Travellogue - Journal Software for Traveller, 2D6 SFRPG and more - WIP

 

This is an itch I've been meaning to scratch for years and have finally got around to doing something about. I've always liked the idea of (near) real-time-Traveller, playing Traveller so that one real day or hour represents one game day or hour. So Traveller almost becomes like an ARG, something that just exists alongside your own daily life. Now I'm not too fussed about the "real-time" bit, it's more the idea that if I have an idle moment I can quickly move an adventure (that is probably a part of a longer campaign) forward. How else could I hope to reproduce the DGP trip from the Spinward Marches to Core and Terra?

Over the years I've tried to do this in various ways - in a paper notebook, in Word, on blogging software or in a mobile phone notepad app, but none have done what I wanted - which was to be instantly available anytime, anywhere, quick and easy to use, and give me rapid situational awareness - where I was, what I was trying to do, and where I was trying to go.

So finally I've written a web app for it. I've also taken the opportunity to learn some Node.JS and Redis Key-Value store tech and I think it's a stack I can really work with.

The main screen on the app (see above and below) has four main sections:

• At the top is your current status, what sector/subsector/system/world you are in, what day it is, how much cash you have, who's in the team, what ship you're on and what you are trying to do. Instantly you know what's going on. Key fields are also hyperlinked to Traveller Map and Traveller Wiki.
• In the centre is the big text box to write your journal entry. This could be one line or a whole adventure write up. There are also buttons to increment the date, and if you want to keep track of time do that in the text.
• At the bottom are all the previous journal entries, newest at the top, so you can see what you did the last few times - and all the way back to the start
• At the right is the only thing that really makes it Traveller (or even SF) specific with not only quick links to the Traveller Map and Traveller Wiki, but also links to specific and collections of web based Traveller apps (e.g. NPC gen, mission gen, word gen), and a few embedded Javascript apps for the most common functions (space encounter, system generation, surface encounter etc). There's also a die-roller (including Fate and Flux dice)

I've been using it for a week or so, trying to cross the Spinward Marches from Regina to the Zhodani Consulate at Chronor, and apart form a few bugs it all working out really well and actually giving me some sense of journeying through Traveller space.

Although I'm writing it primarily as solo tool there is no reason why a GM shouldn't use it to help run and record an adventure, and no real reason why you shouldn't use it in non-Traveller space settings, or even beyond SF (just pretend Sector/Subsector means something else and ignore UWP!) I'm thinking about doing a Twilight 2000 Adventure next (and of course you can have multiple adventures running at the same time). A key thing, which I don't intend to change, is that there are no mandated mechanics in the system, ultimately it's just you writing things and updating fields.

So it's a work in progress, and probably a few months from Alpha yet, but hopefully I can get it opened up to Alpha and then Beta users as the year progresses. 

Whereas my much delayed Port2Jump app took a very simulation based approach and got very bogged down as a result, this is very much a narrative tool, and has been a lot easier to pull together as a result - all the really clever stuff is in your head.

Any thoughts as to the sense of the idea and interest in the app welcome, as well as wish lists of features!

Here are a couple more screenshots to whet your appetite.

In-built UWP description pop-up

In-built Cepheus based ship encounter pop-up

 

The Prussians Attack - A Waterloo 60 Test Game

As part of our continuing preparations for Waterlo60 Nick and I played out the Prussian arrival on the E flank over the last week and a bit. I picked up a Prussian Corps from Adrian and I had enough French. The game was all done remotely with Nick/Blucher's view limited to a blurry webcam and an iPhone on Jitsi, but we managed to get through it. I think we did four evenings in the end, each of 1.5-2 hours.

