Siege Notes: Getting the "Leaguer" Rules Back on Track?

Before We Get Started 

A minor detour. I thought I'd get this in first, since it is likely that not many people might read through to the end of the main feature...

As part of my WSS reading, I am currently following Marlborough's adventures on the way to the Siege of Venlo (1702). I can find odd maps online, but one thing I could really do with is a decent atlas of the WSS.

Is anyone aware of an example of such a thing which is easy to get hold of?

 

Siege Notes

I think I've been reading about sieges, and developing rules and collecting scenery to fight siege games, for about 20 years now. I've enjoyed it hugely.

My starting point was Christopher Duffy's wonderful Fire & Stone - The Science of Fortress Warfare 1660-1860, which even includes an account of a siege wargame at Sandhurst in Appendix 3! I loved the book, and my interest was well prodded. It was obviously possible to conduct such a game, and it looked marvellous. The rules were very simple, omitting a lot of the detail of real sieges in the interests of playability, and Duffy himself has commented subsequently that one feature of the Sandhurst games was that the umpire normally outranked the participants, even if only on a brevet appointment, so that debates were minimal.

However, one lightbulb principle was established in Duffy's game; yes, sieges consist of long, plodding periods of digging and relentless bombardment, interspersed with occasional spells of feverish activity during storms or sorties, so there should be different rules in play to cope with this. This has been adopted by other, later rule-writers, and my own Leaguer rules still use Siege Turns, with two game turns representing one week, and Tactical Turns, for which normal(ish) miniatures wargame rules come into play, with a game turn representing 10 minutes (or whatever).

Bruce Quarrie, in his Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature, states that 'most wargamers ignore sieges for the very good reason that they make extremely boring games'. My view of his book suggests that Quarrie may have been something of an expert on boredom, but the point is well made. Perversely, I have adopted this as a challenge - do not develop a boring game if you can avoid it - and Ron Miles' legendary Siege of Dendermonde, though breathtaking in its way, may sound a faint warning bell...

I waited for some years for Eric Burgess to complete and publish his Vauban's Wars rules (didn't they start life as Coehorn's Wars, by the way?) and he did a splendid job; these rules are educational, apart from anything else; they cover elements of siege gaming which no-one had touched before, and they also embrace Duffy's 2-speed system. If anyone wants an off-the-shelf game for sieges in the horse-and-musket period, Vauban's Wars remains the way to go, clear of the field. I bought a copy, along with the expensive card deck, as soon as it appeared, and played a few games, solo, including games converted to a hex grid. For me, the only problem is that the rules are a full-fledged member of the Piquet family, which makes them ideal for solo play, but some general characteristics of Piquet's house style I find laborious and even irritating, so I have made the decision to borrow some of the ideas, and carry on with development of my own Leaguer game.

Which brings us to the obvious question. So how is it going?

First off, I think that sieges are ideal for solo play, and I have come to accept that by nature I am probably a solitary gamer; Zoom has been a big help, and I treasure visits to friends' homes for games, but as time passes health and geography push me towards playing on my own. I should have played through more sieges in recent years, but can only try to improve on this.

Significant highlights of my sieges latterly, and the development of the rules, are illustrated by a small number of blog links. I'll keep this short, since that's all it warrants, but it avoids my quoting myself at length!

(1) In April 2016 I set up a fairly ambitious ECW test siege, using my own rules. I found myself improvising things which either didn't work or which I'd forgotten about, and there is a series of blog posts starting with this one... 

(2) In February 2022 I played through a solo test game of Vauban's Wars (tweaked for hexes) - a fictitious Peninsular War siege, which is described in 2 posts starting here...

(3) In June 2024 (to my considerable surprise) I managed to set up a Zoom game, with an actual opponent! Back to the ECW, this was Prince Rupert's Siege of Liverpool, with the Jolly Broom Man playing the part of Rupert (he won, though I think he was killed...). This was a surprise on two counts, since I had considered it almost impossible to play a siege via Zoom, because of the difficulty of siting the cameras to give a satisfactory view (I wish I could remember how we got this to work), and because of playing it as a competitive game (it wasn't very competitive, it was more of a laboratory game of "what would happen next?"). We used the extant version of Leaguer, but the siege was almost artificially simple, since it was small and uncomplicated, and since the town being besieged could still be provided with food and ammunition from the river, so that supply management was not required. We completed the game, but it was obvious that the dovetailing of Siege and Tactical Turns needed a lot more work, and there were some other issues. JBM and I exchanged thoughts for a few days afterwards, and I made some changes to the draft rules. There are two blog posts, starting here...

(4) In November 2024 I played through a lengthy test WSS siege, solo, allowing for re-runs as necessary to get to all bits of the updated Leaguer rules. It went well, though I didn't get to Tactical Rules (unseemly things like storms and sorties not welcome in the WSS). I wrote loads of notes for proposed changes, and changed some things permanently on the fly. There are some blog posts, starting here...

By November 2024, my draft rules consisted of a loose-leaf file full of printed sheets, pencil scribblings, copious Post-It notes and printed email correspondence. At this point, I regret to say that the Real World really messed everything up - apart from family issues, the US election rendered me unfit for service.

I stowed away my siege toys and my loose-leaf folder, and didn't look at them again until a few weeks ago, at which time I was horrified to realise that the scribblings were hard to understand; I had lost that thread of continuity that serves to keep the dreaded Entropy Creep under control. I have got back to work - I am trying to get the scribblings into some sort of coherent form, and am pleased that things seem to be shaping up. [I feel there is a lesson here for all of us, boys and girls]

It occurs to me that some of this thought process might be of general interest - it will also help to keep me honest - so the plan is that there may be occasional posts on fascinating topics such as powder consumption, the use of mortar shells to set fire to towns, sapping and digging parallels, artillery misfires, trench raids, espionage - maybe even mining...

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye.