for hexes and with the combat system changed to better suit my needs. So barely Galleys and Galleons at all come to think of it. 

The Montgolfier Class Cruiser (left - painted in Maltovian colours) leaving a cloud bank at high altitude and heading east at a tear arsing 40kmh. On the right is the Maltovian aeroleve (body of a small airship but fitted with wings to aid lift) and its battery of six forward firing rockets.

Seems the Lovitznians have also been shopping for an air force. This patrolling Danube class vessel could put a spanner in the works!

“And there’s more” - as Jimmy Cricket used to say. An ex Austro Hungarian Pfeil class vessel comes in as a Lovitznian back up.

Over the target. The Maltovian airforce scores two bomb hits on the bridge. Not enough to destroy it on this occasion but enough to prevent its use until its repaired. On the right the aeroleve fires a rocket (and misses).

The aeroleve attempts to pop a cap in the Lovitznian’s ass again (as I believe my American cousins might say) and misses (once more).

Now that the gloves have come off the Lovitznian airforce responds in kind. But un obligingly doesn’t miss.

Stat card for the Maltovian cruiser. Red dice indicates activation limiting damage and the two home made counters show damage to the engines and the command crew.

Job done, both Maltovian vessels high tail it for the exit and slip away without any further damage. I think it’s fair to say the Lovitznian Embassy won’t be hosting any more “cocktails and canapés” friendship nights in the near future.

Toodleooh. 

The king is dead long live the err…

Woe woe and thrice woe. 

Erm… alas and alack…etc.

I think this pamphlet produced in Birmingham probably explains it all. 

In other news the positions of major garrisons in Spring 1943 is shown below. The Parliament expanded its holdings in the North West and the Royalists pushed north east to establish a chain of allied settlements between the midlands and the other Royalist powerhouse in York.

Royalist recruitment has picked up and revulsion over the kings death during Parliaments brief custody has led to a number of political splits within its higher echelons. Since the Royalists now have a martyr for the cause, the main question amongst many of parliaments grandees is what to do with the Monarchs body?

Rupert and the Generalissima are determined that Charles’ death will not be in vain. The Royalist forces have suffered two major defeats but now have enough recruits and arms to make another effort. As spring gave way to early summer, camp fever began to swell within the royalist ranks forcing Rupert to march out of Birmingham at the head of a significant host. Parliaments leading generals hurriedly convened in London with but one question on their lips. Where could he be headed?

Toodleooh.

Space Nazis next methinks.