Happy Austerlitz Day (or not!)

I finished the late Christopher Duffy's book on "the Battle of the Three Emperors" this morning, and went to see Napoleon this afternoon.

So, yeah, a little whiplash. I like Duffy's work, but as I'm more interested in the 18th-century period that first got me into gaming, this is the first time I've looked at his Napoleonics. It's very good. Short, like his other major "battle" book on Rossbach and Leuthen, but comprehensive. I read it because I knew nothing about Austerlitz - or really, anything Napoleonic other than the Peninsula and Waterloo, what with my anglophilia - and wanted a primer before the film.

I needn't have bothered, because the film makes a hash of Austerlitz (and Waterloo). Austerlitz was more interesting than I expected, because like Waterloo it seems to have been a "close-run thing." Both sides were attempting the same maneuvers, both sides had significant successes. I also learned a bit about the Russian junior commander Bagration (still dunno how to pronounce it) who gave his name to a Soviet operation in WWII.

The movie turns Austerlitz into a single trap (when as Duffy points out, most of the Russians and Austrians got away), while Waterloo is Ney's cavalry vs. the squares and that's about it. There are plenty of other inaccuracies, but in general the movie itself is ... okay. From the reviews I've read, historians are trashing the (two) battles and liking the love story; non-history buffs are liking the battles and trashing the love story. The French, understandably, hate the whole thing.

My view? The film isn't so much bad or good as superficial. It spends so little time on any one incident as to trivialize them. For that matter, I was expecting a 160-minute film to drag, but it went pretty swiftly in part because it didn't linger on "sections," jumping years at a time with little if any explanation. If you knew nothing about the period, you'd probably be badly confused. And if you read up on the actual characters and battles, you'd be more confused.

There is a good movie to be made out of the Josephine-Napoleon love story, but this isn't it. There's a good miniseries to be made out of following Napoleon's military career; again, this isn't it. Put them both together in under three hours, and... I don't think it's a disaster, but it's certainly not an "epic showcase" of a movie. It doesn't seem to make up its mind about its main character, probably because of the parallel military and romantic plots. Even the famous incidents don't come off well, with famous quotes like "whiff of grapeshot" and "wooden walls of England" seemingly left on the cutting-room floor even when they come up.

Another anniversary comes up this week, that of Leuthen, and I am trying to organize my assorted 18mm Wofuns so as to play it. Grenadiers and Curassiers are the "improved" version of the basic troops in the Junior General scenario I'm planning, and their numbers are limited in my army, so there may need to be some cosmetic proxying - that or hasty construction of yet more Paperboys! Below is my list of necessary units, to be noted as I collect each type:

Prussia (played by Prussia, Hesse and Britain) needs:

• 5 Cuirassiers (to be Paperboys)
• 4 Grenadiers (Yes)
• 6 Line Cavalry (Yes)
• 7 Line Infantry (Yes)
• 5 Guns (Yes)
• Six individual commanders (Paperboys)

Austria (played by Austria, France and Scotland) needs:

• 5 Cuirassiers (Paperboys)
• 4 Grenadiers (Yes)
• 5 Line Cavalry (Yes)
• 10 Line Infantry (Yes)
• 4 Guns (Yes)
• Six commanders (Paperboys)

Since each unit requires six "hit points," I plan to use three bases for each, with casualty figures to denote odd HP losses. Putting all the figures back in the right box as they die will be hell...

"Austrians" thus far - units in fur caps (center) might stand in for grenadiers?

"Prussians" thus far - mostly British.

Leuthen Church is also cosmetic in the game, with Leuthen itself played simply by a strip of difficult cover, but I'm trying to build the Paperboys version anyway:

The "boxes" that make the false fronts are trickiest.

So I'll have to do some printing on Monday; in the meantime I'll try to finish the church. Thanks for reading!

Alternate Histories

Achieved a couple things today. First, I finally got in a round of Junior General's Hampton Roads scenario at work.

There were fourteen fourth graders expecting an activity, and the children's librarian was busy. I checked with the teacher and she was amenable - though I presented it as "sea captains and pirates" to begin with.

I divided the kids by color of shirt - five black, nine blue - into teams. (Since Monitor has fewer guns, this is fairer than it sounds.) Then I just went person to person. Each turn, one kid would move a ship, and the rest would take turns "firing". Next turn, whoever was next in line would be "Captain" for the turn and the cycle continued. The firing mechanism is Fred T. Jane's original "pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey" routine, using the bamboo skewers seen in the above photo.

The photo is old, by the way, and I didn't have the storytime rug. Would've come in handy, actually, since the kids were naturally crowding each other; but in general they took turns and learned the procedures quickly. I was limited to the floor-carpet, but it is a blue-grey mix of angled shapes so still quite sea-like.

For presentation, I asked if they'd been studying black history, and they had. I explained that this was based on a real battle from 160 years ago, and that it might take a while or even be a tie because these ships were special. Among the first to be made of iron, cannonballs would usually bounce off! (There were "ooooh"s at this.) I taught them the ship names as well, though I used Merrimac just because it sounds funnier.

I misplaced the rules for casualties (D6 per penetrating hit), but there are other ways to win, by either hitting the waterline, the gunports or Monitor's pilot house. The Virginia took an early lead with a hit on Monitor's turret that knocked out one gun. That slowed return fire. There are two sheets of silhouettes - one short range, one long - and the Union players learned quickly to stay far away where their "crackerbox on a shingle" was too tiny to hit, and Virginia's lower speed and maneuverability made it harder to catch up. Monitor got lots of hits on its bigger target.

However, they eventually learned to present their four-gun broadside, and the few hits they got were eventually crippling. The pilot house was hit once (twice and the captain is blinded and the ship must retreat) and after half an hour they knocked out the second gun. Monitor had to retreat.

Every hit resulted in cheers, and kids were even encouraging their opponents. I had to quiet them down and tell them to sit back and not interfere with each other, but their enthusiasm was infections. The target sheets, punctured in many places, will have to be replaced.

A Bit More Minceheim

 It's been a very long while since I tried Minceheim. I turned up the Warhammer minis I intended to use it with, and just received a Battlefield in a Box forest, so let's get started.

I entered into ChatGPT: "I am playing a small skirmish wargame. Create a map of a 2x2foot table that includes hills, a forest and a ruined house."

I was hoping for a map, but I guess that's only for the AI art prograns. Instead, it gave me quite a detailed description. In addition to a forest in the center, with hills and house in the corners, it also suggested using scatter terrain, craters around the house, and a stream or pond "if your wargame has rules for bodies of water." And it provided suggestions as to whether certain areas should be difficult terrain or partial cover. Not bad.

Next, I asked for deployment of six goblins and three elves. I got units instead, but it should still work.The deployment, unfortunately, was a bit odd - Elves to SE, center and NW, Gobbos to NW, center, SE and SW. (Sort of criss-crossing each other.) This will need a little modification. I'll put the Elves all to the center and NW (largest hill) and goblins at the other three corners.

That's better...

The sides are:

Elves: Two Swordmasters of Hoeth (sword, medium armor) and a Lothern Sea Guard (spear, bow, medium armor).

Goblins: One Night Goblin Shaman (counts as handgun - it can misfire), one with sword, one with sword and shield, one with spear and shield, two archers. All with light armor.

Turn One: Elves go first. Everyone with a bow aims at a target, everyone else moves towards the enemy.

Turn Two: Gobbos go first. The Seaguard on the hill is hit twice, but passes both saves. One of the Swordmasters is hit, and even a better save for being in the forest doesn't save him from being stunned. The Seaguard fires back at the shaman and knocks him back an inch.

The central conflict.

Turn Three: The uninjured Swordmaster steps between his stunned comrade and harm, while the Seaguard climbs down out of the Shaman's view, but falls (rolled a 1) and stuns himself. Well, he was already going to be technically stunned from the climb.

Turn Four: The sides continue to approach each other. A goblin launches an arrow and would have killed an elf but for him passing his 4+ save.

Turn Five: Elves meet Gobbos in the forest, but the Elves pass their saves. In return, one Elf stuns his opponent.

Turn Six: The elf hits his stunned opponent again, but only rolls a two (pushback). I think it's fair to upgrade that to another turn of stun. The other, following up his goblin, is hit in the side by an arrow which pushes him to the side, towards a third goblin that has made it at last to the forest.

This game isn't quite as bloody as it might be.

Turn Six: One Swordmaster continues to stun his opponent. Maybe there should be a coup de grace rule? The other loses a duel with the Boss and is stunned himself.

Turn Seven: I remember thinking that shooting can be too powerful (no roll to hit) and here it is: two elves are killed by shooting. The stunned Swordmaster makes his save...

