Decisions, decisions: AWI

"My compliments, sir. WHAT is going on with this project - indeed this PERIOD!?"


Well, that's a good question, your eminence!

This blog has the dubious honor of "least posted to" as I've been just banging away with Medievals and WWII. Lots of inspiration for game design with some great support from others has really got the "fast-play with flavor" design concepts working well, here. Also, there's been lots of indecision on my part re: what to do and how to do it.

Suffice it to say that I flirted with a switch to WSS because the units are cool looking and it is pretty exotic, a lesser known period. I got some Wargames Factory 28mm plastics, and they look really interesting to work with. Then I started puttering around with formations and table space, and I just didn't like the way the 25mm looked for a mass battle sort of game. It was also something of a struggle to differentiate between the English / Dutch firing line and the French style firing line. Looks matter, so I sort of lost momentum thinking I should switch to 10mm or even 6mm.

Then, I thought that I'd ditch much of the tricorne era stuff, as there are plenty of others around here who play it. Also had trouble deciding if I should do French and Indian War or AmRev. It's a bit silly, since I live in the middle of a major theater of war for the American Revolution, but there it is...a clash between the exotic and the known.

Anyway, playing around with my 25mm Old Glory medievals has given me more feel for how they will look and play on the table. They are OK in the small space on which I do much of my wargaming. As my fast-play medieval game [click] is a "big skirmish" [or perhaps "Unit Skirmish" game would be a better term] it does somehow feel right.

So overall, I am thinking that games where a Unit is a few companies, say 100-150 men, work well in fast play and on my table. I think that a full regiment for fast-play needs smaller figs to keep the small frontage that makes the Units themselves _physically_ easy to handle. 
Game Design Note: let's remember that effective shooting distance is typically about half the size of a regiment in the horse and musket era, if we use the 7YW as a sort of median.

Anyway, this brings me back to the Tricorne Era, and American Revolution.

Been going back and forth about what to do with the last of my 25mm Old Glory AWI. I've about a hundred, all nicely painted, all Hessians, including:
30 Musketeers w' command
30 Fusiliers w' command
19 Jaegers w' command
6 Gunners
5 guns
2 generals

and left over somehow: a regiment of 24 7YW French w' command.

That's it. The big old mound of lead was successfully sold off.

Now, I do love AWI, and I live near a battlefield and in an area full of AWI history. 

For a while, I was going to redo a part of it in 40mm.
I love the figs - they're bigger and easier to paint in my old age.  But I haven't gotten my ECW stuff painted so I'm uncertain about if I'd really prefer them in 40mm. Also, the units may be a bit snug on my small office table where I do much of my gaming - it's only 4x3' and units of 16-32 figs take up about 5-10" frontage each.

Then I thought about doing it in 6mm, but I'm uncertain I like that size fig. 
I've some 6mm ACW that need to be finished, and after pushing them around a bit I'll know if I like figures that small and will buy into the "big picture look" of a 6mm unit. The ACW units will be brigades of about 6 bases of 16 figs each, or 96 figures.

Then I stumbled onto Pendraken 10mm AWI.
They are just lovely, and cost nothing and look like they'd be easy to paint. They'd be great for a small table and One-Hour Wargames type activities. However, they are a bit small to have individual character and do narrative gaming with them. I think in 10mm I'd rather do a "mass battle European war" type of thing like WSS.

Then there is 15mm - but my old club has a mound of 15mm AWI. I've a couple of local guys who have 15mm, so the stuff would mesh with theirs. But I dunno - it's not expensive but it is almost like it has the disadvantages of 25mm details to paint, but on a smaller surface. I'd rather do 25mm and have more space on which to paint.

Then there's 25mm, which is the scale in which I started my AWI. 
It has a good balance of individuality of figs and "mass effect" of figs. You can play a skirmish game or you can have a table full of massed units. Note this is 25mm, as in Old Glory 25mm, not the new British 28mm stuff. It is not expensive - with the OG Army discount, it is around 72 cents a figure, or 1/3 the price of either 40mm or premium Fife and Drum 28mm stuff, which is in the $2-2.25 a fig range. I also like the Old Glory balance of animation and paintability, with the exaggerated hands and faces - just makes them look better on the table at game distance. 

As I've been playing with my Old Glory medievals, which are based in groups of 5-15 figs, I think they provide a nice size to table space ratio for me. This has reinvigorated my interest in my painted 25mm Old Glory Hessians. So here they are in all their [Old] Glory:

Below. View of the battlefield, a little-known invasion of South Carolina by Hessian Forces [note the palm trees in the scrub at the top]. Musketeers [30] to top right, two 6pdr guns w'crew, 19 Jaegers scattered around in front, to left, and holding the terrain at top.


Close up of Jaeger's skirmishing, skillfully using every shrub and bush.


Hurried conference between the Oberjaegerfuhrer, his leutnant and the musician as to the deployment of the additional jaegers dashing into the battle.


Meanwhile, the Musketeers try to decide which formation looks better...


Two groups of two divisions? Left divisions with British advisor holding field conference


right divisions moving up


...or one big battalion of all four divisions? Looks really matter, this is Lace Wars, after all!


And on to the artillery. These came out very well, IMHO. 6pdr guns look small but not tiny.


The concept was three gunners per gun if 6pdr, 2 gunners per gun if 3pdrs [which I have]. The Hessians apparently often pulled around their own 3pdrs as battalion guns.

Speaking of looking good, here's the second 30-fig Unit, Fusiliers.

