Warwell's Wargames

Let's take a look back at my year for gaming.

After trying out a quickie Napoleonic battle, I decided to do the same for medievals.

I recently have taken an interest in Slovak history. Inspired by this new interest, I set this battle in the area of Samo's Empire.

The warlord Samo tries to impose his will on a neighboring village. The chieftain Raduz defends.

I randomly determined the forces:

Here Samo approaches the village.

Meanwhile, Samo's heavies and mediums take a beating from enemy infantry.
Samo loses his medium infantry.
And a unit of light. Despite some success on his left, Samo must retreat.
GAME NOTES

I planned to do a follow-up battle but haven't got around to it yet.

I determined the forces randomly. I think Samo got the short end of the stick. No matter; I think I may give him some Frankish cavalry next time.

"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord." 

(Luke 2: 8-11 NIV)

Merry Christmas!

 I've been inspired to embark on a new counter project.

It's largely because of my quickie Waterloo game. A reader made a comment about the Prussians arriving, which gave me an idea for a follow-up battle. In this reality, Napoleon manages to force Wellington to retreat, but now he must face Blucher. One problem - I don't have any counters for the Prussians.

So this leads me to a new project. I'm been toying with the idea of creating simpler generic counters so that it is easier to change colors in the file and create a new army. I played around and came up with these.

I created the base set in red. There are only 3 troop types - close order infantry, loose order infantry, and cavalry. In my quickie MicroBattle rules, I assume that artillery is attached to other units. This means I don't need separate artillery.

As you can see, I created SIX different quickie armies. And these are generic enough that I can use them for ancient and medieval battles as well!

One thing I've struggled with when using generic armies is distinguishing between different types of formed infantry, such as blades, warbands, auxiliaries, etc. Instead of creating distinct counters, I'm toying with the idea of using markers. For example, green marker on a formed infantry counter could identify lesser quality troops.

Stay tuned for more on this project.

I managed to squeeze in a quick game.

Time was short so I decided to try out a extra fast play version of MicroBattle. Some of the features of this version.

I loosely based this scenario on the Battle of Waterloo, using this map from Absolute Emperor. I created the orange boxes to identify the corps.

This gives 6 corps for the French and 4 for the British. I simplified the setup greatly; Here is how it came out.

The British are outnumbered but they only need to hold on until the Prussians arrive. I rolled randomly to determine how long that would be. Turns out Napoleon needs to defeat Wellington in 4 turns.

The French advance. The defenders repulse them from Hougoumont (left). But the French have more success in the center.

The British counterattack. They rout the French attacking Hougoumont and hold back the attackers on the ridge.
But the French push back and rout a corps on the ridge.
And then the French finish off the defenders on the ridge.

Napoleon wins!

It's been a while since I my last battle. A number of factors have contributed to these doldrums.

Inspiration came from a day at the movies. My brother and I saw the latest Ridley Scott movie.

I enjoyed it, even though it was a flawed film. I think it would have worked better as an HBO series.

Nevertheless, it got me hankering for some Napoleonic action!

I toyed with the idea of playing Austerlitz, but I don't have Russian counters. Furthermore, I didn't want to wait until I found a good scenario. I wanted action immediately. I decided to press ahead with a made-up battle.

As far as backstory, I chose to set this battle in 1805 along the Danube. I also decided to make this the first battle of a campaign.

Faced with the Third Coalition, Napoleon abandons his preparations for war with England. Instead, he rapidly marches his army to the Danube to confront Austria. Meanwhile, General Mack presses the Austrian forces into Bavaria.

The armies meet near the [fictional] town of Doberschwitz.

The French army (top) is split into 5 corps plus the artillery reserve. It converges on Doberschwitz in three columns. The Austrians (bottom) are more tightly formed and include a strong cavalry component.

I'll have some more thoughts in a later post, but I just wanted to note that I went back to an older version of MicroBattle, where I resolved combats with an opposed die roll. Sure, it's slower, but it works fine.

Thank you for your service to our country.

Here's a picture of my favorite veteran. My father in flight school in the early '50s.

Thought I'd do a quick update. I haven't been gaming because I've been distracted by LARP.

We resumed back in September. Recently, we've been getting some interest so we are planning to return to weekly practices.

I don't know anything about making websites, but I am comfortable with blogging. So I did an experiment where I used Blogger to make a website for my LARP group. Check it out - Chimera Legion LARP.

As I noted last time, I'm a little frustrated by combat dragging out in Micro Battle. I decided to do some more combat testing.

As I experimented with combat mechanisms, I came to a couple revelations.

I decided to do a simple test with a small battle line on flat terrain.

Red has the initiative and attacks. All things being the same, Red needs a 4+ to win a combat.

It succeeds on the left and center but fails on the right.

Blue counterattacks, with its rightmost unit hitting Red's flank. I treat the flank attack as support for the main combat.