Turn Eight: ... and is back on his feet, ready to exact revenge. He hacks down his opponent! He's charged in the side by another, but this time the rolloff is a tie (+1 to the Gobbo for his shield).

Turn Nine: The Shaman, who has been waiting for this, fires off a sorcerous blast at +2 to wound. The hapless Elf is stunned and charged. He fails his 5+ armor save and a slash of the Gobbo's jagged blade ends his centuries of life.

Short but sweet again, with only one wound to the Goblins who more than held their own. Perhaps the Elves should get +1 to everything for, y'know, being Elves. Or perhaps I should have chosen an objective rather than an all-out brawl. Or maybe the rules just need a little more complexity.

Still, the rules are fun. Check 'em out! I may try his pencil-and-paper Manor House game next.

Paperboys for Featherstone and Other Such Things.

I've always been enamored of Donald Featherstone's 1963 rules, as shown on Man of Tin's blog:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/15/featherstone-simple-ww2-rules/

Three simple sets, for Ancients (a la Tony Bath), 18th/19th century, and Modern (which at the time meant WWII).

While 18th Century is my first love, I have a heaping handful of basic WWII stuff now that will work alright for the "modern" rules.

My first effort at an M4 - appears to be overarmed!

The tank didn't last long - partly because I made it out of regular "20lb" paper, it is easy to accidentally indent the "box" of the hull, and once it's closed, you can't pop it back out. I also had to use glue to stick the turret to the hull, which didn't last. The intent is to use an exacto-knife to cut a hole in the top of the hull and bottom of the turret, then connect them with a "straw" of paper. Finally, there are many accessories to add on - machine guns, markings, armor and so on, which I left out in this test model.

Two twelve-man US infantry squads.

On the gaming side of things, you'll notice I've based the infantry in three-man teams. This is because those 1963 WWII rules are among the first to have multibases, three figures apiece. These may be riflemen, machine-gunners, mortar sections, etc, but each is effectively a singular element that can be killed by a single die roll (usually a five or six to hit). I look forward to trying this, but tanks and artillery are important to the game too - infantry alone plinking at each other would not be so interesting.

For this reason, I'm considering also using plastics. I've had a canister of toy WWII types for ages, and - in part to provide some armor to use bazookas and panzerschrecks against - I also added a few 54mm scale toy tanks. I'm having the same dilemma between Little Wars Paperboys and Armies in Plastic toys for playing two 54mm-scale games - HG Wells' Little Wars and Howard Whitehouse's A Gentleman's War. I'll discuss that in a future post.

Instead, here's a few more Paperboys types I'm working on:

A third squad of US WWII infantry

A few Sioux and buffalo for Native American Heritage Month.
Not shown - an Aztec house and a couple Tipis.

The newest Paperboys are tricky to assemble because they do not have tabs - they must be stuck edge-on to the base. White glue is best for this, but I've found it helps to add the drop of glue, then leave it several minutes to set before sticking the figure into it. It also helps if you can vertically bend or "kink" the figure, and while you can achieve the same effect by cutting out the legs and giving them a "step out" pose, it works better on rows of figures than on individuals, as you can see. So in future I may leave the space under their legs uncut.

Something else gamewise I need to plan: a Dungeons and Dragons encounter for tomorrow. The Youmedia manager wants me to run it properly, in place of the generic games and puzzles, so, ah well, I'll try it. So I'm reading the basic rules, listening to a couple how-to-gamemaster books, and prepping dice sets.

I also have a few things to try to paint: 8th edition 40K starter Space Marines, and 10th edition starter set Tyranids.

And a couple things to game - that test Dragon Rampant game, and a round of Minceheim.

Oh, and a job interview.

I think I'm under a certain Chinese curse...

Sergeants Three

We played a Gunga Din scenario at Das Krieg Haus last week. I haven't seen the film since university, but it was the GM, Devon's, favorite, and he even had miniatures of the stars for us to play. It's been a long while since I've gotten in a game of The Sword and the Flame. The blocky but attractive setting:

Some of the simpler building were made by Devon's grandfather,
a nice keepsake!

One of the objectives - fallen telegraph poles which I had to raise
to request reinforcements.

