Prepping for Pikeman's Lament

So, finished my move.

Kfira is still unhappy, spending most of her time under the couch. The other two are curious, if wary.

As a Facebook friend put it, "WTF, Mom?!"

Many of the books are still packed; the walls feel a bit bare with not enough shelves. Most of the minis are too, or at any rate I haven't found them all yet.

Here's the new game room:

Left of door.

Forward of door.

Rest of room.

The lights and fan don't work, so I brought my own.

Now that I can shut the door and thus keep Lex and Kiki off the table, and have plenty of room despite boxes up against the walls, I'm ready for my first proper game in my new home. 

Or am I?

Let's try Pikeman's Lament again. What with a normal-sized table and a little terrain of the right scale, I considered running a small game with the Pike and Shotte ECW. Can't find them though.

So I'll use the 18mm Wofuns. I could only find three of my boxes, though at least they had full-size forces, if limited ones.

Middenheim force:

• Blue Pike
• Blue Shot
• Blue Dragoons
• White Pike
• White Shot
• White Dragoons

Talabec force:

• Red Pike
• Red Shot
• Red Dragoons
• Yellow Pike
• Yellow Shot
• Yellow Dragoons

I tossed the 18mm paper terrain. Hmm.

Also don't have officers, or at any rate only one color (yellow) of distinctive officer types. I could leave them out for this test, but I'm undecided. They seem to bring a lot of character to the game.

But here's the cool thing about having a separate room.

I can leave the table set up overnight, or even longer! Plenty of time to scrounge some terrain and hunt down the rest of the figures.

In the meantime, I go back to work this week. It's early-voting time, so the schedule will be weird on a  few days, and almost no programming to worry about. Except chess club. I've thought about running Featherstone's classic Close Wars or a Featherstone-style skirmish wargame for the kids using 54mm Armies in Plastic Revolutionary-era figures and the distinctive Bold Frontiers trees. The latter, with written orders for individual figures, would be more DnD-ish. And of course, this is appropriate for America 250. Unfortunately, chess club will be a bit cramped for now as we are doing it in the public space rather than the auditorium until the primaries are over. We'll see.

Wish me luck, and thanks for following me thru all the latest challenges. Hope your gaming goes as well!

Too Busy to Finish a Game

 ... yeah, this is a partial battle report.

As I slowly but steadily pack away my minis and terrain, I've left a few out to experiment with. I just finished reading Osprey's Auldearn 1645 and Steel Lobsters, so have been itching to try The Pikeman's Lament. A handful of the Wofun 30-Years-War pack on my 2x2 DBA mat seemed in order.

My hairy DBA mat. This is why I need a second bedroom.

I had a fun time selecting units from what figures came easiest to hand; one side got lots of firepower, with units of pike, shot, commanded shot and two of dragoons. The other got no firepower at all - two Aggressive Gallopers and some Scots mercenaries - one unit of pike and one of Fierce Forlorn Hope. A hill, a paper house, a tiny wall and a bit of disposable wooded terrain completed the table.

I ran through a few turns. Only the units on the left got anywhere, but I did get to try a number of mechanisms, from Shoot, Move and Attack to the Duel and Skirmish rules.

Gallopers advance.

After a little fire, preparing to charge.

The fighting and movement was all between the horse on one side and the pike, commanded shot and dragoons on the other. I attempted to charge the Dragoons and Shot, but their ability to skirmish (meaning they could respond with a half-move and shoot) kept this in check. So I charged the Pike instead. Despite their forming up, making them a little tougher, the cav won the fight two casualties to one but still had to retreat afterward.

I also tried a duel between Officers. It was inconclusive.

Cramped and distracted, I stopped at this point without going through the whole battle. I did enough to get a feel for the rhythm of the game, though, and was less frustrated than with the time I tried to run The Men Who Would Be Kings.

I tossed the paper scenery and put away the minis. I get the keys to my new apartment tomorrow, and the move is Monday. After which I'll have a gameroom I can leave a table setup in. Wish me luck...

Lutzen 1813

Had a fine game today at the War Office. I recently read Helion's Lutzen and Bautzen: A Wargamer's Guide, so was interested to find that Milton Soong was testing a scenario for Field of Battle 3rd edition.

Prussians in foreground, French in background.

10mm figures, four bases to a battalion.

