Test of Resolve ... test

Having a quiet Sunday and decided to try Test of Resolve, a War of the Roses-specific ruleset with some simple but innovative mechanics.

I'm trying the first scenario in the book. Each side has five units of two bases each; two archers, two retinue (billmen) and one household (men at arms, includes command base). Household are rated Superior, the others Average. Each melee unit has four Resolve Points, each archer unit three. I mark these with dice.

I kept pausing to post questions on the Test of Resolve Facebook page; luckily several members and one author lurked, ready to answer them swiftly. Great community!

I start the game with a play deck of mixed red and blue cards relating to each side. The first two cards drawn are red. The first, Move and Melee, means I can move all units D12", and fight at the end of the move if possible. Since the units are 20" apart, that won't happen. I rolled one inch. The second card is Milling Around, which means just what it says.

• Next, Blue gets a go. Another Move and Melee; one battle only, but as there is only one battle (ie division) on the board... I roll a three. 

• Next, Red draws an Event card (which it turns out is only for special scenarios, so I ignore it) and a Missile Supply Card. I roll eight, and the Red archers still have plenty of arrows to shoot with. Then Red draws Flabbergasted!, which impacts the next card: Milling Around, which changes to Move and Melee. I roll six, and the Red battle surges forward. I'm now in shooting range. Then I draw Flummoxed! This normally means that the inactive side (Blue in this case) gets to use the next three Red cards, but that was actually the last one.
• Blue's next and only card is Flabbergasted, which effectively makes it "dead" as there are no more Blue cards to boost with it.
• Red draws a Fire/Strengthen Resolve card. Time to try the shooting rules. My two "wide" companies are 11" out, so roll at -1. They target the enemy archers and roll 9+ to hit, but both miss.
• Blue goes next, with Move/Melee and a roll of 8". Interpenetration is allowed, but there's not quite enough room for the melee troops behind the archers to pass through, so I nudge up to the 9" standoff line. My command base fits neatly between the archers, though this makes it a target for Red... Blue gets two more cards; the first Fire and the second Move and Melee. Both volleys miss again.  I roll 8" for the move and pass the melee troops through the archers, then reform the archers into "mass" formation (losing 3" of movement, but that's okay as they're now behind the melee guys anyway.
• Red archers fire now, at close range but still -1 for targets wearing plate armor, and miss. Bugger this for a game of soldiers. 
• Blue draws a Fire/Strengthen Resolve (but no targets at the moment) and a Flummoxed!.
• Red Move/Melees 4"; the archers, fed up, reform into mass formation.
• Blue draws Move/Melee, for two inches, then End Turn. Time to shuffle the deck.

So close!

• Red draws Move/Melee. At an inch apart, no need to roll. Let's get stuck in.

In the first combat, two retinue units face off. The Red side gets +1 for Shock (attacking) and rolls 12 to Blue's 10, thus winning by three and causing one Resolve Point loss. OK.

In the second, the Household companies collide, but Red is attacking, Superior and Outnumbering, so rolls at +3 to Blue's +1. Blue rolls a 12, Red a 6. 13-9 is 4, so Red's Household loses one RP.

The third is retinue vs. retinue again, with Red outnumbering, so +2. Red rolls 6 and Blue 8; tied.

Better resolve this fight quickly!

Losing companies take Resolve Tests. For the Superior Red Household, I need to roll a one or better, +1 for Superior, +1 for Commander present and -1 for losing one RP. Natural ones auto-fail. I pass with a five. The Blue Retinue is average, so rolls with -1, thus needing 2+. I rolled 7.

Each side loses one Morale Point for each Resolve Point lost; both are down to 10. Down to zero and you break.

If melees are not ongoing, the loser can Turn Tail or fight another round. Let's try the latter.

First combat: Blue is at -1 for having lost a Resolve Point, but rolls a 9 to Red's 8. Ongoing.

Second combat: Outnumbering and Superior Red rolls 11(+2) to Superior Blue's 6(+1). Beaten by 6, Blue loses two RP. They need a 2+ for resolve, +1 for Superior and -2 for RP loss, so 3+, and roll a 12.

