7th Cavalry skirmish and some moral angst

A great game at Eric the Shed's this week with a skirmish between a US cavalry patrol and some rampaging Native Americans.  All the figures and terrain courtesy of Eric.  There's a great write up on his blog here. 

It was a close run thing with the Cavalry just holding off the attacks by the braves.  We used Black Powder v2 with a random activation system for the Native Americans which worked really well.

'A' Troop, pinned down by a creek

Cavalry ride to the rescue

Forming a defensive firing line...

Just in time as the Braves charge in.

If you read Eric's blog post (and you really should!) You'll see he mentions that one of the players had expressed some moral qualms about the setting... that would be me!  Morality in wargames is a tricky thing and can often lead to too much navel-gazing.  I've met players with some very particular ideas about periods or settings that they won't play.  For example, not using SS troops, not playing any 'Colonial' period games, not playing the Confederates, being uncomfortable with anything where there are still living participants etc.  Some of their arguments make sense and others can be a bit random... to be honest though I'd rather play with someone who has thought about it than the kind of player who is very... erm... 'enthusiastic' about certain unsavoury groups (and I've met a few of those too!)

Generally I'm happy to play most things and most sides... I can happily condemn the CSA as a bunch of slave-owning racists while still playing a game with them.  I have a pair of Zulu and British armies (which I really ought to get out more) and have played a lot of Zulu and Dervish games at the Shed without blinking an eye.  But Cavalry vs Native Americans is one period that has always felt uncomfortable to me. Cowboy games are fine, but most Cavalry encounters with Native Americans tended to be pretty squalid massacres (I know there are of course exceptions).  

I realise as I write this, that it makes little sense to have qualms about this but not about for example, the Sudan or South Africa.  Funnily enough playing the game this week didn't cause me any worries once we got going... I guess it's about respecting the bravery of both sides and balancing the game while keeping as much historical accuracy as you can.  I was quite happy to play A Troop, desperately defending the wagons against ferocious Comanches and my concerns disappeared like so much passing tumbleweed.

Up in the loft I have some Darkest Africa figures which I've used with 'Congo' rules and I must admit they do raise some troubling questions and may not make a reappearance.

Paper Culloden 1746

A couple of weeks ago we fought the latest of the Jacobite Wars games using the Paper Soldiers armies...as we've fought Falkirk a couple of  times now, using Black Powder and the rules that come with the army books, we decided a change of scenery was called for and relocated the action north to Culloden.

I've been to Culloden a couple of times, most recently back in 2013, and even today it's a fairly bleak place...

I'd written about this at the time and the post is here.  In the post I talked about gaming this period,,,nice to have finally done it even if it took me 6 years to get round to it!

We returned to Black Powder for this game.  The battle starts with the Jacobite lines at an angle to the Government troops and with some extra boggy ground in the way on the left flank.

Over on the right flank the Government had some cavalry and militia on my flank in an enclosure

I attempted to block this off by swinging the end of  my line round to face them and marching the French troops up to support.  As usual in Black Powder the game was full of brigades refusing to advance and the occasional blunder.

The French look much smarter than the Highlanders with their fancy uniforms!

I tried pushing the left flank forward over the boggy ground which they eventually managed but it took several turns to get there.

I'd expected the Government troops to hold back and wait for the Highlanders to come to them but my opponent Andrew was having none of it and steadily advanced to me instead. Over on the right flank the Govt Horse and Militia made short work of the Jacobite and French troops facing them and I was suddenly opened up to a flank attack.

In the middle it was going a bit better... some of the attacking Jacobite had managed to break through the government lines but the battle in the bog on the left was going badly and the whole battle became very fragmented...not the neat charging battlelines I'd hoped for!

As both flanks caved in I conceded the battle...when we counted up defeated units it was actually quite close but the government start with an advantage in numbers and I simply couldn't afford the losses I'd taken

Great fun but I've still to see the Jacobites actually win a battle!

Paper Highlanders on the march

So all my efforts with scissors and glue have finally resulted in a game!  My Paper Soldiers had their first run out in a proper game this week after a lot of cutting and sticking.

