A blog dedicated to wargaming, mainly concerned with battles using 6mm toy soldiers set in a variety of different historical periods. "Make the game fit the figures" - Conrad Kinch
Heretical Gaming is my blog about my gaming life, featuring small skirmishes and big battles from many historical periods (and some in the mythic past or the far future too). The focus is on battle reports using a wide variety of rules, with the occasional rules review, book review and odd musing about the gaming and history. Most of the battles use 6mm-sized figures and vehicles, but occasionally 15mm and 28mm figures appear too.
The Battle of Chippawa took place in the War of 1812 featuring a successful US defence in the open field against a British attack. There is a scenario for it in Glenn Pearce's Polemos: Ruse de Guerre rules which I have adapted - using guidelines within the rules - for a smaller game.
Historically the British attacked but the strategic situation would have supported attack or defence by either side. Thus the aim for both sides is to simply defeat the enemy.
Orders of Battle:
United States Army:
7 bases of Trained Infantry, 1 base of Trained Skirmishers, 2 bases of Poor Skimishers (Native Americans), 3 bases of Artillery, 1 base of Cavalry
(optionally a further 3 bases of Trained Infantry and 1 base of Artillery could be added to represent a flank attack which historically did not come off). British Army:
6 bases of Trained Infantry, 1 base of Well-Trained Skirmishers, 1 base of Poor Skirmishers (Native Americans), 3 bases of Artillery
The Set-Up:
The US Army (bottom) faces the British Army (top) by the banks of the Niagara.
The main British line
The main American line
The British light companies and Native Americans
The Battle:
Due to the quirks of my scenario (which I will discuss later in the game notes) the British light dragoons were in a position to carry out an early charge on the flanking US artillery. Not that it did them any good: the US artillery stopped them cold and drove them back!
This tilted the British commander into following history and ordering a more general frontal attack!
The British advance into close range...
Lots of command effort is used to keep the British infantry advancing into the face of the American guns!
The American foot isn't feeling too great about the fire from the British artillery either (centre-left)
Musketry rattles across the line...
Some of the American infantry can no longer stand the fire from the British gunners and break!
Perhaps surprisingly, Scott seizes the intitiative and orders a bayonet charge! The British have suffered slightly more in the more musketry exchange, so maybe a smart move...
The British commander agrees! He therefore pulls back his line...the US artillery on the right has finished off the British Light Dragoons who have now routed from the field
Scott continues his attack! A combination of artillery and the threat to the flank has broken the British battalion (top-left) on the right flank (centre-left); but the American infantry have suffered a little from more British musketry...
After some very desultory skirmishing, the British and their Native American allies advance against their opposite numbers in the woods...
The Native Americans on the US side feel no great desire to get stuck in, and withdraw slightly
The battle rages on...
And does so in the woods too...
Both sides suffer heavy losses in the central fighting, but the British come off best - one of the British battalions routs, but two of the US battalions have also broken..
Both sides reform their centres....
Whilst the Americans push up a battalion by the woods (centre)
Infantry firefights continue on the line, but Brown brings up the US cavalry (bottom-right)
The Native Americans are being worsted by the British light bobs and are replaced in the line with American infantrymen
The situation in the centre gets desperate: a further battalion breaks on each side...
Both sides have run out of steam, but it looks like the British are going to win since they just have more formations intact...
So Brown leads in a cavalry charge!
And orders last-ditch attacks all along the line to try and break the British...
The British guns are taken and the crews captured or killed
The American bayonet charge by the woods is driven off by musketry fire...
The British light infantrymen drive off the American foot but their Native American allies break and flee! (top-centre)
The position at the end of the battle. Both sides are exhausted with morale collapsing and need to withdraw from the battlefield to regroup!
Game Notes: A very close game this one. The Americans morale collapsed slightly before the British but the last ditch attacks were able to drag the British down too! So overall, a very sanguinary draw.
As ever the rules gave a very good game. The tempo process is slightly more involved than in other Polemos games but it is hardly an unbearable burden, it just needs five minutes thought before play. I did find myself with a rules query though. Close combat occurs after both sides have moved. I couldn't therefore see why in the rules troops contacted in the tempo players' phase can't move back or reform before the close combat phase. I am not sure if this is intentional or not: I could argue it either way. Alternatively I may have missed the relevant rule!
There is a slightly more random element in this game than in many others because of the big swings possible in using a D10. There is thus always the chance that a base will be broken by some particularly sharp firing, or will break when trying to rally. As army morale goes down in d10 chunks (i.e. when a force is broken, the Army loses d10 from its morale) this leads to some armies randomly proving very resilient, and at other times very brittle. Apart from in taking care not to lose leaders (you should never chuck them in in this game) there is nothing that can be done to influence this. The Americans suffered in this game from losing big chunks of army morale early.
Figures by Baccus 6mm, building by Timecast.
This secnario took place on 12th May 1940 and featured the first air-to-air combat kills of legendary Luftwaffe pilot, Adolf Galland. In the scenario, Galland and his wingman have bounced a formation of six Belgian Hurricanes.
