Promotions and Medals (2)

As I explained earlier, I maintain some continuity over our different ACW battles. In a sense it's somewhat old-school, but very effective in instilling a campaign feel over what otherwise would be a series of unlinked battles.

I use several mechanisms:

1. After each battle, the commanders who participated (they are drawn randomly from a stack of cards) roll for additional stats or something else that could have happened to them. I use a simple table for this:

Roll a die:
1-3: no pain nor gain
4-5: roll on the table below.
6: personal injury, roll on table below

1    Command Range increases by 1 (maximum 4). If already at 4, roll again.
2    Movement command bonus increases by 1
3    Fire command bonus increases by 1 (max +3)
4    Charge command bonus increases by 1(max +3)
5    Infantry command bonus increases by 1(max +3)
6    Cavalry command bonus increases by 1(max +3)
7    Artillery command bonus increases by 1(max +3)
8    Becomes older and less reactive ... Command range decreases by 1 (minimum 1). Roll again if CR already = 1.
9    Receives a nickname. Invent one.
10    Roll again.


1    Killed in action. Remove from campaign and replace by a new officer.
2    Loses an eye.
3    Loses an arm.
4    Loses a leg.
5    Scar in face.
6    Develops a drinking habit.
7    Horse shot and dead.
8    Deserts and switches sides.
9-10    Roll D10 + number of battles fight. If >=10 ==> retire. Remove from campaign and replace by a new officer.

2. Each player can name a unit that behaved exceptionally during the battle. Such units also roll on a table for some additional benefits:

    Inf  //  L Inf  //  Cav  //  Art
1    +1 fire act  //  +1 act roll   // +1 charge act //   + 1 fire act
2    +1 move act  //  +1 move act  //  +1 move act  //  +1 move act
3    Roll again. //   move roll “1” => 2 (subsequent 3 or 4)  //  move roll “1” => 2 //   Roll again.
4    +1 firing die  //  +1 firing die  //  +1 melee die  //  +1 firing die
5    Starts game +1 Str  //  Starts game +1 Str   // Starts game +1 Str  // Starts game +1 Str
6    Nickname //   Nickname  //  Nickname  //  Nickname

3. Units that were routed lose all accumulated bonuses, and start again but now with a regimental number one higher than before.

So, as an example after the Battle of Port Republic, we got the following for the Union:

• The Old Forester Fusiliers were routed, so in the next game they are named the 2nd Old Forester Fusiliers
• The Laphroaig Lancers were recommended by Phil for exceptional courage, the die roll said they will start the next game at +1 Unit Strength.
• The Basil Hayden's Big Guns were recommended by Eddy for bravery, and they deserve a nickname according to the rolled result. Since all unit names were generated by ChatGPT, as "imaginative names for American Civil War units inspired by whisky and bourbon brands", I did some googling, and it turned out Basil Hayden whisky originated as Old Granddad ... so the unit becomes "The Old Granddaddies".

 

I keep track of everything in an excel file, an equivalent to the old-school "wargaming journal".

The Battle of Port Republic

(note: Another report of this same game was posted by Eddy on Boardgamegeek. )

 Yesterday we played another ACW game, using our house rules.  Bart, Eddy and Koen showed up, so we had 4 players, which is the maximum limit I can host in my wargaming room.

The scenario I prepared was based on the Battle of Port Republic, an encounter that took place during the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign. When we say "based on ... ", we do mean "inspired by ... ". I'm not that fuzzy about recreating exact order of battles or recreate the terrain as exactly as possible, but I do look at the tactical challenges that were present in a given battle and try to translate them to the rules and table size we use.

More specifically, I started from the wargaming setup for the batle given in the excellent book "Wargaming in History: The Shenandoah Valley 1862".

The chapter on Port Republic gives a ready-to-use lay-out of the table. 

I added some terrain elements, such as an additional corn field that blocked visibility in the central open plain. But the main idea remained in place: the Confederates attacked the Union, with the aim of trying to secure the battlefield and more specifically the Coaling hill in the upper left corner, upon which the Union had placed a strong artillery battery overlooking the battlefield.

So, Eddy and I took the Union, and Koen and Bart would play with the attacking Confederates. We started by dealing out random commanders (we have a stack of cards for those), and players could attribute them to the different brigades.

Then we started the game proper. 

 

The initial strategizing. Eddy, Koen and Bart discussing the finer points of what strategy to follow.

A view from the Union side, looking towards the approaching Confederates.

Eddy is in awe of his artillery battery, sitting on the Coaling. Surely nothing can go wrong with such tremendous firing power.

The artillery battery took its first shots. Note we use imaginative names for our ACW units, inspired by whisky and bourbon brands (and with a little help from ChatGPT).

Koen is looking worried. Is the Confederate advance going as smoothly as planned?

A battle in the corn field in the centre of the battlefield is starting. Historically, the fields were open, but I decided it would be better for the game if the central plain was broken up by some visibility blocking elements.

Koen moving some his troops. Eddy is making sure no cheating is taking place.

Near the end of the game, the Coaling was stormed by the Confederate infantry, while a major cavalry battle was underway near the foot of the hill.

The Union is ready to admit defeat.

The end of the game.

 

Overall, it was a pretty good game and a good scenario. The Confederacy overran the Union position (as happened historically). But more importantly, we had plenty of fun and good laughs.

Here are a few more pictures taken the day after, but now with all the clutter such as dice and cards removed and the miniatures straightened out:

The end state of the game, looking from the Coaling over the battlefield.

The attack of the Confederacy on the Coaling, as seen from the attacking side.

The view from the Confederacy towards the Union lines in the open fields.

The battle in the corn field.

A view from the Union lines.

Another overview, with the Coaling in the far end.

New Recruits ... Belgian Toy soldiers

Yesterday, a package arrived in the post from The Tin Soldier (handmade toy soldiers from Antwerp), to join my ranks of WW1 Belgians.

These are the boxes. Looks promising.

First box, 4 Carabiniers in 1914 uniforms:

An Officer of the "Lansiers te Paard":

A Lancer trooper (I have to straighten his lance a bit, it got bent when I got him out of the box):

A Belgian Guide, 1914:

Nice additions for the decorative elements in the wargaming room!

A new campaign? (2)

After I constructed the map for my new imaginations campaign, I entered all the cities and their resource values in a spreadsheet to make a quick tally of the resource points per country.

These are the results:

red	20
green	25
yellow	12
cyan	26
magenta	22
blue	33
black	3

This provides a nice balance, with 4 middle-sized countries, 1 big country and 1 small country. 

Next up: finding some names for the countries and the campaign.

A new campaign?

I am currently thinking about starting a new narrative-style campaign, inspired by the famous Hyboria campaign. I am not sure about how I will run it though. Doing it old-school style, by having players giving orders for all units every so many weeks is doomed to fail in my opinion. So, I will probably do something where players can add to the story using story-game mechanics. Players can add to the developing story, without being linked to any country or side in particular. We'll see ...

But anyway, the first thing to do is to generate a map. I played around with some old maps I had lying around from an old boardgame (I did this before...), and assembled a large map.

Luckily, the scans of these maps are available on boardgamegeek, so I downloaded them and assembled them all in photoshop, and cleaned them up a bit.

Next, I imagined different countries and added some colored layers.

I even came up with a Casus Belli already! The uninhabited islands in the middle of the map contain a newly discovered valuable resource. So the various countries will start to scramble for them.

Now for the period. The obvious choice would be doing it in a Hyboria/Fantasy style, but I'm more thinking of doing it late 19th century / pre WW1, so I can use my glossy toy soldiers.

Sometimes you find something fun ...

Here are some new recruits I picked up earlier today in the local "kringwinkel" (roughly translated: recycling store or 2nd hand store), a store where people can leave their old stuff, and it can be bought by others. I usually pop in once every month or so (it is conveniently located right across the post office and bakery in the village where I live). Usually, I buy some old books (I quite often donate books myself), sometimes some old tools or stuff for the kitchen.

But today, I saw these old Britains Deetail figures ... so I couldn't resist bringing them home. Perhaps they might even be fielded in a 54mm  skirmish game ... 

Backlog of magazines added to the index

I added a handful of magazines to the index, mostly issues of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy. These are now up to date up to issue 130.

WSS is the only magazine I currently subscribe to, so currently this is the only magazine whose recent issues are added to the index.

Promotions and Medals

In our ACW games - our latest game can be seen here - we try to keep some continuity. Not in the form of a grandiose campaign (they have a tendency to fizzle out rather quickly), but simply by keeping track of units and officers, and giving them some additional abilities. Then, in a next game, these units and officers will appear again, and they build up their own history.

