Spanish Windmills

Intrigued by my first game with the simple (simplistic?) Neil Thomas Napoleonic Wargaming Rules (NTNWR) I had another game, this time, with John (my usual CoC opponent) and using my vintage 20mil Naps.

John took the French.

And I took the Spanish.

In NTNWR terms the two sides were:

French in Iberian Peninsula 1808-1814
1 General 2 Line Infantry, Close Order, Musket, Average 1 Veteran Infantry, Close order, Musket, Elite* 1 Veteran Infantry, Close order, Musket, Elite** 1 Voltigeurs, Light Infantry, Musket, Average 1 Lancer, Average 1 Hussars, Light Cavalry, Carbine, Average 1 Artillery	(1).  Artillery hits on a roll of 4-6. *Light Infantry regiment **Imperial Guard with attached general

Spanish 1792 - 1815
1 General 2 Militia Infantry, Close Order, Musket, Levy 2 Regular Infantry, Close order, Musket, Average 1 Light Infantry, Musket, Levy 2 Peasant Militia, Light Infantry, Carbine, Levy 2 Horse, Heavy Cavalry, Levy 1 Artillery	(1). Infantry may not adopt Attack Column Formation.   (2).  Spanish Horse: Roll 1d6 per base when fighting cavalry Roll 2D6 per base when fighting infantry Defend as Lancers (n.m.e. cav +1D6 / base)

These are different to the lists in NTNWR as one, I didn't have the right troop types, and two, the Spanish are so penalised that I added a couple of guerrilla units to help even up the odds.  The stats for the latter were those for Peasant Militia taken straight from the Portuguese list.

Also in this game I was trying out a few house rules, but the only two that actually came up in the game were:

Artillery Fire: at long range infantry in line benefit from a 6+ saving roll.  I felt that round-shot against line should not be as lethal as against columns and squares.

Morale tests: if failed, the Unit loses a hit for every pip the d6 roll (+modifiers) was short of the pass score e.g. if the pass core is 4+ and roll a 2, you lose 2 hits.  In previous games the loss of whole base for every morale failure had very quickly reduced units to ineffectiveness.

The two armies do their IPB and try to stare each other out prior to deployment.

We took it in turn to deploy two units each until the two 'armies' were fully deployed.

As I suspect is usual for these games, the need to prevent your opponent exiting units off your table-edge meant we were both pretty spaced out across the width of the table.

John won the die roll to determine who went first and let me start the game.  On my left the Burgos regiment advanced towards Windmill Hill while further out El Rojo's band was moving to occupy the nearby wood.  In the centre, wanting to reposition the Princesa regiment I formed them into March Column (they aren't allowed to form Attack Column and Line formation is very clumsy) and moved my Light Infantry ('Vountarios') forward to occupy the small wood.

At the same time El Húsar's men moved towards the church and my dragoons swept around to go right flanking.

Slightly taken aback by a hit scored by may artillery on the 44th Ligne, John only advanced his line fairly cautiously, his hussars staying on the high ground while his Voltigeurs made a dash for the church.

His artillery proved to be out of range of most of my units, so he turned his battery towards the church where the Spanish were being more aggressive.  

In my next turn the El Rojo's band the small wood by Windmill Hill, which was to be their home for most of the battle.

And, El Húsar's band occupied the churchyard and unleashed a volley into the face of the advancing Voltigeurs.  

As I typed the above, I realised this was an error as they can only move half distance and fire and, looking at another photo (see below), they must've made a full move.  In the background another mistake in progress can be seen as I pressed forward with my dragoons and against John's hussars, although this was a tactical error and not a rule transgression.

The French continued to play it cautiously, and as Suchet with the Imperial Guard Fusilier Chasseurs held back out of range ...

... and the Voltigeurs dropped back out of carbine range from the guerrillas in the churchyard.  The hussars, not wanting to come off the hill to fight my dragoons fell back on using their carbines, but again without effect ...

... the red hit marker on the dragoons, visible in the above photo, was from his artillery.

On the other flank the 3e Légère commenced a long-running firefight with the Burgos regiment, while his lancers dared the guerrillas to leave the safety of the wood.

With the action now hotting up the number of photos taken dropped right off, and the narrative will no doubt skip a turn or two here and there.

In my turn, apart from several bouts of shooting, the dragoons charged the hussars, and despite the penalties Spanish cavalry suffer under the rules, and the Hussars' uphill advantage, pulled off a draw which means the defender has to retreat. 

