The Great Northern War revisited

 Yesterday we played a game of Black Powder, using Bart's extensive Great Northern War collection (see also out Crisis 2010 game on Poltava).

It had been a while since we played a game using the Black Powder rules (pre-Covid). We don't care that much about 1st or 2nd edition, using a mix of rules as we remember them. It's a game after all, and it's the tactics that count, not a modifier more or less on some die roll.

The scenario was based on a scenario we played before, a great river crossing. The Russians could cross using a ford, a bridge that had to be repaired, and some pontoons.

Eddy and Wim took the side of the Russians, Phil played the Swedes, while Bart was umpiring. At the end of the evening, it was more or less decided that there was a minor Russian victory: the Russians had succeeded in crossing the river, although the Swedes had held them up for some time.

Here are some photos (more photos and a report written up by Eddy to be found here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1387808/article/41703990#41703990).

This is how the table looked when I entered Bart's wargaming den. No deployment yet, although the toys were already out.

Eddy and Wim pondering about the Russian deployment. How will they cross the wide river in front of them?

Initial Swedish deployment, focusing on known crossing points on both flanks, leaving the centre unguarded.

The Swedish left flank - the ford. Russian troops are stuck in the mud in the middle of the river. Eddy will later claim this was all part of the plan, pinning a large Swedish contingent such that the bridge on the other flank could be crossed.

The Swedish Beer Garden.

The Bridge as seen from the Russian side, heavily defended by Swedish troops. An initial attack was repulsed. A first pontoon crossing has also already taken place.

Overview of the entire river.

The Swedish left flank again. No movement, just some shots exchanged back and forth.

Heavy fighting on the Swedish right flank. More Russians are crossing using pontoons. Swedish cavalry are preparing themselves to charge - but this will turn out to be a disaster. Due to hammering by the Russian artillery, an failed command rolls, the Swedish cavalry will rout a turn later.

Another view of the Swedish right flank, moments before the Swedish cavalry routed.

 A very exciting game! As usual, we had a post-game discussion about what worked and didn't work in the scenario. And we also discussed the state of wargaming affairs in Belgium, the world, and the universe!

 

ACW: The Battle of the Great Berries

Yesterday we played a game with our homebrewn ACW rules. I based the scenario on the battle of Grossbeeren (inspired by an article in Miniature Wargames 473).

I set up the scenario as a 4 player game (with me being the umpire), but Bart had to cancel at the last minute. So I took over as plumpire (player umpire). 4 people also meant my dedicated wargames room would be a bit cramped, so I managed to get permission from the Commander in Chief to host the game in the kitchen at our large dining table...

Here are the pictures, with some commentary.

The lay out of the battlefield. Troops have to enter the tables at various entry points as marching columns.

The players (Jean-Pierre, Eddy, Wim), engaged in some pre-battle socializing. Yes, we are all middle-aged men and it shows ;-)

The opening shots. A Confederate column is marching towards a Union camp, which has trouble waking up. The prepared artillery position is still unmanned.

Napoleon (a small statuette I bought in the gift shop of the real battlefield) is our lucky general token. If you have it, you can reroll any composite die roll, but then the lucky general switches to the other side.

An overview of the Union left flank.

Another overview of the Union left flank.

Wim and Eddy discussing tactics.

The Confederacy left flank, commanded by Wim, is advancing rapidly.

The Union right flank fails to make progress. Really unlucky command rolls ...

Eddy has possession of the luck general. Surely victory must be ours! NOT!!!

Fierce battles on the Union left flank.

General overview.

The control board. We sort of decided in the post-game briefing that the weather conditions (drove by drawing a card each turn) were too harsh.

Jean-Pierre pondering his next move.

General overview.

Centre of the battlefield.

Wim looking at his marching columns.

The Union left flank again. I was commanding this position, so plenty of pictures from this side of the table.

The Union left flank again.

General overview near the end of the game.

Overall, a fun game, but as always, there was some discussion about the scenario setup and the luck (or absence of luck) of good die rolls. But the important part was that we had game among friends, some chatting, some beers. That's what wargaming is all about, after all.

New 54mm recruits

A package arrived today, with some new 54mm toy soldiers for the display cabinets in my wargaming room. I ordered them from The Tin Soldier / De Tinsoldaat, a Belgian company based in Antwerp that produces toy soldier sets in a classic style. 

So here are my 2 sets, a group of WW1 Belgian Grenadiers (my old regiment), and a trooper of the Royal Escort (Rijkswacht Koninklijk Escorte).

Warhammer Quest

One of the advantages of having a gaming group that goes back to the 80s, is that one of the gaming pals sometimes clears out his storage space, and gives away some old junk to make room.

My old gaming buddy Dirk recently gave me some original Warhammer Quest stuff.

 

Before anyone shouts "Gimme!", the content of the boxes is incomplete and pieces are missing. They probably got mixed up with the original game, which was apparently already given away. Cardboard templates are also warped. So no real collectible value. Except of course for some typical 90s Citadel miniatures, which are always useful for my fantasy games.

Original Manuscript of "A History of Hyboria (Vol 2)" by Tony Bath

Thanks to Frederik Geudens (see also this earlier post), here's volume 2 of the original "History of Hyboria", the original wargaming campaign run by Tony Bath.

A History of Hyboria, Volume 2.

More work on the Wargames Magazine Index!

A few years ago I started to index all my articles in my magazine collection. Then the magazine collection started to grow through many donations, and now I have a backlog of magazines I still need to enter into the database. Perhaps this Christmas break will allow me to catch on.

I have used my index quite extensively over the years, often to relocate some article I vaguely remember, or to hunt for a good scenario. Sometimes, I help out other bloggers when they are in search of a specific article. Every time this happens, I reread that particular magazine issue and update its entries a little bit in the database. So the database is a "living thing".

Nevertheless, the database remains far from complete. I don't have subscriptions to all current magazines, and certainly have not acquired all copies of extinct magazines. But I see this as a lifelong project. There's no rush.

A new problem has arisen though, and that is that British magazines have more difficulties making it across the channel. Blame you-know-what. Each time a magazine doesn't arrive I contact the relevant subscription services and a replacement copy often arrives a few days later. So those issues (usually in an ordinary non-transparant envelope) do arrive. Perhaps someone in my local post office is snatching all those magazines, but on the other hand, a friend says she has the same problems with a British gardening magazine she's subscribed to. Issues fail to arrive, ever since the you-know-what-agreement kicked in. All those benefits!

Original Manuscript of "A History of Hyboria (Vol 1)" by Tony Bath

 

Over the years, I have developed an interest in the work of pioneering wargamer Tony Bath, and more specifically, his famous Hyboria campaign.

It was well-known that Rudi Geudens, who passed away last year, was the proud owner of part of the original Hyboria documents, as written up by Tony Bath himself. Rudi had long intended to make the manuscript fully available on his website, but for some reason, never came around scanning in all the pages.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when I received a mail earlier today from Frederik Geudens, Rudi's son, asking whether I could help in distributing the scanned pages of "A History of Hyboria (Vol 1)", in honour of both Tony and Rudi, who have inspired so many wargamers over the years.

As far as I know, this is the first time this document in its original form is now again available for all wargamers to enjoy.

So, without much further ado, here's an important piece of wargaming history:

A History of Hyboria (Vol 1), by Tony Bath

Chain of Command revisited

A few years ago we tried our first Chain of Command game. As some of you know, Chain of Command is a WW2 ruleset published by Too Fat Lardies. Our findings from last time:

What was our impression of the rules?

• The pre-game deployment (patrol markers, drop-off points) was fun, but we kept wondering why we should go through all these motions simply to get our troops into action? Shouldn't a good scenario setup be able to do same?
• Combat resolution was rather convoluted to our taste. Over they years, we have come to favour "lean and mean" rules. Keep the number of procedures and mechanics as simple, but as elegant as possible, while focusing on the important decisions a player has to make. We felt that the resolution mechanics of Chain of Command were a bit too "fiddly": too many dice, too many statuses to keep track of, a bit too confusing.

Granted, it has been a while - our previous game was played in December 2018, 4 years ago. But is funny to say that during our post-briefing we came to exactly the same conclusions.

This led to a discussion about why some rules have an elegant design and some ruleset feel like a mish-mash of different mechanics cobbled together. For me, the essential guiding principle in a ruleset is that you have to pick 1 or 2 core mechanics, and all other procedures should derive from those core mechanics. E.g. a core mechanic could be unit activation; or could be in which manner combat is resolved. But many game designers (amateur or professional) then have the tendency to pile up new mechanics to resolve new situations, without thinking how such  situation could be resolved by using or adapting the core mechanic. And if that's not possible, then perhaps the core mechanic isn't that well designed to start with. 

But anyway, back to Chain of Command: one of the other aspects of the rules that ruffled our feathers was that some mechanics were designed at the level of 'sections' (e.g. activation of units), others at the level of 'teams' (e.g. distributing shock results) and still others at the level of individual soldiers/models (e.g. casualties). That doesn't feel like all these procedures are elegantly designed. When the plumpire (playe-umpire) announced that there were also rules for individuals to hang out of windows to shoot to whatever is below them, it was a bit too much ;-)

But anyway, that doesn't mean we had a good time and had a fun game. We are simply over-critical, that's all ;-)

And now some photographs. The game is is 20mm, pre-Arnhem.

Bart as plumpire explaining the scenario.

The wall with decorations, most notably the secret plans of Belgium's defence in May 1940.

Jockeying for jump-off points.

Deploying some of the German troops.

Overview of the table.

Another overview.

Germans crossing the fields, British were hiding n the building.

Some more action along the road.

3D-printed Hotel Hartenstein.

Another overview.

Eddy, Ruben as interested son, and Bart.

Eddy trying to micromanage his Brits.

A Jagdpanther arrives!

Eddy and Jean-Pierre, British commanders.

Plumpire Bart.

Bart, Ruben, Jean-Pierre, Eddy and myself in a selfie.

The infamous pigsty, a mainstay of Bart's wargaming table.