Gettysburg, The Last Invasion - Allen C. Guelzo

I have started reading the so far excellent book “ Gettysburg – The Last Invasion “ by Allen C. Guelzo and have reached page 45 ( finger burn on your pointing finger does slow you up) . There are a number of points he has raised in his pre-amble that have interested me, the main one of which is at the end of this comment.

Firstly the discontent prevalent among both sides;  for example the Southern command viewed the Georgian and North Carolina troops suspiciously as being very lukewarm towards the cause and more prone to desert than other states forces. On the Union Side he outlines how the steep division between the Corps commanders worsened once McClellan was relieved of command by Lincoln, already badly split along party lines there was now the pro and anti ‘McClellan’ commanders. The author suggests that Lincoln deliberately chose the most ‘anti-McClellan ‘ general  in the army , Hooker , to replace Burnside ( pro-McClellan) to try and get some control back over the army .

More interesting was his mention of the effectiveness of early volunteers.

“One Illinois regiment lined up to target shoot at a barrel 180 yards away, only 4 shots out of 160 tries hit it. In the 5^th Connecticut forty men firing at a barn 15 ft high from only 100 yards managed to score a mere 4 hits and only 1 was the height of a man.”

And

“Even among the regulars of the 12^th US the troops knew very little about principles and practice of firing, ours was very bad, the rear ranks sometimes firing into and killing the front ones.

. William Izlar, 1^st SC remembered a fierce exchange ( 1^st Bull Run) of volleys at a distance of no more than 100 yards in which the chief casualties were the pine cones from the extreme top of the trees. I guess that only 1 round in 500 ever hit anyone “

“A Federal captain watched in disbelief as his men fired off at an angle of 45 degrees

And the instances of them firing into each other are by no means rare”

Getting to my main point; I am sure that we have all seen some of the Waterloo re-enactment that took place recently and were surprise by not only the volume of smoke which was generated by even a small amount of people but the fact that it hung around spoiling everyone’s pictures , 50 years later smoke was still a problem.

“Soldiers on the firing line quickly found the smoke from their rifles hanging about them in clouds and it was not uncommon for officers to have to get down on all fours to peer under the smoke bank to confirm enemy troop positions.”

And here it is:

“At Fredericksburg, artillery gun crews ran laps around their guns waving their arms in an effort to dispel the powder smoke from the guns discharge.”

Top marks to any manufacturer who brings out models representing this.

Lets hope the next 427 pages are just as interesting

Sword & Spear - Rome v Pyrrhus

King Pyrrhus of Epirus fights the Romans at the Battle of Asculum 279BC - Giuseppe Rava

Yesterday was my first opportunity to try out Sword & Spear, the relatively new set of rules from Mark Lewis. I was aware of this set when they first came out and given that I have an ancient collection of my own developing in the background to my Napoleonics that are at the forefront of my current work, I am engaged in the search for a set of ancient rules that work for me.

So, aware that in these more modern times, no set of ancient rules appears to have gained any ascendancy ala the days of WRG, I too am engaged in an assessment process. Rather than become an "early adopter" as the marketing chaps would say, I thought I would wait to see what the response was to this set of rules and it was only following listening to Neil Shuck speaking to Mark about his rules on Meeples & Miniatures podcast that I thought I would get the PDF to try them out.

https://meeples.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/sword-spear-the-holy-grail-of-ancients-rules/

So what follows is a brief description of our game and Steve's and my first and I stress first impressions. We were using Steve's lovely collection of 15mm ancients and he has far more experience playing shields and spear chuckers than me. Steve's comments are interspersed with mine in italics.

As you will see Steve's verdict is tougher than mine, which just goes to prove, wargame rules are like shoe sizes no one size will fit all people!

So for our little play test Steve prepared two well matched foes from the past, Romans v Pyrrhics using the free army lists provided by Mark on his web page dedicated to this and his other rules
http://polkovnik.moonfruit.com/sword-spear/4583102656

My part of the test was supplying the rules, terrain, two sets of twenty red and blue activation dice. some very small casualty marker dice and a couple of pre made range sticks marked out in DU's (distance units) equal to half the frontal width of our units. There also lies a requirement to playing these rules, in that you need to ensure all units comply to the same frontage, with multiple ranks, such as the phalangites simply indicating a "large" unit. I noticed that Steve had blue tacked his two elephant stands onto a nicely textured combi stand arranged to this requirement.

As the other participant in the rules try out at Devon Wargames on Saturday I will restrict my comments to a general overview and my impressions on playing with Sword and Spear and leave any AAR to JJ to describe. (Not that there was much  to describe)

Army Creation: 

There is an ever growing collection of free army lists on the main website and in my opinion of the few I looked at they appear in line with most other sets opinions on what was around at the time for the relevant armies. Creating an army is easy for those who like army lists and covers all you need to play the game. Well done. 

All Troops must be on the same singles sized frontage base of your choice irrespective of type (liberal application therefore of Blu-tac was required on my part to make up temporary bases). 

All measurements are then by the half base in various multiples according to type or weapon.

