On an ECW Kick

Not sure how I got onto this. Might have been when I idly googled Warhammer Historical, and turned up 1644 and its derivation Warhammer Historical English Civil War. I always preferred the turn-of-century style of GW games - not just the rules but the style of writing and illustration. So I read both of these. And then...

• Pike and Shotte
• To Kill a King (Pike and Shotte supplement)
• The Pikeman's Lament
• From Pike to Shot 1685-1720 (by Charles S. Grant)
• Ironsides (by Howard Whitehouse)
• Regiment of Foote (by Peter Pig)
• Dominion of Pike and Shot
• Wargaming Pike and Shot (by Donald Featherstone)

Not all of these are yet received or read, but ... yeah. I have half a mind to order the Pike and Shotte starter box and try Pikeman's Lament with it. (It would provide an opportunity to use the 28mm Warhammer walls I just got.) 

Curiously, I can't find out exactly what's in the box! There are 58 pike and shot figures in addition to cavalry and "forlorn hope"/commanded shot, but the regiment shown in the pictures has 36 figures (12 pike, 24 shot). Two of those would be a lot more than 58 - and if it is a two-player starter, there ought to be two full regiments at the very least, which would mean each might number twenty-four plus some sort of command... All the reviews I can find focus on the rules rather than the minis, which seems unusual for starter sets.

Anyway, whatever there is ought to be enough for two small Pikeman's Lament forces. A lot of people (including my local gaming group) dislike the activation system of this series of rulesets, since there is a very good chance that some or even all of your units will just skip their turn, repeatedly. However, I think I have a way around that - specifically, the way Bob Cordery does it in Bundok and Bayonet. This is to allow the order to go through when failed, but any movement must be away from the enemy.

Partly it's just because it's the last one I've read, but the Dominion ruleset is my current focus. There is a lot of buzz on the Facebook Portable Wargame group about the series, and the fact that it is solo, quick and can be played with my small Wofun ECW collection is appealing. I printed it out and in the process discovered that material can be sent to the printer in "booklet" form - even more useful as I have been asked to make club copies of the 1981 Charge! too.

Speaking of the club, the annual "regatta" is tomorrow at the new location, and I hope to be there and provide a battle report and pics afterward. Hope your holidays and gaming gifts are as good as mine are shaping up to be. Til next time!

Clash of Rhyfles Playtest

Today, a little experimentation with Quar. This is not laid out neatly, and is more for my benefit than the readers' - if you're disinterested, skip as this will have some rules and calculation. If you are interested but know nothing of Quar, the rules I'm using can be found here. I'm thinking of using them for small-scale VBCW as well.

One thing I liked about the old 40K starter sets was that they would start you off with just one or two figures a side and go through the turn structure piece by piece. I chose to take a full three-man fireteam of each side, so that I could try out all weapons and the Pluck mechanic too (used only by leaders). The Crusaders have a standard team of Milwer (corporal) with Bogen rifle, Rhyfler with rifle, and Ryfler with Ryshi "heavy rifle." The Coftyrans (who don't do fireteams, but have the WWII British squad organization with seven rifles and a three-man LMG team) get a machine gun team with the same layout, but slightly different weaponry. They start at opposite corners of a 2x2 square.

This will not be nearly as clear or as useful as Stew's much-better-illustrated playthru, but it'll help me. I hope.

L-R: Coftyrans and Crusaders.

Round 1: All three Crusaders move once, 5" towards the enemy. For their fourth action this card, the Ryshi gunner fires. (If I "knew" I had a fifth action, I'd spend two pluck to provide him supporting fire for +4 to his check). He's 17" away, so two full range bands for -2. The target will dive for cover, reducing the Ryshi's check to -6, so he rolls a 6 or less on 3d6: 12! So he missed, but the check is less than 13 and target dove. Attacker moves the target, who is gobsmacked. For Action Five, only the Milwer is left, and goes on Overwatch.

Round 2: The Gobsmacked Coftyran stands up for one action. The Milwer moves closer to the machine gunner, then for his second action spends two Pluck points to provide Supporting Fire. Do we have a fourth action? We do. The Cryfen machine-gunner has the Milwer touching him (+1 for Loader) and a Pluck point is spent for support fire (+2 for each of the two guys within 4"). He does Area Fire (-1 for each target in a 4" circle, so -2) and the targets are 17" away for two full range bands (-2). The Ryshi will dive for cover (-4) and the Milwer fire a snap shot (-1). I choose the latter for the snap shot as they are both two range bands away but the latter's Bogen rifle has only -2 to its snap fire; the Ryshi has -3. We'll target the Milwer first at 12-. I rolled an 11 - target out of action. The Ryshi gunner is 9- and I rolled an 8 - also out of action! This means the Milwer can't snap-shot back, as that comes after he's shot at (I got that wrong during the Hurricon game).

Whoops, forgot the Overwatch, who probably could have done something about this. Let's fire the Crusader Milwer. Two range bands (-2), shoots at the Milwer (who snapshots back (-1). 9 or less. He rolls exactly 9, so the Coftyran Milwer is OOA. He could thus not have provided the pluck point, so -5 to the rolls. Both would have been 13+, thus both Crusaders move to cover. There isn't any, so they stay put. The Ryshi dove for cover so is prone, while I assume the Milwer is still standing.

I need to make notes re: which photos go where.
I wonder if I can name photos whilst taking them.

Well, this IS why I'm doing this - to learn to watch out for things like that.

