Deus Vult - First Play

Report by Steve H, Pictures by JJ
Every summer we all put on our best smocks and head north to Barnstaple for the great Summer game . This involves much planning and preparation as we never seem to choose a period for which we already have masses of figures and this year will be no exception as we will be playing a big Crusader game (or whatever we are supposed to call this period now).

So the following activities need to be started in advance:

Buy and paint additional figures on top of any existing stock.

Parcel out painting duties

Learn the relevant rule set.

Get false birth certificates made up to prove that we are all related and this will prevent us being burnt in a wicker frame as outsiders.

Buy beer.

A smaller advance game is also played to try out the said new rules so that we all have plenty of time to forget it all before the big event takes place in June/July.

This month Chas bravely put on the trial game using the Deus Vult rules which are aimed at this period. There is no point giving a Battle Report as it was just a trial game where we tried to play out every rule going irrespective of its effect on the battle and also because I got completely wiped out . If you want to know about sequences and stuff then there have been much more complete reviews for Deus Vult on other sites like TMP which I suggest you read. Instead this is going to be a gamers’ first glance. What you get below is my summary of what we learned from the game, intermixed with pictures of the game taken by JJ.

You start by splitting your forces into Divisions, we had five each with four to six units per division and the divisional commanders have various ratings which are rolled for against a table, recorded onto their individual card and these are used as required. 

Each unit also has all the normal stuff you would expect as well, all be it with different names. Discipline is used for movement decisions and Courage for morale (overly simplified by me) but you can on occasions use your Divisional Commanders ratings instead if within the 8” radius.

Then you decide each turn who has the Initiative (Straight roll off) and you stack your Leader Cards in the sequence you wish to move them, each side then moves one division (Initiative Winner decides which side gets to move first) and carries out all shooting and fighting before moving on to the next. 

What did I learn, well obviously not much given my complete lack of survivors but here goes.

Commanders have a Command rating either rolled for as above or historically allocated and this determines how many units in your division you can choose to move each turn. 

Suppose like our reserve your command rating is one and you have four units , well each turn one unit can take actions as normal and you join a second unit for the old follow me type stunt. The other two units must then wait until everyone else has moved and either do nothing, or roll against their Discipline rating to activate.

Now I wish at this point  to add in a common occurrence. Whenever you have to do something like a Discipline Test or Morale/Courage you get to do the 4+ roll . As long as you can score 4+ on a dice you pass, I like this as its simple, no cross referencing multiple lists. Better troops/leaders get to roll more dice but still only need one 4+. So our elite reserve got to throw two dice to try and activate for being out of command and my scummy ill-disciplined horse archers only had one roll which is why I failed my evade dice three times running. 

Ah ha you say, why not use your commanders rating instead, that’s all very well but he was also a one and besides he was underneath piles of dead horse archers.

Failure is punished by going into disorder so think before you roll.

Shooting is ok as well, ranges are quite long but suitable for 28mm and you get two dice per six man infantry base and one dice per two man cavalry base. 6’s are killing hits with 4’s and 5’s being what I call morale hits. First try and save the kills against your armour save and then add all the hits together to see if you have forced a morale/courage roll (the old 4+ again). Usually anything between three to five hits will be enough depending on the troops. You can shoot twice if standing still.

Now hand to hand. This took me a while to absorb, the main point is that you don’t get to fight back until its your turn and this takes a bit of getting used to, plus if they have already moved that division this turn then it is possible, with good luck, to hit them again in the next turn before they get any chance to reply. Hand to hand requires lots of dice. Hits as per shooting above.

Key points I learnt the hard way.

If charged and you have only one dice to roll to try and evade then you might as well counter charge no matter how puny you are .

You see we are now moving on to Disorder, this is heavily punished in Deus Vult.

Never get disordered. If you fail a 4+ roll then you are disordered (there are other ways but that’s the main one). If disordered then all shooting and combat dice are now changed so that a  4/5/6 will kill. Nasty!

In our game a unit of half dead knights, (that’s half dead not undead) being rather miffed about the amount of pointy things coming their way, charged all those responsible and each time my horse archer units got charged they failed the evade roll, becoming disordered and got to lie down in untidy heaps very fast. 

I admit that if I had instead counter charged I would still have had to pass a Disarray test but without the rules I don’t remember if this was as bad. Probably.

Finally each unit has a mass of additional skills like Counter Charge or Manoeuvrable , I think the record for one of our units was nine and these all do various jolly things to liven up the day.

So don’t get disordered, and finish off those weak units (taken off when you lose the next base after 50% e.g. if six bases strong then remove from table when down to two bases).

Obviously it was our first time so we must have made masses of errors, however we did try out as many rules as possible and it looks a promising set of rules suitable for the Summer Game. 

Battle of Harlem Heights, 16th September 1776 - Maurice

Yesterday at our monthly club meeting I was planning to play my first game of "Chain of Command", but owing to some unfortunate illness amongst our game organisers (get well soon Jason & Nathan) I needed to pull together a game at short notice.

Way back on the 9/10/2011 I staged a game from the board game "Hold the Line", effectively "Command & Colours" for the American War of Independence. The scenario was the Battle of Harlem Heights using figures on a hex mat.
You can read the game report here

I've thought that the scenarios in Hold the Line would translate well into scenarios for Maurice, so here was an opportunity to try out a game.

Table top interpretation of the map from the American positions

View from the British positions

The forces were translated thus
British commanded by General Howe
5 Elite Regular battalions (2 x Grenadiers, 2 x Lights & 1 x Highlanders)
9 Trained Regular battalions
2 Artillery

Americans commanded by General Washington
8 Trained Regular battalions (Continentals)
4 Conscript Regular battalions (Militia)
2 Irregular Infantry (Rifles)
1 Artillery

The basic premise of this scenario is that the American army is attempting to ambush the British advance guard (the five elite battalions) and destroy them before the main force under General Howe can come to their aid. I should say that this game was experimental in that I now know stuff that I didn't when we started. Thus the objective (the gathering of waggons and ammo carts behind the British advance guard) needed to be closer to the American positions than where we placed it in our game. It was simply too far away for the Americans to have a chance of occupying before the British main force turned up (hey, this was a put together game and we wanted to start playing, thus the pre-planning was minimal - if you play this, you will know different!).We put a chance card in the deck to indicate when the British main force showed up (Maurice is a card driven game with the deck determining what players can do and if neither force breaks when the game ends) and selected "Steady Lads", "Oblique Order" and "Lethal Volleys" for the British, and "Steady Lads" for the American Continentals, to represent the qualitative difference between the two armies at this stage of the war (National Advantage cards allow you to tailor a force to match an historical profile of that army) .

General Howe's main force waiting to advance up the table

So to the battle, cards shuffled, hands drawn, eight for the Americans (attacking), five for the British (defending) off we went.

As the American commander it was obvious I had to get in quick and do as much damage as I could before Howe could intervene, and so the American continentals advanced from the woods, with the emphasis placed on the American left where the British line was left hanging and the extended tree line gave me an opportunity to use my irregular riflemen to protect my flank should the need arise.

The objective markers

The British advance guard of elite regulars

As the two lines met, the American artillery opened up with an initial round of bombardment on the British Grenadiers and promptly missed, oh dear, never mind!

The continentals advance out of the tree line

There are top tips contained in the Maurice rule book, with one of them about the fact that this period is about linear warfare, with lines supporting lines. My grade six American Continentals were up against grade eight British elite regulars and I needed to be careful to attack when they were disrupted and to attack with supported lines.

Fortunately my British opponent (Ian) was feeling bold and relieved me of some of the pressure over who would strike first. After some desultory musketry between the two lines his 71st Highlanders charged into my lead continental line, hoping to take advantage of my disruptions. However due to combination of poor die rolls on his part, my line held and the Highlanders fell back with more disruption. Now it was my turn and, after an heroic rally which cleared all my disrupts, I used weight of numbers to get two units in on the highlanders destroying them in the first melee and knocking off two morale points on the British Army Morale.

Washington oversees the attack on the flank of the British advance guard

This attack was swiftly followed up by a second on the next British unit in the line, the Grenadiers, who shot up and unable to rally off their three disruptions dissolved under the attack of three continental battalions that had passed through the ranks of the leading units (using an appropriate card) without disruption. This caused another morale point loss (sadly only one) and General Washington had destroyed the right flank of the British advance guard. However one continental unit also carrying three disrupts was destroyed in this attack also with the loss of two morale points to the Americans army morale. 

The two lines close

It was then that two things happened, the British got their reinforcement card, and the Americans started to appreciate just how far away that objective marker was. Oh well, nothing for it, but to carry on and extract the best from a tricky situation.

American artillery on the road

With the approach of the British main force the game changed and, as the American commander, I felt I now needed to change tack and prepare for the onslaught. (on reflection I am thinking that the British reinforcement card should not go into the deck until after the first deck has been played. This keeps things interesting for the Americans and extends the period from when they would have to change role from attacker to defender).

The first deck of cards was used up with the British marching to close up on the American line and the Americans shaking off their disrupts from the first combats to prepare for their arrival.

British Army Morale after the first hand - looking good

American Army Morale after the first hand - looking not so good

The morale state of the two armies was very much in favour of the British and, with the Americans now on the defence, they would have to be far more cautious in their attacks.

