No victory for Parliament

The Vic Mega-game occurred today, Sunday 29 May. There were around 24 of us, divided into Royalist and Parliamentarians. Each player took a brigade of 4 regiments and then fought, campaign style, across a series of tables to assault the enemy capital. Where battles took place there were at least three commanders on each side. For the very huge battles at Cambridge and Newbury there were at least 6 players a side. Flanking manoeuvres from neighbouring tables also figured strongly in the ‘strategic movement’ phases that occurred every half-hour.

The dubious honour fell to me by vote to be the CinC of the Parliamentary forces. See here the photo of me, left, Martin for the Royalists in the centre and Mike, right, who organised and refereed the day.

In short, we held up a general advance on our left flank of tables, advanced strongly through the right and made a deep penetrating raid directly to Oxford. Had the campaign ended then, with the rout of the King’s forces on the table, victory would have been ours. However, this was only half the day, and the Royalists consolidated across the entire front of 3 tables (though never re-securing their home territory) and pushed hard.

At the end of the day it was a Royalist victory taken on points in the final round as they had control of tables right through the centre. A grand strategy and full credit to them, aristocratic swine. The Royalists were tenacious and well commanded by Martin.

More photos can be seen here.

The rules were Black Powder and I renew my thoughts that they seem better suited to Napoleonics than ECW, but that is just a quibble. The important thing was that games were played. A lot of people got to push around figures. I made many new friends, and hope to renew their acquaintance at another event.

Finally, I hope that my fellow Parliamentarians can forgive the many blunders that I must have made through to campaign. Despite my attempts to persuade any of the Royalists to change sides, there was only one taker, and sadly it was too late in the day to change the overall outcome.

A good and exhausting day of playing toy soldiers.

Great Scott! – Black Powder Pike & Shot

Quite by accident I learned of a tournament being organised quite near to me. It is planned to occur at the Croydon Realm of Legends. To cut a long story short, the event is a multi-player campaign in the English Civil War (not Warhammer or Warmachine) using modified Black Powder rules.

The test game we played last night was my first contact with these rules. The similarity to Warmaster put me at ease straight away, and the unit based resolution, reminiscent of Tactica, was a pleasant surprise as well.

I’m not sure that Black Powder is particulalry suited to the Pike & Shot era. The game we played felt more like Napoleonics. However, the system itself is simple, fast and gives decisive results. I like the rules and would happily play them again. The mechanism that you have to call out your orders before you roll to see if you can enact them, and that the words you say actually have meaning – no changing your mind – is a fun and practical insertion. This simple mechanism introduces some modest story-telling and roleplaying into an (arguably) straight historical set.

If you have several hundred figures lying around and are looking for an easy entry set of rules that are not regulation bound, then Black Powder may be for you. Me? I still do not want to have to paint 200+ figures before I can start playing, but I’m happy to use someone elses and play using this system.

The campaign itself will be run on Sunday 29 May at the Realm of Legends. Mike Parker (mike.parker@tpg.com.au) is running the event, which will run from 0900hrs to 1700hrs. The room will be arranged with tables set in a diamond pattern with London being at one apex and Oxford the other. Players will be designated either Royalist or Parliamentarian, issued a brigade of foot or cavalry (or a combined task force), and detailed to one of the boards. Artillery will be handled by high command, which is appropriate as this arm, at this time, was an independant professional body. As I understand it there will be an overall command structure directing the campaign in order to navigate the battlefields (boards) to assault the enemy base.

If you are doing nothing else that Sunday, and your significant other will let you off the leash for the day, I heartily recommend you contact Mike and join in. For an entry fee of only $10, you will recieve a fully painted force, easy instruction in the rules, and take part in a real wargame campaign.

More Escarmouche, melee, draft

This is the first draft of the section on melee.

Fighting occurs when one of your groups attempts to move into a square that is already occupied (defended) by an enemy group. When you activated your group, you moved them to the edge of the target square and tested for Resolve. If they passed their resolve to push home the assault, the melee begins.

