Tested at the Pass

After Sunday's game I was all hepped up and excited and ready to write a narrative with some background on characters and situation but duties called then yesterday was a game day in town and an absorbing WWII game and... well the moment has passed so here is a shorter more direct report on the game.

My goal, beyond having fun,  was twofold: test some new rules and test the rules in a smaller, scenario driven, game.  Spoiler alert: Full marks on both points.

The convoy escort has beaten off the first attacks and advanced but a new assault is gathering.

The scenario was a mix of the general idea of an old teaser ambush with some terrain  laid down as much according to instinct and the pieces on hand as to any vague plan of a narrow valley between hills and river. I then chose 12 units per side plus a victory objective from which arose a back story.

In the Midlands, rumours of dark dealings and a new threat from the West are circulating. The King has "requested", Sir Daniel, Purveyor of Truths to leave his lair and venture forth in person to get to the bottom of things and return with proof. After adventures not recorded he and a force are returning with a captured Lion Priestess in hand. They have only to pass through the Shadow Vale and across the Stone Bridge to reach the safety of the Midlands.

The rearguard cavalry is moving up to counter attack.Casualty figures and looters mark lost units.

MIDLISH FORCES
The convoy enters the table as follows:
Scouts: 1 x light armoured cavalry crossbows
Main Body:
Tunstall Lancers 1 x Armoured shock cavalry
Tunstall Archers: 1 x Light armoured. archers
Pikes: 2 x armoured pikemen.
Guardians of Truth: 1 x Heavily Armoured Shock Infantry
Sir Daniel and escort: Character General
Captive in cart with light armoured escort.
 Wagon
Border Archers: 1 x Light Armoured Archers
Pikes: 2 x armoured pikemen.
Longbottom Lancers:  1 x armoured shock cavalry

Rearguard: Border Horse 1x light armoured shock cavalry

WESTFOLK
The Westfolk forces are all hidden in ambush. Rather than use my usual cards and blinds option or the hidden map deployment I would use in a 2 player game, I tried something new. Each turn I rolled 2 dice. A 6 meant a cavalry unit, 4,or 5 an infantry unit. These are drawn from a list of available units, if none of the appropriate type are available none appear. For each unit I rolled 2 dice. If Red was higher the Lion Queen could place the unit anywhere on table not visible to the enemy and not yet searched by them. If Blue was higher the unit had to be placed in one of the not yet cleared ambush locations closest to the enemy and must shoot or attack if possible or advance full speed on the turn of placement if not. The system worked well to provide a reasonable ambush that was a surprise to both sides but especially to the ambushed as there was no eyeing of cards as possible danger spots, every hill and wood was a danger.  

The list was:
Lion Queen. Character and General with Special unit. Attributes not defined yet so treated as shock cavalry able to move through woods with magical protection equal to armour.
The Assasasin. character not yet defined so treated as light infantry but with attack of 5 and magical protection equal to armour. (didn't get into action)
3 x Light Cavalry, lightly armoured (shield)
3 x light infantry archers, unarmoured but counting as light due to camoflage
4 x light infantry, lightly armoured.

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The scene from a different angle.
(oops I thought this was a later picture but its here now)

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Early on a series of impetuous ambushes by archers and light cavalry inflicted some heavy damage by shooting and by flanking attacks on isolated units. Only 1 unit was destroyed early on but shielding the ones with 1 hit left while trying to cover the convoy became a real headache for Sir Daniel. As more light infantry appeared and the attackers got anxious to score kills or grab the hostage before the rest of the heavy troops could come up led to some possibly rash atacks not backed up by luck. Soon casualties were even and the ambushers were using their speed to retreat to safe havens from which to watch for an opening while keeping up a thin shower of arrows. The convoy plodded forward in all round defence minus 1/2 the cavalry which had chased after some light infantry, been ambushed, rescued by more cavalry, and then caught the retreating enemy just short of cover and rode them down. At this point, both sides were down a couple of units but Sir Daniel had either to push forward or else retreat quickly hoping for a draw. A die roll chose the aggresive go for a win. With battered and lost units on both sides it hung in the balance, if the flanking cavalry could come up behind the ambusher's cavalry in the open, like a hammer against the anvil of the convoy, all would be good. Instead the third archer finally appeared and shot down the last Tunstall lancer, who failed his armour save, and the Midlish force went under strength and was no longer allowed to attack or shoot (not that there were any archers left).  They tried to retreat but the swift moving light infantry soon surrounded them. There was no hope but to negotiate, hand over the priestess alive in exchange for free passage. I gave Sir Daniel a chance to use the persuasion of his secret knowledge on the Lion Queen (opposed die roll) and it worked. He handed her over and was allowed to depart. A Westfolk victory in their eyes if some what diminished by the sight of their enemy retreating unmolested but a continuing story for Sir Daniel.

The game hangs in the balance. Both armies are only a few units away from losing morale and have multiple wounded units.

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As mentioned above I was very pleased with how the rules worked with the armour save. With as few as 12 units per side, and a scenario, an engaging battle was fought lasting longer than the earlier, larger, straight encounters, possibly 2 hours and somewhere between 20 and 30 turns. A large battle should still go fast but with a bit more depth than before.

I hadn't been happy with my trial horse archer rule or the shoot only before move and lack of difference in archers types so I tried introducing light and massed archers on horse and foot and let light ones move and shoot but with 2 dice while the massed one could do either. The move and shoot with 1/2 dice worked fine, the other not so much and anyway, looking at the figures I realized that unless my old Minifig Picts were some sort of stealth snipers, they were really just an unarmoured version of the lightly armoured English archer figures they were fighting. For massed archers I had really been thinking Persian Sparabara and the like. In the end I decided to just let any archer move and shoot with 1/2 dice and I'll worry about special units later. One I'm puzzling over is my 2 stands of "lances" which contain a mix of lancers and mounted crossbowmen. Possibly a special unit stat with 2 dice of shock and 2 of archers. But that's a question for later.