SETUP

I just managed to fit the whole of the SE quarter of the battlefield in my gaming room, so 5 x 3 two-foot square tiles, a quarter of the full 10x6 tile layout (all of which are now done hurrah!). T

The view looking E over Plancenoit

Flip view, look W along the Lasne from the Bois de Paris

The battlefield started completely empty apart from Squadrons of 10th Hussars on picket duty. One of the big issues with Waterloo games is how you handle the Prussian arrival, the Liphook game had the unedifying sight of the Young Guard lined up on the table edge to stop the Prussians getting on! I there forbid the French to move forces E until the Prussians were “sighted” just off table, and then they could only move up to Lobau’s historic position just short of Fischermont. 

The Prussian Juggernaut (Junkernaut?) comes onto the table

One Prussians actually arrived on table they had free movement. For the Prussians their order of arrival was set by the march order of the Lasne bridge (been there, great cafe nearby), but arrival times depended on dice rolls, and there were also randomisation as to whether they arrived on the S, middle or N arrival points. The net result is that Blucher doesn't know exactly what he's getting when, and where. All worked really well for IV Corps, most unit actually arriving very close to historic timings, but II and I Corps both failed to show by 8pm, so may adjust a bit. Since we didn't have the NE quarter of the battlefield Blucher also had less space to deploy in, poor avenues of exploitation, and less chance to threaten Lobau’s N flank, so a bit more challenging than in real life.

Lobau's men ready to receive the Prussians

HOW IT PLAYED

A bit of a log jam initially (and throughout?) as the majority of Prussians came on at the S entry point, where they are hemmed in by woods, and the French had copied Lobau by putting a stopper and the end of the defile. It wasn’t any easier in the N where the board edge meant that units coming in at the central point either had a 100m gap to squeeze through or flog through the woods.

A French Battery being threatened by Prussians on its flank

Most of the early battle was taken up with cavalry duels, but since everyone only had light cavalry these usually results in both sides being bounced back and then recovering for a few turns. The Prussian cavalry, lots of Landwehr had some very weak units who could hardly be committed. Twice a Prussian Horse battery got into position only to be run down by French lancers.

All the cavalry actions though couldn't stop the slow juggernaut of the big Prussian infantry regiments moving forward. They were big enough that they could take the French guns on without totally losing it, and even sustain some meleeing with the French light cavalry (one regiment even charging some disordered chasseurs who hadn’t had the chance to pull back after a melee).

Gradually the first French line faded, and Lobau had a second line ready behind them. But now the Prussian infantry was there in full force, and the second line went in just a couple of turns. Only two of Lobau’s original battalions were left.

Landwehr cavalry moving on the French flank

By then the Young Guard had deployed, a brigade in Plancenoit and a Brigade on the ridge line N of it, but the Prussian 12pdrs had also arrived, and with some Prussian cavalry still to menace them it looked like Blucher could afford to stand off and try and blast the French into submission.

Having spent 4 nights on this already we decided to call it a day there. I’m sure that in the full game the Prussians would rather mask Plancenoit anyway (Hougoumont ditto), and pile on into the main battle.

The game lasted 22 turns, although the Prussians weren't on table til turn 5 (which was actually a bit ahead of schedule).

Prussians pushing forward through the smoke

THOUGHTS

All worked pretty well. Just a few occasions of light cavalry vs less than well formed infantry that could have been more decisive, but otherwise all worked as expected and we were rattling through even the 3 stage advance to contact rules pretty well. 

I tried out the tile spacers as damage markers, but found them in white not just visible enough - will try again in red, and anyway I like our smoke puffs. Unit labels had just the right amount of info, and were legible, but certainly need the MDF strip base so they can be taken off the sabots, and ideally moved between them.

Plancenoit in sight!

Lobau's final stand

CONCLUSION

We’ve now tested all the main parts of the battle and everything looks good. All the tiles are done, I just need to sort the cloths for the “level 0” bits in the valleys. All the figures are done, with just some basing and sabots to be sorted out. We’ve now given my mum the vital task of tracking down somewhere big enough for us to hire so we can actually play the whole battle some time in the second half of August.

The Prussian's break through!

