Play it again Tsar

This morning I intended to reset my table for the battle of Chrysler's Farm to test the rules against a small historical battle that I've done in the past with success (Including using an early version of the rules). However, it occurred to me that  although I had included a nod to later 19thC  weapons, I hadn't actually tested them in a game. Refighting the scenario  in some remote corner of the world circa 1880 suddenly seemed like a good idea.

My 1880's Egyptians and British are largely gone in both 54mm & 25mm so I cast about  for alternatives. I had been starting to think about adapting HofT to the Russian Civil War instead of backdating rules from WWII so that got me thinking 1/72nd. If I had to kluge something, it might as well involve figures on bases. There aren't enough RCW figures yet but mixed with ACW figures I could fudge something vaguely Balkan or perhaps Baltic.  I was able to scrape up 24 infantry stands per side, mostly organised into 4 stand regiments. Worked ok for the defenders in blue but not the attackers in grey & brown, I decided to go with 3 stand regiments for Grey and call them all veteran to see what difference that would make. I also upgraded the  Grey artillery to "superior" rifled artillery. I fudged enough extra Blue stands to make a small unit of sharpshooter light infantry and balanced it with a machine gun battery. I was short on commanders so each side only got 2 brigades of infantry. All infantry have breechloading rifles, all guns are rifled field artillery.

Opening moves

The game opened briskly with Grey advancing under heavy fire and the cavalry moving towards a clash in the gap. A clash which destroyed  Blue's cavalry while leaving Grey's cavalry facing a line of infantry and artillery which eventually cut it to pieces. I was a little uncomfortable about the cavalry taking the losses without retiring once they were shaken but reminded myself that the general had had a chance to withdraw  them before they were shaken but chose to sacrifice them to stall the enemy and the remnants on the table represented, not steady ranks of cavalry standing calmly  in ranks while troop after troop is shot down in sequence but rather the decreasing effectiveness of a body of cavalry milling about, some perhaps returning fire ineffectively from the saddle, others probing and threatening while more and more are shot down or slipping away.     

The advance of the infantry under fire was as bloody as might be expected. The superior artillery was frightening in its effect. Their concentrated fire of one battery wiped out one of the Blue guns in 2 turns while the defending infantry suffered heavily despite being declared to be prone and thus in cover. Since there was no advantage to being veteran in a long range fire fight, I pushed the Grey infantry in. Despite the advantage of position and the deadliness of rifles at melee range,  numbers and quality told and the right hand regiment was destroyed. On the left, Grey only manages to attack with 1 shot up regiment and was repulsed.

The attack goes in.

Grey started moving up his artillery and renewed the attack on his right, capturing the ridge. All they had to do now was repulse the inevitable Blue counter attack. Deploying one regiment on the right to fire on the far ridge and supporting the attack with artillery fire, Blue stormed up the ridge and after a fierce struggle, took it and pursued swinging right to contact Grey's left hand brigade.  The left hand regiments came forward and poured rifle fire into Grey's right hand battery, wiping out a gun and forcing Grey to retire the 2nd one or lose it.

The counter attack.

A prolonged melee between 2 opposing regiments while the rest exchanged fire. The game hung in the balance but Grey's superior artillery tipped the scale and eventually Blue's last brigade was shaken by losses and the counter attack failed.

It took about an hour to play 8 turns to a conclusion, a bloody one but a conclusion none the less. The game had a very different feel to the musket game but it worked. When regiments got shot up, stray companies occasionally got left behind, clinging to a position, unable to shoot or attack but holding the ground. A serious attack would take them out but if the enemy was also badly shot up and didn't want to risk the attack, then a stale mate with the 2 sides taking cover until either fire took out the last opposition or reserves came up to push the attack forward.

Having full brigades of Veteran infantry is definitely an advantage and armed with breechloaders, they are deadly in close combat.  Wouldn't want to be a spearman charging breechloader armed infantry defending entrenchements!

I had an initial cringe at infantry not being able to fire and move and I briefly considered going back to 1/2 move and fire 1/2 but on reflection it still seems right. It is possible to drill troops to alternately fire and advance or retreat but it was notoriously hard to get troops to advance once they start shooting. Once the men started going prone it got even harder and in any event a long range fore by advancing troops doesn't seem to have been effective so one could consider it to be happening with no effect. In any event, it forces players to make a conscious decision to either engage in a prolonged firefight or advance. That rings more true than the way gamers tend to shoot any time they can even at reduced effect, It also means that troops under fire will tend to halt and return fire rather than pushing on, without having a special rule for it.
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A Russian Civil War version of HofT game is now on my list, but I'm going to need more men, a LOT more men!

