Ancient Campaign Plans

Trajan's men construct facilities in preparation for his upcoming campaign into Dacia. Likewise similar activity is going on here at JJ's Wargames with plans and constructions well under way.

The end of a year is always a great time to review progress on projects to date and also to think of things to come. At the moment I am focused on future plans, next week on the run in to Xmas and New Year I will take a bit of time to review progress on current projects.

I recently laid out my ideas on where I plan to take the Napoleonic collection and in that vain of looking ahead I thought you might like to see what I have in mind for the Ancient collection.

The emphasis of JJ's Wargames has since its beginning had a very strong Peninsular War theme and that will continue, but as the title of the blog indicates it is about the wargames I like to play and the periods of history I am particularly interested in and that includes periods and eras outside of Napoleonics and the Peninsular War.

One area I am looking forward to shift more time and development towards is the 28mm Ancients collection that I, and more latterly Tom, have started based on the Hail Caesar Dacian War book of scenarios, and a good start has been made on the Roman collection in terms of painted units. In addition with the arrival of three more boxes of Dacian warriors from Caliver (thank you to Dave Brown and the chaps who have set about sorting my order - great service as always) I will have all the troops ready to paint up for that collection with the addition of some nice terrain items from "Grand Manner" planned to be purchased next year.

Current collection

Romans
1 x Praetorian Legionary Cohort x 20 figures
6 x Legionary Cohorts x 20  - 5 painted
6 x Auxiliary Infantry x 24 - 3 painted
2 x Foedarati Warbands x 40
4 x Auxiliary Archers x 8
2 x Slingers x 8
3 x Scorpion - 1 painted
2 x Numidian Light Cavalry x 10
2 x Auxiliary Cavalry x 10
1 x Praetorian Cavalry x 10

Balance to get
1 x German Light Cavalry x 10
2 x Onager
1 x Ballistae
Some Baggage units

Dacian/Sarmatian
1 x Noble Warband x 40
12 x Warband x 40
4 x Javelin Skirmishers x 8
4 x Archers x 8
1 x Slingers x 8
2 x Scorpio
6 x Cataphracts x 8
6 x Horse Archers x 6
1 x Light Cavalry x 6
2 x German Light Cavalry x 10

Balance
Some Baggage units

DACIAN CAMPAIGN 

The Dacian campaigns of Domitian and Trajan have always held the most interest for me in terms of the barbarian wars fought by the Principate and of the so called barbarian foes faced by the Romans, I think the Dacians with their use of technology and allied Sarmatian cavalry were among the most dangerous opposition when coupled with the "slipperyness" of Decebalus. So much so that Emperor Trajan amassed one of the largest Roman troop deployments to deal with them once and for all.

I am looking forward to getting stuck into the Dacian collection on completion of the Talavera project later next year (that's me controlling the inner little boy who wants to start now!!).

To add further substance to these plans I have sat down and drawn up a Cyberboard mini-campaign to better capture the linked campaign in the Hail Caesar book with a few additions. The map above illustrates the progress the Roman armies must make through and across the Dacian plains and mountains as they attempt to close in on Sarmizegethusa for the final showdown. The markers on the map having randomised scenarios to be played which are revealed when flipped over.

Cyberboard allows for an easy record to be carried forward of the condition of the forces as they progress from one clash to the next by the use of these simple army records that I have plumbed in. These are important to record what units are left to each side after the initial clashes to be able to draw up the final orders of battle.

I have also added in a little mechanism to record individual success by the amount of booty captured in the games played. Not only that but I think most Roman campaigns should have a large element of "prestige" modelled into them. The machismo that typified Roman politics contained a lot of managing public opinion on how the war was going and the booty element helps measure that aspect.

After constructing the Dacian Wars plan I then thought about the next expansion to the collection and the most obvious one would be to build on the small number of German Warbands that can turn up in the Dacian scenarios to be used as a foundation for a collection focussed on the Germania frontier.

GERMANICUS in GERMANIA CAMPAIGN

The Germania frontier is probably the next most attractive campaign setting for me and on acquiring the Hail Caesar Germania Campaign book earlier this year I started to look at the collection needed to play the scenarios from that.

Needless to say the Roman collection will be pretty much done so the units needed will be Germans and mainly warbands.