Third combat: Red outnumbers Blue but lost a Resolve Point last turn - straight roll off. Blue rolls 8 to Red's 3; Red loses 1 RP. Red requires 2+ for resolve, -2 for lost resolve, so 4+, and also rolls a 12!

Blue now has eight Morale Points, Red nine. Let's have the Blue command company Turn Tail, D12 inches - 11! That's not good, but at least the enemy mayn't catch up. The other combats go on. Since companies that win may pivot, Red flanks the combats to either side.

First combat: Blue loses by one due to being flanked and outnumbered; ongoing. Third combat: Red wins by three thanks to the flanking and outnumbering, so Blue loses another point. They pass the 2+ Resolve roll easily. Blue is down to seven Morale Points.

This is becoming a slog, so I'm going to have both Blue units Turn Tail and try to open this game up again. They roll low and must go around the archers behind them, so settle down not far away.

• Not positive at this point what happens, I return to drawing cards. Luckily Blue gets to move and melee next. Turning around costs three inches, and I rolled a six. This enables the melee chaps to form into line, facing forward, behind the archers, who charge in to flank the Red troops who are caught flat-footed. Them's the breaks.

One archer unit tackles the enemy Superior Plate-Armoured command, so that'll be a straight roll-off. Oh, except the command company lost an RP earlier, so is actually at -1! The other Blue archers hit Red archers, at effectively +2 for flanking and Shock. 

In the Archer-Archer combat, Blue rolled 10 and Red 1! That's Red eliminated AND down three Morale Points. In the Archer-Command combat, Red wins by two despite the -1. Morale Points are six-all. The Blue Archers retreat three inches.

• Red's turn to fire and Strengthen Resolve. Neither unit is in a position to fire, so let's check out the Strengthen Resolve Table:

There doesn't seem to be a way to flip this; sorry!

The command base passes and gets a point back; the archers were at -2 and rolled a 9, so failed.

• Next, Blue passes a Missile Supply check, and then gets to Strengthen Resolve; Blue command gets a point back.
• Red Mills Around, then Moves and Melees. The combats are inconclusive, but Blue loses another point.

More combat. Each side loses a point. We're at four (Blue) to five (Red) Morale here. I think. Several units retreat. Red draws a Strengthen Resolve card, but the retreating archers roll a one and thus are eliminated. At this point the (second!) turn mercifully ends.

The sides are tied for morale, but Red has lost all its archers and Blue is still down four Resolve points, though Red's surviving units are all at full health. 

• Red moves and melees again. It is at this point I realize archers have a -2 in combat. They still manage to beat men at arms in melee, but the outnumbered Blue side loses two points and barely passes its Resolve test, then runs. Blue, I think, is down to two Morale and Red to three. A continued combat causes Blue to lose two more points and run. Zero Morale; another check and Blue may lose the battle.
• Blue Strengthens Resolve, then Turn 3 ends.
• Red Moves, but not fast enough to Melee. Both sides fail to Strengthen Resolve, then turn ends again.
• A Blue unit rolls a 1 on Strengthen Resolve and is eliminated! Blue rolls a 2 on the Battle Morale table and disintegrates! Game over - though Red actually has taken more casualties. (They were archer-peons, so probably not important.)

Finally, my losing Blue commander rolls a 4 and then a 12 on the Fate table. He's captured ... and changes sides!

Messy endgame.

While (having had the encouraging assistance of David Knight and several others on the Facebook group) I feel I could run this game through much quicker next time, it was another disillusioning mess of close combats, and the next game I may try to retreat from combat more often and keep the game more free. It does, however, seem to match the historical records of internecine combat that could go on longer than one might expect.

The rules themselves are, I think, easy enough once one gets used to them. Where I got hung up was edge cases - pivoting, whether units could flank or move past each other, and so on. Combats are slightly easier in that effectively only one company is fighting on each side, with all else providing modifiers. It felt complex while I was running it; a lot of games do for me, especially when I am doing them solo and with constant interruptions. This is not a slur on the authors of the game, but on my own stick-to-it-iveness. And I must give a shoutout to the Facebook community, who jumped to my assistance to the point that I barely had to pause the game between answers!