The Pyrrhic host with cavalry and elephants on the flanks and their mighty phalanx and supporting hopolites in the centre 

I should say this was very much a learn as you play game and after a very superficial read through we placed our armies on the table following the game set up instructions and in formations that seemed reasonable based on other games, ie cavalry on the flanks, heavy infantry in the centre and skirmishers to the fore.

With the size of the army and the cavalry advantage possessed by the Pyrrhic host, Steve, commanding the Romans, adopted a defensive stance and thus it was down to Jack and myself to steer our army into the attack. As part of our test we manoeuvred our troops through terrain we might normally have avoided, just to get familiar with the effects of doing so. Nothing radical here with movement penalties that you would expect for doing so.

Army set up:

Scouting is in the rules for those who want to do it or you can just throw a dice like we did, and then you both take turns placing out your units onto the table by three appropriate groupings, heavy infantry first, skirmishers last. 

There is no fixed IGoUGo in Sword and Spear, instead each unit in your army gets one coloured dice and both sides place all of their dice into a master bag; you then randomly draw out seven each go, split up the dice (I was Red and JJ was Blue) and the winner then rolls their coloured dice and places dice against units. The opposition then do the same. 

You've got to love a phalanx, just bristling with mean intent

The first aspect that as has been commentated on before and that strikes you with these rules is the very simple but clever activation process, that we all thoroughly enjoyed. At the start of the game we placed nineteen and seventeen blue and red dice in a bag for our Pyrrhic and Roman armies respectively. The numbers mirroring the numbers of units in each army.

Each turn consisted of several activation phases as seven dice were drawn unseen from a bag and placed on the table. the majority colour indicating which side has the initiative to move first. These dice are then rolled and the subsequent scores on each indicates what you can do with them.

To activate a unit requires a dice placed next to it being equal to or greater than the discipline number of that unit. most of the Pyrrhics were discipline 4 whilst the Romans were 3 and thus for the Romans ones and twos could normally be discarded. Thus some units were bound not to be activated in a turn and decisions are forced on players as to who to activate and when, as each unit could only activate once in a turn which might leave it vulnerable to enemy activations later in the same turn.

Now let me explain a bit deeper. In the army lists each unit is rated for discipline and strength, so my Republican Hastati has 3 discipline and 4 strength. To get this unit to do something I need to place, next to it, a dice with a score of 3+ (discipline), so any dice I might then roll which shows either a 1 or a 2 are wasted for that turn (3 for Veterans, 4 for regular types and 5 for militia/levies) however if I roll a 6 or a double then there are bonuses for doing so. The player with the most dice that round then carries out all actions for their units which have dice allocated, the opponent does their move and then you pull another seven dice out of the bag. Once all the dice are out then that turn is over. It is very likely that not all your units will have taken an action so you need to plan accordingly for both failure and success in your potential dice rolls. 

On the whole moving and manoeuvring (if you beat your discipline level then you could make a move in any direction rather than just straight forward) is well done and simple. 

There’s a bit more involved but for now that’s good enough. 

Overall I found this part of the rules very interesting and is worth consideration for use in other games. 

The cool imperturbable Romans, very well drilled and about their business. Note each unit has the same width

In addition to simply activating units, the use of multiple dice with the same score placed with a unit together with sixes scored would enable enhancements in movement and or combat to be gained by the unit using them, all adding to the decision process.

As you look at the pictures of our game you can see the red and blue activation dice in play next to their corresponding unit and once a unit's activation was completed we left the die next to the units with a one showing to indicate that they had already activated. Very simple and very effective.

Last few words of encouragement from the Roman commander to his men

The other fun aspect of the play was revealed in the combat process which is resolved by each side rolling a base number of dice according to the units strength when firing and meleeing. The only difference between the two processes is that in melee both sides may end up testing for hits and discipline failures where as shooting only requires the target unit to test.

The strength of units varies from 2 for most of our skirmish units to 3 and 4 for the cavalry and heavy infantry.

Then to the base dice are added extra dice according to circumstances and capabilities such as gaining impetus dice, being uphill or striking the rear or flank. When the number of dice are calculated for both sides they are rolled and only four of the best dice scores are selected to be matched up highest vs highest, the next highest vs next highest and so on until four dice comparisons are established. In circumstances where a side has less than four dice to roll it is assumed that his absent dice scored a 2 for the purposes of comparison.

Combat and Shooting:

These are carried out in the same manner, using your strength you roll that number of dice adding in some bonus dice for friends or charging etc, so does your opponent and then you match off against each other highest to lowest however you only keep the highest four dice and discard the rest. If you managed to double your opponents dice then that is an automatic hit, any other “victory” on either side is a roll against your discipline to score a hit.  Accumulating hits that equal your strength routs you off the board.

If you do not have four dice to roll then any “missing” dice are counted as a 2

That’s about it for game play, so I will move onto my opinion.

King Pyrrhus advances and the skirmish battle begins

The name of the game is to beat the other guys die scores with a higher result forcing a discipline test and a result double its opposite resulting in a hit. These comparisons may be moderated by one side having an armour protection advantage resulting in allowing the benefactor to reduce an enemy die result by one.

