One Hour Wargames - Clash of Spears

 

A quick jump back 2500 years from the Cold War games I've been playing. Inspired by the "short" games at VCOW I've decided to try and play each of the three I played out with Nick. First off was One Hour Wargames and a scenario entitled Clash of Spears. Since I didn't have enough hoplites for Athenians and Spartans I changed the Spartans into Persians. Figures are 6mm. The cloth is actually gridded at 10cm, and the cards were for Nick's reference - although in the end most of his directions were of the "move that one up to the left of the other one" variety.

Here's the remote set up:

The laptop is angled so Nick can see the whole table rather than for me to see Nick! My smartphone is on a Gorilla" style tripod so I can easily move it to where the action is. Each unit has a simple label showing type and strength. We used Jitsi as it has very similar features to Zoom but no limit on call length (or I think attendees) - and although only 2 of us played we have 3 devices on. We rolled for sides and I rolled Athenian.

Expecting him to take the temple for his archers I deliberately deployed more to the S. My lights were on each flank. As we advanced his archers did indeed take the temple - but none of my troops were really in range. On my left flank my skirmishers cam up against his cavalry and lights - as at VCOW.

Unlike VCOW Nick's Persians went on the defensive, forming an open square - not something I'm sure is in the Persian Drill Book! I dispatched one of my hoplite units to help the skirmishers in their 1:2 battle, and a couple of turns the hoplites were the only ones left standing on that flank ( think the hoplites scored 16HP in one turn!).

On my right flank I tried to push the slingers out round Nick's square to get at the Persian Guard., whilst the rest of my hoplites when in against his more accessible heavies.

Casualties mounting in both melees

Nick finally let his archers leave the Temple and they came crashing down into the back of one of my hoplite units. That finally went, and I lost another in the melee with the square, so Nick had his victory conditions.

But before his archers could carry on my hoplites from the L flank, and the slingers from the R pincered the already weakened Persian Guard and wiped them away - so I had my victory conditions too!

An honourable draw I'll call it. Only took about 30 minutes, but I did forget the armour rule early on, so casualty rate should have been halved - so 60 mins would have been plenty.

A fun game again, but interestingly Nick's reaction as the same as mine to the Portable Wargame, "it felt more like chess". Certainly worth playing again and working out what works and doesn't, but more of a game in itself - a bit like I feel DBA is.

 

1985 Company MegaTest - Sandhurst Current Ops - The Modern Infantry Battle

 

I came across this during VCOW, and what's not to like about a book with Barossa training area on the cover!

Presentation

Another great book from John Curry's History of Wargaming Project range. 124pp b&w softback. The book actually has 4 rules in it , a Platoon Kriegspiel, Battalion Level (all ratios based), this one, and an IED one. There is also lots of fascinating supporting material - I wish Sandhurst had been this into wargaming when I was there - was still a dirty word then (even though Paddy Griffiths was around - never saw him, only saw David Chandler once). The Company level rules only cover 7 pages, of which 3 are the core rules and one a QRS.

Set-Up

As previous, but now had the British coming in broadly across the East edge, and the Russian's coming in broadly on the West edge.

How It Played

The Brits raced to Semmenstedt  first again, just occupying the buildings before the BMPs hit. The Chieftains had been assigned to Platoon Groups, and it was pretty much evens between them and the T64s, and likewise between the Scimitars which skited N and the BMPs - but again the Brits were left with minimal anti-armour (even a Milan was taken out by a T64) whilst the Soviets still had nearly a dozen BMP.

The Soviets made a determined push on the farm complex NE of Remilingen where the Brits had a Platoon (supported by the Scimitars), but the complex fell after two melees. In Semmenstedt the Brits managed to keep suppressing the advancing Soviets, and the BMPs were useful at suppressing them back. In the end the Russians got in and the first building fell. As the reserve platoon arrived to reinforce the assault ENDEX was called, with the British position effectively lost.

