Interlude

I'm trying to come to terms that Russia's leader appears to be casually suggesting that WMDs would be used if NATO gets in his way while he de-Nazifies the Ukraine.  Surely the Soviets had plenty of time to do that between 1944 and the fall of the USSR?

Does my pushing toy soldiers around on a table top make me a warmongering neo-facist running dog lackey of outmoded imperialism, I worry that perhaps it does.  Or is that the preserve of the bloke who lied through his teeth about his intentions towards the Ukraine.  How do I feel about risking a short sharp exchange of 'buckets of sunshine' to preserve an independent nation state.  I really don't know.  I grew up in the shadow of the Atom Bomb, I had hoped that was all behind us and my grandchildren could avoid that particular nightmare.  I can see what Putin hopes to gain I simply cannot fathom the depths he is prepared to risk sinking to in pursuit of his ambitions.

As I say this is an interlude normal service will be resumed shortly.

Let Battle commence - The Battle of Timerton part 3

So the table is set up and troops deployed so I shall hand over to the generals to describe events and only break the narrative to explain how the rules have operated.  There will be some stretching of the narrative to make it seem more like an actual battle account but no fiddling with the operation of the rules.  So instead of saying the rules limit visibility to x yards the narrative might say 'a slight mist hung over the field at this early hour limiting my view to no more than x yards'.   For me if the game allows a believable narrative to develop then the rules are working as intended.

From A True Relation of Timerton Fight containing all which it is needful to know of the designs of Prinz Ruprecht towards the Godly folk of Birmingham

"The army being drawn together close upon Northampton it was resolved that it should March to the East to find the forces of the German Prince Ruprecht.   Certain intelligences were provided that he intended to move against Birmingham and we were instructed to interfere with these designs.  Accordingly we went via Daventry intending to March through Rugby towards Coventry.  No sooner had the army left the vicinity of Daventry but we received word that a large force was some distance to the East.  We bent our course accordingly and two days after, the army's forage parties clashed with bodies of horse close upon the village of Timerton.  Scouts being sent forth it was ascertained that the enemy was less than days march from us and marching hither with alacrity.

A council being called it was resolved to meet the enemy on the morrow.  Accordingly an order of march and scheme of deployment was drawn up such that every officer should know his place.  Some time after sunset scouts came into with some intelligence of the numbers of the enemy,  they having espied them upon the road.  Their count was that the enemy seemed close to our numbers but had no artillery.  Five great bodies of foot and numerous bodies of horse were seen to be present."

Neither side's horse have the required numbers to 'out scout' the other so numbers of troops are reported with only a 10% variation.  It is always possible to reduce or increase the reported number of bodies by one hence the no artillery present report.  After scouting results are disclosed both sides draft a general deployment plan before terrain is generated.  Tactical orders are written once terrain is laid out and the initial deployments made.  There is scope to adjust the deployment as sketched but this is limited. In a two player game the Commanders are deployed first then the front lines of each army and then any troops visible to the enemy commanders.  Then tactical orders are drawn up.  If being used, standing orders covering things such as the range at which a unit will start shooting, or foot will form pike stands against cavalry can be drawn up in advance or the generic ones from the rules used (based on experience and training).

From the letters of Sir Robert Snell (Commander of the Royalists)

"The Prince had granted some discretion as to our actions subject only to the proviso that we should seek out any opportunity to bring the Rebels to the field of battle such that by so doing they should have no liberty to interfere with his plans.  In accordance with these commands I ordered the army to advance towards Daventry so as to appear to threaten Northampton and cut the great North Road.  Shortly after we commenced this motion I had word that a very large force of the rebels was ahead of me, which very much suited my purpose.  My officers being well appraised of my intentions there was naught to do except bring the enemy to battle, which we set out to do with great good will.  By some mischance we knew not how close they were until some skirmishes were reported close to our front and all we could ascertain was that the enemy was present in numbers akin to our own.  I therefore gave my orders for the next day as it seemed that we should fight in the morning, whether we willed it or not.