In case anyone is wondering about the increased flank value instead of a hedgehog, the pikes are more like Swiss with a mix of pikes and halberds and ready to form square at the drop of a hat without orders from above.

The bridge is in sight. The rearguard cavalry is swiftly advancing on the rear of the enemy cavalry but then archers pop up in the scrub along the river and the Tunstall Lances go down and with them the army's morale.  

More work on characters and magic is next I think. Not to mention more rebasing, painting and playing.

The deal is struck. Safe release of the prisoner for freedom to go.

On the Border

A person might ask why I need to refurbish old 25mm armies for Fantasy/Shock games if I have 40mm armies that would serve if I just added a few monsters and magicians, and it would be a good question.

For those who missed it, the armies are enumerated in the captions of the last post. The basic progress of the battle can be followed in the following pictures and their captions.

The opposing missile troops meet as the English advance. Losses are heavy on both sides but the Franco-Scots army gets the worst of it in the centre and near the western flank, largely because the attackers got first shot and rolled high.

Once again, on the whole this was a fast paced, exciting game with a few twists of fortune and some lessons in game tactics. The dice made a difference here and there but command decisions usually trumped them, in part because there were so many die rolls that they almost couldn't help levelling out.  On the 3rd to last turn the Scots looked to be down and out but by the end of the following turn they rocked the English back, taking the advantage with a rash but necessary counter attack. Indeed the Scots almost won it on their half of the last turn but the dice weren't there to back up their gamble and the English came back both strong and lucky for a decisive, come back, win.

The first moral was that Morschauser was right to warn that upping the percentage of missile troops would upset the balance of the game. They are deadly especially since the attacker can almost always get the first shot and with a move of 4 and range of 6 they can appear out of nowhere and concentrate fire in incredible fashion. This will be a problem if wanting to show the characteristics of different races and nations including those who rely on archers. 

The second was that I forgot about my proposed pushback rule until the last turn but didn't miss it. Might have made the fighting a little less quick and deadly though. I'm undecided about the 2 melee turns, it reduced some of the advantage to not having all melees go to the death as few stands survived 2 rounds of melee. In short melee between heavy and medium troops is DEADLY. Stands die like flies. Good for a quick game but with full sized armies making my table crowded he game still lasted only about 90 minutes. I could have dragged that out a bit by being a little more cautious but not by much.

The English have just enough missile power left to force the French Landsknechts to attack. East of the river, the Highlanders and Border Horse are driving off the opposition while the Highland archers slowly win their long distance fight with the longbowmen.  

So why was it fun and engaging? I'm not sure. One thing might be that while results against individual stands were quick, Groups of stands took longer to deal with and since movement is fast, it was often possible to pull back or bring up reserves to change the situation giving scope for generalship on a higher level than worrying about alignment and arranging factors and modifiers.  The unpredictability of individual die rolls may also play a role. 

The English have been driven off from across the river but they fought stubbornly and there is not enough Scots cavalry to force the river in the teeth of reinforcements. The Highlanders start fording. In the middle the English lancers have ridden over the Halbardiers but the pikes are holding their own. 

At this point the only thing I would want to fiddle with is the missile power. If the range is reduced it will make the archers too vulnerable to cavalry charges and I don't want to start fiddling with things like 1 die for 2 figures if shooting. Instead, I think merely removing the ability of foot archers to move AND shoot will suffice. Then a defending line of archers would get first shot as the enemy approached and it would be much harder to suddenly amass a deadly barrage focussed on 1 stand by bringing up 1 stand at a time and shooting until that target is dealt with and then focussing on another.

As the Highlanders engage piecemeal, the Franco-Scots left collapses.With the English, still 20 strong and  able to occupy part of the ridge without contest, the Franco-Scots have now lost 20 out of the original 35 and their morale is broken.

I'm looking forward to getting together with Rob at Hiuzzah next weekend to talk this over in addition to other things. We have only touched so far on magic and monsters. Look for more refurbished 25mm games before long.

A Summary for a Summery Test Game

I haven't had a chance to get too deep into discussions over the OS Fantasy project with Rob yet but I wanted to get another test game of the basics played before leaving  for Huzzah which is next weekend. I haven't rebased enough 25mm troops yet to play a full Morschauser game with 35 stands per side, but I do have enough 60mm bases of 40mm troops: pikemen, light infantry, archers, heavy and light cavalry. Did I mention canon and arquebusiers?  Oh well close enough.

The English Army: 10 bow/shot, 8 MI, 1 Lt Inf, 1 cannon, 5 HC, 5 MC, 5 LC.

I've thought about the rules a bit and come up with next to  nothing to add. For example one could argue about crossbows having better armour penetration but slower rate of fire and so on but the balance of simple but deadly rules is delicate. In any event, I thought I would prepare a summary for myself.