2nd Battle of Newbury - 27 Oct 1644 - with The Kingdom Is Ours

Heard about these rules back when they came out, and chatted to the team at a demo game at Wolverhampton just before lockdown hit. Finally picked them up last month and decided to run the 2nd Newbury scenario with them to see what the rules were like, and whether the Royalists could do any better. The ruleset is 84pp, Osprey sized, and has a downloadable 6pp QRS.

Set-Up 

Same as the last game, with the King sandwiched between Manchester and Waller.

How it Played 

Waller was a bit quicker into Speen, but rapidly lot the oomph to actually fight through and clear the town, not helped by the early loss of almost all his cavalry. The King still had a unit on the E edge of Speen at the end. As activity faded around Speen Manchester finally kicked into life. The hedges frustrated early moves on his L flank, but his Horse cleared the Foot lining the hedge N and then tried to take Shaw House but were routed by the commanded shot inside. One of Manchester's Foot came to the same end, and Shaw House remained with the King til the end. 

A sterling defence of Shaw House by some Commanded Foot

The Parliamentarian will obviously failed early as several unengaged units field the battlefield, even before being committed. Once Manchester finally made contact on his L flank both sides were down to about half a dozen units. Two Foot melees results in one of each side routing and ENDEX was called.

ENDEX - a few units back at Speen but otherwise most gone

Thoughts

All started sort of well, but then I came to the first big (well 1 regt vs 1 regt, 4 bases each) cavalry melee and found myself rolling almost a hundred dice! Cavalry and charging makes this more than normal, but even so 20-30 a combat seems pretty usual (once for hit, another for damage, 4 dice per base, doubled for charge etc). By the end of the first evening I knew things had to change - rolling that many dice is just not quick! Another issue was that although the game was "stand" based, stands too 1/4 casualties, so you had to track those too.

So I decided to divide everything by 4 - 1 dice per cav stand, 1/2 per pike, and a kill is a whole stand not a 1/4 of one. Still meant about 20 dice total for some cavalry engagements but I could live with that. The whole game then hummed along.

There were a few other issues though. 

With Foot vs Foot melee I was not only rolling 1-4 dice each, and getting 5+ seemed elusive, then getting 3+ to kill even harder, some melees went at least 6 rounds before any casualty - not fast!

Whilst I liked the random card idea they were just too random. You're meant to roll at turn end for EVERY unit, 9+ and you roll 2D10 for an event. Again way too many dice. I randomly rolled for each tertio only. And as the events are at the turn end they don't link into the narrative, so a unit that's sat in a peaceful corner of the field suddenly runs for no obvious reason.

The random activation again looked KO to start with - but with a token for every unit that's a lot to get through - depending on when the end-of-turn card comes up. So I switched to tertio activation which made more sense. But not tying the activation to a particular unit does mean you get that things where all the focus is on one part of the battle, and then end of turn comes up, and half the battlefield has done nothing.

I also didn't like the fact that routers had no effect on neighbours - other than if in own tertio when take a morale check, so minimal morale cascades. There's also no Army or Tertio morale mechanism so it's more or less a fight to the death. Quite tempted to add in Battlegroup:NORTHAG's chit system.

By the end though my mods were giving me a semi-reasonable game.

A nice fight at a wall S of Shaw House

Conclusion

Played as written I really don't think it delivers as  a "fast play" set - and I didn't even bother with the per unit record cards! As a basis for my own new set of stand-based rules it has more potential, some nice ideas to steal and hopefully make more manageable. I think ECW and probably Medieval and earlier sort of suit an "old school" stand-based mechanic at 20mm, and it would also give a greater difference to my Napoleonic games at that scale. So next time my 20mm ECW comes out it's going to be a new set of stand-based house rules, plus of course whatever other new rules come out by then!

2nd Battle of Newbury - 27 Oct 1644

 

Next up in my vaguely sequential run of English Civil War battles is the 2nd Battle of Newbury. I did the First Battle of Newbury back in Aug 2019 in 6mm, but decided to run this one in 20mm.