In original concept, this would be all 30 in three ranks, as the Hessians fought closer and deeper than their British and Rebellious Subjects - it's about a 6" frontage.

Looks a bit crammed, however.

In my next concept, the "third rank" would be implied by putting the drummers, colonel, and some pushy sergeants in a third partial rank. This would be differentiated from the wider, narrower British and Americans by putting them in a wider, 2-rank formation - it's 1" wider.



And this is assuming 4 divisions of 2" each, a good size for basing these figs - now 8" wide.




And the two generals I painted up. I _believe_ the right is supposed to be Benedict Arnold, and of course the fellow on the left needs no introduction.

Still pleased with how Gen. Washington's horse came out - the dappling is nice!

Well, there you have it. A lot of thinking going on here...

The 25mm seem to have the best balance of size as individuals and are yet small enough to give a "mass" effect when in groups. They are also pretty easy to see on the table from gaming distance. As I truly like the Old Glory style [not everyone does] I'm in pretty good shape financially. I priced out the American side of a Trenton Christmas Surprise project at needing around another $150 or so of figures. Not really that bad. Of course I need the entire American force, and then Grenadiers for the Hessians.

Also, I could go another direction and fight Blue Prussians v. White-coat French in a sort of semi-imagination / 7 Years War sort of battles. All I'd need to do is add some heavy cavalry for each side as I was already planning a couple units of light dragoons for these armies.

I'll have plenty more time to think about it - I'll be working with a lot of 25mm figs for the next few months, preparing for a big-battle Brunanburh which will be covered in my ancients thru medieval blog, Spear to the Strife [click].

Well, if you've any thoughts on this, I do welcome them!

More on Inter-active Turn Sequencing

"Hah! They think they will be permitted to use anything but IGO-UGO...kill them all!"

the more tyrants change, the more they stay the same...

Periodically I return to a critical aspect of game design mechanics, the turn sequence. I've learned a lot from using Neil Thomas' "One-Hour Wargames" and other game designs of his. I previously posted on this concept HERE where it was inbedded in a post that was mostly focused on a more gamey [but fun] use of playing cards for a turn sequence.

At the moment, I am working on a re-think of one of my favorite inter-active turn sequences, the Roll-Off. The Roll-off works like this:

Each side rolls off using 1D6 and the winner gets the differences in Actions for his Units. With 6 Units per side in OHW, this usually takes about 5-7 roll-offs, depending on the values. Once one side has finished, having Acted with all 6 Units, the other side finishes the turn by acting with all not-yet-activated Units of his own.

There are several things I like about this sequence:
1. It is a bit unpredictable - you don't know how many Actions you will [won't] get until the roll-off. If you win, you don't know if you'll win again, so you have to carefully consider that the Actions you are presently using may be followed by opposing Actions.
2. It is not wildly unpredictable - you can be pretty sure that the winner will normally get about 2 Actions, and that the winner will change every couple of dice rolls.
3. Even if you lose and your opponents Acts with all his Units before you've Acted with any, you still have SOME sort of an advantage in that your Actions can now all be Counter-Actions to the winner's activities. As the turn now ends, all Units have another chance to go again, and you "may" be able to act again with a couple of your units in a productive way that furthers a critical part of your battle plan.
All of which really remind me a lot of reality!

For Ancients through Pike and Shotte [at least] warfare proceeded at a pretty stately pace in larger battles, mostly due to the difficulty of controlling large bodies of Soldiers. I'm therefore OK with the single-side combat of those periods [either melee or shooting] altho there may be some tinkering needed to fully adapt this to OHW.

The Cycling Turn effect is also helpful, in that it allows a simple mechanism and player decisions to shape events that are faster - or slower - than a rigidly structured turn sequence permits. So an IGO-UGO says something like "Infantry can move 6" per Turn, and Cavalry can move 12" a Turn." In between your alottment of 6" or 12", the opponent is allowed to do the same, providing a constant action-reaction of those move increments.

The above Turn sequence introduces a more dynamic flow of actions by permitting a player, through the combination of BOTH the dice rolls [has to lose most of the turns initial roll-offs, then win the initial roll-offs next turn] and planning [has to save the Units he wants to move last, i.e. counter-move, for the end of the turn] to get two Actions before the opponent can Act. 

This could be a big deal in the original OHW mechanics where combat is one-sided; I inflict Hits on you thru shooting or melee, and you inflict none. In effect, I could shoot or melee you twice before you can fight back. This could certainly end some combats earlier and with few casualties to one side. So if your combat is one-sided, then you can probably only use the roll-off Actions WITHIN the phases of a turn, e.g. Movement Phase, Shooting Phase, etc.

In my Modern Combat adaptation, I'm using a simultaneous roll-off mechanic, so taking two shots without being able to fight back is not an issue. It does help to win at the beginning of the turn as you get to set the pace of Action. Also, engaging an OPposing UNit -OPUN- in a fight usually takes away its own turn.

I hope these thoughts give you some more perspective on the critical aspects and issues of the Turn Sequence. Interactive is not automatically "better" than "IGO-UGO" but it is different and has different strengths and weaknesses. I happen to prefer it for anything past WWI or lower than a squad-level game, i.e. Skirmish games, but get informed and tinker so you learn what you prefer. Most of all, HAVE FUN!!

That's an order.
;)

What's Missing in One-Hour Wargames Rules?

2/3 of the Horse & Musket OHW Rules...obviously not encumbered with details and differentiations!

