Return To Ambridge

I realised the other day that it's been a couple of years or more since I played a game using my Portable ECW Rules, and thought that I'd better give them another outing. Rules get lonely if you don't play them.

I was inspired a little by a post on the Portable Wargames Facebook Group in which someone had played a game and added in a small tweak whereby a unit had to spend a movement point to turn. This mad flanking moves slightly harder to achieve, something that I've been wanting to so for a while without a satisfactory solution. I wanted to give the change a try, and also look at not having retreats when flanked be impossible. On, and I also added in co-located artillery.

I set up a scenario I played for fictional The Battle of Ambridge, but fiddled with the army lists a little.

On the left is Parliament:

1 x Commander
1 x Experienced Dragoons
1 x Experienced Horse
3 x Raw Foot (one of which is Shot only)
3 x Experienced Foot
1 x Artillery
10 Command Dice, Breakpoint 15

On the right are the Royalists:

1 x Commander
1 x Elite Horse
1 x Experienced Horse
4 x Raw Foot
1 x Elite Foot
1 x Artillery
9 Command Dice, Breakpoint 14

The Royalists are trying to clear the road; there should be no Parliamentarian units on it or within one square of it by the end of the game.

I randomised the starting positions of each side by a clever mechanism called Making It Up As I Went Along. The Royalist horse was split between the two flanks. Parliament's horse and dragoons were on the Ambridge side of the river (which is impassable except at the bridge).

The Royalist horse on their left attacked, but was driven back by Parliament's foot.

Action all along the line, from behind the Royalist advance. On the right the Royalist horse was attacking its Parliamentarian opposite numbers with some success, whilst their foot was engaged with dragoons in the hedgerows.

The infantry got to grips in the centre.

The Royalist horse on their left was first to break.

The Royalists reorganised their line to bring up some reserve foot, as the infantry shoved back and forth. 

Destroying their opposite numbers, the elite Royalist horse turned on some Parliamentarian horse and drove them back to the river.

The Royalist commander was wounded, which would slow their attack, but it was offset by Parliament suffering a couple of random event induced turns where they had some command paralysis.

The Royalist attack was faltering now though as they lost another unit. Parliament's hold on the road was still strong.

At least I got to use the flanking move changes, as Parliament turned the Royalist line. 

Despite the Royalist losses in terms of units, Parliament reached their breakpoint first. The Royalists had spread casualties across the enemy force even if only one unit had broken. However the Parliamentarian morale held.

The Royalists reached their breakpoint and also passed their morale test. But their numbers were dwindling and time was running out (I set a limit of ten turns).

The battle ended with Parliament still in control of the road and the Royalists looking pretty shaken.

With hindsight the forces were too even (indeed Parliament's force may have been stronger). The Royalists certainly had a tough task ahead of them. If I did this again I'd downgrade a few of Parliament's units and give the Royalists some more units and boosts. I like the idea of them having a ford on their end of the river as well, so that they can consider swapping units from one side to the other.

It was fun to get these rules out again after such a long break.

The HOTT Literature Championship - Game 3

Game 3 of the HOTT Literature Championship saw my two Narnian armies vying for a spot in the first semi-final.

The White Witch defended. 

The Narnians pushed forward but made the first of two mistakes. Their left flank had to advance through some rough going, but as the army advanced the Pevensie Children - who command it - ended up on the wrong side of a hill and would have to spend extra PIPs to keep the left flank moving. This left the initial Narnian advance exposed.

The White Witch was quick to exploit this ...

... but some Narnian beasts saw off their opposite numbers.

The White Witch evened things up when their minotaur slew the Narnian giant. 

Some Narnian beasts were destroyed. The White Witch now had the upper-hand on that flank.

Aslan rushed in to help. Attacked by the minotaur he held it to a draw...

... before other beasts came to his assistance. The minotaur was slain.

Aslan and the beasts stabilised the flank, destroying some beasts. The White Witch was now 8AP down, and things were looking bad for her.

She pushed forward into the attack as a mid-game lack of PIPS limited any major reorganisation.

On the Narnian right they attacked, led by the Pevensies. Opposing them were the White Witch's hordes

The hordes were driven back, but were holding for now.

However Aslan was continuing his depredations on the other flank, and drove the White Witch's aerial element off the board. Her army was close to breaking.

But this was the Narnian's second big mistake, and it was a costly one. In moving out onto the flank, Aslan no longer provided a protective radius against a bespelling attack on the Pevensie children. With any PIPs she could spare the White Witch started using her magic.

The Narnians were hacking through the enemy hordes, whilst the Witch staved off defeat by bringing them back as fast as the Narnians could slay them.