Overall it played quickly and smoothly and had one of the better narratives of the games.

Rules Impression

Your not going to get a lot of rules in 3 pages, but what's there works well. Simple movement, direct fire vs inf, and vs AFVs, and indirect fire and that's pretty much it. Half-a-dozen DMs for each. No air, no morale. There's not even armour and AP values - its just hit and destroy for anti-tank. Infantry fire is very much geared to suppress (6+ to suppress, 11+ to destroy - ie at least 2:1). Melees seem very unbloody - 10+ to kill. Simple, but like I say they play well.

What I think is most interesting about them is a) you get an "official" figure for things like effective weapon ranges, and also an insight as to what is seen as important - suppression, hitting (penetration or disablement assumed), ammunition (both for IDF and GPMG-SF, limited to 3/4 turns fire each. The rules really seem there to enable a TEWT ( Tactical Exercise Without Troops) and I'm sure they were played with lots of discussion about options and consequences. John's comments about the Army's aversion to dice are also interesting.

Overall

Not a set for regular play, and they probably leave too much out for anything but a very friendly game between good mates - certainly don't let a rules lawyer need them. But fascinating as a resource, and they gave as good a game as most of the others. Overall 6/10.

Once set left to play - mine!

Battle of Königslutter am Elm - 5 Jul 1984 - AAR

 

Played through the Königslutter am Elm game in 8 turns over a total of about 3-4 hours. A bit of a blood bath but a useful outing for the rules.

AAR

The Soviet 1/62 Gds Tank Regiment took the northern route from the Lappwald through Süpplingenburg to Konigslutter. They hit the minefield in front of Süpplingenburg head on, and the combination of Chieftains and Harrier ground attack managed to take out the mine-clearing tanks and lead companies. 2/62 GTR then came up, pushing through and round the wrecks of 1/62, and inflicted enough damage on 3RTR BG to push them back from Süpplingenburg, and on through Schickelsheim to join a final defence at Rottorf.

On the southern flank the MR/BMP Bn of 62GTR took the lead, and had slightly more luck with the minfields. But the RGJ BG dug into Wolsdorf and Warberg held the BMPs off until reinforced by 3/62 GTR and stonked by repeated 2S1 and BM27 missions. A BMP assault was finally needed to clear the RGJ out, who then fell back through Rabke to join the final defence of Konigslutter. By this time the RRF BG was the only capable fighting force, whilst the Soviets still had 2/62 and 3/62 going strong, and elements of M/62 and ENDEX was declared.

FRAGO Rules

It was evident pretty quickly that the Attack-Defence model that I'd used in the BAOR/Corps game didn't work too well here - mainly as most combat was ranged and so the attack/defence model meant less. I'll probably recast to Anti-Armour/Anti-Infantry next time - which is what an earlier version had.

The dice per platoon model worked well though, and happy with the attack values for most combats, and the assaults worked well. Indirect fire seemed a bit week, should at least suppress every time. Ground attack/helarm also seemed a bit weak, but air defence did its bit and took a Harrier and TOW Lynx sortie out.

I massively over-allocated the LOG/Activation tokens, both sides barely using half by turn 6. Will significantly scale down next time. From turn 6 I zeroised the tokens and went onto the A1 roll which made for more thinking about allocation but still a bit generous. The model felt good though.

The old paper Heroics and Ros buildings were better than the small 6mm ones, and the 1/1000th. Also the 6mm trees better than the 1/1000th ones. I wouldnt mind trying with some 2mm or 3mm tanks though.

The overall scale and effect was pretty much what I was after though - this felt like a Brigade game, not a company or platoon one. So iterate the rules and try again, perhaps at Bn level whilst I have Waterloo on the main table, and do another Bde game in the new year.

 

Battle of Ocana 1809 - Shako Large Battles AAR

 

Having bought Shako about a decade ago as I got back into wargaming I finally got round to getting it on the table - at least the large battle version. I've often described SLS as being "Shako-like" based on the read of the rules - now I'm not so sure!