This is a very old school mechanism. The use of the "wargaming journal" in which one records the adventures of various units over a series of battle was already described by founding fathers such as Featherstone and Grant. It is also a system I have succesfully used before in other games, such as our Special Operations Scifi Antares 2401 campaign.

For our ACW games, after each battle, each player can nominate 1 unit that did something remarkable. I then have a little table outlining various possibilities, I roll a die, and the unit can get some additional benefit. I keep track of what a unit can do by using playing cards from an old Columbia cardgame, and I add little post-it notes. Such cards are a useful reference during the game. I of course also keep track all units in an Excel sheet but I'm a big fan of NOT using any digital tools during the game itself. Miniature wargaming should be an analogue and tactile hobby (call me old-school), hence the cards.

A selection of 4 units, with their earned abilities.

I do the same for the Officers. I have a stack of 12 different Officer cards for each side. At the start of the game, a player is given 3 random cards, and those are the Officers he has for that scenario (sometimes we deal 1 card more, and you can select 3 out of 4 or similar). Afer the battle, I put a little sticker (card suits) on the Officer's card, to indicate he has fought in a battle, and I also roll on a table. The table can gave the Officer extra abilities, but it could also indicate wounds, retirement, or even death!

A selection of 4 officers, with their characteristics, and card suit symbols to show how many battles they have fought in.

A last "campaign" mechanic is to add a numerical indication to units that have been routed. In our last game, the "Cornhusker Cavalry" fled the battlefield, and hence, the unit now becomes the "2nd Cornhusker Cavalry" (and loses all abilities). The use of such numbers also adds to the period flavour of ACW units.

Battle of Brawner's House

Last Friday Wim and I played an ACW game, using or well-tested and developed house rules.

The scenario was inspired by an article in Wargamers Annual 2014, which outlined a scenario for the 7YW, but was in fact itself inspired by an ACW battle, the battle of Groveton or Brawner's House, on the evening of 2nd Bull Run.

The idea is that one side travels in convoy along a road, spread out. The other side's force suddenly appears from behind a hill line, concentrated. The tactical challenge is for the convoy to deploy as soon as possible given the terrain, and for the attacking side to try to attack as soon as possible. Whoever controls the battlefield by the end of the wargaming day wins the battle.

The original article in Wargamers Annual 2014.

Here's what the initial setup looked like. Note that we use little name markers for each unit. Names are fictional and AI generated and inspired by Bourbon and whisky brands.

The overall view at the start of the battle. The Confederates attack from this side, the Union is spread out as a long convoy on the far end. We use cards from an old cardgame to indicate abilities of commanders and some units.

The Union left flank.

The Union middle.

The Union right.

The Confederate Left.

The Confederate middle and right brigades. We use mikado sticks to mark the boundaries between the various brigades. These sticks move along, but they are handy to remember what unit belongs to what brigade.

Ok, the battle is set. Wim will play the Union, I will play the Confederates. I won't give a blow by blow account, but simply show some photographs taken at various points during the battle, and usually from the side of the table where I was sitting ...

The opening move on the Confederate right. My plan was to quickly attack the Union here, before the could deploy in full force in the forest in the middle of the table.

Napoleon as our "Lucky General Mascot". Whoever has the token can reroll any die roll, but then has to hand over the token to the opponent.

Wim is trying to set up his left flank.

The middle Union brigade is trying to occupy the forest.

View after the first few turns.

Another view of the action unfolding. On the left flank the Confederate cavalry is vigorously pursuing the Union. These are results of "morale checks" in our rules, and create all sorts of little stories across the battlefield.

Cavalry action on the Confederate left flank

An overview of the left flank.

Advance in the middle!

Heavy firing from both sides in the middle.

An overview of the developing battle.

Another overview.

When the clock had passed 11pm, we decided to halt the game. Both sides were know well entrenched, and we felt we would probably spend several turns firing, hoping for one side to crumble such that the other side could exploit an opening.

Here are some pictures when we stopped the game, with all table clutter such as dice and rule sheets removed.

It was a fun game and fun scenario. We also felt the rules handled this type of scenario well, although we had of course suggestions for slight adaptations.

Next post: handing out medals and rewards!