Back Up The Neverwaussie

I was fortunate enough to have Lentullus drop by today  and play the revised Neverwaussie scenario that I'm planning to take to Huzzah. As mentioned after the game with George I decided to turn the layout sideways. I decided not to reduce my unit sizes like I did that time though. Doing so made the frontages more correct for typically understrength  North American units and gave them more elbow room but I like the look of the larger units, its how I'm painting them and having fewer units seems to make it easier for new players to identify with them and "get into" the game and makes the units more resilient. It also makes the loss of a unit more dramatic.

Instead of dicing for arrivals, I reduced the on board force and allowed the Americans to plan their own order of march with 1 unit arriving per turn.  I started with 1/2 the British deployed on table and the rest able to enter as desired. Random selection left Les defending and me attacking. The airship still isn't ready so the HMS Reuse came out again.

The first shot is from around Turn 5. All of the British are on table and about 1/2 the Americans. The Observation balloon has gone up on the table edge which was silly of me. The General spent the next few turns too far away to benefit from it. The Reuse has dropped off the landing party and withdrawn and work is about to start on the pontoon bridge. In the background, the Lafayette County Rifles have fallen back from the first fence line with the British hot on their heels.

 
While the infantry fought over the fields, the opposing cavalry dueled. The Hussars won the first round but declined to pursue as they were beyond their supports. Once that support was up, they charged in turn and again won but this time they pursued, hit the 2nd Squadron of US Dragoons and were destroyed and their brigadier captured. Oops.

The British Dragoon Guards made way for the guns and a combination of rifle and artillery fire started taking it toll. When the Lafayette boys finally broke the Dragoons headed for the bridge but not fast enough. A parting volley from the Fencibles dispersed the 2nd Squadron.

Across the river, American reserves had been rushed forward to deal with the pontoon bridge. The landing party, thinking more of self preservation than of screening the sappers, had advanced and occupied a small farm. A company of Volunteer Rifles slipped through a gap and opened fire on the sappers as the 2nd pontoon was launched. The Sailors fell back and started working around  to drive off the riflemen but it was too late. The Sappers needed 3 more work points to finish the bridge, they rolled 2 and then the riflemen let loose with boxcars. There would be no pontoon bridge.

By now the last American units were arriving.

As you can see, the Steam battery has been upgraded closer to my original vision.

At this point both armies had suffered heavy losses and time was running on. Only one way across the river remained, the original bridge. As a fierce cross river firefight raged between the Victoria Rifles and some local Volunteers, the Royals formed up ready to charge over the bridge. Just before they went forward, the steam battery  pulled up at the foot of the bridge. The Royals stormed forward, taking horrible losses due to their being a Dense target. They persevered though and at the last moment the crew of the battery flinched and they were over run.  Before the Royals could rally, the first foot moved up, blasted them and then charged dispersing the remains of the regiment.

Once again the British brought up their guns and riflemen, then, forming a Squadron column, the Dragoon Guards charged forward into the battered 2nd Infantry line. These steady veterans stood form, shot the cavalry out of the saddle and sent them to the right about. At this point the American Army Morale had fallen to 1 while the British were at 7 but night was coming on (i.e. time was up). The bridge had been held.

  There were some interesting points raised by this play test but I'm quite satisfied  that this will provide a good convention game for up to 6 players. If the table is no bigger than mine, I may need to make the edging hills even narrower and there needs to be just a little more room on the US side between the bridge and the table edge. I might also hurry up the American reinforcements to make sure all players have enough to do.

Just out of interest we played about 13 turns in about 3 1/2 hours which is about the amount of time I'll have at the convention. Since each turn theoretically represents an average of 15 minutes, this means we played in close to real time.

Having the sappers shot down was interesting. That's what the landing party was supposed to prevent but they were too weak. Once again though the bridge took a long time to build. I need to decide if the bridge building is a main part of the game with a successful bridge conveying victory, in which case this all works fine or if the bridge laying is just a preliminary and capturing the road exit is the only victory in which case I should either deploy 2 sapper companies or drop the bridge from being 3 sections  down to 2 sections.

 We found one or 2 situations that were not well defined in the rules but that's what a GM is for. The change to allow any troops to benefit from enfilading a target etc made a big difference tactically. Anyway, no rule changes!!