What would the design teams of "Empire III" and "Advanced Squad Leader" say about this???

"One-Hour Wargames" rules are pretty sparse - which is why they are so short! Essential mechanics have been left for the players to decide. Some aspects must be defined or clarified, no matter what your gaming preferences are. In other words, there's no way of playing the game without these coming up and then having to be discussed. It's all well and good if you're hanging out with a friend - especially one who isn't a wargamer - but the tendency of people to argue to their own advantage, OR, the need to explain to a willing participant, means you may as well think about them now and make a decision on them.

Missing and Must Be Decided

General
- Premeasuring allowed?
- rounding fractions in favor of attacker, i.e. ANY fraction UP? so 2.25 Hits = 3 Hits?
- Unit Size dimensions are loosely given, typically 4-6" in the rules, with a few like guns being half that. It MATTERS for a number of mechanics AND how many units fit onto the table top in certain spaces, how wide the units are. Depth isn't as important.

Movement
- Crossing River at Ford / Bridge, i.e. rate, cost, bridge model
- Road Movement, i.e. how does the 1-base unit do it?
- Charging; How to Contact [corner-edge? edge-edge? full / partial alignment?]
- Measurement point for move distance to Contact?
- Cavalry retreat from Hand-to-Hand, e.g. 6" move any direction or straight back?
- turning and corner / edge interpenetrating friendly / enemy units.

Shooting
- measurement points to / from Units [center-closest? center-center? closest-closest?]
- measurement point for Unit occupying town?
- Firing Arc, i.e. how is a Unit "within" 45 degrees of the front facing?
- How much of a Unit needs to be seen to be targeted?
- How large a gap does a shooter need to fire through?
- Line of Sight, including through / within / across Area & Linear Terrain, and over units [especially important for artillery Units].
- Can you shoot into a melee [Ancients, Dark Ages, Medieval, Pike & Shot rules]?

Terrain
- How many Units may occupy a town? If 2+, how to work the 360 fire arc?
- what's "in" woods / town terrain?  [entire Unit or Unit Edge] [Partially or fully] within?
- How does a Unit "occupy" a hilltop? Same as "in woods / town" above?

MY DECISIONS
I generally divide the periods into Ancient [Ancient thru Pike and Shot] and Moderns [Horse and Musket to WWII]. The general concept is that modern armies begin when training is widely introduced to make movement and shooting more predictable.

General
- Premeasuring is allowed; 
- Any fraction is round UP. This "minimum" Hit of '1' gives a little satisfaction on a bad roll, and it also is justified by how intense and tiring combat is.
- Unit Sizes: For Ancients, I field units on a 2-1 front / Side base size ratio. My Medievals are all being rebased to 5" front and 2.5" deep. This is close to the WRG / DBx standard of 12cm front by 6cm deep. I then use the Base Width [BW] of 5" and Base Depth [BD] of 2.5" as measurement tools. For Moderns, I will be using multi-stand units about 4cm x 2cm in size, and they take up about 5-6" wide on the table.
- Line of Sight [LoS] I handled using the 2-1 base width-depth ratio. For a shot or charge, an attacker needs a BD of the target unit. So all of a flank and 1/2 the front of the base. The entire LoS needs to be within range, so again it would be the entire flank side of the base, or 1/2 of the front side of the base - the 1/2 front side doesn't need to be center to corner.

Movement
- Crossing River at Ford / Bridge, i.e. rate, cost, bridge model
I cross at normal move rates, but always make the river about an infantry move wide. So the most common units spend a turn crossing.
- Road Movement, i.e. how does the 1-base unit do it?
for Ancients, I let any contact with the road count, as they are mostly just a rough track or trail, anyway, and hasten movement not due to the quality of the road itself but due to the ease of staying on course. For Moderns, I have multiple base units so they just move along the narrow side of the base, each base upon the road.

- Charging; How to Contact [corner-edge? edge-edge? full / partial alignment?]
I use edge / edge and maximise contact, with the minimum being half the front, or a BD.
- Measurement point for move distance to Contact? I use charger's front center point to the farthest point of the LoS - a full BD of the base side being charged. 
- Cavalry retreat from Hand-to-Hand, e.g. 6" move any direction or straight back?
As I use edge-edge contact, they bounce straight back, HOWEVER, this is a good example where I can see allowing the corner contact along the straight line, and then moving directly back along that same charge line, so no conforming to edge contact.
- turning and corner / edge interpenetrating friendly / enemy units.
I allow this as the Units themselves are an area that has soldiers in it, not that the entire base footprint is entirely packed with people. Also, it's a lot easier on players to move around, especially when they're learning the game.

Shooting
- measurement points to / from Units [center-closest? center-center? closest-closest?]
Front Center point to the entire LoS, which is BD long [half the front, all the side] must be within range.
- measurement point for Unit occupying town?
One Unit per town, so the center of each of the four sides of the square, as tho it was a unit.
- Firing Arc, i.e. how is a Unit "within" 45 degrees of the front facing?
The entire LoS must be with the front 45 degree arc, so 1/2 the front, all of the side.
- How much of a Unit needs to be seen to be targeted?
A BD, or 1/2 the front, all of the side, needs to be in LoS.
- How large a gap does a shooter need to fire through? A BD.
- Line of Sight, including through / within / across Area & Linear Terrain, and over units [especially important for artillery Units]. 
I use a BD across a terrain edge or line that blocks LoS [e.g. woods, hill crest] or a BD within terrain [woods, town]. I don't allow shooting over friendly units, but if a Unit is a full level higher or more than an intervening enemy unit, I allow them to shoot if that unit is closer to them than the target unit.
- Can you shoot into a melee [Ancients, Dark Ages, Medieval, Pike & Shot rules]? 
I say yes, as long as you have a Line of Sight. This is b/c I don't see melee as continuous, but a series of short, sharp attacks with times of breaks in between. This also allows bowmen and Skirmishers to support other units during the game better.

