Ten Years Ago - October 2016

I think October 2016 was the one and only time we played the precursor to 'Maurice', 'Might & Reason'. Owing to a shortage of commander figures we ended up fielding Death as Charles XII. My venerable Risk figure armies got used. They've seen a lot of use these past few years. 

So head back in time and enjoy Ingmar Bergman's 'Might & Reason'

Valour & Fortitude

We played a game on Valour & Fortitude on Thursday evening. This is not a set I've played much, but I think I picked most of it up OK. It's pretty simple and, whilst it shares some DNA with Black Powder, seems a much more sensible game.

Anyway, we played a Seven Years War action with Caesar and I commanding a French force defensing a village against an attack from a Austrian-Hanoverian alliance under Peter and Stuart

Here's the French force. Figures are 10mm.

Some of the enemy - these Hanoverians are 10mm 3D prints, rescaled from 6mm figures.

Peter massed a lot of Austrian cavalry in the gap between some wood, threatening our left flank.

On the French right my infantry managed to shoot up some of the advancing Hanoverians. We sent in cavalry to finish them off.

Caesar joined in as well on the other flank.

The Hanoverian cavalry counter-attacked and I had to commit my small light cavalry brigade to delay them. Needless to say they were quickly routed. But it gave my other cavalry brigade time to reform.

Caesar was under pressure from Peter's Austrian cavalry on the left flank.

On our right my cavalry was suffering badly at the hands of their Hanoverian opposite numbers. In the centre we were looking at pushing our second-rank forwards before the enemy bayonets went for our shaky front-line.

My cavalry disintegrated.

An overview of the game and players (plus one guest teenager waiting for a lift home).

With the cavalry gone on my right the flanks of my infantry were vulnerable. I refused my flank and managed to hold off the first charges.

The infantry finally clashed in the centre and things got bloody for both sides.

But Peter's Austrians were now sweeping across our left. The French simply didn't have enough troops left to cover everything.

Caesar had brought his own cavalry across to try and hold up the Hanoverians, and they did have some success. But my foot fell apart at about the same time and that was most of our army gone. 

We'd run out of time by this stage and the French still held the objective, but the Austro-Hanoverians had racked up plenty of kudos for breaking French brigades, so could claim a convincing win.

The game rattled along very nicely although we still had to look up a few things. Once units start taking hits then can collapse quite quickly, and brigades can crumble through the loss of a single unit as well, so this is a brutal game all things considered.

Great Victories - Part 2

At the start of this month I thought it would be fun to work through Marlborough's Great Victories, using 'Dominion of Marlborough and Peter The Great'. I'd play against Mrs Kobold and we'd swap sides, so we'd each get a go at being Marlborough in each battle.

What with one thing and another it's taken three weeks to get around to playing teh second battle. I'm betting that it will take three weeks to get around to the next one as well.

Still, last night we set up Ramillies.

I had the first go at being Marlborough. The Allies start with unreliable artillery in their front-line, and sabres on their left. They have elite infantry in reserve. The French position is a strong one, with infantry behind difficult terrain in the centre and on their left, and massed horse on their right in the open country beyond Ramillies itself. The French right flank is covered by a river. 

Not wanting to test the unreliability of the artillery I decided that a cavalry attack was the best opening move. It was inconclusive.

Catherine, as the French, made use of the strong defensive position to focus on the centre and her left. Both of my artillery units proved reliable, and the French rolled abysmally when it came to trying to destroy them.

As an aside, I mentioned in a post yesterday that I hadn't featured my Russian and Swedish commander figures in a post. So here's one of them, standing in for Marlborough.

Anyway, not only did the French have rotten rolls trying to hit my artillery (it's 50/50, so pretty good), but my artillery rolled a couple of sixes and drove the French out of their defensive positions. I assume that in cases like this the artillery represents infantry with strong artillery support rather than specific massed batteries. So this is the Allied first wave crossing the stream and taking the heights beyond.

Anyway, that committed the French reserves to the centre and left.

The French had dome better on the right, driving off my Dutch horse. I brought up some of my reserve infantry to parry the French horse.