Round 3: The Crusader Ryshi returns fire, spending two pluck to provide support (+4). We're doing Area Fire again, able to hit all three opponents (-3) two range bands away (-2). The Cryfen gunner will snap-shot back and the Milwer will load him (I assume this means he cannot snapshot or dive for cover). The third Quar dives for cover. Cryfen to-hit is thus 10-, Milwer 11-, Rhyfler 7-. The Cryfen to-hit is 12 (nothing, as he didn't dive); Milwer 7 (out of action), Rhyfler 10 (dived for cover, so may move 1" and go prone. He could move 5", but there isn't any cover to dive for so he's just hitting the nearest dirt).

Wait, the Ryshi was prone. Any effect? No. The Cryfen gunner shoots back (-3 for snap shot, -2 for range, -2 for prone target, +1 for loader). He needs 6- and rolled a 9. The Ryshi may move an inch, but is already prone.

Supporting shooters may do nothing else, so we're done.

Round 4: Given the lack of cover, both sides should have been prone already, but poor shooting has led to no casualties so far. Coftyrans all move 5" and go prone. One of them had to stand to do this, so that's three actions. They're done, but closer to the enemy and at -2 to be hit.

Round 5: Two more Crusaders go prone and move 2.5". The Ryshi tries aimed fire (no range penalty, but spends two actions - has he a fourth action to do it with? Yes! He picks on the prone Milwer, and spends two Pluck for support fire. (his Milwer has one remaining.) -2 for prone target (who dives for cover - only 1" for no cover) so 6- to hit. The score is 12, so the target is Gobsmacked. We have a fifth action but, due to the support fire, can't use it.

These photos aren't very interesting or illuminating, are they?

Round 6: The Coftyran Milwer Recovers and stays flat. Let's try a grenade next, which uses both actions of the Rhyfler. He throws at a target w/in 10" - the Ryshi gunner who just shot at his boss. He suffers no penalty for being prone. We throw two dice and get 12! That's the best result - all three Crusaders are hit! For the Milwer this is 3D6 vs. his 4 toughness. I rolled a 14 - this is thrice the toughness so the Ryshi gunner is dead! The other rolls, on 2D6 instead, are 6 and 4 respectively, so the Milwer is Gobsmacked and the Rhyfler can be pushed an inch - this seems odd for a grenade to do, but he rolls over half an inch away from the blast. No more actions.

Round 7: OK, that's pretty tough for the Crusaders. The Milwer will recover and both figures stand and move. My intent is to experiment with assault. The Milwer spends his last pluck to Charge, and picks on the opposing Milwer. This chap may take Opportunity Fire, but I assume he fires at the range his target was at from the beginning of the move, so is two range bands away. -3 for snapshot and range, +2 for automatic shooting at a single target, so 11-. He rolled an 8 which would take the charger out of action; for testing purposes let's assume he misses.

(I reverted a bit to see what might happen if the Crusader Rhyfler tossed a smoke grenade first, which would have given a further -3 to hit his boss [which would have still hit, so no prob]. I rolled a 2/2, which meant the Coftyran player would get to place the grenade, so it wouldn't block his LOS anyway.)

In goes the Crusader on his prone opponent (+2 to his skill, so 14-). He rolls 11, a hit, and rolls D6+2 Might vs. Toughness 4. He rolled a 2, so equals the Toughness, which only pushes his opponent. No good. Curiously, since this is a Combat action he can't fight again even though he is Engaged, so he'll Steady, giving him back a single Pluck point for future use...

That's the second time someone has basically rolled over
in response to an attack.

But it's getting dark, IRL and I guess in-game too. At this point, having tried all the mechanisms I wanted to, and needing to get to bed soon, I'll stop here. Comments from Quar veterans gratefully welcomed.

Mincepie Pass

Two birds with one stone here - trying the Minceheim "mass battle" rules and finally getting round to the third scenario from Grant's programmed wargames. We'll be following up on my last Minceheim game, in which a dwarf mining team had a bad time with goblins. So the dwarves are going to go after the gobbos in force - which means they have to clear a pass.

Appropriately, the figures I'm using are from the old Warhammer Battle for Skull Pass box!

Three warrior units, two handgunner units, two miner units.
(one miner unit not shown)

Three goblin spear units, one archer unit, one spidercav unit.

The field of battle.

Gobbo light troops are up front, while the spearmen
won't appear until the dwarves reach the second third of the table.

Turn 1: The dwarves, limited to 2" movement due to heavy armor, shuffle forward on the center and left. (The miners on the flank are limited to 1" thru the trees.) The handgunners and archers exchange fire; the requirement for the gunners to reload a turn is balanced by +2 to wound.

Turn 2: The handgunners deliver another volley to the goblin archers - the survivor fails morale and runs.The spider-riders, however, line up for an attack on the forward miner unit, which faces left towards them.

Turn 3: The front handgunner unit turns to face the spiders, though at this point they don't really have line of sight with a melee about to start. The other forms column to get by them. The spider riders charge the miners, but in their heavy armor only kill one. However, only one goblin dies in return. Neither unit is under half strength.

Turn 4: The melee goes on, though the spiders now have dwarves approaching on both flanks. They take a casualty each. The surviving archer rallies and returns to the edge of the trees on the ridge for free sniping (the dwarves won't be able to shoot him in cover).

It occurs to me at this late stage that the dwarves shouldn't have been able to shoot the other archers either. Hm. Fortunes of war?

Turn 5: The miners eliminate the spider riders and the whole army lurches forward another two inches. Just 36" to go!

