Welcome to a new period, well the return to an old one.
Like many gamers, I have a small pile of bits and pieces that may one be useful. They are those things gathering dust in the five corners of the games room and anywhere else they can be hidden away from prying eyes. The guilty parts in this case were two off cuts of MDF and some polystyrene, just waiting for some inspiration to become terrain. Inspiration finally came after I had finished off some fieldworks for my WWII desert forces, they would become trenches. Nothing wrong with that you can always use trenches, perhaps I might get onto building that Lace wars fortress I have always fancied.
No it was not to be. First I dug out some some old 15mm Minifigs and Irregulars that I had collected from previous explorations of this period. They weren't enough for an army but they had been a taste of the period. Finally last weekend there was little wars down here in Melbourne and the bloke from MikesMetalModels showed up with his Peter Pig figures. Now I did go there with plans to get a few packets of Peters figures, because I had never had any before. I will also freely admit that the figures I was planning to get would be either for WWI or the SCW, but no it would not be that simple.
The only figures he had on display were German WWII. Beautiful I say I can get some some novelty packets such as Germans surrendering, some Volksturm and a dug in Panther turret but just as I was preparing to hand over my money I looked down and asked innocently about some non-descript limps of resin sitting in plastic bags. Why they were British Mk IV tanks and were very pretty. This then led to an inquiry as to if he had brought some infantry with him, which were duly added to the growing pile.
Yet this is not an end to my tale of new love. At another stall there was Olympian games offering QRF at 50% and he had a German A7V tank and I had enough change in pocket for it.
Suddenly I have more figures and I am gluing the tanks together. This is my fourth attempt to get into this period. You think that I would have learnt my lesson by now, but no I can still be seduced by an unpainted figure.
Oh, I am a weak, weak man, I am a wargamer.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The adventures of Commordore John Rodgers pt 1
The first offensive launched during the war was not at land but at sea when the US Navy sortied from its base in order to take the war upto the British. Got across the Atlantic, had a rethink of their strategy and turned round and sailed home again.
From a wargaming perspective it is a boring campaign as there no actions or battles at all. But from a strategic perspective it interesting and it is that viewpoint and what could have happened that makes it worth exploring.
Historically the nicest thing most historians most say about the Adams cruise is that it forced the British to start protecting their own merchantmen thereby allowing the American merchant fleet to get home safely. This then allowed for American privateers to then go to sea to give the British a headache at sea.
But what else could have happened to the squadron that could have impacted on the course of the war. Firstly and perhaps the most interesting was that Rodgers set sail before an order arrived that would have tied the fleet to harbour defence duties at New York. This at the very least would have led to the blockading of the fleet by a larger British squadron. Probably meant no offensive actions until 1813 at the earliest and possibly broken up those elite crews that the Americans have.
Secondly there was the strategy behind the cruise in the first place. While the senior officers of the navy including Rodgers had favoured this expedition across the Atlantic. The long lonely sail across the Atlantic caused a rethink of this strategy and they turned around and arrived home safely. So while they lucky enough to avoid contact they were also clever enough not to push their luck. So there is plenty of room to explore the squadrons adventures in Europe if they had not turned back. Though I think the most likely outcome is either sunk or bottled up in a French controlled port.
Most options seem to involve the early demise of the the American fleet. So what would this have meant to the war. Well the first is no victories over single British frigates, except for the USS Constitution over HMS Guerriere. These victories were pretty much the only good news for the Americans until 1814, so the war may end quickly as the American will to fight collapses. Another point to consider is that many of these crews would eventually make their way to the Great Lakes to assist in winning the battles of Lake Erie and Plattsburg while also ensuring a stalemate on Lake Ontario. So if they are not available? Though if they are on the other side of the Atlantic they may encourage a French naval adventure.
So there are many options to explore as we recreate the adventures of Commodore John Rodgers.
From a wargaming perspective it is a boring campaign as there no actions or battles at all. But from a strategic perspective it interesting and it is that viewpoint and what could have happened that makes it worth exploring.