Terrain
- How many Units may occupy a town? If 2+, how to work the 360 fire arc?
One in Ancients - so the square town is like a unit. In Moders, I let them fight through towns like they are woods, in effect.
- what's "in" woods / town terrain?  [entire Unit or Unit Edge] [Partially or fully] within?
I say entirely within area terrain to get a defensive bonus in melee. For shooting, if the LoS has the terrain between, then the unit gets the terrain bonus.
- How does a Unit "occupy" a hilltop? Same as "in woods / town" above?
I use a military crest, usually, so I define this by being "uphill" of the opponent in melee. If both are across the slope and appear "equally" situated from uphill to downhill no one gets a defensive bonus.

While there are many different rule sets out there that handle these mechanics and situations differently, I've tried to choose a series of intuitive, visually obvious means to solve most of the issues in the simplest way possible. Additional nuance is usually BOTH tedious and a-historical. An overall difference is best expressed with something simple, like Cavalry is faster than infantry, so it has a 12" move rather than the 6" infantry move.

Hope this list helps you to more easily prepare to play these rules and start considering your own way to handle the various situations that arise.

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*Shipping at cost and by agreement. local pickup OK. 
*Reply in the COMMENTS section with a way to get in touch, or *email my gmail which is brasidas19004, THANKS!

ITEMS AVAILEBLE are:

OSPREY

• The Austrian Army 1740-80: (2), Infantry
• The Austrian Army 1740-80: (3), Specialist Troops [Grenz, Freicorps, sappers, artillery, pandours]
• OOP - Russian Army of the Seven Years War (2) [cavalry, artillery, flags]
• OOP - Russian Army of the Seven Years War (1) [Infantry]
• Frederick the Great’s Army 3, Specialist Troops [engineers, frei-corps, volunteers, jagers, field artillery]
• Louis XV’s Army (1) Cavalry and Dragoons
• Louis XV’s Army (2) French Infantry
• Louis XV’s Army (3) Foreign Infantry
• Louis XV’s Army (4) Light Troops and Specialists
• Campaign #35: Plassey 1757, Clive of India’s Finest Hour
• Campaign #91: Kolin 1757, Frederick the Great’s First Defeat
• Campaign #113: Rossback and Leuthen 1757, Prussia’s Eagle Resurgent
• Campaign #125: Zorndorf 1758, Frederick faces Holy Mother Russia
• MaA Series 263: Mughul India 1504-1761

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Prussian Cavalry Uniforms of the 7YW

Prussian Hussar Regiments: Regular, Irregular and Provincial

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Mollo – “Uniforms of the Seven Years War, 1756-1763”

Blandford Colour Series – “Cavalry Uniforms of Britain and the Commonwealth”

My War of Spanish Succession project: the perfect horse and musket period!

Only the books are left, and they've an interested party.

Wargames Factory mint boxes: All New On Sprue [SOLD!!!]

Entire Army: 4 boxes infantry, 2 cavalry and 2 artillery [144/24/6 + 2 generals] - $164

More Skirmish - A Night Action by Yorktown

OK, so these are in fact American Revolution figures, and yes, they are 54mm toy soldiers that are literally borrowed from a 7yo - but more on that later. Still, the rules are basically the same, and altho the period is much advanced, these are a totally RAW series of two playtests. More playtests and the rules - as best as I could understand them - are in previous posts HERE.

EDIT:  There's a lot of Horse'n Musket posts for these skirmish rules HERE

Today I'm using these toy soldiers b/c that's the project we're working on - skirmish gaming with toy soldiers in the NW Frontier, 1880-ish. But, because the work on the rules was previously done here with GW figs - both classic Warhammer and LOTR film - I figured this is the best place to follow up on more work with these rules.

The intent was to explore both how it looks and how it plays in a small space. For day-to-day gaming, I personally don't have a lot of space altho I can expand from the 4x3' table in my office to the 8x3' table in the dining room, fighting down the length. Also, I've been considering the turn sequence and mechanics quite a bit, and as is now my custom, decided I absolutely had to play the game RAW, since I've eaten so much humble pie tinkering with NT rules in the past. Note that this does not make me apologetic for my critique that key rule mechanics - including ones mentioned in the rules themselves - are insufficiently explained. But more on that later.

Today, the rules are RAW and the figs are 54mm toys from a plastic bag at the Cowpens battlefield. Let's see what we think of both, eh?

Yes, the battle is - once again - Scenario #12: An Unfortunate Oversight from Neil Thomas' excellent "One-Hour Wargames" book. Not only was it already set up, but it is a pretty challenging maneuver scenario that I've now played so many times I'm quite aware of the key decisions a player needs to make, so doesn't intrude into the evaluation process. I could've used #4 or #8 just as well, both attacks on a hill - but it's not set up. All I changed was to add a lot more scenery, per the rules, "Remember to use lots of terrain" on p. 117. As always, lots of very specific guidelines here for the player, British-style!