Discipline tests require the owner to roll a die against the discipline of the affected unit looking to score equal to or more than that number or take a hit with attached generals helping the cause by one
Once the number of hits are equal to or more than the strength of a unit, it is routed and removed from the table, possibly causing neighbouring units to take discipline tests in response.

Again a very simple but very effective mechanism that we all had our heads around fairly quickly and had us weighing up our options in the game in practically no time.

Of course routing units leaving the army takes its toll on army morale as well as removing an activation die from the bag, so both sides are seeking to up the pain for each other whilst avoiding any attempted payback.
All good stuff.

Skirmishers are irrelevant; with an average strength of 2, rolling against combat units with strengths of 4 then you are very unlikely to inflict any hits especially as armoured troops can also deduct 1 off an attacking dice. This means that you cannot disrupt the enemy’s battle line as they come in. Plus light troops cannot automatically evade when charged, if they have no dice allocated you take out a dice from the bag and roll your discipline to escape or if you have already moved/shot that phase its tough luck so they are easy meat. All units routed contribute towards army morale.  

Light Foot are the only troops that can interpenetrate others so no moving through your skirmish screen.

During combat you generally attack with one unit at a time (assuming you haven’t rolled any doubles), I therefore placed all my infantry together so that I would gain support dice and then gave the obvious target a dice which allows counter actions or weapon skills. It therefore pays to sit and wait.

Pilum only cause the enemy to take a discipline test which generally is a 50/50 on causing one casualty (true this would lose them their “fresh” status and so in some circumstances also some dice or possibly armour ability). As I am generally 99% of the time under a constant Pilum barrage in my ancient games then I have some experience of various rules, in my opinion this is not quite the right effect. On the whole these rules don’t go in for much in the way of “special” weapons so I suppose that’s in line with the concept of the rules as a whole.

Oh, and if you have no un-used action dice allocated to them prior to defensive combat then no throwing at all, sorry. If attacking then you must choose between throwing your pilum and forfeiting a combat dice or not throwing.

Rallying:

Any unit that has suffered casualties but has not routed can be brought back to life, first a general can try each end of turn to roll a dice and beat the discipline level taking into account all accumulated hits (e.g. Discipline 4 , 2 hits , so must beat discipline by 2, therefore a 6). Also you can use one of your normal activation dice each turn to do the same job as long as it is high enough of course. (Maximum of 1 removal per turn per instance). Adding a general to the unit improves discipline by 1.

There’s something not quite right about this, it’s almost a good process but,,, there’s,

You know ,,  something .  I just cannot quite put my finger on it . (I have incidentally being asked in future to stop putting my finger on it so I couldn't have anyway).

Roman velites threaten the flanks

Once we had got our collective heads around the mechanisms, some aspects of these started to become clear. Firstly our set ups had seen both sides with skirmish units out front looking to beat their opposite numbers to allow them to start inflicting hurt on the larger units behind as the two lines drew nearer.

However with a strength of just 2 most of our skirmish units were extremely brittle when trying to resist casualties, be that from shooting or worst still melee. Within a few moves both sides had taken out a couple of these units leaving the centre ground devoid of skirmish cover and due to the army morale loss forcing both sides to pull in their skirmishers and let the larger units take the lead.

Before writing this post I thought I would check out the forum to see if others had already commentated on this aspect and it would seem it is part of the design, speeding up the contact and demise of these units that other games take more turns to resolve or forcing players to use these units as ambush forces, attacking flanks or rears or using them as bait to try and draw units away from support by evading attacks and leaving the enemy unit activated and exposed to subsequent attack by other units.

I am not sure that this is a good simulation of the role of these troops in the battle line where we would have expected them to have been inflicting annoying if not devastating damage to the opposing line prior to contact, whilst also trying to stop their opposite numbers doing the same thing.

The centre ground so recently occupied by a skirmish line was suddenly empty

We were also a little surprised at how unwieldy these skirmish units are when it comes to interpenetration. They can pass through formed troops but in turn cannot be passed through. Thus after finding out that our skirmishers were not really going to be able to function in the way we had envisaged we then discovered the need to manoeuvre them out of the way to allow the advance to continue.

Range sticks indicating DU's (Distance Units) based on the frontal width of the units were prepared prior to our game

As our game was very much a learning simulation we were more focused on working out how the game played than completing our game and thus a brief summary of our battle must suffice.

To move our Pyrrhic army along we opted for joining up several units in base to base contact to form groups, but on further reading I think we may have done this wrong as we should have attached our generals to the central units to do this. Be that as it may our phalangites coalesced into two principle groups and trundled up to the Roman line, whilst the cavalry and elephants attempted to occupy and threaten the Roman flanks and rear. The elephants struck first by taking advantage of a double six allowing them to leap ahead and smash into a Roman cohort.

The subsequent melee saw the Romans take advantage of some rotten Pyrrhic die rolling and soon had the advantage of casualty count which with a 3 strength elephant on 2 hits required it to break back from the combat to try and rally off the hits, only to find that we could only rally off one hit each turn. Needless to say the elephants got parked and we moved on with other units.

The elephants start to take casualties from a hail of pila. The little red dice indicate casualties and the elephants are one away from destruction

On the Roman left the Pyrrhic cavalry managed to catch some Roman allied infantry falling back from some woods into open ground, hitting the unit in the flank and destroying it, only to succumb to a follow up attack by some nearby Roman infantry.