I wanted to carry on the theme of using my lorica armoured Romans and given the Augustus/Tiberius period was a time of change and it seems likely that the Roman forces were moving away from the chain mail protection used in Gaul, great against slashing cuts from the long Gallic swords to lorica, better able to stand up to German spear thrusts, I decided to opt for looking at the punitive, revenge driven, campaigns of Germanicus and his pursuit of Arminius and the lost Eagles.

I have just about finished off my Germania Cyberboard campaign plan/game as illustrated in the map I have adapted for it, and so the German collection will be put together after the Dacians/Sarmatians to fulfil this plan.

I have been toying with the construction of this project all year, spurred on by "Eager for Glory - The Untold Stories of Drusus the Elder, Conquerer of Germania" by Lindsay Powell which Will got me for my birthday back in the summer and my recent purchase of the Hail Caesar Brittania Campaign book by John Lambshead. I really liked the way he tailored the tribal differences based on the limited sources and the terrain they operated in. I have taken that idea to Germania with the "Watermen" of Frisi, to the cavalry tribes of the Usipeti and Tancteri and the more common "Forest Fiends" found else where. Note I am referring to some definitions here used in Augustus to Aurelian.

The other aspect I wanted to capture was the fact that Arminius strove, desperately at times, to get the tribes to avoid pitched battles that played into the Romans hands. In this he was not always successful and so I have gone for scenario based tabletop battles rather than just sticking the models out any old way. That allows for the "Arminius effect" by having more battle set ups that allow the tribes to fight on home ground using tactics that suit their set up, with the odd scenario or two that will have the Romans licking their lips with anticipation.

Of course any Roman collection worth its salt has to be doubled up as any fan of this period of history knows the Romans spent probably more time killing each other (rather like the Greeks) than they did killing foreign foes.

Inspired by Simon Miller's (Big Red Bat Blog) Cremona game that he ran last year I think, at Salute, I am also planning to add to the Roman collection as we go along to enable some "blue on blue" action whilst trying to keep the odd barbarian incursion at bay.

YEAR OF THE FOUR EMPERORS CAMPAIGN

I like my campaign plans to follow the KIS-KISS principle of Keep it Short and Keep it Simple (not Simplistic - that's the other 'S'). The Year of the Four Emperors is a great period to look at for creating that "Game of Thrones" structure between multiple players with very similar but different armies.

The idea behind my final creation was to take a simple DBA campaign game with its formulaic twelve unit army format and build a more interesting big unit game around it.

The time of the campaign, 69-70 AD allows me a chance of bringing in my barbarian collections that can feature in this short bloody year of struggle as the five factions wrestle to gain supremacy over their former colleagues. It also gives me an excuse to go on and build a twelve unit Parthian and Pictish force over time, and who knows, maybe a few Moorish tribal types to add more variety.

Not only that but the Romans get to play with mobs of hastily raised citizen legionaries and plain old mobs armed with what they turned up with, together with the odd unit of gladiators, not to mention dodgy Praetorians who no one is sure whose side they're on.

I quite like the way Sam Mustafa, another horse and musket man, genericized barbarian and civilized forces for his Aurelian campaign game with the barbarians effectively characterised as spear and shield types or horse and bow types (I'm sure that would have raised howls of complaint from WRG fans a few years ago worried about their double handed cutting weapons versus long thrusting spears, who knows it might still). That principle could work here with the Dacian/Sarmatians standing in for the Parthians temporarily while the latter get added.

As with the Napoleonics, the Ancient collection plans are percolating in the background and has provided hours of pleasurable contemplative thought about future games.

With regard to rule sets, I know what I want and I know what I don't in terms of the look and feel of the game. I have so far put Hail Caesar, and Sword and Spear to the test and in January "Mr Steve" and I will get together to play "Augustus to Aurelian" which from a period specific perspective are spot on. The twelve to twenty unit army in 28mm seems to be the right size for what I want to do.

I like the look of a twenty figure Roman cohort/unit up against a forty figure Dacian/German warband and the scaling down of say three cohorts of legionaries and three of auxiliaries with some cavalry and artillery to represent a legionary army, hence the twelve unit DBA arrangement could work well with the option of adding in the odd unit or two for variety.