I don't have photos of the later stages, but the game had lots of inconclusive combats and went to nine turns. Although I lost one of my reserve infantry units, I did rally back the Dutch horse. The French failed to rally their lost foot, and eventually Marlborough's infantry battalions drove back the French right to win teh day. I record scores based on how many units the winner has left (including returned reserves). Marlborough won this one 5-1.

We swapped sides. The French position actually looks pretty good when you're sat behind it.

I opened up with my horse on the right, routing the Dutch,

One of the Allied artillery units proved unreliable - it was the eighth reliability test we'd taken across four games, and the first one to fail. Once again some of the French infantry were driven out of their defensive positions, to be replaced by their reserve horse. At this stage we both had all of our reserves committed, and there was a horrible matchup in the centre, with some original front-line French infantry facing Allied cavalry, against which they get a tasty bonus for being prepared.

On my more open right flank, my cavalry swept all before it and turned the Allied left.

Mrs Kobold pressed my left with her elite infantry, but couldn't shift the horse there and turn my flank. After some fierce fighting I finally took out the Allied centre, for a French victory.

The French won this one 3-1.

So the current scores are:

Alan - 13 points

Catherine - 8 points

Marlborough - 8 points

French - 13 points

Next up is Oudenaarde, which has some interesting unreliable troops on both sides.

Pioneers

Sometimes a scenario calls for a detachment of engineers or pioneers to clear a road, build a bridge or (maybe) blow one up. So I made one.

I was out most of yesterday but found some time in the afternoon to put these chaps together using scraps of wire and wood on my desk, then painted them in the evening.

I only did two bases because I reasoned they'd mostly be fielded as markers or a small unit. I did them in a generic brown uniform that would look suitable for any 18th century army.

Light Infantry

I did a few units of light infantry for my Russians and Swedes. For strict Great Northern War games these are not needed as light infantry weren't really a thing then. But sometimes it's nice to just use the armies for generic 18th century games using One Hour Wargames or the various Grant scenarios, and they often need light infantry. 

There's little difference between these figures and the line infantry. I just clipped off the bayonets. And, obviously, there's fewer figures per base.

Nottomans 4

OK, so four years ago I conceived the idea of doing an ersatz Ottoman army to go with my GNW Russians and Swedes. I would use Risk figures, which would limit how close I could get to actual Ottomans. But I could produce something with a suitable Eastern vibe. Two years ago I finally completed the line and light infantry, and started on the a cavalry and artillery.

Over two years later I finished the artillery and cavalry. I put off starting them for most of that time and did the actual work in just over seven days. Because that's how I roll.

Anyway, here they are - three units of heavy cavalry, four of light cavalry and three batteries of guns.

The light cavalry. I kept the base figure for one unit, but with the others I either modelled them with lances instead of the sword, or game them shields, or gave them both.

And I did much the same for the heavy cavalry.

Finally the guns. These were done exactly the same way as the Swedish and Russian guns, but are maybe a tad more colourful.

And here's the full army. It was conceived for use with Simplicity in Practice, and consists of four units of line infantry, four units of light infantry, three batteries of gun, four units of light cavalry and three units of heavy cavalry/dragoons. Naturally the army will work for any late 17th/18th century set of rules I play around with.

The final stage is do do two or three commander figures.

Stora Kronan vs Sophia Amalia

Last week I was looking at an AAR on the League of Augsburg blog featuring a hypothetical battle set in 1676, during the Scanian War, between two of the largest warships in the world at the time - the 124 gun Swedish ship Stora Kronan and the 108 gun Dane Sophia Amalia.

I thought that it would be fun to set up the action for 'Galleys and Galleons'. I did try to represent the ships exactly as they were in the original game report, but in the end I decided to make both forces the same - I reasoned that the lower quality crew of the Stora Kronan would even out its extra size. I could have increased its C value and lowered its Quality, then piled on more abilities, but I decided it wasn't worth it. I gave both sides their respective monster-ship, plus two ships of the line and a frigate.

And here they are set up and ready to go. On the left are the Swedes. In the least is the Draken, followed by the Stora Kronan and the Hieronymus bringing up the rear. The frigate Fenix is off the beam of the Stora Kronan. On the right the Danish squadron, led by the Christianus V, followed by the Sophia Amalia and the Dannebroge. The frigate Hommeren ran alongside the line.