This flank ended up facing off as attacks developed elsewhere.

As the elephants battle away the Pyrrhic line attempts to close with the cavalry attempting to turn the Roman flanks

On the Roman right flank, Pyrrhic Companion cavalry charged in against a unit of Triarii who gained the advantage of a supporting neighbour destined to be charged by another neighbouring cavalry unit. This revealed another seemingly surprising aspect in that groups of units that have moved together cannot charge in together thus exposing their separate attacks to support of enemy units destined to be attacked from their front. We read several times to see if that was correct and kept coming back to the sentence on page 14 stating that a group move could not contact an enemy unit.

The subsequent combats between the two groups saw the Romans gain the upper hand in the combats with Jack's unerring ability to roll low at the worst possible time persisting to the end.

The look of a Sword & Spear battle in full sway, with blue and red action dice next to activated units. The other multicoloured dice are for combat and morale rolls

Finally the right most Pyrrhic phalanx got a double five dice combination to allow it to charge in against the Roman line giving it six dice vs four to the Romans removing their impetus on the ends of our pikes. The two following combats left the Romans reeling with three hits and more charges to come on its colleagues along the line.

There we ended our game in time to discuss our thoughts over a drink.

I thought I would sleep on the game and read the forum before capturing my thoughts and now, the next day, have had a little time to consider the play.

The first thing I always consider when weighing up new rule sets is to look at my fun/not fun, game/simulation assessment and based on just one play I see Sword & Spear as erring on the fun/game end of the spectrum.

The activation sequence is the core to these rules and made a very enjoyable game as we started to understand the nuances the different dice combinations offered each side. The combat mechanism was also readily understood and we became quicker at assessing the results as the game progressed and seem to give a representative model of the combats we were playing. Both these aspects really ticked the fun aspects for me and are in my mind the best aspects of the rules.

The skirmish rules have moved my assessment away from the simulation to the game rating for these rules, as I can see from the forum discussions that players are adopting strategies to make good use of their skirmish units taking into account their built in frailties. Whilst I can see that could add to the fun aspect of playing the rules in trying to master these strategies, I am not convinced that they model the role of these troop types sufficiently well to give a simulation. I am one of those players who wants more of the simulation in my play than not and on that basis would probably not play Sword & Spear regularly, but based on just one game would play them happily on the spur of the moment for a relaxed fun ancients game. They are a set of rules that lend themselves to straight forward house rule adaptations and I would incorporate those in my own games, and I think there is a market for this set of rules.

Overall, the key question is of course, would I play these rules again?

Hmmm….    No. 

Thanks to Jack and Steve for a fun play test of Sword & Spear

Waterloo Bi-Centenary Game, 1815 - 2015

Whilst busily involved in my own game working through the intricacies of Sword & Spear, Nathan was leading our club tribute to the significant anniversary that takes place next week commemorating the Allied victory over the Imperial French forces of Napoleon at Waterloo on the 18th June 1815.

As a club we are not over endowed with collections suitable for re-fighting the Hundred Days Campaign and so it is a great tribute to Nathan's efforts that yesterdays little skirmish, when compared with the forces involved was pulled together.

As an admirer of the great Duke and a Napoleonic enthusiast myself I am very proud that our club was able to field some fine looking units that with the terrain involved was very reminiscent of the fighting around Ligny.

Anyway the rules used were Lasalle and I gather highlights included French lancers taking a face full of cannister whilst trying to charge allied guns and some Dutch light cavalry performing way above their pay grade. Both Nick and I grabbed some pictures of the action.

Other pictures of the game courtesy of Nick

April Games Photo Montage - Chain of Command/Muskets & Tomahawks

Last month I was playing  in Steve H's "Shepherdtown" ACW game, but as usual took some time out to grab some pictures of the other two games being played

http://devonwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/shepherdtown-virginia-1862-fire-fury.html

Nathan has already posted an AAR on his Chain of Command game featuring a Soviet relief column vs Mujahedeen.

http://devonwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/chain-of-command-afghanistan-1980s-club.html

and so my pictures seemed superfluous to requirements, but I thought you might like to see the best of them.

In addition Steve M was running a Muskets & Tomahawks skirmish with his new growing collection of 28mm French Indian Wars figures. Some of my pictures of that game were of questionable quality and so I have included the best of the bunch to give a flavour of his game.

"It's quiet, too quiet". "Don't say that, you know the soldier that says that in the movies is always the first to get - incoming!!!!"

The trap is sprung

Mujahedeen, fouzands of em

Behind you

Oh dear, how sad, never mind

This is fun!

Dice in wargames are like spent cartridges in battle, a sure sign of heavy combat

Soviet payback

I love the smell of burning APC's in the morning

It's no good Sarge, I'm afraid the cam belt is broken

And then we find ourselves transported to the French Canadian wilderness and the peace and tranquillity of that holiday home log cabin you've always dreamed off, where there is plenty of fish in the lakes, deer to hunt and Indians!!!