It's a tough ask for the Royalists. The Parliamentarians spent the night and morning before sending about half their force on a right flanking march so that they could attack the Royalists form the rear. Charles and Maurice got wise and managed to deploy some of their forces to Speen village and even rig some defences - but it meant that the Royalists were fighting off Manchester on the E and Waller/Cromwell on their W. The only saving graces were a late start after all that manoeuvre - so only they only had to hold the Parliamentarians off for a few hours fighting before darkness came, and Manchester missed his cue and started fighting late (and in fact wasted some troops even before that).

Here's the opening positions, looking E from behind Waller's position, with Speen village in the centre, Shaw House beyond that, the castle at Donnington on the L, and the the Lambourne snaking though, with Donnington Mill just L of centre. Manchester is around the far hill (Clay Hill), Charles facing E (so up picture) based around Shaw House and Maurice facing W (so down picture) based around Speen.

I'm playing the scenario through twice. Once with my own rules (currently called “We Die By These Things”, and derived from my Napoleonic rules), and once with "The Kingdom Is Ours" - the new set from Bicorne Miniatures. Figure ratio was about 1:100, and ground scale about 10cm = 200m.

The Battle

Wallers first assault on Speen was swiftly repulsed. Manchester rolled to get engaged at the earliest possible moment and started to approach Shaw House, with his first battalia again being pushed back. Cromwell's cavalry came forward from the W on both flanks, getting the better of the Royalist horse, but pursuing into the depth of the Royalist position where it was picked off by horse, the Donnington guns and the dragoons in the Mill before it could recover back. A second assault on Speen was more successful, driving off the first Royalist line, and then a brief melee in the village and Speen was taken.

The fight for Speen

 

By the end of Turn 4 things were looking pretty bad for the Royalists, as many of their units had taken a battering, they'd lost Speen so the back of the pincer was closing and they only had 2 horse left.

In turn 5 the dice gods were with the King. Attacks from Manchester were beaten off, the Donnington guns and the dragoons saw off Parliament's dragoons and damaged Waller's advancing foot. Maurice's cavalry took out another Roundhead unit of Horse, but unwisely chased them off the field.

Maurice pursuing off table

But all the combat was taking its toll, and the King was really left with just a thin line of 3 Foot and one battered Horse units, and there were still 4 turns til nightfall. Manchester's foot fell on the flank of one Royalist unit which had unwisely swung out to try and take another of Manchester's battalia in the flank. The commanded muskets had left Shaw House and lined up along the hedges, but were themselves then taken in the flank by Manchester's Horse. With only a few units left, and the escape route N now blocked ENDEX was called, and a convincing Parliamentary victory.

Manchester's troops about to deliver the final blow

Thoughts

I think that played pretty well. About 3-4 hrs playing time solo. The rules were a bit aggressive in places, but at least that meant that units weren't hanging around after combats. Cavalry seemed a bit too disinclined to go chasing off after routers, so need to fix that. 

Still not 100% happy though. The root cause is not really being able to find out (despite asking various authors/reenactors) what actually happened when two foot units came into contact, and in particular:

- What did the Shot do whilst the Pike was at push-of-pike

- How long push-of-pike lasted until it became a general melee

- Were there ever situations where the two sides separated in good order and backed off

- If one side was "beaten" did it ever fight again in the battle or was it totally spent, possibly as a result of dropping its pikes since I for one don't think I'd run from a melee lugging a 16' pike along!

Need to read more first hand accounts I think (although if anything like Napoleonic ones they always tend to skirt over the key details) and go to more re-enactment events to ask around.

Anybody with any good sources to answer these questions please let me know in the comments.

1985 Company Megatest - Summary and Roundup

 

That's the end of the Modern Company-Level rule set test, more WW2 focussed rules to follow hopefully later in the year. Eight sets of rules played against variations of a single scenario of a meeting engagement to seize the town of Semmenstedt. The summary below is in order played, and each title links to the relevant blog post. Of course your mileage may vary and most based on a single playthrough.