Milton plans to run this at Hurricon next month, so was interested to know not just how we liked the rules but whether we could get thru the scenario in four hours. With Mike and me commanding the Prussians and John the French (Jacob from last post turned up partway through to help him), we began with a "scripted" advance onto the field - Lutzen was a surprise attack on the French.

Field of Battle is a card-driven system, using dice steps from D4-D12 for rolls which are always opposed. However, while this does give the "inactive" player something to do, it's still a UGO-IGO setup. On the other hand, a single turn can have many back-and-forths between the sides.

In each "phase", the players roll initiative on a D10. Winner chooses to go first or second in this bound, and both sides draw the dice-difference in cards. Once both sides have spent all their cards, they roll init again. This means that players can have anywhere from one to nine cards during a bound, and a few can be held over for later use. Once all the cards in the deck are gone, the next turn begins. So a single turn can (and did) last a long time - it took us four hours, Milton's time limit for a table at Hurricon. While that doesn't sound good, we actually got a lot of playing on both sides during that turn!

Each side also has a supply of objective counters, in our case coins:

The stone-on-a-base is used to mark hit points
or "UIs." When a unit takes more than three,
it is eliminated.

These are traded between players when objectives are taken, or given to the GM when casualties are taken, and returned when casualties are rallied off. Run out of the ones in your bag, and morale failures suddenly become more critical and can end the game at a stroke.

It should be noted that my partner, who claims to be constitutionally unlucky, rolled over a dozen ones in the course of the game, and rarely rolled better than half the number possible on the dice. I made up for it, mostly.

Mike had the only artillery. As the objective villages were on my (right) side of the table, he asked me not to envelop them until he was in position to enfilade the French left flank. I forgot this and in my first move, got far too close to the enemy (long range for musketry is six inches):

At this scale, the house represents the Built-Up Area
of Gross Gorschen, defended by one French battalion.

The French were either grenadiers or veterans, not sure which, so their standard die for combat was D12+2. Most of mine were Landwehr, at D4 or D6. This is boosted by cover, First Fire, etc, and reduced by supporting units, terrain, etc. Firing can be done at any time by the active player, but reloading requires an "infantry fire" card - play it and you can fire, reload and immediately fire again if desired.

By a combination of a great die roll on my part and a poor one on John's, his garrison broke and fled the village after a single volley.

If, for example, I have a D10 for firing, boosted to D12 by first fire, reduced to D10 by cover, and boosted again to D12 by point blank range, and I roll, say, a 10 whilst John rolls a 3, I have beaten him by seven. If a second battalion fires and beats John by two, this loss is increased to nine.

For each three difference (Delta for short, as in spaceflight's Δv) the loser loses one Unit Integrity or hit point. Four lost and the unit is eliminated, two and it routs. If the winner's roll was an even number, something else nice happens, such as a free formation change or (in the case of combat) the loser is disordered. Two UI - or "rocks" as Milton put it because he represented them with tiny boulders placed behind the unit - and they must retreat, even from a nice bastion of a village.

I couldn't get into the town because I hadn't gotten enough 8" move "segments", but it was now ready for me to seize next turn.

As both of us have fired but neither has
yet reloaded, this is indicated by cotton.
Each unit has a "rock" to indicate UI loss.

It was still our turn and we had three "move" cards in the deck, so I did eventually move a battalion into the BUI and started concentrating my second brigade on the other.

This failed pretty miserably.

The advance, once a move card or extra move "segment"
permits deployment into line.

The road between the Gorschens is bloodily contested,
both sides losing units and the French light infantry
finally driven off.

But my dice rolls in Klein Gorschen weren't as lucky
as those in Gross Gorschen. Even outnumbering my
opponent two to one wasn't getting me into the village.
And we can see French reinforcements in the distance!

Meanwhile, Mike was slowly advancing, thanks to poor opposed rolls. Even when there is no combat, the opponent always rolls a standard number for you to beat, usually on a D8. Depending on the difference, you can move one, two or three times. Infantry move 8" and cavalry 12". Despite his slow progress, on our third move card he received reinforcements, a cavalry brigade including horse artillery.

While he threatened the French infantry on his flank with these, he was unable to use his guns on the squares, so still little progress was made. At least the French musketry were reduced by a die type due to the square formation, as only one or two faces of the square would be firing at a target. As the turn wound on, the French also got cavalry for reinforcements, so despite more firing than melee the fighting on this flank didn't go far.