So the plan of campaign as far as the next major collection is concerned is pretty well drawn up and, as with the Napoleonics, just a case of playing some scenarios as the collection grows to a point where we can think about other stuff.

As you can see it is all about beginning with the end in mind and remembering that the plan changes on first contact with the enemy.

Isn't this a fantastic hobby?

Army Lists and Other Campaign Ideas!

So now the Peninsular War collection is growing into one that now offers potential to do some more interesting stuff around campaigns and "what if?" scenarios I have been turning my mind back to some of my early ideas around the subject and re-crafting a few of them together. This aspect of the hobby is something I am sure we all dabble in at times; it is the full three course meal of the hobby, providing that all important context to our games and for me is a never ending series of possibilities and something I never tire of playing with. In addition it gives a focus to collection building plans and so I thought I would share my own thoughts.

I was really sorry to see the change of direction decided upon, earlier this year, by the "Napoleon at War" designers to park the Napoleonic project whilst turning their efforts towards the American Civil War. I like many others were looking forward to the release of further campaign books to follow on from the Waterloo release to include the 1813 Campaign and a talked of Peninsular War Campaign book.

I was never one of those who was enthused about turning Napoleonics into tournament play "Flames of War" style gaming, with contrived mechanics to produce a simplistic win/lose style of game often devoid of historical context. That said the lists produced by these design concepts seem ripe for application to a more thoughtful use and can be an aid to scenario design without getting hung up on points balanced games (Wellington and Massena didn't seem to bother much with points and always strove to bring on an unbalanced battle favouring them).

So in the best traditions of "adopt, adapt, improve" I have spent a bit of down time producing my own game lists worked out using Carnage & Glory unit definitions and points and adapting the principle of normal-strength, over-strength and under-strength units which I thought was a very clever mechanic to allow gamers to produce standard looking units that model these characteristics without having to use different bases combined with multiple combinations of numbers of figures.

The idea of applying points to units has its supporters and detractors and I think the idea has its place more for guiding the wargamer who wants to create historically based formations than those who are more interested in "power-gaming" and creating "uber-armies". When the historical principle is applied to the grand campaign model, points can allow interesting scenarios to be created around a limited number of figures that can give a game context and enable the tabletop battle to be translated back into the campaign situation. In addition as we are talking about a campaign situation, we are not concerned with "game balance" as just like their historical counterparts, both opposing commanders will be striving to maximise or minimise the advantages of the their position versus the opposition. Obvious one sided contacts can be dealt with on the map, but the larger more interesting contacts can be constructed using the lists and fought out on the table.

Earlier this year I picked up a copy of the revised edition of "L'Empereur Napoleonic Strategic Game" rules by Albert Walton, that offers the chance to play your Napoleonic table top games within the wider scope of a major grand campaign such as the Peninsular War, very much in the mode of a Battlefront "Firestorm" WWII campaign.

I have long toyed with the idea of bringing Mr Walton's campaign game together with the army lists of Napoleon at War and the game mechanics of Carnage & Glory (C&G) and see what hybrid monster I could create by mixing up their respective DNA.

The lists above are some of the early drafts of formats to include the French, French Allies and Spanish and the map below shows my adaptation of the L'Empereur map for the Peninsular War campaign module plugged into Cyberboard. The various flag pieces show the different army groups dotted around the peninsular in June 1808 with Dupont's "doomed" expedition down in Granada (Hex G4) and Junot's tenuous and out of supply hold on Lisbon (Hex I2), with the Spanish held fortresses of Cuidad Rodrigo (Hex I3) and Badajoz (Hex H2) sealing him off from the other French forces clearly standing out, together with the supply rout from France via the other French controlled hexes and those closest able to take a waggon marker among those mountains soon to be crawling with guerrillas.

The forces yet to enter the stage are shown with the French allies gathering in Bayonne (Hex K5) and Perpignan (Hex K6) together with Napoleon and his Guard set to arrive in September and the British under Wellesley and Sir John Moore set up to arrive in August and October respectively. The former French allies in the form of the Spanish army groups can be seen gathering their strength following the Madrid uprising in May with the large armies under Blake (Hex K3) and Castanos (Hex G4) looking to pose the first threat to the extended elements of the French invasion force. The map encounters generated would then be ready to be translated into a tabletop clash using the lists above and C&G.