The American left flank prepares to greet the British main force

Interestingly the British chose to send half the main force to occupy and secure the objective, with the artillery advancing up the centre on the road and the other half of the force, five battalions of regulars advancing on the American left flank.

As the American commander, I sensed a slight opportunity here, as I had no real strength to assault the forces protecting the objective (four battalions of militia staying close to the tree line for obvious reasons), but I did have sufficient force to take on the British approaching my left flank.
The problem was that if the British suddenly changed their assault to my right flank I could find my army being rolled up, with my left flank engaged in a struggle of their own.

The British advance guard feeling more confident with the arrival of reinforcements 

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour I decided to see where the British were going, and it became obvious that my left flank was the target. I thus prepared an ambush in the form of  "Not on the Map" that allowed me to place an area of concealed marsh in front of my continentals nearest to the tree line, thus restricting the area of assault to about two units. This was placed as the British were a move away from attacking my line. I then moved my riflemen along the treeline and proceeded to shoot up the British regulars.

General Washington re orders his lines

The plan worked quite well in that the fire from two irregular rifle units destroyed one regular battalion forcing another to close assault in the tree line using a "Caught" card to stop my riflemen evading and thus bayoneting them in the process. They however were caught in the flank by the second rifle unit and broken themselves. Thus one irregular rifle unit in exchange for two line battalions. However Ian kept up his good fortune on the morale loss only suffering one point for each battalion, whilst I lost two for the rifles, doh!

The British main force closes in on the American position - fox out in the open!

Continental infantry, bloodied but not cowed.

With the light outside fading, the pub beckoned and we ended the game half way through the final deck, so we were well on the way to a British victory, though possibly a marginal one.

We had a lot of fun playing Maurice and I can honestly say that that is true for every game of Maurice I have played. I also think that the Hold the Line scenarios have a lot of potential for conversion to Maurice.

Thanks to Ian for a very entertaining afternoon of action in the former colonies

Hail Caesar : Seleucids v Romans 760 points

October's club meet saw us running three games, one of which was an "Hail Caesar" clash of Romans v Seleucids. As I took the photos but am not the expert on people with pointy sticks I have put together Steve's game report interspersed with my pictures of the battle.



Game report by Steve H, Pictures by JJ.

Wargaming with Romans is so boring, I mean picking an army is really fascinating, 90% are Legionaries, add in some light troops and a few cavalry and your done, what fun is that; and then there’s all that constant slaughtering of the enemy every time. However if you like to fight historically like I do then you have no choice but to bring them out as long as its not me that has to play them of course. Fortunately I have a very understanding opponent in Steve Huntsman at the Devon Wargames Group who indulges me by toga-ring up every time the Ancients come out.

Seleucid Pikes left centre with medium infantry

This time we agreed to pack the table with as big a force as we could muster between us without having to resort to using Zulus or panzer grenadiers (you know what I mean) and this time it would be the Seleucids turn to fight against the tedious oppressors of joy.

Seleucid Left Wing

760 points with Hail Cesar is a lot of figures so it meant I could pick all sorts of shinny toys and it took sometime before I came up with:

6 Pike

4 Medium Infantry
1 Galatian Warband
6 Various skirmishers
2 Elephants
2 Scythed Chariots
3 Light Cavalry
1 Cataphracts
3 Various Heavy Cavalry
2 Medium Cavalry
And the amazing Thracian Light Infantry with Rhompaia

Steve spent 2 minutes and picked 90% Legionaries , some Light Troops and some Cavalry.

Roman Right Wing, Illyrian Light Infantry and Spanish cavalry

I chose 3 pieces of terrain and surprisingly the Romans picked none so it was very bare, oh well, better for me and my cavalry/pikes. The plan was the usual anti-roman one, win on one wing with my superior cavalry and hope everywhere else desperately hangs on long enough for them to save the day. Steve’s was to march quickly up the table and hack huge holes in the enemy infantry before his cavalry got crushed.

Seleucid Pikes including elite Smurfs (Donnington Figures)

Quite frankly as I put out my units I had no idea were to deploy my Cataphracts, Galatians or Scythed chariots, in the end the Galatians’ anchored the join between the pikes and the medium infantry on the left wing with a unit behind to fill in after they went loopy and went looking for heads, the cataphracts and the Scythed Chariots backed up the right wing and waited for a suitable gap.

Roman Centre

As I said at the start we used every appropriate figure available so I was stuck with these disposable chariots and Cataphracts don’t really do much in Hail Caesar. My hopes were pinned on the stout hearted Pikemen and the good cavalry rather than the gimmicky stuff .