These pictures have been popping up on my screen saver for the past month so I thought you might like to see them as well. Next AAR for June coming soon

JJ

Devon Wargames Defy a King

Well to be accurate only three of us did and it wasn’t at the club and as it was New Model Army v Scots there weren't any Kings involved but apart from that…

Previously on DWG.

(or was it on JJ’s blog, I don’t recall which)

JJ's (Editor's) Note: It was on JJ's; http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/warfare-2014.html

Last year at Warfare I bought the ECW rule set To Defy a King by Keith Johnson

http://www.wargamesdispatch.co.uk/to_defy_a_king.html 

and finally I was now ready to try them out but given that I hadn't actually read the rules I thought it best that this trial took place well away from public gaze and derision. We are big on derision.

So I borrowed both Mr. Land and his wargames room and then co-opted Nick into being my test Coypu’s (neither of them could now qualify as Guinea pigs) for an epic game of 15mm New Model Army v Scots.

First up, pick your forces:

Obviously you can just plonk down whatever you have but there is an option that comes with the rules and that is various small cards marked as Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery and Dragoons for both sides. On these cards are written various strengths such as:

6 stands consisting of, 4 Musket and 2 Pike or 5 Stands of Trotters.

The cards are numbered 1 to 11 and have different strengths, mixes or types on each one and there are different amounts of each card.

It is suggested that you choose ten cards per side for a typical game (again up to you) and there are Army Lists in the Rule Set organised by year and theatre.

Example:

1642,

Parliament can pick between 4 to 6 infantry cards, using cards numbered 2 to 6, and

3 to 5 cavalry cards, with numbers from 1-6.

Royalist’s can pick between 3 to 5 infantry Cards (No.4-9) and 4 to 6 cavalry cards (No.1 -7)

Both sides have the option to instead pick some dragoons/artillery cards.

As I said there are varied quantities of each card and if I take the above 1642 Parliamentary force as an example then you would be randomly picking from a total of 14 infantry cards.

The whole point of this is that early on you are more likely to get far more pistol armed cavalry as opposed to gallopers or bigger or smaller units with differing ratios of pikes to muskets.

Next you randomly pick out your quality ratings and allocate them face down to your units (again quantities of each vary with army or year). In our game the New Model Army (NMA) selected from 4 Raw, 7 Trained, 7 Veteran. (Scots were 7:7:2). Everyone finally gets an extra two free upgrades at the end.

Allocate Generals to your brigades (recommended is two regiments per) and off you go.

As this was trial of the rules we contrived to try out as much as possible whilst also enjoying a game that could later be flaunted in the face of the loser. Please disregard most of the markers shown in the pictures as we basically used whatever was at hand. We found that we needed to show, Quality levels, order status and Disruption level to assist in playing.

We started six inches on which seemed sensible at first but was actually a bit of a problem because field artillery cannot move after placement so we need to have a think about this for future. Turns are alternative and are decided by taking an initiative test at the start of each turn so you could move last in one turn and then first in the next. Movement is by brigades, winner’s choice on which player moves the first one and then the opponents move’s one of theirs and so on until all have moved. 

Sequence as follows:

Initiative

Change Orders

Declarations

Movement

Firing

Melee

Recover

Possible orders are: Defend ,Hold, Advance, Attack, Retire.

All brigades must have an order which can only be changed by their general passing a dice roll.

One occurrence we had in the game which confused us was; 

Two units were side by side defending a hedge on "Defend" orders. 

One unit is charged and engages in melee. 

What does the other unit do next turn? 

If defending it cannot join in so you need to change the brigade orders to attack therefore the original unit loses it’s defend bonus? 

The answer is probably in the rules somewhere.

The orders force you to do certain things within its scope so you need to choose correctly, e.g. "Advance" means all the brigade must advance until it’s in firing range or alternatively to a set obstacle. You defend obstacles, you hold ground.    

As usual in this era the cavalry got stuck in first. On the NMA right they had their best troops, consisting of gallopers, both were veteran and one was classed as "Ironsides" (all lists have some quirks ). 

Let me run through melee combat:

Everyone needs 8+ on two dice to hit:

NMA: Veteran +1

Charging +1

Gallopers (first round) +1,

Cav v Cav, no change 

So one pair of dice per base (5 bases = 10 dice) needing 5 or more

You need six hits to kill a base otherwise both sides dice roll against the number of actual hits (e.g. three hits then 1-3 kills)

Losers test against their discipline to avoid being pushed back the hits difference in inches.

Discipline and Morale are very similar but are not quite the same, sometimes you will need to roll against both.

Each unit can get pushed back only so many total pre-set inches before it then breaks (depending on its type and class).

If cavalry melees have two consecutive draws, then they both pull back.

The NMA crushed the Scots Lancers and Trotters facing them, mainly through me not following the above correctly, pursued for a short while until they got pulled back under control. This would of course have been more difficult if the game was set earlier as the NMA cavalry had by now gained the Disciplined advantage. (Another quirk).

On the other flank the cavalry melee was a bit more even as neither had any of the better fighting Gallopers and so swung back and forth for a while until unlucky Scots saving throws lost them the combat.

In the centre there was surprisingly time for the Infantry to get to grips, The Scots had pulled some quite big units out of the hat (10 bases strong) and very co-operatively attacked the NMA infantry defending the hedges so that we could test firing and infantry melee.