John and Jacob take instruction from the GM. The
center is visible, with French advancing while Mike's
Prussians approach the third objective BUI.

Mike got thrown back and so did I.

Having driven off my center from the road between
the Gorschens, Jacob was able to spin round and hit my
attackers in the flank (center right of this picture).

"Run away...!"

But more centrally on the table, I held the objective securely, especially since with the start of the second turn we had a fourth move card which got us another brigade of reinforcements. Rather than reinforce failure on our right, I sent it to support the captured objective and prevent the enemy from retaking it.

John had obtained French reinforcements on his right (our left) and with fairly even forces both in numbers and composition, he and Mike were stymied. Their side was almost too crowded at the point of approach to move. Infantry were in square so that cavalry couldn't deal with them, but the cavalry were in the way of guns, who in turn were menaced if they did get into position - the classic rock/paper/scissors of Napoleonics.

While John strongly holds the central objective (top right),
he can't move off it into the center of the picture because
of my reinforcements (center right) supporting my objective.
In turn, I can't menace him, because out of view to upper right
are his reinforcements eager to retake my objective.

This felt very much like a standoff, but we ended the game at this point. Since it was a playtest for Hurricon, and game tables have four-hour slots, the plan was to see how much game we could get through in a four-hour block, and we were well into the fifth hour.

However...!

While Mike and I had had some spectacular defeats (in part due to his ability to throw ones in a tight spot), having entire battalions deleted at a blow, the French had been worn away much more steadily. John and Jacob had lost fewer battalions, but had more with one or more casualty markers, and for each they had paid with a token.

Remember that we each had a bag of coin-tokens, giving these up when taking casualties or trading them for objectives. At this point John revealed that his bag was empty. Ours still had six tokens left. Had I not seized the center objective, the French would still have two tokens and the Prussians four. While it isn't a certain recipe for failure, if you lose a morale check without tokens to give up, the game is over.

So my one spot of good luck at the start of the game had allowed the Prussians to weather their steady run of bad luck. Pruessens Gloria!

In real life, the French, surprised by a morning attack, were pushed back across the entire "table" before managing to gather a counter attack. In a full-length game of three or more full turns, this would have been achieved - in our case sometime during the second turn, as the French side, now bereft of tokens, would have broken at some point.

We thus managed to fight to a decision in five hours. This doesn't sound good for a convention demo game limited to four hours, but then we only had three players for half of it, and there are six player slots. Milton also commented that one of the expected players would be familiar with the game and could be a co-GM at need.

John felt - justifiably, I feel - that the IgoUgo method was problematic in the game, as a side could only provide dice targets while the other was turning cards. As a surprise attack, the Prussians had automatically gotten initiative. While we were turning over initiative regularly (as after a run of cards the other side got its chance), Prussia had gone second in one round then first in the next, thus getting two rounds together without response. A game where we activated alternate units rather than alternate sides might have been preferable. The cards allow you to activate every unit with the appropriate ability - move all units, fire all infantry, rally off all casualties - though you must still pass an opposed roll with each unit to do so.

Milton pointed out that a "normal" encounter battle would have likely been much more even; the French were likely to lose this historical scenario in any case.

All in all, a successful playtest, and all of us enjoyed it enough to try again sometime. I would like to see how a more generic encounter battle comes out. As I've been delving into ECW and Jacob's personal interest is in Middle Ages, the rules do cover pike-and-shot as well. 

In other news, I have not yet finalized my new apartment, but have packed up most of my stuff and also traded in some of my old 40K boxes for $120 in store credit. Combined with the store discount, that could get me even a large starter box at a reasonable price - if I actually get around to doing something with one. I also moved most of my wargames to the War Office and my boardgames and RPGs to work.

Lastly, I actually finished painting a handful of figures (with the speedpaint pens). Go me!

Til next time...

Reduction in Force

So, moving.

Haven't done it in thirteen years. Have never done it without my dad's help; though he offered, he's in his 80s and I need to learn to do it myself anyway.

As a librarian, I have learned to weed. Wrenchingly, this often means tossing good or classic books that are in great condition, because of the irony that their great condition indicates that no one is reading them. To be fair, if I haven't played a game, I probably won't miss it when it's gone.