Although the book comes with a set of rules by Andy Callan,  I decided to stick to something I know...Black Powder, using some of the amendments in the Glory of Kings 18th Century supplement.   The main changes are that troops can't make multiple moves and fire in the same turn and some restrictions to deploying out of column into line...neither of which had any bearing on our game.

I'd decided to go for a historical scenario and picked the Battle of Falkirk Muir.  It was a Jacobite victory but didn't feel as one sided as either Prestonpans or Culloden.  My opponent Anthony kindly hosted and took on the Government forces.  Both sides started deployed facing each other: I had considered having the Government arrive in column but skipped this phase and went straight for the opening of the battle as a starting point.  The Government's artillery begins the game bogged down in a marsh and needs to roll each turn to free itself. In the event we forgot about it after a couple of turns as events had overtaken us by that point.

The Government army

...and the view from the Jacobite lines

I decided to head straight for the enemy lines, not wanting to get drawn into a firefight against better troops.  Despite the popular image the Jacobites weren't averse to using their muskets effectively but their strength lies in the charge so this seemed the best tactic.  In typical Black Powder fashion the command dice caught me out...in this case my entire army steamed straight into the enemy lines in one turn!  Good for the Jacobites but it did catch me a little by surprise: I'd kind of hoped to have a little time to manoeuvre.

At this point Anthony and I both had visions of the game being over in about 30 minutes.  My left flank hit the Government lines and went into melee.  On my right the 'Terrifying Charge' bonus for the Highlanders meant that the opposing infantry didn't stay around to fight and pulled back in disorder

The Jacobites charge home

Unfortunately the Highlanders failed to break their opponents in the first round and settled down to slugging it  out with the bayonet armed line infantry.  On my right the better Government line troops had pulled back leaving the Glasgow Militia and Argyll Militia to face the Highlanders.  Despite being second rate troops they very effectively poured musket fire in and forced their opponents to stall and then halt.  On my extreme right the Government cavalry moved onto the flank of my line and, after dispatching the rather weedy Jacobite horse, ganged up on the Highlanders.

This clan's days are numbered...

In a couple of turns the battle had turned and the Jacobites broke.  In the photo below the black counters mark Shaken units...as you can see there are quite a lot of them!

...and it's all over

So, despite re-writing history and losing the Battle of Falkirk Muir the game was great fun.  I hadn't taken account of the speed of movement in Black Powder and really the Jacobites shouldn't have been able to contact the enemy in a single turn but luckily my inept dice throwing and some skilful flanking moves on Anthony's part meant the game definitely wasn't one sided.  On a normal 6' x 4' table  I'd maybe do something with the movements rates to slow things down a little.

The Paper Soldiers themselves looked great en masse.  I still have some more to make up and add some extras to existing units to build the armies up.  It's been an interesting project...I've enjoyed making the paper soldiers but for other periods I'd probably stick with actual figures.  The Jacobite period was one I'd always wanted to do and the Paper Soldier concept made it very do-able and has certainly let me scratch that itch.  As a way of fairly quickly putting together armies it's been very cost effective and looks great,

More paper Jacobites

Last year I started working on "paper soldier" armies for the Jacobite wars, using the excellent Jacobite book in the Battle for Britain series by Peter Dennis.  Scarily it was back in July that I'd worked my way through the Government army and then took a pause.

After xmas I decided this seemed like a good project for the dark winter nights and so I've been busily cutting and sticking like a demented 6 year old in a Primary school art class.  In a couple of weeks I have produced 8 Highlander regiments (36 men in each regiment) and 3 French regiments including the Royal Ecossais.  A few more Highlanders will be needed as I suspect the attrition rate will be high for them!  I also need to produce some Lowland troops, Irish and a few horse and artillery.

There are some rules included with the book (by Andy Callan) but my preference is probably to use Black Powder as a starter.

The Tartan Army head off for an away fixture...

French Allies

A paper army...

