Hobby Update 14 Jul 26...and a game!

The push to get through the lead mountain continues. Next up were a bunch of Fireforge Templars, plus some unknown - maybe GW? - late medieval style cavalry? The former are new, the latter second-hand and in need of some restoration...

There area still a few bits to touch up (and a missing arm!) on the cavalry, but they are looking a bit better than they were.

(a Viking that had been missing from the previous batch also sneaked in)

I based the Templars for the desert. Not sure if that was the best choice, we shall see!

And on Sunday, I actually got around to playing a game. I ACTUALLY GOT AROUND TO PLAYING A GAME! I was sitting in the garden doing some reading, then I was doing a few things with original D&D (playing out a few example combats to remind myself of the mechanics) and then the urge really struck me to just play a game, so I set up an old favourite: Scenario 1 from the One Hour Wargames book, with my Baccus WSS figures and the Polemos: Ruse de Guerre rules.

 

 

The Set-Up: 

The 'Anglo-Dutch' at the bottom, facing the 'French' at the top.

I rolled for forces from the book (slightly modified to allow for 9 units instead of 6) and generated the following armies:

 

The Anglo-Dutch Army:

Duc de Aunis

1st Brigade: 3 bases of Infantry (Murray, Colyear, Portmore)

2nd Brigade: 3 bases of Infantry (Ferguson's, Lord North's, Leven's)

3rd Brigade: 2 bases of Dragoons (Lord John Hays', Ross'), 1 base of 6pdr Foot Artillery  

 

The French Army:

Lord Lancaster 

1st Brigade: 3 bases of Infantry (Berwick, Galmoy, Dorrington)

2nd Brigade: 3 bases of Infantry (Dauphine, Sault, du Roi), 1 base of 6pdr Foot Artillery

3rd Brigade: 2 bases of Horse (FitzJames, Sheldon)*

Slightly on the exaggerated side, but all real units - all Scots in the Anglo-Dutch army, apart from Ross' Dragoons (Irish) and the artillery; whilst the Horse and the 1st Brigade in the French Army are all Irish.

(*okay purists, I know that these are really the same regiment at different times...)

The Dutch Scottish Brigade (1st) on the Anglo-Dutch Left.

The Dragoon Brigade and artillery in the centre.

And the 2nd Brigade (Scots' Brigade) on the right.

The Irish Brigade on the French Left.

The 2nd Brigade in the French Centre.

And the Cavalry on the French Right.

The Battle:

The French Army takes the initiative in a shallow echelon, leading by its left (top-right), with its right slightly refused; the Anglo-Dutch have slightly advanced and pivoted their left-hand brigade (Dutch Scots' Brigade) to counter this.

Things get serious. The Dutch-Scots' Brigade has advanced to check the advance; the French 2nd Brigade has pivoted to engage them, although this has slightly disordered the advance; note that some of the British Dragoons have fallen back to avoid French artillery fire. The Franco-Jacobite cavalry has trotted forwards (top-left), threatening to charge

A wider shot

The Irish infantry move forward to engage their Scots' counterparts...

The Dutch-Scots' traded a volley with the French and then charged forward. The Franco-Jacobite cavalry then charged the left-hand battalion of the Dutch-Scots' (Murray's Regiment)

The result: Murray's Regiment (left) ingloriously collapsed and ran; most of the French infantry was pushed back (Dauphine and Sault, centre)

But Dauphine's Regiment subsequently broke when the Dutch-Scots' resumed their firing! (top)

The action then switched to the Anglo-Dutch Right: the Irish and Scots regiments traded close-range musketry volleys...with the most devastating results! Fergusson's Regiment was routed (bottom-right), but all three of the Irish regiments were broken!!

After a few more moments, the French position becomes untenable - the two remaining regiments of Dutch-Scots' (Colyear & Portmore) stop any further French cavalry attack, and also break another French regiment (Sault) by fire. The remaining unbroken French infantry and artillery are unable to do too much to stem the rout.

The position at the end, when the French Army gives way.

Game Notes:

A very crushing Anglo-Dutch victory - but the real victory was getting an actual game on the table; or in this case, the garden grass. It was great fun, although it was over a little quickly (not perhaps as quickly as the photos imply, the game was slightly more involved in that, I skipped over some bits). The rules were fine, remembered them all straight off, except whether units which support to a flank recoil when the base they are supporting does (they definitely do so when supporting from the rear). The musketry looks highly decisive, but this is deceptive - the firefight between the Dutch-Scots and the French was pretty ineffective and it needed a further combination of bayonet and a second firefight to produce a decisive result. On the other hand, the musketry exchange between the Scots and the Irish witnessed 4 '10's being rolled out of 6 dice, which accounts for the sudden destruction of the French left. The Franco-Jacobites did have their share of luck - the successful cavalry charge on the Dutch Left was a low-odds (but high pay-off) tactic. It was just that the Anglo-Dutch (ok, Scots) were luckier all in one go...