Historically the nicest thing most historians most say about the Adams cruise is that it forced the British to start protecting their own merchantmen thereby allowing the American merchant fleet to get home safely. This then allowed for American privateers to then go to sea to give the British a headache at sea.
But what else could have happened to the squadron that could have impacted on the course of the war. Firstly and perhaps the most interesting was that Rodgers set sail before an order arrived that would have tied the fleet to harbour defence duties at New York. This at the very least would have led to the blockading of the fleet by a larger British squadron. Probably meant no offensive actions until 1813 at the earliest and possibly broken up those elite crews that the Americans have.
Secondly there was the strategy behind the cruise in the first place. While the senior officers of the navy including Rodgers had favoured this expedition across the Atlantic. The long lonely sail across the Atlantic caused a rethink of this strategy and they turned around and arrived home safely. So while they lucky enough to avoid contact they were also clever enough not to push their luck. So there is plenty of room to explore the squadrons adventures in Europe if they had not turned back. Though I think the most likely outcome is either sunk or bottled up in a French controlled port.
Most options seem to involve the early demise of the the American fleet. So what would this have meant to the war. Well the first is no victories over single British frigates, except for the USS Constitution over HMS Guerriere. These victories were pretty much the only good news for the Americans until 1814, so the war may end quickly as the American will to fight collapses. Another point to consider is that many of these crews would eventually make their way to the Great Lakes to assist in winning the battles of Lake Erie and Plattsburg while also ensuring a stalemate on Lake Ontario. So if they are not available? Though if they are on the other side of the Atlantic they may encourage a French naval adventure.
So there are many options to explore as we recreate the adventures of Commodore John Rodgers.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Some thought about gaming the naval war
I have just finished reading the "Lords of the Lake", Robert Malcomsom's book about the war on Lake Ontario. So here follows some thoughts about what I need in a set of rules in order to fight the battles or at least the represent the character of these battles.
Scale
Ignoring HMS St.Laurence for the moment you need a set of rules that goes from gunboats to frigates. This is smaller than any set of rules that I have seen. It does reverse the order of most age of sail which focus on the battleships and not the little boats. Here they are the centre of attention and not an add-on.
Cannons & Carronades
Each fleet developed a unique characteristic in its armaments with Americans favoring cannons while the British carronades that influenced their tactics.
I think the most the extreme example that needs to be modeled is HMS Detroit at the battle of Lake Eire which carried the following armament.
Carronades
Both fleets could include the traditional square rigger, schooners and even row powered gunboats.
Crew Management
Both sides could find themselves short of crew thereby restricting the ability to fight their ships. Most rules I can think either ignore crew management as being to complex or include as an add-on
There that's it for the moment. I will look at the various rules I have got to see if they will do the job or can be bashed into shape. This ship has just set sail.
Scale
Ignoring HMS St.Laurence for the moment you need a set of rules that goes from gunboats to frigates. This is smaller than any set of rules that I have seen. It does reverse the order of most age of sail which focus on the battleships and not the little boats. Here they are the centre of attention and not an add-on.
Cannons & Carronades
Each fleet developed a unique characteristic in its armaments with Americans favoring cannons while the British carronades that influenced their tactics.
I think the most the extreme example that needs to be modeled is HMS Detroit at the battle of Lake Eire which carried the following armament.
Carronades
- 1x 24s
- 1x 18s
- 2x 24s
- 1x18s
- 6x12s
- 8x 9s
Both fleets could include the traditional square rigger, schooners and even row powered gunboats.
Crew Management
Both sides could find themselves short of crew thereby restricting the ability to fight their ships. Most rules I can think either ignore crew management as being to complex or include as an add-on
There that's it for the moment. I will look at the various rules I have got to see if they will do the job or can be bashed into shape. This ship has just set sail.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Small thing amuse small minds
Hello all.