Aircraft Stats:
Bf 109E-3: SPEED: 7 DAMAGE: 4 WEAPONS: 1 red (i.e. a cannon), 2 white (i.e. machine guns)
Hurricane: SPEED: 6 DAMAGE: 4 WEAPONS: 4 white
Both 109s start with 3 energy points to reflect their greater starting speed and altitude. The Belgians were surprised and must simply move forward on their first go. The Germans choose whether to move first or second.
As a "getting back into it" game, there was only one additional rule that I was trying out here: an "Immelman". Aircraft can reverse facing if they move forward for half their speed (rounded up) first. They cannot fire during or at the end of this move.
The Battle:
Galland and his wingman (bottom) have bounced the Belgian Hurricane formation and attack, damaging two of them.
That woke them up! The Belgians break right, with the exception of one that uses an Immelmann.
Galland follows the Belgians around, picking a new target and converting some of the energy into speed to get in close...another Hurrican is damaged.
His wingman, cutting inside Galland's turn, takes on a front quarter attack on one of the damaged Hurricanes...
Which goes down! Belgian morale fails at this point, and it turns into sauve qui peut...
The Belgian fighters scatter for cover
Galland's wingman cuts loose and pursues a Hurricane...
...perforating his fuselage...
...but the Belgian pilot escapes!
More Hurricanes fleeing for safety...
The Hurricane leader escapes...
But Galland gets into position and puts further holes into the Hurricane...
Who also escapes!
Game Notes: A fun, quick game which reminds me how much I like the simplicity of Bob's game: it is quick enough to retain the feel of a fast dogfight. Or bounce, in this case. The basic mechanics are still intuitive enough to memorize and just play. The Immelmann change seemed to work okay too. The stat advantage to the 109 seems justified.
Historical Note: The scenario is very sure that the victims were a formation of Belgian Hurricanes but other online information indicates that the victims were RAF Hurricanes.
Reinhausen was a small action in the 1809 campaign, in which an Austrian Advance Guard try to push some French defenders holding a bridgehead back over the River Regen. This scenario is from Michael Hopper's scenario book covering the campaign, Eagles Over Bavaria, suitably converted into something appropriate for the Polemos rules and my table and collection.
(The infantry was organized into two brigades of 2 infantry and 1 light infantry base).
n.b. As ever, all this is very arguable. In particular, many players might want to modify the Austrian infantry to Trained SK0 to make them slightly inferior to their French opponents.
The Austrian aim is to clear the bank of all French troops. They cannot cross the river themselves (there were more French troops there who would have destroyed any Austrians that got across).
The Set-Up:
n.b. I am still in the process of gettings "just so" after the move. The table location isn't quite right yet, and this did effect quite a few of the photos. There are some dark areas on the furthest side of the board. I think it is a bit better in more recent games.
The Regen valley. Reinhausen is the urban area on the far side of the river to the right.
The villages and slopes follow the path of the river
A single French battalion garrison Reinhausen...
...with the Austrian advance guard approaching (top-left)
The remainder of the French Division are strung out in the streets waiting to cross the bridge and strengthen the bridgehead
The Austrians organized for their attack: light infantry and horse artillery in the van
Another view
The Battle:
The Austrians lumber forward. The French have managed to get some additional infantry into the buildings (bottom-centre) in support
The Austrian attack looks unsubtle: straight in they go!
The Austrian pressure - greatly assisted by their artillery support - forces the French with loss out of the left-part of the village (centre-left); the French reinforcing troops are trying to reform outside of the village (centre-right)
The Austrian brigades reform in the village and outside it ready to resume their attack: the Austrian general has brought up his Dragoons to support the attack outside the village (centre)
The French are desperately trying to rush troops in to aid the defence
(bottom) whilst their forward troops resist further Austrian assaults...
The second combined arms Austrian assault outside the village takes
effect, breaking a battalion of French light infantry and pushing the
remainder back
The Austrian assault outside the village is relentless: another attack goes in...(the French have also been pushed out of Reinhausen (far-left) with heavy losses)
...and again is successful; another French battalion routs (bottom-right) and its support takes cover in the village (right)
At this point the French morale collapsed and the troops in the bridgehead were forced to surrender...
It is nice to be back and playing! A fun game, although it ended up being a bit one-sided. Everything seemed to go right for the Austrians in this one. In Polemos, in the open, you can create what amounts to a "killer stack" by combining infantry, artillery and cavalry in one force if you are facing troops lacking their own cavalry and artillery support. It is expensive in tempo points (i.e. pips) to move, since the infantry and cavalry can't move in the same "group". However, in this game, the Austrians managed to get away with this by always having enough tempo points. The assault on the village was carried out first (which doesn't use cavalry support) and then all the generals' support was switched to the troops outside the village. The French were forced to fight outside the village by the Austrians' successes in the first assaults, which then put them right in the way of the Austrian juggernaut. And it is a juggernaut: the Austrians are then operating on a base "+4" on opposed D6 rolls...