Mostly Morschauser Shock Rules Test 5
Quick Reference 

1. Play Sequence. Alternate turns.
1. Resolve continuing melees.
2. Active player moves and shoots units in any order
3. Resolve all melees
2. Movement. In base wide increments.
   Hvy Inf, Med Inf  3, Lt Infantry, Archers 4, Heavy Cavalry 5, Light & Medium Cavalry 6, Artillery 1
   Stop when entering a ford.  Only Light Infantry and archers allowed in woods or on steep hills.
   Units may turn or move sideways as desired unless engaged or attacking but no part of stand may move more than move allowance.
   If 2+ Pike units turn back to back they form square instead of moving. Then then have no flank but may not move. 
3. Engagement Range. If a unit is within range 1 of the enemy it is engaged. Moving to engagement range is an attack. When moving within range 1  of enemy a must halt or move to contact an enemy. If starting within 1 of enemy must halt, move to contact or retreat.
4. Shooting. May then shoot then move or move then shoot but may not shoot then move into engagement range. Roll 1 die per remaining strength point.
1. Range: Archers 6, Mtd Archers 4. 
2. Effect: Each 6 hits Heavy or in cover,  5,6 hits all others. 
3. Artillery: Range 12 hit on 2,4,6, range 6 hit on any but 6.
4. Limits. Must have line of sight. May not shoot if fording. May not shoot if self or target is engaged. 
5. Melee. If in contact both sides roll during each melee phase. Roll 1 die per remaining strength point Roll Melee Power or less to hit. Front/flank values. 
1. HC 5/3, MC 4/2, LC 3/2 
2. HI 4/2, MI 4/2, Pikemen 4/1,  LI 3/1, Archers 2/1 
3. Modifiers: to power but never less than 1
1. -1 to power if attacking uphill or out of stream
2. -1 to power  if enemy is heavy or in cover or if cavalry fighting pikes frontally.
4. Result. If neither destroyed a unit that took more hits than it gave will retreat 1 length. 
6. Strength Points. All units start with 4 strength points except artillery which have only 2. When all are gone the stand is removed.
7. Commanders. Form part of unit. Commander rolls extra die in melee. Commander will be last man killed on stand. If commander killed all units roll 1 die. 5,6 carry on, 3,4 retreat a full move, 1,2 Rout.
8. Army Morale. When an army has lost 1/2 of its units it may no longer shoot or attack or move into contact.

FrancoScots: 12 pike, 3 MI, 4 LtI, 9 bow/shot, 2 cannon, 5 LC

Game Report and comments next Post.

Experiencing Shock

There are worse ways to while away a Sunday than playing a series of wargames.

For the first time in over 50 years my Mini-Marx Knights on their white steeds take the field. These  are the only 25/30mm figures I have that were around when How to Play Wargames was published, so  figured I'd include a few.

I started off just dumping a few pieces of terrain on the table then reread the rules with especial attention to winning and losing, a topic I couldn't remember much about, with reason. He is just a tad vague on the subject other than to urge you to have objectives for each side to avoid a fight to the finish with victory to the last stand standing. Luckily I'm not starting completely from scratch so declared that both armies were seeking to dominate this pass between wood and hill and that any army that suffered 50% stand loss would be incapable of further offensive action. No attacks and no shooting but they could defend in melee.

A basic Shock Period army in Morschauser consists of 35 stands, 10 Heavy Cavalry, 5 Light Cavalry, 5 Heavy Infantry, 10 Light Infantry, 5 Missile Infantry. I had about 1/2 of that ready to go on 60mm bases or something close so the Empire fielded 3 HC, 2 LC, 3 HI, 4 Lt I, 4 Archers.  (Given the long ranges, the armoured handgunners were fielded as Lt infantry rather than Missile Light Infantry). The Turanians of the Great King of Kings fielded 5 HC (there are no elephant rules and HC are the toughest troops on the table), 4 LC, 4 Lt Inf and 3 Archers.  I used the roster method with 4 hits/dice per unit.

The Turanians

The Empire's mercenaries.

The game which lasted nearly 1/2 hour was more interesting, more challenging and more fun than I expected and I can see how a master player could use game tactics to great effect to discombobulate an opponent. With every melee ending in the death of 1 side though, an historic clash of hoplite phalanges would result in about a 3 turn game with most of both sides dead. Essentially heavy troops kill everybody, especially each other. Joe gives tactical advice which is reasonably sound about finding ways to create holes in the enemy line and then dashing through to sieze objectives but it sounds a but more like Patton than Ptolemy.

It took a few turns to get used to not having any command control rules and having only the dice, my judgement and the enemy's moves to provide friction but I soon got used to it.

It was a good starting point. I reset the table.

The end of Game 1. With the Spear Phalanx holding the hill and handgunners holding the wood, the Imperial Heavy Cavalry smashes the Turanian center and brings their army to 50% so that no counter attack may be launched.  

I didn't want to change too much too fast (my all too frequent approach in the past) so I started with a few minor adjustments to fit my troops and table, added some more unit types and a way to have  melee not be necessarily decisive.

The first step was to cut the movement and ranges to suit my smaller table. In the original rules the stands are 3" square and all distances are in multiples of 3". That sounds alot like ye old Base Widths to me. He recommends smaller bases for smaller figures and since I was using 60mm square bases, I converted all 3" segments to 60mm and improvised a new measuring stick marked as Melee/HI/LtInf/HC/LC & Bow. (For the first game  I used the stick I made for Comitatus a few years ago.)  Even this minor adjustment helped the game fit better on my 5x6 table.

To address the quick and deadly melee I simply ruled that there would only be 1 round of melee each turn rather than all melees continuing until 1 or both were dead. In addition, the sight of spearmen fiercely battling  each other from 3" away had just not looked right, OK for musket armed troops or even peltasts perhaps but I addressed it as Rob & I did in Rough Wooing by keeping the zone of control aspect but requiring troops to move into contact for melee.

The troop additions were on top of the rules not a replacement these were:
1. Spearmen. Cavalry attacking the front of light or heavy infantry with spears, loses 1 from their "Power". This does not apply if the spears attack (loss of formation?). Obviously this begs for troops like Romans to have their own bonus but I only dealt with what was on the table.

2. Horse Archers. The Light Cavalry in the rules have no missile capacity but have the same fighting ability as heavy infantry except they move twice as fast. I picture them as standard cavalry while the Heavy Cavalry in the rules sound like knights or cataphracts. My Turanian Horse Archers seemed to need something else so I gave them the LC move, a 6" (2 BW) Bow range and a melee factor of 3 instead of 4.

3. Peltasts etc. I also gave light infantry with short ranged missile weapons a 6" (2BW) range with no deduction. So tougher than archers in melee but a shorter range,

4, I left the elephants at power 5 but reduced their move to 12 (4 BW) like light infantry, and ruled that cavalry fighting elephants would lose 1 from their Power.