Blue succeeds on the left and inflicts a casualty. Despites its flanking attack, Blue fails on the right. The main unit takes a second casualty and routs from the field.
Red's turn to attack. It fails on the left and loses a unit. It double-teams blue on the right but loses miserably and takes a casualty.
Blue's turn. Both attacks fail. Blue loses a unit and the other must retreat with a casualty.
I think I missed a turn. Anyway, Blue has rallied and attacks Red, causing a casualty.
More missing turns. Blue destroys a Red unit then takes on the last remaining Red. Blue wins!
Assessment

The whole test took about 14 minutes to run. Hard to say if that is slow or fast; I need to do a full-blown battle to assess. Still, I like where this is going. Will need to experiment some more.

Last year I made some unsatisfactory experiments with the 3 x 3 system. I shelved the concept at the time but now I have come back to it. In my most recent MicroBattle game, I noticed that the battle essentially devolved into left, center, and right sectors. Just like 3 x 3, I thought.

I did a little more digging into 3 x 3 and found some variants where they allow flank marches. So effectively it becomes like a 5 x 5 grid. I decided to try it out.

I'm doing a generic horse & musket battle. The armies, let's call them France (blue( and Austria (white), form up on a 3-square front.

After a journey of about a day from Leilon, our party of heroes approaches the Tower of Storms. The tower sits upon a craggy island connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway that barely rises above sea level.

Traversing the causeway (1), they get attacked by 6 sahuagin. Our heroes dispatch the enemy in short order.

They reach the island and begin to ascend the craggy slopes (3). They find a small cave. When Nashad peers in, a ghostly presence reaches out and possesses him.

"Before you take hasty actions, hear my tale!" the possessed fighter pleads. He explains how the unholy priest of the tower killed him and trapped his soul on earth. The spirit could not be freed until the priest was truly dead.

Agreeing to undertake the spirit's quest, the party continues toward the tower. As they approach its gate (4), a swarm of harpies attack. Their song charms Alyn and Nashad so Killian and Haiden must fight alone. Nevertheless, our heroes drive off the beasts.

They enter the tower (5). A trap drops a stone on Alyn, who suffers an injury. They pass through a room (6) without incident and enter the back room (7). There, they meet the priest.

The priest unleashes a bolt of lightning, which strikes Killian in the chest and knocks him to the floor. Alyn rushes forward, and strikes a telling blow on the priest. Growling with anger, the priest lashes out at Alyn, drawing blood. Nashad enters the fray and scores another hit.

The priest attacks Nashad but Killian recovers and counters. The paladin's blade bites deep. The priest turns on him and drives him back with a series of attacks. He is about to strike when a sword suddenly pierces him from behind. The priest stares at the blade sticking through his heart.

The priest coughs and gasps, "you win today, but this is not over. My master will revive me...." With this he collapses.

The priest is dead but the tower's evil still pervades the place.

"We must destroy the root of this evil," Killian proclaims.

They continue up the tower, defeating a few cultists on one floor (8) before coming to the top. There, they see a heart lying upon a pedestal. The heart is beating and an eldritch light emanates from it.

"This is the source of the evil! We must destroy it!" commands Killian.

Nashad rushes forward. He swings his two-handed battle axe at the heart but a ray of light zaps him. Killian dodges another ray and stabs the heart. Nashad attacks again, this time slashing the heart. Finally, Haiden attacks. His strike splits the heart in twain. Then, the heart erupts with a burst of magical energy, knocking our heroes flat.

The spirit thanks the heroes for freeing him. He then releases Nashad from possession.

Victorious, our heroes return to Phandalin without further incident. They can now prepare their assault on Axeholm.

Hearing this tale of woe, Ser Killian proclaims a sacred vow to end the tower's malign influence. Perhaps not the best strategy, for local adventurers seem reluctant to join the quest. But finally they find two fighters so down on their luck that they will take any job. With that, Alyn and Nashad join the party.

On the way to the tower, our heroes run across a small group of marauding orcs. It's a brief fight, but the new heroes get a chance to show their stuff. They are ready for the tower!

This is the first battle of my fantasy campaign. In my world, Palmyra is a region similar to historic Egypt. However, it is threatened by the Hyenids (essentially gnolls) who raid from the south.

The Imperial garrison gets word that a large Hyenid horde is raiding southern Palmyra. The Legion rushes south to stop the horde.

The Legion (bottom) forms two lines.

The horde only appears as a dark mass in the distance.

The Legion needs to take the villages of Khukhusa (L) and Fasu (R) so the Hyenids cannot sack them.

Victory will go to the side that seizes and holds both villages.

Both sides advance quickly. One of the Legion's auxiliary units reaches the village of Khukhusa. On the Imperial right, a pack of giant hyenas attack a unit of allied warriors. I'm using cavalry counters to represent the hyenas.

First blood goes badly for the Legion. They lose Khukhusa and the regulars (center) take losses.
A ray of hope. An allied warband destroys the hyenas while the other warband seizes Fasu.
A Hyenid assault on Fasu fails.
With this failure, the Hyenid commander calls retreat.

The Legion secures the villages, and the first victory of the campaign!

Top - brutes (heavy infantry) + giant hyenas (beasts)

Middle - packs (warbands)

Bottom - hunters (bows) + more giant hyenas

Here is the Hyenid general, with standard and drummer (with a human-skin drum)