Tomorrow I go back to casting and painting and also start thinking about the two 16C Rough Wooing games that Rob and I will be hosting.

Prototypes (amended)

The first almost complete casts are out of the latest mold, a US militiaman in smock and round hat and a sailor. Not the best job I've ever done turning a master into castings but not the worst either since it looks like they are usable even if needing to be replaced. After 30 minutes of testing and venting I have a produced a couple of almost complete castings but each will require about 5 minutes work to clean them up never mind lost detail, (in addition to the detail lost to the lighting) no bayonets, missing chunks of hat brim, etc. At least they have arms now!  The sailor is open handed and can take a musket or artillery implements or just run around crewing things.

I was wondering  how many people would question the ability of the wagon to survive having the mortar fire. (1.5 so far is the latest count I think **** This comment is not intended to imply that anyone has been in the slightest negative or less than positive and supporting, Just the opposite in fact***)   I'm sure there must be a steam punk explanation, some sort of steam-hydraulic shock absorber thing mounted underneath where you can't see it, but on the other hand it belatedly occurred to me that I could probably turn spare 25mm barrels into 40mm swivel guns which is more what I envisaged originally. That would also answer the question of what the sockets are for.

Building Up Steam

There were lots of more important things to do today than convert a wagon into a steam propelled mortar battery.

A dollar store cowboy wagon with new wheels and scraps of this and that. The new Zinnbrigade crew will eventually wear smocks and peaked caps. 

I originally planned to armour this thing and arm it with a light gun but while 1839 puts it after the first commercial steam driven off road vehicles, I think its too early for steel plating and even a light gun was presenting me with theoretical issues around recoil and muzzle loading without going outside the wagon (no room for "running in"). Some experimentation led me to try the mortar and it made sense. Field guns are mobile enough as is, the steam propulsion wouldn't help much but mortars are awkward to transport  and there are naval Bomb Ketches to provide an example.

 I'll need to lighten the olive green wagon body I think and add some detailing and hopefully some brass.

Rebasing is going well, after much experimentation and cyphering here' what I have settled on:

  

Infantry: 4 bases each 2"x2" with 6 figures  (in theory, some bases are short a figure). Some battalions have one stand split in half with 2 figures on each half so that they can detach skirmishers.

Light Infantry: 2 bases each 3" x 2" with 3 skirmishers or 4 militia. This is for small detachments that will not form in close order. 

Cavalry: 2 bases each 3" x 2" with 3 cavalry. This should be 2 small squadrons at 1"=25 yds but could be right for 1 large squadron at 1"=20 yards so I'm going to call it a squadron. This means my largest cavaklry force will be 6 squadrons so I'll do 2 instead of 4 per regiment..

Artillery: 2 bases each 3"x4" with a gun and crew. Often deployed as single guns.

This is obviously quite different from my 1/72nd  basing & organization but the good thing is, almost anything works!  

For teasers I need to experiment but am leaning towards each of these being a scenario "unit" with a gun = a gun.  This gives me light infantry with 1/2 the bases rather than 1/2 the number of men but I think the effect will be about right, maybe.

Tomorrow I need to clear the table and reset.

Quick, A Reference!

Just a  quick post  to announce that a Quick Reference Sheet is now available for Hearts of Tin thanks to the good work of The Blue Bear of Saxe Bearstein himself.   I took the liberty to update it with the very latest tweaks, then thanks to the magic of find/replace  I converted a copy to inches at 1"=25 yards and did another for skirmish games in case I do another. They are all loaded into 1 doc, just print the page that suits you.

Not only has Jeff saved me the work of putting one together, any changes will now have to be made in 4 places which means they can't be done lightly!!

Thanks Jeff!

The Die is Cut

or the Template is decided and some bases have been cut.


It was nip and tuck, but after some experiments with various numbers of figures on various sizes of bases with an eye to looks and how they operate under the rules, how they interface with the terrain that I have and plan to build, how easy they will be for strangers to figure out etc........ I have settled on a standard that I am happy with.

