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!

Cadbury World

No...not that one...there's no chocolate involved in this post...

Last weekend we squeezed in a couple of nights away before everywhere gets busy for Easter.  We'd booked a room at The Compasses Inn which is a pub we've stayed in several times over the last 20-odd years.  It's located in Lower Chicksgrove, a very small village (really just a string of houses) in Wiltshire: the pub serves really nice food and more importantly, really nice beer and has 4 bedrooms available.  Crucially for us it's also dog-friendly so we were able to bring the hounds along and I can highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in that part of the country

Lizzie testing the bed...

Of course in among the eating and drinking we also wandered around the Wiltshire countryside and managed to squeeze in a couple of castles on the way.  We nearly made it 3 but despite popping round to Old Wardour Castle twice we failed to get in...once because it was shut and once because it was booked for a wedding and was really busy!

Our first stop was Sherborne Old Castle...

This was initially built in the 12th century and was renovated by Sir Walter Raleigh who almost immediately became bored with it and built a new home nearby instead!  During the English Civil War it was a Royalist castle and was besieged twice; eventually after a 16 day siege fell to Cromwell and Fairfax who described it as "malicious and mischievous".  Not surprisingly there isn't a great deal left after they'd exacted their revenge but the ruins are still pretty impressive.

We then made our way to Cadbury Castle...also known as Camelet.  There has been settlement here since Neolithic times but it was during the 1st century BC that the hill fort fortifications were started.  It was re-fortified after the Roman withdrawal and evidence suggests it was occupied by a local Chieftain...hmmm...I wonder who that could have been...

The panorama from the top, looking out over Somerset

Rain over Glastonbury...luckily not over us!

Some of the dips and folds from the earthworks

Trigger on the earthworks, preparing to repel the Romans

The very steep path...I'm clearly very unfit!

Of course with a name like Camelet, local tradition has it that this was Camelot (cue Monty Python quotes...)  and there is a theory that it was a base from which Arthur launched his attack at the Battle of Mount Badon which may or may not have been to the north near Bath.  To be fair there isn't much evidence (or indeed any evidence) to back this up but who cares about that...I climbed to the top of Camelot!!

The path up to the top is short and very steep and both my wife and I were a bit breathless...embarrassingly we were passed by a very elderly man with a walking stick who didn't appear to be struggling at all!!

Saga three ways

A visit to Eric the Shed's place this week for a game of Saga...something I haven't played for several years.  I've played quite a few games in the past when it was a new and shiney thing but not for a few years...people at the club seemed to find it a bit 'gamey' which it is I guess.

I was even tempted into digging out my Vikings from the loft...they were banished there after falling out of the loft hatch and bouncing down the stairs not once, but twice in the space of 10 minutes!  After the second crash I couldn't bear to look in the box to see how bad the damage was so they've languished upstairs since then.

Actually the damage wasn't too bad...a few broken spears and arms and one figure who had snapped off at the ankles but mostly they were surprisingly intact.  Gripping Beast plastics are surprisingly durable!

Eric had set up a 3 way game which set 2 bands of  rival Viking raiders against some Anglo-Danes defending a hill-top church.  Initially the Danes looked hard pressed as both groups of Vikings converged on the hill although my initial attack went badly, losing a unit of Bondi completely and taking a hit on my elite Hearthguard.  This did manage to take out his archers but it was too costly an attack.

My Vikings are in the centre...Warband #2 arrived by sea from the left

The Danes gather around the church

Viking raiders #1

On my left flank I was nervously eyeing up the other Viking band who were pressing the Danes back but I was convinced it was only a matter of time before they turned on me.  My nerve gave out first and my archers turned on the rival Vikings, peppering a unit of Bondi and I followed this up with a charge from my spearman.   Of course this prompted a pretty violent response from the Vikings who unleashed their own attacks leaving both of us weakened and pretty much handing the game to the Danes.  They completed the victory by finally charging off the hill and killing my Warlord....that's what I get for impatience and paranoia!!!

Ready to drive off the Anglo-Danish archers

It took a little while for the nuances of Saga to come back to me but it's a great game and it was nice to get out a long neglected army.

Like all raiding Vikings we were well supplied with rations foraged from the enemy....

Authentic Viking raiding supplies

Sunday round up

So that's the Aztecs and Conquistadors finally re-based and completed...well, I say completed...

I came across an unopened box of Aztecs while sorting them out so I'll paint up some of these as extras for the Aztecs and allies for the Spanish.  Nice to kind of finish a project though!

I've also been busy selling off stuff that has been lying in the loft for years.  It's one of those jobs that I've been meaning to do for ages but now that I've started it's been quite fun watching the eBay counters ticking round as bids arrive (usually).  It's been interesting to see what items sell and what are unloved.  Making a bit of cash is a nice bonus although that only holds water if no one asks how much I paid for the items in the first place. 