At this point we're close enough for the goblin back line to deploy - on the heights. I'm undecided whether to reinforce with another squad of archers; under the circumstances - right now the defenders are outnumbered two-to-one - it seems fair. The dwarves advance on a broad front; the goblins' programmed response is to "attempt to draw the enemy into the pass and envelop them." Well, it can do that with the warriors, but probably not the handgunners or miners.

Four turns later, the dwarven march is starting to straggle, while a clash looks ready to start on the goblin right and center. The handgunners will have to get thru the trees before they can assist, and by that time they might have to fire into melee to be of any help.

Turn 10: More maneuvering. The goblins are out of position to fight the handgunners now at the edge of the treeline, but at least they're on a lower level so can't be shot at yet. I draw the front-line dwarves up to avoid a goblin charge next turn; both sides are trying to gain positions where two units can gang up on one.

Turn 11: The first charge goes in. Let's see how this goes - the goblins get double attacks for their polearms. Two (!) of the attacks pass their armor saves, and eight of the fourteen resultant hits are kills (5+). The first dwarf unit is eliminated. Oh, and the lone surviving archer has been killed off.

Turn 12: A nice little scrum:

The dwarves are overwhelmed and broken, with three figures remaining.

I've just realized I'm not sure I'm doing melee correctly. In many games, both sides fight in a turn of melee - I've been doing it only on the side's turn, so that when a unit is broken, it loses its chance to fight. This has the effect of encouraging aggression.

Turn 13: And again:

Six more dwarf casualties.

Turn 14: The dwarves hold their own, as the forward dwarf regiment marches stolidly towards the goblin back line. Goblins assault, their spears proving key with all the extra attacks. One regiment of handgunners breaks, a warrior regiment holds its ground with but two dwarves remaining.

Turn 15-16: The handgunners are run down, but the second line fires a volley into the goblins and breaks them. Two survivors flee. One of the spear-gobbo regiments on the far side of the valley sees off its opponents, but the survivor meets up with the dwarf rear guard.

From victorious to sitting ducks.

Back-and-forth fighting but the dwarf reserves are hastening to the rescue.

"Where are we going, chief?"
"Away, young dwarf. Away."

Turn 17-20: More internecine warfare. I did not determine an army breakpoint for the game, but there are now three decimated dwarf units remaining, and one goblin one (in a position to be shot at in another turn). The dwarves have carried the pass, but at grievous cost.

End game.

The rules are very simple, more so than the skirmish game - though I may have missed some subtleties. I did give handguns a bonus to wound, for example, but didn't do so for the dwarf axes. The table size and fighting down the length made it seem longer than it really was. Perhaps the army break point can be the same as for individual units - at half strength, roll a 5+ or retreat.

I also played turns "turn and turn about," rather than with an initiative roll. The fewer steps to recall, the better, and it would have made for a swingier, messier game anyway. I didn't play either side very well; one thing I've noticed with the Grant Programmed Rules is that the AI instructions must of necessity be vague. I ended up being more aggressive with the goblins than their instructions called for - though with their spears this actually didn't go too badly!

The "campaign," such as it is, is in stalemate, and I'd either have to have a truly massive battle (maybe not a good idea with this little experience at the rules) or start a skirmish campaign as the sides try to find a lateral path to victory. I look forward to trying it. "Please let's not go through Mincepie Pass again, milord."

A good game, but definitely something smaller next time. I did enjoy the speed with which it could be played, even if I overlooked a few steps. Til next time.

TSATF, Fastoso variant

My fellow South Florida Miniatures Gamer Jeff, AKA Sgt. Guinness, just kindly introduced me to a variant of my favorite ruleset, The Sword and the Flame. It's by Mark Fastoso, as shown in a number of scenario books he wrote back in the day which I shall have to hunt down.

TSATF is based on 20-man infantry units, 12 cavalry, four gunners. Infantry and cavalry are commonly split in half as well.

Turns out even smaller sizes can work. Fastoso's co-author Roy Jones posted the rule changes in threads on The Miniatures Page such as this one:

Infantry: 8 men

Cavalry: 6 men

Artillery: 2-3 men (artillery fire in TSATF is based on the number of crew).

Stragglers: D6 roll - 1-2:one, 3-4:two, 5:three, 6:none.

Why is this important? Because of my oddly-proportioned Great Game collection from Wofun. Most of the units range from 15-20 infantry, 8-10 cavalry, and there aren't so many of these units that you can build a large game. The Indian Army selection, for example, have what would be three TSATF units and one and a half cavalry units, while the Russians only have one (1) infantry unit. Granted, this is plus Cossacks, Central Asians, etc, but still.

Then I took a closer look. Turns out the late Larry Brom chose his unit sies randomly, possibly based on the box sizes of the miniatures he was using. And given the popularity of half-units in the game, it's not all that farfetched that even smaller numbers could work.

I'm also considering Bob Cordery's classic Bundok and Bayonet. It is a larger-scale game, with five men to a company but still twenty to the battalion. (So my units would still be undersized.) It looks good, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet, and TSATF is more familiar. We'll see. I may try both.

Of course, there is the obvious but costlier solution of just buying more. Unlike Paperboys, though, I don't think this lot are available in print.

Two companies of Bengal infantry.

Five (!) companies of Afghan regulars.

A mere eight Bengal Lancers to a unit (I have two of these).
 Would four- or five-man squadrons work? I'd have to reduce
 stragglers even more... though some players leave them out.

I'll try it! After I run Leuthen with Wofuns and Paperboys, that is. Plastic Seven Years War 10mms will be out soonish, and that would be an excuse to buy more of the colonials...

The famous church in 18mm scale paper.
Easier to build than it looks!