Fighting consists of rounds of duels between individuals.

Your opponent (the defender) spreads out his figures so they can be all seen. You can ask him to point out which of his figures is the leader, but he does not have to reveal anything else about them (such as who has sharpshooter skills or who has the ability to double as an artillerist, for example).

You (the attacker) now pair up each one of your figures with each one of the defending figures. Any of your figures may attack any of the defender’s, but you must attack every defending figure if possible. If you have more figures than the defender, you may assign your extra figures to any of the duels as you wish.

If the defender has unengaged figures left after you have finished assigning your figures, he may assign his excess however he wishes.

Duels are resolved one at a time. Combat is simultaneous; both you and your opponent draw cards for the same duel at the same time. You may resolve the duels in any order. To resolve each duel, do this:

1  Calculate any Advantages your figure has. This is how many additional cards you may draw from the top of the deck. Every figure may draw a minimum of one card. Your opponent also calculates how many additional cards he may draw for the defending figure by identifying any Advantages he has.

2  Draw and flip the cards onto the table and compare your attack with your opponent’s defense.

3  The winner is the figure who draws at least one card that beats all of his opponent’s drawn cards. If there is a tie, use the suit rank to trump and break the tie. The suit rank used in More Escarmouche is the same as that used in Bridge: Spades (highest), Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs (lowest).

If more than one card beats all of the opponent’s cards you may choose which is the ‘winning’ card.

4  The winning card determines the effect on the defeated figure:

Hearts: killed. Lay the figure face down on the table.

Diamonds: wounded. Lay the figure face up on the table, or mark him with a token.

Spades or Clubs: evicted. Move the figure out of the square. A defeated attacker withdraws to the sqaure he came from. A defeated defender may be moved to any square away from enemies. If there is no square available to retreat to because they are all occupied by enemies, the figure is killed.

5  Continue this process for every duel. If there are still attackers and defenders left in the square at the end of every duel, the figures may be paired up again for another round of duels.

Repeat steps 1 to 4 until either only your figures or your opponent’s remain in the square; the combat only ends when there are only attacker or defender figures left in the square

6  At the end of any round of combat (every duel has been resolved) either you or the defender (in that order) may break off combat and retreat all of the surviving figures out of the contested square.

Table: advantages

Mounted
Heavy cavalry
Charging (1st round only)
Pike armed (1st round only)
Defending class IV terrain (structures)
Opponent wounded
Cavalry attacking infantry that are in open formation

Special case: two or more figures against one

Every figure in the duel calculates Advantages and draws cards as usual.

The figure by himself (let’s say he is the defender) only has this one draw in order to defeat the multiple draws of the attackers.

Since all combat is simultaneous, it is possible that the defender defeats one of the attackers but is defeated by another. Both of these results apply.

Special case: civilians (artillery, baggage and camp followers) and animals

Civilians of all types do not fight. If their square is attacked they immediately drop or abandon whatever they have and flee to an adjacent square.

Capturing animals…

Groups, an explanation

More Escarmouche does not use the idea of ‘units’. A unit is an organisational construction that is inappropriate at this scale of simulation.

Instead, More Escarmouche uses the idea of a ‘group’. A group is every figure within a single square. These groups are temporary in that you may reform and change their composition during the course of play. They literally represent a bunch of people that for the purposes of the game we treat as a single entity for movement and shooting and so on.

It helps to have a ‘leader’ for a group for morale purposes, but this leader need not be the designated Colonel or anything like that (by leader here we mean a genuinely motivational character, and this may or may not conform to any formal ranking). You may identify leader figures at the start of the game, and you may replace or elect new leaders for a group when a vacancy comes up (if the current leader becomes a casualty, or if you spawn a new group out of an existing group).

Similarly, we are not concerned with ‘formations’. A dozen or so single men cannot meaningfully be desribed as having ranks and columns or anything along those lines. They can have a close or open order, indicating that they are either huddled together for protection or spaced out, but that’s as far as it goes.

