BCW Campaign Ideas

The Jolly Broom Man asked in a comment if I had any plans for running a BCW campaign.  A county level campaign set in Lancashire is an idea I have been playing with ever since I read Ernest Broxup's The Great Civil War in Lancashire for the first time over 30 years ago.  Two things came to mind, firstly I'm from Lancashire and secondly the war in Lancashire was reasonably free of outside influences.  There are only really two interventions that had any impact.  The first being when Prince Rupert marched through the county on his way to York in 1644 and the second being the Preston Campaign in 1648.  Other than that external events only really acted to draw Royalist forces away from the county or provided peripheral support in the southern part of the county.  Stephen Bull's excellent work on the war in Lancashire 'A General Plague of Madness - The Civil Wars in Lancashire' rekindled the idea recently.

Having seen both JBM's campaign and also JWH's (on his blog Heretical Wargaming) I started to think about how it might be done.  Both of these fine campaigns use pre-existing board games to provide the campaign maps.  I wouldn't have that luxury but fortunately I do have access some maps which are close in time to the 1640's on the Lancashire C. C.archives site.  I can see the advantage of point to point movement rather than than areas or free movement and think I can knock something up (er...I mean lovingly craft, honest).  I'm thinking of the locations being of three types Fortified houses like Latham House or Houghton Tower, large towns and other fortified locations (or sites where fortifications could be built such as the Pennine passes.  I'm also thinking of having some form of recruitment option based upon the location and the side doing the recruiting so Parliament would have lower chance of recruits in Wigan than in Bolton for example.    Some sites would also have magazines or arsenals as sites of initial supply of arms and ammunition or storage at a latter stage of the game.

Forces will be derived from the known numbers of combatants detailed in the sources.  I would probably have some events cards or tables to show the limited influence of outside events.  Mainly to pull forces out of the county or to introduce reenforcements and supplies.

Last but not least I may break the playing period up into 1642 -43, only or let the clock run right the way through the First Civil War.  Historically after The Battle of Whalley in April 1643 it was all over bar the mopping up until Rupert overthrew everything again in 1644, after which it was simply a case of Parliament consolidating again.  The jury is out on that point for the moment.

Creating Friction

A couple of posts ago I asked where the sweet spot in creating friction in a game lies.  I ended up considering two main areas:

• Causes of movement friction
• Causes of command and control friction

To me these overlap as one reason for movement friction is a failure of command to order troops to move at the right time.  So in terms of game design I would consider the first to be terrain created movement friction.  Everything else I'm interested in comes down to personalities.  I should also make it clear that I'm interested in mass battles in the pre-industrial age.  

So lets start by looking at terrain friction.  I'm sure everyone reading this is used to terrain effects in wargames, usually there is a system where terrain is rough or difficult or slowing or some other description of its effect.  The issue for me is that all terrain of the same type has the same effect every time but the real world isn't like that.  In the real world I drive on the M1 quite a lot (as, it appears, does most of Britain. Often all at the same time from what I can tell!).  In game terms its a 'road' and most rule sets will allow additional movement for being on a road.  On average that may be true.  For the same conditions and volume of traffic I can go faster on the M1 then on a two lane A road.  Here's the thing though it isn't a constant speed, I don't always move at the same speed,  I don't always get the same percentage move increase for being on a 'road', sometimes I don't move at all.  It varies depending on external factors.  Volume of traffic, road conditions, road works, breakdowns, accidents there are a huge number of variables which conspire to make my journey slower than I would like.  

The same should hold good in our rules.  Not everywhere and not all the time of course we don't want the friction to make the game unplayable but there should be some uncertainty about whether Grouchy or Blucher arrive at Waterloo in time to change the outcome.  For us the question is not just how to create friction but how much to create.

Friction, or the lack of it is important

In terms of playability there has to be a clear boundary to the area we are going to have a variable effect within.  Otherwise we can't easily tell where we have to make the check.  It shouldn't vary once established both to make game play easy to manage and because we are really only dealing with short periods of time where ground conditions will not have much time to change.  

I'm going to go with whats easy so sticking with linear features and area features.  In other words the drop terrain placed onto a game table or mat.  Streams, ditches, hedges fields, roads. tracks woods, marshes,built up areas and similar.  These will all have an standard movement effect which should be the default effect.  Some but not all of these will have random movement effects, or in a campaign setting a variable impacted upon by weather conditions.  To keep the time cost of the rule down I would only apply variable terrain to a few distinct areas or features.  Not all of them though sometimes that smooth green field is exactly that, but sometimes it's riddled with rocks or rabbit holes.

Lets look at a river as an example to see how this works.  The usual type of rule will say something like 'a shallow river can be forded at half movement' so that rule slows troops but the player knows for certain the effect and can plan for it. To create less certainty and some friction I might divide the river up into sections of 100 paces in length and test each each of those sections when the first unit reaches it.  We can create a table based upon throwing 2D6 so that we get a nice bell curve of possible outcomes.  This lets us produce extreme outcomes but with a low chance of them coming up by allocating them to the low probability ends of the curve.  I might even give a reason for the effect for game report purposes or I might just describe the effect.  That would give something like this table:

2 - Impossible to cross for any units

3 - No crossing for wheeled vehicles or foot, horse may cross at quarter speed and are disrupted

4 - Impossible to cross for wheeled transport.  Foot and horse may cross at quarter speed and are disrupted

5 - Can be crossed with care all units throw 1D6 on a 6 double the move penalty otherwise normal penalties apply
6 - Normal penalties apply

7 - Normal penalties apply

8 - Normal penalties apply

9 - Easy crossing point for all units throw 1D6 on a 6 halve the crossing penalty

10-  Horse and foot cross at normal penalty Wheeled transport at quarter move penalty

11- Horse and foot can cross at only half normal move penalty wheeled transport normal penalty

12- All units may cross without movement penalty

Another useful effect is to restrict the number of troops who can pass through a choke point such as  gates into fields, bridges, narrow roads passing through villages and similar points which the unit can't go around.  A choke point has a value for the number of men or horse it can allow past in a turn.  I found a formula on Google that calculated this based upon the width of the gap and the number of men or horses etc who can pass by side by side per minute.   The length of the constricted passage should be taken into account but I simplified and assumed a single gate effect rather than a long narrow passage, the math was simpler!

Or for minimum overhead (as suggested by Extra Crispy) you could just add or subtract a dice roll to or from the normal move distance each turn. Its your game after all use what ever works for you.

Return to Bridgeton

I promised that I would let you have details of a game using the scenario from the last post I published, so here it is.  I gave it a few days and at least one reader has re fought it using For King & Parliament rules.  His brief report can be found on the Facebook 17th Century Wargaming group pages.  I fought it using my own rules in 2mm scale using a 1mm to the yard/pace/metre as a ground scale.

The initial deployment with Royalists in the foreground

In my rules players draw up a deployment map before the terrain is set up but can (in some circumstances) change the position of the entire army moving it to the left or right, or individual units during the pre-battle phase.  In the photo above the small boxes behind the units are dice frames used to record hits taken that are being carried forward towards the next morale step loss.  Once a unit has taken one hit per element it's morale drops one point.  any hits that are left over are kept and marked by a dice in the frame.  Ther isn't any way to remove casualties using 2mm blocks so this is my way around the problem.

In this case I opted for a traditional deployment for both sides with horse to either flank.    Parliament's Dragoons used their ability to deploy forwards of the main battle line to occupy the enclosures on the outskirts of Bridgeton (Shades of Oakey's at Naseby).

Parliament's Right Wing and Centre.  Double depth formations using Dutch tactices.

The Royalists won the initiative by virtue of having a superiority of Horse and decided to be the first phasing player.  As you can see from the shot below they pushed forwards with their horse on both flanks with the foot making a slower advance in the centre.  This had the unfortunate effect of masking their guns from the start.  They only managed an occasional shot through the gaps and did nothing of note all day.

About 30 mins game time has elapsed. The coloured markers denote the morale state.  Green are steady yellow are nervous.

As the Royalists advance Parliament's guns open fire and the Dragoons pepper the advancing horse with musketry.  Parliament elected to stand and give their guns chance to soften up the advancing Royalists for the first few moves.  The leading Royalist Horse on the right through a combination of musketry from the Hedges, artillery fire and, once close enough, musketry from the Infantry fail a charge to contact reaction test in a dramatic fashion and break routing back through their support line who are carried away with them as is the commander of that wing..

Two units of The King's cavalry discover pressing engagements elsewhere

At first things appear to be going equally well for Parliament on the opposite flank.  The lead Royalist cavalry unit is engaged in a melee with a second Parliamentarian unit about to join the fray.  The Royalists support is strung out crossing a hill and is not yet fully able to support.  However, the Royalists get a first round bonus for pistols in melee and that along with their elite status allows them to hang on.

The cavalry clashes on Parliament's right

While the action is get up close and personal on the flanks the Royalist Foot is trudging forwards across the centre of the field.  They were ordered to make a rapid advance which prevents them from entering into a musketry duel until they get to effective range.  This allows the Parliamentarian Foot to start the fire fight with receiving any return fire.  Although shooting starts at long range some hits are being registered and the Royalist morale starts to move downwards.

In my rules the units have a morale points value based upon their training and experience (with a plus if elite or a minus if unwilling participants)  that point score falls into one of several morale bands ranging from Keen through Steady, Nervous, Waivering,  Broken and Routing.  Each band is several points wide.  The marker only shows the morale category and not the point score so a player can see the general status of an opposing unit but isn't sure how close to dropping to the next level down a unit is.  Points are lost as a result of reaction tests or combat.  

The Royalist foot has crossed the road and is under artillery fire.

 After about an hour's game time has passed the photo below shows the Situation.  Parliaments Horse is pushing forwards on their left forcing the closest Royalist foot battalia into a pike stand. Royalist foot are closing on their opposite numbers on the far side of the field and a swirling cavalry melee is continuing over on Parliament's right.  I think its fair to say that the action is general at this point.

After about an hour's fighting everything hangs in the balance.

 The Royalist Foot doggedly pushed forward into a storm of shot.  The two units first into close musket shot are both raw and find the experience too much and both break and run.  You can see that they now both show red broken morale markers so rallying them is near impossible.  One has run into it's supports and fortunately was able to pass around it but it left the support unit disrupted.  Nearest the camera both sides have had break off reaction tests results at the end of the last melee phase.  The royalists have the upper hand here as both Parliamentarian units are on the brink of dropping to waivering.  The white triangle markers show that the frontline foot units of Parliament have reserved action points to allow fire to be used in the defensive fire phase of the Royalist turn.  Over by the fields the last reserve of the Royalist horse has stopped the advance of the enemy cavalry from turning the flank.

The game turn is broken down into four action phases two in the first player's round and two in the second players round.  This allows a player to exploit any push backs or breakthroughs in the second phase.  Units have three action points to use in each phase which in effect means that moving, formation changes and shooting can happen in any order.  There is also an option to reserve up to 3 action points to use in the defensive fire phase in the opponents turn. 

After this turn I was rushing to finish the game (Mr's E wanted the dining table for dinner) and didn't take any further photographs (sorry).   The Royalist horse on their left moved forwards again and in response the Parliamentarian horse made a counter charge.  It didn't go well for them and they broke in the face of the Royalists but not without breaking their lead unit in turn and reducing the steady unit to waivering status.  Still the Royalists were looking to be able to turn the flank of Parliament the day might yet be theirs.  In the centre the Second line of Royalist foot suffered the same fate as the first although they did get to hand blows with their opponents.  The crucial moment was when the Parliamentarian Commander was able to order his reserve line of foot to to move to close the open flank.  The unit nearest the danger was trained and experienced and was able to form a pike stand to the rear of the light gun at the end of Parliament's line.  By this time the elapsed game time was just short of two hours and neither side had any troops who were not waivering or worse and no further aggressive action was possible.

The day ended with Royalist foot holding to the North of the line of the road  as required but with two units of Parliament's horse across the road and neither river crossing secured the supplies couldn't pass down the road and so Parliament had the best of the fight.  It showed me that as an attacker there is a need to sit back for a little while and attempt to actually use your artillery!   That sitting back on the defensive is a better option for raw troops and that Royalist foot seem to be able to soak up more punishment then I expected.

ECW Scenario - The battle of Bridgeton

A fictional early English Civil war scenario for you to get your teeth into.  Set in the early part of 1643 somewhere  in the West Midlands close to the Welsh borders.


