Rifles & Diplomatic Bags

Count Olaf's hunting Lodge

Count Olaf sat at the rough oak table in what served as dining room to his hunting lodge. Before him lay a number of oily rags and half a dozen pieces of what made up his favourite fowling rifle.

It was a very expensive English piece and he made a number of mental calculations as to the cost of equipping a squadron of dragoons with such weapons. Expensive, but a hundred mobile men with rifles accurate to three hundred yards would be a formidable and mobile force. He must mention the idea to General Bojollay.

The sound of hoofs in the cobbled yard made Olaf sigh. Undoubtedly the diplomatic bags for him to plough through: how tedious. He had hoped to be shooting duck at the side of the lake before the courier arrived. Within a minute a footman in shabby green livery entered the dining room with the red velvet bag. At least there was only one bag today.

Olaf emptied the contents around the lock, stock and barrel and immediately picked out the pale yellow parchment with the blue wax seal not much smaller than a saucer. Only the Emperor and the Duke of Fromagere were so ostentatious and Olaf guessed it was not from the Emperor.

He tore open the seal and read the long letter from his hated neighbour. The damned cheek of the man…

The door opened again, this time General Bojollay waddled in. Olaf turned and said: “You will never guess, old fellow, what that damnable Fromagere has suggested.”

“It cannot be good news, Olaf,” replied the general. “For a small army of Fromagere's is massing along the river as we speak.”

The Duchess in Memoriam

The Duke of Fromagere stood, head bowed, before the monument. The mass of marble and gilt towered before him; chubby cherubs playing lyres and loosing arrows from little bows. To the side and a step behind the Duke the Archbishop droned an interminable liturgy that echoed around the great baroque cathedral.

It had been twelve months to the day since the Duchess had passed and the unveiling of the great memorial would end the year of official mourning that the Duke had deemed appropriate. Appropriate to the rest of Fromagere of course, excluding his favourite mistress, Catherine, and his second favourite Juliana. And the red headed maid that he insisted bring his breakfast on Sunday mornings.

A gentle touch on the arm brought him back from his thoughts. “Errm now a year has passed,” stammered the Archbishop. “It may be time to find Your Grace a new wife. A man ought not retire to an empty bed.”

“Poor deluded fool”, thought the Duke; but he had a point. Perhaps he ought to take a new wife and a large dowry wouldn’t go amiss. Those Parisian bankers did keep sending debt collectors every couple of months.

That evening the Duke summoned the foreign minister to his palace chambers. "I need a new wife Minister Gaperon; any suggestions?"

Ne're an eyebrow twitched on Gaperon's high brow. After a brief pause he said: "The Countess Dolingen of Gratz has been widowed recently,"

"Again?"

"It's a dangerous world Your Grace."

"Rich?"

"She has a nice palace and a lot of land in Styria."

"Bit close to the Emperor."

"Perhaps, I may be so bold. The Countess Wilhelimina may be a perfect choice."

"Have you lost your senses Gaperon," spluttered the Duke. "Apart from the fact that those damned Mittleweins have been our sworn enemies for three hundred years she must be over forty!"

"But still a beauty. Perhaps it's time to make friends with our neighbours. Besides it makes more sense to acquire a bride with land adjacent to Fromagere."

"But her son, the Count. rules Weinpfalz, Gaperon, or had you forgotten?"

"It is a dangerous world, Your Grace. And the Count has no heir."

".... and possibly not too late for the Countess to bear another."

Gaperon was an excellent diplomat and without hesitation answered the seventy year old Duke. "No, Your Grace."

So that was Christmas

...and as usual entailed lots of running about for teenage kids and aged relatives with not much chance of painting or gaming, Ho Hum.

Santa was very kind however with volumes III and IV of Wargaming in History. I'm not much of an ACW buff but I couldn't bear to see I, II, IV on the bookshelves. Touch of OCD probably. Also the man in red provided Osprey's "Battle of Zorndorf". Nasty. The battle not the book. And a couple of nice CDs to paint by: C18 naturally - Haydn and Bach concertoes.

I didn't get nearly enough painted in 2011 nor enough games played so, hopefully, 2012 will be better on those fronts. Mental note not to buy any more figures until etc etc. We all know that mantra.

Although Hat may finally get those marching Prussians into production and 20mm Nostalgic Revival have some very nice new metal to match the Zvezda.