Unfortunately, the hussars bounced straight back in the following turn, charging my dragoons and still with the slope in their favour.

Both units can be seen to be depleting quite rapidly.  This was because we forgot there are only 2 figures on a base and were removing double the correct number of casualties at this point.  Anyway, this time the dragoons lost and had to retreat.

Elsewhere the various firefights rumbled on, on Windmill Hill, and ... 

... at the churchyard, where the Voltigeurs could fire in perfect safety thanks to the superior range of their muskets.

Several turns now passed with the Spanish desperately trying to attrit the French by fire as they manoeuvred.  One of these manoeuvres saw the Guard Fusilier Chasseurs backing away.  

Alas, the cries of 'La Garde Recule' proved premature as they were simply repositioning in order to advance one the gap between the large wood and the church.  Meanwhile, as the hussars, having finally eliminated the Spanish dragoons, advanced around their flank behind the church.

If the guerrillas moved back to harass the hussars the Voltigeurs would be able to get into the churchyard and take them on equal terms (both would benefit from saving rolls for cover).

In the centre the French were approaching ever closer, but had now shaken out into line to reduce artillery casualties and prepare for the inevitable firefights ...

... and the first round of the Windmill Hill firefight was drawing to a conclusion. 

While the threat of the lancers, still sat on the hill, kept El Rojo's guerrillas pinned in the wood, which seemed like a good trade-off to me.

But eventually the Windmill Hill firefight had to end and my Burgos regiment was destroyed so the Princesa regiment stepped up to take their place, ...

... supported on their right flank by the Coraceros (cuirassiers) who eagerly moved up eyeing the 44e Ligne who had been badly shot up by my artillery.

Then a series of very good shooting dice rolls saw the 46e Ligne greatly reduced, not helped by calamitous morale roll that removed even more figures.

In his turn John's general, Suchet, joined his lancers and moved them across to support his infantry, surely too late for that?  He also continued pushing the hussars along the ridge to my rear and the Imperial Guard through the gap between the small wood and church.

My Coraceros then charged his infantry but bounced off!

And in the following turn John's lancers got in some early practise for Waterloo, hitting them in the flank.  

With my cuirassiers eliminated, I lost the plot for a bit, didn't see the obvious and failed to take any precautions.  John didn't miss the opportunity and his lancer ploughed on into the Almeria regiment in another flank charge.  Oops!

Surprisingly there were still left after the dust settled.

But while that was taking place, the Guard had reached my reserve, the Guadalajara regiment, and, urged on by Cambronne, charged straight in.  

OMG!  My guys actually won, and pushed the Guard back.

This put the Guard in an awkward spot where the Guadalajara regiment could shoot them up together with my artillery battery that had pivoted around to face them in my previous turn - a rare piece of foresight on my part.

With lancers off running over much of my army, El Rojo's guerrillas left the woods to massacre the few survivors of the 44e Ligne.

And the lancers responded by turning back and forcing the Princesa to form square to avoid yet another flank charge.  The following photo shows my next move with the remnants of the Almeria regiment trying to catch the lancers between two fires.  This was promptly seen off by the French artillery who managed to eliminate them completely.

So, everything now turned on whether the Guadalajara regiment and the Spanish artillery could stop the Guard from breaking through and exiting off my baseline.  They failed, only just - one more hit and would've done it.  But nothing now stood between the Guard and Madrid.

I was left with nothing but light infantry, guerrillas and my artillery but given where the lancers were now, the latter were clearly not long for this World.

So, the Spanish admitted defeat and we shook hands after what was an enjoyable game.  The rules might be simple but they are not taxing so keep it light and fun.

Post Mortem

The old-fashioned fight to the finish with few troops left on the table at the end is perhaps something that can be addresses as it feels a bit OTT.  Other than that, the real issue we had was how units retreat from a combat leaving the victor standing, often exposed to other enemy units.  Perhaps a pursuit option?  Who knows, that's all for another day.

Some New (to me) Napoleonic Rules

The concluding episode from a couple of days gaming with three friends.

Game 3-of-3 (see previous posts for the other two games)

I had been intrigued by the comments on the 'Hinton Spieler' blog about the use of Neil Thomas' Napoleonic Wargaming Rules (henceforth NTNWR) and as I often play Napoleonics with my friends, I thought we should try them out.  My thinking was that they should at least be quick and allow us to finish a game before everyone had to leave for home.  