Situation
The Royalists are preparing for the 1643 campaign season by bringing new recruits from Wales and the Welsh borders into Central England to join the King's main field army.  After reaching the West Midlands they find the route blocked by a well fortified garrison at a significant river crossing.  Marching downstream to secure crossings away from that garrison they hope to cross at the small village of Bridgeton where an old Roman road crossed the river at fords and a medieval bridge.  As they cross a ridge line to the West of the village their Cavalry scouts report a force of the local Parliamentarians approaching from the East.  The Parliamentarian force is tasked with denying the crossing to the Royalists and preventing them from moving further East.

The Battlefield

The table is set for 2mm figures at a ground scale of 1mm to 1yard/metre.  The table measures 1.5 x .75 metres.  This can be flexed to suit your playing area.  North is the top of the map as you are looking at it.


The Forces
Definitions are from my home brew rules but they should serve to give an indication of the abilities of the units.  Units using Dutch tactics form up deeper than those using Swedish.  Horse under Dutch tactics will default to standing to receive a cavalry charge with pistol/carbine fire unless they pass a reaction test to change orders.  Swedish tactic horse will default to charging home and using pistols/carbines in the first round of melee.  Infantry using Dutch tactics will default to firing by ranks while those using Swedish will default to volley/salvee fire unless they pass a reaction test to change standing orders.

Parliament's forces (Dutch Tactics) are:
4 x small artillery guns - Experienced & Trained
2 x 200 Horse - Experienced & Trained
2 x 200 Horse - Raw & Trained
1 x 600 Dragoons - Experienced & Trained
2 x 600 Foot - 400 shot 200 pike - Raw & Trained
3 x 600 Foot - 400 shot 200 pike - Experienced & Trained
1 x Commander in chief
3 x Sub generals

Royalist forces (Swedish Tactics) are:
4 x small artillery guns - Experienced & Trained
1 x 200 Horse - Elite, Experienced & Trained
1 x 150 Horse - Elite, Raw & Trained
2 x 150 Horse - Elite, Experienced & Trained
2 x 150 Horse - Raw & Trained
2 x 500 Foot - 400 shot 100 pike - Raw & Trained
2 x 600 Foot - 400 Shot 200 pike - Raw & Trained
2 x 400 Foot - 300 shot 100 pike - Experienced & Trained
1 x Commander in Chief
4 x Sub generals


Deployment and objectives
Parliament deploys north of the road and the Royalists to the south.  Neither side can be more than half way to the centre line of the table. Parliament's objective is to have troops blocking the road to prevent Royalist supplies being able to move through the area and cross the river at Bridgeton.  The Royalists need to hold at least one of the bridges and to be able to control a clear route between the centre of the east side of the table(where the road enters all the way to the bridge they hold.  Controlling a clear route means that no Parliamentarian unit is within two moves distance of the road or the controlled bridge at the end of the game.  The game ends at nightfall or when one side or the other is no longer able to continue to take aggressive action (you will have to decide what that means from your chosen rules).

I have played this a couple of times solo and it's usually a close run thing under my rules.  The use of Dutch tactics hampers the Parliamentarians.  The Royalists despite a numerical disadvantage have more and slightly better Horse.  They have less and rather worse foot but Swedish tactics allow for more firepower to be laid down.  (in my rules salvee is more effective than the same number of shot firing by ranks).  I will let you know how my games went in a later post so I don't influence your thinking if you decide to give it a go.  Oh and bonus points if you spot the original location of the battle.

Why game in smaller scales?

I suppose a sub title for this post could be are you a modeler first or a gamer first, because that seems to drive the decision as to the size of figures players use.  All of us are wargamers but for the modelers the painting and detail of the resulting figures is a vital ingredient of the hobby.  There is a drive to have groups of beautiful individual figures even if that is at the cost of having 12 men represent a battalion of troops.  For the gamer wing it is the tactical problems and the attempt to create the same decision points that faced historical commanders which is the key.  Both ends of the spectrum want to get toys on the table and roll the dice but the visual aspect of the game is (warning bad pun approaching) viewed differently by both groups.