Reviews Summary

Battlegroup: NORTHAG 8/10

• Pros: BR endgame system, just plays pretty well
• Cons: Over generous and IGOUGO activation system. Lookup table for hits.

Seven Days to the Rhine 7/10

• Pros: Nice activation system. Worked better than Iron Cross (may be me!)
• Cons: No HE or indirect fire.

Team Yankee 5/10

• Pros: Nothing seemed really broken.
• Cons: Very old school IGO-UGO. National "to hit" values. Long dice chains. Tank ranges seem short. Repeated "free" attempts to get your artillery on target. No real difference between ATGW and gun fire. No suppression. No friction, no spotting. 

Bolt Action - Reality Check 8.5/10

• Bolt Action plus house mods
• Pros: Bolt Action scales up reasonably well
• Cons: Need to clarify how sub-unit pins effect unit activation

3rd Generation Warfare 5/10

• Pros: Lots of nice info
• Cons: Need to buy a separate data book to play. Multiple fires, cumbersome mechanics

Cold War 3 3/10

• Pros: More nice info
• Cons: Essentially a re-engineered version of Team Yankee. Typos galore (18 per page!). Errors in QRS. Errors in data (or may be typos...)

Sandhurst Modern Infantry Battle - 6/10

• Pros: "What the pros used". 3 pages. "Official" view on what are effective ranges.
• Cons: Very slim-line, not even AT wpn and armour differences. Limited scope.

Contact Wait Out - 8.5/10

• My own in-house set
• Pros: Covered pretty much all the basis. Adding 7DTTR activation and NORTHAG Battle Rating added to it
• Cons: Might replace infantry direct fire with the suppression mechanism (so similar approach to Sandhurst). Bit too hard to kill things? 

I played Sabre Squadron a while ago, I think it would have come out at around 6/10.

Conclusions

So Contact Wait Out did way better than in the Platoon tests, and with the tweaks for Battlegroup:NORTHAG and 7DTTR is playing really well. Bolt Action needs a few more tweaks to also work really well at this scale but is a good second choice. Battlegroup:NORTHAG and 7DTTR both play OK with no major issues, but the rest were very much a mixed bag.

One thing I did note across all the games is that I started with 1 fig = 1 man and individual basing. Even with just a couple of platoons dismounted that was a lot to move, and more importantly place - particularly since most rules were at 25m - 50m per 4cm hex. So I started sabot the figures up, then decided actually I only needed ~4 figs to represent each section. Even so cramming into a couple of hexes (~100m section frontage) was hard, especially in urban areas. Next time I run a company game (and certainly for the Bn games) I think I might switch to 10cm Hexon or 10cm square grid, and use section sized stands.

For my previous megatests see:

• Platoon Megatest
• Skirmish Megatest

1985 Company MegaTest - Contact Wait Out

 

Time for the last in the run of 1980s Company level games, and time to put my own set through its paces.

Presentation

I did have a "rule book" edition several versions ago but whilst it's still in flux all recent editions have been on an A4 landscape QRS - two sheets (admittedly 9pt) for main rules, 2 more for stats, and a few extra pages for air/engrs etc.

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

Seemed a far more even game than the others. The Brits were slow to get into Semmenstedt with both sides more or less meeting in the middle. The Russians got to the farm first, only narrowly beating the Brits. There was the standard face-off between T64s and Chieftains, with T64s tending to hit but not penetrate and the Brits fluffing a few shots (although Milan got one). By the end all the Chieftains were gone and two T64s were left.

By the farm the M109 battery put in a couple of fire missions, causing suitable pinning/shock but minimal damage - although one BMP bought it. The Brits dismounted from their FV432s about 150m and tried to take the site before the Russians could recover, both slides lost a section but the Brits couldn't unseat the Russians and pulled back. 

In Semmenstedt 2Pl got into the high-rise and poured fire onto the Russian Pl that was pushing in, causing one section to give up. A Russian fire mission again caused some damage to the S of the city but wasn't fatal. One of the Chieftains took out a couple of BMP before it was fired on from a BMP up the road in Remilingen and taken out.