 The scenario is the first one (Pitched Battle One) from the OHW book - based on Ceresole, apparently. 

 Game on a 2'x2' board, using Baccus 6mm figures, with the Polemos Ruse de Guerre ruleset. 

Three Featherstonian Battles: #2, the Battle of Platt's Vale

The second battle in this Featherstonian trifecta is a scenario modified from the Horse & Musket scenario in Wargames, the Battle of Plattville. My version, the Battle of Platt's Vale, is set in the War of the Spanish Succession instead of the American Civil War, although I am using one of my favourite sets, the Polemos: Ruse de Guerre set, which are reasonably generically Horse & Musket, to keep in the spirit of the thing.

 

 

The Forces:

Red Force (the Anglo-Dutch):

3 Infantry Brigades, each of 3 Infantry Battalions

1 Cavalry Brigade, each of 3 Horse Regiments

1 Field Artillery Battery

 

Blue Force (the Franco-Jacobite): 

3 Infantry Brigades, each of 3 Infantry Battalions

1 Cavalry Brigade, each of 3 Horse Regiments

1 Field Artillery Battery

 

Each army has an infantry brigade as an advance guard, entering on the road (south for Blue, north for Red). The balance of each army will arrive after an hour (i.e. on turn 4). 

 

The scenario objectives are a little under-specified in the original, but it seems that a side needs to control all three hills, the bridge, the village and the church to win.

 

The Set-Up: 

 

The village of Platt's Vale in the centre, with the church on the hill just to the West. Plattswood is to the West, and Creek Hill to the East. Crow's Creek seperates Creek Hill from Moleshill (top-centre) and Hare Hill (top-right)

The Franco-Jacobite advance guard: Berwick's, Dillon's & Clare's Regiments.

The Anglo-Dutch advance guard: Lord North's, Ferguson's & Leven's Regiments behind Moleshill.

 

The Battle:

Initial manoeuvring leads to a face-off of the Scots' Regiments on Hare Hill down onto the Irish Regiments in Crow's Creek.

The volley fire of the Jacobite Irish regiments is devastating: Ferguson's and Leven's Regiments are routed quickly. Lord North's Regiment beyond the bridge is wavering also, but it has routed Berwick's Irish Regiment in its turn

The Scots' Brigade of the Dutch Army marches forward toward's Platt's Vale on the other flank

Meanwhile, the English Brigade has arrived in the nick of time to contest the hill, and the Cavalry Brigade has boldly advanced across the stream to threaten Dillon's Regiment in the flank

The French Brigade moves up to occupy Platt's Vale.

Whilst the Franco-Jacobite Cavalry (Lifeguards', Fitzjames', Sheldon's) moves forward onto the hill to counter the Allied Horse; more Irish infantry move up the road to reinforce the Advance guard, but are somewhat delayed by the survivor's of Berwick's regiment

The remaining regiments in the French advanced guard (Dillon's and Clare's) boldly move onto the hill, correctly judging that Lord North's regiment would not stand their approach, given the destruction of the rest of the Allied advanced guard. 

The Allied cavalry manages to shake out into order to face off against the Franco-Jacobite Horse; meanwhile, note in the background that the English brigade has launched an attack on the Franco-Jacobite advance guard on Hare Hill.

Continuing to fight brilliantly, Dillon's regiment routs the lead regiment with its musketry - this leads quickly to the panic and rout of the entire brigade!

The position at the culmination - the Scots' Dutch and the French Brigade are just coming to grips around Platt's Vale at this point.

But with two brigades routed, the Anglo-Dutch Army is fought out and withdraws.

Game Notes:

Great fun this quick game - I just really like these rules! They rattle along but with the tempo mechanic being really easily modified for solo player.  The formation morale rules put a high level of jeopardy and randomnes into the game too, but still giving a strong signal of what is likely to happen. For instance, the Franco-Jacobite advanced guard took a bit of a risk in advancing whilst Lord North's regiment was still in action: but it was a reasonable chance that it would give way without further fighting, and so it proved. In contrast to the Polemos: SPQR game I played earlier in the day, the reduced number of outcome moves and simplified play sequence make it definitely less brain taxing.

Like Neil Thomas' rules, these rules seem simpler than many but they really do produce very similar and at least equally plausible outcomes, with a lot less mechanical fuss. This game did finish relatively quickly, partly due to the exceptional combat performance (i.e. very good rolling) of several of the units; partly due to the relatively generous movement rates per turn*. but mainly due to the smoothness of play. Really enjoyed that! It is a good scenario too, lots of tactical interest as there is potentially a lot for each side to do.

Buildings mainly by Leven, figures from Baccus' WSS range. 