In any event, here is the setup for what I envision as "A Night Action by Yorktown". The British are making a sortie against their beseigers - the goal is to carry the hill, spike the mortar, blow the powder, and retreat to the lines. Musket range is 16", foot move is 6", troop quality is Levy shoot and pass morale on a 5+, have 2 Hits and roll one Melee dice. Each quality higher - Average, Elite, Hero - adds '1' or 1 dice to the number, so the Hero has a 2+ 5 Hits and 4 melee dice. The wood is dense and the trees just mark it. I consider LoS to be from the edge, or 6" if crossing one side of the wood. The rest of the terrain counts in game terms as it looks.

Americans stretch from the town to the hill, the most direct route. Brits are taking the flank route, crossing at a ford they discovered nearby and which the Cunning Colonists know nothing about...


For such an action, we have a picked force of grenadiers [below] clothed in, well, red, Red RED! The rules say forces of 55 points, but I've 49 here, with 6 Elite Grenadiers [3 advancing with bayonets leveled, 2 fixing bayonet, and 1 firing] led by a Hero Sergeant [hustling forward] and an Elite officer [looking, as you'd expect, like he was trying to remember where his sherry decanter is], all with muskets except the officer has pistol / sword. Apologies to the gentry, but after all, the Lt. purchased his commission while the Sgt EARNED his. Still, I think I'm being fair that even a new officer in the Grenadiers would pick up that Elite attitude. Perhaps he was the lead in Rackets in debter's prison, or something.


Below, the much larger - and poorer - Rebel force. Elite officer, mounted with pistol, and 8 Average light infantry [probably Hessian Fusilier figs, but whatever] with musket.


And on the objective hill, below, a siege mortar that is disturbing the Duke of Cornwallis' letters home to his sick wife - can't have that, can we? While they may be great gunners, here they are 4 Levy with Musket, led by an Average gun commander with sword / pistol.

Altogether the Americans make a force of 51 points, with 14 figures. Probably should've rid myself of one gunner, at two points [1 for Levy foot, 1 for a musket]. If they lose, the Brits can claim the odds were stacked against them, somewhat, eh?

Below, the setup. Americans must be within 12" of the town. They opt for half in the town, half behind in cover behind the slight hill, with the officer ready to lead the Quick Response Force from the rear. 


Below, Brits stacked up all at the ford to the right. I'm saying that the stream is rough so costs double to move through, or 3" a turn.Plan is to zip through the field using the hedge as cover, gain the small hill to right, and from there mount an attack on the objective after tearing up the Rebel force. Let's see how it unfolds - there's a bottle of sack in it for the winner! Leading off is the Hero Sgt with 5 Grenadiers. Tailing is the officer with his bodyguard, a Grenadier with aspirations.


Turn 3 below. The Brits are in the field, but the Yanks are forming up. The Race for the Hedge has resulted in a 2-2 tie for cover. Unfortunately, the majority of the force is in the field, on a moonlit night, with the Yank officer dashing to cut them off.


Turn 4, below. A hot action is occurring across the hedge - both have cover. The flanking force is in difficulty from the gunners' musket fire on the hill, but they did put 3 Hits on the Yank officer, causing him to take cover behind the rise. One Grenadier has 3 Hits, only 1 left, but casualties are light.


Turn 5, an ugly night action flares by the hedge gap, with bayonet thrusts through the branches and even the Grenadiers taking some Hits, albeit taking a couple of lives in the process. Below a successful melee defense holds the hedge for now.


Below, Brit Turn 5. The flanking force determinedly advances, while also trying to support their blocking force with a shot or two. Still, not looking good, with Rebels everywhere and Grenadiers taking Hits. Dice lined up show the Brits winning a melee with a high dice of '6' v. '4' for Yanks. The yellow '4' causes 2 Hits from the bayonet thrusts of the desperate Grenadier. The "roll many dice, win with highest single roll" is a quick mechanic that produces both probability and variation, works well if you're OK with your occasional bad roll.


Below, Yank Turn 5. counter-attack leads to victory against the odds. Yank '5' beats 6 dice of two Grenadiers - Bloody Lucky Yank! Grenadier goes down as the yellow '5' results in two more Hits on him, for 4 total, enough to take out even a Grenadier.


British Turn 6. Firing upon the Yank commander and one soldier leads to no hits. Did they buy their ammo from a Philadelphia Quaker? Hmmm....


Yank Turn 6. More help arrives, and they take out some more Grenadiers with Fire.


British Turn 7. Unloaded and under pressure? CHAAAAARGE! Over the top they go. Nice thing about Charging is you get to pick your fights.


Scads of dice later and the Yank commander goes down with 6 hits, only 4 needed to kill him, anyway.


Still, the counter-attack hurts. Grenadiers are going down and most of the survivors have Hits at this point. They are at or over 50% with 3 of 8 left, so have to check morale.


And all pass except the Hero Sgt! He rolls a '1' and takes off. Still, he has 4 out of 5 Hits, so if he's 80% dead, shouldn't we cut him some slack? Still, no mention in dispatches for him!


Well, to get into the eval, I should start by saying these are a very serviceable set of rules, with some very clean shoot, melee and morale mechanics. The IGO-UGO isn't too trying since you do have the opportunity to save an Action and "Ambush" on the opponent's turn. This uses the "make the opposing player stop while you react" mechanic, which I loath and detest, as it leads to so much broken ploys. I much prefer a "react upon the completion of an enemy Action" from MP's "Starship Troopers" [an ill-handled, excellent game]. In the excitement, I mostly forgot about the Ambush mechanic, and I nearly forgot about Force Morale, as well.