Translating Teasers

By Request.

CS Grant's various scanarios and Tabletop Teasers are often set out in generic Horse & Musket terms but they generally provide a sound basis for a good game in almost any period. One just has to exercise a bit of judgement to translate for different periods, scales and rule sets. I generally use of one 3 methods to do so.

WWII is one period where I have often used his scenarios and teasers. I have done so using home made rules and 10mm troops, Rapid Fire and Storm of Steel in 54mm and Blitzkrieg Commander (BKC) in 20mm. (I have also played using both Command Decision and BKC in 12mm but I didn't set those games up.) The best approach for each varies but one or the other generally works.

1. Points: The simplest and least satisfying solution.  In the version of Sawmill Village which appeared in Scenarios for Wargames, players were instructed to pick 6 units from a  list of available troops. This implied that all were of equal value. The notes at the front gave no particular size but said that cavalry and light infantry were assumed to be about 1/2 the size of line infantry and that batteries were 2 guns. If one consults the very 1st Table Top Teaser, it is made clear that the units involved are those laid out in Charles Grant's The Wargame, and a points value is given, but for years I went under my first assumption and it has worked just fine.  

The way I work this is to take the number of units per side and multiply by a suitable constant to get the desired size of game. So for example, for the scenario just played, the defender has 2 guns, a cavalry unit and 2 infantry units in town for a total of 4 units with 7 more in town as reinforcements. The attacker has 14 units. If using BKC and multiplying the number of units by 100 we get a game where 1,400 pts attack a force of 400 pts on the hill with 700 more as reinforcements. For a larger game, simple increase the constant and multiply by 150 pts x number of units or even 200.

Simple but it does allow players to choose a completely different ratio of infantry to guns to cavalry/armour and possibly change the feel of the whole thing. . Leaving WWII I remember playing the game with Romans vs Parthians using Armati. It was hard enough for the Parthians to attack the hill, but it was even harder when we switched sides and they were tasked with defending it! If you don't have  a point system to work with this doesn't help at all.

1.5. Allocated Point This is just a variation on the point system but it gets around the issue of inappropriate forces. It can be awkward though if the point system is too far out of whack and some judgement is required. Basically its a matter of breaking the points down by troop type.

So, for the scenario just played, using BKC or similar for a small game: (warning I haven't looked up the pts for a sanity check as to what it provides)

Defenders:
On the hill: 100 pts of A/T guns, 200 pts of infantry (and infantry support such as MG's and mortars), 100 pts of armour
In town: 100 pts of armour, 100 pts of recce, 400 pts of infantry, 100 pts of artillery (could be off board)

Attackers: 200 pts of Heavy/Medium Armour, 100 pts of Light Armour, 100 pts of recce, 800 pts of infantry & infantry support, 200 pts of artillery inc A/T guns and off table guns etc.

Command may either be drawn from available pts or issued free based on reasonable proportions.

2. Standard Units. This only really works if everyone is on board or you are setting up the game with your troops on both sides. Since the original teasers were designed for standard units, its just a matter of adopting standard units for your period. If one side has a quality advantage this can be balanced out by larger units.
Its been a while but we used to use something like:

Infantry Unit: 3 stands of infantry + MG or Mortar
Guns: 1 antitank or offboard gun per scenario gun (2 per battery) or maybe a dive-bomber for a few turns
Light Cavalry Unit: 3 light tanks, armoured cars or 1/2 tracks
Heavy Cavalry Unit: 3 medium tanks, 2 heavy tanks or 1 really heavy tank. (Depends on the .period and army). If the medium tanks are greatly inferior add an extra.
Light Infantry. A fudge factor, might be a recce or 1 1/2 track with 1 stand of elite troops, or 2 stands of paras or similar.  

I say stands, they could be sections, platoons, or companies, depending on what rules you are using. Guns are assumed to have appropriate transport.