My forces are not yet complete with the Talavera collection set to enable most of the formations shown above to be modelled as required, and Bassecourt's regular Spanish division together with Albuquerque's Cavalry will provide a good core of figures to field the Spanish, leaving the Portuguese and some French allied formations (Italian & Neopolitans) to be built next year on the completion of the Talavera project.

One other idea I am toying with is to include an "events" process to add that little spice of un-predictability. The L'Empereur module sets up troop levels with withdrawals and reinforcements based on the historical record and it provides a simple campaign engine if a bit too predictable. The addition of some limited theatre level events could add a little more variation for players to deal with.

So my Napoleonic Grand Campaign ideas are gently percolating behind all the big battle mini campaign stuff, just as it should be, plus I have been putting together some "adopt, adapt, improve" paper based rules for those days when I haven't got the lap top to hand; but that as they say is another story for another post.

D Day - 70th Anniversary

Today is the 70th anniversary of the greatest naval invasion the world has ever seen and for me, the son of a former member of the British 21st Army, it is very moving to hear the memories of the last surviving veterans.

My father landed on D+4 as a member of the advanced party of Guards Armoured Division and I remember his vivid descriptions of the beachhead when he arrived in Normandy and the later battles of the campaign.

With the passing years and with fewer veterans still surviving, my Dad passed away in 2003, the likelihood is that this will be the last significant commemoration of a campaign that dramatically changed the course of WWII and the history of our world today.

My blog since its beginning back in December 2012 has had a strong theme around the Peninsular War as a period that I have chosen to focus on for the foreseeable future.

Prior to it I had spent the previous three years building up a large collection of WWII Normandy forces for my own home brewed WWII rules and latterly IABSM. Those figures have taken a "back seat" in recent times but were regularly featured in games that I reported on the Devon Wargames Group Blog.

With the importance of today's commemoration, I thought I would pay my tribute to the events of seventy years ago by highlighting those postings that were part of a campaign run back in 2010 and that is still to be completed, and will be returned to later. As the map shows we had all the beaches to fight except Utah in the first turn.

So first up, the battles for the beaches beginning with Juno

The landing on Juno Beach

Juno Nan Red AAR

The second game featured Bloody Omaha

No quarter asked or given on Omaha

Omaha Easy Green AAR

The third game was fought out on Sword beach

Solid landing on Sword

Sword Queen Red AAR

And last but not least, Gold

The first breach made on Gold

Gold Jig Green AAR

The position at the end of D Day

War Games and Flamingos in Spain

This week we are taking a short break in Murcia in Spain. We have had a house down there for a few years now and it is a lovely part of the world to relax in prior to getting together with family and friends over Christmas.

While I am away the painting goes on hold, and with no Internet access in the house my ability to communicate on the net is slightly limited. The good news is that the nearby bar has complimentary Internet access and so I can catch up on things every now and then, whilst sipping their very nice hot chocolate.

Much fun was had at the Devon Wargames Group last Saturday as we held our annual Christmas Big Game, a “King James vs King Billy Beneath the Lilly Banners Match Up” with Chas and Vince fielding their 28mm collections and everyone in the club taking part. The rules are very good, capturing the feel of that particular early horse & musket era and allowing a large game like that to run along easily with players unfamiliar with them soon able to get competent with the system. I have toyed with the idea of building some War of Spanish Succession (WSS) forces and these rules would be very much top of my list. I managed to post a full report of the game with many pictures taken of the toys. My role in the game was not insignificant as I assumed the role of traitor to Prince William’s cause and succeeded in completely messing up the left flank and centre of his lines.

My cavalry fight each other in our club game last Saturday. See the report to find out why.

Whilst away I like to take the enforced time away from the paint desk to play with other war game ideas and to read generally. I have been playing with another computer rules set, “The Great Captains” by Computer Strategies designed by Mr Clinton Reilly. The rules cover the early to mid horse & musket era (WSS, Seven Years War, AWI) and as with his other period sets come with a campaign system. 