These are a solid set of rules that need a bit of fleshing out but any gamer with some experience, or who's willing to ask around, should be able to tweak them without completely hashing them up.

Cover / Deep Cover tactic is confusing, but very interesting.  Cover works how you think, giving the figure in cover a 4+ save on 1d6. Deep cover gives the figure a second d6 for a 4+ save, in effect, doubling his chance to save. But, using Deep Cover gives a Target Figure of that Figure's Fire a bonus d6 save, so if it's in the open it gets a 1d6 for 4+ save, and if in cover 2d6. If both are in Deep Cover, they can't fire, presumably b/c they've no LoS.

How this works is a bit vague - it just says that "Figures may choose to be in Partial or Deep Cover. Units [sic - Figures?] in deep cover enjoy greater protection, but their firing effectiveness is limited. Units in Deep Cover are denoted by laying them down on the table."  The last implies to me that they're "getting down" as well as being in cover, so are limiting their LoS. How they do this is not explained - seems like at any Fire Action, one has to pick which one you're doing, and it would last until your next Activation.

In Melee, a figure in Deep Cover still just gets the one saving dice, not two - the second is only for firing. I do like this because if everyone is fighting in the deep woods French and Indian War style, then there should be a lot fewer shooting Hits, and the fight becomes a scattered series of melees in rough terrain with some confusion. Unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough terrain set up for that, so really playtesting that mechanic will have to wait. Also, it seems to me that sometimes the "Deep Cover" should be forced upon soldiers not just voluntary.

I like the fact that muskets shoot every other turn, and have to be reloaded. This could be combined with Deep Cover so that Reload = Deep Cover automatically. There are very realistic choices about taking time to reload, charge, advance, retreat, fire, that give the game great feel for a very simple rule.

Overall, a solid game, albeit with a scenario grabbed from elsewhere, and equal forces by points that seem a bit tough on a small, elite force. Clearly, another playtest is in order to get into this!

As for the figures, I did enjoy the size, which was quite startlingly big! My terrain doesn't quite cut it, but that can be remedied. Despite some pronounced mold lines, they look OK, and with some cleaning would paint up just fine. As there aren't many needed for a 1:1 figure to man ratio, in addition to which each man is a "unit" unto himself, some time cleaning them up wouldn't be as bad as say cleaning up 50 25mm figures for a big unit of Gauls or something.

Overall, a positive experience and a positive impression!

Some rules tweaks upon which I've taken notes:
- Work on type and nature of Actions. As these will be for NW Frontier, I can eliminate some of the odd weapons [like Crossbows] and even repeaters if not revolvers. At present, Repeaters / Revolvers allow two shots a turn or a split Action of 1/2 Move and 1 Shot.
- add a generic Action for a success doing anything from throwing to climbing, dis/mounting, whatever. 
- clarify the Cover / Deep Cover mechanic. It seems obvious to me that if figures can choose one or the other, and it mainly affects how they fire and are fired upon, then the key moment for them to choose is when they Fire, and they have to stay in that Cover type until their next activation. Perhaps the clearest way to do this is to say that they "go prone", which would also give them 1d6 Save in "open" terrain, in essence a bonus d6 instead of just enhancing the Cover save. Also, there should be times when this is forced upon a figure, not just always being voluntary.

Lots to think about!

MDF Bases by VP Sales

I was looking around for bases, and wasn't sure I wanted to go with Corsec as it's a special order item, altho I like dealing with Corsec and have no problem recommending them. 

Did an internet search and stumbled across a series of base auctions by VP Sales. They were in batches of 10 for $2.50, plus a modest shipping fee. While VP didn't have exactly what I wanted, I asked via eBay message if he could make them, got prompt reply, and decided to give it a go. All went quick except that I messed up my shopping cart and then Christmas intervened [and I would certainly not fault anyone for slow service on that day!] and I felt stupid.

In any event, I got 60 custom bases in 3mm laser-cut MDF:
50 square bases, 1.5" @ $15
10 rectangular bases, 2x3" @$3.50
Combined shipping from KY 41042 was $5.00 for USPS 1st Class, 12 oz package.
Total price was $23.50, or 40 cents a base, payment was by Paypal.

Quality is just fine, and they exactly match up with my Corsec bases, so no accuracy problems here. They were shipped in a box with peanuts, no breakage.

Unless someone has a much better deal of which they know, I'll be ordering from VP again. VP Sales info:
[EDIT -Corrected] Website is HERE
eBay ID: showcaseterrain1
email: vincep@twc.com

I'll be using these for my skirmishing 40mm ECW trials, and other big fig skirmish games [more on this very soon, trials are already underway!]. Not only do they reduce damage to figures, but I've decided that square bases are the way to go as it is easy to measure facing / sides off the corners.

"Wargaming: An Introduction" - ACW rules playtest

Got together with veteran gamer - and Army veteran - to push around some of his 15mm lead and see what he thought about the rules. It's always good to get a fresh view on game rules when you've been at them for a while. Here, I sent them on ahead, and John diligently read them, putting him in a very small minority of gamers!

We used Scenario #11, "Surprise Attack" from "One-Hour Wargames", a classic that I've played many times and which has some clear-cut decisions to be made with which I'm familiar. This means that mere poor decisions or unfamiliarity will have less of a impact on what is really a test of the rules rather than the scenario or even victory. previous visitors will recall that I used it several times to playtest my "minimal changes" set of the OHW rules for Horse and Musket, HERE. 