 

(*An infantry unit in Ruse de Guerre moves at the rate of light cavalry in Polemos: SPQR. this isn't necessarily a problem, but it does make the game feel a lot faster. It also means that formations can defend an attack a lot of ground quickly, which changes the feel of the game a lot - reserves can 'get there'. Much of this is to do with the author, Glenn Pearce, designing his rules for big multi-player games, where you need to design speed in if you are going to get anywhere).

Three Featherstonian Battles #1: The Battle of Trimsum

As part of my desultory quest to play all the...iconic? foundational?...wargames scenarios...I had a go at the first battle in Don Featherstone's Wargames. The first battle is an Ancients affair - although amusingly enough it is really more like a battle from Conan than anything strictly historical (for similar reasons presumably - it wasn't so easy to create good matching armies in 1962, so the iconic armies of ancient history were allowed to fight each other!). So the armies of Hyperborea (with chariots and war engines) and Hyrkania (with elephants and war engines) faced off in the 'Battle of Trimsos'.

 

 

 

I am not quite so constrained, so I redesigned the scenario into the Battle of Trimsum, to feature Romans against Ancient Britons. The elephants have disappeared, but the chariots stayed, so obviously the Britons took the role of the Hyperboreans. 

 

The rules used were Polemos:SPQR. It was quite a small battle for this set, typically a small battle for SPQR would be 20-bases/side, rather than this game of 10-bases/side.

 

The Forces:

 

Britons:

4 bases of Tribal Foot

1 base of javelin-armed skirmishers

3 bases of Light Horse

2 bases of Chariots (Elite)

 

Rome:

 4 bases of Legionaries (Formed, Armoured)

1 base of sling-armed skirmishers

1 base of Light Horse

2 bases of Cavalry (Armoured)

2 bases of Artillery (Scorpions) 

 

I adopted the same deployment as the original, more-or-less, although I slightly re-aligned the terrain; I found the relationship between the two a little odd in the original, with the Hyperboreans moving at an angle to the river. This won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't read or played the original, but hopefully it is clear to anyone who has.  I also added in another river to mark the 'end of the world' in the original scenario, so it would have the dimensions I use for a typical One-Hour Wargame-type scenario.

 

Eagle-eyed readers may notice the photos are distinctly darker/worse than in the recent past. This is because I have had to move to a new gaming space within the house, which is not particularly photography-friendly, and I haven't had time to work out how to ameliorate the situation a little. I wanted to test the playing ergonomics a little first. 

 

The Set-Up: 

 

View from behind the Romans - essentially in 3 columns, with legionaries and slingers in the left-column, legionaries and ballistae in the central column, with some Numidian Light Horse and some Roman cavalry on the Right.

A closer look at the massed ranks - the general is leading the central column, the Legion's commander is taking the left column.

The Britons' Left (right) and Centre - two bands of warriors, one supported by some javelinmen, the other by some Light Horse

Light Horse and Chariots on the Britons' Right

View from behind the Britons' Left

And looking towards the Romans

The Battle:

The Romans took the initiative and advanced; the Britons have moved their Light Horse to skirmish and delay them.

The Roman Cavalry push forward over the hill; the Britons have become slightly mixed-up in bringing their Light Horse back over the bridge.

The Roman Cavalry has seen off the first element of the Britons' Light Horse on the hill

Meanwhile, the Numidians and remaining Roman Cavalry engage the Britons on the hill on the left.

The Numidians throw back the Javelinmen with loss, then engage the main body of the Britons on the Left.

To try and restore the situation in the centre, the Britons' chief leads more tribal warriors onto the central hill to battle the Roman horsemen

Initially honours are even on the Left, although the Javelinmen run off; but the British warriors have been pushed off the central hill again

And then all of a sudden, the Roman (and Numidian) Horseman just put their opponents to flight and the sword, just as the first legionaries are coming into action also

The Britons are in full retreat - although their right was barely engaged, so most of those warriors will escape

Game Notes:

It was quite a fun game, although there is always a slightly fiddly element with these rules that I can't seem to eliminate (i.e. hold in my head confidently without checking), to do with combat outcomes and pursuits and so on. But it was basically fine as a game. It was quite swingy though, as a function of the way that the tempo points (similar to PIP points for DBx players) work - with very small numbers of bases it is more likely that everyone will be able to do stuff...but also it is more likely that no-one will be able to do anything. And this is more or less what happened to the Britons. They brought back the Light Horse over the bridge (just as in the game of the original scenario), got disordered, and then could not rally in time, so there were a lump of troops that could not help at the crucial time. Not unrealistic perhaps, but very annoying for the Britons. The Romans look was generally replicated in the combats too, so it was relatively quite a straightforward victory for them. Attacking over the bridge was so low odds that I didn't do it: they did do it in the original game, to relative predictable and well-deserved disaster. I think what I am saying is that I really, really disagree with the Hyperborean deployment! If I do a bigger version of this to completion, expect changes...

Figures and models from Baccus 6mm.