Wargaming via video link (in the 1690s)

 Despite being subject to a lack of face to face games since the start of the current Covid unpleasantness I hadn't previously taken part in a remote access wargame.  Mainly this was due to my already sitting in front of a computer screen all day while working from home and so needing a break although other factors crept in.  So once I was no longer required to work on the computer following retirement I eventually took the plunge this week courtesy of the Monday Night Gamers (who meet on a Tuesday).  Graham (Trebian of the Wargaming for Grownups blog and writer of interesting wargames rules) has been running virtual games in lieu of meet ups in the Shed of War since pretty much the start of the first period of lockdown and has things down to a fine art.  So on Tuesday evening I logged in via Zoom to try out the brave new world of virtual wargaming!

The game was set in the 1690s as part of the Williamite Wars in Ireland, a period I know relatively little about and was a playtest for a set of rules Graham is fine tuning at the moment.  These are based on earlier work he has done on the Jacobite risings along with continental wars all set in the period 1685 to 1745.  I commanded three battalions of Anglo-Scottish Williamite Infantry the rest of the army consisting of an artillery battery three battalions of Dutch Infantry and two regiments of dragoons.  The Army being split between myself and two other players.  Facing us were the Jacobites consisting of four battalions of infantry a battery of artillery and a single squadron of Dragoons.  The Jacobites had to prevent us getting three Battalions off their table edge and we of course had to achieve that outcome.

I didn't take any pictures of note what with learning new rules, a new video conference system and chatting!  No doubt the game will be covered in more detail on Graham's and other's blogs.  In brief we went for the throat from the get go.  Pushed forwards with the Dragoons on the flanks while advancing steadily in the centre with the foot.  The key decisions in the game are when to deploy into line from column, as columns are much more manoeuvrable and faster than lines, when to fix plug bayonets and timing moves to try to gain first fire advantage (the game is IGOUGO so it becomes a bit chess like in trying to force the other chap to be the one to advance into musket range in their turn).

I enjoyed the game and especially the social part of playing both with and against flesh and blood opponents.  The rules are looking pretty good although there were a couple of play v accuracy discussions during the debrief but Graham will sort those out .... he has ideas and concepts up his sleeve.

Two screens are better than one!

For my part the technology worked well once I worked out how to switch screens and pin them so I could choose which end of the table to view the action from.  There was no noticeable lag and given that one of the participants Was Jonathan Freitag who was logging in from one of the rebellious colonies that was a bonus.  My home office set up helped a lot as I could have the game on one screen and the QRS on another so i could avoid tedious switching back and forth.   I'm looking forward to another session and will definitely be buying the rules and building forces when they are ready to roll.

Altar of freedom - I done seen the Elephant

Or to put it into plain English I played my first game of Altar of Freedom over the last few days! There was a fair amount of cross checking the rules to make certain I was understanding things correctly but in the end there was only one rule I was unclear about and one potential house rule I might introduce.

To get things started I generated 13 separate random bids using the spreadsheet I concocted a while ago, one for each card in a suite of cards.  Each turn I drew a card at random from a full pack to see which bid would be used by the Federal side that turn.  I chose to operate the Federals that way as they had a very straight forward bidding set up for this scenario.  As each of the Federal divisions has to have a different activation bid all I had to do was have the spreadsheet calculate three bids and a reserve bid.  I simply allocated the priority of the four Federal divisions and allocated the highest down to lowest generated bids accordingly.  To prevent me having to much foresight I allocated the Reb's bids before the card draw.

I played the First Bull Run/Manassas scenario but used a different map to allow me to concentrate on the rules and not be blinded by knowing the true tactical situation.  You can see the table and initial deployment here: Small but Perfectly Formed: Altar of Freedom - Setting the scene (elenderilsblog.blogspot.com) .  Apologies in advance but I neglected to note which brigades took which action a lot of the time so it's mainly going to be a battle where the actions of divisions will be cklearer than those of individual brigades.

Turn 1

The first turn (each one is an hour in game time) mainly consisted of both sides advancing and shaking out their lines.  The Federals are able place artillery on the heights in the bend of the creek and get a cavalry brigade over the ford to cover their deployment around the town.  The Confederates occupy the ridge line on their side of the table.  The turn clock had an impact as it prevented the Federals activating Tyler's Division.  There was a single shooting event when a Federal battery opens up on Stuart's cavalry brigade and forces it to recoil.

1.  The overview at the end of the first turn

Each General of Corps or Army level has a set of points they can allocate to divisions under their command.  These are used to determine the order in which divisions are activated.  They can also be used to add to the di roll for control of the turn clock or for end of turn adjustment moves.  