Lastly, I realized part way through that the system where you only rolled as many dice as the enemy left larger units at a disadvantage if there was only 1 round of rolling so I eventually allowed units to roll as many dice as they had strength points remaining.

The resulting game lasted about an hour and 1/2 and was actually quite interesting and fun with more nuances. It ended in a draw with both the hill and woods still in dispute and neither army able to attack.  I was getting a feel for handling troops under the system and when to risk combat and when to pull back for "strategic" reasons and the system was growing on me, reminiscent of the early days of Rough Wooing. The only real sore spot was that heavy troops were as easy to kill as light ones in melee. Armour was only effective against shooting, in melee it just helped you kill. That didn't seem right. I reset the table.

In game 2 the long spears tried charging uphill into the elephants and belated realized that they have a terrain penalty and just forfeited their bonus. oops. In game 4 both sides were more cautious.

Rob and I had discussed armour saves as an approach and so I tried them. With 4 hits per stand the result was tedium and very slow results. OK perhaps with a dozen units a side but with 30 or more units aside with the figures already on hand it didn't look good. I switched to 1 hit per stand and it felt too random and almost as brutal as the original. I forget who won in the rush to reset the table.

After a break for supper and a bit of thought including several failed ideas like varying strength points,  I eventually thought about how being uphill protects you by lowering the enemy's chance of hitting. I added a loss of 1 to a unit's offensive power if attacking a heavy unit (minimum of 1) and started playing again.

Game 4. After a long, tough, seesaw, struggle, the Turanians drop to 1/2 and must cease offensive actions.  Now outnumbered by the Imperial heavy troops and unable to reply to the fire of 4 bow units the Turanians cede the field. 

There is more work to be done but this was a game that I could see playing again.

Cliche or not, sometime Less really is More.

A New Gathering

Its been a struggle but the new version of Gathering of Hosts is available from the link to the left 
(or here). The rules are actually fairly close to what I have been using since 2013 but the wording and how things are presented have changed as was determined on last fall.

Habit and expectation initially had me following a conventional approach of defining troop types and having charts for movement, shooting and so on. This works just fine, especially if working with a fairly small number of known troop types but it does get your mind into a certain set when someone says "Peltast" and you think "Reg C LMI w javelin, lts and shield" and since I have been trying to imagine the armies that I am describing as I go, well the writing was getting to be excessive to fit in each change in imaging for very little return and attempts to predefine the building blocks was restrictive unless simple was to be left very far behind.

Here is the last of the 3 games, the smallest (6 units each vs the 9 used earlier) and the fastest, most exciting, with the highest tension and a last minute upset Westman victory largely due to their use of speed and their ability to move through woods to keep melee and missile fire to a minimum. It was extremely close though, several Westlands units escaped when 1 hit away from destruction.  Honours of the Game though went to the new unit of Midlish Mounted Crossbowmen who almost won the game single handedly. More on them in a later post.

So, in a series of small games I experimented with various options to make the game easier to describe and customize from counting noses to having up to 4 single stand units allowed to form temporary groups to, well more things than I care to remember and recount. I finally settled for some old simple ideas with fixed units 1 to a grid area but instead of defining any generic troop types I just described each of the units that I intend to build and added special unit rules that apply just to them. (A touch of WHAB I suppose) It didn't take long to find that some special rules could be cut and pasted in for various similar units in various armies which will simplify gaming but I have skipped the bit where I explain what it represents and why the unit has it. This sort of thing will be added to illustrated army lists over the next year, along with personalities and potted history. One page per army. 

But that's for the future. There is painting and basing to be done before I play again!

Mulling While I Gather

While laying out the troops for the last game I was reminded that I only had 3 out of the planned 4 Westmen spear units finished. Since the plan was to use 2 unit spearblocks this was a bit awkward but these things happen. The 8 new figures to finish the 4th spear unit are now primed and ready to go.

However, the shortage also led to another twist. In order to fill the table a bit more I had doubled the number of units. Before I put the game away, I went back and replayed it using the original smaller forces. To my dismay the game with fewer units was a little shorter but just as interesting. It would be easier to add depth to the rules without using rosters if the units were larger and using fewer larger units would keep the over all numbers the same.  However, bigger units would not fit inside the existing grid. It would call for multi square units or mega squares.   I had to stop and think a bit.

When I started working on the rules I was looking at classical ancient armies many of which had largish formal units. Now that I am looking at a fantasy medieval setting is that an appropriate approach? Looking at Robert E Howards novels it is, but looking at 12th to 15th C European armies, small companies grouped into large, hard to control blocks seem to be more typical. In either case the current version seems to allow too much tactical freedom.

I haven't  got much farther than that but rather than any fundamental changes I'm just going to add back some bonuses for large multi-unit infantry blocks and leave the cavalry and skirmishers alone. The hardcharging barbarian (sic) light infantry need more thought.

The Hosts consider the Articles of War

I suppose it is Landsknechts in particular that we think of as agreeing to the offered Articles of War before signing on but I like to think that my toy armies and I go through a similar process. To avoid spinning too many tires I have spent a fair amount of time over the last 3 days re-reading old rules related blog posts, game reports and post game discussion, old rules drafts and so on.

Despite various superficial and important things like organization, basing and the grid/no grid debate the real key essence is the choice between figure dependent, element dependent or unit dependent rules.


 Figure Dependent. This is Old School nose counting. A unit is composed of X number of figures. The number of figures affects the unit's combat strength and figures are removed (or marked) to record its deterioration as a result of combat. Usually this is coupled with separate morale tests as strength and morale are considered related but separate things. The main advantage is that it is simple and intuitive but it is also quite flexible. It also encourages large numbers of figures which may be good or bad depending on circumstances and preferences. The main disadvantage is that it is administratively heavy. If bases are used rosters or markers must also be used and tracked rigorously. If singles are used they must not only be deployed and moved about but the casualties must be gathered up and sorted and re-united with their units afterwards. If, as usually the case, the units are large, it is hard to adapt to hexes. Smallish units on large hexes pose no difficulty however.