Disaster for the Narnians - the White Witch finally managed to ensorcell the Pevensies. They had still lost fewer AP than that White Witch, so the Narnian army didn't break, but they were teetering on the rink of defeat.

The White Witch's behemoths attacked Aslan

He held them as long as he could, but eventually the odds caught up with him, and he went down to a great big axe.

That was enough to break the Narnian army. But on the same bound some hordes took down one of the Narnian riders.

So the White Witch won 16g-10. It was a close battle, but the Witch made fewer mistakes.

So the first semi-final will see The Forces Of Light take on the White Witch. In the next game two Barsoomian armies will battle it out to determine who will face Cluny's rat Hordes in the second Semi-final.

Cards And Cordiality

Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of author Jane Austen. So this evening Catherine, Fraser and I celebrated with a game of 'Marrying Mr Darcy'.

Here's six eligible gentlemen. Could we improve ourselves and snare one of them into a blissful state of matrimony?

Catherine was the beautiful Jane Bennet, whilst Fraser had Kitty Bennet, whose abilities extend to her being very god at copying what someone else does. I went with Georgiana Darcy, who is rich and more likely to receive proposals.

Nothing went right far Catherine and Jane struggled to improve herself, committing social blunder after social blunder. Fraser Started Kitty off well, and got an early opportunity to opt for spinsterhoood (which is a gamble, but if taken at this stage offers bonus points at the end). They went for it, even rejecting a later proposal from Darcy himself. I improved Georgiana so that she would attract a couple of suitors with a decent score, and then wasted that work by eloping with Mr Wickham. It turned out that she scores well for Wickham.

In fact the good Wickham score was enough to give me the win with 23 points. Catherine came second with 20 points after marrying Mr Denny. Fraser rolled badly on the Old Maid table and finished with 18 points. A roll of 5+ would have seen them win, so it was a close game.

We'd actually celebrated Jane Austen's birthday a couple of weeks ago at the local library. They held a high-tea and trivia event, and Catherine and I went along with our friends Jon and Claudia. Most people dressed up. We certainly did.

We finished in the top half in the trivia. I've still only read three of the books, although we have watched at least one film of TV adaptation of each of the six novels. Claudia has read them all, but a while ago. Educated guesswork got us along way.

Here's our outfits. Jon and Claudia won the Best Dressed Couple award.

All good fun and, like most library events, all free.

The HOTT Literature Championship - Game 2

Game Two of my mini HOTT championship would decide the first army to get a slot in the second semi-final. The pairing was my two Redwall armies - the heroes of Redwall attacking Cluny's Rat Hordes.

Here they are set up and ready to go. Redwall was very much the favourite in this one. Staying true to the book gives Redwall a couple of heroes and a behemoth - a powerful combination - whilst Cluny's Hordes features not one but two sneakers. To be fair I do play with a couple of small fixes to sneakers, but they are still tricky to use well.

The game started well for Redwall, when their Guosim ambushers attacked Cluny's lieutenants and destroyed them.

The initial Redwall plan was an advance to the ridge in their half of the battlefield, there to wait for the inevitable rat attack. 

The shooters of both sides exchanged arrows and slingshots on Redwall's right. Redwall got the best of it at the start.

A line reorganisation and some bad PIPs left Cluny The Scourge vulnerable in front of his army, so Redwall attacked, with Constance (behemoth) leading the charge against the rat warlord.

He retreated and she piled into the rat hordes, destroying all before her.

One weakness of the Redwall army is that they have a horde general, who normally stays safe in the rear. But such a general can still be vulnerable to a sneaker, and Cluny pushed arch assassin The Shadow through the enemy lines. But he was held up by the Sparra warriors (one of which fell of his flight-stand in the excitement.

The rest of the Redwall army charges, with Constance now being flanked by two heroes.

Constance pummeled her way through some hordes and faced Cluny again. This time she lost. Fatally.

And on Redwall's right Cluny's archers were overwhelming Redwall's slingers and archers.

However the two heroes were doing their best, even if Matthias was struggling with some hordes. However Basil Stag-Hare had a clear attack on Cluny himself, if support could be brought up to help the odds.

But Cluny struck first, bringing up support to overlap the Redwall hero and defeat him.

And that defeat broke Redwall's army.

Redwall lost 12AP (a behemoth, a hero and two shooters) whilst Cluny lost 5AP (three hordes and a warband. Some other lost hordes were brought back.)

So an unexpected win for the Rat Horde, who will face the winner of  Game Four, the Barsoomian Derby between Helium and Warhoon.