Jacobite Rising - The Battle of Littleferry

This week's game was a long-awaited game of Jacobite Rising, the Commands and Colours variant. Rather than using the usual blocks that come with the game, we used Anthony's rather lovely 54mm figures with wound markers to denote hits.

The game is largely the same as most other C&C games with some special, period specific, strategy card (which have a very Scottish Shortbread tin aesthetic).  

One of the most significant rule changes is that a unit which retreats due to rolling a 'flag' has to test or it may rout completely.  I guess this reflects the general reluctance to stand and fight on both sides, and especially the brittleness of the Highlanders... great going forward, not so good when things begin to go wrong!

We played the Battle of Littleferry scenario.  This took place in Sutherland in 1746, just before Culloden.  A Jacobite force is caught by surprise by local government Highland companies.  Crucially the Jacobite troops had become separated from their commander who retreats back to Dunrobbin castle for safety.  Historically the government troops won a convincing victory...could I reverse the result?

The commander hiding out at Dunrobbin Castle

We started with a slightly gamey move.  The Jacobite commander was at serious risk of being killed or captured and giving the Government side a victory point but there was no penalty for having him run away (other than not having a Leader in the table) so the brave Earl of Cromarty ran away!  It felt a little underhand but there was little point leaving him where he was.

One we'd got him out of the way the Battle started in earnest.  One of the Government Highland Companies got a bit over-excited and charged but were quickly driven back and routed.  My Highlanders also proved quite brittle and a couple also decided to bug out.  The turning point came when one of my units unleashed a volley of devastating musket fire with a combination of cards (an order card which improved musketry plus a special strategy card which added to the firepower)... not a very 'Highland' tactic but we decided they must have been trained by the French or perhaps they were French in disguise!

Although I was now down to 50% strength, this gave me the last flag I needed and the Government troops slunk away although it was a damaging win for the Jacobites.  Great system which captured the feel of the period really well.

Dominion of the Spear

 

I seem try out a lot of rules that I only play very occasionally thanks to my rules-magpie friends (yes Anthony... I'm looking at you!!)  At Eric the Shed's the rules tend to be more consistent and we mostly use the Black Powder/Pike and Shotte/Hail Caesar trilogy as a regular set of rules which has the huge advantage of being able to get the game underway with a varying group of players straight away as we're all familiar with them (although there are enough minor variations between each of these to cause regular confusion)  But it's nice to try out rules I might not otherwise have come across

This week Anthony and I played Dominon of the Spear (technically we played Dominion of the  Claymore, Tomahawk and Talwar which is one of the variants as we were fighting out a series of Jacobite battles).  I'd seen these being mentioned quite a bit recently online but knew nothing about them. Dominion of the Spear ranges from Ancients to Medieval and there are numerous supplements all the way up to 1900 CE

They're an interesting concept with units based in a grid facing each other.  There's no movement and no terrain.  And games last about 15 minutes.  My immediate thought was "oh... this will be... erm... interesting" and I was initially a little underwhelmed but actually the concept is much more nuanced and thoughtful.

Combat is a straight d6 roll-off with the loser being removed.  Different troops need different scores, so for example my Elite Highlanders succeeded on a 3+, while the Govt Line Infantry needed a 5+.  But the Line troops have the advantage of fighting first... in other cases the combat may be simultaneous and there's a very real possibility of both units wiping each other out!  Reserve troops have to be moved in immediately so there is a bit of thinking about which troops you use to plug a gap, and there are some simple rules for flanking.  The terrain rules are abstracted and factored into the rating of the troops: so, for example, a unit may be given a defensive bonus to reflect woods or hedges, or an Elite rating to represent a tactical advantage, eg. my Highlanders in the Prestonpans scenario were all Elite to reflect the surprise and confusion in the Government ranks.  