The other danger is that I find things in the selling pile and then decide that actually I'd rather keep them.  I nearly didn't post a set of Warlord Games Romans and Celts which I bought and painted when hard plastics first came on the market...they've never actually seen a game but once I opened up the box I immediately started thinking about keeping them and, of course, I'd need to add some more figures!  Good sense prevailed though and they were quickly photographed and wrapped in bubble wrap and have gone off to new homes where hopefully they'll get some use.  I did weaken though when I came across some 15mm Marlburian figures...I was going to sell these (remnants of a club project that never got off the ground I think) but then remembered that I'd  enjoyed researching and painting the various regiments so they've been put aside and spared trial by eBay. 

Gaming-wise I took part in an excellent and rather bloody Pike and Shotte ECW game at Eric the Shed's earlier in the week in which he'd decided to extend his already huge table to just under 20'.  Although the table has always seemed more than big enough this did mean that even with 5 of us playing, there was plenty of room for manoeuvre...or lack of manoeuvre in my case as I repeatedly failed to get my forces moving for several turns. This actually proved a blessing in the end as it meant that my opponent had moved away, responding to the carnage in the centre of the table and allowing me to get into a decent position relatively undisturbed and eventually win my bit of the battle at least...great fun!

More Re-basing

More re-basing...it's quite therapeutic once you get into a routine!  Strip the figure off the old base and glue it to the next...add some Vallejo textured basing stuff, give the figures an Army painter dip, add some flock... and repeat...

 I've now re-based around a 125 Aztecs and 40-odd Spanish. I'm finishing off the remaining 20 Aztecs and that will leave another 44 Spanish....phew.  I've also discovered a couple of new boxes of unpainted Aztecs that I must have bought somewhere.  Although I already have lots of Aztecs I'll probably add a few more as Tlaxcalan allies for the Spanish

I spotted that the last issue of Wargames Illustrated has an adaptation of Congo for a South American setting and this includes cards etc for Conquistadors so I think an expedition to El Dorado might be on the cards!

The next batch of Conquistadors

A Jaguar Knight

The Aztecs so far...

Spring cleaning and Aztecs

No, I haven't been spring-cleaning my Aztecs....I suspect that would be a bit of a chore given all the blood and gore from the human sacrifices.

No, I've been having a bit of a clear out of rules books, figures and boardgames.  I finally came to the conclusion that there is far too much stuff stacked up in the loft so a major clear out is in order with a  pile of stuff headed to eBay.

I've also finally resumed a couple of projects, beginning with sorting out the large amount of 20mm Aztecs that I'd acquired a few years ago.   I'd made a bit of a start on these some time ago but they've then  languished under my desk so I've spent a therapeutic evening rebating lots of figures.  They were actually quite well based already  (seriously...they seem to have been coated in concrete!) but I wanted to have them individually based.

I've now used up all my 20mm bases from Warbases and have textured all the bases and dipped a lot of the Aztecs in Army Painter shade.  More bases are on order as well as some movement trays.  There are a few Conquistadors that need rebasing but a lot of progress has been made!

Cavalier 17

As always Cavalier at Tonbridge in Kent marks the start of the show season for me.  It's one of about 4 that I try and get along to and it's only a 45 minute drive although this does involve the M25 so the actual journey time could be anyone's guess.

It's not the biggest show...in fact it's the smallest of the ones I go to....but it's usually fun and there are a decent showing of traders to tempt me.  Actually my haul this year was very small...a couple of Osprey rulebooks: Chosen Men and Pikeman's Lament.  I would have picked  up another Osprey, Rogue Stars, but when I went back to the stand where I'd seen a couple of copies they'd both gone. 
I nearly bought a boardgame but resisted and didn't feel the urge to buy any more figures or terrain.  I'm planning a bit of a cull in the loft with quite a bit headed to EBay in the near future as there is too much up there that hasn't seen the light of day in years... mainly rules and boardgames I think but there are some figures on their way to a new home too.

Here is an assortment of photos...as always I've tried to remember who was putting on the game but didn't always get the details so apologies to those I missed...

Fenris Descending by Maidstone Wargames.   Lots of little tin can type robots...

Big X Wing game... Gravesend Gamers

Large Scale D Day game by (I think) Crawley Wargames Club

Nope...not sure...

Impressive looking Chain of Command game titled 'Calvados and Chips'...

put on by the 'League of Gentlemen Anti-Alchemists'

The game featured an array of vegetable plots...

Society of Ancients - battle of Cannae

Rainham Wargames Club Naval Game...Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls Rules

Vietnam - North London Wargames

On an unrelated (but still vaguely wargamey) point, we went to see The Divine Comedy at the London Palladium this week...one of my favourite bands.  Here's a picture of Neil Hannon in full uniform...he didn't explain why, although their latest album includes a song called Napoleon Complex and one about Catherine the Great, and lets face it...who needs an excuse to dress up!

I'm tempted to post this to the Napoleonics boards on TMP and ask about the accuracy of the uniform but I suspect it would cause apoplexy among some of the denizens over there!

Brilliant concert!