Although McDowall has 13 points to use in this scenario his entire army is a single Corps of four Divisions. His traits mean that no two divisions can have the same activation points bid unless they are zero and zero means no activation.  If he wants all four Divisions to activate the lowest bids he can use are 4, 3, 2, and 1 a total of 10 of his 13.  On the other side Beauregard is in overall command with 6 points but one of his traits means that he has to dice before bidding and there is a 5 in 6 chance that he looses a point and a 1 in 6 that he gains 2 points!  Johnson has 5 points.  The two  Confederate Armies are treated as two grand Divisions of a single Corps so only two bids are needed to activate all their troops and as a result as often as not one of them will outbid McDowell!  This means that McDowell has little to spare to gain control of the turn clock.  

Control of the turn clock provides the means to influence how fast the clock runs down.  For this game the clock is set at 10.  After each set of activations both sides roll a di and whoever has control of the turn clock decides which score will be deducted from the turn clock.  An activation can be for more than one division and covers both sides so if McDowall and Johnson both bid 4 for an activation it is still only one activation round with one turn clock reduction.  Given that the average rolled value on a D6 is 3.5 then the turn clock would (again on average) run down after 3 activation rounds.  You begin to see McDowell's problem?

Turn 2

The second hour comes around and McDowell's bids only provide for three Divisions to move but I have allocated enough of his points to win control of the turn clock.  Mile's Division stays stationary while the first division to move is Tyler's  the Confederates bid the same amount for both Divisions and advance towards the Union men.  There is  more artillery action this turn with Federal guns inflicting recoils but no casualties.  The Confederates are able to offset the effect by using the end of turn adjustment to consolidate on their right where Beauregard is in command and to start to push forward with Johnson's division on their right.  It's clear that a Confederate attack is massing against Tyler and Miles' Divisions.  As Johnson pushes troops forwards Beauregard moves his command to close up on Johnson which opens up space on his right.

A number of things happen at the end of a move but priority points only apply to trigger reserve movement for any Brigade within 6 inches and line of sight of any general on their side.  One point allows a Brigade to make a full move but not to come within 2 inches of any enemy.

2. Both sides are starting to see skirmishers engaged

Turn three.  

Federals loose control of the turn clock but get to move Tyler’s Div . The division attempts to attack the far left of Johnson’s troops.  They are beaten back by a combination of firepower and close combat but not before a brigade on each side are broken.  Fatigue hits are starting to show up.Turn three

3. Tyler and Miles beat of the first assault

Miles division pulls back to avoid being outflanked.  In the centre sporadic fire fights are occurring with the Federals having the better of things.  The Confederates have started to move elements of Beauregard's command to their left to close up on Johnson.  This is leaving room to manoeuvre around the Confederate right.

Turn four

As the day wears on Confederate attacks intensify upon the federal right but again are repulsed by a combination of cold steel and fire power. Both Jackson’s and Bee’s brigades are heavily engaged and eventually have to retire from the battle line to reorganise.  Towards the centre of the Confederate line an attack on the hill in the bend of the river is repulsed but the Federal cavalry is pushed back across the ford by sustained artillery fire power.   On the Union right Confederate attempts to cross the creek are repulsed and Longstreet’s Brigade is left isolated in the open .  The Federals are not having things all their own way there though as Wilcox’s Brigade is similarly isolated.

4. Overview of the battlefield after four hours.

At the turn end phase both sides take the chance to withdraw brigades from the battle line and re-organise them.

If a brigade ends a turn more than 10 inches away from any enemy unit it is able to remove all the accrued fatigue markers.  This is a big deal as being fatigued inflicts a minus one in combat and accumulating four fatigue points breaks a brigade.

Turn five 

Five hours have elapsed it is now 1.00pm on a hot afternoon.   Confederate assaults brings further pressure against the Federals all along the line and the Federal artillery battery is driven off the heights commanding the ford outside the town.  The sustained fighting means many federal units are now carrying fatigue markers but they are still grimly hanging on all along the creek bank.  The intensity of the fighting is preventing McDowell from withdrawing units to recover from combat.  Two Brigades break and flee during this heavy fighting, Bartow's of Johnson's Division and on the Union side Blenker's Brigade of Mile's.  In the reserve movement phase the federals reoccupy the heights but it wasn't to last.

5.  Federal Artillery temporarily regain the heights but their left is giving ground.

Longstreet's Brigade is isolated as the supporting brigades have been driven back into the woods.