I have been experimenting with a new graphics package. In this case, Inkscape a vector graphics editor. Now, I have been involved with computers for many years but I have never ever completely got my head around how to use a graphics package. So I am quite pleased with these first efforts and I feel encouraged to try some more.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The War of 1812 campaign: Introduction
Many years ago when I was a teenager, there used to be a magazine called "War Monthly" which I would read in the newsagents as I was to cheap to buy them, though one of my friends did. One of them contained an article on the battle of Lundy's lane which described it as the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. I cannot remember a single thing about the article but it certainly left an impression and a longing. Much closer to the present day I come across "The Incredible War of 1812" and a monster was born.
The appeal of the War of 1812 is its size as there are no large battles requiring lots of troops. Further most of the battles are suitable for play with units representing battalions which is a scale that appeals to me especially big units. It is also a bit obscure but all its participants wrote in "English" so it is easy to research. Unfortunately its appeal is lost among the rest of those I game with. So I am going to do this as a solo project.
I would also like to explore a couple of ideas in its execution. One of the problems I have experienced in several campaigns was declining player interest. The approach that I am going to take is to split the campaign into years and theaters of war and each will be played out as sub-campaign that forms part of the greater picture. So we will start in 1812 with four sub-campaigns covering the sortie of the American Navy and three invasions of Canada. Each campaign will continue until either it has achieved its objective or admits failure. Now if time permits and the troops are fit enough a second campaign may occur in theater such as what occurred in the West after the defeat of Hull's invasion of Canada. Of course if you are like Dearborn then the whole campaign season will be wasted and nothing of import will occur.
So thats all for the moment. Next will the sortie of the American navy.
The appeal of the War of 1812 is its size as there are no large battles requiring lots of troops. Further most of the battles are suitable for play with units representing battalions which is a scale that appeals to me especially big units. It is also a bit obscure but all its participants wrote in "English" so it is easy to research. Unfortunately its appeal is lost among the rest of those I game with. So I am going to do this as a solo project.
I would also like to explore a couple of ideas in its execution. One of the problems I have experienced in several campaigns was declining player interest. The approach that I am going to take is to split the campaign into years and theaters of war and each will be played out as sub-campaign that forms part of the greater picture. So we will start in 1812 with four sub-campaigns covering the sortie of the American Navy and three invasions of Canada. Each campaign will continue until either it has achieved its objective or admits failure. Now if time permits and the troops are fit enough a second campaign may occur in theater such as what occurred in the West after the defeat of Hull's invasion of Canada. Of course if you are like Dearborn then the whole campaign season will be wasted and nothing of import will occur.
So thats all for the moment. Next will the sortie of the American navy.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Table top campaigning
Many years ago when my eyesight was better my friends and I got into wargaming with 6mm figures, my personnel collection is mostly Napoleonic and Microarmour. Now we play 15mm and are thinking that that perhaps they are a bit small and hard to paint and 25mm is the way to go. So the 6mm sit in their boxes high upon the shelf all but forgotten gathering dust, even ebay does not appear to interested in them.
Is there any way to make use of them? Perhaps there is, though the ideas I am going to try to outline here are still very rough.
Currently I play Sam Mustaffa's "Might and Reason", as well I have played his Grand Armee along with other brigade size rules such as Napoleons Battles and Volley & Bayonet. Indeed my 6mm Napoleonics are based on 15mm Napoleon Battles bases. My basic idea is to shrink these games from inches to centimetres. Normally this is done so that large battles such as leipzig can be done on a single on a single table or to allow smaller tables to be used. As such little on modification needs to be done to any of these rules to play a game at this scale. The basic 9x6 foot wargame can become an area of about 15x22 kilometres under one of the might and reason scales of 12cm to a mile. This translates into a hefty slice of southern Saxony from the border to Dresden.