The complexity seems to lie in tracking the Morale and Resolve points, and I could see simplifying the table a bit to change them to either "retreat" or "break" in a more Free-Kriegspielish form. The cards, on the other hand, provided excellent solo guidance. Despite the work, I found the game fun and will try it again after a break. See you next time...

My Colonial Collection, Part 2: Mahdists, Brits and more Egyptians

 Found some more of my Colonial minis, buried at the bottom of a drawer. Again, most of the River War models aren't ready for play, needing pennies for basing. I don't tend towards strictness in basing; pennies match brownish ground well enough as is, and I'd rather get to playing than spend time and effort on detailing. I am not an artist, which is one reason why I find painting a chore - I'd rather get the figures on the table and cut to the game. Perhaps I'm more old-style, preferring basic green table, foam hills and "found" buildings.

Two dozen camelry.

35 Mahdists with firearms.

Seventy with spears.

And ninety-six Beja "fuzzy-wuzzies."

Roughly ten units (for TSATF) of infantry and two of cavalry. The recommendation in the book is for a quarter of these to have rifles, plus cavalry and maybe a Krupp gun, which I have to spare.

Also in the box were some more Egyptians and Brits:

47 Egyptians, so another battalion-worth.

And 32 Brits in classic khaki.

Buildings for the River War are fairly easy to mock up. Suggested by Man of Tin, I bought some biodegradable plant pots which have just the right color and texture. But here's another I made years ago with construction paper for a demo at work, based on a tutorial from the old Major General's Page:

While I still like TSATF for the rules, I intend to experiment with The Men Who Would Be Kings as well, for its "solo mode" if nothing else. See you then!

Solo Over the Hills and Far Away

I was browsing the Solo Wargaming Facebook group recently and spotted a post by Ian D. Denyer. He is experimenting with using elements from a Jim Wallman ruleset solo here. That reminded me of Wallman's Over the Hills and Far Away, which I've always wanted to try.

A few generations removed. There are many versions
of the classic song; my favorite is by Connie Dover.

Since I won't have a chance to run it with my own group anytime soon, maybe ever, I'm going to try to run it solo. It's more role-playing game than wargame, so this is tricky, but the "character-building" aspect is one of the things I've always loved about RPGs. There will probably be more focus on the regiment and combat than on the social stuff ... unless commenters want to chime in and make suggestions for the other non-player-character colonels! I feel as though the social element of the game might even work best over play-by-post or play-by-email; only the battles need to be at the table.

There are similarities to Glory:1861 here, though that is less social and delves deeper into the specifics of the regiment's size and training, in ways that Over the Hills glosses over. Over the Hills leans more towards the RPG side of things, while Glory:1861 leans towards the wargame side. Of course this means I should be doing Glory:1861 too (which I intend) and that it would probably be a better solo subject. But we've already seen how much of a hobby butterfly I am. I've effectively promised to try For Whom the Dice Rolls (Spanish Civil War) and Test of Resolve (War of the Roses). Next week then... Toy soldiers, being lead, pewter or bright plastic, are perhaps best suited to the "Ooh, shiny!" meme.

So to start:

• Colonels are already "persons of note;" in this era, they couldn't otherwise have the influence to be colonels in the first place. So my Colonel is Sir John Stanley, of Bordeaux Hall in the County of Cornwall.
• Roll for age - 20+D20: 30. Middling.
• Roll for married status, 5+ on D6: 4. He's a bachelor.
• Roll for political status, 5+ on D6: 3. He's no MP, yet!
• Political party - I could choose, but I'll toss for it - 1-3 Whig, 4-6 Tory. 1, so he's a Whig.

• He starts with a fortune of 1000+(d6x100) pounds. I rolled a 4, so £1,400 in the bank. I can spend up to 1,000 on "Political Influence Points" at 10 pounds a PIP. The catch being that these are mostly used against your fellow players, and I haven't any. I'd choose an average amount, but I don't know what that would be; I'll roll D100 for it. I rolled 52, so I spend £520, leaving me with 880 to spend on ... stuff, and I have 52 PIP. That seems an awful lot, given that there is little to spend PIP on other than screwing over your fellow Colonels, trying to become an MP and getting married. Since I am neither of the latter two, those will probably be my goals for the campaign beyond just going to exotic places and killing people. It costs a surprising lot to build and train a regiment, though, and my fortune has been reduced by more than a third to get this far. Of course, I don't have to be one of those conscientious colonels...