An attempted airstrike saw one Harrier go down to a SAM-7, whilst the second ship missed the T64 it was aiming at.

With most of the rules tested and both sides at 50% of their battle rating, and SN10 making a spectacular first flight (and even more spectacular second!) I'd run out of time and called ENDEX.

Rules Impression

OK I know this is going to sound biased, but bear in mind I gave CWO only 6.5/10 in the Platoon MegaTest, but I thought that CWO played pretty well and was the closest to what I'm after in a Company level game.

I did make a few changes before the game. One was to simplify the Indirect Fire rules - and in doing so remove the last vestiges of the WRG Armour and Infantry1950-1975 rule set (yes up to a decade before 1985!) in which it has its spiritual home. I also changed the way I did random movement distances, trying to eliminate the use of Fate dice and keep to just D10/D6. In fact I found the new system too random in the first couple of turns and changed it again, still keeping the D10s - random movement is a must I think, especially for this sort of game. I also introduced a new system for randomly determining how much FIRES support you have which worked well.

I also stole the Battle Rating system from Battlegroup:NORTHAG. As it was  both side started with identical BR (not planned, but they did have similar forces) and ended with the same number of BR tokens (about 50%). With the British having lost all their MBT, and the Soviets at least 1 Platoon then playing on too 100% seems a bit much. In future games I might make the percentage national/scenario based, so say Brits play to 60% and WARPAC to 80%. There is the issue that the loss of a section might have a bigger impact than the loss of an MBT - but that may the the price for no bookkeeping and and amount of friction.

The other big change was in activation. I played the first half using the existing random card activation at Pl/Tp level - but really that just doesnt go with mechanised warfare really where reasonable comms and covering fire doctrine means far more co-ordination is possible. I liked the 7 Days to the Rhine system, but having a token per element (so 20-30) was crazy, so I did it at unit level - so about 6 a side in this case. I then did some randomisation to make it +/-2 per turn. Activating like this made it sensible to move FIRES calls outside of the normal activation cycle and do at turn start for both side. Interrupt fire in 7DTTR works as the opponent unit spend its token early, but since I've got unit tokens I'm doing that by a simple overwatch order. I'm keeping the ability to "pass" phasing at any point - but I am concerned that if the phasing player doesnt do that it becomes IGOUGO. So as well as this I gave the non-phasing player the ability to spend 2 tokens to take over phasing and activate a unit (or the phasing player could bid 3 etc). I think this might give just the right level of interactivity and how you spend your tokens becomes a key decision, but without being too gamey. It's not really very easy to test in solo play, so post-lockdown I can hopefully try the mechanism with other players.

I did think that things were a bit hard to hit/kill than in other rules so I'm tempted to drop the "to spot/hit/kill" scores by 1. I think I might ditch targetted inf vs inf fire for the suppression rules, and I need to work a bit on the whole shock/pin/neutralise/kill mechanic, but its definitely getting there. And despite the extra complexity overall I  don't think the game slowed too much.

Overall

Pretty good I think, back to what I remembered it being before the Platoon game, and actually improving on what it was before, so all in the right direction. Just the right combination of friction, grit and playability. Overall 8.5/10, and I think I can push it up to 9 or even more when it comes to the WW2 company test.

Dungeons and Dragons Figures

I acquired a box of old Grenadier Miniatures D&D figures from my daughter who was having a bit of a clear out. They are very "old style" and just had black undercoat. Faced with a gap in painting as I waited for my Napoleonic Russians to arrive I decided to paint them up. 

I've been toying with getting a D&D rule set for a while - and still am. I cut my RPG teeth on the A5 booklet D&D/Greyhawk edition, and then AD&D 1st Edition. Cost precludes getting D&D, and even AD&D 1e is not cheap; and lots of people say some later editions have slicker rules, we'll see.

I actually also have an old set of D&D figures that I last painted up when my daughter was about 8 to teach her RPGs - all heavily black-lined and glossed up!