As three of us have 6mm Napoleonic armies, that was always going to be what we would use for this game, with Martin's Bavarians and my French taking on Steve's Austrians supplemented by a few of my Prussians to make up the numbers.

To save time we used the existing Hexon terrain layout from the previous games, minus the mountains and with the trees replaced by my smaller woods and some built up areas.

The deployment of the four 8-unit armies (one each) is shown below.

While that looks like a lot more than 8 units each, we were treating each NTNWR 'unit' as Brigade of four units ('bases' in NTNWR), each of four bases ('hits' in NTNWR).  Thus, instead of keeping a record of hits (or using markers) until a base was lost after four hits, we simply removed a base for each hit.  I knocked up some simple, but in the event quite restrictive, rules for how a brigade would deploy, depending on the formation (if Close Order foot). 

The brigades (less Martin's Bavarian cavalry and one of Steve's Austrian cavalry, both out of shot), that effectively constitute what is called a 'unit' in NTNWR are shown below.

As you can see, if you count them, we each have eight units, allowing for those just out of shot.  But using lots of 6mm figures in place of 28mm makes for armies that look far more Napoleonic in scale.  We also used the ranges and movement distances as in the rules.

I took few photos during the game and made no notes so I won't attempt a narrative of the battle.  Instead, I'll include a few more photos then go on to record my impressions of this my first experience with these rules.

The early turns were dominated by artillery

With no interpenetration brigades were awkward to manoeuvre

The Bavarian battery and troops in the built-up area looked formidable

The Austrians tried - and failed

Cavalry found it difficult to get past their own infantry

The Imperial Guard hung back all game to avoid getting hit!

In the end the Austrians were defeated and had to yield the field, although to be fair it was because many of their actions were driven by the spirit of play-testing, i.e. attempting the difficult to see how it worked out in the rules.

Post-Game Punditry

First, and probably most important, the game ran pretty quick, but lasted some time because, not only were we unfamiliar with the rules, but we had quite long discussions about how every new encounter played out.  So, while there are some big simplifications in the rules it has to be born in mind that addressing some of the observations below risks slowing the game down, and I do want my games to run to a clear decision.

Pros (quick play is a given)

1). I very much liked the ability of infantry to easily repel frontal attacks by cavalry while fresh without forming square.  The way this degrades as the units become worn, and need to be in square to survive, punishes the use of cavalry against any but sorely tried infantry (unless of course you can hit them in the flank).

2). The difficulty of manoeuvring units due to the prohibition of any form of interpenetration stops armies from being overly responsive.  This together with, IMO, the relatively slow movement (infantry columns move 12cm) goes a long way to making up for an I-GO U-GO sequence and the absence of any command-and-control (C2) mechanism (the player has freedom of action to move each unit as he wishes).

3). Our reading of the rules was that units cannot change facing to their flank and that formation changes did not include a change of facing.  This was very restrictive but on balance I felt it was a 'Pro' as, in the absence of a C2 system, it forced one to live with the consequences of earlier decisions.

4). Counter-battery fire was, to me, pleasingly ineffective.

5). The differentiation in range between rifles and muskets seems over done but the reduced hit rate of Light Infantry (and only they have rifles) compensates for this.

Cons

1). The inability to pass through friends in any way makes it very difficult for second-line units to advance to attack if the first-line unit is defeated.  That and the second-line has to be some way back or the first-line when defeated will lose heavily if its retreat is obstructed by the second-line troops.  On top of this, the retreat distance being only a half, or full, move means defeated infantry will take some time to clear the way for any follow up troops.  Without any clear idea of the time or figure scale in the rules it's hard to judge whether this is reasonable, or not. 

2). Artillery, unlike any other troop type, has nationality modified effectiveness that make the best (French & Russian) twice as lethal as the worst (British & Spanish).  This sits uneasily with the simplified approach to other troop types, where all infantry, from Levy to Elite (the latter including Old Guard), fights on exactly the same factors, the only difference being in their respective morale tests.

3). Artillery is also equally effective against all target types, the only saves coming from being in cover or an artillery (dispersed) target.  Infantry in line are therefore just as vulnerable as infantry in square.

4). The lack of clarity over whether you can charge through a battery to attack the Close Order infantry unit protecting it meant we just avoided doing this.  But reading some of the voluminous pontification surrounding the rules makes me think this is what should happen.