The squadrons were heading almost north, with a wind from the south. True to the original scenario there were some shallows downwind of the two squadrons. They both turned towards each other attempting to gain a positional advantage. A shift of wind favoured the Danes (right).

Christianus V opened the battle, its chasers firing at Draken.

Draken replied with a devastating raking broadside, massively damaging the Danish ship and tearing away its rigging.

Despite their wind advantage the Danes struggled to get into action as the Swedes formed a solid line before them.

Christianus V turned to engage Draken, scoring some damage back. But disaster struck the Danes when the Dannebroge collided with the Sophia Amalia, both ships taking significant damage. 

Draken added to the pain, crippling Christianus V with another rake. The Danes had barely fired a shot and their squadron was already heavily damaged.

Stora Kronan fired its mighty broadside, holing the Christianus V. 

The Danish frigate Hommeren crossed the bows of the Draken, and against the odds its rake scored heavy damage on the mighty warship.

With little option, Christianus V ran aboard the Draken, and boarded it. In a brief action the Danes prevailed and the Swedes suffered the first loss of the action as the Draken struck.

The focus of the action was now becoming congested, and the Dannebroge broke away to the west to try and cut across the rear of the Swedish squadron. It fired a long-range broadside at the Hieronymous.

The height of the action. at the top of the picture the two frigates, Fenix and Hommeren were hotly engaged, suffering both hull and rigging damage. The Swedish Stora Kronan was trying to work past the struck Draken, followed by the Hieronymus. The Christianus V was still grappled to the Draken, whilst the Sophia Amalia worked past it to the east. Finally the Dannebroge was engaging the Swedes at long range from the south. By this stage the wind had shifted more to the south, favouring neither side.

This was not a good day for the Danes. In the confusion of the action the Sophia Amalia fired a broadside into the Christianus V. Already heavily damaged the Danish battleship heeled over and sank.

But misfortune didn't just hover over the Danes. Sailing too close to its flagship, the Hieronymus collided with the Stora Kronan. The Hieronymus escaped undamaged, but the Stora Kronan was slightly battered by the encounter.

The Stora Kronan and the Sophia Amalia had now both cleared the struck Draken, and engaged. The Sophia Amalia fired first, damaging the mighty Swede.

The Stora Kronan fired back, heavily damaging the Danish flag.

And the Hieronymous, following close behind added its fire. It was too much for the already heavily damaged Danish flagship, which was shattered and sank.

The frigates had almost destroyed each other, but the Stora Kronan added its fire to the action, and the hapless Hommeren simply disintegrated under its close-range fire.

At this point I ended the action. The only operational Danish ship, the Dannebroge, was too far from the Swedes to be a viable threat, and it would take several turns for either side to get to grips with the other. I reasoned that the Dannebroge would flee, and the Swedes consolidate and repair.

The Danes had suffered a crushing defeat, with their flagship and a ship of the line sunk, as well as a frigate. The Swedes had been damaged, but all of their ships were still afloat, even their single loss.

As promised, here are the stats:

Stora Kronan / Sophia Amalia

Q4 C5 - 72 pts

Square rigged, Carronades, Chasers, Drilled Soldiers, Flagship, High Castles, Sluggish

Draken / Hieronymus / Christianus V / Dannebroge
Q3 C4 - 52 pts

Square Rigged, Chaser Guns, Drilled Soldiers

Hommeren / Fenix

Q3 C2 - 40pts

Square Rigged, Chaser Guns, Razee, Relay

The Flagships really made for easy activations, but true to any game of  'Galleys & Galleons' both sides suffered turns where they failed ridiculously easy ones. This was the cause of both of the collisions. And it was the Danes' collision that really cost them the action, leaving two of their key ships badly damaged before the firing had really started.

Sinking from excess damage, caused by extra hull criticals, seems rather too common, and I may look at tweaking this slightly; perhaps excess hull hits only cause a ship to sink if they are holes or the vessel is already holed from an earlier critical.

Anyway, thanks to Barry at the League of Augsburg for inspiring a fun little scenario.