Firing is very similar to melee:

8+ to hit

Veterans +1

First Fire +1

Close range +1

Raw -1

Cover -1 or -2

These are the main points, there are others but only the -1 for firing at chargers came into our game.

Convert hits to kills as above and then we threw to see which stand had been hit, I am sure I read that in the rules somewhere but not sure if it is correct, if not then it should be.

Melee is the same as the cavalry but you need to see if a Pike stand is facing off against muskets. If so there is a +1/-1 on top

Morale;

6, 7 or 8 required on two dice depending on class, add in support for rear and flanks, disorder, generals and each stand lost etc, Depending on how much you fail by will determine your retreat distance or rout.

Conclusion:

Overall it worked Ok and quite quickly considering the forces on table and our total incompetence. I would guess on average we could play a game of this size in anything from two to four hours.

I had already pre-bought nine sets of different coloured pairs of dice which is a must.

If playing with the cards then you do need to make sure you can cover all the possible variations, get more generals as you do really need to operate in two units per brigade due to the orders. 

For anyone who wants to know how you recover from disorder then it is in the recover section of the book, do not expect it to be in the disorder section. There is at least one error between the QRF and the main rules, check before hand.

Finally, I definitely need more flags; having to be creative on forming the infantry due to my lack of figures I thought that the units which ended up with multiple flags looked far better than the ones with only one.

Recommended.

Talavera - Attack on the Pajar Vergara

Attack of the El Rey Cavalry at the Pajar de Vergara - Talavera, 28th July 1809

This month I rolled out my Spanish and German troops that I have been working on for the past nine months as part of my Talavera project as documented on "JJ's Wargames"

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk/

I have always intended to play the collection at club and other outside venues and, to that end, ordered up a new 6 x 4 foot Terrain Mat to play smaller games away from home. The 9 x 5 foot mat is a bit big for deploying out for short games and I didn't want to keep on using the Games Workshop cloth which, though serviceable, doesn't show the figures off at their best.

The map of the Pajar table, one foot squares

The new mat also presented an opportunity to try out a new scenario with some new paper based rules on my unsuspecting "guinea pigs" at the Devon Wargames Group" who can be relied on for their honest opinions and wargaming input.

My turn to preference when wanting to play a serious Napoleonic game would be Carnage & Glory II but I am keen to develop my scenarios around paper based rules to allow them easy conversion for those who simply want to roll dice. So with this quest in mind I decided to play test a recent set of free home developed rules that appeared on TMP this week and have provided links below to that particular post together with the authors site discussing the rules and providing a link to download them.

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=382636
https://naprules.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/napoleonicnapoleonic-avant-garde-battles/
https://naprules.wordpress.com/

The principle appeal to try them was the familiar command pips, the use of units that match my own preference and a construction that lent themselves to changes of my own, such as British infantry countercharges following a successful volley fire, that is modelled so well in C&G and as it proved can be incorporated with these.

The game thus was very much a play test in all senses of the word and I would like to thank Steve L, Steve M., Ian and Tom for playing the game in that spirit as we sought to find out what we could do with the scenario and these rules.

I have shown below the orders of battle, game, terrain and victory parameters for the scenario. The unit stats are in small text indicate the effectiveness of these troops and I will attempt to summarise their key indicators. For a more in depth appreciation I suggest getting the rules and having a read through.

Thus a commander showing (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”) means a standard general officer who if attached to the unit would allow them to make successful morale/leadership test on 2d6, rolling 8 or less and he can, if with 4 inches, by using a command pip, add one to a similar test by the unit itself. The command radius indicates how close his units must be to activate on a command pip with additional pips required for every 8 inches or part over that range.

Similarly for units (4 stands, Line 8) indicates a battalion with four stands (16 infantry/12 cavalry figures) who are "Line" troops so will morale test when receiving 10% casualties in a turn (Spanish were "Raw" so tested every time they got hit) requiring eight or less on 2d6 to successfully pass morale/leadership tests.

Division Alexander Campbell – Defend
Brigadier General Alexander Campbell (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”)

Pajar de Vergara Redoubt Gun Battery
Lawson's Brigade Entrenched 3pdr [Light] 2 stands (Line 8)
**1st Spanish Battery Entrenched 12pdr [Hvy.] 1 stand (Raw 7)

Brigade William Myers - Defend
Lieutenant Colonel William Myers (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”)
2/7th Foot 388 4 stands (Line 8)
2/53rd Foot 483 4 stands (Line 8)
A. Campbell's Bde. Light Bn. 161 [2SB:1R] 2 Musk, 1 Rifle Sk Stands (Line 8)

Brigade James Kemmis - Defend
Colonel James Kemmis (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”)
1/40th Foot 670 6 stands (Veteran 9, Drilled)
97th Foot 452 4 Stands (Veteran 9, Drilled)
2nd Battalion of Detachments 562 6 stands (Line 7)
Kemmis' Bde. Light Bn. 244 4 Musk Sk Stands (Veteran 9)