On the other hand, I have a library chess group and storage space to hide the board games in and occasionally bring them out, and I have a gaming clubhouse to store some of the miniature stuff in. That's all just an excuse not to throw it out, though.

I have a bunch of old White Dwarves (issues 200 and up). I've paid, perhaps unwisely, for the Warhammer+ site so have access to online issues back to #286, so there's an easy start.

A few books I've always meant to read (or reread) but not gotten to, I read and then toss. Currently working on True History of the Kelly Gang.

I've been cutting out the "mat" terrain pieces I picked up at Recon - roads and rivers done, trees still to go. (I'm undecided what shapes or sizes I want the trees in, though small seems preferable as they can be overlapped to make bigger footprints.) This frees up the large bag they were stored in for ... something else, dunno what yet.

I've taken most of my small board games to work and put them in a cupboard where I keep such things to break out during Chess Club for variation.

Speaking of which, I actually got a Portable Wargame going today. Some leftover AWI Paperboys faced off across a spare chessboard. I used 18th Century Horse and Musket rules, cut down a little by dropping formations (all units are assumed to be in line) and hit points (units, when hit, either retreat or are destroyed).

Each side got four infantry bases and one each light infantry, artillery and cavalry. The playtest went all right, the vaguely British side (foreground) losing three units to the Rebels' one before we halted. I only had one mildly confused player, though other kids expressed interest. The Perrys' Portable Wargame might be preferable since it's more obviously "board-gamey", and that's another two boxes I can move out of the apartment for a bit.

I have lots of small, loose things - mostly action figures, Star Trek ships and assorted plastic miniatures - that I'll need to figure out how to store. Probably either layers of bubble wrap or a bucketful of foam peanuts? The 8th edition 40K figures are particularly worrisome, as they're rare, heavily detailed and heroically posed (so lots of sticky-out bits to snap if I'm not careful). I still want to try playing with them, but if I can find a safe way to pack them I'll send them all to my brother for a painting project - he's eager to work on the Death Guard models. The unbuilt pre-8th edition 40K stuff (mostly tank kits) can maybe be traded to my FLGS.

GI Joes, on the other hand, can be tossed in a plastic box and reunited with their myriad accessories later.

Green Beret figure Lt. Falcon guards my paint markers.

I also have a small collection of Legos - some can be added to the library collection that we let the kids play with every fourth Thursday, but I want to keep my scale Saturn V model intact.

And there are (still and always) more books. Some of them very large and heavy enough that the boxes might not hold them...

Quiet but interesting

I'm on the verge of getting a new apartment, though not looking forward to the actual move. Have been trying to reduce books and clothes, will probably buy a couple new pieces of furniture, etc. Pro: More room for the cats, a second bedroom for a game room. Con: no washing machine and no screen door. Not that I have a screen now...

Taking a Sunday break from the increasingly nervous process, I visited the War Office for weekend DBA. Jim Dundorf was there, of course, but also a newish medieval enthusiast named Jacob. He brought some 28mm Hundred Years War minis, attractively painted with a characterful, toylike air.

French

English

Not having quite enough for a full DBA game, Jim put us through a skirmish of seven bases a side to give Jacob's figures a workout. Sometime before Agincourt, a French raiding party are trying to bypass an English rear guard to plunder the baggage train. Basically, the win would be at three points rather than four, and the French could gain their points by dashing off the English side of the table (mine). To be fair, this would not technically be in character for the fastest (ie knightly) of the French, who properly should prefer to charge the noblest enemy they could find. In practice, it was what they did anyway, after we'd got properly to grips with each other and the rules. A couple roll-exchanges included ones on one side and sixes on the other, meaning improbably quick-kills of superior units. Ultimately the French won.

The oversized field, after rolls for terrain.

Both sides set-up in line. Distances are 1.5 normal,
and touch between bases was assumed and declared due to
the unorthodox base sizes and sticky-out bits.

French horse (Knights and Light Cavalry) has separated
from the infantry - Solid Blades and crossbows for Solid Bows
- versus my even mix of Blades and Bows.

Climax in the center - fight between commanders as
one of the French Knight bases breaks towards my table edge.

My enthusiastic opponent had come upon our 18th-century stockade, so next wanted to try a siege scenario. Trouble was that DBA doesn't have rules for that, or even for artillery battering down walls. The best Jim and I could suggest was a Free-Kriegspiel wargame, with pre-1974 GM-added "events" and Warhammer-inspired rules for the bombardment mortars (proxied by ACW ones).