Element Dependent.  This is what I think of as the Middle School approach, basically a stream lined development of the OSW approach. Now units are composed of standardized elements or bases of troops. Strength is measured in elements rather than figures and losses are taken in terms of elements. If a roster is used then this slides backward to being just a variation of figure dependent. Fire & Fury is the classic example of this approach but it has been used in ancients as well. This approach shares many of the benefits of the OSW figure approach but without the admin burden. If used with hexes, it is often hard to get enough elements to fit in a hex and its starts to edge towards being a less sophisticated version of a unit based game.

Unit Dependent. This is the Morchauser/DBA/Armati/Impetus approach. The unit is treated as a whole. Usually it is on 1 base but Armati, for example, uses 2 bases for compatibility and to allow some units to be formed wide or deep when being deployed. Losses are taken in whole units, generally with no degradation along the way. There way be a roster  but it is against a theoretical morale/combat value and not a mere matter of how many figures are present. The advantages are largely in simplicity of administration and play but also in allowing scales to be played with, allowing large battles to be recreated with fewer troops. The most administratively simple method is the DBA live/die approach which does not track slow attrition. Mostly this works with a loss of flavour and intuitiveness rather than accuracy. The alternate roster approach seems to resolve that which may be one of the reasons why Armati and Impetus have been popular. As long as the stand size fits the grid, this is the easiest system to adapt to a grid.


Looking back, Gathering of Hosts began as figure based and migrated to element based and was exploring unit based when it collided with the square brigadier and everything froze in time. I'm not going back to figure based.  I was however leaning towards element based until I started looking at practicalities crossed with battle reports. Unexpectedly, many of the best games actually came from the unit based angle  and that is where I will take them.

For my own convenience, I will adopt what was once the universal 60mm  frontage for my own units,  largely because that will fit on my grid yet can will still work without a grid but any size and basing will work from card board counters to 24 individual models or anything else. Maneuver will be by groups but combat will be by unit. As much as I hate using little dice to mark hits, I will plan on it for now and limit the number of "hits" to a maximum of 6 per unit.  

I have also decided to once again drop the activation dice, largely because I find that it works best with certain ratios of generals to troops, ratios I don't always find myself using. Instead I will rely on my standard initiative roll with Orders tests for units not in command etc.

Everything else will remain the usual as much as possible.

One of the small "unit" based games from last year that I enjoyed.

The Host Stirs

It hasn't quite woken yet but there is stirring in the camps and scouts have been dispatched.

While the councils of war are still in progress, there have been some decisions taken.
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Campaigns. I have not yet dismissed the idea of 'proper'  Romans in lorica segmenta and bracae but there will be no new armies until I get caught up. That means:

1) Anglo-Scots. The goal is 2 small matched armies. In practice most games will be small brushes but I will set it up to do Bannockburn. technically that should mean 2 rule sets if not two armies but I'll ignore that. Figures are on hand, ready for the winter painting season.

Archived shot of the Scots, patiently waiting for the Sassanach to arrive.

2) Five Kingdoms. This is the one that started as sort of Greco-Bactrian and proto-Sassinids  and is now on track to be fictional bordering on fantasy. I do know one army will be at least vaguely Persian and another have heavy Skythian influence and since I want an army of barbarian infantry, one of them though possibly not one that looks all that appropriate for the time and place.

Archive shot of Rossius the Forgotten,
once again collecting a new army to lead into battle.

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Basing. Its a bit of a confused mishmash at moment with singles, 40mm, 60mm and 80mm bases. The move to 80mm bases has been squashed and will eventually be reversed. As long as Ron and I are using hexes, anything that fits in a hex is compatible but if I do hexes, mine will be 3" not 4" so I am going to standardize on a 60mm frontage again.  I might, however, do a number of troops on 1/2 bases or not.
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Rules. Ah, hmm. I may end up with 2 sets, one with a roster and morale tests, another with unit removal. I've gone both ways in the past and both methods have merit. The current set seem to have been abandoned 1/2 way through an edit and contains some serious contradiction so priority one is to bring them to order, grid-free. A Gridded variant may follow or a completely different hex/square version. I certainly intend to see the armies marching across the card table and the main table this winter. Anyway work will start this weekend on cleaning them up.

Pass the Maple Syrup Please.

Nothing better for waffles.

I haven't been spending much time or mental energy on Ancients but did momentarily decide late in the summer  that I had been right originally  and maybe OS with big units on a big table with no grid was better than the way I had been heading towards 1 base units. No games followed this thought.

I did try to get something  going last weekend but ended up working on a small board with square grid for playing games down in the family room during the winter instead. Now of course I want an ancient or medieval game for the new, small, gridded board. Looking at my incomplete revised medieval armies and the still incomplete Iranian armies, I am reminded just how little painting I seem to do these days. This in turn reminds me how much fun I've had this year playing small games at Ron's. All of a sudden the big Ancient game starts to feel more nostalgic than realistic goal for the short term.

A Scots army at about 75% of full strength. The other 300% are still on their old bases.

There is too much non-gaming stuff going on for this to be a good time for sudden drastic action and or for a rewrite but luckily I kept the rules as grid-friendly as I could so no more than an appendix giving rules for moving on a square grid and translating multiples of 4" into areas.   Then, maybe as early as tomorrow I will put some medieval's on the new board and see how it goes.

The Scots in action earlier this year.

Updating of hosts

The Gathering of Hosts rules have been updated. The biggest change has been the substitution of modifying the number of dice for combat rather than modifying the " to hit" scores but I have brought back the command rules encouraging battlelines.

They are available to download at the left. The current draft is labelled 16 Nov 2012 (noon).

Postcard Version of new Gathering of Hosts (corrected)(and updated)

A SUMMARY OF THE NEW GATHERING OF HOSTS
(corrected and then modified as played 19 Jun)

Troops: Skirmishers, Peltasts, Archers, Infantry, Phalanx, Light Cavalry, Cavalry, Elephants. Infantry in substantial armour and armoured cavalry on armoured horses count as armoured. 