At the beginning of the game you start with your figures divided into 6 +/- 2 groups. That is: you may not have less than 4 groups and may not have more than 8. These groups must be in either the first or second rows closest to you unless there are specific scenario setup conditions.

You may split a group into two smaller groups or join several together to make a larger single group as part of your turn. Groups can involuntarily fragment as a result of stragglers in a charge, being displaced by combat, or failing morale tests.

Squares, an explanation

More Escarmouche is played on a board measuring 4′ by 4′ which is divided into a squared grid of 8 by 8 – just like an oversized chess board.

Figures do not measure distance when they move, nor do you measure range with a tape measure when shooting. Instead, figures move from square to square, and you count the number of squares from the shoorter to target to calculate range.

Terrain can be placed in a square and the terrain is assumed to occupy all of that square, right up to the edge.

Now it is vitally important to understand that the square and the terrain that it contains is an abstraction. The men we are modelling are not moving from a 60′x60′ square region into another similar region any more than men are moving from hex to hex if we were to divide the board that way. Any more, indeed, than it makes sense for us to measure up to the ‘edge’ of a hill on an open layout game table.

We divide the board into this 8×8 grid for familierity (just like chess), to regularise movement and range determination (there can be no measurement ‘generousity’), and to simplify the definition of a ‘unit’ or maneouvre element (everything in a square comprises a single object and can be moved as a single action, period).

Squares were chosen over hexes to give a simpler, classical feel. The problem of movement where a path cannot be as direct with squares as it can be hexes is overcome: firstly by allowing cavalry to count every third movement step as being diagonal (just like a regular knight in Chess), and secondly by allowing all figures to attack diagonally (like pawns in chess) as well as orthogonally. Incidentally, the ‘two steps orthogonally and one step diagonally’ method gives a lineer distance that is very close to the distance covered if we were using hexes.

v2 More Escarmouche

Time to start a new version.

There are a number of problems with the current approach. The main being that the number of figures on the board makes the card identifier idea ponderous. I like it, but for the number of models it really cannot be supported.

So let’s go back to first principles. The objectives of the system:

1) To support squad level action in the pike and shot period. That is: groups of figures ranging from singles to mobs of ten or twelve, in a 1:1 man to model scale, with a total force of between 20 to 40 per side, with a total number of maneourvre elements per side being 6 +/- 2 (between 4 and 8 maneouvre elements, or groups). These are not scaled down regiments. They are bunches of individuals.

2) The board is a 4′ x 4′ square, divided into an 8×8 grid to simplify movement and range calculations.

3) normal expectations of the period must be evident. For example: muskets are slow to load, pikeman have advantages when defending against cavalry, infantry caught in the open by cavalry are in trouble, and so on.

4) Only one novel game mechanism. The rest of the rules must conform to player’s expectations and experiences.

5) Prefer normal dice – but don’t sweat it on this point.

6) Avoid designing an entire pack of ‘event’ cards, or making the system driven by a specific set of designer cards.

Factors, firing and FUDGE dice in More Escarmouche

Goal 1) to allow the shot to kill at any effective range

Goal 2) to model wounds in a simple, easy to track way

Goal 3) to increase weapon lethality at closer range

Goal 4) to aggregate fire from a group and resolve that group fire quickly

Goal 5) to allow individual sniping with a good chance of success – where sniping would be a specific personalisation of a figure, not a general skill.

Goal 6) to represent the historical truism that Renaissance armies disintegrated from the back – more people ran than were killed by enemy action.

The last one is the easiest. For every figure killed by gunfire, another figure automatically quits the square. This is a rule that I will keep.