The ground was not such as I should have wished for, indeed it was greatly to our disadvantage.  Should the enemy not have been upon us I should have withdrawn a piece to seek better ground.  I considered what might be done and determined that we should close upon them as quickly as possible to reduce the advantage they held in artillery and also to occupy the enclosures around Timerton village."

The table is divided into 1 foot squares of and terrain is laid out using cards drawn from a standard pack of playing cards, one per square.  Any picture card, ace or joker creates a terrain item in the square, all others cards create clear squares.  Terrain items include the start of a river or stream which, if drawn, will run to a random table edge.  I have decided that the rules need a mechanism to allow players to move terrain to avoid battlefields like this one!  Once scouting reports are exchanged and terrain set out the players write orders.  These consist of an action, a target (location or enemy unit) and a speed of action.  There can also be a delay built in before acting upon the order.  Changes of orders during the game require a reaction test to be passed and the new order to be transmitted down the chain of command.

The Battlefield is split by a river which divides the Royalist deployment area into two roughly equal halves.  Because of the deployment decided on before the terrain was laid out the Royalists will not be able to easily co-ordinate their actions.  The Parliamentarians are not having things all their own way either as a stream is restricting the movement of their right wing.  Also if they advance too far then their left will be separated from the rest of the army by the river.  Lastly there is a low ridge directly to their front which masks one of their guns but would make a decent defensible feature.  Time to amend the deployment and write orders.  Back to the True relation.

"On seeing the lay of the land over which the battle were to be fought it was clear that the intended deployment would ill serve the Parliament men.  My Lord x determined to make a shift in the placing of the guns on the right to allow them to better play upon the enemy's ranks.  Other than this and the small adjustment to the right most Infantry battalia to allow this all else seemed to serve as well as may be...."

Using the change to deployment rules one field piece and an infantry battalia are exchanged no other changes are made by either side.  I'm wondering if there should be a turn one AP penalty for to any units whose location is amended under these rules.

 "...These changes being taken in hand orders were confirmed.  The left hand cavalry wing being over matched should make best speed to deny the enemy use of the bridge over the River Timer and to hold the ground betwixt the eminence on the right and the river.  It was desired that they should not do ought else but hold that place.  The centre was to advance with the greatest of haste and bring the enemy foot to hand strokes with only the minimum of musketry first.  The Horse on the Right were to advance apace to be forward of the foot and to drive the opposing horse from the field.  It was allowed that to achieve this they should extend their lines further unto that flank."

Parliament's adjusted deployment

The Royalist deployment. The wing furthest from the camera is stacked up deep!

In the photo's above the coloured markers behind each unit show the the current CE status which is based on the outcome (before situational adjustments) and assuming an average dice roll of 7 on 2D6 when taking the test.  They are colour coded for a general description but don't show the exact value.

From an account written by an unknown author (possibly Captain Leonard Deanswood)

"We were stood to our arms before sunrise and as the day dawned I saw the enemy before me standing in ranks and files just as were we.  Before we could be disheartened by the sight we were ordered to "Stand right in our ranks and files" and then to 'march on' We set off at a good steady pace towards Timerton Fields.  I discerned that our horse on the left wing commenced their advance by wheeling several bodies to their left hand to over bear upon the Roundheads they faced.  I saw not what transpired on the right.  As our Battalia advanced I saw that we faced difficulties in deploying the brigade as desired due the a river splitting our lines.  Two Battalia were on the far side of this and we unable to effect a juncture with them should need arise.  Though only a few yards away they may had as well been upon the moon.  I saw that we should be forced to fight two battles one upon either side of the river."