It is the campaign system that Clinton is looking to upgrade and has invited mine and others feedback on changes he has incorporated and will add based on that feedback. It is early days at the moment but I did set up and run solo a little campaign based on operations around Boston in 1775 as General Gage et al attempted to maintain the city as a base for future operations against the rebels. With the said rebels attempting to grab sites around the city to set up gun positions for batteries using cannon captured from the British at Fort Ticonderoga. A good test of the system as I had little garrisons of minute men set up in the small towns together with an American field army and the British in Boston trying to ferry troops out to different areas to secure high ground overlooking the city.

The program allows the player to paste a copy of any map he wishes to use and, with the help of a grid superimposed on to it, define particular areas of terrain, flat plain, hilly, mountains, sea and swampy. These terrain definitions impact on supply and movement. In addition supply depots of various sizes and defence can be identified allowing for bases of operation to be set up. However these definitions would benefit from additions and my play test this week, and the notes I made confirm this and when I can get near an Internet access I will copy off my notes to Clinton.

My mini campaign map that I have been trying things out with

In addition to “The Great Captains”, I have taken a mini campaign system made available on the net by Bruce McFarlane Bob Barnetson which using their fast play rules for the AWI “Two for Tea” allows players to pre manoeuvre the armies at Brandywine prior to setting up the table top battle. I have always fancied using this set up but with my own rules. In addition, rather than a paper based map and counters, I have put the whole thing into Cyberboard to keep things much easier to use and will make it available as a download in my collection of freebies. 

The Brandywine campaign map for Cyberboard

As with our break in the summer to Sri Lanka, I thought you might like to see some pictures of the area and wildlife, as this part of Spain is really beautiful and a popular holiday destination. At this time of year the coastal salt flats are home to some amazing bird life, including visitors from Africa. We were lucky to find these Flamingos the other day, happy to ignore us as we took these pictures. It’s great to see them in the wild and particularly when they are in flight as they must be the most ungainly bird you will ever see in the air with the large floppy wing span and trailing legs counter balanced by a beak that looks just a little bit too big.

A little bit of winter sun in Murcia, Spain

Keeping warm on the beach

The flamingos were doing what they do best, eating and looking cool. I couldn't help thinking about the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland about to play croquet, whilst photographing these guys.

It's my birthday, and I got some presents.

This was the news the year I was born, so I'm now on 53 not out.

Today is sunny and warm in my part of Devon and I am planning to be down on the beach with friends and family, eating fish and chips, then retiring to the bar at the local cricket club. That's what birthdays are all about.

This morning I got some fantastic presents that I thought I'd share with you, all of which I have only dipped into so far but will be giving more considered thoughts about in later posts.

I got into the Jack Tanner books a few years ago with the first novel set in Norway in 1940. These books are "ripping yarns" very much in the style of the Sharpe books and written by a historian, James Holland, who really knows his stuff when it comes to WWII. I've got two teenage sons queueing up to read this one so I guess it will get first attention.

I had "Wellington against Junot" on my list for a while, especially with my recent gaming in mind. Strictly speaking the book should have been Wellesley against Junot, as Sir Arthur didn't get the Viscount Wellington title until after Talavera the following year. Looking forward to getting into this book and the follow up, versus Massena.

I know Robert Burnham's work is invaluable when it comes to studying the Peninsular War so I rather felt this had to be on the book shelf and should give good insight to a topic not well covered in the English language. Again looking forward to getting into this book.

And last, but by no means least, "The Flight of the Eagle 3", just when you thought you knew every thing about Napoleonic campaigning, the ultimate research tool/game system comes along. This module 3 includes all the campaigns from the previous two plus the Peninsular War which really fired my interest.

Needless to say I've been a little bit distracted by this baby this morning, more to follow, but if you've never seen it before I've put a couple of links below that will tell you more.

http://didier-rouy.webs.com/productpage.htm

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21915/le-vol-de-laigle

Napoleonic Campaigns - Thoughts and Ideas Part 2

Ok, so picking up where I left off, I have put together a Peninsular War campaign module for Cyberboard. You can find it in the "My Resources and Downloads" section.

The download gives you a file containing two rulebooks, the difference being the battle set up systems. As I haven't play tested this in anger yet I haven't decided my preferred method of transferring map contacts to the table. So I have included the drafts of both options for your own choice.