To model the first point is the tricky one, because it implies a good deal of luck. But it cannot be so wild that it causes the player to lose faith in tactical play. We want a bell curve, in other words. One that gives a majority of results in the expected, planned outcome zone, but allows lucky or unlucky outliers. One of the ways to do this is to roll a lot of dice; the bucket-o-dice system. Up Front does this on the cards with + or – factors specifically bell-curve calculated. This could be done with target values on d6′s only being 1 or 6 and rolling at least 6 of them. But there’s something about it that does not ‘feel’ right for More Escarmouche. I don’t know why.

This is why I have disinterred FUDGE dice. I’ve been rolling handfulls of dice of various denominations this evening. 4 FUDGE dice can shift a factor four to a kill or a nothing, but most of the time it causes no change. This is a desirable result.

Deriving factors for More Escarmouche

		Number of figures firing
Firing factors		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
	1	2	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	2	4	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	3	6	3	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	0	0
	4	8	4	3	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	5	10	5	3	3	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	6	12	6	4	3	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
	7	14	7	5	4	3	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1
	8	16	8	5	4	3	3	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1
	9	18	9	6	5	4	3	3	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	1
	10	20	10	7	5	4	3	3	3	2	2	2	2	2	1	1
	11	22	11	7	6	4	4	3	3	2	2	2	2	2	2	1
	12	24	12	8	6	5	4	3	3	3	2	2	2	2	2	2
	13	26	13	9	7	5	4	4	3	3	3	2	2	2	2	2
	14	28	14	9	7	6	5	4	4	3	3	3	2	2	2	2
	15	30	15	10	8	6	5	4	4	3	3	3	3	2	2	2
	16	32	16	11	8	6	5	5	4	4	3	3	3	2	2	2
	17	34	17	11	9	7	6	5	4	4	3	3	3	3	2	2
	18	36	18	12	9	7	6	5	5	4	4	3	3	3	3	2
	19	38	19	13	10	8	6	5	5	4	4	3	3	3	3	3
	20	40	20	13	10	8	7	6	5	4	4	4	3	3	3	3
	21	42	21	14	11	8	7	6	5	5	4	4	4	3	3	3
	22	44	22	15	11	9	7	6	6	5	4	4	4	3	3	3
	23	46	23	15	12	9	8	7	6	5	5	4	4	4	3	3
	24	48	24	16	12	10	8	7	6	5	5	4	4	4	3	3
	25	50	25	17	13	10	8	7	6	6	5	5	4	4	4	3
	26	52	26	17	13	10	9	7	7	6	5	5	4	4	4	3
	27	54	27	18	14	11	9	8	7	6	5	5	5	4	4	4
	28	56	28	19	14	11	9	8	7	6	6	5	5	4	4	4
	29	58	29	19	15	12	10	8	7	6	6	5	5	4	4	4
	30	60	30	20	15	12	10	9	8	7	6	5	5	5	4	4
	31	62	31	21	16	12	10	9	8	7	6	6	5	5	4	4
	32	64	32	21	16	13	11	9	8	7	6	6	5	5	5	4
	33	66	33	22	17	13	11	9	8	7	7	6	6	5	5	4
	34	68	34	23	17	14	11	10	9	8	7	6	6	5	5	5
	35	70	35	23	18	14	12	10	9	8	7	6	6	5	5	5
	36	72	36	24	18	14	12	10	9	8	7	7	6	6	5	5
	37	74	37	25	19	15	12	11	9	8	7	7	6	6	5	5
	38	76	38	25	19	15	13	11	10	8	8	7	6	6	5	5
	39	78	39	26	20	16	13	11	10	9	8	7	7	6	6	5
	40	80	40	27	20	16	13	11	10	9	8	7	7	6	6	5
	41	82	41	27	21	16	14	12	10	9	8	7	7	6	6	5
	42	84	42	28	21	17	14	12	11	9	8	8	7	6	6	6
	43	86	43	29	22	17	14	12	11	10	9	8	7	7	6	6
	44	88	44	29	22	18	15	13	11	10	9	8	7	7	6	6
	45	90	45	30	23	18	15	13	11	10	9	8	8	7	6	6

This is the first draft table for deriving ‘average’ attack values for number of figures firing. This is the number that would be applied, one at a time, to the targets, adjusted by the roll of two FUDGE dice.

