My Assisted Solo Campaign is trotting along quietly in the background. I have benefited a lot from the Jolly Broom Man's preparedness to help me through this - the testing of a home-written solo game cannot possibly be carried out solo, or I can convince myself that anything at all is OK. I was about to make a resounding statement about JBM bringing the sanity to the party, but then I remembered that the man himself would make some joke about this being a measure of how desperate things are.
The facts, then, are that we have already had one small(ish) encounter battle, which the Allies won (just), and there has been a small siege, in which the French captured a Dutch-held town with very little effort. Next step is set for tomorrow night, when we are to fight a set-piece battle, in which the Allied force (that's me, folks) will be attacked by the French (who are led by JBM).
I have set up my army; I have a day to prepare for the arrival of a rather larger Franco-Bavarian force. Because the scenario gives me something of a disadvantage numerically, I am allowed to do a little digging, and some breastworks have been thrown up on our right flank.
Here you see my chaps, all ready for tomorrow evening, in the open countryside near the small town of Waremme, not far from Liege. I have the British Divisions of Lord Orkney and Charles Churchill, with the Imperial Division of Graf Eberwald Handschuh on our left. We have a total of about 10000 infantry and about 1000 horse and, as you see, our field artillery is deployed out front, ready for the preliminary bombardment phase allowed by this scenario.
Marshal Marsin will arrive tomorrow evening.
Gosh, just how badly outnumbered are you? And if it's that bad why didn't you withdraw? I meant to say 'make a strategic advance to the rear' not 'withdraw'.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question. This is a map-free system, and it generates battles of defined sizes. This game was initiated by the French (who therefore, in normal circumstances, will be the attackers in a set-piece). We know the game is a "Medium" sized set-piece, which means 3 Divisions per side, but the Initiator has the option to roll 1D6 - if it comes up 5 or 6 (and it did), he gets another Division, at which point the game moves up to the extended version of the tabletop, and also the defender gets to roll a few dice of his own, to allow some preparation of the ground with earthworks. The campaign system allows either side to withdraw from a battle, which will save them casualties but still gains the other side the same number of Campaign Points as if it had been fought to completion.
DeleteIn any case, this is a testing session, and I'm keen to see what happens! If I lose (with my 3 Divns attacked by 4) then it was only to be expected; if I win, I will be able to sound off about it here at great length!
Don’t wear yourselves out for Friday’s game.
ReplyDeleteNo problem Jon - if it seems likely to become a marathon (did I mean to say that?) we can adjourn and start again in a day or two. These days I am a warm-milky-drink-and-early-lights-out man, so burning the candle at both ends (or even one) is out of style.
DeleteJ'ai un pantalon de combat, je viens pour toi. lol.
ReplyDeleteApportez-moi ma chemise rouge [etc]!
DeleteWell, we shall await the outcome of the battle with eager anticipation! Just one thought, in this period (and the preceding ones), numerical superiority generally resulted in greater depth of deployment rather than width, so you probably don't need to extend the table. The relative troop density works out the same either way. Thinking of the Lost Battles/Strategos approach.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for this Martin - I was fretting along the same lines after I saw the Allied troops set out. The French army is about 30% bigger when it arrives, but it's all far less crowded than I expected. We could, of course, just use the middle part of the table, but that potentially makes a nonsense of the C&C-style flank and centre sectors, and the Command Cards.
DeleteWe recently did a Blenheim game using the standard 13x9 table, and it was very crowded, but not unrealistically so, and the armies were larger. I guess Blenheim was just very crowded! At present I am in discussion with my collaborator/opponent - I am thinking of just dropping the 2 extra lines of hexes from each end of the table and going back to standard table. It is easier, and probably more authentic, to use extra troops as an off-table reserve. [It also, as it happens, makes it far easier for me to set up Zoom cameras to cover the full table from each end, but I will claim this is not a deciding criterion!].
This all sounds very interesting, I do like the sound of the campaign logistics, we were only talking to Jon on Monday about campaign logistics, did you come up with these ideas yourself or are they from a book?
ReplyDeleteHi Ray - the abstract campaign driver is a close relative of the "Snakes & Ladders" system which got some publicity when it was offered as a downloadable add-on from the Honours of War website. I have modified it quite a bit to make it less Honours of War specific, and also to drop a chance card system which to me seemed unnecessary and a bit clunky. I think I remember that the original S&L idea was aired by Bob Cordery a while ago. Please, nobody sue me.
DeleteIn my heart, I like nothing better than a classic campaign with actual maps and supply trains and all that, but I was looking for a system which could also work solo [it's hard to surprise yourself in solo game on a map] and what this does is it generates fairly random battles within a campaign OOB set up. The philosophy is a bit unusual; things happen in a sequence of some sorts, but where they happen is abstracted - you can fit a narrative later! It takes a bit of therapy to get comfortable with this...
The campaign thing is just an add-on for use with my own house WSS rules, but there are some ideas which I think are potentially useful. I'll send you the latest draft - it's in good working order, though testing continues, and some of the basic principles may horrify you!
Ooooo thanks Tony, I shall go check out the email!
DeleteLooks interesting - very pertinent to say it takes at least two to test a solo game! Campaign system sounds interesting too..
ReplyDeleteWill you perhaps post a report of the battle?
Hi David - now, you know there is nowhere you can hide to avoid some sort of game report! It may be a day or two, but it is on its way...
Delete