Nearly ENDEX

The game still played out pretty much the same was as in reality and in SLS, French cavalry pummelled the Spanish cavalry and then came to the aid of the infantry. All over (i.e. 50% breakpoint) in 6 turns, 2 more than SLS but probably played more quickly (~2hrs cf 3hrs). The fights were also not quite so decisive, and seemed a lot more bitty, the Spanish infantry and cavalry having a few more wins against the French, and not crumbling so quickly, but not enough to change the ultimate result.

Spanish Cavalry in the Attack for once!

Overall though whilst I found the Shako rules pretty straightforward and playable, I did feel that there were some crucial things missing for the type of game I want to play. My main issues were:

• Kills count against the breakpoint not the combat strength. In combat the more damaged unit just gets -1, regardless of how many kills it has. So in theory you can have a BP7 STR5 unit with 6 kills fight at only -1 against a fresh unit. I know lots of rules for for 1 or 2 damage states only, but I do like mine to be more gradual.
• Dice tend to outweigh ratings. Most battles were something like STR4 plays STR2. But each side then adds D6, so lots of times the STR2 unit beat the STR4 unit. This is what accounted for bittiness I think - you could never be sure which way fights would go - even vaguely. In large Battles there are only about 3 DMs, so they make little difference again.
• There is no morale test or cascading morale tests, so units fight to breakpoint, and neighbours aren't bothered if they rout
• There is no real friction, if you want to charge you charge, and defender always stands
• If you win a melee you suffer no casualties

Skirmish rules worked OK though (quick 4+ per outscore), ditto artillery and rallying (although no ability to actually rally kills).

French Infantry advance to victory!

I'll certainly give the normal scale rules a go some time as they look to have a bit more finesse, but I think the basics are the same. I also understand that Shako2 doesn't have any big changes, so probably not worth buying to try instead. Certainly more to my liking than Black Powder though.

Victorious French Cavalry

Who knows I may even get GdB on the table some time!

Contact:Wait Out - Desert WW2 Take 2

After the somewhat abortive test of CWO in the desert with Nick I decided to run another scenario - paying closer attention to gun ranges this time.

Each element represented a Troop, so there was about a Tank Regiment/Bn on each side. I'd reduced the number of cover categories and rebased the to hit/spot rules, and also simplified the penetration calculation (and made it penetration not save).

The game played a lot better this time, with the roughly equally matched sides exchanging a couple of squadrons each before I called a halt. The British Crusaders were just completing a flanking move round the hill, but the freshest Panzer Kompanie had gone to intercept.

Much as I love the look of WW2 Desert I'm not sure it actually wargames well - just armour heavy and a lack of cover, or a slogging match like El Alamein. Back to Normandy for a while I think...

Remnants of the central squadrons exchanging blows

The British flanking move about to be stoppered

Crusaders on the attack

Matlidas brewing up!

Western Desert "Combat Wait Out" Playtest

The Crusaders are late to the game!

Over the Bank Holiday weekend Nick and I got the chance to playtest my Combat Wait Out Mechanised Warfare rules in a Western Desert scenario - more on that below. It was a scratch force on either side, 1 model = 1 tank, so about a squadron plus on either side, and no check as to in service dates!

The Grant hull gun did untold damage on the PzMk IIIs

Whilst CWO had played well in the last "Baltic" play test it seemed very unbalanced this time round. The -2 TM for fighting in the desert was just too much (on a D10) and the Brits were hitting every time (woudln't have been so bad if Nick hadn't spotted the Matilda's range limitation). Penetration was also too easy for guns below the armour class (only +1 per difference), and initially I made the mistake of having over-powered guns automatically penetrate (which also meant kill).

The final tank melee, with tanks flying everywhere - which seems realistic!

Day 2 we made changes and the whole thing played much better, but by then it was all over for the Germans! Question is are the rules now too unbalanced at the cluttered terrain/modern kit end. Will try again in a few months, and also mature my Desert Force.