The French can only reinforce a single base over the bridge per turn, so there is a heavy incentive for the Austrians to just go for it. Conceptually, this is possibly the weakest part of the Polemos Napoleonic rules. Despite what veteran DBx players say, attrition in "pips" just does not have them same effects as standard casualty loss traditional games. In such games, the Austrians would be forced to set up first for an attritional phase to weaken the French defenders and then attack. In Polemos (and similar systems) the incentive is to create the best force-package for the assault and then go straight it. It is an arguable point, but the attritional model perhaps resembles the accounts of combat the best.
The scenario is interesting and well worth a look. I do have a specific criticism of it though: I don't think that the designated table size is appropriate or realistic: it is much too large! The way that the scenario is set-up, I don't really see how the left-hand side of the board, or most of the French side of the river, can ever really come into play. So even in 28mm, I think that this game could be successfully played on quite a small board. The rearmost Austrian reserves will determine the top and left table edges, the French reserves will dictate the bottom table edge.
Anyway, I decided to reload this one and have another go, so there will be another battle report of this one up soon...
This blog has kindly had a mention in a couple of podcasts recently from Sean Clark, in the introductory Episode 0 of his new 6mm-focused podcast God's Own Scale (and related blog here) and in Episode 272 of long-running gaming podcast Meeples & Miniatures. As a big fan of both shows, it was a pleasant surprise to hear this blog get a nod. Right at the end of the Meeples & Miniatures episode, there was a certain amount of astonished hilarity at the concept of using the old WRG 1925-1950 rules to play the TooFatLardies' pint-sized WW2 campaigns* : summarized by Neil as "Don't Cross the Streams!":
This is Heretical Gaming, and doing things that seem wrong is part of the mission statement. But I do see his point! WRG 1925-50 (my review here) is a set from the early 1970s, written by Phil Barker, and are so traditional they set the standard for traditional whereas TooFatLardies are at the cutting edge of more modern game design concepts. So why do I use them?
1 - The basic mechanics of how location, combat and morale work are still pretty solid. Okay, locating the enemy is pretty deterministic, the combat rules probably short-change machineguns, are a bit generous with smoke (although it is good to see units deliberately firing smoke in this game, which can be quite rare in other games), they need a little bit more granularity in the anti-vehicle rules to be perfect and although the morale rules make units realistically sticky in combat, the wording is a bit unclear at a couple of points. On the other hand, they are simple without being too simplistic, and I think they still hold up against modern competitors. The research in WRG rules has always been a strong point with them. However, none of this is a reason to actually use the rules, they are merely reasons not to not use them, there are other solid rules out there.
2 - Because I play most of my games solo, there are several elements of these rules which I would consider weaknesses in face-to-face (F2F) games that are great for solitaire play:
a. - The movement rules have take-backs (i.e. the firing player can move a unit back to a moment in its move and then fire at it) rather than a specific overwatch mechanism. Quite annoying in F2F play, fine for solitaire.
b. - The rules are IGOUGO. Whilst often rejected for F2F games, with good reason, if you are playing both sides in a game, I find it much easier to mentally cope and enjoy the game if I can flip decisively between the two sides. I find it hard to continually interrupt, and even worse, think about interrupting, myself in the middle of one side's go. It makes the game theory problem of "if he knows that I know that he knows that I know..." much more difficult to resolve.
c. - The game (ostensibly) uses written orders. This is great for solitaire games, because this can be interpreted to mean insert solitaire command rules here. As regular blog readers will know, for WW2 games I use a system called the Threat Generation System which was published in issue 373 of Miniature Wargames magazine which I find excellent for solo play. I have made quite a few modifications but the basic idea is still very much there. Occasionally I do also use written orders, which I think work better solitaire than F2F. For contrast, a game like Black Powder is obviously meant for group play, since the command and control mechanics are given verbally and happen instantaneously.
n.b. These comments are about the original WRG 1925-50 rules. There was an updated version published in the 1980s which...had good points and bad points. A review is likely at some point...
Although almost any ruleset can be used successfully for solitaire rules, I have found some rules much easier than others. That does not make them good or bad per se but certain mechanics make things easier than others. Because TooFatLardies' rules are so interactive, I love them for F2F play but find them harder work solitaire. The starkness of the DBx PIP system is perhaps less annoying in solo play than it is F2F. The Polemos Tempo system can work well either way, but I play it very differently if I am playing it solitaire rather than F2F. I think the TwoHourWargames' reaction system plays a lot more smoothly solitaire or co-operatively than it does F2F, especially if there are plenty of models on the table. And so on.
An illness and an upcoming house move have meant that posting has been, and will continue to be for the next few months, a little sparse since tabletop gaming will be pretty sparse too. I may have the chance to get a bit of painting done - in particular, I am keen to get my 6mm Highlanders finished - and there may be one or two posts on more general gaming matters. I have played around a bit with Five Leagues From the Borderlands, so there may be a short post on that. But since my blog is mainly driven by games rather than painting or observing the hobby or the industry, it is likely to be quite quiet until September. As ever I have big plans though, so hopefully there will be a lot more activity on the blog then.