 Lets say we were doing mid-war Russians attacking vs Germans. Perhaps:
Germans
On the ridge:
1 HQ 2 A/T guns, 6 infantry stands, 2 MG,
1 HQ 3 STUG III

In Town:
CO,
1 HQ 3 Mark IVH,
1 HQ 6 infantry, 1 MG, 1 mortar,
1 HQ 6 infantry, 1 MG, 1 mortar,
1 truck with 2 stands of Panzer Grenadiers with enhanced firepower (extra lmg),(attach as desired)
1 FAO for 2 off table 105mm  howitzers.

Russians
1 CO
1 HQ, 1 recc stand, 12 infantry, 1 mortar, 2 MG, 1 45mm ATG,
1 HQ, 1 recce stand, 12 infantry, 1 mortar, 2 MG, 1 45mm ATG,
2 76mm guns or maybe 2 SU76,
1 HQ  3 stands of SMG tank riders, 6 T34 76, 3 armoured cars or light tanks.

That it!
the same principles apply to ancients, renaisance etc.

Belmont Ridge - Postscript

The game was played primarily as a test, a test of rules, proposed table size, figure basing and organization, but it turned out to be the most enjoyable game that I've played in some time.

Rules:  Despite the unplanned stubbornness of Shaken units, I was really happy with the rules. Once again the increased, simplified movement rolled by brigade rather than by unit, really picked up the pace of the game and helped focus the player's view on his battle plan rather then the details of each unit.  This is one of the things that I really liked about Charge! and now without copying it, I have something  that achieves almost the same thing if perhaps less elegantly.

The adoption of a requirement to win melees by 2 has also continued to prove itself. Needing something more than a mildly lucky roll  makes losing feel like a defeat and removes the need for a separate morale check to determine the level of defeat. Something which speeds up the game and makes it flow easier rather than having 2 rules work against each other. The reduction in scores to hit has had the intended result of making the results less sure,  the average still happens most often but extreme results are a little more likely adding to tension and drama. It also means that forlorn hopes and desperate gambles can be taken knowing that success is unlikely but possible.

 Hopefully I haven't broken anything with mid & post game tweaks designed primarily to fix the shaken thing without adding too many convolutions but which always cause collateral changes!   Reason for another game perhaps?

Table. For this game I used some ex-shelves/prospective new hills  to wall off a 5x7 area. The 5 foot width has already established its supremecy, primarily because I can reach the middle without strain, so the question was: "is the loss of a foot of room area justified by the extension of the board from 6 ft to 5 ft". If I had played this game on a 5x6, I would have essentially had to remove the town from the table, or perhaps reduce it to a pair of houses on the edge (vs 4) or make some table edge flat/backdrop houses  and to have moved the American start line back to the edge so that most units would have marched on.   Slightly more work and less visually appealing but the game itself wouldn't have been affected. The jury is still out but 5x7 is definitely the maximum and 5x6 is still ahead by a nose as it will leave room for a comfy chair and a quiet corner for reading.

Bases & Organization. Slam dunk. I knew in 2009 that the 4 man bases were right for me. The initial impetus to change them was a desire to cram more troops on the table so I crammed 8 figures on a 60mm base vs 4 figures on a 40mm wide base. But while the 8 man stands looked OK in line, they don't make convincing march columns and accumulate a frightening number of casualty markers unless I decided to dispense with those.  Having managed to convince myself that big old Charge! style units  was what I really needed, I slid back to single bases. Very flexible but even with movement stands and magnets, I suffered lots of toppling and awkwardness, especially as my troops often find themselves fighting in rugged parts of the world.

I also realized that I didn't really want to face casting and painting a 1,000 40mm figures for one project. The push to have larger and more units wasn't really coming from inside, it was influenced by paying attention to what others were doing.   I like my 20 man units.  Five 4 man bases may seem a bit awkward for attack columns but they allow the colours to go in the middle of a line and I like the tie back to Morschauser.  The new 2" sq bases are a little bigger than the original 40mm x 40mm ones but they allow for any pose of infantry and will hold 2 cavalry on a common frontage with 4 infantry which has certain advantages for game design. In short, it works for me.

The 2 regiment brigades also worked from a gaming POV and it pays to homage to Featherstone and Grant. My regiments are a bit big for many campaigns when you look at the frontage they cover, about 750 men each so the manpower per brigade is about right. If doing an historical battle in a serious way, the current rules would work just as well with several smaller regiments.  Finally I am in a position to draw up an Order of Battle for Aroostock to Oregon as well as the associated Gwalior/Sikh Wars project.