• Not being able to bid on my regiment number against other players, I'll just dice for it at D20+2: 8. I command the 8th Regiment of Foot, the Wessex Regiment. Just to give myself other regiments to compete against (and use in battle), I'll roll for three more: 16th, 12th, and 4th. Well, the commander of the 4th is senior to me.

My men are paid at the rate of 10 pounds per company per month. My colonel gets 20 pounds a month for his own expenses.

Unless I spend PIP or gain lots of glory overseas, I can't have a Royal regiment, so blue is out for a facing. I'll take white. A full ten companies is represented in-game by four bases:

Took a couple tries; at 18mm scale it's really easy to miss if figures
are facing the wrong way! But they really are beautiful up close.

My brand new regiment begins with the following statistics:

• Drill - 1
• Musketry - 1
• Effectiveness - 1

It is difficult to improve these, but easy for them to get worse, so training (especially drill) is essential. Players must spend turns (months) training a unit in order for it to not deteriorate, and may roll a 6 on a d6 to improve by one point. If the Colonel focuses on one aspect, that aspect may roll a 5+ to improve. Of course, this also costs money (for powder, etc), and at some point Sir John will have to spend turns transacting business in London.

I'll start with six months to test the training mechanism. This will give me £1000 to work with. As for other "social" activities... I'll randomize, like so:

D6 roll: 4. The fourth month will feature a social event. Choosing between generic socializing, ball, racing, or wedding, I toss a D4: 2. Second option, there's a ball. D3: 1, it is given by the Colonel of the 4th Regiment. I shall have to attend.

• January, 174-: Train in Drill and Musketry (Effectiveness ie Maneuvres costs a lot!), with Colonel Stanley focusing on Drill. Cost: £30. Both rolls failed.
• February, 174-: Train Drill and Musketry, with Colonel Stanley focusing on Musketry. Cost: £30. Both rolls failed.
• March, 174-: Train all three attributes, with Colonel Stanley focusing on Effectiveness. Cost: £80. All three rolls failed! That's me out £140, but at least Sir John is keeping his lads in shape. He will, however, visit the nearest gaming den to obtain new dice.
• April, 174-: I shall attend, of course, as I must ingratiate myself with my potential brigade commander (let's call him Sir Quartus Smith-Masterson). The other two will attend on rolls of 4+. The colonel of the 16th attends, that of the 12th is on his own affairs. At least I rolled higher than a three this time! Smith-Masterson, of course, spends £10 on his ball - the next must cost more, to upstage him. Because the colonel of the 12th is the only one not attending, he loses 10 PIP. I have no idea how many he has to start with, but we'll factor that in later.
• Remember, I am looking to find a wife. The lady most obviously available would be Sir Quartus' daughter, Quartina, and I'd like to be "in" with my senior in the service. Let's roll her stats:
• Influence: 1. He must have lots of children.
• Dowry: 6x100 - £600. Tempting. Given the other stats, her parents must be desperate to marry her off.
• Housekeeping: 1. This is how many pounds per month she saves through good management. She must not have learned her sums.
• Star Quality: 2. A multiplier to the PIP earned from any ball she hosts. Speaking of which, I imagine her mother is hosting tonight: 6! A stunning, vivacious lady (surprising, given how many kids she's had) who gains Sir Quartus 30 PIP! I only get five for attending... plus six for Lady Smith-Masterson.
• Given her daughter's low influence, I can give up four PIP to roll on the rightmost column of the chart. With a 2, she is Mildly Interested. We'll see what happens at the next ball...

I entered "18th century rich young lady"
into an art algorithm, and this is what I got.
It's fun to play with, but not always accurate.