All stands take 6 hits. 

Sequence of play: Throw each turn for choice to go 1st or 2nd. Ties repeat.

Control Check. A player must throw 2 or better to move a unit or battleline (aka group). A general can reroll once per turn. 

Moves: Infantry, Phalanx: 8"  Skirm, Peltasts, Armoured Heavy Cavalry 12 " Cavalry 16", Light Cavalry: 20"

Only skirmishers and light infantry in woods etc. Skirmishers, light infantry, and light cavalry can shoot then move or move then shoot. Others may do 1 or the other. Skirmishers and cavalry can go any direction unless charging. Others move 1/2 if not going straight forward. (abstraction)

Shooting: Skirmishers and Cavalry/Chariots get 1 die, Archers, Medium Cavalry and Elephants get 2 dice. 4,5,6 hits. -1 vs cover, -1 vs phalanx or armoured or elephant.
Range Archers, Elephants and Cavalry with Bows 12"  All others 4"   

Melee: (Includes close range shooting) Dice per stand: Skirmishers & horse archers get 1 die, peltasts and other light cavalry get 2, cavalry and phalanx 3, lancers and Infantry 4 All other cavalry, elephants  and infantry 3 dice. +1 die if lancers or swordsmen or elephants or scythed chariots etc charging or pursuing. 

-1 vs cover or obstacle

-1 vs elephant, phalanx or armoured.

+1 Elite, -1 Levy

Adjacent units in the same battle line add 1 die if not engaged themselves. Phalanx can form 2 units deep, casualties go on the rear unit and it adds 1 die to the combat .
Units contacted in flank or rear fight with 1 die.

If one side loses more than they inflict the main unit retreats 1d6" x 1/2 if infantry or phalanx  a base depth. The winner may pursue if their side is active or if impetuous. If in contact fight again. In case of tie, both stay in contact. A unit that starts in contact can retreat or stay and fight. If 2 units would destroy each other, if one is defeated then it is destroyed and the other remains with 5 hits. If it is a draw, both stand with 5 hits. A unit hit in flank or rear which loses is destroyed.

A side losing more than 1/2 of its units must withdraw.

Mixing it up

It was too hot and muggy to do much else today, so, more rules tuning.

The Peltast/Psiloi question is now settled. in favour of them being the same general troop classification but with the peltast types being better in melee. At some point I may feel the need for a new classification of fast moving tribal infantry but at the moment I think they can be covered by either light or medium infantry with possibly a special rule for a given medium infantry units moving in difficult terrain or else I may have some units that can be deployed either way.

While I was messing with troop types I dealt with another issue that was looming. My cavalry classifications were basically mirroring DBA but they just didn't seem to fit.   After some more pondering, I decided to divide the missile/shock categories into medium and heavy categories with the latter being cavalry on armoured horses who are less mobile.

I was having trouble trying to find simple ways to cover some of the things around charges, missile fire etc and remembered that I had briefly considered moving the missile fire to the start of the turn but hadn't taken a serious look at it. Today I did and then had a sudden thought about moving charges as well. This brought a few things together and made the result both simpler and closer to what I have had in mind.

Again the rules have been updated. Hopefully tomorrow will be cooler so I can play  a game as I am champing at the bit.to see how they feel. It would be nice to play 5 games with no changes!
 

Scaling Down

When I used the Granicus as the basis for a generic scenario, since I wasn't doing a recreation, I  only  looked at the rough ratio of troop types, (cav, lt infanty, infantry) not the actual numbers.  When laying it out my first thought was, that's not very many troops, I should double that. It would have meant dipping deep into the not-yet-refurbished pile and anyway wouldn't have fit into the 5 foot frontage that I had allocated so I let it be. (There is a roach in the middle of the battlefield that prevents the hardboard river from lying flat if laid the other way. Persian engineers have been tasked with leveling the playing field this fall)

After the game though, I did look though and figured out that the ratio was about 1:200. Doubling would have brought this to 1:100, double the units and probably close to double the playing time. . But would it have doubled my fun? Somehow I doubt it though for a 4 or 6 player game on an 8 foot table if would have been necessary.

But these calculations were swiftly followed by more. At around 1:200, a 1,000 man Persian unit would only be 5 figures, lets say 4 for sake of tidiness. 10 such units would make a standard "division" of 10,000 men. If I were to take battles like Platea as a standard, there is something to be said for that. But assuming somewhere around 1 pace per file, 100 men deployed 10 deep would occupy about 100 paces, or if I squeeze them in, 30 mm. Depending on how generous yoiu are, that gives a reasonable bow range of 60 -75 mm. Let's be generous and say 3". Not really what I had in mind starting out.

Turning back to what I had had in mind, I set out a version of Charles Grant's Apocryphal Well scenario and played out a quick test. (I'll be redoing this as a proper battle report later, I want to work on a few things first.) As I was setting out the troops in their customary 4 ranks, I was startled to be reminded that in the book they were deployed 2 deep like all infantry apart from pikemen were in the "good old days". When did I start assuming that all infantry deployed 4 deep? I must have played too much WHAB over the last decade!  This started  me thinking again about historical formations, depths and frontages, things I had worked hard to put from my mind!  

We don't exactly have a plethora of Persian drill manuals to refer to but if memory serves, the last time I checked, the thought was that each 100 man "company" formed 10 wide and 10 deep with the 1,000 man "regiment" forming 100 wide and 10 deep. Their Greek opponents seem to have usually formed 6 or 8 deep but occasionally 12 until the Thebans got crazy, and of course the Macedonians went with 16 as standard.
The later Hellenistic armies had drills for doubling ranks and so forth but I suspect that the Persians and early Greeks formed they way they were and that was it for the day. All I need to worry about for the moment then are march columns for some scenarios and "formed for battle".  (hmmm I seem to have accidentally deleted  all reference to changing formation, I'd better add something back in).  All of my basing investigation so far, has focused on  a 4 deep infantry formation. I don't really want to go much deeper so this looks like the traditional 3-4 ranks per figure giving a 4 figure deep pike phalanx and 2 figure deep Greek phalanx, possibly with a basing option for 3 deep and either 2 or 3 ranks for the Persians. OK but all else being equal, including table width, 2 ranks instead of 4  means 1/2 as many figures on the table!