Not much in the way of blogging from me over the last few weeks.  Work and other stuff (gardening, football, napping) took up more time than expected although I have played several excellent games at Eric the Shed's.  Incidentally Eric's excellent blog recently crashed through the 1 000 000 views barrier!  I have a long way to go...

In the meantime I have carried on cutting and sticking like a manic 5 year old, working through several sheets from the wonderful Jacobite '45 Paper Soldiers book in the Battle for Britain series by Peter Dennis.  This is remarkably therapeutic and something I can dip in and out of in a spare moment or 2.

I decided to focus on putting together the Government army and have now assembled 9 regiments of regular foot (3 groups of 3 with different facings), Government Highlanders, Government Militia, 2 cannons and 2 units of Dragoons.

They look very impressive en masse.  Time for a break from paper I think and back to work on the Test of Honour Samurai before going back into production on the Jacobites later in the summer.

Paper Soldiers...my new obsession!

I have a new obsession!

Back in April I succumbed to temptation (again) at Salute and picked up a copy of one of the 'Battle for Britain' series of books by Peter Dennis.  This allow you to copy and cut out sheets of paper soldiers.  The books also come with a set of rules for the relevant period.  There are several books in the series now, ranging from Romans to the ACW and Napoleonic ships (Napoleonic armies are in the pipeline).

The one that got my attention was the Jacobite Wars book.  This is a period I've always been interested in and fancied gaming, but not enough to invest in armies for the period.  I always had a worry that I'd play a couple of games and then not go back to it.  Having seen the really impressive display game at Salute I weakened and bought a copy of the book at a hefty £9.50!

A couple of weekends ago I bought some good quality paper (the book recommends 100gsm but I couldn't get this and ended up with 160gsm), checked the printer had some ink and watched this very handy YouTube tutorial...

Admittedly Peter makes it look very easy, but actually it is quite straightforward and, before I knew it, it was like I was back in a Primary school art lesson with Pritt sticks, glue and safety scissors everywhere!  It is surprisingly therapeutic and relaxing snipping away and the results are very effective.  It reminded me of the fad a couple of years ago for colouring books.  My son finds it very amusing that I have spent several evenings 'cutting and sticking'.  He even found me a set of safety crinkle-edged scissors in an old craft kit from when he was young and was even more amused when I exclaimed "that's just what I need to make a grass effect!"

The figures come on a cleverly designed strip which folds up, concertina-like, to create 2 ranks and a space for the front rank which requires a little more trimming.  The sheets in the book cover just about everything you could want for this period and include stands for Grenadier companies, Militia, Commanders etc.

I'll probably use Black Powder for this period and in an evening I was able to knock out a 36 man infantry unit and prep some other bases in amongst doing some other bits and pieces.  Of course the key question is 'how does it look'.  I have to say I was really impressed with the impact the figures have.  Obviously they are designed to be viewed from the front or rear but the overall effect is really striking.  Needless to say I'm a huge convert...highly recommended!

Dragoons

Government infantry

Highlanders

Grenadiers

Artillery can be made 2-D or 3-D.  This was a bit trickier but looks really good

Franco-Prussian Black Powder

This week saw a long-overdue outing for my Franco-Prussian armies in a game of Black Powder at a friends house.  I'd decided to try and tweak the standard BP rules to take account of the particular quirks of this fascinating transitional period.  A bit of googling threw up lots of ideas that other people had come up with and I then tried to piece together something that made sense to me.

The first dilemma with the FPW is how to reflect the variations between the French Chassepot rifle and the Prussian Dreyse: technically the Chassepot had twice the range of the Prussian rifle but there were also differences in fire discipline and problems with the French breech loading mechanism to take account of.  Most suggestions give the French range increase of somewhere around 25-50% so mine had a range of 24cm while the Prussians were limited to 18cm.  I also made all infantry 'Sharpshooters' which allows them to re-roll one missed firing dice each turn to reflect the murderous fire from rifles in this period

Similarly the artillery needs to be adjusted heavily in favour of the Prussians.  I gave the Prussians a 72cm range and the Sharpshooter ability while the French had a maximum range of 48cm.  My figures are 6mm, hence the change to cm rather than inches.