Division Marques de Portago - Defend
Major General Marques de Portago (Uninspiring 7, +1@1”, Command Radius 7” -1PIP)
El Rey Cavalry Regiment 460 4 Stands (Raw 7, -2 Recovery)
1st Bn. Badajoz Regiment 571 6 stands (Militia 6, Raw)
2nd Bn. Badajoz Regiment 557 6 stands (Militia 6, Raw)
2nd Cazadores de Antequera 557 6 stands (Militia 6, Raw), 2 Musk Sk Stands
*Imperial de Toledo 792 6 stands (Militia 6, Raw)
*Provincial de Badajoz Militia 577 6 stands (Militia 6, Raw)
*Provincial de Guadix Militia 562 6 stands (Militia 6, Raw)

Strengths:
6576 Bayonets
460 Sabres
293 Artillerists
12 Cannon
7329 Total of all arms
13 Standards present

The German brigades of Chasse and Grandjean debouch from the olive grows in front of  Campbell's division nearest to camera.

Division Baron Jean-Francois Leval - Attack
General de Division Baron Jean-Francois Leval (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”)

Brigade Heinrich Freiherr von Porbeck - Attack
Oberst Heinrich Freiherr von Porbeck (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”)
III Fuss Batterien Steinmetz 4pdr [Light] 2 stands (Line 7)
I.von Harrant Nr.4 (Baden) 376 4 stands (Line 7)
II.von Harrant Nr.4 (Baden) 367 4 stands (Line 7)
I.Nassau IR Nr.2 360 4 stands (Line 7)
II.Nassau IR Nr.2 386 4 stands (Line 7)
Porbeck's Voltigeur Bn 317 5 Musk Sk Stands (Line 7)

Brigade David-Hendrik Chasse - Attack
Generalmajor David-Hendrik Chasse (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”)
3m3 Artillerie a Cheval Trip 4pdr [Light] 2 stands (Line 7)
I/2me Regiment Linie 393 4 stands (Line 7)
2/4me Regiment Linie 378 4 stands (Line 7)
Chasse's Voltigeur Bn 154 3 Musk Sk Stands (Line 7)

Brigade Balthazard-Grandjean - Attack
General de Brigade Balthazard-Grandjean (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”)
III. Fuss. Batterien Venator 4pdr [Light] 2 stands (Line 7)
1/Gross und Erbprinz Nr 4 398 4 stands (Line 7)
2/Gross und Erbprinz Nr 4 371 4 stands (Line 7)
Rheinbund Bttn von Frankfort 391 4 stands (Line 7)
Grandjean's Voltigeur Bn. 225 4 Musk Sk Stands (Line 7)

Brigade Feliks Potocki - Hold
Oberst Feliks Potocki (Competent 8, +1, Command Radius 8”)
I. IR Nr 4 (Polish) 761 6 stands (Line 8, Drilled)
II. IR Nr 4 (Polish) 782 6 stands (Line 8, Drilled)
Potocki's Voltigeur Bn. 260 4 Musk Sk Stands (Line 8)

Strengths:
5919 Bayonets
433 Artillerists
18 Cannon
6352 Total of all arms
11 Standards present

Spanish General Portago moves his infantry up to support the Pajar redoubt as the Baden/Nassau brigade advance

The Game starts at 13.00 (turn 1) and ends at 16.00 (turn 12)
Mission: Allies Defend, French Take, and hold the Pajar de Vergara redoubt at the end of the game.

• A player is deemed to be in control if he has an unbroken unit within 4” and there are no enemy unbroken units within 6” of the Pajar.
• *Spanish General Portago will only commit the Badajoz Regiment (two battalions) and the Antequera Light Infantry, the remaining battalions are held in reserve.
• **Only four Spanish 12lbrs are placed in the Pajar redoubt with the other two placed further along the Spanish line off table.

* I informed the French players that they could deploy Potocki's Polish battalions that historically were held in reserve. If they chose to do so then Portago could deploy his other three battalions on table as a counter measure. 

In the end the French chose to play it historically.

The Anglo/Spanish guns open fire sending roundshot into the German/Dutch ranks

Terrain and Deployment

• The Allied player may not deploy his troops initially further forward than the line indicated on the map for British and Spanish troops
• The olive groves are classed as light woods. Artillery may only pass through the gaps in the trees or use the tracks.
• The Portina stream holds no terrain significance.
• The Pajar redoubt is classed as heavy cover (it was incomplete and hurriedly constructed but protected the gunners).

The view from the Pajar as the allied guns open fire

Victory Conditions
Broken brigade 5 VP
Shaken Unit 1VP
Shattered Unit 2VP
Pajar Vergara Redoubt 5VP

The Baden and Nassau battalions close in on a shaky Spanish line

So with the two lines faced off the German Division began its advance out of the tree line that marked the extent of the olive groves in front of the Pajar.

Their arrival in open ground was greeted with the first whistling rounds of 12lbr and 3lbr round shot and the light British pieces drew first blood as the Frankfurt battalion was hit.

Both sides deploy their reserves with the El Rey cavalry, bottom right, opposed by Baden artillery, top right

As the German line closed it became obvious that the Spanish right flank was chosen to receive the attention of Porbeck's Nassau and Baden columns, whilst the rest of the division focused on pinning their British allies and drawing fire from the redoubt.