The game starts at 05.24 a few minutes before sunrise and with restricted visibility.  This is a random time based on dice rolls for a pick up game.  The two armies are a little over 600 yards apart and visible to each other as visibility is 1,000 yards during "civil twilight".  The Royalists won the initiative by virtue of a higher roll on 3D6 despite a lower command span and will move first.  Parliament were hampered by my adjusting their role for making changes to the planned deployment.  Well I did say I might create a disadvantage for doing that!  This is an IGOUGO game so moving first has advantages for taking advantageous positions but disadvantages as the second player may be able to fire with a closer range advantage, especially with artillery.

The Royalist advance is hampered by the need to extend their line to the flanks.  They have opted to give fast advance and assault orders to the front line which requires at least 50% of their action points to be spent on closing the distance between them and the enemy on contact they can spend a turn shooting before charging home.  The second and third lines have fast support orders which allow them to keep pace with the front line but to run over them.  Support means that they can shoot in support and replace units in the front line that fall back or for horse join in melee instigated by the unit they are supporting after the first turn.

At the end of the Royalist first turn, their troops are struggling to deploy for combat

By the end of the second turn they have some semblance of order! 

Turn 2 ends with Parliament in control of the high ground

And the cavalry on Parliament's left about to clash

The first two turns consisted of both sides frantically rearranging their cavalry wings which takes time as the manoeuvre rules are designed to make this difficult.  Parliament have their left wing in orderly formations as are the opposing horse.  Both sides infantry is struggling to deploy and the bridge is not closed to the Royalists but is going to be heavily contested.  The first clashes are about to occur and that will tell a tale (or perhaps not)! 

Are 2mm figures really no better than counters?

It's an accusation that gets levelled at 2mm and 3mm figures by those who normally play using larger scales. What's the point of 2mm figures they are no better than a cardboard counter is the common statement. I can understand where these questions come from if you are used to painting exquisite 28mm soldiers and can identify a unit by it's turn back colour and button patterns, but 2mm isn't intended for those gamers. Those tiny 2mm chaps are for the sweep of large units showing formations and playing out grand tactical problems. The other comment I hear a lot is how can you possibly paint these. Which is a little strange given the level of tiny detail many painters of larger scale figures are capable of showing. It's no harder than the frogging on the chest of a Hussar in 28mm.

Are the figures really no better than a counter?  Take a look at the picture below and decide for yourself.

Counter v 2mm casting.  The casting wins!

As for detail and the ability to paint them, well again a single picture is worth a thousand words as they say.

Some of those horses have forehead blazes and socks!  Note the Infantry Battalia in the background.

There is detail there and it can be picked out.  Some castings are better than others but careful use of paint helps with the less detailed ones.  The cavalry in the pictures are Armoured Pistoliers in three ranks of five.  These are grouped three castings to a base with separate officers added by splitting open order cavalry bases down.  It gives a look of mass and doesn't require the sacrifice of portraying the rear ranks.  Cavalry are an area where 2mm really does come good.  In larger scales I could never get the correct numbers of horse onto the table.  In 2mm it becomes achievable.

Infantry castings moulded shoulder to shoulder are the basis of most of the rest of my ECW forces although I use some loose order for clubmen and will do the same for highlanders when I start onto the 1645 Montrose campaign figures.  I also use those for ACW dismounted cavalry firing lines.

Six battalia of Foot each of 900 men

Deployed in six ranks, note how long and thin the formation is

The first thing which really struck me when I created these formations is how long the line is compared to it's depth.  Most rule sets for larger scales get the frontage right for the ground scale, but have to exaggerate the formation depth to get the figures to fit the bases.  Not a problem to depict in 2mm.  It also starts to show why battalia were divided into smaller formations of around six files width.  