Prussian command ratings were higher than the French (8 vs 7) apart from the Bavarians who were also on 7.  The other changes I made are listed below and were a combination of the ideas that made sense to me from various people on t'Internet...

1.       All Dreyse and Chassepot troops are consider Sharpshooters allowing them to roll one missed shot. This represents high fire rate of the breach loading weapons.

2.       All Dreyse and Chassepot troops can go prone. They need an order to change formation to/from prone:

a.        -1 to save from shooting
b.       If charged frontally then can attempt to stand, needs successful command roll
c.        If charged & contacted when prone then no closing fire
d.       If charged & contacted when prone then -1 to hit enemy troops in H-to-H

3.  1870/1 Mitrailleuse must deploy next to artillery and cannot be attached directly to infantry formations. Although best used as an infantry support weapon the French did not fully understand its capability and because it looked like an arty piece it was given to the gunners

4. Cavalry are not expected to frontally charge breach loading infantry (Dreyse or Chassepot). If they did they usually got slaughtered. Cavalry can charge Shaken infantry or charge flanks/rear.  However, on a few occasions the sheer surprise was worth a last ditch effort. Roll a d6, if 5 or 6 then the charge can be declared and conditions are good (order still needs to be given by the commander, so it may not go ahead) – infantry are caught “surprised” and cannot issued closing fire.

During the game we immediately forgot about using the 'going prone' rule which didn't have much impact on me but might have helped a couple of Andrew's units form getting peppered by long-range French rifle fire.  The changes also meant that the cavalry were quite limited in how they could be used but this seemed to fit the period...neither of us felt brave enough to risk the 1 in 3 chance of launching a von Bredow style Death Ride!

The final change to normal Black Powder practice was to muck about with the turn sequence.  This seems to be a widely adopted change but not one I'd tried.  We moved Firing so that it now occurred before the Command phase...ie firing then movement.  This seems to have been introduced to prevent a lucky unit making a 3 move advance and then blazing away at close range with the opponent unable to do much about it.  I struggled with the turn sequencing throughout the game and found this hard to get my head round: although it seems to make sense on paper I found it very counter-intuitive and I'm not convinced it adds anything to the game.

So onto the actual game...

The scenario had the 3 Prussian and 1 Bavarian Brigades advancing to seize a village and road junction defended by 4 French Brigades.

The Prussian objective

The Prussians advance rather menacingly down the roads

As the French player I managed to get a unit into the target village and onto the hills overlooking the junction and this was quickly opposed by a Prussian Brigade.  The 2 Brigades remained there for the remainder of the game with the Prussians getting slowly whittled down by the longer range of the French rifles.

The standoff in the centre

On my right the opposing Cavalry Brigades manoeuvered around for a bit and glowered at each other a lot but neither of us was willing to take the risk of committing them to an attack.

..and another standoff on the right flank as the Prussian cavalry stared down the French

The battle really unfolded on my left flank where I'd advanced a Brigade too far and it found itself under pressure from the Bavarians and a Prussian Brigade.  I was briefly spared when the Bavarians blundered and retreated but Andrew was still able to coordinate an attack which eventually broke my Brigade.  By the end of the fight the Bavarians were pretty beaten up however and took little further part in the fight.

The intense fight on the left flank

The Prussians pushed on towards the village an a fierce fight broke out in a wood as a second French Brigade tried to shore up my flank.  This also took heavy casualties and was looking pretty ropey by the time was called a halt.  We decided this was a close Prussian victory with the French holding out but having taken too many casualties in the process. 

I think most of the amendments worked: getting the ranges right is always tricky but these felt ok to me.  If only we'd remembered to go prone when the bullets were flying!

Rorke's Drift

So, following on from my last post about Eric the Shed's epic Zulu day, here is part 2'...Rorkes Drift.

We'd made an early start and fought through Isandlwana in the morning and had a short break for pizza and a reset of the table.  Legatus Shedlius has also written up his account of Isandlwana and no doubt Rorke's Drift will follow shortly and it can be found on his blog...Link

 

 

 

 

 

The afternoon game was to be a refight of the defence of Rorkes Drift, again using Black Powder rules but with some adjustments.  These are all set out in detail on the official Shed Wars write up which can be found here...Link. 