Finally I must get the Wars of Wine and Cheese back on track so a visit to the archives and diaries of Prince Lupus is pressing.

One of the highlights of 2011 was the discovery of "History of Rome dot com". An excellent podcast about - you guessed it - which has kept me informed and amused with 2,000 year old news. As we are now well into the C5th I shall soon need a new diversion - any suggestions?

Merry Christmas

From Dave Beagle

Rules & BWS

I have been writing up our games at Birmingham Wargames Society on this blog whilst other reports have appeared elsewhere. So BWS have a new blog site where we can consolidate our wargaming story - please follow the link if interested.

The intention is keep this blog for my attempt at creating the world of wine and cheese which I can hopefully (re) kick start over the forthcoming holiday period.

Firstly which rules:

As with many imagineers I started this project with the intention of using the seminal Charge! rules (Young & Lawford) that first revealed to me that playing with toy soldiers didn’t have to end with junior school. A joy just to read but also a simple, fun and subtle set of rules for horse foot and guns.

There is of course a “but” or two about to follow.

Firstly while I love the look of individually based figures it does lead to a lot of messing about. Unfortunately I do not have a permanent wargame space and need to get games over and packed away in less than three hours. I get the impression that the Brigadier may have spent a day or two over his games. Also I am using the lovely Zvezda plastics which even when based on thin steel have a propensity to fall over if the table is nudged.

So the figures are now based up in eights (a firing platoon in Charge). This, of course, leads to the predicament of removing individual figures which I have solved with the use of steel bases and magnetic sheet. Gluing the front rank down and having the second rank on magnetic sheet. Choosing the simple Old Wargames approach of painted bases this doesn’t present too much of an issue. In fact painting the bases the same colour as the wargames table (Wittenburg green) means that you can’t really tell they’re on bases at all. The steel bases do slide easily across the painted MDF too. This does mean that officers and Nco are included in the unit total.

However there is of course the issue of individual cavalry melees. These can be fun but big fights can take an inordinate amount of time. I have therefore decided on new cavalry melee rules based on the old Wargames Holiday Centre Marlburian rules published in a magazine in the early 90’s. Essentially throwing a dice per figure in the front rank and determining total hits from a predetermined number.

Another thing that gives me headaches is the half and halve again after some firing. So while I intend to keep the half casualties at long range I shall adopt the “save” on top half of the dice for targets requiring half effect such as cavalry. While this will balance out over a game it can give more varied results.

Then there is the issue of morale. While the rules as written have the morale built in with regards casualties lost, the use of the 50% rule (ie a unit is fine at 51% but not at 49%) does mean that the point at which a unit will withdraw can, sometimes, be easily judged. Also, following a melee the loser will withdraw, very civilized but I would prefer an option to rout too. Finally one point I don’t like is that a charge cannot be stopped by fire. It can lead to a situation where a cavalry charge on an infantry unit can take a lot of punishment going in and get well beaten in melee and still leave the infantry in a disordered state that has to withdraw. There are many examples of cavalry being stopped short by steady volleys.

So, I’m going to try out the following morale tests. Firstly for units whose losses exceed 50% a dice throw (following firing) less casualties taken above half the original unit strength, a resulting score of 0 or less means withdraw as per rules, a pass allows the unit to carry on. Secondly for units charging in a couple of dice thrown less casualties taken during the charge a resulting score of 0 or less means withdraw before contact. Finally a throw of one or two dice for the loser (one if understrength) less the difference in melee casualties: a resulting score of 0 or less means rout otherwise withdraw as per the rules.

Hopefully I’ll be able to give these a whirl over Christmas. Calls for port and stilton methinks.

Octobers military disasters

I keep trying to get my son interested in wargames but to little avail. Not as exciting as Call of Duty or whatever the latest Xbox fad is.

However to keep his dad happy he agreed a quick game of Crossfire which, I told him, needed the same sort of tactical skills as COD.



Unfortunately the battery gave up on the camera so only a couple of shots of the table before deployment.

A typical Crossfire set up with lots of terrain pieces to move between.

We played a simple scenario with Jack (my son) ordered to assault the village with a couple of Italian companies and HMGs. I held the village and surrounding woods with half the number of French. Jack quickly grasped the simple mechanisms of the game and, with pretty poor firing on my part, had quickly outflanked the French and charged in decisively.