• May, 174-: Supervising my regiment in Drill and Musketry once more (very enthusiastic soldier, I am), and focusing on Drill: 4 and 4. <sigh>
• June, 174-: One more go, this time looking over the shoulders of the musketeers and rolling yet another die: 6! And 4. Up to 2 in Drill.

Oh, but I spent one month NOT drilling, so must roll to not have my troops forget what they've learned. And... a one!

After the first six months, my regiment has not improved beyond the start and I have spent two hundred pounds on them. This soldiering lark is expensive! I am at least up to 63 PIP.

Next time, maybe I'll try a small expedition against rebels or rioters.

The book that started me off

The Brontës started it all. 

Freestyle roleplaying, fluff writing, imagi-nations, fan fiction, and my own love of toy soldiers and gaming. 

Blame them for this blog.

The real culprit is the late Pauline Clarke, whose other books I really should read sometime. But I've never quite been able to get over this one. It remains, far and away, my favorite children's novel.

With Armies in Plastic Waterloo figures.

It also got me into blogging. I idly googled it several years ago and turned up the Man of Tin blog; Mark continues to be inspired by the Brontë "juvenilia," their earliest writings about their brother's toy soldiers, and uses them in his own small imagi-nations games. I followed Mark's blog and became increasingly involved with his "light" style of gaming, in part because I was, at the same time, running simple games for kids at work. We introduced each other to some of the modern fiction inspired by the Brontës' shared world or "paracosm," Clarke's being the first. (Its original British title is The Twelve and the Genii.)

Because the soldiers were hand-made from wood, they were individual, and the children could tell each apart and give it a name and character. Branwell and Charlotte chose Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington, while Emily and Anne eventually named theirs after Arctic explorers Parry and Ross. Other characters received quirky names like Butter Crashey and Stumps; Bonaparte was renamed to Sneaky. They spent their formative years creating a shared universe for their characters, creating an entire alternate history in which the Napoleonic Wars are fought several decades ahead of schedule. The soldiers sailed to Ashanti in Africa (then being explored by the British, though not conquered until 1873 by Wolseley); fought the French and the Ashanti; founded cities and ultimately countries; fought wars, held elections, crowned kings; published histories and magazines actually written, in scale, by the children:

They may be too small to read, but Amazon has made
Branwell's writings available as an ebook.

That's the background. The story goes like this.

8-year-old Max Morley and his family have just moved to a house in the Yorkshire countryside not far from Haworth, the home of the Brontës as children. He discovers a set of twelve century-old wooden toy soldiers in the attic.

At about the same time, his family stores in the attic artifacts brought from West Africa by their great-grandparents, who were missionaries to the Ashanti. The artifacts are a stool purported to be a throne, a model canoe, and a drum.

This will all be relevant to the story, I promise. The drum first, because Max sets up the soldiers and plays it for them to march to. To his surprise, they literally come alive before his eyes and, well, march - for a handful of seconds before turning wooden again.

Max is a cautious, mature lad. He experiments with the soldiers and the drum, and while the rest of the family is out, gets them to open up to him. To his surprise, they claim to have been to Ashanti, which is why they recognize the drum. Their leader, Butter Crashey, aged 140, proposes to explore the house under Max's protection. Max, enchanted, agrees.

Max doesn't play with the soldiers, as such. He follows them as they do what toy soldiers would do (I can't help thinking that the makers of Toy Story read this book at some point, because the opening sequence with the green army men is almost this chapter writ on the screen). They climb down a stairwell on a rope (a ball of string tied up by Max); wade through a carpet like high grass; swarm up a curtain cord like the rope of a ship; march up and down on a piano to play music; eat some of Max's food; and are accidentally scattered when the rest of the family return. One, Stumps, is lost in the confusion.

Max subconsciously guides the soldiers, almost without realizing. When he finds Stumps the next night, he rescues the small soldier literally by thinking about it. Wouldn't it be nice if Stumps would climb the creeper that goes up by his window, Max imagines, instead of just grabbing him up and carrying him back to the attic - and as he does so, Stumps runs for the creeper. By this time, Max has recognized his responsibility for the soldiers, and accepted their title of "genius" for his imaginative role. They explain that they were long ago guided by four other Genii - Brannii, Tallii, Emmii, and Annii...

Max, the soldiers, and the three Ashanti treasures. A golden version
of this stool was the sacred throne of the Ashanti, and precipitated the
final war there when an idiot English diplomat demanded to sit on it.

I find it difficult to capture the sheer charm of this book. There is simply so much to unpack.

The adult supporting character who teaches the children about the Brontës is himself an authority on them; he is a parson, of the same parish that Patrick Brontë held sway over during the Brontes' childhood, and like Patrick Brontë has three daughters and a son. He points out that the soldiers, all individuals, yet take on aspects of their "creators." Branwell's own Sneaky is mischievous and moody, but was the first to wake; Charlotte's Duke of Wellington is the strong, silent heroic type she loved in her stories; Gravey is unhappy and easily bullied, like Emily. He also counterpoints the religious parallels of the story - at one point the Twelves are guided on their journey by a "pillar of fire" - a bicycle lamp. In an afterward, American author Katherine Paterson (known for the religious themes in her books) notes these especially; Branwell in his stories depicts himself and his sisters as giant gods from the Twelves' point of view, and Max's ability to guide the soldiers via his own thoughts is akin to God's omniscience. One wonders what the Reverend Patrick Brontë might have thought of his children's self-identification. 

"Max thought he would like to protect all the creatures, and wondered who did. His duty now was to protect Stumps."

There is an element of "imagi-nations" and fan-fiction that prefigures that of the 21st century. I can only imagine what the real Duke of Wellington would have thought of the Brontës' version of him - though in their stories he remains conqueror of Napoleon, he also becomes conqueror of Africa. Perhaps they were inspired by his conquest of India? 

There is also discussion of the joy of play:

"And there are two more letters, one saying that there will always be wars while human nature is what it is, and why shouldn't boys play with soldiers?"

'Boys will be boys,' it says, 'and girls will join them in such military games, whether they are Branwell Brontë  and his sisters, or the children who buy lead or bright plastic soldiers today. Battle, struggle and adventure against enemies are part of the pattern of living, it seems, and much as we all now hate war, they look as if they will go on being. Until men are perfect in humanity they will fight.'" This seemed a solemn letter and there was a pause.

This is interesting given the bloody adventures the soldiers once had (which they repeat with relish to Max) and the ones they go on under his direction. As a child, this guided my own play in the garden - to an extent, because I was a pretty literal thinker and it wasn't until adulthood that I read the original stories and really grasped how the Brontë children created the world that their soldiers lived in.

In the soldiers' own dialogue, Clarke quotes Branwell's own descriptions of the soldiers, for example in a sequence where Butter Crashey, their leader, describes their characteristics to the eager, curious Max. He speaks here with Branwell's voice, reflecting his and their "genesis" in Branwell's own writing.

Branwell's first story about the soldiers, The History of the Young Men, written when he was not quite thirteen, contains all the gruesome violence and fantastic impossibility you might expect of a modern bad-fanfic writer, the sort to be mocked by fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 today. The soldiers (all thirteen of them) defeat in pitched battle, indeed outright massacre, a Dutch garrison of 400 on Ascension Island, at a cost of seven dead to themselves. You can hear the boyish glee as Branwell describes the slaughter (of women and children). They later defeat an Ashanti army of 13,000.

Straight out of a "Boy's Own" imagination.

Six of the dead are next made alive again by Cheeky the surgeon. A bit of magical thinking here, yet the seventh is still missing and cannot be found. Real life, I suspect, took a hand here, in the same way that real objects come to life in the minds of the Twelves and their Genii. (For example, Stumps describes the curved plumbing trap beneath the kitchen sink, where he shelters, as a "great white creeper, in the crook of which he was safe"). When Frederick dies permanently, he is replaced by Stumps, who was found again. They are mysteriously described as "two people in one," and Branwell's notes indicate that names and characters of several of the soldiers were simply changed. Stumps is a viewpoint character and Max's own favorite because of his mysterious background, and because he is used to getting lost and found again.