Programmed Wargames Scenarios: Broken Ground

Been a while since I've played with my 18th-Century Wofuns or CS Grant's solo mechanisms. I'd like to work my way through all of them eventually, so it's the turn of Scenario 2: Broken Ground. I found playing the Blue defender rather boring last time, so this time I'll play Red. I start by randomly selecting the table layout:

Hills before the green cloth drops. You can see lots of 
fantasy roleplaying stuff here.

Then I select my army from the available options. It might not be best for moving quickly across the board, but I'm going with overwhelming force: seven infantry regiments, one light infantry, four cavalry and two guns.

Next I roll to see if my recon troops did their job, and they did. This means I can determine and deploy the Blue defenders before deploying my own army. I'll select randomly, and the Blues have five line infantry, two light, three cavalry, and a gun. Both sides also have a general.

15% of the Blues are a reserve in the center. That's a job for the cavalry. The rest, randomly, are arranged 20-60-20 on flank, center and flank, and all must be in forests or on heights. Well, I've a gun and eight regiments aside from the light infantry (concealed in the woods. So the three cavalry regiments are reserve, three infantry units in center with the gun, and one infantry unit on each flank.

I am using here the D3 Horse and Musket rules from Grid-Based Wargaming But Not Always. There is an activation mechanic that is more difficult as a unit loses hit points, but it won't be a problem until taking two hits (you roll higher than the hits on 2d6).

It's just occurred to me that, given I significantly outnumber the enemy, there should maybe be a time limit. In the Grant scenarios, objectives are quite vague - in this case, the winner simply holds the heights. Probably has something to do with them being rules-agnostic. I've noticed in the past scenarios like this (get to the other side of the table) being one and a half or twice as many turns as it would normally take a unit to cross. In line, infantry would cross the table in eight turns, so perhaps a 12-turn game? But then there are quite a lot of cavalry, who move twice as fast, and infantry can also move faster in column. Movement is not reduced by terrain in these rules - you just can't enter certain categories.

Another option is a casualty limit, of, say, half the units on one side eliminated. Might not be fair to the French here, but could work.

I welcome suggestions!

Here's the deployment. I'm concentrating on the flanks in hope of splitting the opponent - not knowing the programmed defender orders yet, I'm interested to see how they react to my intentions.

Rear: One French unit to right flank, three and gun center,
one to left. Three horse regiments center, rear line, but able to
come out in either direction to provide quick assistance.
Front: My infantry is on my left and center, guns moving up on
a hill, four horse regiments to my far right hoping to sweep around.

Once I have committed to my attack, I examine the Blue instructions. "Committing" is tricky, as I haven't any written orders, but my intent is to attack Blue's flanks. Blue's orders, given its central position position, is to hold the center of the feature, without giving up any ground or counter-attacking with the units on it (!). The flanks may be given up if necessary, while the reserve and flank units may counter-attack. "You should use cavalry and light troops boldly on the flanks to harass the enemy."

As for Blue's response, I roll on a chart according to Red's (my) plan. "Red attack against weak Blue flank" seems to be it, though I'm actually aiming for both flanks. The Blue response is "Negative," meaning no overally change of plan and a lack of initiative.

Under the circumstances, I feel I am constrained to stick with my initial plan, rather than, say, racing my cavalry to the left and joining the attack on the flank there. I must attempt a double envelopment.

Now to the battle. I've just moved onto the table, so it's Blue's turn. Given a lack of initiative, their reserve will not move until needed, and their gun is the only thing in range. They hit one of my grenadier units for two wounds (of nine).

Turn 1: My grenadiers (left) march onto the left hill to tackle the one
French regiment there, one unit losing three more HP as it comes up.
At center, my infantry spreads out while my guns find their position
and unlimber. My cavalry sweeps forward to hit the French right.

Guns may not move after unlimbering, and with a 45-degree field of fire will not be firing on the plucky French to their left. I expect my grenadiers can handle it. Though the two-page rules don't say, I assume I must deploy my own infantry to fire, so no shooting at all from me yet.

Turn 2:

The battered grenadiers fail to activate. That's OK since only two
can get into position to fire, though the right one takes casualties.

The light infantry head for the central forest, screening the infantry
columns. My guns fire, but I must remember that the green paper
(representing forest) would block their view of the central hill.
They instead target the French left, to ease the job of my cavalry.

Cavalry cannot enter woods, so the French are safe as my Horse
sweep some more. They take musket fire, though.

Turn 3: 

The French outpost is driven off, as the British infantry form into
line and some of the French cavalry arrives to hold them off.

Concentrated fire destroys one of my cavalry regiments.
Since I can't enter the forest, it's safe, if isolated.

Turn 4: Just some back and forth charges. The French left flank is isolated but safe, sniping at the cavalry, and the infantry on the British right is "closing up," ready to close the door if the French outposts can't hold them off.

Turn 5: Since there is no move-and-shoot, I hold my infantry still to blast the French right flanks. Two of my cavalry fail their activation rolls and stall, but the third makes a charge into the back of an infantry regiment. Light infantry aren't doing much at all, and casualties are starting to make activation more difficult. I do manage to eliminate a French cavalry with fire, meaning that there are no French at all in front of my left flank. In exchange, I lose an infantry regiment to a charge, and a cav regiment is down to its last hit.

The cavalry unit at top center, front line, is French. It just charged
The British one at front. It did the max damage, but not enough
to kill, so fell back to its present position; which means it's about to
be charged in the side and back by my units to rear and left.