For a game at this scale visability and hidden movement are important considerations. The naked eye can distinguish a mass of troops at 1700 yards, infantry and cavalry can be told apart at 1300 and uniforms at 500. With a bit of fudging this can be translated as the number of brigades can identified at 12cm, the type of brigade at 8cms and the subtype at 4 cms. So anything outside 12cms can be hidden from your opponet. Hidden units could then be replaced by a column marker of some sort. A column can be divided into 2-3 sub-units consisting of the 1st & 2nd lines and an optional advance guard. When two forces are within 12cms each player announces the number of brigades in their 1st line while all troops in 2nd remain hidden. The 2nd line may in fact be a dummy.
I like the idea of allowing for players to use a screening force and outpost lines, but the more I think about the more complex it becomes. A player can use a small column for the same tasks.
Not all troops should be deployed in columns. A static garrison can be just identified as such rather be sub-divided into 1st & 2nd lines. Further you can then roll to randomly reveal them to the other side. The idea being that eventually information about static garrison will leak out.
Once players get with 12cms then combat becomes a possibility but they will only know how many brigades are deployed in each others front line. A player may at this stage decline to advance further or they may commit themselves to move forward in order to establish the strength of the second line. Rather than move straight into fighting the battle have simple competitive die roll between the players. If the defender wins then the attacker has failed to gain any intelligence about the defender. Some possible die modifiers are:
While an area such as described above is tempting as a game. The problem exits that at this scale it may still not be big enough as it barely a days march across. Now while moving to 2mm or even cardboard may appeal to some and may be a good idea at least part of the idea is to use what resources I have and to maintain some visual appeal. It remains to be seen if it can work within the limitations I have set no matter how artificial.
Of course there is always room for more chrome. Some possible chrome are camps, convoys and lines of communication. Camps provide for a player to hide the number and location of troops in plain sight of his opponent, though with the problem that if you loose your camp and its associated baggage you will have to retire from the table top. Convoys provide supplies as well as the opportunity to conduct operations such as the destruction of supply convoy during the siege of Olmutz. Finally at least for the moment is lines of communication which traditionally was an objective that you wished to drive your opponent away from.
One major drawback to this as a campaign system with separate battle resolution is the need for two tables.
This could work really well if also linked with a siege that can also be played out on table.
The game would work with an umpire, even possibly without one.
So there it is, a bit rough as I said earlier and not without its flaws. But I think it has some possibility and feel inspired enough to start looking for a scenario for a test play.
Is there any way to make use of them? Perhaps there is, though the ideas I am going to try to outline here are still very rough.
Currently I play Sam Mustaffa's "Might and Reason", as well I have played his Grand Armee along with other brigade size rules such as Napoleons Battles and Volley & Bayonet. Indeed my 6mm Napoleonics are based on 15mm Napoleon Battles bases. My basic idea is to shrink these games from inches to centimetres. Normally this is done so that large battles such as leipzig can be done on a single on a single table or to allow smaller tables to be used. As such little on modification needs to be done to any of these rules to play a game at this scale. The basic 9x6 foot wargame can become an area of about 15x22 kilometres under one of the might and reason scales of 12cm to a mile. This translates into a hefty slice of southern Saxony from the border to Dresden.
For a game at this scale visability and hidden movement are important considerations. The naked eye can distinguish a mass of troops at 1700 yards, infantry and cavalry can be told apart at 1300 and uniforms at 500. With a bit of fudging this can be translated as the number of brigades can identified at 12cm, the type of brigade at 8cms and the subtype at 4 cms. So anything outside 12cms can be hidden from your opponet. Hidden units could then be replaced by a column marker of some sort. A column can be divided into 2-3 sub-units consisting of the 1st & 2nd lines and an optional advance guard. When two forces are within 12cms each player announces the number of brigades in their 1st line while all troops in 2nd remain hidden. The 2nd line may in fact be a dummy.
I like the idea of allowing for players to use a screening force and outpost lines, but the more I think about the more complex it becomes. A player can use a small column for the same tasks.
Not all troops should be deployed in columns. A static garrison can be just identified as such rather be sub-divided into 1st & 2nd lines. Further you can then roll to randomly reveal them to the other side. The idea being that eventually information about static garrison will leak out.