Many stories of this nature, of course, focus on the secret of magic, tiny people, or both. Katherine Paterson compares this book to Mistress Masham's Repose by T.H. White, in which Lilliputians are discovered by a child in 1940s Britain, and notes that because the protagonist is less responsible than Max, and nearly gets the Lilliputians discovered or lost, her story is funnier and scarier. A modern classic along these lines is The Indian in the Cupboard, in which plastic figures come to life; their "owner," Omri, learns very quickly that the figures are real, historical people who can die if he is not careful, but his friend Patrick never quite gets this, treats them as toys regularly, and nearly gets them or himself killed more than once. This series is sometimes terrifying, and becomes more "adult" as it goes on.

The Return of the Twelves is different in that the Twelves are regarded in-universe as toys. They are still people, of course, but Max subconsciously plays with them, and their inherent nature as creations of creative literary minds is always at the fore of the story. It is magical realism that differentiates this story from most "tiny people" stories - it's more about the power of imagination to make things real, perhaps in the same vein as The Velveteen Rabbit.

As the Twelves explore Max's home, then set out across the wide world (read: a few miles of country to Haworth), the world around them so small and innocuous to Max and his siblings becomes vast and adventurous. A small but burbling creek becomes a vast river; a field of wheat is a jungle or forest; a roller-skate becomes a gun-carriage; a piece of string becomes a rope; a bag of marbles becomes cannon balls (which are hurled at a large, brown furry monster which turns out to be friendly and leads the Twelves through its underground lair - a rabbit); tiny chicken feathers become ostrich plumes for decorating hats.

Twelves on the march through a field.

Unlike in similar stories, the Twelves never see or recognize these for what they are. Part of the charm of stories like The Littles by John Peterson, The Borrowers by Mary Norton, and some "mouse world" books and films like The Rescuers and Chip'n'Dale's Rescue Rangers are that they display great ingenuity in using human castoffs to make vehicles, homes, furniture, and all sorts of equipment. I loved all of these as a child for this very reason. The difference between them and the Twelves is that the Twelves are from a world of their own, and they see everything not as what it is, but as what it actually would be to them. They are people, measured against themselves rather than the normal-size humans of the story, who to them are monsters in the fantastic and awesome sense of the word.

There is great inspirational value in this book, not just for wargaming but roleplaying too. It's taught me to see almost anything I look at as a seed for adventure. RPGs like Mouse Guard and Army Ants in which animal characters have their own societies and weapons, but live in a world scaled for much bigger creatures, have incredible potential scope. I can develop stories for these games just by going outside and lying down - and children do just that in this book, glimpsing through the grass the forever adventurous Twelves.

Convention Gaming and Trying DnD5E

 I went to Supercon yesterday, a local geek convention that I usually try to make. Last time I got to go as an exhibitor, at the library system's table, and even demonstrated a couple simple wargames. They didn't do that this year. So for me, this was a shopping trip at a markup, and an opportunity to game. In previous years, there were wargame and boardgame demos set up (mostly Games Workshop), but the gaming this year was a mix of family boardgames, videogames and Dungeons and Dragons. No miniatures gaming.

I partly went to get some dice and a tray. It turns out 8mm dice are not made in bulk by the suppliers I found, so that idea for using my not-quite-12mm unit markers is out. Perhaps I'll buy the 16mm markers and use 12mm dice.

I never have sat down for DnD 5th edition, but the con was an opportunity to play at a table for the first time in forever. I was surprised at how easy the pregenerated character sheet was to read and play - I probably could have run Free Kriegspiel with it:

The GMs were able to run adventures mostly off the cuff. The players were able to just adventure, with, as a commenter pointed out on an earlier post, the nuts-and-bolts of the game safely out of view. Spells weren't described, only the name providing any context, but most weren't combat spells that would require you to know how much damage they did.

There were some nuts-and-bolts, of course. DnD is mostly a skirmish game, and most adventures are mostly about fighting.

My character's at the back, with the excuse that
she's standing on the steps to get overhead line-of-sight.

The stereotypical starter adventure starts with a bit of scene-setting, continues with a march to the scene of adventure, optionally has a puzzle or roleplaying in the middle, and ends with a fight. So the two adventures I played in went. The first one did have an interesting puzzle that I might have to swipe for my own adventures, and the minis were pretty cool, especially given my increasing Paperboys collection. I may need to buy some:

Flat plastics from Arcknight Miniatures. I like the clear bases!