Turn 6: The beleaguered French cavalry survived when both my advantaged units failed their activations. Instead it charged and retreated. The French left flank is in good hands now, with only two reduced Brit cavalry units to menace it. The French right, on the other hand, is just gone, and the only reason I haven't poured over the hill and pounced on the center is that I can't shoot and move in the same turn.

Turn 7: Except for the gun and those units "sheltering in place" in the forested zones, the French are gone. I'll stop here.

Most units are intact, as I tend to concentrate on damaged units until they're dead. And once a unit has taken enough hits, its survival in the next turn is deterministic, because hits are automatic. There is nothing to stop cavalry from spinning on its axis and charging, for example, and it WILL score at least two hits, or one if going up a hill, or four if charging from the side or rear. If the charged unit has that many left, it just gets deleted. The forests where the last of the French infantry are sheltering are like that too - no one can get IN, because cavalry can't go in and infantry can't enter melee. It would take too much time to focus fire on them, so I've been ignoring them. By the end of this turn, there's nothing else left, and it's obvious there's nowhere for my side to go but over the broken ground and off the table.

An okay game, but maybe not best for the purposes of these scenarios - which do seem to rely especially on terrain and unit maneuverabilty, neither of which is really part of the D3 rules. I like the simplicity, but at the same time I understand the frustration of people who don't like simplicity. Something more middling, like some versions of Charge!, may work better. We'll see in future. Thanks for reading.

Civil Wars

More reading - two histories and a ruleset. I was hoping to go to a "MicroCon" that the club was running this weekend, but schedules and other commitments conspired to stop me at the last moment. So I'm even more P'O'd at present. My dad has offered to help me move to a larger apartment, and a game room of my own is tempting, but my job is difficult enough right now that I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

"...Afghans proudly thought of
their land as Yaghistan -- 
the land of rebellion."

It repeats in greater detail some of the character descriptions and events of Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game. While it is more focused on Shah Shuja's story, it also details the Western intrigue that both helped and hindered him in his ambitions. The British prejudice (not in a racial sense) of the situation led them to support Shuja, who had been defeated already four times trying to regain his throne, rather than Dost Muhammad who held a much more commanding position. Their fear of Russian expansion in fact led the (previously disinterested) Russians to court Persia.

Worse were the British efforts to control Shuja and his government in order to prop him up. There are Catch-22 parallels here with South Vietnam; on the one hand, Shuja could not survive without British support - on the other, that very fact made him anathema and increased the interest in bringing him down. If all that your allies can do to help you is to literally take over and set you aside, what is the use of them? Like the presidents of South Vietnam, it was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't position - and the US had the same problem in Afghanistan in the 2010s. They could raise a new, more effective and conventional Afghan military - but that in itself repulsed the more traditional population and made them more likely to resist the obvious usurpers. As in Vietnam, they could only be sure of the cities (barely even those) and whatever areas they controlled directly - the rest was a sea of dissent. The country was too poor to support itself, so millions of foreign aid were poured in to little effect. The parallels with 2001-2021 are starkly laid out - and a bit terrifying.

Hilariously, Shah Shuja, who the British had been undermining and ignoring ever since they arrived in Kabul, was the first and only man to respond quickly when the rebellion started. Yet, without control of his own government or army, he could do nothing. His most loyal followers, when they saw the tepid British response, practically had no choice but to go over to the rebels. The political and military leaders failed to respond to the uprising when it happened, and were practically quiescent throughout until the retreat. This only encouraged the Afghans, who noticed quickly that the soldiers were even forbidden by their own officers to fire on robbers in the streets. They lost the moral high ground when the political officer, MacNaghten, was murdered while trying to double-cross the Afghan leaders, who declared Jihad.

And then they marched out of the cantonments towards the high passes, despite all the warnings of the few friends they had left (including Shah Shuja himself, who despite their condescension still considered himself their ally). Shuja held out in the Bala Hisar fortress nearby, and would continue to do so for a year. The best the British could have done was to retreat to it, but it's obvious their leaders just wanted any excuse to go home - even if that meant abandoning virtually all their followers in the process.

As pointed out by the author and one of the more pragmatic survivors, there was betrayal in this, but also breathtaking stupidity. I am inclined to go back and read the first Flashman novel, now I've gotten the full details.

A fine sample of the farcical reasoning behind much of the fighting: Governor Ellenborough read a (fictional) report that the gates of Ghazni had been stolen from an Indian temple, so as revenge, he ordered them brought back to India in triumph to avenge this "insult". The officers who took the gates recognized the evidence of their original Islamic construction, and neither the Afghans nor the Hindustanis cared. A cutting quote:

"As the saying goes, real power does not need tawdry propaganda! A more lasting monument until today is the quantity of rotting corpses of the English troops that still block the highways..."

Dalrymple uses contemporary Afghan historians and epic narrative poetry to characterize how the Afghans felt about what was going on, using the latter frequently in place of a conventional narrative. Many of these writings, available for the first time in English, were published in the 1850s in India, possibly to incite the Mutiny (which, the author pointedly notes, first broke out among regiments whose officers had abandoned them during the disastrous retreat). Almost like fiction, it brings out the atmosphere of the place and time. Characterful sketches and paintings of the principal characters are included as well.

Compares and contrasts the lives and combat experience of William Oates of the 15th Alabama, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine. I had not considered Oates before, but he wrote just as well as Chamberlain despite a more desultory education. His early life was in the Wild West, but since this is antebellum, that means what is now the Deep South, and Texas, all of which were much more frontierish in the 1840s and '50s. A generation later and with different luck, Oates might have become a gunfighter. But despite his scrappy history, he worked his way up and, like Chamberlain, became a teacher.