But there are other issues of course.  Not everyone has the space (or the finances) to deploy a couple of thousand 28mm masterpieces on a huge table.  Of course there are ways around this.  One solution, skirmish gaming has been around since at least the early 1970's.  One of my favourite sets of rules were (and still are) the Bristol Wargamer's Western Gunfight rules which I used to play with 54mm or 28mm figures.  Games such as Dungeons and Dragons or Traveller  werre also played using a limited number of figures.  More recently we have resurgence of games like Saga that allow a smaller number of figures to be used.  The question is are these symptoms or solutions to the cost and space issue.

By now you should be pretty clear that I prefer to fight historical battles (you have been reading the other posts right?) with an option to deploy large formations on the tabletop and to have space to maneuver.  The only way I can do that is to go for smaller figures so that I don't need a playing space the size of Rutland.

Not the size of Rutland when you use 2mm figures

Smaller scales do not have to be less impressive visually than the larger ones.  6mm amd 10mm can be very detailed figures.  Of course the perceived wisdom is that its the look of the unit in these scales not the individual figures which gives the impact.  While I don't disagree that large bodies of troops are impressive that doesn't mean that the individual figures have to be a bit slapdash.

6mm Baccus Anglo-Saxons

I really need to dullcote these

Lets look at the photos above.  The group of Anglo-Saxons looks impressive en mass and at the same time the individual figures, while not being miniature masterworks in the way some 28mm figures are, are still detailed and clearly each differ  one to another.  Yet when I recently timed how long it took to paint them the average (using a batch painting technique) was less than 10 minutes each.

Now I'm the first to admit that I'm not the greatest painter in the world but these are a good tabletop standard that doesn't shame my brushmanship.  I certainly wouldn't be able to paint a 28mm to the same standard in the same time.  For me I can get a 6mm army on the table faster than a 28mm equivalent force.  It needs less space to play and to store, and costs less to purchase the lead.  Mind you, my megalomania off sets the latter point by making me buy more figures but I do get bigger units per pound ( be that in cash or in weight).  For me at least small scale wins on all fronts and I have disposed of my 25mm and larger figures to allow me to concentrate on 6mm and smaller.

Do you like friction in your games...or is it a drag?

A recent post on TMP got me to thinking.  Where is the sweet spot between the eye in the sky wargame where everyone can always do exactly what you want and the version where units don't react to threats, move when their orders were to push on at all costs or simply do random weird sh....stuff?

That there should be some friction seems obvious to me the question is how much is enough?  Morale tests and reaction tests can go someway to creating doubt over outcomes.  But what about those events where a unit just can't move as fast as expected, or where ground that everyone thought was like a balling green turns out to be rough going, or troops who simply can't get the lead out?

I have toyed with various concepts over the years ranging from horribly complex but accurate, to gamey but workable and I'm still not sure where the sweet spot lies.  I know what I want just not how to achieve it.  The shopping list of desirable friction ideas should:

• Create unexpected variations in troop movement that are replicated for all units at the location
• Create delays in executing new orders linked to that units chain of command
• Create occasional refusals to follow orders based on the local commander's attitude to risk and reward and the situation in front of him.

I recall an interesting article on variable terrain effects from one of the wargaming magazines from years back that might fit the bill for the first concept.  An area or a linear feature is marked up as possibly being a variable feature and its true nature is diced for using a chart when the first unit reaches it.  So a river may be deeper than expected or shallower than expected, or a line of vegetation may actually be masking a stream or a ditch.  An area of ground may be boggy or rabbit holes are hidden under ground cover on a hill side.   Its a great idea but the charts need to be rooted in reality so no rabbit holes along the meadow fringing a lake and no unexpected rivers on hill sides the player's troops can see.

The other two ideas I'm beginning to think could be dealt with in a role playing style.  Give generals and sub generals personality traits. These might be linked to a chart that tells us how quickly he reacts (or even notices changes in orders or events affecting his command)  one chart  per general or just  a di modifier. linked to the personality trait.

What do you think are there any particularly good ideas out there that give consistant results and aren't too random?

How do your games end?

One of the issues I have been having in completing my 2mm BCW rules is handling the end game.  It seems to be a fashion at the moment for games to simply stop once one side or the other have reached a predetermined number of losses.  DBA and related games simply stop the action once a certain number of elements have been destroyed.  Other use a slightly more random approach for example the Battlegroup WW2 sets use a system where each time a unit is destroyed the player draws a chit which may have a random event but is more likely to have a number on it.  Once the total value of the chits hits a certain value (based upon the forces selected by that player) the game ends.