In less than an hour the Italians held the village and the poor French were destroyed.

Perhaps I need to get my own Xbox .

I forgot my camera for my monthly game at Birmingham Wargames Society this month but no doubt there will be questions in parliament.

As commander of a large British and native force it should (in hindsight) have been relatively easy to get a wagon train across the veldt. With a couple of cannon and a gatling gun I naively assumed we could simply mow the Zulu hordes down. There were of course "farsands or 'em" but "we are British Old Chap".

The Zulu plan, I discovered, was to draw us into the valley.

However Blackpowder's command system meant that the British really didn't want to move. Bored waiting in the bush the Zulus attacked. The British sent out the cavalry to hold up the impis but even the lancers had little success. Out in the open there were just too many natives and we were over run.




Not an auspicious wargaming month. At least we live to fight another day.
I

Wake me up when September ends

Long time no post. Summer stuff has got in the way of drivelling on the blog but it's dark at 7:30 now. Winter drawers on? Not quite as it was 28c today. Ridiculous temperatures for October.

Anyway - yesterday we got out Songs of Drums and Shakoes again. We took the scenarios from the main book and supplement (the sensibly named More Drums and Shakoes) and had three fun games with only a few figures. The first scenarios was the Foraging Mission which gave Richard the opportunity to show of his rather dapper sheep. Having more players than expected we stretched the table to six feet by three and had four British squads attempting to run off the Johnny frog and steal the mutton.




Very out of focus redcoats look a bit arty in the woods.




A single French squad hold off the Brits from behind the fold.

The gunfire soon brings reinforcements from the nearby farm and a protracted struggle ensues around the stone walls.

Eventually however numbers tell and the French run away to the farmhouse leaving the redcoats with the meat.

Brimming with confidence Major Gray has no hesitation in following the retreating French ever hopeful of more supplies in the farm.

A wide stream stretches in front of the fenced farmyard. But only one bridge.

Of course the question is always asked "is the river fordable?". The scenario in the book suggests that it should not be but as this was a mulitplayer game the rule was that a soldier may attempt to cross but must throw a D6 to see if he got wet. 4,5,6 meant a successful crossing, 2 or 3 and that meant a slip and damp powder so no firing for the rest of the game. And a 1 would lead to the poor soldier being dragged down stream and drowned. So probably worth a try as we will see.





Two French squads take up positions in and around the farm with the bridge well covered.

Good activation brings a squad of rifles quickly onto the bridge and get a quick kill. Good start by the chosen men. Another British squad follow up in support while a third intend to make a quick dash over the stream to assault the lightly held farmyard.

I suspect Private Boursin smokes too much.

However the French light infantry taking advantage of their cover hold their own around the bridge and quite a few Brits hit the deck allowing the French to charge in.

The outflanking movement reaches the stream. The first brave soldier wades in and Richard shakes his dice with the wry comment "and now he drowns." Of course a 1! Undeterred the next figure takes off his boots and dips his toe.

1!

Another Brit floats face down.

It can't happen again - and doesn't. The third figure crosses the babbling brook.

Now for the fourth figure.

1

Oh dear!

It was about now I was struggling for breath - with laughter - for poor Richard had lost half his unit playing in the water and of course fails his morale.

On the bridge Major Gray leads a charge to break through but is brought down by a well aimed musket!

The rules suggest a game can be quick but this must be a record.

Scenario 3 Baggage Wagon

Wary that the Brits may come back the French load up the wagons and head off to the border.

All they have to is get the two wagons from one end of the table to the other. Given that no one else can be seen this shouldn't be a problem.

The wagons are allowed to move once every turn but the squads must activate as usual.



Due to poor activation the wagon starts to pull ahead from the guard.

The wagon train moves along the road unhindered for half a dozen moves but there is movement in the bushes and a crashing volley is delivered at point blank range.

Fortunately for the French it is Spanish guerillas hidden in the woods and there is no effect.

However at the head of the column the Spanish charge out and with odds of four to one manage to bring down sergeant Boursin.



All seems to be going well for the Spanish until a rash charge onto a wagon by Furia Roja himself leads to him being skewered on a French bayonet.

The resultant morale failure sees the guerillas scurry back to the woods and against all the odds two tired squads of Frenchmen make their wearyway towards the Pyrenees.