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| The Rebels deploy with artillery firing overhead from a low rise while the cavalry supports the left flank. |
The second, more important, thing is that the old urge for a more detailed and complex game had been starting to rear its head and half hearted attempts to compromise have been unsatisfactory. So, I decided to make this an exercise of trying things on the table.
This of course made a detailed narrative a little hard since I occasionally replayed parts of some turns several times with slightly different rules to see how they felt so I'll let the pictures tell the official story while I stick with the technical stuff.
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| The Queen's Infantry occupy the houses around the crossroads supported by artillery and cavalry while the Grenadiers set out to capture the other junction. |
It didn't take long to settle this. While activation systems can appear to mimic real life issues, they do so for the wrong reasons and change the way the player as commander makes decisions. One is forced to think in terms of game rules as much or more than military principles. I don't need artificial means of screwing up as a commander, I can do it all on my own, especially if combat results are hard to predict.
So that is settled, I've worried at this particular question with these rules like a dog with a bone for 5 years at least and I always come back to troops always attempting to carry out their orders unless they are on their own and relying on their unit commander's initiative. This works well enough especially if movement is limited and the support of friends beneficial.
The second main issue and the most worrisome was the question of how much tactical detail detail to show. Philosophically, this system is supposed to look at the game from the Commander's POV and what's going on internally is the job of some unknown junior officer. The Commander only needs to know that the unit is carrying out orders and succeeding or that it is in trouble.
For some reason the bigger figures and the profusion of memoirs, eye witness accounts, drill books and the like for this period combined with the low level of the actions fought make me want to show more details about what is going on. Every attempt to do so has run foul of one or more obstacles such as unintended consequences where the rules encourage the wrong tactics or the game becoming as tedious as the real thing where these small actions often included long stretches of long range fire where neither side did much damage. Exciting to an inexperienced individual taking part in the real thing, less so to a hobbyist pushing toy soldiers about and rolling handfuls of dice with nothing happening.
One solution is to increase the complexity of the game yet more and strive for more accuracy with the intent of the result being an exercise rather than a game. Another which I like better these days is to dial back the detail and just concentrate on getting the right effect without worrying so much about what we aren't seeing. That was always the intent of the Square Brigadier and its still the best approach for my goals and allows more units on the table for an ordinary game.
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| The Rebels decide to attack the Crossroad with the Grey Brigade. |
For some reason the bigger figures and the profusion of memoirs, eye witness accounts, drill books and the like for this period combined with the low level of the actions fought make me want to show more details about what is going on. Every attempt to do so has run foul of one or more obstacles such as unintended consequences where the rules encourage the wrong tactics or the game becoming as tedious as the real thing where these small actions often included long stretches of long range fire where neither side did much damage. Exciting to an inexperienced individual taking part in the real thing, less so to a hobbyist pushing toy soldiers about and rolling handfuls of dice with nothing happening.
One solution is to increase the complexity of the game yet more and strive for more accuracy with the intent of the result being an exercise rather than a game. Another which I like better these days is to dial back the detail and just concentrate on getting the right effect without worrying so much about what we aren't seeing. That was always the intent of the Square Brigadier and its still the best approach for my goals and allows more units on the table for an ordinary game.
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| The Rebel gunners are pounding the Royal battery which is struggling. Its time for the Grenadiers to clear the Blue infantry from the Stone House and end this. |
The last thing is closely related and involves choices about combat resolution, how many dice to throw vs how many hits, whether or not units should deteriorate incrementally or not
done and whether or not I want my smallest units to be able to break down into even smaller detachments. Some of these things are just easier with BIG battalions on a big table and 12 hour games. Well, it was no real surprise to me that once I'd dealt with the other issues, this one came quickly to heel. In other words, the original system worked best esp since a tweak from a few years ago where I don't remove units when they take their small maximum number of hits but allow them to keep retreating and trying to rally until they leave the table.