To explain lets do some math!  A NMA battalia aimed for a 2:1 shot to pike ratio (as seen above) and based upon pay returns I estimate that at Naseby they averaged about 900 men each after deploying supply train guards and the forlorn hope.  So that gives 600 musketeers in two wings of 300 men and 300 Pikemen.  The musketeers formed six ranks deep which means that each rank consists of 50 men.  At the order they would deploy with one man every 3 feet.  So a frontage of 50 yards.  Imagine if using introduction fire (where the front rank fires and then retires to the rear to reload) making a single rank file around the entire 50 yard long block before the next rank can fire.  Firepower would be dramatically reduced instead the single large block was divided into 'divisions' of between 4 - 6 files with a space between the divisions.  Ranks moved from front to rear (or vice versa) using those spaces so they only had to traverse a maximum of 6 yards before moving to the rear.  Allowing a further yard (or so) between divisions I have based each block of 100 musketeers on a 20 yard frontage (100 men in six ranks gives 16 and a bit men per rank plus 3-4 yards for the spaces or close enough to 20 yards).

The formation in the photos above are three blocks of 100 musketeers on each side of the pike blocks.  The pike blocks are at close order so have half the frontage of the shot so overall the battalia has a frontage of 150 yards!  Depth between ranks was almost always at 1.5 yards until pike blocks closed ranks before coming to close combat.  So six ranks at 1.5 yards gives a depth of 9 yards.  (I cheated and used 10 to make measuring bases easier).  2mm allows the use of more realistic unit foot prints than their larger brethren and starts to show up some of the command and control issues a battalia commander would face when all he has to transmit orders are drums and a good shouty sergeant!

Hopefully this post goes some way to showing that these castings are far better than counters and can be painted to a reasonable wargames standard without going blind!

Getting back into the swing of things

It's been a bit slow around here for the last few months. Or more accurately I've been off my game. Partly this was due to the festive season but before that my drive to get things done was , well, a bit lacking. Probably a delayed reaction to retirement and to the heart surgery. However, things are settling down into a new routine now and I have spent a bit of time at the painting station over the last few days.

You may recall that before Christmas I bought some gasket rubber to try as a base for terrain.  So one of the things I decided I should get on with was some additional terrain using this.  I have now completed some river sections and I'm very happy with the results.  The rubber cuts easily with scissors and the final pieces retain some flexibility.  The technique I used is simple as well.  A layer of sand glued to the edges creates a textured river bank and the rest is just a matter of painting which makes them fast to complete.  As a new item  I made a spring area/river source piece for the ECW game I promised before Christmas.  Well I didn't have one and stupidly I have written terrain rules where a river can start on the table!

The new river sections (the ones with the trees)

Having created the terrain I actually also got around to setting out the table for the game and started placing troops.  I quickly realised that I may have overreached myself as I need a lot more cavalry than I actually have.  I mean a LOT more!  Plus the table isn't big enough, the deployment zone isn't large enough for the troop deployments as sketched out, so neither side can fully deploy their lines.  So rather like the New Model Army at Naseby the head of the column of march gets to deploy as intended but the tail is crammed in.  Some redeployment will be allowed under the scouting rules but for Parliament the priority is re-siting the guns so they are not masked by the hill in the centre.  I'm already facing problems that seem all too familiar from reading accounts of 17th Century battles.  I forgot who said it of the planned Royalist deployment at Marston Moor, when shown the sketch "it is all very well, but there is no such thing in the field" or something very similar.  I will put an order into Irregular Miniatures in the next few days and until then I have made up some 2D bases to cover the shortfall.  

The table will stay as it is after all ground is immutable a commander has to deal with the hand geography deals him!  Although I am of the view that no sane commander would have fought on the table the rules came up with.  For testing purposes I am going to leave it as it stands but going forward  I need to add a option for players to move or remove terrain and possibly to add terrain.  At the moment I'm thinking of using the numbered playing cards (2 -10 only as the ace is already being used) for this in some way.  Probably to show how many squares the terrain can be displaced by.

The field of battle using a 6 x 4 foot table.  The tape shows the depth of the deployment area

Details of the forces, deployment map and the table are in earlier posts here....if anyone would like to offer suggestions for a tactical plan for either side please do so.  

It feels good to have some toys back on a table!