There were 3 leading contenders:

• 2" wide bases for everyone with light infantry being split in 1/2 to give them a 4" frontage when skirmishing,  and artillery mounted on a double wide/double deep base and counting as 2 units. (becuase a gun and crew take up a lot of room.
• 2" wide for regular line infanty, 60mm wide for every one else because 60mm is the narrowest that I can shoe horn everything into and I have a stack of precut one but I've already based most of  the line infantry and don't want to change them
• 2" wide for line infantry with light companies being split, 3" wide for everyone else with 1 gun & crew, 3-4 light infantry skirmish types, 6-8 native spearmen or 3 cavalry.

The last one makes the most sense, fits the guns, makes the dedicated light infantry look and work ok while being easy to figure out because a base is a base is a base, seems to get the right effect for the cavalry while fitting my existing organization and just fits most of the terrain that I'm keeping and is easily accommodated when building more.

Now, there were some quaestions about the balloons Lwrence made for me.

Here's the upcomig airship as it arrived. The balloons are hollow plastic pumpkin Halloween decorations. The stem has been detached and the balloons spray painted. The double ones here are smaller than the single ones used for the observation balloons. The basket is made of a wooden base and frame with textured plastic basket weave. Small hollow plastic tubing has been cut and glued in place to guide the various rigging which is made of string. The base is wood with hollow brass tubing glued in place and spackle added to support the tunes and weigh down and beautify the whole thing. Elevation is provided by various lengths of translucent plastic which just fit the brass tubingand the neck of the balloon.

Because this one has propoulsion, it has extra bits which are cobbled together from odd shapes of wood from a craft section, some ship model parts and various scraps. Oh yes there is also a rudder from sheet plastic.

  So to summarize, the steps were:
1) Compliment Lawrence on the 28mm FPW Balloon he made for Mike.
2) Jokingly ask when he's going to make one for you.
3) Await delivery. Took about 2 years I think and delivery was 2 years ago........Good things come and all that.

Huzzah! Huzzah! (Just practicing)

Despite appearances these are the NOT the armies of Faraway and Oberhilse but those of New Brunswick & Great Britain vs Maine & The United States of America. New Brunswick's York battalion supported by armed and angry lumberjacks has just pushed the opposing riflemen back from the first fence line. 

As I was clearing the table Friday night, I pondered George's offer to play-test a scenario if  I was planning one to take to a convention in the US. Now this offer, typical of him, is a bit akin to offering to storm a machine gun nest single handed and similarly should really be accepted. The big problem was that while my twisted Aroostock War wargame has been registered with Huzzah which is only about 8 weeks away, it only existed as a vague idea. The opportunity was too good to pass up though so I set to it.


The original idea was a British force moving up river and using a steam boat to bypass American defences (OK OK the very first idea was for an American invasion but it seemed downright rude to cross the border to set up a game showing my host making a non-historical invasion and getting whupped, not to mention winning...).  So we have a British force seeking to reclaim its rightful property which has been unlawfully occupied.  This leaves a lot of room so I started by considering some old favorite Grant scenarios which I haven't played   for a few years.  Immediately I came across a hitch, while I have yet to make a trip down the Aroostock (never mind visiting the Neverwaussie) other than via Google Earth,  it seems to be similar to many river valleys in Maine and New Brunswick with rugged wooded hills to either side, only more wooded at the time since timber was the trigger point. Fine, first step is to settle the Neverwaussie valley and let the farmers clears some of the trees. This still leaves a narrow congested battlefield with the British advancing ALONG the river, the way all travel and expansion was done.


So I laid out the river and thought some more. Finally I decided that there was only 1 road along the river, roads being in particularly short supply back then and in order to avoid some up river but off board terrain, it crossed the river  at this point so the British advance was going to have to come up the road over the bridge and up the road again. Aha! An objective!  The Americans would have a small force, mostly militia or volunteers guarding the bridge with US Army reinforcements on the way.  The British would have  a similar force arriving concentrated but with a pontoon bridge and a party capable of crossing the river. 

US Reinforcements arrive as does the HMS Reuse and British cavalry and artillery come into play. 

The river is a little narrow for my existing toy steam boat but in any event, I have gotten bolder and sillier as my dotage slowly approaches. Since Lawrence's response to my request that he make me an ("an" as in ONE )  observation balloon was to present me with 2 balloons and a steam powered airship (he ran across a sale on small plastic halloween pumpkins - look carefully) and since Steam Punk/VSF stuff still seems popular these days and this is a war that never happened being fought with glossy toy soldiers, I decided that I should replace the steam launch with an airborne assault. Of course the airship isn't painted yet so it was back to the hastily scratchbuilt HMS Reuse for Saturday.  It did seem only fair to give the Americans something  vaguely steam-punk-ish  as well  so decided on a steam driven battery. Its not built yet either so I used a mortar in a wagon pulled by my steam tractor. I may or may not do better on the day. Some boiler plate armour would be good at the very least. I also figured I may as well upgrade the morale on the State and Colony militia so have granted "regular" status to anyone with a uniform with  real regulars getting Elite status and any local Volunteers being boosted to Irregular Light Infantry.


Clearing the shelf, I fielded 2 New Brunswick battalions (there is a constant temptation to call them Canadian but New Brunswick was not part of Canada at the time ) and 3 British ones, all of 3 stands or 450 men due partly to congestion but also with a nod to 1812 and Mexican War field strengths. I also brought out some riflemen and irregulars but was unsure how to organize them so offered George some choices. He took the one of having each stand be a unit, so 3 of irregulars and 4 of regular riflemen. He also broke the Dragoon Guards into squadrons since there was no room to deploy the whole regiment in line anyway. I only have 2 of the KDG painted up so the 5th or Princess Charlotte's took their place. Two field guns rounded off the land forces while the HMS Reuse carried 3 stands of light infantry (the sailors are not molded yet let alone cast and painted so I used 1812 Canadian militia,sighh, I have a LOT of work to do!). 


After some bickering over precedence of State vs Federal officers, the US started off with 6 stands of local "irregulars", 1/2 with rifles on the British side, the rest and the Lafayette County Rifles (musket armed line infantry) on the American side. Off table was a regiment of Dragoons, 2 x 2 stand units of rifles and 4 battalions of infantry, all cavalry and line troosp being 3 stands strong. A light howitzer and the steam battery rounded things off. I rolled for arrival of troops but part way through decided to re-neg on the 2nd brigade of infantry.  On the day, I think I will hold them in hand as GM, only committing them if the game threatens to end early due to lack of American troops.

Somewhere around turn 7 or 8 the Observation Balloon has gone up giving the British a +1 on their initiative roll, not that they needed it. The York battalion is now assaulting a stone fence but have met with stern resistance.

One of the dangers of staging a game for 6 strangers is that it can be hard to predict how they will interpret what you tell them or how they will choose to tackle the situation. I didn't have 6 strangers but I had George  and his plan caught me off guard. Instead of putting the landing force ashore to cover the building of the pontoon bridge at the earliest opportunity, he chose to push up the river and secure that bank before launching the new bridge 1/2 way up the table and only landed the covering party at the last minute. If I had brought on all of the American reinforcements as planned, they would have had time to meet the bridging crew with overwhelming force but that's why we play test. 


From what I understood of George's plan as described to me later, he had led with the smaller brigade composed of New Brunswickers with the intent of just screening that flank while the crossing, at what appeared to be the optimum spot, was to be done by the British Regulars screened by the landing party.   

The Steam Battery arrives and gets off one shot before.....

C Squadron of the Dragoon Guards thunders over the bridge, throws back the counter charging US Dragoons and over runs the steam battery. 

The game progressed smoothly enough with the British troops pushing back the American skirmishers who rallied and massed behind a stone wall reinforced by the line battalion. At this point the lumberjacks tried to trade long range musket shots with close range American rifle shots. Since that wasn't going well, the York battalion was ordered to charge but baulked even with the brigadier trying to haul them forward by their collars.   Eventually they got the message but ran into a handful of 6's from the riflemen and were forced into a close range firefight. It took a 2rd effort to finally clear the stone wall but by then the battalion ws well below 1/2 strength and was soon destroyed as a fighting unit. The 49th Foot was brought forward to take their place. 