Rules Cover



So if you haven't used Cyberboard before then perhaps a few instructions about setting this module up on your PC might help. Once you have the basic software loaded then you can simply place/drag and drop the Campaign folder into your Cyberboard folder.

When you click on the CB Play icon the system opens on the game viewer.

Just go to the "File"button and select "Open". This should allow you to find the Peninsular War Folder from which you can select "Peninsular War Campaign Game Start 1808.gam". This will open the game set up to start on June 1808.

You then simply follow the instructions in the rules I have created and learn how to move stuff around using the Cyberboard manual. It's not hard stuff so don't be put off.

Campaign Start Map

I have set up the map with all the initial markers in play ready to go. Along the top are the reinforcement stacks opposite the calendar tracker against the month they come into play. Markers allow you to change the calendar year and on the top right you can track unit losses/victory points.

Map Close Up

The map close up shows the counter mix with Commanders, Units and the terrain information showing open and mountainous terrain with the road conditions that apply. Fortresses are also indicated.

Remember this is a wargames utility, not a game in itself, although you can play the module as a board game. The point is, is that the map is simply there to record where things are at any given time. You can save the new map positions as you go and pick it up any time you like without having to pin a map on a wall. There are dice rolling tools on the system which is very handy for a campaign umpire, allowing simple decisions to be computed in between the table action.

If you use it then let me know how you get on. I still have my Spanish and Portuguese to build before I launch into running games in the system, but it's something I am keen to try out in time.

Napoleonic Campaigns - Thoughts and Ideas

Greetings from the Maldives. What a day Tuesday was. Up at 2am driving through the Yala National Park trying very hard to avoid wild animals as big as elephants, quite literally. Then an eight hour drive to Colombo airport with roads getting busier and busier the closer we came to the capital.

The picture above is one of the many bars and restaurants, this one being close to our beach side chalet.

At Colombo we boarded a flight to Mali in the Maldives which takes about an hour. Then boarded a sea plane out to our resort, arriving about 7pm that night.



So now we have seven days of sun, sea and sand plus time to read and feed the mind!


So with an enforced break in the painting schedule, I like many wargamers like to plan future games, army lists and for me campaign ideas.

I think for the Napoleonic player, campaigns are an important aspect of our hobby. The period lends itself perfectly to a series of games linked with a common narrative of forces trying to find one another and bring on a battle to one sides advantage. Once the advantage is gained then it comes to forcing the issue with follow up manoeuvre and final destruction of the enemy.

However most of us are busy people leading demanding lives and for me I want to be able to easily pick up and leave my campaign as and when time permits, but still give me the narrative I am looking for. I am also looking for a system that allows me to play on the Grand Strategy level down to the more local issues of a campaign within a campaign.

I want to abstract a lot of the day to day events that a senior commander would not bother himself with. So, for example, reconnaissance is a vital part of Napoleonic warfare, but I don't need to be concerned with where a particular light cavalry squadron is operating, as the senior Army Commander.

Likewise army attrition is inevitable, so my system needs to incorporate that without tying the play up with endless book keeping. I still have my copy of the Empire III campaign system and it still makes me swoon with its complexity. Perhaps when the Carnage & Glory campaign system is available then I might revisit that level of playing letting the computer take the strain.

I want also to be able to map play battles where that is preferable but keep the narrative to link my table top encounters.

So what have I come up with so far? Well I couldn't see the point or reinventing the wheel so I turned to a very old set of campaign rules "L'Empereur" I got from Tabletop Games, years ago. I then started to add a few adaptions of my own to the Peninsular Campaign module contained in the original set.

In this day and age of computers I can't see the point of having a paper map and I didn't want to use the original hexes so I made two changes, firstly to produce a Cyberboard set and secondly to use an area/node map.

I found a great map referenced from a board game, "War to the Death" highlighted on Rafeal Pardo's Project Leipzig blog, see my favourite blogs links, and combined this with some marker and counter graphics to allow me to monitor progress in the campaign.

The Campaign map set up in the Cyberboard Module

The basic principle behind the system is to enable battles to be fought using any points based set of rules, allowing the results of those battles to be translated to losses in map counters. I have put together a set of rules incorporating the structure from L'Empereur, and adding in some battle set up methods from "Age of Reason" suitably adapted for the Peninsular War.