Pesky Matildas too - shooting well beyond their 1000m range!

Scenario Generator

One of the reasons for the game was to play test the MechWar scenario generator I've been working on. I love the pre-game in Blucher and wanted something similar but a) more suited to MechWar and b) added even more rationale rather than just collide with and kill the other guy. I think it worked pretty well - Nick was trying to move in line of march along the coast whilst my German's had a seek and destroy mission, so we weren't sure where the battle woudl take place, and I managed to get all my troops on the table early on whereas his Crusader's really only turned up when it was all over!

We'll give the model a bit more testing and then I'll hopefully get it into one of the wargames magasines.

More or less the only German kills, two humble Honeys

First Battle of Newbury - 1643

I finally got the 1st Battle of Newbury played through. I used my ECW rules based on SLS ("By These Things...") on a 4cm hex grid. The only real change I made to the rules was to default each using to only 4DP not 5DP, so that they disappear once they get to 4 rather than lingering round on the base line which doesn't seem realistic. Still trying to get some answers to my key ECW questions - see later.

This was the start-up positions, looking N with Parliament on the L, and Royalist on the R.

The Battle

The game played pretty well, but saw a reverse of the historical outcome. On the N the two cavalry units faced off, with the Royalists eventually seeing off Parliament and in the final turns were about to charge the flank of the Parliamentary Dragoons.

In the N Centre it was classic hedge fighting, the Parliamentary dragoons seeing off on Royalist regiment, and the Tercios on either then getting bogged down either side of the hedges. Parliament's Trained Bands were coming up as reinforcements as the game ended.

The fight for the hedges

In the Mid Centre the Royalists started of on top of Round Hill - and stayed there. After a couple of prolonged melees they saw off the Parliamentary attack. At game end reserve Parliamentary brigade was moving up to have another go.

The attack on Round Hill

In the S Centre Royalists made short work of the Parliamentary brigade in the open and by game end had made it across the main road and where swinging N ready to take the Parliamentary reserve brigade in the flank.

In the S the open country meant it was primarily a cavalry battle, as in real life. The clash of first lines was a bit inconclusive but the Royalists had a stronger second line. With the rest of the game stagnating, and by this time Parliament only needing to lose on more Brigade to lose I decided to just fight the last few turns on this flank only. Parliament held out better than expected but with two regiments blown and pulled back in disorder the Royalists still had fresh regiments to put against them and so started a chain-reaction of morale failures which took two brigades off the table.

Parliamentary cavalry sweeping forward on the S flank

All over in about 10 turns, Royalist cavalry controlled the field, and the remaining Parliamentary troops were around to be flanked and encircled.

ENDEX

Thoughts...

I think that the rules worked well. The fragility change worked well. I finally picked up a decent book on the minutiae of ECW combat (Going to the Wars by Charles Carlton) which has begun to answer my question about what happens with musket at push of pike (they fire and then melee, there's no real stand-off), but still doesn't answer another one:

• If a pike based unit loses melee does it just drop its pikes and run

The biggy for me though is finally coming to the realisation that hexes don't really match ECW very well which is very linear, so I play the next game on a 5cm or 10cm square grid.


And a final few photos:

Battle of Bailen 1808 and Et Sans Resultat

That's got to hurt - you'd have thought!

Finally got Bailen on the table. This is the 1808 battle where the Spanish managed to beat the French under Dupont. For this game I decided to try out the Et Sans Resultat rules. I'd heard good things from them on the Meeples and Miniatures podcast and elsewhere, so was looking forward to it. As usual I'll do the battle report first, then a rules review and finish with some overall comments.

As an experiment I set the terrain up in 10cm Hexon, but then laid in 4cm hex cloth over it, worked pretty well.

Battle Report

STARTEX: French coming from left., Bailen off to right.

Chabert's Brigade was first on, and, as in 1808, swung SE to climb the slope and attack Coupigny (bottom of picture above). The first round was undecisive, both sides taking casualties, but by the second the French had the upper hand. Coupigny fell back broken, but Chabert retired as no longer effective.

Chabert's assault on Coupigny

The baggage train delayed Schramm's arrival buy a turn or tow, but they were sent stright up just to the S of the road to hit Reding. Again it took a couple of turn,s but this time Reding broke with minimal casualties to Schramm. Just as well as although Pannetier had arrived his orders got lost and he hadn't moved before the game was over! Dupre and Prive's cavalry faired better though and were thrown forward N of the road to join Schramm in a two pronged attack on Venegas (top of the main picture). Again two turns was all it took to send Venegas packing with minimal French losses.

Schramm on Reding - you'd have thought that Spanish gun would hurt!

So without even committing the rear-guard of the Marines, but with Chabert looking a bit the worse for wear the French totally over-turned the historical outcome.

The final fight on Venegas' position, with Reding himself almost surrounded

Rules Review

Well this was a bit up and down. I had good expectations, and the production values are really high, but  my heart sank when I read that deployed infantry moved 1125 yards - which at a 1" = 100yd scale means we're expected to measure to 1/4". As soon as I got the rules on the table I hit the next big negative, infantry move 1125 yards, but artillery only fire 900 yards. So you can move form out of range to melee in one go! The rules say that units "in contact" are still targettable as they are initially assumed to be at musket range, but may be out of arc - but after the first turn I always allowed one shot on the way in. What I did quite like though was that the fire is effectively "formation" (i.e Brigade) fire, with skirmish battalions and artillery combining against the approaching targets.

The initial melees seemed lacklustre, with few casualties (fatigues), but the after battle assessment saw more damage and was where the formation really suffered. At first it seemed to disconnect the damage from the actual combat - but again its reflects the focus on the "formation" not the Bn ( I should have watched the video tutorials first!).

Coming back the next day I realised I'd read the combat table wrongly. I though you just looked up the difference once (for the winner - which is what I do with SLS), whereas in fact you look up for both sides - but even so it was still the assessment that caused the real damage. I was now getting more into the flavour of the game, and you do need to think of it as formation level, even though you have Bn MUs.

I used the orders a bit, Pannetier's delay being the result of that, and I could see in a bigger game and more forcibly applied they might work pretty well.

Another big downer though came when look up troop types. There is page after page of stats for named commanders of the period, but units are only given in some representative OOBs, none of which had Cuirassiers (or some other key troop types!) so I've no idea what stat they should have. There was also no sense of formation (which could be allowable at this scale), but also no sense of cavalry wreaking havoc amongst unprepared infantry, or infantry being penalised for taking defensive measures. Gunners also appeared to be able to melee just as well as an irregular battalion - even against cavalry!

Overall

So overall, I think there is actually a very good set of rules in there, but its struggling to get out. It's got one of the nicest "higher level" takes on Napoleonic gaming I've seen, and I can see that the command, firing, melee and assessment sections could all work well with just a bit of tweaking, and as long as you stay in the formation mindset. But I think if I played again (as I may do - which is saying something!), then I'd certainly halve or third all movement to give the guns a fair crack of the whip (the French guns never stopped to fire a shot!) and give more of that sense of advance to contact.

Salute Scatter Terrain #3

Some more bits of scatter (and small) terrain have finally made it from Salute to a finished state. Above are a couple of rabbit warrens (OK, pre-date Salute) and some dead cows! All 20mm.

Some nice wicker fascines from The Square. Lots more of their stuff to come, greater supplier. Again 20mm.

Nice 28mm smallish skip from Blotz. Will get some bigger ones next time.

Not really scatter but some 6mm "barracks" from Blotz. In fact I'm treating them as semi-industrial/farm buildings as Estonia seems scattered with them. When I get some more I might cover up the windows and go for a grey/asbestos or possibly beige colour, but these metal ones are a good start.