Closer to the river, American reinforcements had arrived and were jammed up without space to deploy. The brigade's riflemen crossed over and deployed only to be chased away by cavalry. The 1st infantry got most of the way over the bridge and then froze. Eventually the brigadier was able to beat the front companies off the bridge and into line just as the cavalry rode into them (opportunity charge). Thanks to the Brigadier they managed to repel these by the skin of their teeth. After freezing again, and then having the brigadier hit by artillery fire, they finally gave up and retired pellmell across the bridge before the next squadron of cavalry could charge them. The cavalry thundered over the bridge despite a blast of canister from the light gun, met the US Dragoons galloping forward to  meet them, brushed them aside and pursued into the steam battery. Despite appearances, this was treated as an armoured target thus they needed a 6 to get 1 hit, they did, the battery missed its shot and was over run. Oh well, no wonder these contraptions didn't catch on.  


At last, as the fighting continued on both sides of the river (irregulars vs landing party on the American  shore), the pontoon bridge was finished and the Young Buffs crossed over. Time was up however, the road wasn't clear yet and the British, having lost 13 stands& leaders were 2 away from their Army Morale break point while the US had only lost  4 stands. A clear US victory.
  

Light fades as the bridge comes into play. British losses have been heavy  and another brigade of US troops can be seen approaching. Its time to call it a day.

It was an enjoyable game but it also provided good feedback and food for thought. There were fewer troops than initially planned but the the table was crowded and despite the fast play rules, there were enough units to make the game last through the time limit and then some. 


The crowding and the (relatively) long delay between the British arrival and the first serious fighting was a concern given the short duration of convention games. Its good to have a bit of time to adjust to the rules but not too many, especially if it means reinforcement commanders are kept kicking their heels. I had originally planned on a 6' x 10' foot table as used at Cold Wars and such as I used to have 10 years ago. This would have allowed all of the British to start on table and for US reinforcements to arrive earlier even if players are just advancing uo the road for their first move or 2. I understand that the standard tables at Huzzah are going to be about the size of mine which is actually pretty handy for planning and big enough for this sort of game.  


The first step is going to be to turn the game sideways, the second will be to deploy the British about a foot on table, including the Pontoons and the boat if I use it (depends on what I get done). I was going to remove the Pontoon wagon forcing the British to build it near the table edge but then I remembered that it was about turn 3 before George brought it on and then he trundled forward cross country for several turns. I will run the road close to the river and this plus having the pontoons start on table should allow the British  to choose the placement and their strategy but still get the bridge built by mid game thus giving the Americans a target for a counter attack before the British can build up their forces on their bank. 


The use of single stand skirmish and cavalry units was interesting but now I am stuck between horses. I do want to go the same way on both sides and in the 1812 - 1840 period in North America squadron sized cavalry units and small skirmish units make sense but do I go with 2x2"/2 figure troop stands or a single 3"/3 figure squadron stand? In the mini campaign I used 4x2man cavalry stands as a  regiment but planned to use 3" squadron stands for this game. As George points out there was no room to deploy regiments and the same will be true of 1812 (yes I'm probably going there with HofT after all). Two stand units allows the normal rules for hist and rallying to work more seamlessly, would allow for squadron columns and give more hitting power than a wider stand. It also means 4 figures instead of 3 from a visual POV but I will have to revisit what it means for my collection going forward and look at what regiments will be. Theoretically, a 3" wide stand would be right if tight for a 150 man squadron which is strong for campaign strength but still not up to paper strength. A 2" troop stand is really a bit too large but I think I can work with it. I'll have to do some playing about.


The same is true for light infantry, I had been leaning towards 3 men on a 3" frontage but that makes them permanent skirmishers. Do I want to go there or not? I also wanted to keep my light infantry and cavalry units the same size for Grant Teaser reasons as opposed to historical ones.   In this game I had some organized as 2 stand units and some as single stand. I was forced to deploy sabots to keep the 2" wide stands spread out when skirmishing but this game me the flexibility of bringing them  into a massed formation. Was that right or wrong? Either historically or as I envisaged it? The line infantry light companies on split bases are the most effective way to switch back and forth but it can easily get confusing,they just don't look good for the irregular types and if I allow irregular light infantry to tighten up then I may need to add a negative melee modifier, the wider bases were supposed to supply the advantage to formed troops. Again more thought but I suspect my decision will mirror the cavalry one with either 1 large or 2 smaller stand units (4 stands of skirmishers just doesn't work)     

Did I mention I have a BUNCH of casting and painting to do over the next 6 weeks?

Neverwaussie Teaser

Its late and an entry on today's game is going to have to wait, but here's a glimpse of the action: