Soldier painting is progressing quite well - I'm keeping the sessions down to a couple of hours, since my eyes get tired, but I'm happy to be getting back to it. I have a couple of units close to being finished, and that will be an important step psychologically, apart from anything else; if I have a problem with a painting job, or if it gets stuck, this has always discouraged me out of all proportion to the seriousness of the issue. Energy sapping! This week should help a lot, in a number of ways.
I've also had a chance to get back to testing my solo campaign rules for Corporal John, which are coming along very well.
Last month I got as far as the first tabletop battle in a fictional campaign. this was the action at La Bienveillance that I featured in a post at the time. I'm pleased that the Jolly Broom Man has been able to provide some very useful help and support via Zoom. To restate an idea about which I have become convinced, I believe that it is impossible to test anything original on one's own. Even if it is a solo game, we will always read the rules as though they say what we meant them to say, so the testing is invalid right from the start.
The bold JBM appeared last night, complete with a very intimidating set of whiskers, and we advanced the campaign a little without too much effort, and with no real problems.
We managed to start a background siege running, for the first time. It didn't last very long. The French laid siege to the small town of Rijnsburg, sending the siege train and the divisions of Lützelburg (Bavarian) and Bassinet (French). Rijnsburg was selected, not least, because of the mediochre reputation of the Dutch commander, Colonel Wiegman, and the result was the quickest collapse we have seen yet in a test siege. The investment was only 3 weeks into the job when something bad happened to the garrison - Wiegman asked to surrender, unconditionally, and the remains of the garrison and poor Wiegman were sent off to the hulks. The French now hold Rijnsburg, and obtained 2 Campaign Points for very little effort. They will have the job of repairing about 30% damage to the fortress.
We also got to the initiation of the next field action, which will be a biggish set-piece in the open country outside the town of Waremme, in Wallonia. The French will be attacking, and the Order of Battle will be:
I have to send some choices of battlefield terrain to JBM, and we can have a crack at it when opportunity allows. I also have to remind myself where to position the Zoom cameras for the extended version of my table - it should be OK, since I have done it before [hands up if you are convinced].
I think the most difficult thing about writing your own rules is the total emersion of yourself in them. It's very hard to express ALL of what you intend in a coherent fashion that others will understand and follow logically. Indeed some people seem to wilfully misunderstand in a way that defies logic, leading to yet more explanation and verbiage.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways I have a lot of empathy for Phil Barker.....
I recall many years ago a SYW set I wrote to replace WRG 1685 -1845. Artillery was powerful, but limited in numbers. One player said "why don't you just have all artillery..." It was a comment I simply didn't expect .
Others interpret the written word in ways you never intended, as they don't understand the intent. Do you then prohibit or encourage by rewards?
I does make me think this is an explanation for "narrative games" that seem more common these days....
Neil
It is a tricky business. I bear the scars of many years working in IT application development, where documentation had to be complete and accurate (though not necessarily intelligible) long before anything was actually built or tested. It is certainly worth going to the trouble of getting a wargame rules booklet in good shape at an early stage, though it adds a huge amount of extra effort to any changes that come about later. I am sure that if I thought about it I could come up with a crusty old acronym which represented the latest thoughts (in the 1990s) on rapid prototyping or some such. The fact remains that guests will have their own ideas about how the game should be, whatever the rules say.
DeleteMy most recent folly was the episode of my Prinz Eugen WSS rules, which I developed in splendid isolation during the pandemic, and which were hand-polished well beyond the limits of commonsense before I finally wheeled the game out in front of friends and found that it was not only crap, but tedious crap. On the upside, my work on PE might well have kept me sane during lockdown, but the results were disappointing. In isolation, it is possible to train oneself to believe in almost anything.
This Dutch colonel. He's not related to a certain football coach is he? What was it that happened to the garrison to make morale collapse?
ReplyDeletePaulus Hendrick Wiegman (c1640-1714), sometime Lt Col in the infantry regiment of Hieronimus Alberti; acting military governor of the town of Rijnsburg from 1698-1703.
DeleteThe "what happened?" question is a good one. On the face of it, the answer is "unlucky dice". The garrison, whose commander had already been classified as Poor by a preliminary dice roll (and there are no secrets in a solo game system!), had the defensive value of their fortress reduced from 6 to 4 and the status of the garrison reduced from 4 to 1 by the first 2 weeks of actual bombardment. There was still enough food and powder for another month, but Wiegman took one look at the size of the besieging army and asked for surrender. In fact he had to ask a second time before it was granted.
The weakness of an abstract dice-and-counters siege is that it is singularly unspectacular, even when televised by international Zoom, especially to whiskered veterans (such as myself) of games with actual model fortresses, trenches and Piquet cards. The great strength of the abstracted event is the richness of the narrative below the surface which can be found with just a modest amount of research and a glass or two of Merlot.
The alarming drop in the strength of the garrison looks like a morale crisis rather than a massacre. The fortress at Rijnsburg was not modern, though some work was under way to strengthen it. A major disaster, such as a powder explosion, would certainly be preserved in the written history, not to mention local folklore. All that is known now is that the ancient Tower of Sint Servaas was demolished very early in the bombardment, and brought down with it a length of the medieval town walls, which fell, sadly, into the modern ditch, close to the Goose Gate. What happened next is anyone's guess; perhaps someone held a pistol to the governor's head; perhaps the citizens opened the gates? It was a very long time ago...
I heartily agree - proof-reading has to be done by someone else or one just reads what one meant to write. The only alternative is to put them aside for long enough to forget some of it then re-read. All the typos leap out at you and you wonder if you were drunk when you wrote it. You also notice the duplication, sometime with differences, and lots of extraneous detail that adds little but slows the game.
ReplyDeletePlay-testing is a must with a pencil in hand to record problems, like/dislikes and proposed solutions.
Well expressed, Rob. Thank you.
DeleteRob ..... you haven't been reading my rules booklet, have you, by any chance.... ? Just wondered....
No, the heartfelt comment arises because I've been refreshing my rules for this weekend's games. I'm afraid yours have been put to one side until the weekend is over as prep for that has been taking all my free time.
DeleteThe last figure needing painting was completed today! But I'm not going to get all the buildings done (painted yes but only partly furnished).
When I read your rules I will pass on any typos I notice and questions that I can't find an answer for.
Hope everything goes well - you are a hero, running a deadline.
DeleteIt’s been a jolly entertaining process so far I have to say. The siege rules you’ve come up with were a huge surprise and are actually playable as a mini game in their own right. Another lovely aspect is the polished nature of the entire « product » (which includes specially commissioned period cartoons). I would note that the rigorous play testing has thrown up very little in the way of correctable issues and that we are, almost unnoticed, slipping into just playing the game. If your readers are into the WSS or are just looking for a way to include sieges in a campaign they should check this out - it’s a gem.
ReplyDeleteThanks again JBM. I think that most of the slight glitches in flow have been because I forgot bits of my own rules! Protocol is everything.
DeleteAnd chocolate.
This comment prompted by online chat with the Jolly Broom Man on Monday evening. I can't promise it is particularly interesting, but as far as I know it is true. So there you have it.
ReplyDeleteMy new abstracted siege system was distilled from one I baked earlier, which was for the Peninsular War. It needed to be tweaked to reflect the different conditions circa 1700, and one of the complications which I dropped was a feature of Napoleon's standing orders to his garrison commanders - they must not surrender until they had suffered at least one storm. Clearly this would introduce all sorts of distortions, and I was pleased to be able to scrap the idea for the WSS.
Then I was nonplussed to read that Louis XIV, in his day, became so fed up with the ritual (early) surrender of his fortresses, that he also decreed that at least one practicable breach AND storm was to be the point at which surrender might be considered. Hmmm. Back to the drawing board?
I read on a little further, and was reassured to learn that in practice Louis' instruction was almost universally ignored, and fortress commanders merely became more imaginative in coming up with good reasons why they had surrendered early (e.g. they understood that a promised relief force might not in fact be on its way, they didn't care much for the look of the salt pork, etc), and went back to waiting about 6 weeks after investment (for a 6-bastion fort) before they asked (and expected) to be allowed to leave, with weapons, flags and drummers, and march home. All very civilised.
Number one - the new figures are looking really good, plus your output beats my (relatively) healthy eyes.
ReplyDeleteNumber two - another solo wargames campaign to follow. I am really looking forward to this, I still have my copy of Featherstone's Solo Wargaming and this just takes me back to those grand old days of yore (also known as the 1970's).
Number three - the Dutch surrender being down to the excellent "Chance Cards" doctrine I believe is all the explanation needed.
Thank you Matt - hope you are in good form.
DeleteThis will be an Assisted Solo Campaign (which may become a new Olympic discipline) for the test run through, which will help to keep me focused, and maybe even coherent. I have the Allies (Austrian Empire, British, some Hessians) and the JBM has the Other Lot (Bavarians, French); I may protest his developing moustache to the UN observers.
This will be v. interesting - solo campaigning is a bit of a Holy Grail to me. Looking forward to seeing how it goes!
ReplyDeleteHi David - the testing will hop along as opportunity arises, but it's a big help having JBM involved. I had the affrontery to send you the campaign add-ons to the CJ rules - feel free to ignore, as you wish!
Delete...perhaps that should be effrontery - not one of my better words...
Delete