Saruman Takes Command

Taking on board comments from my last game of Dragon Rampant (DR) / Lord of the Rings (LotR), I trimmed down the wasted points on some of the Isengard troop types and freed up enough points to add an Elite Foot Spellcaster; Saruman (accompanied by Wormtongue).

Would Saruman's presence balance the sides and enable him to overcome the forces of Rohan and Gondor?  To help me find out, Phil kindly volunteered to come over and play the 'bad guys'.

The two sides were same as last time with the exception of adding Saruman and tweaking the bonus attributes on some units to balance the sides at 61 points each - a big game for Dragon Rampant which usually fields 24 points a side.

The Goodies (Rohan & Gondor): 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): Phil

• 1 x Elite Foot / Spellcaster - Saruman
• 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 

We opted to keep things simple and used Scenario A, 'Gory Bloodbath on the Plains of Doom' a line 'em up and fight to the death.  We rolled dice to determine who was the 'attacker' and who the 'defender' - I lost so deployed first.

On my left, I put a unit of Ithilien Rangers in the wood and the Giant Eagles way out on my left flank ready to fly in as required.

In the centre the I lined up the Rohirrim.

And on my right, the other ranger unit and the (non-giant) Eagles providing a similar flank threat to their larger cousins on the other flank.

Phil forces deployed with a fairly continuous line of Orc units, with the Troll and one Uruk band to the right (his right) of the wood in the centre of his deployment area (the Orc Scouts in that wood are just out of shot).

And the other Uruk band out on his left flank with the Wargs.

As the attacker Phil took the first move but apart from advancing the Orc Scouts in the wood, passed on any further moves to see what I would do.

I advanced both Ranger units, eager to get the forward edge of their respective woods from where they could start shooting.  The Rohan infantry moved up to keep level with the rangers and the mounted troops kept station just back from the foot.  In his next turn Phil also pressed forward with most of his troops.  This brought them into range and my left-flank Rangers opened the ball with a volley of arrows against the Troll removing 1 strength point (SP) as indicated by the red marker. 

Undeterred, Phil pushed forward.  In my turn the Rangers on the right reached the edge of the wood to see quite a lot of bad guys coming their way.

Now the armies are a bit closer to each other, overview photos became more practical, and the photo below should make all the above a bit easier to follow.

And for more detail, some closer photos of my left wing ...

... my centre ...

... and my right wing.

My Eagles, who passed their Wild Charge test, now activated to swoop down on the Uruk band in the first combat of the game, and drove them back (unbattered).

Nearby, some excellent shooting by the Rohan infantry and the Rangers, and poor Courage dice rolls by the Wargs and an Orc band saw both targets battered (yellow marker)!

On the other flank the Giant Eagles, not be outdone fell upon the Troll and sent it packing (retreating, but not battered).  

This was beginning to look too easy.  In the next turn the Uruks charged the Giant Eagles and defeated them, inflicting a loss of 2SPs, and when they threw their Courage test dice ... they got Snake-Eyes and promptly routed off-table.

That, and Saruman healing (restoring an SP) the Troll, wiped the smile off my face, but in my turn the Eagles, making up for their larger brethren, fell upon the Wargs and reduced them to a single figure, albeit the Warg leader's Courage held.

I also felt the time was now right to release the Rohirrim and finish off the Troll - Forth Éolingas!

This sent the Troll packing, but only managed to take off the SP Saruman had just restored.  Trolls are tough.

Another overview shows the situation at this stage (I'm sure I've missed out quite a bit of the action up to this point but no notes were taken during this game).

And a couple more shots, one of my left wing ...

... and one from the other end of the table.

In Phil's turn the Uruk band near the Troll failed their Wild Charge and attacked the Rohirrim unit that had driven it off.

Hold on there a minute Muskie!  I can try to counter-charge!  That's better.

Or at least so I thought.  The Uruks rolled some devastating dice, and I made a devastating cock-up.  I got confused with my Elite Rohirrim unit and thought each figure was 2SPs, so instead of the unit dropping to half-strength they lost one figure and took a red marker.  And then when working out the winner I went by number of figures lost!  Screw-up piled on top of cock-up!  So, Phill's Uruks retreated instead of my men - Oh the shame of it!

Saruman, no doubt annoyed by what looked to him like a most egregious case of cheating unleashed a Power Bolt.

This should've all but annihilated the unit, but with red markers in play the confusion over the Rohirrim SPs continued and they only lost one more figure.  In reality they should've been cut down to one figure at this point!!!

Then, when Lady Luck should've kicked me into the gutter, a little bit of shooting against the Uruks on the other side of the table saw them Snake-Eye their Courage test and flee the field.

With the Uruks gone the other Rohirrim unit seized the opportunity to ride down the last Warg. 

Leaving the table looking like this.

Now, as if to completely disprove the adage that 'cheats never prosper', Phil had a run of dreadful luck with his rallying of battered units and activations that, combined with a fairly bloody Rohirrim charge on one of his Orc bands, saw his army drastically reduced.  With his army down to Saruman, one Orc band and the Orc Scouts, Phil conceded the field - which looked like this.

As can be seen above, my regular Rohirrim unit had 1SP left, the Elite Rohirrim 4SPs and the two Ranger units with 4 and 5 SPs respectively.  BTW the reduced Elite Rohirrim at the bottom left was the result of another Power Bolt from Saruman (he cast several during the game but several had turned out to be damp squibs).  

Post Mortem

Half-way through it was looking like another easy win for the good guys, but the baddies staged a bit of comeback that had me worried.  But were the sides better balanced?  Maybe, but as a traditional wargamer I'm used to tables with less terrain than the typical DR game and I think this is making missile troops more effective, and I had a definite advantage in shooting.  That is until Saruman started unleashing Power Bolts.

BUT, the ghastly error over the mounted Rohan units certainly kept them in the game longer than they should have, and their earlier demise could easily have tipped the battle to the Dark-Side.  

So, yes, I do think the sides are now better balanced if I can only stop cocking up the rules!

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 ...

... the Voltigeurs dropped back out of carbine range from the guerrillas in the churchyard, and 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.