Chamberlain, points out the author, did not have quite the heroic upbringing that hagiographers have ascribed to him. His father went bankrupt a couple times, and Chamberlain himself struggled against stuttering all his life. Though a brilliant junior professor at Bowdoin, he felt compelled to join the Army, going so far as to find a pretext - leave to study in Britain - to get away with it, and his coworkers were surprised and disgruntled. His feeling towards the war was more idealistic - Harriet Beecher Stowe was a neighbor, and Jeff Davis spoke at Bowdoin before the war.

The narrative here is fairly bare-bones, even in the combat writing, and the few maps are not of much use. But then, the book is less a military history and more an exploration of character. Chamberlain's relationship with his independent-minded wife was particularly fraught - she was uninterested in being the First Lady of Maine, for example, and lost three children in infancy. While Oates, curiously enough, was one of the few Confederates who urged his government to arm slaves and offer them freedom to join the beleaguered rebel army, which like the more famous Patrick Cleburne retarded his career. This is the same man who defended one of his veterans from a charge of murdering a black man. Basically, both men were ambitious to the point of being willing to put other considerations aside - Chamberlain his wife's needs, Oates his distaste for the KKK and other overt signs of white supremacy. Both initially moderate in their views, they ended up on directly opposite sides of the aisle politically, because Chamberlain, to keep his office, leaned into the Radical Republican agenda which otherwise was not his style.

So while they were both successful, there was also a sort of unrecognized tragedy in their lives.

I haven't finished this one yet, but it's increasingly depressing. Chamberlain had a couple minor scandals in his leadership both of the state and Bowdoin, and as his career wound down, Oates' burst into flower. He went to Congress (in the process marrying a woman who had been born into the house where he recovered from wounds while he was staying there) by building and leading the Democratic political machine, grinding down the black man to do it, and learning to filibuster.

A smaller and shorter ruleset than I expected. I'm interested in the premise, but so far as I can tell, most of the available volumes are more pictures than "fluff." I'm torn between:

• using my SCW-ish figures on a small scale (changing inches for centimeters), which would allow me to use full-sized platoons and a few light vehicles on my small tables.
• or using some of my 54mms. Like the SCW, none of these are really for the period, but WWI Scots and Western Desert British will work, while Germans can be Fascist foreign legion and Japanese could suggest skirmishes in "the far pavilions". On my tables I'd only really be able to have ten men a side.

There is no fluff at all in the rules here, not even army lists. (A generic recommendation of a command section, three ten-man squads, and optional vehicles and a "special" squad is provided.) Clearly players are expected to add flavor themselves. Gradations of experience help here. Royalist regulars would be better trained, while the socialists of Manchester would be poorly equipped but have greater swings in morale.

The rules themselves are not that complex, but there are a lot of variables to keep track of. This is part and parcel of having a Spanish-Civil-War-esque feel, where the training, equipment and origin of troops must widely vary. Vehicles are the same way, as they can be commandeered civilian, hastily-militarized, or proper armoured cars and tanks (in varying types and with varying armament). Thankfully the damage chart is the same for all, albeit with modified rolls for different types. For less than 25 pages, this is pretty packed. I will need a Quick Reference Sheet, for sure.

The only portion that contains the atmosphere of the "period" in play is a list of Random Event cards on the back cover. Suggestions like "Bike has a flat tyre or phone lines cut - one unit out of communications", "Nice weather for ducks - a downpour reduces shooting range by 6", or "Ha ha, they forgot to fill it up - an enemy vehicle runs out of fuel and may not move." Except for the front cover and a cheerful man with colorful scarf, pipe and teacup (who seems to be the rules' mascot), the only illustrations are color photos of minis.

Overall, though, I am quite interested in the game and the theme. I think my next purchase will be the Concise Sourcebook, but it's clearly possible to play without it to begin with. I have the feeling Spanish Civil War rules can work in a pinch as well, as there is clearly that same heterogenous mix of political and religious views bouncing off each other - a little more chaotic than Spain, even.

The battle of Minceheimikov

In the mountain cold of January 2, 1723, a raiding party of Afghans pounces on a tiny village somewhere on the Oxus River.

With the start of the new year, I decided to try a couple rounds of Minceheim, because it ought to be easy to run quickly and on a small scale. Let's find out!

The invaders, armed with swords and a single jezzail...

Are met by a returning hunting party with bows and swords!

Everyone is assumed to be in light armor. The field is a sheet of paper with three biodegradeable plant pots for huts.

Turn 1: After three (!) tied initiative rolls, the locals go first, surprising the raiders in their ransacking. All units move forward, meaning no-one can attempt to shoot next turn. (They must spend a turn aiming.)

Turn 2: The Jezzailchi aims as his riding commander dashes forward, and two swordsmen move around the buildings. The locals duck into cover.

Turn 3: The locals activate first and move towards the raiders. A second archer moves into view as his companion aims.

The jezzailchi fires! His target is wounded and out of the fight, as the other raiders advance, their mounted leader urging on his mount. (Hits are automatic, but armor saves and an injury roll keep this from being a series of one-hit kills - as you'll see shortly.)

Turn 4: Luckily the locals activate first again, and the surviving archer aims his bow at the hastily reloading jezzailchi. The two local swordsmen gang up on the rider, but only one of them can reach. Will this be a one-sided fight? The local rolls a 3, but the rider rolls a 2 (+1 for parrying with his sword). A tie, and both figures recoil one centimeter.