John provided a full force in the W:AI rules, so the Union had 8 infantry, 3 guns and 2 cavalry, while the Confederacy had 6 infantry, 2 gun and 2 cavalry. We used the modified charts I had, and also rolled for leaders, as I stole the General rules from the Napoleonic rules in W:AI also. I of course rolled the usual weirdness, and ended up with 3 Elite and 3 Militia infantry, but got 2 elite cavalry. Union had a more representative spread of Average and Militia, but I think there was one Elite infantry. Guns were 2 Napoleons and a Rifle for Union, 1 6lb and 1 Napoleon for the Rebs.

I chose to take this force on the defensive, or the Red team. John had extra punch and I figured that meant the offensive. The Defender in Scenario #11 starts with only 1/3 of his force at start, with 1/3 entering turn 3 and the last 1/3 entering turn 9 - and it's a LONG wait for the last 1/3 on turn 9! I know this from experience...Scenario map and such below:


And John's lovely board, below - seen from the Reb viewpoint. The yellow lines are of course the road, the fenced farm to right center is the impassible bog, the left fenced farm is a wood [I didn't want to change the table and it all worked]. 

I set up the Rebs between the two terrain features per the rules. John put his guns in the center with a brigade of foot on either side. He started with Cavalry on the wings, then crossed the right cavalry over to join the left one. His guns are firing through the center gap. I'm sidling over to the 'woods' where I plan to contest his advance and also hide from his dramatic superiority in guns. My 6lb has so little impact that I decide to hide it behind the woods instead! This was mainly due to bad dice rolling. His left cavalry are obviously heading around my right flank. 

My main error was to forget that we're supposed to be on a 3' board, but with all the distractions of running the rules, I didn't realize for a few turns that John was actually 5' away from me! I gave him a 6" free move to get closer on turn 3 or so.

A few turns later, we were fighting right in the woods, below. The mass at the top of the woods is three Union regiments in double lines, faced by one Elite Reb. Behind is the preceding Elite Reb, that had been holding the edge but lost a stand and bolted. The Yanks were right behind, so I couldn't rally them and had to move back again, while I re-positioned my support unit. To the right is another Reb facing 3 close Yanks, one incoming Yank behind which are the guns. I did make one Yank scamper in the fight at the top edge of the woods, but I doubt the ability of the one infantry to hold off all those Yanks.


Still, they are buying some time, and my three Militia infantry are forming up at the objective, the crossroads behind them.


Here we get into the nitty-gritty of rules testing, below. John fully expected to be able to "mass" his infantry, 3-1, against mine in the woods, charging the whole bunch at me. However, the rules might not allow this. If you use the 19th C. rule set interpretation, then it's one charging Unit per side [front, rear, both flanks]. If you second-guess the language of W:AI, it may only be one charging Unit per Unit, not even one per side! I chose to go with the 19th C. rules for now. This and the order of phases makes it difficult for units to pour in support fire since the charging friend would block their fire as charges / moves precede fire. I have to say I really don't care for Move-Fire-Melee, but Brits seem to love it!

Still, John has his Yanks all on the Front side. That means that he can roll to charge each one, until one passes, and then put that one in Contact. The others will not be able to fire or charge. Or he can instead fire all three units, pretty likely causing a morale check. If nothing else, in a turn or two he'll win the battle of attrition, most likely.

NT clearly leans into the - very historical, granted - concept that regiments would choose to fire until the enemy appeared to waver, then would go in with cold steel. My experience is that gamers like to charge way too quickly, using math to bully their way forwards. However, even if one successfully passes the morale check to charge, the defender gets to fire, and then there's morale if a stand is lost, and nothing better than an even melee if they don't lose a stand and don't have to check. So a 50-50 to win the melee. 

Some well-read gamers would say that even a 50-50 going in without weakening the defender with fire is too generous. I agree with that historical assumption. Interestingly, in game mechanics, the combination of all units being the same size, and all firing and meleeing the same [3+ per attacking stand to get a hit, a defending stand is lost at 4 hits] results in a net 50-50 chance, if you go in Fresh, and if you pass your original morale roll to charge at all. 

Contrast this with Simplicity in Practice, which has no morale roll to charge, but gives a solid advantage to the defender if the attacker doesn't have an edge in Disorder Points. The bottom line is that NT is trying to force gamers to either weaken the enemy with firepower and then charge, or take a chance at going in at odds of 50-50 at best, perhaps worse depending on supporting fire. Overall I'm fine with the concept, just wondering if the execution in game mechanics can be more nuanced without a lot of complexity.

Meanwhile, to my right [below] the Union cavalry are contesting my arriving reinforcements, two Elite cavalry and a Napoleon, with their two regiments of grocery store clerks [average cavalry]. Some humor was made at their expense expressing a confidence I did not have - with my back to the board edge, I was looking at losing any Unit that was forced to retreat - so "fake it 'til you make it" for the Rebs! 

Fortunately, the bottom Yank cavalry doesn't make its charge roll. Unfortunately, Rush's Lancers do, and we're now in melee. Fortunately, the Rebs win the melee by one Hit, despite rolling badly - the Yanks rolled worse! They retreat a move, I move after them to get away from the board edge. Below, on my turn I charged the other Yank cavalry. I - believe - I managed to fight my way from the board edge there, also. In any event, the Rebel reinforcements get on and stay on the board by the skin of their teeth.