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| But luck is not with the Redcoats and when their Commander is shot leading a bayonet charge against the stone house they break. Outflanked and with battery and cavalry both shot to pieces, its time to pull back. |
The one surprise that came to me is that a whole host of minor issues disappeared when I decided to drop the melee resolution rule. It felt very ...almost immoral (!) to do so since I am so accustomed to have a win/lose mechanism. However, since my "melee" includes close range firefights as well as charges with cold steel I needed to have the rules able to provide prolonged struggles as well as sudden routs but for the right reasons. Oddly, by taking the rule out and dropping the number of hits per unit back to the original while allowing broken units to rally, I get the same range of options without a special rule but with a more appropriate range of results on average.
So once again the watchword is: "Less is More".
I have done a quick rewrite of the short version of the rules which I will add in my list of rules but I need to check it over for missing bits and then expand it to explain things more fully and add back in more of the extras and special things that are missing from the quick version. This is a job that I've been avoiding until I resolved these issues to my satisfaction but its time.
I have done a quick rewrite of the short version of the rules which I will add in my list of rules but I need to check it over for missing bits and then expand it to explain things more fully and add back in more of the extras and special things that are missing from the quick version. This is a job that I've been avoiding until I resolved these issues to my satisfaction but its time.
Hi Ross - very nice photos you have their of your 54mm Forces...looks to be a very interesting game too. On another matter- I've been designing a Sci-Fi Space Battleship and was even thinking of naming it the 'MACROS' after you for my 'Star Deco' Project..as you have followed my postings. Cheers. KEV.
ReplyDeleteI'd be honoured.
DeleteThe 5" square is a good compromise, the only time I think there is a strain is when the unit and the terrain won't fit the same hex, but I compare that to 4" in which that happens ALL the time and with the 6" square, which for my size of table, I am left with too few locations / cells.
ReplyDeleteAdding low level detail can bring more flavour and can help two opposing armies feel different to each other if that reality is needed to be reflected, but there are some areas that I think one can leave the running of a unit to the local commander, so in my ACW at the moment I use the line formation, but accept that the local commander has at their disposal skirmish and attack column options, that they are using as appropriate ..... the dice will say how successful that has been.
I like incremental casualties and showing a unit's capability deteriorating, which in turn helps highlight the vigour of a fresh unit (reserve) coming into the fray. For melee, I tend to want to see a resolution occur in a single moment, which may see some casualties, but will always see one side break off. However they only back off a bit, so that close proximity allows further melee (i.e. as though it is ongoing) but also allows either side or to take other options, like withdraw or rotate with fresh troops etc. Close fighting is very tiring and stressful to the mind, I don't think it was a sustainable activity over any great time.
Aahhh, yes, 'less is more', but so hard to write rules that way :-) It strikes me that the more rules are down on paper, the more one is inclined to tinker and even add to them and not be happy with them. I am too wordy for my own good when it comes to such things.
Good thoughts Norm. The first time I tackled this period, 20+ years ago, I used twice the number of figures which allowed me to remove casualties but since the historical "battles" I was reading about often saw extended lines of troops exchanging fire for long periods of time with few casualties. Actual charges when made were usually pretty quick but every now and then there were fairly deadly close range exchanges of fire (my "melee" between adjacent squares when neither is charging with cold steel)
DeleteThe obvious approach was through "morale" rather than "casualties" but trying to find the balance between too random and too tedious has become 'The' problem. When I started these rules I was focusing on a simple mechanism rather than what it represented, its annoying after several years of trying to find a way to add more detail without changing the outcomes, to find myself back to pretty much where I started!
A most intriguing post. Your battle set up is excellent too, with everything looking exactly in the right place, if you know what I mean. I look forward to seeing how the rules develop.
ReplyDeleteFor me I find a good solid (but very simple) morale system gives me the most satisfying results. with units within range of their commands taking `situation` checks every time they are ordered to attempt anything important: attempt to charge, attempt to receive a charge, change formation in the face of the enemy (or manoeuvre in the danger, such as under fire from cannon, etc): also when in melee, I like to allow the chaps to slog it out.. often over multiple turns... and again, let morale and gradual attrition dictate which side loses their bottle first: so additional support, rousing words from commands, supporting comrades moving into the fray, all is taken into account for the all important rule - will the initial unit continue to stand and fight, or will it find itself wishing to be elsewhere.. at which point all those supporting friends might well find themselves also wanting to follow suit. Thus creating a sort of morale domino effect.