There is an assumption to these systems which is that once one side no longer wants to contest the ground the other side decides to sit down and makes a cup of tea, opens a bottle of wine or some such.  In reality the end game is much more chaotic than this some units break, some retire and others fight on.  Often there has to be a fighting withdrawal until nightfall provides the shelter of darkness.  If we take Naseby as an example, much of the Royalist foot found itself surrounded and surrendered, but other units notably Rupert's Bluecoats fought a last ditch defence, while some uncommitted units tried to counter attack but were prevented from doing so (the King and his reserves).  Those formations who did manage to escape the field appear to have fought a running rearguard action all the way back to Market Harborough.  Perhaps if we are only interested in the crucial combat phase of a battle a sudden halt works and it does have the effect of making games actually come to an end which is good for competition games or a single evening of play, but it doesn't model all of the issues a commander faced on the field of battle.

What I wanted to show in my rules was the steady reduction in willingness of individual units to continue to fight and the cascade effect that has on the higher formations up to and including the Army.  I cracked the modelling of this at unit level fairly quickly by using a series of reducing moral steps rather than modelling actual casualties.  It was the cascade effect which eluded me.  I'm currently getting ready to try a solution based upon the character of the commanders of the higher formations.linked to the morale state of their formations units.

What I have in mind is to give each formation commander (Brigade, Wing & Army in BCW terms) an aggression factor.  The more aggressive the commander the more they will try to keep their formation in action.  The trigger will still be the morale state of the constituent sub formations, so a Brigade looks at it's regiments, a Wing at its Brigades and the army at the Wings, Centre and Reserve.  I haven't decided on the trigger values yet but essentially I'm thinking that a timid general might decide to order the formation onto the defensive if he has no keen units, while an aggressive General may continue to try to press on as long as he has any steady regiments available.  In effect I'm going to model unit morale at the regimental level and General officer morale at the higher formation level.  As I mainly play solo games I don't mind the overhead although I do want it to evolve into a simple and straight forward check.

What do you think, do you prefer your games to end with a bang or a whimper?

Terrain - Camps for DBA

Camps are a chance to show a little flair in our table top terrain.  DBA and its offspring all require a camp on the table so why not take a bit of time and effort over them.

Tactically there is a case to be made for using the smallest possible foot print for a camp but I take the view that a bigger base area gives scope for a diorama style camp design.  If it makes it a tiny bit easier for the enemy to reach then so be it.  After all if they are able to sack the camp I clearly haven't guarded it properly!

With that in mind I set off to create some new camps for my 6mm Ancient and Dark Age forces (I know I should be calling them early medieval but I only just swallowed the fact that the English Civil War is now the British Civil War, there is only so much change a man can take in a week!).

I decided that most Dark Age armies wouldn't have that much in the way of tents on campaign so instead I decided that the focus would be the designated meeting spot for the troops.  After all we do know that when the Anglo Saxon  Fyrd was called out they were told to assemble at a well known local landmark so a similar approach would work for other armies of the period.  Other than Vikings who did tend to build fortified camps to protect their longships.

My first attempt was to create a round barrow and some standing stones.  This where your local garden centre becomes your source of supply.  They sell all sorts of ornamental gravel and often don't mind you taking a small sample.  This can provide useful natural stone fragments for use as standing stones and lintels for the barrow.  I made the grassy dome of the barrow from Milliput and textures the whole thing in the same way I do bases.  A mix of kiln dried sand (the sort used for the gaps in block paving) and flock.

This was the result.

Roman Fortlet

Round Barrow

I also made a Roman marching camp based on the floor plan of a small 'fortlet' excavated on the Welsh marches.  Pretty much the same techniques of using Milliput to form the base this time with a palisade of cocktail sticks and some Leven Miniatures small Roman tents.  I have some bags of supplies from Perfect Six in the painting queue which will be added to both camps once finished.  I'm also tempted by some of the scenics from Baccus especially the camp set with tables and a fire.  Some 6mm sheep wouldn't go amiss either.