The brigades of Myers and Kemmis deployed one behind the other with a solid skirmish screen out front

General Portago rose to the challenge pushing forward the Badajoz battalions to support the guns covered by a light skirmish screen from the Antequeran Light Infantry. The El Rey cavalry, hovered in the right rear looking to take advantage of any German discomfort.

The view from the German lines as the Frankfurt and Hesse Infantry approach the British line trying to make out they are Spanish and lost  "Ola, los Espagnol!" The British look confused

The Baden skirmish line soon overwhelmed its Spanish counterpart putting telling fire on to the Badajoz battalions and disordering them. The Baden artillery then added their fire to Spanish woes by sending the El Rey cavalry into panic. Suddenly the right flank of the Pajar looked very exposed.

The Baden/Nassau troops behind a very strong skirmish screen press the redoubt and the Spanish line

In response to this threat to their right, the Spanish and British guns found their mark on the Nassau regiment causing casualties to their first line and ploughing on into the follow up column causing both battalions to panic and fall back, leaving their Baden allies to press the assault alone.

Command pips become important as formations change close to the enemy

On the other flank the British skirmish line started to drive in their German opposite numbers and, with one of the British 3lbr guns supporting their efforts, started to bring telling fire to bear on the Hesse, Nassau and Dutch battalions.

First blood, with the red die showing a hit on the Frankfurt battalion

The Spanish flank was in the balance with General Porbeck trying desperately to coordinate the attack of his Baden battalions as he regrouped the Nassau troops, and Spanish General Portago left with two of his battalions and the El Rey cavalry in panic mode.

With the British flank looking more secure, General Campbell detached his strongest veteran battalion, the 40th (Somerset) Foot, who had seen all this before at Vimeiro and Rolica, to stabilise his allies line.

The allied guns "pour it on" as the feeble Spanish skirmish line is overwhelmed. The Baden guns at top open fire

The El Rey cavalry seriously disordered by the Baden artillery fire

Then suddenly as if inspired to show their metal all three disordered Spanish regiments rallied as the 40th Foot approached.

The skirmish battle preceding the Baden/Nassau attack

With the the German right coming under telling fire from the British guns, Campbell detaches the 40th foot, top right to support the hard pressed Spanish

It was now or never and the German troops put in charges as both ends of the allied line with the 7th Fusiliers and 53rd Foot charged by the Hesse Damrstadt battalions and the Badajoz regiment charged by the Badeners.

The red dice and trail of casualties indicate that the ruse was not working as British skirmishers go to work on the German lines

The Spanish line desperately holds against the Baden attack as the British 40th foot come up in support

The outcomes were quite different on each flank. The 7th Fusiliers calmly allowed the Hesse troops to get within 50 paces of their line before delivering a telling volley. To their credit the Hesse troops held their position though disordered. It was then that we tried out our own adaptation to the rules by allowing the British battalion to immediately test to countercharge, which they did being met by the resolute Hesse troops who successfully stood. However their resolve melted in the subsequent clash and the Fusiliers chased the Hesse battalion from their lines.

In the combat with the 53rd Foot the outcome was similar in that the other Hesse battalion was stopped with telling fire, but the British battalion refused to charge preparing to deliver another volley, only to see the Hesse battalion break in the next phase as they attempted to rally off their disorder.

The Hesse guns lend their fire in support of their hard pressed infantry as Chasse's Dutch infantry move up

On the Spanish flank the Baden battalion charged in on the Badajoz regiment causing then to go disordered in the charge response and thus unable to deliver a volley. The Spanish battalion broke to the rear.

However the Baden troops exultations were soon replaced with foreboding as the 40th Foot stepped into the breach and shot down any thoughts of following up their success.

The German right flank can make no impression on the British line

We had completed eight of the twelve turns and had started to develop a rhythm with the rules as we brought the game to a close with the German attack starting to stall. Indeed, after a quick casualty count, the allies were just edging things in their favour by still having a secure hold on the Pajar and with the Frankfurt battalion permanently shaken from the casualties it had suffered thus giving up one victory point.

Certainly any further action was close to offering up more with the weaker German units getting closer to a similar state due to the attrition they had already suffered.

With the arrival of the 40th Foot the Spanish disordered mass gets a much needed respite.

We all thought the rules played pretty well considering our inexperience with them and seemed to give a good simulation. We found the layout and writing a bit confusing and I had to make plenty of notes in my printed copy prior to playing so I felt we could play them as written. However that is not a big issue as we are experienced gamers and I plan to re write them for my own clarity and to allow some other changes I have in mind.

If you want to play this sort of battalion/regiment level game and have fun then you might want to have a look at them, but do take the time to read them thoroughly before playing. Personally, I will always prefer C&G and will be running this scenario using them.

The one key difference I notice between paper rules and the computer, is my head is not buzzing at the end of a computer driven game and I spend more time in the game rather than thinking through the rules leaving me feeling a lot fresher as I head to the pub. There is of course the element of unfamiliarity with this set that adds to that sense but we tend to play rule sets on and off at the club and so quick up take is important and these rules are certainly better than others I have come across in that regard.