Once players get with 12cms then combat becomes a possibility but they will only know how many brigades are deployed in each others front line. A player may at this stage decline to advance further or they may commit themselves to move forward in order to establish the strength of the second line. Rather than move straight into fighting the battle have simple competitive die roll between the players. If the defender wins then the attacker has failed to gain any intelligence about the defender. Some possible die modifiers are:
- Stronger front rank
- Cavalry superiority
- Controlling the high ground
While an area such as described above is tempting as a game. The problem exits that at this scale it may still not be big enough as it barely a days march across. Now while moving to 2mm or even cardboard may appeal to some and may be a good idea at least part of the idea is to use what resources I have and to maintain some visual appeal. It remains to be seen if it can work within the limitations I have set no matter how artificial.
Of course there is always room for more chrome. Some possible chrome are camps, convoys and lines of communication. Camps provide for a player to hide the number and location of troops in plain sight of his opponent, though with the problem that if you loose your camp and its associated baggage you will have to retire from the table top. Convoys provide supplies as well as the opportunity to conduct operations such as the destruction of supply convoy during the siege of Olmutz. Finally at least for the moment is lines of communication which traditionally was an objective that you wished to drive your opponent away from.
One major drawback to this as a campaign system with separate battle resolution is the need for two tables.
This could work really well if also linked with a siege that can also be played out on table.
The game would work with an umpire, even possibly without one.
So there it is, a bit rough as I said earlier and not without its flaws. But I think it has some possibility and feel inspired enough to start looking for a scenario for a test play.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Recreating the seven years war. Part 1 of X
I have almost finished reading "By force of arms" by Christopher Duffy, so now I have feel the urge to comment upon its implications for wargame design. This is the second volume of his history of the Austrian Army during the 7YW, which is the second edition/rewrite of his earlier work "The army of Maria Theresa". this volume concentrates upon an operational history of the army. Now for those ignorant sods like myself for whom English is their first only language it is an invaluable source and possibly the best you can get at the moment.
Now part of his thesis is about the evolving skills of the Austrian Army and their ability to conduct complex operations. The signature piece being the attack by multiple columns such as the attack at Hochkirch as opposed to the unitary force which is the how we normally think of the deployment of lace wars armies. A unitary deployment has the infantry in centre deployed in two line with cavalry upon either flank, the whole moving and fighting as a whole. Frederick himself using the traditional unitary deployment in many of his battles until quite late in his career, though he did have his variation of it. Nor were the Austrians alone in using it, Frederick himself used it at Torgau and the French and Prince Ferdinand in West Germany were also moving along similar lines.
So like many wars you beginning fighting the old fashioned way and by the end of new technologies and tactics have transformed warfare as we know. We are normally used to seeing this best represented through the evolution of technology. In WWII the technology has markedly evolved and matured as pretty much every weapon system at the end of the war is there at the start. WWI has similar technology changes including the introduction of whole new classes of weapons. The 7YW is also a war where many changes occur not in the technology but in how the generals approach the war.
Now part of his thesis is about the evolving skills of the Austrian Army and their ability to conduct complex operations. The signature piece being the attack by multiple columns such as the attack at Hochkirch as opposed to the unitary force which is the how we normally think of the deployment of lace wars armies. A unitary deployment has the infantry in centre deployed in two line with cavalry upon either flank, the whole moving and fighting as a whole. Frederick himself using the traditional unitary deployment in many of his battles until quite late in his career, though he did have his variation of it. Nor were the Austrians alone in using it, Frederick himself used it at Torgau and the French and Prince Ferdinand in West Germany were also moving along similar lines.
So like many wars you beginning fighting the old fashioned way and by the end of new technologies and tactics have transformed warfare as we know. We are normally used to seeing this best represented through the evolution of technology. In WWII the technology has markedly evolved and matured as pretty much every weapon system at the end of the war is there at the start. WWI has similar technology changes including the introduction of whole new classes of weapons. The 7YW is also a war where many changes occur not in the technology but in how the generals approach the war.
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