In summary the Zulus made a series of attacks,  each of which played out as a series of normal rounds until the Zulus decided to call of that attack.  The next phase could then either be another assault or a recovery phase where wounds were patched up,  the managers gave inspiring team talks and  (in the case of the British) some frantic shifting of mealie bags took place.

The other significant change was that the Zulus were able to make use of dummy units to force the defenders to spread out and never be sure where the main attack was heading.  This worked very well,  forcing the Brits to commit troops that could have been invaluable elsewhere.

We swapped sides for the afternoon game so James,  Legatus and I took the defenders while Eric and Mark got to lead the Zulu hordes. Each of us was allocated one of the characters from the film...




...in my case I had Owen, Hughes and both Jones'.

The initial Zulu attack was against the hospital building from the Western side and was pretty successful, driving the British back in a series of bloody fights inside the building.  Casualties on the Zulus were also mounting though and they eventually withdrew but not before achieving their main aim for this assault...setting fire to the hospital.  Once the fire was established in 1 quarter of the building we checked each turn to see if it spread.  Unfortunately it quickly took over the whole building meaning we could no longer use it as a strongpoint and nicely illuminating the camp as night fell.

The Hospital catches fire...

...which quickly spreads!

The Zulus now had a choice to either go for a recovery phase or to assault again and they clearly had a taste for blood as they piled straight back, but this time switching their attacks to the NW and NE corners.  The fight in the NW was a bloody affair with Allen falling and the Zulus, despite heavy casualties, pushing the British back from the walls.  In the first 2 assaults the Zulus had a +1 to Morale saves to reflect their early enthusiasm and this had a real impact. 

The Zulus advance from the Kraal

Over on the NE corner where I was the defender the Zulus were advancing from the Kraal and although I initially managed to flush out a number of Feint units, they were able to charge up to the defended wall, negating the cover bonus I'd been enjoying as we tussled over the rampart.  I was forced to pull one of the defenders from the Southern store building to throw them into the fight to try and hold them back.  Thanks to a successful multiple movement order Mark was able to throw an Impi onto the flank of one of the defenders wiping them out and killing Owen.  At least this spared us yet another rendition of Men of Harlech!! I also lost a Jones at this point although I can't remember which one...these Jones' all look alike!!

The Zulus then decided to withdraw again and this time had to have a Recovery Phase.  While they regrouped and tended to their wounded we decided to use this respite to build the Redoubt in the centre of the camp and waited for the next assault.

Again the attack was split, this time against the NW corner and against the Stores on the South wall.  This time the Zulus didn't have the +1 morale bonus and it showed as Zulu casualties mounted rapidly.  Fighting in the NW was again a tussle over the walls while in the south the Zulus were caught between fire from defenders at the wall and in the stores and Jones holding out in the Redoubt.  Several Zulu units were routed before they finally called off the attack but again they succeeded in setting fire to the building, forcing the defenders out.

Zulu snipers watch from the hills...they weren't very effective but were very annoying!

At this point we'd reached 5pm and as it had been a very long day and we were all pretty knackered we decided to call a halt.  We reckon there was potential for at least one more Zulu assault and this may well be played out as an evening game at the Shed once the weather is a bit warmer.

The game was really tense and exciting with the Feint rules and the changing phases adding to the uncertainty...where was the next assault going to come from, would we be granted a short respite or thrown straight back into the fight, were we facing real troops or was it a bluff?  Detailed rule amendments are all on Eric's blog and if you're thinking of a Rorke's Drift game it would be well worth checking them out.  What was very interesting was how different the game felt to Isandlwana in the morning, despite using the same rules (apart from the amendments).  The smaller battlefield and being confined to a defended camp made it feel much, much smaller and changed the nature of the game completely.

Huge thanks to Eric for hosting us and putting on 2 excellent games and to his wife and son for allowing us to take over their kitchen for the day!