And that's about it.  Each variant of the original rules adds in a few period specific rules to reflect the setting, and there a few things we didn't try out (Ambushes and troop deployment) as we were playing a series of linked battles in a mini-campaign.  And this is where I think the rules have a real strength... because each battle is very short, it's possible to play through a campaign in an evening or to use the rules as a way of quickly resolving battles in a map-based campaign.  Each rule book comes with a host of army lists for battles and mini-campaigns with the suggestion that the 1st player to win 2 battles in succession wins the campaign.  It would be very easy to tweak this to suit though, and the rules are ideal for solo play

In our campaign we started out with Prestonpans which reversed history with a Government win.  We then moved on to Inverurie: a Jacobite victory with Jacobite line troops against government highlanders and finally Falkirkmuir which was another Jacobite win, giving me the overall victory.  Had we continued we'd have fought out the battles of Littleferry and Culloden.

The figures are Anthony's lovely 54mm miniatures... lots of conversions and amazing paint jobs and a very shiny 'toy soldier' aesthetic!

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!

The Battle of Falkirk - take 2

Last month I finally fielded my paper Jacobite armies in a refight of the battle of Falkirk (all the gory details can be found here).  On that occasion we used Black Powder, a set of rules I'm very familiar with and which I think are pretty good for all periods.

In the post and the subsequent comments my opponent, Anthony, and I had mentioned that the rules that come with the Peter Dennis book seemed a bit daunting.   This prompted a comment by Andy Callan, author of the rules, that his rules were a lot more streamlined than Black Powder so, taking that as a bit of a challenge, we decided to re-fight the game using Andy's rules.

As Andy pointed out in his comments,his rules stretch to 5 whole pages with another page devoted to design philosophy... would these be detailed enough to give a challenging game?

The rules include a deployment system which we didn't use as we were playing one of the scenarios in the book but this looks quite interesting. It uses playing cards to initially deploy regiments: players then try to redeploy into period appropriate formations  but once one side has met it's 'deployment conditions'  the game starts, even if the other side isn't quite ready.

In the main rules units fire first and then move (if they haven't fired) which makes for some interesting decisions about when to unleash that initial volley from the redcoats.  The fire and combat values vary for each side meaning the Government troops are very powerful in firing but, as expected, the Highlanders are very effective when charging.  An interesting rule for the Highlanders is that when a regiment of, for example, 6 stands advances it gradually shrinks in frontage which reflects the troops bunching up into a mass as they move forward.  It means the Highlanders will attack with a narrower frontage unless they decide to halt and redress their lines (which seems like a bad idea when faced with angry redcoats with muskets!).

Movement is suitably limited...troops in this period weren't the most mobile... and if troops are Raw or become Shaken then they can do even less.  Highlanders and cavalry are fast but move a variable distance.

Morale is pretty decisive.  We found that once a unit began to lose stands then they would quite easily rout.  As they pull back this forces other units to test and it can become very infectious as I found to my cost!  Due to the brevity of the rules we made a couple of assumptions;

• that each lost stand added to the morale minuses (not just the ones lost in the active turn)
• that hits over the target to remove a stand didn't carry over...not sure about this but it made record keeping easier

We very quickly found that these were a really interesting set of rules...as each turn progressed we'd find another facet of the rules which made us go, 'hmm...that makes sense'.  They certainly captured the feeling of warfare in this particular setting and they'd be equally suitable for other settings such as the French Indian Wars with very little tweaking.


So how did the battle go?  Let's just say I demonstrated very ably that I can lose a battle regardless of which rules we were using!  My line of Highlanders advanced at different speeds which meant they attacked piecemeal and once one unit routed on my right flank, the whole flank decided to join them.  That might be my only criticism of the rules...morale failures seem very infectious and it appeared very easy for units to scatter, although maybe that's just my loser's sour grapes!  :)

The Jacobites advance

Cavalry clash on the right flank

Bonnie Prince Charlie gives a last minute pep talk to his men, but too late
to stop them all running away!

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