Seleucid cavalry rolling up the Roman left wing

As is normal in Hail Caesar there is always one wing that continually throws high dice for moving and this was the Left (Seleucid) and Right (Roman), the Romans I think only moved 4 times in the whole game so I  can cover what happened here over 4 hours very quickly, some cavalry got slightly scratched and the Galatians charged various Light troops and wiped out around 3 units in total. At times it could have possibly got a little tricky for the Seleucids but those Romans just don’t pick allies that can be relied on to get stuck in.

Roman Legionaries support the skirmish battle in the centre 

In the centre there were the six pike blocks and these slowly marched forward until the two centres clashed with the Romans charging in. The beauty of pikes is that they stop the +1 to hit for charging which usually sees the Romans smashing straight through if they get the jump, (no infantry counter charging, and with the -1 save for pilum first round of each combat, very nasty, and usually fatal). However the Romans needn’t have worried as they won most of the combats and two of my blocks dissolved due to low dice rolls on morale. Now this was unlucky, first I had roughly the same number of attacks, plus I had +4 save (- pilum) and I could even lose by 2 and not even take a morale roll, then I only had to roll 8 or more to survive. Of course the Romans saved most of their hits, I didn’t and then rolled low. At this rate there wouldn’t be anything for the Cavalry to save, Being a six unit division I was two units away from breaking and these two units now had Romans on their flanks . The Romans then charged the last two untouched Pikes on the right of centre as well, however this Roman division had been shot up and had previously failed a Blunder test with a 1 (retreat + everyone gets 1 hit) so this was a stalemate for a while, the last two pikes continually lost their combats and equally continually rolled 10+ to stay on the table. Even with the minus for flank and Shaken they and their supports slowly wore down the Romans until they too were mainly shaken, when once Steve saved every hit now he couldn’t save a thing.

But what’s that I see sweeping in from the flank? is it Grouchy, sorry wrong game, is it the Cavalry? no it’s the Thracian Rhomphaia.

Romans right wing shocks Seleucids by actually going forwards!

On the Right things were very different, the Romans (actually Gallic/Galatians) bravely advanced and then equally bravely started throwing 9’s for moving just as those nasty heavy cavalry got in range (can toy soldiers bottle go?). The Seleucids cunningly didn’t fail a throw irrespective of how many times in a turn they went for it and each cavalry fight was horribly one sided . Once the first unit got wiped out then it was sweeping advances and flank attacks until the Galatian warband that had made the big mistake of joining the wrong side saw not only cavalry on their flank but some sort of cart, and is that knives? surely not, what idiot would stick knives on a cart, why the risk assessment form alone would take a month to fill out and then there are all the training days on top. All this was two moves away so the Romans throw for orders and predictably throw 9 . The Seleucids didn’t.

Galatians go looking for heads

  In three moves there was no Roman Left wing.

When in trouble throw a 10 for morale

Meanwhile in a tranquil leafy glade there were some Thracian’s busy showing each other their Rhomphaia and seeing who had the biggest one, however out in front they could see a large group of hairy Galatians heading their way and for a moment this wasn’t looking like what they had signed up for,

 “ They promised me 90% of them would be Romans, all shiny and crunchy like“

but just as it looked like they may have to get dead un-happy about being dead, suddenly the Galatians weren’t there anymore; they could see some of their Cavalry and is that a cart with Knives on? (no it wasn’t as scythed chariots are taken off after one round of combat).

Only one thing to do now as the boss had ridden up and was watching and that was to charge the now exposed Roman Legionary flank fighting the nearest Pike block, and this is what they did, again, and again and again, until they were shaken but by then there wasn’t that many Romans left.


Goodbye to the last Roman cavalry unit

Steve pulled his second supporting line of Romans out to face off the now victorious Cavalry wing but it was neither strong enough or numerous enough, loses were too high and first one division went under 50% and then the next one as well. The Pikes hung on and for one nasty moment just before the Thracians broke the Roman Centre left division I was suddenly reaching for the rulebook as all of my pikes had become shaken and I was in trouble, however as usual I didn’t know the rule correctly.

If over 50% of your division is broken or all of your units are shaken then you must retire that division. However if in combat then you stay until either you win the round and therefore cannot follow up or the enemy choose not to advance if you fall back (basically break off in some way). My pikes were stalemated and of course I beat the morale roll required for drawn shaken units.

That big gap used to have pikemen in it!

Look behind you!!

A Seleucid victory through determined throwing of 10+.

Men with big choppers make mincemeat of Romans

This is my seventh or eighth game and I am still getting rules wrong, this time I closed up skirmishers to fight hand to hand, No, only Light troops can do this, and I learnt that even if you fail your Evade order then you still get one move and not just stay stationary.

Close up and personal

Will these Seleucids never break?

Thanks to Steve Huntsman for a good game.