1/2 as many figures also means either smaller units or fewer of them. Smaller units is taking me where I was headed in June, a direction I have already rejected but since the plan is to fight a number of CS Grant teasers, I don't want to change the number of units. I don't really want to reduce the number of figures drastically either, so I need to make them fit. I did notice that my 24 man units deployed 2 deep occupied 4/5 of the frontage of one of Grant's 40 man units on the old WRG frontages. That's a good argument for tightening up the files. If I deploy  my 24 strong units 8 wide and 3 deep with a 15mm  frontage per figure, then this nicely stands in for a 1,000 strong "regiment" deployed 10 deep and 100 wide.  The 120mm (~ 5") frontage then represents possibly 100 paces which makes a 12" bow range look reasonable.

Phew!

Now, the next question is, should I really have separate skirmisher and light infantry categories? or should I base peltasts and psiloi alike, give them the same movement etc capabilities and just give the peltasts better melee capability? It would make both life and  scenarios easier. Hard to separate years of wargame rules from actual evidence and speculation. I'm trying to think, for example, of an occasion in Xenephon, Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy or Caesar where that approach would be wrong.

Possibly I could allow some peltasts to go 2 stands deep to represent them forming in close order, or maybe leave the unit as single figures and choose an appropriate movement tray to allow them to be fielded as either medium or light infantry on any given day.  Needs some thought.
  







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Rosin Up The Bow

After a quick test game last night, I have been "fiddling"  with the rules. Nothing serious just some tweaks, a few typos corrected, some name changes and:the following:

• Orders chart. Having reminded myself that I've been trying to get rid of separate morale tests, I have removed the rout and shaken results from the orders test and tweaked the effect of generals slightly.
• Movement. I decided that the movement rules didn't need to be so finicky so I have loosened them up. Some gamers might exploit this in unreasonable ways but that's better than cumbersome restrictions that can sometimes end up preventing reasonable moves. 
• Shooting. When I dropped the 25% shooting casualties shakes a unit, I increased the "to hit" number to 4,5,6. This was too deadly against cavalry so I have rearranged the modifiers and given a  -1 vs cavalry modifier
• Rout. Instead of having rout as a cumulative melee or an order check result, I have made it a result of accumulated shaken markers. 2 for most troops, 1 for Levy, 3 for Elite. . 

. Time for more testing.

The Battle of the Halys, sort of.

To test the  current version of the Gathering of Hosts rules, I staged a game loosely based on a scaled down version of the Granicus with Lydians and Medes standing in. This will kick off a truce and let me get on with the Great Rebellion, this time with a little more background imagineering.

The rules themselves under went some fierce scrutiny, primarily aimed at preferences and some very visible changes without changing the core ideas and values. The updated rules as played are available from the google docs. The battle report is on BattleGame of the Month.  The short version is that the Medes are convinced that scythed chariots are the weapon of the future........well, as long as you can get the enemy to present the flank of his phalanx to you......

I want to run the rules again so next up will be a game which sees the Rebels and the Great King's forces clashing over an important watering hole at Apochyrpha on the border of Hyrkania.
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Ready for a Taste Test

I have gone back to the January edition of gathering of Hosts and applied various lessons learned. The results are now ready for a play test, hopefully one by me this weekend. We will be on puppy watch so I can't go far anyway.

Apart from tightening up details and language, the big change is to replace a rally test and a break test with automatic disorder if suffering 25% missile casualties in 1 turn or losing a round of melee by suffering 50% more hits than inflicted. A compulsory rally/break test for all disordered units then closes the turn. This avoids most of the double jeopardy issues with a separate test but gives a small chance to recover in melee while putting levies, under strength units and melee losers at risk of panic.

It also allowed me to simplify the movement rules.

The old figure rally rule was both fun and tiresome and while it sometimes worked, I think this will give me the same general end result with less fuss and more reliability. Poor units will tend to fall apart, good quality heavy units can withstand a tremendous amount of missile fire before being destroyed but are at risk of temporary disorder.

The updated rules are available on Google Docs.

Large, Small or Not at All

That pretty much sums up two key issues that are on the table as I prime some Clibinari and try to figure out where I was at with the rules last June: scale and unit organization.

Scale can mean various things when talking about a miniature wargame, what I am considering is the size of size of battle being represented and its implications for ground scale and the figure to man ratio.  The traditional approach was to design a low level game and then fudge it for use with big battles, an approach that seemed to work well for many despite the inherent contradictions that meant that it probably wasn't  really a good simulation at either end.

I started off last year with an "Old School" approach settling on 24 man "regiments". Each theoretically represented around 1,000 men,  but were used to refight both "bathtubbed" historical battles and scale-less Tabletop Teasers, some approaching battles in feel, others with a skirmish flavour.   In large part this is a reflection of the pleasure that I have had over the years from reading Charles Grant's ancient battle reports. Lately, I have been drawn to the idea of each stand being a unit.   This has confused the issue dreadfully.

Unfortunately, there are no right or wrong answers to these questions, they are a matter of preference.

So perhaps the real question is:
 "Is last year's decision still valid or is there a good reason to change course?".

I decided that a good starting point was to review the games played last year. All these were solo games (except the 40mm Prince Valiant skirmish which at first blush has nothing to do with the Gathering of Hosts). The battles ranged from an ambush of a priestess and her escort to refights of Platea and Marathon. The rules varied once I decided to start writing a set but they were all aimed at the same sort of  game, and I enjoyed them all. One mark for staying the course.