My opponent had never played rpgs, and became disconcerted by the fact there were no hard-and-fast rules for the events I was adding in. For example, I had secretly rolled that the fort only had a week of food, so when his army tramped onto the field they observed one of my few infantry bases in the nearby cropfield hastily gathering supplies, but did nothing about it and waited patiently for their guns to get hauled onto the board. He chose to wait overnight before opening fire, so I sent a forlorn hope to try and disable the guns; this led to our first combat when his sentries woke up and managed to wipe my unit before they did more than temporarily disable one of his three guns.

We decided that each week would be represented by two rounds of mortar fire. Fire had three rolls to it.

• - First, a misfire roll before shooting. If the gun team rolls a one, PHUT and the gun doesn't shoot that turn.
• - Second, a scatter roll after choosing an aiming point. We had no scatter dice, but used the old expedient of "a one or six is a direct hit, otherwise in the direction of the one-face."
• - Third, D6" scatter.

I secretly declared "locations" for my own bombard, food supplies, and each of my unit bases. (He couldn't see over the walls, though he could see the flagstaff of the command tent.)

Incidentally, my opponent did NOT send the traditional parley flag in to demand the garrison surrender. Nor did he expect, or accept, a desperate wave of a parley flag from the walls, or a messenger riding across the fields with an urgent message for him. The messenger was trussed up and later executed without being able to deliver a message more than screaming "The PRINCESS is in there! Please, you can't bombard us!" This was also disregarded as an obvious ruse.

Over the course of two weeks, during which each gun got to attempt two firings, the garrison lost its own gun, a week of supplies, and one base of troops to the bombardment before a breach was made in the gate. The garrison, down to two infantry bases and a light cavalry base (presumably the garrison commander and retinue) opted to ambush the first attacking base through the breach.

At this point, we reverted again to DBA rules. Even though I had an advantage, one garrison base was forced to recoil, making room for further assaulting bases to get through the breach in following turns. 

After I lost one of the two infantry bases,
I sent the hastily mounted commander in as a reserve,
but it was no good.

The garrison offered surrender; it was refused and the fort sacked and everyone in it killed.

Jim, who had been acting as auxiliary GM due to note-passing and DBA expertise, ruled that this was a tactical win for Jacob but a strategic faux pa, because there had been a high-born woman in the besieged fort and the attackers had failed to conduct themselves according to chivalric norms. To be fair to Jacob, he had never encountered a GM-run game before and was more eager to reduce a fortress than to "act" as a period commander with all the options that such commanders actually had. Since he preferred set rules for such things, I suggested next time we try Christopher Duffy. That said, hopefully we have a new member and regular for the club; it also has a new social media presence.

Sorry for the quietus on the blog. Been alternately too busy and too tired to post, but just got some deliveries in. First, from my talented brother:

My new work mascot, a sort of dwarf librarian.

And the BEF, all painted up:

Scottish Republican militia (one figure short)

Command group with mortar

SMG assault half-section

BUF section

My brother painted everything in the same scheme, so I imagine that all these chaps are Scots, with the blue cap, whether traditional or military, as the national "spot" colour. I look forward to trying a round or two of Kill Team with them.

I also received an order from Raven Banner Games. The first is a full pack of 18mm Thirty Years War skirmish figures which should be just the thing for games of The Pikeman's Lament.

Pike and Shot units.

With the addition of horses and holders, the Shot double as Dragoons.

The other is a selection of Peter Dennis AWI units. Partly to add to my 18th-century Imagi-nations, and partly for America-250-appropriate games at work.

British...

And American.

(Plus one battery of French artillery and a handful of Hessian riflemen.)

Not sure how to name the "American" Imagi-nation regiments - maybe borrow from Bob Cordery's alternate 1891 map?

Speaking of Cordery, I've been fiddling with Portable Wargames, in hopes of running one during Chess Club at work. Unfortunately, both the 18th-century and Napoleonic rulesets require two bases per unit, which at 60mm across won't quite fit on the two-inch chessboard squares. On the other hand, some folks on the Facebook group use Risk figures, and I do have a donated set. A third option is to play 3x3 and have each "square" take up 2x2 chessboard squares. Hmm...