Stephen, sounds very much like where I came from. I used to like being in the nitty grit of stuff. These days I'm discovering a fondness for sitting on a hill well back from the fighting, watching the action through my fieldglasses and making notes for my dispatch to the newspapers in between refreshments.
DeleteMorning Ross,
ReplyDeleteGreat looking game and set-up (as usual). One thing I have to keep reminding myself about is that there are certain complexities (imponderables) that might simply be difficult to model on the table. At least when games are figure-based. The old simulation vs. playability or, perhaps, Avalon Hill vs. Featherstone. As you suggest, simple abstraction might be best and we simply must choose which tactical activities we can safely ignore.
Just so. I keep coming back to Lawford and Young's comments on the matter.
DeleteInteresting to read your thoughts on game design, Ross. Here's a thing, though. In the early days of DBM, battles were often characterised by long battle lines of considerable durability. What impressed me was that quite often they would sway to and fro for a considerable while with nothing decisive happening, and then suddenly one side would start to crack, and the flood gates would open. Unfortunately, years and tinkering and tankering with the rules, and gamers gaming the system, rather reduced the incidences of such events (and hence my interest in the game system).
ReplyDeleteCertain types of real action events are probably not satisfactorily realisable in table battles, such as units being pinned down under fire, unable to move or shoot effectively, but, by remaining stationary in cover, at least have a chance of survival. I am reminded of a photograph I've seen of a huge crowd of British soldiery lying beneath the cover of a sandbank on a Gallipoli beach, quite helpless to act - even to retreat - in the face of intense Turkish rifle and MG fire.
Such a situation would not be much fun to war game. I am reminded, though, of a friend's account of a table-top action between two regiments of a British/Indian Brigade, against a force of Turks, somewhere in Mesopotamia. Defending a ridge, the Turks laid down a considerable barrage of artillery and small arms fire that pinned down the two British battalions. Return gunfire was proving none too effective.
Eventually, at least part of the Huntingdon Battalion snuck up a flanking covered approach that led to a defended blockhouse marking the right flank of the Turkish line. Rushing the blockhouse, the Huntingdons pitched out the defenders, and began to roll up the enemy line. The companion sepoy battalion joined in with a direct frontal assault, and the Turks were forced to abandon their position. Quite a brisk little action, however 'sticky' at the early stages.
(Philip's project in fact was the creation of a NW Frontier type of Brigade, with 3 battalions, a troop of horse, and a troop or battery of guns. The battalions, from memory, comprised 80-100 figures. Of course, such a project calls for considerable detail in the game systems to include company and even platoon level minor tactics).
It certainly calls for a different approach. Basically from the late 1870's on the question of how to deal with the pinning effect is an issue.
DeleteI started by doing variations on the tedious pinned/recover sort of thing but apart from the lack of excitement it puts you in the junior officer POV and mindset. I decided to start focusing on the Brass Hat in the back where the important questions are "Is the attack working/defence holding?" and "What do I need to order next?".
In short focusing on intent and effect not process. Still working on that mindset as its not where I started with back when.
"Dear Sir, I have undertaken to write a complex set of wargames rules because I did not have time to write a simple one."
ReplyDeleteJust so.
DeleteOnce again Ross, thought provoking stuff with great pictures. I am currently grappling with similar issues and the question of ideal grid size, my problem is that using for example 4" hexes works well with my units frontage but leaves too much 'lost' depth and space between supporting units. I am considering a square grid with 4" frontage but a 3" depth, looks better but may be problematical when shooting? What do you think Ross? I want to keep my board size to 4' x 3' for the 15mm Napoleonics.
ReplyDeleteLee, yes rectangular? The odd thing to me was that the greater distance between supporting units etc was probably more correct but it looked/felt odd at times but I was able to find ways around that. My big problme was hust that I wanted more grid areas for some scenarios and, I confess, room for more units!
DeleteSorry, not a 'square' grid of course!
ReplyDelete