The ambush game was probably as low as the rules can go and really was smaller than what the game was designed to represent just as Platea and Marathon were technically larger than what the rules were designed to represent. The ambush game could have been played as easily, or perhaps better, using the Prince Valiant  Dark Age skirmish rules but oddly, it was a version of the mid-sized battle that was successfully played as a skirmish. Here, perhaps, we find another hidden question at the heart of the matter:

"Do I need 2 different 'ancient' collections?".

If all the skirmish games were played using the individually based 40mm Fall of Rome collection and the 25mm figures were used to recreate large battles, then there would be a clear separation of purpose beyond liking the look of this figure or that or being emotionally attached to various toys. After all, time for painting and playing are limited as is money for acquisition of figures. Wouldn't reduction to a single pre-gunpowder period make sense? Well, yes, but its not always about making sense and anyway, abandoning the Persian Project now after having just invested scarce resources to it doesn't make sense either.

If the Persians are going to stay, does it then make sense to rob them of the capability of fighting many different types of action just so the big battles can be done more realistically? Not to me. If they were redesigned to primarily refight the great battles of history as fought by all the Persian armies from the days of the Mede Kings to the fall of the Sassanians, wouldn't I then be forced to acquire yet more armies for them to fight as well? That doesn't make sense either.

What about altering the 25mm armies so that they can be used to provide a |'Portable Army'? This is the another question that has been lurking. If each stand becomes a 'unit' of a thousand men and a small game can be played with say 12 such units wouldn't that be convenient? At the same time, historical battles could be fought with large armies represented by 50,000 or more men using rules designed to do that. Both these suggestions have merit but only if these are things I really want to do. When and against who would I play these games. I have other portable games that I can play when I feel the need, do I need them in all periods?

I decided to go back to one of my other sources for inspiration, my tatty little Penguin translation of the Xenaphon's Anabasis.  It didn't take long for things to come together. Xenephon describes both small skirmishes and largish battles, but he does so in a way that you feel involved  at various levels. in fact you feel a bit like you do when playing some of those less than accurate simulations that were Old School ancient wargames or reading of of Grant's battle reports. No wonder I enjoyed what I had been doing last year, I was well primed for it.

In other words, it looks like I have allowed my self to be diverted from the path I was on by distractions and false trails. As long as abide by my allocations of shelving space there is not really any advantage to getting rid of existing collections if I take the long term view. For example, I have unpainted figures on hand for both Prince Valiant and my Persian armies and their foes and I may well buy more if I have the resources to spend but I can already stage games with either collection. The addition or refurbishment of  figures is only to add variety/options or to improve the look.  I can't paint or play both at the same time, but there may well be years of gaming ahead yet and even if each collection only gets out a few times a year or only has a few figures painted up or even skips a year, there will be games enough to make each worth having and figures enough to paint.

Given that conclusion, the answers become that my units should remain as they are, 24 figure "regiments" of a 1,000 men  that can be sent to do the work of 100 men or 10,000, without worrying about scale at all. What this also means is  that I need to revisit my rules, especially some of last June's experiments.

Optional Rules

I managed a quick playtest today and have uploaded a tweaked version of the movement rules. I have also just added some examples of optional special troop type rules. A battle report will follow this evening.

16)     OPTIONAL SPECIAL TROOP RULES

a)      Roman Legions. Each consular legion gets its own general.  If the legionairies are formed in 2 or more lines with each line being 1  rank of companies, then they may retreat or charge through other Roman infantry of the same legion. They also roll 1 extra die when charging or being charged by infantry. (The assumption is that Romans may either use the traditional manipular tactics or form deep in close order to repel cavalry or Barbarians but not both at the same time. Roman generals should choose appropriate tactics for their period.).

b)     Barbarians. German and Celtic tribes in particular had a reputation for fierces charges and a lack of stamina as well as a vulnerability to missile fire. These sorts of armies may declare them selves to be “barbarian” and receive a +1 die per stand in melee if charging or if being charged by infantry but may not rally.

c)      Cataphracts. Fully armoured cataphracts on fully armoured horses are immune to missile fire from all except crossbows, staff slings and artillery. In melee troops fighting them subtract -2 instead of the normal -1 for fighting heavy troops. However, due to the heavy fatigue they subject to, cataphracts take 1 less hit than normal so that regulars are destroyed by 1 hit and elites by 2.In addition, they may not rally hits.

d)     Scythed Chariots and other devices.  Scythed chariots, stampeding herds of cattle and other such stratagems were designed to break up formations rather than killing troops.  For each scythed chariot which contacts an enemy formation, instead of resolving melee, the opposing players each roll 1 die. If the attacker rolls higher then the attack succeeds other wise it is thwarted.  If the attack succeeds, then any company that was in contact with the chariot, including corner only contact, must retreat just far enough that it is not touching any other friendly company. If there were companies behind the retreating companies then these will retreat as well.

Alternate download site for Gathering of Hosts

Google Docs seems to be up to its tricks again. Since I haven't brought myself to cancel my old Loch Sloy/MacDuff site yet, I have uploaded a copy there. It can be found here:.
http://www.lochsloy.ca/wargames/hosts.doc

An editor's job is never done

After a good night's sleep, I've had another look at the first draft of the revised Gathering of Hosts. Found lots of minor language tweaks, 1 change of mind and 2 big "too tired" omissions/accidental erasures. 

For reasons that escape me now, I had deprived medium cavalry of the ability to shoot and move, it has been restored. 

Light troops were intended to be able to self order a single move. That somehow got deleted. The idea is primarily that it will allow light infantry and skirmishers to move and fight effectively in broken and difficult terrain but also that fiddling with skirmishers shouldn't overly distract a general from the real fight. They still need orders to rally or double move.

and it was intended that a 1" fallback from melee could be followed up, that was the whole point. 

 The are a few other minor things but the updated version is now loaded. 

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