6. Mile's and Tyler's Divisions are still holding but are outnumbered.

Close combat is decisive in AoF with a chance of a unit being broken straight off.  Broken Brigades are placed alongside the relevant HQ unit and in the turn end phase roll a dice.  On a six they reform and can move back towards the front line on the next turn.  in all other cases they fail to rally and are removed from play.

Turns six and seven

For the first time the federals are able to activate all four divisions but at the cost of limited points being available for reserve movement but McDowell again wins control of the turn clock.  He uses the advantage to ensure all four divisions are able to act and prioritises Heintzelman's Division to attack over the creek on his left.  This blunts Beauregard's plans to assault on that wing.   In response both Beauregard and Johnson launch a series of coordinated attack all across the front inflicting more fatigue markers on the federals.  Johnson’s assault against Tyler and Miles‘s Division's push them back from the defensive line on the creek but at the cost of a second Confederate brigade breaking (Smith's) the federal army has very few units now which are not showing fatigue markers.  Richardson's Brigade of Tyler’s division threatens Stuarts cavalry who have spent most of the game hanging on the federal right unsuccessfully attempting a flanking manoeuvre.  The cavalry fails to evade and gains fatigue point but at the turn end is able to position the brigade so a recoil or evade to attempt to evade will not push them off the table.

7. Six hours in and McDowell's boys are still holding in the centre and the right

8.  An hour later things do not look so good with Confederate infantry in the town

Cavalry and Artillery can attempt to evade from close combat if successful they make move of three base depths to the rear as if recoiling.  In the turn end phase any unit may change it's facing for free.

Turn eight.

With dusk approaching there is little point in holding back points for reserve moves, although Beauregard is of course forced to do so.  The Union left launches a final assault against Johnson’s depleted Army of the Shenandoah.  Sherman's brigade forces Bee's brigade to recoil and follows up bringing them into contact with Johnson and his staff.  In the fight which follows Johnson is seriously wounded and rushed from the field.  As the day ends the Federals have been pushed out of town and their left flank driven back but at a high cost to the Confederates.

9. The Federal left has fallen back towards town which has fallen.

10. Close up of the situation around the town at the end of the game

The Federal left and centre  has been driven in and are mixed together around the town.  Only Mile's and Tyler's divisions still hold their ground from the morning.

Neither side reached break point but counting fatigue points and broken brigades the Federal side had a slight advantage.  I calculated this on the basis of 4 points per broken unit and one point per level of fatigue.  In the photos I used coloured counters green for one fatigue point, yellow for two and (if it had happened) red for three.  The Confederates have paid the price for making repeated assaults but have taken ground.  The Federals have lost less men but their army is more tired and would have been struggling to hold on much longer.  Over all I'd call this a draw.

The 'Butcher's Bill'. 

How do I like the rules?

I like these rules, I like them a lot.  They force players into a different decision making space.  To be honest they are not perfect as by default they are mimicking high level decisions not low level Regimental level issues.  That removes a lot of chrome, all shoulder arms have the same game effect profile for example.  I can live with that though, as at army level I don't care about how the enemy is being fought rather I should be concerned with the results of the fight.   To keep the fast play aspect brigades have a dice modifier of between minus three and plus three which tends to dwarf all the other factor adjustments given that the random element is either the result on a D6 (ranged shooting) or the difference between two D6s (close combat).  That said the effect could be reduced by adding a few additional factors although the counter argument is that the brigade base factor is already doing exactly that.

There are a couple of rules that caused me to stop and think 'how accurate is this?'.  The first is rallying a broken brigade.  It is difficult to do but if successful the Brigade is back to full strength.  I'd be tempted to reduce the rallied Brigade's base factor by one each time it rallies successfully so a plus three drops to plus two for example.  

The other niggle is moving into close combat.  If a unit closes to shooting range before they can shoot they have withstand defensive fire from the enemy.  That may cause the advancing unit to withdraw and never actually have the chance to fire.  However, if advancing to close combat there is no shooting before close combat (either defensive or attacking).  At one level it makes sense as close combat includes very close range fire fights but on the other the attacker has to cover the same ground as a shooting unit does yet there is no mechanism for a defender to send an attack to ground or make them retire.  Given Infantry can launch a close assault from way outside shooting range it makes close combat more likely to achieve contact and to trigger a fight.  That seems wrong to me.  I asked about this on the AoF Facebook forum and the response was that ranged shooting represents skirmishing.  The unspoken logic seems to be that a close assault drives skirmishers back to the main body before they can do enough damage to stop a brigade scale assault going in.  I'm wondering if allowing the charged Brigade a defensive fire turn but at a hefty negative adjustment of say minus two might be more realistic.