In the film, starring Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks and Victor McLaglen, Kipling's "Sergeants Three" find themselves holding off a swarm of Thuggee cultists. (I asked if there was a miniature of Indiana Jones about, and there was!) I got McLaglen, AKA Sergeant McChesney. Each sergeant had ten Indian troops, Guides I think, and a bhisti. The bhistis allowed a roll against a D8 for wounded troops. 1-3 dead, 4-6 no result, 7-8 recovered. I'm sad to say nearly all our attempts got the wounded men inadvertently killed, to the point that at moments of crisis we were actively hoping for it so that we wouldn't have to carry them out of reach of the enemy! (In TSATF, Colonial troops take morale checks when wounded men are killed by natives, but two men assisting one wounded man aren't available for the firing line.)

The combat result table was simplified; in particular, British
shooting is better. Normally the best is 7 or less on a D20.

A typical result. Devon uses squares of red felt to denote the 
resting places of casualties - a handy way to make it look more
like a battlefield without cluttering the table with figures.

That's Ballantine's squad above, patrolling the town while mine fixes the telegraph lines and Cutter secures a supply building. Thuggee appeared in random buildings to pester us. The theory was that this would be like a zombie film, with enemies increasing in number as ours sank, but in practice we were lucky enough to not have more than we could handle for most of the game.

My squad were attractively painted with fur trim on the coats.

They succeeded, with random rolls, at raising the
telegraph poles and calling for reinforcement.

Despite the bad guys raining fire on me and eventually killing
both McChesney and my bhisti.

My survivors went off to help Ballantine, but ended up having to 
hide in cover until our relief under Higginbotham turned up.

Some of the opposition.

I love this figure and its enormous sword!

Cutter beseiged on the Residency roof.

While casualty-burdened good guys limp down the street.

Did I mention I was surrounded?

Higginbotham arrives, and my leaderless squad hastens to
join him.

Cutter, meanwhile, assisted by dynamite, has done enormous damage.

Ballentine and Cutter escape the board ahead of hordes of unhappy cultists.

End game - (most of) the Indian Army chaps have escaped,
leaving a lot of frustrated or dead Thuggee.

This was basically like the smaller-skirmish version The Sword in Africa - with only four players (one for each squad) and a GM trying to kill us. I was surprised that it went so well on such a small scale, but Devon removed all unnecessary mechanisms and ran the game at a fair clip. We all enjoyed ourselves, and there were, appropriately, plenty of cinematic moments. I don't think any of the bhistis survived, though, nor were they much help! A fine and atmospheric game.

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.

Dragon Rampant Preparation

It took a while, but I managed to build up sufficient models for a typical Dragon Rampant game of 24 points a side. Maybe Sunday I'll play a solo round to try it out. 

I'll need it - working three days, two of them with major programs that will stress me out. I think of wargaming as a way to be violent without getting arrested - basically the opposite of what "moral guardians" think it does for you.

Forces of Good:

• 12 Elf Archers: Light Missiles, Sharpshooter (6 points)
• 12 Halfling Militia: Light Foot (4 points)
• 6 Halfling Archers: Scouts (2 points)
• 6 Halfling Archers: Scouts (2 points)
• 12 Rangers: Light Foot, Mixed Weapons (5 points)
• Great Eagle: Lesser Warbeast, Flying (6 points)

Forces of Evil:

Not shown: one Boar-rider base, and Giant.

• 12 Orc Spearmen: Heavy Foot (4 points)
• 12 Orc Spearmen: Heavy Foot (4 points)
• 6 Goblin Boar-riders: Heavy Riders (4 points)
• 6 Goblin Boar-riders: Heavy Riders (4 points)
• 12 Goblin Archers: Light Missiles (4 points)
• 12 Goblins with hand weapons: Bellicose Foot (4 points)

I'm leaving out commanders for the moment.

I think I've got a good mix of units to test here. On one side, elites, a flyer and three different types of missile troops - on the other, an aggressive powerful, mobile force.

I've also built in the last day or two, more to relax than build usable forces , a unit of Prussian hussars:

Since pistols aren't visible, they could be Light or even Heavy Riders.

... and (if I do say it myself) an impressive block of forty-eight goblins with hand weapons:

Eight figures per base, so trickier to fit into the 6/12 figure units
of Dragon Rampant. Perhaps three bases could represent two units
that just happen to work together. Definitely Bellicose Foot.

I might mix some of these in to change up the armies.

It's been a long week, and it's getting longer. See you next time, and thanks for reading.