5). Close Order infantry being unable to charge other Close Order infantry unless stronger than them seems sensible if restrictive.  But it is not made clear about what happens if the defensive fire reduces the attacker to the point where this is no longer the case.  As the defensive fire only occurs because the charge takes place, we decided that the charge would go in regardless.

6). There is no concept of disorder, i.e. temporary loss of effectiveness; units are ready to act immediately after a mêlée.  All loss of unit effectiveness (apart from tactical and terrain effects) is permanent.  But this simplification no doubt speeds play and reduces bookkeeping. 

7). Morale tests only result in the loss of unit strength (troops) and never a Retreat, this kept things simple, but combined with the 'bloody' nature of combat in these rules meant units once committed would get ground down to nothing rather than flee.

8). The Army Lists are a bit 'gamey', Austrian Grenzer in 1809 having rifles and Prussian Jäger in 1813 having muskets?  I think this is because NTNWR assumes the units are an amalgam of units and therefore Austrian light troops include Jäger and Prussian Jäger include some musket skirmishing troops?

Conclusion

Despite having written more under Cons than Pros, I definitely intend trying these again, as looking back on the game they are growing on me.  Many of the aspects that seemed problematic often only appeared so until something else happened that seemed to balance things out.

I think some house-rules are inevitable, I'm an inveterate tinkerer, but hopefully I won't overcomplicate it and spoil their simplicity.

Holding the Gap of Rohan

The continuing tale of a couple of days gaming with three friends.

Game 2-of-3

Wanting a quick game that we could finish and still get to pub not too late, we opted for a game of Dragon Rampant using my Lord of the Rings figures I'd recently had painted up by Fernando Enterprises in Sri Lanka (see earlier post for details).

The terrain from our previous game (previous post) was quickly rearranged, removing the 15mm settlements and opening up the battlefield a bit.  The two armies consisted of:

The Goodies (Rohan & Gondor): Martin and Me

• 1 x Elite Riders - Prince Theodred
• 2 x Heavy Rider - Riders of Rohan
• 1 x Heavy Foot - Rohan Warriors
• 2 x Elite Foot - Rangers of Ithilien
• 1 x Greater Warbeasts - Giant Eagles 
• 1 x Lesser Warbeasts - Eagles

The Baddies (Isengard): Steve and Keith

• 2 x Bellicose Foot - Uruk Hai
• 4 x Light Foot - Orcs / Goblins
• 1 x Scouts - Orc / Goblin Scouts
• 1 x Light Riders - Warg Riders
• 1 x Lesser Warbeasts - Wargs
• 1 x Greater Warbeast - Cave Troll 

With various special abilities added to these troops the total points value of each side was 61 points.  With our scenario calling for the forces of Isengard to pass through the Gap of Rohan (exit off the opposing table-edge) we should have perhaps given them an edge as they needed to make all the running.

I didn't take a photo of the table set up, but I deployed on the left opposite Steve with, on my left, the Eagles and a unit of Rangers.

And, towards the centre, my other unit of Rangers backed up by the Giant Eagles.

As can just be made out in the above photos, Steve had a band of Uruks, two bands of Orcs, the Orc Scouts and a pack of Wargs.

Martin, commanding the forces of Rohan, formed our right wing.

While opposite him Keith had a band of Uruks, two bands of Orcs, the Warg Riders and the Cave Troll.

While I held back defending a couple of gaps between the impassable rocky outcrops, Martin led forth the Rohirrim; Forth Éolingas!

But some failed activations for Martin, and some unstoppable wild charges by my forces, saw the action begin in earnest on my flank.  The Giant Eagles quickly tore their way through the opposition taking heavy losses but resolutely passing all their Courage tests.

With my Rangers keeping the rest of Steve's troops at arm's length with their archery, Keith's Uruks charged the Rohirrim, who despite counter-charging took heavy losses but returned to the fray the following turn.

This time they were more successful, but the Uruks passed their courage test and the riders fell back.

The next few turns saw several more charges (but no photos!), that saw the Rohirrim drive off the Uruks and Orcs and turn to fall on the last hope of Isengard, the Cave Troll.

At first the Troll held his own but, as the riders fell back from combat and started to pelt him with arrows, the end was clearly in sight for the forces of darkness.  Then, to delight of all, the baddies conceded the field and the players all trotted off to the pub.