The Yanks close in on the woods below. While definitely attriting the defense, they are not getting closer to taking the crossroads and victory. The Reb in the back with a 3-1 formation rallied back its stand, so we're doing OK holding on in the woods. The choice to attack heavily there struck me as a bit too close to the Chew House decision in the Battle of Germantown, but on the other hand John's successfully pinned my Elite infantry in the woods. Only problem is he can't force a quick decision there.

Did discover a small rules glitch here - to avoid people easily picking on flanks covered by friendly infantry, I phrased the Line of Sight rules to make it difficult to get a shot as I measure LoS from an attacker's front center to the center of any side [front, rear, either flank side] that is in LoS. But the short range of these rules and the shortened LoS in the woods meant that I have to allow the distance to be drawn to the closest side, even if it is a flank protected by a friendly Unit. Or, I can scrap the Protected Flank rule for fire but not charges, or scrap it completely. This doesn't matter much since there is no Enfilade bonus in these rules. Decisions, decisions...
















A bit to the right, the Yanks spread out against my Militia - just as well, since they only pass a morale roll on a '6'! I manage to shoot off a stand, but my right flank needs the VMI cadets to get there fast!

Below, the concentrated fire in the woods drives back one Yank unit, easing the pressure a bit. Still, there's 4-3 odds there. The main problem as I see it is that altho I've three units, there's only a frontage of 8 stands as I'm getting pressed in - if the Yanks spread out a bit, they'd get about 12-8 on my two front Units in stands.

Below the woods, my VMI have moved up, while my left Militia was able to charge into a gap made by a retreating Yank! This is very good, since they're holding the crossroads and, well, they're not very good troops!

At this point, we had to call it. the game took a bit of time since we had some great conversations, and some of them were even about the game! My host is an interesting dude, I can tell you that for certain.
  This was an excellent playtest b/c it brought up several rules issues. The major one is the classic "concentration of force". NT has some mechanics that make it quite difficult to do so by several units on a unit or two that are either part of a continuous line or have secure flanks. It should be noted that both the Napoleonic and ACW W:AI rule sets allow  three Units to charge an isolated Unit with open flanks [one each on the Front and both Flanks], which should easily and quickly drive off the defender, unless the attacker has just awful HtH rolls.

I checked the Napoleonic rules, and those also do not say how many Units are allowed to charge a defending Unit. However, both the Ancients and the Pike and Shot rules specifically say "the two antagonists will fight in the hand to hand phase " and "a unit may turn to face an attacker on its flank as long as it is not in melee towards its front". 

So is seems I'm likely wrong about using the 19th C. rules mechanic which limits charges to one per side, four total, with the Napoleonic and ACW rules. Overall, I'm leaning towards allowing more than one Unit to charge a single side in both these sets of rules. The ACW rules already have the morale check, which will limit the ability of attacking units to gang up in melee. The Napoleonic rules do not have a morale check, and I'm wondering how the famous British line are supposed to hold off 2-3 charging French in column, but I'll have to ask Steve at "Sound Officer's Call" about that.

EDIT: SOC Steve sent me a pic of NT's Napoleonic Wargaming book, and it is also one Unit per face of the charge. This leaves me at:
* Wargaming: An Introduction [2005] - Ancient / Pike and Shot mention two Units, with the possibility of one on the front and another on the flank / rear side.
* Ancient & Medieval Wargaming [2008] - says the same as above.
* Napoleonic Wargaming [2009] - specifically says up to one Unit per defender's side.
* Wargaming 19th C. Europe [2012] - also specifically says one attacking unit per side of defending Unit.
All the above use the same 4-base Unit and sequential casualty mechanic, so I consider them to all inform each other.
**One-Hour Wargames [2014] of those rule sets of the nine that allow melee contact  they all specify one unit per side, OR only one unit [cavaly] charging one target per turn.
At this point, I am now flipping back from my above comment, and running with Dale's opinion I saw on my pal's post that "NT assumes one unit per side, whether he says it or not."  That is probably because units are identical in size in his rules if they can charge - only artillery are narrower, so that makes me think that he assumes that Units pretty much take up each other's frontage on the charge, and perhaps we should move them into full edge to edge contact, as well.

Overall, I'm realizing that one little tinkering - allowing Units to deploy in two ranks - can have plenty of unforeseen consequences. Here, it allows people to concentrate multiple Units within the same frontage as a unit in line, apparently not NT's intent. As ACW commanders didn't usually deploy in that formation for fighting, I may have brought this upon myself as NT says that all the Units are to be four bases fighting in a 1-base deep line. However, it won't solve the problem for Napoleonics as they are definitely allowed to fight in a column!

Wish NT answered emails!

Overall, the questions I came up with are:

1. Ditch Protected Flank?
2. Enfilade for Guns?
3. Allow multiple charges?
4. Mounted cavalry should easily charge mounted cavalry...and skirmishers, I think.
5. longer retreat movements? or at least from Melee?
6. Spreading fire over a continuous line.

I'm leaning towards Yes, Yes but only at a steep angle, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. All quite small changes, except for #3. They do add to the complexity a bit, but not much. For newbies, I think the One-Hour Wargames rules are the way to go, at this point, anyway.

So much thanks to John, who was both a gracious host and had some real insight into both history and game mechanics.  Just goes to show that for every draft, you need several playtests, and a couple with sympathetic gaming veterans!