I also need to redesign the unit description tags to include a Brigade ID as I had to resort to coloured dots on the AoF provided ones midway through the game as my eyesight couldn't easily read the info from a distance.  Plus I want to use a more neutral colour as the white is  really stark.

These are minor points though, overall I do like the rules and they will be my first choice for Grand Tactical ACW actions going forwards.

Altar of Freedom - Setting the scene

I got the game table set up over last weekend and, this being me, I promptly ignored the Dark Age and WW3 campaign games in favour of trialling the Altar of Freedom bidding spreadsheet. I chose to go with a fictional game but used the game OOB for First Manassas as that was the game I designed the random bidding spreadsheet around. The game was played on a 4x4 table as I don't yet have enough terrain for a larger table! I also used a fictional battle to allow me to concentrate on the game mechanics rather than being influenced by knowing what the actual tactics used were.

The key to Altar of Freedom (hereafter AOF) is that the two sides have a number of priority points to bid each turn.  The points are used to determine the order that divisions activate in and control of the turn time clock which determines how many activations there will be each turn.  After each round of Divisional activation is completed the turn clock is reduced by the result of a D6 dice throw.  The player with control of the clock has the choice of which of two dice to use for this.  The point being that the divisions with the higher priority points are more likely to activate then those with less as the turn clock may hit zero before the latter divisions get to activate.

Generals are represented at Army and Corps level.  These have traits based on the actual historical counterpart's performance at the actual battle being fought or random traits for a fictional action.  There are around twenty of these traits many of which have an impact upon priority point allocation or even the number of points available to them each turn.  This is something I have struggled to represent within the random bidding system and it means that some aspects of it will need to be redesigned before the next game.

The Federals
For this game the Federals are commanded by Irwin McDowell.  He has four divisions under his command:

• Tyler's of four Infantry Brigades and one Artillery Battery
• Hunter's of two Infantry. one Cavalry Brigades and an Artillery Battery
• Heintzelmann's with three Infantry Brigades and one Artillery Battery and
• Miles' Division of two Infantry Brigades and an Artillery Battery.

McDowell has the Inept and Quartermaster traits.  Inept means he cannot bid the same number of priority points for any divisions (other than a bid of zero which means no activation).  This prevents attack co-ordination between his Divisions.  The Quartermaster trait means that he has two HQ elements rather than the usual one and he can move these at the end of each turn by up to four inches.

The Confederates

The Confederacy is fielding two armies (as at First Manassas) although for game purposes these are treated as two grand Divisions.  There is are smaller subdivisions for point bidding purposes.  Pierre Beauregard is in overall command and also commands one grand division.  Joe Johnson has command of the other grand division.

• Beauregard has eight Infantry Brigades and three Artillery Batteries.
• Johnson has four Infantry brigades, a Cavalry Brigade and a single Artillery Battery.

In terms of traits Beauregard has Revered, Grandiose and Micromanager.  Revered allows an improved chance of rallying a broken brigade , Grandiose creates a variance in priority points upwards or (mostly) downwards each turn and Micromanager requires him to hold back half his points for end of turn adjustments.  Johnson has Disciplinarian and Shrewd Tactician.  Disciplinarian allows a reroll of one shooting dice result each turn and shrewd tactician allows him to reserve priority points for use in the following turn.

The Battlefield

I created a battlefield with a shallow creek crossing the Federal front  which turned out to have no impact on movement or combat (using a house rule for testing it's impact) a number of dense woods which had a variable effect on movement (using one of AoF's optional rules) a small town (rough terrain) and some minor hills which create an advantage for line of sight but no other effects.  Essentially I was keeping things simple(ish) for my first game.

The battlefield.  Federals will deploy to the left and Rebs to the right

The Battle

The game mirrored the First Manassas AoF scenario limits, eight turns duration or first army to break.  Both armies have a break point of five, that being the destruction of any five brigades, batteries, HQ units or generals.  I was controlling the Confederates with random bidding for the Federals but my playing them to the best of my abilities within the constraints of the bids.  Both sides deployed within the boundaries of the roads crossing their fronts and had the objective of destroying the other side.

The initial deployment

As you look at the image above Beauregard is on the Confederate left and Johnson on the right.  The federals have Heinzelmann on the left wing, then Hunter, Tyler and lastly Miles.  The basing is very basic for this trial run as I'm using home made match stick and card armies, apart from the artillery and HQ's which are Irregular Miniatures 2mm items.  As I'm posting this I have finished six of the eight turns and neither side has reached their break point, full details of the battle and some thoughts on the rules and my random bidding spreadsheet in the next post.