The Great Civil War in Lancashire - Random Game events

I decided that cards are the way to handle random events for the campaign rules.  I have listed out the key events that actually occurred and added a few generic events as well.  These will be divided into events that happened in a particular year and those which could happen at any time.  So for example in 1642 a Spanish ship ran aground off the North Lancashire coast and brought ashore a number of artillery pieces that were seen as a great prize by both sides.  So I have a card which could come up in 1642 or 1643 of 'A Ship in Distress'  It must be played at once and on a random dice throw it either founders at sea, reaches a safe port or is wrecked in one of the three coastal Hundreds at a random location.  Cargo is then diced for.  Other cards include Supply trains, bonuses for Digging defensive works, training troops and the like.

I have a set of general cards for use throughout the campaign plus a set of cards for specific years which are drawn as a replacement for a general use card that tells the player to draw an 'Annual Card'.  Some cards must be played at once, some can be held back subject to only holding 4 cards at any time.  Some force one particular side to carry out an action such as 'Reinforce the King' or 'Fairfax calls for Aid' no matter which player draws the card.  Others apply to the player drawing them no matter which it is.  Once I have completed the set I think I will see if my local print shop can put them onto good card stock and print a back to them to make clear if they must be played at once (to keep the players honest).  The cards should look like something like this.

Friction in command and control

In the last post I was interesting in friction in movement created by terrain effects.  In this post I'm interested in the effect of general's personalities on the way they handle the changing environment of a battlefield.

In some cases generals simply cannot get on with each other and are more keen to throw a spanner in the works than to support their colleagues.  This seems to be more of an issue in the alliances of disparate factions that come together to fight in a civil war than in wars between nation states or City States.  You only have to look at the personality clashes on both sides in the BCW to see this in action.  Goring and Prince Maurice comes to mind or  Independent and Presbyterian officers views on strategy on Parliament's side.

Another source of friction is the ability of a commander to take in the changing situation on a battlefield and react to these.  Some officers are simply 'hard of thinking' especially in periods where gaining higher command was a privilege of birth and not dependent on ability.  The level of confidence of a commander also plays a part.  Remember Hooker's famous statement in the ACW as to why he suddenly failed to push through with his strategy at Chancellorsville "To tell the truth, I just lost confidence in Joe Hooker"!

Orders are subject to interpretation too.  Prince Rupert famously interpreted King Charles orders for the relief of York as meaning that he was to bring the enemy to battle come what may.  In the same position I doubt the Earl of Essex would have viewed them in the same light.

If a set of rules can be created to handle the impact that these factors have on command decisions we have a start on friction resulting from General's personality traits.

I have used a rule in campaign games to restrict the number of subsidiary commanders or units one commander can control.  It was originally intended to prevent the situation were both sides assemble all of the available forces and fight one climactic battle which would kill the campaign off at one fell swoop.  It worked by giving each commander a 'command span' which was a number representing the number of sub commanders and/or units they could have under their control.  For my 2mm BCW rules I amended the rule it now is a measure of Command ability.  The rating is between 2 and 6 and represents how many new orders can be processed by that individual in each turn (representing 6 minutes of game time) and react to battlefield changes.  To some extent it is a measure of how fast they can handle change.  In each turn the commander has those points to spend (if required) unused points are not carried forward and the points are reset at the start of each turn.  Think of it as an allocation of thinking and reacting time. He can carry out command actions in any order the player wishes subject only to the timing of events arising.

There are three events which may need to be considered:

1.  Changes to the battlefield situation,  The commander is watching his command and sees a situation he needs to react to,
2. New orders are received from a superior commander
3. New orders are issued to a subordinate commander

Each consumes one of the commanders ability points.  So our little lead general has 4 command ability points and is commanding the Infantry centre with two subordinate commanders under his control.  The following events happen.

1. Orders are received from the CinC to commit his reserve Brigade.
2. He sees a risk to his command as enemy cavalry crest a rise on his flank.

His response is to first read the order he has received (cost 1 pt - 3 left).  He reacts to the sighting of the cavalry threat (cost 1 pt - 2 left).  Now he has to consider what commands to give with his remaining points.  He elects to order the commander of the reserve to change from hold to attack orders (1 pt- 1 left) and to order the commander of the second line to deal with the cavalry threat (1pt - 0 left).  If any other threats arise later in the turn he will not be able to respond at once as he is busy dealing with the other matters.

Another source of friction is to give an aggression or personality rating.  More aggressive commanders will react in a more aggressive way when a reaction test calls for their reaction adjustment to be used so an aggressive commander will add his factor a timid one will deduct it.  Lastly on determining when to change their command's orders from aggressive to defensive to withdrawal aggressive commands will consider the number of units still able to take aggressive action while timid ones will consider the number no longer able to take aggressive action.  This last is still more of a concept than a developed rule at the moment.  I need to play test it before finalising exactly how it will work.  Its part of the solution I'm edging towards for solving the ending the battle issue I posted about a while ago. 

The Great Civil War in Lancashire - researching for a campaign

I started doing some research about 10 days ago, which is why I haven't blogged so far in December.  I have pretty much settled on a map using point to point movement.  Each location will have an initial recruitment value and a replacements value.  This became feasible when I came across population estimates derived from Heath Tax records from 1662.

The hearth tax was an 17th century tax on wealth based upon the idea that the more fireplaces or stoves a household had the wealthier it must be.  It was first implemented after the Restoration.  Fortunately the National Archives holds the records for Lancashire from 1662.  They are at file ref E179/250/11 if anyone wants to take a look at them.  Sadly they have not yet been converted to a digital document so at some stage I need to visit the archives at Kew to obtain additional details. 

I came across these from B G Blackwood's 'The Lancashire Gentry in the Great Rebellion 1642 - 1660' (Chetham Society 1978) which I found parts of on line.  Blackwood used the Hearth Tax records to estimate the population of each of the Lancashire Hundreds and the larger towns within them, by assuming 4.5 people per household.  How he settled on a multiplier of 4.5 I have no idea, but as it derives from his university thesis I'm happy to accept that there was some logic behind it.  He further assumes that 20 years after the start of hostilities the population in Lancashire would have recovered from the deaths of the wars.  I'm happy to accept that theory as well if only due to the fact that no other equivalent records exist.  What he didn't do was publish his results for the smaller townships such as Garstang or Clitheroe which is why I'm planning a trip to the National Archives at Kew next time I'm in London.

Anyway that, coupled with the militia returns for 1639 (summarised  in Stephen Bull's book which I mentioned in the last post I published) gives me a start on the figures for estimating potential manpower.  The raw data is that the population of Lancashire was in the very close order of 150,000 with just under 17,000 living in communities of 1,000 people or more.  That breaks down as follows:

Hundred	Population
Salford	48,451.0
Blackburn	21,330.0
West Derby	31,207.0
Leyland	10,656.0
Amounderness	17,667.0
Lonsdale	21,357.0
	150,668.0

 
The major town's populations run between Manchester at 3,690 down to Lancaster at 949 souls.

So that's manpower and recruitment estimates in hand and if I look at the rest of the Hearth Tax data I should be able to set a threshold for the minimum size of township to represent on the map.  My default for that is likely to be 250 souls.  Adding any vital defensive sites and magazines mentioned in Broxup or Bull should fill out the rest of the map locations.  A bit of editing to ensure that the locations represented are spaced by travel time and the map is about there bar the art work which will probably be based on John Speed's map from 1610.

More next time on the supply, training and events generation system.

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.