I've learned that character improvement is a useful motivator for bringing players back to the table. I leveled up my character between adventures with help from another player, which turned out to be a good thing in the next adventure. I used a new spell (Sleep) to neutralize an enemy that, under the circumstances, probably would have killed the party otherwise. It was only icing on the cake that our job was to capture this fellow alive. The disadvantage was that we weren't using minis this time, just a map and what is called "Theater of the Mind." A good GM can paint a picture in the mind's eye - I'm not quite there yet.

Another useful thing about DnD is, of course, the gamemaster, who was able to adjudicate rules without resorting to the rulebook. Players (especially new ones) always come up with unusual ideas and actions, and the GM can rule on things the designers never thought of - or things they did, if he's in a hurry and doesn't want to look things up.

Now, the fighting took up the bulk of both sessions, and part of the problem was that there were six or seven players in the adventures. (DnD has a "sweet spot" of four plus GM.) There's always a "hurry-up-and-wait" aspect to combat in war games of any sort, and DnD has a bad reputation in this area. But the low complexity of the rules and the table banter helped quite a bit, and reminded me why I enjoy this sort of play. There are plenty of historical RPGs out there - even variants of Dungeons and Dragons itself. Some of the methods - particularly the Move/Action/Bonus Action mechanism that players choose from on their turn - may work for the skirmish wargames I'm planning.

I'll have to check out DnD again.

My colonial collection, Part 1: Egyptians

While the first wargaming books I read were Little Wars and Charge!, my first experience of actually collecting and playing with historicals was the Sword and the Flame. This was largely driven by my discovery of Major General Tremorden Rederring's Colonial Wargames page. These are not that first collection of minis, which is still lying unpainted in a box somewhere. These are (a small fraction of) my collection of minis gradually bought from a painter on Ebay a few years back. I picked up Egyptians, Mahdists, British, Zulus, and a bunch of assorted Napoleonics in 1/72 scale, as well as German Schutzetruppe from someone else.

I immediately popped the colonial figures off their painting/unit bases that they had for shipping, and put them on pennies for easier play with TSATF. I made the possible mistake of doing the same thing with the Napoleonics, long before I discovered Featherstone's later "unit" rules in which casualties are not removed but regiments have hit points instead (see Natholeon's blog for some excellent versions in various periods) - this makes the units neater, nicely regimented (heh) and more like playing pieces for use with rulesets like Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame. Unfortunately, this particular lot are on 60mm-wide bases, which requires 3-inch squares, so 12x8 on this particular board they're sitting on. Cordery's Napoleonic rules will be even trickier, as units have two bases apiece to help make different formations of line, column, and square. So I'm a bit torn over these chaps. There is even a River War variant of Black Powder available, though this lot would only make up about two brigades for that game.

Ultimately, I think I'll break up the Egyptians as I've done with other Colonials. That'll enable me to play a few different skirmish games, TSATF of course but also The Men Who Would Be Kings which has differing unit sizes for different troop types. And I can still play gridded games, just with smaller troop numbers. Though reduced sizes of Paperboys figures may work too - Zulus and Boers (which I haven't got at all) are available now.

48 cavalry; 12 more are off camera.

Bashi-Bazouks.

Camelry.

Lancers.

96 infantry.

Infantry closeup.

Artillery.

Closeup on a Krupp and crew.

Officers.

In TSATF, this comes out to five 12-man cavalry squadrons and five 20-man infantry companies. A "rounded" force in TSATF is four companies, two squadrons and three guns, which would be matched against around twice their number of Mahdists. Which I'm pretty sure I have for the next post in this particular series. TMWWBK is on a somewhat smaller, more detailed scale, but requires fairly small forces. A typical 24pt "Field Force" (the standard game size) might have four 12-man infantry units and two 8-man cavalry units, and the game can be played with units at half strength, too.

I think I'm giving myself a desire (or excuse) to read The Men Who Would be Kings again... have only skimmed it since I bought my new copy.