I am not sure yet whether the economy I have dreamed up works here testing will help identify whether 6 is too much and 2 is too little, and whether the spread is large enough. It may be that three FUDGE dice are needed. It may also be that different dice types altogether are required, and that the characteristic spread of one to seven on the data cards is not enough.

First draft data card for More Escarmouche

So this is what I’m thinking for More Escarmouche. Every figure/character is paired with a data card. Data cards are arranged in front of you, in the order that they will be subject to shooting attack. That is: the first guy in your row gets attacked by bullets first, then the next, and so on.

The board is squared, 8 x 8 like Poor Bloody Infantry and Guerra Floridas.

Range is in squares to target sqaure. All muskets can shoot out to five squares, but not everyone is a good shot, so the factors differ. Pistols can shoot to three.

To shoot, you add up the factors for the characters at that range, then derive an average attack value. This attack value is applied to the characters in the target square up to the number of figures shooting. That is: if you have five figures shooting at five figures then each target gets hit once. If you have three figures shooting at five figures then the first three figures get shot at. If you have five figures shooting at three figures then the first two figures get shot at twice and the last figure is only shot at once.

So anyway, one at a time, you shoot at each figure. You take the attack value and roll two FUDGE dice, adding or subtracting factors till you get a final number. This number is then compared to the target character’s own damage capacity indicator along the bottom, and the effect applied. Heroes will be harder to kill and wound, of course. Ordinary men will be more likely to run. The scale is at this draft stage seven places long and with four possible outcomes (no result, run, wound, killed) so there is very reasonable scope for personalisation. When wounded, a card is truned over to show a different capacity indicator.

Hand to hand fighting is very similar to Guerra Floridas. Movement into an occupied square constitutes the initiation of melee. Figures are paired up into scraps. Scraps are resolved one at a time, but simultaneously for the two sides. Two FUDGE dice results are added to the range (0) comabt factor. Both sides are impacted straight away – so both figures fighting could kill each other, in other words.

These are my thoughts so far.

80 years war potted history

The most accepted opinion is that the Rebellion or the Eighty years war starts with the ransacking of churches and convents (Beeldenstorm) in 1566. The cause of this uprising can be found in the bad economic position of the common people and the oppression of the new Calvinistic religion. This oppression was policy of king Philip II of Spain who also ruled the Low Countries. The result of this outburst of violence was that the breach between Catholics and King on one hand, and Calvinists together with unsatisfied noblemen, who demanded freedom of religion on the other, was unrepairable. The last were lead by William the silent, Prince of Orange.

To crush this rebellion Philip II send a new governor to the Netherlands: Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, who began very energetic on his new task. On the day of his arrival he installed a new court of law: The Blood Council (De Raad van Beroerten or Bloedraad) with himself as chairman. This council was famous for its many harsh sentences. He also had two leaders of the rebellion imprisoned and sentenced to death by decapitation: the count of Egmont and the count of Hoorne. Alva also created new taxes, a new criminal code, garrisons in major cities and he supported the inquisition.

William of Orange wasn’t idle either. He invaded the low countries several times with a mercenary army. Due to a lack of money and little public support these invasions were doomed from the start. There rebels were not entirely unsuccessful. The “Watergeuzen” had captured the harbour town of Den Briel. These sailors were a colourful lot of people. The fleet consisted out of noblemen, scientists, merchants, fishermen, craftsmen and riff-raff from every region of the Netherlands as rank and file. William the Silent made use of these seamen as privateers. The fall of Den Briel or Brielle was the first in a row of several cities mainly in Holland and Zeeland. These cities created a government (De Statenvergadering in Dordrecht 1572) with on its head William of Orange as stadtholder.

The Spaniards also had their successes, but the war was costing huge amounts of money. Therefore peace negotiations were started but where bound to fail from the start. In the meantime Alva who did not like the low countries and its wet climate at all had asked several times a relief of his duties. Philip in the end gave in and appointed in 1573 Don Louis de Requesens as new governor. This Requesens died suddenly in 1576 and with no successor the serious discontent of the Spanish troops which had not had payment in months became visible. They started a mutiny. Many civilian would meet his end in an encounter with these troops. To end this mutiny a treaty was signed (Pacificatie van Gent) The Government came in hands of the States of the districts and the States General, royal troops had to leave the country and religious persecution had to cease. In Holland and Zeeland the church stayed reformed in a Calvinistic way and had to be recognized by others.

This treaty could not work out right. The King in Spain never would recognize religious freedom and he never would give up power in favour of the States General. Protestants also were not satisfied they wanted to be the Calvinistic church to be the only one. When Spanish troops returned the treaty was cancelled. In the meantime William of Orange grew more powerful. He united some districts in a union: De Unie van Utrecht to continue the struggle for freedom of religion and parliamentary power. The new Spanish governor Alexander Farnese, duke of Parma made alliance with the States of Henegouwen and Artesië the so-called Unie van Atrecht. In 1584 William of Orange was for the second time assassinated. This time it would be successful. The assassin Balthasar Gerards was sentenced to death. His skull would be kept as a relic. His family was raised to the peerage.

The military genius of Parma and the conservatism of the majority was the key to Parma’s great successes. In the years between 1579 and 1589 he restored royal authority and the Catholic religion in all districts south of the major rivers and in great parts of Overijssel, Drenthe and Groningen. But the States General had terminated their loyalty to Philip II. But with no leader (The prince of Orange was dead) they had to seek help at foreign courts. This help from France and England only lead to new conflict. Therefore the Netherlands developed into a confederation of seven sovereign districts: The Republic of the United Netherlands (de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden). The Spanish Armada immediately threatened the Republic and England. This was a huge Spanish fleet that had to pick up soldiers under Parma to invade England.

Now for the first time the Republic had a useful army, lead and reorganized by Maurits son of William of Orange, and a powerful navy. Both were supported by a powerful government lead by Grand Pensionary (Raadpensionaris) Johan van Oldenbarnevelt. He also took the initiative to found the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (V.O.C.) This company organized the newly established trade with the East. Later this would mean huge profits. On land the offensive was taken and step by step Maurits captured (fortified) cities outside Holland that were garrisoned by Spanish troops (1590 – 1597). Now the Republic was a force that had to be reckoned with. France and England signed in 1596 a treaty thereby officially recognizing the Republic as an independent nation.

In spite of Philip’s death in 1598 the war went on. The Republic was strong enough for a maritime war with resulted in a complete victory of Heemskerck at Gibraltar in 1607. In 1609 a peace treaty was signed: Het Twaalfjarig Bestand ( the twelve year truce) which de facto recognized the Republic. The trade routes to the East could be developed, although these were not part of the truce. After the truce Spain renewed her efforts to subdue the Republic that was weakened by internal conflict and the death of Van Oldenbarnevelt. But in 1622 Maurits’ brother Frederick Hendrik started a campaign to conquer cities in the South and East. The navy had also its success. Tromp destroyed the second Armada at Duins (North Downs) in 1639. In 1621a new company was founded: the “Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie (G.W.C.) This company mostly directed its activities at privateering. The most famous admiral of this company was Piet Heyn. With his 31 ships he entered a Spanish silver armada of 20 ships. The worth of the loot was approximately 14 million guilders (7 million dollars).

In the last thirty years the Eighty years war coincides with the Thirty Years war. German imperial troops helped the Spaniards and the Republic supported the German Protestants. Both sides wanted peace. This was established and signed at Munster (1648). The result was the independency of the Republic from the Spanish and the German empires. All conquered territory could be kept. The river Schelde was closed for ships, which resulted in the growth of northern cities like Amsterdam. In the East- and West Indies a status quo was kept.