Turn 5: This time, the raiders get first go, and the rider, assisted by a swordsman on foot, lunges into the hapless locals. The fights are inconclusive; one local loses his fight but is only pushed back one cm. The jezzailchi steadily aims at the archer he's been duelling with all game, and the other swordsmen dash towards their foes.

In response, the archer lets loose - but it glances off as the jezzailchi makes his 6+ armor save! The local swordsmen try to gang up on one of their opponents, but one doesn't quite have the move. The scores are tied, but the raider parried with sword and shield for +2, and the local is pushed back. Things aren't looking good for our villagers...

Turn 6: Raiders go first. Swordsmen charge, screaming wildly, towards the cool but beleaguered archer, and the two locals on the far side of the building take more charges. The melee is again inconclusive, and the locals are outnumbered...

Turn 7: The locals go first. Our heroic archer looses a shot point blank, but again it is only a glancing blow. One of the local swordsmen races to help, while his compatriot holds off the enemy - but the horseman thunders after him and pushes him further back. The jezzailchi has no target with his friends around the archer, so switches targets and aims between the buildings at the standing-off swordsmen.

Turn 8: The raiders go first, and the jezzailchi fires. His target is stunned! The horseman charges, but is held off. The stunned man is attacked, but his light armor (thick robes, rather) save him. In his turn, he has no action, while our archer takes a bead, hoping to go first next turn before the charging swordsman gets him. The third man manages to hold off the horseman another round.

Turn 9: Raiders go first again, managing to stun the downed man for another turn. Other combats inconclusive, whilst the Jezzailchi reloads. Ignoring his peril, the archer holds his ground and draws the string to his ear...

Turn 10: ... and stuns his opponent with a point-blank shot. Huzzah! The poor stunned villager is also put out of his misery. At this point, I think our desperate locals will slip away and leave the raiders to loot their find... but might they gather others to ambush the enemy on their way home?

A surprisingly exciting game. Shooting isn't quite as powerful as it looks, and close combat was often worryingly inconclusive (or maybe that was just my rolling). Only the active side attacks, unlike in Warhammer, and I kept rolling 1s and 2s on the wound chart, ties to hit, or beating the attacker's roll with a parry roll. In all of these the opposing figure is only driven back 1cm. So in the next turn, there were a lot of countercharges. Perhaps I would make horsemen a little more powerful, or provide a bonus for outnumbering. Though in the event, outnumbering sides could simply make multiple attacks.

The game went quickly, even with writing and photographing. I think I'll try again tomorrow as the angry villagers pursue the raiders thru the hills. They'll need reinforcements, but the raiders will have a wounded man to carry... All in all, a very nice simple ruleset. Would play again!

A Much-Delayed Report of the Leisurely, Protracted Battle of Finchley Common

I swear I wasn't procrastinating. At least this time. Really. I've had vertigo for a week now, so jumping up and down from the computer and leaning over a table were pretty counterproductive. I've got some medication and exercises for it now, so let's see how long this takes me to write.

As a reminder, we used the D3 Jacobite rules from Gridbased Gaming But Not Always. My theory was that, because the rules are a page long, the game would go quickly. In practice, it took around a week. I was lucky to have a very patient opponent! Fellow Paperboys enthusiast George Bisset was even happy to take the clearly disadvantaged Jacobites. As we played remotely, I sent photos of my table and we exchanged moves on Facebook Messenger.

Each unit is represented by two infantry or cavalry bases or one artillery base; each unit has 8 hit points.

Opening positions. Government in two lines with guns in the
front rank; cavalry and a mortar on the flanks. Jacobites in three
lines with cavalry to the fore and three guns to the left.

Turn 1: George started off by charging towards my guns with his cavalry - one unit in each direction. His infantry. Once I remembered the Highlanders would outdistance the one French regiment (represented by Ecossais), he decided to hold them back as artillery guards. His guns all targeted my rightmost dragoon regiment and did a whopping five hits - George's response was "NOW THAT'S SHOOTIN!"

I held fast and swept my cavalry in from the flanks:

My infantry were still out of range (6") so my guns plinked away for a few hits on one cavalry unit, one highlander unit, and one gun.

Turn 2: Communication was a bit confused at this point - because I moved the highlanders 4.5 inches they were smack on the line between squares, which took a little explanation. In practice my photography seemed useful, and comments like "your infantry are a move and a half off, and your cav in range to charge this turn" got across well enough.

George charged my batteries and spread his infantry out a little, with his rear flank units attempting to extend the line.

The Jacobite guns managed to wipe out one of my dragoon regiments, while the cavalry charges were highly successful; between charging bonuses and the vulnerability of guns (which take double hits in CC) they knocked out my two outer guns.

My own moves in response were a bit complex. The Household Cav on my left moved forward and around the Jacobite flank - one struck George's cavalry in the flank, and one charged the infantry unit George had moved to extend his line. On the right, my dragoons did exactly the same thing. My Guards regiments fired a volley, to little effect despite having a "first volley" bonus. One charged Highlander unit broke and retreated towards the built-up areas on its start line. The other units took serious damage, but not enough to wipe them out.

The "ongoing" combats were more worrisome. The rules-as-written do not cover ongoing combats or the fighting scores of units that can't charge. After a little thought, and with George's agreement, I made two decisions:

• Units that cannot charge do their normal firing damage in melee.
• In the second and later turns of a combat, all rolls are at -1. (Remember we're rolling D3s, so this is pretty significant.)

It seemed to work, especially for the gun crews who wouldn't be very effective in melee.