This little project of mine comes with the usual disclaimers that I make whenever I make available material that I haven't had chance to playtest. However I think the basic system is robust enough to withstand tweaking, which is what I've done anyway. So if you make use of it let me know what you think. Anyway its offered free for those that might want to try it.

There is a link to Cyberboard in my links board to download the basic software. If you haven't used it before, I would highly recommend it as a great utility for wargame campaigns needing maps.

I'm afraid this post is a set up for when I get back to civilisation, as I had intended to post the rules and module with it. The internet connectivity hear is very indifferent, so I will follow up this post next week with the downloads.

Maurice - AWI Campaign

The release of Maurice has seen this rule set join my list of all time greats. I have never had a boring or predictable game using them, and the design, incorporating its own card driven sequence captures, in my mind the "feel" of warfare in the age of reason.

They have quickly become my turn to set when I feel the urge to play one of my favourite eras, the American War of Independence (AWI) or as our cousins across the pond would refer to it, the American Revolution.

The American War of Independence has been described as Britain's Vietnam, and the Avalon Hill game "We the People" (WTP) seems to capture that aspect of the war very well. It knits together the political struggle of winning hearts and minds with the military struggle, as both sides attempted to destroy each others forces to keep control of areas they had mastered. The political events outside the colonies are also included by having those events affect the course of the war with eventual French intervention.

Again the inclusion of a card driven sequence of play means that I have never seen the game play the same twice, and it makes it a very re playable game.

A couple of years back I picked up a copy of the Jan/Feb Battlegames magazine that had mention of running campaigns for the AWI using Commercial Board Games, namely 1776 from Avalon Hill, Liberty from Columbia Games and my favourite We the People.

I read the article at the time and filed it under "Things to do before I die", because I was building my WWII Normandy collection and didn't need to get sidetracked. However having practically finished the Normandy collection, and now working on the Napoleonics, I started to make notes on the article.

Very simply the article talks about the feasibility of using each game system to generate battles in a historical context and relate the tabletop wargame results back to the board game. There is a neat little rule of 12 that uses a 3:2 ratio for translating forces on to the table with some suggested army lists to construct those armies on the ratio selected.

So in WTP when two forces engage in a battle the weaker side would get 12 units built around the army lists. The stronger side would get any number of units from 13-18 depending on its strength advantage. Then other considerations can add further units to each force, who has State Militia, British National Advantage, Von Steuben doing his magic etc. Both armies will eventually have between 13 to 20 units. You can change these numbers if you wish as long as you stick to the ratio. So for instance you could go 16:24, 18:27 etc according to your whim.

There is a terrain design system based on where the battle is happening, to help put together your tabletop, and away you go. Then at the conclusion of the battle you apply losses to your map force based on the level of victory.

The 12:18 units fits nicely into the Maurice system which designed around those numbers has the advantage of being played to a conclusion in a reasonable amount of time, certainly to be built into the commitment of playing a campaign. This together with the fact that there are relatively few battles in WTP, on average less than ten in a game, makes both games a reasonable possibility.

Thus the seed of an idea, to be able to play one of my favourite wargame rule systems alongside one of my favourite board game systems.

So I thought a play test would be a good idea to see if my theory had "legs".

My old pal and neighbour Steve, who has shared some enjoyable WTP and Maurice games together, came over on Thursday evening, and I set up a table with two AWI forces constructed on a 3:2 ratio using the Maurice points system, rather than units, and the army lists provided in the article. The picture below gives an idea of the forces and set up before additions and changes, with the Americans on the left.

The initial set up with a small hill behind the wood on the front left. This was the British objective.
The Hessian brigade front right would be tasked with taking the hill and would be supported by British Guards and the British Regulars in the photo.

By dicing for the potential variables a WTP game could throw up, I arrived at the two forces;

British
4 x Regular Line Infantry 24 points
2 x Conscript Hessian Infantry 8 points
1 x Regular Light Dragoons 6 points
1 x Artillery 1 point
39 points
The British gained "Port advantage" and "British Training", giving them the following additional units;
1 x Guards 8 points
1 x Artillery 2 points.
We decided this was an early war encounter, so the British got;
Lethal Volleys 12 points
Steady Lads 9 points
Total British with additions 70 points
Initial Morale 10

Americans
7 x Conscript Continental Line Infantry 28 points
2 x Regular Continental Line Infantry 12 points
1 x Continental Dragoons 6 points
2 x Irregular Militia 6 points
1 x Artillery 1 point
53 points
The Americans gained "State Militia", giving them the following additional unit;
1 x Irregular Militia 3 points
56 points
Initial Morale 11

With the game occurring in a coastal zone we diced for the predominant terrain type which came out as hilly and gave the Americans the scouting advantage with their three Irregular Militia to none for the British. Steve playing the "Rebels" decided to defend.

I initially gave the Americans three guns but changed this in favour of infantry assets, militia

The Battle of Lovelace Hill 1777
So with both sides organised the Americans gathered their best units around the British objective on "Lovelace Hill" and prepared to sell their lives dearly. With colours flying and pipes and drums playing the British line prepared to advance.

The defenders on the hill

The first rounds of the battle saw both sides prepare each others lines with an artillery bombardment, The Royal Artillery battery causing a lot of discomfort to the Militia.
As the Crown forces closed on the American line, General Mathews gave an empowering speech to his troops with the battle cry "Remember Bunker Hill" that immediately added two points to American morale.

The British right which with the Artillery and Dragoons were intended to stop the Americans from supporting the hill defenders

The first exchanges of musketry occurred in front of the hill as the British attempted to dress the ranks in preparation for the decision with bayonets. The British Guards moved through the woods displaying their skill at arms, not stopping or needing to reform in the disruptive terrain. The Hessian's close behind wheeled slightly to allow them to approach on the open ground. All the while the lone American gun played on their ranks with round shot.

As the first assault went in on the hill, the British right closed on the American left and the musketry became widespread. It was here that British fire drill started to have effect and American units struggled to maintain their formation under the hail of shot. However the Guards were having an "off day" managing to combine indifferent musketry with a failed assault forcing then to fall back through the Hessian's, disrupting them as they went.

As if this was not bad enough a cry of dismay arose from the British left as Colonel McLeod of the 44th Foot was seen to fall after the last volley from the Americans. He was a leader who lead from the front and his loss was keenly felt causing British morale to drop by two points.

The core of the assault force, Hessian's to be joined later by a battalion of Guards

As the fighting became "up close and personal" both commanders threw in their best cards to gain the ascendancy, units started to disperse, however these losses after the death of their leader seemed to affect the British more than the Americans, and by mid day British morale was teetering on 3 points vs Americans on 5 points.

The British right moves out to hold the centre ground

Extreme times call for extreme actions, the British launched one final assault on the American lines in an attempt to break their morale first. Three battalions of militia who attempted to stifle the attack were quickly dispersed, they were soon followed by two battalions of Continentals. But the fight had taken its toll on the British who having lost their Hessian allies earlier suffered the loss of the 44th in the centre. The sight of these veterans falling back was too much for the British and they were forced to concede the field.

The Guards, left lead the assault on the hill

A Continental battalion gets confused and advances down the hill to meet the British attack

Our game ended in a decisive American victory. Well played by Steve, fending off my furious assaults with some deft card play and canny troop placement.

Final scores were
5 to 0 morale victory US v Brits
Casualties
US: 3 x militia, 4 Continental  dispersed
Brits: 2 x Hessian's, 1 x British Regulars dispersed

We both thoroughly enjoyed the game and the rules. The card play makes this an great game to play.

Translating this back to WTP. The British force would have to retreat, if unable it would surrender.
Loser casualties are determined by WTP with a d6 roll, with 1-3 causing 1 strength point lost and 4-6 2 strength points. Given this was a decisive American victory any losses would be increased by 2 strength points. The Americans, as the victors, would lose 1 strength point. The maximum size of an army can only be 5 strength points, so this could have been a particularly disastrous battle for the British in a campaign setting. Obviously if this was a campaign game, the British would have probably switched to the defence as the game came to conclusion thus only offering the Americans a marginal victory and minimising their campaign losses. These are the effects that a campaign can bring to the table that one off games often fail to model.

If you are interested in these ideas then check out the Battlegames edition Jan/Feb 2010 for more information
Battlegames back issues