Next, I realized that if units can only attack one opponent - and splitting attacks isn't that useful when you only have D3 to work with - George would have to make a choice.

Fight my guns but be flanked by my cavalry...

Or fight the cavalry but unmask my guns.

Fortunately for him, I then remembered it was his turn, so his infantry could simply charge the gun!

Turn 3: George's units simply moved forward, his front line charging my Guards front line. By now, as he pointed out, this was effectively a solo game, and if I'd felt healthier and run the turns faster it certainly could have been. I lost a third gun to the infantry charge, while my Guards regiments held. Morale in these rules is simply a 2d6 roll against the number of hits taken, and since at this stage my engaged units had 3 or 4 hits, it was difficult for them to roll under and thus break - though I had at least three rolls right on the number! I rallied off most of the hits on my Guard, which meant we'd both used all our "morale" rolls up - three apiece assumed to be from commanders rallying the unit, returning lost HP. In my own turn, I rolled a lot of threes on D3, but without doing enough damage to break my opponents (in part due to the -1 penalty for ongoing combat) so the fights went on.

Since only highlanders and cavalry may charge, my militia could only stand and fire rather than advance into the gaps in the line.

Only 2 has a clear line of sight here - I assume despite
the 45-degree LOS that Militia 1 and 3 can't fire into melee.

Turn 4: George's units either moved forward or continued to battle mine, while his guns shot at their only target - my mortar on the hill. None of my units broke, but they all took enough damage that many would go away next turn. I fought back; flanking helped me destroy three of his units, though this put my victorious dragoons again in the sights of George's guns.

One of George's units broke - into the back of my cavalry, which was sweeping around his flank. Here was another grey area in the rules. Had the cavalry been facing him, I'd have ruled George's infantry destroyed; had the infantry been unbroken, it would have charged into George. Neither seemed to match the events, so instead I had the broken regiment angle around.

The situation on my right - victorious dragoons with a battery
of guns just staring at them.

Turn 5: Despite some gleaming opportunities to hurt my cav, George decided to be characterful and retreat instead. Granted, he would then have been countercharged by my infantry, but at this point I think he was a bit worried by my Cannae-like flanking attempt. 

Half a highlander square. One useful thing that prevents
easy flanking is that a charging unit may only change facing once.

Another of my dragoon regiments was destroyed by fire. In my turn, my cavalry charged his highlanders, while my infantry lines started to move forward across the field.

Turn 6: Another thing for which there aren't rules; withdrawing from combat. I'm used to Warhammer games, where melee continues interminably unless one side or the other fails a morale test - rules for voluntary breaking are rare. In our case, we just allowed it - since only one side fights in a round, it seemed punishment enough that George's retreating units could not do damage to mine. On the other hand, his guns could still fire. At this point I turned to solo work - with George's permission, we just retreated his units, breaking and otherwise, towards the built-up-areas on his table edge. By the end of Turn 7, his survivors had made it to this line, and mine were halfway up the board. At least this is not a Culloden-like defeat for the rebels, who reasonably can wait until dark and slip away from their defensive position.

Casualties: (All units began with 8 HP, those listed are hits lost rather than remaining)

Jacobite: (Units 1-2 cavalry, unit 9 Ecossais, all other units Highlander)

• Gun 1 - 2 hit
• Unit 1 - destroyed
• Unit 2 - 6 hits
• Unit 3 - 6 hits
• Unit 4 - 7 hits
• Unit 5 - 4 hits
• Unit 6 - destroyed
• Unit 7 - 4 hits 
• Unit 8 - destroyed
• Unit 9 - 3 hits
• Unit 10 - 7 hits

Government casualties:

• Gun 1 - destroyed
• Gun 2 - destroyed
• Gun 4 - destroyed
• Gun 5 - 7 hits
• Household Cav 1 - 2 hits
• Household Cav 2 - 3 hits
• Household Cav 3 - 4 hits
• Dragoon 1 - 1 hit
• Dragoon 2 - destroyed
• Dragoon 3 - routed off table.
• Guard 1 - 4 hits
• Guard 2 - 2 hits
• Guard 3 - 3 hits

So the Government actually lost more units - particularly guns, though in context the guns if not the crews would be recovered. George's side had nearly all units still alive but many had taken debilitating casualties and could have been destroyed if we continued in the open field. Of 104 hit points in his army, George lost 63, while of 176, I lost 66. My back line, except for one militia unit, never saw action.

George's reaction to the rules and the game was favorable. 

Me: I think the Scots came out of it pretty well - with a little luck and a willing sacrifice at the end they could have done serious damage to the Brits. At least to the cavalry, thus avoiding a pursuit...

He: I had the impression we were starting to get the worst of it, hence the withdrawal, which worked fairly well.my original plan was to form on the buas and hope you'd attack, and also look for a weak flank. if I had to attack I was surprised to find you so forward on turn one and decided to close right away.

Me: I mostly figured the Brits would be - parading on the parade ground. I also ran quickly out of room for the units. In hindsight, I could certainly have attacked, what with outnumbering.

Issues to think about before the next time I try these short-but-sweet rules:

- Auto-destruction if breaking but trapped?

- What roll to hit during protracted combat?

- Leaving combat voluntarily?

End result - Bonnie Prince Charlie loses the Battle of Finchley Common, but manages to retreat safely with the survivors. Will he make it back to Scotland with Cumberland's and Wade's armies between him and home? Probably not, but might be an interesting skirmish down the road.

Despite the delays, George was very complimentary and offered to be my victim opponent in future remote games. Thanks to everyone who's followed this desultory little campaign.

And happy New Year!